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Začátek stránky Kapitola 5 Kapitola 10 Kapitola 15 Kapitola 20 Kapitola 25 Kapitola 30 Kapitola 35 Kapitola 40 On the roofs Prologue Switch sat on the concrete floor of the roof of the house in which he lived. He wasn't thinking about anything. He let his thoughts drift slowly, and the bloody sun, which shone through the twilight, gave the whole scene a hypnotic touch. Thumbs in China sometimes twitched, as if to indicate that they needed more space again. However, the toes of the shoes in which they were hidden extended beyond the edge of the fifteen-story building. A flock of birds flew past, circling two acrobatic half-brothers, and disappeared beyond the edge somewhere in the depths plunging over the elaborate city. Switch suddenly rose sharply and jumped over the edge into the open space where a flock of quirky creatures had disappeared a moment ago. Just as the athletes jump into the pool at the Olympics, the jury then evaluates the style of their jump, with their hands over their heads, biceps pressing to their ears and their legs expertly crossed. But the most important thing was to maintain the state of mind he had previously reached quite hard upstairs. The cold late evening air whistled around his ears, and he was also cold from the fingers protruding from his hands. The moment he reached about halfway up the building, moving his outstretched arms back and tilting his head at the same time, he began to pick up a dive and gradually align the axis of his body with the sidewalk below. He was already on the ground when he realized that he should have started braking much earlier. He was gliding almost horizontally now, but he was close, too close to the ground to sit comfortably on his feet, as he should. So he tried the only maneuver possible at the time. He wrapped his body in a ball and reached for himself with his right hand. He rolled into Judopad, but the speed was still too high, and he did about twenty quick, dangerously hard turns on the rough pavement of the sleeping city. Exhausted, he lay exhausted on his back on the ground, unable to lift his head to see if anyone had seen him. Chapter 1 The kitchen smelled of freshly baked donuts, and Max waited impatiently for Lin to bring coffee to the table. He looked at her as he had never looked at a girl before. She was nice, she had her own style, and besides, it burned her. Lin was born in the United States to a Chinese cyberneticist and American archaeologist, and the combination of both of her parents' features gave her a special, unseen attraction. Max didn't think much of himself, just a guy with millions running around the world, but Lin knew why she spent time with him. On the one hand, she had never met a man who could disassemble everything as quickly as Max, reassemble it no less quickly, and understand how the thing worked during the process (sometimes he didn't even have to disassemble the thing), and on the other, she liked it. Not in the way of movie stars or the kind of guys who spend half a day choosing the right combination of clothes, but he had a kind of charm in him, made up of modesty, self-confidence, and ease, and that attracted her. Max stopped to make an appointment for the evening. Now he sat across from her and heard himself and Lin talking, making suggestions, laughing, seemingly upset, but his spirit was completely different. He watched her mouth move, sensed her faint scent, her magnetic presence embodied in predictable shapes and movements that took his breath away with relentless perseverance. A few tens of meters away at the outer wall of the same house, in places where forgotten courtyards were crawling through half-dilapidated walls crawling with ivy and rats dancing their hungry reggae, several dark shadows came off the wall. A faint thud caused two anchors to drag at a high speed along the peeled wall, dragging ropes behind them. The trained arms then reached almost inaudibly toward the half-open window on the third floor. Only for a moment did something disturb them, all movement suddenly stopped, and the figures with the muscle fibers taut to burst stiffened. Then the cat whimpered, the tension easing, and the almost unnaturally fast-paced puppets soon reached the window sill. When the first quiet foot landed on the tiled floor, in apartment number 3 at the end of the hall, two young people still had no idea that their joy would not last long. Chapter 2 A fire blazed in the fireplace, illuminating the evening room, at least so that the old man in the heavy red-clad chair could recognize the beloved images of the old masters in the book. The man's face received warm rays from the left, and his sharp features cast almost spooky shadows toward the room. A light, warm August breeze blew in through the open French window, dancing the long curtains in a playful yet cheerful rhythm. The man was waiting for a call. He built his immense power through a mixture of ties to famous people and bloody deeds, with which, however, no one ever connected him. He learned from old masters that the combination of brush boom and tiny detail affects people the most. And as they loved religious themes, because they connect in a special way the world of ordinary people with the worlds of the gods, the atmosphere of fear and worship. He always felt a little god. When the phone rang, it didn't upset him in any way. He was used to picking up the phone and receiving news of his success calmly. Such a calming effect has power on people. He put his ear to the receiver and heard a short anticipated message: "The sparrow has finished, the swallow has disappeared from the nest." * Kapitola 5 Chapter 3 In the old underground garages, three floors below ground, several dozen torches hung from the pupils of about fifteen young people on the walls. The group stood in a circle, discussing something in muffled voices. The musty air of the vast room perfectly matched the deliberately careless appearance of the debaters, mingling with the poorly ventilated smoke of the only light sources at that depth underground. "I was there, and there was a lot of blood on the ground, like after a crash, but something didn't suit me, something was wrong." "Did anyone talk to him? Did he say something? ” "I tried, they didn't want to let me in, but I got there and he looked really awful. I talked to him and I don't know if he even perceived me, but when I asked if he couldn't do it, if he fell, I would swear he shook his head like he didn't. " "It simply came to our notice then. The switch wasn't quite the safest, but it doesn't suit me to kill itself. " "That's clear, the bastards shot him." Suddenly the group fell silent. The sounds of an approaching board could be heard from above. They parted and hid their presence in the dark corners so that only eyes and torches could reveal that someone was there. The crouched figure descended from the upper floor toward them. The young man jumped off the skateboard and fell to the knees in the dust. Even in the dim light around him, it was possible to read traces of despair and exhaustion from his face. "They have Lin," Max said in a strangled voice, sliding into the dust at the feet of his frightened comrades and losing consciousness. Chapter 4 The mountains are beautifully fresh, the sun is kind of sublime and the whole atmosphere of everything around it informs visitors or residents that Mother Nature rules here and that she will not just let her rule be taken. William had been getting up every day for several months with this feeling, and it was no different today. He peered out of the small tent, stretched, and walked toward the stream, letting his bare feet pierce the wall of grass blades so that as much refreshing dew as possible fell on his sleepy fingers. After performing his morning hygiene, somewhat unconventional in relation to what he was once accustomed to from the city, he headed for a small gorge. Along the way, other young people joined him, and when they reached the stone rampart that optically closed the gorge they were heading for, he knew they had arrived just in time. The Teacher came from the left and motioned a slight smile for his students to enter in front of him. William knew today was a big day. Today, after about a quarter of a year of preparations, they will begin flying training today. Chapter 5 When Lin woke up, she had no idea where she was. All around, it was impenetrable darkness at first glance, lying on the cold floor on her side, her legs tied at her ankles and her hands on her wrists behind her back. A rag used as a gag cut uncomfortably into her mouth. There was no window in the room, and no sounds came through. Lin estimated that he would probably be in a dungeon very far from the people. She didn't remember much about last night. They sat with Max in the kitchen, conversing furiously as several veiled figures burst in. The attack was so surprising that they could do nothing. Max was eliminated first, catching a couple of blows, and as he lay on the ground, not moving, the man holding Lin from behind with a knife to her carotid artery grabbed her arms nonchalantly and tied them behind her back. Then Lin was struck by a blunt object and lost consciousness. Now it was primarily a matter of getting out of here ("Is Max okay?"). Lin sat awkwardly and only now realized how much her whole body hurt. Unseen at the tip of her own nose, she tried to search her surroundings with outstretched legs. It took her about half an hour to estimate, because even though the room wasn't too big, you never know where you might fall. The only thing she found during her search was that the floor and walls were made of stone cubes, and that her prison was perfectly empty besides her. Then Lin realized that she was hungry and that she was incredibly thirsty. Chapter 6 Kate Sloan's greatest achievement in journalism to date has been praised by a U.S. congressional senator about her, in her opinion not very successful, article about the mysterious decline of turpans, a species of Canadian duck. The article did not help either the Turpani to stop waning or Kate Sloan to start her dizzying career. According to her colleagues, Kate was a handsome woman in her thirties, a little crazy, indulging in reading books for women and studying various mysteries. Now she currently works for the New York Visitor, a slice read by just garbage men when they go home and taxi drivers when they wait too long for a customer. Kate knew that punching in this way could take her at least another ten years, and it was clear to her that if something fundamental did not happen soon, she would have to give up and prove her superficial father, who always ignored her and claimed that no girl from Ohio has made a name for herself "in town," and Kate will definitely not be the first. In the near future, it was to be shown how wrong her father was. Kapitola 10 Chapter 7 At the St. On Hope Street, several hands worked very deftly to accomplish their secret mission. It was necessary to move one patient in a coma over a relatively large distance in a very short time. By order of someone powerful, the young man was dead for the whole world today, so no one will miss him. Only those who put him in this state, when they find out, will certainly not make them very happy. Chapter 8 After a cup of strong coffee and a few biscuits, Max's head cleared and his legs regained their lost stability. He was sitting in an apartment that the Brotherhood members had used as one of the shelters in turbulent times, recovering from the shock he had experienced. His injuries were only superficial; several bruises looked ugly, but apart from the pain and temporary aesthetic damage, the attackers did nothing serious. Max was more worried about Lin. He remembered holding a knife to her throat, but it was more of a threat before trying to escape. Rather, he was worried about why she had been abducted. And from what he had heard about Switch, it seemed that someone was liquidating the Brotherhood members one by one for a hitherto unknown purpose. "I have to find Lin and save her," Max decided firmly, though he knew that this romantic rise to emotion was not backed up by the brave qualities of a brave hero or the slightest plan. Besides, it seemed that the ground had fallen on his favorite. Chapter 9 "Sit comfortably." we all have enough space around us …… .. each of us is here alone and yet we are all together ……. let's start breathing ……… exactly as we learned ..… .. ” William listened to his Teacher's warm voice. There were other students scattered all around, who, like him, were guided in a somewhat monotonous but still magnetic tone somewhere in the deep throat of the man in front of them. The teacher stood firm but relaxed so he could see all the young people in front of him. He knew almost everything about each of them, he knew their fates and he was determined from the bottom of his heart to help them. They were lost young people, vagrants of a human world that knows no mercy. Most of those who were able to endure long and demanding training were able to find the meaning of their lives again. William allowed individual particles of air to flow slowly along the inner walls of the nasal passages. As he slowed the movement of the air, his body and especially his mind calmed down. After about 20 minutes of gradually turning off the perception of his own body to the necessary minimum, he heard his Teacher's voice again. “Your body sits on the grass in the middle of the rocks and slowly becomes part of the scenery around. But not you. There you are sitting inside that body, listening to my voice and looking forward to what is to come, what is to happen and what you do not miss. You will peel off the ground today. Today you will become completely new beings. Today will be what you will remember as the day when it ceased to be before It and began to be after Tom. Your new birth will take place today. " "You are strong, you are powerful, the body you have placed in the middle of the rocks has no power over you. Awaken your inner sight. Look at me and keep your eyes closed. ” William's soul listened to the voice of a man she trusted completely. For the first time in his life, William trusted someone again, and for the first time, he believed himself that he could really do something. Fifteen young people in the middle of the rocks looked at their Teacher at one point. Despite the objectively closed eyelids, they could see him smiling clearly at them, feeling as powerful and excited as ever. Chapter 10 When the door finally opened with a heavy creak, Lin was so hungry and thirsty that she barely raised her head to look at her captor. Cold air and a slight light came in through the corridor, but the figure with the hood over his head didn't have to put too much effort to cover his facial features. From the depths of the hood, Lin's dark, hostile eyes watched for a moment, then the figure crouched and moved two containers toward the girl. Then the newcomer snorted lightly mockingly toward Lin, and in a low, almost inaudible voice, said, "Get together, now it's just beginning," and disappeared from the door with a knowing chuckle. As soon as Lin was alone again, she gathered all her remaining strength to examine the contents of the two vessels lying in the dark somewhere near her. Never before has cold water and a piece of bread tasted so sweet to her. Chapter 11 Success has always been predictable and expected, but the Man has never been able to cope with failure. When he hung up, he was furious, though of course he didn't let the caller know his feelings. It was all the more boiling in him now. With an angry movement of both arms, he dropped everything on his desk at the same time that got in his way. With an angry shout, he cursed all those incompetent slackers, with whom, unfortunately, he had to inadvertently have something to do with it from time to time. When the world in which he lives can no longer be perfect, at least those who work for him are perfect. How can he rule when he has nothing to lean on ?! He has to get the boy no matter what. Kapitola 15 Chapter 12 Kate Sloan didn't have the best day today. The alarm clock decided not to ring, all things were deliberately changing their usual places overnight, and the bus, which ran with all its might, closed its tin mouth deliberately just in front of it, and Kate stood at the bus stop all out of breath, ruined, looking at another "really good "It could still start raining," Kate thought, and only the thought flashed through her head, the first cold drops of the August rain falling on her surprised shoulders. "Okay," she smiled helplessly, "we should," and ran under a small green papundekel canopy near a standing Chinese spice shop. The stubborn sky decided that Kate would not come to work in time today, and she resigned the idea a long time ago. She stood there reconciled to the fate of the outsider, watching the passing cars make their way through the gray curtain of the now fairly decent downpour, and the occasional walkers with umbrellas bounced between the bubbling pools as if playing a shot. Once two hop and turn. Something happened in that that changed Kate Sloan's outsider life once and for all. As she watched the pantomime of the street, for a moment her attention was drawn to the vague impression that a relatively large shadow had cast into the side alley behind the roofs of the tallest house across the street. She sharpened her gaze in that direction and opened her mouth in surprise, and as other things happened, Kate never seemed to close her mouth again. From the opposite roof, about ten other (yes, now there was no doubt about it) people gradually plunged headlong into them, and, which was completely unbelievable, none of them ended up on the pavement as a gift for the coroner, but as each other. they picked their "fall" relatively smoothly and landed in a quiet alley below them in a slight forward bend. Kate Sloan instinctively pulled a camera out of her bag, and the puddle of no puddles ran to meet a sensation that not only the New York Visitor remembers. Chapter 13 The first thing Switch saw after a long time was a small, fire-lit cave that now seemed more than expected. He was very weak, so it gave him a lot of work to raise his head and look east. All he could see was a blue, lush, cloudless sky. Switch realized quickly, so he smiled slightly with relief. He was back. He was in the Nest. Chapter 14 Lin clicked a few clicks of the lock and the creak of a heavy bolt with the man's words about his future existence, and she became really afraid. The coveted air of the outside world re-entered, but he brought no good news. On the contrary, he brought with him four sinister figures, which was somewhat exaggerated given the prisoner's condition. Each pupa grabbed one of the girl's limbs and they pressed her hard against the cold floor. Then a hand with a syringe appeared, which drove Lin's adrenaline all over his body, because the syringes had always been terrifying. The four strong men had no job of overcoming the weak girl's uplift, and so Lin felt the sharp point of a needle penetrate the skin of her forearm and the flow of a body of utterly foreign matter disappear into her bloodstream. Through her teary eyes and spinning colored wheels in front of them, Lin saw that she had been lifted off the ground and carried away from her cell by an arched corridor with beams on either side. However, she did not imagine her escape from the black space like this. Chapter 15 Maximilian Wecker was a contemplative boy from an early age. He never knew his parents and was raised by Aunt Frances, who had nothing to do with France, as it might seem at first glance, but above all was not Max's real aunt, which was clear from the fact that the boy she adopted was white. and Frances was a purebred black woman. Max's contemplation was evident from the first days. As a small child, he disassembled everything that could be disassembled. So Aunt Frances kept her hands on him, sighing, "My little boy, whatever you are, you're going to take everything apart and never put anything back together." As Max grew, so did his interest in understanding the essence of things, so he read all sorts of manuals, encyclopedias, even dictionaries, manuals and solved technical drawings. As the other young men stood at the gym, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl's nudity through a small window of the girl's locker room, Max sat in the attic of the house they lived in, his aunt's combined blender disassembled in the smallest screw. The blender was the first more complicated thing Wecker put together again, which pleased his aunt immensely. Not that Max didn't like the girls, he just hadn't met one that really caught his eye. Until once. He walked with his typical swaying step toward the school library, where he carried back several titles that no one but him borrowed when he was ripped from his dream world of screws and power lines by the piercing squeak of car brakes. He jumped in confusion and knelt on the pavement, but he was not the one in immediate danger. Less than ten meters away, a crash rumbled and a green sports bike flew through the air towards Max, along with his unfortunate driver. At that time, for the first time in his life, Max discovered his presence of mind and called an ambulance from the nearest payphone. He then had to tell the police about the incident and went to the hospital on his own initiative, visiting the hospital the following month and a half. They never really started anything together, whether it was Max's shyness about the fairer sex or for some reason the girl's side. But even then, Max Wecker began to love Lin Chang. Chapter 16 It took about fourteen days for the members of the training group to reach where they were now. They stood on the edge of a ledge, and below them was a depth of three meters and a green mountain clearing below. Three meters is not enough for you to kill yourself, but enough for you to get really good when jumping on your head. William knew that too, and honestly, what was to follow was goosebumps. Everyone knows this mixture of joyful anticipation and doubtful fears of "What if?" During the previous fortnight, the students had perfected the technique of disconnecting the inner body from the material body, and when they felt at home in that, they were to learn to connect the outer body again and learn to control it. Today, they should try to jump into space, try to overcome fear, and endure their outer body with the help of an inner one, at least so that the dive will slow down to a tolerable level. This exercise caused students great problems. Overcoming one's own fear means stepping towards victory. And William wanted to win. He concentrated all his energy on being able to maintain the state of interplay of energies reached at the top of the ledge even at the moment of the jump. "Come on then!" Shouted the Teacher standing in the clearing below them, and William jumped. But he was too focused on how big a task he had before him, how much chance he had, that he wanted to be the best of all and fly down like a bird for the first time, that he couldn't keep his mind empty enough and focused enough on the state of being in which was located. The hard impact on the green carpet literally took his breath away. Chapter 17 Herbert and Sylvia were sitting in a fast food restaurant and visibly well. Sylvia giggled, and Herbert stared hard at her kind eyes, letting himself be intoxicated by her closeness. Because it was three o'clock after midnight, they were the only customers of a company called Hero Snack Burger. A lone salesman stopped flipping through a catalog of erotic videotapes and yelled at the two who had long since arrived, "Go home and vote, we're a decent business here." "Yeah, and you're the most decent here," Herb countered, but he rose quickly. , because the fat man must have taken the hint too personally and intended to roll towards them. They ran out into the street laughing, and Herb tried to take Sylvia's hand. Maybe it was the enthusiasm they had for each other, maybe the noise of the night city completely dulled their senses, in any case they didn't hear the slowly arriving black van, from which several figures in black robes jumped out and grabbed the couple in love and pulled them into the car. the scene unfolded so fast that not even the few passers-by noticed it at all, and if they saw anything, they certainly didn't realize what had happened. Otherwise, however, there was a young woman with a camera standing in a dark corner of the adjacent passage. She jumped into her dark blue Ford from the 1980s and set out to chase the black van. After all, she won't miss the only two members of the Brotherhood, which she managed to follow here after their morning jump. Chapter 18 Switch received exemplary care in the Nest, based on ancient Asian procedures. Twice a day he had to drink a strong bitter decoction of mountain herbs called kao tui, mountain