László Krasznahorkai

UPPER FLOOR
I FLOOR
II FLOOR

The captain, slender as an officer of the hussars, proceeds before them with long ringing strides, his shining, half-length military boots almost musical as it strikes against the polished ceramic tiles; he casts nor a single look back at them but they are acutely aware he is scrutinizing them all the way from Petrinus's labourer's boots to Irimiás's dazzlingly loud red tie, having perhaps simply memorised such details, or maybe because the thin skin stretched over the back of his neck is capable of receiving deeper impressions than the naked eye can discover. 'Identification!' he barks at a lushly moustached, swarthy, large lump of a sergeant as they step through another door marked 24, into a smoky, stuffy hall, he not slowing for an instant, indicating with a wave of his fingers that those leaping to their feet at his entrance should sit down, while snapping out his orders: “Follow me! I want the press! I want the reports! Give me extension 109! Then a line to town!” before he disappears behind a glazed door on the left. The sergeant remains stiffly at attention then, as he hears the lock click to, wipes his arm across his sweating brow, sits down at the desk opposite the entrance and pushes a printed form in front of them. “Fill it out,” he tells them, exhausted. “And sit down. But first read the instructions over the page.” There is no movement of air in the hall. There are three rows of neon lights on the ceiling, the illumination is dazzling, the wooden blinds are closed here too. Clerks are running nervously between a mass of desks: when they occasionally find themselves obstructing another's path in the narrow gangways between tables they impatiently push each other aside with brief apologetic smiles as a result of which the desks are shifted a few centimetres every minute leaving sharp scrape marks on the floor. There are also those who refuse to move out of the way, who, though the piles of work in front of them have grown into huge towers, prefer to spend most of their working time bickering with their colleagues for constantly shoving them in the back or pushing their desks aside. Some perch in their red fake-leather chairs like jockeys, telephone receiver in one hand, a steaming cup of coffee in the other. From wall to wall, from the back of the hall to the front, there are aging female typists sitting in rows that are straight as a die pecking at their machines. Petrina watches their feverish labours with astonishment, prodding Irimiás with his elbow though the other man simply nods, busily studying the 'Instructions' on the back of the form. “Do you suppose there's a canteen here?” whispers Petrina but his companion irritably gestures for him to be quiet. Then he looks up from the document and starts sniffing the air, asking: “Can you smell it?” and points upward. “It smells marshy,” Petrina declares. The sergeant looks at them, beckons them closer and whispers: “Everything is rotting here... Twice in the last three weeks they've had to lime wash the walls.” There is a treacherous light in his deep-set, puffy eyes, his jowls are constricted by his tight collar. “Shall I tell you something?” he asks with a knowing smile. He leans into their faces so they can feel the vapour of his breath. He starts to laugh silently as if unable to stop himself. Then he speaks, emphasising each individual word, as though placing a series of landmines gently before them, as if to say, “Get out of this, if you can,” but what he actually says is: “You're screwed anyway.” He pulls a gleefully mocking face and taps the table three times as though he were repeating what he had just said. Irimias acknowledges this with a superior smile and goes back to studying the document while Petrina stares in horror at the officer-in-charge who suddenly bites his lower lip, gives them a contemptuous look and leans back in his chair, cold and indifferent, part of the dense matrix of noise from which he had emerged for a moment but which now swallows him again. But once they have completed their forms and he has led them back into the captain's room, all trace of fatigue, of the almost terminal exhaustion that had seemed to be his lot, vanishes from his features, his steps are firm, his movements crisp, his speech military and sharp. The furnishings of the office suggest a measure of comfort. To the left of the writing desk stands an enormous potted ficus plant on whose deep luxurious green the eyes may rest, while in the corner by the door a leather covered sofa squats complete with two leather armchairs and a smoking table of 'modern' design. The window is covered by a heavy set of green-as-poison velvet curtains and a strip of red carpet runs over