Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

The cleaner is having a coffee in her broom cupboard. Now and then she checks up on him.

“A little bit harder on this spot,” she tells him strictly. “Can’t the manager see that dirt?”

The guests have woken up. Phones ring in the kitchen. Everybody wants breakfast in bed. The waiters have a last puff of their cigarettes, drink up their coffee, adjust their bow ties and grab their trays or trolleys. Nobody uses the lifts now. They all take the stairs on purpose. As soon as the manager has polished the stairs to the cleaner’s satisfaction, stiff-necked waiters walk on them with their dirty shoes. The manager has to clean them all over again. He is embarrassed and puts his false beard and dark glasses back on so that they won’t recognize him. The cleaner has finished her coffee, morning cigarette and newspaper; she now stands over the manager, watching his every move. She tells everyone walking up or down: “This is the manager! I caught him making a mess on the stairs. Women are not here to clean all the time. Men can do something, as well. Women need peace and quiet, too. Carry on walking, he can polish them again!”

The manager waxes the stairs again. He forces his tears out by squeezing his eyes shut. When he’s finished, he stands by the window and lets people pass, so that he can continue his work with the facial expression of Christ scourged. The cleaner has left long ago, but the manager still goes on working. It is only around noon that he is struck by the sudden silence in the hall. He furtively approaches the door of the cleaner’s cupboard, and finds it locked. Then the manager gathers up the courage and runs to his office like a hunted animal. He clambers into the tent and instantly falls asleep.

* * *

Video Urban has gone right off money-changing. He’s had his fingers burned. Morning after morning he’d been driving to the fields across the river, to the border crossing and waiting for the orange, toxic green, and loud red buses, getting into them and relieving shopping-crazed westerners of their deutschmark , schillings, and dollars. Rácz gave up hope of finding the source of Urban’s sudden wealth. He went on buying Urban’s currency without further comment; after all, he made money out of it too. Wealthy peasants who longed to buy a used car, TV, video etc in Austria came running to Rácz, ready to pay outrageous prices for currency.

Disaster struck Urban one chilly, but rare sunny day, when everything seemed to be going like clockwork. A huge bus full of Austrian tourists stopped in a lay-by after customs, and in stepped Urban in a cheerful festive mood. He was making his way towards the back of the bus, taking schillings left and right from outstretched hands, counting and handing back one-thousand and five-hundred crown bills from a fat wad fastened with a red elastic when, at the end of the bus, he came face to face with two plain-clothes police ID cards held out by two shyly smiling slender youths. Dressed in windcheaters and jeans, they looked ordinary.

“No hysterics, please,” one of them said politely and got up with a sigh. “Let’s go,” he said, gently pushing Urban towards the exit.

“No funny business, OK?” said the other one, shouting hysterically, and, jumping up, he grabbed Urban by the collar and thrust him down on the floor. He kneeled over him and checked him for weapons. He found Urban’s wallet and put it in his pocket. “He hasn’t got a gun,” he shouted. “Go, go!” He pushed Urban out.

Urban got off the bus with his hands up.

“Make him keep his hands behind his head!” the undercover policeman was shouting, when suddenly a huge hand-gun appeared in his hand out of nowhere.

Video Urban noticed hundreds of eyes watching him indifferently through the misted windows of buses, trucks, and cars.

“Where’s your car?” the polite one asked.

Urban’s lower jaw began to shake; he couldn’t speak. “So that’s it,” he thought, accepting the possibility in the far recesses of his soul, but he couldn’t believe it was real. He dropped his right hand to scratch his cheek.

“Hands behind your head!” yelled the angry one, jabbing him in the ribs with the gun.

Urban had encountered this situation many times in his nightmares. But when he wanted to wake up he always did. This time he couldn’t. He felt for his car keys and the polite one took them from his hand, unlocked the car door and said, “Get in, please.”

“Move it, move it,” the angry one yelled and motioned with a gun that was at least two sizes too big.

Urban sat at the steering wheel with the polite one next to him and the angry one behind him. Urban was afraid to look in the rear-view mirror, but he sensed that the angry one was pointing the gun at him. Everyone kept quiet for a while.

“Can I see your ID again?” Urban asked, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say.

“Yes, of course,” said the polite one and shoved his ID card in front of Urban’s nose.

“May I put my hands down?” asked Urban. His bowels urgently needed to be relieved, but he managed to master them. He took the ID card and studied it for a while. Then he gave it back.

After a moment’s silence, the polite one asked him casually, “Have you ever been in prison?”

Urban shook his head and swallowed. His mouth was dry.

“Well, let’s have a look,” said the polite one cheerfully.

The angry one took out Urban’s wallet and they both began counting. When they’d finished, both were visibly impressed by the size of the total.

“Well,” the polite one said, “this money is now confiscated.” To show he meant it, he stuffed a bunch of banknotes under his belt. He put the empty wallet, Urban’s ID and address book into the glove compartment.

“Now the question is whether you want to be locked up or not,” said the polite one, looking out of the window. “You’re young; you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

Urban couldn’t help smiling: the undercover policemen did not look any older than him.

The polite one continued, “They’d tear your arse to pieces your first night in the cells.”

Urban remembered Hurensson and the camera that he’d put away, as soon as he’d unwrapped it, in the cupboard, where it had stayed ever since. If he’d stuck to the video business, as he originally planned, this would have never happened to him.

“But it all depends on you,” the polite one concluded.

“What do you mean?” Urban put the question in a hurry, as he felt instinctively that at the end of this dark tunnel of fear and horror flickered a small light of hope.

“Are you that stupid?” the angry one yelled, pushing the barrel of the gun into the back of his head.

The polite one smiled patiently. “Look,” he said, “this money,” and he patted his now bulging windcheater, “this money is officially confiscated. You won’t get any of it back. No way. We’ll give you now a receipt to say that we’ve confiscated it. As well as giving you a receipt, we’ll handcuff you and take you in. You’ll be on remand because we’ll hand your case to the prosecutor. He’ll prepare the case. In a nutshell, you won’t get out of this. You’re looking at a good five to eight years, the way I see it.” The polite one paused for dramatic effect and then turned away from the misted window. “That’s one option,” he added dryly.

Video Urban swallowed hard and took a breath to ask a question.

The polite one beat him to it. “The second option? Well, the second option is that you don’t ask for a receipt for the money we’ve confiscated, and we don’t handcuff you.” He smiled like someone used to doing favours and making people happy. “You’ll drive us into town and let us out, say, at the Stefanka Café. Then we’ll say goodbye and everyone goes their own way. You choose.” The polite one put his hand in his pocket. He asked, “May I smoke in here?”