Iza's Ballad (11 page)

She wept and noted items with sore eyes, half-blind, all the while feeling that Iza had been extraordinarily good to her, and she even experienced a kind of naive piety in remembering that there was an ancient people that buried its dead with grave goods and that the vanished things, those witnesses to their lives together, might, by way of farewell, have accompanied Vince, escorted him and become his. So she stopped weeping because she wouldn’t stint Vince anything.

She thought dawn looked different in Pest and that somehow there was no great difference between dawn and night, just that the sky was suddenly brighter again and that the traffic outside, having quietened down a shade for a couple of hours, now sounded louder. It was a while before she realised why dawn was different here. Gica’s cockerel would always crow at half past two even when it was dark; Vince would remark how his watch was fast. She wept a little more on account of Gica’s cockerel and then again because Vince wasn’t here.

She fell asleep just as she heard Iza getting up. Iza started running the bath tap at six and there was something so reassuring about her presence, her movements, her tiny noises, that the tension inside her finally gave way and she nodded off for a few hours. It was the last day of Iza’s vacation and they spent the whole day together. They even went for a walk when the old woman fancied a pretzel and Iza bought her one to munch in front of the National Theatre. They dined at the Corvin store. The town was a little frightening, a strange capital city to find herself in, amazing and worthy of respect, and she wondered why it was so different from the way she remembered it, considering at the same time how to spend her days there and how best to help Iza, who was so nice to her it was as if she were her mother, not her daughter. The old woman was starting to suspect that what she had planned back home might not be so easy to carry out; it was going to be hard to guess how she could make her daughter’s life easier, because Iza was clearly thinking the same, her hands posed in a gesture of childhood thoughtfulness.

She knew from Iza that the housekeeping was done by Teréz – she had taken time off today as she was having some teeth extracted – and the girl had put her mind at rest by pointing out what a splendid person Teréz was and that she’d be no bother to her, though she didn’t take that seriously, not for a moment. Until he was forced into retirement, Vince had always been the real help to her: the maid stayed in her corner and Aunt Emma had taught her to keep an eye on the cook, in case she was tempted to steal anything. She resolved to be Iza’s eyes and ears as far as Teréz was concerned. She’d leave the cleaning to her, if she was properly clean, but she’d do the cooking herself. She had been an outstanding cook as far back as anyone could remember, so Teréz could light the gas or whatever, then go out and do the shopping. On Saturday morning the old woman went out to the nearest stationer’s and bought an exercise book that would serve as a kitchen record of expenses. Iza didn’t have the time for all this and, as Iza herself said, Teréz never showed her the bill, only told her what it cost. But that was all right because Teréz was absolutely honest and, even if she weren’t, whoever had the time to waste precious minutes on paying a penny or two less for a sprig of parsley!

But things would be different now. Teréz shouldn’t be going on shopping sprees with Iza’s hard-earned money. It wasn’t just a question of saving and good housekeeping. Iza looked thin: she needed feeding up. She remembered how fond Iza had been of cabbage as a child. She hadn’t been eating properly since she left – what, after all, could you expect of canteen food, or the meal Teréz cooked her? When she thought about it she realised that Iza can’t have had proper food for years because she never ate with them but dined at the hotel. Iza had never wanted her to tire herself out by making meals for her.

Teréz arrived at ten so they immediately got off on the wrong foot as the old woman was expecting her at half past nine. The woman introduced herself, shook hands and announced that she’d start with her room so that madam might relax all the sooner, advising her to read or listen to the radio while she worked.

Teréz addressed her as an equal. She had an enormous bun of brown hair, a maroon coat and as soon as she put her things down she took a kind of boiler suit – it turned out to be hers – from the cupboard and got herself into it. She unpacked her string bag, having come straight over from the covered market where she had been shopping.

The old woman informed her that it would be she who would be doing the cooking henceforth.

