Under the frog Read Online Free PDF

families, the emptying of
a pharmacy didn’t really rate a mention. Also Gyuri didn’t see why he should
get the blame for the Nazi goings-on. Was the woman out of touch, or was it her
pharmacy?
    But she was very loud and very persistent. People stopped to
watch the show. The most annoying thing, Gyuri suspected, was that she was
right. Hankóczy had materialised and taken stock of the situation: ‘Right,
Fischer, shoot the old bag.’ Gyuri had been issued with a vintage revolver, as
a sort of official warrant, which he enjoyed wearing. ‘Go on,’ Hankóczy
commanded in a senior, military sort of way. Gyuri pulled out the revolver from
its holster. ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!’ insisted the old lady, weary of the world,
but Gyuri, after reflecting that at that distance he’d probably miss, had
decided to be merciful.
    ‘Your mother, dear madam, was a whore,’ he had shouted
belligerently. This massive and out-of-all-proportion rudeness had pleased
Hankóczy even more than a round through the old girl would have. It had
certainly blown her back into her flat, ripping apart her lace-curtain world.
Hankóczy slapped Gyuri on the back approvingly but a creeping feeling of shame
soon overtook Gyuri. You’re brought up to be polite to little old ladies, Gyuri
thought, but all you want to do is to shoot them.
    Tired of watching retreating Germans, Gyuri set off for
home. He was curious about what war would be like close-up. Their first
instalment had been yesterday, when he and Pataki were looking out from the
tiny balcony that the Patakis had, a sort of a concrete slab that jutted out of
the building. Pataki’s mother called them in for a few samples of the
parliamentarian pastries she had been baking. A minute later, there was a faint
thump and they went back to the balcony to see what it was, or rather they
wanted to go out on the balcony, but they couldn’t because it was gone, seized
by a long-distance Russian shell that hadn’t felt like exploding.
    Gyuri had heard a similar story from Gergely. Gergely’s
family were down in the shelter during an air raid and when it was over went
back upstairs to their top-floor flat, opened the door, and found the whole
flat gone. All that was left were the front door, its hinges and a view of
dusty debris four floors down. ‘At least we didn’t have to bother tidying up,’
Gergely had commented.
    Gyuri had also quizzed István about the war. István had
spent three years on different fronts, always bringing back in an elder
brotherly way some mementos for Gyuri: bullets, bayonets, helmets and one
Russian revolver that sadly didn’t have any ammunition. ‘What’s it like at the
front?’ Gyuri asked. István hesitated, uncharacteristically, and then replied: ‘You
try to shoot first … otherwise it’s like anything else. Some people love it,
some people hate it.’ Elek, who had been highly decorated the last time round,
never discussed the war, but then he never discussed anything with Gyuri.
Dealing with his children came as naturally to him as juggling pineapples.
Gyuri had inquired once about the decorations, to which Elek had volunteered
the information: ‘As a soldier in a war, you end up highly-decorated or dead,
though some manage to overlap.’ The imminence of the Russians had coaxed one
further military, paternal revelation from Elek, however: ‘Listen, if it comes
to the point where someone is stupid enough to tell you to fight, just vanish
and hide somewhere till it’s over.’
    As Gyuri walked down Damjanich utca, he saw a limousine with
army insignia parked outside number ten. Wondering if this signified anything
for the family, Gyuri spotted Kálmán, one of István’s closest friends, now
something influential at the High Command, wearing a fancy dress uniform.
Kálmán was taken aback to see Gyuri and you could see him reviewing a number of
approaches before going for the shortcut: ‘István’s back. He’s badly wounded.’
    Inside the flat, Gyuri