Perhaps we repaid their kindness

To return to first loves – I cannot omit my first secret love. A love that never went further than the balcony from which I looked down upon the crowns of birch trees after an awkward first making of love. It is the story of the Moon-dweller and the Sun-dweller – it is a story from a time when I was still hiding from myself – how things were with me – and so this story could not have turned out any differently.

DUSK IS FALLING OVER MOULIN MORT
(EPILOGUE – DUSK)

Just as the Parasun appeared above Moulin Mort,
Just so he left. And shadows are over all of Darre once more.
So much remains in my head, nothing but menacing
Fragments, and who knows what else was written in the poems?

Perhaps only that the maidens of Moulin Mort weep into their hands,
And that the sails on the reservoir ceased to unfurl long ago.
So much has been etched into the memory of the Prosek catacombs,
Let even that be proof, and for the lost ones a guiding thread.

So forgive that mischievous Sun,
For even I, the Moon-dweller myself, still love him.
So be it, he left. He will return again, my feeling
Will guide him through the dark and a new day will rise in us!

29.1.2002, 00:05, Písek – House of Horror

When I read these lines today, I smile at my desire for intellectualism (I was never an intellectual and my lines always proved it, try as I might to hide that fact). It probably stems from the fact that I spent my childhood in Volavec near Turnov, where I ate cherries in the garden, husked corn, plucked vine leaves, chopped beet greens, mucked out manure (oh, that manure comes back a lot in memories), and emptied straw out of my shoes "into the pigsty".

They say that childhood shapes a person – it shaped me into an ever-greater life of laziness. I don't remember a time when nothing was done at grandma and grandpa's in Volavec – there was always something to do – cutting grass in the summer, drying hay – from the house all the way to Křídlo, hauling it, blowing it into the hayloft with a blower, and then going for hay near Tatobity – from a child's perspective, mowing an endless field. Grandma always prepared tea in an aluminum thermos, I still remember that threaded cork, which was completely blackened by tea including the spout.

Just as I remember the cakes grandma baked – with crumble topping. And besides that, she managed to cook – I have no idea when she did it – but for hay, potatoes, corn, beet greens – she was always there – and she even carried snacks – probably my mother helped her a lot – and well – for working weekends a large family would gather, cousins, a male cousin – and of course me and my brother.

And grandpa went to church in Tatobity every Sunday – and it wasn't until I was older that I understood how the priest who preached there influenced what was or wasn't discussed in the family. At the last Christmas mass I attended with grandpa when I was an adult – it all dawned on me.

Even my mother recounted that she doesn't remember a female friend ever being able to come visit her – and if so, she had to work in the field alongside her. And even when my Písek love (Lili gave her name to a character in my book PNVNY) accompanied me to Volavec when I was around twenty-five – she had to harvest potatoes in the field with me. By that time, however, my grandparents were running out of life force – and the field wasn't all that big – it was more of an echo of old times.

My grandparents worked all their lives – and they were probably on vacation only once, in Cuba, and that was – an event! I don't remember them ever being anywhere else after that.

And so when I was shooting my first blurry YouTube videos in the Budapest baths on a potato phone – recovering from the spa – I thought of my grandparents, who hardly ever got anywhere away from Volavec.

And I remember them even today – when no one comes to visit me at home – and back then they used to come every week – and they'd bring a little crate of something good – vegetables, potatoes, whatever the garden yielded.

Grandma and grandpa have already passed away. For some time, about half a year, my mom and I took care of both grandma and grandpa, they were both bedridden. I hope we repaid their kindness – and the care they gave us.