by ERVIN LAZAR
The eleven brothers were practically at each others’ throats. Poor Johnny just stood looking from one to the other of them and shaking his head. Suddenly however, they left off squabbling and began to groan.
“Ooh, it’s heavy!” they said.
“Ow, it’s crushing my shoulder.”
“Ugh, it’s so prickly, this tree!”
“Hey, What’s the halfwit doing, trying to carry such a weight?”
The eleven brothers grunted and groaned for all they were worth.
“Now what’s the problem?” asked Poor Johnny.
“It’s our twelfth brother, he’s bringing the tree home, the one he dropped on his foot before… He must be mad, picking such a heavy one. Oh, what did we do to deserve this?”
Just then, Arnica spoke from under Poor Johnny’s arm:
“You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
That made the brothers sit up and listen.
“Who said that? Did your duck just say something?”
“Is it a talking duck?”
“She’s not really a duck. She’s a princess,” said Poor Johnny.
“Come on now! Pull the other one,” said the brothers, grimacing and groaning and clutching at their shoulders. Apparently, their twelfth brother was really heaving the tree along.
“I can easily prove it,” said Poor Johnny. “Let me be the duck, and Arnica the person!”
And, in a flash, there stood Arnica in front of the brothers holding the duck under her arm.
The eleven brothers’ eyes grew wide as saucers.
“Cor, you’re really beautiful,” they said, disregarding the sour expression on Arnica’s face.
“OK, so how does that work? Which one of you has to say that you should change over?” asked one of the brothers, while they all heaved a collective sigh of relief, the twelfth brother having put down the tree and stopped for a rest.
“Whichever one of us is the person, always,” replied Arnica.
“And you don’t worry that one day, when that one under your arm is the person, he might just toss you aside, and do a runner? You’d have to be a duck for ever then.”
“Now you see? That’s precisely the problem with you lot!” said Arnica angrily.
“Is it really true that, if one of them decided to do that, the other would have to stay a duck for ever?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
“I’m glad to hear it!”
“And Arnica and Poor Johnny? Has it crossed their minds?”
“Think about it. It would never cross their minds in a million years!”
“But you saw how it crossed the brothers’ minds, didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s precisely why they’re suffering so much. They’ve got a twisted way of thinking.”
“If they didn’t have such a twisted way of thinking, all the eleven brothers would go off to help the brother who’s bringing the tree, wouldn’t they? And then there’d be no need for all this moaning and groaning. If the twelve of them were to work together, it would be easier for all of them.”
“There you go! That’s just what Arnica wants to tell them.”
“If the two of us became so very-much related that whatever hurt one of us hurt the other too, would that be good or bad?”
“I think that we are so very-much related. At least, what hurts you, hurts me too.”
“But what I mean is, that if I fell flat on my face, you’d get bruises on your knees and your tummy.”
“And would that be good or bad in your opinion?”
“If we were like that, I’d be really careful when I was running. I’d make sure I didn’t fall and get hurt because I wouldn’t want it to hurt you too.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“And you wouldn’t smoke so much, would you? Otherwise I’d be coughing every morning.”
“I think I’d give up smoking altogether.”
“In that case, it wouldn’t be so bad. We’d watch out for ourselves and each other too. Arnica should tell the brothers to look after each other, OK?”
“She’s already telling them.”
“Oh, you simpletons!” said Arnica. “When one of your brothers is in the river and can’t swim, you’d rather gasp for breath on the bank than jump in and pull him out. And if another of your brothers is lost, you’d rather spend three days being hungry and cold than go out and look for him. What simpletons you are!”
“Yeah, right! If we did that we’d be at each other’s beck and call the whole time,” grumbled the brothers.
“But you could actually be the happiest people in the world,” Arnica told them. “If one of you, no matter which brother he was, happened to fall in the river, he could be sure that the other eleven would jump in after him and pull him out. If one of you, no matter which brother he was, happened to get lost, he could be sure that the others would set off straight away to look for him. There could be so much trust and love in your hearts!”
