The White King (25 page)

The red light went out right away, it was all dark and I got so frightened I couldn't even breathe, and Feri must have been scared shitless too because he didn't even swear, he just stood there next to me in the dark. After about a minute we suddenly heard this loud rumble from somewhere beyond the walls, at first it was a really deep, bubbling sound, even the floor shook, and then it kept getting higher pitched and softer, and finally it was almost like a whistle, and then came a bang, and all at once the lights went on.

I looked over at Feri and saw that he was blinking just like I was, but then we sighed at the same time and I told him he was plain nuts, and he just shrugged and turned and went to look around, and I also began exploring the place, and then Feri gave a whistle, and what I saw almost made me let out a whistle too.

There we were standing in a proper big movie theater, except that instead of being full of regular seats, it had these huge leather armchairs, two of them next to each other in the middle of the theater and another ten or so in a semicircle on two sides behind us, and a colossal red curtain covered the wall across from the armchairs. A projector stood on a little cabinet behind the two main armchairs, and Feri went right over and told me to come over too, "Get a load of this," he said, "this is incredible," and he was right, the projector even had a film reel on it, and by the time I got there Feri had opened the door of the little cabinet, which was full of flat round metal boxes, and right away Feri said we sure hit gold, all those secret banned movies really were right here, and that I should be careful because these film reels were extra heavy, we should pick them up together and I shouldn't try removing even one on my own, and I told him not to worry, I wasn't about to touch those reels, and he said good, but I could give him a hand, we should start by taking out the one on top, nice and easy, but I said I wasn't about to help, I didn't want to take those reels out at all, and I wasn't curious about the movies either. We should climb back in the shaft instead because if someone caught us in here we'd be done for, secret places like this all count as military establishments, and sneaking into one of them was treason for sure, but Feri just gave a big laugh and said there wouldn't be any trouble, why was I being such a chickenshit, if we'd already gotten this far it would be crazy not even to take a peek at these movies, imagine how cool it would be to tell the others what happens in the sequel to
Zorro,
but even then I just said I didn't care, we should climb back in, I didn't want to get in trouble, and then Feri asked if I was really such a chickenshit that I wasn't even curious about what movies were here, and he said, "At least let's look at the titles, so we'll have something to tell the others," but I told him to cut the crap, it wasn't like we could tell anyone about this anyway unless we wanted them to report us, but by then Feri had already pulled a reel halfway out, and he told me to help him already because he was about to drop it on his foot, and I told him not to shit around, it couldn't be that heavy, but then I took hold of the reel all the same, and together we set it down on one of the armchairs and turned the reel all around because, according to Feri, the bottom or the side would say what movie it was and what number reel, because most movies had more than one reel, but there was nothing written on this one, and so we took out the next, but there wasn't anything on that one either, and we looked at around three more, and on one of them we could at least see a mark where the label had been, but the label was almost completely torn off, only the very end remained, and all it said was
84,
but Feri said that couldn't be, because not a single movie could be eighty-four reels long, and then I said again that I didn't care, we should go back because if they turned the lights back on we'd stay here forever, and then Feri said, "All right, we'll be going in a minute, but first we should at least
see what's on the projector," and he began turning the lower reel by hand, and the film rolled slowly from the upper reel onto the lower one, and as Feri was busy turning the reel I leaned closer and saw the images begin moving, I could see the film like normal, except that I couldn't read the title and the director and all the other words because they were all backward, in a mirror image, plus they were also moving, but then I saw an empty room, its door slowly opened and in came this lady, she walked around and sat down on a bed and got up again, and then she went over to an armchair and sat down, but then she got right back up from there too and went over to the window and opened it, and she picked up a newspaper from a little table and fanned herself with it like she was really hot. And then Feri asked what was happening on the film, and I said, "Nothing, it's really boring, some lady is traipsing about this big room," and then Feri asked if she was alone, and I said, "Yeah," and now Feri also leaned closer to the film and went on turning the lower reel, and then the lady on the film took off her costume jacket and then her skirt, and there she stood in a blouse and a half-slip and high-heeled shoes, but I could tell she was still hot because she kept fanning herself with the newspaper, and in no time she also took off her blouse, but she was still really hot, and Feri asked why I'd said this was boring when it was actually really interesting because this must be one of those movies with totally naked women and men, he'd heard of movies like this, and if we kept reeling the film, we'd see in no time that this lady would take her clothes off all the way, even her bra and her panties, and so we leaned even closer, and Feri kept reeling, and then the lady really did remove something else, her half-slip, so there was nothing on her anymore except pantyhose, a bra, and panties, but the pantyhose weren't real pantyhose, from what I could tell they reached only as far as the middle of her thighs, and from there they were held up with ribbons