blood or rock tears. In addition, he underwent a special Indian therapeutic massage, where the patient is first smeared with oil. On a special table, he is then massaged in various positions with bags of cloth (filled with rice pudding and soaked in a warm milk decoction with herbs). These procedures are performed by the Helpers, who are the least visible but absolutely essential inhabitants of the Nest. The nest was formed sometime 3,000 years ago in a secret place in the mountains very far east of painful New York as a refuge for poor villagers who had nowhere else to go. It has served its new purpose for about 25 years now. Several Teachers, with the help of their friends, built a large rock city. In a place where there was nothing but a few caves carved into the rock and a suitable place hidden in civilization from civilization, everything that was needed to hide and teach the members of the Brotherhood now worked. At such a place, Switch were now to meet, one of those who had been released into the world of confusion and restlessness after training, and William, a representative of a group of those whose Teacher had only helped to find their own shape and direction. Chapter 19 The last time Max came out of a high-rise building, Max was the first to go. From the morning Lin was abducted, he had a kind of zeal, a desire to do something. Whatever he was thinking, he had no idea how he could figure out where Lin was and how to save her. It must have been a coincidence and the two got close to each other again. But when he jumped that rainy morning, they were still a few days and several hundred kilometers away from meeting them again. Max threw himself off the roof, and because he was upset, his concentration was much more difficult than ever. Maybe that's why he didn't pay much attention to the flight itself and managed to observe the near and far surroundings and saw a young woman standing on the other side of the highway. She crouched under the small roof of an Asian shop, shivering with cold. Max wouldn't have paid so much attention to her if he hadn't noticed that when the last of them jumped in, the woman ran in their direction and watched them all the way to their homes. The woman had a professional camera around her neck and took a few pictures while watching. Apparently she wasn't stupid, because she eventually chose Herb and Sylvia from the whole group, who were so worried about the other's sympathies that they wouldn't notice their pursuers, even if she stepped on their heels. When it was the last three, Max made an evasive maneuver. He disappeared with a farewell in one of the side alleys, crouched behind a pile of tossed beer crates, and hung on to Kate Sloan's heels. It was only because of that that he now overcame his innate fear of something greater than his beloved skate and sat behind the wheel of a former taxi left to his aunt Frances by a suitor who had lived and fed for a few weeks and then never came. My aunt found him and squeezed the taxi out of him. For the first time in his life, Maximilian Wecker watched with a car a woman who watched a criminal van with his battered Ford for the first time in his life. Kapitola 20 Chapter 20 Lin Chang suffered in an unbelievable way. Under the colorful haze of drug mists, all thanks to the injected injection, she could feel her being carried into a small room that looked like a simply furnished office. As they tossed her into a small tattered rickety chair and left. Due to the drug, she could hardly move, the places after the handcuffs burned and itched her, her whole body was like rubber, and there was no shouting for help. Then someone came in. He stood for a moment near the chair with the girl and looked at her. It took an incredibly long time for Lin to turn his head in his direction. He was a bald middle-aged man, dressed in light linen trousers and a polo shirt of the same color. He almost looked like he had come to golf. "What… from… .. me…. Do you want to? ”Lin muttered, her rubbery mouth. "What ... from…" Colonel Stodman approached the girl, gripped her jaw between his thumb and forefinger, and examined her face from all sides. "Every time they exaggerate, the zealots squat." He took a few steps and turned to Lin. "You're here to tell us where the Nest is," "it's a whole and absolutely simple thing," "and I guarantee you, little girl, that you'll tell me." She put two and two together and realized that if someone was able to kidnap her to find the Nest, first it would be no good and second he probably thought there was only one way through Lin. Or maybe just the simplest. Lin was lost in the past for a moment. She saw herself putting her broken body together after the crash on the bike, seeing Max and her, how her parents hadn't returned from vacation once, because God didn't seem to want it, how sick she was, and how everything had changed when she the leaflet came to the mailbox. As if today, Lin read the inscription behind her drugged eyes: Has your life lost its way? Are you young at least in spirit? Do you want to know the new dimensions of your soul? Do you want to live again? Call our phone number. Max talked to her at the time, because the leaflet reminded him of recruiting for a sect, but Lin called there then and felt that she had done well. For a month she went to Frank's gym at the corner of the 180th and 20th, and she was already changing her life there. In a group of several young people, she practiced various yoga exercises there, and their Teacher, as they were supposed to tell him, also told them various stories and talked to them about everything. Lin was intrigued and once brought Max. He came, of course, only to protect her from "those perverts." In the end, he also won his courses, and when they had the opportunity to go to the mountains for several months to a concentration camp, they did not refuse either. Lin certainly wasn't going to reveal where the Nest lay, and not to these people at all. Chapter 21 In the same or similar way as William, more than half of his classmates ended up. They were now sitting in front of their tents, discussing why they had failed their first landing. However, William only took part in the call. Over and over again, he thought back to the small ledge, wondering where he had made a mistake. He knew he wanted power and that he was too focused on success to do the exercise itself. After discussing his attempt in detail from all sides, he came up with an idea that he knew his Teacher would surely reject immediately. This is mainly because the plan involved was too, too dangerous. But William had already made up his mind. He got up and apologized to his friends that he hadn't been able to go to the bathroom in all the excitement, and he headed for the places where they went to bounce. However, when he disappeared from sight, he changed direction and instead went to the rocks, which were far beyond today's training rock. His cheeks burned as he penetrated the sharp twigs and also with excitement and determination. He was about to do something that no one had ever tried before. He decided that the low height they were trying to pounce on today was just a small internal stimulus for students to be able to concentrate and tune in to what was important at the time. However, if he tries to climb rocks the height of a multi-storey house, he should not have the slightest problem concentrating on the activity he is doing. As he passed the last trees of the forest, in whose preserve he had no idea, the other young adepts of the doctrine of working with energy and flying lived in peace, a strong wind thrusting his first proper field. He threw a warning in his face that the elements here in the mountains had infinite power, at least infinitely more power than a nineteen-year-old, albeit with above-average abilities. However, even this warning was ignored by the young man, and his steps stopped at the highest point of the windswept rock. He stood straight, full of self-confidence and a desire to transform his inability into a qualitatively higher state of being, a light linen garment slapping in all directions, and his dark brown curly hair licked his forehead and ears like dark tongues of fire. William stared into the distance, at the great highway of the heavenly districts, where clouds floated like pirate ships, and at the cold sun that stood there like Napoleon, small in size but with the potential of the ruler of everything. The young man knew that it was a lot, that it was more than ever than ever before in his life. If he fails to descend the depths beneath him, no one will ever find him and learn of his foolish act. And if he can do it, no one will know, because he can't tell anyone this. He concentrated his mind so that no thing around disrupted the flow of energy inside, detached the inner body from the outer and realized this disconnection, then grasped the whole surface of his inner body his body and like divers donning a wetsuit made it an integral part of it, but still he perceived it separately. He directed the flow of energy over the edge of the abyss below him, raised his outstretched arms above his head, and without a word bounced off and jumped headlong to a depth of a hundred below him. Chapter 22 The black van made its way almost ruthlessly through the half-empty streets of the night city. A relatively heavy rain started, and the vibrating wipers regularly divided the outside weeping world into a colorful kaleidoscope of neons, traffic lights, and water curtains. In addition, the rain made it very difficult to chase Kate Sloan's Ford, as the engine blew hard at the unusual high revs and sharp changes in speed, and now he still had to overcome the worries of a sudden change in weather conditions. Third in line was a yellow peeling cab carrying a bulging Max, his nerves straining to burst. This was partly so that he wouldn't lose the roaring blue sedan in front of him, and partly because he was afraid that the woman would lose contact with the seemingly fresher black van in the front. When the disjointed shamrock got on the highway, everyone could rest for a while. The kidnappers knew that they had about two and a half hours of quiet driving in the right lane before having to exit the highway, and the pursuers calmed down to find that they could easily get lost in the stream of cars around them. But maybe they calmed down too much, because when the van turned, Kate, noticing a shallow hit on the radio, and even more so, Max, watching her brake lights, had to do something to make it to the descent where the peaceful four-lane ride ended. And the persecution has begun, when those in front must not have the slightest suspicion that someone is watching them, and the pursuers must not lose sight of those in front. Now the real struggle for the abductees has begun. Herbert and Sylvia lay bound on the floor with gags in their mouths, looking at each other worried about their fate and each other's. They didn't know about Kate Sloan following them. All the less so about Max, who, rather than thought of Lin than them, began to hope that the kidnappers would lead him. Chapter 23 Under the old man's feet, pebbles crunched lightly on the path that led around his lavish house. The man was walking on a cold morning, puffing a great blend of Virginia tobacco from Brazil and North America from his Dunhill pipe, which gives the tobacco its original sweetness and freshness, Burely's tobacco, which adds fullness, all complemented by Modern Cavendish - seven types of tobacco that add a slight acidity to the blend. . The stubborn heaven, which did not intend to wet the Man's branded suit Ede & Ravenscroft (they also dress the British royal family), was a pleasant backdrop for sorting restless thoughts and planning further steps to be taken to the intended goal. The old body, still proudly erect, was supported by the old gentleman with an ivory wand. He walked past the laurel hedge, stroking large, fresh leaves with his free hand. He always reminded himself that everything important around him was life, that he must not forget that, despite all his power and the deeds that lay behind him in history, he was still just a man. He pulled a small silver cell phone from the inside pocket of his suit and dialed a secret phone number. On the other hand, in addition to the obedient "Yes, sir?", The sound of the engine of a large car traveling at a relatively high speed could be heard. The man smiled at the imaginary eyes on the other side of the phone, spoke for another few tens of minutes, "Let both cars think you don't know about them!", Folded the phone, and slipped it back into his pocket. Kapitola 25 Chapter 24 Colonel Stodman mastered his work well. Lin Chang was 100 percent determined to die rather than indicate in any way the secret place in the mountains that Stodman was convinced existed. But the colonel had experience based on his many years of service in the CIA, and as he put it, "he has already forced bigger tough people than Lin to speak." After several days of starvation, beatings, and the presence of obscure drugs in the blood, a person is so weakened and resigned that he no longer has the strength to defend anything. However, Lin was a tougher nut to crack than the colonel had expected, so the former agent had to increase his persuasion caliber. With a rather annoyed look on his face, he placed a small electric shock device in front of Lin. At one end, he unwrapped a long, unimaginably weak wire from the holder. With the words "so dear lady, and now you will tell me what I want to hear!" Lin stretched the frightened wire between the two teeth so that the cold metal landed on the sensitive gum. When the colonel put the first burst of current into circulation, Lin knew that information would not be the only thing she would not keep because of the terrible pain. * Chapter 25 The dreadful terror and terror that completely overwhelmed William right after he jumped off the rock made him scream. Tears welled up in his eyes with the suffocating cold and dizzying speed he reached immediately after the rebound. William was drenched in cold sweat, and all the hair on his body bristled as his body could not cope with such a borderline situation. Then the young man gave up his fear. There was no other chance, so he tried to use it. He closed his eyes and fully focused on his jump, on his stay in this state, on the movement that should result in flight. Independent controlled flight of a person without the help of any devices or aids. Only with the use of air currents, body work and energies that the rest of us have forgotten to perceive. William plunged deep into a world where the SELF ceases to be me, but becomes a new energy. Energy sliding through space like a leaf, which no longer wanted to be part of a tree, but a separate unit of being independent of nothing. Not even on gravity. He didn't notice his body or the direction it was going. He tried to slow down the immense speed of free fall and to control himself so that he could get from the vertical to the horizontal. The last thing he felt were the branches whipping in his face and the cracking of his own bones. Then nothing. Chapter 26 The maneuver the black van performed in front of its pursuers was completely unexpected. When all three cars stretched into one imaginary line, the kidnappers' car was at its end, ie in a sharp bend to the right. Reassured, Kate Sloan kept her distance, realizing a little nervously that she was probably playing not only the role of the persecutor, but also the persecuted. Max Wecker had never watched anyone before, which resulted in a large number of errors. So Kate was more worried about the taxi behind her now, and Max himself had trouble chasing as such that the violent action of the black van had left them both completely unprepared. Her driver pulled the steering wheel to the left while cornering, turning the heavy car toward his pursuers in a single moment. He immediately shifted several gears uncompromisingly, rushing at full throttle to meet the surprised Kate and the shitty Max. Chapter 27 (what's going on with poor Lin ……… right now ..) Although it wasn't the right time, Max thought of his kidnapped girlfriend. But if Lin knew the danger Max was ……. The oncoming van greatly frightened the stunted Kate, who immediately pulled the steering wheel into the fields. The dark blue Ford Cortina danced in a group of several passionate half-brothers and, with his passenger and driver, threw a lot and gave her several directives with a steering wheel and other blows to the roof and side window. Kate was fainting. Hovering in the clouds, Max's eyes widened at the black danger rushing at him at about a hundred miles at that moment, blinking his left eye at the Ford's maneuvers in the field and pulling the steering wheel in the opposite direction, directly against the gravel embankment. The old cab crouched down, bounced off the massive feathers of the shock absorbers from the ground, and flew toward the clouds. The van's wheels were ordered to brake and obeyed immediately. But gravity was still pushing the car forward at considerable speed, so it whizzed past a flying taxi, swirling the dust of the road behind it. When the taxi finished its takeoff, a massive fall awaited him. Max bit his tongue and the strong pain woke him up. He turned the steering wheel back to the road and returned to the action. The van, meanwhile, stopped nearby and two men with automatic weapons ran out. The first spray showered the coughing Cortina, and the screaming Kate was voluntarily tipped out of her door into the temporary shelter behind her car. Then everything was like a slow silent film for Kate. Bullets bouncing off the car door panels, a blue-gray sky and clouds sliding uncompromisingly, a beaten taxi, and a young man jumping up from it, whom she had probably seen somewhere. His hand under her arm pulling her into the cab, the door, accelerating and then ……… .. Chapter 28 Colored wheels ran on the ceiling of the cave, and music sounded like a colonnade. The two violins rippled to the tones of Franz Lehár, and little William ran around his mother in denim shorts, bouncing merrily as he imitated a white-drawn carriage with spa guests. Then William woke up and tried to sit up with a sharp breath. The hand he wanted to lean on didn't listen to him, and he fell back on the bed. Suddenly, everything came to mind. As he went to the rock and then jumped, as he failed to turn the fall into a flight, then the trees, and then nothing. There was a cough at the other wall in the cave. William realized he was not alone in the room and looked in that direction. A young man with shaggy hair sat on the same bed where William lay, smiling amusedly. "So you woke up. That's enough, you're pretty famous here now. Everyone is talking about you. Some want to kill you and others are already inventing a monument to the hero. I just have no idea which there are more. Yeah, by the way, my name is Switch. " Kapitola 30 Chapter 29 The Bell 206L3 helicopter watched the entire scene from a distance. Masked men from the van fired several kilograms of ammunition into the escaping taxi, and when the fleeing car did not stop even then, they ran back to the van. She didn't start for a while, leaving the inexperienced taxi driver and his faint passenger enough time to create the necessary lead. That was enough for the helicopter pilot. He smiled, shook his head in disbelief, and walked back to the safe hiding place of the gray-blue sky. Chapter 30 After a few more kilometers of frantic driving ("what if they caught up with us"), a structure resembling a smaller ditched church with two other ground-floor structures adjoining the main building from the side in the shape of the letter L emerged from behind the trees and the somewhat quieter Kate. U, densely covered with surrounding vegetation. It was uncertain whether the kidnappers were heading right here or just passing through, so Max suggested moving a little further to give the impression that the place didn't attract their attention and then hide the car somewhere in the bushes and walk back. If the kidnappers pass, they can always go after them, and if they have already found their destination, at least they will not suspect that they are wandering around. Kate Sloan had a potato-shaped bulge on her forehead, and her jaw probably popped out of its hinges and came back, making Kate feel that someone had assembled her cheeks with hot screws and was now letting them cool slowly. As for the plans for the next moments, she basically agreed with Max. First, because she couldn't think of anything better, and second, because there was no time to come up with something perfect. Aunt's taxi roared into the thick bushes about a quarter of a mile from where the church stood, and Max hoped that if they still had to use it to pursue, the car would be able to get out of its rest area again. They drove into a swamp that was not visible from the road, and the front wheels quickly sank some ten-fifteen centimeters into the bay. Chapter 31 Dozens of pairs of heavy boots choked on military-style camouflaged helicopters with regular blows of reinforced soles. The impatient pilots were almost in the air when a heavy side door slammed behind the last passengers and machines not unlike hulking insects peeled off the ground. The cold morning sun shone on the meadows below, and the steel beetles beneath them cast huge huge shadows that swallowed the carpets of swaying daisies. Far where their destination awaited, the same sun warmed the frosted slopes of the mountain slopes, searching the cold rays with cold rays. And the shadows, as if foreshadowing the impending events of destruction, stretched their faces beyond the horizon. Chapter 32 A veiled figure aimed in the air at the five-meter-long rock eye that formed the entrance to the cave, which served as a marodka's room. The arms outstretched in front indicated the direction of the flying body, and even in this position the man could feel the inner grandeur and dignity. Then the Teacher landed on a short platform, adjusted his ornate robes, and set out for the bowels of the mountain. William was coughing up a bite that took him by surprise at the time, as he had a story told about the tenth time by Switch about how several members of the Brotherhood had teased several girls in the park. One of them struggled again and again from one of the young men that it would be enough for her to be able to fly and laugh and laugh until the provoked young man got up, detached himself from the ground, and circled a nice wheel over the heads of those below. . Laughing boys still looked up at him as Master entered. The laughter faded like an echo swallowed by the maw of a forest. "Good morning, lads," the oncoming man smiled weakly and sat on the edge of William's bed. William got up on his bed and looked at the man in front of him with growing apprehension. The teacher rolled up the hood of his head and looked into William's eyes. "I wanted to talk to you, you know what." The young man nodded silently. "What you did was incomprehensible stupidity," he began, "irresponsibility and gambling with your life. Nothing that concerns prestige and nothing that arises from anger is worth a person's life. Some here in the Nest make you a hero and think that your act is a thing to follow. I met with the other Teachers to discuss how to approach the whole thing and how to close it, and the conclusion is: everyone in the nest here is free, everyone has a choice of how to deal with their lives. Nevertheless, if the Brotherhood is to function as a community, it needs to have certain rules. And your act, William, is certainly out of these rules. So if you want to continue to be a member of our Brotherhood, you need to respect his unwritten rules. ”The teacher got up and looked at the two young men in front of him. "You two, though you probably don't know it yet, have a lot in common." As he walked through the hole in the rock, he put his hood on his head, took two quick steps, and disappeared as quietly as he had appeared. Chapter 33 Max and Kate walked carefully through the trees along the road they had come here. They both felt exhausted from the long pursuit, and their battered bodies showed their injuries with each movement. "What are you, a woman?" Why were you watching us? ”Max didn't give it to the penetrating cubs. "I'm Kate Sloan, a New York Visitor reporter," Kate said through sore jaws. "But you're more likely to tell me what you are. A bunch of flutes that can fly by the way? Or are you some wizard, or what? ” "Who knows what you saw. You probably had a long night ’.” "Look, don't be rude, I know what I saw and you know it too. So don't tell me about long nights here. " "When you think about it," Max whispered, crouching down, grabbing Kate's arm in his upper arm, and pointing toward the church that appeared in front of them. Kate hissed in pain as he squeezed the sore spot and pulled her arm away. But she had already noticed what the young