A Book of Memories (23 page)

This was the hour of Stalin's funeral, when the embalmed body was being taken from the marble hall where he had lain in state to the mausoleum.

I imagined it to be a vast hall, enormous and almost completely dark, so huge in fact that it might better be called an indoor arena, a marble hall, yes, I savored the name, but no ordinary huge hall, like a railroad terminal, for instance, but one in which marble columns stand like trees in a dense forest, reaching to the heights, and up there in the heights, it is also dark, the space so immense that the coffered ceiling cannot be seen; no footsteps are heard here, no one may enter and no one dare enter, lest the loud echoes of his steps disturb the silence; and there, at the far end of the hall or arena, he is lying on his bier
—I pictured a simple black platform, a bed actually, which one presumes is there but can't really see because not enough light comes through the narrow doorway to illuminate the place; only the marble glimmers softly here and there, the grayish-brown, delicately veined marble, the mirror-smooth columns, the floor, there are no candles, no lights; the image was so vivid in my mind that I can easily recall it even today, with no subsequent, perhaps ironic embellishments; I had the feeling that the whole world partook in the silence, even animals, sensing the ominous human stillness, falling silent in astonishment, for his death was not a passing away but the ultimate, absolute crescendo of solemnity, the outcry of respect, joy, longing, and love that could not be expressed before with such force—only now, in this breathtaking death; and the vision I had was not the least bit altered by the fact that in the gym we could hear the happy chirping of sparrows fluttering around in the eaves and the indifferent cawing of crows; and then I tried to imagine this vast dense silence as the stillness of all the world's humans and animals congealed into one enormous, terrifying silence, tried to gauge it, find some appropriate unit of measurement for it, since we knew of course that at this hour nothing must stir outside either; all traffic came to a halt, cars and trams and trains between stations stopped, people cleared off the streets, and if anyone happened to be out when the sirens began to wail they had to freeze, remain rooted to the spot; and just as different kinds of noises can blend, as the noise of a whole city from a distance can be perceived as a coherent, uniform hum, the different silences had somehow to blend into one, so that in the end it could be heard even in that dark marble hall, the knowledge that the whole world fell silent must penetrate even that vast interior, though he could no longer hear, not even this silence; and what must it be like, I wondered, when one can no longer hear even silence, to be dead? at which point my neat mental picture became rather confused, because I knew he wasn't just dead, not just dead like anybody else, lowered into the grave to rot away, but was different—a secret ointment would preserve and consecrate him, though the whole embalming business seemed so murky and incomprehensible that it was better not to think about it at all; hard as I tried to get my mind to leave this forbidden territory, it obsessed me more than his death, and I had to think about it all the time, about the mysterious embalming process administered only to the greatest of the great, the pharaohs of Egypt; when finally I asked Grandfather about it—perhaps I thought he knew everything because he was so tight-lipped—and also wanted to know why only the pharaohs and Stalin, what possible connection there may have been between their greatness and his, I felt a little guilty because I suspected his answer would be biting and sarcastic, he talked like that about everything; and I was right; rather than allaying my moral uneasiness about embalming, his answer made it even more acute: "Oh, that's a splendid invention!" he exclaimed with a sudden laugh, and, as always when he began to speak, whipped off his glasses: "Well, it's like this, you see, first they take out all the internal organs that decompose easily, like the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the heart, the intestines, the spleen, the bile duct, let's see what else, oh yes, the brain from the skull, if there was any to begin with, they take it all out; but first they pump the blood out of all the veins, provided it hasn't clotted, because blood is also a perishable item, and when there are no soft parts left, I think they even take the eyeballs out of the sockets, so only the skin, the flesh, and the bones are left, the empty shell of the man, then they treat the body with some sort of chemical, inside and out, but don't ask me what, because I don't know, and after that all they have to do is stuff it and sew it up, carefully, as your grandmother does when she stuffs the chicken for Sunday dinner; well, that's about it," all of which Grandfather said without wondering why I asked the question or who I had in mind, and if he did wonder, he didn't seem very interested, for he said no more, mitigated his brief monologue with not a single word or gesture but simply fell silent, the smile vanishing from his lips and again becoming as glum and matter-of-fact as he had been on the day of Stalin's death, when I had been looking for some black material suitable for draping the school bulletin board and the only thing I could find was one of my grandmother's old-fashioned silk slips, which I proceeded to cut up, unstitching the lace trimming and the straps; seeing me do this, Grandfather remarked, "While you're at it, why don't you take along one of her undies, too?" and as if his next gesture was meant to indicate he was returning to the silent world where he spent most of his days, he shoved his glasses back onto his nose and turned away, taking with him the glance that only a moment ago had seemed interested and cheerful.