“There’s an idea!” said the oldest brother, and they all stared wide-eyed at Arnica. “Why didn’t we think of it before?”
And, “Ugh!” all eleven of them grunted aloud. The twelfth brother had heaved the tree up onto his shoulder.
This time without hesitation, they leapt up and dashed off. They ran to the brother who was carrying the tree, and all eleven of them helped him with it. This way, with all twelve of them carrying it, the tree was almost no weight at all. No more need for grunting and groaning.
The twelve brothers were carrying the tree along very happily, when, all of a sudden, they started shouting, “Hey, our eyes are prickling. Which one of us is crying?”
“It’s me. I’m crying,” said the twelfth brother, “but it’s because I’m so happy.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEING ALSO THE LAST
In which everything turns out all right and we get to see the witch’s hundred-and-first face
Poor Johnny was delighted, Arnica too. Why wouldn’t they be when the number of happy people in the world had just gone up by twelve? Well, before they knew it, they found themselves standing in front of Ayahtan Kutarbani’s shingle-roofed palace. Ayahtan Kutarbani, who was looking out of the window, smiled and waved at them.
“The Seven-Headed Fairy’s been expecting you!” he called to them cheerily.
“What? She knows we’re coming?”
“Oh yes, she knows!”
Just then, they heard lovely faraway music, and they realised that the Seven-Headed Fairy was standing right there before them. She was looking at them kindly and smiling.
“Tell me then, what is it you would you like?” she asked.
“We’d like… we’ve come because…” stammered Poor Johnny, a little overawed. “We’d like to be whatever the other one is. Both of us ducks, or both of us people, whichever you want. Whichever we deserve… Please help us!”
The Seven-Headed Fairy made no reply, only smiled. Then, Poor Johnny discovered to his amazement that he was holding someone’s hand. He was holding Arnica’s hand, because they were both people now. They fell into each other’s arms and were as delighted with each other, as only two people who are very, very much in love can be. The Seven-Headed Fairy’s smile had shone into their hearts, and they knew that no evil spell would ever be able to touch them again.
“Did they say thank you to the Seven-Headed Fairy for helping them?”
“Of course they did. And now they’re hurrying home to King Tirunt so that he can be happy too.”
Arnica and Poor Johnny hurried home and they were so beautiful and so happy, that they cheered the hearts of everyone who saw them.
They spent one evening with the twelve brothers and one at Victor Coppermine’s meadow which was full of flowers and merry noise. On the third they were in the town watching a big match just as Tig-Tag, the notorious centre forward, and his team won the Seven Seas Cup. By the fourth evening, they could make out the thirty-six towers
of the palace that stood on the shores of the round lake.
“And what will become of the Witch of a Hundred Faces?”
“Why, what should become of her?”
“Do witches really exist?”
“No, they don’t.”
“But there’s one in this story.”
“You’re the one who said there should be a witch in it. It wasn’t my idea.”
“But now I don’t want there to be one in the story any more.”
“She’s going to lose her magic powers in any case, because this is the day that the seven years are up, remember?”
“She didn’t manage to trap anyone into being her servant then?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“And what’s she doing now?”
The Witch of a Hundred Faces was in front of her house, weeping and wailing.
“Oh, oh, I’m going to lose my magic powers. Oh, I’ve got less than an hour left, and then I’ll have no power over anyone. Help me, just this once, grandmother of devils! Send someone this way, chase someone this way, sweep someone this way! Shh! What’s that? Footsteps approaching. Someone’s coming! Oh, grandmother of devils, you heard me! Thank you, thank you!”
She was all a-flutter with excitement, but when she saw who it was, her heart sank. For it was Arnica and Poor Johnny who were coming towards the witch’s house. The kindly light of the Seven-Headed Fairy shone from inside them and the Witch of a Hundred Faces knew at once that she could have no hold over these two.
“You there, Poor Johnny!” she said angrily. “You’ve managed to ruin everything. The devil take your cursed freedom! You, you… Footloosest, fanciest, freest person in the world!”