friend was showing her. A black van arrived at the slow pace from the right and turned toward the church. Maybe they didn't mind the presence of a crazy journalist and a snort. On the one hand, they are both unarmed, and on the other hand, the Chinese girl has already spoken anyway …… Kapitola 35 Chapter 34 Today, Switch's convalescence was to end in a completely different way than he had anticipated. William's fellow patient was taking a short morning nap, as his tormented body was not yet able to withstand prolonged activity without fatigue. William himself was taken to rehabilitation early in the morning by bathing in a mixture of herbs that accelerated the healing of broken bones and bruises. The other inhabitants of Hnízd were just experiencing a completely normal training morning focused on a slow ascent to a minimum height from the ground and endurance in levitation for at least 10 seconds. The events of the next moments thus caught them completely unprepared. A squadron of masked helicopters appeared in the unspoiled nature of the mountain range as the riders of the Apocalypse in Eden. Their arrival paralyzed the flowery hills with the same force as the unsuspecting inhabitants of forests, rock overhangs and the Nest itself. Firing missiles strategically sent to perhaps all flammable places in the area fulfilled their intended purpose. Panic gripped everything alive, and so frightened birds flew out of the bushes to death, flying back and forth in confusion, from place to place. The human inhabitants of glades, gorges and rock meshes manifested themselves in the same natural way. The roar of the machines only occasionally allowed him to hear screams or to see figures running around in the wilderness of the ruthless flames and tufts of ubiquitous smoke. The noise was awakened by a noise that didn't remind him of anything he'd heard to this day. He sat on his bed tidy high in a rock's eye and listened. Then, on legs still too weak, he tried to reach the edge of the cave to look out and down into the valley. Exhausted, he slid his face along the rock face, leaning his right hand against the cold stone. Then the still calm and open eye of the cave entrance wept with three lines of black ropes, and several masked men descended on the short ledge before entering. Switch knew he was wrong, but his body wasn't ready for any attempt at resistance. Several uncompromising arms gripped him, and a rag soaked in a strong anesthetic carried him very quickly into the realm behind the mirror. Chapter 35 Max Wecker and Kate Sloan could not agree on how to proceed. They both embarked on a surveillance action, watching someone, but they didn't think about what they would do when they reached their destination. "Herb and Sylvia have been taken in, so Lin will most likely be there, so let's go in and do something about it," Max rushed from the bushes, but Kate held him back. "That you're worth your girl and that you want to save your two friends, you've explained to me several times, but you haven't told me that you want to be killed. " "She's not my girl at all, take care of yourself, dear lady," Max snapped, blushing slightly. "If you weren't rude, the girls would just flock to you," Kate stabbed him. "And if you're worth it, you've been doing something other than writing about ducks in Canada for a long time." "So you read it?" Kate replied, a little curiously, a little provocatively. "It simply came to my notice then. You were talking about it when I dragged you into a taxi. " "Sure. I know for sure what I am saying and what I am not. But now I wonder what we will do, young man. " "Let's go," Max ended the conversation and climbed out of the bushes, followed by Kate, who was trying to hold him back. Crouched, they ran in the shadows of the trees so that they could not be seen at first sight, and at the same time they fought together whether they would go forward or backward. Their tugging on their hands, elbows, and clothing was interrupted by the crack of a shot, and the bullet burrowed into a cracked branch leaning next to Max's ear. Max was terrified, and Kate cried out weakly, and they both instinctively lunged for the tree whose branch had just saved Max's existence in this world. Several more shots made it clear that the attackers knew exactly where their targets were hiding. The situation seemed clearly laid out, and the outcome in the form of two limp bodies lying in the shadow of a tired maple seemed most likely. But at that time, the observer ceased to be an observer, and a small sports helicopter emerged from behind the trees carrying salvation on board. The machine gun fire helped the young man and the journalist to safety, provided by a pile of rocks, and the two men he had landed nearby had already worked to rescue the three young people inside. After a while, the shooting and screams were replaced by a relaxing silence. Herbert's voice, heard from around the corner of the building, sounded like a paradise to Max, half-mad, "Come out, you hero! It's all over. " Kate stuck her head out carefully and looked around, as if death could still bark out of nowhere. Then they both got up and walked toward Max's friends and their mutual rescuers. They learned that the helicopter had been sent by Master to them. No one knew where he got the information on the kidnappings or the surveillance. But that was already growing in Max's concern. He saw that at the main entrance to the complex lay a tied bald man in dirty linen trousers, the other assailants were, according to the rescuers, dead, but Max was missing one person. Chapter 36 Max walked down the corridors and rooms of the complex in a desperate attempt to find Lin. He stumbled against blasted masonry and scattered pieces of furniture, peering into every dark corner. He finally entered a room furnished like an office. The helicopter pilot knelt behind the fallen table and leaned toward something on the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes as Max, whose gut tightened like a loop of rope on the convict's neck in an instant, forced his legs closer. There, in the midst of the confusion, disorder, and destruction, lay the helpless girl he cared most about in the world. He forced his weak legs to walk up to her in an instant and slumped to his knees. Leaning on the pilot's shoulder, he experienced such a powerful emotional and nervous storm that he thought his body couldn't stand it. He didn't know if his stomach would hold the sight of Lin so terribly humiliated and miserable that he could never have imagined her. At the same time, he felt such a strong need to embrace her and hold her in his arms and protect her forever from the whole world that he was surprised by the feeling. "Come on, young man, so I don't have to raise you two here," the pilot said, smiling at Max. "Don't worry, she'll be fine, just a few doctors will have to look at her." "My God," Max said, and unable to bear such a large portion of feelings, he got up and ran out of the room. And as he ran through the corridors, his unbelievable footsteps roaring beneath his feet, he wished to be anywhere in the world, only for God's sake, terribly far from here. Chapter 37 The city received the refugees from the mountain slopes quite kindly. The attackers did not intend to kill, and so the wounded, even without harm to their health, were transported to civilization and left to their fate. In a small unplastered brick cafe, Teacher and one of his students, William, sat by a large window, talking. Teacher comforted William over a cup of hot coffee, trying to explain that the situation might not be as hopeless and disastrous as it looked. "The most important thing is always the situation, not the external, but the state of things in your soul. If you don't let circumstances engulf you, no one else can. Let the bad thoughts come, but let them go as well. If you harbor anger or sadness, you do not allow your soul to live. Don't think about who has the right to something, who can do what, who owns the world. Your world belongs to you and no one else. If you sit here and breathe, you have everything you need for life. And let the love of what you love triumph over anger at people, things, or situations that have hurt you. ” "But it's not possible," Will said dissatisfiedly, "everyone who has money, acquaintances, property, has power. And what happened to the Nest is proof of that. It is proof that these people can do anything. That everything will work out for them. That nothing will stop them. Not people like you. " "Property belongs to life as well as property," the man said with a kind look. "People have or don't have. But this distinguishes them only slightly. People differ the most from how they handle their life situation. Problems do not escape any of us, but only bring someone to their knees and force them to get mad at everything and everyone around them. And we all have a choice. You too at this moment. " "Why did you actually want to talk to me, wasn't that the reason, was it?" William looked up from the table and looked at his Teacher's blue-gray pupils, hiding things that the man hadn't talked about for a long time. "No, that really wasn't the only reason I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to talk to you about the day you climbed the rock and jumped into that depth. " "Why return to it. I made a mistake and learned the sounds "Will looked annoyed. "It's not what you did. It's about what I did. " William looked at his Teacher quite surprised and incomprehensible. The context that was to come to light in the next few moments should have surprised the young man even more. "When you were sitting a short distance from the others and thinking about your failed attempt, I watched you from afar. Then, when you jumped out and went to the bathroom, it was clear to me that you were going to do something serious. I followed you and saw your determination, in every step of your way it was possible to observe that you would not return the same as before. I was wondering what to do. At the same time, of course, I was careful not to see me, you would think that I was watching over you like a little boy… " "Isn't it?" William smiled. "Well, actually a little, but admit it, it was a boy. I hid a short distance from where you stopped, and when you jumped, I threw myself behind you. I was just worried about you. "" I helped you choose the leap, directing the power where it was needed. But not until I started to feel like you could kill yourself. " "So I can't do it," the student said sadly. "If you hadn't helped me, I would have been a mess." "You did it yourself." "Just," the man paused for a moment, looking somewhere through the glass window into the distance that ended somewhere in the past, "I just felt debt and responsible." "Against me? I don't understand, "Will didn't understand. "You know, William, you should know something about yourself. It should actually be happy news, but it's such a difficult situation for me that I probably can't give it as happy. The fraternity, as you know, brings together and helps young people who have some life difficulties and most of them have no or dysfunctional family. " William stared at the men at each other. "But I don't differ from them in that, I don't have anyone either." The man, who had once embodied strength and perhaps all the inner balance of the world, was now gripping the edge of the table a little convulsively for himself, and William seemed to be hunching over a little. He couldn't look the young man in the eye, and although he'd tried the moment a thousand times, now that it was here, it was about a million times harder. When he finally decided to react, he turned his gaze to the young man in front of him. "When my first son was born…" "You have …?" "Please don't interrupt me now." for a while… "" I reacted cowardly then, I wasn't ready for something like that…. "" I ran away from the woman I lived with and came back after two years. "" I promised to stay forever and it looked like it that we will function as a family and… " "I don't understand why I do that at all." "And then our second son was born… .. and I ran away again and never came back." Suddenly, Teacher got up from his chair and threw his jacket over his hand. In the confusion that prevailed in his mind, and therefore in all things around him, he looked around the few faces in the room, as if searching for a fulcrum, his eyes darting from the rising Teacher to his hands lying in his lap and the world around him. ceased to be dimensioned. "Just before he left, the teacher turned to the table for the last time with a pained expression on his face and said the only thing he could still say at that moment. "Find the Switches. And forgive me. ”And then Teacher left the cafe as empty as the morning city could be, and at this moment so full of all that suddenly seemed to be born out of emptiness and struck William deep in his heart and in all his essence, shaking him. until then, an unclear and incomplete existence in the foundations. Chapter 38 It was dark when the Switch awoke from the intoxication, so that the objects around it barely surfaced. Still dazed, he sat down on the bed on which he lay, trying to orient himself in space. In this he was frightened by a quiet voice from somewhere in the middle of the dark room, which shattered from space like the moon from behind the clouds. "I'll explain everything to you." Switch jumped in fright. "Who are you?" He asked, trying to see the face of the man who spoke. The old man sitting in his chair flicked the switch, and a dim light flooded the room, revealing the Man's sharp profile. "Why am I here - and what do you want from me?" The young man fired. "I spent a lot of money getting you to where you are. So I can talk to you. " "And you couldn't talk to me without the theater around? All you had to do was come and say, "Hello, young man, I want to talk to you, do you have time?" "You didn't think that, did you?" "At least that's what normal people do." "Shut up and don't interrupt me," the Man said in a low but firm voice, then began to speak. "I have as much money as I ever wanted to have and I bought everything I could think of. When I couldn't have something good, I took it badly. Such is my nature. And it's the fault of this world, not mine, that this is how it works and works. But now I am an old man, and a man of this age will recognize when his time is approaching. And then he starts to take stock and look for things he still wants to say - let's say. " The man paused for a moment, looking into one of the dark corners of the room. Switch was still sitting on the bed, watching the man in front of him in disbelief. The man really fit into it all. Even in the twilight, the house looked ostentatious, displaying its uniqueness, its exclusivity. The character of things reflects the character of the people who use them. The man returned to his contemplation, half addressed to the young man in bed and half to himself. "So I tracked down the guy who left my daughter with two little boys around her neck in an apartment she didn't have. She renounced me and nothing could force her to overcome her pride and go live with me or at least get help. She didn't survive the filth and poverty, and I never forgave the holocaust. ”There was anger mixed with regret in the old man's voice. "And what has that got to do with me?" took advantage of Switch's pauses. But the man, as if he could not hear him, continued. "He started an association with a couple of similar people and started" helping "young people. But I think they tore them away from reality and didn't help. " Some things were starting to clear up for Switch. "And before you start asking the meaning of why I'm telling you and why you're here today, I'd rather tell you myself. Besides, I managed to track down the eldest of my daughter's two sons, and that's you. And I wasn't going to watch them destroy you too. I let you be attacked, believe me, you wouldn't go otherwise, and I planned to take you from the hospital to me and explain everything to you. And I also decided to put a stop to his association, which “." Switch was already boiling in Switch's veins. "So for some nonsensical selfish personal reason, you had me killed, destroyed the Nest, and smashed everything we believed in there?" What was able to keep us afloat and bring us back to life? Sure, we learned things from ancient doctrines there, and often they were things that went beyond common comprehension, but that didn't mean they were bad or useless. If I understood correctly, our Teacher was the one for the alarm clock you were talking about and my father for the other. And this person who gave us all hope and strength to live is of no value to you as a person? So you had to break everything he was trying to do? I admit that as a father he was disappointed, and I will have to deal with it myself, but as a person he is largely a role model for me. And no one will take it from me, and not you at all. " The next morning, a luxury car drove the Switch away from that Man's mansion through a wrought-iron gate. Although the two had a lot of blood in common, their destinies and natures were so different that it was unthinkable for them to have any relationship with each other. At that moment, something definitely died in the old man without being fulfilled. Kapitola 40 Chapter 39 This was old Kate Sloan again. She slammed the door on the "snotty sexist bastard," as she had just publicly called her boss, and ran out of the New York Visitor building with her tousled hair and broken heel. "I'll give him photomontages! I will give him close meetings of the third kind. Nerd one. Let him keep chewing on his stinky cigars and let someone else crawl up his ass. Not me anymore. ”Kate Sloan, now a former famous New York Visitor reporter, a slice for garbage collectors and taxi drivers, set out to meet a new destiny with her own vigor. Chapter 40 After a few days in the hospital, Lin looked a little better and agreed that they could allow visitors to enter. The first was already standing outside the door. For the first time in his life, Max brought flowers to a woman and he really cared. When he entered the door, Lin watched him with eyes other than before. She knew from the police what had happened the day she was rescued and wanted to ask Max something important. But Max was the first to say, "Hi, so how are you?" Do you want to be better? ”He asked, setting the flower on the bedside table and moving the chair to her bed. She smiled at him and nodded. "Max, I want to ask you something. Can I? ” "Why can't you ask something? Ask what you want. ”Max sat in a stool, looking at Embarrassed, Lin, huddled in white duvets. "When they found me, you know, they said I was in a terrible state and stuff and I wanted to ask you, well, I just want to ask, if you saw me then, was he there?" Max remembered the scene almost immediately. Impoverished Lin lying on the floor, the floor bearing traces of the torture Lin had to undergo. Max knew what Lin was asking. And he also knew he couldn't tell her he was there. That what he saw was the scariest thing he had ever seen in his life, but that he also realized what was important to him in the world, or who. It will show her differently if she wants to. And then Max answered "No" and knew he could forgive this little lie without remorse. Chapter 41 For someone who thought he was alone in the world, finding a family member is like being born again. But they were both too full of their own feelings to deal with, so they agreed to give them time. They needed to compare all the events of the past days, weeks and years in their heads and find their place in the world. And start thinking about the new Nest, bring together the members of the Brotherhood, and live again as before. But that's all a different story. There are places where some stories end and others begin. We are in such a place now. We're on the roofs. On the roofs of the world, where water is bubbling in wild streams and trees are swaying in greeting in the mighty wind in their crowns. Where people have always bowed to the powerful deities of nature and tried to merge with their energy. On the roofs of cities, where people look into the distance and hope to find new hopes. They hope to find themselves. Epilogue Switch sat on the concrete floor of the roof of the house in which he lived. He wasn't thinking about anything. He let his thoughts drift slowly, and the bloody sun, which shone through the twilight, gave the whole scene a hypnotic touch.

Brotherhood The text of this book is already written in its entirety, I just didn't throw it here yet. Dětský svět ještě do určité doby nebývá natolik svázán s realitou, kterou mu vnucuje svět dospělých, že si zachovává vjemy, obzory a možnosti, později už nemyslitelné. Věci, kterým uvěříte, že skutečně existují, tvoří váš svět, stejně jako činy, v naší racionální realitě neproveditelné, dokáže mozek neovlivněný našimi "pravdami", neodsoudit předem k nezdaru. Chlapcovy oči se upřeně dívaly do prázdna, jako by tam někde vepředu visel ve vzduchu bod, o který se lze opřít a zcela mu důvěřovat. Šestileté tělíčko spočívalo v pozici malého sedícího jogína na hrubě otesané prkenné podlaze na půdě starého městského domu. Začouzeným kulatým okýnkem ve štítu a škvírami v neudržované střeše vnikal dovnitř kromě růžovohnědého podvečerního světla i nenechavý vítr, pohrávající si se sukněmi, halenkami a ošoupanými kalhotami na šňůrách, natažených přes šířku poměrně velké, jinak opuštěné místnosti. Chlapcovy rysy byly uvolněné a myšlenky na nemilosrdný svět venku zmizely ve vesmírném prostoru daleko odsud. Tak jako už mnohokrát předtím ho přivedl instinkt sem nahoru zapomenout, uniknout, osvobodit se. Úkony, které prováděl, byly nenucené, přišly jakoby samo sebou odkudsi z hlubin srdce, které pokud posloucháme, dokáže nám vždy dobře poradit. Zavřel oči. Nechával vzduch pomalu proudit nosními průduchy a vnímal tento proudící vzduch jako samostatnou entitu, jako zhmotněnou přírodní sílu, kterou teď používal ve svůj prospěch. Proudící vzduch mu pomáhal oddělit jeho tělo od vnějšího světa, od reality příliš neúnosné pro malého kluka, který si, ač to nebyla tak úplně pravda, přišel častokrát na všechno sám. Odděloval své tělo od pomalu chladnoucího vzduchu kolem a cítil se báječně silný. V oblasti srdce se mu rozhořel oheň. Oheň nádherně ochromující všechny končetiny a vysílající silnou energii ne nepodobnou energii elektrické do řečiště žil, a naplňující zavřené oči neviditelným světlem. Světlem nové budoucnosti. Světlem bez stínu. A v tom okamžiku si chlapec beze strachu uvědomil, že se vznáší asi 30 centimetrů nad zemí. Přes uvolněnou a soustředěnou tvář přeběhl poprvé po dlouhé době nepatrný úsměv vítězů. Kapitola první - Otec James Pollock si o sobě nikdy nemyslel, že je zbabělec. Teď stál před nočním barem nejspíš nevalné pověsti, ruka v kapse žmoulala krabičku cigaret, on si přišel jako nejhorší zrádce a zbabělost mu přišla jako jeho druhé jméno. Stejně zareagoval už tehdy, před šesti lety, když se mu narodil první syn. Tehdy také utekl sám před sebou spíše než před zodpovědností, a už tehdy dokázal přijít na to, co, nebo spíše kdo, nese vinu za jeho nechlapské chování. Jeho otec, Stanley Pollock. Osoba vážená i nenáviděná, člověk s vlivem na polovinu okolního světa a s minimální snahou o fungování vlastní rodiny. Stanley Pollock, kterého bylo možno nazvat nadprůměrně úspěšným průmyslníkem, milovníkem umění, snobem, sobeckým majitelem všeho, co mělo nějakou cenu, ale nikdy ho nebylo možno nazvat chlapem. Nebo otcem. Všechno, co kdy Stanley Pollock udělal, mělo smysl, a tím smyslem byl úspěch. I svého jediného syna vychovával, či spíše nechal vychovávat tak, aby z něj vyrostl necitelný správce a majitel impéria, které by měl zdědit. Malý James svého otce nenáviděl. Ani ne tak pro nečisté obchody, které stály za jeho úspěchem, ani za vztah k němu samému, ale spíš pro to, jakým způsobem dával všem okolo najevo, že může mít, co se mu zachce, a že mu v tom nikdo na světě nedokáže zabránit. Nejhorší na tom bylo to, že v tomto přesvědčení měl jeho otec víceméně pravdu. James strčil do dveří baru Zelená kočka a kolem jeho těla se skoro násilně vyvalil ven z místnosti šedobílý kouř smíšený s pachem rozlitých kořalek. James překonal dva menší schůdky a zvedl hlavu. Přesně tohle jeho rozbolavělá duše potřebovala. Středně velký bar ve velkém městě, se zapadlými kouty ve stínu, s barmanem, kterého zajímají jen lidé v dosahu světla na baru, tlumená hudba přehlušující poslední zvuky z ulice, které se prodraly přes ošoupané rohože na stěnách. James došel k barovému pultu a objednal si sklenku bourbonu. Tu vypil téměř okamžitě a objednal si další. "Šéfe, a nedáte si rovnou celou lahvinku?" zažertoval barman a jeho osmahlá tvář s několika jizvami pod okem a nad rtem se pokusila o slabý povzbudivý úsměv. "A víte že jo?" odtušil budoucí alkoholový uprchlík "Dneska potřebuju bejt sám a tenhle přítel vypadá, že mě nezklame", vzal od zjizveného muže chladnou láhev a misku s