of some sort, and those ribbons were tied to a belt around her waist, like Indians' leather leggings, and then Feri tried reeling the film even faster, which made the lady's movements speed up but in a jerky sort of way, but she didn't want to hear about taking off her pantyhose or whatever it was, no, she just kept traipsing around that room, she dropped her paper and leaned down to pick it up and lit up a cigarette, and she puffed on that cigarette a long time. I could see her face really close up, her lips were smeared with lipstick, but right then the lights in the room flickered, and I told Feri we'd better watch out because the generator was jamming, and sure enough, I looked at the control panel and saw that the big switch in the middle was flickering red, so I told Feri we should stop this right now and climb back in the shaft because there would be trouble, the generator was about to stop or else they'd turn the lights back on, and Feri said all right, but he hadn't paid any attention to what I said, he just kept reeling, and then the red light started flickering really fast, so I told him again that we'd better get going already, but Feri told me to shut up and get a load of the film because the lady was now unfastening her bra. "Bet you've never seen anything like this," he said, but I said I didn't care, even though I really did care a whole lot, but with my eyes on that flickering red light all I could think of was what would happen if they caught us in here, no doubt we'd end up in reform school, so this time I flat out begged Feri to get going, but by then he was pulling the film itself by hand, and he said he didn't care, he wanted to know what was under the lady's panties, and I saw him reach into his pocket and take out a razor, and I asked him if he'd gone nuts, what was he thinking to do, and Feri said that the lady was about to take off all her clothes, and he didn't give a shit, he was going to cut out for himself that couple of yards of film, and I told him not to touch it, that it wasn't allowed, plus it would be evidence that we'd been here,
but
by then Feri had already flicked open his razor and he'd just about sliced into the film when I grabbed his arm and asked him what the hell was the matter with him, was he bored with life, did he really want to end up in reform school that bad? All he said was to leave him alone, and he gave me a shove, but not even then did I let go of his arm, no, I shoved him right back and told him I didn't care, I was climbing back in because I didn't want them catching me, and then Feri pushed me again, but so hard this time that I fell against one of the armchairs, the one with switches built into its arm, and my hand came down right on one of the switches and I could feel it click under my palm, and then a motor began droning and the big red curtain on the wall in front of us began opening up slowly, and meanwhile Feri shouted was I nuts, what had I done, and I said he was the one who was nuts, he was the one who'd done it, and as I tried standing up, I accidentally pressed another switch, and then all the lights went out in the room, but the projector light turned on and the reels began spinning on their own, and I could see the picture on the screen. Although it was out of focus, I could make out the lady leaning forward and taking off her bra, but I saw that only while running because by then I was hurrying back to the shaft and Feri was running right behind me, and then the lady flung away her bra, and I could see both of her boobs and her nipples too, and the camera zoomed in so close that her two boobs filled the whole screen, and the lady then sat down in the armchair and leaned back and held her outstretched legs up high and began slipping off her panties even though the pantyhose were still on her, and then Feri and I just stood there by the shaft, and I knew we should climb in, but I didn't climb in and Feri didn't either, we just stood there and watched the lady slowly, slowly pull the panties off her rear end and her thighs, and then the camera zoomed in completely on her hand and showed her scrunchedup black panties and began gliding down all along her thighs, and it went right up between her legs, and all of a sudden that lady in the armchair spread her legs wide open, and at that instant the generator turned off and everything went dark, and all I could hear was one of the reels still turning on the projector, and then Feri and I made our move exactly at the same time, yes, both of us lunged for the hole at once, it was just like we were wrestling, we both wanted to get in there first so we could crawl to the main part of the shaft. Feri was holding my arm and pulling me back really hard and telling me to let him go, but I didn't, instead I raised my knee and kicked him with it right in the belly, so then he let me go, and in no time I was in the main part of the shaft, and I began crawling forward, and I could hear Feri creeping right behind me, and the shaft narrowed exactly like before, but this time instead of getting scared I turned onto my side and kept moving as fast as I could, the wall of the shaft chafed the skin off my palms, but what did I care, and while crawling ahead I suddenly heard the whole school singing really loud out in the theater, singing about heroic coal miners thrusting their pickaxes deeper and deeper, and I slowed down because I knew they hadn't turned the lights back on yet, and I knew that if we did it right, we'd get back to our seats before the end of the song, and then we too could sing along with everyone else, just as if we'd never sneaked away at all.

