by Gy
Mother asked if they had a search warrant, and the tall silver-haired man smiled at her and said they didn't need a warrant for every little detail, that there was nothing wrong with their looking around a bit, besides, he didn't think we had anything to hide.
Mother now said really loud, "You have no right to do this, get out of here, go. If you don't leave right this instant, why then I'll go to city hall and stage a sit-down strike, yes, I'll publicly demand my husband's release, what is this, keeping him locked up for half a year already without a trial and without a sentence? Be this country what it may," she said, "we have a constitution all the same, we have laws all the same, searches still require a warrant, so you'd better show one or get out of here, now."
The silver-haired man then smiled at Mother and said that this scrappiness really looked good on her, and no doubt my father down there on the Danube Canal must really miss her, for she was truly a beautiful woman, too bad they'd never meet again.
Mother's face turned all red and her whole body tensed up, I thought she'd go right on over there and slap that silver-haired officer, I couldn't remember seeing her that angry ever before, and then Mother really did move, but not toward the officer, no, instead she went straight to the apartment door, opened it, and said, "Enough is enough, out, get out of this building at once, because if you don't," she said, "I'll call my father-in-law." She told them they knew full well that he was a Party secretary, and although he'd been sent into retirement he still had enough friends in high places so he could arrange, on account of what they'd done here, to have the two of them transferred to the traffic division, so if they knew what was best for them, they'd better get out right this instant. Mother said this so firmly I almost believed it, even though I knew full well she would never call my grandfather's home of her own free will because ever since my grandmother said to her face that she was a screwed-up Jewish slut, yes, ever since then Mother wouldn't give her or my grandfather the time of day, but from the way Mother spoke now, you couldn't tell that at all.
The shorter officer now said that if she thought the old man had any clout left, especially now that his son had been taken away, well, she was quite mistaken, my grandfather could thank his lucky stars he himself hadn't been interned, but if my mother wanted to pick up the phone and complain, why then, she could go right ahead, and he stepped over to the counter, took the silverware drawer by the handle, and yanked it right out with such force that although the drawer itself stayed in his hand, the knives, forks, tablespoons, and teaspoons flew all over the kitchen, and the officer then slammed that empty drawer back down onto the counter so hard that its back edge tore right off, and he said, "There you are, now you have something to complain about, but this is just the beginning, that's right, just the beginning," and he bared his teeth, and I knew he was about to knock over the table. But then the silver-haired man put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Take it easy, Gyurka my boy, take it easy, let it be, it seems we misjudged the lady, we thought this was a missus with brains, we did, we thought she knew when and with whom she has to be polite, but it seems she doesn't have the sense to recognize her well-wishers, it seems she's dead set on getting herself all mixed up in trouble too. Fine, then, let it be, just like she wants." The officer called Gyurka now flung the broken drawer to the floor where the silverware was all scattered about and he said, "Fine then, Comrade Major, let's do as you wish, let's go."
The officer called Gyurka now looked at Mother and nodded, and then he turned and looked me square in the eye and said fine then, they'd leave, but only because he saw that we liked flowers, and anyone who liked flowers couldn't be bad, and as he said that, he stepped over to the table, and I thought for sure that he was about to fling that pickle jar to the floor, but all he did was pluck out a single tulip, he held that flower to his nose, gave it a sniff, and said, "The only problem with tulips is that they have no smell, otherwise they are really lovely flowers," and then he left the kitchen. "Let's go, Comrade Major," he said, to which the silver-haired man didn't say a thing but only waved his hand for him to go, and the officer called Gyurka began heading out, and on reaching Mother he stretched that tulip out to her and Mother took it from him without a word, and the officer called Gyurka said, "A flower for a flower," and he turned toward me again and looked me square in the eye and gave a wink, and he went out the door and right down the stairs.
