Reading of Jiří Hájíček's Rustic Baroque by Translator Gale A. Kirking

I read an article about Jiří Hájíček in a magazine back in 2006. He had just been awarded the Magnesia Litera prize for this novel as it was chosen as the best novel in 2005 in the Czech Republic. I got the book, gave it to my wife, who read it and passed it around to her mother and her father and her aunts read it. We all agreed that it was quite an interesting book. Then my wife and I got in touch with Jiří Hájíček's agent, then with Mr. Hájíček himself and it developed from there. >Could you just tell us briefly what it's about, just so people know? >It's sort of a historical detective story with a little bit of a love story mixed in. It's about history, archeology and a little bit about architecture. It's about a professional genealogist who's searching people's family histories, and he gets started in a very special project that turns into a sort of mystery story. It takes us back to the 1950s when agriculture was collectivized here which was a very ugly period in the villages. It also looks at things that were going on in the 1990s with the restitution of property and it gives us some insight as to how all this affects people even to this day. >So it's something which if you are interested in this society and this culture and why Czechs are like they are would be a very interesting book to read to give you some idea. Could you just read us 2 or 3 pages of it to get a feel of what it's like? >Sure, I'd be happy to do that. I think I'll just start at the beginning and read a short section. The book starts, to give you a little set-up, this first scene of the book is occurring in Třeboň Those of you who've been to Třeboň may remember that there's a castle there and a rather large park alongside the castle. And our main character in the book, Pavel Straňanský, is sitting on a park bench there and is having a meeting with a rather dodgy character named Šrámek. And so I'll just read a few words. Oh, for God's sake, not this miserable place again, I just thought to myself and sighed. The sun was searing through the thin green leaves, and the crown of the linden tree above was humming with summer. Tourists exhausted by the scorching heat were plodding along the footpaths in the park, heading to the castle gate. Mr. Šrámek sat beside me on the bench and just kept talking. I was looking forward to being within the coolness of those stone walls nearby, in the weirdly pallid light of the research room, the muffled rustling of archival documents, the musty odor exuded by old books. "A man has to pull every word out of you," he said. "You shouldn't have come here again," I answered. "But you know these villages, these people. For you it's just a matter of a few days. You said so yourself. So why don't you want to do it all of a sudden? I don't get it…" I was flipping through the files he had given me only in order to put this torrid and unpleasant interlude behind me. A few newspaper clippings, sheets torn from some yellowed brochure, copied pages of official documents. I repeated to myself the name of the village and then the three family names one after another: Jircha, Kubach, Mařánek… Yes, of course, Mařánek. "It's house number 11. Two-gabled farmstead on the square, well kept up. And across the way, there's that ruin that used to be a farmhouse with the vaulted gate, and it has a two-storied granary. A part of it's been knocked down, and the cooperative farm stores some machinery there. The barn's about to fall in, too. They call it the Jircha place. And the Kubach farm? I don't remember exactly just now." "I can see that you have it all in here," Šrámek said, tapping his head, his plump face brightening. "Mainly in here," I replied, rapping with the knuckle of my index finger on the laptop computer in the black case. "Mr. Straňanský, it's certainly somewhere at those farmsteads. We don't know where, but you'll find it. Someone may have it in some old shed around there, maybe in Černá Hůrka, I don't know… People used to keep such things. The old folks still come and sit about on the village squares there…" "Tomašice, Černá Hůrka, Smrčí," I said, pronouncing the names of the villages out loud. It's like a swirl in a kettle, those farmhouses, surnames, godparents, christenings… "I had a few jobs from over that way some time ago. I think I even wrote about those farmhouses. But that was many years ago! Those villages are dying out, Mr. Šrámek." He bent his shaven pink face toward me. He was around 50, his hair already turning gray, wide suspenders on his light summer shirt with short sleeves, chubby arms. "I tell you, it's a letter. It's there somewhere, that much we know. Maybe there's even more documents. At the village hall? At the rectory? I don't know, you're the expert. You may find there's a whole pile of papers. In some cupboard or in an attic." He lowered his voice a bit more. "And then it would be a straightforward swap, Mr. Straňanský, just as I told you. Papers to me, money to you." The sun was right above the Třeboň castle, I was kicking at the bench with my heel and my thirst was pleading for me to get out of there. It was difficult to swallow. I was thinking about the open spaces above and beyond the fields back home, about water and shade. But now I was in this pressure cooker. Šrámek was prodding me to decide, to agree, and his hot, unpleasant shadow was pushing me into a place where I did not at all want to go. "You know what? You should find somebody else." "Mr. Straňanský! These things happened years ago. Who knows for how long that woman is already dead. There's no danger for you." I got up and stretched my back. He stood up, too, sweat on his forehead, wet spots on his shirt. I handed him the things. "Keep it, Mr. Straňanský. I'm going back again through Jindřichův Hradec on Friday. I'll come by." And he immediately carried on, as if I had said nothing at all: "Here at one o'clock?" I was looking at the half-dry grass. "It's a deal," he said after a while - in fact speaking just to himself. "If you're not here, I'll come by and ring for you at the archive." Where does it go from there? [clapping]