Vyhľadávanie
THE DEVIL’S TROPHY
(Extract)
A thickset fellow in a forester's uniform was waiting for a fortune teller at the last bus stop in the village. His eyes were bloodshot as if he had been drinking, crying or had not slept for several nights. With bitter irony he muttered through clenched teeth that he was that renowned lynx hunter, gave the fortune teller a strained handshake and led him to his car.
They drove along a narrow asphalt road that wound uphill through the trees beside a mountain stream, until they came to an isolated gamekeeper's lodge.
During the journey the lynx hunter said nothing and there was nothing the fortune teller was inclined to ask. The price he paid for his exceptional abilities was a depressing awareness of the tragicomic predetermination of human existence. He lived from what he saw; it was hard, pointless and to no avail. Most of what he saw belonged to the past, or as a rule would happen later anyway; he couldn't change it in any way; for him it too was really the past, so what hope was there. Ever since he had discovered that life could no longer offer him anything better, nothing that could really fill him with enthusiasm, he was far less afraid of death than the average person.
He hadn't wanted to go there; he didn't want to get involved in anything. He didn't care whether the hunter shot lynxes or not. He had listened to his desperate telephone calls with the disdain they deserved, because the thing causing this fellow to go to pieces was such a banality that he just couldn't believe it. How could it compare to his own plight? Confused by contradictory visions, he suffered like hell and his income was shrinking all the time. That was in fact the only reason why he had allowed himself to be persuaded to look for a hunting trophy of some kind. He didn't know whether it was more ridiculous or humiliating. He, who usually successfully foresaw significant events, who had found a number of missing persons, was to search for some wretched lynx pelt. However, it must be of great value to this unhappy man, if he was offering so much money for it, along with a pile of fresh trout and a red deer in the autumn.
He had kept repeating that it was his most valued trophy and the fortune teller inwardly mocked the purport of this word, whether in connection with a beautiful woman, stolen gold treasure or a wretched human soul. He should settle down at last, beget a new bearer of the wonderful illusion of meaningful reality, which he now only experienced in bed with young women, but marriage was the last thing he wanted. He moved from flat to flat, from town to town, driven on by the vision of an inevitably sad end.
They got out of the car and the fortune teller gazed down into the valley.
How picturesque and breathtaking was this delusive creation, he was thinking to himself, when a second later fierce barking was heard.
The unexpected, vicious torrent of aggressive sound flooded the whole valley, bouncing off the tops of pine trees swaying in the wind. He started in surprise, which made the lynx hunter grin idiotically, like most dog owners, haughtily proud of their fearsome four-footed pets.
"Amigo!" he shouted, but didn't succeed in silencing the furious animal at that distance. "Don't worry, he's penned in," he said, nodding to the fortune teller and setting off in the direction of the cottage. On their right there was a group of trout ponds surrounded by a fence and beside them carefully tended rows of vegetables. Flowering irises lined the fence and beyond them on a long chain a huge yellowish-brown Alsatian-like mongrel was barking madly.
A tiny woman came out onto the veranda.
"Don't tell her who you are or why I've invited you here. I don't want her to think I can't get over it. Stop that, Amigo!" he yelled once more at the dog and it fell silent at last.
"What kind of beast is that?" asked the fortune teller, just for something to say.
"A cross between a dingo and a wolfhound. He was left here by Russian soldiers who'd dragged him all the way from Cuba. He was specially trained to guard strategic sites. Then one cottager had him and he sent for me to shoot him. He'd bitten a lot of people… hadn't you, Amigo?"
The dog gave an ominous, malevolent growl.
"A real friend," the fortune teller nodded. "It was a mistake. You should have shot him."
The lynx hunter gave a slight nod, took off his greyish-green jacket and hung it over the fence.
"I'll catch a couple of trout now, so I can have a drink with you, because Amigo hates alcohol. He'll more or less put up with wine, but you have to watch it if he gets a whiff of spirits. Have you any idea how that Soviet soldier tormented him when he got rat-arsed on vodka? Most likely it wasn't even a Russian, but some barbarous Asian."
"Sumashedshi," said the fortune teller with a faint smile.
"Who?"
"They're called sumashedshi."
"That's some kind of breed?"
"No, an illness."