the parquet flooring from the door to the desk. You can sense rather than see the fine dust sifting slowly from the ceiling, a dust hallowed and dignified by countless years. There is a portrait of some military figure on the wall. “Sit down!” the officer orders, pointing to three wooden chairs in a tight row in the far corner. “I want us to understand each other.” He leans back in his high-backed chair, his waist pressed against the bone-coloured wood, fixing his eye on some distant point, some faint mark on the ceiling, while his voice, a surprisingly sing-song voice, swims towards them through a clearing cloud of cigarette smoke, as though he were speaking from elsewhere, not from within the stifling fug that catches at their throats. “You are summoned because you have endangered our common enterprise by going absent from work. No doubt you have noticed that I have not given the dates. That's because the three months is nothing to do with you. I myself am inclined to forget the whole matter. But that depends on you. I hope we understand each other.” Time solidifies round his words: they are fossils cushioned by damp moss. “I suggest we put the past aside. That is providing you accept my suggestion regarding the future.” Petrina is picking his nose, Irimias is trying to free his coat from under his companion's rear. “You have no choice. If you say no I shall make sure you're put away so long your hair will be grey by the time you get out.” “I beg your pardon but what are you talking about?” Irimias interrupts, clearly not comprehending. But the officer continues as though he hasn't heard him. “You have three days. It never once occurred to you that you should set to work. I know exactly what you have been doing. I give you three days so that you should see what was at stake here. I'm not making any wild promises. But three days you'll get.” Irimias spits in indignation but then thinks the better of it. Petrina is genuinely terrified. “I understand sod all of this, if you'll pardon the expression...” The captain lets that go, pretends not to have heard, and goes on as if he were bringing in a judgment, a judgment that is expected to take into account the snivellings of the condemned. “Take note, because I won't say this again: no more loitering, no more bumming around, no stirring things up. That's over. From now on you are working for me. Is that clear?” Jug Ears turns to Irimiás. “Do you understand what's going on here?” “No,” he rumbles back. “I haven't the faintest idea.” The captain shifts his gaze from the ceiling and his eyes flash furiously at them. “Shut up!” he says in his old fashioned, sing-song voice. Petrina sits on the chair, his hands clasped across his chest, or, to be more accurate about this, he is almost recumbent, the back of his neck against the chair back, blinking in panic, his heavy winter coat spread about him like petals. Irimias is sitting upright, his mind feverishly working, his pointed shoes a blinding bright yellow. “We have our rights,” he comments, the skin on his nose forming delicate wrinkles. The captain is annoyed and blows out smoke, a brief sign of exhaustion flickering across his face. 'Rights!' he snaps eventually. “You talk of rights! The law for your type is simply there to be exploited! Something to cover your back when you get into trouble! But that's over... I'm not arguing with you because this isn't some gentlemen's club, you hear? I suggest you quickly get used to the idea that your lives are strictly - and legally - controlled from now on.” Irimias massages his knees with sweaty palms. “What kind of law is that?” The captain grows stern. “The law of comparative power,” he says, his face pale, his fingers turning white on the arms of the chair. “The law of the land. The people's law. Do these concepts mean anything to you?” he asks, employing, for the first time, the less intimate form of 'you'. Petrina is roused to speak (“What's going on here? Are we tu or vous now? As far as I'm concerned I'd rather you...”) but Irimias restrains him, saying. “Captain, sir, you know what the law is as well as we do. That's why we are all here together. Whatever you may think of us, we are law-abiding citizens. We are aware of our duties. I would like to remind you that we have frequently demonstrated that to be the case. We are on the side of the law. As are you. So why all these threats?...” The captain smiles mockingly, fixes his big, sincere, open eyes on Irimias's inscrutable features and though the words are suddenly filled with warmth at the back of his eyes there sparkles a real fury. “I know everything about you... but OK...” he gives a great sigh, “I am happy to admit I am none the wiser for that.” “Now he is speaking nicely,” the