A Book of Memories (107 page)

The talks were broken off. I called the director of our company to tell him what had happened. Hopes for recovery were slim, and the patient could not be moved. I asked him to notify the family. Conversations with my boss had centered exclusively on professional matters, yet I imagined members of his family, whom I had never met, to be just like him: strong, agile, a little worn-out, but sturdy. My director's position was that the talks must resume without delay. He thought that all the wrangling had been mostly a show and therefore superfluous. The Russians' offer had to be accepted. He had given my boss
—who always started fussing when there was no need—very specific instructions to that effect. He was authorizing me to lead the negotiations with these instructions in mind. He would telex his decision to the head of our trade office, who would then officially inform the Russians of the change in our delegation. If the whole thing weren't just a matter of formality he would send a replacement, but as things stood now, I could step right in. I should keep that well in mind, too. But it didn't happen that way at all. A senior member of our embassy's commercial section took over formally, but he let me handle the practical end of the negotiations, saying he hadn't been sufficiently briefed.

In the next two days I had a great many things to attend to. Feverish activity always generates more energy and the need for more activity, which is maybe why I couldn't stay put at night in my four-poster bed in the hotel, though I knew I should be there to receive a phone call. I went to sleep with a guilty conscience in the flat on the Pervomayskaya. In the embrace of a strong, calm female body I relived the death of my father, whom I now lost forever.

I had trouble falling asleep. Not even with making love could I get death out of myself. Hovering between sleep and wakefulness, I was drifting along a snow-covered highway. It was a scene deep inside me, often imagined, endlessly replayed.

More than two weeks after the enemy broke through the bridgehead at Uriv, on January 27, 1943, to be precise, my father set out by motorcar to make his report. That was the day their retreat began. They were not completely surrounded yet, but the Russians were closing in fast. There was a point in my drifting when I either fell asleep or had to start the scene over from the beginning. The only thing we knew for certain was that at 2030 hours the retreating battalion encountered the Russians and within half an hour suffered a defeat, losing 50 percent of its troops. But they did manage to break through the Russian lines. The car in which my father had left earlier that day was found about six hundred meters from the scene of the battle. It was riddled with bullets. Its doors were flung wide open. It was empty.

For years we waited for Father to come home; after all, the car was empty.

I've got a picture of him, sent from the front. An endless field of sunflowers under a perfectly clear sky. In the middle of the field a tiny figure waist-deep in flowers.

Quite early on the morning of the second day, when I took a taxi back to the hotel, I could hear the persistent ring of my telephone even before reaching my room. Such rings are unmistakable. There was really no need to pick up the receiver. But we are such fools. We pick it up to find out when exactly the thing we knew was going to happen did happen. An hour and a half later the talks were resumed. In a curious atmosphere. The Russians were emotional and quick to express their condolences, yet we all tried to sit down at the negotiating table as if nothing had happened. The slight hesitation over the agenda, the preoccupied air with which we shuffled and exchanged and leafed through our papers helped to preserve the semblance of normalcy. However, when it was my turn to speak, I couldn't keep myself from briefly eulogizing my colleague. And these men, all of them much older than I and for the most part hardened war veterans, listened in stunned silence as I spoke of our morning bathroom ritual.

For us Hungarians, death evokes stark terror. For Russians it is like the softening sign in their language: silent in itself, it cannot be voiced, but it softens the letter preceding it. My instincts perceived this difference during the two nights I spent on Pervomayskaya. My blond friend was the first and for a long time to come the only woman on whose lips my own mouth came alive. After the brief commemoration, I immediately got down to business. I don't think my motives were improper in any way, yet I didn't follow my director's instructions. There was nothing in me but this terror, and it made me stubborn. The session lasted all of ten minutes, and the Russians accepted every one of my proposals. We spent the rest of the day working out the details, even skipping the usual lunch break. The man from the embassy's commercial section did not dare reproach me, but he was fuming. Both parties were anxious to get the whole thing out of the way, if only because all this was taking place on November 6, the eve of their most important national holiday. Nobody felt like working anymore.

