by Gy
Mother got on her smartest red suit coat and matching skirt together with a pair of high-heeled shoes I'd never seen on her before, and as we headed down the stairs she stumbled and had to grab hold of the railing right when I was about to ask if we were going somewhere to sort things out so Father would be allowed to come home or only because Mother wanted to find out exactly what happened to him, but I hadn't even opened my mouth to speak when Mother told me to keep quiet, that she needed a little bit of silence to gather her thoughts, so I kept my mouth shut and didn't even try figuring out where we were headed, instead I counted steps once we were outside, when we reached a corner I always bet myself how many steps it would be to the next corner, but since we kept walking in different directions, and always turned before I wanted to, it was pretty hard guessing in advance, and by the time we arrived at that brand-new neighborhood of high-rise apartment blocks at the edge of town, I wasn't really guessing anymore, no, the streets looked so much the same that I couldn't even tell one from the other.
We went into several apartment blocks, and by the stairwell just inside each entrance, Mother would scan the names on the adjoining metal mailboxes lining the wall, but every time we came back out I could tell she was more and more anxious, that we were lost for sure, either that or else we couldn't find the right building, but I didn't say a thing, I knew I couldn't help anyway, and then when we entered what was at least the fourth stairwell Mother must have found what she was looking for because she stopped in front of this huge mailbox, looked at the name, nodded, took her pocket mirror and lipstick out of her purse, and right there at the foot of the stairwell she put on her lipstick, and after tucking away the lipstick and the mirror she adjusted my shirt, my tie, and my vest, and she licked her palm and used it to pat down my hair, and then she said that we were about to go up to the fifth floor to see Comrade Ambassador and I should behave, I should speak only when asked to speak, and I should reply politely, and I shouldn't be scared because there wouldn't be any trouble, I'd see. I nodded and said, "All right, I'll do my best to behave," and on reaching the second floor I asked her if it was true that we'd come to help Father, but Mother replied that no, she was here because she was in a good mood, and she bit her lips and told me not to say a word.
Up on the fifth floor I was in for a real surprise, which is that only one door opened from the stairwell, not four, like on the other floors, plus the concrete floor was covered with a large rag rug, it was just like the hall inside an apartment, not a landing, but Mother didn't look surprised at all, she went straight to the door, looked at the brass nameplate, and pressed the doorbell hard, and from the way she took my hand and squeezed it tight I thought she wanted to say something, but at that moment the door swung open.
Standing on the threshold was a tall gray-haired man in a light brown suit that made his face seem even paler than it was, and as soon as Mother saw him she spoke, she was sorry to be disturbing Comrade Ambassador, she said, but she didn't know who else to turn to, and she asked for only a couple minutes of his precious time. The ambassador passed his cold gray eyes over Mother before finally breaking into a grin, and only then did he speak. "Well, well, my dear," he said, "you are lovelier than ever, you've become at least ten years younger since I saw you last," and as he spoke I noticed that lots of his front teeth were gold, and then he looked at me and even though he kept smiling, his eyes glistened more harshly as he now called out, "And you, my boy, who might you be?" I didn't say a thing, but Mother squeezed my hand and told me to be a good boy and tell Comrade Ambassador my name, as if I was a five-year-old kid, and then I said my name, and Comrade Ambassador nodded and said, "Splendid, splendid, so your name is the same as your grandfather's, is it, and you look like him too, you sure do, a whole lot more than you look like your father," and although I didn't say a word, I thought, "Motherfucking hell I do, Comrade Ambassador, I do too look like my father and not like my grandfather," and then the ambassador looked again at Mother and asked what he could thank for her unexpected visit, and Mother adjusted the brooch on her suit coat and said that maybe the stairwell wasn't the place to discuss this, and the ambassador nodded and begged her pardon and said he didn't understand how he could possibly have been so impolite, naturally it would be best if we stepped inside, and then Mother told me to wipe my feet, and then we went in and the ambassador shut the door behind us. "Step right in," he said, "straight ahead," and I heard the dead bolt behind us click twice as he turned it, and he said, "Please, please, do go on in," and then we went into the living room, and I was surprised to see that the room was exactly like some museum, with animal trophies of different shapes and sizes all over the walls, the mounted heads of antelopes, buffaloes, black bears, leopards, and jackals, in one corner there was a great big hippopotamus with a gaping mouth, and opposite the entrance, on the middle of the wall above the fireplace, was a huge, ferocious-looking lion with its mane standing on end, and towering above the room right next to the lion were two big rhino horns on a black wooden board, and then there were a bunch of colorful shields and spears and yellowed bone swords that filled out the space between the trophies, which is not to mention a huge photograph, in a wide golden frame, of a black man with glasses, only his head and his shoulders were visible, he wore a military uniform trimmed with gold braid and he had a little leopard-skin