Rambling On: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab

WE’VE BEEN UNLUCKY with our pub landlords, or have we? For one, Mr Sborník was such a chilly mortal that the enamelled cast-iron stove was red-hot even in summer, and as he conveyed mugs of beer from tap to table, mine host Mr Sborník wore a long fur coat and shivered with cold, while we dripped with sweat in proportion to our vast intake of beer. Those endless beers! Another licensee was, for his part, so fired up the whole time, so jealous was he of his wife, that he didn’t have any heating on even in winter. It was enough to look or smile at his wife and he would threaten to cash up and close the pub for the day. And sometimes he did. This publican was called Zákon, which means ‘law’, which is why he had a complex about bringing the patrons’ behaviour into line. So when he brought a customer his beer and the customer wasn’t sitting like kids in school, he would hold the beer back and even start yelling at him: “Is that the way to sit in a pub, all sprawled out and cross-legged like that? You’re getting no beer until you sit nicely.” And even as he taught his patrons how to behave, Mr Zákon still managed to keep an eye out in case anyone was looking knowingly at his wife, exchanging signs with her, or making sheep’s eyes at her. Finally our best landlord was the landlady called Romana, who had a gall bladder problem that she treated by drinking diabetic brandy or whisky, and she had with her a gorgeous little daughter, who she bathed every night in the bar sink, because our Keeper’s Lodge was devoid of sanitary facilities. If at that moment a patron ordered tea or coffee, with the little girl sitting in the sink among the cups and saucers, Romana would wash a cup in the soap suds and then serve them a really nice coffee with lovely bubbles and the flavour of an honest cognac. She was nice to all the patrons, she’d come and sit with them, and they would help treat her gall bladder with brandy or whisky. The only one she didn’t like was Mr Bělohlávek, an aircraft mechanic who didn’t come often, but when he did, it was worth it. As he took his seat he’d be down in the dumps, but after four beers and black rum coffees he was fine and then one time he asked me what I was doing on the sixth of January. And when I said I was free, Mr Bělohlávek invited me for tea in Voronezh, enthusing about how we’d take off with Chief Pilot Mazura and spend the evening in Poprad, where he had a gipsy band ready and waiting, then in the morning we’d set off for Voronezh, where he would repair a broken-down TU134, in the afternoon we’d have a bite to eat, caviar and champagne, and land back in Prague in the early evening. But that wasn’t what drove a wedge between Romana and Mr Bělohlávek, the aircraft mechanic. Once, after five beers, he unwound and told the whole pub, with passion: “So, being a pilot, that’s no mean thing! In essence it’s a world of mathematics and geometry, and in this entire district, that world has been entrusted to me and Mr Hubka the engineer alone!” Mr Bělohlávek exulted, full of sparkle and on brilliant form. And Romana took a sip of brandy and said: “And what about geometry and me? Could it be entrusted to me too?” Mr Bělohlávek pulled himself up to his full height and exulted even more: “No, lady, it is entrusted only to men, certainly not you!” And Romana said: “Why on earth not?” And Mr Bělohlávek banged his fist on the table as proof of his zeal and bellowed: “No, because, lady, it can be taken for granted that you’re dumb.” Romana reddened and said: “Thank you very much!” And Mr Bělohlávek had been on form ever since the time he’d taken a tractor-load of open sandwiches and the police were waiting for the tractor by the main gate of the collective farm, and Mr Bělohlávek, clutching fifty open sandwiches, commanded: “Head for the fence, ram the fence and enter the farm from the rear!” And the tractor-driver drove through the fence and then they’d carried on drinking and feasting in the cow-shed while the policemen vainly rubbed their hands as they waited by the main gate with a breathalyser. When Mr Bělohlávek finished this story, I asked him the fundamental question: “How come you did that, what gave you the idea, Mr Bělohlávek?” And he shouted triumphantly: “Why? I’d had six beers and six rums and I was on form!” And so from that time on he was on form, not often, but sometimes he was, because otherwise, when sober, he was shy, reticent, diffident and given to blushing. However, like I say, Romana had been the licensee before Mr Zákon and I want to tell you the sort of things that happened during the time he was landlord. Back then, winters were harsh, but Zákon kept a coal fire in the kitchen and in the little room where has wife and child must have been. Any patron who entered the pub would be shivering with cold and Mr Zákon let