Blurb

"And I'm pissed off with the people. Why don't they revolt? I could have them fired at, they wouldn't, even then. Why? This tiger here, he doesn't revolt either. Neither he, nor they. Why?"

Comedian Tibor Bödőcs was born in Zalaegerszeg, western Hungary, in 1982. In 2017 he kicked in the door of Hungarian literature with a book of literary parodies, while his first novel took the reader to a pub, and his second, Luigi the Last, takes place in the circus ring. Both his first and third book won the Libri Readers'Choice Award.

The Circus empire of Hetticania is preparing for a jubilee, to celebrate thirty years of King Luigi's rule.

And there's so much to celebrate! Thanks to the former Ringmaster, everything in Hetticania is coming up roses - quite literally: rose plantations cover the whole country (so no one is unemployed), fault-finders find faults only among themselves (unless they are abroad) - how could anyone of sound mind slander the very epitome of health, honesty, beauty, patriotism, and masculine power?
It's an important, strenuous day for King Luigi, but he can cope with anything, even after so many years. He screws (almost), gives a dashing interview, mingles with his people, eats and drinks, consults with his chief adviser, screws (indeed), and more. And, well, by the end of it, he becomes a little tired and emotional. After all, he is only human, despite what Hetticanian legend might say.

This novel by Tibor Bödőcs, the most popular Hungarian comedian and one of the most popular Hungarian writers, is an outrageous satire about a country where a genuine genius of populism reigns with the simplicity of a swish of an axe.

Original Hungarian-language publication:

Bödőcs Tibor: Mulat a manézs

Helikon Kiadó, Budapest, 2021

© Tibor Bödőcs, 2021, 2022

Translated by Katalin Rácz

Edited by Thomas Mansell

Cover design by Márta Féder

Cover photo © David Vogin

Translation © 2022, Katalin Rácz

© 2022 Helikon Publishers

Helikon Publishers is an imprint of Libri Publishers

ISBN 978-963-620-017-6

Published by Helikon Publishers

Managing editor Miklós M. Nagy

Proofreading by Zoltán Bajtai

Technical editor Gyöngyi Széplaki

www.helikon.hu

E-book by eKönyv Magyarország Kft.

www.ekonyv.hu

1

Morning. The stagehands of dawn, the dew and the light breeze, have already dismantled the tent of the starry night. The scent of budding, blooming, and wilting roses, sleeping lions, bubbling cauldrons, and the smell of wrestling rooms and army boots break wildly through the window of our chronicle.

“Good?”

“What else can I say?”

The man is lounging about, the woman is getting dressed, leaving but in no hurry.

“Why put it on if I’m only going to take it off?” the man teases, pulling at her bra.

“Why put it in if you’re only going to take it out?” the woman asks, winning the tug-of-war.

“Ha, ha.”

“Now honestly, what do you think of my arse, King?

“What?” asks the male.

“My arse. Is it big?”

“It’s what I like.”

“A big one?”

“No…”

“But?”

“When there is something to grab.”

“You mean it’s big, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re talking gibberish, I mean seriously,” the woman goes on the offensive.

“Go on, get out, we’ll carry on in the evening!” And the ruler shoves his sharp-tongued lover off the four-poster bed.

The bitterness of only-succeeding-at-the-second-attempt-and-even-then-only-a-bog-standard blowie, all the effort of managing the empire, dynastic troubles, as well as the fear of mortality were all in this phlegmy “get out” and this shove. Roxanne, the unruly resuscitator of Luigi’s smouldering fire, is on her way out, but even that is done with much devilish charm… a maddeningly cross-eyed, debauched flower is getting dressed in fretful haste. Then she picks up her trunk, slams the secret door, and storms past the hidden nooks and corners of the Palazzo. Nervously. Away.

Our hero remains under the canopy, in one of the numerous havens of the secret Palazzo where, in the unknown masterpiece of old and new Hetticanian architecture, King Luigi can delight in changing horses and in irons held in the fire for the longer or shorter run. Oh, if only the people could see their Ringmaster at such times – a pleasure-seeker lost in the jungle of carnal delight. The people, for whom he can orate ornately on the sanctity of the family and especially of the mother, her whom ordure-odoured masculinity must protect. After all, that’s the natural order.

