‘That’s not carp, is it?’ asked Gyuri.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Pataki, ‘it’s perch.’
‘Oh,’ said Gyuri exiting, ‘I didn’t know you could make fish soup with perch.’
In came Gyurkovics. ‘Where are the potatoes?’ he asked.
‘There aren’t any,’ reaffirmed Pataki, still working hard to give the appearance of preparing fish soup.
‘That’s not carp, is it?’ asked Gyurkovics.
‘No, it’s perch,’ was the terse response.
‘Oh,’ said Gyurkovics walking out of the kitchen, ‘I didn’t know you could make fish soup with perch.’
When Hepp came in and asked about the potatoes, Pataki calmly replaced on the cutting board the perch he had been considering, and enunciated forcefully: ‘I know what’s going on. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me worked up, but,’ he continued in a determined but un-irate tone, ‘I’m not going to let you.’
‘Okay,’ said Hepp, ‘but where are the potatoes?’
It was Demeter who won the bottle of reserve pálinka, when Pataki, at the fifteenth questioning, answered by attacking Demeter with a brace of perch. Having fired-off his perch at the swiftly retreating Demeter, Pataki stormed off into the countryside.
When Pataki returned to the camp (some hours later, Gyuri noticed; too late to make another stab at the fish soup) he found everyone gathering in the marquee as if for a fish soup soiree.
‘Come on,’ said Katona, ‘you’ve got to see this. I’ve managed to persuade Wu to do it.’
‘Do what?’ asked Pataki puzzled.
‘His numbers. It’s quite amazing, I caught him playing along with the radio the other day.’ Pataki followed Katona into the marquee where the entire camp seemed to be in attendance. Katona appointed himself master of ceremonies:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are very privileged tonight to witness a performer who has travelled thousands of kilometres to be with us. First of all, can I ask for some discreet lighting.’ The flaps of the marquee were closed to produce a fair penumbra. A stretcher was carried in with a figure hidden under a blanket. The blanket was lifted up to reveal a pair of Chinese buttocks. ‘Secondly, may I ask you to maintain absolute silence during the recital. Over to you, Mr Wu.’
The sounds commenced and though it took a few moments for the audience to latch on, they soon realised that Wu was farting out the Internationale. The audience, distinguished by its ideological unsoundness, despite the recent injunction for quiet, burst into spontaneous applause. Wu’s phrasing and stamina were astonishing and the Internationale was only the beginning. As the audience wondered what on earth he had been eating, Wu launched into a medley of tunes, concluding with ‘The Blue Danube’. There was a standing ovation.
Then the fish soup was served. Gyuri and the others could see that Pataki was itching to remonstrate about the salination or some other aspect of the soup, but he realised that his reputation could be irrevocably marred and he had to sit and take it. ‘It’s really rather good, considering where it came from,’ remarked Hepp to Gyuri. The origins of the soup were never revealed to Pataki: it had been tinned at the behest of an official at the Ministry of Agriculture who thought it would make a good export product to Britain, until someone reminded him that Britain was a capitalist country and as such couldn’t be the recipient of Hungarian fish soup. Indeed it transpired that all the countries likely to pay for tins of fish soup were capitalist, whereas their trading partners, the socialist countries, wouldn’t cough up a mouldy kopek. It was decided to divvy up the fish soup within the Ministry, so all the families of the staff experienced a fish soup bonanza. István had dumped ten tins with Elek, who would eat anything – except fish.
Playing for the railways had some benefits, including free deliveries.
Gyuri was looking forward to the end of the camp, since he was becoming preoccupied with seeing Zsuzsa again, and he was also looking forward to the end of the camp because Pataki wasn’t. Pataki wasn’t because he knew he had promised Hepp that Locomotive would win the match against the National team. Pataki didn’t show this, but his exuberance was steadily deflating as the day drew nearer.
As the Locomotive players sparred with them, it was a constant reminder to Pataki that the National team was the National team because it had the best players, drawn from the Army and the Technical University. Thoughtfulness clouded Pataki’s brow as he studied the opportunities for winning. The others had been quite content for Pataki to parley a truce with Hepp, for while losing the match would bring a certain general retribution, for Pataki it was going to bring intensely specific retaliation from Hepp, of whom it was said he bore grudges thirty years old.
Worrying about things wasn’t Pataki’s forte, so after a couple of introspections which didn’t hand over a solution, he chose to leave the action to the day.
The only thing in Locomotive’s favour was that the National team didn’t have much to lose. Although the supremos of the sports world would be at hand, no one was going to pay any attention to the result. In the outside world it wouldn’t count. ‘Why aren’t any of the buggers injured?’ Pataki lamented as he changed for the match, clearly having prayed for some disability since nothing else could provide victory.
The first half went well for Locomotive. At half-time, they were in the lead 32 to 26. It had been a lively session, played with one of Locomotive’s favourite leather balls, Vladimir. As one of the National team remarked to the referee, ‘Couldn’t we have another ball please? Pataki won’t let us play with this one.’ Gyuri had never seen Pataki run around court like that before. It was as if he were playing on his own, charging after the ball like a lunatic, in top gear all the time. His relentless acceleration paid dividends – he got the ball where others wouldn’t have, but Gyuri could see it was at a cost. Pataki was looking fully drained when the half time whistle blew.
‘Angyal!’ Pataki called out to Gyuri’s co-worker in Locomotive’s dirty tricks department. Angyal, who had been sitting it out on the bench, trotted over. His talent was to neutralise players in the opposing teams who demonstrated too great a facility at scoring baskets, by using a variety of techniques, never recommended by coaches, but extraordinarily effective – the backhand testicle-grab or the airborne elbow-jab to the face. Angyal was injured, he had sprained his ankle after administering a particularly devastating elbow to Demeny, Hungary ’s leading scorer, turning on the crimson nostril-taps. Leaning close, Pataki poured some words into Angyal’s ear, who then sauntered off.
‘What are we going to do?’ Gyuri asked Pataki. ‘You look a wreck. You’re not going to last the second half.’
Pataki smiled. ‘We just have to soldier on.’
The second half showed that Pataki had expended his fuel and lost his magical ability to corner the ball. Hepp remained impassively on the bench, aware as anyone else that the points were starting to snub Locomotive. The score was 33 to 32 to Locomotive when the shouts of ‘Fire’ were heard and someone ran in to call for help in carrying buckets of water to put out the blaze that was consuming the quarters of the National team. Hearing this, the National team to a man dashed out to save their hard-earned toiletries. They had been due to leave the camp that afternoon, and what with sifting through the ashes to find French shampoo and Italian soap, the match never resumed.
Hepp didn’t look happy about this, but more importantly, to everyone’s relief, he didn’t look very unhappy; he did also look as if he wouldn’t be listening to Pataki much in the future.
Boarding the bus that was to take them to the railway station, Pataki and Gyuri noticed Wu sitting beside the running track, looking as affable and out of touch as ever. ‘I don’t suppose anyone has told him the camp is over, or if they have, I don’t suppose he knows,’ Gyuri said. They collected Wu, since, if nothing else, they knew exactly where to leave him in Budapest…