The White King (3 page)

The water flowed out of a thick, horizontal iron pipe set in the wall under a memorial plaque to Jánku Zsjánu, the famous outlaw, protector of the poor, who relieved his thirst at this very spot when fleeing from the posse that was out to hang him, and the plaque also said that this was medicinal water and that pregnant women and nursing mothers were not allowed to drink it, so when Szabi bent over toward the pipe to begin drinking, I said, "Stop, slow down, haven't you read on the plaque that pregnant women aren't allowed to drink this water?" But now Szabi didn't laugh at all, though at other times he always did, he even told me not to kid around because this was dead serious business, first you had to stick your mouth on the spout to keep the water from flowing out, and then you had to start counting until you reached at least one hundred, and when the pressure was so great that you could hardly stand it, you had to suddenly open your mouth, which was when the ice-cold water would shoot down your throat and your gullet really fast, it would fill your gut all at once, and your insides would cool down so much that pneumonia was as good as in the bag, and if you did it right you'd faint straightaway But the other person shouldn't go slapping the one who drank the water but only splash cold water in his face, because then he'd come to on his own right away, and I said, "Okay, but don't talk so much, get going already, we should take advantage of no one coming by for water just now," because if anyone saw us, sure as hell they wouldn't be happy about our trying to block off the spout with our mouths.

Szabi said I was right and that he would now begin, and he crouched right down in front of the spout and pressed his mouth against its end so not a drop of water could flow out, and I started counting out loud, so he could hear it too, so he would know how long to keep the pressure up, and Szabi's head turned red nice and slow, at first as if he had blushed from all the kidding around, but then his face got redder and redder, I hadn't even reached fifty yet and his face was beet red, then it started slowly turning blue. He shut his eyes and I saw that he was now holding the spout with both hands and his face was completely blue, and I was only at eighty-five when all of a sudden he let go of the pipe, and the water came gushing out so hard that Szabi reeled back, his clothes got sopping wet but he was still trying to drink all the same, his mouth was wide open and he was gulping down the water, but all that pressure must have sent some of the water up his nose because when he wiped his face with the sleeve of his official school shirt, he said this wasn't worth shit, this was a bunch of crap because he didn't feel anything at all in his lungs, which should be hurting by now, so this method wouldn't do the trick, either. But he said that if I wanted, I should go ahead and give it a try, maybe it would work for me, but that I shouldn't let the pressure build up so much in the pipe, it would be enough if I just pinched my nose shut and drank as much water as I could stand, and I said okay.

And so I crouched right down in front of the spout, pinched my nose shut, and used the palm of my other hand to direct the rush of water into my mouth, and I began swallowing the water, it was pretty cold all right, but the less air I had, the warmer the water seemed to get, and by the time I stopped, it seemed burning hot, that's how little air I had left in me, and I too nearly fell back, but Szabi caught me and helped me stand up, and we went over to one of the few benches that still had a back and a seat left on it, and we sat down. I was dizzy and my head was buzzing a little too, Szabi said he felt awful, but he thought this was only because of the water, because we drank so much of it so suddenly, but that this water wasn't cold enough to cause pneumonia after all, at most we'd just get diarrhea, and that wasn't worth shit, and sure enough my belly then began hurting and I had to press my palm against it, but when I hunched forward the pain slowly went away, and then I said to Szabi that this pneumonia trick was a bunch of bull, nothing would come of it, and if we wanted to get out from under what we had coming to us we'd have to think up something else, something that was sure to pan out.