relieved Petrina prods his companion in the side, then casts an endearing look at the captain who recoils from his gaze and stares threateningly back at Petrina. “Because, you know, I can't stand this kind of tension! I simply can't bear it!'” Petrina anticipates the officer, though he sees and feels that this is going to end badly. “Isn't it better to talk like this, rather than...” “You just shut that flabby face of yours!” the captain screams at him and leaps from his chair. “What do you think? Who the hell are you, you cheap shits?! You dare think you can chinwag with me?!” He sits back down, enraged. “You think we're on the same side!...” Petrina is immediately on his feet. Waving his hands about in panic, trying to rescue what can be rescued of the situation. “No, of course not, for God's sake, beg to report we, how shall I put it, we would not dream of it!....” The captain says nothing, not a word, but lights another cigarette and stares fixedly ahead of him. Petrina stands there at a loss and gestures to Irimias for help. “I've had enough of you two. That's it!” the officer announces in a steely voice. “I've had enough of the Irimias-Petrina duo. I am fed up of creatures like you, who think I am answerable to them, you miserable dogs!” Irimias quickly intervenes. “Captain, sir. You know us. Why can't things remain as they were? Ask... ('Szabó,' Petrina helps him out)...Sergeant-Major Szabó. There's never been any trouble.” “Szabó has been retired. I have taken over his group too,” the captain answers bitterly. Petrina rushes over to him and squeezes his arm. “And here we are, just sitting here like a load of sheep?!.. Many congratulations, chief, my heartiest congratulations!” The captain is irritated and pushes Petrina's hand away. “Back to your place! What do you think you're doing!” He shakes his head in hopelessness then, because he sees they are genuinely shocked, he changes to a warmer tone. “All right, now listen. I want us to understand each other. Please note, it is quiet here now. People are satisfied. That's just how it should be. But if they read the papers they would know that there is a real crisis out there. We are not going to allow that crisis to fence us in and destroy all we have achieved! That's a big responsibility, you understand, a serious responsibility! We are not going to allow ourselves the luxury of having characters like you wandering around just where they please. We don't want whispers and rumours here. In any case you can be useful in the common enterprise! I know you have ideas. Don't think for an instant I don't know that! I am not concerned with what you did in the past, you got what you deserved for that. But you are to adapt yourselves to the new situation! Is that clear?!” Now Irimias shakes his head. “Not at all, captain, sir. Nobody can make us do anything we don't want to. But when it comes to duty we will do all we can...” The captain leaps up again, his eyes bulging, his mouth beginning to tremble. “What do you mean none can make you do anything you don't want to?! Who the hell are you to talk back to me?! Fuck you rotten, you hopeless bastards! Filthy bums! You will report to me after tomorrow morning at eight o'clock sharp! Now get lost! Scram!” So saying his body gives a compulsive shudder and he turns his back on them. Irimias lopes towards the door, his head hanging and before drawing it shut behind him in order to follow Petrina who - like a snake - is slipping out of the room, he glances back a last time. The captain is rubbing his brow and his face... it is as if he were covered in armour; grey, dull yet metallic, he seems to be swallowing light, some secret power is entering his skin; the decay resurrected from the cavity of the bones, liberated, is filling every cell of the body as if it were blood spreading to every extremity thereby announcing its unquenchable power; in that briefest of moment the rosy glow of health vanishes, the muscles tighten and once more the body begins to reflect light rather than absorb it, glittering and silvery, and the finely arced nose, the delicately chiselled cheekbones and the microscopically thin wrinkles are replaced by a new nose, new bones, new wrinkles that wipe away all memory of what had preceded them to preserve in a single mass that which, years from now, might be absorbed by the earth's negative aspect. Irimias closes the door behind him and begins to walk faster, crossing the busy hall to catch up with Petrina who is already out in the corridor not even looking back to see whether his companion has followed him because he feels that he if he did look to see he might be called back in again. The light percolates through heavy clouds, the town breathes through their scarves, an