Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

He takes him to the back, to his cubbyhole. It is dark, stuffy, and smelly. There is a dirty bunk and a wardrobe. There’s a magazine on the chair, which serves as a bedside table. “At the back, at the end of the hall, are the bathroom and the toilet,” says Donáth. “You can sleep here. There should be an air mattress somewhere,” he mumbles, half-hidden in the wardrobe. “Ah, here it is. Blow it up and take a rest. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner. Then I’ll come with you for the paperwork.” He throws him the folded mattress and leaves his hideout.

Rácz blows the mattress up and lies down on it, but he can’t get to sleep. It’s hard to fall asleep in this new environment. The air is saturated with all sorts of smells and sounds. Who knows what’s in store for him here? It’s an alien world, designed by other people for people not like him. But basically it’s begun well. He’s not been here a day, but he has already got a job, a roof over his head, and, what’s more, seven hundred German marks. Soon he’ll be given dinner. He didn’t expect things to move so fast.

* * *

Early the next day, the hotel manager himself comes to inspect the pair of them. The hotel chauffeur and sidekick Ďula flings open the metal door and reverentially announces: “ The manager is coming! ” and steps aside. The manager enters with mincing steps and stops on the landing, looking distinguished and kind. He adopts a vainglorious pose, like a portrait of Louis XIV with his stylized absent-minded irony. Clearly, the manager has a lot of admiration and affection for himself. The manager’s expansively raised right eyebrow and his moustache enhance this impression.

Finally he speaks: “I’m glad that you’ve found a replacement, Donáth. Make sure you train him well, so that nothing goes wrong and we have heating this winter. Not like last year. That must not happen again!”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Donáth defends himself. “I do what I can. The boiler-room is out of date. What can you do with circulating pumps a hundred years old?”

“Well exactly,” the manager cuts him short. “They’ve been working for a hundred years and suddenly they don’t? I find this a bit strange. I’ll have to take a closer look at you, Donáth!” The manager turns to Rácz. “Adjust your clothing, man,” the manager nervously blurts out. “Do you go about dressed like that?”

Rácz buttons his newly issued dungarees up to his neck.

“My people, the Hotel Ambassador staff, are well dressed,” the manager adds huffily.

“We don’t have any degreaser,” Donáth approaches the manager, “and soon we’ll be doing the, you know, preventive check-up. All the pumps will have to be taken apart and there’s no degreaser.”

“You dare to bother the manager himself with this, you dolt?” Ďula shouts at Donáth from the landing. Donáth keeps quiet.

“I have to see effort first,” says the manager, “and results. Then I can be generous! Then you’ll get degreaser and other things!” With these words he climbs the iron steps and leaves the boiler-room. Ďula turns to Donáth and Rácz, shakes his fist at them and runs after the manager.

“The manager’s stupid, but strict,” says Donáth, when the coast is clear. “But the hotel lawyer is the biggest swine. Keep away from him, if you can.” Donáth shrugs it off, and shoulders his tool-bag. “Come,” he orders Rácz, “we’re going to change some valves. They were leaking last winter, but I didn’t have any spares. You won’t get bored here, my boy. But the time flies by. Before we even notice, winter will be upon us.”

They spend the whole day in the hardware shop, in the stores office, in the storage room, in the sales girls’ changing room. Many of the valves are rusty, blocked, or leaky. The whole heating system is obsolete. Fortunately, the radiators are cast iron and can take a lot. But all the bends are blocked with rust. You often have to isolate a whole section of the pipe and run a wire or high-pressure water through it. The men work hard, concentrating, and they get dirty. The basement is damp and smells of mould.

“It’s all buggered up,” Donáth concludes, “we’ll have to shut it off and drain it down.”

They stand watching the foul water from the heating system go down the drain.

“Well, when are you getting married?” asks Donáth.

Rácz is silent; the black, muddy whirlpool seems to hypnotize him.

“What?” he asks. But Donáth doesn’t ask again. The most obscene swear words bubble up from his drawn lips. The drain can’t cope with so much water. Soon, the stokers are up to their knees in water that stinks of anti-rust solution.

“The best way to catch a cold and kick the bucket,” Donáth rails. “There’s no bloody way I’ll survive to see my little house in the country with all this piss!”

Finally, the water is all drained, Donáth takes the valve apart and inserts a long steel wire. “Look at the sediment,” he says irritably. Rácz hands him the tools and carefully watches his hands. He realises that soon he’ll be doing this on his own. At last the blockage is cleared.

“Refit the valve!” Donáth orders Rácz, and wipes his hand on a cleaning rag. The shop manageress and the sales girls look at Rácz with interest.

“Bleed the radiator in my office, Mr. Donáth,” asks the manageress.

“Not today. Today I’m up to my neck in work,” says Donáth. “That can wait. It’s only the end of August.”

“And what about the pipes?” asks the manageress. “Will they be all right? Are we going to freeze like last winter?”

“We’ll see when we fire the boilers up,” says Donáth.

The manageress slips a pack of ground coffee into Donáth’s pocket with a discreet but meaningful gesture. “That’s for your trouble,” she says.

“People are shit-scared of winter,” Donáth tells Rácz when they’re in the street. “They’re more afraid of cold than of death! Better remember that, it might come handy. That’s why we get free restaurant food and drink proper coffee. Sometimes we even get good cigarettes. Even American ones.”

They return to the boiler-room. Their trousers are wet, their work boots squelching with water. “I don’t feel like doing any more today,” says Donáth. “We’ll make some coffee and get dry. Tomorrow we visit more shops. There’s plenty of time!”

Rácz isn’t bored. When he is free of work, he lies down on the bench, with his hands under his head and listens to the radio. Or he closes his eyes and remembers his childhood. He thinks above all of Eržika. How beautiful, sensible and hard-working she is!

From time to time Donáth stokes the furnace heating the water. It’s dark in the boiler-room. Flashes from the fire paint fantastic pictures on the scruffy walls. Watching the flames is calming and hypnotic. Rácz falls asleep, but soon wakes up.

Donáth reads the paper and a fit of rage and hatred comes over him. He presses both hands to his head, and his eyes pop out of their sockets. The afternoon passes. Soon it’s dark.

“I’m going to the kitchen to see what they’re cooking,” says Donáth, who is hungry by now. Rácz goes off for a pee. If you watch flames all the time, you pee more often. Then Rácz shoves a wheelbarrow-load of coal into the furnace, on a whim, so that he can watch the fire seize its quarry. A little later, he lies down on the bench and looks at the fire.

* * *

The next day they visit the chemist’s and the leather shop. It’s raining. The street is glistening. The parking attendant feels the chill, as he huddles under an umbrella. They dine in the kitchen, in the dishwashing room. One of the staff brings them soup, stew and potatoes straight from the pot. Donáth takes a knife and cuts a piece of meat in half. “Tastes all right?” he asks with his mouth full.