The president didn’t come, he didn’t come on time and I was standing there and smiling and I didn’t mind it. Guests were slowly coming in, some wearing comfort manchester suits, like jazz, some wearing nice dresses, like jazz at the castle. The girl from the press department was smiling and she was all apologies, when they called her that president won’t make it in time tonight, he’s still at the gig of Katapult, and when it will have finished he will come here immediately.

Karel appeared with his wife, she had beautiful black hair and eyes that were running after people, but they didn’t stop anywhere, most of the time they stopped on him, and she had a shy smile. I was surprised how old she was. Karel looked few years younger next to her and I understood why when we were saying goodbye back at the time he wanted to kiss me on my mouth. He didn’t get the kiss, I let him kiss my cheek and that surprised him, but kissed it tenderly, and somehow sadly he got on the train.

„This is the lady which I drew a picture for,“  he said. „This is my wife.“ He said then.

As if she didn’t have a name. I liked her, I took her hand into mine and I didn’t push it as I usually do it to people that I don’t like, I just held her hand in mine for a while and I hid her with my other hand, carefully, so as she knew that I protect her, that I have nothing with her husband.

Karel’s picture was very nice. He surprised me, he really drew it only for me. Famous Karel. And then I let myself go inside, where people were standing at the bar and drinking something, it was still twenty minutes until the beginning. Karel saw me again and took me to his table to meet me with his old friend,who looked like some famous czech actor, but he was in fact a music journalist. Nice people. I left them and went to buy whisky and coke and when I came back they were downstairs, probably sitting on their seats.

I let press people to take me to the seat for an honour guest, at least, if not the president, this honour seat. It was damn cold there, if only you can connect hell and cold,

bass player Vitous was cleaning with some small rag his bass, because his strings were getting wet, he put some stinky cream on that rag and kept polishing his instrument over and over and over, for at least fifteen minutes, before the concert started, and I had time to go and get one more whisky and take a blanket they were handing out at the entrance. What for are your beautiful gowns, ladies, if you hide your legs below the blanket of the national aeroflot company anyway.

It was a good concert, because they played old common jazz standards in free jazz style and I didn’t mind it, because they played it like classical music and guitar player Abercrombie was frowning and smiling and singing silently under his long moustache that was hanging from his face like some theatrical courtain, and it was open and so he played and showed his teeth in smile. He played perfectly.

Before they started to play the music journalist told me, I go to every jazz gigs in the country, but I have never seen anyone from these jazz castle people there.

I wasn’t surprised. „When president begins to listen to a cacofonic music, everybody will join him and after a concert they will say each other: oh god, did you hear those three clear tones they played?“

We were laughing.

After the concert I was sitting with guitarist, he was a very nice person, and I knew that he’s mine, that he’s got music in blood and I knew that this will be a great interview.

I went to the reception more from curiousity, I was all the time looking at my watch, it was eleven, president liked the concert a lot and so they played one more song, luckily for us just one more, because otherwise I would freeze there and others as well.

Terrible cold, everybody was saying, but it was pretty clear that they will come next time too wearing same light summer kind of dresses.

Now I headed straight to the table where Karel and his wife were standing and their friends too, this is Mr. Viklicky, said Karel, and I was talking to Mr. Viklicky and thinking if this is that Emil Viklicky, and probably he really was.

We talked about Louisie, who reinvented Bach into jazz music remarkably, about Eugen Cicero, who was doing the same with Schopen and whom I didn’t know, and then he talked about his beautiful student, blood and milk, who was talented but she never wanted to be a solo artist, she got married and had three children, and when he met her after twenty years, she was still beautiful and played in clubs the piano songs that people wanted to listen to, to make money, because her husband had died and children were not grown up yet.

She gave him a sheet with notes, where some jazz standard was written, she’s never liked jazz, and she asked him: Folks want me to play this, but it’s too short, how shall I make it longer?

Make it longer? Viklicky didn’t understand.

Make it longer, like I play this and then what? It’s just one page.

And so Viklicky explained to her what all those jazz marks mean and how to make it longer and then he went to listen to her and she made it longer so well, that he was all purplexed and persuaded her to start to play jazz, though she still didn’t like jazz, but she let him persuade her and now she has concerts all around Europe and she has a great jazz band and people go crazy when they hear her playing and Viklicky is damn proud of her. Just proud of her.

