Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

“I don’t like rubber!” Zdravko G. resists. “I promise I’ll watch out today! Aufpassen !”

“That’s not the point, whether you watch out or not,” Silvia insists. “I’m on the pill anyway. But nowadays you don’t know what you might catch from somebody. It’s for your own good, too.”

“But Silvia!” Zdravko G. finds it funny and laughs. “We only live once. Nur einmal . We’re here today and gone tomorrow. I don’t want us to fuck in rubber.”

“Now you don’t sound like a doctor at all!” Silvia frowns. “If you want to get into me, you have to put it on. Either with a rubber, or just with your hand!”

Muttering and grumbling, the Balkan stallion finally gives in to Silvia and she opens her long legs to let him into her embrace.

Zdravko’s long abstinence from the Hotel Ambassador is soon demonstrated by a gigantic, superhuman load of sperm that inflates his condom to the size of a baby’s head. Zdravko G. gets up and flushes it down the lavatory.

“Why is it so cold here?” He is shivering when he gets back. He feels the radiator. “It’s cold!” he says angrily and slips into bed, trembling with cold.

* * *

The heating is on everywhere, even in the cabaret bar. Only in the actual hotel is it cold. And the manager is cold. He sits in his overcoat at a desk covered with condensation, straining his ears. He listens to the heating system. He doesn’t miss even the slightest noise from the radiator. Steam rises from his mouth. Occasionally he gets up and eagerly feels the radiators. His plump hands try to detect the faintest sign of warmth. Nothing. It’s cold. From a distance he hears furious grumbling in German, English, and other languages. Someone knocks on the door.

“Come in, for God’s sake!” The manager shouts and wraps himself in his coat. A French industrialist, here for a convention, enters. Behind him is the face of the Englishman from number twenty-eight and a number of other faces peeking into the manager’s office. The manager huddles up. He’s quite small now. He nervously rubs his hands. The guests assault him in various languages. The manager can’t speak any except his own. It’s easy to guess what’s bothering them all. The Englishman points to his wet handkerchief, the journalist from Mozambique monotonously intones: “ Bal-lá! Bal-lá !” The French industrialist takes off his jacket and his shirt and discreetly shows the manager his war wounds from Algeria. A stocky German with a walrus moustache and blond hair stridently pushes through to the manager, showing him photographs of his wife, children, and parents. He lets them circulate. As his trump card, he shows them a picture of his mistress. He has an annoying, pushy smile on his face. “ Ja, ja gut! ” the manager mumbles in confusion, trying to get them all out of his office. If the lawyer were here, he’d explain it all to them. But the pen-pusher is out — somewhere in the city, doing his own deals.

An Arab comes to the doorway. His face is purple; he is desperately shaking with cold. His wild eyes are bloodshot. “ Ya kalb !” he says. “ Ya mikassah !”

“ Ja, ja ,” the manager assures him. He pushes all the guests out of the office and locks the door. A plaintive “ Bal-lá! Bal-lá! ” echoes through the hall. The manager sits down in exhaustion and goes on freezing. The frozen guests pace nervously and disturbingly in front of his office. The black Mozambican has fallen silent. Everyone is waiting. The manager can hear their footsteps and foreign, hostile voices. They’re planning something. The manager puts his ear to the upholstered door, but can’t understand a word. Soon someone knocks on the door and peeks through the keyhole. The manager moves away from the door, and presses his body against the wall. He’s afraid. He wants to urinate, but is afraid to leave his office. He decides to urinate on his potted palm. Then he places his armchair so that he can’t be seen through the keyhole and dozes off. Soon someone bangs at the door. The cowardly manager jumps up and lets out a frightened scream in a high voice.

“Open up, boss, it’s me, Ďula!” says the voice behind the door.

“Is it really you?” the manager asks, after listening at the door for a while.

“It’s me all right; let me in!”

