R. Bradbrook, who helped with the stories’ selection, also came up with the perfect translation, used herein, for podpovídky, the word apek invented for these short narratives.

Like the Apocryphal Tales, some of the Would-Be Tales are in response to personal and political events of the time. “The Anonymous Letter,” for instance, was written in the turbulent and despairing days following the Munich Agreement, when apek himself was receiving hate mail blaming him for the turmoil into which the nation had been plunged.

A final note: The Would-Be Tale “The Moving Business” was chosen to open this edition because of its reference to several historical eras featured in individual Apocryphal Tales, and also for its affirmation of the unchanging human, social, and political realities found in any age. The title in translation scores a rare point of advantage for English: the Czech word used for “moving” refers solely to packing up and moving out; for us, the word has another, entirely different connotation as well — a “moving business” it is, in both senses.

Acknowledgments

Outsiders who attempt to translate another culture’s literature for consumption back home are well advised to check their efforts out — Czech them out, in this instance — with an insider. This outsider gratefully acknowledges the invaluable counsel of insider Peter Kussi, equally and cheerfully at home in both Czech and English. Thanks as well to publisher, editor, and apek fan Rob Wechsler for his usual good advice and encouragement. Zdenka Pospíšilová Tripp graciously clarified some of the more enigmatic idioms in some of the Would-Be Tales. Remaining incongruities of whatever kind are the translator’s own.

The Moving Business

(A Would-Be Tale)

— — true, I still don’t know, technically, how to make a go of it, but technical solutions can always be found when a good idea promises a decent profit. And my idea, friend, will make a fabulous amount of money — just as soon as somebody can help me figure out some of the practical details to get it up and running. Like I say, friend, it’s flawless; work out a few of the kinks, and it’ll almost run itself.

Let’s see if I can give you a practical example — Look: maybe you don’t like the street you’re living on; maybe it stinks to high heaven from a chocolate factory, or there’s so much racket you can’t sleep at night, or some vulgar, disgusting element’s taken over, I don’t know. Anyway, one day you tell yourself that this street’s no longer for you. Now what, in a situation like this, do you do? You pick out a place to live on some other street, you phone for a moving van, and you move to your new apartment, right? Simple as pie. Fundamentally, my friend, every good idea is amazingly simple.

Now let’s say you tell yourself that this century’s not for you. There are people who prefer peace and quiet; there are people who get sick to their stomachs when they read in the paper about what’s going on these days, that there is or will be war, that people are being executed somewhere or other, or that somewhere else a few hundred or a few thousand people are killing each other off. That sort of thing can get on your nerves, friend, and some people can’t take it. Some people don’t like it when every day there’s violence breaking out someplace in the world, and they think: why should I have to stand by and watch it happening? Here I am, a civilized, temperate family man, and I don’t want my children growing up in such a strange and disord — . . . I could even say, a deranged and dangerous world, right? Well, there are lots of people who think that way, friend, and once you start traveling down that road, you have to admit we can’t really be certain about anything these days: not about life or position or finances, no, not even about family. No question about it, there used to be a lot more certainty in this world. Anyway, there are plenty of good, decent people who don’t like these times at all, and some of them are downright unhappy if not disgusted at having to live on a street that’s so blighted and brutal they don’t even poke their noses outside. There’s nothing they can do about it; but if this is life, they want out.

And that’s where I come in, my friend. I’ll hand them one of these brochures for my business:

Don’t like the twentieth century? Then turn to me! I’ll move you to any past age you like in my specially-equipped moving vans! Not an excursion, but permanent relocation! Choose the century in which life will be best for you, and my efficient, qualified movers will get you, your family, and other household goods there quickly, cheaply, and safely! My vans can move you anywhere within a range of three hundred years, and we’re in the process now of designing vans with a range of two to three thousand years that’ll work like a breeze. For each year traveled, haulage fees per kilogram increase by x number of crowns —

Actually, I’m not sure what the cost will be; I mean, I don’t yet have the vans to do the time-travel. But there’s no problem that doesn’t have a solution; all I need to do is sit down with a pencil and figure out how much it will take to make a profit. Except for those stupid rigs to do the moving, I’ve got the whole thing thought out beautifully.

Let’s say some gentleman comes to me who wants to move somewhere out of this damned century; he’s had it up to the eyeballs, he says, right up to the eyeballs with wars, the arms race, bolsheviks, fascism and, for that matter, progress in general. I let him go on cussing, and then I say: Please be so good, sir, as to select some other era; here are some brochures for several different centuries. Perhaps this one, if you like: the nineteenth century. A cultured age, with only moderate oppression and properly conducted wars of rather smaller scope; remarkable flourishing of the sciences, ample opportunity to take advantage of economic swings. We recommend mid-century Austria-Hungary in particular, for its profound tranquility, thanks to the somewhat authoritarian Minister of the Interior, and for its tolerably humane treatment of people.