Vyhľadávanie
YOU'RE NOT ONE OF US, WE'LL RUB YOU OUT
(Extract)
A tall, slender man, whose body had evidently been honed for a considerable time in a gym, entered Noblesse, a fashionable Bratislava dining and drinking establishment. He looked to be forty-something. Nevertheless, he dressed at least ten years younger: he wore nothing but black; his thick black hair, unusual for his age, was styled with gel and on the top of his head rested his image-making sunglasses. There was no activity where he would be caught without his glasses on his head, intercourse and shower not excluded. Even his accessories – cell phone, lighter, and watch – were perfectly matched. The only thing that did not suit him was his name. It was Vasil Hrkel – and each “l” was pronounced soft – and that made him so mad that he preferred to be called Egg.
At first glance, it was clear that he was either a graduate of the Fine Arts Academy in Bratislava, or a creative employee of an advertising agency, or a combination of both. That was clear not only from Egg's clothing, but above all from the way he opened the door and entered the room. Nobody in the world is capable of entering any sort of room, whether it be the community centre in the little village of Lower Peeville, or an Indian shack in the Andes of Peru, or the Élysée Palace, the way a graduate or a student of the Fine Arts Academy in Bratislava can do it. A person sometimes feels that entering rooms is a subject to which the above mentioned Academy devotes the whole semester. And what is more, this particular individual was widely known in the media: he was the first one to realize that the foundation of entrepreneurial success in this branch of endeavour in Slovakia is friendship with the politicians and the managers of State-owned companies nominated to their positions by the politicians. He was the first to be totally unscrupulous in this respect and was not even coy about it and thus became the target of condescension by his colleagues, who collectively branded him a media fraud and the biggest floozy in the business. But that was before Vasil Hrkel was photographed for the tabloid Tatrin in the swimming pool of his mansion on the hill above Bratislava in the company of Miss Swimsuit. Only then did his colleagues wise up and realize that he was a pioneer who was blazing the trail and that, instead of hatred, he deserved admiration. And so they elected him President of the Slovak Academy of Advertising, which meant that, as the first Slovak Academician, he became immortal. They even wanted to nominate him for a Nobel Prize, but then the Prime Minister decided they should nominate the poet Štajnhýbel instead.
If it had been anyone else entering the Noblesse, such as a milkmaid, a diver, a forest ranger, Šaňo Mach, an astronaut, a theatre producer, or any other simple person, none of those present would have paid any attention. By those present, one means the line-up of waitresses, of whom it was unclear whether they were not primarily hookers, three gangsters from Dunaszerda, of whom it was unclear whether they were not primarily businessmen. But it was Egg who entered the pub, the media magnate and a famous face from the tabloids and on top of that an inimitable graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and that was sufficient reason for those present to minimally raise an eyebrow. At first Egg froze in the doorway for a few seconds – that was just enough to attract attention, and not enough to make everyone in the house pissed off for letting in too much cold from the street. He checked out the situation in a flash to discover what he could afford to do. For those who enter the room, there are two categories of graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts. The first is mostly composed of the young, inexperienced and arrogant. Those always enter the place noisily, leaving the door open, or remain in the doorway for so long that someone shouts at them to close it. Then they greet their companions noisily and for three hours they bark for the whole room to hear about their film and theatre wisdom, and announce, urbi et orbi, that they have slaved in the cutting room till morning and that all their teachers are pricks and ask if anyone saw the fucked-up performance in the National Theatre with Mrs. Milka in the main role. They don't care who and how many people are in the room, whether anyone can hear them, or is listening to them, and in every sentence use words like old man, prick, boss, asshole, jerk, move their chair in the noisiest manner on principle and, as soon as their ass hits the chair, they smoke, although it is prohibited. And so it goes. They do so up to the point they piss one of the businessmen off and get their mug punched in the men's room. At that moment, the said graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts moves up to the next category: he would never enter the room without a short, but thorough inspection of the situation. He starts to get loud only at the moment when he discovers that the air is clear. There are a few characters who have transferred to the second category without a fight, simply by the advancement of age, but there are not many of those. Even Egg was not one of them: he received the obligatory beating a long time ago, some time at the beginning of the nineties, when he shot his first commercial (for royal jelly) and thought that Bratislava lay at his feet. It did not, instead, it was he who found himself lying on the floor, more precisely on the tiles wet with piss in the men's room of The Good Soul Restaurant, at the feet of a certain businessman called Rob who could no longer tolerate Egg's noisy critique of the lighting work by Bergman's cameraman Sven Nykvist (at that time, Egg was going through a phase, claiming that commercials were only his sideline and he was mainly into film), and so the nice businessman Rob waited for him to show him concretely who was the chairman of planet Slovakia.