Teréz stared at her. She had brown eyes, eyes so dark you could hardly see the pupils. The old woman thought she was mocking her. Teréz suggested that she leave it for today because that was what she had agreed with Iza, but she should feel free to cook from the next day on if she liked, so if she’d be so kind as to decide what she needed from the shops now she wouldn’t have to go back out tomorrow. She took the broom and turned on the radio. The old woman stood straight up and turned it off again, saying they were in mourning so there couldn’t be any radio. Teréz looked at her in amazement, shrugged and said, as you please, and went out. She wasn’t a nice servant. Not at all. She didn’t even behave like a servant.

Naturally, she didn’t sit where Teréz suggested she should sit but followed Teréz around, watching her every move, correcting her if she saw she hadn’t done something properly. Teréz’s answers became ever more curt and she eventually stopped answering altogether. The old woman was tired but felt she had won a victory and when Teréz eventually left, she felt she had achieved something useful and important, and that it was a good thing she had come to Pest to take over the household. She was no longer concerned about her lost furniture and her scattered belongings. She lunched and felt proud, inwardly contemptuous of Teréz’s cooking: the woman was all mouth, there was no real flavour to her food, you’d only upset your stomach if you ate it. And to top it all she even locked the bathroom when she went there! She’d have followed her in if she could but the bolt was shot. Of course, she could tell what she was doing from the running water. She had the nerve to use Iza’s bath!

‘Look, mother,’ said Iza, more severe than usual. ‘Please don’t annoy Teréz.’ Iza’s sharpness shocked her. ‘Please, I beg you, don’t upset her! Of course she takes a bath, thank heavens she does, she is unusually clean. Would you prefer her to be filthy? She takes a bath here because this is where she works. She doesn’t like to leave smelling of food.’

The old woman couldn’t follow the logic of this but she had to accept it. She hadn’t yet revealed that she’d be cooking from now on, thinking that would be a surprise, a kind of experiment to see when the girl would notice that everything was
real
again, proper home cooking. Luckily, the recipe book had not been thrown away, it was only the shelf that was new. The first thing she’d cook would be cabbage: Iza will be so happy.

Iza was not happy. As soon as she stepped through the door she took a sniff and said the whole place smelled of food. What had got into Teréz? She knew she couldn’t stand cabbage. The old woman got cross about this. She reminded her daughter how they would laugh when she was little because of the way she’d gobble it up, cooked or raw. They had nicknamed her ‘the cabbage girl’, in case she had forgotten. ‘That was years ago,’ Iza gestured, ‘a few things have happened since then – a war and a siege, for example. My appetite was different then. The poor little “cabbage girl” is a thing of the past. Please tell Teréz not to cook anything new and to stick to what we arranged.’

It was a week before Iza found out that it was her mother, not Teréz, who was doing the cooking. She discovered this from Teréz herself, who turned up in the clinic one afternoon and announced that if her mother went on pestering her in the kitchen she would be forced to seek employment elsewhere. The old woman kept leaving the electric oven on and she’d find the frying pan on the ring with nothing in it. The old woman didn’t trust the refrigerator, complaining that there was no real ice there; she’d gather up the leftovers in a saucepan and put it out on the balcony; she spilled everything, so pans and dishes had to scrubbed all the time. When Teréz told her not to let stuff drip all over the balcony she put the pan on the window ledge and Teréz said she wouldn’t be responsible if there was a gust and it all fell on someone’s head. And she shouldn’t heat up leftovers to eat the next day. Who’d take the blame if one of them suffered from food poisoning?

Iza was worried and tried to make Teréz understand that things couldn’t change from one day to the next, and it was no use expecting miracles from an old country woman who was used to living in an old house and couldn’t imagine toasting a piece of bread without a fork. Teréz would not be calmed. Teréz had had enough of the old woman and told her something she had been reluctant to reveal, that the old woman would look suspiciously through her shopping basket when she was about to leave, and would suddenly sweep into the kitchen after her as if on a raid and raise the tin lid of the sugar bowl and the box of tea to check she wasn’t stealing anything. She was not used to this kind of treatment.