unfriendly wind swirls down the street, houses, sidewalk and freeway soaking helplessly under the downpour. Old women are sitting at their windows gazing at the dusk through net curtains, their hearts contracting at the sight of faces fleeing beneath the eaves outside, faces full of such wrongs and sorrows that not even steaming cookies baked in hot ceramic stoves can banish them. Irimias strides furiously through the town, Petrina following him on little feet, complaining, indignant, getting left behind, occasionally stopping for a minute to recover his breath, his coat billowing in the wind. “Where now?” he asks miserably. But Irimias does not hear him, moves ahead, muttering imprecations: “He'll regret this... he'll regret this, the bastard...” Petrina walks faster. “Let's just forget the whole shit business!” he suggests, but his companion is not listening. `Petrina raises his voice. “Let's head for the Upper Danube and see if we can get involved there...” Irimias neither sees nor hears him. “I'll wring his neck...” he tells his partner and demonstrates how. But Petrina is just as stubborn. “There's so much we could do once there... There's the fishing for example, you know what I mean.... or, listen: say there some lazy wealthy guy who, let us say, wants something built...” They stop in front of a bar, Petrina put his hand in his pocket and counts their money then they go through the glazed door. Inside there are only a few people hanging about, a radio in the lap of the old woman minding the conveniences is ringing out loud; the sticky wiping up cloth, the tables with pools of damp ready to witness a thousand little resurrections but mostly unoccupied for now, tipping this way and that; four or five men with cavernous faces, their elbows propped on tables some way from each other, wearing disillusioned expressions or slyly eyeing the waitress, or staring into their glasses or studying letters, absent-mindedly sipping at coffees, or cheap spirits or wine. A damp and bitter stench blends with cigarette smoke and sour breath rising to the blackened ceiling; beside the door, next to a smashed oil heater, a bedraggled rain-soaked dog trembles and stares panic-stricken outside. “Shift yourselves, shift those lazy asses of yours!” shrieks a cleaning-woman as she proceeds past the tables with a scrunched-up rag. Behind the counter, a girl with flaming red hair and a baby face is propping up a shelf laden with stale desserts and a few bottles of expensive champagne while painting her fingernails. On the drinkers' side of the counter leans a stocky waitress, cigarette in one hand and a dime novel in the other; when she turns the page she licks her lips in excitement. On the walls a ring of dusty lamps serving for atmosphere. “A single blended,” says Petrina and leans on the counter next to his companion. The waitress doesn't even look up from her book. “And a Silver Kossuth,” adds Irimias. The girl behind the bar levers herself away from the shelf, carefully puts down the bottle of nail-lacquer, clearly bored, and pours out the drinks, her movements slow and sluggish, taking the odd glance at what she is doing, then pushes one towards Irimias. “Seven seventy,” she says indifferently. But neither man moves. Irimias looks into the girl's face and their eyes meet. “The order was for a single!” he growls. The girl quickly looks away and fills two more glasses. “Sorry!” she says, a little abashed. “And I seem to remember ordering a packet of cigarettes too,” Irimias continues in a low voice. “Eleven ninety,” the girl gabbles, glances over at her colleague who is stifling a giggle and waves to her to leave off. Too late. “May I ask what is amusing you?” All eyes are fixed on them. The smile freezes on the waitress's face, she nervously adjusts her bra strap through her apron then shrugs. Suddenly everything has fallen quiet. Next to the window opening onto the streets sits a fat greasy man in a bus-conductor's cap: he watches Irimias in astonishment then quickly sinks his piccolo and clumsily slams the glass down on the table. “Excuse me...” he stutters, seeing how everyone is looking at him. And at that point, one cannot quite tell from where, a gentle buzzing or humming begins. Everyone is breathlessly watching everyone else because for a moment it seems as though it is a person, a living person doing the humming. They steal glances at each other: the humming becomes a tad louder. Irimias raises his glass then slowly puts it down again. “Is someone humming here?” he rages to himself. “Is someone taking the piss?! What the hell is it? A machine? Or, or might it be... the lamps?...No, it is a person after all... Could it be that old crone by the WC?... Or the shithead in the gymshoes? What is