It was late afternoon when I got back to the hotel. I was tense, wound up from lack of sleep. In such an overtired state one always feels energetic somehow. I was dying to get rid of my necktie and that impossible black suit and head for Pervomayskaya. I couldn't really enjoy my little breakthrough at the talks, even though it was something of a coup. It came at too high a price. And it was really the dead man's coup, not mine, and the breakthrough was death's breakthrough, not mine. I was pretty sure my director wasn't going to give me a hard time. And even if he did, our commercial people had no choice but to back me up. One thing was certain, the way I handled the matter would evoke his fierce displeasure. I'd be considered some kind of liability for quite some time, which meant kissing promotion goodbye. That's the kind of mood I was in before stepping into the hotel elevator.

It was nearly full and the operator waited for me to get in. But I hesitated. Deliberately slowing my last two steps. I didn't feel like squeezing in. I also noticed that all the passengers were Hungarians. Which turned me off rather than attracting me. But standing among them in a long fur-collared coat was a dark-complexioned girl with curly hair who caught my eye. In response to a question they must have just asked, the disagreeable elevator operator was saying no, no, not allowed, room reserved for banquets. Hearing this, they began to laugh as if they had just heard a priceless joke. Banquet, banquet, they kept shouting. I had walked into an infantile cacophony, and I can't say I liked it. My compatriots tend to feel lost when they are abroad alone, but in groups they can act quite silly and rowdy. I had the feeling that they also sensed the compatriot in me and their reaction was the same as mine, so they finally quieted down. I positioned myself so that I could be close to the girl and watch her from the front. Her slightly old-fashioned coat, tapered at the waist, outlined a slender figure, and the face framed by the upturned silver-gray fur collar was ruddy from the cold. On her hair, eyebrows, and even her lashes half-melted snowflakes were glistening. The first snow of the year had fallen that day, and it hadn't let up since morning.

In my callous simplicity, I thought she was what I needed. And I could see in her eyes that she not only caught my glance but understood my meaning. She didn't think I was pushy, but she wasn't going to respond. She was noncommittal without turning me down, she was holding on to my offer without making one herself, she was impassive but not without a certain amount of curiosity. There was even a hint of impudence in her look, as if to say, Well, big boy, what else can you show me, real quick? We must have ridden about three floors like this, staring in each other's eyes.

We were caught up in each other, but she was playing to the others a little, too, not wanting them to notice just how caught up she was. What I also felt then was that someone standing next to me was staring into my face, with a persistent, unmoving look that suggested he knew full well what I was up to. I had to find out what that was all about, yet I hesitated, for if I turned my face it might appear that I couldn't take her stare, though in truth I couldn't take his.

It would be very hard to describe the feeling I experienced when, turning my head, I looked into the face of this obtrusive stranger. As adults, we always maintain a certain distance, which we determine, from the face of another adult, and the extent and nature of the closeness or distance is invariably regulated by our own interests and aims. But this adult face, suddenly cropping up from our long-gone childhood
—no matter how much it may have changed—wound up intolerably close to mine. A melting tenderness came over me. As if I were seeing not a person but the passing of my own lifetime. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had changed. I sensed transience in myself and permanence in another man's features. At the same time I was so shocked to see the features of a child I'd known so intimately in the face of a man that a feeling of repugnance also began to stir in me. I didn't want this. Our glances scanned each other's features. He hadn't made up his mind either. And with that we irrevocably exposed ourselves in front of each other. There was no going back. Even though we both would have liked to avoid this meeting as much as we wished it to happen. There's nothing more humiliating than a chance encounter. But not giving in to it is even more humiliating.

