Peter & Matilda

“But where am I even supposed to go? Where the hell should I go? Damn it!” young Peter fumed after his manager told him to use up his old vacation days, which he had refused to pay out.

Peter disliked taking time off. He always ended up bored, or his mother assigned him a mountain of chores around the house, knowing he was shut away in his room at home, where he did nothing all day anyway except play computer games. Everything he enjoyed, he always managed to fit in around work: going for a beer with friends or heading to a party in the nearby town on a Saturday night.

That was why vacation irritated him somewhat. He liked twelve-hour shifts at the gas station, and night shifts too. Afterwards, he always had a day off. He was a contented man with few demands. He did not worry much about girls yet, either. He was still enjoying his freedom, in a way. Every now and then, on a Saturday or Sunday morning, some pretty young girl would slip out of the house after spending the night, but that was about it.

His mother did not approve, and often reminded him that it was time for him to get serious. Peter had no idea what she could possibly mean. He was twenty-five, worked at the local gas station, and was something of a favorite among local girls and older women alike — simply because he was handsome.

He had the body of a model, and his beautiful face, with its pronounced jawline, straight nose, and full lips, was framed by dark curls falling over his forehead from his not-too-long hair. The sides and back were clipped short, as was fashionable these days. He had that nice, thick faux hawk, which was wavy on top as well.

Judita, the hairdresser, was already thirty-five, but she was always a little happier whenever she saw him sitting in the waiting room. She liked being able to touch him. Her mischievous side thrilled at it, and his dark-blue eyes and lovely smile tempted her. No wonder — Peter looked like an angel, that was true, but he was a brunette, and his eyes were as dark blue as the deep sea. He always had just a light stubble. She liked letting her fingers wander over his face while pretending it was part of her job.

“Oh, he really isn’t a child anymore,” Judita always thought. After all, she had probably been cutting his hair since he was twelve.

But what was he going to do about the vacation?

One friend suggested that he visit Piešťany. He said he had been there with his girlfriend and that they had loved it.

“Tibor! It’s February. What exactly am I supposed to do there?!” Peter asked in surprise, because he knew people mainly went to Piešťany in the summer.

“They have a nice promenade, the Váh River, and a big park. The town feels like it’s from another era. Tons of history. It’s charming. And it’s full of pretty girls. The spas are always full of beautiful women — you’ll definitely meet one in a hot tub!” Tibor continued, giggling.

In any case, his devil of a friend had planted the idea in Peter’s mind. So Peter went to Booking.com and searched for accommodation for five nights. His eyes crossed from the countless offers. In the end, he chose an apartment at Pro Patria. It looked nice, spacious, and comfortable; it offered half board and, on top of that, it was cheap.

Done.

The next morning, he packed his things and headed for the train. In less than an hour, he was in Piešťany. The station was far from what he had seen marked as Spa Island on the map, so he took a taxi.

It really was an island, since the Váh River flowed around the mainland on both sides.

What a strange place, Peter thought, squinting at the map.

Several taxis waited in a line outside the station. Peter liked the new Mercedes E-Class, but it was second in line. According to the taxi drivers’ agreement and their fair sharing of customers, he had to take whichever car was first in line.

Peter liked cars. In fact, that was probably one of the reasons he had taken a job at the gas station. He liked tinkering with them and tuning them. He had been saving for a car for years, but somehow he always managed to spend everything, so progress was slow — or rather, there was no progress at all. His devil of a friend had advised him more than once to take out a loan, but Peter’s mother would not hear of it.

That old-school mentality, no getting around it. If you cannot afford something, do not buy it — or save up for it, then buy it.

Peter waited a little longer, hoping someone would take the old, disgusting white Opel, whose driver was constantly picking his nose. He was a stocky, gray-haired man with long hair hanging down to his shoulders — hair so greasy that, on a hot summer day, you could probably fry two or three schnitzels on it.

The dream of leather seats dissolved, and Peter got into the old Opel.

The first thing that hit him was an overpowering stench. Something like old tallow. He would have sworn that the seats had been vomited on several times and then not particularly thoroughly cleaned. Queen was playing on the radio. “Radio Ga Ga.”

Peter liked electronic music. So this song, together with the car’s charming odor, felt a little like torture.

The car slowly made its way through the streets of an ordinary suburb. Nothing special — just a few houses, a drugstore here, a haberdashery there, and then a large Billa supermarket. The five-cent increments on the taximeter ticked up suspiciously fast, and Peter automatically cursed every traffic light.

As they drew closer to the island, the road curved, and a steep hill scattered with sparse woodland rose on the right. Across the bridge and then left.

“Here we are, young man. That’ll be seven fifty, but I stopped the meter before the entrance to the complex, so maybe you would have paid even more. You know, by the time I parked. It wouldn’t be fair to the customer,” the driver grinned.

“Here you go. Keep eight,” Peter said, handing him ten euros.

The smelly taxi drove away with its schnitzel-like driver, leaving Peter staring at the large park and surrounding buildings. They were old. Peter had expected a spa hotel, but not this much history. At first, he did not know whether to be pleased or despairing. It was like something out of an old film. All he expected now was for Princess Sissi to come rushing out through one of the doors.

Peter went inside.

The first thing that hit him was the smell of sulfur and rotten eggs. Disappointment began to form in his mind, and he had the feeling that, just like the taxi, his stay would be one big, stinking disappointment. The prospect of five nights in a boring, old, dirty, smelly hotel haunted his thoughts like a specter.

While the receptionist was dealing with someone else, he sat down in a leather armchair and read brochures: treatment offers, as well as some information about the building. That genuinely entertained him. Young people are bored by history, but sometimes all it takes is reading something out of boredom, and suddenly a whole new world opens up.

The Pro Patria spa complex, whose name translates as “For the Homeland,” is one of the oldest facilities in the Piešťany Spa. Its patriotic name suggests — and its history confirms — that the building was constructed during the First World War, from 1914 to 1918.

It was created thanks to the idea of the Winter family to build a sanatorium for soldiers during wartime. In the first months of the war, the Austro-Hungarian army suffered heavy losses on the Eastern Front. It fought difficult battles against the armies of Tsarist Russia, and hospitals throughout the monarchy could not accommodate the wounded and sick soldiers.

In cooperation with the spa and the Piešťany Military Spa Institute, an Auxiliary Hospital of the Spa Directorate was established. The spa management proposed that the military administration construct a new treatment facility on Spa Island, to be used by the army during and after the war.

The plans were drawn up by the experienced architects H. Böhm and A. Hegedüs, who had also designed the Hotel Thermia Palace complex and the Irma spa house. They designed the treatment center in a unique way. The building has a fan-shaped floor plan.

The architects created a spa facility under one roof, including a mud pool built directly over a natural spring. A thermal pool was placed in the adjoining area. To the left and right of the entrance hall, they designed two halls with 120 resting places.

From the left hall, visitors could enter the area containing bathtub treatments and the mechanotherapy hall. Eight long accommodation pavilions were connected radially to the spa center. All pavilions were linked to a central polygonal corridor.

Each ground-floor pavilion contained two large wards with twenty-five beds each for soldier-patients. The two frontal, one-storey wing pavilions contained twenty-seven rooms. The building’s total accommodation capacity reached 500 beds.

Construction began in April 1915. The building became partially operational in March 1916 and was ceremonially opened on May 30, 1916.

After the war, Pro Patria served as a treatment institution for state employees and members of health insurance funds, as well as self-paying patients from the middle classes. The institution focused on treating the most severe cases of rheumatic disease and also functioned as a research institute.

In June 1934, the Kvetuša Children’s Spa Treatment Institute was established in the southern wing of Pro Patria. It was the only European institution specializing in the treatment of childhood rheumatism. After the establishment of the First Czechoslovak Republic, the treatment center was visited by many prominent personalities.

Since opening in 1916, Pro Patria has undergone several modifications and reconstructions. The largest and most comprehensive of these took place during the 1990s. Pro Patria is primarily built upon traditional spa treatment.

The reception area had cleared, and the young man approached the glass-fronted counter. The remnants of the terrible COVID crisis, which nobody paid attention to anymore, were still visible everywhere. There were broken sanitizing machines all around, their disinfectant long since evaporated for good. No one used them anymore. Notices, stickers, and posters about prevention and hygiene were everywhere. A sticker depicting a person in a face mask looked like a grotesque creation by some cheerful designer, or an advertisement for a bizarre theatre play. People had chosen to live, and they could not care less about past or present crises. Everyone still coughed and sneezed everywhere, and everyone felt more or less ill, but they had decided not to pay attention to it. What was meant to survive would survive; what was meant to perish would perish.

“Good afternoon. I have a reservation through Booking.”

“Full name!” demanded the socialist prison guard, with her short haircut and glasses.

“Peter Hlavatý,” he said with a smile, still not giving up hope in good nature, smiles, humanity, and pleasant human relationships. Lately, people nearing retirement age had seemed somehow nervous and irritable to him. Politics had never interested him, but certain things affected even his young soul. Although he lived in his own little world, even he sensed a rather gloomy mood in society.

“Ah, I can see you here now. Welllll, waaaait. Ahaaa. Hold on. You’re not until three!!!” she rattled off as if it were all one sentence, looking at him sternly over her glasses.

“Well, yes. I was hoping I could check in earlier,” he replied, somewhat more firmly now.

“You can, but it will be 40 euros,” the prison guard cut him off.

“All right then, go ahead,” the young man persisted, already despairing that he had spent 40 euros before he had even arrived.

“Look, I’ll check you in and let you in around half past one, or two. In the meantime, go for a walk around town. That way, across the glass bridge to the old town centre, or along the Váh River — you can walk on either side practically forever. The sun should be coming out soon. Leave your luggage here. Is that okay?” she asked, finally smiling a little.

“That’s very kind of you. Thank you. How do you know it will be sunny?”

“I keep track of such things. You know, over the years receptionists learn everything,” she said, more relaxed now, and smiled again.

Soon he was holding a map of the building, a room key card, and a customer-satisfaction questionnaire about the cleaning services, which the receptionist had angrily described as useless. He also received a meal card with a grid-like design dating from 1968 — or perhaps even earlier. Restaurant Sisi. Breakfast served as a buffet. Dinner. Choice of three meals. Must be ordered one day in advance. He left his luggage behind and set off into town, intending to explore the spa island as well.

Although it was a grey February day and everything felt somewhat deserted, the grounds were fascinating. There were not many people there. At times, it seemed as though he was completely alone in the park. If it had not been for an old woman with a poodle, a mischievous thrush rustling through the leaves, and one cyclist, he would have truly believed he was alone. The old historic buildings standing in the vast, almost endless park began to gleam in the rising sunlight. Somewhere, birds could already be heard singing as they do in spring, though spring was still far away. Thermia Palace and Irma stood beside one another like old, good friends who now needed each other’s help.

There were trees everywhere, large and small; some were enormous, perhaps more than a hundred years old. For now, the deciduous trees stood bare, but there were also huge conifers, majestic pines, and evergreen plants such as thuja and ivy, which wound itself around their massive trunks and around the complexes of old buildings known as Napoleon. There were evergreen shrubs too, unbothered by winter, and ponds with water lilies, probably warmed by thermal water. Dense green bamboo grew above the ponds, having not lost its leaves either.

A little farther on, deeper in the park, stood a historic building that now served as a café. It was called Elizabeth. Ravens grazed on the broad green lawn around it. Their beautiful blue-black feathers warmed in the increasingly pleasant sun. Some pecked at the ground like farmers struggling with hard soil, while others simply walked about, amusingly bobbing their heads. It was strange to see so many of them together. They measured Peter with curious eyes, then, with loud cawing, all took off together in one enormous flock and flew away somewhere.

Peter began to lose himself in a world that was truly different. It breathed history. A kind of magical old spa atmosphere began to take hold of him and would not leave him alone until he found himself longing for it more and more. Then it simply let him walk and marvel, the way only a lovestruck boy can marvel at an older lover who still looks so good.

He passed Irma, an old building with its original stained-glass windows. Then he spent a while admiring the Thermia Palace, in front of which expensive cars with foreign number plates were parked. And then, without quite knowing how, he tripped over an old root and found himself on the glass bridge.

The Piešťany Bridge was suddenly bathed in warm sunlight, which warmed his cold cheeks. So she had been right after all. That communist prison guard! Peter thought, already feeling somewhat more cheerful. People sat on the bridge benches reading books or simply soaking up the sun. Everywhere there were statues and depictions of a young man — a strong, well-built soldier breaking a crutch over his knee.

