Daniela Kapitánová - Samko Tále's Cemetery Book

‘How many men have you screwed today, Gaby?’

Everything would have worked out all right except that one night he put on his full uniform on top of his pyjamas, then he put on his shoes and everything else and started hitting the door with his fist and shouting:

‘Give it to him, knock him out, finish him off!’

All the other people woke up and started laughing because they thought it was funny but then they stopped because they realized that it wasn’t funny and they had to call all sorts of people including a doctor and he said that Daniel Gaby had gone mad. He got really, really mad and they had to put him in the madhouse.

And after that Daniel Gaby was in the madhouse and nobody has heard of him since, because he was in the madhouse.

I’ve never heard of him either.

Once I asked old Gusto Rúhe if Daniel Gaby was still in the madhouse and he asked me for an alcoholic drink and this is what he chalked on the tarmac after that:

‘Big bullshit.’

I have no idea what Gusto Rúhe meant by big bullshit so I asked him what he meant by big bullshit but he never tells anyone’s fortune twice even if you buy him two shots of alcohol because that’s what he’s like, so I have no idea what he meant by big bullshit regarding Daniel Gaby.

Old Gusto Rúhe has never written anything that made any sense, except once, when I asked him if Uncle Otto would ever come back. He asked me to get him an alcoholic drink and this is what he chalked on the tarmac:

‘Never.’

After that I thought that maybe I shouldn’t have asked him because there was really no need for old Gusto Rúhe to put it like this: ‘Never’. He could just as easily have just written: ‘Don’t know’, right?

Right.

I don’t believe anything that old Gusto Rúhe writes on the tarmac in front of the Pub anyway, because he’s an alcoholic and his lower lip hangs all the way down to his chin. But there was no need to write: ‘Never’, right?

Right.

Once Ivana went to see him too but she wouldn’t tell me why she wanted her fortune told, but I told her that she shouldn’t go to see him because he never tells women’s fortunes unless they let him grope them but that’s what Ivana is like, she thinks she’s a great artist from Bratislava and that he will tell her fortune without groping. But everything happened exactly like I said, because I always know everything because I know.

But Ivana didn’t let him grope her so he didn’t grope her and due to that she didn’t have her fortune told, but she gave him 50 Slovak crowns anyway and ever since then old Gusto Rúhe always asks me when my sister will be in town again because he spent all that money on an alcoholic drink straight away. And I always tell him to mind his own business. But I don’t say it in nice words, I say it in rude words.

But the thing is, that’s what Ivana is like and I bet that the next time she comes to town she will go and see old Gusto Rúhe again and then she will talk about him everywhere because she keeps pushing herself in everywhere.

Margita would never go to see him because she finds him disgusting because he stinks and she always says that he just sits there and nobody does anything about it and he’s an embarrassment to the whole town due to his stinking, but one thing that makes Margita happy regarding old Gusto Rúhe is that he’s not Slovak even though he comes from Banská Štiavnica, because he is German and so nobody can say that he is Slovak which means that he isn’t an embarrassment to Slovaks, only to Germans regarding wetting himself.

Otherwise there aren’t many Germans in Komárno, just lots of Hungarians and Gypsies and also some Vietnamese, especially in the Market Place but the Vietnamese are nice because they don’t push other people around and they don’t speak Vietnamese. I mean they do speak Vietnamese but only among themselves. But Hungarians speak Hungarian even when they are not among themselves.

But people forgive the Vietnamese for speaking Vietnamese because we have never been suppressed by them. And that’s why they are allowed in Slovakia. We have always been suppressed by the Hungarians and that’s why we will never forgive them. That goes without saying, right?

Right.

Except that Ivana doesn’t care and she even defends them and that’s really embarrassing. I don’t see what the point was of her having attended all sorts of schools and going to all sorts of concerts when she’s being so embarrassing. Plus she keeps pushing herself onto TV and once she wore a white tuxedo on a record sleeve and she had her hair dyed black even though in reality her real hair colour is as light as mine. But on the record sleeve she had it dyed all black, and she sat on stage wearing a white tuxedo.

Nobody else’s sister would ever have that sort of picture taken.

And that’s very embarrassing.

Once I tried to listen to one of her records, but it wasn’t a record for people, it was the sort of music you can’t listen to because it’s not even music. I have no idea who buys music like that. And Ivana was sitting on a stage, and not even at the piano.

Because that’s what she’s like.

A stage is where people perform for other people who watch them. It doesn’t always have to be on the piano. Once I performed on stage at the Cultural Centre, too It was when I was picked to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath. Everyone clapped and drummers drummed their drums and trumpeters played their trumpets. The trumpets had Young Pioneers’ Flags hanging from them. The flags were golden. They all had a fringe. The fringes were golden, too The Young Pioneers’ Flags had all sorts of things embroidered on them but I forget what was embroidered on them, because that wasn’t what was very important. What was very important was me due to reciting the Young Pioneer’s Oath.

In my class there were all sorts of good students and pupils, both boys and girls and whatever, and everyone wanted to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath but it wasn’t them the High Ups picked, they picked me because everyone respected me even back then due to waste paper, and it was due to waste paper that I got the book called The Young Pioneer’s Heart and made friends with Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences).

I’m sure that otherwise they would have picked Darinka Gunárová to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath on behalf of our class because she was top of the class, but they didn’t pick her because it would have looked weird if Darinka had been reciting the Young Pioneer’s Oath and her father would have been standing on stage with the other High Ups tying our Young Pioneers’ Scarves, so that’s why they didn’t pick her and they picked me instead.

I was so good at reciting the Young Pioneer’s Oath that afterwards all the people said I was the best at reciting it. And they said that nobody had ever been so good at reciting the Young Pioneer’s Oath as I was. Everybody said so, including Grandaddy, and he also said that I did really well reciting the Oath and that’s why we all went to a café.

Another thing that people said afterwards was that I was really good at saluting. I was so good at saluting that I even showed other children who were not so good at it how to salute. I am still very good at saluting but it’s not the done thing any more because Young Pioneers have been abolished along with Young Pioneer Leaders. Young Pioneer Leaders were the people who used to lead the Young Pioneers. We used to have a Young Pioneers’ Club too and we used to go there to play all sorts of games that were interesting and fun. I forget what sort of games we used to play there. But they were very interesting. Anyway.

Originally it was my Dad who was supposed to come along regarding the Young Pioneer’s Oath but he didn’t want to come and said that he had to look after my Mum regarding her bad back but I know that he wasn’t really looking after her back and that it was just an excuse, because he made fun of it and didn’t take the Young Pioneer’s Oath seriously.