Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

The smaller boys wanted to get away as fast as they could: they sensed evil, and kept making for the camp exit, which was hidden by a dense hawthorn thicket. Freddy, however, felt this was his chance; he had almost no doubt that he had just come across the Strangler’s hideout. His nostrils flaring, he inspected the dugout and failed to hear the quick but cautious steps of several pairs of slender feet on the forest floor.

The gang fled in all directions and Freddy was left to face the fury of the girls from Sida Tešadíková’s gang. The girls were a bit younger than him. Dressed like boys, they were members of a Young Border Guards Squad as well as a Young Fire-Fighters Squad. Their movements were short, hard, and brusque, obviously copied from the same films that inspired Freddy. They hated boys and all their free time was spent in a semi-military organization called the Daughters of Death. Here, above the quarry, they had their secret headquarters. Now Freddy Piggybank had found it and polluted it by his presence. They would have to look for another camping site. What he’d done cried out for revenge.

Freddy had no idea how he ended up tied to the totem pole. He felt an icy fear that emanated from the Daughters of Death. He looked around, but he knew these Amazons only by sight. None of them was from the brickyard settlement or the pond area, the places known to him. These girls were from Grba, Slovinec and Podlipové, that is, from alien, enemy areas. Freddy was afraid, but at the same time an intoxicating thrill invaded his groin. Knowing that he was tightly bound and left to the mercy of the wild fantasies of the Daughters of Death filled him with a bliss he had never known before.

“How shall we torture him?” Sida Tešadíková, whose hair was cropped, asked the other gang-members.

They discussed it quietly for a while.

The torture began. Yelling and screeching, they started to tickle his face with clumps of grass, pricked him with thorns, and whipped him with stinging nettles. Freddy tried to move his head, but couldn’t. He moaned with pain and closed his eyes in exaggerated anguish. He let his body hang on the ropes that bound him and cut into his body. His tormentors’ closeness vaguely excited him. He was almost driven mad by the subtle aroma of girl’s sweat coming from Sida’s boyish chequered flannel shirt.

“That will teach you to spy on us!” said Tešadíková after the torture was over; she stubbed out on his chest the cigarette that she had chewed on for an hour to denote her leadership status. Freddy was hanging helplessly on the ropes; his head had fallen to one side. He raised his blank eyes, clouded by torture, to look at his tormentor.

“We’ll let you go now, but you’ll have to run the gauntlet!” the leader of the Daughters of Death continued.

The Amazons cut some springy switches and formed a corridor. Freddy felt somebody cutting his bonds from behind. Soon he was free, his face, arms, and neck and chest reddened by the nettles. He started to run through the corridor. The switches rained down on him and his entire body vibrated with stinging pain. He ran as fast as he could and suddenly his groin was flooded by such pure, blinding, intoxicating bliss that he slowed down for a moment and let the switches of the Daughters of Death hit him longer than necessary. It was like showering with Tera Sziládyiová, but somewhat better and more penetrating.

“And if we see you here again, you’ll get tortured so bad that you’ll wish you’d never been born,” Sida Tešadíková shouted after him.

Milada Macháčková, her deputy, added in a hoarse voice: “You’ll beg us to finish you off.”

But Freddy was running down the wide path as fast as his fat legs could carry him, slipping on the black humus and fragrant fallen leaves, and didn’t hear the threats of the Daughters of Death, who were furious at having to move their secret camp.

* * *

Martin Junec enters the Ambassador bar. He’s in good spirits; Žofré has vanished somewhere and hasn’t manifested himself for two days now. Martin sits at the bar and orders bourbon on ice.

Silvia is sitting at the back, near a window with a view of the busy street. She’s given up dressing provocatively. That was then. Today, Silvia wouldn’t wear a black leather jacket and an elastic miniskirt of the same colour. Apart being out of fashion, it looks ridiculous. And suede thigh-long boots? Silvia has to laugh. They’re for peasant girls. In Austria girls wearing those outfits are unmistakably Slovaks.

Silvia now wears a discreet, but very expensive grey mini suit. Mini, but not up to the arse. Her legs, still beautiful, are clad in shiny radiant nylon stockings that look like translucent hoar frost. Her feet are shod in simple black pumps with low pointed heels. She sits with her legs crossed. Her skirt, modestly riding up, shows the edge of a lacy elastic stocking top that covers the upper part of her thigh, nothing more. The fingers of her right hand, with its long, manicured nails, hold a glass of juice. Her other hand props her face. She is engrossed in watching the traffic outside the Ambassador.

“Who’s that lady?” Junec asks the barman.

The barman glances discreetly in the direction which Junec has pointed with similar discretion.

“No idea,” he says and, for want of anything better to do, wipes the counter with a wet cloth. He’s bored and doesn’t mind chatting to a guest for a while, particularly one like this American.

“She comes here every day,” he tells Junec. “She interviews all the local hookers. Could she be from Social Affairs?” he wonders. “Or maybe the Tax Office? Police?” he shrugs. If it were the police, then the boss, hotelier Rácz, would be bound to know something about it.

“Hotelier Rácz?” Martin asks.

“Yes,” the bartender says. “The owner of this hotel, Mr Rácz.”

Martin Junec’s attention focuses again on the unidentified woman. He takes a quick look at her neat profile and legs.

“She’s local, is she?” he asks the barman.

“Yes,” says the barman. She’d spoken to him in Slovak.

“I’d have thought she was Austrian,” said Junec, a little surprised.

Silvia is an experienced hooker — a sidelong glance tells her that she is the centre of attention. Her intuition tells her that she is the topic of conversation. A professional reflex unwittingly starts working: her seated body begins to move: it seems to become more slender and languid. She slowly lifts the glass of orange juice, takes a sip, and puts the glass on the table, but does not let go of it. She gracefully tosses back her mane. Her left hand slowly runs over her shiny thigh and rests on her knee. She gives Junec a brief, inconspicuous glance. Her built-in computer goes to work. Judging by his clear complexion and carefully groomed hair, he must be a Westerner. His suit and shoes are Anglo-Saxon. To judge by what he’s drinking, he’s American.

Silvia lowers her long eyelashes and inwardly smiles. She hates men. They have hurt her terribly. In the Perverts’ Centre they tormented her for four years. Or let her torment them. Pigs. Silvia has to avenge herself. She will torture this man, too. She has seen him here twice now. He deliberately comes here when she does. She will torment him for a while. She’ll be a promise on legs but, in the end, she won’t let him have her. She will drive him insane. He’ll cut his prick off himself. And if not, she’ll do it for him.

Silvia lifts her eyes and for a fraction of a second meets Junec’s. She smiles. “Just you wait, sweetie,” she thinks. “You asked for it.”

“Is she really local?” Junec asks yet again, as if he finds it hard to believe. He has had experiences with the local women; he was married to one. And it’s nice to discuss a pretty woman like this stranger.