But the people do not see, never have seen, and need never see this. The strict but just physiognomy hanging on the walls of public institutions must float in the formalin of the people’s imagination. It’s what’s worked for eighty thousand years. And God’s gift, the Hetticanian people, needn’t know about this Palazzo, either. They have always seen him in a thatched cottage, at the porch, in the poultry yard, on top of a haystack, at the stable gate, splitting wood at dawn (“greeting the dawning of the new day”), milking a goat, perusing his subjects’ letters by his modest little stove, or busying himself in the circus (“another post there!”). They have never seen him old, either. On one hand, lighting and substantial make-up help. On the other, there is some kind of eternal youth that the Ring bestows upon those happy few who were born for it.

Above him there’s a cuckoo clock from which a miniature Luigi holding a rose emerges on the hour to bonk the time with his tiny erection. On the table the size of a continent there are minuscule dumb-bell paper-weights, little luminous arena-shrines, a sugar-bowl in the shape of a clown’s head, pussy-cat mugs (their handles are their tiny pink tongues), ceramic pony vases, ceramic vase ponies, tits which are a pipe and a pipe which is an urn, ram’s horn corkscrews, a chamber-pot-like wine aerator, cigarette holders, shepherd’s crook chibouks recalling swords, a booby radio (twiddle the nipples to adjust the volume) – flotsam and jetsam, beauty’s nauseating bric-a-brac. An icon on the wall shows Trapezius extinguishing the flame of the candle on his mother’s head with a whip. The oak table-legs are temptingly carved: a lady’s calf with stiletto heels! All this junk should be set on fire. It’s impossible to move. This wing of the Palazzo has a cloakroom as big as an aisle where over-stuffed suitcases are awaiting escape. (But where to? And what for?) On the roof there’s a helicopter with a pilot and subdued illumination of stand-by lights. (Unnecessary caution? “There ain’t no knowing. There just ain’t no knowing.”)

Now wasn’t the time for a playful pourparler with Roxanne: the circus empire of Hetticania was preparing for a jubilee. A lavish celebration of the circus motherland’s thirtieth anniversary, its very latest Rebirth, the ever-new advent of King Luigi. Roxanne’s hurrying, mare-like clickety-click long reverberates on the not-cheap-but-worth-it marble of the corridor. A clumsy gate bangs. Horses giddy (up), the rumble of a carriage fades (away).

Now King Luigi is hauling himself from the bunker of love, with lumbago, stark naked but for his boots. (He manages to stand – third time lucky.)

His weather-beaten face has bushy hair. There are warts (3) on his bare skin, the beginnings of a double chin (1), cushions of fat (8), hematomas (2), savannas of matted tufts of hair (7), sagging triceps (2), bunions on his feet (3), protrusions of puzzling boils on his back (2), signet rings on his fingers (4), the beginnings of a stye budding on his blinking eye (1). He takes out a cigar from a puppy-coffin-sized box and lights it.

Chewing his cigar, drenched (it will be a hot day, cruel, muggy, and scourging), Luigi and his sciatica settle on his gold privy, crackling knees, a mild tremor in his limbs. His body urges him demandingly; he drops down on the heart-shaped, musical seat, his metabolism’s moving throne. Ancient Hetticanian motifs entwine the pistol-shaped loo-plunger. The plunger is held by a statuette modeled on Trapezius’s favourite dwarf, Habaruc. In his other hand, the dwarf holds a lavatory brush with a pen-knife, a torch, and a lighter – gifts from friendly heads of state, our secular buddies. For there are such, not only the empires of malice and envy! Next to the crapper there’s a T.V. on a table shaped like a Circus Ring. A cigarette advertisement on the wall: a stag belling smoke. (“Men smoke this!”) Loo paper deceptively imitating banknotes (“good old cash”) is awaiting its fate on an ivory ring. Next, to the right, a cooler laden with refreshments. He’d like to open a Tiger beer but can’t: it’s not possible because there isn’t any. (Nothing for two years. His legs got swollen, his face turned purple, he had to give it up.) He turns on the T.V.. There is some bird-pecked, fruity hodgepodge at the bottom of his mug with the words “Sword or Chaos”, he knocks it back. “Phew, it’s shit.” The heated seat plays enchanting music. There’s a little film on T.V. about the top intellectual parasite, Karl Varmann.

KARL VARMANN!

HE IS ANTI-CIRCUS!

BESPECTACLED!