But how could anyone in his right mind even conceive of such an answer
—it sounded so blasphemous, not just the part about cutting open the great man's stomach and taking out his organs but also the way Grandfather talked about it, so flippantly and irreverently!—surely if there was no way to preserve the body, then it would be best to keep quiet about the whole outrageous procedure, pretend it wasn't true, pretend it never happened, yes, we should have all kept quiet about it, just as I had to keep quiet about, not admit even to myself, what Krisztián had said when we were told of the unexpected, fatal illness, as though the mere fact that I overheard the statement was in itself a grave offense.

My overhearing Krisztián was indeed accidental, merely accidental, and I clung to the word as if for a good reason; yes, of course, that's what it was, an accident to be quickly forgotten, along with so much else, because if I hadn't happened to be the monitor that day and hadn't had to go to the bathroom to dampen the sponge, or if I had left the classroom just a few minutes earlier or later
—but that's exactly what made it an accident!—then I wouldn't have heard what he said, he could have said it and I wouldn't have known about it, after all, many things had been said that, fortunately, I knew nothing about, but it did happen, and I did hear it, and almost as if looking for a pretext to avoid it, I kept reenacting the scene in my mind, obsessively, for days, hoping it could be forgotten like everything else, but I couldn't forget it and I didn't find an acceptable pretext either; on the contrary, the episode reminded me of my responsibilities; it seemed irrevocable, not an accident at all but something done willfully, like a retaliation; but then I could take my own revenge, although that was also a trap, because taking revenge would also expose me, my lies, and my futile attempts to ignore everything that had to do with Krisztián, to treat him like air, less even than air, as if he were nothing! to wish him out of my life, as if I had killed him.

And the idea of killing him wasn't a passing fancy but one I thought about, toyed with, worked out the details of: I planned to steal Father's pistol because he had once taught me how to load it and how to handle it, I felt very confident about the technical details of the planned murder: I planned to steal the pistol, which he kept in his desk drawer and once a month cleaned with a rag dipped in kerosene, which blackened his slender fingers, so if he wanted to look up while explaining something to me, he could use only the back of his hand to sweep the hair out of his eyes
—it was his cool blue eyes, the penetrating smell of kerosene, and the rather simple rules about handling the pistol that one Sunday afternoon paved the way to my murderous impulse, which I could respond to quite rationally, since I thought the only thing left to be worked out was how to cover up the traces; but now this stupid accident, which I had tried so hard to ignore, frustrated all my designs, exposed my murderous fantasies, revealing to me that I was far too weak and cowardly to become Krisztián's murderer, for I even lacked the courage to report him, for God's sake, after he had inadvertently given me the perfect opportunity, and though the possibility of turning him in did occur to me, of course, I rejected it as soon as I thought of it, for I knew that that would make me unacceptable to myself, that I'd surely feel like a lousy little stool pigeon.

I did feel like a stool pigeon even though I didn't do anything, dreaded even to think about doing anything, wouldn't even tell my mother about it, though I'd have loved to unburden myself, feared being unable to follow the advice she'd give me about how to resolve my quandary; I decided to say nothing, but she must have sensed something and even asked if anything was wrong; no, nothing, I said, since I was also afraid that I might get Grandfather into trouble, because the two reactions, his and Krisztián's, were closely connected in my mind, one as if preconditioned by the other
—if Grandfather hadn't prepared the ground, then Krisztián's comment wouldn't have seemed so remarkable, but I knew that when the boys—the friends!—were by themselves they talked of things they'd never mention in front of me; a whole range of opinions and judgments, a tight circle of confidences was and always had been permanently closed to me, and Grandfather's views also belonged to that circle, which I accidentally, unwittingly penetrated and I was now aware of and therefore couldn't simply block out, if only because of my smoldering, tormenting jealousy: this being so, the unwanted knowledge alone, the secret knowledge of what to me were unacceptable judgments, was enough to make me a stool pigeon.

