Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

Zdravko G. has a shower, changes his clothes and goes down to the bar. “Where’s Silvia?” he asks the headwaiter. The waiter pauses. “Do you know her?” he asks. “She’s a blonde. She used to work in the Cabaret… a dancer, you know?” Zdravko performs a little pantomime of a strip show to music. “Does she still work here?”

The headwaiter shakes his head. “No, Silvia no longer works here; she left the cabaret some time ago.”

“Doesn’t she?” Zdravko G. is surprised. “You know, I’m a friend of hers. Freund . I’d like to meet her. I haven’t been here for some time. Do you know her address? Wohnung ?”

The waiter accepts the hundred-schilling note as a matter of course. “I don’t know where she lives, but if you wait a moment, I’ll find out.” He’s back in no time. “Here it is,” he tells Zdravko G., handing him a note with an address scribbled on it. “But be careful,” he warns Zdravko, “it’s not a good idea to mention her name in this hotel.”

“What name?” Zdravko G. doesn’t understand, but the headwaiter is now busy with other guests. Zdravko puts the note in his pocket. He’s happy. He hasn’t seen Silvia for a long time. He believes she’ll agree to his plan. It’s attractive. What woman would reject it? He’s pleased as he leaves the bar.

* * *

The lawyer wakes up with a headache. He feels knocked out. He moves. His shoulder hurts. Oh yes, now he remembers. Mozoň had entered his office and he managed only to ask why Mozoň had washed the black paint off his face, when the latter took a disposable syringe out of his pocket. The lawyer remembered the syringe: the secret policeman had shown it to him when he visited the safe house. Mozoň had suggested using it to knock Rácz out.

“My name isn’t Mozoň,” Mozoň had said. His name was Ščepán and nothing else. Then he circled the syringe over the lawyer’s head and stuck it in his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” said the stupefied lawyer. He was still conscious when Šolik and Tupý ran into the room and all three secret policemen dragged him down the corridor and downstairs to the yard, where they stuffed him into the hotel’s Renault minibus, which was waiting there, with the engine running and Ďula at the wheel. By then, the lawyer had begun to feel the effect of the injection. He was laughing senselessly and his head was slumping. He let them bundle him into the vehicle like a piece of luggage. That’s all he remembered.

It’s cold in the cell. The concrete floor is damp. With a great effort, using the wall for support, the lawyer gets up. The barred window is high, out of reach. The cell is sparsely furnished: a wooden plank serves as a spartan bed; there’s a hole-in-the-ground lavatory in the far corner. The lawyer looks at this with a numb expression. His head aches. He swallows. His mouth tastes as if he had a hangover. His head clears slowly. He has been locked up in the safe house. That means that the ex-secret policemen, Mozoň and his two subordinates, have imprisoned him. Does that mean that they’ve deserted him for Rácz?

A key rattles in the lock. The door opens and Mozoň enters. His face is blank. Šolik and Tupý follow. Tupý is carrying a bucket.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the lawyer asks, his mouth dry. Mozoň shrugs. He nods to Tupý. Tupý puts the bucket in the middle of the room. “What’s that,” asks the lawyer, pointing to the bucket.

“It’s a bucket,” says Ščepán.

“And what’s in it?” The lawyer is puzzled.

“Water from the Danube, you lawyer pig!” Ščepán suddenly shouts at him.

The lawyer goes up to the bucket and looks down. The water is muddy and foul. He asks, “Why do you need Danube water?”

The ex-secret policemen look at each other with amusement. “Because we don’t want them finding tap water in your lungs when they fish you out of the Danube,” Ščepán explains.

On his command, Tupý and Šolik grab the lawyer and violently bend him down towards the bucket. They force him to his knees and push his head under the dirty water. The lawyer fights back. Ščepán has to come and help his subordinates.

“He’th thtrong, chief,” says Tupý with a hint of admiration.

“Keep pushing and don’t fucking talk!” Ščepán rebukes him sharply.

The lawyer is struggling and making bubbles in the bucket. In a desperate move, he grabs Šolik by the sleeve and rips a piece of his shirt off. Soon his movements weaken. The ex-secret policemen are all wet.

“Shit!” says Šolik. “A six-hundred-crown shirt!”

The lawyer’s head is in the bucket and has stopped moving. There are no more bubbles. The secret policemen take him out and lay him on the plank.

“Now we’ve earned a hundred thousand,” says Ščepán solemnly.

The men are wet with perspiration and exhausted. It’s cold in the cell.

Šolik is upset. “A six-hundred-crown shirt!”

Ščepán snaps at him. “Shut your mouth! For that kind of money you can buy five hundred shirts.”

Šolik stubbornly shakes his head. “No, no, he says, I’ll never find another one like this. They only got them in the shop once and then they were sold out.”

They drag the lawyer up to the ground floor. They are out of breath. The stairs are steep and narrow. The drowned man keeps sliding down, Ščepán curses and Šolik is aggrieved. He mutters unhappily.

* * *

Silvia and Edita look like beauty queens. They grin sardonically and show all their teeth. Their eyes are made up to look radiant. They know that their entire future depends on looking young and fresh. They are in Zdravko’s orange Opel. Zdravko G. nervously taps the steering wheel, and then puts the car into gear and moves ahead in a column of vehicles inching towards customs control.

“Are they really interested in us?” Edita asks impatiently, as if she wanted to enjoy hearing the good news again and again.

“Yes, yes,” says Zdravko G. “For sure!” he adds. He’s arranged a lucrative engagement in a Viennese nightclub, where they will dance. They’ll make fabulous money: up to twenty thousand schillings a month. Zdravko G. likes them. He’s a doctor, he has no interests in the entertainment business, but he does have contacts.

The Opel moves a few more metres ahead. Zdravko G. turns off the engine and goes on. “There’s just one more thing. The owner of the club doesn’t want problems with the union head office, so Zdravko has to take them to the owner’s country residence. They’ll stay there until all the formalities are sorted out.

Silvia and Edita agree. Of course, they’ll fit in with local ways. They’ve always dreamt of a chance like this. In a few months they’ll look down on their former colleagues at the Ambassador. Silvia is particularly happy that she will be able to look down on that barbarian Rácz.

The customs and passport check goes smoothly. Zdravko G. starts his orange Opel and sets off into the Austrian hinterland. Silvia and Edita smile radiantly. Their eyes shine unnaturally. They know this shows them at their best.

After a few miles, Zdravko G. turns off into a copse and stops the car. The prostitutes exchange glances. Zdravko unzips his trousers and takes out his long, swarthy member. He puts the seats down and waits for Silvia and Edita to undress. He undresses, too. The girls have to satisfy him several times in succession. They are surprised by his potency and the quantity of hot liquid squirting from his member. The car shakes, the suspension creaks. Zdravko utters a deep contented murmur. The prostitutes are covered in perspiration.

Then they drive on. Soon it gets dark. They turn off before Vienna. They stop at a service station and eat. Like a gentleman, Zdravko G. pays for both prostitutes.