(We can see his unbelievably large glasses.)

He is plotting in rotting foreign countries!

(A large close-up of his nose.)

SCHEMING ABROAD!

(The camera nearly goes into his mouth.)

PREPARING IMPLANTATION!

The great PUPPETEER.

The super SPIDER.

DON’T creep and crawl here, VARMANN!

(Varmann cackles and screeches away in archive shots: “Everybody is entitled to the Real, individual, humane, heuristic and abstracted arts!” He shakes his fists, his mouth foams. His disproportionate face fills the whole screen.)

INSIDIOUS!

HE’S GOING TO IMPLANT!

THOU SHALT NOT, TOERAG!

YOU CREEP! YOU SCOUNDREL!

CONTAMINATION!

What makes you so BLOODY ANGRY, Varmann?

Are you going to prey on us? What a BUGGER!

THE VARMANN VIRUS may return at any time!

(Then a cartoon Varmann ties a barrel of picric acid onto a bridge, grows a mouse’s head, and gnaws into a sack representing the Motherland, adds fuel to a nursery-school fire, and thrives as a tusked black piggy among snow-white pussy-cats. He injects the elderly with viruses. He appears as a rat, a louse, a tick, a skunk, and a blood-sucker. Foreboding music.)

WE SHALL NOT ALLOW IMPLANTATION!!!

It bores him. He turns it off. His guts are bursting. His loyal tiger, Julius, snuggles at his feet. On the tiger’s neck there’s a small barrel with the most expensive (let’s not deny it, imported) whisky. How many malicious pen-pushers, how many scheming senators, how many big-headed negotiating partners have been frightened to death by this big cat – to the glory of the Homeland.

He seals the deal with a pinch (its bark was worse). But when it shouldn’t it oozes. He tears off some scented paper with an extravagant swipe. He wipes. He pulls up. (His pants.) He pushes down. (The flush.) Water gushes down from the shark-shaped water tank. He stands up rheumatically, some mysterious dizziness surprises him. Is he about to have a stroke? What the f… It’ll pass. Hey, I’d better not kick the bucket today! The rose soap resting in the turned-up tortoise shell remains untouched. He may as well shower (microphone-shower head!), but he doesn’t, just lets Roxanne’s aromas mingle with the ruler who reeks of the ring. Need to. Even today.

With the half-smoked cigar on his lip, he idles fretfully. On the room’s other table, standing on carved lion legs, there is a pile of letters, the leaf-litter of diplomacy. There is a sleepy leopard in a cage and diplomas in batches, edicts, honorary doctor’s gowns, dried meat, antlers, candlesticks, nectars, putty medals, charms, packets, busts, glass cabinets full of foreign (amusing) idols, totems, aquaria, herbaria, triptychs, uniforms, a sparrow-hawk in a cage, photo collections taken of carnal love, a ceremonial hatchet, and a stuffed tribal chief from the depths of a distant rainforest. Offerings from brotherly powers.

Analysts, there, in the vipers’ nests of foreign academies, such ’ologists and such ’icians and you, historicians, you all, what wouldn’t you give to look into the thoughts lightning through the dark clouds… what flashes in this thick smoke? The total entirety or entire emptiness of power? Fox-like political machinations? The indivisible pleasure of despotism? No. What Luigi is thinking of now is breakfast, with his rumbling stomach, ravenous hunger.

Still wearing his boots, he climbs into his tracksuit bottoms with the letters Trapeze F.C.. No underpants for him: freedom above all, the libertine back and forth of genitals. A rustily fit man in his seventies; fire is still burning deep in his algal eyes, some of his decayed fangs snap a fusion of grin and triumphant smile. A formerly rakish ringmaster’s moustache is wilting on his half-clown-half-hangman face. His chubby but not pot-bellied figure is expecting a happy future. Anonymous sources close to Luigi have stated, in disguised voices in foreign interviews, that he is a vehement, patient, calm, short-tempered, curious, selfish, and magnanimous man.

