Authors: György Dragomán
At first nothing happened, but then all of a sudden something moved inside, we could hear snarling and scratching plus some groans, the whole trailer moved just a little, and I got so scared that my hammer almost fell right out of my hands, even Zsolt turned stone white, I saw, and I knew we should run away, but my stomach knotted up so much that I couldn't move at all, and the others didn't budge either, no, all four of us just stood there next to the trailer, and then I saw this white skeleton hand reach out from underneath, from between the trailer's big wheels, and then Csabi cried out, "God help us, now we're done for," and the skeleton hand was groping around, I wanted to cry out too, but I couldn't, not even a peep left my throat, and then another hand reached out beside the skeleton hand, but this one was a real person's hand, and by then I saw that even the skeleton hand wasn't really a skeleton hand but just the end of a crutch, and then the whole crutch came flying out from between the wheels followed by another crutch, and then we could hear all this swearing and snarling and panting, and we saw this one-legged man struggling to crawl out from under the trailer, one leg of his military trousers was tied in a knot up where his leg was almost completely gone, and he had long matted hair and a big black beard, and when he finally managed to pull himself out from under the trailer, he grabbed one of the crutches and sat up on his knees so he was leaning against the crutch with his good leg, and then he reached back into the trailer and pulled out a huge green backpack by its strap and took out a little corked bottle and stuck one of the crutches under his arm and with a groan he stood up straight, and that's when we saw that he was really thin and really tall, at least a head taller than even the trailer, and using his teeth he then pulled the cork out of the bottle, and he spit the cork on top of the trailer and took a big swig, and only then did he finally get around to asking who we were and what the motherfucking hell we were doing inside the fence.
By then Zsolt's face was back to its usual color, he straightened himself out right away, saluted, and said, "I hereby report to Comrade Corporal that we're looking for Comrade Vászile," and he explained that we came from School No. 13 to do community service work, that our shop teacher sent us to hammer some tin plates, and Zsolt even showed his hammer, and I saw that the one-legged man really did have a corporal's epaulet on the shoulder of his fatigue jacket, but he had only one of them, only the threads showed on the other shoulder.
At first the corporal didn't say a thing, he just looked us over, loosened the crutch under his arm, and took another swig from the bottle, and then he asked if we'd really come to see Mr. Vászile, we should tell him honestly, he said, because as far as he knew, his poor father had had no friends and no one was mourning him, why, he'd even heard that everyone was happy about his dying, folks hadn't really liked his father much, God forgive them, not even now that his father was dead and gone did they have any good words to say about him, they were talking up all this nonsense about how he threw his life away, saying he hanged himself, yes, they were out to besmirch his father's memory with lies like that, and then here we were looking for the poor old fellow with such love, why, maybe we hadn't even heard the news, and then Zsolt said, "No, when did it happen?" and the one-legged man replied that not even three days had passed, and he'd have us know it wasn't suicide, and then we all gave him our sincere sympathies and said we were really sorry and that we didn't want to bother him anymore, and I was already turning back toward the gate when the corporal told us to wait, not to hurry, because he wanted to ask us one or two things and that we shouldn't offend him by leaving him high and dry to go on mourning all alone, so all four of us then turned back, and the corporal asked how long we'd known his father, and Zsolt answered, "A pretty long time, almost three years," and the corporal nodded and took another swig, and he said he was asking us to answer honestly and not to besmirch his father's memory by being all prim and polite, we should tell him just what sort of person his father was, what we knew him to be like, and at first Zsolt didn't say a thing, he just stared at the ground, but then he finally did look back up at the corporal and say, "He was a good man, he was, strict and hot-tempered, but a really decent, really straight-shooting fellow." As Zsolt was saying this, I noticed him waving one of his hands behind his back, so then I spoke too, "That's right," I said, "Mr. Vászile was a good man," and then Jancsi and Csabi said the same thing, and they also said, "May God rest his soul."
