Daniela Kapitánová - Samko Tále's Cemetery Book

Once, when this woman teacher wanted to send me to Special School, he sorted it all out and I didn’t get sent there. Grandaddy went to see him and told him that the teacher wanted to send me to Special School but that I didn’t want to go because it was a school for retards and I was no retard, and besides, I was friends with Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences).

Grandaddy didn’t want me to go to Special School either, because he was in the Communist Party and it would have been an embarrassment for him if I went to Special School that was just for retards.

Grandaddy was in the Local Party Cell which was for people who wanted to belong to the Communist Party even after they retired. Grandaddy had a special Notebook regarding the Local Cell, and he used to write down all sorts of things in his Notebook, which was so important that I wasn’t even allowed to look inside. That’s how important his Notebook was, even though it didn’t have lined pages.

And that’s why he could go and see Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) because he was sort of my classmate regarding Darinka Gunárová, and he could ask him to make sure that I wasn’t sent away and that’s why I was never sent away because he was my friend and he sorted it all out.

Yesterday I saw Darinka Gunárová outside the Cultural Centre. And she called out to me and waved to me, and then she crossed the road to where I was standing. I couldn’t cross the road because I had my handcart so I couldn’t cross the road just like that. So she crossed the road herself. And this is what she said to me:

‘Is it you Samko?’

Meaning, if it was me. But I didn’t know what to say because it goes without saying that it was me, because there’s nobody else in Komárno like me, so obviously it had to be me. And that’s why I didn’t know what to say.

But there are other people in Komárno who collect cardboard, like that rat-woman Angelika Édesová, or this Czech man and his wife whose name is Nepil which means ‘Didn’t Drink’. Usually I shout at him like this:

‘Nepil was a rotter

Didn’t drink no water.’

Meaning he didn’t drink any water. That’s very humorous, right?

Right.

His name is Vladimír Nepil and his wife’s name is Kordula Nepilová.

I’m not even sure if a name like that even exists because I’ve never met anyone else with a name like that, not even on TV. But that’s what Nepilová is called. Kordula.

It’s very weird.

But otherwise they are very nice people and they never steal my cardboard from the Market Place, even though they are Czechs. But I wonder about the name Kordula anyway, because I’m not sure they haven’t just made it up. Because names like that don’t exist any more.

And the other good thing about them is that they don’t go around speaking Czech. They speak Slovak, and everybody likes that. And they’re not trying to push other people around due to being Czech and they always speak Slovak. Hungarians are always trying to push other people around due to being Hungarians and they always speak Hungarian.

Nobody likes that.

I don’t like it either.

They should speak Slovak, and if they don’t they will get reported.

My grandmother Grandmummy spoke Slovak too even though her mother was half Hungarian and her name was Eszter Csonka. But that’s what Grandmummy was like, and she also used to smoke cigarettes and read Allan Wilton, which wasn’t allowed even wrapped up. And that’s why nobody took her seriously because there was some of that Hungarian blood in her. Although you couldn’t tell that she had any Hungarian blood just by looking at her.

You really couldn’t tell by looking. Not even a little bit.

So this Nepil was a Czech, and when he was younger he used to do gymnastics on a horse and he even won a medal. People always asked him if his things didn’t get squashed when he exercised on the horse. But they didn’t mean a real horse, what they meant was an exercise horse. The kind that’s used in gymnastics and on TV, too And Nepil always said that his things got squashed so many times that they turned blue like the blue wedge on the Czechoslovak national flag. And everybody was happy to hear that they turned blue. Those things down there, you know what I mean.

Our new Slovak national flag doesn’t have a blue wedge and that makes everyone very happy, too.

It makes me very happy, too.

And then there’s this other man in Komárno who collects cardboard whose name is Vojtech Inas and he’s a Gypsy. But the most important about Vojtech Inas is that he wears glasses. I’ve never met any other Gypsy who wears glasses, and I think people should watch Vojtech Inas regarding that, because a Gypsy who wears glasses could be very dangerous because he could pretend to have I.Q.

And that’s why when I see him I always keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t steal anything from my handcart because he wears glasses and that’s really very weird.

I don’t wear glasses myself.

My eyesight is very good and that’s why I always notice everything.

Apart from me, there are all sorts of other people in Komárno who make deliveries, but they only do it from time to time. But I’ve been making deliveries for twenty-eight years. And that rat-woman Angelika Édesová had better stop stealing my cardboard, or I’ll show her.

But the thing is, I’m not supposed to get worked up.

Now that my handcart is in Ján Boš-Mojš’s workshop I don’t need to get worked up about people stealing my cardboard from the Market Place because I don’t care who steals it. Because without my rear-view mirror I can’t collect it anyway, because I can’t see what’s behind me, which means that I can’t see who’s shouting at me either.

And that’s why it’s out of the question.

My rear-view mirror has never broken off before. This is the first time it happened and I had to take it to Ján Boš-Mojš’s workshop to get it welded back because you need special tools to do that. You can’t just do it like that.

And while I’m waiting for it to get welded back on, I can be a writer, because once it gets fixed I won’t have time for silly things like that. And then I won’t be able to write the Cemetery Book.

But the thing I don’t get is why it’s got to be about the Cemetery. Maybe it’s not really the law because old Gusto Rúhe is very old and he’s an alcoholic, because he lives on alcohol, so maybe he is just pretending regarding the Moonstone to make people buy him shots of alcohol.

And then he also wrote the word Boy on the tarmac. What I would really like to know why he had to add that word. Because I’m not a boy, I’ll be forty-four years old soon, so I’d like to know what old Gusto Rúhe meant by writing the word Boy? What he should have written is Man, right?

Right.

Grandaddy used to call me Boy, too He used to say, if we don’t get the Boy sorted out it will be a disaster, and then he used to go and see Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) and ask him to sort things out. And when they met in the street, Grandaddy would greet him like this:

‘Proletarian greetings, Comrade!’

And then he would raise his hat and greet the wife of Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) like this:

‘Proletarian greetings to Madame Comrade, too’

I used to love it when people said ‘Proletarian greetings’. I wish people would still say that, but nobody says it any more because now it’s not allowed. And if people said it they would get into big trouble.

But whenever my Dad heard this greeting he always said this thing about the secret police. What he used to say was this:

‘Proletarian greetings,

Secret police beatings!’

But it’s really bad to say things like that about the secret police and beatings and whatever. People who say things like that will get reported on and they will be in big trouble.