Whiskey

Three men sat around a small, unvarnished table in a dark kitchen. Rain poured incessantly outside, as if the whole ocean floated up to the sky. From time to time, there was a strike of thunder. 

‘Do you think there will be a flood?’, asked Milena. She was taking dishes off the dryer and putting them away into the cupboards. They clattered in the darkness despite her greatest efforts not to make a racket. 

Florian took a sip of whiskey from a crystal shot glass and winced. It glistened in the candle light.

‘I don’t know, Milena.’ He down the rest of the glass, being the last man at the table to do so. His father taught him to always make sure he is the last at a table to finish a drink, as it showed restraint and self-control, and most importantly that one isn’t a drunk. ‘Another one?’

The two other men nodded quickly, and Florian poured.

‘Where did you say you got this stuff?’ asked Josef, slurring his words.

‘My brother brought it down from Berlin.’

‘Oh, that’s right. You told us before.’

The friends were drinking a good Czech slivovitz until the bottle ran dry. At some point before that the thunderstorm started, and all the lights went out. Now they reluctantly drank the whiskey, all the way from Berlin, in the candlelit kitchen.

‘I didn’t think Germans drank whiskey.’ 

‘I don’t think they do. I think they just import it so they can sell it to Czechs.’ Answered Ludvik, sounding even drunker than Josef. He was the smallest and skinniest but did not let that hold him back from drinking like his friends drink. 

Milena continued to put dishes away. Florian sighed deeply as plates and glasses clanged together in a noise even louder than the thunder.

‘Are you almost done?’ He asked.

‘Yes, last plate.’ There was one last clanging. ‘Goodnight. Don’t forget to blow out all the candles.’

‘We won’t.’ Milena went to bed. 

-

The new bothersome noise of the hour was the ticking of the clock above the kitchen door. It was off centre, as of course a crucifix had to hang squarely above every door in the house. Amidst the continuing downpour the ticking brought to mind the image of some kind of apocalyptic countdown clock. Florian imagined it set in concrete atop the parliament building.

‘Maybe there will be a flood’, said Ludvik. Florian stood up and reached to take the clock off the wall, knocking the metal crucifix to the floor while doing so. It made a loud sound as it hit the tiles. In the next room, his son began crying.

‘Fuck.’ Florian whispered, looking at it for a second before walking over to the counter and taking the batteries out of the clock. He put the silent clock into the cupboard and the batteries in a drawer, hiding the evidence. He sat back down at the table inconspicuously. 

‘The cross.’ Josef nodded in its direction and then looked at Florian. Florian reluctantly stood up once again and put it back in its place, and thank goodness he did.

Just as he sat down once again, Milena walked in, cradling their son in her arms and bobbing him up and down. The baby was just a day old, and still without a name. 

‘What was that noise?’

Florian sensed a desire to switch places with the infant and be innocent, to make a racket without repercussion.

‘Crucifix fell.’

Milena looked shocked.

‘On its own?’

‘No. I knocked it by accident.’

The baby murmured. Florian grew disgusted with the flesh that clung to his wife so parasitically.

‘Little Florian got scared, but he’s calmed down now.’ She seemed eager to show the men the baby, smiling earnestly. Josef stared into his glistening crystal glass, and Ludvik stared out the window.

‘I don’t want him to have my name,’ stated Florian, assertively but calmly, as if he hadn’t repeated the phrase to infinity in the last months.

‘Now, don’t be like that.’ Said Milena in a condescending baby talk, not looking Florian in the eyes. She looked up at the empty space by the crucifix. ‘Where did the clock go?’

‘Too loud.’ Florian stared into darkness. One of the candles burnt out and lightning struck loudly. The baby began to cry again, and Milena rocked him up and down on her hip. The men were disinterested, concerned by the miniscule amount of whiskey left in the bottle. 

‘After we pour this out, then what?’ Asked Ludvik, holding his chin with his fingers like a great thinker.

‘Then we have nothing left, I’m afraid.’ These words were hard for Florian to say, as if he were speaking through a lump in his throat.

‘We thought you’d be gone much earlier, but then the thunderstorm and everything… It’s not ideal is it…’ Milena seemed far too distracted with rocking the gangly flesh in her arms to realise how rude she sounded. Florian became embarrassed of her. 

‘I sincerely apologise. I wish we had prepared better.’ He really meant to apologise for Milena and the baby, whose beady eyes darted around the room while its mouth hung open grotesquely. The candlelight really made it look like a creature from a medieval manuscript, or something from the deep sea that one might see from a German submarine.

‘When you two have children of your own, you’ll know how hard it is to think about anything else. It’s so strange having guests when we haven’t yet gotten used to our new man of the house. The poor boy doesn’t even have a name. But, of course he would if his dad wasn’t such a nuisance.’ She smiled widely and giggled, oblivious. Florian cringed and longed for a cigarette. His cleaned out ashtray, now off limits on account of the baby, called him from the far end of the windowsill. 

