He was a tall, vituperative man with a hunched back. On account of kyphosis, his head was thrust forward almost at a right angle. At eighty-six years of age, he was gnarled and sinewy, his skin reminded you of the bark of an olive tree, and his tempestuous temperament made him seem to be boiling over with strongly held ideals and opinions. All day long he pottered around the house in his slippers, wearing an undershirt and a pair of khaki trousers that were too loose on him and were held up by braces. He invariably wore a shabby black beret that came halfway down his forehead, which made him look like a tank commander put out to grass. And he never stopped grumbling: he swore at a drawer that refused to open, cursed the newscaster who muddled Slovakia and Slovenia, railed at the westerly wind that whipped up suddenly and scattered his papers on the veranda table, and shouted at himself because when he bent down to pick them up, he bumped into the corner of the table as he stood up. He had never forgiven his Party for falling apart and disappearing twenty-five years earlier.
