Convalescent, The by Jessica Anthony

Author:Jessica Anthony
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2010-07-29T21:00:00+00:00

XVII

EVOLUTION OF THE PFLIEGMANS:

LOSING LILI LÁSZLÓ

During the settling of Hungary and the unsettling of every other nearby established European nation, everyone pretty much ate the same two things: meat and ját. Ját was a tough, fist-size ball of hard dough the color and consistency of chalk which we gnawed on. Which we tried to swallow whole and choked on. The eating of ját was an hourlong, teeth-aching endeavor, but it was all we had. Because of the unsympathetic weather, everyone always had colds, or were catching colds from stealing and gnawing on other people’s ját. Sometimes, if there was not enough meat, porridge was made for the women and children, but the porridge was only ját broken into bits and boiled in water. To break a piece of ját, you had to take your axe to it, or throw it hard against a stone wall, cracking it into a dozen splintered pieces. Ját makes an obnoxious sound when hurled against a stone wall, which is how it got its name. “These were days,” Anonymus explains, “when the linguistics of people in the rural regions were heavily influenced by onomatopoeia.”

Of love with fat ladies, of tidy, gruesome deaths, of bread so warm it could not be sliced, only pulled, the bread was the worst of Árpád’s desires. It was the one thing he could not have. Every morning, the Grand Prince awoke to the sound of ját smacking the stones, so you might also say that aside from fleeing Pechenegs, it was for the want of thick, brown loaves of steaming bread that the kingdoms of Europe suffered Hungarian incursions for the next fifty years.

Árpád was merely a man desperate for his carbohydrates.

But now, here, on the eve of the Great Leg Wrestling Match, Lili arrived at his tent, and he beckoned her inside. He offered her a plate piled with ját.

Lili stared at the plate distastefully. She had been expecting a fair amount of pomp: exotic rugs carpeting the dirt floor, canopies of fur decorated with prized collectibles. She had seen the Grand Prince riding his great white horse around camp, and knew that he wore brilliant armor, heart-shaped across his chest. Around his helmet, the wings of the turul bird gleamed. She also knew that the leader of the Hungarian tribes ate better than anyone, so needless to say, the tent was a significant disappointment. Árpád’s armor was flung messily into a corner. Two Persian rugs his men had stolen off a German merchant were rolled tight, lying like logs across the center walking area. Dogs had pissed on the rugs, filling the tent with an acrid, sour odor that seemed to linger on everything. Cracked jugs of grain alcohol lay emptied on their sides, fruit flies danced above a bowl of sweetened figs, and various flags stolen from various armies, moist from the wet country, were folded and stacked, gathering the slow, dark mold that would eventually consume them.

She picked up a clammy ball of ját and scowled. “This sucks,” she said.

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