Gyorgy Dragoman - The White King

So I was sitting right there and looking at the picture when all of a sudden one of the laborers stopped next to me, I could tell from his bootlaces that it was the one called Feri, and he leaned down and tore my father's picture right out of my hand. "Whatcha looking at?" he asked, and then he held the picture really close to his eyes, like someone who couldn't see well. "Who's that," he asked, "your old man?" But I didn't answer, I only nodded, and this fiery heat passed from the top of my head all the way through me, and my ears were practically on fire and I couldn't say a thing, I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no, all I could do was nod, and my stomach was in knots, it felt as if a lump had begun moving up out of my belly toward my neck, and when it reached my throat, somehow I did speak after all. "Do you know him?" I asked, but my voice was shaking terribly. "He's there too, at the Danube Canal, you guys also came from there, huh?"

The laborer held an index finger in front of his mouth, bent down closer, hissed shhh, whispered that this was a state secret, and gave me a wink, and then for a long time he didn't say a thing, no, he just kept looking at the picture, turning it in his hands as if he couldn't see it right, and meanwhile he kept biting his lips, and then he shook his head and stood up straight and called out to the other laborer, "Get over here, Trajan, get a load of this, you won't believe it!"

The laborer called Trajan then put down on the blanket the piece of bread he'd been chewing, stood up, and came over. When he got there, the laborer called Feri put the picture into his hand without a word, but then he said, "Look at it good, at first you won't be able to tell, but just look at it extra careful." The laborer called Trajan looked at the picture for a long time too, turning it in his hands, but then he shook his head and asked, "What am I supposed to see? Because I don't see a thing." Feri bit his lips again and said, "That's because you're blind," and he poked an index finger at my father's face and added, "Just look at that mouth and you'll see plain as day that this is none other than Pickax."

Knitting his brow, Trajan just stared at the picture for a while before suddenly breaking into a grin. "Holy Jesus, well I'll be, damn me if that's not Pickax." Now Feri started nodding and tore the picture out of Trajan's hand, "Pickax it is," he said, "and get a load of how young he was, get a load of how nice and smooth his face still was, I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it," and then Feri got all quiet and looked at me. "So then, you're Pickax's son, are you?" and he reached out a hand, and as I took it he patted my shoulder with his other hand and said, "You can be proud of your dad, he's a really decent guy."

He shook my hand tight but it didn't hurt, and so I asked, "You two know him? You really know him?" Trajan nodded. "You bet we know him, he'll be here in no time, he's bringing the shed we'll be staying in," and then Trajan put the picture back in my hand. "Here it is, put it away," he said, and I asked, "Is he really coming here, you swear?" Even I could hear how much my voice was trembling, and I could feel my whole body shaking, like when you get the shivers from being cold. The laborer called Feri then looked at me again and asked, "What did you say you're called?" When I told him, Feri nodded. "Yes, he mentioned you, he sure did, you remember too, Trajan, huh? He said he hasn't seen you in a long time, and he'll come look you up and bring something for you."

On hearing all this I got so dizzy all of a sudden and looked down at the ground, at my shoes, everything seemed to be turning round and round, the chunks of earth and blades of grass and pebbles too, everything was spinning and I almost fell, but then the laborer called Trajan put an arm around me. "It's all right," he said, "get a hold of yourself." But I was still shaking as I then remembered my father's postcards, and how Mother had at first waited and waited for him to return, and how she always shuddered whenever the doorbell rang, thinking that my father had finally been allowed to come home, and then I said to the laborers, "You two are lying, if my father really came back he would have looked us up for sure, he would have come home to us, to Mother and me, besides, my dad isn't called Pickax, my dad isn't friends with you guys."