"Ah, yes, I get it…" he said, rolling up his shirt sleeves and revealing a scar left by teeth on his left elbow."Look, that's what one tot did. But I didn't give up. I was determined to tame that dog, even if it was trained to be a cold-blooded killer. He won't attack me now, although to tell the truth, with him I can never be quite sure … can I, Amigo?"
The beast stood, looking cruel, prepared to pounce.
"Here in the forest I've cultivated an iron will. If I once make up my mind to do something, I have to do it. When we go inside I'll tell you about my experiences with lynxes. Like me, a lynx kills everything it catches, more than it needs for food. I'll tell you how I hunt them. You'll see I really have lived in difficult conditions, but I've always found a way to manage. Except this time. I keep going round in circles like a squirrel in a cage and I can't find a way out. Thank God you've let yourself be persuaded and have come this far, to the middle of nowhere, to try and help me.
The tiny little woman watched them from the veranda with interest.
"You should shoot him," urged the fortune teller.
"Well… you know, I've slaughtered so many animals that I've no taste for it any more, unless it's necessary… Not even a butcher in an abattoir has shed as much blood as I have, because in the abattoir they don't slaughter every day and I've been hunting ever since I was a child. I shot my first roe deer when I was five. My father, also a hunter, helped me to hold the shot gun. Shot guns are not allowed, they weren't even then, but he wanted to please me. He was very fond of me, he saw himself in me, because I had that passion of his in me. But that doesn't mean I don't like animals. I don't want to boast, but I know more about the habits of the animals that live here than anyone else, even someone who has studied them. I know how to lure different species into a trap, I could write a book about it, but I won't, because such a book could harm nature.
"That's nice of you," said the fortune teller with a smile. The idea was quite foreign to him. When it came to nature, he hardly even noticed the arrival of the swallows any more.
The veranda was deserted. The woman had gone inside.
Even from the other side of the fence it was possible to see through the clear water that the fish ponds were teeming with trout.
"Do you want to have a look?"
The fortune teller had no desire to, but the lynx hunter was already opening the iron gate. He cautiously approached the dog, talking to it in a soft voice. He caught hold of it by the collar and pressed its head towards the ground.
"Don't worry, you can come past!" he called to the fortune teller and much against his will the latter walked around the growling beast, took a cursory glance at the fish ponds and stiffly returned at once. He breathed freely again only when he was on the other side of the fence.
"Pick some nettles. I'll stuff the trout with them," called the hunter, successfully breaking away from the dog and going round to the opposite side of the largest fish pond, where he had a fishing net already prepared. He dipped it in and pulled out a pile of silver trout, emptied the net into a crate and threw the smaller ones back into the water. Staring hypnotically at the sitting mongrel, he backed out of the pen.
"Pick some of those nettles in that ditch!" he shouted at the fortune teller and carried the crate of fish up to the veranda, put it down next to an old kitchen table and returned to the dog.
The fortune teller hated being ordered about, especially in such a tone. A strong aversion to any kind of activity came over him again. He sat down on a stool near the wall, held his face up to the sun and half-closed his eyes. It was beginning to get hot and the early morning wind had dropped. All he could hear was the occasional movement of the fish in the crate. He could see them – cold and slippery – desperately opening their mouths, their eyes popping out as they took a last look at the world he had become so indifferent to of late.
The lynx hunter fetched another crate half-filled with water, set it down next to the fish and stared at him disappointedly.
"Don't you understand? The nettles will keep them fresh until you get home."
This man of the forest can't stand any opposition, the fortune teller thought to himself and immediately regretted he had gone there. He suddenly felt so wretched, as if not only the fish ponds and the gamekeeper's cottage, but all the beautiful surroundings were lying on a dragon's vein. He reluctantly got up from the stool, went over to the ditch and stood looking down helplessly at the nettles. He wound a handkerchief around his hand and clumsily tore up the fiendish plant, roots and all. The nettles stung him and he flung them down angrily on the kitchen scales in the middle of the table.