With his experienced look, Egg determined that the Noblesse was not going to be a threat to him today. To tell the truth, he no longer had to care: for some time Egg had belonged among that special category of people who could behave in any manner anywhere in Slovakia. This was thanks to his achievement, his influence, and his public face. But just because he could afford to behave like a jerk, he behaved correctly, was distinguished, and inconspicuous. A certain charisma, a certain style of his entrance remained in him (after all, he was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and the influence of this significant Slovak educational institution could not be erased just like that), but he already knew how to control himself. He knew he did not have to prove anything to anyone, but there was no point in tempting fate and it was better to be inconspicuous than to act like a king of the universe. Moreover, Egg was getting ready to enter politics – he didn't want to mention it to anyone yet and was a bit worried about the reaction of the Prime Minister – and with that intention, he decided to work on his assertiveness and self-discipline.
After all, that was also what brought him here, to the Noblesse, today. Usually he would not come here, especially not for lunch. The restaurant seemed to him – despite its name – above all not noble enough. The prices, as far as food was concerned, were higher only in the restaurant Allegro in the hotel Four Seasons in Prague, but Egg, who knew Bratislava's establishments very well, knew how the specialities of the house were prepared, whether it was the “famous” Blue Pressburger Lobster in ginger purée and flambé accompaniments, or its sea food that was without fault - except that it hailed from the nearby Senec Lake. And since he knew that, he never brought his clients here. And we have in mind the real clients, not some vulgar types who privatised the Hydro Construction Company of Rimavská Sobota, or the local elite who hailed from faraway Svidník in the East. The latter Egg gladly brought over here, if he had to. For one thing, these people wanted it (for all Slovak businessmen, dining in the Noblesse was the peak experience and an emblem of prestige and accomplishment, something Egg could never understand), and at the same time it gave Egg an opportunity to let the owner of the dining room, a certain Pusspoky from Šamorín, know what he really thought about his establishment. Pusspoky knew that very well and it made him quite livid and so he had even invited Egg for lunch to Assimakopoulos' in the Hotel Carlton, to persuade him to bring to his restaurant, instead of the peasants from the East, some of the more important of his clients, for example the Director of the International Chamber of Commerce, or the Director of the National Property Fund, if not the Prime Minister himself. But Egg pretended he did not understand, arguing that a peasant from Turčianska Porúbka or elsewhere, the owner of a local factory producing veneer boards, would spend a hundred times more for a dinner in the Noblesse than some clever parasite from some supranational company that does not produce anything, but sticks its fingers everywhere or some stuttering chairman of some government organisation who only yesterday used to live in a prefab housing apartment surrounded by polyester doilies knitted by his unattractive, overweight wife with breasts like milk jugs, a man who has no idea that his tie should reach down to his belt and that the third button on his jacket is never to be buttoned. Also, could he tell Pusspoky that he, Egg, was himself interested in acquiring the Noblesse? Of course, not this pedestrian version, but the real, world-class one, so good that even Michelin inspectors who award stars to the world’s best restaurants would notice it. Egg knew how to contact them and he considered it to be one of the jewels of his portfolio. He wanted to be the first and only one with a Michelin star in Slovakia. That was Egg's secret plan as the restaurant had a terrific location and an astonishing revenue per chair and a fantastic potential. At the same time, he knew it would be difficult to pull off: Pusspoky was a member of a gang that ruled this particular part of Bratislava with an iron fist. Egg knew that the only man who could help him in this would be the Prime Minister who, at the same time, would have to be introduced carefully to the idea that Egg had political ambitions.
To put it briefly, Egg did not want to increase the equity of Pusspoky's pub and thus complicate the future operation of his takeover of this establishment. For that reason he showed up as little as he could on purpose and if he could not resist the insistence of clients – or more often their wives – then he would not eat at the Noblesse, but instead, he would torment its staff with his sophisticated demands, such as the Chinese fennel tea with honey amuse bouche or other snobbish nonsense. Not that he was a great gourmet; after all, he could still get excited by a portion of cod salad with a couple of buns, but his position in life predetermined that he become a gourmet and a wine connoisseur, whether he liked it or not. And so he occasionally expressed himself as one.
