Jaroslav Rudiš: The Heavens over Madrid

or How it Could Have Turned Out with the Hero of the Book "Heaven under Berlin", Had He Not Gone with his Girlfriend Katrin to Iceland...

We're sitting in front of KaDeWe. Me and my new girl Ulrike. We met at the Turkish dance night at SO 36. But that's not important. I mean, where we met. What's important is that we met. We caught each other's eye. It wasn't hard: Ulrike has eyes like the sky over Madrid.

I mean: I've never been to Madrid, I only know Spain from the map and the wars in the history books, but I read in a magazine that they have the bluest and clearest sky there. So I told Ulrike the thing about her eyes and the sky over Madrid. She said that she'd never been to Madrid either and that no one had ever told her that before.

And so we're going out together and I'm thinking we have a future.

But right now we're sitting in front of KaDeWe. We're eating currywurst and fries, gawking at people and playing Guess Who's Going Where.

"Tall boots. Short skirt. Light coat. Fake blonde. A secretary," Ulrike says.

"Alright, but whose secretary?"

"At some bank."

"How do you figure?"

"Look how when she walks she makes little figure-eights with her feet. Or you don't think so? Well then who do you think it is?" she jabs me in the shoulder.

I don't know.

KaDeWe is a department store. I tell Ulrike it's like Kotva in Prague, but I have the feeling that more Russians come here.

"Because it's more expensive here," Ulrike answers. She likes Russians. They always know how to deal with everyone. And they know how to celebrate too.

We're sitting a ways from the entrance, under the "ifts" on the giant poster "Gifts for those who have everything". We don't have anything. I mean, we've got food, a place to sleep, somewhere to go to school, but otherwise we don't have much, me and Ulrike. Just a future, we've got one of those for sure. And so we're sitting here, waiting, playing our game, really her game, smoking, and the clock ticks off half past, on the hour, then half past again.

Ulrike grabs some money from our plate and goes for another currywurst and fries. When she comes back some weirdo is unpacking a barbecue right in front of us.

"I am Saint Christian, the burner of your Christmas gifts!" he exclaims to all. Ulrike giggles. She'd give him something to burn, but she has nothing to give. Nobody else is giving him anything either. She thinks Christian's idea is brilliant. Ulrike casts her eyes around at the Russians, but they know how to deal with her imploring gaze. One even throws her half a euro.

Saint Christian pulls a blonde Barbie doll out of his pocket, the kind with the pointy boobs. He strokes her hair. Douses her in alcohol. Strikes a match. Barbie lights up. People start to laugh. Barbie's belly bursts and the smell of burning plastic is everywhere. And we just watched, smoked, and ate. The stench was really awful, I started getting queasy, but I kept eating the currywurst and fries because I didn't want to throw them out.

"Dude, a magician!" Ulrike suddenly jerked up, lifted her finger and passed me a rolled joint.

And it really was. A little boy with glasses and a black hat and a wand. With a bit of limp.

"I want to burn," the magician commanded, snapping his wand and sitting down on the grill. Saint Christian took the alcohol, sprayed him with it, and lit a match. He burned with a luminous flame, and as he slowly charred, his smile stretched out. People screamed and wept. Ulrike cried too. She'd really loved that movie, and all the magician's books too.

And all at once the charred magician started to slowly ascend up into the sky. He had already reached the top floor of KaDeWe. Soon he floated up above it and I noticed that there were tiny little balloons carrying him, they were springing up on his burnt skin. Or maybe they weren't balloons, but puffy blisters. No, they're someone's white fingers pulling him up, high high up. The kind of fingers I sometimes dream about.

And the little black magician called down to me: "Take over for me here."

"Me? What the hell, I don't know how to do anything!" I called to him.

"I know. And you never will either. But you've got Ulrike, and Ulrike knows how to wish for things. That'll do," he said, and he was already a fairly tiny black dot receding into the distance like a fighter plane, and the farther away he got, the greater the silence got, until I suddenly hear by heart beating, and I get scared that all the people around can hear it too, so I look around. But no one is paying any attention to me. Not even Ulrike.

Saint Christian is just pulling another plastic Barbie doll out of his pocket. It burns like a torch. People are laughing. Ulrike too. She brought over more fries and then bent down to me and again I saw the depths of the sky over Madrid, the bluest and brightest in the world. We kissed.

"This Christian is awesome, eh? I could eat absolutely everything. Do you have any more? I'd have another. Seriously I'd like to."

But I don't, because I never take more than enough for three joints on the street. Can't be too safe.

"Yeah right," Ulrike says and reaches into my pocket and pulls out a little baggie. And from the other pocket another. The third one I found myself in the breast pocket. We have enough for not three, not even thirty, but maybe three hundred cigarettes!

"If we sold it we'd be good for two months," Ulrike grins. She wants to know why I'm lying, but I'm not lying, I just don't get it. Ulrike rolls, doesn't ask any more questions, and her Madrid eyes shine with joy. She lights it up, passes it to Saint Christian. I watch how the smoke mixes with the smoke from the plastic doll, and for a moment they intertwine and then dissolve in the sky, each going its own way, and I know that it's going to be different with Ulrike and me, because we're happy and we will be tomorrow too. I want to tell her something about the little magician and about everything, I want to plan the future, to play my favourite game, but Ulrike is talking with Christian, laughing, and all at once at the end of the sky I notice a tiny dot that looks like a little bell and it's getting bigger and the little bell becomes a big bell and the big bell becomes a siren and I have the feeling I might go deaf so I clap my hands over my ears.

The car brakes right in front of the sign, "Gifts for those who have everything". "Shit we gotta scram!" Ulrike cries out.

They're fast. I mean Christian and Ulrike. I was still reaching out for the paper plate with the last of the fries. And when I turned around, I stumbled and knocked someone over.

The others were fast too.

They nabbed me.

The siren droned on the roof like a propellor.

On the way I caught sight of Ulrike and Christian waiting for the bus. But it could also have been someone completely different, someone who had eyes as blue and stark as the Madrid sky.

And so I'm sitting here and waiting until morning and someone comes so I can tell their notepad my story again and answer for the hundredth time what I have against KaDeWe, what I want to prove by burning presents, and where I got what they found in my pockets. But I don't know what to tell them, even when they knock me around.

I don't know. So I wait, I'm bored, I play the game where I imagine where someone is going right now. Say Ulrike.

Ulrike, why aren't you wishing for anything now?

(Berlin, 19 December 2001)