The little girl takes the envelope and sweets, says thank you nicely, with the charm we have described, and gets out of the car. She waves to the nice uncle and then vanishes in the doorway.
“A real woman,” Tupý says, then puts the car in gear, and the Mercedes speeds up the street.
In the evening the little girl will excitedly tell her parents about riding in a huge car, and so on. Her horrified father, the debtor, will open the envelope. The note reads:
Dear debtor,
Kindly note that on such and such date, such and such company has passed onto us the collection of the due amount… (blah, blah, blah)… we enclose the invoice… (blah, blah, blah)… Please pay upon the receipt of this letter, or come personally, or send your representative to arrange new terms… (blah, blah, blah)…
We remain respectfully yours: our motto is:
‘First we try the nice way!’
CANISTRA, a Division of Sekuritatia, Ltd.
Almost everyone pays. If not, their car will be mysteriously torched in the middle of the city. If the debtor still doesn’t pay, an unknown perpetrator will wreck his office. If he still doesn’t pay, somebody will nail the little dog to his front door. If he still doesn’t pay, then…
That’s how Mr Rácz makes his living. But in this book we shall not be concerned with his respectable business activities. Although, on the other hand, never say never, as they say. Possibly, Mr Rácz will make a few brief appearances; perhaps only because we shall sometimes be in the same time and space as this dynamic entrepreneur pursuing his adventurous career.
For example, in the Hotel Ambassador-Rácz.
* * *
At four in the morning the Hotel Ambassador is dead, submerged in darkness when nothing moves, just like the street in front of it. The trams aren’t running yet; a car might pass by from time to time. One of these occasional cars is a taxi with Viennese number-plates. A well-dressed and young-looking forty-year-old man with an American’s white teeth and thin wire-framed glasses steps out.
“Suitcase!” he shouts to the old porter Torontál, who runs out of the lobby in livery and hat. “My suitcase!” he adds in English.
He no longer cares about his luggage. He throws a hundred-dollar bill to the taxi driver and enters the cool semi-darkness of the lobby.
“The name is Martin Junec,” he tells the receptionist, speaking half in Slovak, half in English. “I’d like a suite; a big one. For how long? My boy, I don’t know myself. For a month, six months? Let me spell it for you. M-A-R-T-I-N J-U-N-E-C. Martin Junec. Got it? Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Here’s my US passport.”
The foreigner looks round the lobby.
“Is the Ambassador Bar still open?” He asks.
“Yes sir, it is,” says the receptionist. “For another hour, till five.”
“Just as it used to be,” says Junec. “Nothing’s changed. A long time ago I used to play here,” he boasts. “I was, what’s the word, a musician. I played saxophone.”
The foreigner performs a pantomime of playing a saxophone.
“It’s almost twenty years ago,” he adds.
Junec takes the hotel card and thrusts a ten-dollar bill into the hand of the receptionist, who is amazed.
Torontál stumbles in, his spider-like fingers gripping the handle of Junec’s crocodile-skin suitcase.
“Okay,“ says Junec, “let’s go!” And, panting like an old dog, Torontál follows Junec into the lift.
“Here you are, grandpa,” says Junec in his suite, giving Torontál a ten-dollar bill. “Life is hard,” he admits, looking at Torontál’s shaking hands. “Why don’t you think about retiring, getting a pension,” he adds.
* * *
The nights are still cold, but the sun rises up quite high in the day. The tin roof of the snack bar warms up and then cools down long into the night, making popping noises. Feri Bartaloš sleeps with his bedclothes kicked off. He never remembers to zip up his sleeping bag. He turns over, smacks his lips a few times and then sits up: he’s thirsty. Eržika sleeps with her back turned to him. Feri gets up, steps over her, and drinks straight from the tap. Again, he steps over her and his inflatable mattress as well. He unlocks the door and steps outside.
The sky is clear. The stars are shining where they should be. The trams aren’t running yet, but their approaching rumble can be heard in the distance. Feri walks around the wooden kiosks, thanks to which the snack bar has by general agreement been called the Wooden Village, and he screws up his eyes. On the roof of a tall building behind the Hotel Ambassador-Rácz is a brightly lit digital time and temperature display. It’s four twenty, and ten above zero. Feri shivers. Somewhere in the distance dogs are barking. They can often be seen: a motley pack of roaming wild beasts with bared fangs and lolling tongues.
Feri crosses over to the car park. Behind the fibreboard wall of Piggybank’s trailer, a fat body turns over with a sigh. Feri clears his throat and spits. He doesn’t feel sleepy any more. He bangs on the door of the parking attendant’s trailer. From inside come sounds of movement, muttering, searching for shoes, getting up, and cursing. The door opens and the attendant’s puffy face appears in the opening.
“What’s going on?” asks Freddy Piggybank in a rasping voice.
“Time for a break,” says Feri.
“Bugger off!” says Freddy who wants to get back to his burrow.
“Got a light?” asks Feri and a pack of cigarettes appears in his hand. He taps on it and gives the attendant a peep of the filter ends.
Piggybank has time to read the brand name. Sparta. Stinginess overcomes sleepiness and bad temper. Inside his lair he digs out some matches, takes the proffered cigarette and joins Feri outside.
Bartaloš interrupts this moment of calm meditation; between puffs he complains of his boss, the snack bar manager. Feri and Eržika work like mad: everything is spick and span. Freddy can see for himself: doesn’t everything look tidy?
Piggybank absentmindedly nods and coughs in the chilly morning. He’s not used to smoking.
Feri is resentful and feels right to be angry. Their manager is a swine: he gives Feri and Eržika shit for everything they do, for no reason. The toilets are always clean, after all! People shit, piss, and vomit there. Feri and Eržika, needn’t give a shit about the manager, either: but they keep it clean. It’s completely spotless. And what happens? The manager shows up and doesn’t even glance in the toilets, just stands there, like this, behind the corner and gives Feri and Eržika shit. But he and Eržika know what’s going on. Feri makes a secretive grimace and smirks. All of this must be Four-Eyes’s fault. Clearly, the manager is on Four-Eyes’s side. Feri doesn’t know what those two are up to. But there must be something. Maybe Four-Eyes knows something about the manager and is blackmailing him. Or maybe the manager is simply afraid of Four-Eyes. No matter, Feri will get to the bottom of it. Feri blows the smoke out. It’s clear: Four-Eyes wants to push Feri and Eržika out of the Wooden Village. Four-Eyes is greedy. Nothing is good enough for him. Feri adds up on his fingers. Four-Eyes makes a hundred a day collecting the glasses. His wife sits outside the toilet, and that makes two or three hundred crowns a day. And all they have to do is to buy toilet paper, cleaning powder and occasionally some soap. That’s all. Four-Eyes and his wife both get free food and drink. They can save money. So they get four hundred a day. This makes twelve hundred a week. Five thousand a month! Five thousand they can salt away! Feri’s voice cracks when he realizes this; he forgets that he and Eržika make the same money, since they do alternate shifts with Four-Eyes in the snack bar. He concludes: Four-Eyes and his wife are trying to push Feri Bartaloš and Eržika out of this job. Feri pauses, his face expressing determination and anxiety, as well as resentment.