As befits a man, instead of cleaning his teeth and having a shower, he hawks strongly into the washbasin like a panda (slosh) and sets off for breakfast with the appetite of a pregnant woman. Around his neck there is a lion’s tooth and an empty cartridge containing the powdered remains of extremely hot chilis. His pores are full of unbudgeable elephant manure, popcorn, pretzels, the memory of many kinds of pollen from many women, the scent of fermented fruits. (But he hasn’t touched a drop for two years! He rampaged about in the studio naked from the waist down! Live broadcast! That was a close shave! He was nearly seen! Led by a sudden impulse he wanted to announce the division of his empire among his children. He had never done anything like that before, he was obliged to give up drinking.) Octopus pudding with slices of sausages lightly fried in perfume, kangaroo thighs resting on a pineapple pillow with fried vulture egg and steamed giraffe tongue, as well as cranberry and chocolate Stone-Circus cake are waiting for him – breakfast!

2

Luigi’s adviser, the ascetically skinny Surkovich, is stooping by the loaded table. All skin and bones, nicotine yellow beard; pulsing veins on his temples, a blue river under the parchment-coloured skin; gleaming skull. Our Surkovich relieved Luigi of the drip-drop burdens of governing.

“Don’t keep showing me graphs, they fuck my eyes up!” says the Ringmaster when Surkovich wants to back up some of his advice with economic indicators. “My graph is the smile of the people! You tinker with reality, I eats, drinks, and dreams! Don’t come up with figures: pour me some wine! My eyes start yo-yoing with numbers! Talk to me about my legends instead!” orders Luigi, now as so many times. He never gets bored with the magic of popular imagination.

And Surkovich recounts. Luigi is said to have read every book: he only pretends to be an ordinary person. No, our Ringmaster really is simple and wise. After all, he can’t read, that’s why he always delivers his speeches, so to say, from memory. He is no longer alive, he is only a double. He wears a bulletproof vest. Not at all, and that’s precisely the problem: that he is not scared, not protected, and that may even cause serious trouble. He mingles with the people without his heavies. Night after night he turns up in boozing dens, wins drinking contests, does table magic in snugs, pisses at a target with rose growers in tap rooms. He plays the piano in dives and sings anti-system songs, laughing loudly, with the inevitable cigar. He drinks. He doesn’t drink, he can no longer cope, he is weak. He has never drunk, it’s just not him. He doesn’t know about this or that. If he did, he wouldn’t let it happen. It must be like this, cannot be any other way. This is what can be brought forth from such human material. He sleeps two hours a day. He doesn’t even sleep: he dozes for a couple of minutes. His working ability is incredible. He drinks tiger blood. Everything is calculated: his clothes, his speeches. Not at all. A natural genius! He wants good. He’s evil. Senile. He remembers everything. It’s not him singing. He always sings live. Surkovich manages him. He bumped off Surkovich a long time ago, had his tiger tear him apart, before his family’s very eyes. He’s really old. What? In five years’ time, we’d like to look what he looked like five years ago!

“Bloody good!” brays Luigi. That’s the evening news for him. “My people, my everything!”

He doesn’t hear what he’s better off not knowing: that they whisper this and presume that – for example, the idea that he surely bangs away with Surkovich has them howling with laughter. Or that Surkovich bangs away with the family’s shame, Sylvester. That they are said to live in a secret palace. That there is a large bunker under the palace. That the Father of the Circus Homeland sits terrified in the Palazzo. That he has aged a lot. That he is gaga. That he wets his pants. Surkovich does not tell him all these. No need. He needn’t know.

Luigi’s family are on the way. After the legends, but before they arrive, Surkovich, the very picture of a stomach-ache, munches some toast and briefs Luigi about the jubilee preparations.

“I would stop pushing the stunt with the motorbike”, he ventures.

“It’s been decided,” snaps Luigi.

“It’s dangerous, very dangerous,” the adviser tries.

“Zanák said, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a stunt,” says Luigi.

“Think it over,” says Surkovich.

“Done. Next?” ends Luigi.

And questions awaiting the beater of fast decisions shuttle along (like on a loom). Will he mingle? (He will.) Brown envelope? (Fill ’er up!) Can the T.V. audience ask questions? (They can.) Who should win the beauty contest? (Let’s decide there.) Rope? (Rope.) Will we issue any presidential pardons? (No.) Surkovich enthuses over his master and fears him. He envies his animated cheerfulness, his appetite, his libido; he admires his energy. While he sweats and toils and reads and ruminates, trying to figure out the catch of the burr puzzle of means and ends, Luigi just burps, decides, and moves on. While Surkovich is brooding over his tepid kaffey whether an institution shapes a person or a person the institution, Luigi devours three llama thighs, dismisses two senators, and downs one “wee pail of whiskykins”. (But not today, nowt for two years!) And now the great child of the people is just having a second helping of the quasi starter, octopus pudding. For the sake of it. Wolfing it down. For all his people.

