Daniela Kapitánová - Samko Tále's Cemetery Book

Everyone was disgusted at that.

I was disgusted at it, too.

And after that Štefan Otrok went to an old people’s home in Hurbanovo and I’ve never seen him since, because Hurbanovo is very far away.

Anyway.

I’ve never met any Polish men, but once I met a Polish woman whose name was Daryna Kamyk, because she once came up to me at the big crossroads outside the Hospital and asked if she could take my picture regarding being a journalist. Because she was very impressed to see me being so hard-working with my full handcart at the big crossroads outside the Hospital.

But I said I didn’t want my picture taken because you never know what might happen and what’s what and why and how, because people might say one thing and then they might do something quite different and you never know what might happen then. But everyone respects me so Daryna Kamyk can go and find somebody else to take a picture of at the big crossroads outside the Hospital.

Because you can’t be too careful.

I am always very careful.

For example, I always double-check many times that the doors are locked to make sure they are locked. The same with my handcart. Because you can’t be too careful, right? Right.

And then Daryna Kamyk gave me her business card which said:

Daryna Kamyk

Editor

Meaning that her name was Daryna Kamyk and that she was an editor.

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I had let Daryna Kamyk take my picture for her newspaper, and if I had gone to Poland. People there might have recognized me and said, hey, that’s the man from Komárno who was so impressive at the big crossroads outside the Hospital, and all sorts of other things might have happened then.

But I don’t have time for silly things like that and besides, Poland is a long way away.

I have kept her business card because not many people give me their business cards very often because people know me, and if somebody doesn’t know me then what would be the point of giving me their business cards anyway, right?

Right.

But I’ve got Daryna Kamyk down in my Christian Names Notebook as well as in my Surnames Notebook because you never know. I haven’t got anyone else called Kamyk in there, just her, and I’ve got only one Daryna. Because she’s Daryna spelt with Y. I have two other Darinas whose names are spelt with I in my Christian Names Notebook. One is Darina Ukrajčoková and she’s a cleaner at the Market Place, and the other one is Darinka Gunárová.

Yesterday I saw Darinka Gunárová outside the Cultural Centre. And this is what she said:

‘Samko, it’s been fifteen years since I last saw you.’

Meaning it had been fifteen years since she last saw me.

But I didn’t know what to say because it hadn’t been fifteen years, it was only nine years since I saw her at her Mum’s funeral where I also saw her husband, the black man.

But I didn’t want to say that.

She was wearing a golden belt on top of her short skirt, and the belt was so wide that you could have made two belts out of it, and it was tightened really tight even though it’s very bad for you. I know that because whenever Grandaddy wasn’t feeling well, he would loosen his trousers and his shirt straight away and we had to keep very quiet because Grandaddy wasn’t feeling well. And then Grandaddy would take these pills that you weren’t supposed to swallow, you were just supposed to leave them under your tongue.

Honestly, you were supposed to leave those pills under your tongue and not swallow them. Because that’s what you were supposed to do with those pills. I have no idea why under your tongue, because nobody ever explained to me how it worked under the tongue. But these pills were very important, because Grandaddy never went anywhere without them. He wouldn’t even go to the Local Party Cell meeting without these pills.

After it all happened with Tonko regarding the Water Tower, Gran — daddy got really unwell and he had to lie down in the bedroom propped up on four pillows and he was so worked up that his fingers went all white and his nails went all blue as though he had dipped them in ink. But it goes without saying that he hadn’t dipped them in ink and that he was just ill regarding his fingers.

And then he pointed one of his fingers at the lamp and said that if the High Ups got to know about it, they would do something about it and it would be a total disaster.

But what he meant was not the lamp, he meant the High Ups, because I’m no retard so I know that he didn’t mean the lamp. Because a lamp is a lamp and it’s not the High Ups even though it is high up, and nobody ever means a lamp when they mean the High Ups, so there.

Because that’s out of the question.

Also later, when Grandaddy was in Hospital because he got cancer in there, you know where I mean, in his penis, he kept pointing upwards and saying that the High Ups would come back and that would be a total disaster. This was after the Communist Party had to leave and the Others came instead, and when Ivana and I went to see him in hospital Grandaddy got terribly worked up because Ivana had a flag in her buttonhole and what it meant in those days was that she didn’t want the Communist Party and that she wanted the Others instead. And he whispered to her in a very worked up voice that she should take it off immediately. Because he couldn’t shout any more due to the cancer.

And then he pointed his finger upwards again and said that we didn’t know what they were like, but he knew exactly what they were like and that’s why he knew that they were just testing us, and that they were going to come back and that would be a total disaster.

After that Ivana took the flag off to stop him getting worked up because he was already 89 years old and he was very ill anyway.

When we were out of the Hospital she pinned it back on, and after that Grandaddy died.

And we went to his funeral.

Everyone was very sad and everyone cried at his funeral, except Ivana didn’t cry because I’ve never ever seen her cry, except that one time when she sat on the floor in the toilet regarding Alf Névéry and had tears and snot and saliva running down her face.

Anyway.

Margita cried more than anyone else in my family because she is very kind-hearted, and I cried a lot too but Ivana cried least of all because she is a great artist from Bratislava and she always wears dark glasses to funerals so that people couldn’t tell if she cried or not and they were disappointed due to that.

I wasn’t disappointed because I knew that Ivana didn’t cry. Anyway.

When Grandmummy died it was Grandaddy who cried more than anyone else and people felt sorry for him and said, oh the poor man, look how sad he is. But the weirdest thing was that the louder Grandaddy cried the less my Mum and Uncle Otto cried. And later on, when it looked as if Grandaddy was about to jump into Grandmummy’s grave, my Mum suddenly turned round and left. That was really weird and people wondered why she left the funeral before it was over, but my Mum said that she had to leave because she felt ill.

But sometimes I think that she didn’t really feel ill and that she left due to something else because people kept giving her weird looks due to leaving before it was over. Because it’s never happened in Komárno before that anyone left their own mother’s funeral before it was over.

I didn’t leave because I stayed till the end.

I’ve always stayed until the end of every funeral I’ve been to because I don’t want to offend a dead person because I’m no retard and I know how to behave.

Because I’m no retard.

Because I’m just like everyone else and people respect me because I’m just like everyone else. Only Grandaddy used to say that there was some of Grandmummy’s blood in the Boy and once when he got worked up regarding Grandmummy he said that Grandmummy’s Grandmother wasn’t just half Hungarian but that she was half Gypsy too, and that’s why her name was Eszter Csonka.