‘Why a genuine fish soup?’ queried Róka, ‘why not a sham one?’
‘I mean,’ Pataki responded superciliously, ‘a traditional fish soup, prepared in the proper way, as Hungarians have prepared it since time immemorial.’
‘But you can’t cook,’ Gyuri pointed out.
‘There are certain things that every man should be able to do and cooking a fish soup is one of them. It might be tricky getting some of the ingredients, but I will endeavour to do my best.’
‘Will it have some potatoes?’ enquired Katona.
‘No,’ replied Pataki.
‘But I like potatoes,’ remonstrated Katona.
‘So do I,’ retorted Pataki with one foot on the ladder of petulance, ‘I also like my basketball boots, but I wouldn’t put them in a fish soup. Potatoes don’t belong in a genuine fish soup.’
The day of the reception came near and Pataki, beseeched twenty-four hours a day to include potatoes, was getting truculent and also, although Gyuri could only suspect it, worried about his ability to cook fish soup. Fish soup would be something very difficult for Pataki to talk his way out of, since fish soup was either there or it wasn’t. But, somehow, Pataki had managed to round up the ingredients, so that as a minimum he had something to attempt to cook
‘Where are the potatoes?’ asked Gyuri.
‘There aren’t any,’ said Pataki, trying to look expertly at the fish he held, overdosed on air.
‘That’s not carp, is it?’ asked Gyuri.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Pataki, ‘it’s perch.’
‘Oh,’ said Gyuri exiting, ‘I didn’t know you could make fish soup with perch.’
In came Gyurkovics. ‘Where are the potatoes?’ he asked.
‘There aren’t any,’ reaffirmed Pataki, still working hard to give the appearance of preparing fish soup.
‘That’s not carp, is it?’ asked Gyurkovics.
‘No, it’s perch,’ was the terse response.
‘Oh,’ said Gyurkovics walking out of the kitchen, ‘I didn’t know you could make fish soup with perch.’
When Hepp came in and asked about the potatoes, Pataki calmly replaced on the cutting board the perch he had been considering, and enunciated forcefully: ‘I know what’s going on. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me worked up, but,’ he continued in a determined but un-irate tone, ‘I’m not going to let you.’
‘Okay,’ said Hepp, ‘but where are the potatoes?’
It was Demeter who won the bottle of reserve pálinka, when Pataki, at the fifteenth questioning, answered by attacking Demeter with a brace of perch. Having fired-off his perch at the swiftly retreating Demeter, Pataki stormed off into the countryside.
When Pataki returned to the camp (some hours later, Gyuri noticed; too late to make another stab at the fish soup) he found everyone gathering in the marquee as if for a fish soup soiree.
‘Come on,’ said Katona, ‘you’ve got to see this. I’ve managed to persuade Wu to do it.’
‘Do what?’ asked Pataki puzzled.
‘His numbers. It’s quite amazing, I caught him playing along with the radio the other day.’ Pataki followed Katona into the marquee where the entire camp seemed to be in attendance. Katona appointed himself master of ceremonies:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are very privileged tonight to witness a performer who has travelled thousands of kilometres to be with us. First of all, can I ask for some discreet lighting.’ The flaps of the marquee were closed to produce a fair penumbra. A stretcher was carried in with a figure hidden under a blanket. The blanket was lifted up to reveal a pair of Chinese buttocks. ‘Secondly, may I ask you to maintain absolute silence during the recital. Over to you, Mr Wu.’
The sounds commenced and though it took a few moments for the audience to latch on, they soon realised that Wu was farting out the Internationale. The audience, distinguished by its ideological unsoundness, despite the recent injunction for quiet, burst into spontaneous applause. Wu’s phrasing and stamina were astonishing and the Internationale was only the beginning. As the audience wondered what on earth he had been eating, Wu launched into a medley of tunes, concluding with ‘The Blue Danube’. There was a standing ovation.
Then the fish soup was served. Gyuri and the others could see that Pataki was itching to remonstrate about the salination or some other aspect of the soup, but he realised that his reputation could be irrevocably marred and he had to sit and take it. ‘It’s really rather good, considering where it came from,’ remarked Hepp to Gyuri. The origins of the soup were never revealed to Pataki: it had been tinned at the behest of an official at the Ministry of Agriculture who thought it would make a good export product to Britain, until someone reminded him that Britain was a capitalist country and as such couldn’t be the recipient of Hungarian fish soup. Indeed it transpired that all the countries likely to pay for tins of fish soup were capitalist, whereas their trading partners, the socialist countries, wouldn’t cough up a mouldy kopek. It was decided to divvy up the fish soup within the Ministry, so all the families of the staff experienced a fish soup bonanza. István had dumped ten tins with Elek, who would eat anything – except fish.
Playing for the railways had some benefits, including free deliveries.
Gyuri was looking forward to the end of the camp, since he was becoming preoccupied with seeing Zsuzsa again, and he was also looking forward to the end of the camp because Pataki wasn’t. Pataki wasn’t because he knew he had promised Hepp that Locomotive would win the match against the National team. Pataki didn’t show this, but his exuberance was steadily deflating as the day drew nearer.
As the Locomotive players sparred with them, it was a constant reminder to Pataki that the National team was the National team because it had the best players, drawn from the Army and the Technical University. Thoughtfulness clouded Pataki’s brow as he studied the opportunities for winning. The others had been quite content for Pataki to parley a truce with Hepp, for while losing the match would bring a certain general retribution, for Pataki it was going to bring intensely specific retaliation from Hepp, of whom it was said he bore grudges thirty years old.
Worrying about things wasn’t Pataki’s forte, so after a couple of introspections which didn’t hand over a solution, he chose to leave the action to the day.
The only thing in Locomotive’s favour was that the National team didn’t have much to lose. Although the supremos of the sports world would be at hand, no one was going to pay any attention to the result. In the outside world it wouldn’t count. ‘Why aren’t any of the buggers injured?’ Pataki lamented as he changed for the match, clearly having prayed for some disability since nothing else could provide victory.
The first half went well for Locomotive. At half-time, they were in the lead 32 to 26. It had been a lively session, played with one of Locomotive’s favourite leather balls, Vladimir. As one of the National team remarked to the referee, ‘Couldn’t we have another ball please? Pataki won’t let us play with this one.’ Gyuri had never seen Pataki run around court like that before. It was as if he were playing on his own, charging after the ball like a lunatic, in top gear all the time. His relentless acceleration paid dividends – he got the ball where others wouldn’t have, but Gyuri could see it was at a cost. Pataki was looking fully drained when the half time whistle blew.