The major then also stepped out into the hall, and Mother was just about to slam the door on him when he suddenly stepped back over the threshold, put his foot in front of the door so Mother couldn't shut it, and said, nice and calm, "You'll come to regret this, lady, because when we return we'll yank the floor right up, we'll scratch the putty right out of the window frames, we'll look under the bathtub too, and into the gas pipes, we'll take apart the whole place bit by bit, and you can be sure we'll find what we're looking for, you can be certain of that," he said before falling silent, turning, and heading down the stairs.
Mother slammed the door, but before it closed all the way I heard the major say, "See ya around," and then Mother turned and fell against the door, she just stood with that red tulip in her hand, looking at the pieces of the broken mug, the silverware thrown all about, the drawer broken in two, and her mouth winced before slowly hardening, she now squeezed her lips tight and looked at me and said, quiet as could be, "Go get the dustpan and the broom, let's pick up the pieces of the mug." And I then looked at the tulips on the table in that pickle jar and I wanted to say to her, "It wasn't true what those officers said about Father, was it, he'll come home, right?" but then I turned toward Mother and saw that she was sniffing at that single tulip, and her eyes were glistening so much that I knew she could hardly hold back her tears, so instead I asked her not a thing.
2. Jump
SZABI AND I figured out pretty fast that chalk doesn't give you a fever at all, that it's just a legend, because we each ate one and a half pieces of chalk and nothing happened to us, we even tried the colored chalk, Szabi ate a green piece and I ate a red one, but it did us no good waiting under the bridge by the school for an hour and a half, nothing happened to us except we peed in color, my pee was on the reddish side and Szabi's was greenish. And as for the thermometer trick, we didn't dare try that either, because Mother caught me red-handed the other day sticking the end of the thermometer on the cast-iron radiator, and two weeks earlier, before our math exam, Szabi had even worse luck, he held a thermometer up against the bulb of his little lamp and the mercury got so hot so fast that it exploded right out of the end of the thermometer, and his father gave him a whipping with the buckle end of a belt, so the thermometer trick was out of the question, but we had to come up with something all the same.
If we didn't manage to get sick by the next day, we knew that it would be the end of us, the other kids at school would knock our brains out because that's when they would find out that we'd accidentally let those slot machines wolf down all our class money, the cash we were supposed to use to buy materials for a flag and for the placards we had to make to carry in the May Day parade. Yes, it would turn out we'd spent all of that money on those machines in the cellar game room off the side of the Puppet Theater building because Feri lied that every third player wins on those new automatic machines. "That's why they're automatic, after all," he said, and the first time we tried, we really did win, we won a ten, but from there on in we only lost, and in the end we only wanted to win back the money, we broke the third hundred bank note only so we could win back what we'd lost. It almost worked too, but then we couldn't get the proper rhythm, right when we pressed the button, the flash switched from EXTRA SUPER BONUS to nothing, and so we lost all the money, and then it didn't do any good telling the cashier it wasn't our money and that he should give it back, he just laughed. "That's a game of chance for you," he said, and if we went on shooting off our traps, then he'd see to shutting them up for us, and if we didn't want to play anymore, why then we should get the hell out of there because we were only t
aking space away from paying customers.
Anyway, when we got out to the Street of the Martyrs of the Revolution, Szabi and I looked at each other, and both of us knew we were in for it, and then Szabi said it would be best if we went to the station and stowed away on a freight train and rode it to coal country and became miners, because kids could work there too, so he'd heard, you didn't get asked a thing when you went to sign up for work because the coal mines always need workers. And I said he should go if he wanted, but I was staying put because I wasn't in the mood to die of silicosis. "Let's get sick instead," I said, because if we went about it properly then we could get out from under the May Day mess altogether, and then Szabi said, "All right, eating chalk gives you a fever," and so we tried it right away, but it wasn't worth shit, and even pissing that reddish pee did me no good, it didn't look bloody at all, and even its smell was all wrong, so we knew we had to think up something else. And then Szabi said it would be best if we went to the waterspout and tried to drink as much as we could stand, because if we gulped down that ice-cold spring water fast enough we'd be guaranteed a decent case of pneumonia, and that would mean at least three weeks in the hospital, not to mention that everyone would feel sorry for us, so the money would be the last thing on their minds, that's for sure.