ledovými kostkami a ještě nezlomeným krokem poodešel ke krátké dřevěné lavici, stojící u zdi. Vybledlý obraz šedohnědé hliněné vázy s lučním kvítím, který visel na stěně u Jamesovy hlavy přesně vystihoval stav jeho duše. Dříve čerstvé živé silné květiny znávaly svůj účel, směr a stav svojí existence, ale teď, ač netušily pořádně proč, byly kýmsi vytrženy ze svého původního stavu bytí a bledly v baru na okraji města. Jamesovi Pollockovi se narodil druhý syn. Kapitola druhá - Číňan Quiang Lee pochází z jedné z nejsevernějších čínských provincií, Liao - ning, která je sice typickou chudou, na zemědělství závislou oblastí, ale přesto je ve světě poměrně slavná. V provincii Liao-ning se totiž v době ne dávno minulé našly zkameněliny takzvaných opeřených dinosaurů, kteří by měli být důkazem příbuznosti dinosaurů a ptáků. Quiang byl před dvěma lety vyslán ze vznikající lékařské fakulty pekingské univerzity na studijně "misijní" pobyt do Ameriky, aby zde jednak verboval mladé lékaře na kariéru venkovského doktora v Číně, jednak aby šířil myšlenky východní medicíny pomocí přednášek, besed, pořadů v médiích a podobně. Quiang vnímal své vyslání do západní civilizace jako poctu, jako důvěru vloženou v jeho schopnosti, v jeho zápal pro věc, v jeho nadšené mládí. Až nedávno se dozvěděl, že se ho tím vlastně zbavili, že na výsledky jeho práce, tím spíše na něho, nikdo nečeká. Kdyby se kolegové z univerzity dozvěděli, že se ztratil nebo zemřel, možná by si někteří ani nevzpomněli, o kom je řeč. Přes své nadšení pro šíření myšlenek, které nejen on sám považoval za podstatné, objevné až neuvěřitelné, mu jeho práce nepřinášela ani pocity zadostiučinění, ani dostatečnou finanční dotaci pro pobyt ve Státech. Samotná situace přebývání nejdříve v levných bytech společně s pěti a více studenty, později v křesťanských ubytovnách pro mladé a potřebné, by mnoho lidí, ještě navíc vzdálených přes půl zeměkoule od domova, určitě zlomila sama o sobě. Přidáte - li si k tomu finanční nouzi, akutní nedostatek přátel nebo alespoň známých ochotných pomoci, a navíc definitivní zářez od lidí z domova, kteří někde hluboko v podvědomí byli vašimi potenciálními vysvoboditeli, ztratíte i vy přinejmenším na chvíli víru v sebe sama. Quiang, který nikdy dříve nijak zvlášť neholdoval alkoholu, seděl teď v baru, který sám o sobě vypadal dost hrozně, ale přesně to vyhovovalo plánům zneuznaného nadšence. Chtěl se poprvé pořádně opít v knajpě nehrubšího zrna a na chvíli zkusit spláchnout celou tu mizérii posledních dnů, týdnů a měsíců. Koneckonců to tak dělá v téhle zemi každý druhý. Jediným, kdo trochu narušil Číňanovu představu o ztroskotancích v nepraném oblečení, s hrubou, do nějakého groteskního šklebu staženou tváří, byl mladý muž asi v jeho letech, poměrně vysoký, s rovnou vyrovnanou chůzí, s nakrátko střiženými vlasy a šedomodrýma očima, v tříčtvrtečním kabátu z vepřovice, který právě vešel. Protože Quiang seděl dost daleko od baru, neslyšel mužův krátký rozhovor s barmanem, ale podle toho, s jakou rychlostí do sebe ten člověk, který se sem minimálně na první pohled nehodil, vpravil dvě skleničky něčeho ostřejšího, přišlo Quiangovi, že tenhle člověk má nějaký problém. Číňan ještě přesně nevěděl z jakého důvodu, ale tušil, že jeho cesta, a cesta toho muže, se jistojistě měly potkat. Kapitola třetí - V kuchyni Dianne Pollocková nikdy nechtěla sdílet svět svého otce a její tchán, Sydney Pollock, taktéž nenaplňoval její představu o normálním chlapovi. James, její manžel, byl z trochu jiného těsta. S citlivou duší, s bláznivými nápady, se schopností ženu příjemně překvapit, odvážný a čestný. Ale něco podivného si ze svého dětství přece jenom přinesl. Dianne nedovedla pochopit, proč utekl tenkrát, když se jim narodil Switch, tím méně chápala, proč když si tehdy všechno vyříkali, když slíbil, že to bylo naposledy, když vypadal, že všechno pochopil, všechno si srovnal, proč už je zase pryč. Malý William teď spal po dlouhém vysilujícím pláči a jeho maminka vítala u dveří svého otce - bezcharakterní osobu ostře řezaných rysů, s aristokratickými způsoby, ale povahou nemilosrdného buldoka. Dianne vlastně nevěděla, proč po třech dnech, kdy James zmizel, zavolala právě jemu, ale možná to bylo proto, že nikoho jiného, komu by se mohla svěřit, neměla. Maminka jim zemřela po pozdě rozpoznaném zápalu plic, když Dianne bylo 12 let. Možná tehdy se její otec tak zatvrdil a nic lidského mu nepřicházelo známé. Ale nejspíš byl takový už před tím. Dianniny uplakané oči se dívaly do tvrdých očí jejího otce. "Nevím, proč sis ho vůbec brala" vybuchl Bill Stark na svou dceru. "Psst, ať nevzbudíš malýho" sykla na něj s vyčítavým pohledem. "Je to obyčejnej srab a navíc není normální, copak tohleto dělá normální chlap?" "Že zrovna ty mluvíš o tom, co dělají normální chlapi, ty kterej ses uzavřel před celým světem a za mnou přijdeš jen když ti jednou za pár let volám o pomoc." "Přišel jsem se podívat, v jakým srabu to tu žiješ, v čem tě tady nechal, a samozřejmě jsem tě i s klukama přišel odvézt k sobě na Spacely Height." "To je mi jasný, že ses přijel akorát posmívat a hlavně dokázat, že ty bys něco takovýho nedopustil" prohodila rozhořčeně Dianne. "A do toho tvýho temnýho zámku s tebou taky nepojedu, jednak bych musela stokrát denně poslouchat, jak jsem špatná a k čemu všemu bys přirovnal Jamese a jednak bych tam stejně jako tady byla sama. To je totiž ten hlavní problém, kterej u tebe je. Chceš bejt sám a chováš se podle toho." "Já ti, moje milá, řeknu jednu věc. To, že seš v pěkným srabu, je úplně zřetelný na první pohled, a že nemáš jinou možnost, než jít se mnou bydlet stejně nemáš, tak nemel hlouposti a zabal si svoje věci a věci dětí, a jedeme, dole nás čeká řidič." V Dianne už vřela krev. "Chtěla jsem, abys přišel a popovídal si se mnou. Abys byl zase jednou můj táta, kterej mě podpoří. A ne abys mi říkal, co mám a co nemám dělat. A navíc nechci před problémama utíkat." "Jako tvůj muž?" opatrně, ale přeci jízlivě se zeptal její otec. Podívala se na něj, odvrátila od něj hlavu a zabořila oči do dlaní. Pro Billa Starka, jenž se zvedal a měl se k odchodu, byla tahle reakce spojená s pláčem jasným důkazem pro to, že měl zase jednou pravdu. Kapitola čtvrtá - Dítě ulice Šestiletý chlapec, kterému pro žár v jeho očích nikdo neřekl jinak než Switch, byl přesně tím typem dítěte, které se díky okolnostem svého života muselo naučit chovat dospěleji, než ostatní děti jeho věku. Hlavním rysem dospěláckého přístupu bylo to, že se naučil postarat se sám o sebe. Celé dny trávil venku a hledal si kamarády nejen mezi svými vrstevníky. Umouněný pobíhal nezastavitelným klokotem přeplněného velkoměsta, tu se zastavil u malého barevného krámku, tu se posadil v parku na lavičce a pozoroval kachny, jak se honí po jezírku. Ale nejradši měl město v čase soumraku. Narůžovělé záclony slunečního odchodu vždycky vytvořily neopakovatelnou atmosféru. Poslední zbytky zlatých paprsků jako by se snažily toho dne ještě alespoň jednou, ještě naposledy vyburcovat město z opilé letargie usínání po namáhavém dni. Slunce se nerado vzdává svojí nadvlády a tenhle zápas Switch miloval. Když potom temnota vyhraje, na celý svět padne nevysvětlitelný mír daný prostou existencí noci a její neoddiskutovatelnou nadvládou. Tehdy bývá jindy družný chlapec nejraději sám se sebou. Se svými myšlenkami, se svými sny, se svým životem. Tehdy se rád uzavírá do svého kouzelného světa, kde jsme každý sám, odpoutáni od šedivé reality toho, co jsme si v touze po pokroku vytvořili a co se nám nelíbí. Tehdy ale také velmi silně dokáže vnímat kohokoliv jiného, který do tohoto světa duše také vstoupil. Ale ne každý, kdo má mimořádné schopnosti, s nimi zamýšlí činit dobro. Switch byl ještě příliš malý, aby věděl o všech nebezpečích číhajících kolem, ale byl natolik vnímavý, aby cítil, že se něco děje. Kapitola pátá - Hutong "Quiangu, prosím tě, vysvětli mi nějak lidsky, nějak normálně, co přesně se dělo poslední tři dny, taky mi vysvětli proč tebe, vlastně naprosto neznámého člověka, držím kolem ramen, a hlavně, z jakého obskurního důvodu stojím v letištní hale někde v Číně." James cítil, že za posledních dvaasedmdesát hodin byl o vlastní vůli protažen sérií snových událostí, příběhů, neskutečných scenérií, jeho tělo se snažilo všemožnými způsoby připomenout, co všechno během té doby muselo vypít, vstřebat nebo odbourat. Přesně tohohle stavu si přál při vstupu k Zelené kočce dosáhnout. Usmívající se obličej drobného Asiata tvořil dokonalou tečku k už tak perfektně a naprosto cizímu prostředí. Letištní hala žijící hemžícími se davy lidiček cestujících kamsi, sedící postavy unavené dlouhým pobytem v letadle, skupinky smějící se, hádající se, plačící z rozličných důvodů, spící muži, do prázdna civící děti, pod nohy se pletoucí psi, ženy shánějící své děti jako kvočny kuřátka, prostě letištní shon. "Pojď, všechno ti vysvětlím později, teď se hlavně musíme odtud dostat, trochu se posilnit a odpočinout si" táhl za ruku Quiang Jamese ven z letištní haly. Když se prodrali pralesem těl k východu, Jamesovi konečně naplno došlo, kde to vlastně je. Modrofialovým podvečerem proplouvaly kolem desítky taxíků a jejich hluční řidiči se okrádali o pasažéry navzájem. Světla vozů kulila své oči na všechny ty nově příchozí; zmačkané, unavené a nakonec vyplivnuté bonbóny rozmařilých kovových létavců. James se trochu usmál a celá jeho přítomnost tady mu přišla nekonečně absurdní a směšná. Quiang ho nechal osobním myšlenkám a usmívajícího ho vtlačil spolu se sebou na zadní sedadla jednoho omláceného taxíka. Cesta do centra města probíhala vlastně klidně. Tedy na čínské poměry. Hned na letišti do nich někdo vrazil, což se pak opakovalo asi ještě dvacetkrát a vždy to bylo doprovázeno nekonečným štěbetáním řidiče jejich vozu s řidiči vozů ostatních. James už se ani nesnažil pátrat po tom, kam vlastně jedou; věděl, že míří do centra a rozuměl ještě jedno slovo, které mu však cíl jejich cesty nijak zvlášť nepřiblížilo. Hutong. Slovo hutong prý původně znamenalo studnu - tedy místo, kde se životy lidí protínaly. Postupem času tento svůj význam ztrácelo a dnes se tak nazývá pomalu ale jistě mizející takzvané staré město. V samotném Pekingu najdete taková místa už jen dvě - dvě poslední místa bez zásahu moderní všepožírající civilizace. Bez politiky, digitalizace, budoucnosti. Pro hutong jsou typické spletité uličky, někde široké až deset metrů, jinde jen 40centimetrů úzké. Oprýskané zdi s uraženými dvířky, přes šířku ulice se táhnoucí šňůry, asi na prádlo, a všudypřítomné oči. Oči lidí, sedících někde v koutku své chudoby, oči věcí, toužících po uchopení a znovu se pokusit nabýt užitečnosti, oči míst, která nechtějí být zapomenuta. James ty oči cítil a přestože se stmívalo, nenaháněly mu strach, spíš vyvolávaly otázky a soucit. Taxík zmizel za rohem a ponechal nesourodou dvojici světu naprosto odlišnému od toho na letišti. Tady už nebyla cítit vůně západního světa - tady voněl čas. Čas, který počkal na své poutníky, aby ho dohonili a aby jim mohl vyprávět. Vešli do jednoho z domků, kde Quiang představil Jamese starším manželům. Samozřejmě nemluvili anglicky, takže Quang vykládal a James se na ně usmíval. On vlastně sám nevěděl, co tady dělá, tím méně tedy chápal, co asi tak Quiang starouškům vypravuje. Ti ale chápavě přikyvovali a zdálo se, že nejsou ani nijak zvlášť překvapeni tím, že tady vidí bílého muže, spíš věnovali dojaté pohledy Quiangovi. Potom dva mladí muži osaměli a Quiang vysvětlil Jamesovi, že jsou to jeho teta se strýcem, a že velmi tíhnou k životu v hutongu, a že za chvilku bude jídlo. Po večeři z jakéhosi mletého masa (tu chuť James neznal, ale neptal se) šli všichni spát. Po alkoholovém útěku a všech těch přesunech to byl první opravdový osvobozující spánek za několik posledních dní. Kapitola šestá - Sen Když usínáme, vstupujeme do úplně jiné roviny bytí. Někdo tvrdí, že obrazy, které ve snu vidíme, jsou jen nelogickým sledem našich vzpomínek a představ, někdo zas položí život za pravdu o snech jako znameních shůry. Ale proč by sen měl být něčím od naší reality odtrženým? James viděl svého otce s vážnou tváří hledícího na svou starobylou knihovnu. Neodvažoval se na něj promluvit, ač stačilo natáhnout ruku a dotknout se ho. Jenom tam stál a vůbec nevypadal jako krutý majitel impéria. Najednou James byl svým otcem, přehlížel řady knih vázaných v kůži, očima přejížděl po jejich hřbetech a přemýšlel o tom, co je v životě vlastně důležité. Přemýšlel o tom, co tu po něm vlastně zůstane. Pak najednou James seděl v parku. Nevěděl, čí to jsou oči, kterými se dívá na svět, ale bylo to zvláštní. Svět byl barevný. Nereálný. Fialové provazce sálaly setmělým prostorem a vytvářely z okolního světa temnou duhovou síť. Provazce pluly prostorem bez ladu a skladu, aspoň na první pohled. Ale když se James podíval pozorněji, všiml si, že dělají malé komíhavé pohyby, jako by ….. jako by propátrávaly okolí. Ty, které zavadily o jeho tělo, okamžitě ožily a nasměrovaly se na jeho hlavu. James nevěděl ještě pořád kdo je, ale věděl velmi jistě, že to, co se děje, se mu nelíbí. A v tom byl zase někým jiným. Jeho oči spočinuly na kuchyňském stole u nich doma. Pozoroval praskliny ve dřevě a přemýšlel o smyslu toho všeho tady. Cítil se osaměle, ale nechtěl nic vzdávat. V postýlce spí malý kluk, tak malý, že o světě kolem neví ještě vůbec nic, a pro toho stojí za to žít. Já to dokážu. Kapitola sedmá - Plán Dva mocní mužové si potřásli pravicemi. Situace nebyla obchodní, přesto nálada nebyla uvolněná. Pravice byly naléhavé, hlasy suché a praktické. Ve Spacely Height vznikal Plán. Kapitola osmá - Loskuták Hlavní jídlo v Číně sestává z chodů jinak poskládaných, než jsou lidé ze západního světa zvyklí. Začíná se čajem (a ten jasmínový Jamesovi doopravdy chutnal), pokračuje se hlavním jídlem, v tomto případě to bylo mleté maso (James s mírným pousmáním přemýšlel, proč všechna masa raději rozemelou) v cukrovém těstíčku, pak přijde polévka a nakonec zákusek. Quiang po očku pozoroval, co změna prostředí dělá s jeho novým kamarádem a také rozjímal nad tím, jestli někdo z jeho původních čínských zaměstnavatelů ví, že je zpět. A jestli je vítán. Po jídle Quiang ukázal Jamesovi dům, protože včera na to nebyl čas. Typický dům v hutongu je přízemní stavba se dvorem, v němž často žije i několik rodin, navzájem nepříbuzných. Tahle skutečnost Jamese překvapila, nicméně do jeho života moc nezasáhla, protože v domě Quiangova strýce to tak nebylo. Někteří bývalí obyvatelé zemřeli, jiní se odstěhovali, ale po všech tu zůstaly všudypřítomné klece s nejroztodivnějšími opeřenci. Quiangův strýc neměl to srdce se s nimi rozloučit a navíc rád poslouchával jejich celodenní rozhovory. Někdy míval pocit, že jejich řeči rozumí a on se tak dozvídal jinak nedosažitelné historky o bývalých majitelích obyvatel klecí. Jamese nejvíce zaujal loskuták posvátný, který neustále pronášel "ni hao", neboli "dobrý den" a očekával, že mu ti zvláštní nelétaví tvorové budou odpovídat. Když se dosyta nasmáli a podiskutovali s loskutákem, šli se projít do města, protože některé věci bylo třeba probrat. Kapitola devátá - Wing Hvězdy nad New Yorkem se pokoušely překřičet světelným řevem elektrickou pýchu lidského pokolení dole. Momentálně svůj boj prohrávaly, ale z hlediska věčnosti ……. Na střeše čtyřicetipatrového domu, jež ve dne sloužil jako kancelářské prostory firmy Misty Smaller and sons, stála černě oblečená postava. Vysoký muž se díval do dálky, či ještě spíše do neurčitého bodu kdesi v prostoru před sebou. Dům, na jehož střeše se nacházel, býval v noci jeho útočištěm. Sám bydlel v nedaleké ulici, v podkrovním bytě, ale k jeho záměrům se nedaleká budova strojírenského gigantu hodila mnohem víc. Mužova atletická postava odolávala větru, který se, ne příliš silně, ale přece jenom opíral do jeho zad. Najednou muž udělal dva kroky, odrazil se a po hlavě se vrhl do světelné propasti pod sebou. Propnuté paže si razily cestu matérií vzduchu a zbytek těla je následoval jako rukojeť nože následuje střenku vnikající do narozeninového dortu. Muž svištěl vzduchem tiše jako jestřáb vrhnuvší se na svou kořist, ve výšce asi padesáti metrů nad zemí se prohnul v zádech a pohybem paží vzad začal "pád" vybírat. U přízemní řady oken už letěl téměř vodorovně a zároveň snížil rychlost na snadno ovladatelnou míru. Když už byl téměř nad zemí, spustil nohy dolů a dosedl klidně a vyrovnaně na špinavou dlažbu opuštěné uličky poblíž kontejnerů Misty Smaller and sons. Vedle hromady dřevěných podlážek se pohnul vyděšený stín. Jacob Clown, člověk bez domova a před rokem propuštěný zaměstnanec firmy, u jejíhož paláce teď "bydlel", se krčil ve svém příbytku z prken, hadrů a novin. To, co právě viděl, mu nikdo neuvěří. Několik kilometrů odsud ležel malý chlapec ve své posteli s otevřenýma očima a před očima se mu míhal barevný svět jeho mysli. Právě se mu podařilo "vidět" toho člověka, který se ho snaží najít. Switch z něj na jednu stranu vnímal nebezpečí, na druhou jím byl neskutečně fascinován. Ten muž, a Switch mu podle toho začal říkat Wing, ten muž má schopnosti podobné těm Switchovým, ale je lepší, mnohem lepší. On řízeně létá. Kapitola desátá - Květiny a hvězdy Noční stolky v nemocnici nemívají osobní charakter. Jsme-li doma, shlížejí z nich na nás z fotek oči nejbližších, budík tikává známým zvukem a tma kolem nich vykresluje známé obrysy. Nemocniční nábytek snad úmyslně působí cize a odtažitě, a tak noční stolky, ani kdyby se snažily, celkový dojem nehostinného místa nezvrátí. Sestra Julie byla vždy oddána svojí práci a snažila se nezapomínat ani na nejmenší detaily, které mohly pacientům ulehčit jejich nepříjemnou situaci. A její dar tohoto citlivého vnímání detailu se projevoval mimo jiné ve všemožném zkrášlování pokojů na patře, které měla na starosti. Dianne blouznila. Vědomí se prolínalo s nevědomím jako dva hadi bojující o nadvládu nad vytyčenou hranicí pekla a ráje. Williama odnášely citlivé, ale cizí ruce pryč. A kde je vlastně jeho otec? Proč nikomu nezavolala dřív? Slyšeli jste, že její matka zemřela právě na zápal plic? Sanitka kličkující mezi nedobrovolně se uhýbajícími auty. Copak si toho nikdo nevšiml dřív? Sousedka otírající si hřbetem dlaně slzu z tváře. Houkačka rušící lidi z poklidného zažití kalorických večeří. Barevná kola. Bolest v hrudi. Tohle ne, prosím. William.., Jamesi, prosím… Houkačka. Světla nemocničního příjmu. Strach. William. Sestra Julie upravila čerstvé květiny na nemocničním nočním stolku u lůžka Dianne Pollockové. Dianne se znovu setkala se svou maminkou. Držely se za ruce a dívaly se na hvězdy. Jejich svit odměřuje čas. Každý z nás má tu svou a hvězda Dianne právě zhasla. Hvězda Williama Pollocka se rozsvítila silným rudozlatým světlem. To se stává, pokud někdo nemíní svůj boj tak lehce vzdát. Kapitola jedenáctá - Hořící Peking James teď poprvé pořádně pocítil odlišnost čínského světa. Obrovské velkoměsto ze všech směrů dýchalo jinakostí. Ze všech koutů, ze způsobu jízdy automobilem, ze zvuků tržnic, obchodních center, z tempa rozhovorů, z to všeho bylo lze cítit ducha Asie. Politika, historie, stravovací zvyklosti, touhy, strasti, význam barev, zvyky. James a Quiang šli bok po boku a bylo to, jak by po boku šly dva rozdílné světy. V Quiangovi přesto přebýval silný pocit, že tohohle bělocha měl potkat. Nikdy nevěřil na náhody a výjimečnost situace, při které se setkali, byla natolik silným momentem, že nahodilost takového setkání mohl téměř vyloučit. Mluvili, kráčeli při tom celkem svižně, jako by cítili, že starý unavený život nechali za sebou, ve Státech. V tom zahlédl Quiang koutkem oka černou skvrnu, řítící se k jejich zádům. Strhl Jamese doprava ke zdi. Zřejmě to provedl trochu necitlivě, protože Jamesovi natrhl bundu na rukávu a sám padl pravou tváří na hrubou omítku obchodu, kolem kterého procházeli. Nicméně na citlivé jednání zřejmě nebyla vhodná chvíle, což si uvědomili hned, jak černý vůz prosvištěl kolem Jamesových nohou. Řidič naboural do beden se zeleninou, vyskládaných u silnice, vůbec nedbal na papriky rozházené všude kolem či na kapotě svého vozu, okamžitě zařadil zpátečku a pokusil se najet znovu na dvojici mladých mužů krčících se u zdi. James i Quiang vyskočili a jen tak tak uskočili podruhé, přičemž černé auto nabouralo do zdi v místě, kde ještě před pár vteřinami leželi tak, že kompletně zdemolovalo výlohu a kus zdi. Teď už nebylo pochyb, byl to záměrný útok, i když tedy ani jednoho nenapadlo, kdo a proč by na ně měl útočit. "Jdeme," vykřikl Quiang a vyběhli do pomalého, ale přesto dost hustého provozu. Prokličkovali mezi čtyřmi řadami aut a snažili se dostat na druhou stranu ulice. Z černého auta mezitím vyběhli dva Asiati a jali se také proplétat kolonou. "Kdo to je?," hulákal na Quainga James zatímco konečně vběhli do menší ulice kolmé na hlavní třídu. "Copak já vím? Myslíš, že znám všechny lidi v Pekingu?" Běželi takhle asi pět minut, než dosáhli bodu, kde se ulice začínala větvit na spousty menších uliček. Pronásledovatelé se k nim příbližili už asi o polovinu vzdálenosti, která je dělila a bylo vidět, že s tímto druhem sportu mají své zkušenosti. Naopak James zalitoval, že svoji tělesnou schránku poslední dobou značně zanedbával. Odbočili hned do druhé uličky nalevo, protože se Quiangovi zdála hustěji posetá nejrůznějšími předměty, a možná se tak dalo zmizet pronásledovatelům z dohledu, nebo jim alespoň znesnadnit pronásledování. Ale ani pro ně nebyl úprk úplně jednoduchý. Ono když se vám do cesty plete tolik psů, dětí, beden, odpadků, zbytky nábytku, pneumatiky, šňůry s prádlem, nebo když vás za ruce chytají kolemjdoucí a snaží se vás na něco vyptávat, jistě vám to nepomůže. Naopak, oni dva trénovaní muži se v malých uličkách cítili o něco bezpečněji a z dohledu hlavních tepen se nerozpakovali a vytáhli zpod bund pistole. To zas nepřidalo na klidu Jamesovi s Quiangem. James asi třikrát zakopl, Quiang ho třikrát zvedl, pak zas klopýtl Číňan a to nejen proto, že se oba pořád ohlíželi, jestli se jim konečně při některé odbočce nepovedlo pronásledovatele setřást. "Jamesi," ztěžka za běhu oddychoval a skoro bez dechu mluvil Quiang, "budeme se muset rozdělit. Pleteme se jeden druhému a musíme na sebe čekat. Už nás skoro dohánějí." "Ty ses asi zbláznil, ne," odtušil s funěním James. Já se teď tady s tebou rozdělím a už nikdy z těchhle uliček, i kdyby se mi nakrásně povedlo jim zmizet, nevyjdu. To už se radši zastavím a nechám se zastřelit, aspoň neumřu sám a tolik udejchanej." "Prosím tě, nemluv hlouposti, teď na vtipy není čas. Až se ho zbavíš, protože je jasný, že se rozdělí, sejdeme se u univerzity, dobře?" James se taktak vyhnul dvěma pobíhajícím psům a zahnul s Quiangem za další roh. "Jseš blázen? Nevíš asi jak se já tady někam dostanu? Nikdo tu určitě nemluví anglicky a já čínsky ani nežbleptnu. A navíc kdoví, kolik tady máte těch univerzit, taky se může stát, že budu stát u jiný." V tom třeskly v těsném sledu za sebou dva výstřely a kolem hlav jim proletěly dvě kulky. Ulička se zrovna rozdělovala na dvě strany. Quiang strčil do Jamese, aby ho nasměroval jednou z nich a sám se vydal druhou. " Beida, pamatuj si slovo Beida, a na to se ptej, a sejdeme se u knihovny" volal přes rameno Quiang na Jamese. A pak si James pomyslel, že toho šibalského Číňana už nikdy neuvidí. Jamese pálily už asi všechny trubice, které měly co do činění s dechem. Zaslechl ještě několik výstřelů, jeden z nich se zavrtal do trámu vedle jeho hlavy, takže už nijak nepřemýšlel a běžel. Běžel ještě nějakou dobu, když začínal mít pocit, že nebezpečí unikl. Zastavil se a podíval se zpátky. Opřený o dřevěný dvoukolák chvíli stál a čekal, že se každou chvíli objeví alespoň jeden z pronásledovatelů. Ale nikdo se neobjevil. Bylo by možné, že jsem mu utekl? Nebo že by za mnou nikdo neběžel a oba se vydali za Quiangem? Třeba si nevšimli, že jsme se rozdělili a když už si toho všimli, bylo na návrat pozdě. Ještě chvíli se díval do spleti chodbiček za sebou a pak se vydal - kam vlastně? Prostě jen pryč odsud, zmizet a dostat se k té univerzitě. Procházel mraveništěm lidského hemžení a až teď, bez adrenalinového náboje v očích, začínal vnímat atmosféru kolem sebe. A také to, že je úplně sám, bez kohokoliv, komu by na něm záleželo, tak strašně daleko od domova. Teď poprvé se mu zastesklo po rodině. Teď poprvé mu došlo, jak je tam nechal samotné, že ho možná potřebují. Ale ne, kdyby na Dianne zase přišel jeden z těch jejích záchvatů, zavolá otci a ten se o ni i o děti postará. A možná, že už je vzal k sobě, a že se mají fajn. James uklidňoval sám sebe, zatímco se proplétal změtí nepotřebných věcí a lidských bezejmenných tváří, že bez něj, bez jeho věčně se hledající přítomnosti, je jim líp. Že pochopí, že si potřeboval vyčistit hlavu, že jim v tomhle stavu není schopen dát to, co správný otec od rodiny rodině dát má. James lhal sám sobě a v jeho duši, která vidí to, co oči nikdy ne, se rozhořela bolest. Pomalá, tajná, zabíjející, nemilosrdná. Jak bylo to slovo? Musím se přece sejít s Quiangem. James zastavoval kolemjdoucí anebo mluvil na ty, kteří seděli před svým domem a ptal se jich pomocí rukou, nohou, očí a toho tajemného slova. Beida? Beida? Nedá se odhadnout, jak dlouho James cestu k univerzitě hledal. Když unikáte smrti, čas ztrácí rázem důležitost a jediné, na