They must have thought I'd watched them go into the bathroom for their conference and waited for the right moment to burst in on them. Naturally, I noticed Krisztián first. He was standing in front of the tar-covered wall of the urinal, his legs wide apart, but what a pose, even while urinating!
—one hand on his hip, gracefully bending back his wrist, and his other hand holding his penis, but not like children who copy the gentle touch of their mother's hand, holding their weenie at the base with two fingers, a bit clumsily since the last drops can never be properly shaken out that way and pee always gets on your fingers or your pants, but in the grownup way, in fact just like a grownup, in a backhanded sort of way, grasping his tool between his thumb and his other fingers, loosely, the little finger a bit apart from the rest, away from the stream, cupping his penis in his hand as one would a cigarette in windy weather, and this could have been taken as a sign of sensible modesty, if he hadn't at the same time been thrusting out his hips in such an indecently sensuous manner and spreading his legs so wide apart that his posture seemed to indicate—to whom? to himself? to us?—that he could take pleasure even in this act, could urinate shamelessly and, what's more, had turned it into a fashion that others imitated, and not just the boys in his group but everybody in the class, myself included, though his brazen, open enjoyment was his alone, others couldn't duplicate it; when I opened the door, with the dry chalky eraser in my hand, I noticed Krisztián in this familiar pose, which seemed even more casual because he was talking to Szmodits, who was peeing next to him and talking loud enough to be heard by Prém, waiting in line behind him, and even by Kálmán Csúzdi, who was leaning against the doorpost, smoking; what I really felt like doing at that moment was backing out of the bathroom, but I couldn't, because Kálmán Csúzdi had noticed me, so I walked in, and Krisztián, perhaps because he didn't hear the door open or simply ignored it, went on to finish his sentence: "so finally this sonofabitch is gonna croak, too!" just as, after a brief hesitation, I closed the door behind me.

Prém, a stocky dark-skinned boy, was like an amiable courtier who went everywhere with Krisztián, his wise, all-knowing, and all-forgiving gentle brown eyes seeming always in search of opportunities to be of service to him, and though he was just as nice to me as he was to Krisztián and, as far as I could tell, to everyone else, I felt toward him a deep and implacable hostility bordering on revulsion, and no wonder, considering he had achieved without pain or effort what I didn't have the courage, skill, and, possibly, playfulness to achieve; their bond was refined to the most subtle form of equality, precisely the kind I longed for, like brothers, like twins, even a little indifferent to each other since their relationship was arranged by nature and therefore they had nothing to add to it, also like lovers, since no matter how far apart the two faces moved, they seemed to be able to maintain a link, each always referring in some way to the other, always aware of each other's presence; all the same, Prém, the smaller of the two, was clearly Krisztián's servant (in such relationships the smaller is always the servant)
—Prém now let out a full-mouthed guffaw, as if Krisztián had cracked a hilarious joke, even though the sentence had a rather ominous ring, an anxious undertone; I wouldn't have been surprised if Krisztián had smacked him for his too-ready laugh—he sometimes did that, knowing that an underling's exaggerated zeal can detract from rather than increase his superior's authority and therefore deserves punishment; I especially hated Prém's mouth—and those eyes! I hated the soft, alluring submissiveness in those wide-open, slightly bulging dark eyes with their thick lashes—oh that mouth! wild, darkly, savagely red, the lower lips a bit protuberant, in itself not exactly ugly, except that in the smallness of his face it seemed exaggerated and unnatural, and as if he himself were aware of its exceptional size, and of the attractiveness that could not be denied him, he had the habit of licking his lips with the tip of his tongue, taking real pleasure in doing it; his manner of speaking was unusual, too, always leaning over, speaking softly, never looking straight into his listener's eyes but aiming for one of the ears, since he didn't so much speak his words as murmur them, whispered little monologues into one's ears.