Free Devil's Workshop by Jáchym Topol

candles, so Lebo’s ideas would make even more of an impression. Lebo’s talk was more powerful than all the displays and textbook pages put together. Yes, the students loved his teaching, and during those long evenings in our squat, stoned on rampart grass, they trembled in their bunks, inserting their minds into Lebo’s like fingers in a wound.

     
    But then something changed.
    As our fame advanced around the world, as our fame increased, it happened.
    The footage of our games, the images of dancing girls, flew around the world. We were famous. But a lot of journalists weren’t writing the same thing as Rolf and his friends. Newspapers still ran front-page photos of Lebo, proud and upright in his black suit, but surrounded by a group of girls in flowing dresses and skirts, adorned with blades of grass. ‘Hippie Commune in Town of Death’, read one caption. ‘Old Jew Operates Harem’, said another. And then they really started to write about us a lot, and we were getting too many people, and some of them were calling us names. According to our enemies, we were shamelessly milking people’s misery to pay for our orgies. They sent detectives and a taxman and the financial guard to investigate.
    Naturally, accounting wasn’t our organization’s strong point.
    Our strong point was enthusiasm.
    Several investigations were opened. Inspectors raided our stalls and confiscated our goods, saying they wanted to ascertain if they were legally acquired. Hygiene officials, disguised as tourists, purchased large quantities of ghetto pizza and sent samples to a lab. We were forbidden to sell any more till the results came back. And more charges followed. There were summonses to interrogations crumpled up in little balls and tossed all over the place.
    It wasn’t a good time for me.
    I knew I couldn’t go to jail.
    But where would I go?
    Then I got a package. With a letter and a return address.
    I thought maybe someone had spotted the picture of me as Lebo’s right-hand man, the way Sara had. No one had ever written to me before, let alone from America. I walked through the grass, taking Bojek with me, and opened the letter.
    Dear co-worker,
I know your sentence is over. I found work in the US and I work in more than one state, so I’m confident that our profession has a future. The game that you once helped create has met with some success, so I’ve decided to pay you a small sum as a token of my gratitude. If you would like to continue our work, please let me know.
Sincerely,
     
    It was signed Mr Mára. Bojek nuzzled the envelope. I pushed him away and grabbed it. A CD-ROM.
Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe 5
. Ha! That was the game the students at the Comenium played the most. Not me, I didn’t have time.
    I didn’t read the letter again. I crumpled it into a little ball and threw it away. Let the wind take it, I thought.
    I was sitting by the ramparts with Bojek, the only one left of my flock, blind and lame, poor thing, in his frayed collar.
    All of a sudden Alex was standing there in front of me. With Maruška. She was smiling.

     
    He offered me a job. In his country, Belarus. He said all I needed was the data from the Comenium, the contacts we had made with the generous financial world, tucked away inside my head and in the Spider, the flash drive, that tiny little piece of technology.
    I’d get the details when I arrived.
    Alex sat down in the grass and Maruška just stood, looking at me. I gazed up at her as Alex explained to me that the Comenium’s situation was untenable.
    He talked about accusations of embezzlement, tax evasion, extortion , obstruction of government administration, contempt of court, occupation of public property, destruction of public property, disturbing the peace. He mentioned a section of the penal code on corruption of youth, and many other sections that would swoop down upon the normally tranquil surface of our lives in Terezín like gluttonous cormorants on a muddy pool swarming with