At one point, Peter felt as though he were sitting beside someone. It was not a person. It was a seated likeness of Mr Winter. His statue sat right next to Peter, and he, dazed like a bee in late autumn still trying to remain conscious, immediately pulled up Wikipedia. Mr Winter — his memorial plaques, words, and busts — rightfully seemed to be waiting around every corner.

People once streamed into Piešťany from all over the world. As Peter learned from Wikipedia, even Neanderthals had come here to bathe; later came the nobility, and then, thanks to Winter, ordinary people as well. Quite an interesting history indeed. People destroyed, built, then destroyed again, and then built anew. People and their progress, people and their wars. People would always be people.

Somewhere, South American music could be heard. Peter got up and decided to cross the bridge into the old town. A great many casual fishermen were fishing along the banks of the Váh, while ducks and swans swam in the river. Snow-white seagulls flew overhead, and perhaps a hundred pigeons sat on the bridge railing.

Peter felt drunk. Everything seemed so surreal to him. So enchanting. When he crossed the bridge, he suddenly found himself in the old town centre. It was unbelievable: the sight of the old buildings, narrow streets, and another large park, where the spa hall stood, with yet another historic building right beside it, now serving as a museum. Everything was so interconnected. A pedestrian zone. Everything so close together.

Some buildings had unfortunately already fallen into disrepair, and Peter wished that some millionaire would uncover their potential. But perhaps times had changed. Where there was no profit, there was no longer any interest. At times, it looked like a ghost town, and Peter occasionally felt sad. The history of his ancestors called out to him, reaching out its hands, but Peter’s country was not interested.

A huge old historic hotel on the banks of the Váh, at which Peter could only stare in amazement, was surrounded by a fence covered in graffiti. Once again, he could not resist looking into its history.

Young people seemed to be demanding that the former beauties be repaired and reopened, and so, in rebellion, they painted over everything that had fallen into disrepair. As he continued down a street in the old town centre, he saw a ruin with an inscription on it:

Shame on the mayor, shame on the town!!!

Then he walked a little farther along the Váh River, but before long he was so tired that he could barely put one foot in front of the other. So he headed back to the hotel. It was around 1:30 p.m.

“Can I check in now?” he asked, his eyes wide and his young face hopeful.

“Of course! Enjoy your stay!” the smiling receptionist welcomed him.

Something had happened. It was the same woman, but she was much cheerier. Peter imagined that he had a special effect on miserable people, some sort of power that miraculously cured them of their misery. But then he noticed the unwrapped lunch on her desk — a fragrant fried cutlet with boiled potatoes and cucumber salad — and understood that perhaps she was simply looking forward to her break.

Pro Patria was a historic building constructed in the shape of an octopus. You entered through the head, and then perhaps twelve tentacles formed separate wings. Every other leg — or arm, whatever it was — had two storeys and an attic, while the rest were merely single-storey buildings. All of them stretched out like tentacles, with doors at their ends leading from the corridor into small gardens. You could sense the old-fashioned way of building here — truly magical things.

On his way down the main corridor toward his suite, he saw two or three restaurants, including Sisi, and then the Franz Joseph café, which yawned with sad emptiness. Everything seemed charmingly old to him, and he wanted to embark on this historical exploration. After all, he was glad to be there and wanted, in a way, to discover these things that were new to him, though really very old. Even the emptiness of the place called out to him. Truly strange. As if it had all been waiting just for him. As if it wanted to reveal itself to him like this — in silence and in all its beauty.

It seemed to him that he walked for twenty minutes before reaching his room. He paused by the walls and stared at the old wooden doors and window shutters.

Where exactly am I? he asked himself.

He had to find Block J. Room J2. In the corridors he encountered elderly people, and it seemed to him that walking briskly was a crime here. They glared at him. Truly magical old photographs and period posters hung on the walls. He could not help stopping at them and absorbing the former era and all its information.

At last, he reached one of the final tentacles and turned left.

“J2!” he exhaled.

It was a large, modern suite, exactly like the one he had chosen on Booking.

He opened the window, which looked out over the adjacent arm of the octopus-shaped building and, to the right, over the Váh and a steep hill covered with sparse forest. Enchanting. In the small garden beneath the window, he thought, all those people from long ago must once have sat, resting here and enjoying good old-fashioned conversation. They had no mobile phones, and having coffee or tea was an occasion. It must have had style.

The garden was not maintained. Much had declined here since those old days, as so often happens. At moments, he wondered whether the suite might be haunted. Perhaps by some young, broken soldier from the First World War — a soldier who had never agreed with the war and had not chosen it himself, and who was therefore bitter, and would remain bitter, now haunting the corridors for eternity.

Peter unpacked and lay down for a moment on the comfortable bed, then fell asleep. He dreamed about the petrol station. He had forgotten to put away the drinks, and someone had driven off without paying. It was one of those typical nightmares that comes when you lie down in the middle of the day. He sat up in bed and drank some water.

For a while, he stared silently at the modest painting hanging on the wall to his left. It was modern art: a harmony of colours and strokes, in which something resembling a woman took shape. Skillful brushstrokes showed her bare back and part of her buttocks.

Suddenly, he began wondering what he would do here for all five days. The thought haunted him. He had no idea, but something inside told him simply to let things unfold. So he went down to reception to buy a treatment. The cheerful communist woman sent him to the Napoleon building, where he bought the following: a mud bath, a mirror bath, and a massage.

He still had an hour before the treatment. He was meant to be there at three. So he returned to his room, and as he passed Napoleon and the Kantína restaurant, he noticed a small shop selling spa wafers. On its wooden shutter was an advertisement for vodka and wine as well.

He thought that he ought to relax a little. He could not spend the whole stay completely sober. He should celebrate his holiday, and perhaps, at last, he might meet some girls later on. There would surely be plenty of them in the mud, he thought. He imagined rich whirlpool waters full of half-dressed girls. These fantasies, which he had prepared so perfectly for himself, were truly tempting.

He ought to be more relaxed, more daring. Yes — vodka or wine! Perhaps just one or two glasses before the treatment. Since he was afraid he would look too drunk, he bought only white wine. But there was no corkscrew in the room. Nothing but two water glasses and a no-smoking sign. No matter how thoroughly he searched the entire room and bathroom, he found nothing.

He wondered how to get a corkscrew.

I’ll go to the café. No. I’d be embarrassed. Who would want to open someone else’s wine?

So he drank nothing and headed to his treatment. He hoped his charm would be enough. Perhaps he could charm someone so thoroughly — after all, he was used to that — that he would not need to be especially bold himself.

They’ll be offering themselves to me for “tea,” he thought with amusement, imagining himself and a young lady in period clothing sitting in the Franz Joseph café.

He sat down in the corridor at Napoleon and waited. A small, stocky woman — or girl — came out, around thirty years old. Although she had blonde hair tied in a bun, she looked like a butcher. Her legs and arms were short, as though they did not belong to her body at all, and her hands were tiny, her fingers somehow crooked. Her cheeks were as red as poppy flowers, and her expression was so stern that one might be afraid to enter — or to disobey her.

Once again, the waiting room was filled with people over fifty. They looked Peter over and could not understand what he was doing there.

I play football; I’m recovering from an injury, he made up what he would say if someone asked him. Older people liked to talk; he already knew that from the petrol station.

Peter cursed himself for believing Tibor the devil. There were no young girls here, but he did not stop hoping that he would meet some in town when he went out on Saturday night. Well, for now he would relax in some mud. And in the end, you never knew. Girls liked mud, after all. They put all kinds of masks on their faces. Surely one of them had wandered into this mud pit too, he reassured himself.

As he sat there thinking, familiar chirping interrupted him. It was perhaps a dozen spa employees. Pretty, slim women and young girls, some of whom looked like apprentices. As they passed him, they whispered to one another and giggled. Peter would have sworn it was about him.

They must find it strange that I’m here.

They glanced back and continued telling one another something. They looked back several more times, smiled at him, and then all of them disappeared through one of the many doors along the corridor.

Peter suddenly felt a new temptation. Perhaps it did not have to be a bar. He could find himself a pretty girl for tea right here — someone from the staff. Somewhere inside him, a fire was being born, one that wanted to try everything. A young fire that burns even in the most unlikely places.

Somewhere inside, he knew that a grand holiday adventure awaited him here. He did not yet know what kind. He could feel its energy; he could feel it stirring before him and calling him. It all seemed so close at hand.

“Hlavatý?!” the masseuse cried out as soon as she burst through the door. It was comical to watch her while waiting, as she kept appearing through one doorway after another, and one could never tell which one she would emerge from. The farther away the doors suddenly banged open from Peter, the less startled he was.

“Yes, please. Here,” he replied, springing to his feet as if abruptly awakened from a romantic dream, as though someone had ordered him to attention. At times he wondered whether he ought to salute. He knew such gestures only from films and military documentaries, which he enjoyed watching. The masseuse would have made quite a good captain. There was no doubt about it.

“Follow me!” she commanded.

Right face! About face! Forward march! Double time! Peter thought with amusement, imagining himself transported into one of those documentaries for a moment.

He stepped through a narrow door that led only into some kind of changing cubicle, from which another door led outside.

“Strip completely. Leave everything here. I’ll bring you a wrap.”

At that moment Peter wished he were drunk, so that alcohol might dull his senses at least a little, but that was not the case. He had to face it in all the sobriety of his young age. A wrap? he thought, sadly placing his Adidas swimming trunks back into his backpack.

A few seconds later she brought him some red fabric with elastic at one end. Peter held his hands over his private parts as if he were afraid the masseuse might cut them off. Naturally, he was merely embarrassed. He understood that he was supposed to pull the wrap around his waist so that it stayed on his body. He felt like Christ in a piece of cloth, only waiting for the cross. He had never been to a spa before and was thoroughly frightened.

“This way!” she ordered when she returned.

Peter followed her through strangely winding corridors. He watched the corners with showers, rows of loungers, seats and recliners where people rested. They were half-naked old men. Grandfathers. Peter felt dreadful there. He kept checking his wrap and nervously smiling at the patients passing by, limping from the mud pool to the showers. Some were already lying naked on loungers in cubicles, while an attendant wrapped them in a sheet up to their necks, as if preparing them for some ceremonial cremation by a river, embalming, or a traditional burial. In other sections, groaning men lay while an attendant threw hot, thick mud onto them and shaped it by hand over their knees, shoulders, or hips as though merely playing with modelling clay. Some of the muddy patients were simply covered with a sheet and then a blanket. The bizarre procedures struck Peter as a perfect premise for a good horror film. But then again, these were one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old baths. The leaflet said they still did everything exactly as they had in the old days. Young people have no business here, Peter thought again, cursing Tibor while also looking around to see when he would finally reach the mud pool where all those pretty girls were supposed to be sitting.

“Ten minutes here. There you go,” the masseuse instructed.

He went down the stairs and stepped into a pool that resembled ancient Roman baths. Everything was as it had once been. As if one had gone back in time. It was almost unbelievable to bathe in the same pool as people had a hundred and twenty years ago. Of course, they had finally replaced the tiles a few years back, but it was the same magical hole in which their ancestors had soaked. The high ceiling rose somewhere up above, toward an opening through which fresh air flowed.

His foot sank into the hot mud up to his calf. It was somewhat frightening and unpleasant. He was afraid he would suddenly begin to sink. Drown in the thick mud! Like some villain in an Indiana Jones film. And who would help him here? Young people have wild imaginations. Peter was overwhelmed by the heat, but he decided to endure it and continued through the pool toward the far corner. Something brushed past his leg. He knew there could not possibly be any creatures in there, so why did he keep imagining an electric eel or a slippery snake? Perhaps some ancient Piešťany kraken that had lived for centuries in the spa mud. Or perhaps simply too many B-grade science-fiction films and cheap horror movies. Ah, he had to calm down a little. After all, people came here to relax.

He imagined that he was in a sauna. He liked going to one with his friends after they went to the gym together. In any case, he had paid for it all. He ought to enjoy it, at least! He moved a little farther and sat down on an underwater ledge that seemed to run along all sides of the pool. The water reached him almost to the neck. He no longer thought about snakes or mud creatures. He saw people sitting and relaxing with their eyes closed. Some had mud on their faces. Some were only just applying it, and some even submerged themselves. He stirred the mud with his feet and tried to relax. He enjoyed the pleasant heat and tried to sweat, as he liked doing in the sauna. He closed his eyes and felt nothing but the thick, hot mud pressing pleasantly between his toes.

