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44
Friends
Francis and John Janovski’s father had given them the gift
of a wooden tram, which at times was also a cigarette box,
into which father’s hand sometimes snaked, in order to
smoke some white cylinder. The other white cylinders
stood in the tram and rode from the sideboard to the table,
which counted as a trip from Tower Hill to Forest Park. The
spilt tobacco could be tickets, which covered the scene,
until Francis gathered them up and fed them to the fish in
the aquarium.
But soon enough the Jankovski boys forgot the tram, and it
got covered with dust, yet hidden in circling blood was
friendship between the boys, which the father valued most
highly.
Pan
Janovski was a cabinet maker for a furniture
workshop; between the vaporizing faces of workmen and
cardboard signs, a world full of wonders was created. At
home the boys listened to their father.
“Every great master has a friend or even several friends,
who are wrapped in mist and forgetfulness, but they are the
real ones – dissolved in the heart!”
pan
Janovski said, and at
that moment his ears quivered, becoming red as rosebuds.
“Can a person be a friend?” asked John.