He knows them well. His favourite childhood book was Daybreak Over Chukotka. It was there that he got to know the good wise hunter Vaamcho, his courageous girlfriend Tygrena, the old one-eyed Lok, the cunning trader Alitet and his father, the shrewd shaman Korauge. The manager is certain that these characters may still be alive. He has proved to himself and others that he has every right to consider himself one of them. He has managed to survive in the inhospitable conditions of his office. He hasn’t frozen or starved to death. He is an excellent hunter. His arrow never misses its target.
Yes, the manager has made up his mind. He is setting off north, beyond the Arctic Circle. No, he has no map. He doesn’t need one. He will steer his dog pack straight north, always due north. He can’t go wrong; he can’t get lost: due north. The dogs will run for nights on end, never wavering. Daytime will be spent hiding somewhere. They’ll camp and wait until dark. It gets dark soon now. When it gets dark, he’ll drive his pack further. No matter how long it takes, the manager is sure to get there. He has to get there eventually.
“The hour is at hand,” says the manager. He yells at his dogs. The dogs squat, howl, and gnash their teeth. The manager gets up and moves towards them. He harnesses them one by one to the sledge he stole from the little girl in the yellow windcheater. All that he possesses is on this sledge: a tent, bows and arrows, blankets, his accordion, a sleeping bag, the furs of animals caught around the Hotel Ambassador, and long thin strips of dried meat. The dogs are nervous; they tug at their harnesses and yap impatiently. They sit in a semicircle, their heads turned to the manager. They vent their nervousness in prolonged howling and gnashing of teeth. The manager takes from a string over the fireplace the last few strips of dried meat. He breaks them into small pieces and throws them to the dogs. The dogs catch their food in the air and their muzzles glisten hungrily. The manager pauses. He sits down for a moment. You need a rest before a long journey.
Then the manager gets up. He pulls on a long furry parka that he’s made from dog and cat fur. He puts a furry hat on. He once caught a Persian cat. It must have run away from home. Now it will reach the Arctic Circle as a hat. The manager gets onto the sledge. He grabs a whip he made from a car tyre. “Mush!” he shouts at the dog team. “Mush!” He cracks his whip. The dogs begin to run, the sledge speeds over the bare cement floor, left after the manager pulled up and burned all the parquet. The team smashes through the office door, runs into the hall and drags and bangs the sledge, with the manager ensconced, down the stairs. “Mush!” the manager shouts, his face flushed with excitement.
The receptionist has just returned from outside. He’d gone to see if it was still snowing or not. “It’s snowing again, bugger it,” he remarks to the porter Torontál. Torontál is sitting by the reception desk, gripping the marble counter. From a distance he looks like a mummy an absent-minded traveller had left in the lobby. Close up, even more so. He hasn’t got the strength to go to the cloakroom, let alone home. He stays by the reception desk day and night. He neither eats nor drinks. He doesn’t need to go to the lavatory. The receptionists alternate shifts; Torontál stays. Occasionally they lift one of his eyelids and put a mirror to his mouth. They find he’s still alive and pay no more attention to him. As far as they are concerned, he can croak. But Torontál is still very much alive. He saves his energy for a new guest to appear in the revolving door. Then he comes alive. First his left eye, then his right open up. His bony wrinkled hands begin to tremble with impatience and greed. They move independently of each other like two large crabs. Waggling his fingers, Torontál gets off his chair and resolutely minces towards the client. But there are no clients at night. Torontál stays at the ready, like a crane which has been switched off and left in mid-swing. The receptionist has also settled down on his raised chair behind the desk. The keys hang on the wall behind him and gleam softly in the dark. He opens the paper to read what’s happening in the world. Suddenly he is alerted.
The enormous dark hall comes alive with the racket. At first the sound is muffled, but then gets louder. Some of the noise is the wild barking of a score of dogs. The receptionist can’t believe his ears. He puts down his newspaper and gets off his chair. “What the hell…” he says.
From the stairwell at the back, a team of dogs pulling a sledge flies past the reception desk at breakneck speed. On the sledge sits a figure wrapped up in furs. “Mush!” yells the figure, cracking a whip. That’s all the receptionist sees, as the sledge flies like the wind over the stone floor, sending a trail of sparks. The dog team flies into the glass door. The entrance glass shatters loudly, and dogs and sledge fly out into the darkness.
The receptionist stands there numb, mouth agape. He looks at Torontál, but the latter is like a mummified corpse. The receptionist goes up to the smashed and dislocated revolving door. A cold wind and the wet smell of the blizzard blow into the vestibule. “Bugger me,” the receptionist says. He peeps out of the door. The dog team is at the end of the street. The traffic lights at the crossroads flash orange in the distance. Two parallel tracks in the fresh snow still glisten, but gradually fade as fresh snow covers them. At the crossroads, the dog team turns right, up to the north. The receptionist awakes from his stupor. He shakes his fist at the disappearing dog team. The dogs’ restless barking becomes fainter. Finally, the racket, overlaid by the wind’s rustling and the wet, heavy snowfall, dies out. “Bugger me,” the receptionist repeats and returns to the vestibule to tot up the damage. If only he had a witness! Nobody’s going to believe him. The receptionist is numb. He realises he’ll have to pay out of his own pocket for the damage.
“Bugger me,” he says for the third time.
The sledge pulled by the dog team hurtles up the sleepy street. The manager sings merrily. His cheeks are red. He joyfully cracks his whip. What a good sledge! Fast as a reindeer! Keep heading north! The manager’s sitting pretty; he’s comfortable. Just keep heading north, up the hill. He’ll get there eventually. By daybreak, he’ll have covered at least ten kilometres! His hunter’s soul sings a joyful tune. Holding the reins in one hand, the manager pulls from his bosom a piece of dry meat. “Mush!” he yells when he senses the dogs easing off the furious pace. Snowflakes as sharp as needles cheerfully prick his face.
* * *
Zdravko G. arrives in the city early in the morning. “Damn it,” he curses in Serbian when he finds out that he can’t park his orange Opel banger in the usual car park. The lot is surrounded on all sides by giant concrete cubes filled with earth. Zdravko G. vainly tries to push one of these flower tubs aside. Out of breath from excessive exertion, he gets back into his car and decides that the distance between the tubs is sufficient to squeeze through. This decision costs him a torn left bumper and a dented and jammed driver’s door. “Jebem ti krv krvavu! Fuck this bloody shit!” he says to relieve the tension, finally leaving the car parked by the pavement near the hotel. He gets out by the passenger door and has a look at the damage. Then he spits, waves his arm dismissively, and enters the lobby. The smashed entrance shocks him. The receptionist is standing there like a martyr. Torontál opens his left eye, but soon closes it. Zdravko G. stuffs a twenty-crown note in this desiccated corpse’s greedy palm and then ignores him. “Can I have room number thirteen?” he asks the receptionist. The receptionist registers him and gives him his room key. “That’s my lucky number, you see,” says Zdravko G., jingling the keys.