Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

Geľo’s stubborn insistence on cooperating with the Czechs has lowered the respect felt for him by all his followers and supporters from the first day of the civil war. He became Prime Minister of the Slovak Archipelago Republic, but before he could properly exercise office, the republic became an empire. Suddenly Geľo had no idea whether he was still Prime Minister, or not. He did nothing for days but sit in his office, getting bored and dreaming about hunting walrus among the ice floes.

Telgarth, extremely busy, will receive him none the less, perhaps out of curiosity about what his former fellow combatant has to tell him.

Geľo is no orator. From the outset he says that he is a man who can gut and skin a dead walrus faster than say what he thinks. He realises that the ability to win, weapon in hand, seemingly hopeless fights and the ability to offer a nation drunk on victory a concept of a future political system are two different things. On one hand he still trusts Telgarth, who saved Geľo’s life and fought bravely at his side. On the other hand, Geľo is confused by present developments. If this is to be the inevitable outcome of any newly acquired freedom, then he sees no point in staying in the capital and in the transitional government. After all, Telgarth does not need him for anything, nor, it seems, does the new Slovak Empire. That is why he’s decided to leave politics and New Bystrica, too. Geľo is sure that now he’s won freedom for the Slovaks, he can go back to the north coast and live there with his two wives and children and make a living hunting fur animals. Everyone is meant for something and he feels that he’s meant for this. When the common enemy had to be fought, he fought. And the same goes for other fellow fighters, with whom he leaves for the New City tomorrow by train and from there on dog sledges or aerosledges, further north, home.

For a while, Telgarth is quiet. He realises that Geľo is making way for him and that he couldn’t wish for anything better. On the other hand, his former fellow fighter takes the wind from his sails by being so frank. Telgarth is startled by his openness.

If that’s how it is, Telgarth won’t stand in his way. Telgarth understands that everyday political reality is not an ideal life for everyone. After all, what is politics? An everyday fight for compromises. Telgarth seems to be apologizing to Geľo for what he’s done.

However, Geľo doesn’t reproach Telgarth for anything. He’s found that he couldn’t understand those things at all. He doesn’t know what’s right. He knows what it is to breathe freely, but he doesn’t know why friendship with the Czechs can’t continue. Geľo was in the Czech lands long before Telgarth came to Junja, that is, to the Slovak Archipelago, and made unforgettable friends. The Czechs helped the Slovaks from the start. Fine, Telgarth says that it was only pretence and that the Czechs are calculating swine, but Geľo likes them anyway. Now he’s leaving. He’ll live like a simple hunter again, and when a Czech submarine rounds Cape Sleeping Walrus, he and all Habovka settlement will wave to it.

Telgarth nods. He, Slovak Emperor Telgarth I, understands Geľo’s decision and fully supports it. If Geľo needs anything, he must come. The door to the emperor’s palace will always be open to him.

Geľo thanks him and offers thanks on behalf of the fellow fighters leaving with him. But there’s one more thing that he’d like to discuss before they part. He doesn’t know where to begin. In the mercenary offensive, before his apparent death, Tökörnn Mäodna warned Geľo about Telgarth. He told him that Telgarth, out of fear, betrayed the whereabouts of Geľo’s and his friends’ wives and children. That’s why Geľo wanted to kill Mäodna, so that the latter could not pass this on to others captured with him, or Telgarth’s honour would suffer. Now, after the war, Slovaks need positive models, exemplary heroes, and Telgarth’s person combines the Junjan Slovaks’ tradition with European sophistication. He is the most celebrated person of the resistance, an honoured hero, and His Imperial Highness. Should his betrayal, committed out of fear of torture, become public, it would harm not only Telgarth, but Geľo, who trusted him and enabled him to achieve higher standing than any other Slovak before. And so, should anything happen to him — anything — Geľo has made sure that the whole Slovak Archipelago would hear of this secret. Telgarth’s minutes on the throne would be numbered. He wants nothing from Telgarth for this, just a quiet life in freedom.

Telgarth does not know where to focus his one eye.

Luckily, he does not have to think very long, as Geľo gets up, bows and quickly leaves Telgarth’s imperial office.

Long after Geľo’s visit, Telgarth finds it hard to pull himself together. He runs nervously up and down his office, with foam in the corners of his mouth. He has no idea whether to laugh or cry. Finally, he opens his desk and takes a few mushrooms from the bottom drawer. He chews them and lies down on a sofa for a few minutes.

A few days later he has another bitter pill to swallow. In an unguarded moment Urban manages to escape.

* * *

Despite maximum vigilance, the guards failed to prevent Urban’s desperate escape. Accompanied by his guards, he went every day to fish in the New City harbour. No one knew that he was discreetly watching the movement of ships in the inner harbour. When the Czech submarine Albatross makes for the open sea, Urban leaves his fishing rod and shocked guards behind and jumps head first into the icy water, swimming with mighty strokes to intercept the vessel. Before the guards can gather their wits, the submarine slows down and changes course. The crew throws Urban a lifebuoy from the deck. When they lift him, wet and half frozen, onto the submarine’s deck, both guards are still helplessly standing on the shore. They watch the dirty, oily harbour water foam again astern, as the boat heads for the exit from the bay.

Urban gives them a victorious smile and a rude finger gesture, and is then taken below deck. He was a celebrity in Junja, so he doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Captain Kylar personally welcomes him aboard and offers him asylum.

“We’ve known for some time that you were Telgarth’s hostage,” one of the officers told Urban. “But we couldn’t do anything about it.”

After Urban has changed into dry clothes, he can take a rest in a bunk in the bow cargo hold, now an improvised cabin. First of, Urban ensures that his most precious possessions are undamaged: personal papers in a waterproof plastic cover, money and also Freddy’s signed affidavit making over his share of Freddy Vision company to Urban. That’s all he needs. Everything else: clothing, personal effects, and so on, were left in the hotel suite. He leaves just as he came.

This time the Albatross has a lot of passengers: Czechs are hurrying out of the Slovak Empire. Those who could not get a seat on a plane were glad to travel by submarine, so the trip passes quickly. The boat’s captain invites individual passengers to lunch and dinner at his table in the officers’ mess, there are all kinds of communal games to play, and there are videos in the evening. Urban takes no part in the communal activities, but spends most of his time in his own bunk behind a drawn curtain, in a sort of semi-slumber. He prefers to read a Bible borrowed from the boat’s library. He’d never have guessed that it was such a readable book.

The boat sails most of the time on the surface and dives only when the captain wants to raise the adrenalin level in his passengers’ blood. There is nothing to keep secret any longer: it’s all over. The entire world knows now about the Czech submarines.