anyone who wanted, and it was but a moment before everyone wanted, drape a white tablecloth round their shoulders. So they all sat there in their white tablecloths, the tables had white cloths, and outside there was the covering of white snow that had fallen. So we the patrons could get warm, Mr Bělohlávek suggested putting three ashtrays together and warming our hands over some burning cigarette papers and dog-ends. Then mine host Mr Zákon brought in an enamel crock pot, a huge great pot, brown, with handles, which he stood on the three ashtrays in which bits of paper and newspaper and finally some wooden toothpicks were burning, then he brought his tiny tot in and slipped it into the pot, and it was freezing cold in the pub, but the baby was warm and cosy inside the enamel pot and having our hands warm brightened the rest of us a bit too. And at that moment the door swung open and in among the white figures of the patrons and the white of the tablecloths came a chimney sweep, the village sweep with his brush, and he was so miserable that he didn’t even help himself to a tablecloth, but just as he was, still covered in soot, he sat down at a table, placed his head in his hands and ordered a strong grog, and then he stared absently at the ceiling and said: “Well this year’s been awful and the one that’s coming’s going to be ghastly… It says here I’m charged with raping my wife, yes, wife!” And the other patrons were startled: “You what??” And Mr Zákon pronounced: “That can’t be right.” And the sweep took out his wallet and he rose, leaving the imprint of his elbows and hands on the white tablecloth, and then he went and placed his hands on a clean tablecloth and showed us the writ from the district court charging him with raping his wife. And the patrons scrambled over one another to read the writ and the sweep walked round and round, leaving handprints like dirty footprints all over the tablecloth, and the landlord shouted: “Wait!” And he spread a newspaper out and told the chimney sweep to sit in one spot and keep his filthy mawlers off the cloth and on the newspaper, or he wouldn’t make him the grog he’d ordered… And the sweep rambled on about his wife having found another bloke, that she loved him and that she’d already got herself a solicitor and wanted a divorce, and so one time the sweep had forced her, under threat of violence, like the ancient Romans did when they carried off the Sabine women, and she’d had to bow to his will. The patrons were amazed, re-read it, and the landlord, Mr Zákon, shook his fist towards the kitchen at his wife beyond the wall, a rare and timid beauty who may have weighed seventy-eight kilos, but her hair was the colour of straw or limewood shavings, and her blue eyes were such a surprise out here in the woods that none of the patrons could tear themselves away from her hair and eyes, and that drove Mr Zákon mad. Mr Zákon said menacingly: “Huh, if my one tried pulling a trick like that! A true Slav household’s not supposed to have an axe in sight, and I’ve got one!” And the sweep rose, and, probably so drunk by now with grief, he kept grabbing the table with his hands, and so his palm-prints promenaded from tablecloth to tablecloth following the publican, and the sweep went on, “Good man, don’t do it, you mustn’t kill her, she’s a human being…” “What!” Mr Zákon roared, “And what am I then? Her spouse or what? Let her be obedient unto her husband!” And the chimney sweep leant on the bar counter and the door opened and in came the beauty who was the landlord’s wife, her hair, radiant as the sun, warming the eyes of all the patrons, and she set down the double-strength grog, and everyone was watching her, Mr Zákon searchingly, wondering whether she might have a lover and, through her solicitor, go and sue him for rape… And suddenly he saw her as so beautiful and desirable and so capable of and predisposed to being loved by a third party that he let out a whinnying sound. And he bellowed: “As of today you’re going to wear a headscarf! Or I’ll shave your head bare, I’ll swear you’ve got lice and that hair will come off!” And he plumped himself down and started shivering so much that he took a tablecloth and put it round his shoulders, one from the pile of tablecloths as a white drape across his shoulders, and he pulled his chair up as the sweep greedily drank his grog and called towards the kitchen: “Another one! And, my friends, that’s not all! The court charges me with obstructing an impending happy marriage…” And there was silence, the tiny head of the baby slumbered sweetly inside the crock pot, which radiated its warmth like a cast-iron stove, a pleasant warmth, we all had our hands on the pot and watched the sleeping baby, which let out a sweet sobbing sound, and there was silence and suddenly Mr Bělohlávek ordered a whole bottle of old engine oil, meaning Fernet-Branca, the landlord