The lynx killer finished off the fish as easily as if he was killing them with his own murderous will. He picked a trout out of the crate and it immediately went rigid, not even twitching when he gently, just symbolically tapped it on the head with the blunt edge of the knife. Sometimes two or three times, almost mercifully, like a lion when it pulls an antelope to the ground, granting it a last spark of hope and making it easier for it to die. The fortune teller was convinced that lions kill lovingly. That they get to know their prey, feel for it and know when to deliver the decisive blow. What looks like a cruel game is just the beast's feeling for its victim. He saw that the lynx hunter stunned the fish in the same manner, only to slash its belly a moment later with one stroke of the knife, pull out its guts, tear off its fins and remove the kidney with his thumb. While doing so, he cast a meaningful look in the fortune teller's direction and explained that the fish had a disproportionately large kidney running almost the length of the backbone, because it had to filter a huge amount of water, and if some lazy, stupid, drunken cook failed to remove the kidney completely, the flesh would have a bitter taste. Satisfied with his important advice, he rinsed the gutted trout in the crate of pond water and with his bare hands stuffed it with nettles, drawing the thicker end of the stem through its jaws.
"Doesn't it sting you?" the fortune teller asked in surprise. He could still feel an itching burn on his knuckles.
"Get used to it," retorted the forester, going over to the ditch, preferring to pick the nettles himself without the muddy roots. He laid them at the bottom of a plastic bag, placed the fish on them and covered them with the remaining weeds.
The three largest he left unstuffed.
"Take these, we'll fry them now," he told the fortune teller, who had realized by now that he was dealing with a perfectionist and possibly even a workaholic. The hard-working man of the forest had noticed his pathological antipathy for physical matter and revelled in tormenting him with details, just to make up for the humiliation he felt when he had tipsily lamented over the phone that he was on the verge of despair, that he would probably shoot himself, that the fortune teller was his only hope.
He walked across the veranda with the three slimy fish in his hands and inevitably one of them slipped from his grasp. The lynx killer promptly swung round, caught the fish, smiled triumphantly, opened the door into the hall with his elbow and let him go in first. The walls were covered with antlers, stuffed animals and birds. They went into the kitchen.
There on the couch lay the woman, fully dressed and fast asleep.
"She didn't know you'd be coming up. A lot of people come here for fish and most of them don't come in… I won't wake her up," he said in a hushed voice. "She doesn't sleep well at night. She has a bad heart. Give me those trout and take a seat…" He opened the fridge, put the bag of fish in it and took out some butter. He took plates and a frying pan from the kitchen cupboard, sprinkled salt on the three trout and prepared to fry them. He also pulled out a large, angular bottle and poured a generous glass.
"Have you ever drunk brandy distilled from raspberries? Taste it. Cheers!"
The fortune teller lifted the glass to his nose. It really did smell of raspberries. He took a sip and praised it. It really was quite good.
"Help yourself!"
"Thanks, later… I don't even feel like fish at the moment. I had a big breakfast," he said, looking with sympathy at the sleeping woman. She was lying huddled up in a ball, like a heap of misery.
The hunter shrugged his shoulders and invited him into a room that could have been a living room, if it hadn't been cluttered up with antlers and the heads of stags, boars and deer. A lynx bared its teeth next to an ornate cabinet and over the door an eagle spread its wings. There were falcons, owls, little songbirds, martens, squirrels, and one of the birds of prey was holding a stuffed mouse in its claws! Standing for a for a while in an understanding manner as his stunned guest looked around him, the hunter then placed his hand on the only bare patch in the front wall. "It hung here. It was my most precious trophy. I just can't understand how it could have disappeared. It's true that quite a lot of people come here in the summer, but I doubt whether any stranger would venture into this room, take down such a large skin and leave with it unnoticed. That's out of the question. My wife is at home all the time and she can even hear the grass growing. Amigo barks at everyone who just passes the house," he said, leaning with his hand on the wall, as if he wanted his own body to take the place of the missing trophy. "It looks as if one of the family has robbed me of it. That idea is destroying me, I just can't believe it. I'm tough, I've already gone through all kinds of things, but that thought makes me feel as helpless as a lynx in a cage. Do you know how a lynx in a cage feels? Like a man buried alive. Or even worse, because a man knows, or at least he should know, that he can't escape the grave one day anyway. But imagine the lynx! The freest, happiest creature in these forests, a bold beast of prey, always on the move, running miles and miles every day, with no idea what a cage is, just suddenly finding itself in one and not being able to get out. It's bursting with health and power and it can't make use of it, it can't fight back, it can't see its enemy, it doesn't understand anything, it just knows all of a sudden that it cannot be among the trees, it cannot run, it cannot live. That is the situation I am in now. That's how I feel. I can't get it out of my mind and I can't see any way out."
