Free The White King by György Dragomán

the statue of a guy on a horse, and by playing like that he collected enough in his hat to buy himself some beer, wine, and plum spirits. I motioned my head toward old Miki, and meanwhile I raised my eyebrows in a way that asked Prodán, without my having to say a word, if this really was old Miki's accordion, and from the way Prodán shook his head I knew right away that it was, and then, as Prodán moved just slightly, the accordion's fastening clip snapped open and the accordion filled up with air and gave out a soft boom, and then old Miki stopped and turned around, and I saw him tip his head and listen, and in the meantime the accordion almost dropped, and when Prodán grabbed it to keep it from falling it gave another boom, and then the old man headed toward the bench and he stopped in front of us. "Let me have it back," he said, "let me have my accordion back," and he reached out with his white cane toward the accordion like he wanted to give it a tap, but then Prodán grabbed the end of the cane and yanked it out of the old man's hand. "This accordion here ain't yours no more," he said, "my dad won it off you, you shouldn't have played backgammon with him." The old man waved a hand in the air. "That's really something, huh, to beat a blind man at backgammon, when I've got to tell from the sound what number I threw. Your dad cheated as much as he damn well pleased, you know that full well too, so go ahead now and give me back my instrument," he said, stepping toward the bench, but then Prodán jabbed him in the back with the end of the white cane. "Be careful not to trip, else you'll fall right over and knock your head on something, and then who knows what'll happen," he said, and now the old man turned toward me and scowled. "Djata, my boy, you're still here," and I said, "Yes," but I didn't say "It's too bad I'm still here," I only thought that part, and then old Miki said, "All right, then be a good boy and bring my accordion over here," but of course I didn't take it over, and I even said I couldn't, but old Miki shook his head. "Whatsa matter, are you scared of this shit Prodán?" But I didn't answer, Prodán answered in my place. "You bet he's scared. Why, ain't you scared?" and old Miki didn't say a thing back, he just took a step toward the bench and took off his black glasses and said, "I'm not scared, I was a soldier, I've faced death a couple times already, that I have."
    Never had I seen old Miki without his black glasses, and I didn't want to either, no, I didn't want to see what the deal was with his eyes, but somehow I just had to turn toward him anyway, all I saw were two black holes, even his eyelids were missing, it was just like a skull, both of his eye sockets were pitch-black inside, like really deep holes, and Big Prodán looked at him and the white cane fell out of his hand and he didn't say a thing, and then the old man reached out a hand and tapped around a bit until he found the accordion, which he took from Prodán's lap, then he put the jug of water on the ground and got the accordion on his shoulder, and he put the glasses back on his nose, and then Prodán was finally able to speak again. "Give it back," he said, "or else my dad'll knock my brains out," but old Miki didn't say a thing back, all he did was put his two hands on the buttons and keys and pull the accordion open, and he squeezed it together and started playing. To me it looked like his hands weren't moving a bit, but the accordion blared really loud, he was playing a crackling wild sort of music, and it's like I felt my hands move to the rhythm, and my legs started moving too, and I was tapping out the rhythm with my feet against the ground, but then all of a sudden old Miki squeezed the accordion back together and everything went quiet. "What did you do with this poor accordion?" he asked Prodán. "It doesn't play the way it used to."
    Prodán just shrugged. "Maybe it's just you who forgot how to play