staggered off to get the bottle and some glasses and we all got to figuring out and trying to imagine what sort of law it was, what prescription, that sided with a lover and protected him, and so protected an impending happy marriage against the husband. Having poured out the glasses of engine oil, Mr Zákon got up again and satisfied himself that his axe was still propped against the doorpost, then sprawled out on his chair he gazed absently through the wall into the very heart of what had befallen the chimney sweep, who was back on his feet, running his hands over the white, already multiply crisscrossed tablecloths, and dripping tears onto the grime- and soot-stained cloths. “How did you put it?” Mr Zákon enquired. And the chimney sweep got his bulging bag, took a document out with his black hands, it was the wrong one, so along with some soot he shoved it back and then found the right one. He handed it over and the landlord read out: “Re: — obstruction of an impending marriage…” and having read it, he passed the paper round and pronounced: “I’m going to buy two more axes, then let someone come and say I’m obstructing someone’s impending bliss!” And the door opened and out of the kitchen came a straw-yellow radiance of wavy hair, and the landlady was beautiful, as if she had been born of the waters of the sea, a sea of beer and foam, bearing a steaming double-strength grog, and everyone rose, and the tablecloths rose as they also covered their heads, and the eyes of all were fixed on the awesome sight. The landlady had the unfortunate habit of smiling with a slight squint, and her squint was more beautiful than everything else, a squint that left all men with a sense that mine hostess had glimpsed infinity, that she wrote poems, that her heart held some secret. The landlord said: “And I’m going to apply for a gun licence, I’m going to join the hunt!” And the chimney sweep picked up his cup of double-strength grog and his hands shook, and the little spoon chattered even more than his teeth. Then he sat back down and his hands were so large that they completely enfolded the little cup with its inscription ‘Greetings from Hlinsko’ and he cooled his drink with his cold hands. “Gentlemen,” cried Mr Bělohlávek, cheery and relaxed, having downed his sixth beer, “gentlemen, let’s turn the page! Do you know where I went yesterday? Africa, and I flew over Mount Kilimanjaro.” And the men seized on Kilimanjaro and started arguing about where it was. “It’s somewhere near the source of the White Nile,” said Mr Kuzmík. “No way, it’s in South Africa,” said the gamekeeper, Mr Gromus. “Come off it, it’s up near Kuwait, there’s all of thirty trees there and twenty of them belong to the sheikh,” said Mr Franc. And I said: “It’s somewhere where the Germans used to have a colony…” And the last to raise his head was the roadmender, Mr Procházka, who’d been sound asleep, but, as always, heard everything, and he came to and said: “Listen carefully to what I’m about to say: if you’re pissed, Kilimanjaro can be right here in Kersko… All right?” He’d had his say and started drifting off again, then his head dropped to his chest and he was sound asleep. And again silence reigned, and so as to drive away any thought of raping his own wife and attempting to thwart marital bliss, Mr Kuzmík said: “The finest tool in old Russia, my friends, was the broad axe…” The landlord cheered up: “That’s what I like to hear!” And Mr Kuzmík went on with his story: “All your Russians of olden times had an axe slung from their shoulder on a kind of suspender attached to a strap under their coat… you’d never believe the things the old Russians could do with it, they could even carve themselves a rustic wall clock with it.” And Mr Bělohlávek banged his fist on the table and neighed with delight: “Another bottle of engine oil… Gentlemen!” And the landlord rose, brought a bottle and, having broached it, poured out the glasses, and he brought some beer as well, so soon everyone felt warm, hot even, they sat back away from the smouldering papers, ashtrays and the warm enamel pot, the landlord extricated the gurgling baby and carried it off to their little back room. When he came back, the chimney sweep was wandering about again and trampling his hands all over the cloths in the corner as well; the landlord cast an eye towards the stockwhip hanging on the doorframe, but then dismissed it with a wave of his hand, and Mr Bělohlávek shouted: “Gentlemen, what are you doing on the twenty-sixth of July this year?” And all the men, having fortified themselves by turns, said they were off work that day, or would take time off. And Mr Bělohlávek blared: “Good, you’re all invited to the airport! A Jumbo is due in Prague, on my taxiway, my tarmac, for the first time ever!” And the ones who didn’t know what a Jumbo was voiced their surprise: “What? A jumbo?” And Mr Bělohlávek