Teardrops in the Snow - Original English Version

This is the original English version of the earlier post; honestly there is no accounting for the lack of taste at UVic and Malahat Review or their ignorance of Czech inspired writing. Funny how a UVic student won, coinky-dink? Hmmm. Na zdravi! TES/rm

Together arm-in-arm and heart-in-heart, they strolled across Staroměstské Náměstí to their usual bench for their annual ritual. For several years now this was the most important day on the calendar, even more so than October 28, November 17 or January 16. No matter what the weather or health conditions, they were drawn to this area to perform a carefully executed ceremony where they could face their darkest secret and deepest desire.

Sitting on their bench overshadowed by Jan Hus they looked just like every other older couple taking advantage of an unusually warm day for this time of year. A warm sun gently bathed the triumphant roofs as if blessing them for having stood the tests of time and oppressive regimes. The sun did a most wonderful job of keeping the chill at bay. Last year had been bitterly cold with light snow flakes tumbling in such a haphazard fashion, it appeared even snowflakes have a cold threshold and would rather be anywhere else but here. It also made their mission more difficult as fewer people dared to venture out and it was too uncomfortable to approach their mission with too much fastidiousness. This year the weather was better so their task would be easier and more pleasurable.

As she scrutinized the leisurely crowd, she began her systematic elimination system filtering out the undesirables. All tour group members were immediately discounted as the right person must be a local; this was no situation for an outsider. His eyes always scanned clockwise, never counterclockwise, as he eliminated the very young and the very old.

“There, what about her?” she asked, never averting her firm attention on the crowds.

“No, too fat and the hair is too dark,” he asserted and focused on a tall man moving through the tourist-clogged square like an impatient salmon, “now there’s a fine strapping young man!”

“No, we are looking for a woman, you agreed remember?” she shot back. “We agreed on this last night, there is no point in amending our plan now.”
“Ano, ano, but just for a moment I thought he might be perfect, such a fine specimen, handsome and looks so professional!”

“It was a man last year, this year it has to be a woman. I have my heart set on a woman so a woman it will be!”

“Agreed! I was just testing your resolve!”
“You do this every year! I get my heart and mind synchronized and you decide to shift gears!”
“Because it could be right either way!”

“Perhaps, but I still say this year it is to be a woman!” Annoyed, she suddenly stopped her head with such a ferocity that could have rendered her with whiplash. “Now, what about her?”

His clung to his clockwise inspection pattern until his eyes caught up to his wife’s, zeroing in on a petite blonde in tight jeans and a tweed coat open wide enough to reveal her teal sweater’s plunging neckline.

“She’s too short, very pretty but too short for our purposes. And a bit young, no?”
“This is going to be a little more difficult this year, there are so many to choose from!” she acknowledged with her voice containing a mixture of anticipation and annoyance. Last year, with fewer people and the bitter cold, they patiently scanned for about fifteen minutes until shivering got the better of them and settled upon their man very quickly.
He piped up “Look, over there, At the Stork’s, she is much more suitable!” He smiled and gently nudged his wife with his elbow. He could feel his heart race just a little at his find; a slim woman about 5’5” in a stylish leather coat walked purposefully with a hint of sensual ease as she unknowingly lingered in front of their view.

“Well, she looks to be the appropriate age, hair in soft waves, not too blonde or too dark.” She continued her meticulous assessment in business-like tones but could feel her heart race as well. Two hearts racing together in their passionate quest. “Nice dresser, not a slut or a frump, lovely posture, I wonder what colour her eyes are?” she found it more difficult to contain her growing excitement.

“I say soft brown.”

“Maybe blue?”

“Like yours?’

“Why not?”

“Blue it is! Besides there are more important things than eye colour! But yes, she is the one, I believe she is perfect!” He was overjoyed and relieved at the same time. “Yes, she will be the one this year and will fit into our plan beautifully!”

Finally she turned to look at her husband and his smiling face with his handsome yet still devilish brown eyes framed by glasses that gave him an air of distinction. She loved how his softly graying hair mad him look only that much more irresistible. “You certainly know how to find the perfect woman!”

He turned to his wife, finding himself equally dazzled by her blue eyes that were like sparkling sapphires that have been known to pierce him and caress him, sometimes in the same day, sometimes at the same time. “Of course miláčku, I did it before with you didn’t I?”

****

When they met they never bothered with such formulaic methodology for determining suitable companions. Instead they let their hearts do the searching and analyzing. Their relationship unfolded under the cold grey skies of early spring and the cold grey buildings of their city as they explored a relationship beyond the limitations of school-age crushes. Boy meets girl, gives here a flower, maybe girl kisses him and they smile until he learns of her father’s very important party affiliation. The boy is an undesirable and doesn’t stand a chance. Boy sighs, gets drunk and wonders if only the privileged can find love. After yet another beer-soaked introspection he staggers along the street, urinates on the nearest corner (piss on them) and somehow makes it home pleased to have left his mark, if only fleeting, on the world. The next day will be spent hung over at his new job at the factory, having recently finished school, planning his next alcoholic assault on his heartache and oppression.
After work he must take the tram, stop at the samoobsloha for his mother and head home for a fortifying meal before heading out to drink in front of a thousand eyes and ears. Good thing so far that drink has not given him the courage to speak as poor Ondřej had done just last week. Whatever happened to him anyways? He hasn’t been seen at work or on the tram. He turned to leave the shop when he saw a most beautiful vision.

