Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [94]
She pounded on the iron-bound wooden door with the side of her fist. There were muffled noises from the interior, but nobody bothered to answer. She banged again, harder.
An elderly Czech woman opened the door, which was secured on a short brass chain. She wore a head-scarf and spex. “[What do you want?]”
“I want Josef Novak. I need to speak to him.”
“[I don’t speak English. Josef isn’t taking any visitors. Especially not tourists. Go away.]” The door slammed shut.
Maya went out and had some chutovky with a side of knedliky. These little setbacks were very useful. If she remembered to eat every time she was locked out, shut out, or thrown out, it would keep her fit and healthy. After a final carton of tasty government-issue blancmange she returned to Novak’s place and knocked again.
The same woman answered, this time in a thick winter night-robe. “[You again! The girl who smells like Stuttgart. Don’t bother us, it’s very rude and it’s useless!]” Slam.
Another good reminder. Maya walked down the block and let herself into Emil’s studio. Emil wasn’t there. Emil’s absence might have been worrisome, but she deduced from the state of his kitchen that he’d had to leave the place to eat. She scrubbed and mopped for a long time, and inoculated the studio with certain handy packets she’d acquired in Stuttgart. The studio began to reek of fresh bananas. This solid victory over the unseen world of the microbial gave Maya a great sense of accomplishment. She walked back to Novak’s in the cold and darkness, and knocked again.
A bent white-haired man opened the door. He had a black jacket with one sleeve. The old man had only one arm. “[What do you want?]”
“Do you speak English, Mr. Novak?”
“If I must.”
“I’m your new pupil. My name is Maya.”
“I don’t take pupils,” Novak said politely, “and I’m leaving for Roma tomorrow.”
“Then I’m also leaving for Roma tomorrow.”
Novak stared at her through the wedge of light in his chained door.
“Glass Labyrinth,” Maya said. “The Sculpture Gardens. The Water Anima. Vanished Statues.”
Novak sighed. “Those titles sound so very bad in English.… Well, I suppose you had better come in.”
The walls on the ground floor of Novak’s home were a wooden honeycomb: a phantasmagoria of hexagonal storage racks. Jointed wooden puppets. Glassware. Etching tools. Feathers. Wicker. Postage stamps. Stone eggs. Children’s marbles. Fountain pens and paper clips. Eyeglasses. Relief masks. Compasses and hourglasses. Medals. Belt buckles. Pennywhistles and windup toys. Some of the cubbyholes were stuffed to bursting. Others spare, a very few entirely empty. Like a wooden hive infested by some sentient race of time-traveling bees.
There were study tables, but no place to sit. The bare floor was waxed and glossy.
A sleepy female voice called down from the stairs. “[What is it?]”
“[A guest has come,]” Novak said. He reached into his baggy trouser pocket and pulled out an enameled lighter. “[Is it that stupid American girl with short hair?]”
“[Exactly, the very same.]” Novak thumb-clicked a muddy flame and methodically lit a candelabrum. Six candle flames waxed. The overhead lights blinked out. The room was immersed in deep yellow. “[Darling, send down a beanbag, won’t you?]”
“[It’s late. Tell her to go away.]”
“[She’s very pretty,]” said Novak. “[There are sometimes uses for someone very pretty.]”
There was silence. Then a pair of black beanbags came slithering down the candlelit stairs like a pair of undulant blood puddings.
Novak sat in his bag and gestured one-armed at Maya. His right arm was gone at the shoulder. He seemed very much at ease with his loss, as if a single arm were perfectly adequate and other people were merely being excessive.
Maya heaved her backpack onto the wooden floor. She sat in her beanbag. “I want to learn photography.”
“Photography.” Novak nodded.