Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

(From Freddy’s notebook)

* * *

It took the shaman from the settlement of Gargâ a long time to revive Özgett Glebąâr. From then on, the Junjan’s eyes burned with frightful hatred. The very same day he organized a revenge raid on the Slovak settlements. Some of the Junjans joined Özgett out of boredom, others hoping to steal something in the chaos. Nobody cared about Özgett and even less about his brother. But any chance to harm Slovaks was welcome. All the men in the punitive posse ran out onto the snow and put together the dog teams at breakneck speed. They hollered vindictively and joyfully: after days spent dying, something was finally happening.

The vengeful raiders did not dare attack Habovka. It was quite a long way away, and also quite populous. So they decided to attack a smaller fishing village, Hanová. The population of Hanová counted at most forty inhabitants, belonging to three families.

The weather stopped raging and from the greyish mass of sea a moderate wind blew. It was a good sign: Hanová’s men would be fishing and only women, children and old men would be left in the village. With wild and excited shouts the revenge raid set out. Death to Slovaks!

When they came back a few hours later, the inhabitants of Gargâ welcomed them as heroes. The raid was a success. The Junjans brought on their sledges a cargo of food on which they could survive for many weeks. Besides, there were fur, tools, and a few Slovak women, who were yelling madly. They would not accept their slave status.

Özgett was still shaking with rage. He felt he had not yet sufficiently avenge his brother’s death. Something worrying that Junjan soul had not yet been appeased. On attacking the Slovak village Özgett worked his rage off on a young woman who was working skins in front of her yurt. He raped her violently right in the snow. The Slovak woman fought back ferociously, so he had to knock her out with a punch. When he’d satisfied his needs, he saw that he had not just knocked her out, but killed her. The blow was so strong that it broke her back. Excited by the sight of blood oozing from the Slovak woman’s nose, he got up and searched for his next victim. His kinsmen were looting and sometimes killing any woman or old man who tried to stop them. Özgett, too, took something from the yurt of the murdered Slovak woman. He took a fancy to two guns, a rifle and a shotgun, hanging from the ceiling. He smacked his lips with satisfaction. He grabbed a fistful of shotgun cartridges and headed for the exit. He ripped open the curtain and went out.

The Junjans killed and looted hastily. They all knew that the shots would be heard by the men hunting seals at distant holes in the ice floe. So they killed the Slovaks’ dogs to hinder the pursuit and only then, weighed down by looted food, weapons, tools and female slaves, did they hop onto their sledges and race from the scene of the crime.

When Hanová’s men got back from the hunt, a scene of destruction met their eyes.

“The Junjans,” shouted those women and children who had escaped capture or death. “The Junjans came and killed and looted.”

Grown-up men cried like small boys. They clenched their fists until their knuckles went white. Some drew blood from their wrists, as they bit into them in mad fury. Everyone’s voice cried for revenge.

“First we must look after the wounded and put out the fires,” proposed Ondrej Šebo, the oldest hunter, whom all the others respected as the settlement’s uncrowned chieftain. “We won’t be able to catch them now that our dogs have been killed. But revenge is not a fox; it won’t run away. Go to your tasks and do what has to be done.”

In the evening there was a meeting in Šebo’s yurt. By then they knew exactly what the Junjans had wrought. They had left fourteen dead. Four young women were gone. Their men were going mad from despair and helplessness. They insisted on setting out on a punitive raid.

“Who will benefit?” Šebo tried to dissuade them. “If you want to stop them being screwed, you’re too late: they’ve been screwed long ago. If you want to free them, you need a cool head, not this madness.”

“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,” agreed an elder of the Kyselica family. “We’ll visit our Slovak brothers in Habovka, Horná and Dolná Náprava and Krempná, too. We’ll seek their advice and then we’ll decide what action we’ll take. But we won’t let such a crime go unpunished.”

And that was what they did. They immediately set off to see their Slovak brothers in nearby villages and settlements, and crossed the sea in their kayaks, visiting Slovak fishing and hunting settlements scattered over the smaller islands. They told everyone of their suffering.

They all drank tea with them and even moonshine was put on the table, but everyone advised them to be very cautious. Not all were ready to risk their safety, although the injustice cried out. That’s what Slovaks are like: they won’t fight a fire until it burns their arses.

“So what?” an elder from Krempná advised. “You’ll find new women. And your women won’t be so badly off with the Junjans. You know Junjans like their women plump. At least they won’t go hungry.”

“You’re a Slovak and you tell me that?” Kyselica-Kuna shouted at him, got up brusquely and left the hearth. All the other Hanová elders followed his example to a man.

“Oh, you’re a bad Slovak,” Šebo-Kováč told the Krempná elder and spat on the ground in front of him. “There’s not an ounce of pride in you. Your cowardice is indecent, even for a Slovak.”

“What you call ‘cowardice,’ I call ‘sense’,” said the insulted Krempná elder. “We’ve always had these minor squabbles with the Junjans. We understand your pain, but what you propose is rebellion.”

“Yes, it is about time the Junjans found out that there are no Russians here to protect them,” said Kyselica-Kuna. “If you are not with us, then so be it. Get back to your furs and don’t stick your nose out.”

The men from Hanová filed out of the yurt through the hole in the wall with dignity and, as a sign of disgrace, the last of the hunters did not pull down the leather curtain behind him.

“Well, I say!” murmured the Krempná elder.

The men from Hanová fared differently in Habovka.

When they told the gathering in the Habovka’s men’s house what had happened to them, the clan heads leapt up and their hands spontaneously reached for weapons.

“Damn them!” Geľo Todor-Lačný raged. “This calls for revenge!”

And a group of excitable younger men immediately joined Hanová’s.

The same happened in Dolná Náprava.

Before daybreak a punitive expedition came to Gargâ on several dozen dog sledges while the Junjans still slept. The Slovaks poured mineral grease everywhere and set it on fire. When the Junjans ran out from their burning yurts and huts, the Slovaks easily got them with their rifles. The priest dashed among the dying, baptizing as fast as he could.

The fighters brought back all the women they’d rescued who’d been abducted by the Junjans. Only one did not return: Fero Topoľský-Cigáň’s wife, who, the rescued women testified, preferred to stab herself with an iron skewer rather than be dishonoured by a lecherous Junjan. He dishonoured her anyway, but by then the poor woman was no longer aware of it. Fero Topoľský-Cigáň exacted a terrible revenge. He tied the Junjan identified as the culprit by the Hanová women with a long leash to the dog sledge and, a wild expression on his face, he drove his dogs into the snowy taiga. The Junjan at first tried to run, but then his legs gave way. He slipped, and the unhappy Fero dragged him to death, still roaring curses. He left the disfigured corpse in the taiga and retuned to Hanová the next day, half-mad with unsated desire for vengeance.