“Let me in!” Rácz yells and makes a feint to the left only to sneak in on the right past the clumsy doorman, and goes through the revolving door. The doorman blinks his piggish eyes and runs cursing after him.
All black, in greasy boots, Rácz enters the reception hall. A soft runner-carpet muffles his clumping steps. “You can’t loiter here!” the receptionist calls to him from behind his counter. “Do you hear me? You have to go through the service entrance!” Rácz looks him over briefly, but pays no attention to him. A huge crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling has caught his attention. With his bag on his shoulder he gawps at this amazing object. He taps the runner on the floor with his foot, and runs his finger along the marble top of the reception counter. With his rough hand he feels the quality of the tapestries decorating the wall. He bangs his fist on the mahogany panelling of the restaurant door.
“God!” he says. “Great God! What a place!”
The doorman is standing behind him, not knowing what to do. Rácz’s entrance has created a stir. In the fashionable cosmopolitan atmosphere of an international hotel his dirty dungarees and shaved skull look like a gob of phlegm in a champagne glass. The assistant manager enters. He looks over the hall and in an instant works out what’s happened. He nods to his underlings. The doorman and the receptionist grab Rácz and drag him to the exit. Rácz is so overwhelmed by the hotel’s luxurious appointments that for a moment he obediently lets them lead him out. Then he notices the stir that he has caused by his entrance and becomes unsure. Why are all these foreigners watching him? He angrily shakes both underlings off. The doorman pounces on him determined to tackle him with a double Nelson. Rácz disdainfully knocks him down with a blow of his fist. The receptionist tries to grab him from behind, but Rácz hits him with his bag full of steel tools. They lie on the floor, not uttering a sound. Rácz is on guard, with his huge black fists ready. The assistant manager gives him a cowardly sidelong glance and backs off towards the stairs. Rácz uses the confusion to leave the hall, retreating through the revolving door.
He runs across the wet street and returns to the boiler-room. He hurls the tool bag into the corner and sits down at the table. He knows that something is wrong, but his psychology is too simple to be overcome by panic. Instead, he clenches his fist and hits the table with all his might. Donáth’s ashtray and beer bottles jump and a crack runs the length of the table top.
Ďula turns up. He can’t hide his broad malicious smile. The manager has sent him. Rácz is going to be carpeted right away. They’ll fuck him over, ha ha!
Rácz leaps up, his shoulders tensed and ready for a fight. “Let’s go then,” he says.
Ďula is amazed by such boldness, but says nothing. He leads him across the yard, then by the back entrance up the tradesmen’s stairs to the upholstered door of the manager’s office. “Wait here,” he tells him sternly and he enters the office, bent double in a servile bow. “Well, come in, get a move on,” he barks after a while at Rácz from the doorway.
The manager is sitting at his desk and is purple and roaring with rage. He stuffs some pills down his throat. He sips water in an unprepossessing manner; his hair hangs over his forehead. Rácz enters and stops in the middle of the office. He looks around. The manager watches him for a long time with revulsion, while his fingers drum on the desk. “What have you done?” he shouts at Rácz out of the blue. “I ask you again, what have you done?” Rácz is silent; he shrugs in embarrassment and shakes his shorn head. “For heaven’s sake!” The manager is livid. “The hotel is full of westerners and he shows up in dirty dungarees and filthy boots! Do you think they’ve come to our beautiful country to look at some shitty stoker? Well?”
“Appalling!” The chauffeur Ďula, standing behind Rácz, agrees obsequiously.
“I didn’t ask you to speak,” yells the manager. “Get lost!”
“OK, I’m going,” Ďula obeys zealously, and darts like lightning out of the office. For a second his rat-like face reappears by the upholstered door. “If you need me, boss, I’ll be with the lawyer.”
Rácz says nothing, he just looks ahead. The manager falls silent. He swallows a pill, washes it down with water and inspects his tongue and palate in a little mirror. Then he continues in a milder tone: “I’m going to punish you. You are new here and you have to be taught a lesson. I never liked you from the start, but I want to be a just leader to my people. No, you won’t be sacked, even if that’s what you wanted. Why are you looking like that? As a stoker, you can only be seen in employees’ areas. If you have to work in guests’ areas, you cannot be dressed the way you were today. You need a decent grey suit, a pastel-coloured tie, and a shirt that’s not too loud. Your tools will be concealed in a neutral-looking bag. I shall punish you with a fine equal to a month’s salary. Your next salary will be forfeited in favour of the Hotel Ambassador.”
Rácz fights for breath. Blood rushes to his face. He won’t see any money for a whole month! His return home will be put off by a month! “But I…” he objects and raises his arms.
“Hold your tongue!” The manager peremptorily shuts him up, and bangs a fist on his desk. “And don’t wave your arms about! There’s nothing I hate more than my employees waving their arms about.”
Rácz feels like silencing the manager with a punch in the head, but the manager catches him off guard. “And now fix the radiator quickly. The hotel manager is not going to freeze.”
Rácz is gasping with humiliation and anger. He runs out of the office in fury, lest he kill someone.
* * *
Only in the boiler-room does mad rage overwhelm him. He feels the veins in his head are at the point of bursting, as the blood roars in his ears. He grits his teeth until his gums go numb. He grabs a steel rod and angrily bangs it against the distributor pipes. He throws the bent piece of steel on the coal heap. Then he grabs a chair and hits the wall for so long that only a few splinters remain in his hand. “
A kurva hétszentségét,
Fucking hell,” he curses in Hungarian, blinded by hatred.
To rob him like that! Rácz still can’t believe it. He stands in the middle of the boiler-room and, like a bull a slaughterer has failed to stun, shakes his head, looking this way and that. A translucent film covers his eyes and his clenched fists are a deadly threat. Anyone who came into the boiler-room now would be a dead man. After standing around a while, Rácz resolutely steps towards the distributor and all its valves. He calmly reads the markings on the valves, moving his fingers over the worn out labels. Then with mighty gestures he closes the valve feeding hot water to the administrative section radiators. He imagines the manager’s face full of self-satisfied disdain.
“You’ll freeze,” he shouts, “you’ll all freeze!” He thinks of Ďula, the doorman, the receptionist, and the hotel lawyer. “Enjoy your cold!” he says, closing one valve after another on the distributor.
The pipes gradually go cold and creak as they contract. Rácz slows down the circulation pumps. He imagines the manager jumping to it when he’s swamped by complaints about the cold from all sides. He’s bound to send Ďula down to the boiler-room. But Rácz will throw him out and, if he makes a fuss, Rácz will punch his face. Nobody will try to boss Rácz about. Here, in the boiler-room, Rácz is the boss. Nobody will order him around. Donáth was an old fool and he let those cripples bother him. “Get lost,” Rácz will tell a shattered Ďula. “I want to talk to the manager.” That’s how things are going to be.
Feverish with thoughts of revenge, Rácz collapses onto the bench, adjusts his padded jacket and puts it under his head. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine everything getting cold and a penetrating chill invading the rooms, everyone in the household goods and other shops rushing to call the manager, trying to find out what’s happened.