Szabi said I was right, it would be best if we went and broke our legs, and I told him he was completely bonkers, you couldn't fake a broken leg, and he said, you sure couldn't, but we weren't out to fake pneumonia either, and if we really wanted to get out from under this mess about the money, then faking it wouldn't get us anywhere, not even the chalk was worth shit. Instead we should go up to where the woods began, to that abandoned construction site where they'd not only dug a ditch to put pipes in but had already laid this thick concrete pipe, and if we jumped on that pipe, our ankles would break for sure, and it's at least a week until you can walk even with a cast, but I said it was too dangerous to risk breaking your leg, it could lead to serious trouble, at which Szabi started laughing, he said I was chicken, his leg got broken twice already and one time his head was broken, and he'd have me know that it wasn't even so bad, the only thing that's not so good is when they set the cast, it's so hot when they do that it's like you're on fire, but afterward you can get out of all sorts of things, which is not to mention how good it feels to scratch yourself with a needle under the cast, and if it rains you don't have to go to school, and you can get out of running in gym class for six months because it's bad to strain your leg. And if I didn't do it he'd tell everyone what a chicken I was, that I was afraid of breaking my leg, and then I said, "Listen here, I'm no chicken," and then Szabi said, "All right, we'll talk it over after jumping," and we headed off toward the construction site.

We couldn't go too fast, our bellies were still so full of water, mine gurgled with every step I took, and one time we stopped because Szabi had to take a piss, and another time because my belly was so upset I almost puked, but finally we reached the construction site all the same. Szabi knew where we could get across the tall wooden fence because he'd been there once before to get some PVC pipes for blowguns and carbide for fireworks, so anyway, he told me not to be scared, no one had lived in the guard booth for a long time, and sure enough, finding that ditch with the pipe in it wasn't hard because the earth was thrown up high on one side. Szabi went first, we climbed all the way to the top of the embankment, from there we looked down into the ditch, which contained separate sections of thick concrete pipe that hadn't been cemented together yet.

Szabi said he truly regretted how we left our school comrades in the lurch like this, yes, he was really sorry that on account of us the others wouldn't be able to take part in the placard competition, especially because the class that made the nicest placard would win a two-week seaside trip, and I said I was sorry too, because I would have also really liked to get to the sea, but then I looked again at the sections of concrete pipe, and it occurred to me that nothing would ever flow through them, neither water nor sewage, because this new complex of apartment blocks would never be built, and I told Szabi he shouldn't worry himself over it, we wouldn't have won the competition anyway, some class from School No. 3 would win it for sure, because School No. 3 wins everything since that's where the children of Party activists go, and as for our own class, there was no reason to be sad because it just couldn't happen that the class wouldn't take part in the placard competition or in the parade if it's been told to do so, our head teacher would no doubt get enough material from somewhere, and they'd make a placard after all because our teacher didn't want to get in trouble either, and then Szabi asked if I was sure about that, and I said, "You bet I'm sure,
and let's jump already, because if we stand around here for too long we'll get cold feet."

Szabi then said, "Okay, let's count out loud and jump on three," and then we both looked down into the ditch one more time and it looked pretty deep, from where we stood it must have been at least ten feet for sure, and then we both started counting at the same time, but Szabi stopped at two and said, "Let's shut our eyes and start again," and so we shut our eyes and started again, and then it suddenly occurred to me that if we both jumped and really broke our legs, then we wouldn't be able to climb out of the ditch, and I wanted to tell Szabi to wait, but by the time I said it Szabi had already jumped, and I opened my eyes just in time to see that he'd jumped so far forward that he almost cleared the ditch, but his jump still wasn't long enough, no, Szabi's shoulder struck the opposite wall and he fell straight into the ditch and onto a section of pipe.

Szabi let out a piercing cry and reached both hands toward one of his ankles, and he was lying there on his side beside the concrete pipe, and he kept on holding his foot, and he was screaming my name really loud, he was wailing and crying, and then I called down to him to wait because I'd climb down right away, and he looked up, his face was wet with tears, and he told me to go fuck my mother, that I was a chickenshit for letting him jump alone. But then I told him to shut his trap because I'd seen full well that he had wanted to clear the ditch and didn't want to jump in at all, and if I didn't have more brains than him there wouldn't be anyone left to go get an ambulance, but Szabi only kept swearing and saying over and over that his foot hurt like hell, and I called down to him again, saying he had it coming for wanting to play me for a sucker and telling him to wait right where he was because I'd go get an ambulance even though he didn't really deserve it. I
started running back toward the apartment blocks, and meanwhile I already knew what I would say the next day in school, that the reason we didn't have the money was that I had to give half of it to the ambulance guys so they would take poor Szabi to the hospital and the other half to the doctors so they wouldn't set his fracture without anesthetics.

