Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

Today, several dozen Ukrainian slave-knitters, all dressed in flowery aprons, work for the Atelier Tina company in the big airless basement. They work in the basement; they even sleep there on three-tier soldiers’ bunks. They almost never go out. Some have been working for cousin Tina for years, but still haven’t been further than the street corner.

When Tina received a lucrative offer to sell her knitwear in America through the Sears catalogue, she bought new machines, divided her workshop area horizontally with a metal grid and recruited dozens more slaves. They were all illegal. The Ukrainians work a whole month in twelve-hour shifts, two weeks by day, two weeks by night. Then they go home for a month. For that time, new compatriots, rested and full of energy, take their place. This way two sets of workers, each comprising two shifts, alternate.

The impressive villa in Střešovice was bought by cousin Tina for a song from a retired man who, in a fit of anger, dispossessed a son who had emigrated and hadn’t lifted a finger for his father. For the money he got in cash by selling the neglected building with a rather spacious garden, the retired vendor set out on a trip around the world and died somewhere in Brazil with two naked mulatto women in his arms.

Cousin Tina is a businesswoman straight out of a Dickens novel. Of course, she doesn’t see herself as a businesswoman. She is lucky to have made a good start after her business partner left, and today her firm runs almost by inertia. Just occasionally she goes and bawls out her executive manageress. Otherwise, she spends whole days in her studio and draws models, or in the huge overgrown garden, an elegant straw hat on her head and shears in her hand. Her hobby is cutting flowers, drying leaves and putting them in huge glass jars in which doctors used to keep embryos in formaldehyde. She calls this “spending her life among flowers”. She also likes to be seen by others as a fragile flower. She is unhappy if she is considered a rapacious beast, noble, but still utterly perfidious.

Now Tina lies on her bed and looks into the dark with wide open eyes. She strains her ears, and her inner vision follows Urban’s every step: as he unlocks the gate, opens the house door and enters the hall, and climbs the stairs to her floor. As he hesitates for a moment at her bedroom door.

The door flies open, the sharp light comes on and Video Urban is standing in the middle of the room in a well-fitting suit, his tie at half-mast, a suitcase in his hand.

Tina pretends to be sleepy. Features that once expressed youthful eagerness have been aged into a predatory expression by the ensuing years and experience. Her narrow nose is now pointed, her eyebrows lifted asymmetrically into a charmingly scornful look. The eyes are still big, but have changed from blue to dark violet. Where innocence and graceful girlish naïvety once shone, today only a cold desire remains to grab from life as much as she can. The wide lips that once freely offered themselves have hardened into a resolve not to let anything be taken away any more. And all that is covered at this night hour by a thick layer of cosmetic night mask.

“Good evening,” says Urban. “So here I am!”

Urban approaches the bed and kisses his cousin on her night mask.

His cousin makes a gymnastic twist with her eyebrows.

“This noisy arrival is quite pointless, if you’ve come empty-handed,” she says reproachfully.

“You said empty-handed?” Urban is surprised and takes out of his suitcase a longish package whose contents are promising.

“Oh,” cousin Tina smacks her lips and takes the gift.

Video Urban sits down on the bed and inhales her body odour. Cousin Tina unpacks the parcel and opens an oblong case inscribed Cartier. It’s a diamond bracelet.

“You shouldn’t have,” says cousin Tina. “Not this…”

“Don’t take it like that,” says Urban. “I was buying a CD in Paris and they didn’t have any change, so they packed this instead.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Tina visibly excited. “This must have cost an entire fortune.”

“When you’re found out,” Urban says, seduced by the aroma radiating from cousin Tina, “you’ll sell it and right away you’ll have money for your pension, as well as the fine.”

Cousin Tina immediately puts the bracelet on her slender wrist. She stretches out her arm and observes at its maximum reach how well the jewellery suits her.

Urban moves closer, kisses her fingers and then runs his mouth along the entire length of her arm. Cousin Tina gently pulls away.

“Well, I don’t know now,” says Urban, looking at his watch.

“What don’t you know?” asks cousin Tina.

“If it’s worth going to bed,” says Urban. “It’s almost half past three.”

“It’s worth my while,” says cousin Tina. “You do whatever you like.”

“Really?” Urban asks. He leans on one elbow and with his other hand caresses the rather small breast that peeps over her nightdress neckline.

“I bet you’re wearing only a nightdress,” he says.

“No,” answers cousin Tina. “Underneath I wear my chastity belt.”

“Really?” Urban asks. “A metal one?”

“No,” says cousin Tina. “ Always Ultra .”

Urban reaches under the cover to make sure.

“Don’t be silly,” says cousin Tina. “I have to be in my office by nine. I’ve an appointment with the editor of Cosmopolitan .”

“We’ll make it easily,” says Video Urban.

“No! I don’t want this to become a habit.”

“What habit?” says Video Urban in astonishment. “The last time I was here was two months ago.”

“Don’t you have any girls in Bratislava?” cousin Tina asks. “Does your poor relative from Prague always have to help out?”

“You know I only want you,” says Urban.

“I don’t know that,” says cousin Tina. “I think you’ll take anything and that it’s very nice for you to have someone for unproblematic screwing in Prague. Since you spend so much time here, right?”

“Well, you shouldn’t have said that,” says Urban. “You’ve really hurt my feelings, you know?”

He tries to undo the nightdress, but she frees herself from his arms.

“I said no!” she says. “Not now.”

“When, then?” ask Urban.

“If you ask in that silly way, then never!” cousin Tina blurts out. “Look, don’t make a habit of it. I’ll find someone one of these days and you’ll be out. So don’t expect anything, and take everything as temporary, like a gift out of the blue.”

“Quite,” Urban agrees, and presses his body to hers.

Cousin Tina pushes him away.

“Look what a pathetic sight you are, cousin,” she says in disgust, pointing to the bulge in his trouser crotch. “And you’ve only just arrived.”

“You can’t have heard of morning erections,” Urban responds, but gives up any more physical attempts. “This is how the male sexual organ shows it’s ready for sexual intercourse.”

“Of course, the female sexual organ shows that it’s not ready,” counters cousin Tina.

“Luckily,” Urban says, “a man’s sexual organ is willing to be entertained by another suitable female organ.”

“Look, why not take a cold shower? And open the window in your room before you do,” says cousin Tina. “I forgot to tell Mrs Pecháček you were coming. So the room hasn’t been aired for two months. Good night.”

Mrs Pecháček is, as cousin Tina says, “a nice lady who comes in to help”. Urban of course calls her what she is, a servant. Why pretend to be a democrat where there’s no need to?

“Good night,” says Urban unwillingly and goes to bed.

“Well, for that bracelet she really could at least give me a hand job,” he thinks later in an ice-cold shower. “But I’ll have her,” he finally tells himself, as he falls asleep. He wouldn’t be Video Urban if he didn’t.