The White King (14 page)

While working on my armor I thought a lot about that declaration of war, about the beheaded pigeon, and about how this wasn't going to be just another game but a real war, a fight to the finish, and when I thought of that bloody pigeon, my heart always sank a little, but I figured I wasn't the only one thinking like that, no, even Puju said maybe he wouldn't be at the battle after all since his dad didn't want to let him go, and when I then asked him why he'd told his dad there was going to be a battle, because if the workers at the collective farm, the collectivists, found out that we were all set to trample the wheat, not only wouldn't they let us but they'd give us a good beating to boot, but then Puju got really mad and said he hadn't told his dad a thing, and anyway, it was easy for me, my dad was off at the Danube Canal so I could do what I wanted, no one was going to kick my ass, and then I told him that he's a scaredy-cat, a crybaby, and that he'd better not mention my dad because I'd kick him good, and I also said that if he didn't come to the battle, he'd lose his Young Pioneer's honor forever, but then Sunday morning came and even I was thinking that maybe it would be better to stay at home, sure. After breakfast I got out my blowgun all the same, and I put on my two ammo belts in a crisscross over my shoulders, I'd filled the belts with rolled-up, dried-up blowgun pellets, and then I told Mother I was going down to play, but I thought how good it would be if she said I wasn't going anywhere, that she needed me at home, except Mother didn't say a thing, she didn't even stand up out of the great big armchair by the window where she was sitting around a lot nowadays, she gave only a nod that meant "All right," and so I headed off after all, I went up the hill to the Big Tree because I knew the others would soon be there too, so we could talk over our tactics and our strategy.

By the time I got there, they already had a fire going in the old combat helmet, almost everyone from our apartment block was there and everyone had their weapons with them, Jancsi and some others had lathed themselves real throwing stars and tomahawks, I had my tin knife with me, sure, I knew it wouldn't be worth much in hand-to-hand combat, but I brought it with me all the same, figuring that when you're lying low in the wheat field in a war, it feels good to have your hands on a knife. Anyway, when I got there to the Big Tree, Csabi was just throwing two handfuls of corks into the combat helmet, and that made the smoke even smellier, and just about everyone was there, everyone except for our commander, Big Prodán, who was the biggest of the our-streeters, before the Frunza brothers came along no one had ever managed
to beat him up, and he was the one who got us the combat helmet, saying he dug it up out of a civil war soldier's grave, not that anyone believed it, no, Janika once told me that it wasn't a combat helmet at all, only a stew pot, but anyway, by the time the corks were all burnt up Prodán got there too, he had a quadruple-barreled blowgun with him, it was really something, every single one of its PVC pipes had electric tape all around it, he even made it a stock and a grip, it looked completely like a genuine machine gun, plus he found a strap for it so he could wear it around his neck, and he had a mace tied to his waist, he'd made that using a dumbbell, and the combat wrist-guards on both his arms reached almost all the way to his elbows and were studded with square brass clamp nails, the sort used on ships, and along with the mace a knife was also tied to his waist, one with a long black handle, never had I seen a knife like that before, it looked really warlike, and when Prodán reached the combat helmet, he took the canteen off his belt right away and poured water over the smoldering corks, which caused a lot of hissing and smoke, and the black liquidy soot that remained in the helmet was like pitch, that was our color of battle, that black stuff. Prodán was the first to paint himself with it, he spread it all over his face and his forehead until you could hardly recognize him, and then he let out a war cry, and one after another we each painted our face, and I did too, but I was careful not to touch my mouth with the stuff because I knew cork ash had a really bitter taste, of course right then it didn't occur to me that the sweat would make it run into my mouth, anyway, the others also painted their faces nice and black, and once everyone was done Prodán stood in front of us and said that this would be a big battle and a difficult one, and that we should get it through our skulls that the enemy's main headquarters were at the other end of the field, at the watchtower by the edge of the woods, we had to get all the way there and get the leather ball,
but that wouldn't be enough for victory, no, to do that we had to bring the ball back here to the Big Tree, and Prodán said the best tactic would be to begin by scattering apart as much as possible, as quietly as we could, so when he gave the signal, all of us would attack the other-streeters from as many directions as possible, and then he told me and Puju to go up close to him, we'd be the special reconnaissance force, we'd be getting our very own assignment, and when we then went up to him, he said that when he gave the signal and everyone on our side all started shouting hurrah, we shouldn't attack along with the others but instead stay down in the wheat and try to get as close as possible to the watchtower, we shouldn't even go shooting anyone in the back if we didn't need to, and when we heard Prodán shout the war cry three times, that's when we should break cover and try to get our hands on the ball, and when we had it, then we'd run like friggin' hell back toward the Big Tree and he'd come after us, and at the end he'd be the one running with the ball, and they wouldn't catch up to him, and that's how we'd achieve victory, and then he looked at us and asked if we understood, and Puju and I said we did, but I also said I didn't like the idea of lying low that way, why didn't he send his kid brother instead, and couldn't we be in on the hand-to-hand combat too, and Prodán said, sure we could if we wanted to lose and to defy our commander's will, and we should get it through our skulls that we were too weak for real fighting, and besides, how dare we even bring his kid brother into this, and how dare we shoot off our traps about hand-to-hand combat when both of us were chickenshits, he knew we'd shit our pants right away, that's how scared of the Frunza brothers we were, and we'd better watch out because one more word out of us and he'd take away our weapons and hound us right into the wheat field, and while saying that he shook his head like he was all teed off and he pulled out that big knife I'd never seen on him before, and he held it there in front of us and told us to take a good look, this was a real bayonet he'd dug out of the same grave as that combat helmet there, and that long groove by the tip of the blade, why, that was the blood gutter, and if we didn't obey his commands word for word, then we shouldn't be surprised to see our own blood flowing down that gutter because he swore he'd stab us in the belly himself, and after doing that maybe he'd scalp us too, and then Puju and I didn't say a thing, and Prodán asked if we understood, and we said we did, and meanwhile I wished his shoulder wound would tear right open so he'd get blood poisoning, and then Prodán put away the bayonet and turned to the others and said, "Prepare for battle," and then we all stood in a circle and stretched out our right arms and put our hands on top of one another's, all at once we let out our war cry, which went, "Justice and brotherhood, the revolution will triumph!" and then we all started running toward the wheat field.

