János Lackfi

I take a seat in the restaurant,
settling myself comfortably at one of the tables
with a chequered tablecloth.
I haven’t decided what to eat
but trust my lucky star is out today.
I start to read the menu,
when all at once my nostrils twitch:
I catch a scent of game.
I carefully fish out my sawn-off shotgun from my carrier bag
and, without a sound, take cover behind the table
and place myself in a firing position.
And indeed, drifting, unsuspectingly,
amid the passers-by, sniffing nervously, a stag appears.
A splendid specimen,
to make a guess from the tines on his antlers
he’s in the prime of life,
he’ll make a spectacular trophy.
I take aim at length,
wait until the young mother with the pram
and the loving couple
who are ambling dreamily hand in hand move out of frame,
then I squeeze the trigger. A superb shot,
in my imagination I enthusiastically shake my own hand,
the quarry’s legs buckle, the eyes mist over,
and eventually the magnificent male topples over like a sack.
A lady pensioner jumps aside with a loud grumbling
and angrily starts lashing out at the body
with her rubber-tipped walking stick
as the helpless animal had all but knocked her over as well.
With a Redskin hop, skip and jump I throw myself
on the still twitching game, thrust my knife into it,
and resting a hand on its flank,
wait until all muscular tension has ebbed from its limbs
and the hunk of flesh is finally lifeless.
I drag the body over to a drain,
make a neat job of bleeding it dry,
then set about expertly skinning it
since that is best done while the carcass is still warm.
It shucks its skin compliantly like overalls,
I toss the entrails away into an orange street litter bin
and roughly cut the meat up.
I stutter apologetically to a small, trim dame.
Shaking her head, she casts an eye over my arms,
blood up to my elbows, as if I were a naughty boy
for playing in the dirt yet again.
I shrug my shoulders in embarrassment;
what am I supposed to do,
after all, one has to eat, doesn’t one?
In response to my question the little dame
pulls out a couple of paper handkerchiefs from her handbag,
a fragrance of verbena wafts over.
I make a lousy job of mopping off the sticky blood,
I beckon to the waiter to send out a trolley from the kitchen,
and while they wheel the meat in
I check the menu for a vegetable dish to go with it.
Meanwhile I keep one eye open
for a cow among the passers-by and flex my fingers,
warming them up to do some milking;
I’ll need that later in my coffee.