Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

He’s still smoking, one after another. He never stops.

Around eleven, Freddy wakes up, gets dressed and goes downstairs. He gobbles up lunch and gets ready for work.

“You’re going a bit early,” remarks his father, shrouded in clouds of yellowish pungent smoke.

“Mmm,” says Freddy.

“Will you be back in the evening?” Father asks.

“I don’t know,” says Freddy, meaning no.

“We’re having doughnut balls with vanilla custard for supper,” Father mentions as if in passing and watches his son out of the corner of his eye. This is his son’s favourite dish.

Freddy Piggybank quivers and then freezes for a fraction of a second, but very soon he looks indifferent.

“I’ll probably have to work at night, too,” he says.

“What kind of job is this,” Mrs Mešťánek butts in, “if you don’t even know whether or not you’ll be working at night?”

“Well,” Freddy mumbles. “It’s a job…”

“If you’d stayed in the brickyard,” his mother says, “you’d work eight and a half hours, and no more”

“This is more interesting,” says Freddy, “and I make more.”

That argument stops his mother in her tracks. Money talks.

“Still, I’d like to know exactly what you do there,” says his father.

“What I do?“ says Freddy, blushing. “You know what: I’m a car park attendant…”

“But what does an attendant do?” Mrs Mešťánek persists.

“He attends,” says Freddy.

“Don’t be rude to your mother!” old Mešťánek jumps up, sending a vortex of pungent smoke round the kitchen.

“You were a car park attendant before,” says his mother, “but you didn’t get so exhausted!”

“The situation has changed,” Freddy lies.

“It’s not one of those car parks where streetwalkers go, is it?” worries Mrs Mešťánek. “If it’s in the centre…”

“No,” Freddy energetically shakes his head. “Only customers with top IQs go there…”

Freddy is glad to get his shoes on and be off to work.

The old Mešťáneks are on their own.

“And he didn’t take a snack with him,” says his father sadly. “If he goes on like this, he’ll ruin his stomach and health.”

They both become even more downcast. Finally old Mešťánek takes a decision.

“Make those doughnut balls for him, too,” he tells his wife. “I’ll take them to the car park for him. He’ll enjoy warm food, you’ll see. And I’ll give the place a look-over; something’s not quite right with the boy.”

* * *

Even outside opening hours, Freddy has a lot to do in the Perverts’ Centre. Sometimes he goes with the manager and the driver Eugen to fetch the linen from the laundry; sometimes they go to the warehouse to stock the bar. An impressive amount of alcohol gets swilled in the bar, evening after evening, night after night. Sometimes they send Freddy to the post office to collect or send a parcel. Freddy’s glad; he likes to feel useful. The disgust he felt when he last worked as a car park attendant and later a lavatory attendant has been supplanted by the euphoria of his new, interesting employment.

Freddy arrives at work, stores his things in the dressing room that he shares with Sida, and goes to the bar. He orders mineral water and reaches for a new issue of Bondage Fantasies which Silvia’s Perverts’ Centre subscribes to, as well as other specialised magazines. Freddy immerses himself in reading. More precisely, he peruses the pictures. He tries to keep abreast with world-wide advances in his field, like any other person who loves his work.

Soon his boss, Silvia, enters the bar. They’ve known each other for a long time, from the old days. Silvia asks Freddy to take invitations to some evening do to the post office. On the way back, he has to buy her the evening paper and, if it’s out, Reflex magazine.

Freddy is glad to be of service. He happily gets up, takes the envelopes and goes to the post office. The closest one, he believes, is at the main railway station, so that’s where he decides to go.

The city has put on its autumnal garb. Freddy walks along the Jaskov Row and smiles. Gold coins rain down from the birches in villa gardens. A flock of sparrows flies over the garden fence right in Freddy’s face, like a handful of stones swiftly launched low over the ground. Freddy feels an intense love of life and the world, at least for the moment.

His chores done, he returns to Justine , his half-read magazine and cold mineral water.

At about four the male and female staff assemble. The men don’t look male, since their clothes, looks and behaviour are female. They have real breasts and slim legs that they like to show off in miniskirts. Only their deeper voices might give them away, otherwise they are indistinguishable from women.

Finally, Sida Tešadíková arrives. The sight of her makes Freddy tremble with servility and devotion. Sida sits next to him; she is wearing a leather jacket and trousers. She puts her helmet on the bar and orders a beer. Bored, she leafs through Bondage Fantasies which Freddy has put down, as he awaits her latest commands.

“So?” Freddy asks.

“So what?” Tešadíková asks.

“Are you satisfied with me?”

“You’ll do.” Sida takes a Marlboro from the breast pocket of her motorcycle jacket and lights up. She blows the smoke at Freddy. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you did promise to raise my salary,” Freddy says shyly.

“I did?” Sida says sceptically.

“Yes,” says the fat man with a blush, but then continues calmly, like anyone sure his cause is just. “I coped with hanging and immobilising perfectly,” he begins to itemize. “Crucifying, too; I hand you the instruments without your having to say a word; you only have to think about them. And the tidiness? Tell me: did you ever have such an well-organized torture room before?”

Sida silently drinks her beer.

“I’ve pawned my family’s gold,” Freddy confesses. “I have to get it out of hock and put it back before my parents find out…”

The owner of the business appears.

“Ladies and gentlemen, finish your cigarettes and drinks, and get your work clothes on,” she says and claps her hands sharply. “We open in ten minutes.”

“Let’s go,” Sida tells Freddy, stubbing out her cigarette. “I’ll think about the rise. Well, why are you gawping at me? Move, you perverted pig!”

Freddy obediently follows his slave-owner into the torture room to get ready for the evening.

* * *

His eyes bulging, hotelier Rácz is sitting at his desk, hammering it monotonously with his fist. His cruel lips are covered in yellowish foam dripping down his chiselled chin. Rácz doesn’t wipe the foam off. His bloodshot eyes look at the photographs he got in the morning post. The pictures are of poor quality, taken from a television monitor, and they all show Silvia with Junec, that Slovak American: Silvia under Junec, Silvia on top of Junec, Silvia with Junec in her mouth, Junec with Silvia in his mouth, Junec in Silvia from the front, and Junec in Silvia from behind. The hotelier swears furiously, and sweeps the photographs off his desk with one wave of his arm. So the American ignored Rácz’s warning. He didn’t dump Rácz’s girl friend. Quite the opposite, he went ahead and slept with her: so he insulted Rácz and humiliated him.

Rácz is so upset by a sudden flood of jealousy and hatred that he is trembling all over. Silvia ought to have been happy at the mighty Rácz taking an interest in her. Instead, she is rebelling, and refusing Rácz. Fame in Austria has turned her head. She’s acting the grand lady. First she stabbed Rácz’s arm, then she bit his palm, and finally she nearly gouged out his eye with a piece of ice. And now, these photographs.