Guided Tours of Hell Read Free Page B

straight ahead. At the stop in front of the Prague Kmart, three Gypsy women got on, and the other passengers shifted as far as possible from that trio of cackling birds with their bright ruffled plumage. The Czechs emitted clucking noises and muted syllables of threat and warning, and mimed—for the benefit of the Kafka conferees, whom until then they hadn’t acknowledged—the wary sensible safeguarding of wallets, pockets, and purses.
    Then Jiri went to the front of the tram and spoke to the driver, who was unaware of the crisis. The driver came back and yelled at the Gypsies, who yelled at him, everyone yelled, then the Gypsies got off. The Czechs resumed their blank stares, as if nothing had happened, as did the Kafka conferees, though perhaps for different reasons.
    “Did you see that?” Natalie had shouted into Landau’s ear. “It took Jiri about five seconds to make the tram Gypsy free.”
    Landau’s only answer was an irritated shrug, as if Natalie were a stinging bug that had gotten under his collar.
    Natalie keeps on nipping at him, even now as they walk up the cobblestone road to the camp, and worse, she seems to have read Landau’s mind, to know what he’s been thinking. How else to explain it—it couldn’t be coincidence—when she says, “Did you believe how Mr. Human-Rights treated those Gypsies on the tram!”
    Again Landau shrugs, just one shoulder this time. “What were the choices?” he says. “Sit there grinning like liberal schmucks and get our passports stolen?” Why is he defending Jiri for doing something morally vile (although, to be perfectly frank, Landau had felt relieved). Because the people who disapprove of him are people like Landau and Natalie Zigbaum!
    “The choices?” Natalie Zigbaum snarls. “Liberal schmucks…or Nazis?”
    Suddenly fearing that he’s bullied Natalie to the point at which her fragile crush (or whatever) on him has been blasted out of existence, Landau feels bereft. Her attention is better than nothing. There is so little sexual buzz going around this conference, Natalie’s choosing Landau must mean that he is its second most attractive man.
    “Watch your step,” warns Landau. “These cobblestones are murder.” In fact they are like vicious stone eggs, pressing into Landau’s tender arches. Natalie’s shoes have thicker soles than his, but she smiles so gratefully, leans so pliantly against him that she could be clicking over the stones in the thinnest highest heels. Landau grasps her elbow and guides her up the path as they approach the dark looming archway in which Jiri stands with outstretched arms, welcoming them all.
    What does the camp remind Landau of? A zoo without animals, maybe. A wide pebbled path lined with overgrown borders and inviting park benches, without the parklike promise of plea sure and relaxation, but rather the zoolike reminder that one is here on a mission, there is something to see here, a fixed route to be taken. And how could they go anywhere except where Jiri steers them? Jiri stands off to one side and bows, waving them on. The conferees smile and nod at him, a tiny bit nervous, but jolly….
    As Landau and Natalie Zigbaum pass, Jiri whispers, “This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen.”
    Landau stops, as does Natalie. The others squeeze timidly past them. Landau says, “What an amazing book! This Way for the Gas . Have you read Borowski?” he asks Natalie. “What an astonishing life! Borowski and his girlfriend were sent to Auschwitz for distributing anti-Nazi poetry and miraculously they both survive, are separated, reunited, they get married, and she gets pregnant, has a daughter, he visits them at the hospital and that night goes home and turns on the gas and kills himself.”
    Some instinct is kicking in here, Landau’s showing off for a woman. So what if it’s Natalie? She’s the only one here to compete for. In one of the letters Landau wrote for Felice, she scolds Kafka for showing off the first time