Gyorgy Dragoman - The White King

At first Big Prodán didn't say a thing back, he just took his palm off his shoulder, his whole hand was drenched with blood, I saw, and not only his palms but every one of his fingers, and then he looked at his palm as if he was seeing it for the first time, and suddenly he said, "Blood can be washed off only with blood," and he took one step forward and he gave Romulus Frunza a helluva slap on the face, so hard that Romulus staggered back against his big brother, and Prodán's bloody palm print stayed right there on Romulus's face, and then we all turned around at once and started running back toward our street, we were scared they'd come after us, but the other-streeters just threw some big rocks our way and luckily they didn't hit anyone, and meanwhile we could hear Romulus Frunza yelling really loud about how we were good-for-nothing sons of bitches and half-blooded sissies.

The next morning the declaration of war did arrive, a bloody beheaded pigeon was stuck in the mailbox at Prodán's place along with a sheet of notebook paper that had a declaration of war supposedly written in pigeon's blood. Prodán asked Jancsi to read it out loud, it said the battle would be on Sunday in the wheat field, and they'd have us know that what everyone was whispering about them really was true, the two of them, Romulus Frunza and Remus Frunza, had both fought in the civil war, so it would be best if we all got ready for certain annihilation because anyone they got their hands on wouldn't be getting any mercy and they wouldn't even have a goddamn rock around here to crawl under and call home, and besides, we were fucking losers, every last one of us, and we were motherfucking assholes too. When Prodán heard this, his face got all red with rage and he tore the declaration of war right out of Jancsi's hand, crumpled it up, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it good, and he said that those Frunza brothers wrote stuff like that because they didn't even have a mother, their father raised them until the old man hanged himself out of despair on account of having sons like that, everyone knew that's why they ended up here with their grandfather, because they didn't have anyone else in the whole world, and besides, their saying that they fought in the civil war was a bunch of crap, the civil war was seven years ago, they couldn't have been past eight years old back then, and not to worry, come Sunday we'd show them, and until then every one of us should go make blowgun pellets, bend lots of nails, collect stones for slingshots, and put feathers on arrows, so we'd be properly armed, and we shouldn't be scared of the Frunzas, no, we'd show them they can't go fucking with us.

No one said a thing, we all just stood there tongue-tied, looking at Prodán and the bloody pigeon and the crumpled declaration of war by his feet, and then Prodán made a fist and punched an arm toward the sky three times and cried out, "Hurrah!" The nails rattled on his wide leather wrist-guard, and all of a sudden everyone else started shouting "Hurrah!" and I joined in too, but when I looked at Prodán's face I could tell that flailing his arms like that made his shoulder hurt.

Starting then, the whole week we went all out getting ready for the battle, everyone knew it would be a hard struggle because even if the Frunza brothers hadn't fought in the civil war, they were really dangerous all the same, before ending up here they lived in a village somewhere up in the snowcapped mountains to the west, and supposedly they lived there like Indians, hunting and snaring birds until their father died, and no one knew exactly how old the two Frunza brothers were, both of them were in sixth grade but Remus looked even bigger than the ninth graders, while his kid brother, Romulus, was so short he would have counted as little even among the fourth graders, but both of them were really strong and equally good at fighting, plus they knew a thing or two about weapons, their slingshots weren't made of cut-up bicycle tubes but of real upholstery rubber, for example, and we heard that the other-streeters had made themselves all sorts of secret weapons, which is why all of us made sharp pellets for our blowguns, the sort with a pin on the end. I made myself armor out of cardboard and tinfoil to protect my back, I even tested it to see if it would fit under my T-shirt and I asked Puju to shoot me in the back so we could see if it worked, but he didn't want to, he told me to remember the time we wanted to test if I could catch an arrow like the Indians do in the movies, but I told him I was younger then, a nine-year-old little runt, so it was no wonder my reflexes weren't as good, and luckily the nail on the end of the arrow wasn't too sharp so it went less than an inch into my arm, all it did was pierce my skin, the bone in my forearm stopped it no problem, sure, the tetanus shots afterward hurt a lot, but this wasn't going to be like that because we were bigger now, almost twelve years old, and besides, this armor didn't depend at all on reflexes. But not even after I said all that did Puju want to, no, I had to give him four caramels before he finally agreed to shoot me in the back three times, and of course the armor really did do the trick, it stopped the pellets just like it was supposed to, the shots felt only like mosquito bites, and I decided to make armor for the front of me too, I'd already cut out the pieces of cardboard, the only things left to do were the sewing and the gluing, around half a day's work in all, but then I just ran out of glue, so I couldn't make that extra armor after all.

While working on my armor I thought a lot about that declaration of war, about the beheaded pigeon, and about how this wasn't going to be just another game but a real war, a fight to the finish, and when I thought of that bloody pigeon, my heart always sank a little, but I figured I wasn't the only one thinking like that, no, even Puju said maybe he wouldn't be at the battle after all since his dad didn't want to let him go, and when I then asked him why he'd told his dad there was going to be a battle, because if the workers at the collective farm, the collectivists, found out that we were all set to trample the wheat, not only wouldn't they let us but they'd give us a good beating to boot, but then Puju got really mad and said he hadn't told his dad a thing, and anyway, it was easy for me, my dad was off at the Danube Canal so I could do what I wanted, no one was going to kick my ass, and then I told him that he's a scaredy-cat, a crybaby, and that he'd better not mention my dad because I'd kick him good, and I also said that if he didn't come to the battle, he'd lose his Young Pioneer's honor forever, but then Sunday morning came and even I was thinking that maybe it would be better to stay at home, sure. After breakfast I got out my blowgun all the same, and I put on my two ammo belts in a crisscross over my shoulders, I'd filled the belts with rolled-up, dried-up blowgun pellets, and then I told Mother I was going down to play, but I thought how good it would be if she said I wasn't going anywhere, that she needed me at home, except Mother didn't say a thing, she didn't even stand up out of the great big armchair by the window where she was sitting around a lot nowadays, she gave only a nod that meant "All right," and so I headed off after all, I went up the hill to the Big Tree because I knew the others would soon be there too, so we could talk over our tactics and our strategy.

