Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

Rácz sadly gallops away on his plough-horse, his head bowed. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a curtain twitch in Eržika’s window. The same day he drives the pig, the cow and the horse off to Kišš’s stable. He swears that he will return as soon as he gets a chance.

At daybreak Rácz sets off to catch the train.

“I heard you were leaving,” says proud Feri with a fake smile on his face. Feri Bartaloš, his biggest enemy since they were at school, is one of Eržika’s suitors. It was to impress Rácz that he galloped in the dark to the railway station on a sweaty horse with a mighty behind, and now he’s prancing on it up and down the platform. He smiles wildly, his white teeth glistening in the sun rising over the wasteland. Rácz, dressed in an ill-fitting suit he first wore at confirmation, is sitting on a cast-iron bench with his suitcase at his feet.

“Hey, are you really moving to the city?” Feri shouts, since Rácz ignores him. The horse turns under his weight and neighs. “Off you go, then!”

Rácz stops watching the fingernails of his right hand and calmly lifts his head. When he returns, he says unemotionally, if he finds out something, and Bartaloš knows what he means, he’ll beat him up, maybe kill him. Eržika is going to have Rácz’s children. Bartaloš can get that into his head!

“Ho-ho-ho!” laughs proud Feri Bartaloš, as if he’d been told a good joke. He wildly digs his heels into the giant, clumsy horse and makes it gallop. Soon all that is left after him on the platform is a pile of steaming horse dung.

* * *

All of Rácz’s possessions fit into a suitcase that he puts on a floor covered in spittle, spilled beer, cigarette butts, and dirt. Tired after a journey of several hours he orders a beer and a shot of rum. He takes a look at himself in the mirror wall behind the bar. He is small and thin, but so bony and square-cut that he gives the impression of being quite stocky. His ill-fitting suit is wrinkled and the seat and thighs are shiny. His swarthy face, close-cropped head and large transparent ears make him look like an amnestied prisoner.

Rácz considers his next step. There’s plenty of work in the city, he can choose any career. He could work in a factory, in city services, or on the railway. The main thing is to make as much money as possible. Only then can he soon go back and marry Eržika Kišš. Rácz won’t fail. The city is huge, and there are plenty of openings.

Rácz takes out a newspaper and begins to study the classifieds. He marks the most interesting offers with his fingernail.

“Are you looking for a job?” an old man asks Rácz affably: he’s wearing dirty overalls and his toothless mouth has been chewing hard on two bread sticks and a dried-up rissole saturated with cigarette smoke.

Rácz is sullen and dislikes talking to strangers. “Yeah,” he finally responds unwillingly, lifting the rum to his mouth.

The old man laughs, showing his toothless gums, and lifts a mug of beer to his mouth, suggesting “Cheers!”. “Just arrived in the city?” he asks.

“Just now,” Rácz responds gloomily. He hates questions. He puts the empty glass of rum on the high table and queues at the counter. He buys a bread stick, a rissole and another beer.

“Hungry?” the old man inquires and smiles amiably.

Rácz nods and chews. What’s it to the old fool, whether Rácz is hungry or not?

“Fuck you, I’m Donáth,” says the smiling old man, offering his huge hand covered in calluses and ingrained dirt.

“I’m not,” Rácz felt like saying, and would have said, had he been at home, in the village pub. But he’s in a strange city, a strange world. “Rácz,” he says without enthusiasm, and reluctantly shakes the offered hand.

“You have hands that could kill an ox,” the old man praises Rácz.

Rácz just shrugs and returns to his rissole.

“I know of a good job,” says the old man after a while.

“Do you?” Rácz asks as if bored, but pricks up his ears.

“You’d get two salaries,” Donáth continues, “and it’s easy work.”

Rácz coughs, as a crumb of rissole goes down the wrong way. He runs his tongue round the inside of his lips, and then slowly lifts the beer mug and washes the food down. “What sort of work?” he begins to ask.

Donáth heads for the bar with a mysterious smile on his face, leaving Rácz without an answer.

“What sort of job is it?” Rácz repeats, when the old man comes back with two mugs of beer.

“Boiler-room stoker in a hotel,” says Donáth.

Rácz is not sure about it. Are there any exams he’d have to take? He pointedly ignores the beer the old man obviously brought for him.

“What exams? Why exams?” the old man sniggers. If it’s OK by Donáth, they’ll take on Rácz with no exams. Just consider, it’s the most de-luxe hotel in town. A hundred years old! Unfortunately, so is the boiler-room. Donáth’s mood darkens, but he soon cheers up. “Do you have a trade?” he asks Rácz.

“I did two years’ agricultural college,” Rácz says, not without pride.

“That should be enough,” Donáth nods.

“And what sort of job is it?” Rácz inquires.

“It’s good easy work. But it’s very responsible. You have to take care of the whole boiler-room by yourself, day in and day out. You get two salaries and all the bonuses and awards. If you came here to make a pile of money, you won’t find a better job. You won’t fill your pockets so quickly anywhere else. And you won’t wear yourself out. You just have to be there all the time. In five years you’ll save half a million crowns and say good-bye.” Donáth downs his beer.

Rácz is excited by what he hears and accepts the beer. After all, he came here for the money and nothing else interests him. It wouldn’t bother him in the least if he had to spend all his time in the boiler-room. At least he wouldn’t spend much money.

“I’ve been slaving there for fifty years,” Donáth admits, “but I’d like a break. I’m coming up to seventy now.” Donáth wouldn’t like to leave just like that, slamming the door behind him and saying good-bye. Not like that. He’d promised to find a replacement.

“And how do you know I’m the right man?” Rácz asks.

“You’ve got a wide, honest face. You don’t look like a layabout or con man. The big city lights won’t tempt you.” The old man empties the rest of the beer into his toothless mouth and then spits on the foul floor.

Through the murky and dusty windows of the bar you can see the trams come and go. The morning cold has gone and the sun begins to radiate heat. Rácz feels as warm as in a greenhouse.

“Another beer?” Donáth asks.

Rácz shakes his head. “Is it far to the boiler-room?”

“No,” answers the old man, “ten minutes’ walk. Want to have a look?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” admits Rácz. “But I’m not promising anything.”

The old man quickly nods. “You’ll like it, you’ll see. Let me get you another shot of rum,” he says and queues at the bar.

Rácz won’t say no. He can drink like a horse. They clink glasses. “I want to get married and move out of here,” Donáth says proudly. “An old man needs a bit of love too. A young man needs money. That’s life.” Donáth philosophizes. The rum has cheered him up.

* * *

It is a sunny, humid morning. Some woman had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the busy street in front of the Hotel Ambassador. She was waiting at the tram stop. She just flipped, as they say, and began to strip in front of all the passers-by on the tram stop island.

The crowd consists of people all as exhausted, nervous and unhappy as she. Their psychology, however, can cope better with the morning heat. The woman stripping at the tram stop doesn’t escape the attention of the passers-by. They all stop, surround the island and feel a collective need to get involved in the affairs of the unfortunate half-naked woman. At the sight of the madwoman, men’s pulses race, blood rushes to their heads, and the skin on their faces tautens. Whistles, sarcasms and disparaging comments are heard. But the woman pays no attention; her face reveals total concentration on herself. One of the gypsies who always hang around the Hotel Ambassador snatches the shopping bag, which the woman threw down when she started her macabre strip-tease, and nonchalantly wanders off. No one notices, as the sight of a woman undressing in the street blots out all other events.