The corporal nodded and told us we were good boys. "God bless you," he said, and then he reached out his bottle to Zsolt and told him to drink up in memory of his father, and Zsolt took the bottle and drank, and the corporal took out a handkerchief and blew his nose really loud, and when Zsolt wanted to give back the bottle, the corporal told him through his handkerchief to pass it along to the others, they also deserved it, he said, they loved his father too, so Jancsi and Csabi then also took swigs, and then they handed the bottle to me, and I too had a gulp, it was plum spirits with a real bite, it was so strong I had to cough, and as I lowered the bottle I saw the trailer door open up and three really huge sheepdogs saunter out one after another, each one was at least as big as a Saint Bernard, and their heads were as big and round as a bear's, they stopped right in front of us and they didn't bark and they didn't growl, they just stood there looking at us, but even that was enough for me to feel my body get all cold and heavy right away, and I could tell that the others were at least as scared as I was. But then the corporal clicked his tongue, and the dogs all sat at once, and the corporal said he was sorry, he didn't want to scare us, the dogs had come out at the sound of coughing because these dogs, they were real man-killing machines, but we shouldn't be scared, they wouldn't bother us, the only thing we had to be careful about was to avoid running, because then the dogs would catch us for sure because it's coded into their genes that a running person has to be
wrestled to the ground and mauled, so we shouldn't even think of running from them, no, we should move nice and slowly instead, and we shouldn't look directly in their eyes, and as long as we didn't do any of that we wouldn't suffer any harm, and then he took the bottle from my hand, drank down the rest of the plum spirits, and flung the bottle into the quarry lake, and he gave a big sigh and said the only thing he was ashamed about was that he arrived late, that he couldn't be there at his father's burial, he left as soon as he got word, he did, but they buried the poor old fellow really quick, it's just awful that he couldn't say a proper goodbye, and now he'd been here for half a day already, but he hadn't yet gotten up the courage to go inside his old man's shack, no, he'd sent the dogs not long ago so they could look around a little, that's all, because he could remember this trailer from when he was a kid, and he was pretty scared of memories, though we had to believe him that he wasn't a coward, he didn't even know why he was telling us all this, we were kids, we wouldn't understand anyway, but he had to tell someone all the same, and for some reason he felt he could trust us. And so he'd ask us for a big favor, we had the time as long as we came here to work anyway, so we should be so good as to help him take stock of his father's estate, he was afraid that he wouldn't have the strength to do this alone, of course sorting through things while on crutches wasn't easy to begin with, and as he said this he waved one of his crutches toward us, which made the dogs growl, and then Zsolt said that this was only natural, it was the least we could do. The corporal nodded and again blew his nose and said he really appreciated it, he saw right at the start that he could count on us, and then he pointed to the picnic chair, the folded-up metal picnic table, and the great big sun umbrella leaning against the side of the trailer, and he said we should begin by setting up the sunshade and putting the chair and the table underneath, because he wanted to just sit around here a bit like his father used to do, and then we could start emptying out the trailer so he could take stock of what his father left behind.
Sticking the umbrella into the loamy earth was pretty hard, and then once we did and tried opening it, it closed up three whole times, the dowel didn't want to catch no matter what, and that made one of the dogs sit up and let out these belly-deep barks, but as soon as the corporal pointed one of his crutches at the dog and snapped, "Quiet, Kloska," the dog shut right up and cowered back. Meanwhile we finally managed to open the umbrella, and we put the picnic chair underneath and then set up the picnic table too, and then the one-legged corporal hobbled over and struggled to sit down in the chair, and he laid his two crutches down on the table in front of him, leaned back, wiped his face, and said he now felt ready, so it would be best if two of us climbed into the trailer and started handing out everything bit by bit, anything that could be moved, and the other two of us should put it all in a nice neat pile, and then he'd go on over and look to see what we found, so far he'd only had courage enough to peek in the door, but he saw so many familiar objects that he got really scared, so it would be best if we got started right away because we'd have a whole lot to bring out. Zsolt headed straight toward the trailer and he called for me to go along too, not that I really wanted to, but I wasn't in the mood to resist either, and as we stepped toward the trailer the dogs perked their ears and started growling again, and only then did I notice that each of them had one ear cut off, the corporal shouted at them to sit still, telling them they didn't need to guard against us, we were his father's friends, so the dogs just stared but didn't stir, and I thought I was lucky after all that Zsolt had chosen me, and not Jancsi or Csabi, because at least inside we wouldn't have to worry about the dogs.