By the time I got there, they already had a fire going in the old combat helmet, almost everyone from our apartment block was there and everyone had their weapons with them, Jancsi and some others had lathed themselves real throwing stars and tomahawks, I had my tin knife with me, sure, I knew it wouldn't be worth much in hand-to-hand combat, but I brought it with me all the same, figuring that when you're lying low in the wheat field in a war, it feels good to have your hands on a knife. Anyway, when I got there to the Big Tree, Csabi was just throwing two handfuls of corks into the combat helmet, and that made the smoke even smellier, and just about everyone was there, everyone except for our commander, Big Prodán, who was the biggest of the our-streeters, before the Frunza brothers came along no one had ever managed to beat him up, and he was the one who got us the combat helmet, saying he dug it up out of a civil war soldier's grave, not that anyone believed it, no, Janika once told me that it wasn't a combat helmet at all, only a stew pot, but anyway, by the time the corks were all burnt up Prodán got there too, he had a quadruple-barreled blowgun with him, it was really something, every single one of its PVC pipes had electric tape all around it, he even made it a stock and a grip, it looked completely like a genuine machine gun, plus he found a strap for it so he could wear it around his neck, and he had a mace tied to his waist, he'd made that using a dumbbell, and the combat wrist-guards on both his arms reached almost all the way to his elbows and were studded with square brass clamp nails, the sort used on ships, and along with the mace a knife was also tied to his waist, one with a long black handle, never had I seen a knife like that before, it looked really warlike, and when Prodán reached the combat helmet, he took the canteen off his belt right away and poured water over the smoldering corks, which caused a lot of hissing and smoke, and the black liquidy soot that remained in the helmet was like pitch, that was our color of battle, that black stuff. Prodán was the first to paint himself with it, he spread it all over his face and his forehead until you could hardly recognize him, and then he let out a war cry, and one after another we each painted our face, and I did too, but I was careful not to touch my mouth with the stuff because I knew cork ash had a really bitter taste, of course right then it didn't occur to me that the sweat would make it run into my mouth, anyway, the others also painted their faces nice and black, and once everyone was done Prodán stood in front of us and said that this would be a big battle and a difficult one, and that we should get it through our skulls that the enemy's main headquarters were at the other end of the field, at the watchtower by the edge of the woods, we had to get all the way there and get the leather ball, but that wouldn't be enough for victory, no, to do that we had to bring the ball back here to the Big Tree, and Prodán said the best tactic would be to begin by scattering apart as much as possible, as quietly as we could, so when he gave the signal, all of us would attack the other-streeters from as many directions as possible, and then he told me and Puju to go up close to him, we'd be the special reconnaissance force, we'd be getting our very own assignment, and when we then went up to him, he said that when he gave the signal and everyone on our side all started shouting hurrah, we shouldn't attack along with the others but instead stay down in the wheat and try to get as close as possible to the watchtower, we shouldn't even go shooting anyone in the back if we didn't need to, and when we heard Prodán shout the war cry three times, that's when we should break cover and try to get our hands on the ball, and when we had it, then we'd run like friggin' hell back toward the Big Tree and he'd come after us, and at the end he'd be the one running with the ball, and they wouldn't catch up to him, and that's how we'd achieve victory, and then he looked at us and asked if we understood, and Puju and I said we did, but I also said I didn't like the idea of lying low that way, why didn't he send his kid brother instead, and couldn't we be in on the hand-to-hand combat too, and Prodán said, sure we could if we wanted to lose and to defy our commander's will, and we should get it through our skulls that we were too weak for real fighting, and besides, how dare we even bring his kid brother into this, and how dare we shoot off our traps about hand-to-hand combat when both of us were chickenshits, he knew we'd shit our pants right away, that's how scared of the Frunza brothers we were, and we'd better watch out because one more word out of us and he'd take away our weapons and hound us right into the wheat field, and while saying that he shook his head like he was all teed off and he pulled out that big knife I'd never seen on him before, and he held it there in front of us and told us to take a good look, this was a real bayonet he'd dug out of the same grave as that combat helmet there, and that long groove by the tip of the blade, why, that was the blood gutter, and if we didn't obey his commands word for word, then we shouldn't be surprised to see our own blood flowing down that gutter because he swore he'd stab us in the belly himself, and after doing that maybe he'd scalp us too, and then Puju and I didn't say a thing, and Prodán asked if we understood, and we said we did, and meanwhile I wished his shoulder wound would tear right open so he'd get blood poisoning, and then Prodán put away the bayonet and turned to the others and said, "Prepare for battle," and then we all stood in a circle and stretched out our right arms and put our hands on top of one another's, all at once we let out our war cry, which went, "Justice and brotherhood, the revolution will triumph!" and then we all started running toward the wheat field.