cap on his head, and even though he looked pretty good, I couldn't help but think that his head was all sweaty under the leopard-skin cap in that awful heat, but anyway, as I turned around to look some more, I heard Mother say, "Comrade Ambassador, this is remarkable, both the Folklore Museum and the Natural History Museum would have reason to envy this extraordinary collection," and the ambassador broke into another smile and said, "Oh come now, this is just a humble little exhibit, four apartments had to be made into one to fit it all, and even so, there was room only for a fraction of the entire collection, but of course," he added, "this is something too," and then he gestured toward the leather armchairs around the little glass table in the middle of the room. "Please do sit down," he said, and once we'd taken our seats, he asked if he could get us something, and Mother replied, "Oh please don't bother," but the ambassador had already left the room, and a minute later he returned carrying a silver tray with some crystal shot glasses and a four-sided bottle on top, and the ambassador placed the tray on the table, sat down, and then poured a glass for Mother and one for himself, and he explained that this was delicious homemade cherry liqueur, and without clinking glasses he downed his drink right away, and only afterward did he say, "To your health," and then Mother drank her own glass of liqueur, and the ambassador immediately refilled both her glass and his own, and again he gulped down what was in his glass, but this time instead of refilling he sat back in his armchair and just stared at us without a word, and I looked at Mother, and from the way she was holding her shot glass with both hands I could tell she was really nervous, and it was so awfully quiet that I just had to say something, I looked at the ambassador and asked, "So where were you an ambassador, Comrade Ambassador?" and he nodded toward the wall, toward the trophies, the shields and the spears and the bone swords. "Why," he said, "in Africa," and I didn't respond, I only looked down and saw that he wasn't kidding, even the carpet was made of a whole bunch of zebra skins all sewn together, and then I looked up again at the ambassador and asked, "But Comrade Ambassador, where in Africa?" to which the ambassador said, "Everywhere, but mostly in the heart of Africa, right in the middle of the darkest, blackest Africa, so what do you say, boy, which country might that have been?" and I said right away, "Zaire," and the ambassador smiled and nodded. "Very well done," he said, "I'm quite pleased with you, for you evidently know your geography well, you deserve a bit of cherry liqueur too, you certainly do, you're already a big boy after all," and he lifted the third crystal shot glass, filled it with the red liqueur, and pressed the tiny glass into my hand and said, "Go ahead, boy, drink up, to your health," and I took the glass and looked up to see Mother nod, and so I took a
well-mannered sip, and even though the liqueur was terribly sweet, it still had a bite to it, and it warmed my throat all the way down, the ambassador now poured a bit more for himself and again gulped it right down, and then he put his glass back on the tray, and he fixed his eyes on Mother and asked, "How's your husband, anyway?" and then Mother swallowed her glassful of liqueur, crossed her legs, and said that in fact that's just why she was here, that was exactly what she herself hoped to find out, considering that we hadn't had any news of him for four months already, she was really worried by now, and with his exceptional contacts, surely Comrade Ambassador could sort things out in no time, so we'd know what had become of him.
The ambassador nodded, downed his fourth glass of cherry liqueur, and then he looked again at Mother and asked, "Now what makes you think such a thing?" and Mother told Comrade Ambassador not to be so humble, she knew full well just how important his standing still was, what with his past and his achievements, so this would really be nothing much for him, why, he could sort out much more serious matters if he wanted, and now the ambassador nodded again and said yes, his opportunities were indeed fairly broad, after all, he really could clear up many problems if he wanted to, but it would be best to discuss the details in private, wouldn't it, and he looked at me and said, "Now be a good boy and go to the other room, you'll find a lot of neat stuff in there, including all sorts of games." But then he added that maybe it would be best if he were to take me there himself, the apartment was pretty big after all, and he wouldn't want me getting lost the way he got lost in the jungle back then. Mother now stood up halfway and told Comrade Ambassador not to go troubling himself, this really wasn't at all necessary, I was a smart, big boy, I wouldn't be a nuisance, but by then the ambassador had already sprung out of his chair and was saying that he knew children like the back of his hand, yes, he knew there was nothing more boring to them, nothing they couldn't stand more, than having to listen to adults talk things over, so he really couldn't expect me to endure this when he knew full well that boys my age would rather spend all day playing football or chasing girls, and then he stepped over to me, dug his fingers into my shoulders, and wrested me to my feet and said, "Let's be off, then," and Mother didn't even look at me but just stared down at those crystal shot glasses, so I knew it would be best if I did as I was told, which is why I let the ambassador shove me into the hallway. Before stepping out the door he turned back, looked at Mother, and asked her to excuse him for a few moments, he'd be right back, and he waved a hand toward the bottle and said it would be best if she had herself a bit more of that delicious cherry liqueur in the meantime.