this? Some kind of revolt?” Then it suddenly stops. Now there's only the silence, the suspicious glance... the glass is trembling in Irimias's hand. Petrina is nervously drumming on the counter. Everyone is sitting still, looking down, no one dares move. The old woman at the washrooms tugs the sleeve of the waitress. “Should we call the police?” The girl behind the bar can't stop giggling out of sheer nervousness so to bring things to a head she quickly turns on the tap in the sink and begins making a noise with the beer glasses. “We will blow up the lot,” says Irimias in a strangled voice, then repeats it in a ringing bass. “We'll blow up the lot. We will blow them up one by one,” he turns to Petrina, “those cowardly worms. One stick of dynamite per jacket! That one there,” here he indicates someone behind him with his thumb, “will get one stuffed in his pocket. That one,” he continues, glancing towards the fire, “will find one under his pillow. There'll be bombs up chimney-flues, under doormats, hung from chandeliers, up their assholes!” The girl behind the bar and the waitress move closer to each other for comfort at the end of the counter. The patrons look at each other in fright. Petrina weighs them up, his eyes full of hatred. “Blow up the bridges. The houses. The whole town. The parks. Their mornings. Their mail. One by one, all neat and tidy, everything...” Irimias purses his lips and blows out smoke, pushing his glass to and from in pools of beer. “Because we have to finish what we started.” “True enough, what's the point of all this uncertainty?” Petrina nods furiously. “We will bomb them in stages!” “All the towns. One after the other!” Irimias continues as if in a dream. “The villages. The remotest little shack!” “Boom! Boom! Boom!” cries Petrina, waving his arms about. “You hear! Then blaam! The end, gentlemen.” He pulls a twenty from his pocket, throws it down on the counter right in the middle of a pool of beer, the note slowly drawing the liquid up. Irimias too moves away from the bar and opens the door but then turns back. “You have a couple of days left! Irimias will blow you to pieces!” he spits out by way of parting, curls his lip contemptuously and, for a finale, runs his gaze slowly over the terrified larval faces. The stench of sewers mixed with mud, puddles, the smell of the odd crack of lightning, wind tugging at tiles, power lines, empty nests; the stifling heat behind low ill-fitting windows... impatient, annoyed half-words of lovers embracing... demanding wails of babies, their cries sliding off into the tin-smell of dusk; streets pliable, parks soaked to their roots lying obedient to the rain, bare oaks, half-broken dry flowers, scorched grass all prostrate, humbled by the storm, sacrifices strewn at the executioner's feet. Petrina wheezes at Irimias's heels. “To Steigerwald?” But his companion does not hear him. He has turned up the collar of his checkered coat, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head raised, he hurries blindly from street to street, never slowing, never looking back, his soaked cigarette drooping from his mouth, though he doesn't even notice it; Petrina continues to curse the world with an inexhaustible supply of oaths, his bow legs buckling every so often and once he is twenty paces behind Irimias, vainly shouting after him ('Hey! Wait for me! Don't be in such a rush! What am I, some bull in a stampede?') but the other pays him no attention at all and to make it worse he treads in a puddle up to his ankles, gives a great puff, leans against the wall of a house and mutters “I can't keep up with this...” But, after a couple of minutes, Irimias reappears, his wet hair hanging over his eyes, his pointed bright-yellow shoes caked in mud. Water drips off Petrina. “Look at these,” he says pointing to his ears, “Gooseflesh, all of it...” Irimias nods reluctantly, clears his throat and says, “We're going to the estate.” Petrina stares at him, his eyes popping out. “What...? Now?! The two of us?! To the estate?!” Irimias pulls another cigarette from the packet, lights it and quickly blows the smoke out. “Yes. Right away.” Petrina leans against the wall. “Listen here, bosom buddy, my master, my saviour, death of me, my murderer! I am frozen through, I'm hungry, I want to find somewhere warm where I can dry out and eat and I have no desire at all, God knows, to tramp out to the estate in this foul weather, in fact I am quite uninclined even to follow you, to run after you like a lunatic, damn your already damned soul! See!