The small cake he was eating while we were talking looked great and I wanted it too, and on the way to the bar I met Abercrombie again and asked him if he wants to authorise the interview and he wanted to, though we both had feeling that we want something different, just to stay in touch and this would be a nice reason, he wrote down his email and was gone, bass player was dragging him away, to catch the plane at five in the morning to Napoli, where is their next concert.

If I had a gig in Napoli I wouldn’t fly there at five in the morning, like a hired worker, I was thinking, but it was too late, Karel passed by and say goodbye and I tried my cake but didn’t like it, so I put it away and went out. I met a press attache on the way who wanted to text me taxservice number to my mobile phone, as if he couldn’t just say it to me, but my phone was off so he had to say it ot me, and I understood that he’s half blind. And in the dressing room there was my guitar waiting for me, all soaked with water, I put it on my shoulder quickly and asked two young people if I could use their mobile phones, I need to call to a friend of mine, whom I’m going to record with, that I’m two hours late but I’m on my way.

Neither of them had any mobile phone, but the boy said he’s got a phone in his office, and if I go with him I can use that phone for free.

„Wont’t he hurt me?“ I looked at the girl, but she just shrugged her shoulders, I don’t know him, and I hesitated, but only for a while, Come on, he said, I’m the castle door keeper, come one, he was young, smiling, nice, not beautiful, though the girl in the dressing room might have liked him, but he was tall and strong, just right. I was walking behind him through the dark castle into the office, Prague castle is beautiful and at night, when is empty, even more.

„Would you like to see kings and queens?“ he asked and I nodded my head, no, all the way to the office I was nodding my head, I can’t go any further, I will wait you here, but he was walking further stubbornly and I had to follow him because he had my bag and it was raining and I had no umbrella and my guitar was getting wet.

Somewhere in the middle of the castle there were lights on, that we left behind us, and then we came to the middle of the stairs with pictures of kings and queens, and there was a table with a telephone in the midst of a huge number of different papers, and I called Matej that I am coming and taking a cab, and the castle doorkeeper shaked his head, a cab, where does he live?

Zizkov.

He hesitated for a while, that he’s got it on his way home and he could drive me there, but he has to lock the castle and I didn’t want to wait any more, when Matej was waiting for me, and he said: wait, I will show it to you on a map, you can take a tram and it would be cheaper, otherwise you’d pay four or five hundreds, and I protested, but let him explain it to me, and then let him go with me to the tram.

On the way there he unlocked Vladislavsky hall, which is opened only once a year, and I was dancing in it with my guitar on my back and yelling at ghosts, who are supposed to be at the castle, he showed me some photos with strange foggy orange faces, but I wasn’t sure those are the ghosts, and so, when I was yelling at them in Vladislavsky hall, he felt offended: So now you behave like a real blond girl. And I was laughing, because something like that could never offend me, I was just feeling sorry for him, that he had said that. He was really nice.

„If I were a castle doorkeper I would make love with my boy in every room of this castle.“

„Yep, I am being fucked by policemen only, because I don’t follow their orders and walk through the doors I am not supposed to.“

And later on the tram I was sorry that I didn’t make love to him in that Vladislavsky hall, when shall I have an opportunity like that, to throw away my half year sadness, that would have been a great starting point. I was really sorry and thinking about the condom in my bag that I took with me, because I wanted to make love to Matej, I wanted to wake up life in me finally which fell asleep somehow, but I knew I wouldn’t do it -  I can’t do it without love somehow.

At least without a feeling of being in love. How funny I am. But I could do that with that young boy – only because it was Vladislavsky hall and it would be great and dangerous and I wouldn’t have to meet him again and wouldn’t have to think about it. Oh.

Tram was walking across night Prague and I envied that at one in the morning there are still trams, not alike in Bratislava, where the last tram goes few minutes before midnight, as if people were not supposed to go to the city, but to stay at home, according to the rules of city officers, wiser that we are, of course.

It was still raining and I get off the tram somewhere near matej’s street, stopped some cab and asked about the way and the cab driver said, it’s here, not far away, just ten minutes walking, and so I walked, but I didn’t see that street anywhere, all wet I stopped another cab and let him drive me threehundred meters, and rang the bell on matej’s flat and hoped he wasn’t sleeping.

