The White King (5 page)

T
HE EXCAVATORS ARRIVED
on Sunday morning, we were playing soccer with the guys from the other street, they were leading four to two and the game went to five, it was almost certain we'd be beat, but I didn't mind since I wanted to go home already. I was always at home on Sundays waiting for Father because when they took him away to the Danube Canal, he promised he'd come get me and take me with him to the sea. True, Mother said I shouldn't wait for him because after eight months of hard labor I might not even recognize him anymore, besides, we'd know beforehand if he was coming home, but I didn't completely believe he was really in a labor camp even though we'd already got a couple of prewritten camp postcards, no, I thought that maybe Father wasn't in a labor camp at all but only working in a secret research institute, just like he told me when they took him away, and I'd also read that when the Americans were making the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, no one was allowed to know where the researchers really were,
and so I knew that Father would come home, all right, that he'd come get me and take me with him, that he'd take me to the sea, and even if he didn't recognize me I'd sure recognize him because his picture, which I'd taken out of his old military ID holder, was with me all the time. Anyway, there we were playing soccer, and I wanted to go home, yes, I could hardly wait for them to kick another goal against us and for the game to be over.

We were on the offensive, Big Prodán had the ball, and when the excavators drove off the road right onto the soccer field, they came all the way to the middle and one of them drove right toward Big Prodán and almost hit him, Prodán just barely jumped out of the way, and then both excavators stopped in the middle of the field, they were buzzing really loud, the air was full of this smelly blue smoke. Then the two drivers turned off their engines at the same time, you couldn't hear a peep from anywhere, we were quiet too, we went over and stood around the machines, they were painted yellow and rusting in a lot of places, but the teeth of the scoops were sparkling just a little bit.

One of the drivers then climbed off his machine, stood right where he was, looked at Big Prodán, and said, "Get over here." Prodán went over really slow, first he threw the ball over to his kid brother and then he stopped in front of the laborer, he was only fourteen years old but he was big for his age, he was almost as tall as the laborer, and by then he hadn't been going to school for a year because his dad had sent him to work on a construction project, you could tell he wasn't scared of the laborer, yes, he stopped right in front of the guy and said, "Whaddaya want."

The laborer just grinned and drove a fist into the pit of Big Prodán's belly, and Big Prodán doubled over and the laborer said to him without yelling at all, "I'll knock your brains out if you keep talking to me like that," and then the laborer stepped back and looked on, smiling, as Big Prodán brought a hand tight against his belly and kept holding it there and asked, "What would you like, sir?" The laborer nodded and said, "That's better, so you can talk nice too, huh," and he looked at the other laborer, who was still sitting there in the seat of the excavator, "Hear that, Trajan? The kid can talk nice too," at which the other laborer nodded and spit on the ground and said, "Good, glad to hear that."

The laborer reached into his pocket, took out some money, gave it to Prodán, and said, "Get going, bring three packs of no-filter Karpacis, get running already, you know where to go, The Elk Restaurant, which is open on Sundays." Prodán nodded, turned, and started off toward the paved road, but then the laborer called out, "Hold on, there's this pockmarked working man who might be there having a drink, he's called Pickax, anyway, if you see him, tell him that Trajan and his partner here say he can bring the shed, got that?"

Prodán nodded and headed off again, and the laborer at first just watched him go, but then called after him, "I said get running already, if you're not back here in five minutes I'll knock your brains out, you hear," and then the laborer turned around, reached under the seat of the excavator, and pulled out a big paper bag and a monkey wrench, his eyes passed over us and he said, "Come closer, all of you, don't be scared."

None of us moved, I was staring at the laborer's work boots, one of the laces was red, a genuine bootlace, but the other lace was just some homemade, twine-twisted thing, but anyway, none of us budged as the laborer then unfolded the top of the bag, which he held toward us. "Real caramels," he said, "go ahead, all of you, dig in."