co myslíte, je přežít. V každém případě už byl tady a světe div se, byl tu i Quiang. Seděl na schodech vedoucích ke knihovně a usmíval se. Když James došel ke schodům, zvedl se a objali se. Dva doteď vlastně neznámí lidé, ale teď už oba věděli, že nejpevnější přátelství vznikají v ohni bitev. Tahle bitva byla sice malá, ale v osobních hranicích životů těch dvou významná. Když si pověděli o tom, co se dělo dál po tom, co se rozdělili, sedli si na schody univerzitní knihovny. Už věděli, že cílem útoku byl Quiang, útočníci prý ani na chvíli nezaváhali a sledovali jenom jeho. Už věděli, že původní útočiště klidu se změnilo na místo s horkou půdou pod nohama. A James věděl, že se musí nějak dozvědět, jestli je jeho rodina v pořádku. Ten zmatek v jeho srdci, před kterým utíkal až sem, byl zase tady. To, co se snažil uhasit proudem alkoholu, zatlačit do pozadí nesmírnou dálkou, nebo přebít změnou prostředí, hořelo nesmírným žárem. A k tomu všemu zapadalo slunce. Obrovské, rudé, na jednu stranu přátelsky hřejivé, na druhou strašlivě cizí. V jeho svitu vypadalo město rozkládající se až za obzor jako uprostřed všepohlcujícího požáru. Všechno hoří. Kapitola dvanáctá - Beida Protože na univerzitě Quiang pracovával, znal různé fígle, jak se tady orientovat a kam jít, když je potřeba. Proto neměli problém s tím, kde přespat. "Vybral jsem tohle místo setkání schválně. Jsou tady místa, o kterých ví hodně málo lidí a já jsem jedním z nich," vyprávěl Quiang, když šli podél jedné z administrativních budov. Doputovali k malému přístavku, kde nic nenasvědčovalo tomu, že by ho kdy kdo na cokoliv používal. "Tohle je bývalý domek strážného, který míval dozor nad touhle částí celého komplexu. Po pár letech se zjistilo, že tahle funkce je víceméně zbytečná a domek osiřel. Budu ti vyprávět něco z historie tohohle domku, protože naše dobrodružství už došlo tak daleko, že si myslím, že je potřeba, abys věděl všechno. A tenhle domek v tom všem hrával důležitou roli." "Začínáš bejt docela tajemnej, víš to?" James se podíval na svého kamaráda a trochu unaveně se usmál. Mezitím Quiang začal cloumat s mříží na jednom z okýnek přístavku. Tahle činnost způsobovala sice tlumený, ale přesto rámus, a to Jamese nijak neuklidňovalo. "Co blbneš? Myslel jsem, že jdeme k někomu domů a ne, že se někam vloupáme," napůl zažertoval, napůl vyděšeně syknul James. "Věř mi," vševědoucně poznamenal Quiang a trhl mříží tak mocně, že vyjela z malých, předtím neviditelných kolejniček. Číňan potěšeně zamrkal na Jamese, podíval se skoro ledabyle, jestli někdo nejde a po hlavě se přehoupl do tmavé místnosti. James rozhodně nechtěl zůstat tady venku sám, takže se chvatně přesunul na okraj okna, zapřel se o předloktí a vyhoupl se do temnoty. Jeho nohy dopadly na prkennou podlahu a první vjem, který ho zasáhl, bylo skoro dusivé množství zvířeného prachu. Rozkašlal se a přitom se snažil se aspoň nepatrně zorientovat. Qiang rozsvítil slabou lampu stojící poblíž okna a umožnil tak Jamesovi, aby vůbec něco viděl. Celý přístavek byla jedna místnost s dvěma stoly uprostřed, několika skříněmi po obou stranách dveří a jedním omláceným gaučem na druhé straně místnosti. Quiang přivřel okenici tak, aby zbytečně nepoutala pozornost náhodných kolemjdoucích. Přístavek sice stál bokem hlavních tras, ale světlo neobývaného domku by mohlo přivábit zvědavé oči. "Tak, tady se pokusíme udělat si základnu. Dneska už půjdeme spát, máme toho za sebou víc než dost. Jamesovi bylo dovoleno uvelebit se na rozvrzaném gauči, Quiang tvrdil, že místo nahoře na dvou sražených stolech už má dávno oblíbené. Unaveným očím přinesl brzy spánek zaslouženou úlevu. Když časně ráno James otevřel oči, prosvítaly sem zvenku svazky slunečních paprsků skrz škvíry kolem okna, kolem dveří a mezi trámy nad jejich hlavami. Quiang už nespal a seděl na židli u jednoho ze stolů. Pousmál se na Jamese. "Tak jaká byla noc?" "Spal jsem, jako když mě do vody hodí," odpovídal zívající James. "Jsem celej nedočkavej, co mi budeš vyprávět. A nejdřív mi hlavně řekni, co je to ta Beida." Quiang se posadil vedle teď už také sedícího Jamese na pohovku a začal s vyprávěním. "Tak dobře, nejdřív jen v rychlosti k té Beidě. Beida je lidový název Pekingské univerzity. Univerzit je tu víc a každá se jmenuje jinak, ale všechny vlastně dost podobně. Všechny mají v názvu Bejing nebo Peking. Možná proto ta Beida. No a pár zajímavostí pro turistu jako jsi ty. Podle Timesů pátá nejlepší škola v Asii, má 30 kolejí a 216 výzkumných institucí, knihovna, před jejímiž schody jsme se sešli, je největší svého druhu v Asii. Každým rokem se na zdejší akademické půdě pohybuje víc než 2000 zahraničních studentů. Jinak založené to tu bylo 1898 atd., atd., atd., víc opravdu nepotřebuješ vědět," doznívala slova, k nimž Quiang mával ve vzduchu rukama, jako by odháněl zlé duchy školometství. Zrovna, když se Quiang chystal povědět Jamesovi dlouho skrývaná tajemství svojí minulosti, zabouchlo něco, nebo někdo okenici, kryjící okno, kterým sem včera večer vlezli. Oba mladí muži se ani nepohnuli. Čekali, jestli to byl průvan, kdo je vyrušil, nebo jestli byli vysledováni až sem. Avšak to, co uslyšeli zvenku, jim rozhodně na klidu nepřidalo. Několikery rychlé kroky, dunění kanystrů a tekutina vylévaná na stěny, dveře a střechu. Zápach benzínu vehnal Jamesovi slzy do očí a pak venku cvakl zapalovač. Do pěti vteřin byl celý domek v plamenech. kapitola třináctá - V podkroví New York. Večer. Čtyřpokojový byt zařízený jednoduchým nábytkem. Přítmí, jen zvenku sem proniká světlo ulice. Tady pod střechou je nejlíp. Nahoře, u nebe. Není to jako tam v oblacích, ale čím blíž obloze, tím líp. Výška s sebou přináší vznešenost, jiný vzduch, vyšší cíle. Wing. Chtěl, aby ho tak znali všichni, kteří umějí vstoupit do světa za světem. Každý, s kým se spojil na úrovni energie. Každému nejdřív sdělil své jméno. Jméno, které si vybral. Slovo wing (křídlo) pro něj znamenalo volnost, sílu, moc nad sebou i těmi druhými. Je důležité zvolit si sám své jméno. Nikdo kromě nás nás nezná tak jako my. A Wing už si ani nepamatoval, jak se doopravdy jmenuje. Jenže co je to vlastně ono "doopravdy"? Prováděl cvičení, kterému se říká Air priest (vzdušný kněz). Seděl ve vzduchu, jakoby podepřen neviditelným zvedákem a otevřenýma očima si hlídal Bod před sebou. Nohy složené pod sebou, ruce "opřené" před tělem dlaněmi o neexistující stěnu. To, co vnímal, bylo odlišné od toho, co vnímají ti, kteří necítí energii nebo jí nerozumí. Dokonale "viděl" celým povrchem svého těla modré záblesky elektrické energie vycházející z těla ven kůží. Měly opačný náboj než vzduch kolem a tvořily tak kolem Winga souvislou vrstvu, díky které seděl v prostoru zapřený jako pták podpíraný vzdušnými proudy. V celém principu není nic nadpřirozeného, jen je k tomu zapotřebí aktivovat jiné stavy našeho vědomí. Při cvičení Air priest pracujete nejdříve s dechem. Sedíte na zemi nebo jiné rovné podložce a snažíte se s pomocí vyrovnaného dechu zklidnit si myšlenky. Potom se zaměřujete na to, aby se vzduch procházející vaším tělem stal něčím samostatným. Vzduch kolem vás a uvnitř vás jsou jedno. I vy jste vzduchem. I vy jste s ním jedno. Jste vzduch a nikdo a nic vás nezastaví. Dalším krokem je vytvořit si Bod. Bod, podle kterého se budete řídit, bod, o který se v prostoru můžete opřít, chcete-li se pohybovat. Svůj Bod si najde každý sám. Leží ve vzdálenosti dvou třetin délky vašeho těla, měřeno od srdce. Nejdřív se na něj můžete dívat, abyste věděli přesně, kde je. Potom ho zkusíte vnímat za zavřenýma očima. Je hřejivý, laskavý, mocný. Je váš. Wing seděl ve vzduchu a pomocí energie si hlídal Bod. Potom zkusil Bod přesunout o kousek dál od sebe. Je třeba vytvořit si dostatečně silný zvyk na to, kde svůj Bod máte. Potom dokážete to hlavní. Dokážete se ve vzduchu pohybovat. Wingovi se podařilo přesunout Bod o nějakých dvacet centimetrů kupředu. Jeho vědomí nuceno zvykem a touhou být v konstantní vzdálenosti od Bodu přinutilo mužovo tělo přitáhnout se blíže k Bodu. Do vytoužené a přirozené vzdálenosti. Do nejsilnější koncentrace energie, kterou je člověk v klidovém stavu schopen vytvořit. Pohybovat se ve světě za světem není jednoduché, ale když to dokážete, splníte sami sobě největší sen lidstva. Sen o létání. kapitola čtrnáctá - Dole i nahoře Jamese zachvátila panika. Oheň a voda, dva živly, které pomáhají, dva živly, které ničí. James vždycky měl největší hrůzu z toho, že se buď utopí, nebo uhoří. Ne, že by se často dostával do situací, vyžadujících takovéto obavy, ale tohle prostě ve vás někde je. Třicet let vás něco takového vůbec nenapadne, a pak je to najednou tady. Skrz stěny začal okamžitě pronikat kouř, který bez nějakých servítek nebo omluv hodlal nemilosrdně zabírat místo kdysi vyhrazené vzduchu. Dral se nosními průduchy a štípal do očí, plazil se místností a plul vzduchem. Chtěl být všude a vším. Věděl, že on není tím, kdo ničí přímo, ale že jeho hlavní úloha coby nepřítele všeho živého je ve vyvolání hrůzy. James padl pod náporem horka a fyzické slabosti na kolena. Snažil se dostat k oknu, kde sice šlehaly plameny, ale třeba kdyby ho vyrazil, nehledě na popálení, mohl by přežít. V tom něco buchlo a James ucítil na předloktí prsty, které ho pevně uchopily. Byl tažen směrem k místu, kde předtím slyšel buchnutí. Nejprve ho napadlo se vzepřít, protože byl tažen přesně opačným směrem, než měl za svou záchranou zamířeno. Jenže svému nápadu s oknem stejně moc nadějí nedával, takže nakonec souhlasil s protichůdnou aktivitou, která sice v daný moment nedávala smysl, nicméně svojí naléhavostí přesvědčovala alespoň o nějakém záměru. To všechno se odehrálo během několika vteřin. Několik metrů se potácel tažen kamsi a pak ucítil nohou šourající se po podlaze, že podlaha tam má najednou okraj, že tam končí. Díra v podlaze? Kde by se vzala? Nebyl čas přemýšlet. Quiang, kterého si až teď uvědomil jako původce svého vlečení někam, už byl dole a tahal ho za nohy. James se tedy vzepřel na loktech za okraj otvoru, pak se svěsil, protože netušil, jaká hloubka je pod ním a pak se pustil. Dopadl téměř okamžitě, dokonce o dost dřív, než čekal, takže přistání nebylo z nejměkčích, ale hlavně byl kolem vzduch. Zatuchlý, ale bez kouře. "Pojď, musíme zmizet," zvedal ho z kolen Quiang. James se ještě naposledy podíval zpátky do otvoru nad sebou a uvědomil si, že takhle blízko smrti ještě nikdy nebyl. Procházeli sklepeními univerzity a jen Číňan věděl, kam vlastně směřují. Nicméně bylo vidět, že cestu zná a že tudy nejde poprvé. Jamese začínalo jejich dobrodružství značně nebavit. "Quiangu, prosím tě, počkej chvilku. Musíš mi vysvětlit, co se to tu sakra děje. To seš nějakej špión nebo co, že do nás najíždějí autem, střílejí po nás, chtějí nás upálit. Přece mi nechceš namluvit, že tohle je ta tradiční čínská pohostinnost." James stál opřený dlaněmi o stehna a ztěžka vydechoval. Napůl se usmíval vlastnímu vtipu, napůl pohledem žadonil alespoň o nějaké vysvětlení. Quiang se zastavil a podíval se na Jamese. Ten chlapík toho už má doopravdy dost. "Jamesi, nevím nic s určitostí, ale napadá mě jedině, že by to mohli být lidé z univerzity, kdo po nás, tedy vlastně po mně jde. I když, pokud by to byla pravda, šli by teď už vlastně i po tobě, protože by věřili tomu, že ode mě něco víš." "Co vím, Quiangu, co vím?" Znělo to netrpělivě a James se díval na Quianga a říkal si, že toho Asiata vlastně nezná. Jasně, je to hodnej kluk a vypadá, že bude dobrej kámoš, nakonec právě mu zachránil život, ale nic o jeho zázemí tady v Číně neví. Jako lump nevypadá, ale věřte Číňanovi. Quiang vytušil, na co James myslí a s pousmáním řekl "Věci, který neví nikdo a oni zřejmě chtějí, aby to tak zůstalo. Pojď teď ještě chvilku, schováme se na jedno tajný místo a tam ti všechno řeknu. Musíš mi věřit. Teď už není cesty zpátky, na druhou stranu, cestou dopředu můžeš jenom získat. A věř mi ještě jednu věc," pokývnul hlavou Quiang a upřímně se zadíval do Jamesových očí. "Jsem tvůj přítel." Quiang sice říkal "chvilku", ale ta se alespoň podle Jamese neskutečně protáhla, ani si nevybavoval, že by budovy, kolem kterých předtím procházeli, byly takhle rozlehlé. Pohybovali se chodbami, které zadumaně mlčely, jako by se s drobnou nevraživostí dívaly po někom, kdo je právě vyrušil ze staletého spánku. Bylo brzo ráno a James přemýšlel, jestli není zvenku slyšet vůbec nic kvůli časné hodině, nebo jestli by kvůli těžkým zdem dovnitř žádný zvuk nepronikl ani tak. Asi po dvaceti minutách svižné chůze se konečně vymotali ze sklepních místností. Jejich cesta se při tom stočila dvakrát kolmo doprava, tedy by měli být na začátku druhého ramene velkého U vykresleného půdorysem budov zázemí knihovny. Quiang otevřel dveře do chodby a vystrčil za ně rychle hlavu. "Nikdo by tu takhle ráno ještě neměl být, ale radši budeme opatrní." James si pomyslel, že dřív by mu taková obezřetnost přišla poněkud nadbytečná, ale po událostech posledních dvou dnů ji beze zbytku schvaloval. Proběhli krátkou chodbičkou a vydali se po schodech nahoru. Drželi se neustále při zdi, co kdyby náhodou. Široké chodby a prázdná schodiště sice osvětlovalo ranní slunce, ale i tak dávaly předčasným návštěvníkům na vědomí, že s ponurými prostory sklepení jsou už o nepaměti více než zadobře. Za několik minut se dostali až nahoru, skoro pod střechu, kde Quiang v zapadlém výklenku našel, zřejmě po paměti, menší, dřevěné dveře. Zašátral rukou po zdi a jedna cihla se pohnula. S vítězoslavným úsměvěm ze skrýše vytáhl malý mosazný klíč. Vsunul ho do zámku, otočil a dveře se s nepříjemným vrznutím otevřely. kapitola patnáctá - Na útěku Když se onoho večera Switch vracel domů, bylo všude spousta světel. Červená, modrá, bílá. Vzduchem poletoval zmar a neštěstí. Davy lidí se kývaly jako obilné stvoly a otvíraly ústa. Zvuky se nad jejich hlavami spojovaly v kakofonii výkřiků, sirén, vzdechů a elektrizovaného hukotu velkoměsta. Měsíc křičel o samotě, mraky mu vmétaly do tváře políčky zoufalství a vítr míchal tohle všechno dohromady do koktejlu nepochopitelnosti. Před Switchovýma očima se zpomaleným tempem vznášela nosítka s jeho matkou a mizela v hladovém chřtánu historie. Potom jiné ruce nesly malého bratříčka do jiného vozu. Stál tam ještě dlouho. Prázdnota omývala jeho sotva šestiletá ramínka jako horský potok oblé kameny pod nesmlouvavými svahy činžáků. Noční vítr jen stěží vysoušel slané kapky na jeho tváři. Utíkal pak domem nahoru, přes svoji milovanou půdu, vystoupal s námahou po dřevěném schodišti po straně a strčil do dveří vedoucích na střechu. Ještě několik stupínků žebříku, a pak už byl na střeše. Zalezl na plošinku obepínající komín a posadil se tam na dřevěnou podlážku. Kolena přistrčená k bradě, na chvíli zavřel oči. Nechal to všechno plynout. Čas. Řeka. Události - ryby v ní. Plavou po proudu a neptají se po důvodu. Nehledají břehy. Jen jsou. Tátovy oči. Maminka. Její prsty mě hladí ve vlasech. Plavou. Neptají se po důvodu. Jen jsou. Čas. Za zavřenýma očima plyne jinak. Bere všechno zlé a přivábí nový potěr. Hvězdná obloha na vnitřní straně víček roztáčí svět. Chlapec usnul. Nevěděl, jak dlouho spal, ale když otevřel oči, byla hluboká noc. Probudil ho zvláštní pocit. Znáte to. Nikde nic, ale vy cítíte, že se něco děje. Vyskočil na nohy a rozhlédl se kolem. Chladný vzduch mu přeběhl po celém těle. Světla města připomínala přítomnost života, temnota tady nahoře brala iluze. Najednou se všechno kolem proměnilo. Realita byla mnohem plastičtější. Stíny získaly tvary a světla zářila měkčeji. V tom ho Switch uviděl. Černá postava pokrytá vrstvou elektrických výbojů po celém povrchu těla. Muž běžel po hřebenu sousedního domu a rychle se přibližoval. Chlapcovi se zdálo, že postava dělá nepřirozeně dlouhé kroky, spíš skákal, ne, jakoby klouzal vzduchem, a vždy jednou za pár metrů se lehce odrazil od hřebene. Wing cítil svoji šanci. Když zničíte kohokoli, kdo ovládá Sílu, v prostoru světa za světem přibyde energie, vaše potenciální energie. Chlapec je slabý, zranitelný, v těžké životní situaci, chybí mu zkušenosti. Bude to hračka. Stačilo přesunovat svůj Bod nad hřebenem střechy v úrovni očí a jednou za čas se odrazit. Energii, kterou ještě neuměl plně ovládat, mohl tak snadno dočerpat. Blížil se k chlapci velmi rychle. Switch pochopil, že situace se prudce mění k horšímu, otočil se a aniž by přemýšlel o tom, co jde a co nejde, rozběhl se stejným způsobem jako muž. Nevěděl nic o žádném Bodu, nebo jak přesunovat energii, jen v něm prostě někde byla schopnost nelpět na zákonech tohoto světa. Dlouhé hodiny prosezené na půdě a jiných místech, kdy se učil vnímat sám sebe v dimenzích toho jiného světa, do kterého se nejdřív náhodou, potom už úmyslně vracel, ty hodiny teď úročil. Temná postava se trochu zarazila, když uviděla chlapce, který se dal na útěk a ještě ke všemu způsobem, který nemohl znát. Switch se zamyslel nad tím, co dělá a v ten moment se mu smekla noha a on ucítil, že ztrácí rovnováhu. Pár vteřin jel po střeše po zádech, pak se začal kutálet. Koutkem oka ještě zahlédl Winga, jak se bez rozpaků vrhnul jeho směrem. Běžel po šikmé ploše střechy, jako by to byla běžná sportovní disciplína. Nataženýma rukama se snažil uchopit svoji kořist, na kterou však ještě stále neměl šanci dosáhnout. Bylo dílem několika okamžiků a chlapcovo tělo se dostalo k okraji střechy. Útočník běžel, skoro padal, ve velmi ostrém úhlu za ním a už byl od něj asi na metr daleko. Switch se smekl přes hranu střechy a mužova ruka promáchla v pokusu o jeho zachycení. Když viděl, že chlapec padá volným pádem, skočil za ním po hlavě dolů. kapitola šestnáctá - První lekce James následoval Quianga dovnitř, do místnosti, která vypadala na první pohled jako půda. Byli až pod střechou jedné z administrativních budov knihovny a rovnou se přesunovali k jednomu z oken, která byla hned nad úrovní podlahy do střechy zabudována. Okno bylo veliké a dalo se na dvou skládacích ramenech vysunout celé nahoru a opřít tak o střechu zvenčí. James ihned ucítil závan chladného ranního vzduchu a krom toho ho praštil přes nos zápach páleného benzínu. "Pojď. Pojď se podívat, co zbylo po naší noclehárně." Quiang se držel okraje okna a uhýbal na stranu, aby se vedle něj ještě vešel James. Ten se zvědavě přitáhl blíž k okraji a zahleděl se na místo, z kterého před několika desítkami minut utekli. Útočníci už pochopitelně na místě nebyli, namísto nich se však seběhli první studenti a několik pracovníků univerzity, kteří už se chystali do práce. Na uhašení hromady, která z boudy zbyla, stačilo jedno větší hasičské auto, i tak byl na místě mumraj, který si tohle poklidné ráno nezasloužilo. James vlezl zpátky dovnitř a posadil se na jednu dřevěných beden, které mohly skrývat stejně tak dobře staré vzácné tisky, jako i milióny listů záznamů o studentech, které nikdy nikdo nebude potřebovat, protože je nahradily údaje v počítačovém systému. To druhé bylo pravda, ale Jamesovi se mnohem lépe sedělo s představou slávy a historie pod jeho hýžděmi. Mávl unaveně rukou ke kamarádovi. "Nejvyšší čas všechno to vybalit, Quiangu. Než někdo zas najde způsob, jak nám to dramaticky překazit. Jsou dvě věci, po kterých teď zoufale toužím. Pořádný kafe a pořádný vysvětlení toho všeho. Doufám, že aspoň jedno z toho mi můžeš nabídnout." "Kam bych tak skočil pro kafe," zažertoval Quiang, ale i na jeho tváři bylo vidět vyčerpání a prožívané napětí. Vykročil směrem k Jamesovi a posadil se proti němu. Bylo na čase přijít s informacemi. Dva mladí mužové seděli proti sobě, oba plni emocí z prožitků posledních dní, plni vzpomínek, které vyplouvají na povrch právě v čase, kdy by je člověk nejraději zaplašil, plni života, nadějí a plni otázek. Quiang věděl, že ten okamžik, kdy je třeba Jamese se vším seznámit, právě nadešel, protože pokud musíte čelit nebezpečí, tím nejhorším, co vás může potkat je, když nevíte, odkud ono nebezpečí pochází. Zvenku bylo ještě stále slyšet hlasy, vítr se točil kolem krovů a ráno se probouzelo do svého království. Do téhle kulisy se pomalu začal vplétat příběh, vycházející z Quiangových úst. "Tenkrát jsme byli studenti, stejní jako ti, kteří těmihle zdmi procházejí dneska. Byli jsme v prvním ročníku a úplně nejvíc nás zajímalo, kam půjdeme odpoledne po škole, případně kam jít místo školy. Ne, že bysme si nevážili možnosti vzdělávání se, ale znáš to, mladá mysl snadno těká mezi nutným a nezajímavým a tím, co ji bezprostředně zajímá. A nás tehdy zajímalo všechno jiné než škola. A tehdy jsme se také doslechli o Bratrstvu." Quiang se na chvíli odmlčel, bylo vidět, že za očima loví přízraky minulosti, jejichž odlesky se James snažil zachytit. Bylo na první pohled zřejmé, že Quiang přichází s něčím velkým, s něčím, co už dlouho leželo v jeho duši neotevřeno. Jako dopis od vaší milé, kde víte, že se s vámi loučí, dopis, který nechcete ani zahodit, ani číst. Dopis vaší nejniternější minulosti. Asiat se zadíval do očí bílému muži vedle sebe. Jemu to řekne, protože už od první chvíle, kdy se potkali, cítil, že to jednou udělá. A události po jejich příletu sem to jenom uspíšily. Už nejde čekat. Pousmál se a pokračoval. "Nejdřív to byly jen zmínky, něco, co občas mezi lidmi zaslechneš. Ale když se začneš na něco soustředit, tvůj zájem přitáhne ty správné informace k tobě. A slyšíš víc. Začneš se vyptávat, hledat, nacházet. Začneš být ve víru událostí, podobně jako my teď. Dozvěděli jsme se s mými přáteli, že už od pradávna existuje mezi lidmi nauka o takzvaném světě za světem, o světě, který existuje vedle toho našeho, a který lze ve zvláštním stavu mysli nejen vnímat, nejen ovlivňovat dílčími zásahy, ale při správném tréninku se v něm i pohybovat. A tyhle schopnosti, což je na tom to největší, lze přenášet i do našeho vnímání reality, do našeho světa." James koukal značně nechápavě, ale protože věděl, že to, co jeho nový přítel říká, by nakonec mělo dostat nějaký smysl a osvětlit to, co se kolem děje, přikývl na znamení toho, že vnímá, že poslouchá a pobídl tak Quianga k pokračování. "Tuhle nauku už od počátků střeží Bratrstvo, tedy skupina lidí, kteří nechtějí, aby se tyhle informace dostaly do nepovolaných rukou. Bratrstvo existuje nezávisle na společenských vrstvách, na věku členů, jediným omezením vždy bylo to, že se členem nesměla stát žena. Jak jsme se dozvěděli, nositeli a ochránci nauky bývali moudří mužové, kteří vždy dokázali zhodnotit, je-li nový člověk hoden předání takového daru. Ale v posledních desetiletích dvacátého století se začala nauka dostávat k lidem, kteří neuměli s mocí, kterou jim nauka dávala, zacházet. Jako vždycky selhal nakonec lidský faktor a moc je tím nejsilnějším svůdcem, kterého svět všeho živého zná." James začínal vidět obrysy toho, co se mu Quiang snažil načrtnout. "Začínám tušit, co bylo dál. Moc jste se do toho zapletli a ti zlí po vás začali jít. Tys utek do Států a myslel sis, že na tebe zapomněli. Když jsme sem přijeli, zjistil jsi, že nezapomněli. A teď jsme v tom až po uši, je to tak?" "No, vzals to trochu hopem a pár podstatných věcí jsi vypustil, ale když se to vezme kolem a kolem, tak vlastně jo. Jsem překvapenej, že někteří lidé na západ od Pekingu jsou tak inteligentní" Quiang byl rád, že James chápe věci rychle. Zasmáli se Quiangovu vtipu a Jamese pak zajímalo, co budou dělat dál. Quiang měl ale ještě něco na srdci. "Jamesi, jsem potěšenej, žes mi to vyprávění tak zkrátil, ale... ale abys neměl pocit, že už víš všechno nebo... nebo že jsem ti pro vývoj věcí něco zásadního zamlčel...tak.." "Tak?" Quiang se zvedl a došel k otevřenému střešnímu oknu, ze kterého předtím koukali na spálenou strážní budku. James naprosto netušil, co se chystá a tím větší překvapení to pro něj bylo. Ale přesně toho chtěl Quiang docílit. Vystrčil na střechu jednu nohu, pak druhou, otočil se čelem do místnosti a oběma rukama se při tom držel horního rámu okna. "Quiangu, co to...?" Drobný Asiat se chvilku držel a bylo vidět, že se soustředí. Potom se pustil rukama okna, mírně se odrazil do prostoru a ve vzdálenosti jednoho metru od okna .... a asi dvaceti metrů nad zemí ..... se usadil do perfektního tureckého sedu. Díval se při tom na Jamesův obličej, plný neskrývaného úžasu. Několikrát pokynul hlavou jeho směrem ve významu "tak teď už víš" a potom se úplně neslyšně a rychle vrátil dovnitř. Posadil se zpět na svoje místo. Ještě je o čem mluvit. kapitola sedmnáctá - Kniha sedmi nauk Čtyři studenti prvního ročníku zrovna neřešili svůj domácí úkol. Běželi, co jim síly stačily uličkami starého Pekingu. Noc byla tichá a tak se jejich kroky a sípavý dech rozléhaly všude kolem. A naopak, stačilo zastavit a mohli slyšet dusot jejich třech pronásledovatelů. Ti si nejenže nedělali starosti s tím, jestli je někdo uslyší, ještě navíc jako by je vůbec nezajímalo,že vypadají poněkud netradičně. Zahaleni do tmavých splývavých hábitů s kápí zakrývající oči, museli počítat s tím, že někomu přijde jejich oblečení .... nemístné. Ale kupodivu to nikdo neřešil, dokonce se zdálo, že kolem vlastně vůbec nikdo není. Je zajímavé, jak dokáží lidé vycítit přítomnost nebezpečí, se kterým nic nenadělají. Studenti ale nezastavili, aby poslouchali kroky zakuklených, uháněli směrem k budovám univerzity a jak se předem domluvili, sejdou se na smluveném místě. Rozdělili se. Byla naděje, že když se rozdělí, mohou tím pronásledovatele zmást. Nejmladší z nich nesl to, co chtěli. To, co se před dávnou dobou ztratilo, a čtyři nenechaví študáci velkou náhodou našli. To, co jim vůbec nepatří a musí být navráceno do rukou právoplatných majitelů. A potom musí být zapomenuto všechno, co by nějak připomínalo tuto politováníhodnou chybu strážců vědění. A nejsnadněji je zapomenuto to, co není. Ten nejmladší právě vběhl na nádvoří univerzitní knihovny. Nebylo jasné, jestli zmizel pronásledovatelům, a vlastně ani nebylo jasné, jestli zrovna za ním nějací byli. Ale tohle může řešit až potom, až se schová. Po levé ruce se najednou vynořil stín zpoza domku pro strážného. Stín měl prapodivný tvar. Vypadalo to jako malé sousoší, které se velmi pomalu přibližovalo. Jeden ze zakuklených držel nůž na krku jednoho z kamarádů a blížil se. "Dej mi to. Jinak zemře." V tom tichém hlase bylo něco silně zlověstného. Nepřipouštěl kompromisy. "Rychle," rozkázal zakuklený a přitiskl čepel na krk svého zajatce. Ten nejmladší právě řešil dilema. Zakuklenec blufuje. Nemůže přece vědět, jestli zrovna on nese, to co chtějí. Ale zase může použít ten nůž a pak se vrhnout na něj a zjistit si to. A taky přemýšlel, jestli to, co mají, stojí za smrt kohokoliv z nich. Sáhl pod oblečení a opatrně vytahoval zabalený předmět. "Opatrně," s mírným pokývnutím hlavou směrem k sobě pronesl zakuklený. Ten nejmladší viděl vděčnost v očích kamaráda úpícího pod tlakem ostří. Co když ho ale stejně zabije?! "Pusťte ho, dávám Vám to přeci." Vtom něco zasvištělo vzduchem. Zakuklenec jen nepatrně stihl natočit hlavu, ale útok byl i pro něj překvapivě rychlý. Velká dřevěná plocha se zaleskla ve svitu polovičního měsíce a dopadla na hlavu zboku. Dvoumetrové prkno dokáže při dostatečném švihu omráčit kohokoliv. Ruka pustila nůž a postava, která o něj právě přišla, se skácela k zemi. Zřejmě nebude ve stavu duchem nepřítomných moc dlouho, takže nejlepší nápad jistě bude zmizet. Tři kamarádi se ztratili v nepoužívaném domku strážných a doufali, že i poslední z nich se brzy ukáže. Jenže neukáže. Zítra ho najdou bez života pohozeného před domem jeho rodičů stovky kilometrů odsud. Bude to znamení pro ostatní, že není těžké zjistit, kdo jsou. Že ti, kteří sáhli na to, co jim nepatří, za to zaplatí. Ale teď troje rychlé boty proběhly bludištěm chodeb až k půdním prostorám, kde měli svoji skrýš. Posadili se na provizorní stoličky, divoce dýchali a dívali se na sebe navzájem. Usmívali se jako vítězové po závodu. "Nechtěls mu to ale dát, že ne," pronesl ten, který se stihl schovat za domek strážných a osvobodil je.Ten nejmladší vlastně ani nevěděl, co na to říct. Ví jen, že než se objevila záchrana, viděl prosebné oči svého kamaráda, který nechtěl zemřít. A že na jeho místě by taky kašlal na jakékoliv tajemství. Teď tedy jen pokrčil rameny a byl rád, že to dopadlo, jak to dopadlo. Vytáhl v hadrech zabalený předmět, položil ho na bednu uprostřed jejich seskupení a rozbalil.