When he opened his eyes, he realized someone was sitting beside him. It was an attractive, well-kept woman whose age he could not quite determine. He would have said she was around fifty, but her eyes were so lively and mischievous, and her skin so smooth and taut, that he might have guessed forty. Her hair was dyed light blonde, thick and swept upward. Even though they sat in foul-smelling sulphurous mud that stank like rotten eggs, he could detect traces of her perfume, which reminded Peter of someone. This woman deliberately did not smell like older women. She smelled like some of his female friends.

Once he had collected himself, he began looking around more carefully. There was nobody else — only couples around sixty, and then this unusual woman. He slowly began saying goodbye to the young girls in his mind, and one small but significant mischievous thought was born there. Some kind of chemical experiment, new and unseen by him before. For a while they merely sat silently beside one another, and then the woman began applying mud to her décolletage.

“Try putting some on your face. It rejuvenates you. Not that you need it. Ha ha ha,” she said to him with a smile, ending with a brief, pleasant laugh — an elegant amusement that revealed beautiful teeth. This was how ladies used to laugh: not too loudly, always charmingly and effectively. While Peter wondered whether her teeth were false, implanted, or genuinely hers, and also why the woman was addressing him informally, she had already placed her hand on his thigh.

Peter startled and immediately shifted away. He made a large wave.

“Jesus! Sorry!” he blurted out, turning red all over. He acted as though it were his fault that he had been sitting so close, although it was not. When he woke from his daydream as he had been trying to relax, the woman had in fact been pressed almost entirely against him.

“Oh no, it’s my fault. Sorry. I only wanted to lean on something. I didn’t realize you were so close. In this muddy water, it seems as if you are sitting farther away from a person,” she apologized, looking immensely sincere.

He almost believed her.

So these are the women Tibor once told me about. Older cougars who hunt little bunnies. Well then, Peter mused, suddenly feeling aroused. He resisted it as best he could, but something bad, something wrong, tempted him to try it. For some reason he thought of it as something wicked, forbidden fruit that therefore tasted best. He felt like Adam when Eve offered him the apple. Perhaps it was because social norms pointed to it as something abnormal. Peter suddenly felt drawn to doing something abnormal. Something that was not commonly done. He was frightened like a young hare, but inside — especially after she had touched his inner thigh, almost at his penis — he felt some kind of fuse which, if it did not explode, he would carry all the way home. And it was not merely a physical orgasm, which young people often grant themselves even when entirely alone. It was something he was daring himself to try. Something that, if he did not try now, he would never try.

I’ve never had an older woman, but Jožo from the bar said they’re experienced. They can do things to you no young woman can, Peter remembered Jožo’s words and smiled slightly.

An awkward silence followed, during which Peter began covering himself in mud. He even smeared some over his face because he wanted to hide his agitation. The woman looked so calm. Her skin was almost free of wrinkles. No drooping mouth corners, eye bags, or cheeks like poorly filled sausages or liverwurst. Peter thought of her as an old car, but one in excellent condition. Something like a vintage Mercedes-Benz that one could drive anytime because it had been maintained and cared for. Certainly, a little grease and a few small scratches collected over all those years had found their way onto her appearance, but that seemed only to add to her attractiveness. Peter wanted to drive, and however dangerous, tasteless, or inappropriate it seemed to him, he wanted to drive that old, good car.

Suddenly he realized that perhaps something new, something unknown, awaited him there. Something he had never tasted before. When he thought of home, the petrol station, and his mother, he understood that he was on holiday — and he also understood that he ought to enjoy it. The emptiness of his ordinary days, the expectations of his mother and of all the society around him, haunted him like a desert full of dry sand when a person was at their thirstiest.

“I came without my husband. You know, there’s more than enough money, but a person still gets terribly bored,” she suddenly declared, as if in a desperate hunt for a hare that kept changing direction quickly and unpredictably. A hare that would not stop running so swiftly away from its predator.

Peter felt a trembling in the lower part of his body. He thought perhaps he was simply normally horny. In truth, he was being possessed by forbidden fruit, a new experience, and perhaps even the love of some altered, wealthy lady who would not only take care of him but provide him with satisfying sex.

Suddenly the masseuse cried out an alarm: it was time to leave the mud, shower, and enter the mirror pool. The woman stood up and walked lightly through the deep mud toward the stairs, while Peter, trembling all over, was still trying to find his footing. He sank into the mud and glanced at the woman who, as she climbed out of the mud pool, revealed her beautiful, slender body — especially her bottom — without any apparent sign of wear. Once again, well-maintained vintage cars flickered through Peter’s thoughts, cars whose beauty and quality often eclipsed even the modern models of the same brands.

As he walked in his wrap toward the mirror pool, he did not forget to lift the fabric that outlined his penis, because he was embarrassed. Not because he was poorly endowed. He was, in fact, well equipped. It was only because he saw that the lady — or lady of high society — already seated in the beautiful clear water, was still watching him.

“I’ve been coming here for years,” she continued boredly, casting Peter a highly meaningful look. She seemed to be trying for nothing, yet at the same time Peter felt she was trying for everything — especially for his penis. She was not vulgar, but she knew how to play it so that her speech, expressions, and body movements would not go unnoticed.

“Well, it’s my first time here,” Peter said, dipping his head beneath the surface of the mirror pool.

Ten minutes passed far too quickly. Peter began talking about what he did, what he enjoyed, and why he had come there. Naturally, he left out the young girls. He complained only about the forced holiday. He also claimed that he had been injured playing football and wanted to strengthen his bones and muscles for the next match.

The woman told him how she owned shares in some large company that she and her husband had invested in years ago. Apparently, they were doing well, and the two of them had agreed that each would live almost a separate life. They could each draw from the treasury as they pleased.

The masseuse cried out loudly again, announcing that it was time to leave the mirror pool, and so they had to part. Peter felt strangely disappointed. He thought he would never see her again. This woman — experienced, so well-kept and beautiful — attracted him in some frightening way. He wanted to be with her a little longer. In fact, at that moment he felt as though he wanted to be with her forever. Young people become intoxicated so quickly by all kinds of thoughts and fantasies. It is in their nature to become enthusiastic about something so quickly and even to fall in love, even if only latently or platonically. Peter was truly out of his mind.

Even more so when they laid him down in a cubicle, where a young man, almost Peter’s age, began wrapping him in many layers of white sheets and finally a heavy blanket. Wrapped up to the neck, Peter felt as though this would be his end. The young man told him to endure it, because after the mineral bath he had to rest so that all the substances could be absorbed and his body could relax after the hot bath. Apparently, they had been doing it this way for decades.

Then there would be a massage.

Peter seemed to faint for a moment. He dozed off in the wrap and dreamed both of young girls and of the old, magical lady. He woke only to an even stranger and wilder experience than the touch of the older woman’s hand on his thigh. The young man who had wrapped him in sheets was standing over him, asking which part of his body he would like massaged. The sheets had been unwrapped, and Peter had an erection, which must have been the remnant of some dream into which he had sunk while resting.

“You paid for a full-body massage. That’s why I’m asking where I should begin,” the young man explained helpfully and cheerfully.

“Anywhere you want,” Peter replied resignedly, exhausted from creating any further stress for himself, and turned his back to the young man.

Over the next hour, the young man massaged his back and lower back, at times reaching halfway down his buttocks, claiming that this was necessary. In the end, he massaged his chest, shoulders and arms, finishing with his legs and feet. Peter felt reborn. For some reason, the same expression appeared on the young man’s face.

Peter got dressed and left. He walked from Napoleon back to Pro Patria, to his room, where he slept for a while. The beds were comfortable. He did not have mattresses like that at home; his mother would never buy such ones. It was like lying on a little cloud. Neither too soft nor too hard. As if a person floated for a while before drifting into dreams — or into a dark black hole where nothing was dreamed and the brain rested.

He did not wake until just before six in the evening. He would have sworn he had never slept so deeply in his life. It was time for dinner. He went to the bathroom, where he looked over his naked body. It was the first time, in the presence of old men — the spa guests — that he realized how good he looked. It made him feel even better.

He pulled on his only pair of Calvin Klein briefs, then his favourite pale-blue jeans. He rummaged through his T-shirts for a while, but eventually chose a plain black one. He sprayed on some of the fragrance his mother had brought him from the big city, from DM. Finally, he put on his Vans trainers — the ones he had saved for two months to buy — and set off for dinner.

Peter entered the Sisi restaurant. It was spacious, with a view both into the main corridor and into a small enclosed courtyard. Beautiful chandeliers decorated the room, and the seating was generous, arranged around enormous round tables. Everything was elegantly laid out, and the place smelled of something delicious. Peter was already very hungry. The aromas insinuated themselves into his nose, creating all sorts of images in his mind of dishes he could not yet identify. Through the large white wooden shutters, he could see the evening light slowly changing from dark blue to black. Inside, it felt all the cosier because February evenings were still so black and cold, so unwelcoming.

Peter sat down right by the window and looked around to see whether he might spot the woman from the treatment. He imagined a pleasant dinner for two and perhaps some wine later, when a restaurant employee pounced on him.

“Not there!! Don’t sit there! I’ll seat you, young man!” she blurted out.

“Oh, yes, sorry. I didn’t know,” Peter stammered. He always approached everything with such a positive mood and cheerful expectation, only to receive an ice-cold shower. Sure, he had sat at the wrong table, but why did people in service react like that? He had often thought that he should also always be on guard, ready to attack. He should be arrogant and cold, downright unpleasant — but he could not do it. He was incapable of behaving that way. It simply was not in his nature. No matter how hard he tried to respond to small or larger confrontations, he could never reply in the same tone as the attacker.

Maybe he should have said: Don’t kill me, ma’am. How was I supposed to know you had a place assigned for me?! Where am I supposed to sit, then? And quickly, for fuck’s sake — I’m hungry, I’m paying for this, so treat me decently!

No, he could not do it. He knew it would be like pouring oil on a fire. Evil breeds even greater evil, and misery feeds even greater misery. In the end, he merely smiled sweetly and waited to be seated. He often wondered whether his smile was a greater poison to people than a counterattack, and at times he thought he might stop smiling altogether.

She seated him at a round table on the opposite side, where several elderly women were already eating. He understood that for five days he would be having breakfast and dinner in the company of old ladies. There were perhaps five women, each with different expressions and personalities. Smaller, larger, slim, plump, and one somewhere in between. Nothing negative seemed to emanate from any of them, for which Peter was grateful. It looked as though they had already been through such things. They smiled gently, showing perfect dentures, and now and then ran their hands through what hair they had left. It seemed they wanted to look nice.

It was charming how the effect of youth, the influence of simple beauty, could affect people at every age. Everyone wants to be liked. Forever.

“This will be your place until the end of your stay, young man. That applies to breakfast and dinner. Since you arrived today, we’ll give you one of the three menus of our own choosing. You can go over there and help yourself to salad if you want. For tomorrow, tick the number of the menu you want in this chart. Here’s tomorrow’s menu. All right?! Do you understand everything, yes?!” she instructed like a general.

Most people there had a harder regional accent, somewhat resembling the Trnava dialect, though it was a mixture of different speech patterns. They did not always speak quite so harshly; they tried to use standard Slovak. Perhaps the director had ordered it.

While Peter ate salad and waited to see which of the three meals they would bring him, an old woman beside him quietly spoke to him.

“Well now, what are you doing here? Surely nothing hurts, does it?”

“No, auntie. I’m a professional footballer. I need this,” he lied, smiling at her pleasantly.

“We didn’t have time for football. Our men had to work, boy,” another woman joined in, though not in an attacking tone. She merely wanted to share something of the old days.

“But I work too, auntie. I work at a petrol station. Football is just something I play on the side, you know?”

“Leave him be, Františka. You know what young people are like nowadays — they do all sorts of other things alongside work,” another woman came to the young man’s defence.

“That’s right, auntie. Times are different, but I don’t know who has ever had it easy.”

“No one ever has, boy. There was always something. Every era has its own troubles, you know. Thank God, we’ve got ours behind us,” the fourth woman declared.

“We’re only heading for the grave now, Janka, aren’t we?” the last one joined in.

“You can go wherever you want, even to the grave. I still want to live. Those grandchildren need someone too,” Janka concluded firmly, as though defending her own existence.

