Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

“That’s why Slovaks are duty-bound to guard and keep this secret,” said the priest. “No Junjan and no foreign devil will ever dare come.”

“Because of the terrifying totems alone,” said Geľo.

“Yes, they were a very good idea, by God,” the priest agreed. “Even though I’m no follower of idolatry. Virgin Mary, Jesus, and the Lord God, that’s fine. But no spirits, no.”

Geľo firmly tightened the lid of the barrel, picked up it up and loaded it as if it were feather-light onto the sledge. Then they filled another barrel and were soon on their way.

It was evening when Jurko smelled smoke. Soon they caught sight of the first yurts of Habovka.

* * *

Little is easier to understand than an eaten egg.

Junjan Slovak proverb

Ever since childhood Video Urban and his cousin Tina have had a strange relationship. There was a peculiar tension between them. As a child, Urban was the darling of his family and his uncle; Tina’s future father could play cowboys and Indians with him for hours and took him on trips round Košice, where they lived. Urban remembered his uncle, then a sergeant on leave from military service, visiting them once in uniform. He brought little Urban some lapel badges. When he came back from military service, uncle had found a girl in the town of Michalovce. He had less and less time for Urban, which the latter took badly. Although his uncle’s girlfriend took a liking to him, little Urban’s childish egotism saw her as a barrier between him and his much loved uncle. When Tina was born, Urban was six and just starting primary school. He instantly stopped being the family’s spoiled only child, and everyone, including his parents, focussed on little Tina. Little Urban was sidelined. He made a few attempts to recover his former standing in the family. His biggest mess-up was simulating appendicitis. They finally took his appendix out, to be on the safe side, since he went on simulating too long. That put him off any more attempts: his illusions were over. His childhood was finished, but not Tina’s.

The more cousin Tina grew, the more Urban disliked her. She was an annoying, snivelling brat. Sometimes his parents made him play with her. His child’s egotism stopped him showing her the love and patience that his uncle had shown him years before. Instead, he tormented her and subjected her to various horrifying experiments.

Then his uncle got a new job and moved with his family to Prague. The two families corresponded sporadically. From time to time uncle and would bring his wife to celebrate New Year with the Urbans, and sometimes the Urbans went to celebrate it in Prague. Tina stayed at home in Prague, and Urban in Košice and later Bratislava. He had a fixed memory of his cousin as a stupid, taciturn cry-baby.

Once, at the end of his studies at the College of Applied Arts in Bratislava, he came home for the weekend: in the living room sat his uncle, aunt and a pretty girl. “Tina?” asked Urban, taken aback by her looks.

It was his cousin, and she was sixteen.

In the evening, Urban rescued her from the company of the “oldies” and, with his uncle’s and aunt’s consent, took her to a disco at the local community hall. He discovered Tina to be not only very charming but an intelligent and perceptive person for her age. He found her somewhere to sit and bought two coca-colas. They danced for a while, slow dances too. She held him round the neck, and they were wrapped round each other like lovers. That was how you danced in those days. Tina could move in a way that switched on a flashing warning light deep in his body. He had to pull away from her so that she wouldn’t notice his youthful erection.

“Let’s go and sit down somewhere,” Tina suggested. “It’s awfully noisy here. Anyway, this music’s getting on my nerves now.”

They were in a garden restaurant near the railway station. Urban ordered a bottle of red wine, as his cousin looked eighteen already.

“So what kind of music do you like?” he asked her.

“Real music,” she replied: Urban right away fell in love with her soft Prague accent. “Music with something to say. Prague Selection, OK Band, Žentour. And Mišík, though he’s old. But his lyrics are good. I listen to all kinds of music.”

For a while they talked about literature. Cousin Tina knew much more than Urban. She came up with names that he’d never even heard of.

They finished the wine. Actually, Urban drank most. Then they walked the old-town streets. By the Hotel Slovan they turned off uphill and headed for the cathedral. Then to the theatre and back down the other side of the square. Urban would have liked to take Tina to dine at the Tokay restaurant, but he didn’t have the money.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Tina asked.

“Yes,” Urban replied. “But I’m broke.”

“I’ve got a bit,” said cousin Tina said. “We’ll buy a hot dog.”

Their relatives stayed at the Urbans the whole weekend: that was time enough for Urban to fall madly in love with cousin Tina. When he found out that his uncle was about to take his family, this time with Tina, to France for six years, he fell into despair.

He didn’t have the courage to tell her that he was madly, desperately in love with her. There were barriers: she was so young and innocent. And besides, they were blood relatives.

He said good-bye to Tina, kissed her on the lips, and on Monday morning took the train to Bratislava: he had crumbled like a biscuit dipped in milk coffee.

Of course, once he got into university, a carefree student environment buried his weekend love in new loves; but the memory of her pretty and radiant appearance stayed. He followed her career at a distance.

After she came back from France, Tina went to the Prague College of Applied Arts. Urban was no longer a student by then: he got himself thrown out of the theory of culture course and worked as a window dresser in the Prior department store. That was, of course, only a cover: in fact he made his money in Bratislava as an unlicensed taxi-driver and then as a money-changer and pimp. Anyone interested in knowing more about this should read Rivers of Babylon : it’s explored there in detail.

Then the Velvet Revolution broke out and Urban came across Tina’s photo in the Czech weekly Young World , featuring her as a member of the strike committee at the College of Applied Arts. She was far more beautiful than in the awful wedding photos that Urban was shown by his parents when he went home. Video Urban knew that Tina had married a man twelve years older and married before. His father and mother went to the wedding in Prague, but Urban, although he was invited, made his excuses.

A few years later, when Urban was acting director of Rácz’s holding company, he was invited to a fashion show in Prague by a company called Atelier Tina. Since Urban planned to visit Prague for negotiations with a federal ministry, he arranged things so that he could come to the show. The invitation was for two, but Urban didn’t then have anyone he felt like taking. His cohabiters, Wanda and Eva, were unsuitable. In any case, Urban was now thinking how to dump them neatly. So he went to Prague alone.

He was not at all impressed by the fashion show. Long knitted dresses, especially worn with heavy boots, could not excite him. He knew they were the fashion then, but he disliked them. He preferred watching the women present in the room. He saw Helena Vondráčková and, near her, Kateřina Kornová. Then there was Magdaléna Dietlová who, despite being an old bag now, still looked quite sexy. He also saw minister Macek with a girl. He almost missed seeing the models call the dress designer up to the podium, when everyone began to clap.

The designer was cousin Tina. She was dressed in a long knitted dress, too, but it was so tight that you could almost see her appendicitis scar.