“This octopus is good. Go on! Help yourself!” says Luigi.

“No, thanks.”

“It’s good though. But do you know the best meal I ever had, Surko? When me and the survivors of that collapsed mine ate rancid mole-fat spread on dry bread, while those forbidding young blokes were crying quietly albeit in their joy,” he says and wipes the juice of the octopus pudding off his chin.

“That’s good, say that!” his loyal adviser notes admiringly.

“I will.”

While they were rushing through all seemingly important questions, the clan oozed in. Slowly leaving, sidling, Surkovich carries on relaying a few insignificant details (scraps) to his master, then blows his nose with some theatricality and scurries away.

At the head of the table, the ruler of the Homeland’s Ring, Luigi, is sitting absentmindedly. The starter put him in a good mood: in his mind, he’s still half under the canopy. Hm, her arse has actually got bigger. At the side of the table, Alexander, the first son, hungover, wets his whistle with a juice. Thews ripple under his leather vest. Sybaritic, ruddy head. Rough stubble. His restless hammer-drill-body is fidgeting, like a bull with a bumblebee lost in its nostril. He is a strongman and a feral politician like his father, but with a more unstable soul. He has recently been somewhat demoted for a seemingly trifling but dangerous matter (nothing was found, but still…); now he is the President of the National Breastfeeding Council. It is not known how long the punishment will last, but for the time being he cannot be involved in anything else. He’s also had tactical training. He wants to attack the Rubanians relentlessly. He would order the shelling, he’s itching for some argy-bargy, let pummelling commence! What are we waiting for?

Next to him is his wife, Cindy, a foreigner but taken in, a superstitious circus artist.

“At home stayed my talisman, had to so much hurry,” she pesters the hungover Alex.

Succulent stock, good breeding ground. All hair, all neck, all flesh-flash; a slim female cathedral built of sharp bones. Alex and Cindy’s son is also sitting here, the only grandchild: the five-year-old Little Alex, shooting at his parents with a toy pistol. I’ve seen my mum and dad kissing, I’ve seen my mum and dad kissing! (Oh, when he learns that everything here is in his name!) The ruler is moved by his grandson and would tear his daughter-in-law’s bra with his teeth; he barely conceals the fact that he’s eyeing her up. The woman senses it too, her eyelashes confusedly quiver over her cappuccino with yak’s milk: her lips are a soft kiss-couch, her lap a whirlpool, her breasts a scorching hormonal conflagration.

Alex’s younger brother, Sylvester, is also here, cowering doltishly. He’s done turns as a musical clown, acrobat, and knife thrower, and now, with little success, he is assiduously essaying to remove the hard-nosed shell of a hard-boiled egg. None of his turns is as funny as this one with the egg. He is light-headed. He flexes in ancient Hetticanian combat attire, weapons from the time of Trapezius clank at his side, an ancient breast-plate lies heavily on his heart. He is a fellow without either aura or charisma, but with good intentions. (A bit of sleepy dust in his left eye.) When he’s reading, his lips move; when he’s counting, he calls on all his fingers and thumbs for help; and at night he often grinds his teeth. His thin beard conceals the craters of adolescence, as far as it can. He isn’t the sharpest giraffe-cutting hatchet in the cupboard drawer carved from Hetticanian giant redwood; a loyal foot-slogger of the circus religion devised by Surkovich. He is in charge of the Infallibility Office. Today he will perform a neck-breaking motorbike stunt. His father is unwilling to admit that he was not born for the Ring. (He forces the issue.) Frank is the choreographer of the evening motorbike performance. He is also the leader of the People’s Tamers. He is a hard, serious person. He is also well aware that Sylvester is not suitable for the stunt, but this position goes with a heap of money, therefore he does not assert that it is risky. We can do it, we can do it, is what he’s been suggesting to Sylvester for weeks. He is expecting him after breakfast, they will practise all day, yes, you can still practise even on the day, perhaps it isn’t too late.