I couldn't possibly benefit from this chance meeting. On the contrary, it could only work against me. I wanted to be already in my room, open the refrigerator, take a good long swig from the iced vodka bottle, and then leave this place as quickly as possible. Anyone seeking solace in alcohol knows what these moments are like. He reminded me of things I didn't want to deal with at all. And I was in such a state that my body would not tolerate delay. Still, I couldn't prevent what had to happen. I think our hands moved simultaneously, and in the gesture two very different weaknesses met. It couldn't turn into a real handshake, we were standing too close for that, it became more of a crude grasp. Hesitantly, eagerly, two hands seized and then immediately let go, almost thrust away, two hands. Just touching fingers was too little, but anything more would have been too much. And through it all, clumsy, stammering questions about what the other was doing here. Here of all places. As if "here" had some special meaning. I mumbled my own little story, and I blushed, which rarely happens to me, while he muttered something about a delegation of artists, and with a silly grin pointed to the others. We must have been on their checklist this year, he said. His tone was unfamiliar, alien.

But all this was surface; our tone, our blushes merely the appearance to provide some protection. Because what the moment was really all about was that our lives had turned out to be so very different, yet neither he nor I, neither before nor since, had ever loved another human being as we loved each other. Back then. Yes. This was our confession. And even now, when we are still so different, even now, although in a different way. And since then, too. This is an enduring part of our lives. It can't be helped. This love has no purpose, no meaning, or motive. Nothing can be done with it. I blushed because I wanted to forget it, and did. He was acting silly because he didn't forget, and probably couldn't.

His features seemed so indistinct and blurred that each line or curve or angle could mean three different things at once. And there was a danger that he might just ignore the glances of these strangers and mawkishly revert back to our lost time. In the end, however, it was his grim self-discipline that averted my always obliging though noncommittal bear hug. I saw brittle coldness in his face, dread in his eyes, though he was making lighthearted, cynical noises. Still, he, not I, was the one who stayed outside the situation. For if I cannot be guided by sober reason, if I cannot comprehend the meaning, direction, and purpose of a signal or a gesture, I freeze. I can yield to no person or situation. He, on the other hand, had it in him to act, to put his feelings on display. He burst into laughter. I wanted to shut my eyes. I showed up just in time, he said, as if we had last seen each other only yesterday. They had just come from a holiday reception. And now it was off to the Bolshoi for a gala performance. It promised to be quite an event. He sounded as if he were inviting me to his grandmother's for noodle pudding. Galina Vishnevskaya was singing. They had an extra ticket. Just for me. Box seats, too. Wouldn't I join them ?

The maddening artificiality of his tone made it easier to decline the invitation. By then we were on the thirteenth floor, standing in the narrow hallway, in front of the
dezhurnaya's
table laden with keys. The others passed us in silence on their way to their rooms. I told him I had no time, unfortunately. And looking over my shoulder, I involuntarily followed the brown-haired girl with my eyes. I'd already made plans for the evening. The girl opened her door slowly and disappeared without looking back. In the meantime, we kept laughing at the discovery that evidently the Russians always reserve the thirteenth floor for Hungarians. We should meet for breakfast, though. But no later than eight. They'd have to attend the parade on Red Square. We'd open a bottle of champagne.

I'd have to say that as soon as I closed the door of my palatial suite, I forgot this accidental meeting, as one might forget a fleeting unpleasantness. I didn't want a champagne breakfast. I didn't turn on the light. The strange rooms were glimmering faintly in the reflected light of the snow. I heard the soft murmur of the city below. Compared to the events of the past few days, what could these fleeting moments mean to me? Nothing. An embarrassment, at most an annoyance. Anyway, while I struggled here in vain, they were having fun. Still in my overcoat, I sank into an armchair. I had never before felt such a heavy, all-pervasive fatigue. It wasn't my bones or my muscles but my heart that seemed to give way. As if my blood had stopped flowing. I felt drained, empty. I didn't even want that drink of vodka anymore. Or I should say I did, but didn't have the strength to get up. That's not precise enough either. What I felt was that I must gather strength. But you need some strength to gather your strength, and I didn't have any.