The Middle Seat

Ondra brings the speakers up from the cellar in Háje, two Tesla boxes his grandfather built a stand for in 1979 and never once let anyone dust. Zdena watches him strip the wires with a bread knife and a lot of breathing. He puts one by the window and one by the wardrobe, measures with his arms like a man showing you a fish, and drags her armchair to the place where the distances agree. Then Hegerová, the old record, the one with the scratch three songs in, which nobody in this family has ever fixed, because then how would you know where you were. And Zdena says, She's here. By the television. There is no speaker by the television. There is a fern and a photograph of a man in a fishing hat. Ondra explains, because he is seventeen and has a phone: two equal voices, one left, one right, the ears do sums, and the sum stands up in the middle where nothing is. Move to the sofa, Babi. Try it. She moves. The singer goes into the wardrobe like a coat. Come back. She comes back. Hegerová steps out again and stands by the television, a little in front of the fishing hat, the way a guest stands who has been invited and isn't sure. So it's a trick, Zdena says. It's maths, he says. She looks at the window, the wardrobe, the estate going orange, and the place between them she can only find by sitting. Then I know where I'm sitting, she says, and tells him to leave the cables where they are. She'll step over them.