When we got there, we all dropped right down on our bellies and started crawling through the wheat, we had to be careful to press down the stalks in as narrow a row as possible because whatever we scrunched down stayed like that, and if we flattened too wide a path, it could be seen from far away, which might easily mean a mud bomb on our necks, and since getting hit by a piece of clay the size of two fists can hurt pretty bad, we crawled carefully, but the wheat stalks and leaves chafed our legs and our arms a lot all the same, the lucky thing was that Puju and I didn't have to really hurry because Prodán said the important thing was to crawl as slowly as possible, in the meantime the others scattered good, and after a while we couldn't even hear them anymore.

As we slithered ahead, all of a sudden I felt something sticky, and although I pulled my hand back right away, it was too late, my palm was full of this gooey black stuff, pitch or maybe tar, and when I looked I saw that it was poured in a long line between the stalks of wheat. I called over to Puju to stop and be careful not to stick his hand in it too, and then with my other hand I tore a big clump of wheat out of the ground and used the rough stalks to rub the stickiness off my palm, it wasn't easy, I had to rub my hands against the earth, and when we then went on crawling I was extra careful where I put my hand.

We must have crept another hundred feet at least when Puju suddenly grabbed my elbow and whispered to me really quietly that we should take a little rest, and then right away he put a finger to his lips to signal that I should keep my mouth shut, as if I didn't know well enough that we weren't supposed to talk, and then for a while we didn't move, and I looked slowly around for any signs of movement in the wheat field, but the rows were pretty thick, we couldn't really see anything at all, and so we just waited a little, we knew the assault had to begin soon, but since it was pretty uncomfortable leaning with our elbows on the ground, I waved a hand to Puju to signal that we sit up against each other's back because I figured waiting that way would be easier. So that's what we did, I even stuck my head up out of the wheat for a split second but didn't see a thing except swaying stalks in all directions, and then I tucked my head right back under and waited, it was really, really quiet, you couldn't tell at all that the field was full of kids, the sun was even shining strong by now, you could tell it would get warm. I grabbed my blowgun and stuck in a pellet, and for a moment I imagined that it wasn't a PVC pipe in my hands but a genuine wood blowgun and that the pellet didn't only have a pin stuck into it but also frog poison, because we were in a real war, a fight to the finish, get a scalp or get scalped, so I grabbed my knife and imagined that it was an authentic scalping knife, yes, I'd cut around my enemy's skull just under the hairline with the razor-sharp blade, and then with a sudden movement I'd tear the scalp off the skull, but my tin knife didn't have a real blade, no, I felt bad about not having my pocketknife anymore, the one with the fish-shaped handle, not as if that was very sharp either, but at least it had a proper steel blade. Suddenly I felt Puju nudge me in the side with his elbow, I thought he wanted to tell me something, but all he'd done was push himself away from my back and spring forward onto his belly in the wheat, I thought he'd been hit by some secret sort of ammunition, but he turned right around and held out his cupped hands and whispered for me to get a load of what he caught, and so I leaned really close to his hands, and then he opened his palms just enough for me to see in between the black leather fingers of his gloves, and I saw that this time he wasn't out to pull one over on me, like at other times, because there really was something in his hands, a little mouse, it wasn't moving, it was like a gray ball of fur, its tail was hanging out from between Puju's fingers, and Puju whispered that we should dissect it, but I said we should skin it instead, its fur would be just like a tiny scalp, but not even Puju had a decent knife, and we didn't even have a razor blade, at most we could have stabbed it with a blowgun pellet, Puju took one out and was just handing it to me so I'd do the job, but then all of a sudden we heard Prodán yelling really loud, and even though he was too far away for us to make out his words, we knew he was saying that the revolution would triumph, and then everyone on our side started shouting hurrah really loud from all directions and sprang up out of the wheat and started running toward the opposite edge of the field to where the woods began, and as Puju and I got up on our knees to see which way we had to go, the mouse slipped out of Puju's hand and disappeared into the wheat.

