Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

Szilárd Podmaniczky
do whatever I want with you, that would leave you exactly where you
were to begin with, I said. That rat also did whatever he wanted with you.
The woman flinched, momentarily lost for words, then still managed to
come back: But you’re different.
I did not answer. I took the woman by the hand and we went back into
the front room, grabbed hold of her husband, lugged him to the car, and
stowed him on the back seat. From here on in it’s up to you, I said, and
with that left her there.
The old fellow was still lying peacefully on the bed, puffing faintly. I
paced up and down. It suddenly occurred to me: the money. There it was
in my pocket. Eight hundred thousand, I counted it out.
It was well into the night by now; outside all was still, the sky had
cleared, and the temperature had sunk below freezing. I tossed a few more
billets on the fire, got out the money, plonked down seven hundred thousand
next to the old man, on the chair that the doctor had used. I stuffed
the remaining hundred thousand in my pocket, then started off on my
way.
On getting out of the village, I started to jog to warm myself up. Every
now and then I glanced back, so that if a car were coming I would have
time to stop and thumb a lift. Nothing came, but after half a mile or so I
grew weary, though 1 had warmed up. Then, all of a sudden, there was a
flash of headlights on the road behind me, and my shadow was thrown a
hundred yards ahead of me.
The car drew up alongside and the door on the passenger side opened.
The woman was behind the wheel, with her husband in the back, just as
we had stowed him. Come on, give me a hand; I don’t know what to do
with him on my own, she gestured behind her. Leave me out of it, I said,
so it beats me how, just a couple of seconds later, I came to be sitting in
the car.
We turned off the road towards the lake; the sky was glittering darkly
on its surface. The car stopped in the wooded part of the reservoir, where
a long slope led down through the banking to the water. With considerable
difficulty, we heaved the man into the driver’s seat and belted him
in. The woman started the engine and set it in gear, whilst I fixed the
accelerator pedal to slightly more than idling and wedged the clutch to
the seat with a stick which could be yanked away through the rolled-down
wing-window with a length of twine.
All set, I asked the woman. All set, she replied. I pressed the twine into
her hand and she yanked it without giving it a moment’s thought. The car
slowly trundled towards the lake. Then all at once the woman started racing
after it. Fuck it, she shouted, I left my house key inside. She ripped the
door open and clambered in: in the dark, I couldn’t see what she was
doing. The car was picking up speed all the while, and by the time it had
reached the edge of the lake it must have been doing about twenty. Get
out, I shouted after her. Just before hitting the water the car thumped
against a hillock on the right hand side and the door slammed to; I raced
after it. Even in the water it kept going before submerging. I ran up and
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