Gyorgy Dragoman - The White King

Mother got on her smartest red suit coat and matching skirt together with a pair of high-heeled shoes I'd never seen on her before, and as we headed down the stairs she stumbled and had to grab hold of the railing right when I was about to ask if we were going somewhere to sort things out so Father would be allowed to come home or only because Mother wanted to find out exactly what happened to him, but I hadn't even opened my mouth to speak when Mother told me to keep quiet, that she needed a little bit of silence to gather her thoughts, so I kept my mouth shut and didn't even try figuring out where we were headed, instead I counted steps once we were outside, when we reached a corner I always bet myself how many steps it would be to the next corner, but since we kept walking in different directions, and always turned before I wanted to, it was pretty hard guessing in advance, and by the time we arrived at that brand-new neighborhood of high-rise apartment blocks at the edge of town, I wasn't really guessing anymore, no, the streets looked so much the same that I couldn't even tell one from the other.

We went into several apartment blocks, and by the stairwell just inside each entrance, Mother would scan the names on the adjoining metal mailboxes lining the wall, but every time we came back out I could tell she was more and more anxious, that we were lost for sure, either that or else we couldn't find the right building, but I didn't say a thing, I knew I couldn't help anyway, and then when we entered what was at least the fourth stairwell Mother must have found what she was looking for because she stopped in front of this huge mailbox, looked at the name, nodded, took her pocket mirror and lipstick out of her purse, and right there at the foot of the stairwell she put on her lipstick, and after tucking away the lipstick and the mirror she adjusted my shirt, my tie, and my vest, and she licked her palm and used it to pat down my hair, and then she said that we were about to go up to the fifth floor to see Comrade Ambassador and I should behave, I should speak only when asked to speak, and I should reply politely, and I shouldn't be scared because there wouldn't be any trouble, I'd see. I nodded and said, "All right, I'll do my best to behave," and on reaching the second floor I asked her if it was true that we'd come to help Father, but Mother replied that no, she was here because she was in a good mood, and she bit her lips and told me not to say a word.

Up on the fifth floor I was in for a real surprise, which is that only one door opened from the stairwell, not four, like on the other floors, plus the concrete floor was covered with a large rag rug, it was just like the hall inside an apartment, not a landing, but Mother didn't look surprised at all, she went straight to the door, looked at the brass nameplate, and pressed the doorbell hard, and from the way she took my hand and squeezed it tight I thought she wanted to say something, but at that moment the door swung open.