“Excuse me pretty lady, let me hold the door for you!” He hoped as she left the shop with her bag she would somehow brush up against him. She didn’t and he had to comfort himself with drinking in her soft blondish-brownish curls and blue eyes that reminded his of the flag. Damn, the flag has to remind him that she too is likely untouchable and unattainable he grumbles to himself but the temptation is too great and he walks beside her.

“Thank you.” She smiles.

“My pleasure. I am Jaroslav.”

“I am Ažběta, Běta for friends.”

“Am I a friend?”

“You look friendly.”

“You look beautiful!”
“You’re sweet.”

“You’re an angel!”

“You must be drunk!” Those blue eyes penetrated through to his heart. She indicated that the tram was arriving, not his, but he was not going to lose out.

“I am going that way too,” he lied but who cared, the detour would be worth it. As he walked her to her flat he had to ask the dreaded questions about others (easily eliminated) and affiliation (easily eliminating him). Success! He arrived home a bit late, pleaded with his mother for forgiveness as she prepared schnitzels and he forgot all about drink that night; he was intoxicated enough.
Within a few months, they did the proper thing and married although they had long since slept together heedless of ceremony or proper protocol until parents’ wishes were declared. Being on the list for their own flat meant finding interesting places to fulfill their passion, away from a thousand eyes and ears. The oppressive gloom of the city threatened to crush even the slightest of happiness and pleasures. He was determined they would beat the system.

Inevitably she became pregnant and told him by taking the calendar and circling a date in early spring. She put it in front of him and he frowned.

“What is this?”

“It will be a very special day for us!” She beamed.

“One day here is no more special than another.”

“Don’t tell our baby that!”

“Baby?”
“Yes!”

Overjoyed he grabbed her and began to dance around their new flat, finally feeling like a real married couple. Now a child would affirm their relationship, their love and their desire to overcome the bleakness of reality. He kissed her and promised to be back in a few minutes after he told a couple of friends.
Five hours later he staggered into the small courtyard off Spálena, south of Ostrovní, happy and desperate to answer nature’s call. Hearing his off key but charming rendition of his favourite folk song, she found him in the courtyard and scolded him “what on earth are you doing?”

“I am a man of honour and all men of honour must leave their mark to celebrate our accomplishments, to celebrate our heritage!” he proclaimed and moved in such a way to write his name in the snow: J-A-R-O, oh well did not drink enough beer this time and most everyone called him Jaro anyways. She was incredulous.
“You have lost your senses! Oh what fate of our poor child?” she demanded but was having difficulty hiding a slight smile at his spontaneous if somewhat questionable patriotism.

“I am proclaiming that our wonderful child will be a blending of us and with all of that goodness will be our ray of hope for our future and our nation’s!” he declared as he finally looked down and realized his pants were still undone. What a picture this would make addressing the nation!

“That is a heavy burden to put on our Václav or Růžena!” They had already decided on the Václav for their son, Růžena for their daughter.

“Nonsense! Our child is going to lead our family and our nation to greatness and overcome this terrible oppressive system that has robbed us of our souls, our freedom and our pride!”

Fortunately they were inside by this time and she hoped out of the range of a thousand eyes and ears unlike poor Ondřej, also their second choice for a name. She didn’t have the heart to remind him that the snow would melt and so would his monument to his achievements; achievements have a way of being as fleeting and as memorable as a stream of post-beer urine.

A month later, there were terrible pains and a terrible loss as their beautiful child must have caught wind of its fate pending its arrival and could not survive the pressures awaiting the hero or heroine. If a whole nation could not effect change, what chance did their child have? As she told him he was furious, especially when he learned that there could be no more possibilities of future Czech saviours. The next few months were filled with frosty communication when there was any. Damn her, she must have done this to undermine my dreams of a better future. Damn him, he gets his politics out of a beer glass.
He continued to hold back his release of emotions attempting to drown the tears in a mind-numbing ocean of forgetfulness, not realizing that tears cannot merge with any old liquid for they are separate entities that refuse to drown with all the common water. She found herself unable to cry, her tears held prisoner, splashing around in her womb with the most melancholy and deafening echo; a hollow sound that rose in her ears with a thunderous onslaught of loss. Their anger and fingerless blame rendered their tears increasingly interdependent despite every effort to remain aloof and bitter in the cold grey sea of the city that had long since sold its soul for something no one even bothered to remember.

One cold snowy evening a few months later, he staggered home yet again and entered the small courtyard with a bursting bladder. He had taken to leaving his mark all over the place in recent weeks, desperate to resurrect his memorial. She thought of leaving him out there again until he remembered what a door was and how it worked or even locking the door but she was drawn outside, her womb echoing with loneliness with each step. She discovered him urinating yet again but this time he was crying. This time instead of writing his name in drunken penmanship, he left teardrops in the snow, both the real ones and the drops of urine that were the tears held back too long. He sank in the snow on his knees, sobbing. She knelt beside him, hugging him. Both were finally able to release the tears from their solitary prisons and properly mourn their loss and the promise it once held. Her blue eyes could not bear to reproach him this time. Her eyes would forever reproach a system that destroyed everything in its path but they would see him very differently. His eventual sober thoughts would focus on the freedom of the heart as it was the one place the system could never quite reach. The heart was truly the enduring monument.

****

Arm-in-arm and heart-in-heart, they enjoyed the warm glow and that early spring morning and breathed the fresh air of hope. The human spirit had discovered a way to survive and continue living long after the grey gloom had finally crumbled into a dusty history of memory; a monument that was had outlived its usefulness and no one remembered it anyways. They both had proof that some monuments of the heart can survive in perpetuity. Today they had seen their beautiful Růžena.