by Gy
One of the laborers, the one called Feri, stood up and came over and looked at Aronka and said, "You weaklings wouldn't last even a day at the Danube Canal," and then he said, "All right, time for a break," and he said we could take fifteen minutes and try to pull ourselves together, but he was otherwise satisfied with us, we'd been doing decent work, and we shouldn't worry, we could go home for lunch, but everyone had to come back for the afternoon, the work would last till dark, and he added that they'd written down everyone's name and address on a sheet of paper, so they'd go after anyone who didn't come back, no one was allowed to sabotage community service work.
The laborer then turned away and went over to one of the excavators while the rest of us sat down on the ground by Aronka, everyone was resting, Janika was the only one still moving, he was juggling the soccer ball with one of his feet, yes, he had such a feel for soccer balls that he could have kept that up all day long. I just sat on the ground like everyone else, looking at the ditch I'd been digging, it wasn't deep at all, and at all those tiny pebbles and white roots of grass along the sides, and then I pulled out my father's picture and also looked at that, it was smudged on account of my touching it all the time, but his face was still clear as day. Everyone used to say how much I looked like my father, one time I looked at myself a long time in a pocket mirror while holding his picture up to it, and I really could tell that my chin and my mouth were just like his.
So I was sitting right there and looking at the picture when all of a sudden one of the laborers stopped next to me, I could tell from his bootlaces that it was the one called Feri, and he leaned down and tore my father's picture right out of my hand. "Whatcha looking at?" he asked, and then he held the picture really close to his eyes, like someone who couldn't see well. "Who's that," he asked, "your old man?" But I didn't answer, I only nodded, and this fiery heat passed from the top of my head all the way through me, and my ears were practically on fire and I couldn't say a thing, I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no, all I could do was nod, and my stomach was in knots, it felt as if a lump had begun moving up out of my belly toward my neck, and when it reached my throat, somehow I did speak after all. "Do you know him?" I asked, but my voice was shaking terribly. "He's there too, at the Danube Canal, you guys also came from there, huh?"
The laborer held an index finger in front of his mouth, bent down closer, hissed shhh, whispered that this was a state secret, and gave me a wink, and then for a long time he didn't say a thing, no, he just kept looking at the picture, turning it in his hands as if he couldn't see it right, and meanwhile he kept biting his lips, and then he shook his head and stood up straight and called out to the other laborer, "Get over here, Trajan, get a load of this, you won't believe it!"
The laborer called Trajan then put down on the blanket the piece of bread he'd been chewing, stood up, and came over. When he got there, the laborer called Feri put the picture into his hand without a word, but then he said, "Look at it good, at first you won't be able to tell, but just look at it extra careful." The laborer called Trajan looked at the picture for a long time too, turning it in his hands, but then he shook his head and asked, "What am I supposed to see? Because I don't see a thing." Feri bit his lips again and said, "That's because you're blind," and he poked an index finger at my father's face and added, "Just look at that mouth and you'll see plain as day that this is none other than Pickax."
Knitting his brow, Trajan just stared at the picture for a while before suddenly breaking into a grin. "Holy Jesus, well I'll be, damn me if that's not Pickax." Now Feri started nodding and tore the picture out of Trajan's hand, "Pickax it is," he said, "and get a load of how young he was, get a load of how nice and smooth his face still was, I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it," and then Feri got all quiet and looked at me. "So then, you're Pickax's son, are you?" and he reached out a hand, and as I took it he patted my shoulder with his other hand and said, "You can be proud of your dad, he's a really decent guy."
He shook my hand tight but it didn't hurt, and so I asked, "You two know him? You really know him?" Trajan nodded. "You bet we know him, he'll be here in no time, he's bringing the shed we'll be staying in," and then Trajan put the picture back in my hand. "Here it is, put it away," he said, and I asked, "Is he really coming here, you swear?" Even I could hear how much my voice was trembling, and I could feel my whole body shaking, like when you get the shivers from being cold. The laborer called Feri then looked at me again and asked, "What did you say you're called?" When I told him, Feri nodded. "Yes, he mentioned you, he sure did, you remember too, Trajan, huh? He said he hasn't seen you in a long time, and he'll come look you up and bring something for you."
