The Second Cemetery Book

The thing is I hate it when people call me Boy, because I’m not a boy, I’m nearly forty-four years old and people respect me because I’m hardworking, even though I don’t need to work because I have a disability pension due to my kidneys, and I have another illness as well that has a proper name, but that illness has nothing to do with my disability pension, I just have it. My disability pension has gone up quite a lot because people respect me.

Anyway.

People keep on asking me all the time to do deliveries in my handcart and when they ask me I do deliveries, even though I’m not supposed to lift heavy things, because it’s very bad for me. I have to take good care regarding my health because I have a disability pension, so I have to keep healthy because if I’m not healthy I could get ill and that would be very dangerous.

That’s why I have a healthy life of style and I take plenty of exercise out in the fresh air and I only have a light supper in the evening. My hands and feet don’t swell up. In wintertime I wear thermal underpants. One pair of my thermal underpants is called Panther and another one is called Trikota. The underpants called Panther have an animal called a panther embroidered on the leg. The underpants called Trikota don’t have an animal embroidered on them.

People have to lift heavy things by themselves because I’m not allowed to do so by law, so I don’t care, even if they beg me. When we still had the Communist Party, I was nearly the only person in Komárno doing deliveries, but now the Communist Party’s gone and some shops deliver things, too. But back then it was only me and a few other people.

Another reason why some people call me Boy is because I’m not very tall because I didn’t grow very much, because I have this illness that has a proper name and with this illness you never have to shave and you don’t grow. But I don’t need to grow anyway because I’m nearly forty-four years old and nobody in the world grows when they’re nearly forty-four, right?

Right.

The thing is, even though I haven’t grown like everyone else in the world, it was me they picked to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath for the whole class, because I was normal just like everyone else and I still am, because I’m no retard and I went to a normal school, not a Special School for retards, because I’m no retard. That’s why I was chosen to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath.

The Young Pioneer’s Oath is beautiful.

I recited the Young Pioneer’s Oath on stage at the Cultural Centre in Komárno, and it was just me on my own reciting it for the whole class, and I can still remember every word of the Young Pioneer’s Oath. Nobody else remembers it any more, even though they went on to lots of different schools but I do, because I remember everything, because I’ve got I.Q.

My Grandfather, whom we used to call Grandaddy, went with me to take the Young Pioneer’s Oath because when he found out that nobody else wanted to go with me he got angry and said that the High Ups would find out and that anyone who didn’t go would get into big trouble. That’s why he went with me so that he wouldn’t get into big trouble.

When the Young Pioneer’s Oath was over, we went to a café together with Karol Gunár (PhD Social Sciences) and his daughter Darinka Gunárová.

I saw Darinka Gunárová yesterday.

Grandaddy invited us to the café, because I was the one they picked to recite the Young Pioneer’s Oath, and that was a big thing, so we all went to the café and had all sorts of fizzy drinks and pastries. But the worst problem was that my Young Pioneer’s scarf wasn’t really red. It was sort of orange. The good thing was that it didn’t crease and its corners didn’t fray. But it wasn’t like all the other Young Pioneers’ scarves in our class. I still have it because I keep it wrapped up in a napkin in a box and sometimes I think about it a lot. Like why it wasn’t really red, but sort of orange. Then again, it didn’t need ironing. But it wasn’t like all the other Young Pioneer’s scarves in the world.

Grandmummy said that she would make me a Young Pioneer’s scarf that was really red and would crease and have corners that frayed if I wanted one, but I got frightened that Grandmummy might do something that wasn’t allowed, because back then you couldn’t just make your own Young Pioneer’s scarf because it wasn’t allowed. Because then anyone could have made themselves a Young Pioneer’s scarf, or even two, and that would have been quite out of order. Because then some person who had never been a Young Pioneer in their life could have had his own Young Pioneer’s scarf and that would have been a total disaster.

The thing is, Grandmummy was a tailor regarding men’s clothes and that’s why she thought that she was allowed to make Young Pioneers’ scarves.

We used to call our grandparents Grandmummy and Grandaddy, but only at home because it would have been weird to call them Grandmummy and Grandaddy in front of other people, because I don’t know anybody else in the world or in Komárno who’s called Grandmummy or Grandaddy. Because that’s in German and we’re in Slovakia.

But Grandmummy and Grandaddy were not German because they were in Slovakia, except that Grandmummy’s grandmother was Hungarian and her name was Eszter Csonka, meaning that she had a Hungarian name too. And nobody liked that.

I didn’t like it, either.

Grandmummy used to read German detective stories and she read them in German, except that she had to wrap them up in newspaper because Grandaddy was scared that they would get into trouble, because those detective stories came from a woman who had gone to Germany for emigration. The stories were called Allan Wilton. They were in magazines. They had covers too. The covers had lots of different photographs with lots of different people in them. I used to look at the photographs until Grandaddy said that they had to be wrapped up in newspaper regarding unvisibility. Grandmummy always used to tell me all about Allan Wilton and what he was up to, because he was a detective. I loved him because he always solved everything and he was very modest, too. He was especially modest regarding women.

Sometimes the photos were in colour. But I couldn’t understand them in colour either because I don’t speak German because I don’t have time for such silly things. I can speak Slovak because I’m a Slovak and I can speak Hungarian because I’ve learned it because I’ve got I.Q., even though you’re not supposed to do that, because this is Slovakia.

And I also know lots of different sentences in German and Grandmummy taught me a song as well that’s in German and it’s about my dear friend Augustin, except that it doesn’t call him my dear friend, it calls him Duleeber instead. The song goes like this:

‘Oh, Duleeber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin,
Oh, Duleeber Augustin,
Alex is in.’

Meaning there’s somebody with the name Augustin.

Once there was this man in Komárno whose name was Augustýn, only there wasn’t just one but two of them because they were brothers and the two Augustýn brothers worked for the Customs. They had a Mum and she worked at the Post Office and when she was 47 years old, she went round the bend due to believing that all the men in Komárno were in love with her and that they only ever came to the Post Office because of her.

She always made a total disaster at the Post Office and kept saying that all those men were only there due to her, so in the end they had to move her from the Post Office counter to another office at the back of the Post Office but that didn’t help at all, because she went on making a total disaster. And people made fun of her for being like that. Then her sons the young Augustýns took her out of the Post Office and she stayed at home. And then they started to go around with bicycle chains so that they could beat up anyone who made fun of her. And if anyone made fun of their Mum, one of the Augustýns would grab him and the other one would beat him up with the bicycle chain. They carried those bicycle chains in their uniform pockets.

And everyone respected them due to that.

I also respected them due to that.