rose and the figure of the man in a white tablecloth was a figure of progress: “Yes, a Jumbo! A Boeing 727 Jumbo, gentlemen, a giant that can seat three hundred and sixty passengers! This giant carries twenty-five thousand litres of fuel in each wing! But me, I’m in charge of the landing, so what if the concrete doesn’t go sixty centimetres down? What if the Jumbo lands and starts shunting the concrete slabs ahead of it and hurling them like icefloes far and wide, way out towards Kladno somewhere, and the Jumbo goes and crashes on me!” Mr Bělohlávek exulted, tearing at his hair. “How’ll I answer for that at a court martial? I’m in the service of the army, and I am in the service of Pan American, an American airline, so I get paid in dollars! Yes, dollars! In the spring I’m buying myself a Simca at the hard-currency shop, how about that, eh? Though I know I’ve gone and let out something I was supposed to keep as a professional secret!” Mine host Mr Zákon said: “So how big’s that piece of junk then?” Mr Bělohlávek took a sip, then tossed the engine oil right back, followed by a long swig of beer from the bottle, and yelled gleefully: “It’s seventy-seven metres long, it’s twenty-eight metres high, wingspan nearly thirty metres, our cabin alone, meaning for the crew and the captain, is as big as this place,” he roared and made a sweeping gesture with his hand to describe the Keeper’s Cottage restaurant. Mr Franc said: “That big! That’s hard to imagine, but say, a jumbo, if a jumbo was standing here and me here, and the landlord and me were holding onto its wings, it couldn’t take off then, could it, your jumbo?” And Mr Bělohlávek clapped a hand to his forehead: “What? You’d get swept away! One time they left a truck on the taxiway and a jumbo jet just swept it aside like a toy, like a kitten, a pussycat,” he miaowed. And Mr Franc, he wouldn’t give up: “If we all held on to a wing and dug our heels in, then it couldn’t take off!” And Mr Bělohlávek said: “A jumbo jet’s got a thrust coefficient of fifty-eight tons…,” he gave another sweep of his hand, “it’s an awesome plane, see, it’s got two-storey restaurants, it’s like ten supersized barns, ten massive trucks, trailers an’ all… have you all got torches?” And because it was evening and the depth of a winter’s night, they all got their torches out of their coats on the coat-rack… Mr Jumbo Man said: “Who’s good at pacing out metres?” Mr Franc said: “Me.” And the patrons, merry and sweating, so as not to have to think about forced fornication with their own wives or attempts at thwarting someone else’s marital bliss, went out into the raw night air; only Mr Procházka was sound asleep and he just flung an arm out in his sleep, said: “You bag of wind from Zeleneč…,” and slept on. And the night was bright and cold, snow outlined the edges of the inn and the white birch trees glinted as if emitting neon light and the trunks of the oaks appeared black as the chimney sweep. Mr Jumbo Man was reeling, they were all lurching about in the fresh air, but Mr Jumbo Man was on form, he tapered the beam of his Hungarian torch and shone it up into a birch that was so tall that its outer twigs covered the entire inn. “Right,” Mr Jumbo Man yelled, “how many metres tall is this birch?” Mr Franc said: “Twenty,” and Mr Jumbo Man blustered: “So imagine it extended upwards by another half-birch and that’s how tall a Jumbo jet is! There, and this is the cabin for me, like for the captain and his team, of which there are thirteen! Like a football side plus linesmen! And now pace out eighty metres along the concrete ride…” And Mr Franc set his pace and strode off and counted metre after metre, eleven, twelve… and fifty-three and fifty-four… and his torch receded into the distance and then stopped, rose and Mr Franc announced: “Eighty metres!” And Jumbo Man commanded: “Now two of you go off to the side and measure fifteen metres from the lodge.” And off went two of the drinkers, tottering, so strong is the air hereabouts, especially when washed down with spent engine oil. Mr Kuzmík fell down twice before completing those fifteen metre-length strides, but finally, in the distance, a torch glimmered at the end of the Jumbo’s tail, more torches at its wingtips, and so we had a reasonable idea of how big a Jumbo must be, and Mr Jumbo Man treated us enthusiastically to all the other details and particulars of a Boeing 727, then hollered: “So, Mr Franc, could you hold it back by its wing? You wouldn’t even be able to reach up to it, given that you board one like from two floors up, that’s how high its wings are!” And suddenly, on the apron outside the inn, there on the patio, some little lights lit up, as if on the flight deck and like the instrument panel was all lit up with its little red and gold and green lights, and so we were disconcerted and had to rub our eyes, because we thought it was the fresh