As soon as I stepped up on those bricks stacked vertically by
the door, I remembered what Csabi had said about ghosts, and I felt like the strength was about to drain from my legs so I'd crumple up like a rag, but then I looked at the dogs and I grabbed the doorjamb, and Zsolt gave a big sigh before opening the door, and I took a deep breath of the fresh air outside, I was still really scared, but I got up the guts to step inside so fast that Zsolt and I stepped in together. Never had I been in a place like that before, a place where someone had died, both of my arms were covered with goose bumps, but I was a little curious to see what it would be like. On the inside the trailer seemed at least twice as big as on the outside, and the air was really damp and had a mildewy odor, at first I could hardly see a thing because light entered only through the door and I was blocking it completely, but once Zsolt tore off the tarp hanging over the window we could see pretty well, the trailer really was one big mess, there was a phonograph on a stool in the middle, a real antique phonograph with a horn, the floor around it was strewn with crumpled newspapers and old tin cans and empty beer bottles, I tripped on one of the bottles and almost fell, but then I grabbed hold of a winter coat on a hanger, at least fifteen other winter coats were hanging there next to it, and there was a heap of coats even on the floor underneath, and as I kicked at them, the coats gave off a gluey stink so strong I almost had to puke, and I called over to Zsolt to say he sure got us into a nice little fix, but he told me to keep my trap shut because if I had a better idea, why hadn't I said so, and anyway, maybe Mr. Vászile even dug up a little gold for himself and we might just find it, or if not, then not, but we could at least thank our lucky stars we got off so easy, and then he turned all quiet and threw the tarp out the door and grabbed the phonograph off the stool and handed that out too, so I picked up about three coats and took them over to the door and tossed them all out at once, and since that made the stink go away a little, I started throwing the other clothes out the door also, one armful after another, there was a tower of suitcases in one corner, at least eight of them, and crammed in next to them were a bunch of plastic bags, buckets, and folded blankets, Zsolt started handing out the suitcases, after the third one he hunched over and just about puked, and then he took off his T-shirt and tied it in front of his nose, so I took mine off and did the same thing, and starting then both of us worked like that, but even so, that musty odor was intense. At first I was careful about what I picked up, I checked whether it was a pile of books tied up with belts or a bunch of tin cans tied together with string, but then I ended up handing out everything to Csabi without picking and choosing at all, I stopped only when I tried lifting a big green five-gallon gasoline can that wouldn't budge, so I called Zsolt over to help, and the two of us lugged it over to the door, but then Zsolt said we should leave it for last as long as it was so damn heavy, so anyway, by then the trailer was almost completely empty, all that was left was a plank bed on top of a bunch of bricks by one of the walls, Zsolt gathered the dirty bed sheets and the blanket along with one of the planks and took them to the door, and I went to get the other plank, and that's when I noticed a newspaper page glued to the ceiling above the bed, which meant that whenever Mr. Vászile had laid down on his back in bed, this is exactly what he must have seen, I reached up and ripped it off the ceiling so I could read it, it was an article about the clay pit, about what amazing finds those prehistoric reliefs up there on the quarry wall were, about how they carry a historical message and are works of art of priceless value, and half the newspaper page was a picture of that ancient giant lying on the ground that we'd seen earlier on the quarry wall, and written diagonally across the picture in big letters and purple indelible ink was the word
ENOUGH
! and I'd already half crumpled the page to toss it on the ground with the other newspaper pages when I stuffed it into my pocket instead.