There was hardly anyone at the spout, only four people were standing there, and while they filled up their jugs one after another, Szabi and I took turns climbing the pedestal of the statue that was missing on account of its being stolen, pretending we were the Torchbearer of the Revolution, the main thing was to stretch out your right arm in front of you as far as possible like you were really holding a torch, and you weren't supposed to move at all, while the other person was allowed to throw only one speck of gravel at a time at the one playing the statue, but not at the face, and the statue who could take it longer would win, and I happened to be up there being the statue when the last person in line filled up her jug, and Szabi then scraped up a whole handful of gravel and flung it all at me, and he said, "Let's get going, we still have to go catch ourselves a little pneumonia," and I said okay, but he should go first, seeing how it was his idea and because he cheated at playing statue, and he said he knew I was chicken, all right, but he'd show me how to go about it.
The water flowed out of a thick, horizontal iron pipe set in the wall under a memorial plaque to Jánku Zsjánu, the famous outlaw, protector of the poor, who relieved his thirst at this very spot when fleeing from the posse that was out to hang him, and the plaque also said that this was medicinal water and that pregnant women and nursing mothers were not allowed to drink it, so when Szabi bent over toward the pipe to begin drinking, I said, "Stop, slow down, haven't you read on the plaque that pregnant women aren't allowed to drink this water?" But now Szabi didn't laugh at all, though at other times he always did, he even told me not to kid around because this was dead serious business, first you had to stick your mouth on the spout to keep the water from flowing out, and then you had to start counting until you reached at least one hundred, and when the pressure was so great that you could hardly stand it, you had to suddenly open your mouth, which was when the ice-cold water would shoot down your throat and your gullet really fast, it would fill your gut all at once, and your insides would cool down so much that pneumonia was as good as in the bag, and if you did it right you'd faint straightaway But the other person shouldn't go slapping the one who drank the water but only splash cold water in his face, because then he'd come to on his own right away, and I said, "Okay, but don't talk so much, get going already, we should take advantage of no one coming by for water just now," because if anyone saw us, sure as hell they wouldn't be happy about our trying to block off the spout with our mouths.
Szabi said I was right and that he would now begin, and he crouched right down in front of the spout and pressed his mouth against its end so not a drop of water could flow out, and I started counting out loud, so he could hear it too, so he would know how long to keep the pressure up, and Szabi's head turned red nice and slow, at first as if he had blushed from all the kidding around, but then his face got redder and redder, I hadn't even reached fifty yet and his face was beet red, then it started slowly turning blue. He shut his eyes and I saw that he was now holding the spout with both hands and his face was completely blue, and I was only at eighty-five when all of a sudden he let go of the pipe, and the water came gushing out so hard that Szabi reeled back, his clothes got sopping wet but he was still trying to drink all the same, his mouth was wide open and he was gulping down the water, but all that pressure must have sent some of the water up his nose because when he wiped his face with the sleeve of his official school shirt, he said this wasn't worth shit, this was a bunch of crap because he didn't feel anything at all in his lungs, which should be hurting by now, so this method wouldn't do the trick, either. But he said that if I wanted, I should go ahead and give it a try, maybe it would work for me, but that I shouldn't let the pressure build up so much in the pipe, it would be enough if I just pinched my nose shut and drank as much water as I could stand, and I said okay.
And so I crouched right down in front of the spout, pinched my nose shut, and used the palm of my other hand to direct the rush of water into my mouth, and I began swallowing the water, it was pretty cold all right, but the less air I had, the warmer the water seemed to get, and by the time I stopped, it seemed burning hot, that's how little air I had left in me, and I too nearly fell back, but Szabi caught me and helped me stand up, and we went over to one of the few benches that still had a back and a seat left on it, and we sat down. I was dizzy and my head was buzzing a little too, Szabi said he felt awful, but he thought this was only because of the water, because we drank so much of it so suddenly, but that this water wasn't cold enough to cause pneumonia after all, at most we'd just get diarrhea, and that wasn't worth shit, and sure enough my belly then began hurting and I had to press my palm against it, but when I hunched forward the pain slowly went away, and then I said to Szabi that this pneumonia trick was a bunch of bull, nothing would come of it, and if we wanted to get out from under what we had coming to us we'd have to think up something else, something that was sure to pan out.