Before long, they brought him paprika chicken with small pasta. His mother had not cooked it in a long time, so Peter thoroughly enjoyed the meal. After dinner, he said goodbye politely and went back to his room.

Well then, I’ll check Instagram, Facebook, messages from the archive, watch some documentary, call Mum and Tibor, then go to bed, he planned as he walked along the corridor toward his room.

When he had done all that, it was shortly before nine in the evening. He still did not feel like sleeping, and for some reason he went to the Franz Joseph café. He was the only guest, so he sat directly at the bar.

An older man was serving behind it. He had a weathered face and a large belly, but he was dressed in a handsome bartender’s suit. It must have been tailor-made, Peter thought. The older man had refined manners. He spoke clearly and carefully. He looked well read. He had the air of a retired lord. Perhaps all those years in the café had left some particular expression on him, or perhaps the spirits of the café — or of Pro Patria — had remade him in their own way over the years.

“Good evening. What may I offer you?” he asked.

“A gin and tonic. Thank you.”

“Here you are, young sir. And where are you from?”

“Bratislava,” Peter lied, because he wanted to feel a little more important. Even as a little boy, he had known of and heard about the grand, famous Bratislava — the city where life supposedly happened, where everything took place. He had visited it a few times with friends, and perhaps that was why he later became fond of a Rytmus song — or rather its chorus — about Bratislava:

Bra-ti-sla-va, it isn’t like wine, it isn’t like coffee,
It won’t enchant you or wake you up,
It is dull in the evenings, treacherous in the daytime…
Its façades crumble like the fading sun…

When he had drunk about half of it, he began asking whether the place was always so empty. The lordly bartender told him that it was always quiet during this period and that the season would return in spring, even more strongly in summer. At the same time, he admitted that their clientele had declined since Covid, and then further as a consequence of inflation and the war in Ukraine. People supposedly did not have money, and those who did went elsewhere.

As though wanting to defend both his own position and the popularity and reputation of Pro Patria, he skilfully shifted the conversation to the development and decline of spas in general. He began talking about history — the rise and fall of the Franz Joseph Spa. He cursed the communists and blamed them for eventually demolishing the building instead of using it for something else or preserving it as a cultural monument.

It had been some kind of magnificent spa building — the height of luxury. An architectural gem, apparently.

“It cost millions of crowns! Poor Mr Winter! So many investments. There was nothing wrong with it! No structural damage, and not even floods had harmed it. It’s all lies. It was an eternal stone building that would still be standing here proudly today. The amount of marble that went into it! Fucking communists,” he began explaining, though the lord’s nobility vanished somewhere under the influence of anger.

“They valued nothing in the countries they occupied. Nothing worse could have happened to us. It was only in Moscow and St Petersburg that they did not demolish anything. They fucked up your whole area beneath the castle too and built that UFO there. They should have been ashamed of themselves at the time. The people of Prague would have run them out of town with an idea like that! Just look it up. If only it were still standing today! It could have been a library, or something else.”

The weathered Lord urged him on, nodding toward Peter’s mobile phone, while his ruddy complexion slowly turned almost black.

In the end, Peter — quite fascinated by the Lord’s performance — looked it up online. Once again, he effortlessly went onto the internet, as people in the past had not been able to do; they had had no choice but to read newspapers and books, and listen to other people’s news, information, propaganda, or lies.

Halfway through reading, Peter ordered another gin and tonic; the article was not one of the short ones. The Lord let him read and, in the meantime, quietly read something from a thick book that looked like either a complaints book or a visitors’ book in which guests had written over many decades — among them the famous Beethoven. It was all so fascinating.

After a while, the Lord asked him if he could keep an eye on the place because he was going into the kitchen to fetch the rest of his dinner or something. He returned shortly afterward, by which time Peter had finished both the article and his drink. Peter said goodbye politely and thanked the Lord for the valuable information. Since the building no longer stood, he would probably never have learned about it otherwise.

He felt grateful, and somewhat tipsy too. In his room, he threw himself onto the enormous bed and, with his eyes wide open, thought about the former splendour of the Franz Joseph Spa. He still did not feel like sleeping. He was strangely energised. It might have been that the healing waters had given him so much energy, but it could just as easily have been the change of environment — or simply the fact that he was suddenly on holiday. He did not have to go to work, and that gave him a mischievous feeling of excitement and innocent troublemaking.

That was the problem. Under normal circumstances, he would have called Tibor, or gone to the local bar to chat with Jožo and the others. He would have played billiards and, after two beers, gone home to sleep.

Then a fine idea suddenly occurred to him. He would go into town. He would go to a bar.

And so he set off, crossing the glass bridge into the old town. Already on the bridge, a strange feeling came over him. There was no one anywhere. Not a living soul. Even the pigeons, ducks and swans were asleep. It was an odd feeling. He had never expected this town to be so quiet in the evening. From his trips to Trnava, he knew that the city was alive even on a Monday evening. But Piešťany was dead and motionless, like Lenin in his glass coffin.

He passed the dead Grand Hotel Royal, illuminated only faintly by cold streetlamps. He felt immensely sad. He stopped beneath the enormous structure and stared at it silently. Having read the entire history of the hotel, he felt like starting to throw stones at the faded Slovan sign. Next time, he told himself, he would do just that. He would do it at night.

Suddenly, a song by Cher came to mind, one he liked very much. They often played it on Rádio Viva at the petrol station: If I Could Turn Back Time. He wanted to turn back time too. He wanted the hotel to suddenly come alive, for all of its windows to light up at once.

He began imagining the hotel in all its glory in the evening, when it still operated many years ago — or even at the very beginning, when it first opened. He saw rich, warm lights. A large sign: GRAND HOTEL ROYAL. Beautiful chandeliers, waiters in suits, and crowds of people on wide terraces. He could hear the clinking of dishes and the familiar chime of glasses. People drank champagne while sitting on the upper terrace, while others danced below in the large ballroom. He also heard jazz music and saw exotic palms at the reception desk — when suddenly a dog startled him.

A Great Dane, enormous and black as the devil himself, was sniffing his right leg. He nearly wet himself from fear when a young boy emerged from behind a bush. He could not have been more than fourteen. The light from his mobile phone shone into his face. The boy looked amused by the scene. He grinned from ear to ear and began scolding the dog.

“Mona! No! You mustn’t! Don’t worry, she won’t do anything. She’s just always terribly annoying!” he explained.

“Well, great. I nearly pissed myself. Listen, you’re probably too young for this, but do you know where people go out for fun here in the evening?”

“Here?” the boy asked in surprise. “This place is dead. But my sister goes to Fénix. Try there.”

“Well, great. Thanks. And do you have any idea where that might be?”

“Right here on the pedestrian zone. Just go this way,” the boy advised, pointing toward a narrow street. “You’ll hear music — they have a speaker outside,” he added, then continued staring hypnotically at his smartphone screen.

Peter walked down the alley and found himself on the pedestrian zone, which was perhaps even deader than the glass bridge. At least there, the pigeons had blinked at him as they dozed on the railing, wondering what a human being was doing there. But this street, apart from muted lights and silence, offered absolutely nothing. The pedestrian zone was asleep, and along with it, it seemed, all of Piešťany was asleep too.

People were sitting at home with their loved ones, perhaps some of them alone. People sat in front of their damned televisions. What a disappointment, Peter thought, and began imagining the busy street on an evening like this many years ago. Carriages, horses, carts. The snorting of horses’ nostrils and the sound of shod hooves on the stone pavement. Human chatter everywhere. Different languages could be heard. Music in the streets and the lively, colourful abundance of all that bourgeois life. The refined manners of gentlemen and ladies, and respectful behaviour in service. Hand-kissing and bows. The glory and life of the main street. The glory and life of a town.

Here was Mr Winter’s house. And lower down, in the old café, students and spa workers sat together. Directly opposite, the artistic society gathered — gentlemen and ladies from various artistic circles. Lamps shone everywhere, and everything smelled of evening life, coffee, and roasted chestnuts.

He continued a little farther uphill.

Follow the music, follow the chatter, follow human warmth, he told himself, shivering from the cold, when suddenly, before him, appeared — where else but on the ground floor of an old historic building — a brightly lit establishment packed with people.

He went inside.

It was a richly furnished bar, though one meant to evoke old times. The furniture, flowers, colours, and lights really did recall the former elegance of old French establishments. It was a classy bar.

He entered proudly, somehow encouraged by the gin and tonic. He walked past the bar as though striding down a fashion runway, then settled into an armchair in the rear corner like some celebrity. Corners had fascinated him ever since he had learned that whoever sat in the corner was, in fact, interesting. It was unclear whether he believed that because he himself had always sat in corners as a handsome boy, or whether he even believed that an ugly boy could sit there too.

To a certain extent, he was confident in himself. Youth is arrogant, youth is beautiful, youth is simply youth.

He sat down like a macho man. He spread his shoulders across the armchair and set his thighs wide apart like a mobster, looking around boldly. He even tossed his head now and then so that people would notice his thick curls. Alcohol does wonders for confidence, but it is a cheap girl, a false god. It is easy to see through.

A pretty young waitress came over, and he ordered another gin and tonic. This time it was Hendrick’s — one of the most expensive. He proudly ordered a double to impress the waitress.

The effort was sometimes as pitiful and unnecessary as when Italian mothers wash clean tablecloths, bed linen, or curtains again and again, even though there is no need — just so that they have something hanging outside. Or when they spend all day running around cupboards with a duster, though the cupboards have barely had time to collect any dust. That anxious effort to look good in front of people.

The boy was handsome enough that even if he had ordered a cheap local rum and a beer, the waitress would have kept her eyes on him. Sometimes it was all so unnecessary. All those materialistic games people played. All that fear about whether they would succeed. When, after all, the eyes reveal the entire human soul. Labels did not matter. The eyes were truth. They were the gateway to the soul.

No one was stronger than a person who behaved sincerely. No one was better than the genuine inner truth within each person, when they did not hide it. No one was more authentic than in their honest smile — or even their anger. There was no need for games.

In any event, Peter sipped his expensive gin and looked around the bar. Sophisticated electronic music caressed his ears. Once he had completed his survey, he told himself that he would finish his drink and go home. He was there alone, while everyone else sat with someone. Couples, friends, groups.

Just as he was finishing the final sip and preparing to pay, he saw someone waving at him from the opposite corner.

Jesus Christ! Holy Mary! he thought, much as his mother used to swear in the kitchen — or over his messy room, especially when she picked his dirty socks and underwear up from the floor.

The woman from the mud pool was sitting with some well-dressed rich man. She waved to greet him, then motioned for him to come over.

Peter swallowed the last sip and went to the bar to pay. He left a tip which, despite his good mood, he cursed nine times over. Meanwhile, the woman watched him the entire time. Peter approached the table. He tried to walk straight and held his back upright like a soldier.

“Good evening. What a surprise!” he blurted out with an easy smile.

The Lady could see that the young man was a little more relaxed, and she grinned all the more. She was dressed like Grace Kelly, white gold gleaming at her neck and wrist. Her perfume was noticeable again. It had to be some damnably expensive brand. Her hair was down and somehow perfectly straightened. She wore an emerald spaghetti-strap dress, and her bare shoulders looked alluring and slender. Her lips were red as June roses, and her eyes shone pale blue, as though she had stolen the colour of the sky from some summer Sunday morning.

He looked directly into her eyes while she took in his entire figure. He was so beautiful. Like James Dean in his most relaxed pose. Slightly drunk and so sexy. So terribly young still, she thought, and swallowed. She felt that now was the time to catch the hare. He was so close, and she had the means and all that charm. Tonight, it had to happen.

“Hello, welcome. This is my business friend. Alex, this is the young man I told you about earlier today. Sit with us, we’ll have a drink. In fact, I don’t even know your name. Ha ha ha,” she introduced Peter, laughing once more in that stylish way, as though she lived in another age.

For Peter, it was a temptation. She and her companion looked like a couple from his fantasies about the old days. What was more, they seemed disgustingly rich. Peter was drawn to it. Once again, the woman struck him as rare, as someone worthy of loving. It was not about money or status, but he could not rule out that those facts also belonged to the overall intoxication. In connection with his present experience of the town, this woman was an absolute discovery too. Old buildings, old manners, old beautiful women, flashed through his mind.

He sat down and offered Alex his hand.