Začátek stránky Kapitola 2 Kapitola 3 Kapitola 4 Kapitola 5 Kapitola 6 Kapitola 7 Kapitola 8 Kapitola 9 Kapitola 10 Kapitola 11 Kapitola 12 Kapitola 13 Kapitola14 Kapitola 15 Kapitola 16 Kapitola 17 Kapitola 18 kapitola 19 Kapitola 20 Kapitola 21 Kapitola 22 Kapitola 23 How to live with a gourmet Chapter 1. - How to get it One could easily get the impression that living with a gourmet is something you order in an e-shop and you have a delicious woman with refined food at home by snapping your fingers. Or the other way round. I'll brake you right here and take away most of your hopes from most of you. To acquire such a woman, you must be born as an enjoyer of the highest caliber. I don't mean the fucking idiot of mafia parents with a golden band around his newborn's neck. I don't even mean a small thickness of two slightly grown-up fat, who will save everything that a fast-paced diet of fast time will bring to him on an aluminum tray. I mean a complete enjoyer of life, with everything that everyday twists and turns bring to each of us. Someone whose eyes glow over scrambled eggs at the age of three, a little boy in love with ordinary toasts with garlic, Easter dinners from his grandmother or just in kindergarten on a tray of served bread with a kind of spread. "Please add!". This was the phrase that made the future lucky winner of the inventive gourmet famous in the then still socialist facility for preschool children. It's still with me, and the metabolic god knows why I don't weigh three hundred pounds and I'm not writing a blog about food tightly tied to a bed in a facility for those who love food too much. It's a miracle. My absence in such a facility, as well as the miracle that I met her. It is said that it is the tuning of the brain that you bring what you need to life. What you are constantly thinking about will one day materialize into your everyday reality. Some conjure a Porsche, others a cancer. I honestly don't love Porsche at all, and with the hysteria of my own I try to survive on this planet as long as possible. That's why one day she came. Tell me, what kind of inheritance, personal history, and natural nature would you come up with to get the gourmet out of it? Some foundation, shake, do not stir, drip something restless Hungarian blood, a little thoughtful Czechness, a bucket of Slovak nature. In her youth, alone at home, reluctant to eat bluffs, alone with memories of her grandmother's hospitality, alone with the desire to prepare those ingenious goodies for someone. Then he comes, me. And he finds out that the best sirloin is not from candles, but from love. That behind each plate is a clock by the hob and thousands of small experiences, riddled with mistakes, anger, mistakes and the search for new ways and the search for the desire to start something again that has failed seven times. So I'm sitting here, I have before me, if God gives me, another portion of life, I have food in front of me, for which I would deservedly pay non-Christian money in the most honest restaurant, and I have it next to me. Sometimes it is moody and I immediately remember the necessary admixture of a nation with the most incomprehensible language, except perhaps Icelandic. Sometimes it is sincere when my eyes jump out of their sockets and I remember that without the Slovak nature, the mixture would lack some important ingredient. Sometimes she is pensive, and I realize how those pensive Czech mudrlans often roll the whole widescreen world with their ideas and performances. So you already know that. I have it at home and I enjoy my jackpot, which I won without betting on security. But I emphasized this at the beginning, it's all about being able to be born. Kapitola 2 Chapter 2. - You can't eat that! You've probably seen this before, for example in the movie. The disgusted painter, the master of the brush, looks at the jewel he has in front of him, which he drew from the depths of nothingness with art and passion to the surface of the canvas. Is he looking at what hordes of babrals would tear his hands apart and sellers from gold-plated galleries kissing bare feet and he? With a painful grin on his face, he stares at the horror in front of him, his stomach almost rising. How on earth could anyone create something like that, such disgust! He climbs from the ladder, tears the masterpiece with an angry hand and thus deletes his next entry in the Hall of Fame of Human History. So is my gourmet. Fortunately, he doesn't climb the ladder, but otherwise it's the same in pale green. "Well, that's awful!" He throws something on the table from which they could sit on their backs at least half the better pubs in the area. The mistress stumbles and does not fall off the table. It looks good, but I'm afraid to say it. Who am I that I should make such reviews. Who am I to argue with HER. I spit with a slight dose of self-confidence "it looks good". "All right ?! See! ”“ But it's not supposed to look good, it's supposed to look great! Plus, I salted it. ”I taste it. It's divine. I won't say it out loud. "Well, disgusting, isn't it?" I shake my head, "I like it a lot." "Well, that's clear, you'd eat everything." Basically, he's right, but that's not out of the question, is it? Just because I'm able to eat slush doesn't mean this slush is. He grins, obviously disagrees with my unspoken opinion, takes away the bowl and tries to do something about it. The next steps will only make the problem worse and I have to agree there, now it is impossible to eat. "I threw away a lot of great ingredients because of that." I am a little hungry and I would like the original content of the sad bowl, but it no longer exists. However, the new variant of the contents of the bowl is no longer just a recombined horror due to desperate interventions, it is no longer a slurry in the original exaggerated meaning of the word, now it is a slurry with artistic inclinations and it really is not possible. "I'd rather throw it out the window!" The goddess rages, and for a moment it looks like a three-story range bowl will whistle down in the yard in a few seconds. He throws it in the basket and takes out the sausages. "If those sausages stink last time, I don't know." Not only because of the sausages, I pray for the condition of the sausage and I prepare the mustard and horseradish on the table. The sausages eventually escape and the situation is over. Do you feel that this can be endured one day? In exchange for everyday treats of an unusual nature? You are partially right. The exchange really is here, but it is not true that this situation is repeated too infrequently. That's how you sit at work and suddenly the phone. "Do you know what I cooked today? How do you like that meat with rice and the kind of sauce I did last time. We just added cardamom there today. ”I smile at the phone and my forehead sweats a little. I nod that I'm looking forward to the afternoon, and as soon as I tap the phone, I hurry to see what cardamom is and whether it fits at least a little into "the meatball I like so much." , but this time I have to cut a deep compliment to my goddess from the kitchen and admit that this idea was again a masterpiece for a change. Yum. Just put it somewhere, so you know next time how she did it. Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT aint for me either. Kapitola 3 Chapter 3. - Blog It is said that times are bad, but I think that some of the conveniences of electronic progress have definitely benefited us. For example, such a housewife of the last century, if she wanted to keep all her recipes in one place, with pictures, accompanying texts and still want to entertain listeners and spectators, would have to hang pictures of her treats around the fence of her own farm, thus obscuring the view of carrots, chives and onions. , she would then shout loudly at the observations in the village square or by the campfires, and the spectators would probably let such a housewife - a journalist - disappear somewhere in the woods under a needle. Today we have other options. The gourmet woman bounces between coq au vine, calf thymus and reducing demi-glation to a computer monitor, logs on and is already in her literary cinema. At the very beginning, he throws in a photo of how the preparation went, then describes it, humanity of recipes eager to appreciate the dramatic search for unavailable ingredients, the second photo of a bleeding finger, a description of how it happened, footage from the hospital, no, I'm exaggerating. It is true that one cannot bear everything in one's head. That if you want to repeat the pate, exactly the one you tuned to perfection for the tenth time, it's really good to have everything recorded together somewhere. Even with the difficulty of circling the markets, with the fingers cut and the photos of which the hottest roe deer smells the wildest of all the pâtés in the world. The right photo smells. Rum is punished around the Christmas table, chunks of bacon sizzling with excitement that we are already taking them out of the oven. When the gourmet sits with her feet on the table and deservedly blows away after a busy day and together we look at the culinary adventures embedded in the templates of the virtual world behind the computer, I always remember those housewives buried in the dark woods and express gratitude for something of the few deserves at least a slight applause. But not honestly, when I think about it now, I'm actually double lucky. Every look between the pages of my goddess' blog returns to me the experiences that I was lucky enough to have over the aforementioned wine cocker last May. Thanks to the blog and photos of cut fingers, you too can experience at least half of what I experience. Is it pride I'm going through now? I know, I should be ashamed. The pen is giggling between his fingers. Kapitola 4 Chapter 4 - Food from kindergarten You would see the repertoire of women, gourmets, in a very distorted way at first sight, believe me. Surely you imagine that we have at home for Sunday lunch a purple cube trembling with fear or consistency from side to side in the rhythm of a virtuoso swing, with each inclination threatening to fall into a splash of exotic fruit sauce, where splash doesn't really mean a plate full of sauce but a smudge on a plate as if he stumbles over a miniature clown in a manege and his feet, soaked in the color of a manga, slid across the floor. When my gourmet and I eat at home, we eat what we eat again, steaks in three-ball rather than fillety mignon, potato soup with mushrooms rather than shrimp bisque, and cheesecake tend to top the pestéis de nata. This is important for you to remember. Gourmet does not equal snob and extravagance is not the same as creativity. And I, who I am and who I am, I am not who I am, perceive gourmet as a subtle ability of ingenuity, improvisation, use of experience and combining tastes more than as the art of shocking audiences with color, consistency, flavors or combinations. And once my gourmet completely knocked me out when she said, "And still, the best meals we had in kindergarten are. I say, "Wait, how's that?" "Normally." You'd expect something that sounds French, too, and she'll say, "Like kindergarten." "It simply came to our notice then. When we were in kindergarten, the teachers were the old ladies who cooked from the broth, there was either no maggi or they only put it on the table for the teachers, the meat was meat and the banana had the taste of a banana. ”I imagine the grandmothers in kindergarten and it forces me to think and re-evaluate. So gourmet would then mean for the chef, above all, honesty in the selection of ingredients, adherence to recipes and established procedures, the unstoppable power of simplicity and beauty of food served with love. Maybe my gourmet is right. Today, everything is being recombined and neither the stomach nor the eyes nor the taste buds are curious anymore. As for the food from the kindergarten, my doubly dear half took my breath away one day when she cheerfully declared: "I cooked you a milkshake!" The first outburst of breath caused the statement, at that time a maximum of three percent of children and one percent of adults could have eaten the milkshake at that time. The second loss of breath came with the plate on the table, it was magnificent. The creamy milk jug with bear's garlic and Job's tears warmed and surprised with every twist of taste. Butter, bear garlic and, finally, for people who like hail and similar floating delicacies, for example, the common teardrop, sometimes referred to as Job's tears, the Chinese Yi yi ren and the Japanese Hatomugi. That you should also learn. She's great. Teardrop and the soup. And the gourmet. Kapitola 5 Chapter 5. - Don't take her to restaurants Please take the title of this chapter seriously. Suppose you are lucky, you have a gourmet at home, you enjoy heavenly treats every day, you rub your hands until they smoke from you, and then one day you notice that your person hunched over the hob is kind of tight. He steps on his plate and to the chopping board back and forth, cooking with love, not that not, but the zeal, or as the French would say esprit, as if he had sublimated a little. I tell her, "Dear, aren't you sick?" She doesn't and continues to click with her knife on her back to me. "Are you sad about anything?" And he shakes his head again and steps on the plate and the board again without enthusiasm. Well I would take it. I get up and go to hug her and secretly read her from the face, where the dog is buried. "If I have to cook anyway!" He blurts out suddenly and stops treading. And you know it's bad. As the gourmet begins to collapse, she may also fall apart completely. You are ashamed that it never occurred to you before and you suggest a visit to the restaurant in the heat of enthusiasm. Let him choose. Where you will go and what you can. Let the master knives be pampered, let them be pampered by the scents of gurgling pots without their own effort. That would be a kite so that her eyes wouldn't shine. If you have the impression, dear reader, that this is where the trouble ends and the situation clears up, you are making a huge mistake. Festively dressed, we set off towards gastric experiences, a piccolo bows in the doorway of the famous company, we watch the disappearing bites at the surrounding tables and we sit comfortably like dust on the furniture under construction. They bring us a drink for half an hour and thus give the gourmet a place to watch the others on plates. "Look, the steak looks good. You saw the sirloin, a decent slurry. But the broth smells quite like they carried him around. ”On the dining room, we choose the spinach and the goulash. Before, one serving of broth to try it when it smelled so beautiful. The clock is ticking until dusk. Clouds draw and the angels behind the split windows of the renaissance house darkly hum their last requiem. They already carry it. Pikolík smiles and he shouldn't. "I wish you good taste." He leaves. We eat for about seven seconds. "How can anyone cook spinach without garlic ?! Well, that potato dumpling is possible. It's stiffer, but it works. ”He cuts the meat. I already suspect that her eyes will not shine today. "And it's terribly salty. That's not possible. What's it like for you? ”I try the broth and it looks uninteresting. Then I taste the goulash and it looks average. He gives me a taste of her food. I let her taste my food. We agree with each other. We went home in a moment. The sky remained cloudy long after we had paid and what my gourmet had kept, and when the piccolo proudly asked if it tasted good, she answered truthfully but without exaggerated indignation. I'll say it straight away. Since then, we have been to the restaurant about four more times and once, once we were both satisfied and it was still a Nepalese restaurant. I don't want you to get the impression that gourmets have their noses up. I don't know about the others, but definitely not mine. She just doesn't like the bloated dishonesty and deliberate deception of the taste buds of expensive customers. I'm looking at her. Turn two steps towards the plate and back. He cooks spinach and pastries. In a moment he carries the plates. "So tell me!" I have to hug her. I think the sun is peeking slightly behind our clouds behind our windows. Kapitola 6 Chapter 6. - In the pepper paradise Chili peppers enter a person's life like pieces of jalapeno on hot pizza and then control him like the mighty queen of Moruga, gradually and irreversibly. Writers tend to be the type who gets excited about something, and the rest of the family then has to raise their eyebrows and do other more challenging things with new enthusiasm. Gourmets, along with such an author, tend to be struck by a desire of discovery and happiness. Where can it be put? What is it not suitable for at all? Does it burn a lot? It's burning. But I will not cultivate it for you. (Cultivates). Do you think that could be done? (It could). Tyja, this ground one is completely divine. (It was). "I added a little of that to the stew, I don't think it's edible." The beginnings were uncertain, careful, but one was playing with fire. And even though it doesn't have to be hot, my joyful shouts of "you, it tastes like some fruit!" She took it so seriously that she overcame it and wasn't afraid to taste it. Such gourmetness is not only pointing the finger what and what not, but also discovering. And to omit a raw material such as chili pepper from the repertoire would mean a certain and considerable restriction. And so my dear has already added chilli to everything. Pumpkin soup. Goulash. To shredded pork. Butter chicken (pecka!). Roasted ribs. Indian meat party balls. Or a torn boar's back. Everyone who knows us is already afraid to taste something from us, if there is no killer pepper in it. When my gourmet pulls out a strudel, the whole street runs away. When he bakes the biscuits and puts them on the table, his fellow diners seek the priest to recite his sentences to drive out the demons. Special cases take place at our meetings of chili lovers. Most of this party cooks goodies on their own, so we give each other a taste and most of them don't die of a little caroline reaper on sunflower seeds. To give you an idea, the hotness of the caroline reaper compared to the Slovak paprika is like running your foot over a scooter and a Tatra 815. But back to cooking and my dear half. I have to tell one story for good. I'm still at work, she writes to me that she is cooking sauce and that he throws a pepper big red mama into it (a tractor with a flatbed over his leg). But that he'll wait for me to taste it when I get home from work. At that time I was traveling by train and I received a message on the train: "So I tasted it. By mistake. ”I immediately call her to see if we have enough milk at home to save her throat. If I have to call the fire department. If he lives. And how did it happen ?! She's really cute when she tells me, I eyes on top of my head as she cooks like that, gurgling sauce, pepper inside, stirring, gurgling, stirring, gurgling, stirring. And as you have experienced automatisms, you do things that you just always do in this order. So in England you get under a broken taxi, even though you looked to the left. You nod Bulgarian yes, even if you think no. And then people lick railings in the winter when you tell them they shouldn't. Well, my dear stirs, cooks, stirs, and suddenly she has a mixer in her mouth, and the realization that she just put her foot under a falling rock comes a little late. Fortunately, there was not much and she survived. We have peppers this year as well. We are already tasting more after the taste than after the fire and we have also started growing tomatoes. So maybe it won't get along and we won't be surprised by the fiery tomato on bread and butter. Kapitola 7 Chapter 7. - By the water In certain regions, such as ours, it is common for a person to be able to hold activities typical of that period at any time of the year. It should be full summer outside as I write this chapter, but it is not. The children are waiting by the water with circles wrapped around their waists and freezing. Moms paint the kids' backs so they don't get burned, and lo and behold, she sticks the kids to the evening table, pale and greasy with cream. True, hardmen don't mind that they don't have to break as many icy bushes as they do when swimming. So at least someone feels the advantage of summer weather without summer weather. However, my gourmet is stomping her feet anxiously. She likes water. Of course, we also go to the water for swimming. But there is one big "but". The majority of the population has forgotten that such trips to water bodies also carry with them the obvious culture of enjoying goodies hidden in a basket. By that I don't mean scenes of waterfowl wading on the beach in trampled PET bottles of lemonade, beavers climbing ashore with bags of potato chips on their heads, and little carp frolicking at the pink twilight with a box of liver pate. I remember once after two or three swims we climbed to the shore of a pond, to a sandy beach, to our proper blankets for rolling, and I clapped as if I had something. And I would also thank the liver pate and a bag of greased potato chips with a little lemonade to drink. I think she saw it in my eyes and frowned slightly, but only really lightly, she raised her eyebrows rather imperceptibly. I smiled innocently. She pulled back the towel, covering the cupcake, and the entire beach leaned three millimeters toward her. So far, she had just casually pulled out a box of meatballs. Three species, of course. It smelled so that the pilot of the glider spinning over the pond immediately began to land. The second box hid a selection of seventeen vegetables. Small cucumbers cornichon, tomatoes that you would confuse with cherries, sliced strips of peppers in different colors, you certainly had to choose to play all shades, cucumbers named snack, small yellow mysterious Jewish cherries, leaves of Chinese cabbage, classic cabbage, and so on . When she took out a bottle of homemade melon lemonade, the first half of the wives fainted