‘We are sorry for being so invasive, Milena,’ said Josef, as if suddenly snapped back into reality.

‘Yes. Sorry Milena,’ added Ludvik, his eyes studying the grain of the table deeply. Her face was contorted by the candlelight, making her eyes black and her wrinkles deep. ‘Come, sit down Milena. How about a drink?’

The other men shot Ludvik a wide eyed glance.

‘That would be lovely. Thank you Ludvik.’ She raised her eyebrows at her husband as she sat down by his side. The baby grabbed onto the edge of the table, and Milena pulled his hands away immediately. ‘You need to varnish this table, Florian. What if he gets a splinter?’

Florian watched, still as stone, as Ludvik grabbed another crystal glass from the shelf and poured Milena almost all the remaining contents of the whiskey bottle, before shooting that last tiny drop himself, straight from the bottle.

‘Thank you Ludvik.’ Milena smiled sweetly. Florian scoffed, remembering the times she had reprimanded him for drinking straight from bottles. Josef scoffed at Ludvik’s boldness. To everyone's surprise, Milena downed the shot in one, swift motion, putting the glass back down with some force. The baby was startled, but silent. Florian was much the same.

-

Milena’s cheeks were flushed and she was laughing away with Ludvik and Josef. Florian sat off to the side, reluctantly holding the baby on his lap, astonished at how quickly the men forgot the distaste his wife displayed towards them just a few moments ago.

‘Oh dear, we really should’ve gotten two bottles of slivovitz! Do we really not have anything else to drink?’ She lamented to Florian.

‘No. The whiskey was the last resort.’

‘Why don’t you ask the neighbours if they have anything? We could pay them back!’

Florian was taken aback by the woman before him, hopelessly drunk off of one shot of whiskey.

‘Give Josef the baby and go. I’ll have a cigarette in the meantime.’ She got up and took out a stached away pack from the back of a drawer. All the men were now truly baffled.

‘Do you know what time it is? I can’t go knocking on doors at this hour!’

‘Well, I don’t know, because you took the clock down.’ She opened the window and sparked a match with the ease of a chain smoker. She inhaled deeply and sighed, the ribbon at the waist of her dressing gown blowing in the wind as the synthetic silk became adorned with drops of rain. Ludvik and Josef observed her motions closely. Florian prayed for a flood.

‘Fine. But I’ll take the baby with me. He’ll catch a chill in here.’ 

-

Florian did not take the baby with him, leaving the creature in its cot in the next room and clutching his hands hoping it wouldn't cry out upon being void of its fathers touch. The baby was unbothered, even blissful. Florian washed his hands off to rid himself of its smell before putting cologne on his neck. A burst of laughter came from the kitchen, with Milena’s piercing through the rest like the call of some foul bird. He imagined his friends caressing her curly, red hair, lighting another cigarette for her, glad of his absence. 

He closed the front door to the apartment behind him as quietly as he could, and then sprinted down one flight of stairs and knocked merrily. A woman with long, brown hair tied neatly behind her head like a ballerina answered, blocking the small opening of the door with her body in order to block the exit of a tiny, white dog. 

‘Florian, come in.’ She did not smile, but she gazed into his eyes deeply. How much more comforting were her soft, brown eyes than the unblinking blue eyes of the baby. She looked like a deer in a deep forest, a forest away from everything. Florian obeyed, and she kissed him warmly against the closed door, the dog yapping on in the background. He clutched the sides of her black, fleece dressing gown like the material gave him life. He pulled away and spoke:

‘Nina, There will be a flood. All of Prague will be flooded. Go away with me. We must leave.’

‘Shhhhh..’ She stroked his cheek. His heartbeat slowed down from her touch. ‘Really, Florian? Will there really be a flood?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered in her ear, caressing her gently. ‘Everything will be under the water. All of Prague, under the water. We should take the next train to Berlin before it’s too late.’ He looked over Nina’s shoulder, through her living room window, and noticed that the sky was slowly but surely getting lighter. The dog continued barking.

‘Berlin? Don’t you want to go somewhere new?’

‘But it was so nice last time. Why go somewhere new when it was so nice last time? Come on, put some clothes on.’

‘But I have work tomorrow, and so do you,’ She whispered, pulling away from his slightly.

‘There will be no work. Everything will flood, and then there will be nothing. Only fishes will live here. Everyone is leaving today.’

‘Everyone?’

‘Everyone.’ He was out of breath, shaking all over. ‘Come with me. We need to get the first train. All the later trains will be full as everyone wakes up and realises the city is going to flood. Most people are still asleep now.’

The rain put Nina in a sort of trance, its soft sound echoing through the walls.

‘Alright. Let me get dressed.’