Life Is Elsewhere Read Free Page B

previously cited "Mama naughty," but this time no one smacked his behind because everyone laughed, including Grand-mama, and these words were often repeated in the family with amusement, a fact that of course didn't escape JaromiFs perspicacity. He probably didn't understand the reason for his success, but we can be certain that it was rhyme that saved him from a spanking, and that this was how the magical power of poetry was first revealed to him.
    More such rhymed reflections appear in the following pages of Mama's diary, and her comments on them clearly show that they were a source of joy and satisfaction to the whole family. This, it seems, is a terse portrait: "Maid Hana bends like a banana." A bit farther we read: "Walk in wood, very good." Mama thought that this poetic activity arose not only from JaromiFs utterly original talent but also from the influence of the children's poetry she read to him in such great quantities that he could easily have come to believe that the Czech language was composed exclusively of trochees. But we need to correct Mamas opinion on this point: more important here than talent or literary models was the role of Grandpapa, a sober, practical man and fervent foe of poetry, who intentionally invented the most stupid couplets and secretly taught them to his grandson.
    It didn't take long for Jaromil to notice that his words commanded great attention, and he began to behave accordingly; at first he had used speech to make himself understood, but now he spoke in order to elicit approval, admiration, or laughter. He looked forward to the effect his words would produce, and since it often happened that he didn't obtain the expected response, he tried to call attention to himself with outrageous remarks. This didn't always pay off; when he said to his father and mother: "You're pricks" (he had heard the word from the kid next door, and he remembered that all the other kids laughed loudly), his father smacked him in the face.
    After that he carefully observed what the grown-ups appreciated in his words, what they approved of, what they disapproved of, what astonished them; thus he was equipped, when he was in the garden with Mama one day, to utter a sentence imbued with the melancholy of his grandmother's lamentations: "Life is like weeds."
    It's hard to say what he meant by this; what is certain is that he wasn't thinking of the hardy worthlessness and worthless hardiness that is the distinctive feature of self-propagating plants but that he probably wanted to express the rather vague notion that, when all is said and done, life is sad and futile. Even though he had said something other than what he wanted to, the effect of his words was splendid; Mama silently stroked his hair and looked into his face with moist eyes. Jaromil was so carried away by this look, which he perceived as emotional praise, that he had a craving to see it again. During a walk he kicked a stone and said to his mother: "Mama, I just kicked a stone, and now I feel so sorry for it I want to stroke it," and he really bent down and did so.
    Mama was convinced that her son was not only gifted (he had learned to read when he was five) but also that he was exceptionally sensitive in a way different from other children. She often expressed this opinion to Grandpapa and Grandmama while Jaromil, unobtrusively playing with his tin soldiers or on his rocking horse, listened with great interest. He would look deeply into the eyes of guests, imagining rapturously that their eyes were looking at him as a singular, exceptional child, one who might not be a child at all.
    When his sixth birthday was approaching and he was a few months from entering school, the family insisted that he have his own room and sleep by himself. Mama looked upon the passage of time with regret, but she agreed. She and her husband agreed to give their son the third and smallest room on their floor as a birthday present, and to buy him a bed and other furniture for