On hearing all this I got so dizzy all of a sudden and looked down at the ground, at my shoes, everything seemed to be turning round and round, the chunks of earth and blades of grass and pebbles too, everything was spinning and I almost fell, but then the laborer called Trajan put an arm around me. "It's all right," he said, "get a hold of yourself." But I was still shaking as I then remembered my father's postcards, and how Mother had at first waited and waited for him to return, and how she always shuddered whenever the doorbell rang, thinking that my father had finally been allowed to come home, and then I said to the laborers, "You two are lying, if my father really came back he would have looked us up for sure, he would have come home to us, to Mother and me, besides, my dad isn't called Pickax, my dad isn't friends with you guys."
The laborer called Feri then grabbed both of my shoulders and turned me toward him and said, "Get a hold of yourself, how long has it been since you've seen your old man?" "Almost nine months," I said, and he nodded. "Nine months at the Danube Canal is a real long time," and then he asked, "Do you know what smallpox is?" and I said, "Sure I know, it's a disease that's been wiped out already," and then the laborer said, "Yeah, yeah, sure," and he leaned even closer to me and started whispering, but so I could hardly hear what he was saying. And he whispered that he for one had seen men die of smallpox because that disease still flares up here and there along the Danube Canal, especially in the reeducation camps, but no one's allowed to talk about those camps, and that that's where my dad caught it too, and it almost killed him, but he was lucky that on account of this they let him go, that they didn't do the whole reeducation thing with him because then he wouldn't remember a thing about his former life, which is why only his face had changed, from the pockmarks, that is, but so much so that you couldn't even recognize him anymore, and he was real ashamed about this, and that's why he didn't write to us anymore, and that's why he didn't dare look us up, because he was scared of what my mom and I would say to him, he had to gather up the courage and the strength. But when he finally got here with that shed, why then, I'd see him for myself, and then the laborer called Feri told me again not to be scared, and he held out that bag of caramels and said, "Go ahead, take some, don't be scared, you'll feel the call of blood kinship anyway, and if you're brave enough, everything will be A-okay."
The two laborers then sat back down on the blanket, but not before Trajan slammed two shovels together and shouted that break was over and that we had another hour of work left, and then everyone could go home for lunch, and we'd have to come back only two hours after that.
Even though I was still dizzy when we got back to work, the shovel seemed to move by itself in my hands, yes, I kept flinging more and more dirt behind me, and the whole time I was watching the road, but no one came, and I didn't want to be looking that way all the time, but no matter how I tried I just couldn't stand not to look, so I shut my eyes because I didn't want to see that empty road, and I opened them only when I drove the shovel into the ground. But not even that helped, because even with my eyes shut I could see my father's face before me, and as the earth crumbled I thought of the smallpox, and I didn't want to imagine the pockmarks. And then all of a sudden I heard a cowbell, I looked up and saw the shed approaching, it was being pulled by two donkeys, and one of them had a cowbell tied around its neck, the shed was
really big and it was painted gray, and someone was sitting up front on top of it, someone all wrapped up in a blanket and driving the donkeys with a long stick, and then the shovel fell out of my hands, and I kept looking at that figure, there was a peaked cap on his head, a miner's cap, and even though I couldn't see his face, the way he sat there wasn't familiar at all. Then the shed came closer and closer, it drove onto the soccer field, and the driver's face still wasn't visible, and then I climbed out of the ditch and I stood there at the edge and waited, and I felt my legs shaking and my hands shaking too. Then the man yanked at the reins and the donkeys stopped, and he jumped off the driver's seat, I could see only his back, but the way he now moved really did seem like how my father moved, at least the way he held his head, and by then everyone was looking at me, the laborers and everyone else, and I took a step toward the person on top of the cart, and then suddenly he turned and looked right at me and threw the blanket off himself, which is when I saw his face. It was nothing but pockmarks, I couldn't make out his features at all, the pockmarks were really deep and they flowed together, besides, they were spread thick with some sort of whitish cream that gave his whole face a greasy glitter, and when he saw that I was looking at him, he smiled, and I wanted to look only at his eyes and at his mouth, and by then I knew he wasn't my father, no he wasn't, no way could he be my father, but I took a step toward him all the same, and my mouth opened up and I cried out, "Father," even though I knew it wasn't my father I was looking at, I knew the laborers had lied, but I said it anyway, and because I'd said it, for just a moment I thought maybe, just maybe, I was wrong, that this was my father after all, because he was still smiling at me, and that made me even more scared, and I felt a chill come over me, and then suddenly everyone around me burst out laughing, Trajan and Feri and the Prodán brothers and all the others, and even the pockmarked laborer, who, I was now certain, was not my father, and as that blaring laughter came at me from all directions, I reached inside my pocket and felt my father's picture, and I knew I was about to cry, and I clenched my teeth and turned away and took off running toward our apartment block, and I could still hear them laughing at me, and although I had no idea what I would say to Mother, I just ran and ran toward home, wishing I would never ever get there.
