Of course. Miracles were nonsense, mere coping mechanisms. Despite the pain in my stomach, I was glad. Lenka would not have to face yet another complication in my absence. I’d left her with enough worry—it was best that growing a human being inside her body was not added to the list.
But I had hoped. I’d hoped that this was the reason for her leaving, that she needed to get away and think about the positive test, before returning and telling me that I was to be a father. It was a kind reassurance while it lasted.
I wished I could travel outside the ship and rip off the solar panels, along with their batteries, and hurl the container holding the water sourcing my oxygen out the door. I would shut off the lights, the hums, the view, and rest in darkness.
Think.
I studied the photograph of Lenka, taken in profile in the strange new bedroom as she prepared for bed. She wore black lace underwear and her face was turned away slightly from the camera. Late sunshine seeping through the curtains outlined her cheekbones and melted the shadows of her curves. My lips were dry. I should have been outraged, outraged with myself for allowing this violation of her, some government goon peering at her through the windows, snapping photos to keep my dread at bay. But the pleasure of the image overwhelmed me. I recalled what it felt like when the black lace grazed my cheeks, what it tasted like between my teeth when I was too eager for her to take the time to remove it.
Why had she gone? I asked the picture. Where have you gone, why have you left me behind? No, wait, I was the one who’d done that. I begged the picture not to let me wander. From the pixels that formed the artificial flesh of my love, I received no answer.
The Burning of the Witches
THE LAST DAY OF April is the Day of the Witches, and for the first time my grandparents, leery of the growing hostility of neighbors, do not wish to attend the ceremonies. Witches is my favorite holiday and I beg and I plead, promise to be careful, and soon they agree to let me go. At the football field, a massive stack of wood rests underneath this year’s witch, her body that of a scarecrow, made of long sticks tied together and clothed in an old army jacket, a teacher’s skirt, and a cape. Rusting wire keeps a broomstick attached to her fingerless hand. The face is a plush pillow with two pieces of coal for eyes and a chili pepper for a nose, and a wad of rabbit turds form a wart at the nose’s tip. The mouth is painted on, a crooked grin and blackened spaces for missing teeth. Boud’a and I each buy a sausage and sit on the benches, plotting to secure beer. I offer the girl at the counter an extra twenty crowns and swear secrecy, and she pours some Staropramen into a black cup.
Just as I get back to the bench the fire is set, and the witch wrinkles, her layers peeling away until her mannequin nudity is revealed. The chili pepper pops and its juice sizzles in the flames, and the witch’s eyes become those of a demon, glowing steadily, burning red until the head finally collapses and the entire village cheers. The older boys start jumping over the fire while women throw old broomsticks into the flames and make a wish for better years ahead. My legs and arms feel numb, my stomach burdened with beer. I toss the emptied cup into the fire and others follow, until soon the fire is absorbing bottles, half-eaten bratwursts, a bandana, paper plates, a deflated soccer ball, whatever offerings we can find to satisfy the forces of good luck. No one is looking at me, no one appears to resent me in this moment, we are all beasts of tradition, slaves to ceremony. I slap Boud’a on the back and stumble across the field, toward the woods, where I unzip and drain the beer that has shot fiercely through me.
The sound of cracking sticks echoes behind me.
I don’t realize it is Mládek until he pushes my face into the tree and something snaps inside my nose. I fall on my stomach and turn my head to see him, skull shaved in the front, messy curls in the back falling on his neck. Next to him is the boy from Prague wearing a Nike shirt and saggy jeans, his bangs drowned in gel. Mládek holds a weakly burning stick in his shaking hand. His eyebrows touch in a nervous scowl intended to be menacing.
“You like your old man?” he says.
“Only good for a fight with people strapped down,” says the Prague boy.
I study the blood on my hand, my shirt, the moss underneath. The blood won’t stop dripping. Mládek is blurry, everything is. I wonder where all the blood comes from, how it fills me to capacity and waits for the slightest reason to burst out. The Prague boy holds me down as I kick and scratch. His fingers push into the back of my skull, his knee lodged between my buttocks. Mládek rolls up my right pant leg and takes a deep breath. At first, the flame feels cold on my calf, but a second or two later the pain travels beyond my body, I smell my own searing flesh, my muscle seems to be melting into the ground and merging with dirt. Red patches shoot into my vision. The Prague boy has released me but I cannot move. My jaw muscles are cramped and I am no longer sure whether any sound is coming from my throat. The Prague boy runs away and Mládek drops the sizzling stick next to my face. His understanding of the history that brings us to this moment isn’t any clearer than mine, meaning there is nothing we can say to each other. He is looking at my leg with his mouth agape.
“Oh that’s big. Big, too big…” And he runs too, and I am alone.
Only the birds chirping above me know how long it takes before I regain control of my arms, and I dig my fingernails into the dirt and moss and pull myself forward, and again, and now I can push with my left leg too, but I have to wonder, did my right one catch on fire? Did it fall off? I don’t dare look back to find out. I crawl out of the woods and back onto the football field, where the evening dew of manicured grass soaks into my lips. At last I feel my right leg again, a moment of relief brought on by the cool droplets before the real pain sets in, my scorched nerves no longer under the anesthesia of shock. The witch is buried somewhere inside the steadily burning pile of wood, and the celebration attendees are now more interested in alcohol and shouting. I crawl all the way to the pyre until finally their eyes turn toward me, and a wave of bodies runs in my direction. Mrs. Vlásková faints when she sees my leg. Men extend their hands toward me until I am airborne, steadied on broad shoulders. I shut my eyes and count. Count and wish my father could carry me now, wish he could apologize in every language of the world.