Peter Pišťanek - The Wooden Village

“Cognac, please,” old Mr Mešťánek sighs. “Make it a double.”

Freddy’s father hurriedly downs the cognac and looks around the room. His gaze falls on the half-naked females working for the house: they are dressed, or rather undressed, in provocative outfits that we who have had a classical education call dessous . They’re waiting for clients and whiling away the time talking almost inaudibly.

“When might my son be available?” old Mr Mešťánek asks the barmaid.

“It’s hard to say exactly,” says the young lady. “It depends on the client…”

“You see, I don’t have much time,” says the old man. “I wanted to catch the news on TV. I don’t suppose you’d let me watch the news here.”

Old Mr Mešťánek points to a huge cinema-style screen showing two young girls copulating with a huge dog.

“I’m afraid not,” the barmaid says. “Here in Justine we don’t have the stomach for politics…”

The barmaid picks up the phone and calls a two-digit number.

* * *

The client is lying face-down, his hands and feet tied to a rack. He’s an elderly gentleman, an Austrian, and he’s naked. Sida stands in front of him, her legs splayed, her bare genitals roughly level with the client’s face. She is holding a whip. Freddy, dressed in leather underpants, leather apron and a black face-mask, turns the wheel a few notches tighter and then puts on the catch.

“So what’s it going to be, you swine?” Sida screams at the client. “Are you going to tell us, or not?”

“Pliss, pliss,” the client pleads first in broken Slovak, then in German. “Ich weiss nix! Nix wissen! Gnade! Gnade!”

“Speak Slovak!” Sida orders him, lashing the client’s back with a whip. She fixes her bleary eyes on her underling. “Molten lead!” she says tersely.

“No, not the lead!” the client whines. “Um Gotteswillen, no lead!”

Freddy goes up to a cauldron, takes a ladle and dips it into the lead. Of course, the molten lead is ordinary water dyed silver and heated to a high, but bearable and safe temperature. All Freddy’s actions are orchestrated so that the client can follow them with his bloodshot eyes.

Freddy comes up to the client and slowly and carefully pours the liquid between his shoulder-blades, onto his back and behind. The client howls and writhes, as if it really were molten lead.

The telephone rings.

“Yes,” Sida answers the phone. “Good,” she says and hangs up. She looks at Piggybank. “You’ve got a visitor,” she says.

Freddy takes fright. What sort of visitor? Could it be the police, about the bicycles? Or suppose it’s because of what happened to Lady?

“Who?” he asks, his eyes goggling with terror.

“Your dad,” says Sida. “He’s brought your supper.”

“You’re joking,” says Piggybank incredulously.

“Who’s joking?” Sida is enraged and with a few well-aimed lashes, whips Freddy’s bare thighs. “Who’s joking, you stupid fat slob? How dare you talk like this to your mistress? Down on your knees! Ask for forgiveness!”

However, Freddy is beyond all that. His gaze switches nervously from side to side.

“Jesus Christ!” he says.

“You’ve got five minutes!” Miss Tešadíková tells him. “And come straight back. I’ll finish him off,” she points to her shackled client. “Just go.”

Freddy gratefully turns his gaze to her who must be obeyed and runs to the dressing room. With trembling fingers he rips off his leather garb and searches for his XXL jeans, the biggest you can get.

In the meantime, Sida continues torturing her client. She is still trying to torment him into giving her the secret code-word which they have agreed in advance. When the client gives the code-word, it’s a signal that he has had enough pain and that the client has been serviced. Sida goes on with great gusto; the Austrian is a regular client and pays as if there’s no tomorrow.

* * *

When Freddy, dressed in his everyday clothes, gets to the bar, his father has already gone.

“He cleared off two minutes ago,” said the barmaid. “His nerves couldn’t take it, poor man. He ordered a double cognac, so I put it on your tab.”

“A double cognac?” Freddy couldn’t believe his ears. He just couldn’t get his mind round the thought of his father, a notorious kill-joy and teetotaller, drinking cognac in the city’s most perverted brothel.

“He left this for you,” the barmaid handed Freddy the two-compartment lunch-tin in the string bag.

Looking flabbergasted, Freddy takes the lunch-tin, and carries it like a treasure into the torture chamber. He puts it down in the dressing room, changes into his working leathers and goes back to help Sida.

“These doughnut balls are good,” says Sida, her mouth full, a few hours later, before daybreak. “Divine,” she adds. “And the custard!”

“Hmm,” says Freddy sadly, as he sweeps the floor.

He had shared his food with his mistress like a brother and now he wondered where he could lay his head. He would probably have to sleep here, in the dressing room. He would never be able to face his parents, particularly his father, again. For how could he ever explain his job in such an establishment? How, indeed?

“Is something wrong,” Sida asked, wiping the bottom of the lunch-tint with the last doughnut ball.

“It’s nothing,” Freddy said. He put the broom away and sat down next to his slave-owner. “Listen, Sida…” he starts with embarrassment.

“Yes?” Miss Tešadiková asks him.

“Do your parents know what you do for living?” Freddy enquires.

“What do you think? Of course not,” says Sida. “They think I teach in a private school. I told them it was a Catholic grammar school. Good, isn’t it?”

Freddy gives a wan, completely joyless smile. He looks at Sida.

“Why are you gawping at me like that?” Sida asks brusquely and averts her eyes from the fat man’s unusually piercing and serious gaze.

“Sida, I’m up shit creek!” says Freddy. “How do I explain to my father and mother that I’m working in a brothel?”

“You’re the best judge of that,” says Sida. “Why do you order supper from home?”

“What do you mean order?” Freddy explodes. “I can’t even understand how my father found this place! If only he’d waited a bit…”

Sida goes off to take a shower. Freddy makes up a bed on the dressing room couch.

“What’s this?” Sida asks when she comes out of the shower cubicle, wiping her ears with a towel. “Are you sleeping here?”

Freddy nods.

“You really are scared shitless of your old folks,” Sida says bitingly.

“And what am I supposed to tell them?” Freddy asks.

“What? Nothing!” advises his slave-owner. “Aren’t you an adult? You are. Are you in charge of your life? You are. Did I lend you the cash for the rings? I did. Did you pay me back? You did. So what do you have to account for to anyone?”

“So why do you keep it a secret from your people?” fat Freddy counter-attacks.

“I’ve got no secrets,” says Miss Tešadíková, “I’m grown-up, I have my own flat. I live my own life. I see my parents once in six months, why should I throw anything in their face? But if they find out anything, nothing will change. Not in MY life it won’t. But you, you old layabout, still live with your parents, and their opinion is scripture for you. It’s shameful in this day and age to depend on someone else’s opinion.”

“Me? Depend?” Freddy objects.

“You certainly do,” asserts Sida. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t care what your father thought about your job.”

Freddy says nothing. The sky in the narrow cellar window is bright now. Sida changes into jeans and leather jacket.