Daniela Kapitánová - Samko Tále's Cemetery Book

When Margita was little my Mum wanted her to play the piano too but she saw that Margita’s feeling for the piano wasn’t as good as Ivana’s and she didn’t make Margita play any more. Only sometimes. My Mum has never made me play the piano even though we had a piano at home all the time so I could have played any time but I never did because I wasn’t good at it.

My Dad wasn’t good at playing the piano either, but he was very good at tying knots. He had a book on knot tying and when he was in the mood he got me to play this game where I held the book and picked a word, for example Fisherman and my Dad would tie the Fisherman’s Knot. Or the Round Knot. My Dad knew how to tie all the knots in the book but I didn’t think this game was much fun because it wasn’t fun at all.

But he taught me how to tie all sorts of knots anyway and that’s come in very handy because when I load my handcart with cardboard, I have to tie it all up so it doesn’t fall off because it often falls off and that’s why it’s very handy knowing how to tie all sorts of knots, for example the Round Knot.

The Round Knot is really good and it never comes undone.

But Žebrák, for example, wasn’t so good at tying knots and when my Dad asked him to hold his book and test him regarding all the knots Žebrák made a funny face, so in the end my Dad told him to forget about it and later he said that Žebrák was a loser who couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces, let alone a Round Knot.

Sometimes when my Dad was in the mood he also asked the children at school to test him regarding the knots in his book.

The book had a title that went like this:

A Hundred and One Ways to Tie a Knot

My Dad knew how to tie all the knots in the book and that was very handy. Anyway.

When my Grandfather from Detva came to visit he always used to tell my Dad how everyone in Detva still remembered him and everyone said that ever since Emil had moved away there was nobody left in Detva who could tie knots like that any more.

And that made my Dad very happy.

It made me very happy, too.

Another person in my family who was good at tying knots was Uncle Otto but he never asked us to test him regarding tying knots because he had a Mission regarding mushrooms but that was due to the lightning so people used to forgive him all sorts of things, even though they sometimes looked at him in a funny way because he used to do the sort of things nobody else in Komárno did.

For example, he used to talk to mushrooms.

It was very weird.

Once he took me to a forest, even though there are no forests in Komárno, but Uncle Otto found one with mushrooms growing in a circle. I’m not making it up, there really were mushrooms growing in this circle and in the middle of the circle there were no mushrooms.

And when we got there he stood in the middle of the circle and this is what he said as he stood there:

‘This is Samko Tále from Komárno.’

I thought it was very weird that he was introducing me to mushrooms because I’ve never met anyone who would talk to mushrooms, except my Dad sometimes talked to the radio, but nobody in the whole world or even on TV has ever talked to mushrooms.

That’s why I thought it was very weird.

Then Uncle Otto said that this circle was mine and that I would always find mushrooms there but I’ve never been back to that place because I can’t remember where it was.

And when he was standing in the circle he told me that every person in the world had their circle like that and once you found your own circle you could make miracles happen regarding your body and soul due to these mushrooms. Then he told me that his own circle was in Balakhashka, the village where the lightning struck him in the shoulder and went out of his foot while he was in a caravan in the Soviet Union.

Uncle Otto said that the most important thing that happened when he returned to his body and to the other radio operators was that he discovered that the caravan stood right in the middle of one of those mushroom circles and that’s why Uncle Otto believed that it was this circle that had sucked in the lightning and that was why it didn’t stay in his shoulder but went out of his foot and he was saved due to that, except that afterwards he had a Mission.

And sometimes Uncle Otto used to say that he had only borrowed it from the mushrooms and that one day he would have to give it back to the mushrooms.

I have no idea what he meant by giving it back because I think it’s rubbish to say that you have to give something back to mushrooms, because I’ve never heard of anyone borrowing anything from mushrooms because it’s out of the question, even though Uncle Otto was really weird and people never argued with him about it because they thought that it was very weird.

Because he was really very weird.

But then again, sometimes I think it’s quite handy that I can’t remember where my mushroom circle is because I’ve never borrowed anything from it but you never know what might happen and what’s what and why and how. And I’m no retard, so why should I borrow anything from a mushroom circle that I would have to give back later, right?

Right.

Because I never borrow anything from anyone because I can look after myself and that’s why I don’t need to borrow anything from anyone.

Because that’s out of the question.

Uncle Otto was also weird regarding telling everyone that he knew how to cure mankind regarding a nuclear bomb explosion.

Uncle Otto used to say that mankind could be cured regarding a nuclear explosion by growing Siberian Woodrot.

Siberian Woodrot was a kind of mushroom that didn’t grow in the ground, it grew on wood, like nails. Uncle Otto used to say that Siberian Woodrot had lots of good qualities that could save mankind from disaster if people grew Siberian Woodrot in their homes because it could swallow nuclear fumes.

And he also used to say that Siberian Woodrot could be spun into a yarn which could be used for making clothes and if all mankind wore clothes made out of Siberian Woodrot we could all be saved regarding a nuclear bomb explosion.

Because in those days everyone was frightened regarding a nuclear bomb explosion, because that was the law. Nowadays people are not so frightened regarding a nuclear bomb explosion because they are frightened regarding other frightening things. But back then a nuclear explosion was the most frightening thing of all.

Once there was this woman in Komárno whose name was Auntie Husličková and she used to live in one of those old tenement houses behind the cemetery and she believed that the best thing for a nuclear bomb explosion was mustard because if you covered yourself in mustard you would be saved regarding an explosion.

That’s why she kept buying mustard and she ended up with so much mustard that her larder was full of it and she had to have special shelves built in the hallway and in the cellar and all over her flat. She had shelves with mustard all over the place.

Then one day she died and they didn’t find her for three weeks. They found her in the hallway, by the smell that was coming from the hallway which meant she was really lucky that she died in the hallway because if she had died in her living room it would have been even longer before she was found.

Auntie Husličková didn’t have any relatives anywhere except for some neighbours, so they had to clear out her flat and they had to take all the mustard to the skip to clear it out. The pile of mustard was really big, as big as the whole skip. But hardly anyone wanted to have any of it, not even the Gypsies.

And then they found a list of names called ‘Not To Be Given Mustard’ in Auntie Husličková’s prayer book. Auntie Husličková had it at hand so that if an explosion happened she would know straight away who should be saved and who shouldn’t. Lots of names on the list were crossed out and then added again. Some were underlined in red pencil.