There’s a hint of reproach in Freddy’s voice.
“Please don’t use that name. Here I’m Telgarth, the feared guerrilla leader. Yes, Telgarth! Telgarth the First!” he adds quietly, and blushes.
Telgarth doesn’t wait for Urban to reply. He scans the crates. He grabs a shoulder-firing anti-aircraft missile and puts it on his shoulder. He tests it by aiming at the yurt’s ceiling.
“With this we’ll defeat the government mercenaries in no time,” he announces. “They’ve bought a few decommissioned Mig-24 combat helicopters from the Russians. Well, let them try hassling us with them. We’ll shoot them down like clay pigeons! And you, uncle Kresan, try the chocolate now. This one, look: Kofila! It won the gold medal at the 1958 Brussels Expo. Oh, Brussels style! Urban used go on and on about it!”
Telgarth pats Urban’s back in a friendly way.
“It’s like coffee, uncle Kresan!” he tells the old man. “It won’t hurt you, for God’s sake!”
* * *
In the middle of the night Geľo is woken by a woman’s sobs coming from Zuzana’s corner.
“Can you hear?” he whispers to Elena who, tired after several hours of wild lovemaking, has fallen asleep in his still lusting hands.
Elena mumbles something and turns over.
Geľo leaves his den of furs; naked, he goes to the curtain separating him from Zuzana’s corner. He listens for a while with bated breath. Cold and excitement paralyses his limbs. He finally resolves to lift the curtain.
“It’s me,” he says and slips like lightning under Zuzana’s fur cover. “Don’t be afraid.”
The widow turns her tearful face to him.
“Why are you crying?” Geľo asks.
“I don’t know,” says Zuzana. “From happiness and sorrow. You’re so good to want to take care of me.”
“Adam would have done the same if anything had happened to me…” says Geľo with a lump in his throat.
He touches Zuzana’s powerful, lithe, sleep-warmed body.
“How beautiful you are!” he whispers, his throat tightened, gazing on the gorgeous tattoos on her belly, underbelly and thighs.
Zuzana closes her eyes and as if by chance touches Geľo’s manhood, as hard as a stick. She withdraws her hand as if scalded.
“No, no,” Zuzana whispers. “It’s a sin!”
“Why sin?” Geľo argues, grabbing her tattooed breast. “We belong to each other. The priest will marry us tomorrow. That’s in a few hours!”
He firmly embraces Zuzana’s body and pushes between her legs.
Zuzana does not fight him off, but moves her face aside, as if afraid that Geľo’s increasingly insistent kisses might defile her. She spreads her legs and completely opens up to him.
Geľo enters her and moves around powerfully.
Finally comes relief. Geľo throws off the covers. He withdraws his wildly pulsating member from Zuzana and with a firm hand aims it away from her bed. Hot streams of his semen quickly leave his insides, but only whitish frozen chips fall on the ground.
“Cold!” Zuzana says through her chattering teeth and covers herself with fur. She’s asleep in a moment. There is no trace of tears.
* * *
The coming days will see a big memorable social event: the wedding of Geľo Todor-Lačný-Dolniak to his brother’s widow Zuzana.
Kresan orders a few of the fattest reindeer to be butchered. The women search all day for the tastiest herbs and spices to make fine dishes. Great amounts of sugar and flour are set aside to ferment to distil spirits and make a drink which inspires the human soul to flight.
After a Christian rite, celebrated by the priest with his two sons as altar boys, the feasting begins. The tables groan under the weight of roasted delicacies and bottles of alcohol. Geľo sits at the head of the table; on his right is his first wife Elena, and on his left Zuzana, the bride. She is dazzlingly beautifully dressed. To honour the guests from afar, she has put on the perfume Geľo brought from Prague. She’s used half the phial and now all the guests near her have tears in their eyes. But that doesn’t dim anyone’s cheerful mood, and the closer they are to the bride, the more they laugh through their tears.
There is no end to the toasts. Music begins: the accordionist Trefuľa, two musicians terribly screeching on instruments resembling primitive violins, and someone playing a wooden harp that, under his nimble fingers, produces dark base tones on gut strings drawn over a reindeer skull soundbox. Some of the wedding guests begin to dance. Others have already lost consciousness and are in various immobile states.
Kresan’s very old father has been getting ready all day long to recite the folk epic which foretells even the armed conflict in Junja, as well as the coming of a hero from a distant country overseas. He dresses for the occasion in ceremonial costume. He appears before the gathering with fragile, but lively steps. He bows smoothly like a schoolboy celebrating the Soviet revolution.
“HIPP BOWDURF!” he mumbles the title of the epic poem.
“What was that?” Urban asks Telgarth in a whisper.
“It’s a traditional poem,” says Telgarth. “No one understands it, because it’s handed down orally. It always misses one generation. Children learn it by heart from their grandfathers before they can understand its meaning. So, over the years the meaning has been totally lost.”
“That’s a bit awkward for them, isn’t it?” Urban smiles.
“It’s the jewel of their folk literature,” says Telgarth with conviction. “It’s our entrance ticket to the club of the world’s most cultured nations.”
“I see,” says Urban and, pretending to listen with interest, turns away from Freddy.
Kresan’s old father, obviously, will soon have to join the People Above. He recites with arms akimbo, like a visionary. Sometimes he makes small funny dance steps, sometimes his jerky motions mimic throwing a harpoon and other basic actions. He recites:
For no begraal!
Crownpont turmmissed,
Mork pinch crumdown.
Bont hazzerissed!
Chuk mahn bestage choosenu:
“Bergo! Falush? Inmead?”
Farbow no brokarah:
“Woolab acban winmead!”
Try slantban mordant,
Ment kaar da mamalpont,
For chinslob gordant,
Der punk soon gravlapont.
“Frick ent feer!”
Uthers feelsen mooleh.
Priktahn fan sholobahn,
Someken non bin fooleh!
“Bonga!” sant den pasha.
“Longa,” retorp masha.
Skrooni bot bagputen,
Vrooni muck lickputen!
“Has no one tried to work out what it might mean?” Urban whispers to Telgarth.
“No,” Telgarth shakes his head. “Why should they? After all, that mellifluous old Slovak is a great enough artistic experience. We Slovaks have the world’s loveliest language. Why bother about meaning?”
“I see,” Urban nods. “I understand.”
The old man is now slowly coming to the finale. He clenches his dry brown hands and shows them to the public like two wrinkled walnuts. His ecstatic gaze rises heaven-wards.