Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

“The comedy’s over! Time for the bill!”

Wanda and Eva have both got dressed and left. In his nakedness Mozoň is humiliated by the immaculately dressed stoker. He grabs the quilt and tries to cover himself. Rácz bends down, rips the quilt out of his hands and throws it into the corner.

“What’s this all about?” the secret policeman asks querulously. He has pulled himself together a little. “That wasn’t the deal,” he adds.

“No, that wasn’t the deal,” Rácz agrees. “Rácz doesn’t do deals with crooks,” he says firmly. Rácz raises a hand. He is holding a videocassette. “You’re in it,” he says maliciously, “in all your beauty. Your wife will be very pleased.”

The secret policeman goes pale. “My wife! Not my wife!” He licks his lips. “What do you want from me?” he asks hoarsely.

Rácz lets him wait for an answer. “Tell me the truth!” he roars. “Who are you and what are you looking for here? Who sent you? I know you’re a cop. I’ll make copies of the cassette and send it to where you work. You might as well hang yourself. Well?” Rácz rattles the cassette.

“I’ll tell you everything!” Mozoň shouts in desperation. “Everything!” Mozoň says his name’s not really Ščepán. He’s not a cop. He’s unemployed. He was sacked. He used to work for State Security.

“Oh yes?” says Rácz.

Mozoň continues his confession. Mozoň now works as a sort of private detective. The lawyer hired him for this job. He was supposed to render Rácz harmless. Mozoň admits he’s been defeated, but assures him that it’s not his fault. The lawyer’s to blame for everything. The lawyer is evil and stupid; Mozoň, on the other hand, is a good person. He’s been given a job to do, so he has to do it. He lives from hand to mouth. He’s unemployed. And if he doesn’t want to starve to death, he has to do something. So that’s what he did. The lawyer promised him a hundred thousand to help liquidate Rácz. Mozoň has a narrow-minded wife. Of course, he loves her a lot. If Rácz sends her the cassette, it will kill her. It would kill him, too. Rácz must reconsider and save two young lives and not make their children orphans.

Rácz laughs. “So it was the lawyer!” he says, but his smile vanishes in a flash, as if he’d torn a mask off his face. “Lawyer!” he adds with hatred.

In his nakedness Mozoň crawls out of the bed and kneels down before Rácz. Mozoň respects Rácz. He was becoming more and more aware that to side with the lawyer against Rácz was madness. It would be better to side with Rácz against the lawyer, and so on. Mozoň asks Rácz to pardon him. Yes, he was led astray. But he realises now where his place is. And Rácz needn’t think that he is entering his service with eff-all to show! He’s well equipped: he has two reliable subordinates who do whatever he tells them to. If he tells them to kill, they kill. They were trained in Moscow; they had the electric shock treatment. What’s more, they have a beautiful safe house, a villa overlooking the city, by the castle. It has a beautiful, romantic panoramic view of the city. And there are several concrete cells in the basement. Mozoň and his two subordinates are well versed in undercover operations. They could be useful to him.

Rácz is silent; he is standing with his feet apart and his fists clenched. His teeth are clenched, too. He seems not to be listening to the secret policeman’s offer. “So it was the lawyer!” he repeats, and his eyes seem to bulge from his head. Then he comes to. “A cell? You have concrete cells, you say?”

Mozoň nods eagerly. Mozoň never had anything against Rácz. It was the evil lawyer. If Mozoň had known how powerful Rácz really was, he’d never have let the lawyer talk him into this. He pauses full of insecurity, but of hope, too. With a look of doggish devotion, he watches Rácz raging over him.

Rácz stares at him with his malevolent steel-grey eyes. “Don’t loll about naked like a bloody rent-boy!” he shouts at him. “Get dressed, quick!”

Mozoň jumps up. “Yes, boss,” he says.

Rácz puts the videocassette in the pocket of his elegant jacket and turns to the door. “Come with me,” he orders the secret policeman.

“Yes, boss,” Mozoň nods obediently. He quickly gets dressed. His balls hurt, but he ignores it.

Rácz nervously stands by the door, tapping a foot. “Ready?” he asks when the secret policeman takes up a servile posture by him. They go to Rácz’s apartment. Ďula joins them on the way. He has been keeping watch outside the secret policeman’s room.

“The lawyer has to disappear, understand?” the stoker orders, sitting behind the desk.

“Yes, boss,” says Mozoň.

Rácz murmurs in approval. The lawyer has to be punished severely! Rácz doesn’t care how Ščepán does it. Rácz doesn’t want to hear about it.

“Disappear?” Mozoň asks. “You mean…” Mozoň’s hands make a violent twisting gesture. He looks enquiringly at the stoker.

The stoker raises both hands in denial. Rácz has said what he wanted. He doesn’t want to hear or know about anything. Rácz’s people are trained to work on their own initiative. Everyone has a share of responsibility. They share out the results of the joint work collectively.

Rácz reaches into the drawer and takes out a metal casket. He unlocks it and takes out a thick wad of banknotes. He throws them on the table. With a nod he tells Ščepán to come and take the money. “Here’s the hundred thousand you would have got from the lawyer,” says Rácz. He pronounces the word “lawyer” as if he were spitting. Ščepán takes the wad. Rácz puts his hand in the casket again and throws another wad, just as thick, on the table. “And here is another hundred thousand from Rácz,” he says. “You know what for,” he adds.

Ščepán reaches for the second wad of banknotes, but Rácz adroitly swipes him over the fingers with a metal ruler that he was holding in the other hand. The secret policeman screams with pain and sticks his throbbing fingers into his mouth. Rácz smiles. “I’ll keep this money for the time being, he says. When we get rid of the lawyer, you’ll get it. Until then, I’ll keep it here.” The stoker takes the money off the table and puts it in the casket, locks it up, and places it in the desk. “Everything clear?” he asks Mozoň.

Mozoň nods. “Yes, boss,” he says.

Rácz gets up and approaches the ex-secret policeman. He lifts his right hand as if to look at his watch. He proffers it to Ščepán. The ex-secret policeman takes it in his hand and kisses it. The stoker accepts this gesture with lips grimly pursed and head held proudly high. The diamond glitters in his ear. “You can go,” he says, and waves his hand contemptuously, as if chasing a fly away. “Keep me informed,” he shouts at Ščepán, who bows as he shuts the door behind him.

“And what now, boss?” Ďula asks, after Ščepán has left.

Rácz bangs the table. “What now? Now we’ll all have a nice supper. We’ve earned it. Find Urban and his two sluts and tell them Rácz is inviting them to the restaurant! We have to enjoy ourselves as well, right?” Rácz slaps Ďula’s back. He sends him on his way with a friendly kick up the backside.

* * *

D-day has arrived: all morning the manager has been sure of that. He got up at daybreak and made a fire for the last time. He warmed himself up and cooked a nourishing soup from vegetable peelings, bacon rind and chicken guts he’d found in the skip in the yard. When the morning’s work began in and around the hotel, the fire was already out, and the window that let the smoke out was closed again. Some of the dogs were growling restlessly, some were dozing; others were still straining in harnesses fashioned from old inner tubes and tyres.