Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

But if Feri wants to go on gambling, he needs money. If he doesn’t have any, the gypsies will gladly lend it to him. “You can pay it back when you win,” Berki tells him and Feri is overcome by a wave of ardent gratitude. The probability that he has to win eventually increases when a fourth player, a young, twenty-year-old gypsy in an elegant sports jacket, joins the party. Berki introduces him as his nephew Čonka. “He likes a gamble,” he adds. From then on, the games of pontoon are more interesting, but, alas, Feri’s luck is no better than before.

* * *

It isn’t long before Feri and Eržika decide to have their baby girl christened. They browse through a grubby calendar that Freddy Piggybank had in his trailer and lent them, and look for names. The first name they notice is Nora. Norika. Eržika likes it, but Feri doesn’t. Alica seems too simple for both of them. Miriama seems too Jewish. Then Feri’s eye falls on the name of Bystrík. He repeats the name in his mind, giving it a female ending: Bystrík, Bystríka, Bystrík, Bystríka.

“And what about calling her Bystríka? Bystríka Bartalošová?” he asks Eržika, but she doesn’t like the name at all.

For a while they just sit there, each lost in their thoughts. The beer drinkers walk in and out of the lavatories, buttoning their flies, throwing money into Eržika’s bowl. The baby is restless; it’s hungry. Eržika sighs and lifts it to her breast. The child begins to sucks hungrily. Feri looks at them silently. On one hand, he feels proud of being a father. He looks at his family with joy. On the other hand, the presence of the child puts him out a bit: the baby at breast occupies all Eržika’s mind. She doesn’t care about anything but her baby. She skives. She pays no attention, doesn’t insist on money from people using the lavatories, and doesn’t clean or sweep. Feri is supposed to do all that, but he has no time, either. He is trying to make money at cards. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had much luck so far. He’s up to his neck in debt. He incurs new debts to pay for the old ones. And it’s a vicious circle.

“What was Lady’s name?” Eržika suddenly asks.

Feri thinks, but can’t recall it.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Typical,” says Eržika. “She was my only real friend in this bloody city and we don’t even know her name.”

They sit silently for a while.

“But you had her driver’s licence and ID,” says Eržika.

“I did,” say Feri. “But I threw them out. I only kept the pictures.”

Eržika reaches into her bosom and takes out the photograph from Lady’s driver’s licence. In the picture Lady is smiling: a self-confident young woman.

“You tore out the pictures,” says Eržika, “but you didn’t bother to look at her name.”

“True…” Feri agrees sadly. “I didn’t look…”

Feri comes up with the idea of calling their daughter Lady. It takes him a while to confide in Eržika. When he finally tells her, Eržika is quite in favour. “Lady. A nice name.”

The registry office people have a different opinion. The woman clerk shakes her head. “Not possible. Can’t be done. Here is a book with the list of approved names. Only one of these is permitted. If there were no list of names, people would call their children anything.”

Proud Feri Bartaloš is not interested in any list of names. He angrily pushes away the clerk’s hand and the book. He has already chosen the name. A nice name: Lady. What do they have against the name? Against Lady? Did they know Lady at all? Then why are they bitching about it?

Eržika gets indignant, too. Is this why they had a revolution? So that somebody could now dictate to Eržika and Feri what name they are allowed or not allowed to give to THEIR daughter? Is this democracy? Is this capitalism?

Feri takes the list of names and leafs through it. “There you are!” he says. “Nineteen eighty seven!” he victoriously points out the pre-revolutionary year the book was published.

The shouting wakes the baby up and she starts to cry.

The clerk is intransigent, though she does waver a bit. She calls on her supervisor for back-up. The supervisor, his powerful glasses shining, listens to the clerk’s account of Feri’s and Eržika’s request and without further consideration shakes his head.

“Not allowed,” he says laconically and goes back to his office.

“There, you see,” says the clerk. Now that she has shifted the responsibility onto her supervisor, her mood has improved.

Eržika takes a breath and produces her final argument: Eržika and Feri know Mr Rácz very well.

The clerk pauses. “Anyone could say that,” she says.

“Anyone?” Eržika goes on the attack. “Anyone? And does anyone have one of these?”

Eržika takes out of her bosom an old photograph, well-thumbed and cracked from being folded, but still quite clear, and hands it to the clerk.

The clerk takes the photograph and looks at it for a moment. Feri is curious and he takes a peek over the clerk’s shoulder.

The photograph shows Rácz as a skinny crew-cut conscript in his parade uniform. He looks dignified and gazes rigidly into the upper right corner of the photograph. Underneath is an inscription in a childish hand, in Hungarian; the clerk can decipher only the signature: Rácz.

“What does it say?” she asks with interest.

“Cordial greetings and love from the military swearing-in ceremony to his Eržika, from Rácz,” translates Eržika, glancing at Feri out of the corner of her eye and blushing.

“Rácz is our friend,” Feri hurries to explain. “We see each other and he often asks me for advice.”

The clerk gets up and takes the photograph into the next office.

She is soon back. She wears a friendly smile.

“Well,” says the clerk, returning the photograph to Eržika, “you may be right. The list of names dates from the times of so-called totalitarianism; now we have a democracy.”

The clerk sits down and takes a pen in her hand.

“How would you like to name your daughter?” she asks.

“Lady,” says Eržika. “Lady Bartalošová.”

The clerk sighs.

A strong national feeling awakens in Feri.

“But write it down the Hungarian way,” he says. “Bartaloš Lady!”

“How?” the clerk is stunned.

“Bartaloš Lady!” Feri repeats menacingly.

The clerk hesitates for a moment, but then Eržika goes for her, shouting about democracy and Feri joins in with his monologue in a monotonous and subdued voice from which words like “minority” and “Feri” surface, like foam from the incoming tide.

The clerk, frightened by the awesome photograph of Rácz as a soldier and by the spouses’ raucous voices, concedes defeat and issues the birth certificate.

Bartaloš Lady exists.

* * *

Siegfried Heilig and his wife are on their way back from a holiday at Balaton. It was expensive. It’s not that they can’t afford it, but they are thrifty and, if they squander money needlessly, it hurts them to the core.

In Bratislava they park by the pavement outside the Hotel Ambassador and check in. The high cost of the rooms takes their breath away: for a twin-bed room with windows looking onto the courtyard they pay almost one fifth, or even a quarter, of what they would have paid for the same room in Germany.

In the room, Mrs. Heilig sniffs the bedspreads with disgust and carefully inspects the state of the bathtub and lavatory bowl.

Siegfried Heilig sits on a bed and sips beer from a can. His blond moustache is wet with bitter-sweet foam. His eyes are dull; this is his second can. Siegfried can’t take too much.

As soon as they’ve unpacked, they go down for supper.

They sit down in the restaurant and study the menu. They leave very upset; the prices are extortionate.