on the beach, and the second broke out of envy. When I bit into the first of the meatballs, the Indian-style one, a muscular gentleman stopped tensing his muscles in front of a veined blonde, got up, punched Ray Ben with his sunglasses, probably accidentally stomped on them, three times, and started walking towards suicide by running over a truck. We always have a snack, not too much, so that we do not sink to the bottom during the next swimming activity, and then we look forward to the second part of the goodies again as we move forward. I admit that I swim quite uneasily. After all, I'm watching to see if any manipulated child is running and stealing our picnic baskets. I would do it in his place. Kapitola 8 How to Live with a Gourmet - Chapter 8 - The Dice Story At the end of the nineteenth century, a cube from the Maggi brand stunned the world. The producer cooked animal and vegetable delicacies for so long that the dried result could be made into cubes. It wrapped itself nicely and the enthusiastic housewives at home threw the cube into boiling water and wonder of the world, all the goodies, smells and nutrients were at your home. It was a miracle, and a bag was dumped with the makers of similar cubes. Housewives jumped, producers jumped, and a quick cube under various names conquered the world. Have you ever seen an advertisement for a dishwashing detergent? Year after year, campaign after campaign, you learn how this version is more effective, fragrant, more gentle, you could almost drink it. Do manufacturers realize that one day we will realize what their original product must have been, a non-functional, fragrant, unruly, eh slush? And now the incomprehensible thing. Manufacturers of fast kitchen cubes went in the opposite direction for incomprehensible reasons. Today's offspring of a miracle has little in common with the original herb broth. Don't worry, we're already with her. In the light of the information just outlined, my gourmet cannot understand why on earth someone would kill their food by throwing something like that. It will probably be true that something in the magic cube was probably tuned so that one wanted to throw the cube into anything, just so that your taste buds would get to the mana with the most beautiful chemical names you can imagine. Then I have to keep my gourmet so that she is really nice to the really nice lady of the house, who, when we come to visit her, puts a great spread in our mouths right on the doorstep, we have to taste the supernatural soup straight from the pot on the line, the sauce gets to word on the table and we then take the dessert home. And .. everything tastes the same. Cubically. Surely you are raising your hand as you read, asking for the floor and wanting to say that some of the products you have known recently are just pure broth. Or a cube full of herbs from Grandma's garden. Possible. Manufacturers have already appeared who already know. That housewives should not be embarrassed. My housewife recently bought a flag on a pole. It has the order of a golden wooden spoon and a sword shading the head. Every Tuesday and Saturday we go to barricades. Here we address young girls in a public space so that they do not mix ketchup into sauces, here we bring a young cook to her knees, gulping a werewolf's thirsty puddle of spilled soup with a universal liquid seasoning for 12 Czech crowns. It's a tough fight. Crowds of universals, understand the proponents of universal tastes, throw hostile glances, the sharpest words, and sometimes butter-flavored vegetable fat packs. My gourmet and I will not give up! For Rettig! For Trejbal! And maybe for Julius Maggi! I have the impression that I saw him roll a dice with us once on the barricades. kapitola 8. – Příběh kostky Kapitola 9 kapitola 9. – V čem to budu vařit How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 9 - What will I cook in? If you're as attentive as I am, food appears from the stove to the plates. Women, whether in the form of kitchens, housewives, wooden spoons, frying pans, patlalek or perhaps gourmets creative to an ordinary eater, obscure the view. They wiggle in intimate connection with their own idea, embodied there somewhere in the territory of no one in front of them, from where smoke, smells or cries of surprise rise. Sometimes a boiling woman turns for a second, just to cast a glance, a taste, or a nice word. But otherwise he embraces his kingdom like a hen of his own rolling children. Of course, I washed the dishes as a child. Even as an adult, it has already happened to me. Only the mist of ignorance escaped the obvious and obvious connection between the vessels of strange shapes and the goodness that had just made me happy. Just to my inattention. I know now. Unfortunately, realizing anything has a Socratic understanding that the more I know, the more I find out how much more I need to know. "Do you know it's going to stick in this?" You can't put this in the oven. This is for garlic straining. These holes are for cheese, these are for cucumber. " My gourmet throws magical objects on the example of circus artists, the bowls click, click, fit into each other, sit lightly on the stove. Oh God, when you see the Mother Nature Theater giving random things to the supernatural order in the territory of the Great Stove, when you were allowed to see it, you feel like a researcher staring in horror at a huge astronomical telescope. An unidentifiable object arrives from the constellation of the pans and eats the diced onion and a piece of butter. The Fragrance Nebula is formed, spreading unstoppably through space. "Hmm, it smells." He tells me, "I love the smell of onions, too," throws up my hair, and flies off to drive space travel again. I, as a man in the space program of kitchen properties of the faint mind, poor experience, shallow view, I can not understand all those materials that no longer need other greasers, tools with holes for dripping excess liquid, steamers, juicers, crushers, throttles, mashers, rakes, cutters, molds. Something must be flexible to smear, something hard enough to crush stones on itself. Well, not stones but spices, for example. Have you ever thought that kitchens used to be close to torture chambers? Where else would you find a nutcracker, an egg slicer, a stick mixer, I'd rather not talk about meat cleavers ?! We got a container for honey from a good lady here, she is said to be very handy. You have a glass jar, something like a cut egg sits in it, it has a cap with a lever on top. Mystery. The container came across everything, but not handy. I'd rather put a Rubik's cube blindly than figure out again how this clever honey thing makes people's jobs easier. I had my hands outstretched above the line, honey was glued to everything around me, attempts to wipe the honey ended with gluing other things to the line, carpet, tea towel and microwave oven. "Such an oven to look at!" Said my kind gourmet as she entered the honey kitchen and freed me. Since then, I have been sitting at a respectful distance from those places. I draw the smell of onions into my nostrils, eavesdropping on the secret conversations of gurgling sauces and crying with peppers that resist heat treatment. But now I have a slight idea that there are millions of jars, tools and improvers that are needed as an intermediate stage between the raw material and the finished dish on my plate. Praise be to science and gourmet! Kapitola 10 kapitola 10 – Na nákupech How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 10 - Shopping We enter the supermarket as the finish line of the tractor race. Three or four pairs will fight for the turnstiles and the wiser will retreat, so we are the first in the shop. The vibrant world of ads, tad, we're here. My gourmet and I arrive at a pile of boxes of discounted strawberries in the light of Hollywood spotlights. Most of the strawberries are improved by smaller or larger brown spots compared to the picture above them. Hm. So apparently something went wrong somewhere. We were on our own anyway, so we don't need strawberries. As for arugula, it fits into sandwich salads, which we often make. They do not have arugula, probably the majority of the population eats healthier food. Aaa, here are the apples, you can choose waxed, a color reminiscent of a poisoned fruit from an evil queen, trying to kill Snow White with a single bite, or a battered overpriced look reminiscent of nothing known in this world. Some time ago, my gourmet swore that she would remain steadfast, nervous, and try to cross these tiny deliberations of the universe with a wave of her hand, and I must admit that she is doing quite well so far. However, I saw tiny flames shooting out of the corner of her right eye as a bundle left her half-naked asparagus for eighty crowns, and I also noticed the tiny twitching of her lower lip. There was no intention in that, he just jerked alone. Which may seem even worse to me. In the vegetable department we bought four carrots, a bunch of radishes, one iceberg lettuce and a little dill. I noticed that the dill on one side began to die slightly, so I secretly replaced it with a fresher one on the way to pasta and purees. She didn't notice and the corner stopped twitching. The corner of the purees was the only one of the entire product shelves in this department empty. She smiled, but I swear there was a little bitterness in the smile. The pasta was supposed to be at a discount and the price tag under the bags with all kinds of pasta proclaimed a proud and discounted 35.80. I preferred to look somewhere at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. They had oil. Everything is fine with the pastry. I think I whistled a little. On the other hand, the saleswoman did not have her day at all, and when asked if my gourmet could show the leg, she cut something and refused to unwrap a piece of pork from the transparent food foil, into which the leg was neatly tangled. Probably not to catch a cold in the cool box. "I want to see the meat. I don't know why I should buy something I can't see. " In sign language, I signaled to the saleswoman that in this case it was more sensible to retreat. Of course, I thought about her life and health. She probably hadn't seen me, but across from the frozen spinach and the pizza prepared in the stone oven, the manager flashed, and the saleswoman's eyes flew up, she made a face worthy of a thirteen-year-old brat, and unpacked the cup. The leg unraveled like a torn reddish tread for the king, and in addition to us, thirteen other people left the mass counter. We headed around the refrigerated counters with fish products towards the dairy department. All boxes of fish have retained their price despite the general rise in price. I was happy to take note and learned that for the same price, the same fish had such a big house less than a month ago. From a distance, the cheeses called us in colorful packaging. Inside, small pale, unhealthy blocks crouched, which seemed to be washed and left to dry in the unsmiling radioactive sun on the outskirts of post-apocalyptic Rotterdam. But helemese, there is a beautiful yellowish cheese, with cheerful eyes, a crust certainly crunchy, just toss it tenderly carelessly on bread and butter! I haven't called it out loud yet, the cheese probably had a price tag from the sports car department by mistake. In the market we go to, they usually have excellent German jerves for a reasonable price, which create an unexpected symphony on the bread together with the tomato. They had it, we take three and we are slowly approaching the cash registers. We don't stand at the cash register for too long, as soon as one bites, I don't pay any longer, and we pay in surprise, as if we took all the goods that we didn't take in the end. Next time, I can't look after the Scotch whiskey department. We went outside, jackdaws swaying in the branches of the trees in the parking lot, giggling with disappointed human faces coming from the maw of the supermarket. When we came out from under the roof and the afternoon sun dazzled both of us at the same time, we stopped and my gourmet and I exhaled in a low voice for a moment. We headed home, the journey was quiet, but I would swear that my dear half lowered my dear half slightly but steadily. Kapitola 11 How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 11 - Everything can be fermented I always thought that bacteria is a bitch that causes very inconvenience. Some bacteria fully fulfill this idea of mine, some I would like to apologize for the change. My gourmet misled me. She bought Chinese cabbage, repeatedly rinsed it, salted it, rinsed it, salted it, let it sleep overnight, and went to look at it at night. In the morning, she rinsed again, befriended him with several vegetables, ginger, brown sugar, fish sauce, rice flour, and also ground chilli. It created such a strong bond between Chinese cabbage and all that that it all longed to stay together promoted in a loving bond in a glass for several days. The room temperature and the love between the ingredients and our conspiratorial peeking awoke the friendly bacteria, which must have already accepted my apology and bubbled a magical process in the glass. We peeked through the whole ritual with a spy between the doors, hoping that there would be no catastrophe not unlike the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll. When it's all too wild, you let it cool in the fridge and wait. When we first tasted home-made kimchi, a Korean salad made from fermented vegetables, we almost died of delight and didn't understand how we could live so many wasted years without kimchi. It's great. It's a fact that rude bacteria probably fart a little, so we have to emphasize to uninitiated visitors that it's a culinary process, not the rude of the host. And it's really divine and we eat it for everything but cocoa. We've been bubbling so many times at home since that first batch of kimchi that I can't even count it. Where occultists have their eyes, ears, fingers and other magical properties hidden in mysterious jars at home in mysterious jars, we have beets, kohlrabi or cucumbers in their jars. You would not believe how amazing the color and taste of water from fermented radishes. You wouldn't believe how extraterrestrial segedin tasted from hand-fermented fresh Crimean cabbage. Peppers stuffed with cabbage, all fermented to death, taste better than bacon. Well, not to exaggerate again. But we've fermented almost everything, so I'm waiting so slowly when I wake up crammed into a glass, with a gourmet rolling a large rock on top of the jar so I don't run away. Maybe it would be fun, I would make new friends, we would fuck in the water and we would laugh. What can one want more from life? kapitola 11 – Zkvasit se dá všechno Kapitola 12 How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 12 - Celebrations Integral, if not daily, part of human life become different occasions to run celebrations. Due to the reason for their origin, celebrations can be profiled as juchace, welcoming, mourning, birthday, or other. My gourmet and I are always looking forward to many weeks until the day we have a celebration. Even at the moment when we buy various ingredients for the planned goodies a few days in advance, everything is in the spirit of looking forward. But then that day comes and the gourmet begins. He begins to doubt that the chosen combination of yummy is perfect. She begins to believe that she certainly did not buy some of the raw materials needed for that combination. He starts to panic that this or that will not work out in perfect tuning. Frightened, he peeks into the refrigerator to see if the maturing goodies in the glass have matured to death. Then comes the soothing intermediate stage of the pre-storm. Then he lets himself be convinced that the chosen combination is a supercombination, a thorough control of the ingredients reveals that the ingredients have all been properly procured, the culinary preparations suggest that what was planned is going in the right direction, what should mature at a certain pace, matures exactly. If your home celebration preparations have phases of a similar nature, please enjoy the second pre-storm phase as much as possible. Then comes the hailstorm. The spreads already finished do not have the right density and taste good, the meat is dry, the dips lack something, the meatballs have exchanged some spices, there is something left in the salty sticks. There are a few tens of minutes left until the start of the celebrations and the hairstyles have decided to untangle, the clothes don't fit, the shoes suddenly don't have a pair. Sometimes at this moment I forget my name, I lose my sight and hearing, I sail on a perfect spread river to the realm of Fantasy. When you lose faith in the faith of events, it is best to disconnect, stop, exhale, and gain time to take another breath. Not everything will always work out, but mostly yes. Especially when you know, you know, and your taste buds speak the language of the gods. I touched the spread river right in the middle of the sea of celebrations, where everyone laughed, rejoiced and clapped in the intoxicating intoxication of ingenious goodies. I joined them. The dear gourmet has long forgotten all the fears and insecurities and smiled noticeably at the sight of happy diners. I also. kapitola 12 – Oslavy Kapitola 13 kapitola 13 – Dobromila How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 13 - Dobromila When you get into the gears of gastronomy, everything changes. You meet other people, you enter other shops, you look for other things. And you read books you didn't know existed. That's when I came to the kitchen like this and we have such a sitting there. Dobromila lay in the sitting. Carelessly, deferred, submissive. I became offended and began to frown. "What is it ..." But in the meantime I came to her. My gourmet, meanwhile, leaned something in a saucepan on the stove and pretended she didn't know about me or Dobromil. I believe she was giggling toward the goulash as I coped with the situation. I glanced at Dobromil and wondered if she should be fired immediately. Not good, it's clear to me that you understood a long time ago that it was a book. Home cook - Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová. She lay there as if nothing, unopened, new, unforced. I sat down next to her, picked it up, and put the book over my legs. He opened it so that it wouldn't be said, and then I don't remember anything from the world around me. All I know is that in my new world, I was looking for slugs to bake them, hunting snails in sauce in the garden, and connecting tables to a 30-course festive menu. But my gourmet was already there with me. I tell her I have no idea how to pluck a pheasant, and she says I don't have to worry about it. She was right, with my ability to grease bread incorrectly, I don't have to burden my head with feathered game. However, we talked very interestedly about the veal thymus, the cerebellar warts, the fresh cucumber sauce. We came to the surprising conclusion that Czech gastronomy was not as flat and unhealthy as it is, probably rightly, presented today, when it is presented to us as a model of all world cuisine. Connect me as a boarder of a writer with my gourmet my omniscient and connect us with the ingredients and recipes of the expensive Czech Dobromila and you will see that perhaps at a snail's pace, something world-class will definitely come out of it. Well, I'm going to soak veal patties in melted butter, as a slight intermission I will have sorrel with fried liver and because it's hot today and my gourmet and I don't have sweet desserts in this weather, we only capture the previous delicacies with the poor rabbit's black ancestor. Blessed be the Dobromila! Kapitola14 kapitola 14 – Zaručené zprávy How to Live with a Gourmet - Chapter 14– Guaranteed News When you live with a gourmet, if you don't want to, you sometimes have to meet other people anyway. I can say for myself that the worst thing about people is not even their very existence, perhaps not their constant readiness to communicate their great advice, rather than that most of this advice is worth a cracked cat. Maybe you're not offended now. Of course, I'm not talking about you at all. Perhaps. We learned, for example, that one restaurant cooks well. They have a dining room and a restaurant, nicely next to each other. Because at that time we had the urge to run through all the Pilsen canteens and find at least one decent one, we settled in the canteen. Did you know that garlic is not added to spinach in the dining rooms and the dumplings are collected at the hockey stadium and painted beige? We already know that. There are several restaurants near the main square, where they are guaranteed to cook perfectly. The pub at this place was already two hundred years ago, so the experience of the place plus great food equals the result guaranteed. As we left, I wondered if my gourmet would ever enter the restaurant again. They don't even have as much salt as we ate in a few bites in a coastal village, where they use the sun to steal the white raw material of the sea. You know, my gourmet has beautiful eyes. He can look at me in such a way that I forget about the hardships of public catering, I forget where else the hurt happened to me and it is so beautiful that I want to marry it. Not just because of them, of course. So we found a forest restaurant. We park near it when we go mushroom picking. In it they do wedding ceremonies, food for it. One nice day we decided to try the dishes in this considered restaurant. A lot of people say they cook well there. I'll cut it short. If we get married in this restaurant, we will order a ceremony without food and we will bring our brewery with cuttings and hide them on the edge of the forest. In short, a thousand people, a thousand tastes, and moreover, it seems that most people have lost their taste and do not intend to find it. And since you wouldn't even ask the path of a clearly blind person at the crossroads, the next time you get a guaranteed message from someone who is guaranteeing you for the first time, in terms of probability, I recommend thanking you and walking in another direction. Kapitola 15 kapitola 15 – Na návštěvě u vegetariánky How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 15 - Visiting a vegetarian One should immediately say that we at home are not negatively defined against any deviations in other people's lives. Furthermore, for potential translators into world languages, I would like to point out that in Czech we have different words for deviation and deviation. Just for the introduction. I don't like touching other people. That is, emotionally and negatively to it. My gourmet was known in the nearest butcher in Nové Zámky as the little girl who wants a meat for Christmas, breakfast, a briefcase and a backpack. Lots of meat, just meat. I can fully see those glowing eyes and stretching hands. No doll. In fact ... if the adults of that time had imagination, she could play with the doll in the meat. But it would seem inappropriate. I gained a positive attitude towards animal food much later. The various flasks and chewing gums from the school canteens just couldn't cheer up a young man. I'll skip a few years and approaches to eating. At a certain stage of one's life, one understands that the gallbladder has only one, that Gout is a rather unpleasant friend, and that the world is amazed, even in a world that is not fat, there are many magical tastes. From the above, a bright reader will understand why we went to visit our friend, who does not kill animals to eat, without prejudice, without judgment, but also without feelings of guilt. But also without the hope of any culinary discovery. So far, I have not admitted to anyone that we had steaks, a piece of Hungarian salami and steamed ham in our backpacks in our backpack in case of famine. The visit was, as usual, friendly. As if it wasn't an exotic encounter of carnivores with herbivores at all. As if the food chain didn't exist at all. As if there was no fundamental philosophical contradiction in our heads. As if. And then a friend said if we could taste it. The first faint attempt to make a call to pollute the planet failed, my gourmet chuckled hysterically and began sipping hard from the mineral water she had drunk half a minute ago. I folded my arms across my chest and unfolded them again. The gourmet said we'd love each other, and surprisingly, my friend didn't go to the garden for a meal with a scythe and a knife, nor did she cut the houseplants and then mix them with the morning dew. She pulled out a pan and began to fry something. Fry! That sounded good. We prayed it wasn't a daisy or a cactus. But after a few minutes it started to smell. It smelled like I began to suspect my friend that she was secretly biting sausage sandwiches in the evenings, or that she hadn't looked for a while, and a tiny piece of beef had fallen on her daisy pan. Or that my dear half in a crisis