Men in Space by Tom McCarthy Read Free Book Online Page A

running out of bars and restaurants to hand out cakes, sausages, hot wine …
    But his strongest memory comes from just after all this. In the square, Milan Hájek pressed some mushrooms into his hand before disappearing back into the crowd; a few moments later he bumped into Klárá, and they rode up to the park at Šárka, eating Hájek’s mushrooms in the taxi. They came on strong and fast. As the two of them sat in the woods, in silence, facing one another a metre or so apart, the middle finger of Ivan’s right hand slightly twitched, as though coming into unexpected contact with some object. There was nothing solid there, but when Ivan pressed the finger gently forwards he felt an almost tangible pocket of energy forming around it, velveteen and warm. The shape and texture were unmistakable: these were labia. He slid his finger a little further in and felt a clitoris, which he started to stroke rhythmically. Almost instantly – and this was
really
weird – Klárá started moaning,rubbing her hands over her thighs and slipping her tights down. Ivan undid his belt and moved towards her – but she stopped him, told him that it was precisely his
not
touching her that was getting her off, and to please just carry right on stroking this displaced, disembodied pussy. In his state, it made sense to play along; he found not only that Klárá’s body would respond to the variation in his strokes despite the fact that her eyes were closed, opening only in brief snatches to look straight up at the sky, but also that her pleasure was infecting him. It was as though an invisible third person, some nymph drawn halfway into existence by the day’s events, were transferring energy between them. Their orgasms, like Havel’s statements, arrived simultaneously. His was without doubt the best of his whole life. It was the best
feeling
of his whole life. Even before his spasms had died down, he knew that
that
was what he had been fighting for all this time: not civic participation, freedom of expression or the right to make bad abstract films and paintings, but this feeling, this moment, this limitless and overwhelming potency.
    To feel that way again, relive that instant … If what happened in the woods at Šárka was some cosmic, transcendental coitus, then the three years since November eighty-nine have been one drawn-out detumescence. Nothing’s exciting any more. Half the old underground set who he’d get drunk and stoned with week in and week out at Havel’s place were given government positions – not him. Havel won’t have Ivan near him any more. He wondered for a year or so why that might be, then heard from Sláva Kinček – who’s now ditched art to work in advertising (all new Converse All-Star T-shirts, Kickers, reservations at this French place behind Hellichova,
they do lobster there Ivan …
) – that there’d been hints from certain quarters that Havel had been let’s say surprised at Ivan’s willingness to take the statement to the Soviets – which, coupled with the fact that his mother was Russian … 
No one’s been accused of anything outright, you understand
Ivan, but there are murmurs …
He sank into a deep depression after learning this, one for which alcohol and narcotics have turned out to be his primary, if ineffective, treatment.
    This long, long night has been a passage through the first cure in search of the second. He started in the Staropramenná at six or so yesterday evening, then swung by the studios on Lodecká where Radio Stalin had moved when it went overground and became Radio Jedná, dropping off some records Jan Vasek had lent him. Jan was on air – he and Ivan shared a bottle of Moravská between song-breaks before heading next door to Café Bunkr, where they drank some kind of fake champagne. Milan Hájek was in there, holding court at a raised table in the corner; Ivan went and sat beside him, asked him if he was carrying anything. Hájek said no, but he’d be picking