“Hello. I’m Peter,” he said, smiling with that extraordinarily beautiful youthful face of his and showing the whitest teeth Alex could only dream of, unless he had artificial ones put in. Peter still possessed all of his youth. His teeth were perfect. Perhaps also because his mother had dragged him to the dentist every other month.

“Nice to meet you. Alex,” the man smiled, shaking his hand. His smile revealed yellowish, uneven teeth and deep wrinkles in his face.

Alex was a slim, well-groomed man in his fifties. He looked a little comical, with his thin hair that seemed to remain on his head only by some stroke of luck, his suit meant to conceal an ageing body, and the mannerisms of a rich man intended to bury any ambitions a poor young man might have. Clearly, though, he was afraid of going to the dentist. Not everyone who has money has the courage to change everything, Peter thought. Teeth are a person’s calling card, just as hair is the crown of their head. The question was how long a person could maintain their beauty.

“So, Peter. Ha ha ha. I’m Matilda. Nice to meet you,” she smiled, offering him her hand.

Her palm was so narrow and small. He noticed her blood-red polished nails, as well as the small freckles on her forearm.

“What are you planning for tomorrow, Peter? We’re staying at the Thermia Palace. I have oxygen therapy in the morning and then a massage. And you, Alex — you only have a massage at ten, I think?”

She asked casually, though it was clear she was trying to find out what the young man would be doing the next day.

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“Yes, a full-body massage,” Alex replied abruptly. “But I need something stronger than the hands of a forty-five-kilo masseuse. It isn’t worth the money. The poor woman can hardly press anything properly. I need a proper man.”

Alex began laughing far too loudly at his own joke.

“Then go into town for a Thai massage. A girl will walk all over your back with her feet, and you’ll save money too,” Matilda remarked, flicking her hand in that charmingly appropriate way again, as though she always knew exactly what to say and how to make it sound luxurious.

“As if I didn’t know, darling. I booked it yesterday. In fact, I have them booked for the entire week,” he said, as if he wanted to reassure her that he had everything under control.

The dynamic of their conversation felt suspiciously familiar. They seemed somewhat like a married couple, yet Alex had been introduced as a business friend. Alex seemed far too suspicious to Peter. Under what circumstances had he met Matilda, and who exactly was he? Why was she there with him when she had confirmed that she was there without her husband? Was he perhaps one of her hares? Hmm, but this hare won’t be running very far anymore, Peter thought suspiciously.

“So, Peter, what are you doing tomorrow?” Matilda asked, gazing deeply into his dark-blue eyes.

“Well, I actually haven’t thought about that at all. I’ll probably just lounge around. Maybe watch a film, or finally open a book. My mother reads detective novels like there’s no tomorrow, but I can’t finish anything I start. Not even The Jungle Book, a children’s story. Everything starts boring me by the third page. Maybe I just need to push myself. Ha ha ha,” Peter replied, laughing at the end in the stylish manner of rich people.

It came quite naturally, and Matilda even liked it. Peter was a flexible little animal. One could hardly tell whether he was a boy from a small town or an intellectual. He had a talent for this: convincing people that he was one of them. It had to be youth, because an old man could no longer convince anyone of anything.

But Peter did not fool Matilda. She was too old a car for a young man to play such roundabout games with her. Of course, she knew certain facts. For instance, who would believe some wrinkled old fellow if he laughed like a king or flicked his hand like an aristocrat when he was not one at all? People would say he was mad or that he ought finally to go to sleep.

But Matilda knew. She knew that these young people, these young people, always had something in them. Young life, young desires that could still fulfil so much. The young as creators of their own future. Holding their lives firmly in their hands. All those dreams and all those passions. After all, she too had played these games once. Today she no longer had to.

Perhaps the experience of older people, the beauty and wisdom of their rich thoughts, would forever watch over the heads of the young. But in the end, it was the younger generations, the young people, who would build and create the world’s future.

Matilda saw in Peter that typical youthful obsession with success — perhaps fame or money. She saw a certain degree of naïveté, often an inseparable part of the young mind. Yet without naïveté, dreams would not exist. Without naïveté, nothing truly significant would ever happen. In young people, it was like an engine that drove them toward fulfilment and reality.

Yes. Peter was a young person trying to climb the social ladder. He wanted to enter so-called better society; he wanted to belong to it because he did not want to be ordinary. Yet he wanted to gain social standing far too quickly and easily, as young people sometimes did.

Because Matilda herself knew best that it was all merely illusion and empty dreams, that ordinariness or poverty did not diminish one’s dignity, she decided to teach Peter a lesson about the sad and lonely lives of old rich people — and, in doing so, remind him of the beauty and privileges of the lives of young people without wealth.

“Don’t worry about it, Peter. I’ve had Financial Crime lying on my bedside table for a year now. I’ve already moved the bookmark back four times because, would you believe it, I forgot the plot! And I’m perfectly at home in the world of finance. Matilda and I have built what I’d say is quite a successful business. But who has time to read these days?! I get a headache just thinking about reading the instructions for a new oven, tumble dryer, or washing machine. Everything is so high-tech now. Far too many lights and touch buttons. And the number of combinations! My wife was away. What can I say? Before you know it, you’re washing a single white shirt for four hours at ninety degrees, or instead of a delicious pizza, you pull out a tray of charcoal!” Alex joined in. He was clearly skilled at conversation, because in one short stream of sentences he had managed both to complain and to be understanding and amusing at the same time. When he finished, he suddenly drained half a glass of white wine. As he held the glass, a Rolex watch peeked out from beneath the cuff of his luxurious blue shirt.

“Ha ha ha, Alex, you’re priceless! Let that serve as a reminder of that old eternal truth: without women, men are lost forever! What do you say, Peter?” asked Matilda, laughing as she revealed her beautiful little white teeth, whose material — and true origin — Peter had still not discovered.

Meanwhile, the waitress who had been serving Peter arrived. She suddenly seemed a little sad that this handsome young man was no longer sitting alone in the corner. After all, there is nothing more beautiful than a solitary object of affection, someone we can so easily imagine ourselves being able to reach. Matilda ordered two more glasses of white wine and still water, and, without Peter’s permission, told the waitress to bring him whatever he had been drinking. In the meantime, Peter decided to adopt his own particular style of speaking.

“Technology isn’t always user-friendly. I’ve known that ever since I started working with cars. You can’t imagine how many hotshots have come to the filling station in expensive motors, asking whether I could unlock something for them. I’m not surprised. Dashboard computers these days look like spaceships! Well, indeed, it’s not for everyone. Hahaha.” Peter picked up the topic brilliantly and cheerfully, enjoying the attention of his audience. He left an impression that was meant to say a great deal, exactly as he had intended.

Peter might belong to the working class, but he knew technology, and operating it was no problem for him. He spoke in English slang and had no intention of pretending to be a prince, because his advantage lay in his intelligence and youth. Although he was sitting among better-connected people, no one could tell him that he did not belong there. After all, he possessed other qualities — qualities these old rich people might well be lacking. He told himself that he had plenty with which to attract attention and did not need elegant words or an expensive shirt to do it. He decided to speak the way his mouth naturally grew — that is, in his own plain, colloquial manner.

Besides, he thought it might excite Matilda and discourage Alex, so that Alex might soon make his way home. Matilda, too, had somehow begun to help this plan without realising it, as though she were reading Peter’s mind. She knew Peter might soon become bored, and the thought of her hare escaping — especially when she still had so much she wanted to tell him — haunted her like an early Monday morning haunting a hard-working person.

It was that peaceful Sunday whose hours fly madly by, followed at the end of the day by the vision of the working week. At Sunday dusk, the exhausted worker does not want to say goodbye to his weekend. Two days in paradise. He quietly finishes the festive chicken left over from lunch while his children run around the table in holey socks.

Oh, my little ones, let’s go and watch television for a while longer! There is only one night left before I have to return to the grind.

Matilda did not want to return to her ordinary life. She was experiencing little tremors and drifting in some kind of erotic haze — or the promise of a brief spa romance. She was afraid that once Peter left, she would never see him again. She was afraid of her ordinary working day. She was not yet ready to leave this impoverished paradise.

“Well, I suppose we’re getting too old for all this, Alex. Progress is charging ahead like frightened horses. It leaves us staring dumbly while you young people are completely at home in it. I remember the time you managed to bring the whole company server down. Finance nearly went mad! Hahaha. Don’t feel bad, Alex. I’ve fried the computer controlling my smart home more than once. The control panel is simply too small! I thought I was adjusting the underfloor heating, but instead I set off the alarm, switched off the lights, and put the refrigerator into holiday mode. Thank goodness the boys at headquarters shut it down remotely — the sound still rings in my ears! And that’s not all! Operating the Smart TV is all Greek to me. Where are the days when I could simply switch on the television? Hahahaha.”

Matilda continued deliberately on the subject of technology and touch-screen controls, intending to make Alex feel a little uncomfortable.

After a few more technological digressions, during which Peter explained the risks and pitfalls of the modern age, Alex looked slightly stressed. As though he had suddenly found somewhere else he needed to be.

“Well, Peter, Matilda, I’m going to leave you. Peter, it was an immense pleasure meeting you. You’re a wonderful, intelligent young man. All the best! And try some more of those treatments. Perhaps hot stones, or cupping. Apparently, it detoxifies the whole body thoroughly! I hope we run into each other here again. And if not, enjoy the rest of your stay! Matilda, I’ll see you at the hotel,” Alex announced suddenly, rising to leave.

Peter found it a little strange that Alex had so readily decided to leave the woman alone with an unknown young man. He wondered silently what exactly had been told to the businessman about this young fellow. Why would Matilda even mention someone she had met only once in the mud and would probably never see again?

He doubted that Matilda would have been so open as to tell Alex that this was merely one of her many hunts for a hare she had spotted somewhere in a muddy burrow, only for it to disappear quickly, leaving her waiting for it to reappear somewhere out in the open. If so, then Alex’s departure would make sense.

Still, wasn’t she worried that Alex might tell her husband? She was a married woman, after all! And besides, this young man could have been her son. Perhaps they simply trusted each other completely. Maybe Alex was cheating on his wife too. Perhaps Alex had come here to hunt does while Matilda had come for hares. And perhaps Alex hunted old foxes.

Peter brought his musings to an end, rather amused. In truth, it was all the same to him. He had come on holiday simply to have fun. In a few days, he would boast about everything to his friends back home. Another week later, he would not even remember that he had been anywhere.

In any case, Peter found this friendship somewhat unconvincing. There was something staged about it. Something false, as though it had all been made up.

“But why so soon, Alex?! Sit with us a little longer. Peter plays football; perhaps you could discuss the best players of the season. I know you follow these things too,” Matilda urged her business associate to stay, though it was merely a kind of forced politeness.

Peter appreciated how skilfully — even inventively — she had introduced a social topic that might interest both men. He noticed how carefully she had remembered certain facts about him and how cleverly she used them in conversation. She knew how to behave in society; Peter, a young man from a small town, had never seen anything like it before.

Although he wanted to offer his own style — the style in which he felt at ease — to impress them with the plainness of his region and the unique personality of a young soul who knew more than old rich men, this artificial world of glamour still drew him into its claws. Perhaps he knew how to feed rabbits while swearing heartily when they escaped from their cage and he had to chase them around the garden. Perhaps he knew how to exchange a few words with Elena the postwoman, who once again complained about the neighbour’s savage dog while handing him letters and deliberately brushing his fingers with hers.

Perhaps he knew how to ring up petrol and diesel and chat with customers while advising them on what to do. He also knew how to have fun with his friends as they gathered around old cars and leaking exhausts. And he knew how to roar in the pub over a game of billiards when a shot went wrong.

But now he was more interested in how people spoke in respectable company, because it was unfamiliar to him. And since Peter wanted to avoid ordinariness by several miles — he had had quite enough of it — he decided he ought to learn something about the extraordinary.

Matilda was an accomplished speaker. Yet she did not seem to care what Alex thought. She did not really want him to stay, nor was she troubled by whether it was proper to sit alone like this with an unfamiliar young man whom she had genuinely met only once, somewhere in the mud, where they had exchanged a few words.

It was merely one of her polite phrases, intended to impress Peter more than Alex.

“I’d love to, Matilda, but I really can’t. Football doesn’t interest me much anymore. I’m bored with it. Imagine this — I’ve taken up greyhound racing! Who would have thought it? Do you know how fast a greyhound can run?” Alex explained, placing a fifty-euro note on the table. Then he winked at Matilda and walked away from the table.