B
Y THE END
of the main recess I already knew there would be trouble because by the time the bell rang, I'd won almost all the money off Lupu and his gang, at first I didn't even want to play the coin-toss game with them, I'd heard they were into cheating, that it was hammered money they threw at the hole so whatever fell in never did bounce out, and that's just how it was, but it didn't do them any good because when it came to calling heads or tails, that white ivory king I got at the ambassador's and had with me in the pocket of my school jacket kept bringing me luck, I won every time we tossed coins, so by the end I was getting so scared that I tried calling out the opposite of what I was thinking, heads instead of tails and vice versa, but I kept winning all the same. Not even letting little Zoli toss instead of me helped any, I just kept winning and winning, and finally Lupu made the sign of the cross and spit on his coins and threw them so high that before they came back down he had time to turn on his heels three whole times and call out the name of Tudor Vládimireszku, protector of the poor, but it did him no good, I won even then, and by the end of the main recess, from the way Lupu and the others were looking at me I didn't want to put away the money at all, but I didn't dare give it back either because that would have been admitting I'd ripped them off, when it wasn't me who'd cheated at all, but them. All that change really weighted down the pocket of my school jacket, I'd won so much, and although I didn't dare count it, there must have been more than two tens there, and as I went up the stairs to the classroom I knew I wouldn't get out of this in one piece, on my way home they'd get me for sure.

So on purpose I took a detour, toward the waterspout and then along the hill and on the footpath behind the apartment blocks. By the old soccer field I went off the path because I didn't want to go near that long ditch that had been left half finished, the ditch where the new sewage line would have gone, no way did I want to meet up with that worker called Pickax because one time when some construction workers had us do some volunteer work they played a joke on me by lying that Pickax was my father and that the only reason I couldn't recognize him right away was because smallpox had done a job on his face, and I almost believed it too because I was really waiting for my father to come home from that labor camp down on the Danube Canal. Since then, Pickax had tried passing along messages to me a few times to go pay him a visit. He'd built himself some sort of house at the end of the empty ditch and that's where he guarded the pipes and waited for the other workers to return and the project to pick up where it left off, but it did him no good leaving those messages for me because I didn't want to see him ever again, even though I couldn't help thinking a lot about his face, which really was all eaten up by smallpox, besides, for a moment I had in fact believed he was my father. So I walked along the bottorn of the hill between the bushes, it was almost twice as far going that way, but at least I didn't meet up with anyone, I was just about home already, all I had to do was get back on the path a bit and then cross the yard behind the apartment block across from ours, and I was already thinking I was home free when, all of a sudden, someone whistled really loud.