By now the other-streeters were also jumping up out of the wheat, it was easy to tell who they were, all their faces were smeared with red war paint, they were standing in two rows,
the ones with slingshots were up front and the archers were about thirty feet behind them, I didn't see blowguns with any of them, they all began shooting at our side as Puju and I got back down on our bellies in the wheat and went on crawling ahead, meanwhile we could hear the rocks from their slingshots swishing all around us, and as we kept going forward I even found two arrows, they were stuck right in the ground, I pulled one of them out, it was a proper arrow with feathers and a nail hammered into its tip, with the head of the nail sticking out so it was blunt, but no doubt it would have had a pretty good punch to it if it hit you in the head, and sure enough I heard everyone yelling all over the place, you could hear a lot of the guys wrestling in the wheat, and although back when we used to play soldiers anyone who got pinned by both shoulders had to stay just like that until the battle was over, since they counted as dead, now it seemed like they were fighting harder because everyone was yelling and swearing really loud, so by the time Puju and I started getting close to the thick of things we were completely on our bellies, and I got all tired out from creeping forward over the ground, my knees and my elbows were hurting and the cardboard armor was pressing against my back, I wished I hadn't even made that getup in the first place, but I didn't want to take it off either, because I knew that Puju would laugh in my face about that.

There was nothing else we could do, so we just crawled on ahead, the shooting had stopped and all we could hear was the fighting and everyone shouting all sorts of things, someone really close to us cried out that he surrendered and that you're not allowed to mistreat the wounded, and then he started shouting even louder, "That's cheating, you can't do that." I didn't recognize his voice, I looked at Puju but he just shook his head, and we went back to creeping forward, we didn't even know how far we might be from the watchtower, but we didn't
dare get up to look, I was covered with sweat and was really sorry I hadn't brought along my canteen, Puju didn't have water with him either, and from the way he was panting I could tell he was thirsty too, but at least the field had gotten a bit higher, yes, I could tell we were going uphill, which meant the watchtower couldn't be too far, it was there at the edge of the woods where the wheat field ended, and then all of a sudden we heard this really loud scream from somewhere in the wheat behind us, as if someone was being killed, it really gave me the creeps, Puju looked at me and said, "Let's turn back because those other-streeters really did go and kill someone," but I told him I didn't think so, and to wait, that I'd look up to see how far away we were, and I stuck my head up out of the wheat for a split second, and sure enough, there was the watchtower right in front of us, not too far away even, no more than 150 yards, and I got back down on my belly in the wheat and whispered to Puju not to worry because we were crawling in the right direction, and it wasn't worth turning back from here, and he should remember what Prodán said, and Puju said he didn't give a flying shit about Prodán, but we kept inching forward in each other's tracks all the same, except by then we were so exhausted that we weren't crawling at all the way you're supposed to, like we learned during Homeland Defense activities, no, it was more like we were just going on all fours, and again I was up ahead, I was leading the way, but by then it was really warm, and I could feel myself sweating, feel the water flowing from me all over, but we didn't stop, we just kept creeping straight ahead, and in the meantime we heard the fighting still going on behind us, now and then an arrow whizzed above us, and we got thirstier and thirstier, and we sweated more and more, and when I figured we had to be really close to the edge of the wheat field I got down on my belly, and Puju crawled up to me and also got down on his belly, and when we then looked up out of the wheat we saw the watchtower and the child's head staked on the spear in front of it, and we got even thirstier than before, and Puju said he didn't care, he was turning back to get his canteen because his mouth was all bitter on account of that stupid war paint, but of course he didn't move, the edge of his mouth was quivering, I saw, and I too was so scared that I didn't even want to look up out of the wheat anymore.