5. Jamming
I WAS SITTING on a bench behind our apartment block, up by the path on the hill, hammering away with a brick at my new pocketknife, it was a classic, with a fish-shaped metal handle, except the blade had come loose, it snapped shut nearly every time I stuck it into a tree or something, and I was scared it would cut my fingers. So that's what I was trying to fix, except the brick wasn't hard enough, it did no good slamming it down really hard on the rivet, it wasn't worth a damn except to get my school pants and my hands covered with brick dust.
Not too many people took that path in the afternoons, I'd been sitting there a half-hour already and only old Miki went by on his way to the waterspout, and I said hello, I wasn't scared of him even though others told stories about the things he did during the war before he went blind, but what did I care, he was always nice to me. Even now, when I said hello, he stopped and waved his white cane toward me and said, "Hey there, Djata." He recognized everyone right away from their voices, he may have been blind but he sure did know which way he was going better than lots of other folks. Anyway, he had a huge three-quart jug with him that he was holding by the handle, and I knew he was taking it to the spout because someone once lied to him that if he drank three quarts of water from the King's Well every day, he'd see again.
Except for him I didn't meet anyone at all, no, I just sat there hammering away at my pocketknife, thinking how bad it must be, being blind, living in darkness forever, seeing only with a cane, and right when I thought this, all of a sudden someone put his hands over my eyes from behind me.
I was waiting for whoever it was to ask me who I thought it was, and I even tried figuring it out, but he held my eyes shut really tight so I couldn't see a thing, he had pretty big hands, I felt that right away, and also the fingers smelled of cigarette smoke. It couldn't be Janika, he never smoked, and it couldn't be Feri either, he'd gone away to his grandmother's for a week. "All right, Lad," I said, "let me go. I figured out right away who you are, huh," but the two palms were still stuck to my eyes, it seemed like he was pressing his hands harder and harder. "All right," I said, "you're not Laci, but don't go cheating, because if you don't ask me who you are, how am I supposed to figure it out?"
But he still didn't say a thing, all he did was start pulling my head back nice and slow until my neck was really strained and my back was pressed tight against the wood board of the bench. "Go to hell," I said, "go to hell, fuckit, don't cheat or I'll knock your brains out," but not even then did he let me go. I tried pulling my head out of his grip, but he held it tight, and I told him to watch out because I had a knife with me, and then all of a sudden I felt his breath against my neck as he leaned really close to my ears and whispered, "That's right, Djata, you got a knife with you, that's just the problem, because it's not your knife, you cheated my kid brother out of that knife," and by then I knew who it was, yes, I'd heard his voice, so I knew it had to be Big Prodán.
