Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

Rácz is alone. He looks over the black hall and sleeping boilers. He takes his find from the back pocket: Deutsche Bundesbank . There are five hundred-mark notes and four fifty-mark notes. Rácz has no idea what this money might be worth. Never mind, he’ll find out. He carefully wraps the money and hides it in the lining of his suitcase. He climbs to the top of the boilers and takes a look at the coal room. It is empty, spacious. In the corners is what’s left of last year’s coal.

He’s still up there, looking into the openings where the coal is stored, when he hears banging on the stairs. Donáth is climbing down and behind him comes a massive woman in a white coat, scarf and white rubber boots. “Well, Ilonka,” Donáth smiles, “here’s my replacement!” Rácz has to put up with another introduction.

“So you’re our saviour,” says Mrs. Tóthová coquettishly.

“What?” Rácz can’t understand.

“Our Donáth wouldn’t leave the boiler-room if he hadn’t found you,” explains the old woman. “He’s been saying: ‘I can’t leave them in the lurch. I’ve spent fifty years with them. I promised to find a replacement and I’ll keep my promise.’ But no,” the old woman stresses her words, “he didn’t have to find replacement; it was his decision. He wanted to leave like an honest man. And now —” here Mrs. Tóthová looks lovingly at the beaming Donáth “— his dream is going to come true. Do you want a cigarette?” she asks him, taking a pack of Spartas from her bosom. “No, I don’t smoke,” replies Rácz. “I used not to smoke,” nods the old woman, but you get used to it among those girls in the kitchen. It’s the only way to kill time. You’ll have to kill time, too. But it’s good you don’t smoke.”

“He will, don’t worry,” Donáth laughs dryly.

“Never!” insists Rácz. His blood freezes in his veins imagining going up to Kišš to ask for Eržika’s hand and suddenly getting a fit of coughing, trying in vain to keep a blood-spotted handkerchief out of sight. Everyone would be horrified if Kišš said: “No, I won’t give my daughter to this consumptive!” He tried smoking in the army. If you didn’t smoke, you weren’t a man. But he never liked the taste of cigarettes. And when his comrades gave him, as the dunce of the squad, a specially doctored cigarette that gave you the squits as well as making you throw up, he went off smoking and took up body-building and boxing.

“Well, what do you think?” Donáth asks. “Have you decided? Will you stay?”

“Only if I make as much money as you promised,” says Rácz.

“Do you want to see my pay slips?” The old man pretends to be angry. “Do you?”

“No need to,” Rácz shrugs.

“Well, what do you say,” Mrs. Tóthová asks, “Will you shake on it?”

“I don’t mind,” says Rácz. He shakes Donáth’s hand.

“We have to drink to this,” exclaims the beaming old man, and he fishes out from somewhere a bottle of cheap brandy and three glasses. He pours the brandy and lifts his glass. “Good luck to you here!”

Donáth can’t take too much. After two or three glasses, his eyes start to shine. Longingly, he paws old Mrs. Tóthová.

* * *

Silvia dances in the Cabaret show at the Ambassador, although she had wanted to be somewhere: La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, doing Swan Lake , or something. This was what she was led to hope for during her six years at the conservatoire. Today, Silvia dances in a night show called Secrets of the Night . It’s basically a strip show livened up with a few dramatic interludes. It is art, but cabaret art. And men are crazy about her. It is clear to Silvia why. But she will only go with men she finds interesting. The man has to be rich, successful and, of course, likeable: a foreigner, of course.

Edita would not have even dreamt of becoming a professional dancer. She used to work the spools in a textile factory and in the evenings she danced in a folk group. It was a hobby to keep her sane. It was the hotel lawyer who got her the job. He usually promises something to every girl, but Edita wouldn’t go to bed with him until he got her the job. She likes it here. She loves it when everyone admires her slender body when she moves in a bewitching rhythm.

Like almost all the girls from the Ambassador bar, both Silvia and Edita hope to meet a millionaire from Texas, or an Arab oil sheikh who’ll fall in love with them, marry them, and take them to a distant country.

They’re both sitting in the dressing room, changing after the morning rehearsal. “How soft your hair is,” says Edita, touching Silvia’s head, “how blonde!” She is amazed. Edita is a blonde, too, but her roots are showing. If she didn’t use peroxide to bleach her hair, everyone would notice she had gypsy blood.

Silvia was born a blonde. And if she hadn’t been, she’d have had to dye her hair blonde. But she doesn’t have to. Arabs, negroes, Italians are all crazy for blondes. Swan Lake is history, but Silvia has accepted that. She’ll work for a few years. Then she’ll marry a westerner. The higher one’s expectations are, the smaller the choice. She’ll come here only for visits. And anyway: whom would she visit? She stops dressing for a moment and thinks about it with her tights in her hand.

“Wow, how long your legs are,” Edita wonders, putting her hand on Silvia’s knee.

Silvia takes no notice. Well, she’ll visit somebody at any rate. She’ll find someone ready to envy her at any time, day or night, she thinks. A car with an American or a Kuwaiti licence plate will park in the parking lot. She will laugh at the long queues. Even if she doesn’t buy anything! Let all those suckers die of envy.

Edita has now moved her hand some way up. Silvia, herself apathetic, lets her increasingly aroused colleague try to excite her. She stretches on her chair and looks in the mirror. Wrinkles are forming under her eyes. Maybe she needs a good night’s sleep. On her life, she can’t remember if the door of the dressing room is locked. She starts to caress with both hands Edita’s head which has now got between her legs. She places one hand on Edita’s mouth to muffle the latter’s noisy moans. With the other she jerks Edita’s hair, as if trying to push her away from her crotch. But it’s too late. A sharp wave traverses her body and she utters a series of stifled moans. Then she remains seated, as if bereft of all power, like a rag doll.

Edita smiles. “Well, what do you think about that?” she asks victoriously.

Silvia, as though awoken from a deep sleep, gives Edita an uncomprehending, apathetic look. “Why did you do that?” she asks in a grave voice. “Don’t do it again. I’m not a lesbian.”

“Neither am I,” says Edita. “I learned in prison. It was the only fun we had.”

“But I don’t like you doing it to me,” Silvia says angrily. Instead of an answer, Edita gently and protractedly kisses her on the lower lip. “But I’m not a lesbian,” Silvia repeats helplessly.

“Well, neither am I,” Edita laughs. “But only a woman can be really nice to another woman, right?”

Silvia, unresponsive, wrenches herself out of the embrace and goes to the washroom. Edita follows her.

“Let’s take a shower together, shall we?” she says. They both get in the shower. “Why don’t you try to be a little bit nice to me, too?” asks Edita. “Relax, it’s no big thing. Don’t tell me this isn’t better than when some fat old Kraut does it to you.”

Silvia nods. There’s oblivion in an embrace. There’s truth in a cuddle. All the world’s males remained locked outside the shower.

* * *

When Mrs. Tóthová goes back to the kitchen, Donáth pours another drink of schnapps. “Now take it easy after your journey; this afternoon we’ll get the paperwork done in the personnel department and you’ll get your work clothes and protective gear,” he tells Rácz. “Tomorrow we start training in earnest. There’s enough time, but not too much. Soon August will be over, and then things get worse. Winter’s not far off.”