Finally we threw the last plank from the bed out the door, and then we grabbed hold of the gasoline can and struggled past all the stuff outside the door to climb out of the trailer, Mr. Vászile's son was still sitting in the picnic chair, he was scratching the neck of one of the dogs, and Jancsi and Csabi were flinging clothes into one big pile. When the corporal saw us with that gasoline can, he shouted to us right away to take it over to him, and that's when I noticed that he had another bottle of plum spirits in his hand, it was still almost full, and when we put the gasoline can down in front of him, he wedged the bottle of spirits between his thighs, undid the clasp lock on the can, took a sniff, and took the can in his hands, and then he let out a big groan, raised the can above his head, and dribbled a little of its contents into his mouth, but he spit it out right away and flung the can to the ground, at least a cupful splashed out, and he started shouting on and on about this fucking world, about life being so unjust, and about how his poor old man had had to scrape by on hospital-issue disinfecting alcohol, which was almost undrinkable even when you filtered out the blue dye they mixed in to keep folks from drinking it, and the whole time his father had been drinking this shit, he, his son, had been guzzling top-notch plum spirits by the bottle, why, even now his knapsack was full of the stuff, but from now on, he said, things would be different, and he stood up and lifted the bottle of plum spirits and turned it upside-down and splashed it out on the ground, flailing his arm so wildly while doing so that he almost fell over twice, and when the bottle was empty he flung it into the lake, and then he hobbled over to the small heap of odds and ends, poked at it with a crutch, pried out a pickle jar from among all the clothes, picked it up, and threw it over to Jancsi,
telling him to go wash it out, and Jancsi hadn't even gone two steps when the corporal also threw over a bucket and told him to clean that too and fill it with water, and then he picked up one of the plastic bags and said yes, he knew there would be charcoal here that his poor father had used to filter that nasty blue stuff out of the disinfecting alcohol, and he shook a little charcoal out of the bag to the ground, stomped a piece to bits, and said, "At least it's nice and powdery," and then he went back to rummaging about the pile, picking up one piece of clothing after another and turning it about in his hands before tossing it back on the pile, and at the same time he went on and on about his poor old man, about how he'd loved objects, about how he'd collected so many things, yes, said the corporal, his dad had been so thrifty that now he, his son, didn't have the heart to throw out a thing, he sure had argued a lot with his dad about this, God forgive him for always telling him that all this horseshit is unnecessary, but for his part he never could understand why folks need so much junk when all you really need to make you happy fits in a knapsack, it's not like we can take anything with us to the grave anyway, at most only what we drink, but his old man was the sort who saw potential in every object, in his dad's eyes every single cheap, shabby piece of clothing might as well have been new, and not even now could he quite forgive his poor old man for this, and all at once the corporal fell silent and blew his nose again before leaning down, picking up a big canvas bag, opening it, reaching inside, and cupping out a little flour and giving it a lick, and then he scattered the flour on the ground and said his poor dear father had to live for years on nothing but grits, and all the while he, his son, was able to stuff himself silly with bacon and ewe curd on the plate next to his own grits. "Life is so unfair," said the corporal, but now we would hold the old man's funeral feast just like he would have done, with nothing but grits and filtered disinfecting alcohol. "As long as we couldn't be there at his funeral," he said, "then at least there should be this much, yes, in our own way we'll pay our last respects," and he said he'd now show us how they cook real grits in the hills, one of us should go behind the trailer to get some wood while the rest of us opened up the bags and the suitcases so he could finally sort through the whole kit and caboodle, so anyway, we then started scattering the clothes and scraps of cloth from the bags onto the ground and we opened the suitcases one after another, there were clothes in them too, but sorted by type, one suitcase had only shirts, another just had rolled-up socks and underwear, a third had stylish women's shoes, at least fifteen pairs, including some with really high heels, and another suitcase was full of ties and folded pants, only two suitcases had no clothes in them, one had the records that went with the phonograph, and another had a big leather-bound book in a bunch of crumpled old bank notes, and it said on the book, in gold lettering,
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE BEGINNING OF CREATION TO THE FINAL DAYS
, and when the corporal saw that, he threw aside the mud-stained winter coat whose pockets he'd been going through, he picked up the book and paged through it and told us that this had been his father's favorite book, when the corporal was a kid his father had told him lots of stories from it because history was everything to his father, but it did no good his father telling him all that stuff, he never could bring himself to love history, at most only the parts about kings. Sure, even his father had liked talking most about the rulers of bygone ages and about kings' funerals, about how the Vikings were sent on their final journey in burning boats, about the tombs the Egyptians and the Aztecs built for themselves and the priceless treasures buried inside them, and about how many servants they took with them in death so they'd have folks to serve them in the world beyond, and when he was little, for a long time he believed that his father was a king of sorts, who'd had to give up his rule in the interest of the people.