Teréz had been working six months for Iza, was wonderfully quick, completely trustworthy and highly intelligent. Iza had tried various cleaners over several months before she found her. Teréz could follow instructions on the phone and worked because she liked to, not because she had to. Teréz had been widowed relatively young and her pension was sufficient to cover her needs, but thought it ridiculous that she should work only for herself until the day she died. She liked Iza and had known her for years, Iza having cured her of infection of the joints.

In the evening when she got home – she could tell the old woman had been cooking beans because of the heavy sweet smell – she went into her mother’s room and asked her to have respect for Teréz’s wishes.

The old woman sat in the armchair, her face in shadow with the light to the left of her catching her left hand on which she wore two gold rings, a larger and a smaller, the larger not fitting her: they were Vince’s and her own wedding rings.

‘Teréz must do the cooking, mama,’ said Iza. ‘It’s part of her contract. Teréz will cook you lunch, then supper for both of us. She’ll do the shopping, bring up the milk and boil it. That’s what I agreed with her. Teréz is in charge of the housekeeping, she and no one else. Do you think I brought you to Pest to work?’

The old woman listened. She felt silly and unable to mount an argument; she was so cowed by the accusation that she got on Teréz’s nerves that she dared not say a word. Should she say that
she’d
like to be the one who looked after her, and that she’d enjoy taking care of things and finding out what she liked? Or that she had worked all her life, that she liked working and would like to find a way of showing how grateful she was for not being left alone? She kept quiet.

‘You’re old now, darling. You don’t have to keep working. You should rest.’

‘What am I to do the whole day?’ asked the old woman.

‘Take walks,’ said Iza. ‘It’s spring. Go down to the ring road, find a park, look around, watch the children playing. It would be good for you to find a green space somewhere not too far before you get to know the area. There is the City Park and Hu
̋
vösvölgy, but the air is excellent in Krisztina Square and the Vérmezo
̋
Green too, and none of these is hard to get to. It would be nice for you to look around and take the sun. You could spend the afternoon at home reading, doing some handiwork, playing patience,’ she said, ‘and there is a cinema three doors down you could go to if you like.’

The old woman stared at her dress. She couldn’t possibly think of the cinema before the year of mourning was done. She would have liked to tell Iza that her eyesight was not what it once was and that in Dorozs she imagined Iza might read old books or the papers to her, as Vince used to do after supper. A week in the new place was enough to persuade her that it was no use asking for such things. Iza was never free; she would come home tired, have a bath, listen to music, eat something, then lie down or rush off again. Iza probably had a boyfriend too because there was a man constantly wanting to speak to her on the phone and it wasn’t likely that she’d go out by herself at night.

‘As for the leftovers, my dear,’ said Iza, ‘just throw them away. If something is particularly nice and it hasn’t gone off, put it in the fridge but, as for the rest, get rid of it and don’t leave it on the balcony.’

She was patient and loving about her request.

‘I’d like you to be able to save,’ said the old woman.

Iza laughed. ‘We don’t need to save, dear. I earn enough. And anyway, I hate eating yesterday’s leftovers.’

‘That’s another thing I can’t explain,’ thought the old woman. She didn’t have the words to tell Iza how much she respected her, how much she wanted to try to be a good housekeeper to her, how she would take care of their home, how she was trying to supplement Iza’s hard-earned income.

‘There’s no dog here, mama, nor a pig. Why save the leftovers?’

‘Do you get beggars round here?’ the old woman asked. Her gaze was innocent, eager to learn, a most gentle blue. It was with those beautiful, clear, honest eyes that Vince fell in love at that county ball.

Iza laughed again. ‘No,’ she said, ‘and if you take a look around the town you’ll see there isn’t one anywhere. You surely don’t think there are people going from block to block begging for soup in 1960?’

From that day on the old woman threw away the leftovers, tried to avoid Teréz and let her do the cooking. Teréz, to her great credit, did not go around with a triumphant look; in fact, she was sweeter to her than she was to Iza. Now that the old woman knew her place it was possible to love her; Teréz did her all kinds of favours, tried to please her and would have spoiled her like a child. But the old woman couldn’t stand her, couldn’t even bear to look at her when she said goodbye and would always air the room a long time after she had gone. Teréz was a thief – she had stolen her work.