The village is snowbound. There’s not a soul in the street. They stop near a tall house in a residential area. Zdravko honks the horn. A light comes on. “So, girls,” Zdravko says animatedly, “we have to get out. Aussteigen!”
After their last sexual bout with Zdravko, Silvia and Edita have now repainted their exhausted faces and are sporting radiant energetic grimaces. They are pleased with themselves. They boldly step towards the well-lit villa in tight knitted miniskirts, short, but expensive fur coats, and boots that end high above their knees.
Zdravko hurries behind them. He walks fast but carefully, so as not to slip in his expensive shoes. He, too, is pleased with himself. He’s moved up in the world. He’s no longer a dirty unemployed Gastarbeiter. He almost feels like laughing when he imagines that with a little less luck he’d be sitting on a rocky hill in Kosovo, herding stubborn, stupid donkeys.
* * *
When the woman from town council came to the snack bar on the old parking lot outside the Hotel Ambassador, only two drunks were drinking mulled wine there. A third one was sleeping in a snowdrift, half covered by the snow, his hat still on his head. The snack bar operator is angry. The Christmas Market is over, drinking bouts before and after the New Year are over as well and now the snack bar will be deserted for days on end.
“I’ve brought a decision from the town council,” the clerk tells the snack bar operator and shows him a document. He invites her in. The clerk kicks the snow off her boots and enters the overheated wooden booth. Everybody has crowded in: two bartenders, two cooks, and someone to clean up after the messy customers. They have nothing to do. Yesterday they fried three pork steaks, warmed up two sausages, sold two packs of cigarettes and brewed eight coffees. Seven of those were for the staff. They sit around the table, playing cards.
“Well, what have you brought us?” asks the man in charge. The clerk opens the document with the council decision. There will be a car park outside the Hotel Ambassador again. There’ve been complaints from motorists after a major parking lot down outside the department store was closed, and so on. The booths have to be dismantled, and so has the concrete barrier. The lot has to be brought back to its original state. From the first of the month, the space will be leased again to Alfred Mešťanek, the lot’s original leaseholder.
The snack bar people sigh with relief. At last! Things were getting unbearable. No business. Who’d come here in this cold? They all nod in agreement. The snack bar operator has to admit he had high expectations at first. Now he can see he was wrong. Who’d come here in this cold? People like winter if they can look at it from the comfort of a heated room.
The clerk is happy they’ve taken it so positively. “I’ll leave this here,” she says and puts the document on the table. “Now tell me where can I find Alfred Mešťanek, the car park attendant,” she asks.
“Who?” the cook asks in surprise.
The snack bar operator hurriedly explains. “They must mean Freddy Piggybank! Holy Freddy!” Then he turns to the clerk. “Yes, that’s what they call him here. Freddy, I mean Alfred Mešťanek, lives here, near the hotel. You’re sure to find him in his trailer.” The operator unties his white apron. If she likes, the council clerk can come with him. He’ll take her to Freddy.
They all tumble out of the booth. They walk to the attendant’s trailer. They pass by a drunk stubbornly lying in the snow with his hat on. They stop in front of Piggybank’s trailer. Freddy seems to have heard them coming. He jerks the door open and stands on the threshold, long-haired as a savage, emaciated, dressed in sackcloth. Angry, bloodshot eyes burn in his face. He lifts up a bony hand.
“Stop, sinners!” he shouts. “Not a step further!” The clerk and the snack bar people stop. “What have you come for?” the hermit shouts at them. “Has your conscience moved you? Have you crawled here begging for pardon? There is no more pardon! The end is near. The sky will darken and the earth will begin to crack. Babylon will be burned, every last bit. Nobody shall survive the destruction. The evil seed of Babylon will be annihilated.”
The snack bar operator and his people are used to the madman’s moralizing and smile with amusement.
The inexperienced council clerk, however, tries to shout louder than Freddy and with a pretence of dignity, “Mr. Mešťanek, Mr. Mešťanek! May I say something, too?”
But Mr. Mešťanek is evidently engrossed in his sermon, in the sins of the world. “You are all from Babylon,” he shouts, outraged. “You come from sin, from money! Terrible retribution will be meted out to you. You will be burned, hanged, quartered, and stoned! Babylonian harlots will be impaled! In your blindness and greed you cannot see the signs of the approaching end.” Freddy lifts a warning finger. “The only way out is to abandon everything: money, property, passion! But not even that can help you now. God is stern and he punishes sinners.”
The snack bar people clutch their bellies, laughing. The clerk is a young and inexperienced woman. She has no idea that she is dealing with a madman. Blushing, she insists on having her say. “Mr. Mešťanek! Mr. Mešťanek! HAVE YOU FINISHED? Let ME say something, too!”
Her faltering voice expresses a desire to sound authoritative and decisive and it surprises the holy man so much that he pauses just half a second for breath. The clerk uses her chance to take out of her briefcase a document and read it. “The town council has decided to renew from the first of February of this year its contract with Alfred Mešťanek for the lease of the car park. Do you understand? Here it is!” She hands the paper to the man of God.
Freddy takes a breath as if about to say something, but stunned, he reaches for the paper. The clerk shuts her briefcase. She has done her job and there is nothing else to keep her here. She turns round and leaves.
Holy Freddy holds the council’s decision carefully, with two fingers.
“See, Freddy?” the snack bar manager tells him amiably. “You’ve been bitching so much, cursing us so often, and now you’re rid of us.” He slaps his back jovially.
A cloud of dust and insects rises from the sackcloth. The hermit still can’t understand.
“It will all be yours again from February,” says the snack bar operator. “That’s in a few days. And we, gentlemen,” he turns to his employees, “can start packing. We needn’t even open tomorrow.” He turns around and walks to the booths. His employees follow him.
Freddy remains standing there, stunned. He brings the document closer to his eyes. Then he lowers his hands. Somewhere, in the darkest recess of his consciousness, a device is switched on. His eyes glaze over. He sees himself walking contentedly between two rows of parked vehicles. He smiles. He holds on happily to his red bag, stuffed full of coins, resting on his voluminous belly. “Good morning! How long? Two hours? That will be four crowns, please: a crown for half an hour, four for two hours, and ten for three hours. Each additional hour ten crowns, please. Yes, please: turn round, you’ll find a space free between the yellow Mercedes and the white Škoda.”
The holy man crawls back to his burrow in the trailer. He has a massive headache. He presses his head with both hands as if about to rip out his long greasy hair. His eyes bulge. He opens and closes his mouth. He chomps his jaws. He gasps for air like a Christmas carp. Whimpering sounds escape from his lips, quiet at first, but louder a moment later. If anyone had stood behind the fibreboard wall of Piggybank’s trailer, he would have heard inarticulate groans alternating with expressions like “Thank you kindly,” “Much obliged,” “Yes, ten, please,” “How may I help you?” “Grateful indeed, Sir,” and so on. And so it goes on all night. Around midnight, dull blows resound from the trailer. The car park attendant is banging his head in a regular rhythm on the trailer walls. The banging dies down by daybreak. Exhausted, Freddy Piggybank sinks into a deep, dreamless, but refreshing and energizing sleep.