The others stepped closer, it was a really big bag, at least six pounds of candy, I could see the caramels' colored wrapping, which meant it really was caramel inside, and the laborer again held the bag toward us. "Take some," he said, "no need to be scared," and then Aronka, the smallest one of us, took a step forward, he reached a hand into the bag and pulled it out heaping with caramels, and he popped one of the caramels right into his mouth and chewed it up without even taking the paper off first. "Thanks," he said with a full mouth, and the laborer just nodded and held out the bag toward the rest of us. "Here you are," he said, "take some, take some."

One after another everyone reached into the bag and took some, everyone except me, but there were still a lot of caramels left, and the laborer finally looked at me and asked, "Whatsa matter, don'tcha want some?" and he stepped toward me and held the bag right in front of my face. "Don't you go offending me, take some," he said, and then I shook my head and said I couldn't eat sweets right now, even though I really did like candy, and I explained that the day before I ate so many peppermint candies that my stomach couldn't handle any more sweets, but the laborer shook the bag. "Oh come on," he said, "sure you can have some," and he reached into the bag and pulled out a piece of caramel, he held it out to me pinched between two of his fingers and told me to hold my mouth open, he had a really big hand, his fingers were greasy, I saw, and I wanted to turn around and run away, but then someone grabbed my shoulders from behind me, it was the other laborer, he'd sneaked up on me without my even noticing a thing, he held my shoulders tight and told me not to move or else he'd rip me apart and he told me to hold my mouth open at once, and then he grabbed my neck from behind with one hand while squeezing my jaw from the side with the thumb and index finger of his other hand so I'd open my mouth, but no matter how I tried to shake my head and bite him, his grip was too tight, and then I heard one of the laborers shout, "Not like that, pinch his nose shut, Trajan," and in no time I wasn't getting any air, I shut my eyes and I wanted to shout at
them to let me go or else my dad would knock their brains out, no way was I about to open my mouth wide, but then my ears started buzzing and all of a sudden that piece of caramel somehow ended up on my tongue. Using two fingers the laborer stuffed it right into my mouth, his fingers had this stale tobacco smell that stirred up my belly, but no matter how I tried to spit that candy out, they pressed my mouth shut and again pinched my nose tight, and I couldn't even taste the caramel, which was coming apart between my teeth, wrapping and all, and then they let me go and I fell to the ground and I tried spitting it out, but by then there was nothing in my mouth, only the stale taste of tobacco, and my heart was up in my throat, but I wasn't about to cry if I could help it, no, I shouted at them that my dad was going to kill them for this, but the laborers just smiled, and then the one called Trajan said they'd smack my father's kisser good, and he told me to shut my trap or else he'd stuff it with caramels, and then he looked at the others. "All right then, boys," he said, "you've had your candy, but it's best you know you didn't get it for free, nothing in this world is free, you've got to work for everything," and as the other laborer gave a nod, Trajan continued. "And he who doesn't work shouldn't eat, but all of you have already eaten, so now it's time to work," and as he said this he went over to an excavator and took a big felted wool sack off the back and threw it on the ground in front of us. "Here you are," he said, "open it up," and the bag rolled right up to our feet, it was tied with a belt, everyone stepped back, no one wanted to touch that bag, we just stood there and stared at the workers and they stared back at us, but by now Trajan was staring only at me, he was looking right in my eyes, and I saw him lick his lips and I knew he was about to call on me to reach for that bag and undo the belt, but then all of a sudden Trajan turned away and so did the other laborer, they looked out toward the road. Big Prodán was just getting back with the cigarettes, he came running up to Trajan and handed him the cigarettes and the change, Trajan stuffed two packs along with the change into his pocket, and he threw the third pack over to the other laborer. "There you go, Feri, you go poison yourself too," he said, and then he looked back at Prodán. "Didn't you meet up with that pockmarked guy?" Prodán shook his head, and the laborer called Trajan then spit on the ground. "Fuck it, Pickax, fuck your motherfucking mother," he said under his breath, and then he looked again at Prodán. "All right, but what are you standing there for, go ahead and hand out the shovels," and he gave that felted wool sack a good kick and said, "There's enough here for everyone, so let's get a move on, we don't have all day."

