Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

Freddy Piggybank licks the gypsies’ arses. He’s afraid of them. When they park their beaten up Russian Ladas in his car park, he doesn’t charge them. Piggybank just smiles and waves them in, though he keeps quietly plotting. His visions are full of crematoria, forced-labour camps, and sterilizing adult gypsies using a couple of bricks. He spends whole days in the parking lot, often putting in sixteen-hour days. He’s a stingy capitalist. Greedy. He has no use for free time. What for? He has no girlfriend; he’s fat and stupid. Besides, he’s balding and has bad breath. When he explains something to somebody, he stands very close. He lives in a dirty white camping trailer on the parking lot. He has a chair, a table, and a narrow bunk there. Electricity comes via a cable from the hotel. There’s a TV antenna on the trailer roof. Piggybank also has a double hotplate. He rarely feels like going home to his even stingier parents, who always ask him for money; he prefers to stay in the lot. He has to be there in the morning anyway. He needs the money. It’s hard to see what for; he either walks everywhere or takes a tram, he wears cheap clothes from a shop for the bigger man and habitually stuffs himself with the cheapest tins of sausages and beans.

On Friday nights Yugoslav Gastarbeiter from Vienna come to let off steam. Sometimes even Austrians take the opportunity for fun with cheap Slovak whores. In the nightclub Cabaret they perform an erotic show Secrets of the Night , while in the day bar there’s a disco dance. Piggybank stays in the car park all night. Yawning and sleepy, he gets money for his nocturnal vigil. He warms up his sausages and beans, and quenches his hunger while watching television. Around midnight, his eyes begin to close behind his thick prescription lenses. He locks himself in the trailer, turns the light off and lies down on his narrow bed. Nothing will disturb his deep sleep. He only wakes up about six when the empty streets begin to reverberate with rumbling trams.

Occasionally, mostly in the summer, after seeing a lot of prostitutes and other women in tight miniskirts, Piggybank pulls down the blind, reaches for some well used pornographic magazines hidden in the trailer and masturbates. That’s the sum total of his love life. He hasn’t been himself ever since Video Urban showed him an Italian magazine, borrowed from the stoker, depicting an underage girl being tortured. He’d like to have bought the magazine on the spot, but was too embarrassed to suggest it. He doesn’t know the stoker that well, though they say hello to each other. Piggybank wouldn’t want him to think that he was a sadist. He wouldn’t want him to think that the magazine was all that important. Piggybank is thirty and is still single. He has a blond moustache on his lip. He’s never had a woman in his life. Who’d want him? And he’s quite fussy: he wouldn’t go out with just anyone. He wants a perfect woman. He doesn’t realise that perfect women are all taken, either by perfect men, or because they’ve become whores. A whore would go out with him, but he’d have to pay for it. But he wouldn’t pay for it. One day he’s sure to get a free roll in the hay! He often fantasizes in his free time: a whore arrives in a car. Preferably the tall, blonde one, but it could be her friend, Edita, the dyed gypsy. They both dance in the cabaret and have good bodies, so it doesn’t matter which. The whore will pay for two hours’ parking. That makes four crowns. For three hours it is ten crowns. Still more for each additional hour. But the blonde comes late at night. Piggybank will wait for her behind the window. Then he’ll get his bag and leave the trailer. “Lady,” he will address her, “you paid up till eleven in the morning and now it is one o’clock after midnight.” “Yes,” the whore will say, “I am a bit late. How much do I owe you?” “Well, the difference is one hundred and thirty-six crowns,” Piggybank will say.” — “That much?” the whore will sigh. “Yes,” Piggybank will confirm victoriously, reciting the parking fees. “But can’t we come to some arrangement?” the whore will ask, pretending to be naïve. Piggybank will point silently to the trailer. The blonde will smile coquettishly, get out of her car and walk, swinging her hips, her extra long legs in front of Piggybank. They’ll lock themselves in the trailer and have wild sex. Piggybank will do anything he wants with her. The prostitute will leave the trailer early in the morning. On all fours. Her whole body will ache. Above all, she’ll fall madly in love with the parking attendant. A love affair will begin.

Piggybank is dreaming. Yes, that would be lovely. Except no prostitute will ever park in his car park. They all use taxis. And Piggybank knows that, even if it came to this, a prostitute would rather pay. What’s a hundred and thirty-six crowns to a prostitute? Even he would rather take the money. Long legs or not, thighs or no thighs, he can always slap the bishop, though nobody pays him for it.

The gypsies in the mall found out in the summer how much the fat parking attendant makes. The car park was always full and Piggybank never let anyone leave without paying a fine for over-staying. And so, one hot day, they paid him a visit. After a few introductory phrases, Berki came to the point. “You stay here overnight quite often, don’t you?” Other gypsies were hanging around nearby in the shade of a sycamore, fanning themselves with newspapers.

“I do,” Piggybank said.

“And are you guarding or sleeping?” Berki inquired.

“Guarding,” Piggybank declared confidently.

Berki nodded as if that was a fact that he already knew and didn’t doubt, but just wanted confirmed for the other gypsies.

“So you take money even at night?”

“Of course,” Piggybank said and unwittingly stroked the red money bag hanging on his belly.

“No, you don’t guard at night!” Berki laughed victoriously and all the other gypsies joined in the laughter. Even Piggybank laughed, as he had no idea what the gypsies were getting at. “Just the other day we took a look at you,” Berki continued, “at night. You were snoozing.”

“I do doze off sometimes,” admitted Piggybank.

“And what if you had something stolen?” Berki pounced.

“That can’t happen,” said Piggybank. “I sleep so lightly that…”

“No, you don’t,” Berki contradicted him. He nodded to a young gypsy who took from under the colourful folds of his Hawaiian shirt a couple of windscreen wipers. “Look,” Berki said, “this is what we took from you last night. We’re giving them back. We’re good gypsies. When the Yugo from Vienna shows up, the one in the orange Opel, give them back to him. We just wanted to test you.”

Piggybank stared at them in shock. It was lucky that Zdravko G. hadn’t noticed! The gypsies were enjoying the attendant’s embarrassment.

“And just you think,” Berki went on, “what if somebody worked the parked cars over on Friday night, and took antennas, windshield wipers, hub caps. What would you do?” Piggybank was speechless with shock. “Fortunately,” Berki stressed, “we’re good gypsies here. We’ll guard the lot for you at night. Of course, you’ll have to share the parking fees with us. We know how much you take.” Berki named the approximate amount and while Piggybank got over his shock at the precision of the gypsy’s guess, Berki continued: “Let’s say you give us a third. Fair, isn’t it?”

“What?” the attendant exclaimed, horrified. “You want a third of my money?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

“You’ve got it wrong,” said Berki, and the other gypsies under the sycamore murmured in approval, nodding their heads and fanning themselves with newspapers. “We only want our money, the share we’ll earn honestly guarding your car park. We could even save your life. What if a bad gypsy comes in the night? You can’t tell what he might decide to do. He might bring petrol, matches, and burn you alive in your trailer. If you share the takings with us, we’ll protect you. We’re good gypsies. You can rely on us.”