Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

* * *

Zdravko G. has driven to rainy Bratislava early in the morning in an old orange Opel borrowed from a friend, another Yugoslav in the hostel. The car was in a bad shape, but all the unemployed Yugoslavs in the hostel would borrow it for their trips to visit Slovak whores. To gain the whores’ devoted admiration, they would show off and drive out of the car park doing sporty handbrake turns, making the tortured engine roar, the tyres shriek, and raising stinking clouds of burning rubber. The old car, meant by the manufacturer for quiet family driving on well-kept West European roads, protested at the racing-driver tricks of dynamic young men originally destined to herd donkeys on the rocky hills of Kosovo. Now the gearbox is hopelessly buggered. Luckily, while the car is still in the car park in front of the hotel.

Zdravko’s last job was cleaning the ditch of a slaughterhouse owner in a Vienna suburb. The five thousand schillings he’d saved would last him a week. By then someone would surely fix his gearbox. Zdravko has big plans. He’s going to buy Slovak Marlboro cigarettes, a lot of them, at least twenty cartons. They sell well in Vienna. Zdravko will make a profit, not a big one, but a decent one. But that can wait till tomorrow. Piggybank approaches, breathing hard, his bag hanging round his neck. “I’ll pay you later,” he tells the sweaty parking attendant, leaving him standing there with a long face.

“Four crowns for half an hour and, ten crowns for three hours and any extra hour or part of an hour ten crowns..”

“Why are you telling me this?” Zdravko wonders, looking with curiosity at the unprepossessing extortionist.

“So you don’t park here for three days,” Piggybank explains. “That would cost you six hundred crowns. You won’t get away by giving me a hundred this time!”

“OK, OK,” Zdravko tells him, “we’ll do a deal.”

“Now, up front!” The attendant is adamant.

“Here, take this for the time being,” says Zdravko G. contemptuously and sticks a crumpled hundred-schilling bill into his red bag.

“Thanks a lot, boss,” Piggybank mumbles and starts bowing. He accompanies Zdravko G. to the pavement, ignoring the cars pushing into the crowded car park.

On the pavement at the entrance to the hotel, Video Urban waits for Zdravko G. After a brief talk, banknotes change owners. Schillings go into Urban’s wallet, Zdravko packs a fat bundle of thousand-crown notes into his pocket. “How are you?” he asks out of habit. “Did Hurensson show up?”

“No, he didn’t.” Urban shakes his head. “He didn’t give a shit.”

Zdravko shrugs. Actually, it’s not his problem. He nods to Urban and goes into reception. The receptionist knows him as an old friend. “Could I have room thirteen?” Zdravko asks. It’s his lucky number.

“Yes,” says the receptionist, “room thirteen is free. Do you have any luggage?” he asks when he sees the seventy-three-year-old Torontál moving from the lift with a face like a hungry vulture.

Zdravko shakes his head. “No, my luggage is still in the car.”

Torontál does not hide his spite and frustration. Even the receptionist can hear his cries of outrage. His stressed face shows disappointment, and his shaking hands open and close like crab’s claws, in frustrated expectation of the warm handles of suitcases, bags, and above all the highly desirable tips. Zdravko G. did once entrust his suitcase to the senile porter, a long time ago, the first time he came. It took a quarter of an hour for the suitcase to reach the lift. The shaky old man walked carefully, with minute steps, nodding his birdlike head on its thin, wrinkled turtle neck. Breathing heavily, like someone under torture, he almost collapsed under the weight of the luggage, so that Zdravko G. was forced not only to take the suitcase, but also to give support to Torontál who, without hesitation, sank his spidery fingers into his shoulder. When they came to the lift, they found that it was stuck. From the shaft came the faint whine of foreign guests stuck in the cabin. Nobody paid attention to them. The hotel personnel passed by the lift unconcerned. They were used to it. By the time Zdravko G. had dragged the suitcase and Mr. Torontál to the second floor, sweat stains showed on his elegant jacket. The old man looked fragile, but was as heavy as an ox. Zdravko G., breathing heavily, fell into his armchair in room number thirteen. Porter Torontál came up to him with eager anticipation and the joyful expression of a job well done. It took Zdravko G. a moment to realise that the greedy old man expected a tip. So he picked out a ten-crown note. A crestfallen Torontál took it and tottered downstairs to greet new customers.

Zdravko G. has learned his lesson. Straight away, at reception, he offers the old man a ten-crown note and is left in peace.

* * *

First, Rácz crawls into the basement under the car parts shop. He bangs his wrench on the pipes to make people think he is working. He takes vaseline from the valve and smears it on his face. He sprays water from bleed valve onto his trousers. Then he sits down for a while, but soon feels cold. He climbs out of the basement. “It’ll warm up soon,” he says in a weary voice. He had had to clean the whole system. There was so much muck in those pipes that it turned his stomach. But Rácz had done his best for them.

They all follow him with grateful eyes. The manager pushes a red-faced salesgirl towards him with a bunch of flowers. Rácz accepts the flowers and, equally embarrassed, kisses the girl’s cheek. The salesgirl giggles as she runs off.

Humble and grateful stares follow him out, they’re glued to him, as, with a purposeful and preoccupied expression, he walks through the passage only to be greeted by other humble looks that welcome him into the household goods shop.

When Rácz gets back to the boiler-room to open the valves he’d closed, the manageress of the chemist’s is already there, waiting impatiently for him, trembling with cold. Rácz invites her downstairs. She can’t stop her teeth chattering from cold. They agree on a carton of apple-scented soap. When the manageress notices the soda bottles, she can’t resist asking him for one. She’s not on speaking terms with the household goods shop manageress. That woman’s a real bitch, the chemist’s manageress stresses. She writes anonymous letters denouncing the chemist’s manageress and bringing in the government inspectors! The chemist’s manageress would rather die than beg for a bloody soda bottle. Yet she needs one so badly. Rácz will let her have one in exchange for a carton of soap. This time a mandarin-scented one. Then he picks his tools up and follows the manageress. From the window of the laundry room that faces the courtyard Ribana smiles at him, luring him by rhythmically clapping her right palm on her clenched left-hand thumb and index finger. But Rácz pretends he can’t see her. He’s not Donáth and doesn’t have to sleep with gypsies or whatever’s on offer.

No sooner has Rácz finished his act in the basement of the chemist’s, than the leather goods manager shows up. “Fix my heating, and when the leather jackets come in, I’ll put one aside for you,” he offers Rácz.

Rácz shrugs. Why not? A cheap leather jacket can always come handy. “Cheap, but good,” he stresses, looking the manager in the eye.

Rácz stops working at dinner-time. He hungrily gulps down some soup and an under-cooked piece of meat that he fished out of the pot. The chef eyes him hesitantly, but doesn’t dare object.

Rácz returns to the boiler-room. A good meal has pleasantly warmed his belly. He tends the fire and then stretches out on the bench. The manager could come down now, it occurs to him. Rácz would snap him in two. Indeed, nobody from the hotel has shown up to whine about the heating. But God help them if they send Ďula. The manager can come down himself. Rácz will cut him to pieces and flush him down the lavatory, if he doesn’t cancel the fine.