Luigi’s daughter, Talia, surveys her family with superiority. She radiates self-consuming, dangerous artistry. She makes a mockery of gravity with elastic ease. She also performs as a tamer sometimes, but she prefers reading. She is acerbic, smart, and melancholic; she was refined abroad. She is sarcastic, sour-sweet, and enigmatic.

Luigi still can’t accept that his offspring are not his marionettes. The circus must go on. Each child can contribute something. That’s right, even Sylvester. That’s that. Luigi’s ancestors were circus people, going back seven generations. The blood of jugglers, faquirs, ventriloquists, acrobats, tamers, magicians, and clowns: Luigi’s blood. His father was erstwhile a strongman, his mother a charming clown.. Their world-famous show was that the clown (mamma) was goading the strongman (pops) The Ringmaster was born in a caravan on the road between two shows. As Varmann writes, falsely and anti-circusly, in his notorious biography of Luigi (The Advent Of A Ring-Plebeian’s Quasi-Kingdom Of A Post-Circus Feudal Enclosure-Manège-Ghetto In An Adulterated Master-Servant Reservation [ExGrandTrapeze Publishing, p. 790]):

Undeniably his early, eclectic, charming and subversive works betrayed a degree of talent, but he did not devote his years to the essential and diligent drudgery worthy of the ethos of high art. In vain did a noted piano teacher ask him to abandon the circus and attend his classes. Instead, as was expected, but in any case to the misfortune of art, he opted for the feather-weight entertainment of the broad masses of people. He met under-, demi-, and upper-world characters, and his sparkling yet confused career-spanning systems came to fruition…

Only the parents live in the Palazzo now: the children are lording over their own little empires humanely. Talia heartens the gummy-bear industry, Sylvester comforts soft-toy production, and Alex was ruling the rose fields, at least until his suspension. (It won’t last long.) Today they are all present: yesterday there was a photo-shoot in the Stone Circus, at which they displayed a family in harmony. (A human pyramid. Sylvester fell off several times but managed to climb back on cue. Say cheese!)

Luigi’s missus, the mother of the family, the Silver-Penguin-Prize-winning Lady Leap, is late. She is also seventy-something. Her lipstick slips a millimetre each year. She is an accomplished but extinguished talent. She is expected. They don’t start eating until everyone is here. They don’t start, but they still take a few mouthfuls. They chew as if they weren’t. Then at last Leap arrives in a cloud of magic mushrooms, barefooted, with a plucked-birds’-nest hairdo and in a dressing gown of indeterminable colour. The abundantly bandaged veteran acrobat sinks onto her no-longer-springy buttocks and begins to poke the flaccid Luigi with the spear of her rebukes. She doesn’t know, but suspects, who this doltish clown playing the king – her words, not mine – was with again last night. However, she won’t rebel. Nor does she want to. After all, a nuptial revolution would mean she wouldn’t be able to pursue her only love, her only joy: the art of cooking. She edits a newspaper, presents a cookery show, collects recipes, writes books. (Lady Leap, An Ocean of Modern Seafood Recipes.) When she was younger, she fasted for the Arena, but now she cooks and eats. The former contortionist assumed hefty outlines. The people adore her. Luigi and thus the Homeland need the doughy-bodied missus.

“I’ve seen a cheap island. An actor is selling it,” says Leap, just by the way, with the remains of the magic mushrooms between her teeth.

“What would I do there?” asks Luigi.

“Half a year there, half a year here. And do let Sylvester be! Must you mess about with him?” says Leap changing direction.

“Not this one now!”, says Luigi.

“We could relax for six months while Surkovich holds the fort,” Leap continues.

“At least you didn’t say Balambér! But Surkovich!? He’s got no aura. You can’t do it without aura. He would be hacked to bits in two minutes. And his castrated voce! Come off it!”

“You’ve got three children.”

“Too soon!”

“You’re hopeless.”

“They would hang Surkovich by the dick,” muses Luigi. “They’d tear his guts out.”

“And you’ve lost weight, you could do with some rest.”

“Give over. First beans, then farts,” says Luigi.

“You’re making a scene again.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are!”