Standing on the threshold was a tall gray-haired man in a light brown suit that made his face seem even paler than it was, and as soon as Mother saw him she spoke, she was sorry to be disturbing Comrade Ambassador, she said, but she didn't know who else to turn to, and she asked for only a couple minutes of his precious time. The ambassador passed his cold gray eyes over Mother before finally breaking into a grin, and only then did he speak. "Well, well, my dear," he said, "you are lovelier than ever, you've become at least ten years younger since I saw you last," and as he spoke I noticed that lots of his front teeth were gold, and then he looked at me and even though he kept smiling, his eyes glistened more harshly as he now called out, "And you, my boy, who might you be?" I didn't say a thing, but Mother squeezed my hand and told me to be a good boy and tell Comrade Ambassador my name, as if I was a five-year-old kid, and then I said my name, and Comrade Ambassador nodded and said, "Splendid, splendid, so your name is the same as your grandfather's, is it, and you look like him too, you sure do, a whole lot more than you look like your father," and although I didn't say a word, I thought, "Motherfucking hell I do, Comrade Ambassador, I do too look like my father and not like my grandfather," and then the ambassador looked again at Mother and asked what he could thank for her unexpected visit, and Mother adjusted the brooch on her suit coat and said that maybe the stairwell wasn't the place to discuss this, and the ambassador nodded and begged her pardon and said he didn't understand how he could possibly have been so impolite, naturally it would be best if we stepped inside, and then Mother told me to wipe my feet, and then we went in and the ambassador shut the door behind us. "Step right in," he said, "straight ahead," and I heard the dead bolt behind us click twice as he turned it, and he said, "Please, please, do go on in," and then we went into the living room, and I was surprised to see that the room was exactly like some museum, with animal trophies of different shapes and sizes all over the walls, the mounted heads of antelopes, buffaloes, black bears, leopards, and jackals, in one corner there was a great big hippopotamus with a gaping mouth, and opposite the entrance, on the middle of the wall above the fireplace, was a huge, ferocious-looking lion with its mane standing on end, and towering above the room right next to the lion were two big rhino horns on a black wooden board, and then there were a bunch of colorful shields and spears and yellowed bone swords that filled out the space between the trophies, which is not to mention a huge photograph, in a wide golden frame, of a black man with glasses, only his head and his shoulders were visible, he wore a military uniform trimmed with gold braid and he had a little leopard-skin cap on his head, and even though he looked pretty good, I couldn't help but think that his head was all sweaty under the leopard-skin cap in that awful heat, but anyway, as I turned around to look some more, I heard Mother say, "Comrade Ambassador, this is remarkable, both the Folklore Museum and the Natural History Museum would have reason to envy this extraordinary collection," and the ambassador broke into another smile and said, "Oh come now, this is just a humble little exhibit, four apartments had to be made into one to fit it all, and even so, there was room only for a fraction of the entire collection, but of course," he added, "this is something too," and then he gestured toward the leather armchairs around the little glass table in the middle of the room. "Please do sit down," he said, and once we'd taken our seats, he asked if he could get us something, and Mother replied, "Oh please don't bother," but the ambassador had already left the room, and a minute later he returned carrying a silver tray with some crystal shot glasses and a four-sided bottle on top, and the ambassador placed the tray on the table, sat down, and then poured a glass for Mother and one for himself, and he explained that this was delicious homemade cherry liqueur, and without clinking glasses he downed his drink right away, and only afterward did he say, "To your health," and then Mother drank her own glass of liqueur, and the ambassador immediately refilled both her glass and his own, and again he gulped down what was in his glass, but this time instead of refilling he sat back in his armchair and just stared at us without a word, and I looked at Mother, and from the way she was holding her shot glass with both hands I could tell she was really nervous, and it was so awfully quiet that I just had to say something, I looked at the ambassador and asked, "So where were you an ambassador, Comrade Ambassador?" and he nodded toward the wall, toward the trophies, the shields and the spears and the bone swords. "Why," he said, "in Africa," and I didn't respond, I only looked down and saw that he wasn't kidding, even the carpet was made of a whole bunch of zebra skins all sewn together, and then I looked up again at the ambassador and asked, "But Comrade Ambassador, where in Africa?" to which the ambassador said, "Everywhere, but mostly in the heart of Africa, right in the middle of the darkest, blackest Africa, so what do you say, boy, which country might that have been?" and I said right away, "Zaire," and the ambassador smiled and nodded. "Very well done," he said, "I'm quite pleased with you, for you evidently know your geography well, you deserve a bit of cherry liqueur too, you certainly do, you're already a big boy after all," and he lifted the third crystal shot glass, filled it with the red liqueur, and pressed the tiny glass into my hand and said, "Go ahead, boy, drink up, to your health," and I took the glass and looked up to see Mother nod, and so I took a well-mannered sip, and even though the liqueur was terribly sweet, it still had a bite to it, and it warmed my throat all the way down, the ambassador now poured a bit more for himself and again gulped it right down, and then he put his glass back on the tray, and he fixed his eyes on Mother and asked, "How's your husband, anyway?" and then Mother swallowed her glassful of liqueur, crossed her legs, and said that in fact that's just why she was here, that was exactly what she herself hoped to find out, considering that we hadn't had any news of him for four months already, she was really worried by now, and with his exceptional contacts, surely Comrade Ambassador could sort things out in no time, so we'd know what had become of him.