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24.5.03
From the Diaries of Witold Kazersamski, cahier 1.3
The truth of the matter is, since we invested so little time in practicing, not wanting to ruin the momentum, the blossoming fraud of our performances, both on the stage, on the Charles Bridge, in alleyways, hiding from the local police, we had plenty of time to polish our drinking skills. In many ways, it was a test of wills for both of us. What joy we took in watching the waiters scurrying around with handfuls of beer glasses, four handles of four glasses in each hand like two fists of beer punching out towards us whenever our glasses began to take on the image of running low. And certainly we didn't care at all as he marked more little slashes across our scorecard that served as an indication of our bill. Everyone got these little slips of paper and you could always tell, by a glance at the slip of paper of another, just how far along they were in their journey to intoxication by noting how many little slashes they had scratched onto their slips of paper.
Everywhere we went, we drank until the pub closed. There were times, of course, when the pubs didn't close at all. The bartender would doze off sometime after four or five in the morning and we would still be seated, blathering away, drinking the beers, refilling them for ourselves when the need arose. How many Prague mornings we watched sailing over the top of the Vlatava River as we drank our beers, unconcerned, all but oblivious.
You might wonder what purpose it all served: we would have laughed long if you'd have asked us. Purpose? But then again, we might have settled down and told you that we were constantly embarking on an effort to forestall the future. Our days didn't operate like the majority of the people around us. We had nothing to do. No place in particular to go. We were working up a beery theory of the meaningless of time around us. We were burning hours like a pyro lights matches one after another, just for the sheer pleasure of it. We wouldn't be provoked by watches, by history, by futures. We were languishing in a sort of beer o'clock time frame in a hedonist city filled with well-meaning, yet futile drunks. The hand we were dealt. We weren't partaking in the pissing and moaning of life. We weren't comsumed with grocery lists, petty fears about dirty laundry, or wondering where our last meal went. Regardless of the question, the answer was always concise: beer.
We didn't need a doctoral thesis to validate it. No one understood anything we said anyway, and we didn't understand them either. It was the perfect relationship.
Of course, when Anastasia would tire of whoring in Amsterdam, she inevitably made her way back to Prague to stay with us and that, I submit, was the only time Albert or I had to defend ourselves or our theories.
"You guys look like you haven't left this place since I left" she would comment like a disapproving den mother over a scout troop.
"Is that supposed to pass as dialogue?" Albert would ask. Then Anastasia would make a big show of ordering a bottlr of Moravian wine in a hideous castration of the Czech language, the waiter would look at her blankly, trying to decipher a translation, to what the fuck is she talking about? Albert had mastered the beer vocabulary. He'd even taken the trouble to learn grammatical agreement, depending on how many beers he was ordering, but beyond that, he knew nothing of the language and never bothered to try. But, like all linguistic dilemmas, it was easily solved when he would bring her a beer instead. They're all out of Moravian wine, I'd explain.
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7:33 PM
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