Frankly, it was compassion rather than assertiveness that brought Egg to the Noblesse for lunch after such a long time. He worked on his assertiveness for those who would vote for him in the future. Compassion was for those who had some connection to him in the past. This latter was the case today.
The object of Egg's compassion was the only real customer in the house, who was already waiting there – his high school classmate René F. Because he will be the main character of this decadent story, we will have to pay more attention to him. At first sight, he looked a bit younger than Egg, dressed in a green corduroy suit with newish brown shoes with scuffed toes. The suit looked a bit old-fashioned, but otherwise seemed fine since it fitted René's slender figure quite well. It is important to note right at the outset that René was not some kind of country bumpkin and loser who could not make it in the capital city. It may sometimes have seemed like that. His hair was getting thin, but it had not reached the point when he would have to use some sophisticated means of hiding it. He did not carry any extra weight, though he might give the impression that he did a bit. René was a sportsman, he knew how to kick the ball and also had a nice two-handed backhand. He was cultivating a facial growth in a pepper and salt style that lent him a bit of mysterious eroticism. Finally, as he knew how to select a cologne that suited him, even though it was expensive, he would merit 5.8 points for overall artistic impression. Any man with that kind of evaluation was in great demand in his native Liptov region. And that was one of the reasons for René's problems.
René was seated at the corner table, so he could not move the table for a more comfortable position. Egg immediately realized that the reason for sitting there was to be far away from the Dunaszerda gang who were noisily entertaining themselves in Hungarian.
Before René managed to notice that his classmate has arrived, Egg quickly looked at the mobile bar to check whether by chance Pusspoky was not around (though the gangster would receive a report on Egg's visit anyway) and when he assured himself that there was nobody there except for the waitresses, he walked over to René. The latter smiled when he noticed Egg and got up noisily.
“Greetings, old man.” Egg shook René's hand firmly with pride, as he was planning to use this firm handshake in politics, when he would be required to shake the hands of the working people.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“I've just come from the interview at the consulate,” said René and again sat down clumsily on his chair.
“So how did it go? Did you get the visa?” Egg asked without any particular interest in the conversation and motioned to the waitress. She waddled over to them with obvious distaste and let them know it. This girl would be the first one to get kicked out of here when I buy this place, Egg thought, and smiled at the girl.
“Not yet, but I'm sure to get it.”
“Those Yanks are making unnecessary formalities,” Egg said indifferently. “What will you have?”
“I don't care,” said René and protested a bit too lamely: “It's my treat...”
“Don't bullshit me,” answered Egg and again turned to the waitress with a smile as she stood over them turning up her eyes. Egg decided to punish her for that: “Do you have any good Bordeaux down here? The best would be a Paulliac, Grand Cru Comte Lalande 82. I'm sure you know it is an exceptional year and the wine will be improving up to the middle of the century. I think it would work for our brunch.”
Egg knew very well what would happen: the bored bitch would drop her jaw and say that she would send in the maitre d'. And that was what happened. When she turned round to find that person, Egg turned to René: “You have to train them. It's an arrogant gang of thieves. This place will belong to me one day.”
The look on René's face as he watched all this could be summed up as a mixture of admiration and protest. Admiration, because René would never dare to treat a waitress like that in an expensive place and protest, because René was basically a man with a good heart who sympathised with the proletariat, which included, for some unknown reason, even waitresses.
The maitre d' showed up quite quickly, as he must have discovered who it was that summoned him. He not only knew about Egg's caprices, but also about Pusspoky's desire to get Egg's clients into his establishment. And because he did not want a repeat of the whipping with a willow switch from Pusspoky that he once experienced when he dared tell Egg that he had no idea what a jellied turnip with caramel chips was and had no idea who could tell him what sort of throw-up it was, since the pastry chef has already left the kitchen and was on the last bus home to her village of Veľký Meder, he was willing to tolerate Egg's caprices far above the limit of his work assignment. Egg knew that very well and so he concluded his intro at the Noblesse with an appropriate grace, saying to the Maitre d' who bent his ear to him servilely:
“We wanted some wine, but will have a rum and cola instead. We wouldn't want to embarrass your wine cellar. And then we'll have a snack.”
Translated by Peter Petro
