had
got up swiftly and dusted himself off. ‘See,’ said Keresztes, ‘my grenade.’
Whereupon he pulled out the pin. Row upon row of boys ducked under their
benches as awareness of the unpinned grenade spread.
After a good three or four minutes, Pataki crawled out from
underneath the neighbouring bench to see Keresztes holding the grenade up to
the light. ‘All right, how did you know it was a dud?’
‘I didn’t,’ replied Keresztes. Just then Fuchs walked back
into the classroom. Hidassy, who hadn’t missed a word of his eulogy on the
electron during the grenade scare, rounded on Fuchs. ‘How dare you leave the
classroom without my permission? Double detention.’ That lesson was the last
time they saw Keresztes. Two rumours made the rounds. One that the headmaster
had Keresztes on a retainer to stay away from school; the other that Keresztes’s
vanishing was due to having bet someone at Kobányá railway station that he
could headbutt the 4.15 from the Keleti, which didn’t stop at Kobányá, into
submission. Pataki definitely preferred the latter version and found the detail
verisimilar.
Fuchs had been doubly depressed by the double detention: he
had never had a detention and Hidassy, to the best of everyone’s knowledge, had
never given a detention.
As they left their punishment, Fuchs bent double with woe,
his briefcase pressed to his chest, Pataki, since there was no one else around
to witness it, felt compassion and tried to cheer Fuchs up. ‘It’s no use,’
moaned Fuchs, ‘I’ll never do the great stuff like you, selling grenades. No one
sits on you.’ Pataki strived to play down the kudos of arms-dealing but as they
waited for the tram, his sense of humour pushed in front of his compassion when
Fuchs suggested: ‘Look, couldn’t I help you sell some?’ Pataki looked
contemplative for a theatrical moment, then agreed. ‘Okay,’ he said.
Pataki outlined the hidden underground German arsenal he had
discovered which was brimming over with top SS gear, ammunition, weapons,
grenades etc., which would make the two of them a fortune.
‘What you need to bring is rope … a lot of rope, fifty feet.
A miner’s helmet or if you can’t get one, a very powerful torch. And lots of
sorrel.’
‘Sorrel?’
‘Yes. You know, the green stuff. Sorrel is the best thing to
pack explosives in; it relaxes them,’ elucidated Pataki with an infallibly
serious face. The rest of the way home, after he had farewelled Fuchs, Pataki
kept lapsing into laughter at the thought of Fuchs working his way through the
shopping list. And on the appointed Thursday, when Fuchs showed up at school
hidden under enormous coils of rope, a miner’s helmet at a rakish angle on his
head, carrying two huge baskets full of fresh green sorrel, Pataki was truly
afraid that he was going to injure himself or pass out. He had also primed the
rest of the class about the proposed weapons-quest, so there was universal
merriment, but it was the touch of the miner’s helmet, which must have potently
taxed Fuchs’s ingenuity, that finished Pataki off. He couldn’t control himself
and earned three detentions for inexplicable spasms of mirth. By the next
afternoon he had managed to compose himself as he read his Tompa.
* * *
The schoolish atmosphere at number 60 Andrássy út was
further heightened by an instruction, after he had been standing in the corner
for hours, to cover two sides of paper with his curriculum vitae. Pataki was
calm now, if not utterly confident of talking his way home that night. The
grenades he had actually sold would be long gone, deniable. A blanket refusal
to acknowledge them was the tactic there, and as for the subterranean German
arms cache, since there wasn’t one, he could reveal it as a schoolboy prank,
apologise profusely and go home. It was a pity he hadn’t had a chance to liaise
with Fuchs to harmonise their narratives, but he polished various emotional
stages, fear, incredulity, repentance, with a
got up swiftly and dusted himself off. ‘See,’ said Keresztes, ‘my grenade.’
Whereupon he pulled out the pin. Row upon row of boys ducked under their
benches as awareness of the unpinned grenade spread.
After a good three or four minutes, Pataki crawled out from
underneath the neighbouring bench to see Keresztes holding the grenade up to
the light. ‘All right, how did you know it was a dud?’
‘I didn’t,’ replied Keresztes. Just then Fuchs walked back
into the classroom. Hidassy, who hadn’t missed a word of his eulogy on the
electron during the grenade scare, rounded on Fuchs. ‘How dare you leave the
classroom without my permission? Double detention.’ That lesson was the last
time they saw Keresztes. Two rumours made the rounds. One that the headmaster
had Keresztes on a retainer to stay away from school; the other that Keresztes’s
vanishing was due to having bet someone at Kobányá railway station that he
could headbutt the 4.15 from the Keleti, which didn’t stop at Kobányá, into
submission. Pataki definitely preferred the latter version and found the detail
verisimilar.
Fuchs had been doubly depressed by the double detention: he
had never had a detention and Hidassy, to the best of everyone’s knowledge, had
never given a detention.
As they left their punishment, Fuchs bent double with woe,
his briefcase pressed to his chest, Pataki, since there was no one else around
to witness it, felt compassion and tried to cheer Fuchs up. ‘It’s no use,’
moaned Fuchs, ‘I’ll never do the great stuff like you, selling grenades. No one
sits on you.’ Pataki strived to play down the kudos of arms-dealing but as they
waited for the tram, his sense of humour pushed in front of his compassion when
Fuchs suggested: ‘Look, couldn’t I help you sell some?’ Pataki looked
contemplative for a theatrical moment, then agreed. ‘Okay,’ he said.
Pataki outlined the hidden underground German arsenal he had
discovered which was brimming over with top SS gear, ammunition, weapons,
grenades etc., which would make the two of them a fortune.
‘What you need to bring is rope … a lot of rope, fifty feet.
A miner’s helmet or if you can’t get one, a very powerful torch. And lots of
sorrel.’
‘Sorrel?’
‘Yes. You know, the green stuff. Sorrel is the best thing to
pack explosives in; it relaxes them,’ elucidated Pataki with an infallibly
serious face. The rest of the way home, after he had farewelled Fuchs, Pataki
kept lapsing into laughter at the thought of Fuchs working his way through the
shopping list. And on the appointed Thursday, when Fuchs showed up at school
hidden under enormous coils of rope, a miner’s helmet at a rakish angle on his
head, carrying two huge baskets full of fresh green sorrel, Pataki was truly
afraid that he was going to injure himself or pass out. He had also primed the
rest of the class about the proposed weapons-quest, so there was universal
merriment, but it was the touch of the miner’s helmet, which must have potently
taxed Fuchs’s ingenuity, that finished Pataki off. He couldn’t control himself
and earned three detentions for inexplicable spasms of mirth. By the next
afternoon he had managed to compose himself as he read his Tompa.
* * *
The schoolish atmosphere at number 60 Andrássy út was
further heightened by an instruction, after he had been standing in the corner
for hours, to cover two sides of paper with his curriculum vitae. Pataki was
calm now, if not utterly confident of talking his way home that night. The
grenades he had actually sold would be long gone, deniable. A blanket refusal
to acknowledge them was the tactic there, and as for the subterranean German
arms cache, since there wasn’t one, he could reveal it as a schoolboy prank,
apologise profusely and go home. It was a pity he hadn’t had a chance to liaise
with Fuchs to harmonise their narratives, but he polished various emotional
stages, fear, incredulity, repentance, with a
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