Yes, ma’am [the man cleared his throat], it made a big enough stink, you could smell it a mile away, I should say. But we weren’t no part of it, not till we heard in the Nile that there was a bit of a ruckus in town, so I say to the others, to Gyömrö and Feri Holger, right fellas, your country needs you, we’ll soon knock some sense into them. ‘Cause we’re known, ma’am [madam secretary, Harrer corrected him], I mean madam secretary, as the heavy brigade, because, to be honest with you, the three of us, how should I put it … well, you know, when we get bored we go and sort a few things out and people are a bit scared of us, I mean they avoid us like the plague, ‘cause whenever we look up from our beers the place goes quiet, if you know what I mean. No, but all this was small shit compared to what was going on when we got to the High Street, just where it meets the main road, and I told Gyömrö, come on, man, get a move on, ‘cause I’m not joking, this lot will leave nothing for us to do, and so, no point denying it, we got stuck in too. But then there was a big flair up because just as we’d started beating up a few guys, we saw this was another kind of stunt altogether, this lot are picking on civilians, so I say to Feri Holger, coffee-break guys, and he carefully lays two patients down, comes over and Gyömrö too, and we put our heads together and work out what we should do. But there’s a great crowd there by this time, all come down from the market square like the Russian army or something, so I say, OK, fellows, it looks like revolution, time to get out of here. But Gyömrö, he says, as far as he can remember the shops used to open up at such times, and the poor could help themselves, so we should go and see, ‘cause, I mean, there’s this little grocer’s nearby, full of excellent booze, let’s go see if it’s open today, then we can take off. Well, it really was open, but it wasn’t us that smashed the locks in, madam secretary, the door was in godamned splinters when we arrived, we just went in ‘cause it was open and tried to save a few bottles, but the guys before us had made such a job of it, we couldn’t find a single one that hadn’t been broken. We got a bit annoyed at that ‘cause we thought it wasn’t right, I mean here we were, all this godamned liberty and freedom for everyone, scratching around the place, dry as a bone, and I’m telling you, I swear by my dear mother [he put his hand on his heart], we didn’t want nothing, just a sip or two, then off home, ‘cause me, I like a bit of a fight, I put myself out a bit, if you see what I mean, but we had nothing to do with what was going on then, and generally I like things quiet, and that’s why I think I’d make a good policeman, and you, Vulture, you hold your trap [he addressed the clucking Harrer], you got enough to answer for … Anyway, off we go, we look at the club — nothing; we call in at the bar in the High Street — that’s smashed up too, so we think to ourselves, not much glory here, fellows, let’s try further out. So we go to whatsitsname, the Cowherd, but then Feri Holger perks up and say he knows somewhere down Friars’ Walk, one of those soda shops, and there, I got to be honest with you, we did break the door down. We didn’t do nothing, just looked in the store at the back and found a few foreign liqueur things, and we looked at the labels, and they seemed all right. I know, I know [he nodded at Mrs Eszter], I’m coming to the point, ‘cause this was the thing, you see, that led to real trouble, ‘cause we weren’t used to that foreign stuff and God, we felt so weird after we drunk it, I swore then I’d never touch another drop of it. ’Cause soon after that a bunch of the guys turn up with iron bars and they start smashing everything up, and I say to one, gimme one of those, what I mean to say is I admit it, we joined in pretty much. But don’t you start thinking I’m usually like that, madam secretary; it was that fucking booze did me head in, and even then, looking back on it, I don’t think we did too much damage, a mirror and a few glasses on the bar as I remember, nothing to merit a real beating … I told you to keep your trap shut, Vulture [he silenced Harrer once again], I’ll pay the cost of that mirror or whatever, if it’s going to be such a big thing to the fucking owner. I dunno what they fucking put into that fucking booze (pardon my language), but I was out for hours, I didn’t know where I was or what was what, then suddenly I see I’m sitting on the pavement, in front of the Komló, and the cold is killing me. I look around and I see the cinema is burning and the flames are already so high [he gestured upwards] and I say to myself, things are getting a bit serious here. I dunno how I got there or where the hell Gyömrö or Feri Holger have sauntered off to, I mean I couldn’t tell you if you was to torture me, I just mingled with the other lads, I simply didn’t click [the candidate reddened in fury] what the fuck was happening!! I felt godamned awful, I tell you, I stood there, my stomach and liver burning up, with the burning cinema there in front of me, and to be honest, I really believed, like a fucking idiot, that it was me that set it alight, ‘cause, God help me, I couldn’t remember a thing, I’d no idea what I’d been up to, I just stared at the flames thinking: was it me? or wasn’t it? and I really had no idea what to do. ‘Cause I couldn’t go till I was sure, and I didn’t know whether it was or wasn’t me that done it, I mean I know now, but then I didn’t, so eventually I say to myself, this is it, you really had better get out of here now … So I go through the German Quarter, lots of little streets, God knows what, so that I shouldn’t meet the people I just left all over again, and I stop for a breather by the gates of the cemetery, leaning up against the bars like this [he showed them], and suddenly there’s someone talking behind me. Well, fuck me, pardon my language, they’ve come for me too, I don’t usually run like a scared rabbit, you can see that by looking at me, madam secretary, but I got so scared, someone speaking to me in the silence like that. ‘Course, it was only one of the guys from the fight who knew it was time to blow, and he says, let’s change coats and I’ll go down the street and you go up it, that way we’ll throw them off, so I say, fine, let’s swap. But there was something about the guy that started bothering me, so I say to him, listen! I wouldn’t like it if this coat meant trouble, know what I mean, ‘cause don’t think for a second I’m gonna answer for what you done! A cheap shit, he was, I mean it was just a grey cloth coat but God knows what he did while it was on him, so I say, I’ve changed my mind, find someone else to swap with and let’s drop the subject. I didn’t see a thing he was so lightning fast, the fucker, and I trusted him, thinking he really was a pal. He stabbed me just under my shoulder blade, here [he unbuttoned his shirt and showed the place], though you can bet your sweet life, madam secretary, it was the heart he was after. But he did me, the shit, I was flat on the street, and by the time I woke up, the wound was hurting like hell, and the cold was killing me again. No wonder and all, ‘cause I had no coat on me, it was gone with everything that was in it — ID, cash, keys — and the fucking grey cloth coat lying there beside me on the ground, so what, in God’s name I ask you, could I do, I put it on, then full speed into the cemetery. ’Cause I was sure the guy had done something pretty heavy and I wasn’t so stupid as to be caught on account of a coat, but I had to put something on or I’d have frozen stiff in that cold, and I thought I was best going through the cemetery. I didn’t dare go home on account of the cinema, I didn’t have an ounce of sense left in me ‘cause of that, and what with the wound and the blood and the pain, you understand, I didn’t have no strength to make it out of town, so, in a word, I stayed there. I found an open crypt, respect due and all that, gathered a bit of wood at the end of the cemetery, and made a fire best as I could, staunching the blood with my vest, and waited for night. I could have bled to death there, madam secretary, but I’ve got a good constitution, so I could hold out that long, and then eventually, I snuck home, and seeing as I didn’t have the key I had to wake the old woman to let me in, and soon as I shut the door behind me, what with no ID, no cash, no nothing, I burned the fucking