Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

The lawyer understood. But it’d be a dirty trick of Donáth’s not to look for a replacement, someone young and simple-minded. After all, the Hotel Ambassador has fed him for fifty years. To find a replacement is the least Donáth could do for the hotel. Let him train the new man and initiate him into all the secrets. And then, fine! By winter he’d be free.

They both leave without waiting for his answer.

Donáth doesn’t mind. Donáth is not sex-crazy, he shouts after them. He’s lost his hair, his teeth, his eyes are bad, and his hands tremble. Donáth is happy to get a little bit of love and a bit of conversation. Just to have a bit of life. Other people are having a ball. People own all kinds of things nowadays. Like briefcases, spectacles. They just buy anything they like. And what does Donáth own? A radio and this burrow where he has to bail out water every time he wants to lie down and sleep in a soft bed. Donáth has become more demanding. What used to satisfy him no longer does. The Russians will soon reach Mars, but he’s still here. In winter he’s stuck to the furnaces. These two know nothing about it, these people from upstairs! The hotel manager is an incompetent idiot. He spends his days playing childish games. And the lawyer wears his shoes out, running about doing deals.

Every hour or two Donáth has to stoke each of the roaring muzzles. In addition, he has to adjust the valves, bleed the air from the radiators and fix other minor malfunctions. The stoker also services the heating system. It’s better in summer. He only has to heat water and produce steam for the kitchen and the sauna. He can go for a walk. But he does not venture far. He keeps to the hotel surroundings. He observes the bustling cars in the guarded parking lot in front of the Ambassador and then goes to the supermarket for a few bottles of beer. He always hurries back to the boiler-room. He turns on his radio and sings with the singers. Or he goes out to the yard and jokes with the gypsy women from the laundry room. Life passes by without him noticing it.

* * *

The manager is sitting in his office among all sorts of junk that he has brought in from all over the hotel, and is talking out loud to himself. He can’t get it into his head that Donáth could ever leave. He was certain that after fifty years the stoker had become the legal property of the hotel. He has always done his utmost to avoid dealing with any problem, but not even in his dreams did he think that the day would come when he’d have to solve this problem. The lawyer told him that it wasn’t possible to keep someone against their will. There were, unfortunately, laws against it.

“Laws!” the manager recalled, and his fat hand hurled a paperweight at the wall. He didn’t like the fact that the hotel management depended on Donáth’s whim. If Donáth finds a replacement, then he will. If not, he won’t. The manager begins to hum a sad tune. Why did he have to push his way into the city? He’d have been better off sitting on a tree stump, back home in the country, and just staring. Life is a bitch!

* * *

Mr. Kišš, a proud village butcher, is sitting in his living room smoking, one eye half-closed with delight, when the suitors come to call. It’s young Rácz and his Uncle Endre. They gallop into Kišš’s yard, get off their horses, which are trampling the lawn and the chickens with their giant hooves, and boldly enter the house. Rácz is a bit pale and his bluish shaved face with hurriedly treated shaving cuts gives him a dignified and grave expression.

Mr. Kišš calmly hears the men out. He nods, as if he’s just heard something he already knows. Then he coughs. Kišš is filthy rich, so to speak, he says. You can make good money. It’s unbelievable what people will eat nowadays. Nothing is too revolting for them. So young Rácz would be interested in marrying his daughter?

Rácz senses that he ought to reply. Yes, indeed, he would be interested. Rácz loves the butcher’s daughter and she loves him too. Rácz is a soldier in the reserve and is in good health. He has some property. He’s not rich, but neither is he poor. There’s a pig, a cow, as well as a horse. The horse is used both for riding and for draught; it’s freshly shod, and good for a saddle, a carriage, or even a plough.

Endre interrupts him. He emphasizes to Kišš that the boy will make an obedient son-in-law. He was brought up that way; he used to get hit for the slightest thing in his family. His parents choked to death on money.

Kišš remembers. Yes, it was a sad event. Big funeral.

Rácz can’t confirm that. He was doing his military service at the time with an artillery battery in a little village between Prague and Benešov. There were three military divisions: they were the 3289th, the 5963rd, the 1746th regiments. He liked doing his military service. Rácz did his duty and was left in peace and quiet. He missed the funeral. He boarded the wrong train and in the border town of Aš the customs officers kicked him off the train.

“What about the cash,” Kišš wanted to know, “the money your parents left? What happened to it?”

“The money’s hidden somewhere in the house,” Uncle Endre added. “They didn’t put their money in the bank. They didn’t trust anyone or anything.”

Rácz mentioned that he did two years at agricultural college. Let everyone take a look at his big hands! These hands aren’t afraid of any kind of work.

“Well, did they search for the money?” asked Kišš, pulling out a bottle of moonshine.

Endre is sure the money is hidden in the house. As long as it’s hidden, it’s as safe as in a Swiss bank.

Kišš shakes his head. He knows that they took the whole house apart and found nothing.

Endre hasn’t lost hope. Maybe it was hidden in the cellar or the foundations. Nobody’s looked there yet. Now that Endre thinks about it, he’s more certain than ever that the money is definitely there.

Kišš shakes his head. He’s heard something quite different: they say the money was found, but the relatives quickly divided it among themselves, while Rácz was roaming up and down the country.

Endre got angry. He’s never heard such a filthy lie. Let Kišš tell him who’s been spreading such bare-faced lies in the village and he will personally shut their mugs for them.

Kišš pours the drinks. After Endre downs two shots of moonshine, he warms up and calms down.

“The boy’s nobody’s fool,” he says. “Yes, he may be simple and direct. He doesn’t say much, either. But, man, he’s got his wits about him!”

Rácz senses that he ought to say something as well. Rácz has a nice bit of land. It needs a woman’s hand. Someone who would wash and cook for him, and caress him. And feed the pig.

Kišš understands it all. Love is love, but health, on the other hand, is health. But still, money is money. He could give Rácz a piece of advice, as he is older and wiser. Without cash in hand, Rácz is no good, no matter what. He won’t get a foot on the ladder. Kišš has been a butcher for many years. He knows what’s what. They screwed everything up with that packaged meat, those bastards. That’s the end of the butcher’s trade. He’s just surprised at Rácz. Why is he hanging around the village? If he had Rácz’s youth, nothing would keep him here! In the city money is lying on the streets, you just have to pick it up. Why not go there and make some money? Eržika will wait for him if she really loves him. Kišš will take care of Rácz’s animals and land in the meantime. After all, he is like his own son to him. But he shouldn’t hang about; he should set out for the city right away. No point wasting time.

Rácz wants to see Eržika before he left, but Kišš sees no sense in it. Why? He knows what she looks like! He pours the last shot of moonshine for them. Then he sees the suitors out.