Plush

The first blow came from behind.

By then I was thoroughly familiar with the way pain acts, but this was something else.

A paralysing burn went through my shoulders. My arm went wooden to the fingertips.

I couldn't tell where that newspaperwoman was. The house was sunk in darkness, with rays of bright yellow light from outside cutting through it  rhythmically. I had ringing in my ears from the helicopter.

A fire seemed to blaze up at the back of my head. Little points of light glittered in the dark before me. A lunatic pain came flooding through my body. In spite of it I swung at my attacker with all my strength.

I was shocked when I struck Charisma's pale face. Her cheeks.

I'd managed to land a heavy blow. The girl crumpled onto the table with the snack wrappings and rolled over onto the couch. Glass broke and shivered. The upholstery on the easy chair was rent. A spring hopped from the ripped opening and quivered. Her falling body swept the black lamp off the table and it smashed into shards of black glass.

I couldn't understand what was happening. Even the alarm didn't go off!

I got ready to run.

Before I could take the first step, long white fingers fastened on my neck.

I had no idea that a young woman could be so strong. She had changed to a raptor. I jerked my chin to throw Charisma off. But she was moving incredibly fast. Her rough grip tightened. She dug her claws into my throat and her elbow slammed on my chest, and for a moment I was winded.

In desperation I drew on my last reserves of energy. I caught her below the elbow and slowly bent her arm back to her breasts. She wriggled backwards, breathing heavily. Her wrists were slim. But her muscles and her blows gave evidence of ninja training. She was unbelievably strong, wonderfully prepared technically, and utterly ruthless.

When I gripped her palm, our fingers met harshly.

I'd tensed my stomach muscles, so my diaphragm would be out like a drum.

She extricated her hand. With bent fingers she scraped my face, forcing apart my lips with her thumb. The index and middle fingers were launching themselves for my eyes.

I managed to whack her in the belly with my knee. She groaned.

I hurled myself forward, hunching up while I was still in the air. Charisma tried to hold me back. I dashed her thin wrist against the table edge.

For an instant I managed to drag her beneath me. But I sensed her bracing to hit me with her other free hand.

I raised my bloodied palm and struck out with all my force. But Charisma instinctively made a nimble turn. She didn't quite evade the blow, but I struck her only glancingly. With a lightning leap she kicked me in the chest and immediately bounded backwards.

She sucked air through half-shut teeth and then she gritted them tight. She jumped back. With clenched knuckles she struck me on the right of the jaw, just under the ear. I'd been expecting her killer punch, but by then I wasn't able to react.

Next she gripped me round the waist and flung me on the ground. I rolled about, the armchair and table toppled over. She struck me again.

For a moment I lost consciousness.

From those last seconds in my house I recall her weary but nonetheless concentrated face.

I lay on the floor.

The room looked like a war zone. Overturned chairs, ripped couch, fabrics in flitters, broken table, mangled photo frames, black stains.

Suddenly I had a moment of cruel clarity, such as even the blindest human being has once in his lifetime.

How could I have believed that it was really about an interview? The Icon group's albums, after all, had never been distributed in Bratislava. Music in that city was no longer officially on sale. The local branches of foreign recording houses had already departed, on account of the wretched profits. From then on the domain of the pirate copyists, territory written off by the music industry, had been spreading eastwards. Ours is a region with a future much like that of Central Africa, Argentina or Rumania. In the coming era it will not be reckoned with.

They loaded me, bound, onto a helicopter. Terror convulsed me in waves, ringed me round like armour. I broke out in goosepimples. Something in my chest writhed and jerked. I clenched my fingers. The joints in my hands and shoulders cracked. Drops of sweat came out on my forehead, sharp as crystals.

My crazy eyes oscillated round the dampened walls. At the balcony doors the featureless mural darkness collided with the dusky sky.

In the night air in front of me there were yellow lights, growing bigger. They careered towards me.

The vanishing room burst in my eyes into kaleidoscopic fragments.

Translated by John Minahane