Szabi said I was right, it would be best if we went and broke our legs, and I told him he was completely bonkers, you couldn't fake a broken leg, and he said, you sure couldn't, but we weren't out to fake pneumonia either, and if we really wanted to get out from under this mess about the money, then faking it wouldn't get us anywhere, not even the chalk was worth shit. Instead we should go up to where the woods began, to that abandoned construction site where they'd not only dug a ditch to put pipes in but had already laid this thick concrete pipe, and if we jumped on that pipe, our ankles would break for sure, and it's at least a week until you can walk even with a cast, but I said it was too dangerous to risk breaking your leg, it could lead to serious trouble, at which Szabi started laughing, he said I was chicken, his leg got broken twice already and one time his head was broken, and he'd have me know that it wasn't even so bad, the only thing that's not so good is when they set the cast, it's so hot when they do that it's like you're on fire, but afterward you can get out of all sorts of things, which is not to mention how good it feels to scratch yourself with a needle under the cast, and if it rains you don't have to go to school, and you can get out of running in gym class for six months because it's bad to strain your leg. And if I didn't do it he'd tell everyone what a chicken I was, that I was afraid of breaking my leg, and then I said, "Listen here, I'm no chicken," and then Szabi said, "All right, we'll talk it over after jumping," and we headed off toward the construction site.
We couldn't go too fast, our bellies were still so full of water, mine gurgled with every step I took, and one time we stopped because Szabi had to take a piss, and another time because my belly was so upset I almost puked, but finally we reached the construction site all the same. Szabi knew where we could get across the tall wooden fence because he'd been there once before to ge
t some PVC pipes for blowguns and carbide for fireworks, so anyway, he told me not to be scared, no one had lived in the guard booth for a long time, and sure enough, finding that ditch with the pipe in it wasn't hard because the earth was thrown up high on one side. Szabi went first, we climbed all the way to the top of the embankment, from there we looked down into the ditch, which contained separate sections of thick concrete pipe that hadn't been cemented together yet.
Szabi said he truly regretted how we left our school comrades in the lurch like this, yes, he was really sorry that on account of us the others wouldn't be able to take part in the placard competition, especially because the class that made the nicest placard would win a two-week seaside trip, and I said I was sorry too, because I would have also really liked to get to the sea, but then I looked again at the sections of concrete pipe, and it occurred to me that nothing would ever flow through them, neither water nor sewage, because this new complex of apartment blocks would never be built, and I told Szabi he shouldn't worry himself over it, we wouldn't have won the competition anyway, some class from School No. 3 would win it for sure, because School No. 3 wins everything since that's where the children of Party activists go, and as for our own class, there was no reason to be sad because it just couldn't happen that the class wouldn't take part in the placard competition or in the parade if it's been told to do so, our head teacher would no doubt get enough material from somewhere, and they'd make a placard after all because our teacher didn't want to get in trouble either, and then Szabi asked if I was sure about that, and I said, "You bet I'm sure, and let's jump already, because if we stand around here for too long we'll get cold feet."
Szabi then said, "Okay, let's count out loud and jump on three," and then we both looked down into the ditch one more time and it looked pretty deep, from where we stood it must have been at least ten feet for sure, and then we both started counting at the same time, but Szabi stopped at two and said, "Let's shut our eyes and start again," and so we shut our eyes and started again, and then it suddenly occurred to me that if we both jumped and really broke our legs, then we wouldn't be able to climb out of the ditch, and I wanted to tell Szabi to wait, but by the time I said it Szabi had already jumped, and I opened my eyes just in time to see that he'd jumped so far forward that he almost cleared the ditch, but his jump still wasn't long enough, no, Szabi's shoulder struck the opposite wall and he fell straight into the ditch and onto a section of pipe.