“ Irimias gives a wave and says, indifferently, ”If you don't want to stay with me go where you please. And he is gone. “Where are you going? Where are you off to now?” Petrina shouts after him in anger, setting off to follow him. “Where would you go without me... Stop for a second. Come on!” The rain eases off a little as they leave the town. Night descends. No stars, no moon. At the Elek crossroads, hundred meters ahead of them, a shadow sways; only later do they discover it is a man in a trenchcoat; he enters a field and the darkness swallows him. On either side of the highway gloomy patches of woodland as far as the eye can see, and mud covering everything; and since the fading light blurs all clear outlines, consuming all traces of colour, stable forms begin to move while things that should move stand as if petrified, so the whole highway is like a mysterious rocking boat stuck fast, idling on the muddy ocean of the world. Not a bird is stirring to leave its mark on the sky that has hardened to a solid mass, that like a morning mist, hovers above the ground, only a solitary frightened deer rises and sinks in the distance - as if the mud itself were breathing - preparing to flee in the far distance. “Dear God!” Petrina sighs. “When I think it will be morning before we get there I get cramp in my legs! Why didn't we ask Steigerwald if we could borrow his truck? And that coat too! What am I? A weightlifter??!” Irimias stops, puts his foot up on a milestone, pulls out a cigarette, they both take one, and light them using their hands as shelter. “Can I ask you something, you murderer?” “What?” “Why are we going to the estate?” “Why? Have you anywhere to sleep? Do you have anything to eat? Money? Either you stop your eternal whining or I strangle you.” “OK. Fine. I understand. This much anyway. But tomorrow we got to go back, haven't we?” Irimias grinds his teeth but says nothing. Petrina gives another sigh. “Look mate, you really could have thought of something else with that clever head of yours! I don't want to stay with those people the way I am. I can't stand being in one place. Petrina was born under free skies, it's where he has lived all his life and that's where he'll die.” Irimias dismisses him with a bitter gesture. “We're in the shit, mate. There's nothing we can do about that for a while. We'll have to stay with them.” Petrina wrings his hands. “Master! Please don't say things like that! My heart is already all knotted up.” “OK, but there's no need to shit yourself. I'll take their money then we'll move on. We'll manage somehow...” They set off again. “You think they have money?” Petrina asks anxiously. “Peasants always have something.” They proceed without speaking mile after mile, they must be half way between the turn-off and the local inn: occasionally a star twinkles in front of them only to vanish again in the dense dark; sometimes the moon shines through the mist and, like the two exhausted figures on the paved road below, escapes with them across the celestial battlefield, pushing its way past every obstacle towards its target, right until dawn. “I wonder what they'll say when they see us, these bumpkins...” Irimias says over his shoulder. “It'll be a surprise.” Petrina picks up the pace. “What makes you think they'll be there at all?” he asks in his anxiety. “I reckon they'll have scrammed ages ago. They must have that much intelligence.” “Intelligence?” grins Irimias. “Them? Servants are what they were and that's what they'll remain until they die. They'll be sitting in the kitchen, shitting in the corner, taking the odd look out of the window to see what each other is doing. I know these people like the back of my hand.” “I don't know how you can be so sure of that, friend.” says Petrina. “My hunch is that there won't be anyone there. Empty houses, the tiles fallen or stolen, at best one or two starved rats in the mill...” “No-o-o,” Irimias confidently retorts. “They'll be sitting in exactly the same place, on the same filthy stools, stuffing themselves with spuds and paprika every night, having no idea what has happened. They'll be staring at each other suspiciously, only breaking the silence to belch. They are waiting. They are waiting patiently, like the long-suffering lot they are, firmly believing that someone has conned them. They are waiting, belly to the ground, like cats at pig-killing time, watching for tidbits. They are like servants that work at a castle where the master has shot himself: they hang round the body at an utter loss as to what to do...” “Enough poetry, boss, I am terrified enough already!” Petrina tries to calm him while pressing his rumbling stomach. But Irimias pays him no attention, he is on a roll. “They are slaves who have lost their owner who nevertheless cannot live without pride, honour and courage. That's what keeps their souls in place even if at the back of their thick skulls they sense that these qualities don't emanate from