Leap is changing. (Or do the magic mushrooms change in her pocket?) She didn’t used to be so restless. She would never rebel against Luigi officially. She may think “if only this whole thing would end”, but she is quite certain that after Luigi there would only be something worse. In her rare interviews she is carried away by saying things like “Luigi is a jackpot struck by Historia”. In fact, she has always liked his fusion of roughness and refinement. She liked that he was fresh, even fresher when he did not sleep. That he did not nurture the children but entertained them, making them into an audience. (“It’s not grazing livestock!”) He does not sidle but bursts in. She liked the bucking bronco, the big proud beast. His drive. His kraft. His hotheadedness! That he was always ready for anything. And that Luigi sitting down was more interesting than someone else doing a handstand. That he did not sneak but clattered by. It wasn’t even that he had a strong personality: rather, others’ were weak. She thought something like that. Even if he was simple-minded, he had a grand style. She didn’t mind his vainglorious vagina-raids either: she knew they didn’t make him happy; she knew that male-grief, insatiable male-grief, consumed his heart. She no longer counted the hairs on his coat, crotch, or pants. She didn’t enviously assess spots: innocent little spots? Tell-tale clues? She didn’t sniff for the scent of unknown females. How could they actually retire, roll into the depot? That’s not the career path. Or would there be a small luxury dacha established for elderly, charismatic leaders where they peacefully sit by the pool and order the staff around? Where they try to get the upper hand naturally, fight out favours and advantages?

“How long will this drowned mole-rat be coming and going?” Leap now asks, pointing at Surkovich’s vacant place.

“He’s useful. Necessary,” says Luigi brusquely.

Silence.

“What was that neurotic pit-a-pat in the corridor this morning? Did a gazelle slip in?” Leap jeers, spitting a stone-dry piece of merry-making mushroom at her husband’s head.

“I didn’t hear it. Let’s eat, my dear family!” The head of the family directs the topic away and, brandishing the salt-cellar in the form of a Hetticanian girl carrying water, adds copious quantities of salt to his cream of dolphin.

“Really, Dad, what is this Surkovich to us?” asks Alex nosing the smell of blood.

“Only a few can see so clearly the darkness that is the mass,” says Talia caricaturing Surkovich in a nasal twang.

“That’s right. Evil has never had such a groovy get-up,” says Sylvester. “If Dad didn’t help, the people would be marching alone toward the precipice.”

“What do you know about the people? And what does the people know of itself?” scolds Talia, still in character.

“Don’t play into the enemies’ hands! It’s a nest of termites there. Do they have rule by the people? Right, Dad?” asks Sylvester.

“Did you know that space smells of shteak?” asks Leap, somewhat sloshed.

“What is this, a seminar? Let’s stuff ourselves!” snaps Luigi and a tiny troupe of facial tics dances across his face.

How much easier it is to manage the people and the manège than his family. Three children, one single grandchild! Are they infertile? There should be twenty little devils making mayhem. A legion could be organised from the slew of bastards, but I cannot take them on. He has a recurring nightmare in which his wild oats appear as an army of zombies. Luigis of every shape and colour, female Luigis, red-headed Luigis with curly hair and freckles all saying together “Daaaad!” That’s when he wakes with a start. That’s why there aren’t any Luigi lookalike contests, although there would be a demand for them – but no way. What would happen if any characters from those feverish dreams turned up? (“Daaaad!”)

They’re eating. They’re devouring. Luigi is practically full. Only his glaucomic eyes desire the food, his unruly stomach does not.

There doesn’t seem to be any need for Surkovich. Yet the system wouldn’t function without him. Although the Ringmaster humiliates and has a good laugh at him, he very much listens to his advice, research, and over-wrought trains of thought.

“You’re the brain, I’m the dick. We can only win together,” Luigi tells him when the withered adjutant begins to gripe about the meaninglessness of the meaning of the meaninglessness of existence or something like that. Surkovich is needed for balance. Together we can flog addle dung as strawberry liquor.

“Eat up, Little Alex! Get it down you! Why isn’t this child eating?” asks Luigi, worrying. (Little Alex, our last hope.)

“He has already eating,” says Cindy.

“Eat your meat, boy! He’s only shifting the food about! Don’t play the giddy goat! Meat! Eat! Is he picky? He mustn’t be picky! And don’t swing on the chair, you’ll fall! Eat meat!” The leader is growing impatient.

“He eats no meat,” says Cindy.

“Doesn’t eat meat?” asks Luigi.

“He feels sorry,” says Cindy.

“Sorry? For what?” Luigi is amazed.

“He feels sorry for the animals.”

“So eat some fish! There’s cream of dolphin,” says Luigi.

