Best European Fiction 2017

by Eileen Battersby

  They lay him facedown on the cement table and beat the soles of his feet with their truncheons. This kind of caning causes such agony in the brain that synapses are sometimes ruptured. Then they lift him off the table and take him back to the officer who holds out the paper to him: Sign it. Beczásy: I cannot, because if I … They drag him off again. They drive pins under his nails. Again, he won’t. The officer now accompanies them to the torture chamber, carrying a cat under his arm. The two screws tie Beczásy to a chair, the officer jams the cat under his shirt and starts punching it viciously, the wretched animal tries to escape but the two screws won’t let it, so it digs its claws into Beczásy. While this is going on, the officer introduces the words cat, Italian, and Bulgarian into the sequence God, bugger, fuck, mother. Then holds out the paper. Beczásy doesn’t sign it. Then they tie him to the chair, forcing his legs apart, and beat his testicles with their truncheons. Beczásy faints, the officer is on the verge of a stroke, tries to calm himself down by repeating his maxim to himself over and over again, Get the losers out of your life, and with all his strength brings down the mallet on Beczásy’s skull. He lets his tired arms sink, spits, and orders the two screws to drag the thing back into the cell for now, it can wait until the morning to be dumped into a hole in the backyard. Then he goes back to his room, takes a draft from the cognac bottle, leans back, lights a cigarette, smooths out the sheet of paper Beczásy refused to sign and in his own, somewhat unsteady hand writes below: Becási.

  When they haul him in by the feet, there is a long silence in the cell. In the end one of the nutriments goes up to him and tries to take his pulse at the wrist, then after a while goes back to its place. Then goes back again and palpates the neck. The others watch in silence. Then this nutriment tears off a strip from his soutane, pees on it, and starts wiping the blood off the face, the eyes.

  At dawn the two guards come in and see Beczásy sitting. He is sitting on the concrete floor with his knees drawn up. God bugger this, we have dug him a hole in vain. They kick him in exasperation or just out of habit and go off.

  I had one more jab from Beczásy but it wasn’t so good. The officer managed to persuade his superiors that he had wrung a confession from the convict, that he had even signed a contract of cooperation, so he was let off. I have always believed that if you don’t succeed at one thing, you shouldn’t give up but instead look for something else that can propel your thinking and your whole life forward, something you can put your heart into. Luxury, glamor, and money are not everything, because they are ephemeral, they come and go. True feelings and timeless human values are much more important, for they are everlasting.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN BY ERIKA MIHÁLYCSA

  [REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: IRISH]

  DAITHÍ Ó MUIRÍ

  Duran

  A FEW MILES OUT OF TOWN, a quiet road, I’d picked a house out on its own, but the door was hidden by a porch thing so I couldn’t see if it was closed—a fairly sure sign (in that kind of place) that no one was in. I checked out the two windows—the curtains were wide open—by walking over and back past the gate a few times. Nothing stirring. I’d just go in. And if the door was closed I’d knock, just in case, and then find a way in. But what if someone came to the door, what would I do then? Well, the same thing I’d do if the door was open and they spotted me, I suppose. I’d say I was lost or ask for a glass of milk, when the time came I’d think of something or just run away. I opened the gate and walked in.

  The door was closed with one of those yellow notelets stuck to it. Written on it: Johnny. On the other side: key under mat, bottle in cupboard, back at 4. In I went, or we went—I whistled to Nina who was waiting at the gate. We found some money, a few euros on the table. We didn’t have too much trouble finding the bottle. Brandy—we’d never drunk that before. We didn’t bother with glasses (plenty in the kitchen) but passed the bottle from one to the other and just knocked it back in big gulps—it was important not to spend too much time in the house (as I explained to Nina). Next thing we knew we’d emptied it. As you’d expect—Nina was only nine (birthday April 7th: I was a year and five months and seven days older than her, eight days I mean, or is it nine?)—it nearly killed us.