them, that they have simply enjoyed living in their shadow...” “Enough,” Petrina groans and rubs his eyes because the water keeps running down his flat forehead. “Look, I don't want you to lose your temper over this, but I just can't bear listening to such stuff right now!... You can tell me all about them tomorrow, for now I'd sooner you talked about... a good steaming bowl of bean soup!” But this too passes Irimias by and he goes on undisturbed. “Then, wherever the shadow falls they follow, like a flock of sheep, because they can't do without a shadow, just as they can't do without pomp and splendor either ('For God's sake! Cut it out, mate, please!...” Petrina cries in his toils.) “Anything so as not be left alone with the pomp and splendor, for when they are they go mad, like mad dogs they fall on it and tear it to bits. Give them a well heated room, a cauldron bubbling with paprika stew, the dogs, and they'll be dancing on the table every night, and even happier under warm bedclothes, panting away, with a tasty piece of the neighbour's stout wife to tuck into... Are you listening to me Petrina?” “Ayayay,” the other sighs in reply and adds in hope: “Why? Have you finished?” By now they can see the blown over fences of the roadside houses, the tumbledown shed, the rusty water tank, when right beside them, a cracked voice addresses them from behind a high stack of weeds: “Wait! It's me!” A twelve to thirteen year old boy, completely chilled down and soaked to the skin, wearing trousers rolled up to the knee rushes towards them, drenched, grinning, his eyes shining. Petrina is the first to recognize him. “So it's you...? What are you doing here, you little goodfornothing!?” “I've been hiding here for hours, God knows ....” he announces with pride, and quickly looks down. His long hair hangs in knots over his spotty face, a cigarette glowing between his bent fingers. Irimias takes patient stock of the boy who steals the odd look at him but immediately lowers his eyes again. “So what do you want?” Petrina quizzes him, shaking his head. The boy steals another glance at Irimias. “You promised...” he starts, stutters and stops, “that... that if...” “Come on boy, spit it out!” Irimias hassles him. “That if I told people that you were ...” the boy finally blurts out kicking the ground in the meantime, “... dead, then you'd fix me up with Mrs Schmidt...” Petrina pulls the boy's ear and snaps at him: “What's this? Still covered in egg-yolk but you already want to climb into ladies' knickers, you scoundrel! What next?!” The boy frees himself and shouts, his eyes flashing in anger. “I tell you what you should be pulling, you old goat. The skin off your dick!” They would start fighting if Irimias did not intervene. “Enough!” he bellows. 'How did you know we were on the way?' The boy stands a careful distance from Petrina, rubbing his ear. “That's my business. It makes no difference in any case... Everyone knows by now. The conductor told them.” Petrina is cursing, looking up at the sky but Irimias gestures for him to be quiet ('Use your brains! Leave him alone!') and turns to the boy. “What conductor?” “Kelemen. He lives by the Elek turning, that's where he saw you.” “Kelemen? He's become a conductor?” “Yeh, since spring, on the cross-country route. But the bus isn't in service at the moment so he has time to loaf around...” “OK,” says Irimias and sets off. The boy leaps to keep pace with him. “I did what you asked me to do.. I hope you'll keep your part of...” “I generally keep my promises,” Irimias answers coolly. The boy follows him like a shadow; sometimes he catches up with him and squints up at his face then falls behind again. Petrina trails still further behind, a long way back, and though they cannot make out his voice they are aware he is continually cursing the ceaseless rain, the mud, the boy, and the world at large ('to hell with it all!') “I still have the photograph!” he says some two hundred yards on. But Irimias does not hear him or pretends not to have heard, his head raised high he is striding down the middle of the road, slicing the darkness with his hooked nose and sharp chin. The kid tries again: “Don't you want to see the photograph?” Irimias turns slowly to look at him. “What photograph?” Petrina has caught up with them. “Do you want to see?” Irimias nods. “Stop beating about the bush, you little devil,” Petrina hurries him. “You won't be cross?” “No. OK?” “You must let me hold it!” the boy adds and reaches into his shirt. They are standing in front of an urban stall, Irimias on the right, his hair combed and parted on the side, wearing a dogtooth-check jacket and a red tie, the crease on his trousers broken at his knee; Petrina is beside him in a pair of satin breeches