Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

The rest period does not last long. When the manager’s head begins to droop, he is startled and gets up. He goes into the dark corridor and down the stairs. He gets out of the hotel unobserved and sets out on a long journey. It is a march through enemy territory, as the manager fully realises.

Only when the stars begin to pale and the sky turns light blue, will the manager get far beyond the city boundaries, to the foothills of the mountains whose snowy peaks shine on the horizon during his trek. Dawn breaks. The manager walks and observes the snow. He knows he is in the right place: the hills are marked by hundreds of ski and sledge trails. The manager is no amateur: during his hunting trips in the yards around the Ambassador, he has learned well to read footprints and trails. He has also learned to stay motionless in his hiding place, waiting patiently for hours, blending into the background. He watches the area from the bushes. Crows fly over an overcast sky. A sleepy village rests in the valley under the mountains. Acrid smoke comes out of the chimneys. Hours pass. Soon the cold air fills with children’s voices distant, but getting nearer. The manager, invisible in the branches, stiffens.

The children are sledging and the manager, squatting in his hiding place, makes his choice. Yes, he decides: the girl in a yellow windcheater over there. She comes down on a long but lightweight sledge. The sledge flies down and the girl laughs. The children yell. The manager makes his decision. Now! He pushes the branches apart and comes out of the bushes. The children are scared. The manager is hairy, dirty, wearing a home-made fur coat. He hollers like a madman and the children are terrified. The manager with his arms spread wide begins to run towards the girl in the yellow windcheater: “ER-R-R-R!” he roars again. The children abandon their sledges. The strange sight of the manager and his roars panic and horrify the innocent little creatures. Crying and yelling, they run in all directions. The manager pursues them for a while, waving his arms wildly, hollering and grimacing. When the children vanish round a bend in the road leading down to the village, the manager stops. He goes back. He grabs his chosen sledge and runs off, pulling it behind him. He takes the road and for a while runs along the salty and slushy asphalt. When he hears a car in the distance, he jumps over the ditch and hides in the thin bushes on the other side. He runs toward a brook, steps into the shallow but shockingly freezing dirty water, fording it against the current for a few dozen yards with the sledge on his back. Then he gets out of the water. He climbs a tall tree, a spreading chestnut, pulling the sledge with him. There he squats on a thick branch and decides to wait until dark.

The manager spends the whole day sitting motionless in the tree, singing. He knows that he hasn’t won yet. He puts a piece of dry meat in his mouth and sucks on it. After this breakfast he dozes off, stubbornly clinging to the branch. A tic distorts his face. He shouts something in his sleep, and that wakes him up. It is beginning to snow. The snow falls on the white fields producing a wet, feathery rustle.

A group of men and dogs passes the tree a few times: they are armed with guns and torches, but fail to notice him. The snow confuses the hunting dogs’ sense of smell. They strain against their leashes and whimper. Then the wind starts to blow, carrying wet snowflakes from the fields. Soon it gets dark. The moon is hidden; the sky is as black as indigo paper. Thanks to the fresh snow, visibility is good. After a moment’s hesitation, the manager lowers the captured sledge and then climbs down the tree. He stretches his limbs, heavy prolonged and tense immobility. Ahead of him is a night march through enemy territory. He sets out with determination, pulling his booty behind him.

* * *

Just before midnight, Urban and Lenka enter Hotel Ambassador lounge. The party is in full swing. Urban looks around the room. The guests have split into small groups, discussion circles. Urban knows most of them: some are nodding acquaintances, others he knows personally. He knows the Albanians and hookers very well indeed. He does not feel a stranger here. Lenka, on the other hand, knows no one. She holds his hand, as he is her only support.

Rácz sits at the head of the table with a poker face, drinking. When he spots Urban, he gets up. “I knew you’d come,” he says. “It’s good you’re here. There’s plenty of everything,” he adds, “Food and drink.”

He notices Lenka and falls silent, as if struck by lightning.

Lenka, too, stands up and for a few seconds can’t take her eyes off Rácz.

“I’ll introduce you,” says Urban. “Lenka, this is Rácz. Rácz, this is Lenka.”

He steps aside. Rácz produces one of his smiles. He takes Lenka’s hand and touches it with his lips. Lenka smiles in embarrassment. It seems so old-fashioned, yet it isn’t unpleasant.

Urban is surprised at this, but doesn’t stare. He’d never have expected such a gesture, however clumsily done, from Rácz.

Rácz accompanies his guests to the head of the table and seats them next to him.

“I’m glad, I’m glad you’ve… both… come. You’ve broken the spell. I had no one to talk to. They’ve all come here to stuff their faces and get sloshed.”

Rácz waves a hand, smiles again and takes a good look at Lenka.

Lenka feels odd under the magnetic metallic stare of this strange, stocky, broad-shouldered man. His wide face radiates a kind of primordial energy. She is unsettled.

“Friends are precious nowadays,” Rácz says, taking three champagne glasses from the tray.

This leaves Urban cold. Perhaps it’s a new trick of the stoker’s, he thinks. Rácz pours the champagne. He’s skilled; he doesn’t spill a drop. Lenka realises that Urban’s strange friend probably drinks champagne far more often than once a year on New Year’s Eve.

“To our friendship!” declares the stoker and raises his glass.

A sarcastic remark is on the tip of Urban’s tongue, but he bites it back. “Why does Rácz want to talk about friendship?” he thinks. Urban still hasn’t forgotten Rácz having him followed so as to find the source of Urban’s foreign currency. And Rácz might well have set the two undercover policemen onto him out of vindictiveness. Urban looks truculent.

Rácz downs his glass with relish and puts it back on the table forcefully. Perhaps too forcefully, Lenka thinks.

They are silent. From the restaurant they can hear muffled conversations, laughter and the bass notes of the band. At the other end of the table the Albanians are arguing in their incomprehensible language full of absurd sounding consonants. Ďula clinks glasses with a drunken Khunt. The whores have left their glasses half full and moved closer to the bar. They can’t skive on a night like this.

“Urban let slip that you’re the uncrowned king of the hotel,” says Lenka with a smile.

Rácz nods. “Yes,” he says. “It’s true. They do as I say.” There’s no trace of self-consciousness in his voice. He responds like a man asked if he likes cheese scones.

Lenka says, “I can see you don’t suffer from lack of self-esteem.”

“No,” agrees Rácz, “I don’t. But you’re not drinking,” he remarks.

“I’m not used to drink,” says Lenka.

“Are you Urban’s girlfriend?” the stoker resumes after a pause.

Lenka shakes her head. No, they’re just good friends. There’s nothing between them. “Look at Urban: we’re more like brother and sister, aren’t we?” Urban absent-mindedly nods and looks at his watch. It’s half past eleven.

“Are you married?” Lenka asks the stoker.

Rácz shakes his head. No, Rácz is single. Single, but unhappy in love. His girl left him. It was a blow, terribly painful. But he’s got over it. Rácz can see now that she stayed with him only for his money. And because of his power. Rácz longs to meet a girl who’d like him for his own sake. Rácz knows that this is not impossible.