“Stop orrrderrring him about,” Leap burps quietly.

“I’m just saying. Can’t I say anything? Eat fish then. Here’s some dolphin.”

“A dolphin isn’t a fish,” says Little Alex.

“What is it then?” Luigi’s confused.

“It’s a mammal,” says Little Alex.

“I don’t believe this. This child is mollycoddled. Octopus pudding? Do you know how lucky we are to eat octopus pudding?”

“Give it a rest!” says Leap.

“Sausages fried in perfume? Kangaroo thighs resting on a pillow of pineapple with a fried vulture-egg? With steamed giraffe tongue? And cranberry and chocolate Stone-Circus cake?”

“Stop it, it’ll go to your heart, Luigi!”

“Cream of dolphin! Others would be delighted to be eating stuff like this. We don’t have a sea. It has to be hauled in. No cheap rubbish here!” Luigi is banging the table.

“Okay, all right.”

“How I wish I could have eaten such food when I was your age! I was forty-three before I’d even heard of dolphin cream!”

“Leave the child alone!” asks Alex now who is slowly recovering. “He’ll eat when he’s hungry. What time are the executions?”

“We’re eating, son” says Leap.

“Did she really rape him?” asks Alex.

“Yes, it happens,” says Sylvester.

“An animal wouldn’t do such a thing,” Talia speaks with the voice of the people.

“No, it wouldn’t,” says Leap, who would like to move the conversation on. Not in front of Little Alex.

“Eat up, try the penguin-blood jam!”

“Oh, here we go!” says Sylvester. “Why is he wearing trousers with a fly? Why is he surprised that she raped him? Yes, indeed, you have to watch yourself with women!”

“It is not so simple.” Cindy would like to elaborate, but she hasn’t the vocabulary for it.

“Sweetie,” says Alex, “don’t chip in, okay?”

“No, do go on!” Talia encourages her sister-in-law.

“The man is responsible: even if he is borne down on, he should resist,” says Sylvester.

“To say no is called no,” says Cindy.

“Can’t exactly the opposite have happened and the man raped her?” suggests Talia. “Just a thought.”

“That’s not a sin. The male must initiate. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here. I’ll court them afterwards, if it’s any good,” says Luigi guffawing.

“That’s right! Anyway, this woman question is boring. Here with us it’s been resolved, why go on?” says Alex.

“But there are many other countries where women are in power, or?” asks Cindy.

“Women in politics? Staining everything with blood?” Luigi digs Alex in the ribs.

“Better than poofs, though!” says Alex.

“Why, what have you got against poofs?” asks Talia.

“They can do what they like behind closed doors,” says Leap with oozy eyes “but don’t make it compulsory!”

“But, mother…”, Sylvester begins to speak. The air freezes.

“Aah, Bunny, you know I love you!” hiccups the heavily bandaged Leap, embracing her youngest son.

“All right,” says Luigi jumping up. “I’ve had enough of this.”

“Where are you going? Please don’t run off!” His wife wants the bickering to continue.

“A poofter, because of how you treated him!” howls Luigi in a huff, leaving the sparring ring.

“You’re hysterical!” his life-partner shouts after him.

“Instead, let’s talk about how a whole bunch of photos from the Palazzo was leaked to the foreign press!” suggests Alex.

“Do you realise that we haven’t sat together like this for seven years?” muses Leap.

“I don’t think it’s an accident, mother,” says Talia.

“Justice would be served if the executioner raped the wench!” says Sylvester, but no one is listening to anyone any more.

They’re eating. The fighting irons are flashing. Leap isn’t eating: she’s nodding off. She droops. The queen of the air, who never used a safety harness, is panting, the magic mushrooms have now won her over. She may be flying winged hippopotamuses over a grander countryside. That’s how it is. We’re human. Drowsy.

They are nibbling away, on the sandbank of morning, without their father. Not exactly as they are depicted on stamps, T-shirts, or caps. Oh, that’s entirely different. It’s only natural. Like how on one banknote Luigi is blowing soap-bubbles for his teeny-weeny children. Or on another one wisely addressing some hard-working ploughmen in the rose fields. Or, on the highest denomination, giving advice to his scienticians in the Central Laboratory. No. We won’t put this on display, it would be out of place. The people needn’t see the family atmosphere following a subsided scirocco. The people need ideals they can follow.