  Without going into everything I’ll just say that we went completely wild and wrecked the place, especially the kitchen with the dishes and the food (eggs, milk, potatoes etc., we started throwing the stuff at each other) and the front room too—I pissed in the fireplace, streamed up to the mantelpiece and even managed to reach the picture hanging over it—a big framed photo of two guys and two women on the beach in some hot country. Nina squatted down on the table and did a big shit and then peed on top of that. I was sore laughing. By then it was nearly four so time to get going—we fell out on the road, still badly fucked, and then headed on out the road looking for some other house.

  We came across this small bar where somebody had just been shot dead with a gun. It was the first time either of us had seen anything like that and it sobered us up—a bit. Right in front of the place, lying on his back, a man with his arms stretched out and a few holes in his chest—with all the blood it was hard to make out how many bullets went into him but five or six or seven, that’s what it looked like. Maybe he was still alive—his eyes were half open, only the white in one of them—but he wasn’t moving.

  Gathered all round was a crowd of drunks—some of them more fucked than us—with drinks and fags in their hands, chatting and nodding to each other. Something that sobered us up even more: a young guy with no drink and no fag, long leather coat, coloured tie and bright shirt—no sign of a gun—standing over the body, he took his hands out of his pockets, zipped himself down and took out his willy. With everyone watching (a lot of them stopped talking) he pissed down on the guy—I was surprised they let us see that, that we weren’t told to clear off. That’s drink, I suppose.

  Off went the leather coat back down the road towards town, hands in his pockets again, walking with an easy little sway, not looking at anyone, not saying anything. No sooner was he gone than the crowd kicked up a racket—everyone talking at the same time is what I mean. From what I could hear—Nina was feeling sick and sitting against the wall while I went around listening—it was an argument about land, or about some woman, I think, or money or the three things, probably. I ran into Maria (birthday September 15th: I was a year and four months and three or four days older than her—how many days are in September?) in the crowd—she wasn’t at school either. And she’d seen the whole thing. But before she’d tell all I had to explain about the brandy—she’d smelled it anyway even if she couldn’t tell from the way I was walking—and about the mess we left in the house back down the road and all, and I showed her the money too. Her eyes were bulging wide for a second and then she just roared laughing—she informed me that the house belonged to the leather coat.

  Back I went to Nina like a shot with the bad news, with Maria behind me laughing her head off. We’d have to just clear off right now, quick—we couldn’t even chance walking back past the house. Just beside us there was a long narrow road going down to the sea so we could walk home along the shore—if the tide was out. I pulled Nina up, told her to breathe in and out, in her nose, out her mouth, try and walk around a bit. But then Maria told me it wasn’t the leather coat had done the shooting and she just laughed even more. Nina didn’t catch any of this so I just told her I was willing enough to hang around, what the fuck and all that kind of thing. By this time there was a bit of colour in her cheeks, she started smiling and some of the old cheeky brat came back. She was feeling better now, she said, she’d hang around too, what the fuck. The little rascal, she’d do well in life with guts like that. This was Nina’s dream: high points in the Leaving Cert, baby the year after, a girl, marriage the year after that, a bollox, a few years after that off to India with her daughter for five years, travelling from province to province before coming back—she’s still in Ireland, her daughter too, Ciara, sixteen (birthday, I don’t
know: I’m more than twenty years older than her).

  Maria passed a fag to Nina, not to me—she knew I didn’t smoke (I still don’t). Chewing gum was what I needed, something to hide the smell of my breath—my dad had no idea I was drinking though he was sure I smoked (i.e., fags). Maria wanted to go with us to spend the money in the shop, it was just a bit further down the road, but Nina said she’d just wait there for us. I didn’t really want to leave her on her own—there were some funny looking characters around, not to mention the leather coat. However many sweets I was going to buy her, ice cream, orange juice, bananas, it didn’t matter, she wanted to stay where she was. I knew of course that she could take care of herself but what if two of them grabbed her, three or more or something even worse? I told her then that it wasn’t the leather coat who’d done the shooting at all, that I was just showing off before with all that talk about hanging around, but she still didn’t care—something else might happen and she sure wasn’t going to miss it. By now Maria was pulling at me, annoying me, she wanted sweets, ice cream, orange juice, bananas—what about a race, five minutes there, one or two minutes inside buying stuff, five minutes back, that was just 5 + 5 + 1 or 2 = 11 or 12 minutes and nothing was likely to happen Nina. I knew she was right but even so, I just couldn’t make up my mind. Maria began trying to get Nina to race with us, daring her, saying that she probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with us anyway, even if we gave her a head start. But Nina was no fool, she knew what Maria was up to, she was staying and that’s that, go yourselves, don’t bother about me but just then we heard the ambulance siren and there was no more talk about going anywhere at all.