It’s fascinating, Peter repeated silently, wondering where and when he himself might have used such a word. Perhaps while admiring a car whose tuning he had just finished with his friend.

“What are you talking about? You and my husband are both obsessed with football. Nothing brings people together more than shared passions. Oh, Peter, I can’t even count how many times men have come to our house to discuss business, only to watch golf or football in the home cinema instead! Two dozen men chasing after a white ball — or a little white ball, in the case of golf — what a ridiculous form of entertainment! If only I found it even slightly fascinating! The only thing that could interest a normal woman would be admiring their handsome, young, athletic backsides,” she said, bursting into laughter.

Suddenly, she seemed much more relaxed. Less like a lady and more like an unrestrained woman who did not care about social conventions or what she said aloud. A lady who cared about nothing except relaxing and ridding herself of some sort of mark.

“Oh no, Matilda. Besides, my wife is waiting for me. I promised her that we would finally finish the game of draughts that has been sitting there since this morning. I know she secretly moves the pieces. She doesn’t know that I always photograph every unfinished game, the silly darling,” he said, rejecting her invitation and beginning to laugh incoherently.

It was a sound somewhere between the joy of ordinary life and the funeral of a hated mother-in-law.

Then he left, and Peter was alone with Matilda.

It had all been a kind of performance. Something was being acted out here, and Peter, simple though he was, knew it. Why all these moves, why all these games, when he clearly wanted to leave and was perfectly comfortable doing so, while she clearly did not want him to stay? Who was this performance for? he wondered.

Later, Matilda and Peter had a few more drinks, each according to his or her preference: Matilda drank wine, while Peter had Hendrick’s gin and tonic. By then Matilda was quite under the influence of the clear, yellowish liquid. We believe it was Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand — one of the most expensive varieties.

Peter had consumed the equivalent of about half a bottle of Hendrick’s gin, so things began to move quickly. Matilda kept talking. They were the wise statements of a mature, experienced person — the various pieces of wisdom of a woman in her later years. Peter was unable to retain them properly at the time, yet he hoped Matilda would repeat them to him someday, because he could somehow sense their depth and wisdom.

She kept saying things about how a person could not cheat time. How, even once you had money, you could not buy time. She seemed a little sad, as though nostalgically digging around in some distant part of her past. As though she regretted something.

She looked into his eyes and urged him to enjoy his youth. Not to forget to make the most of it, and so on.

Peter probably did not fully realise that he was young. Age did not trouble him, and he did not consider himself special or particularly fortunate simply because he was twenty-five. He would have traded his youth for a few thousand euros, and he would have exchanged it immediately for a beautiful, expensive motor.

Young people do not value their youth — or perhaps they do not fully realise that they possess it. They live in the present, and that prevents them from seeing beyond the horizon.

Awkwardly, he told her that she herself was still essentially young. She merely smiled quietly, then turned her eyes away, somehow disappointed. She knew it was all temporary. She knew it would all quickly disappear again.

What a lovely young man. How lucky I am to be able to spend some time with him, she thought.

“Oh, Peter, believe me. You can’t have both. You can’t be young and rich at the same time. There are very few people like that. You have to fight for your position. And once you finally have everything, you will no longer have your youth, because you will already be old. And remember this: no matter how much money you have, you will feel alone. You would give anything to become that young, poor man again. Youth is the price you pay for success.”

Once you have everything, you will no longer be young. And then you would give it all away just to turn back time.

The words echoed in his ears as he gazed longingly into her blue eyes, yet none of it made sense to him. Matilda did not seem old to him.

If I had your money, sweetheart, I wouldn’t be sitting here, he thought, because he did not understand anything she was trying to explain about how she felt.

“I know it may seem to you that I’m happy, or that we live a wonderful life, but believe me, I feel like a dried-up old tree that no longer needs either sunlight or rain. You see, yes, it still rains on it just as it rains on living trees, but the poor, pitiful thing no longer feels it.”

Her face, under the influence of alcohol, appeared strangely amusing to Peter in the peculiar details of her clear skin and a kind of radiant sincerity — the wisdom of an older person. Her blue eyes were like a bottomless pool in which he wanted to swim. Then, during the conversation, her fingers gently touched his face, which excited him immensely.

Peter’s head was spinning, and he understood very little. He remembered nothing of what was being said. She seemed sad and slightly drunk. Wine made her more truthful. It was as though she had shed some kind of label, as though she had stopped acting and pretending. Suddenly, she revealed her true inner state. And although she was not the cheerful, composed person he had met at the pool, he liked her all the more for it.

She was vulnerable, and therefore considerably more attractive. As soon as she revealed her weakness, Peter felt less nervous around her. It seemed to him that making this sad woman happy, making her feel desired and cheerful for a while, would be the right thing to do. It did not have to last forever. Besides, perhaps he could gain something from it himself. No long-term arrangement. It was not in his nature to let a rich woman keep him. It would be enough to stay in touch. Perhaps later she might even sell him one of the company cars cheaply. She seemed to have more than enough money.

The glasses were empty, and words and sentences were slowly fading into the physical desire of the body. Her scent and gentle touches felt like a lullaby. A black card with gold lettering flashed before his eyes when she went to pay.

Images of a black limousine stopping in the pedestrian zone came to him. It seemed to have been a Mercedes S-Class with German plates. Then there were flashes of kisses on the leather seats and a game with her hand, which Matilda controlled almost perfectly. Her breath smelled pleasant, unlike that of his cigarette-smoking girlfriends, and she touched him expertly down below.

Once again that day, Peter found himself in another world. She deliberately prolonged his climax, using it as a tool to intensify his desire. She seemed to know what she was doing. She seemed to know how it worked. Peter was certainly not her first young hare. She had probably caught several already.

She told the driver to drive them around the city for a while. He was a man of perhaps two hundred kilos, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt. He looked as though he had seen everything.

Peter could not understand what kind of business Matilda was involved in. Surely even the richest people did not behave like this. When had she contacted the driver? Had she texted someone while they were sitting in the restaurant? Was she doing it because she wanted to impress him even more? They could easily have walked to the hotel.

Later, between kisses, he wondered whether she was afraid to be seen with him in public. He quietly suggested that they go to his hotel. She placed a finger over his lips and instructed the driver to take them to the Thermia Palace Hotel.

The hotel receptionist asked whether the lady was expecting an evening guest. Without saying a word, she handed him a green hundred-euro note and led Peter by the hand down a long corridor, giggling like a mischievous young girl. Her heels echoed throughout the hotel, which had probably already begun to fall asleep.

The restaurant was still open, and the small bar was nearly empty. Only a few old, wealthy, unhappy men were sitting there, finishing their expensive rum. They looked so lonely.

Peter was glad of one thing: neither he nor Matilda would be alone that night.

Everything was so exciting.

It’s fantastic, Peter thought with a smile.

High ceilings, magnificent corridors, tiles and ornate wall coverings. Exotic flowers and subdued lighting. The hotel looked as though it had come from a fairy tale.

The suite had three rooms: a living room, a hallway, and then the bedroom. An enormous bed, satin sheets, and the scent of unfamiliar luxury.

He slowly took in every detail. It did not happen too quickly. She kept him in a state of rapture.

But they made love for a long time. It is difficult to estimate time in such moments, but it may have been two full hours — or perhaps it lasted the entire night. In the blissful intoxication of the moment, it could have been only a minute.

That is how it is in paradise.

A minute becomes eternity.

Eternity becomes a second.

“Yes, please, come in,” he heard her say aloud.

Peter woke up at the Thermia Palace Hotel. Along with the afternoon sunlight, a waiter carrying food entered the enormous room with a balcony. It appeared that the covers concealed more than just soup.

The trolley held all kinds of smaller and larger covered plates, as well as coffee, the daily newspapers, orange juice, a carafe of water, and a large vase of fresh flowers. White roses — about a dozen of them.

Matilda had just burst out of the bathroom. She was wearing a tied grey satin robe, through which the outlines of her hip bones were visible. She smiled and looked towards the waiter as though she were looking forward to the approaching lunch. She was wearing fresh makeup and looked better than ever. Her hair hung loose and untidy, and she strode around the enormous room like a young woman.

Peter discovered that he was completely naked. Under the light blanket, he tried to hide his erection, so often an important factor for men when they wake up. He smiled foolishly, held his palms over his crotch, and asked her for a glass of water.

She found him adorable: his tousled hair and dry lips, his sleepy eyes and soft stubble. The only thing she wanted was for the damned waiter not to be there.

Originally, she had wanted to wake him with oral sex, but it had not worked out. Peter was already awake. Perhaps she had simply spent too long in the bathroom. She was afraid he would find her as she really was, so she had got up while he was still sleeping sweetly.

Before setting out on her journey of renewal, she had mischievously peeked under the blanket. He was lying on his stomach. The white cheeks of his beautifully shaped young backside rested peacefully, so she covered them again as though they were some kind of treasure.

She thought about his summer tan. Judging by his backside, he was still tanned. She began tormenting herself with thoughts of how many young girls he might have hurriedly made love to somewhere by the lake.

She was convinced that Peter was experiencing the same kind of youth she herself had once known. She did not realise that times had changed, and that young people no longer knew how to have fun as they once had. The world was simply different now.

In any case, while applying her morning makeup, she imagined Peter’s muscular back and naked backside rising above a young girl somewhere on a blanket by the lake — a perfect place for lovers, guarded by the reeds.

When she had tormented herself enough, she ordered the food. She also ordered a fruit salad and asked for a small bouquet, but they had only white roses, so she ordered a full dozen.

She was so happy.

The waiter promptly poured a large glass of water and hurried over to Peter. He handed him a large, chilled, misted glass of water with a slice of lemon floating in it, smiling like an idiot.

As Peter gulped down the beneficial, life-giving liquid, he thought about what had happened the night before. The details returned gradually. His mind went back to the wild night and tirelessly reminded him of all its extraordinary experiences.

He had never experienced anything like it. None of the young girls who occasionally spent the night with him had ever given him so much pleasure.

Matilda might have been a lady during the day, but in bed she was a wild woman — almost an experienced libertine. He had seen things like that only in pornography. How many times had he wanted the same things from young girls, only for them simply never to do such things? They were either ashamed or had not yet discovered enough passion within themselves.

Matilda, on the other hand, seemed to have found hers again in Peter’s company. She herself was surprised by what she was capable of. Her sexual repertoire was extensive.

The truth was that she had not caught a hare in a long time and, as might be expected, she was probably very hungry herself.

At the same time, she probably wanted to impress him.

From Peter’s memories, we can share the following content: Matilda passionately kisses him on the neck, while her left hand goes behind his shorts and touches his young, athletic buttocks, while she unbuttons his pants with her right. The lid was held only by a few buttons, which he somehow tried to get back into the holes after the experience in the car. Soon she took off his shirt and pushed him onto the bed. With one clever move, she pulled down his pants, while somehow she also managed to pull the socks off his feet. Peter gradually learns all sorts of things about Matilda. She likes feet and is probably also a submissive fetishist. She started kissing him from the feet. Meanwhile, Peter was in absolute ecstasy. He didn’t quite know what was going on, but he knew that he had accidentally found himself in one of his porn movies, which he loved to watch so much. He gratefully thought about his good hygiene and how many times he had been in the water, mud or shower before he went outside. First, she put her nose to his left foot. She smelled between her thumb and another finger. Then she started sucking on his thumb and a moment later she went down to his foot with a soft mouth. She didn’t keep him waiting long, and soon her soft lips and tongue were running from the bottom of her heel all the way up to her toes. Then she started kissing his ankles, caressing his calves, and before he knew it, she was already on his inner thighs and groin. She spent a long time on her groin and enjoyed the natural smell that had formed there from the time of his last shower to the time he walked to the Phoenix, where he had been sitting for a good time. For Matilda, it was like waiting for friendly bacteria. It was like waiting for a natural human scent or even an attractive male smell. Matilda did not like sterile-smelling men. Every now and then, a forty-year-old man happened to her who smelled too much. But then again, if he didn’t wash, only what would make her tense. Matilda liked young boys. Sweat, groin or arms of forty-year-olds did not excite her.