"You're exaggerating," remarked the fortune teller, but the lynx hunter, preoccupied with himself, went on soulfully:
"A lynx in a cage stops eating. I once had one like that and even a rabbit I gave him got used to him. He didn't even go for a pigeon flying around in his cage and I already thought that would be the end of him. Until it occurred to me to catch the sparrows in the granary and release them all at once. It was more than he could stand when they flew into him from all sides in fright. He pounced on one, chewed it up and then killed them all one after the other, gobbling them up, along with the pigeon and the rabbit. Those sparrows saved his life, he could return to the wild. You know, I used to catch them for the Germans, to stock German game reserves. They only took specimens that would allow themselves be fed. They had to be transported and a lynx weak from hunger isn't capable of catching anything. I had some very profitable contracts with them," he lowered his eyes, as if after all he reproached himself for it. "I wouldn't give a single one to a zoo for any money," he said firmly and resolutely tore his hand away from the wall. "There," he said, pointing through the half-open window to the distant mountains, "is the ideal habitat for the lynx. No sooner had I caught one, then another appeared. I had a marker flag that flew up to the top of the tallest fir tree whenever the cage door closed. I used to watch from here through a telescope, so I wouldn't have to climb up into the mountains every day. You can see it’s a good few miles, and even so I had to walk far enough for them anyway. In the snow and frost… few people can imagine – just carrying the iron cage there is quite an achievement. The lynx always goes for the highest point in the terrain, from which it has the best view. It has telescopic vision; it can see a rabbit three kilometres away. It knows every fallen tree, every stone. It marks off its territory, it won't put up with a rival there. It keeps an eye on everything and has to investigate everything, including an open-ended cage that looks like a little hut covered with pine branches or a tunnel, which wasn't there before in the narrow gap in the rocks, through which the lynx passes every day to the other side of the ridge… Does this interest you?"
The fortune teller nodded politely.
"I always had the best specimens here. But the pelt that hung on this wall was from the kind of lynx that can be found perhaps once in a hundred years, and I shot him after three weeks of inhuman drudgery, after three weeks wading vainly through deep snow."
He sat his guest down in an armchair covered with furs, showed him the medals he had won for the rare trophy at exhibitions at home and abroad and popped out of the room to get the raspberry brandy.
The lynx next to the cabinet bared its artificial teeth in vain. It impressed the fortune teller as much as a furry toy or a rocking horse; he did not share the lynx hunter's fascination for these large cats. He yawned aloud. He had got up relatively early, in order to catch the bus. The forester had promised to drive him back, but it seemed he had forgotten. The contents of the bottle had clearly diminished; he must have taken a good swig from it when he was in the kitchen. He placed a full glass in front of the fortune teller and poured himself another drink.
"The devil take the fur, I told myself. Stop thinking about it, or it'll drive you mad. After all, I've got these medals – look, one of them's a gold. A gold medal… but the fact that someone close to me must have taken it… have you got children?"
"No, I haven't. I'm not married."
"You're still young, although not so young…"
The fortune teller smirked. "I haven't met the right woman yet."
"It's hard to choose when you're a fortune teller!" guffawed the lynx hunter. "I didn't pick and choose. I took the first one who was willing and I didn't regret it. She's a good wife. We have two sons, one lives in the south, Marián here, in the village. They're both married."
He got up, took the family album out of the cupboard, opened it and put it in front of the fortune teller. "That's him. That's his wedding photo. And that's the younger son who lives in the town."
The fortune teller browsed through the album.
"That's Marián as well," the hunter pointed to a photo of a smiling child sitting on a badger. "He comes here almost every day. He likes hunting. He takes after me. The younger one is more like his mother. We very rarely see him. He's become a townsman, even though he grew up here. His wife is a doctor and she's not very fond of mountain forests. As you can see, they spend their holidays at the seaside. That's my grandson," he poked a finger at a colour photo of a plump brunette with a boy on a beach. "And those are Marián's girls… Marián hasn't got a son. Pity, he'd become a lynx hunter…" he said with a bitter smile and poured another drink, then went over to the window and gazed at the hills. "I'll be quiet now. I'm disturbing you."
"Not at all," said the fortune teller, leafing through the album with interest. He liked looking at amateur photographs, they were mostly amusing. He didn't notice when the lynx hunter stole away.
Translated by Heather Trebatická
