Gyorgy Dragoman - The White King

Janika had taken only two bites from his half of the apple, so I told him to give it to me if he didn't want it, and he gave it to me without a word, and I was just swallowing the last bite when the door opened and Coach Gica came in. One of the balls was in his hand, he stopped, and he asked us what Comrade Colonel had wanted with us. Janika and I looked at each other again, and then he pressed the towel to his nose and I replied, "Nothing," but Coach Gica stepped over and without a word he slapped me so hard that the apple core fell right out of my hand and I got all dizzy, I had to grab onto the coat rack to keep from falling, and then Coach Gica told me not to lie to him, he'd heard every word, besides, he knew everything about us, he knew we wanted to skip out on practice, and he'd heard full well how the colonel had lied to us, and he could tell that we believed the colonel, how could we be such idiots, we'd deserve to have our brains knocked out, to have the coach hammer out what was left of our brains. He'd have us know that the soldiers had come only because that's how they planned to guarantee we'd get creamed, they wanted to scare us so we wouldn't dare keep goal properly, what did they mean by saying avoid contact with the ball? And as Coach Gica said this he got so angry that he kicked one of the benches right up into the air, and the coat rack above the bench fell over and almost broke the window, and then Coach Gica got all quiet and shook his head and said, "Get it through your skulls that the colonel was lying, if there really had been an accident in that reactor, you wouldn't even be alive anymore, besides, the Party wouldn't let the game go on, everyone knows that the country's future is its youth, yes, that's the country's greatest treasure, there's no way the Party would expose this treasure to danger."

Janika then sat down on one of the other benches and took the towel away from his face, his mouth and his chin were smeared all over with blood, and he said, really quiet, that his father had told him the end of the world would come and that it would begin with a nuclear war, with a nuclear strike, and he knew that the colonel wasn't lying because the colonel had said "So help him God," and soldiers were atheists, they could never say the word "God" aloud, and if they did, why then, even they must sense that the end of the world had come and that nothing mattered anymore.

Coach Gica went over and stood in front of Janika, he snapped the ball to the floor and caught it with both hands, and he ordered Janika to stand up, but Janika didn't move, he only shook his head, at which Coach Gica snapped the ball to the floor again and shouted, "I won't repeat it, stand up, for Jehovah's fucking sake," and then Janika stood up and threw the towel to the floor, and Coach Gica said all right, he understood if what the colonel said scared us, but we still couldn't be such cowards, and if Janika apologized he wouldn't be angry at him, the others would be here soon, they had to get ready for the game, but Janika shook his head and said that the end of the world was here and that he wouldn't apologize, at which point Coach Gica snapped the ball to the floor yet again, and he reached a hand into his pocket and said he'd wanted to give this to Janika only right before the game, that this here was a pair of real leather goalie's gloves that did service on the national team. Coach Gica said that he himself kept goal with them when he was chosen one time for that team, and then he reached out with the gloves toward Janika. "Here, put them on, these will protect you from the radiation."

Janika shook his head and shouted that he didn't need them, and he spit on the gloves and I could see that his spit was all bloody, and then Coach Gica shouted something really loud, you couldn't even make out what it was, and with all his might he slapped Janika across the face with those gloves, and then he stepped back and kneed the ball right into Janika's gut and Janika doubled over, and as the ball snapped back I saw that Coach Gica wanted to knee it again, but instead of hitting the ball this time he kneed Janika's face, I heard something crack, and Janika fell onto the coat rack and slid to the floor. And Coach Gica bent down and picked up the ball, and as he looked at me I saw that his face was all red and glistening with moisture, and Coach Gica shouted, "All right, then you'll keep goal," he was shrieking, you could hardly make out his words, and he shook his head and suddenly he kicked the ball at me, straight at my face, and I jumped forward, reaching out both hands, and I caught the ball, it struck my two palms hard and stung my skin, and when I sprang to the floor and instinctively clutched that ball tight to avoid giving the attacking player an opportunity, just as Coach Gica had taught us, I saw Janika lying on the floor next to the bench, he wasn't moving and there was blood flowing from his ear.

The ball was a little slick, which I knew was from Janika's blood, and as I stood there holding the ball I thought of the radioactivity, but except for that slipperiness the ball felt exactly the same as always, for a moment I shut my eyes and just stayed there holding it in my hands, and when I opened them again, Coach Gica was still standing in the door and Janika was still lying there and not moving, and I thought, maybe he hadn't really died, maybe he'd just fainted, because if he had died there wouldn't be a game and I wouldn't keep goal, and I looked at those real leather goalie's gloves there on the floor next to Janika, and then all at once my tears began to flow, and the ball fell out of my hands, bouncing once and rolling into the corner, but by then Coach Gica was no longer in the locker room.

THE EXCAVATORS ARRIVED on Sunday morning, we were playing soccer with the guys from the other street, they were leading four to two and the game went to five, it was almost certain we'd be beat, but I didn't mind since I wanted to go home already. I was always at home on Sundays waiting for Father because when they took him away to the Danube Canal, he promised he'd come get me and take me with him to the sea. True, Mother said I shouldn't wait for him because after eight months of hard labor I might not even recognize him anymore, besides, we'd know beforehand if he was coming home, but I didn't completely believe he was really in a labor camp even though we'd already got a couple of prewritten camp postcards, no, I thought that maybe Father wasn't in a labor camp at all but only working in a secret research institute, just like he told me when they took him away, and I'd also read that when the Americans were making the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, no one was allowed to know where the researchers really were, and so I knew that Father would come home, all right, that he'd come get me and take me with him, that he'd take me to the sea, and even if he didn't recognize me I'd sure recognize him because his picture, which I'd taken out of his old military ID holder, was with me all the time. Anyway, there we were playing soccer, and I wanted to go home, yes, I could hardly wait for them to kick another goal against us and for the game to be over.

We were on the offensive, Big Prodán had the ball, and when the excavators drove off the road right onto the soccer field, they came all the way to the middle and one of them drove right toward Big Prodán and almost hit him, Prodán just barely jumped out of the way, and then both excavators stopped in the middle of the field, they were buzzing really loud, the air was full of this smelly blue smoke. Then the two drivers turned off their engines at the same time, you couldn't hear a peep from anywhere, we were quiet too, we went over and stood around the machines, they were painted yellow and rusting in a lot of places, but the teeth of the scoops were sparkling just a little bit.