and an outsize undervest, the sun shining through his jug-ears. Irimias has screwed up his eyes and gives a mocking smile, Petrina is solemn and ceremonial, his eyes happen to be closed, his mouth slightly open. Someone's hand intrudes into the picture on the left, the fingers holding a banknote, a fifty. Behind them a merry-go-round that has been tipped over, maybe in the act of being tipped over. “Well, would you look at that!” Petrina remarks in delight, “It's really us, friend. I'll be darned if it isn't! Pass it over, let me get a better look at that old mug of mine.” The boy pushes his hand away. “Nah! Get lost! You think this is a free show I'm giving here! Get your filthy paws off,” and so saying he slips the photo back in the clear plastic sachet and back inside his shirt. “Aw, come on kid!” Petrina purrs, pleading. “Let's have another look. I hardly had a chance to see anything.” “If you want to see more of it... then..” the boy hesitates, “then you'll have to fix me up with the pub landlord's wife. She has nice big tits too.!” Petrina curses and sets off. ('What next, you brat!'). The boy slaps him on the back then rushes after Irmias. Petrina fishes in the air after him for a while then he remembers the photograph, smiles and hums, and walks a little faster. They're at the cross-roads: it's only half an hour from here. The boy looks at Irimias adoringly leaping now to the left, now to the right of him... “Mari has it off with the pub landlord...” he loudly explains as he goes, taking the odd puff at his cigarette that has burned right down to his fingers by now. “... Mrs Schmidt does it with the cripple, has done for a long time, the headmaster does it to himself... Really repulsive... you can't begin to imagine, ugh!...My sister is totally dumb, does nothing but listen and spy, she spies on everyone all the time, ma beats her but it's no use, nothing is of any use, it's like people said, she will remain gaga all her life... believe it or not, the doctor just sits at home all the time, doing nothing, absolutely nothing! Just sits there all day, all night, he even sleeps in his chair, and his whole place smells, it's like being in a rat's nest, the light on day and night, not that it matters to him, he sits there smoking top-class cigarettes, you'll see, it's just like I told you. And, I almost forgot, today's the day when Schmidt and Kráner are bringing the money home for the poultry, yes, that's what they've all been doing since February, except ma because the filthy swine did not include her. The mill? Nobody goes there, place is full of rooks, and my sisters because that's where they go to whore, but what idiots, just imagine, ma takes all their money and all they do is sit and weep! I wouldn't let that happen, you can be sure of that. There in the inn? That doesn't work any more. The landlord's wife is so full of herself now, she's swollen up like a cow's ass, but luckily she has moved into the town house at last and will stay there till spring, because she said she wasn't going to stay here up to her neck in mud, and, you got to laugh, the landlord has to go home once a month and when he comes back he's like he's had the shit kicked out of him, she lays into him so... In any case he has sold that great Pannón bike he had and bought some crap machine that he's having to push round all the time, and everyone's around, the whole estate when it starts up - because he is always delivering something to somebody - but then everyone has to push it, that's if the engine starts at all... And, yes, he tells everyone that he has won some county race riding that wreck, you have to laugh! He is with my little sister for now because we owe him for seed since last year...” By now the window of the inn is visible glowing ahead of them, but there is no sound, not a single word to be heard, as if the place were deserted, not a soul... but now, someone is playing the harmonica... Irimias drags the mud of his lead-heavy shoes... clears his throat... cautiously opens the door... and the rain begins again, to the east, swift as memory, the sky brightens, scarlet and pale-blue and leans against the undulating horizon, to be followed by the sun like a tramp daily panting up to his pitch on the temple steps, full of heartbreak and misery, there to establish the world of shadows, to separate the trees one from the other, to raise, out of the freezing, confusing homogeneity of night in which they seem to have been trapped like flies in a web, a clearly defined earth and sky, distinct animals and men, the darkness still in flight at the edge of things, somewhere on the far side on the western horizon, where its countless terrors vanish one by one like a desperate, confused, defeated army.