He wasn‘t.

His eybrows were red, as if he was playing for himself a theatre, I wouldn’t be surprised, I’m sometimes crazy like that too, playing mirror blues for myself.

Psoriasis, he said and felt unsure, and I say you have to go to the sea, it will cure you, my father used to have it, though I don’t remember it, just my mother used to say.

Stress, bad lifestyle. Drugs.

What drugs? Heroin?

That he hasn’t been taking for a long time now. „I was taking it just for one year, when I was emotionally down, no, not heroin, not anymore.“

„How is heroin like?“

„The best.“

„How strange, everybody in Bratislava was taking heroin, almost all my musician friends I know, some of them are not here anymore and those who survived, are happy to be alive and proud to survive it.“

And strange, I didn’t remember Jozefina.

I didn’t ask anymore. Psoriasis as a result of work, the most probable. Work, work, work. Eight nine ten hours a day and then in the evening, only in the evening music and  books.

We are all like that.

„Why don’t you have a girlfriend?“ I asked him.

„Look at yourself, what Pilar did to you, what you did for him and I wouldn’t be different. I don’t want a girlfiend, I want just music.“

And then we were recording and I was watching his hands and I felt good, I felt much better then I was expecting to, we had things to talk about and we listened to music and Matej was sitting with his eyes closed and listening to my singing with my deep man voice that’s in me, and how I sing with my woman voice that’s in me. We recorded two songs, guitar and then vocals, and then suddenly it was almost four in the morning and he had to go to work next day, and so after a short arguing  we went to sleep, me on the floor, I will not take your bed, I’m not going to work tomorrow, I told him, and making love seemed to me so funny and useless regarding how good I felt with him, we talked a bit more until the dreams won the battle.

And in the morning an alarm-clock, I was fine with my five hour sleep, that makes good to me, I was in a good mood I was talking about sleeping deprivation, which heals depression and about strong light which heals depression, how simple, Matej was nodding his head, and then he made breakfast from the little he had, sardines and scrambled eggs from two eggs, this is your scrambled eggs, I promised it to you yesterday, and I liked him even more for that and I admired him, I like men who make breakfast, just so, though he didn’t promise me anything, we were just talking about scrambled eggs when I came late yesterday, because I was hungry, but I didn’t want to eat so late, so he made it in the morning. I didn’t want you to record things with full belly, he said while cutting cucumbers and peppers and then he had coffee without milk and he was sad, that he had to drink it because of psoriasis without milk, and so we talked about good food, and then suddenly about books and time was passing by, neighbour’s cat was scratching the door, he smelled sardines, and when he entered the kitchen I gave him a bit, and then we went back into Matej’s room and listen to his music and I was astonished how many ideas he‘s got, and we kept talking, even in the tram and when I got off , I got off in the middle of the sentence.

Matej was travelling further to work and I was all of a sudden in the city and I saw him taking his headphones out and I was standing on the sidewalk watching him and I missed him so badly.

I went to used-books shop where I spent few hundreds and then I took the train full of people who hadn’t booked their seats as I hadn’t and so they were walking up and down the train, I was listening to the Italian gig of Pastorius and reading Swell Season by Skvorecky and was thinking why Glen liked the book so much that he named his new album after it, if a woman would write a book about men, about their strong shoulders and hair on their chests and about their nice butts and first loves and kisses nobody would name a record after such a book, they would immediately call it a pink bookcase story or porn, but when a man writes a book like that, it’s an art.

I didn’t remember Matej at all during those four hours of travelling, because I was thinking of him all that time, I finished the book and was observing a fat gipsy woman with her adult gay son, who was wearing plenty of gold rings and necklesses and singing in false tones stupid songs from radios very loudly and people were trying to avoid him in the narrow train corridor but he kept pushing them on purpose, he had more gold on him than anyone else and that was what counted for being the best, he was waving around with his handbag and stroking people’s hair and nobody said a word.

It was raining in Bratislava too. And when I gave to Tigeree some cheese, I suddenly realised, that I’m afraid of love more then of death. And Matej wrote me message: I told myself exactly the same today. That’s because you know you cannot avoid death. So then you don’t have to be careful. And he wrote that to me because he knew I’d use it. One cannot avoid something like that too.