Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

Hundreds of incidents belie this statement. Tvrdý himself soon challenged the leadership of SNFL to explain to its countrymen that Junja today has nothing in common with Junja before the fall of the Khan’s fascist regime. “Junjan Slovaks have achieved many of their aims, above all independence, thanks to us. It would be madness if they now went on to attack Czech units,” said Tvrdý.

However, it is obvious today that the political leadership of the Junjan Slovaks is in no hurry to build a multiethnic state and is perhaps not even interested in having Czech forces stay on their territory. Foreign experts worry that the SFNL leaders, particularly Telgarth (in fact, his real name is Alfréd Mešťánek), are playing a double game: they pretend to cooperate and disavow attacks on Czechs; in reality, however, they support all anti-Czech activities and, according to many reports, sometimes even organize them. All those who know the local situation stress that any change for the better will take time.

The enormous pressure that the Slovak community has now put on Junjans is understandable given the terror once organized by the Junjans: it will take some time for the situation to calm down. “Incidents luckily don’t affect the whole territory of the Junjan archipelago. This situation will eventually stabilise,” says Petr Kopečný.

But Czech soldiers realise that they cannot let the situation get out of hand. General Tvrdý yesterday sharply warned the Slovak Liberation Army leadership, the SNFL’s military wing, not to try to create artificial tension between Czechs and Slovaks in Junja.

The forthcoming weeks will be critical, according to diplomats. It remains to be seen if Czech forces will succeed in mollifying the Junjan Slovaks’ extreme positions, bring their supreme representatives back to reality and force on Junja an atmosphere conducive to a democratic restoration of the country and then creating a restored Czechoslovakia.

PETR DAVID, Respect

* * *

The real world has completely vanished under a patina of interpretation, Urban said philosophically to himself one day, after reading one of dozens of newspapers that, besides fishing, were his only distraction, as he hung about between breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with Telgarth. He still lived in the only more or less luxurious Űŕģüllpoļ, or New Bystrica, hotel Murgdźžbb, recently renamed the Ambassador. Telgarth keeps emotionally blackmailing him, begging him to stay on. He keeps upping his offer. Urban has always been an irresolute opportunist and still is. With an open option of leaving at any time, that’s tolerable.

When, a few days ago, with a thousand apologies and deep bows, he was kicked out of his suite and moved to a smaller room, it seemed that his patience was exhausted. He began to long for civilisation, for Stuffed Steak à la Lamminger in the Domažlice Room , for well-tapped Pilsen beer in the U Pivoje pub, for his cousin Tina, for Prague trams, for the rubber-smelling Metro, for the view of Charles Bridge and the Vltava from the Hanavský Pavilon restaurant, for the labyrinth of lanes under Jánský Vršek. Here, in Junja, he’s fed up with everything.

“You mustn’t!” Telgarth pleads desperately. “You can’t abandon me. Such terrible people surround me, now that my only salvation is my old guard of guerrillas and you, my longstanding friend. You’ve no idea what our lunches and dinners together mean to me. With all the terrible duties I have, and I’d rather not talk about them, our meetings are the only bright spots in my life. Urban, stay a bit, it’ll be worth your while. I’ll reward you generously. And when it’s time for you to go home, I’ll send you home in a special plane, like a president, except a bit richer!”

“I’m wealthy enough, Freddy,” Urban objects weakly. “I don’t need your rewards. My reward is seeing how well you’re doing.”

For a while, Urban freezes anxiously, but Telgarth magnanimously overlooks the irony. He is strutting like a peacock. He is surrounded by Italian tailors measuring him for an elaborate new uniform; an official Russian portraitist wants to paint his portrait, commissioned by the politburo of the SNFL; he has petitioners whose relatives have been imprisoned without trial, and he’s besieged by secretaries who ask him to sign all kinds of documents.

“Aren’t I doing well?” Telgarth laughs at Urban through the crowd. “I just serve the people, the Slovak nation. Selflessly. You know I set myself no salary. I work for board. lodging and clothing.”

Urban slowly follows Freddy and his suite. Freddy gives orders; he’s like a choleric hyperactive fusspot. With firm gestures, he shoos away the arselickers and sits down at his modest desk. He looks up at Urban.

“Tonight, dress formally,” he says mysteriously. “We’re going to have dinner here, in the palace. There’ll be three of us.”

“Could the great Telgarth have fallen for the allure of some beauty?” Urban expressively raises his eyebrows.

“No, Telgarth has no time or energy for that,” is the reply. “When all my work’s done, then, maybe. Even a fighter like me longs for love. But you know that my own wife has left me. I’ll make sure I don’t get burnt a second time.”

“So who’s coming to dinner?” asks Urban, sits on Telgarth’s desk and takes a short Cohiba out of the humidor.

“It’ll be a guest from afar,” says Freddy. “From very far away.”

“Come on, Freddy! Don’t fuck about, tell me,” insists Urban.

“Surprise!” says Telgarth dryly and raises his hands.

“So, be here at eight, in the palace. And now, please go, since I have to receive a delegation of fishermen from Sangäágg, who want to rename their island Telgarth. I always enjoy talking to brave Slovak fishermen.”

Urban shrugs, and leaves Telgarth’s office. He walks out through the huge hall of columns. It is daytime, but the palace hall, built when there were still Soviet advisers, is dark. Urban passes by guards in grey-white-black camouflage uniforms with fur hats: the mark of élite guerrilla units. His steps echo on the marble floor. He stops to light his cigar and throws the match away. He checks his watch. It’s still only half past two. Oh, God, what is he going to do until the evening?

He returns to the hotel and lies down on his bed for a while. Maybe being moved out of the suite to a more modest room had something to do with the mysterious visitor, he speculates. Finally he gets up, changes into fur trousers and jacket, takes his fishing rod and landing net and goes to his usual place near the port. He’s never caught very many fish here, but ever since he discovered this spot, not far from the docks, he’s come up with so many good ideas that the hours spent at the water’s edge have paid off.

Somehow he has to kill time before dinner, and they say that hours spent fishing don’t counted towards your age. The fish won’t bite and a bleary-eyed Urban watches the port traffic. Two Czech submarines are at anchor on one side of the port. Their slender grey hulls majestically toss on the surface of the bay. Urban looks closer. Seagull and Albatross. Neither is Kubeš’s Kamýk.

Finally a fish bites. After a long, exhausting duel, Urban pulls it ashore and lifts it up with the landing net. The fish shines all the colours of rainbow. It’s big, and Urban has his hands full landing it. When he’s satisfied looking at the majestic creature helplessly fighting for air, he undoes the hook and releases the fish into the turbid port water.

He does not know why, but he thinks of his three greatest desires: to be healthy, to be rich, and, finally, to get out of Junja. But the third one is not really a desire, he can do it at any time: after all, he can say good-bye to Freddy-Telgarth, and leave. A desire should involve something that you can’t affect by your own will; something that requires a supernatural agency. If he could influence things around himself that way, then he would ensure that cousin Tina was his, that she didn’t just treat him as a horny cousin whom she has to help occasionally like a good Samaritan and then be pursued by remorse, because she, too, got pleasure out of it. Instead, he would ensure her messy private life was ordered and that she understood that Urban was the best man for her, so that she could surrender to him with joy, without the senseless stress and reproaches afterwards. She should belong only to him, simply by becoming his wife. That’s what Urban would desire most of all. But who knows what she is up to? Who is she whoring with? Kubeš?