THE SEVENTEENTH
It was too late to attend the funeral of Antonín Gonda, that Antigona, to whom Martin wandered so often in thought. There had been something between them. They didn’t know what it was, and now they never will. There was no funeral anyway. Who buries stuff, right? You use up the stuff you have and then you recycle it.
‘How did it happen?’ Martin asked the friend-in-common who brought him the news.
‘He drank a lot.’
‘Always did.’
‘But lately, even more than before. He shacked up with some broad; they had a kid, but it wasn’t what you might call a happy union. The last time he was seen it was in the tavern, the Kotelna. You know, “The Boiler Room,” where the boiler used to be, the heating plant of the building? There’s a bar there now, because the apartment blocks have be