The laborer called Feri then grabbed both of my shoulders and turned me toward him and said, "Get a hold of yourself, how long has it been since you've seen your old man?" "Almost nine months," I said, and he nodded. "Nine months at the Danube Canal is a real long time," and then he asked, "Do you know what smallpox is?" and I said, "Sure I know, it's a disease that's been wiped out already," and then the laborer said, "Yeah, yeah, sure," and he leaned even closer to me and started whispering, but so I could hardly hear what he was saying. And he whispered that he for one had seen men die of smallpox because that disease still flares up here and there along the Danube Canal, especially in the reeducation camps, but no one's allowed to talk about those camps, and that that's where my dad caught it too, and it almost killed him, but he was lucky that on account of this they let him go, that they didn't do the whole reeducation thing with him because then he wouldn't remember a thing about his former life, which is why only his face had changed, from the pockmarks, that is, but so much so that you couldn't even recognize him anymore, and he was real ashamed about this, and that's why he didn't write to us anymore, and that's why he didn't dare look us up, because he was scared of what my mom and I would say to him, he had to gather up the courage and the strength. But when he finally got here with that shed, why then, I'd see him for myself, and then the laborer called Feri told me again not to be scared, and he held out that bag of caramels and said, "Go ahead, take some, don't be scared, you'll feel the call of blood kinship anyway, and if you're brave enough, everything will be A-okay."

The two laborers then sat back down on the blanket, but not before Trajan slammed two shovels together and shouted that break was over and that we had another hour of work left, and then everyone could go home for lunch, and we'd have to come back only two hours after that.

Even though I was still dizzy when we got back to work, the shovel seemed to move by itself in my hands, yes, I kept flinging more and more dirt behind me, and the whole time I was watching the road, but no one came, and I didn't want to be looking that way all the time, but no matter how I tried I just couldn't stand not to look, so I shut my eyes because I didn't want to see that empty road, and I opened them only when I drove the shovel into the ground. But not even that helped, because even with my eyes shut I could see my father's face before me, and as the earth crumbled I thought of the smallpox, and I didn't want to imagine the pockmarks. And then all of a sudden I heard a cowbell, I looked up and saw the shed approaching, it was being pulled by two donkeys, and one of them had a cowbell tied around its neck, the shed was really big and it was painted gray, and someone was sitting up front on top of it, someone all wrapped up in a blanket and driving the donkeys with a long stick, and then the shovel fell out of my hands, and I kept looking at that figure, there was a peaked cap on his head, a miner's cap, and even though I couldn't see his face, the way he sat there wasn't familiar at all. Then the shed came closer and closer, it drove onto the soccer field, and the driver's face still wasn't visible, and then I climbed out of the ditch and I stood there at the edge and waited, and I felt my legs shaking and my hands shaking too. Then the man yanked at the reins and the donkeys stopped, and he jumped off the driver's seat, I could see only his back, but the way he now moved really did seem like how my father moved, at least the way he held his head, and by then everyone was looking at me, the laborers and everyone else, and I took a step toward the person on top of the cart, and then suddenly he turned and looked right at me and threw the blanket off himself, which is when I saw his face. It was nothing but pockmarks, I couldn't make out his features at all, the pockmarks were really deep and they flowed together, besides, they were spread thick with some sort of whitish cream that gave his whole face a greasy glitter, and when he saw that I was looking at him, he smiled, and I wanted to look only at his eyes and at his mouth, and by then I knew he wasn't my father, no he wasn't, no way could he be my father, but I took a step toward him all the same, and my mouth opened up and I cried out, "Father," even though I knew it wasn't my father I was looking at, I knew the laborers had lied, but I said it anyway, and because I'd said it, for just a moment I thought maybe, just maybe, I was wrong, that this was my father after all, because he was still smiling at me, and that made me even more scared, and I felt a chill come over me, and then suddenly everyone around me burst out laughing, Trajan and Feri and the Prodán brothers and all the others, and even the pockmarked laborer, who, I was now certain, was not my father, and as that blaring laughter came at me from all directions, I reached inside my pocket and felt my father's picture, and I knew I was about to cry, and I clenched my teeth and turned away and took off running toward our apartment block, and I could still hear them laughing at me, and although I had no idea what I would say to Mother, I just ran and ran toward home, wishing I would never ever get there.