* * *
Rácz is getting the hang of his position of a future hotelier and big businessman. He has had at least a dozen suits made to measure from top- quality fabrics, bought ten pairs of soft shoes, twenty handmade ties and five new long elegant coats. He gave away his Benson & Hedges cigarettes to his employees: for some time he’s been smoking only cigars. He prefers above all Cohibas, though he won’t say no to Punch, or Romeo y Julieta. On his head he wears his favourite toy: a broad soft felt hat. He has about a dozen of them, of various colours. He wears them inside as well, even when he dines. Of course, he doesn’t wear them in Lenka’s or her parents’ presence. Only when he’s with his employees: at meetings, working breakfasts, lunches, or dinners.
Rácz’s people don’t dress like slum dwellers, either. Rácz insists on them dressing properly. “You’re paid bloody well,” he tells them at every opportunity. “So go and dress well! You don’t expect me to buy you clothes, do you?”
He has even sent Urban home to change. That was before a business meeting at the headquarters of International Hotels, when Urban showed up at the car in the morning in leather jacket and baggy jeans. While Urban was changing, dead silence reigned inside the white Volvo. Rácz was sitting with his attaché case on his knees, pretending to be engrossed in the documents he had on top of the case. Ďula in the driver’s seat and Ščepán sitting next to him were such small fish that they dared not say anything. The lawyer looked out of the window and kept silent, too. When he took a breath to say something, Rácz interrupted him, as if he’d been thinking about it the whole time.
“If Rácz can strangle himself in a tie the whole bloody day, why can’t that brat?” Rácz tapped the documents on the attaché case. “People who work for Rácz are not second-rate currency hustlers running round in jeans! Rácz and his men are entrepreneurs, businessmen: everyone kindly remember that!” At long last, Urban’s figure flashed by the misted up side window and Rácz opened the door from inside to let Urban into the spacious heated interior of his car. “You can wear jeans when you take your two whores to the pictures or an ice-cream parlour, understand?” said Rácz.
“Yes, boss,” answered Urban. “You’re right, but maybe this isn’t such a big deal.”
Rácz looked at his watch. “Not a big deal.” He nodded to Ďula to start the car. “Rácz’s people are well groomed,” he said firmly.
Lenka appreciates the change in Rácz’s appearance. The stoker has had a haircut. The gold earring with a diamond is banished to the jewellery box. Only rarely will Rácz remember the times when “he too” used to wear long hair and an earring. He has bought a few jewels for Lenka, too. She buys her own dresses, but with Rácz’s money. She’s a young girl and everything looks good on her. She’s not as extravagant as Silvia used to be. After all, shopping’s not her only interest.
Rácz would like her to move into his hotel suite. Lenka doesn’t want to; she has everything she wants at home: books, lecture notes and all the peace and quiet she needs. “OK, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” thinks Rácz. But even as a student, she often spends two or three days a week in the Ambassador. At those times Rácz is a different man. He lets Urban and the lawyer take over the running of the business. Ščepán and one of his men see to it that no competition comes onto their turf. Those who can take a hint get a word in their ear. If that isn’t enough, they get frightened off with the sight of a police warrant card. Ščepán’s other man in the meantime guards the imprisoned currency dealers. Ďula, ever the sidekick, acts as a messenger, chauffeur and confidant. Rácz spends all his time with his fiancée. Ever since she got a taste for male genitalia, she makes Rácz do it to her anywhere and any time. She vents her feelings during sex with high-pitched moans that modulate smoothly from a delicate pianissimo to a forte that makes all the windowpanes in Rácz’s suite vibrate. Rácz doesn’t mind. He’ll do it for her as much as three times in a row, though the third time he is actually masturbating.
Lenka likes to go for walks. She drags Rácz to museums, galleries, and tows him around exhibitions. There, in some shady corner, she gets him to make love to her. The risk that someone might come across them at any moment arouses an animal thrill in her. She bites her lips and stops her mouth with her hand, so that only a sort of muffled whining escapes her clenched teeth. Rácz likes that, too. He is in love and Lenka’s every whim is dear to him.
Once he does it to her on the steps that twist up towards the castle above the city. Lenka holds onto the rail and Rácz enters her from behind so forcefully that both of them begin to shout with pleasure. Soon a group of tourists passes by on the way up, but that doesn’t bother Rácz and his fiancée. They move deeper into the bushes by the side of the steps and continue their vigorous love-making. Sometimes they copulate in the lift taking them up to Rácz’s suite. By the time they get there, they’ve come. It is pleasant to remember such things. The more common memories they accumulate, the closer they become to each other.
Rácz is familiar with all the galleries and exhibition rooms in the city. He’s walked through them silently; Lenka kept talking and talking. She’d like him to be a well-informed civilized man with wide interests. Rácz is in agreement; he wants that as well. He sits in front of the television, trying to copy various gestures: the way men smoke cigars, adjust their ties or look at their watches in films and commercials.
Of late, they have enjoyed frequenting the Castle Restaurant. Its windows have a gorgeous view of the city at the bottom of the hill. Rácz loves that view. After all, this city brought him success, love, and happiness. Whether having lunch or dinner, Rácz can’t tear his eyes away from that view. He has no problem recognizing the Hotel Ambassador building, drowned in a sea of roofs, and he gives it a lingering, longing, but resolute look. The hotel will be Rácz’s property.
“Shall we go for a walk?” Rácz asks one night, after they’ve paid the bill and left, shown out by the bowing staff. The evening is cool, but the air heralds an insistent spring. Rácz does not wait for an answer. He takes Lenka by her hand and they set out. The streets are empty. Round the corner hums a trolleybus, the trolleys rattle and in a moment Lenka and Rácz are lit up in its headlights. The trolleybus is half-empty. Lenka stops and looks at it. Rácz draws her to him. Lenka stops him.
“Do you love me?” she asks.
Rácz nods. “Certainly,” he says.
“And how do you love me?” Lenka asks.
“Well,” Rácz says, “… nicely,” just to say something.
They stop by a spacious villa standing in a walled garden among old trees. The villa’s windows are dark. The wall is made of sandstone blocks, half-overgrown by ivy.
“Do you like it?” Rácz asks Lenka
“Do I like what?” Lenka doesn’t understand.
Without a word, Rácz points a finger at the villa. Lenka looks over the wall. “Do you know what style this villa is built in?” she can’t help asking.