Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

After the fashion show there was a reception to which he was invited, too. As he cautiously left the lift and went into the reception room, he immediately noticed Tina. Surrounded by hangers-on, she was accepting congratulations. He approached her.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello, cousin,” she replied. “We haven’t seen each other for ages.”

“Congratulations,” he said. “It was excellent.”

He gave her a rose he’d bought on Wenceslas Square beforehand.

“Did you really like it?” asked cousin Tina.

“Really,” said Urban. “I did.”

He embraced her in front of everyone and kissed her on the lips. Tina was a bit thrown. To collect herself, she began introducing Urban to people around. Urban shook hands and mumbled polite phrases.

Tina took his arm and used the subtle pressure of her hand to navigate him ahead. Subdued music began to play.

“Get me a glass of champagne,” she told him. “I’ll powder my nose.”

“I beg your pardon?” Urban didn’t understand.

“I need a pee,” said cousin Tina and vanished.

Then they stood on the terrace and watched Prague’s night panorama. On the one side they could see Wenceslas Square topped by the Museum building. On the other side the castle was lit up.

“You’re very beautiful,” Urban said. “How do you do it?”

“Moderation in all things,” said cousin Tina.

“In all things?” Urban asked, and put on ladykiller look number six.

“In all things,” said cousin Tina. “But of course, not today. Today I want to have fun. This is my evening. Today, Prague belongs to me.”

Cousin Tina pointed to the city panorama.

“What made you think of me?” Urban asked.

“I read about you in Reflex ,” she replied. “In an article about Slovak businessmen. So I said to myself, as we’ve not seen each other for so long…”

“You’re wearing a fantastic dress,” Urban said.

“Thanks,” said cousin Tina.

“But why wear those clumping great clogs with it?” Urban wondered. “I don’t know much about it, but classic pumps would go better with it, wouldn’t they?”

“Not at all,” retorted cousin Tina.

“Don’t they hurt your feet?” Urban was interested. “They look like ordinary cheap work boots.”

“They’re luxury brand-name ladies’ boots,” said Tina. “They cost a bomb.”

“Then you must excuse me,” Urban yielded. “It’s just that in those boots you remind me of Pipi Longstocking. And don’t your friends resent your spending all this time with me?”

“They don’t need me to entertain themselves,” said cousin Tina.

“And your… er… boyfriend?” Urban sounded her out. He knew that she’d already been divorced twice.

“At the moment the position is vacant,” said Tina. Then she came closer to Urban.

“I don’t know if you’ll understand me,” she said. “This is a terribly important moment for me. I’ve been waiting so long for it. And I’m happy you’re sharing it with me. I was always interested in you. I kept asking about you. You probably don’t even know that in my teens I was madly in love with you. Before we left for France, we went to visit your family in Košice and you took me to a disco. Do you remember?”

“No,” said Urban and smiled.

Inside, he froze up completely. Everything came back to him. Including the moment in the express train from Košice to Bratislava when he felt like jumping under the wheels of the train as he realised that somebody other than him would have her first.

“I was about fifteen then,” said cousin Tina. “I came very close to killing myself in France. It was the books I was reading then, and the music. I listened to Mišík: The music played, she cried. It was about me.”

“That song ‘Obelisk’ had a different subtext, I think” Urban retorted, fighting back emotion. “I saw it as joy and sadness after losing virginity.”

“Perhaps,” said cousin Tina, “but you hadn’t tried anything on yet.”

They both smiled.

“I was desperate, too, because we’re blood relatives,” said Tina. “So even if you had feelings for me then, it would still have been hopeless.”

“Cousins can do it,” said Urban. “It’s not incest.”

He smiled.

“It’s nice at least to think about it, though,” he added.

Tina smiled too, and drank her champagne. She felt a need to make light of it.

“Oh well, it was calf love,” she said.

She pressed his arm fleetingly.

A waiter brought a tray to the terrace, and Urban took another two glasses of champagne.

“Do you have a cigarette?” asked cousin Tina.

“Only cigars,” said Urban. “Would you like one?”

“Why not?” said cousin Tina, determined to enjoy and celebrate her triumph to the hilt.

“But don’t inhale!” Urban warned her, as he lit their cigars.

“I’m really very happy I wiped the floor with those bitches,” said Tina, focusing into the distance. “Those envious evil vipers!”

Urban didn’t ask which bitches in particular she had in mind.

“They’re all in it together,” said Tina. “Those old whores of the normalisation period. They used to design uniforms for Bolshevik youth festivals and today they won’t let anyone into the business. They’re a mafia. But today I’ve shown them all who’s best.”

She finished her champagne and calmly smashed the glass on the blue tiles of the terrace.

“Call the waiter,” she ordered Urban. “I feel like more champagne.”

Urban found her Slovak with a strong Prague accent powerfully exciting. Her gently lisped ‘sh’, ‘ch’ and ‘zh’ were simply devastating.

The waiter came straight back. Urban took the bottle off the tray and looked at the label.

“Would that be acceptable?” asked the waiter with a touch of irony.

“Piper Heidsieck?” said Urban. “Why not, it’s fine for glugging…”

He poured for himself and Tina.

“Where are you staying?” asked cousin Tina.

“At the Intercontinental,” said Urban.

“I’d like you to see me home,” she said in a resolute tone. “And you can sleep at my house. There’s enough space. My daughter’s away on a ‘school in nature’ programme. You can sleep in the nursery. But I still need to relish my triumph a bit. Let’s go and join them. I want to enjoy seeing their mugs.”

For the whole evening and most of the night Urban smiled and, his face showing a lively interest, listened to the opinions of various people about splitting up Czechoslovakia. Everyone who learned that Urban came from Slovakia felt impelled to tell him that they were against the split. The more they had to drink, the more sentimental they were. In extreme cases, some tried to speak Slovak, which they fancied to be Czech spoken with a Russian accent. As the only Slovak present, Urban soon felt like a majority stakeholder in a defunct federation whose collapse everyone regretted. After two years they still seemed to be chewing over events.

“Pay no attention to them,” a melancholy drunk told him later in the lavatory, as he was washing his hands. “I hope you won’t get offended and take an axe to them.”

Video Urban was on the point of being offended, but the drunk clapped him on the back.

“But you wouldn’t lower yourself,” he said. “I was joking. They’re little Czechs, and it makes them squirm to see you, a Slovak, come here in a Versace dinner jacket. They’d have loved to see you in a creased high-school graduation suit, standing meekly at the cold buffet, begging for a cigar. Then they could feel sorry for you, because they love THAT SORT of Slovak. I bet that every one of them has told you that he knows a Slovak. How typical of Czechs! They each know one Slovak. Listen, let’s get a drink, and leave your beautiful relative for a moment to her admirers.”