"Okay, Prodán," I said, "I'll give it back, I'll give it back right away, but let me go already," and by now I was really scared because Big Prodán was the strongest kid in the neighborhood, after he was kicked out of school his dad sent him to do construction work, and he got even stronger doing that, he could beat up anyone and he wasn't scared of a soul, so anyway, Prodán then took his palms off my eyes, but as he did so he hooked one of his arms under my neck and pulled my head back, so I got hardly any air, and meanwhile with his other hand he reached down and took the pocketknife out of my hand. "I should beat you up good," he said, and then he let go of my neck, went around the bench, and stopped in front of me. This big boxlike knapsack hung from his shoulders, it looked like our school knapsacks only it was bigger, he took it off and put it on the edge of the bench next to my knapsack and meanwhile he wiped the knife on his pants to get the brick dust off. "Look what you did with it," he said, shaking his head. "I should beat the shit out of you," he said, but he didn't hit me, he just sat down beside me on the bench and said, "Okay, maybe I won't touch you this time, but if I find out again that you played cards with my kid brother, why then I'll knock your brains out, got that, this time I only want your money, so go ahead and empty your pockets," and I didn't say a thing back, no, I only shook my head because I knew full well I didn't have any money on me. Sure, I poked around in my pockets anyway, but I really didn't turn up a thing, and then I said to Big Prodán that I didn't have any money on me, but if I did, I'd give it to him, cross my heart, and if he waited a day, then maybe I could get my hands on some, even though I really didn't have any right now, but Prodán shook his head. "Don't go lying to me, Djata," and then he waved the pocketknife, signaling for me to get up from the bench, and he even showed me where to stand, there, in the middle of the path, and he said, "Now we'll see if you got a jingle and a jangle to you or not, so get to it, hop around a bit in one place," and he waved his hand for me to start, and he kept waving, up, down, up, down, but I really didn't have any money on me, so I could keep jumping up and down as much as I wanted, yes, I knew that nothing was about to jingle or jangle in my pockets, and Prodán must have known too, but he made me keep hopping for at least two more minutes, I was all hot and sweaty by the time he finally waved for me to stop, and he said, "All right, I can see you weren't lying, you can come sit down now."
"I can't stay," I said, shaking my head, "I've got to go home," but Prodán just gave another wave of his hand. "Fuckit, Djata, I said you can come sit down," and then he slammed his fist down on the bench, and so I sat down, but I didn't look at Prodán, no, instead I kept my eyes lowered, staring at the rips in my sneakers, waiting to see what would happen, and for a while Prodán didn't say a thing, but then he spoke after all. "Djata," he asked, "is it true you spent two years
learning how to play the piano?" I thought I heard wrong, but I didn't ask him to repeat what he said, I just nodded, and I thought of my piano teacher and her reed cane, and how she sometimes hit my shoulders or my hands when I didn't hold myself like I was supposed to. I looked at Big Prodán and said, "It wasn't even a year, we had to sell our upright piano when they took my father away because we needed the money," but Prodán just slapped me on the back and said, "Fuckin hell, Djata, you studied piano playing for a year, so you gotta know it really well, so you'll teach me too, because the good summer weather will be here in a month, the weddings will be starting up, and by then I gotta learn, I really gotta know how."
"Impossible," I said, shaking my head, "one month is nothing, and anyway, it's not like I know anything anymore, even back then all I knew was 'The Flea Waltz,' but I didn't even know that properly," and right when I said that, I almost broke out laughing, I mean, Big Prodán had big, shovel-like hands, and his fists were all scratched up from laying bricks and fighting all the time, anyway, I tried sucking in my gut to keep from laughing. "Your hands are too big for piano playing," I said, but meanwhile the corners of my mouth kept wanting like hell to curl up, but I didn't want Prodán to sock me in the gut, and so I didn't laugh after all, no, I just said, "You need at least three years for the piano." Prodán smirked and said, "Stop kidding around, Djata, a guy can learn to ride a bike in three days, and anyway, it's not piano playing I'm after, where am I supposed to get a piano, hell no, I want you to teach me with this thing here"—and he hit his elbow hard against that big black bag he'd put down beside him on the bench just before—"with this fucking accordion," and again he hit his elbow against the bag, and then he took that bag by the strap and put it on his knees, he opened it up and removed an accordion that was all scrunched up. "Here it is," he said, "my father got it from somewhere, and now he wants to take me off construction work and send me to play music at weddings because he says there's a shitload of dough in that, and it's not like playing music is work anyway, so we can get rich real easy."