  The ambulance arrived and with it the cops, five big uniforms in a white squad and two detectives who got out of a BMW. One of them—tall, fat, bald, small moustache, sunglasses, tie half open, white overcoat a bit dirty—stood with his hands in his pockets over the body looking down, while the other one (chewing gum, big bent nose and white socks) crouched down in front of him to open a black case. The crowd was really quiet, quieter even than when the leather coat was pissing on the dead guy. I thought the detective was going to do it again, just take his hands out of his pockets and zip down his fly when suddenly Nina shouted out: piss on him! Well, she didn’t leave me much choice: piss on him, I shouted, Maria got the idea and shouted too: yeah, piss on him—people in the crowd started sniggering. We just ignored the looks the detective gave us (he took his sunglasses off) and went on shouting louder and louder, jumping up and down, clapping hands in rhythm: piss on him, piss on him, piss on him!

  The detective walked back to the BMW, I didn’t expect it at all, he said something and the ambulance guys and the uniforms got back into their vehicles and they all cleared off—they just turned round and drove back in towards town. This made the whole crowd laugh. But I was really disappointed—I wanted to see more detectives, some guy with a piece of chalk drawing a line round the body, another taking photos, the body being carried to the ambulance in a plastic bag, a pool of blood left behind (who’d clean it up, the cops, the barman, the relatives, or would it just be left to the rain?) and all the other stuff that happens with murders. It was all my fault, trying to look out for Nina—she was far from sick now.

  It was Duran did the shooting, said Maria as a start to her story. As for the leather coat (that’s what everyone called him), he was just a bigmouth or whatever we called stupid cunts in those days, posing around, big talk, a guy who’d pull his willy out in front of kids, yeah, we’d heard all about his kind. But dangerous even though he was a bigmouth or whatever. Duran, he made use of the leather coat from time to time, when a bully was needed, someone to deliver messages, some stupid cunt to do the dirty work. But Duran himself, he was another story altogether—a real gentleman, even though he’d kill you without mercy if he thought you had it coming or if he had no choice, man or woman, girl or boy, a baby even, and that’s not mentioning the hundreds of kittens and pups he’d drowned in lakes and the sea.

  Back came the leather coat at this stage, he was twitching with rage, arms going all over the place, ranting and raving about how whoever messed up his house was going to get it. With him was Johnny (I guessed), another bigmouth. He told the leather coat about the black case that was still lying open beside the body—it was forensics stuff, they could take it and do some fingerprinting back at the house. But where were the cops gone, anyway? Twenty fingers went in our direction and some minor bigmouth told on us.

  The leather coat’s eyes narrowed, he studied each of us and then said: beat it, kiddies.

  That’s the way he always talks, said Maria as we walked down the road to the sea, like he’s in some crappy American movie. She said nothing more about him, nothing about the killing either, we weren’t interested anymore. Do you want to hear my dream, she asked us, about what I want to happen me in the future? We were more interested in that. And she had a special place picked out to tell us all.

  There was a stream that flowed down between the fields to a place on the seashore where, after the old bridge fell apart, the Council built a new one—all they did was heap concrete over two fat pipes that let the water flow out over the round stones of the shore into the sea. The pipes had already got a good hammering from floods in the stream and storms in the sea: cracks, chunks missing, one of the pipes all blocked up with sand and stones—you could walk (crouched down) inside the other one and look up through holes at the sky, that’s what we did before sitting on top of the pipes to listen to Maria’s dream.

