Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

He runs across the wet street and returns to the boiler-room. He hurls the tool bag into the corner and sits down at the table. He knows that something is wrong, but his psychology is too simple to be overcome by panic. Instead, he clenches his fist and hits the table with all his might. Donáth’s ashtray and beer bottles jump and a crack runs the length of the table top.

Ďula turns up. He can’t hide his broad malicious smile. The manager has sent him. Rácz is going to be carpeted right away. They’ll fuck him over, ha ha!

Rácz leaps up, his shoulders tensed and ready for a fight. “Let’s go then,” he says.

Ďula is amazed by such boldness, but says nothing. He leads him across the yard, then by the back entrance up the tradesmen’s stairs to the upholstered door of the manager’s office. “Wait here,” he tells him sternly and he enters the office, bent double in a servile bow. “Well, come in, get a move on,” he barks after a while at Rácz from the doorway.

The manager is sitting at his desk and is purple and roaring with rage. He stuffs some pills down his throat. He sips water in an unprepossessing manner; his hair hangs over his forehead. Rácz enters and stops in the middle of the office. He looks around. The manager watches him for a long time with revulsion, while his fingers drum on the desk. “What have you done?” he shouts at Rácz out of the blue. “I ask you again, what have you done?” Rácz is silent; he shrugs in embarrassment and shakes his shorn head. “For heaven’s sake!” The manager is livid. “The hotel is full of westerners and he shows up in dirty dungarees and filthy boots! Do you think they’ve come to our beautiful country to look at some shitty stoker? Well?”

“Appalling!” The chauffeur Ďula, standing behind Rácz, agrees obsequiously.

“I didn’t ask you to speak,” yells the manager. “Get lost!”

“OK, I’m going,” Ďula obeys zealously, and darts like lightning out of the office. For a second his rat-like face reappears by the upholstered door. “If you need me, boss, I’ll be with the lawyer.”

Rácz says nothing, he just looks ahead. The manager falls silent. He swallows a pill, washes it down with water and inspects his tongue and palate in a little mirror. Then he continues in a milder tone: “I’m going to punish you. You are new here and you have to be taught a lesson. I never liked you from the start, but I want to be a just leader to my people. No, you won’t be sacked, even if that’s what you wanted. Why are you looking like that? As a stoker, you can only be seen in employees’ areas. If you have to work in guests’ areas, you cannot be dressed the way you were today. You need a decent grey suit, a pastel-coloured tie, and a shirt that’s not too loud. Your tools will be concealed in a neutral-looking bag. I shall punish you with a fine equal to a month’s salary. Your next salary will be forfeited in favour of the Hotel Ambassador.”

Rácz fights for breath. Blood rushes to his face. He won’t see any money for a whole month! His return home will be put off by a month! “But I…” he objects and raises his arms.

“Hold your tongue!” The manager peremptorily shuts him up, and bangs a fist on his desk. “And don’t wave your arms about! There’s nothing I hate more than my employees waving their arms about.”

Rácz feels like silencing the manager with a punch in the head, but the manager catches him off guard. “And now fix the radiator quickly. The hotel manager is not going to freeze.”

Rácz is gasping with humiliation and anger. He runs out of the office in fury, lest he kill someone.

* * *

Only in the boiler-room does mad rage overwhelm him. He feels the veins in his head are at the point of bursting, as the blood roars in his ears. He grits his teeth until his gums go numb. He grabs a steel rod and angrily bangs it against the distributor pipes. He throws the bent piece of steel on the coal heap. Then he grabs a chair and hits the wall for so long that only a few splinters remain in his hand. “

A kurva hétszentségét,

Fucking hell,” he curses in Hungarian, blinded by hatred.

To rob him like that! Rácz still can’t believe it. He stands in the middle of the boiler-room and, like a bull a slaughterer has failed to stun, shakes his head, looking this way and that. A translucent film covers his eyes and his clenched fists are a deadly threat. Anyone who came into the boiler-room now would be a dead man. After standing around a while, Rácz resolutely steps towards the distributor and all its valves. He calmly reads the markings on the valves, moving his fingers over the worn out labels. Then with mighty gestures he closes the valve feeding hot water to the administrative section radiators. He imagines the manager’s face full of self-satisfied disdain.

“You’ll freeze,” he shouts, “you’ll all freeze!” He thinks of Ďula, the doorman, the receptionist, and the hotel lawyer. “Enjoy your cold!” he says, closing one valve after another on the distributor.

The pipes gradually go cold and creak as they contract. Rácz slows down the circulation pumps. He imagines the manager jumping to it when he’s swamped by complaints about the cold from all sides. He’s bound to send Ďula down to the boiler-room. But Rácz will throw him out and, if he makes a fuss, Rácz will punch his face. Nobody will try to boss Rácz about. Here, in the boiler-room, Rácz is the boss. Nobody will order him around. Donáth was an old fool and he let those cripples bother him. “Get lost,” Rácz will tell a shattered Ďula. “I want to talk to the manager.” That’s how things are going to be.

Feverish with thoughts of revenge, Rácz collapses onto the bench, adjusts his padded jacket and puts it under his head. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine everything getting cold and a penetrating chill invading the rooms, everyone in the household goods and other shops rushing to call the manager, trying to find out what’s happened.

And finally, Rácz imagines the manager willy-nilly coming down to the boiler-room, with a cowardly sidelong look and a nervous twitch of the head. Rácz won’t take any excuses. He’ll tie that nice manager to the pipes and heat the poker red-hot… Oh, Rácz’s revenge will be really horrific.

Violent indignation sends Rácz to asleep, though only briefly. Soon the noise of shoes on the stairs wakes him up. Rácz is startled. The car parts shop manager is coming down the stairs.

“So, how are things?” the manager begins and takes a seat. “Don’t you miss Mr. Donáth?”

Rácz just shrugs. “Can’t be helped,” he says, faltering.

“It was easier when there were two of you, wasn’t it?” says the shop manager. Neither speaks for a while; they watch each other. Then the manager after some humming and hawing comes to the point. “The heating’s broken down, chief,” he says jovially. Rácz is pleased by the title; he gets up and nods. “We’ve had nothing but cold for the last hour in the shop,” the shop manager goes on. “We’re working in our coats. The customers are complaining. What’s happened, chief?”

Rácz jerks into action. He quickly babbles whatever comes to him. “Maybe the vertical pipe is blocked.” He goes red. “You see?” he says emphatically. “The boiler-room is old,” he continues, when the car parts manager nods. The pipes rust from the inside. The water pressure moves the rust as far as the bends and it sticks there. Rácz describes a bend with his hands. “You see? When the flow decreases, the bend clogs up. One day the pipes get blocked, and that’s it.” Rácz is intoxicated by his own ingenuity. After a short silence he goes on. “We’ll have to open the pipe and take all the filthy muck out.”