Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

He’s made a habit of taking long walks in the town. He watched fishermen catching fish in the Kola river’s wide estuary. He bought a fishing rod in a tackle shop, together with hooks, landing net and other accessories. He never caught a fish, and was sure that he must look ridiculous. He didn’t even know how to throw the rod and bait. So he now avoided other fishermen and searched for deserted places. He never caught anything, but that was not the point anyway. All his ideas went through his head, leaving no trace. Only now and again, at moments of extreme visualisation, he was amazed by his weird life. Just a few weeks ago he sat at a desk in a stinking Bratislava office and longed to be sitting in a Prague pub or having sex with his cousin Tina. And now he’s sitting at the northernmost point of Russia, fishing in the Barents Sea.

Five days pass. One day, when he gets back from fishing, the woman concierge tells him that someone from the airport has phoned him. They said they had another aircraft for him. Urban thanks her. He goes to the airport. Stalin’s grandson turns out not to have forgotten him. In the bar two men are waiting for him: stout, with weather-beaten faces, dressed in camouflage outfits bought from a discount store. Urban joins them. The men have a modified Il-14. The aircraft has Arctic modifications to adapt it for longer flights. They agree to take Urban and transport him safe and sound to Junja, perhaps directly to Űŕģüllpoļ.

“But if we find they’re fighting again over there, then we’ll land outside the city, on the plain,” the chief pilot warns him.

Urban is glad that they don’t want money up front.

“Not until the plane touches down on Junjan soil,” says the co-pilot.

So Urban packs his things in the evening, and the next day at six in the morning comes with his backpack, bag and fishing rod to the airport. This time it’s for real. The plane is ready, its engines running.

The cargo space is full of boxes of consumer goods: cigarettes, tins, and bottles of vodka. How nice of them to smuggle all this using Urban’s money, he thinks.

“Make yourself comfortable, Urban Urbanych,” the co-pilot says and points to a bench under the windows. “Don’t move the boxes during the flight, as it’s balanced, more or less. Better sleep.”

Before the pilot draws the curtain dividing the cargo space from the pilot’s cabin, Urban catches sight of a crate of vodka. Soon the smelly, nicotine-stained curtain parts to reveal the co-pilot’s red face.

“Come and drink to a successful flight, Urban Urbanych!”

Urban doesn’t mind. At least it’ll help him get over his fear. He has never flown like this. The pilots drink a toast with him. After the first bottle they open another.

“And what brings you to Junja, Urban Urbanych?” the co-pilot asks.

Between two glasses each holding two hundred grammes of vodka, Urban briefly explains to the two Russians who he is, what his relationship to Freddy is, and what he has to sort out in Junja.

“Oh, you’ve chosen a bad time to visit your friend, Urban Urbanych,” the captain shakes his head.

He has now managed to take off. Urban is sitting at a little table, in a place for the absent flight engineer, with a full glass of vodka in his hand, following a steep take-off manœuvre. He becomes a bit nervous.

“Who’s going to pilot the plane?” he asks when he sees the second half litre of Stolichnaya vanishing.

“Don’t worry,” says the plane’s captain. “One of us is on duty and doesn’t drink.”

But there’s no such person on board. The flight proceeds normally. By the time the plane’s at cruising altitude, heading for Junja, both pilots are drunk. They switch to autopilot, set their alarm clock and fall asleep.

Urban is sitting behind them, watching their regular breathing and the joysticks moving synchronously and seemingly chaotically now right, now left. He clenches his teeth and finishes his glass of vodka. His throat tightens, not knowing whether to swallow or spew out the vodka. He is goggle-eyed and keeps half a glass of vodka in his mouth for a long time. Finally, using all his willpower, he swallows it. Immediately, he feels like vomiting. He overcomes this feeling and finishes the rest of vodka in the third bottle. He blanks out for a moment. With a last ounce of energy, he stumbles back and stretches out on a bench covered by slashed leatherette. He falls asleep instantly.

They wake him when the archipelago is in sight.

“Bad news, Urban Urbanych,” says the captain. “Űŕģüllpoļ has been taken. Junjan units are there again. They’ve occupied the airport, too.”

“What does that mean?” Urban does not understand.

“For me and Vanya, nothing,” says the captain. “Everyone will be glad to see us and our goods. But for you, as a Czech, it means that if you fall into their hands, they’ll shoot you like a dog. You Czechs are working against the Junjan government, aiding terrorists. We can’t land in Űŕģüllpoļ with you, pal. They’d even punish us because of you.”

From behind captain’s shoulder, a red face peeks out. It’s Vanya the co-pilot, holding a dirty backpack. When Urban takes a closer look, he sees that it’s a parachute. Urban is clear what the two are thinking about.

“I’m not a Czech, but a Slovak,” says Urban and shows the co-pilot his passport. “My government supports the Junjans.”

For the first time in his life, Urban is happy to have such a far-sighted government.

“A Slovak?” the captain shouts.

Both Russians’ faces express almost mortal horror.

“Oh my God,” says the captain. “If Junjans get you, they’ll torture you to death!”

“But I’m not a bad Slovak from Junja,” argues Urban. “I’m a good Slovak from Europe. The Slovak Republic doesn’t recognize the rebels.”

“You can’t get that over to them,” says the co-pilot. “Look, the captain and I are educated people, literate people. We graduated from institutes. Yet we don’t know who the hell you are. Do you think that stupid Junjans will care?”

“They won’t ask questions,” the captain joins in. “Are you Czech? We’ll hang you, because you support the rebels. Are you Slovak? We’ll hang you, because you’re a rebel. And what’s worse, they’ll hang us along with you, because we’re your companions.”

“Don’t make it hard for us, Urban Urbanych,” says the co-pilot with a pleading voice and shakes the parachute. “We’ll drop you off somewhere in the tundra where the guerrillas will find you. And if you are, as you say, a friend of that Telgarth of theirs, nothing can happen to you. We’re honest people, civilised people. Look, we don’t even want your money. Keep your bucks! We brought you here completely free, that’s how nice we are to you. Just put this thing on, for God’s sake, and we’ll push you out of the plane ourselves. We’re flying low; the parachute will open by itself. It’ll be like landing in your bed.”

“We simply can’t land in Űŕģüllpoļ with you,” the captain adds categorically. “We’re businessmen, not heroes.”

They hurl themselves at Urban and force the parachute on him. Urban in a panic fights back like a lion. In the heat of battle, he pushes both pilots against a crate. All the crates fall down. The automatic pilot can’t recover from such a loss of equilibrium. The plane is in a tailspin.

Vanya lets Urban go and fights his way through the crates to the cockpit. The captain is wrestling with Urban on his own. Urban almost seems to be succeeding in staving off the humiliating drop, when someone hits him over the head from behind. He sees stars in his eyes and then there’s only darkness.

When he recovers consciousness, he is lying in the snow and someone is slowly pulling him from behind. He looks round. Nobody is pulling him, it’s just the wind blowing into his half-collapsed parachute and pulling the strings. In the distance there are echoes of the muffled noise of the plane. Urban gets up and unbuckles the parachute. He finds his wallet and counts his money. The Russians kept their word: they took him to Junja and didn’t take a single penny from him. He even gradually finds his backpack, bag, and even the bag of fishing tackle that the Russians threw behind him in the snow. God, such honest people, Urban thinks. You’ll have a hard time surviving, pals!