air playing tricks. But a voice put us at our ease. “What are you up to here, my bonny kittens?” called the local police commandant, stepping forward and shining his torch, as was his custom, onto his chest, lighting up the medals and decorations he been awarded by the government and the Party, and he called us all over, so we tottered across to him and he shone his light in our faces and we were afraid that the chimney sweep had not only left his prints all over the tablecloths, but had left his sooty pawmarks all over our faces too, hence the commandant’s exclamation about what we ‘kittens’ were doing there and why we were wearing masks. And Mr Jumbo Man said: “Officer, sir, we’re trying to get some idea of how big a Jumbo jet is, the Boeing 727 passenger plane that’s going to be landing in Prague this summer!” But the policeman was in a good mood and exclaimed: “Pull the other one! I reckon you were working out how to get the Jumbo to land right here…” “Officer, sir,” Mr Jumbo Man wet his fingers and raised them to swear on his oath, “I’m having kittens over whether the airport at Ruzyně can take the strain of a Jumbo landing.” “All right, all right,” the commandant made to go, broody and absorbed, “play your silly games, kittens. If I wasn’t on duty, I’d join in, but woe betide if that Jumbo does land here!” he said, once more shining his torch on his medals and decorations, and went off into the sixth avenue somewhere, to return to wherever he’d left his Volga, and leaving behind him confusion and surprise, as ever. We watched and watched, then we went back to the pub doorsteps, which some of us now had to mount on all fours, such a gale seeming to blow, even though there was a flat calm. So we went back in the warm, refreshed by the outside air, but the worse for wear owing to the Fernet engine oil. Our Landlord Mr Zákon, seeing all the tablecloths so, but so, smudged with the chimney sweep’s palmprints, cast an eye towards his bullwhip, then thought better of it. Mr Procházka woke up and said: “It happens everywhere, landlord, at the Novák tavern he made such a filthy mess of the tablecloths that the landlord, a butcher, who’s also suing over a meadow and a pear-tree, took his bullwhip and gave him a right lashing, so these days the sweep doesn’t go near Nováks’, how about that then?” Out of interest the landlord asked: “Exactly how many lashes did the sweep get?” And Mr Procházka said as he dropped off again: “How many ma-…,” and slept on. The landlord pulled another round of beers, but the police commandant with his glinting medals was still floating before their eyes, so he brought another bottle of Fernet Branca, that old engine oil, and when we’d drunk a shot of it we could see the commandant before us all the more clearly, shining his torch on his medals, nodding and wagging a finger at us with his ‘Play your silly games, my kittens!’. Mr Jumbo Man said: “So we’re agreed then, twenty-sixth of July at the airport, just ask the chief for me, they’ll go and fetch me, the grade 7 mechanics, you know, they drink at the Carioca, but me, on grade 8, it’s my responsibility and I go last, so it’s all down to me!” He had spoken and we all knocked back another shot of the liquor followed quickly and enjoyably by more beer, and Mr Procházka the roadmender woke up as usual, also knocked one back and dozed back off and slept, though his spirit was awake, nodding agreement with what was being said, or shaking its head in dissent, and whenever it spotted a need to intervene, he said his piece and slept on. Mr Franc, to help take the chimney sweep’s mind off his lawsuits and the court, said: “After all your troubles, it’s a good thing you can enjoy a spot of politics on the local council…” But the chimney sweep shook his head, took a newspaper, spread it over the soot-stained tablecloth, carefully sited his elbow so as not to get it dirty from the cloth, and said: “I can kiss goodbye to that too. I’d been really looking forward to the festival sub-committee meeting on the occasion of the presentation of the flag… and I’d prepared my speech, but I was hungry, and when it was my turn to speak, I got up, and was holding the microphone when they brought me a pair of frankfurters, and I could see Baštecký on my left and Horyna on my right taking one each and I hollered into the microphone: “Idiots!” That made everyone jump and only then did I register the mike, so I hollered an apology into it: “They’ve gone and eaten my frankfurters!” And the Chairman thanked me for my contribution and said that would do, that I’d made my position clear, since my mind was plainly on food instead of any solemn speech… And the bottle of Fernet Branca was empty and the men got up, by now the chimney sweep was walking straight and no longer touching the tablecloths with his paws, fearing, as he put it, he’d get his clothes dirty from them.