Under the frog Read Free Page B

this bunch couldn’t find
themselves in the dark. So I have to insist, even allowing for your not
inconsiderable indolence, I have to insist on a twenty-point, no, a
thirty-point margin of victory. Otherwise it’s sit-ups in the City Park on the
rainiest five o’ clock in the morning that I can find.’
    Hepp then erected his blackboard, which he always carried
around, and chalked up a few plays, selected from his notebook as thick as a
hammer-thrower’s thigh (Gyuri once glimpsed a play with a number as high as
602). This was often the hardest part of any match, paying attention to Hepp’s
schemes, since, certainly when dealing with a collection of small-bone pickers,
the required tactic was simply to get hold of the ball, pass it to Pataki and
watch him obligingly run down the court and propel it into the basket. This was
a tactic stunningly effective against all but the top three or four teams in
the first division who had the brains, talent, speed or foresight to impede this
model operation.
    But there in Makó, it was hard to attend to Hepp’s
phenomenally involved machinations. You had to put one or two into action,
regardless of whether you needed to or whether there would be any benefit from
using it, such as collaring a couple of points. Hepp was the coach, and
basketball was better than a real job where you were expected to work for the
money they didn’t give you. A certain amount of explaining away was possible – ‘Doc,
the marking on Pataki was too fierce, we couldn’t use the Casino egg play…’ – but if there wasn’t some evidence of orders being obeyed, Hepp’s favourite
remedy for disregard of his specially-bound leather notebook was half an hour
of stadium steps and it didn’t make any difference how fit you were, your legs
would become solid outposts of pain.
    And of course there were times when Hepp’s scheming won
matches, such as the Great Technical University Massacre, when the better team
hadn’t been allowed to win because of Hepp’s plays. When the end whistle had
blown, the Technical University team had stood on court, unmoving, unable to
believe they had been beaten, viciously beaten, by a team five places further
down in the division. But it wasn’t so much to do with the winning, as with
control. Gyuri had learned from his own coaching in the gimnáziums that the
greatest part of the pleasure was seeing the invisible strings pulled,
relishing the remote control, like being a theatre director or a general. You
wanted to recognise your handiwork.
    Róka, as was the custom, went out alone onto the court with
the gramophone player. They all knew that this showmanship was wasted in Makó,
but this was the point of being professional amateurs – you went on with the
show even if there was no one to watch, or if the spectators were too thick to
appreciate it. The gramophone player was István’s. István and the gramophone
player were about all that was left of the Hungarian Second Army. István had
got the portable gramophone player as a present from Elek when he set off to
the front in ’41. Gyuri had no idea how much it had cost, but fortunes were
involved; there had been German generals who didn’t have the sort of musical
recreation enjoyed by the Hungarian artillery lieutenant. The Hungarian Second
Army, like all Hungarian armies, had the unfortunate habit of getting wiped
out. István returned, flayed and dented by shrapnel, even though 200,000 other
Hungarians didn’t. Even more miraculously, the gramophone player had been
returned home months later by one of István’s comrades-in-arms. István had no
objections to Gyuri permanently borrowing it.
    Róka put on one of the jazz records, to the sound of which
Locomotive trooped out and started their warm-up, bouncing around and sinking
baskets. The records they performed to were all of American origin, which could
have been tricky, but before they had thrown away a load of records presented
to them by one of the visiting