You can’t buy youth. Oh, Matilda, you can’t buy youth anymore, but you can still taste it here and there. You can still smell it from time to time. — you said to yourself in your mind and enjoyed your experience immensely. She pulled down Peter’s shorts very slowly. Peter had never experienced anything like this. He thought he would fire immediately or die of a juvenile heart attack. His shot out as the elastic of his shorts slowly moved down and Matilda began to caress him from his testicles. Peter didn’t expect him to go under his testicles and start licking his anus. She gently motioned for him to raise his legs and he obeyed. At the same time, she ran her hand over his penis. It’s fantastic!! — you said to yourself again and again. It’s fantastic!! He knew that this sex goddess would prolong this game and surprise him with new tricks while delaying his youthful orgasm. While caressing with amusement, Matilda remembered one joke where a young boy brags to a friend about sex: “Three times boy. Three or even four, if the last one counts. The best half hour of my life!!” It didn’t take long for her to start laughing, because she knew that Peter was no different. Some young men would like to do it even all day, and they have all the prerequisites for it, of course, there are also less sexual types. Matilda hated old men, or guys her age, who do it only once a day, if at all, and then only on Viagra, because otherwise in the middle of the fun their dick will fall off. Therefore, she carefully licked her catch with pleasure. She began to skillfully ride her lips from top to bottom on her penis. He scolded all those young girls because you could always smell your teeth, but Matilda was experienced and his rather long and thick penis went somewhere to her tonsils without any disturbance. She was a professional. She tugged at his glans and licked his frenulum. Then she spent a good amount of time on her testicles, which she slowly sucked into her mouth and gently brushed them with her tongue while she circled his glans with her finger. Peter pushed her hand away to delay his orgasm. She laughed briefly and began to caress his beautiful flat stomach and gradually went up to his nipples. From the nipples, she expertly went through the pectoral muscle to the arm, into which she dipped her entire nose and mouth, and then said something outrageous. “I wish you smelled more.” Peter couldn’t control himself and started laughing. She walked lightly to his mouth, but she was surprised that he didn’t want to kiss. It reminded her of another young man with whom it didn’t last long, and she was sad about it. She was expecting the same end, but she didn’t want to be disturbed by it for now. She knew that boys who didn’t want to kiss her didn’t really feel anything. They just want sex and after a few meetings it’s all over. They hang the trophy of an older, good-looking woman on an imaginary bulletin board, and when they call, the phone makes a strange tone, as if it is occupied or unavailable for a long time. Messages remain undelivered or unread. With a bitter memory of the gray WhatsApp hooks (unread message) that she had so eagerly awaited to turn blue one day, she decided not to think about anything anymore and began to humbly ride Peter, placing her two palms on top of his two palms and looking into his eyes with resignation. During the ride, she whispered to him if he would like to change the slide and waited for a good time until the young man understood. He said vaguely, yes there and then here again. She smiled a little again and the wild ride continued. Peter was not very experienced, but Matilda led him perfectly. She expertly gave him both slides and the whole concert was repeated about three times, and Matilda did not always have an orgasm, but she made sure that he did. Neskôr just blew away contentedly, while both were absolutely silent, and then they were swallowed up by sleep. The last ride took place before dawn, because it was as if they suddenly woke up at the same time and so they repeated the whole thing again.

Peter put down his glass of water and waited for the waiter to come out. The waiter was standing around like such an idiot again, so Matilda reached into her tiny purse and handed him a two. He reluctantly climbed out of the room and Peter was relieved.

“So, how did you sleep? You naughty one!” — she asked, putting a large grape berry in his mouth. She could read people and knew that Peter enjoyed perverted games, but she was still confused by the denied kissing. She knew that this story, like any other, would not last forever. Nevertheless, this morning she was as exuberant as a young girl who is in love for the first time. She already knew this feeling and she also knew its end. But as if she wanted to taste the same and delightful adventure over and over again, over and over again. It’s like a wasp that goes into a honey bottle and ends up drowning in a thick, gooey mass. She suspects and knows what awaits her if it doesn’t work out and she knows that it can hurt then, but she still can’t resist.

“I slept fantastically.” — he blurted out as he tried to chew a grape berry and then began to look around for his shorts.

“I’m incredibly hungry. I thought we were going to eat together and then, I wanted to ask you. What do you say if we run together for oxygen therapy and then go shopping in Austria? If you have nothing else.” — she asked cheerfully and threw his shorts at him, which were lying discarded not far from the bed.

“I have to be honest, Matilda. I have a bit of a limited budget. I’d probably rather stay in my room. But later I will go wandering around the city again, or I will go for a walk along the Váh River. If you’re interested, we can meet later.” — Peter explained and shyly and clumsily began to slip his shorts under the covers, making sure that nothing peeked out in the process. Matilda was looking at him the whole time, and she didn’t hide the amusement on her face.

“After all that, you’re ashamed of me, Peter?” she asked with a smile, pressing her index finger against her lower lip.

Matilda was convinced that Peter had rabbit-like intentions. Typical of young men who, after a fantastic experience, want to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

For him, the adventure had ended much like when an unknown girl leaves his place on a Saturday or Sunday morning. He says he’ll call her, but never does. When they text him, he deliberately replies only two hours later, or simply sends a smiley. In his own very subtle way, he always makes it clear that he has no intention of getting attached, and that next time he would rather taste someone else. It was simply in the nature of young, attractive boys who could behave that way. After everything they had gone through, he was somehow satisfied already. His hungry passions had been appeased, and his illusions about rich people had faded. He had tasted what he should not have, and now it was time to leave and brag to his friends, Matilda thought.

“I understand that you’ve sobered up, and you probably feel a certain disgust too, because you didn’t want to kiss me last night. All you wanted was some brief experience, isn’t that right? I just want to tell you that I’m completely fine with it,” Matilda continued, daring to put pressure on the young tempter.

“That’s absolutely not true!!!” he objected curtly and bit into his cheese-and-garlic baguette.

“I’m not going to kiss my own ass!” he said, laughing a little arrogantly, the way young people sometimes do. As though everything should bow only to his majesty.

Matilda loved that arrogance, yet hated it at the same time. She loved his age and wanted to return to it, but the only thing she had was neither youth nor that arrogant age or smile. The only thing she had was money. So she had to play her game.

“Oh, don’t talk nonsense! You smell like vanilla. You could easily have licked a little off yourself — you taste fabulous,” she said, starting to laugh again like a silly young girl. It was a relaxed laugh, full of real joy. She was glad that, in the end, it was not she who disgusted him. He had enjoyed the perversities perfectly well, and he was neither the first nor the last young man not to kiss her because of them.

“Don’t worry about money. We’ll enjoy ourselves on my account. You have no idea how good your company makes me feel. Truly, I expect nothing from it. So what do you say? Shall we quickly go for oxygen first? And I had an idea. What do you say we get rid of the driver for today? Will you drive your princess shopping in Austria?” she said, giggling again.

Peter’s face lit up. Even in his wildest dreams he had never imagined that he would one day sit in such a car. The prospect of a luxurious trip appealed to him.

“Yes, I’d love to go. I’ll just stop by my room. Shower and change. I won’t be long,” he said, smiling sweetly at her.

Matilda poured herself a cup of coffee and looked pleased.

Later, Matilda sat on the edge of the bed, watching the handsome young man with the foolish expression of a girl in love as he stuffed himself with fried bacon, holding it in one hand while clutching a sweet pancake in the other. Meanwhile, he was already eyeing the tiny pieces of smoked salmon and slices of boiled egg topped with caviar.

If only I had an appetite like that, she told herself as she finished her coffee. On a tiny plate beside her lay some unfinished yellow melon and a piece of baked granola. Over the years, Matilda had somehow learned to eat healthily and sparingly in high society, because it was necessary to keep her figure.

She stood up, turned on the television, and then went out onto the terrace to cool down a little. Feverish hot flashes had begun troubling her more and more often. She took a few deep breaths and then simply gazed silently into the park.

She was entertained by little sparrows flying from a large pine tree onto their terrace and then quickly back again. They were surely looking for something to eat too. She liked the way the little birds tucked their wings against their bodies while flying because it made them faster. They looked like little flying rolls, or guided miniature glide bombs.

While Matilda reflected on the cohesion of their small group, Peter had already finished eating and gotten dressed. He went out onto the terrace to ask for her number, in case something happened after all. He found her there shivering from the cold, her hair slightly tousled by the wind, her gaze so absent that he immediately took her in his arms and hugged her properly.

He looked into her kind, welcoming eyes and kissed her on the lips.

“Sometimes you seem so sad to me,” he told her, looking as though he was genuinely troubled by it.

“Oh, come on! It only seems that way to you. I like to think, sometimes very deeply, and people often mistake that for sadness.”

She dictated her number to him. He said he would be right back, kissed her once more, and thanked her for the exotic night — as he himself called it — and for breakfast. Then he told her to go inside because he could see that she was trembling all over, but she insisted that she would stay there a little longer.

“I like this winter air and, besides, just look at that beautiful park,” she said, to assure him she was all right. She tightened the cord of her robe and continued enjoying the view.

For the moment, Peter had no interest in the park. Nor in its crows or sparrows. Their simple and charming little lives did not fascinate him at that moment. Before his eyes shimmered entirely different things that had driven his young mind mad. One of the first was a black Mercedes S-Class: its leather seats, its enormous dashboard, all that technology, and the automatic transmission. Then there was the drive to Austria and into the center of Vienna — perhaps even a Rolex watch, perfume, or something nice to wear.

He wondered and estimated how much Matilda might spend on him, and whether it was not illegal. Hopefully she was legally competent. After all, she was not doing it by force. He was somewhat worried about what her husband might say. He certainly did not want to meet some rich, thick-necked mafioso, which was how he imagined him.

In the end, he decided not to worry about it at all and briskly left the bedroom toward the hallway. As he passed a chest of drawers standing by the door, he noticed a small video camera behind a vase of dried flowers, its lens pointed toward the large bed. It had been cleverly hidden behind the flowers, and it was switched on. Looking at the small screen, Peter realized with horror that it was still recording.

Peter quickly looked around. Matilda was still on the terrace. He took the camera in his hands and stopped the recording. He checked the details of the video file.

A ten-and-a-half-hour recording.

Peter skillfully navigated through the archive and saw many other files — older dates and videos of various lengths. He had no time to check who was in them or what they were doing. He selected the latest video, went into the options, and moved the cursor to an item called Delete Recording.

Press confirm! What are you doing? Delete the video and get the hell out of there, he told himself.

In the end, he merely switched off the device and left.

On the way to his room — it was only a short five-minute walk, as Pro Patria was located near Thermia Palace — he thought of different scenarios. Matilda recorded her love games so that she could revisit them later while masturbating. Matilda merely preserved precious moments this way — moments that, once irretrievably gone, would remain with her through these recordings. Matilda would blackmail him with the video — not for money, of course, since she had plenty of that — but for his attention and love.

He arrived in his room, undressed, and took a cold shower. He wondered whether to block her immediately, or give the trip a chance and let her explain everything. Depending on what he decided, he would then ask Matilda to delete the video — or allow her to keep it. Maybe she would buy him even more things because of it today. He would even let her make more videos. After all, he would still be there for a few days, so he would make sure to enjoy it properly and get paid for it too.

He felt a little ashamed of his motives, but as he pulled on his fake Armoni underwear — the little “o” had been altered slightly to look like an “a,” so they seemed genuine — his shame suddenly disappeared.

While blow-drying his hair, he received an SMS message. Actually, it was a whole string of messages — about twelve in a row. They were iMessages, data-based messages that allow iPhone users to message one another free of charge, much like WhatsApp.

Peter began reading them one after another, and Matilda saw them marked as read. She felt enormously relieved. She even began to cry. He had had enough time to block her, and she had seen that he had touched the camera. She knew he had had the chance to delete the video, but he had not. She could not explain why, but she suspected it might be money — or simply the desire for a great experience.

“I know you found the camera. I want to explain everything.”

“It isn’t mine. It’s Alex’s. Alex is my husband. His room is right next door.”

“We’ve been doing it this way for years.”

“You see, he likes watching afterward.”

“I feel terrible. Please write something.”

“I’ll understand if you never want to see me again.”

“Please come and make sure that I deleted the video. He’ll probably scream like a madman again and take away my car and all my cards, but it doesn’t matter. He always gets over it eventually.”

“It will sound crazy, but I still want to go with you for oxygen and to Vienna.”

“Afterward, we never have to see each other again. I’ll miss you, but I’ll survive.”

“A confession is a mitigating circumstance.”

“I think I may have fallen a little in love with you. But I’m already used to lovers leaving. Please don’t worry about it, and feel free to block me.”

“Your Matilda.”