“It’s cold everywhere, comrade manager!” Ďula shouts in dismay when he enters.

“What are you saying, you dolt,” the manager is aghast, and quickly locks up after Ďula. He sits at his desk and stares dully ahead. “It’s that stoker, the new one!” he tells Ďula. He’d bet that the stoker is behind it all. That man was suspect from the very start. Maybe he wants to take revenge on the manager for the heavy fine. “Go,” he orders, “and tell him that I order him to heat the entire hotel. And he has to fix my radiator too.” Then, lost in thought, he starts to fidget with bits of string that he picked up on his way to work. His eyes glaze over, as usual when he is busy with anything especially important. He pays no more attention to Ďula.

* * *

“And what do I care about the manager?” a recumbent Rácz laughs, as he hears what Ďula has to say. “You can fuck with Rácz only once.” If the manager needs something, he can come down himself to see Rácz.

Ďula sits down in bewilderment. He’s been the manager’s flunkey for a long time, but he has never in his life met anyone with the courage to stand up against him. Even the hotel lawyer and assistant managers, however much they loathe the manager or make fun of him behind his back, still show respect and do their best to carry out even his frequently insane orders. And even if they didn’t carry them out, they still pretended that they had. Rácz must have someone behind him, if he’s so fearless. Ďula has a good nose for that. He always senses a bit earlier than the others which way the wind blows. He has had this weather vane since childhood. He always knows whom to serve and when to switch his allegiance to a new master, without seeming to be treacherous. Rácz has risen in his estimation.

“The manager won’t come to see you,” says Ďula.

“And why not?” Rácz wants to know.

“He’s afraid of you… chief,” says Ďula.

“So he’s afraid of me?” Rácz mulls over Ďula’s admission.

“But I’ll have to tell him something… sir,” Ďula insists, when he sees that Rácz has closed his eyes again.

“The pipes are blocked,” mumbles the stoker, half asleep. “It’ll have to wait,” he adds. He pays no more attention to the driver.

“Good, I’ll pass on the message,” says Ďula and runs up the stairs.

Rácz sleeps in peace. A little later he sits up, startled, as he senses that he’s not alone in the boiler-room. Ďula is gone, and in his place some foreigner stands there awkwardly. “What do you want?” Rácz barks at him from his bench and, annoyed, searches for his socks. The Englishman from number twenty-eight stares at the sleepy bully uncertainly. His fingers are blue with cold. He tries in vain to explain why he’s come to the boiler-room. “I don’t understand,” Rácz stubbornly repeats and shakes his head furiously. He listens carefully to sentences in an unknown language, but when the Englishman falls silent, ending with a question mark and a plea in his eyes, Rácz helplessly spreads his arms. “Who the hell can understand you?” he says. “Why haven’t you learnt to talk like us?”

The foreigner can’t believe that someone could be so slow on the uptake. He is beginning to suspect that the stocky stoker is pretending. He hands him a carton of Benson & Hedges. Now Rácz can understand. He puts the cigarettes on the battered table and ambles off to find his shoes. The Englishman gestures that he’s cold. Something has to be done. Rácz lights up a Benson & Hedges and, with a cigarette in his mouth, the smoke making him screw up his eyes, he puts on his shoes. He understands. It’s all clear to him now. He’s enjoying the cigarette. He scans the cigarette name on the box. Ben-son et he-gyesh. Fine, yet strong. Just right. These are the cigarettes that Rácz will smoke from now on. The Englishman runs off, but is soon back. He brings the moustached German and his pictures, the angry Arab, and the African monotonously repeating Bal-lá! Bal-lá! They all look uncomfortable. They are embarrassed. Rácz feels sorry for them. He gives in to greed. After all, they can’t be blamed, he concludes in a conciliatory mood. If they give him presents, then, fine! Let them have heating! It’s the manager who has to be punished. Rácz won’t hesitate, he won’t give in to empty, cowardly pity. But these people are not to blame.