Once he too had left the living room, the ambassador dug his fingers back into my shoulders and shoved me at a good clip down the hallway and then through a smaller room and out to another hallway, and everywhere the walls were full of bone carvings, animal skins, trophies, and stuffed birds, we passed through at least two more rooms and I was just about to ask, "Comrade Ambassador, could it be that you really have three separate toilets, bathrooms, and kitchens?" but then he opened a door and shoved me into a third hallway where Persian rugs hung one beside another all along one wall, and the other wall was covered with pictures, and as we passed through there I noticed that every single one of the photos was of the ambassador with a whole lot of black women and little black kids standing all around him, and I was so surprised that I turned my head and just stared at the pictures, and the ambassador must have noticed, because he said indeed, it wasn't by chance that he claimed to know children, he'd have me know that every one of those kids there on the wall was his, and I wanted to ask him why, if those children were his, they were so black, but then we reached another door, which the ambassador opened and pushed me through but without following me in this time, and while standing there in the doorway he told me to be a good boy and wait there for my mother, I shouldn't touch anything, he said, and above all I'd better not try to steal anything because I'd be sorry if I did, and he said again how well he knew children, he knew they were all nothing but shameless little thieves you couldn't trust for a second, so I'd better be careful because there, where these objects were from, the custom was to poke thieves' eyes out. All I did was nod before the ambassador slammed the door behind him, and as he went down the hall I could hear him still mumbling away about how he knew children inside and out, about how he knew the rascally, thieving sort, and then another door closed behind him and suddenly everything turned silent, I couldn't even hear his steps anymore, and a cold shiver ran down my spine, I sensed that someone was watching me.
At first I was so scared I didn't even dare to move, but then I figured that this could only be on account of the trophies, so I finally did turn around, which just made things worse though, because I now saw that one of the walls, from the ceiling almost all the way to the floor, was covered with skulls and human heads nailed to wooden boards, but when I went closer I realized that these weren't really human heads after all, but chimpanzee, gibbon, and gorilla heads, and that not even the skulls were entirely authentic, that each of them had only one or two real bones in it and the rest was filled out by plaster of Paris, and each one had a little drawing next to it that showed how it would have looked as the real head of a monkey or other ape or prehistoric human, and every one had its Latin name next to it, but I didn't read the words, no, that chill down my spine wouldn't go away, I still felt like I was being watched, and then I turned back around and saw that there really was someone there, sitting in the opposite corner of the room at a little table with a chessboard on top, a chessboard with the pieces all laid out, and that this someone was, in fact, staring right at me.
A thin old black man sat there at the far side of the table, watching what I was up to, and even though I was a little scared at first, in no time I said, "How do you do," not that he said anything back, he just waved a hand for me to go closer, and so I did, and still he didn't say a thing, he only pointed at the chessboard. "Thank you," I said, "but I don't like to play chess," and again he gestured for me to go closer, and he pointed at the chessboard one more time, so I did then sit down in the chair across from him at the table, the chair creaked as I did so, and in that instant the black man reached out a hand and took the pawn in front of his white king and pushed it two squares ahead, and then he also placed the pawn in front of his queen, but by one square only, and I felt like saying that I should have the white pieces and he the black ones, he was the black man after all, but then I didn't say it, instead I moved with both of my knights so they ended up almost next to each other, with just two empty spaces between them, an opening move my grandfather taught me so one day I might use it to my advantage, and as soon as I let go of the second knight, the black man stepped his bishop forward on the queen's side, and as he moved his hand I heard something creak in him. I stood up to get a better look at the man, which is when I noticed that it wasn't a living person I was playing chess with but a robot, an automaton, yes, in math class we learned that even as far back as the Middle Ages there were chess-playing automatons, but I never believed it, besides, this one here before me was just like a real person, a very thin, very old black man who even looked up as I stood and then returned his eyes to the chessboard as I got really close to him, looking him over to see how he was made, what was directing his movements, and where his power supply was, and then I even touched his hand to figure out if he was carved of wood, but he wasn't, he was made of real skin, and his hand felt just like a human hand except it was much colder, and as I touched it some more I could feel bones and tendons twitching under the skin, and again I heard that hushed creaking, his joints must have grated as he pulled his hand away and picked up another one of his pieces, a knight, and that's when I noticed for the first time how really special even the chess pieces were, the black ones were carved of ebony and the white ones of ivory, and each one depicted some monster, the white pieces were all skeletons and the black pieces were human-headed demons with animal bodies, and every one held a spear or
a sword or a hatchet or a saw-toothed knife in its paw, and the officers wore necklaces and belts of skulls and bones and human ears and human hands, everything was carved to the finest detail, and the face of the white king looked just like the ambassador, and it looked pretty scary.