Soon afterward, a voice message arrived. Matilda did not use that form of communication and, even before listening to it, decided that Peter would have to teach her.

“Well, you really made me laugh. You have no idea how much I’m laughing about all this right now. Don’t worry about anything — I’ll be right there. I’ll wait for you downstairs at reception,” Peter’s sweet voice sounded through the speaker, and a feeling of relieving bliss suddenly settled in Matilda’s heart.

At the Thermia Palace reception desk, Peter met Alex. He stood at the counter talking to a receptionist. He was dressed in a black Fred Perry tracksuit. Alex seemed unusually cheerful; his face looked a little tighter and his eyes less tired.

“Well hello, Peter. Matilda mentioned that you’re going for oxygen, and then apparently just somewhere nearby for a walk into the nearby town. I’m glad you two got along. Matilda is a fantastic woman. You’ll definitely have fun together. There is something good about having an open marriage, wouldn’t you say?” he asked jovially, extending his hand.

“Hello, Alex. I don’t know much about marriage yet, but I like it when nothing in it is taken too seriously,” Peter said, baring those beautiful white teeth again.

“Well, one thing is certain, Peter. Marriage will gradually give you all these wrinkles. It will turn your hair gray, and it will not help even if you let her win at checkers or cards, like I did yesterday. Hahahaha,” he joked, stroking his face with his palm. “Which reminds me, my wife is already waiting for me. We’re going to the mud baths for a while. Today I’ve already had a fantastic facial massage, and before that I had an hour of oxygen. The only thing that bothers me there is that unbearable meditation music. You should definitely ask her for some good jazz instead. Well then, all the best and enjoy yourselves.”

Alex winked at him and was about to leave when Matilda stepped out of the elevator.

She was beautiful. Her face glowed beneath only light makeup, and she wore a gentle smile. She had on narrow pale-blue jeans ripped at the knee and a white wool sweater.

“Oh, Alex. What did they do to your face? Surely just a massage and oxygen beforehand, right? You look fantastic! Years younger. Hahahah. I hope your wife doesn’t think you’re cheating on her just because you take such good care of yourself! You know how jealous we can be. A new shirt or a better perfume, and immediately we get suspicious — who are you trying to look good for, when in the end we are already completely irrelevant to you? Hahaha. Don’t take me seriously — you know me well enough by now,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Irrelevant?! Not at all! I love my wife above all else. Why, yesterday I let her win at checkers again! But now I must run off to the mud baths. Enjoy your day.”

“Great performance, Matilda. You two are something else,” Peter praised her as they walked through the parking lot toward the building where the oxygen therapy was given.

“Oh, years of practice, sweetheart, years of practice. But forget about him. We’ve got the card in our pocket and the car keys in our hand. Nothing else matters. Let’s enjoy ourselves!” she said cheerfully, handing him the car key.

He quickly slipped it into his jacket and gently tapped his pocket to make sure that the key to this experience was still there.

“And how long have you been doing this? Why does the car have German plates, and how many guys have you had? Do you really have your own driver?” Peter asked four questions in quick succession because he was hungry for important details about his own experience, which was beginning to seem more than surreal.

“Our cars are registered to one of our companies in Munich. Apparently it’s better that way…”

“Cars?” he interrupted.

“Yes. He has one, and one is kept available at home. I think it’s the same model. Alex is obsessed with big cars. Who can keep track of all that, Petey? And how long have we been doing this? Really, only a few years. There haven’t been that many boys. I know — I like them young, and I know you must think I’m a slut, but in reality they were all just small, innocent amusements. The boys always liked it too. I don’t feel like I should be ashamed of anything. Maybe only the videos, but you see, we started getting terribly bored with life.

“I’ve known Alex since school. At the beginning, everything was so promising. We were much happier without money. Then he invested somewhere through a friend in Munich, and suddenly money started pouring in. At first it was fun. We enjoyed ourselves. We traveled around the whole world, indulged in all the luxury that only money can buy. But then, before we knew it, we could no longer stand each other.

“I began looking at younger men, and I’d known all my life that he liked to watch. So we somehow met halfway. Oh, how I sometimes hate him. We never really wanted a divorce. Who knows whether I would even get my half? Alex has an entire army of lawyers, and besides, he claims that our marriage looks great from the outside. So somehow it suits us both. Alex hates scandals. His business partners would start asking questions immediately. Sometimes I don’t even know where the money flows from, but I’m not interested either.

“I have a driver because that disgusting ostentatious limousine is simply too big for my driving skills. I told him so many times to buy me a smaller car, maybe a little electric Toyota, but he says I’d only be a laughingstock. I’ve bumped it into things here and there a few times already, and Alex is so anxious about our property, so he hired me a driver.

“In reality, it’s nothing special. Most of the time I’m shut away in the house. But imagine this — I’ve started digging around in the garden. I’ve developed a taste for it. So yes, I’m a housewife. But enough about me. If someone likes to watch, let him pay for it. Right? Hahaha.

“Oh, if only he knew that you know everything. He would go mad. The video would not excite him at all anymore. He likes it anonymous and in all his twisted seriousness. If he knew that you knew, it would no longer be any fun for him. He’s a rotten bastard, but what can I tell you — it’s better than splitting up.”

“Does that mean you’ll replace me after a few videos? We could remain lovers, though. You know, I’ve grown quite fond of you,” Peter worried that he would lose both good sex and a wealthy mistress.

“We can certainly keep seeing each other, but the truth is that sooner or later I’ll have to bring him a new video. And you know, he watches me a lot too. Always make sure it is really over afterward. I’m somewhat on a leash, to be completely honest. I’m so terribly sorry. I’ve somehow gotten used to this life. You have no idea how sad I sometimes get when I look through old videos.

“It’s the crazy life of rich people, and I’ll tell you, if I had the courage, I’d exchange it immediately for something healthier and more lasting. But without money, I am nothing. I’d have to work again, and I have no experience. I think I have somewhat made my own bed. But I will always love you. We can meet anytime, and more importantly, we’ll enjoy ourselves properly now. What do you say?”

“Surreal. It’s all so surreal. Well then, we’ll see how it all goes,” Peter said, smiling at her nervously.

Peter really liked the oxygen therapy. He would never have treated himself to something like that. First, he did not know what it was, and second, he would not have had the money for it. They were seated in comfortable armchairs, and small tubes supplying oxygen were inserted into their nostrils.

Then Billie Holiday played softly, followed by Julie London, though Peter knew neither of them. It was Matilda who praised them there.

Peter fell asleep and had a strange dream.

Matilda watched him for a while longer, admiring his long eyelashes and beautiful lips, and later she too dozed off. In her dreams, she looked forward to Vienna. She would take him for a fantastic, properly expensive lunch. She had noticed that he liked eating. She would watch as that young mouth of his bit into a good steak, while she merely picked at a salad. After all, that was what she always did.

Nothing but gifts and spoiling. She wanted love, though she knew she could not buy it with money, because love cost nothing. But she would buy him plenty of things anyway. She always did. Alex must not be anxious about expenses; they had discussed it many times. After all, she was doing it for him too.

She wondered whether to buy Peter an expensive watch or just something to wear. Maybe new sneakers and really expensive perfume. A leather Armani jacket and Calvin Klein underwear. Then they would walk hand in hand through Vienna’s old city center, have a small coffee and cake somewhere, which she would feed him romantically. Then she would gather the crumbs from the table and put them in her mouth.

After all, that was what she always did.

And in the evening they would return and go together to the mud baths, then to the pool with healing water, and afterward they would make love again.

But suddenly she found herself in some broad plowed field, at the edge of which, near the road, stood bare trees. Their long black branches stood out against the sky of a pink-and-blue evening. As though the branches had bent by the accidental spilling of ink against a light-blue background, while the pink remnants of the sunset remained behind them.

But the sky gradually changed from dark blue to black and completely swallowed the black ink. The trees disappeared.

Matilda woke up.

She found the car key in her lap and realized with alarm that Peter was gone. She tried to call him, but the telephone made one and the same familiar tone. She texted him, but her messages remained unread.

Matilda hurried back to the hotel, where she threw herself onto the bed and began sobbing terribly. She pulled the car key from her pocket and threw it across the room, God knows where.

Soon she stood up, took the camera, and smashed it against the floor. The high-quality product refused to break easily, so she grabbed a heavy Buddha statue and went into the bathroom with her tool. Heavy blows could be heard, followed by even heavier sobs.

Matilda sat on the floor, still crying, looking at tiny fragments of plastic and glass.

Suddenly, troubled Alex stood behind her. He looked at her with sad eyes full of understanding. She looked back at him, mascara smeared across her face, with the gaze of an unhinged woman.

“You forgot to destroy the card,” he said, and tears came from his eyes.

“What has really happened to us, my love?” he said, bending down to pick up the memory card. Matilda only stared at it in confusion because she did not know what it was.

He threw it into the toilet and flushed it.

“There! And now it is all over! Time for us to retire properly. I’ll sell my share, and we’ll leave for the Caribbean. It will be good for us there. We’ll live out our days in peace. What do you say?”

“And will we have a big garden?” she asked as she got back on her feet, then embraced him tightly, crying all over him.

“Enormous, you silly thing. We’ll have everything. I’ll even buy you an entire beach. Just please stop crying. Come on, then. Let’s pack this place up.”

“First we’ll have to find the key,” she said, smiling at him through her tears.

Peter’s Strange Dream

He was gliding down the highway in an expensive black car. The navigation guided him toward Vienna. Matilda was suggesting a threesome in the car, something Alex had never watched before. She said there would be a lot of money in it for him too. All they had to do was find another young guy. She asked about his friends.

Then she apologized, wanting Peter to understand her difficult situation, while also explaining how much she longed to be young and wanted him to love her just as she loved him. But Peter realized the vast difference in age and social status, and knew that money and position played no role here.

Matilda went on about some golden cage, about an incredibly expensive house through which she wandered alone all day. She spoke of wealth that brought her no joy. Of bubbles that quickly lose their sparkle if you drink them alone.

What wouldn’t she give to be young and poor again. What wouldn’t she give to be just an ordinary person, she lamented.

Peter understood more and more that being young, poor, and free was better than being old, rich, and attached.

“You can’t buy love, Peter. Because love really costs nothing.”

He heard her whisper these words as she curled up in the front passenger seat and strange golden flies flew out of her mouth. The dream suddenly became rather psychedelic.

“The sad and lonely life of old rich people. The wonderful, full life of you young poor people. You see — you want my money, and I want your love. The life of a young pauper is worth more than the suffering of an old millionaire. But today we die together!” she cried, and her eyes turned entirely black.

She looked like a demon. Her hair was no longer so lovely and light, but gray, greasy, and thin.

Then she grabbed the steering wheel.

The car crashed into the guardrail, rolled over several times, and burst into flames.

Peter wanted to wake up, but instead he found himself at work at his gas station. He looked through the large glass window and saw Matilda fueling up at the pump, while his best friend Tibor sat in the driver’s seat of the black S-Class.

Matilda came in to pay. She looked so beautiful in those blue jeans and white sweater. She held the car key in her hand, along with her black card with gold engraving. She smiled and wanted to pay.

“Hi, Matilda. What are you doing here? And why is Tibor with you?” he said, smiling, happy to see her alive and well.

“Hello, young man. Do we know each other from somewhere? Or do you just address anyone informally here in the village? How backward!” she said sharply, then snatched up her black card and returned to the vehicle.

The moment she sat next to the driver, her head disappeared below the steering wheel.

As the limousine passed beneath the large window, his friend Tibor grinned at him. From beneath the steering wheel emerged a gray, old, ugly head, and two terrifying black eyes stared at Peter.

Peter rose very quietly. He took the key from his pocket and placed it in Matilda’s lap. And while she dreamed her dream, he gently stroked her hair and silently left.

Within half an hour, he was packed and back in the smelly white taxi that pulled up with another guest as if summoned, just as Peter was leaving the Pro Patria building.

“To the railway station, please.”

“You didn’t stay with us long,” laughed the gray-haired, long-haired taxi driver. An unfinished lángos lay on the dashboard and, before starting the engine, he wiped his greasy hands on his belly.

Queen was playing on the radio again — this time, “Under Pressure.”

Peter did not regret the night he had left behind. In fact, he felt quite relieved. All the stress had fallen away from him, and he did not even mind the greasy smell.

He had never looked forward to going home so much.

Back in my small, beautiful, poor world, he thought, smiling at himself in the rearview mirror.