Gyorgy Dragoman - The White King

We couldn't go too fast, our bellies were still so full of water, mine gurgled with every step I took, and one time we stopped because Szabi had to take a piss, and another time because my belly was so upset I almost puked, but finally we reached the construction site all the same. Szabi knew where we could get across the tall wooden fence because he'd been there once before to get some PVC pipes for blowguns and carbide for fireworks, so anyway, he told me not to be scared, no one had lived in the guard booth for a long time, and sure enough, finding that ditch with the pipe in it wasn't hard because the earth was thrown up high on one side. Szabi went first, we climbed all the way to the top of the embankment, from there we looked down into the ditch, which contained separate sections of thick concrete pipe that hadn't been cemented together yet.

Szabi said he truly regretted how we left our school comrades in the lurch like this, yes, he was really sorry that on account of us the others wouldn't be able to take part in the placard competition, especially because the class that made the nicest placard would win a two-week seaside trip, and I said I was sorry too, because I would have also really liked to get to the sea, but then I looked again at the sections of concrete pipe, and it occurred to me that nothing would ever flow through them, neither water nor sewage, because this new complex of apartment blocks would never be built, and I told Szabi he shouldn't worry himself over it, we wouldn't have won the competition anyway, some class from School No. 3 would win it for sure, because School No. 3 wins everything since that's where the children of Party activists go, and as for our own class, there was no reason to be sad because it just couldn't happen that the class wouldn't take part in the placard competition or in the parade if it's been told to do so, our head teacher would no doubt get enough material from somewhere, and they'd make a placard after all because our teacher didn't want to get in trouble either, and then Szabi asked if I was sure about that, and I said, "You bet I'm sure, and let's jump already, because if we stand around here for too long we'll get cold feet."

Szabi then said, "Okay, let's count out loud and jump on three," and then we both looked down into the ditch one more time and it looked pretty deep, from where we stood it must have been at least ten feet for sure, and then we both started counting at the same time, but Szabi stopped at two and said, "Let's shut our eyes and start again," and so we shut our eyes and started again, and then it suddenly occurred to me that if we both jumped and really broke our legs, then we wouldn't be able to climb out of the ditch, and I wanted to tell Szabi to wait, but by the time I said it Szabi had already jumped, and I opened my eyes just in time to see that he'd jumped so far forward that he almost cleared the ditch, but his jump still wasn't long enough, no, Szabi's shoulder struck the opposite wall and he fell straight into the ditch and onto a section of pipe.

Szabi let out a piercing cry and reached both hands toward one of his ankles, and he was lying there on his side beside the concrete pipe, and he kept on holding his foot, and he was screaming my name really loud, he was wailing and crying, and then I called down to him to wait because I'd climb down right away, and he looked up, his face was wet with tears, and he told me to go fuck my mother, that I was a chickenshit for letting him jump alone. But then I told him to shut his trap because I'd seen full well that he had wanted to clear the ditch and didn't want to jump in at all, and if I didn't have more brains than him there wouldn't be anyone left to go get an ambulance, but Szabi only kept swearing and saying over and over that his foot hurt like hell, and I called down to him again, saying he had it coming for wanting to play me for a sucker and telling him to wait right where he was because I'd go get an ambulance even though he didn't really deserve it. I started running back toward the apartment blocks, and meanwhile I already knew what I would say the next day in school, that the reason we didn't have the money was that I had to give half of it to the ambulance guys so they would take poor Szabi to the hospital and the other half to the doctors so they wouldn't set his fracture without anesthetics.

COACH GICA tended to us goalies specially, he made us show up at every practice an hour early and mainly had us do speed drills, plus we had to jump a lot and dive, jump and dive, jump and dive, and he had this goalie-terrorizing machine, he came up with it himself and the workers at the ironworks made it for him, a soccer ball was put on the end of this long iron pipe, the ball was filled with sand, and that's what he shot at us, the whole contraption was built onto an axle and revolved around it, throwing that sand-packed ball with no mercy, and Janika and I knew that if we didn't catch it, it would hit us in the head and break our bones. Other kids had already died in Coach Gica's hands, so they said, which is why he became a coach for the junior team, the adult players couldn't stand his heavy-handedness, one time they caught him and knocked half his brains out, and since then he wasn't allowed to coach the Ironworks' adult team but could work only with us eleven- and twelve-year-olds.

That May we were close to being dropped from the league, so Coach Gica held practice every day, he got us passes so we didn't even have to go to school for the first four hours of the day, everyone knew that Red Hammer, the ironworks team, had to stay in the running, no way could we be dropped. Coach Gica even told us that if we didn't beat Breakthrough, the military team, then that's it, it's over, after the game he'd smash everyone's ankles with a crowbar, for him it would be all the same because coaching was his life, and if we fell from the running, that would be it, and from then on each and every one of us would be going to school on crutches, he even showed us the crowbar, and he took a swipe with it at one of the planks in the fence, the crowbar tore right into the wood and he said our bones would break apart just like that, in splinters, not a soul would be able to put them together again. We knew he wasn't kidding because by then he didn't have a family, he lived in the junior team's clubhouse, yes, we knew he was dead serious, and so we really did go all out getting ready for that game, everyone went running, no one dared skip practice, everyone was scared stiff about what Coach Gica would do to their legs. I went running too, as much as I could take, even though I knew I didn't stand a chance of playing anyway because I was just a backup goalie, Janika was the real goalie even though he was a Jehovah's Witness, a Jehovist, the truth is he shouldn't have been playing on the Ironworks' team at all because his father didn't let him be a Young Pioneer, but he was so good at keeping goal that Coach Gica paid a visit to the school and worked things out with the top comrade there, the principal, so Janika would be able to play all the same, and sure enough he kept goal in nearly every game because he had a much better feel for the ball than I did, even when he wasn't in top form. So we practiced really hard, seeing how we were afraid of Coach Gica, but we knew it didn't matter anyway, there was no beating Breakthrough, they had the backing of the army, their team was full of army brats, the armed forces gave them everything and gave the referees everything too, Breakthrough was unbeaten in the playoffs, and so we knew we didn't stand a chance, and we were scared stiff.

Even on the day of the game Coach Gica held a separate practice for us goalies, and as the two of us walked along toward the sports complex so early that morning, Janika, who was even more scared than I was, stopped all of a sudden while we were still outside in front of the complex, pressed a hand to his belly, then he started retching and puked, if I hadn't got a hold of him he might have fainted, and he said that only now, on seeing the entrance to the Ironworks sports complex, did he remember that he dreamed last night about Coach Gica, about Coach Gica smashing apart his ankles, and as he said this I handed Janika my canteen so he could rinse his mouth, and he said that in his dream Coach Gica took such a hard swipe at his ankle with that iron pipe that even Coach Gica was all in tears, even now he could recall the old guy's beet-red, glistening face, and Janika said he didn't care one bit, he was going home, he wasn't coming to the practice because he couldn't take it anymore, and that I should go along too, I shouldn't stay here all by myself, he didn't even care if the team was left without a goalie. "Soccer is only a game," he said, "it's not worth this much." He wiped his mouth, gave me back my canteen, and he said, "Let's go, let's get out of here before Coach Gica sees us."