  A car sped down the road and stopped with a screech of brakes at the bottom, twenty metres away from us, around about that, twenty-five, thirty. Inside were four people and they were looking at us: the leather coat and Johnny in the back, Duran in the front with his driver, a young guy, his nephew. The engine stopped running. After about a whole minute—we could see them talking to each other—Duran got out (a big man, agile enough though you could see how old he was by the wrinkles) and walked with an easy sway over towards us, like he was taking a Sunday stroll, one hand in his pocket, his cap pushed back a bit on his head, looking from the rough ground at his feet up to the sea on his left. I turned to face towards the sea, I listened to the measured sound of the shoes till they stopped right behind us.

  Then silence.

  The sea was really quiet, an unusual thing, no breeze was blowing, no gulls, no shore birds, there was nothing at all to be heard: silence. Silence that Duran finally ended with his soft voice. He talked about the sea, about tides, about fish, about rowing in boats, about storms, words I’d never heard before, words from the old life, as he explained, things the youth of today knew nothing about, weren’t interested in, didn’t even respect, they were so spoiled by TV and movies, fooled by money, stupid music, ridiculous clothes, drugs, false dreams. He talked about seaweeds, about islands, about fishing, about everything you could say about the sea, probably.

  Can any of you give me an answer, he asked raising his voice a bit, to the question I’m going to ask?

  There was complete silence. I pricked up my ears, trying to hear something. Nothing. My back was to him, I could see Nina in front of me sitting with her back to the sea, Maria was beside me, a bit behind—I’d have to turn my head round to see her.

  Suddenly I realised there was a sound—the stream flowing from the pipe under me out across the big round stones down to the level of the sea, to the rocks and boulders that were covered with mussels still too small to eat, as Duran had already explained, and further away was the water of the bay, so calm, then the far coast, the mountains, the lighthouse, and to the left of that, tiny white spots that were the houses of some village, probably.

  Duran: where does the water go when the tide goes out?

  Maria said something, an answer maybe, but she was suddenly hoarse. I wanted to turn my head to look at her, and so let Duran see the side of my face: like it was just some casual movement, and then, after a while, I’d look again, I’d turn my head a bit more round, like I
was relaxed, a bit curious, then I’d just glance up at Duran’s face.

  I listened to the water flowing.

  No one has the answer to that question, said Duran. And then he went on talking about the sea, about the seals and the jellyfish, the curlews and the redshanks, lots of other things.

  Tell me now, children, have any of you ever heard this one: key under mat, bottle in cupboard, back at four? He began laughing, a quiet breathy laugh, and when he finished he sighed—he was sad because he had to drown us, Nina first, because she was the youngest.

  I was already afraid, of course, but now I was shaking, in my belly especially, my heart, my whole insides. In front of me Nina was white in the face, her eyes like they’d been since Duran came, still looking down to where her fingers were fidgeting at her knees—she looked like she’d just shit her nicks. Maria, she said nothing. And I kept looking down at the rocks with the mussels that were too small to eat, at the water of the bay, the far coast, the mountains, the lighthouse.

  Long, long ago, children, I heard this story about two men who burgled a house. They came across a camera, there was film in it but only a few pictures already taken. So one of them went to the bathroom, pulled his pants down and with each one of the toothbrushes gave his arsehole a good scrubbing before putting them back in the glass on a shelf over the sink—with his mate taking pictures of the whole lot. They put the camera back where they found it, the film wasn’t used up yet, and off they went. What do you think of that now?

  Nina was shaking, her head held even lower, but I realised she was sniggering quietly. Then I heard Duran sniggering, it gave me a fright, Nina looked up, looked up and past me at Duran, Maria was sniggering too, I could hear her, I turned my head round and she was looking at Duran too. When Duran stopped laughing he sighed again, but now I knew it was because it hurt him to laugh, hurt his chest, his lungs must have been weak.