Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

“I might as well go in there with my top off,” the chef mumbles. “Well, go,” the headwaiter says, watching through a hole in the curtain.

The noise in the dining room has stepped up. Nervousness reigns behind the curtain. “Let the man responsible for the cock-up go,” a waiter suggests. All eyes are on the manager.

“Yes, that’s right,” the headwaiter agrees. The manager makes an evasive manœuvre, but two waiters firmly grab him by his shoulders.

“ Scheisse! ” says the chef. In emergencies he relieves his stress with foreign words. “ Scheisse! ” he repeats. “That would be even worse,” he counters. “Rácz hates the manager and if he sees him, he’ll destroy us. No, not that,” he shakes his head. “I suppose we’ll have to send in a woman, a waitress. But not a topless one, a bottomless one! Get it? Bottomless!”

They all agree, except the waitresses. They resist desperately. “This isn’t what we agreed!” they repeat in unison, but illogically. Finally, they are forced to take off their skirts. Now it’s clear why they resisted so hard: they are naked under their skirts. In chagrin, they explain that it is hot in the restaurant, and wearing knickers would make them sweat.

The men in the kitchen like it. (They also like lace-edged black tights.) Tension subsides. It is clear to all that they’re out of the danger. Even Rácz won’t be able to resist. Everyone wants to grope them. The waitresses squeal. Only the headwaiter keeps a worried eye on what’s happening in the dining room, which has been left unsupervised. And when the bottomless waitresses, one with a tray of the manager’s speciality, and the other with a bottle of red wine, (both red with embarrassment), are ready to enter the room, the headwaiter shouts: “He’s throwing up! Throwing up! I told you this would happen!”

Chaos reigns behind the scenes. The waitresses run away and quickly dress, as if they have until then been acting under hypnosis, and have only just woken up. The waiters and cooks run around in confusion and yell with penetrating, surprisingly screechy voices. The headwaiter is about to hang himself. He makes broad, very graphic gestures, as if hoping that someone will try to stop him.

Only the chef has not given in to panic. He is all red from drinking rum. “See, what you’ve done?” he turns on the manager. The latter has in the meantime profited from the chaos to stuff his jacket with tins, vegetables, meat, and bottles of wine, together with biscuits and sweets. Do you see? “Now you want me to go to the boss and fix it? I don’t think even a case of Havana Club will be enough to calm him down. Lucky we economized by using the local hooch instead of real rum for the flambé!”

The manager fearfully peeks into the dining room. Rácz is sitting at the table. His head is bent down and a shock of hair hangs down in resignation. His orange-green jacket and fashionable tracksuit bottoms are covered in vomit. In the silence that now reigns he smashes his fist into the table. He stubbornly tries to get up, but he doubles up with a spasm of vomiting and helplessly sinks into his chair. The terrified guests watch him. Everybody is afraid to make a move. “Uuuppp!” comes out of the stoker and a new stream shoots out of his mouth. “Uuuppp!”

“What are you hanging around for, you dolt?” the chef says to the manager, and lights up. “Haven’t you done enough to mess us up? Get lost! I don’t want to see you here ever again!”

Sadly, the manager goes away. The chef catches up with him on the ramp. The manager had better give back everything he’s stolen from the kitchen during the chaos! On the double! The chef has no time for jokes. He has to cook goulash and sauerkraut for the boss. “Move it!”

The manager unbuttons his jacket and unwillingly takes out his loot: a frozen chicken, five potatoes, a bottle of soup stock, a bottle of red wine, two raw pork steaks, a side of bacon, a bunch of onions, three carrots, a lemon, a can of mushrooms in brine and a jar of mustard. “And now get lost!” The chef orders him out, after feeling the manager’s jacket to check he hasn’t got away with anything.

The manager runs to his office. Then he impatiently sits down to the cold fire in the middle of the room and from his ski trousers he takes out his loot, his prize — a jar of caviar. Here’s a reason for celebration! He looks for his accordion and soon the office resounds with the bass notes and the manager’s booming voice.

The jar of caviar is soon finished. The manager is thirsty. The water has stopped running. Strange sounds come from the water pipe and soon they stop, too. Luckily, there are snowdrifts all around the hotel. The manager takes a bucket, fills it with snow from the yard and warms it up over the fire in his office. The water is a bit sour and salty, but it quenches thirst and warms him.

* * *

Freddy Piggybank does the rounds of the snowbound car park among the cars, which are covered in snow. He is dressed warmly; his cheeks are red with frost. Sausages and beans warm his stomach. His hands in knitted gloves rest on his red collecting bag filled with change. He is making vindictive plans involving shootings, mass executions, and torture. Today the gypsies came for their money. Berki was not among them, nor was Šípoš. Young Čonka was the spokesman. He told the parking attendant that it was getting harder for them to talk the bad gypsies out of attacking his trailer. That’s why the good gypsies have to ask Piggybank for an increased contribution. Otherwise they can’t answer for anyone or anything. Piggybank burst into tears, but ended up paying what Čonka asked. As soon as the overjoyed gypsies left, a bitch from the town council showed up and announced to Piggybank that the rental contract for the car park would be void for the next two weeks: tomorrow the car park will be fenced, booths and tanks full of carp will be brought in, and a Christmas market will open up in front of the Hotel Ambassador. Piggybank exploded. He didn’t dare to protest to the gypsies, but now he gave free rein to his emotions. The bitch from the town council was not impressed; she waved a document at the furious miser, and all was calm. The fat attendant tried to appeal to her better nature, but it got him nowhere. “You’re free from tomorrow until Christmas,” said the bitch maliciously and left, wriggling her behind.

Cars come and go. Piggybank is strict, almost cruel; he carefully checks the parking tickets and pedantically collects the fees. If a customer is just five minutes late, the attendant charges him an additional hour. Gnashing of teeth does not help the customer.

The lot is full of big Austrian cars. The Austrians are feverishly doing their Christmas shopping. The department store and the city are full of them. In this foul weather, gigantic, garish painted buses, bringing more and more customers, force their way into queues of slow-moving cars. These are happy times for the currency dealers. They all bravely hang around the parking lot and the entrance to the Hotel Ambassador. They freeze and wait for new punters.

“I’m in the shit,” Piggybank tells Urban. “In the shit,” he repeats, when Urban fails to react as he expected. Then he continues anyway: Freddy is the victim of incredible ingratitude. The gypsies are swine. He’s always known that. The time will come when they’ll beg him on their knees for mercy and to let them give him back the money they stole. He’ll torture them one by one. He’ll start with their children. The parents will have to watch. To stop them closing their eyes, Freddy will cut off their eyelids. “Just wait, you pigs, your turn will come,” he’ll tell them. “You’ll envy your filthy kids’ easy death!” He’ll spend a week devising the tortures he’ll inflict on Berki. Then there’s the bitch from town council, Piggybank remembers. For her, too, Piggybank has thought up tortures. Finally, at the very end, after two or three days, Freddy will sharpen the end of a pole this thick! And he’ll slowly impale her — or what’s left of her — on that pole! “Selling carp? I’ll show you carp! Two weeks, that means a total…” Freddy takes out his calculator and works out how much money he’ll have lost in two weeks. “Bugger,” he says with resignation. He still can’t and won’t believe that today is his last day here. He finally collects himself and with a martyr’s expression on his face throws his red money-bag into the corner of his trailer. “Let’s go and have a drink,” he says to Video Urban. “Drinks are on me.”