Big Prodán bent down and opened up the bag, which was full of short iron-handled shovels, lots of them, at least forty, both the blades and the handles were painted with black enamel. Prodán picked one up and looked at the laborer called Feri and asked, "What do you want to do with them?" The laborer gave a nod toward the woods and said, "Not us, you're the ones who want to do something with them, a whole new neighborhood is being built up there by the woods, you know, and one of the sewage lines will run right by here, and you will all dig part of that line as community service work so you can save the state some diesel oil."

Big Prodán looked up and asked, "Where? Here, on the soccer field?" The laborer called Feri spit on the ground and said, "You bet, and in a sec we'll measure out exactly where."

After looking at the shovel and not saying a thing for a while, Big Prodán finally did speak after all. "But this is our field," he said. Trajan stepped over to him. "Sure," he said, stopping in front of him, "that's exactly why you all want to help do the digging, you're the ones who asked for it, your school, we got shovels just because of you, so enough gabbing, everyone take a shovel, the sooner you start the sooner you'll finish, you're kids, you don't need to earn your bread, so you got the time." Right then Big Prodán took a step back and said, "I don't go to school, I work at a construction site, today's Sunday, so sure as hell today I'm not taking no shovel into my hands." Trajan then swung back his arm, but he wasn't able to hit Prodán because the other laborer, the one called Feri, stepped up next to him and grabbed his arm. "Wait," said Feri, "this here's a smart boy, no sense being rough with him," and then he reached out that bag of caramels toward Prodán and said, "You didn't get any candy, go ahead, take some."

At first Big Prodán didn't want to take any, but then he stuck in his hand anyway, and when he pulled it out I saw clearly that it was packed full of caramels, and as he stuffed all that candy into his pocket he almost dropped one, and meanwhile the laborer called Feri was still holding the bag toward him. "Don't be shy," he said, so Prodán stuck his hand in one more time and again put the candy into his pocket, and then the laborer called Feri folded the bag shut. "All right, then," he said, "you'll get more later, now help hand out the shovels, meantime Trajan will measure out where the ditch will go," but Prodán didn't move, he looked at the excavators and then back again at the laborer called Feri and asked, "Can I sit up on the excavator too?"

The laborer called Feri shrugged and said, "All right, if the work goes well then I don't care, you can sit up there, you can even start it up if you want, but now go ahead and hand out those shovels, it's time to start digging, don'tcha worry, your school principal knows all about this, he okayed all of you working here every afternoon, all of you attend School No. 12, right? Tell the others that as long as they're working here, they don't have to do their homework, you'll see, they'll even be glad."

Big Prodán nodded and said, "Okay," and he picked a shovel up off the ground and gave it to Aronka, and then he handed one to each of us, one at a time, to me too. "Here you are, Djata, use it in good health." Of course he didn't give his little brother a shovel, only a caramel, and he looked at the laborers and said, "That's my brother, he's gonna help me," to which the laborer called Trajan gave a grunt, but the one called Feri just nodded. "All right," he said, "you two will be the brigade leaders, but if the work isn't going well, we'll find others to take your places, you'll see just how nice voluntary community service work can be, what a good feeling it is to build the country, you can all be proud of yourselves that even being kids you're able to take part in this, besides, if you do decent work you'll finish the whole thing in a week, and that's nothing, you should just see the Danube Canal, now that's real digging for you."

A fiery heat came over me when he said that, I reached into my pocket and touched my father's picture, I'd never met anyone who'd worked at the Danube Canal, and I looked at that laborer called Trajan and saw him pull a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, unfold it, and look at it a bit before picking a shovel up off the ground, walking to the end of the field, and thrusting the shovel into the ground by one of the goalposts. "I've done it," he shouted to the laborer called Feri, "I've measured it out, it goes straight exactly from here." Then Big Prodán and the laborer called Feri lined us up, we didn't have to stand according to height like we did at school, the point was only to stand in a nice neat line not too far from each other, and then, once everyone had stood up, the laborer called Trajan gave Prodán a shovel too. "All right, you don't have to work, but show the others how to use the tool, so get to it, drive it into the ground."