situation unnoticed in a basketball way towards the stove successfully threw a piece of Hungarian salami. She hadn't thrown away, and I've seen her rise in her chair to get a better look, and I've heard her carefully ask what it smelled so good. So I also stopped praying and looked and listened in the same direction. The ringing vegetarian's laughter and the smell of fried health flew straight to our table to the sounds of angelic wings. What I'm going to tell you, I've been staring like spring. And all I had to do was taste it. Something that looked like chevabchi and something that looked like a tartare. A warning flashed through my head about soy sausages and burdock ham, and the first drop of sweat ran after my sleep. The gourmet tasted it and said it was fucking good. Or so she said something. After all, something can't smell like this and taste bad. And yet SHE isn't wrong. So easy and so much. The vegetarian tartare was so good that we've been buying it ever since. The seitans soaked in it were absolutely great. Understand, the vast majority of vegetarian attempts to imitate carnivores are and will be a disaster. Damn, stick to your hooves and cook your stuff in your own way, why imitate carnivores ?! But this worked, and I still believe that the god of all meadows, herbs, and culinary wizards was with us that night, and it all worked out wonderfully. We didn't even eat the crisis package from the butcher on the way home. Kapitola 16 kapitola 16 – Pokouším se vařit How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 16 - I'm trying to cook I would like to warn all regular readers of Gourmet that this episode will not be as funny as some of the previous ones. Here we get into a situation that could be compared to its severity to poking a screwdriver into an electrical outlet or digging a stick under a stone, where a viper killer probably climbed. We are talking about my attempts and a serious approach to the plate, which is not my place of basic security. I feel much more confident with a book in hand, in conversation with small children or even with the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. Still, who among us wouldn't want to cook something good for our partner. Which partner would not want to come to the table with her dear partner? Plus, when you focus on it, almost all the men around you cook. And he's not ashamed to say it out loud when you meet you and her. "So I cooked the birds for Petra again, she clapped." My gourmet sighs lightly. I just twitch my eyes nervously. Two blocks away, another friend said, "So I was watching what you cooked again, but I'm making steaks today." Another friend, whom we haven't seen for half a year and who was making soup, will come down from the depths of the street and she will be roasting in the evening. The gourmet has little secret tears in her eyes and I strongly decide inside that she has to taste something from me. When they cook this intestine, so do I. But. But when I get to the hob, all memories of any cooking from my past suddenly evaporate. How many women (mom, grandmother) have I helped in my life. What I sliced, mixed, kneaded, combined, guarded, tasted. Suddenly nothing. I'm standing there panicking in front of a brothel. I found the recipe, he made the extracts, the gourmet is sleeping. I will surprise her, and the smell of divine food will pull her out of bed and straight into the arms of happiness, love and warm household. Chicken pieces on curry. In addition to the basic recipe, Mr. Ind shows two improvements in the instructional video, I prefer to do the basic version. The cat comes and starts screaming. I say "it's cooking here and secretly, so don't shout!" I cut piles of vegetables, a well-known cook said somewhere that if you prepare everything in advance, you don't have to confuse. Well, you don't have to, but you're confusing. The onion itself will not tell you when it is golden, glassy or in another desired state. Surprisingly, the meat lying on the pan is most fried down, where it is not visible at all. Some vegetables have a great ability to stick to dishes, pieces of meat can smell the moment before they burn, sauces never have the desired density, and if so, you have added so much thickener that it is no longer the originally intended sauce. It is true that I am not a gut and the dish finally smelled and enticed. She came and was curious. She tasted it and said it was good. Understand, she wanted to support me in the godly plan to cook for her. Somewhere above all the roofs, however, there are also mischievous gods who have decided not to buy a high hat yet. Gourmet's stomach probably doesn't like to process curry mixes, in which, in addition to yellow turmeric, there is also a mysterious thing. Well, her stomach hurt and instead of a warm household, we were seriously considering visiting a doctor. She survived, but the experience was at least contradictory. Today, I'd rather keep quiet about how I baked the rolls of the most expensive flour we had at home and about the Asian-style sour soup I ate myself the next day. I'm already looking forward to meeting a friend who fry the steaks. Kapitola 17 kapitola 17 – Pošlete ji na kurz How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 17 - Send her on a course Nobody can do everything. Almost everyone will admit it to you, the wise will always do it. My gourmet is the other way around. On the contrary, she claims that she can't do anything. He says, “Look at how TA cuts onions! Do you see HO mixing it with ease, knowing how much to put in there? ”It's no science to show the only thing a person can do on a TV show, but most of the time I don't succeed. He keeps his own way, casts miracles while you wait, and he doesn't believe he does. Some time ago she discovered the principles of fermentation and since then she has not fermented just a bus, otherwise everything. However, the world of fermentation is a worldwide phenomenon, it is such an extensive portfolio of information, approaches and raw materials that it seemed real to me when she said: "There is still more to be learned in that!" So we ordered a course. She was looking forward to it. It must be said that the course was postponed for some time for objective reasons, which sheds some light on some subsequent phenomena. Even as I took her away, she asked if she should take them to taste the fermented radish. I had to push her (gourmet) out of the door so that the radish would stay at home and she would not carry wood to the forest. I have to admit that the radish was really quite successful and I often regretted myself on the way to the culture house where the event took place, that we did not take it and that the organizers should not boast of that goodness. I stopped dreamily on the right street. We found the house of culture, and as she saw it, she ran out, grabbed some two older ladies in front of the entrance, and disappeared. I stood there like a father in front of the kindergarten and my attempt to wave to the lost child faded into space. Next to the pub was buzzing, one of the regulars who inhaled nicotine with ingredients outside raised his hand to answer my greeting, but then he realized. The course lasted several hours. I had come to pick her up a moment earlier, so I heard the end through the half-open windows of the first-floor hall. The trainer stood leaning against the window frame, inhaling free-flowing oxygen, taking notes in a large notebook at times, and my gourmet standing at the projector with pictures ready, scattering her hands. She jumped on the students in the first place, threw the tip of her pointer towards the original tutor, and asked him another of a series of insidious questions. When the time for the course had expired, the trainer staggered first, ran into the first car, which I didn't think was his, and left, leaving his notebook on the curb, he could have seen himself somewhere at home. Then came the first few, the main development, carrying my gourmet. came out later. They shouted "glory!" And their eyes shone with enthusiasm and acquired knowledge. Good good. It is clear to me that you probably did not come to me for that variety-dramatic conclusion, but I still did not lead you too far from reality. The course program was designed so that even complete beginners could learn something, and there were more experienced students a little ahead. And even among the more experienced, she probably knew the most. She returned home excited, and for the first time she felt that she seemed to know objectively and knew much more than she thought. Concluding remark: this attitude lasted her for about three days. She came here and said, "Look, maybe we didn't do this there at all." I'm going to see if they happen to be taking a fermentation course for advanced students or those who "can't do anything." Kapitola 18 kapitola 18 – Vánoce How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 18 - Christmas Christmas with a gourmet begins long before Christmas. Yogurt or mayonnaise? A living tree or one from the closet? Television or church? Over the years, I've learned that the most erroneous answer on my part is, "It doesn't matter, darling!" I understand that in a woman's mind, it means, "I don't attach importance to the things you do." that doesn't sound nice at all. So it didn't sound. Now I react with deep thought and, according to the current view of the matter, I will say "" Dear man, this year I would just have mayonnaise, under a living tree, and then we will go to see Santa Claus among the people. "He smiles slightly. All right, all right, he nods, a smart one, he looks suspiciously but can't say anything out loud. But don't think, I haven't won yet. She's already looked at these Christmas tricks. However, I publicly declare in my defense that I mean my Christmas views in a consistent manner. Howgh. There is always something going on in the kitchen at home. Christmas just blunts this hustle and bustle. Crispy gingerbreads rest in the fridge where the cat used to sleep, in the box on the cabinet where the cigars froze, the most fragrant vanilla rolls in the world get wet, and inside the Gorenje refrigerator, a wasp's nest filled with alcoholic liquid is opened every time the door is opened. We have spruce twigs tucked into the various gaps of our kitchen in a romantic indulgence of the effervescent forest, one last year I had the impression for a moment that I saw a squirrel blink, but I would not put my hand in the cockroach. We also light fragrant mixtures, on the evening windowsill the flames of candles perform their gentle kung fu and on the wall the shadows counter social jiu jitsu. "Let me have some carols," she says, her elbows revealing hard activity on the stove in front of her. I tune the radio and after a while I turn it off due to clever versions of classic holiday songs. We release the carols from the board and you see the Lada for a while, whom we used to see more everywhere before. My gourmet snuggles up to me, and Santa Claus is just getting ready, and we dream together for a while. At the same time, we eat a few rolls, drink seven wasp nests each, and we are already slightly licked. Did you know that Christmas kissing is the healthiest thing in the world right after Korean kimchi and the most intoxicating right after Colombian chewing coca leaves? I can confirm. When we go to the tree that incriminating day with the golden pig and our cats, I always wonder who applied all those packages under our tree. We stand there and have a Christmas Eve dinner in our stomachs and tiny tears in our eyes. At that tree, one somehow realizes a little more that the rate of falling flakes is more pleasant for the family than the rate of falling value of shares on the stock exchange. That hand in hand of the dear man is more memorable than other organs omlomr entwined in a moment of passion but without love. That life should be enjoyed, second by second, somehow gourmet. kapitola 19 kapitola 19 – Hudba je lék How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 19 - Music is a cure I don't know if you have it the same. A purely pragmatic person will say that music is something extra, something that no one needs for life, such as bread or screws. If there was no music, the man says, the world would not collapse. But without screws and bread, it would soon fall on our heads. I have to agree with the pragmatist that such mundane essentials as things made of iron or flour cannot be debated, and when I really give him, go around the corner and start blabbering. Our world without music would be like water without fish, sky without birds or landscape without looking into the distance. It would all work, but somehow without shine. Without volume, without tension and relaxation, like words without meaning, like a breath without hope that another second makes sense. My gourmet loves music. I don't know if the music would win in the cooking ring, but it would last at least a few rounds. And the best thing is ever when the two don't compete and meet somehow at the same time, in one place and time. The stove bubbles and creates a smell, and while the birds fly or the strudel wraps up, he plays a kind of chikibum chikibum from the speaker, the drum rippled the membrane and rippled the gourmet, and I suddenly stop reading and wonder what's going on. I look up at the kitchen counter and have to smile. Slight movements in the hips to the rhythm of the music are becoming more and more noticeable or careless, apparently the gourmet loses the notion of time, place and purpose and dances. Gourmet dancing, believe me or not, evokes pleasant smiles on your face, bliss in your chest and thus connects excitement and peace in every way. Music, in my opinion, simply belongs to cooking, to the kitchen, to gourmets, to their admirers, to life in general. Some physicists say that our world is made up of waves. It is hardly surprising then that there is a beneficial connection of sounds, dance and culinary miracles into one wave, into one key, into one wonderful everyday integrity. And here I stop blabbering around the corner, a man, formerly pragmatic, comes to me, I think he cried a little, he doesn't want to let it be known, but he still doesn't hide anything. The man tastes a little strudel and some scattered birds, soaked in that moment with dance and music and the love of life, and the man has no words. He already sees landscapes instead of empty horizons and sees fish swimming in the current. Chikibum, chikibum, screws and bread and more. That life can be really nice. Kapitola 20 kapitola 20 – Ochutnávací magnetizmus How to live with a gourmet - Chapter 20 - Tasting magnetism We each attract different situations into our lives, probably depending on what we are attuned to, what we think about, what energy circulates through our brain threads, tense muscles and blood capillaries. There is a need for people who are attracted to disasters, and if there is a single pit in the whole street, they will certainly fall into it. Another attracts success itself, pleasant surprises and joyful coincidences. Someone should do biological research on these individuals, and then I'll come for a blood transfusion. My gourmet attracts random tasting to life. "Hello, 10 rolls, that bread over there, and what's that baguette over there?" "You have to taste it, it's delicious" And he's already serving the gourmet a piece of baguette. I smile. "Hello, 20 blankets of debrecen, two slices of light sausage and this salami, is it good, does it look nice?" "Wait, I'll give you a taste." I smile. This is how it's a shop. A special chapter is food demonstrations, trade fairs and similar dining meetings. In the stalls, little men vibrate with foreign raw materials, fry, dry, stir-fry, pitch. There are thirty people in line, and the brown man pulls the brown sausage out of the grill, sprinkles it with a mysterious mixture, frowns artistically to sprinkle the sausage really specially, and throws his outstretched hand at the gourmet: "You have to try it, you enjoy it." Of course I will smile, so somehow it was to be expected, I would actually be surprised if it didn't happen. Yeah, I also have a bit of a taste for magic sausage, but it should be noted that the gourmet will halve most of the offered goodies, so I'll get to the miracles too. We're going for a beer. In fact, she could stand with her back to the salesman, close her eyes, not talk, and still have "we have complete news here, will you taste it?" "Do you mean me?" I expect this trend to intensify in some way. If, for example, we walk down the street in a few years and an eager little man making street snacks chases us down a gloomy street, he throws pieces of cheese at us, crunches the best French wine at the nape of his neck and throws magical sausages into our combed hair. In my opinion, everything is very damaging, so I hope that this trend will not gain momentum. But again, you will admit that it would be quite blasphemous to reject such a gift altogether. Today we will go to the queue for the best smoker at the farmers' market. If he throws something at us. Kapitola 21 kapitola 21 – Po schodech Když býval hitem song, který zpíval Richard Miller, s tématem chození „po schodoch, po zvukoch“ a i on poznával „čo sme kto za ludia“, přišlo mi to vtipné, s dobrým postřehem pro každodenní zvuky vycházející z bytů panelových domů. Zajímalo by mě, jestli už tehdy autor písně přemýšlel i o tom, jaké z jednotlivých bytů vycházejí vůně. Jestli ne, chybu udělal, minimálně pokud měl po ruce gurmánku a její zostřené čichové vnímání. Mohl se dozvědět, jací lidé žijí za dveřmi s oprýskaným kukátkem, či u botníku, hlídajícího vchod s imitací zebří kůže na svojí ploše. Samozřejmě i zde velmi záleží na tom, kdo a hlavně co, vaří. S tím souvisí i akce gurmánčina a reakce jejího průvodce, totiž mne. Pokud jste si totiž mysleli, že gurmánka spokojí se pouze s konstatováním toho, co asi která rodina vaří, pletli byste se velmi. Ona je to totiž situace v mnohém připomínající zpomalené barevné videozáběry z televizního pořadu kanálu National Geographic. Malé něžné lvíčátko hopká po schodech a jeho drsná moudrá lvice – maminka kráčí důstojně vedle něj. Klíčovou dírkou, rozuměj křovinou, zavoní cosi a lvíčátko div nedrcne do maminky, která s napjatou šíjí a pnoucími se nozdrami nasává, větří, kroutí hlavou a mezi zuby procedí „asi svíčková“. Lvíčátko koulí očima, nasává a cítí jenom vlhké stěny činžáku. „Domácí knedlík asi“, procedí mezi zuby matka lvice. „Já nic necítím“, špitne malý a cítí se lehce méněcenný. Jde se dál, o dvě patra níž matka opět nechá nozdrami proudit závan savany a opět pronese něco jako „vývar, hmm, to voní“. Tady už to cítíme oba. Horší situace nastane, když kuchařinka za dveřmi vaří nedobroty. Rozuměj používá umělé přísady nebo nedbá na množství spáleného oleje například. „Cítíš to“, ptá se matka lvice a stane se, že tady i malý poulí oči a zvedá se mu kufřík. Ono ostatně některé brutálně smažící akce zanechávají na hostech znamení málem ďábelská. Pamatuju se, jak jsme odcházeli z restaurace, kde na přepáleném oleji smažili rodinku kuřat a prasátek pro rodinku čuňátek a jelítek a smažili to na stejném oleji tak dlouho, dokud byl olej tekuté konzistence. To nešlo necítit, ale když to nejíte, tak se to dá přežít. Nicméně poté jsme odcházeli do své oblíbené hospůdky a už na schodech, dvacet metrů vzdálených od baru, výčepní říká: „vy jste něco smažili“? Takže ostuda, hanba, propadání se pod zem a podobně. Vraťme se na schody bytových domů. Gurmánka chodí a nasává, tedy vůně zpoza dveří se linoucí. Horší je, když nasávání touží překonvertovat do akce. V lepším případě touží zvonit na cizí dveře a pozvat nás k někomu na oběd, v horším případě shání zbraně hromadného ničení a zvoní s úmyslem ublížit. Úplně to vidím. Gurmánka 007, s povolením zabíjet, plíží se podél zdi a zpoza rohu kosí umělohmotná dochucovadla, univerzální grilovací koření a do vzduchu vykopává kastrol s přepáleným tukem. Tady se ovšem rozběhla pouze moje fantazie, gurmánka nikde nezvoní, nestřílí, nekope. Ale co vy víte, možná jednou? Kapitola 22 kapitola 22 – Láska v době chuťomoru Žijeme s gurmánkou v době, kdy svět svírá nemoc, která mimo jiné odebírá chuťové a čichové vjemy. Sice to není mor, ale pro osobu zvyklou stoprocentně se spoléhat na vyladěný jazýček a vyčichaný nosíček je to pohroma. Nebo ne? Je to jako byste skvělému skokanu do dálky odebrali nacvičenou zkušenost jemně přesunovat váhu svého těla ze země do vzduchu a zpět, všechna ta léta létání vzduchem a nejjemnější nuance proudění vzduchu, přesné odrazy a dopady a najednou to je všechno pryč. Plakající skokani do dálky sice posbírají něco mého soucitu, ale gurmánčin pohled, když vyslovovala „Já nic necítím“, to by pohnulo i vrchním dodavatelem soucitu jakéhokoliv mocnářství. „Jak necítíš?Jak nic?“ Tiše pomlaskává ve snaze zachytit alespoň něco z toho, co pokrm v ústech převalovaný nabízí a v marnosti rozhodí rukama, že „nic“. Chvilku se v panice pokouším ve vzduchu visící informaci ignorovat, pak zjistím, že ignorovat nejde a pak mi dojde že i já osobně nebudu ušetřen následků takového smyslového postižení. Když ztratí skokan schopnost skákat, maximálně sebou plácne o metr blíže výchozímu bodu, ale co gurmánka? Jak byste chtěli vařit bez možnosti ochutnávat? Už vám to došlo? Ano, jistě, předpisy a recepty a recepisy. Hoď do toho žejdlík toho, přisyp nůši tamtoho a k tomu rozkvrdlej lot dalšího. Jenže stejně to potřebujete vyzkoušet. Jak se chutě spojily, prolnuly jedna s druhou, jestli jedna vystupuje nad druhou a třeba jen v začátku, nebo celkově. Což jsem se dozvěděl až poté, co mě napadlo zmínit se o předpisech , receptech a žejdlících. Možná by varianta „necítím nic“ byla snesitelnější v plném dopadu nicotnosti spíš než ve variantě, do které se nakonec vyvinula – varianta rozklad na prvočísla, tedy provočinitele, tedy prvochutnatele. Prostě si představte chuť salámu rozloženou na jednotlivé součásti dohromady neskládající slibovanou výslednou chuť. To je peklo! Hrůza. Nemluvě o tom, že jste nikdy nechtěli vědět, z jakých částí se chuť salámu skládá. Občas na probíhající chuťovou apokalypsu zapomenu a zeptám se jí, jak jí to chutná. To něco. Gurmánka odpoví nepublikovatelnou směsí poloslov, něco jako citoslovce v sci-fi příbězích, kde hlavní hrdinka drtí hlavu zelené příšeře, a současně střílí zrádného kapitána do zrádného srdce. Některým chuťově postiženým se chuť vrací zcela nenadále, sladce a radostně. Několikrát denně odříkávám svoje soukromé modlitbičky, aby se to náhle a radostně a již brzy stalo. Tak co, jaký to je? Aaargh blip gork chvuuuum! Kapitola 23 kapitola 23 – Akutní hrozba Vánoc Znáte ten čas, kdy podzim ztrácí svoje barvy a teplo léta už je jenom vybledlou vzpomínkou, ale zima zatím jenom vykukuje zpoza pootevřených okenic a neodvažuje se vejít k vám domů? Tehdy moje gurmánka ztrácí z očí lesk a vyměňuje ho za režim energeticky úsporného vyčkávání na příští letní horka. Co se týká jídla, sveřepě ještě pomíchá kostičky zeleniny do svěžího salátu, ale oba už víme, že čas potravinového prohřívání je dávno tady. Horký čaj poránu poslouží dennímu fungování lépe než pomerančový džus s kostkou ledu, dýňová polévka snese větší a větší podíl chilli, zažehávající v našich útrobách jiskřičky ne nepodobné těm vylétávajícím nad krbovou římsu. Tuhle to krapet přehnala a já v práci před kolegy hořel jako vřeštící Molotovův koktejl, ale to už je jiná historie. Vím, že jsem v nadpisu „slíbil“ Vánoce, nezapomněl jsem. Je půlka listopadu, ranní mlhy jsou něco, co do přírody a tohoto období patří, ale stejně se za oknem prochladlého automobilu tvářím jako nevděčný kakabus. Vděčnost je namístě vždycky. Že jsme směli dojít až sem, že máme kolem sebe svoje drahé, máme-li je, nebo že aspoň máme naději, že ještě přijdou. Já jsem vděčný za svoji gurmánku, byť je zrovna v režimu půlročního vyčkávání červencových veder. Nejsilnějším narušitelem zimního polospánku je čas Vánoc. Vánoce s sebou z historie nesou konejšivou peřinu romantiky ladovského ražení, v současnosti pokřivené konzumní hysterií maximalizace dárkových balíčků. Pokud dneska dítě nedostane balíček větší než je ono samo, propuká v pláč, deprese a touží po změně rodičů, pohlaví nebo alespoň zeměpisné šířky či délky. Gurmánka nese toto období poněkud nelehce. Vřeštící nevychovanci visící za vytahanou ruku ztrhaných rodičů ji přivádějí do stavů šílenství, které nechcete zažít a ceny pytlíčků domácího cukroví za ceny výprodejového tryskáče ji nutí supět a dštít obláčky prvotřídní síry. Slovo tradiční před ní v době mezi listopadem a březnem raději nepoužívejte. Tradiční svařené víno jako výrobek masové spotřeby zkombinovaný z hromádky granulátu zalité vodou prosím ne. Lokty v žebrech a přišlápnuté palce na trhu na svatého Martina tohle všechno odstartují. Tehdy utíkáme domů a gurmánka zapaluje vonné svíčky, zhasíná světlo, lezeme pod chlupatou deku jako do bunkru, přibíhají naši kočičí spolubydlící, a z chlupatého bezpečí vykukují naše čtyři páry očí a doufají, že neuvidí první hrůzostrašnou sněhovou vločku padat k našim dveřím.