“What’s all this cursing, old mother?” said Poor Johnny. “Doesn’t it get boring, always frightening people? Don’t you tire of all this wickedness, this scheming, this double-dealing, this taunting, this flaunting, this yelling and howling? Did it never occur to you that you might eventually love someone? Or help someone?”
“Oh, you stupid, soft-hearted young man, you’ve become a slave to your feelings! Don’t you know what fun it is gazing into terrified faces? Or what it feels like to be a storm tearing through a wood? Or to be a wolf howling? Or to be smoke twisting into the air? What do you know about it!”
“What a load of rubbish!” said Poor Johnny. “Has anyone ever loved you?”
“No,” said the witch.
“And have you ever been in love?”
“No,” said the witch.
“Well, there you are! You can have no idea how much more it’s worth; no amount of flying around on broomsticks can compare to it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Now’s your last chance. In five minutes you’ll lose your magic powers anyway. Free those poor people you lured into your power with your wicked treasure, and maybe you could still be a decent person.”
“Oh, all right then,” said the witch, somewhat alarmed. “Odds bodkins! Be free again!”
And lo and behold, all the people she had lured and enslaved began to emerge from the witch’s cellar. They came out one by one, squinting in the light as the sunshine caressed their skin.
“Thank you, Poor Johnny,” they said. “As for this one, she’s going to get a good beating!”
And they all rushed at the Witch of a Hundred Faces.
“Oh no, dearest Johnny!” said the witch. “Don’t let them hurt me!”
“I’m not going to let them. Just come here and stand behind me,” said Poor Johnny, and he waved his hand at the people to show that they shouldn’t hurt the witch.
Something popped in the witch’s breast then, as if an iron band had broken and fallen off her heart, and she felt a kind of warmth deep inside, something she’d never felt before, something wonderful. Before she could help herself, the Witch of a Hundred Faces had stroked Johnny’s arm. At that moment her magic powers left her and she became an ordinary old lady in a black headscarf.
“You won’t send me away, will you? I can stay with you both, can’t I?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course you can, Nana,” Arnica told her. “You can stay with us.” “What do you think? If the Witch of a Hundred Faces hadn’t been going to lose her magic powers anyway, would she still have been willing to be a proper old lady?”
“That’s a tricky one. Quite possibly no.”
“So she did it because she was forced to. That doesn’t really count.”
“Well, I don’t know if it counts or not. All I can say is that once, later, when she was rocking little Johnny in her arms…”
“Did Arnica and Poor Johnny have a little boy?”
“Of course. So there she was bouncing little Johnny on her knee, and she said to him, ‘You know, little Johnny, it was fun riding on a broomstick, it was fun flitting around as a bat, it wasn’t bad being a storm and rushing through the forest either, but having you sitting here and smiling at me so lovingly and trustingly, well, I wouldn’t exchange this for the world.’”
“Did she really mean it?”
“I think so, yes.”
“And now it’s the end of the story, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Everything turned out all right in this story.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all! That’s what made it so good… Does everything turn out all right in real life?”
“In real life? No. Sadly, no.”
“So this wasn’t a true story then?”
“It was actually. What it’s saying is that we, both of us, really, really want everything to turn out all right in real life.”
“Yes, I do really, really want that. You said that the important thing is to really, really want something. Even if it won’t necessarily succeed.”
We created Pushkin Children’s Books to share tales from different languages and cultures with younger readers, and to open the door to the wide, colourful worlds these stories offer.
From picture books and adventure stories to fairy tales and classics, and from fifty-year-old bestsellers to current huge successes abroad, the books on the Pushkin Children’s list reflect the very best stories from around the world, for our most discerning readers of all: children.
COPYRIGHT
Pushkin Press
71–75 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9JQ
Original text © The Estate of Ervin Lázár, 1981
English translation © Anna Bentley, 2019
Illustrations © Jacqueline Molnár 2014
Arnica the Duck Princess was first published as Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika in Budapest, 1981
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
The translation of the book was subsidized by the Hungarian Books
& Translations Office of the Petőfi Literary Museum
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
ISBN 13: 978–1–78269–221–8
www.pushkinpress.com