Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

Violated, Silvia still tries to avoid the alien body penetrating her genitals, but her belly is forced onto the desk’s hard surface. There’s no question of an evasive manœuvre to one side or downwards: Rácz’s stocky body has completely immobilised her.

“But I know,” Rácz says, once he’s inside her. “I know you only came back because of Rácz. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Silvia summons all her strength and bites Rácz’s hand, which is over her mouth. Rácz goes white with pain, but goes on moving inside her. His other hand twists her jaw to free his hand. Again, he slaps her face. He grabs her shoulders and holds her tighter, so that she can’t wriggle at his ferocious thrusts.

Silvia has lost all her will to resist. Like a big rag doll, pushed onto the desk, her legs spread, she yields her crotch to the hotelier’s ravages.

Finally, Rácz is finished. His face freezes for a second. With a sigh of relief, he withdraws his member from her. His mighty spray wets her buttocks and the papers strewn over his huge desk. He pulls the bloodied knife from his biceps, throws it on the desk and goes to the drinks trolley to mix two drinks.

Silvia’s eyes are open. They slowly roam the walls of Rácz’s office. After all, she is a former whore. She won’t let this sort of thing get to her. She gets up and silently heads for the bathroom. First, she bends over the lavatory bowl and vomits. Then, she throws off what’s left of her clothes and steps into the shower cubicle.

Rácz goes to the sink and washes the blood off his shoulder and bitten hand; then he stands in the door, watching Silvia shower. When she’s finished, he is waiting for her, a big soft towel in his hands.

“You’ll be fine with Rácz,” says hotelier. He’ll buy her the most expensive gifts: dresses, shoes, fur coats, and jewellery. He doesn’t ask for anything in return; she only has to be a little bit nice, and let him sleep with her. His wife is very pretty, too, but she’s been no use recently. He gets a good erection all right, but she’s not in the mood. She can’t do it. After having a baby, it hurts. It’s supposed to be a kind of kynological problem. But Rácz needs it every day. Sometimes two or three times a day. He wants to have a good girl friend, so he doesn’t have to pester his wife, until she gets over her problems.

Silvia dries herself silently.

“Rácz,” says Rácz “will let Silvia get on with her business. That’s fine. Even though it involves filthy goings-on that turn his stomach. That’s fine. He only wants her as his girl friend. Like her, he’s short of time. He’s not going to interfere in her life or her business. She should think about it. He could have ten mistresses for each finger, but he only wants her. And he doesn’t mind her stabbing him in the arm, though she’s ruined an expensive jacket! If he had to shit his pants every time he got hurt in his life, his name wouldn’t be Rácz.”

Rácz takes Silvia’s wet towel, smells it and nonchalantly drops it on the floor. He gives Silvia a cocktail in a glass.

“You certainly won’t be any worse off,” he says. “You know Rácz has always been very generous. So what do you say?”

Silvia takes the glass, looks into it, revolves it a few times and then splashes the contents in Rácz’s face. Naked, proud and beautiful, she walks past the stunned hotelier, puts her court shoes on her bare feet, opens the wardrobe, takes out her old elastic knitted mini dress and pulls it over her naked body.

Rácz wipes his face on a handkerchief. He has been hit in the eye by an ice cube, and it hurts; the eye has started to swell. Only now does his rage slowly begin to burn: first she stuck a knife in his shoulder, then she bit his hand, and now an ice cube in his eye, too? Who does that bitch think she is, actually?

“What do you think you are, bitch?” he roars at her. He clenches his monstrous fists.

“You’re a son of a bitch,” Silvia hisses and before an enraged Rácz can get her, she slips out of the office.

Rácz hurries down the stairs after her. But despite her high heels, Silvia runs faster than the stout hotelier.

“Catch her! Catch her!” Rácz yells in the lobby. The receptionist and his assistant fly after her across the slippery marble floor. But she slips away from them, brakes sharply for the revolving door, and dashes out into the street.

Rácz pursues her through the glass door, but Silvia is by now in a moving taxi, making an obscene gesture at him through the rear window.

“I’ll get you anyway,” Rácz says. He turns round and slowly goes back to the hotel to get his arm and eye seen to.

Rácz is a gambler, he tells himself. He can take a loss. Sooner or later, he will turn it into a triumphal victory. This is how it’s always been and this is how it will continue to be, too.

At the very least I shagged her good and hard, he thinks, while his old maid of a secretary bandages his stabbed shoulder and puts a plaster on his hand.

* * *

Lady is getting worse and worse every day. A fever is burning her up; her lips are dry and cracked. She has stopped eating; her entire body has shrunk and became translucent. Her eyes have sunk deep into her face and her hair has lost its gloss. She has trouble breathing and has occasional spastic coughing attacks. The change is so sudden that it scares everyone involved.

The boiler-room hovel that Feri and Eržika have rented for an extortionate sum from Berki and Šípoš often looks like a hospital.

Feri Bartaloš would prefer to take Lady to the police, as he originally planned. Now, however, he is afraid that Lady will tell the police all about what they’ve done to her. The quandary is driving him to despair; he realizes that if Eržika had listened to him then, they would have peace and quiet. But they would have no savings.

The swelling on Lady’s broken nose has gone down, but there are still two dark blue bruises under her eyes. Her broken rib has healed too, apparently. Nevertheless, almost nobody is interested in sex with Lady; they’re all beginning to find her repulsive. No man is excited by her coughing, her quiet moans of pain and her torpid face’s ravaged features.

Only a few steady customers still come to her, among them the killer Fraňo Fčilek who broke Lady’s nose and rib. Eržika can’t bar him, since he has prepaid twenty sessions and claims them regularly. He is one of the few customers still faithful to her. Before the customers arrive, Eržika tries to improve Lady’s pathetic looks, so as not to horrify them. Lady lies apathetically on the filthy bed, and lets them do whatever they want. Eržika covers all the bruises on her face and body by plastering them with a thick layer of make-up, then she puts lipstick on her lips, glues on false eyelashes and finally makes up her eyes. All the while, she talks to her gently as to a baby, but Lady doesn’t react. Finally, she proudly shows Feri the result of her work: what does he think of it? Good, isn’t it? She looks like a Barbie doll. But Feri is now disgusted and a little bit afraid. His sober and realistic eyes can see Lady’s steady deterioration, and he is less self-interested than his wife. Maybe Eržika doesn’t realize it, but he knows that both he and Eržika now have one foot in jail. Eržika only shakes her head. They haven’t done anything wrong. They took care of Lady and are helping her out. Besides, Eržika is pregnant and can’t be jailed

Lady goes on coughing even when Fraňo Fčilek or any of the few faithful beer-drinking customers gets on top of her. She is utterly helpless. Eržika has to feed her with a spoon. She can’t even go to the lavatory by herself. Eržika has to take her. Lady has trouble walking, her long thin legs, covered in bruises, collapse under her as she stumbles.