C
OACH GICA
tended to us goalies specially, he made us show up at every practice an hour early and mainly had us do speed drills, plus we had to jump a lot and dive, jump and dive, jump and dive, and he had this goalie-terrorizing machine, he came up with it himself and the workers at the ironworks made it for him, a soccer ball was put on the end of this long iron pipe, the ball was filled with sand, and that's what he shot at us, the whole contraption was built onto an axle and revolved around it, throwing that sand-packed ball with no mercy, and Janika and I knew that if we didn't catch it, it would hit us in the head and break our bones. Other kids had already died in Coach Gica's hands, so they said, which is why he became a coach for the junior team, the adult players couldn't stand his heavy-handedness, one time they caught him and knocked half his brains out, and since then he wasn't allowed to coach the Ironworks' adult team but could work only with us eleven- and twelve-year-olds.

That May we were close to being dropped from the league,
so
Coach Gica held practice every day, he got us passes so we didn't even have to go to school for the first four hours of the day, everyone knew that Red Hammer, the ironworks team, had to stay in the running, no way could we be dropped. Coach Gica even told us that if we didn't beat Breakthrough, the military team, then that's it, it's over, after the game he'd smash everyone's ankles with a crowbar, for him it would be all the same because coaching was his life, and if we fell from the running, that would be it, and from then on each and every one of us would be going to school on crutches, he even showed us the crowbar, and he took a swipe with it at one of the planks in the fence, the crowbar tore right into the wood and he said our bones would break apart just like that, in splinters, not a soul would be able to put them together again. We knew he wasn't kidding because by then he didn't have a family, he lived in the junior team's clubhouse, yes, we knew he was dead serious, and so we really did go all out getting ready for that game, everyone went running, no one dared skip practice, everyone was scared stiff about what Coach Gica would do to their legs. I went running too, as much as I could take, even though I knew I didn't stand a chance of playing anyway because I was just a backup goalie, Janika was the real goalie even though he was a Jehovah's Witness, a Jehovist, the truth is he shouldn't have been playing on the Ironworks' team at all because his father didn't let him be a Young Pioneer, but he was so good at keeping goal that Coach Gica paid a visit to the school and worked things out with the top comrade there, the principal, so Janika would be able to play all the same, and sure enough he kept goal in nearly every game because he had a much better feel for the ball than I did, even when he wasn't in top form. So we practiced really hard, seeing how we were afraid of Coach Gica, but we knew it didn't matter anyway, there was no beating Breakthrough, they had the backing of the army, their team was full of army brats, the armed forces gave them everything and gave the referees everything too, Breakthrough was unbeaten in the playoffs, and so we knew we didn't stand a chance, and we were scared stiff.

Even on the day of the game Coach Gica held a separate practice for us goalies, and as the two of us walked along toward the sports complex so early that morning, Janika, who was even more scared than I was, stopped all of a sudden while we were still outside in front of the complex, pressed a hand to his belly, then he started retching and puked, if I hadn't got a hold of him he might have fainted, and he said that only now, on seeing the entrance to the Ironworks sports complex, did he remember that he dreamed last night about Coach Gica, about Coach Gica smashing apart his ankles, and as he said this I handed Janika my canteen so he could rinse his mouth, and he said that in his dream Coach Gica took such a hard swipe at his ankle with that iron pipe that even Coach Gica was all in tears, even now he could recall the old guy's beet-red, glistening face, and Janika said he didn't care one bit, he was going home, he wasn't coming to the practice because he couldn't take it anymore, and that I should go along too, I shouldn't stay here all by myself, he didn't even care if the team was left without a goalie. "Soccer is only a game," he said, "it's not worth this much." He wiped his mouth, gave me back my canteen, and he said, "Let's go, let's get out of here before Coach Gica sees us."