A Book of Memories (46 page)

At that time this was still a real forest, perhaps the last large, continuous spot of green on the map of hills and mountains ringing the city, the last reminder of the original natural harmony of soil and flora which the expanding city slowly encroached upon, altered, and devoured; today, this area, too, is full of high-rises; of the forest only a few clumps of trees have remained
—hardly more than nondescript garden ornaments.

I do not regret the loss; there's nothing in the world with which I have a more intimate relationship than ruination; I am the chronicler of my own ruination; even now, when making public the destruction of the forest, I'm recounting the history of my own destruction, looking back once more, for the last time, and I confess not without emotion, on the seemingly endless yet so very finite time of childhood, a time when nothing appears more unalterable than the richly grooved bark of a luxuriant old tree, the peculiar twists of its roots, the communicated strength with which the tree accommodates and also clings to the soil; in a way, childhood perceptions have no firmer assurance and support than nature itself, in which everything militates against destruction and destruction itself speaks of permanence, impersonality, continuity.

But I don't wish to weary anyone with too finely drawn reflections on the relationship between a child's arbitrary perceptions and the spontaneous life of nature; I believe it is true that nature is our greatest teacher, but it teaches only the wise among us, never the dullards! so let us continue on that lonely forest trail leading to the clearing, and let us also take a closer look at how the child is walking, relying on the profound knowledge in his feet, familiar with every dip and bump of the ground, even with the stone that in the next second might knock against the tip of his shoe, prompting him to stretch out his next step; familiar with the dense air, and the direction of wayward breezes against his face, his sensitive nose telling him if anyone has passed by recently and whether it was a man or woman; only his ears deceive him once in a while: he hears a muffled sound, a crack, a thud, a cry, something resembling a cough, and he stops; to be able to go on, his eyes must skip over his fears, over frightening presentiments, and, at times, over shadows that seem to be moving; yes, he must step over dire warnings and horrific imaginings.

Then the trail melts into the tall grass of the clearing, his bare feet are anointed with dew, now he is accompanied by soft rustles and whirs, the summer sky is still glimmering above him, but except for him nothing appears to be moving, and that seems unreal to him; then a bat flits by silently, returns to circle above him, but he's reached the upper end of the clearing and stepped back in the woods where the trail continues, now branching off into two, and he can go on up the hill.

At the top, an abandoned road marks the end of the forest, and Felhö Street is only a few steps away, and that's where Hédi lives, in a small yellow house opposite the now darkened school building; at this hour Mrs. H
ű
vös closes the curtains and is ready to turn on the lights.

From Hédi's window you can see Livia's.

This time, though, at the fork I took the other trail.

No matter how late I got home, no one ever asked where I had been.

The forest was not so dense here, I could make out the ridged roof of the Csúzdi house; the feeble rays of the porch light projected long pale spots and strips into the dark forest; the effect was friendly, reassuring, revealing something about the attractive solitude of the house; and taking this route home I could be almost sure to find Kálmán still outside.

I was still far away, but his black dog already yelped into the silence.

The house stood in the middle of a rectangular piece of land cut out of the forest, with a cornfield in the back and a large orchard in front; they called it a farm
—an impressive, very old frame house whose simple front, in the manner of the building style favored by the original owners, ethnic German wine growers, was adorned by a raised open porch, protected by the overhanging gabled roof; under the porch a heavy double door opened to the wine cellar; at the other end of the spacious yet intimate brick-paved yard a similar but lower frame house served as stable, garage, and barn; in the middle of the yard, enclosed by a simple hedgerow, stood a large walnut tree and, a little farther on, a tall, hard, tightly packed haystack; it all seems incredible today, but back then, on the rocky and clayey slopes of Swabian Hill, this low mountain so close to the city, there were still these peasant homesteads, cut off from the world, living out the last phases of their existence.

Lazily, Kálmán's dog came down to the hedgerow to greet me, not barking or jumping up on me as it usually did, staring absentmindedly, with occasional swipes of its tail, waiting for me and, as if to signal that something unusual was afoot, leading me across the yard, ambling pensively.

It was warmer here; stones were exhaling the sun's warmth and the dense hedgerow kept the cool forest air from penetrating the yard.

At the time the Csúzdis still had a horse, several pigs, two cows, some chickens and geese; the dovecote over the hayloft echoed with the cooing of turtledoves; one after another, a pair of swallows alternately nose-dived out of their nest built under the eaves, one flying out as the other headed homeward; around this time, at dusk, the yard resounded with the noise of animals, seeking calm and rest as they prepared for the night, and the warm, still air was filled with the powerful smell of urine, droppings, and fermenting manure.

Surprised, I followed the dog, and soon saw the yellow light of a kerosene lamp, which seemed strange in the bluish twilight; Kálmán was standing in the open door of the pigpen, watching something intently, something the raised lamp lit up in the dark.

The flame flickered and smoked under the glass, its yellow light licking Kálmán's bare arms, back, and neck.

From early spring until late autumn, as soon as he got home from school, Kálmán would kick off his shoes, pull off his shirt and trousers, and lounge about in his long johns all day, and as I had occasion to observe, he also slept in them.

A deep rattling sound was coming from inside the pigpen, which soon rose into a high squeal, suddenly stopped short, and after a brief pause reverted to a deep-throated rattle.

But he didn't look funny in his black long johns, his strong legs and muscular buttocks filling them out completely, the creases and folds of the fabric, faded into gray from washing, hugging his large body and accommodating all its possible moves, stretching over his stomach, bulging around his crotch, fitting itself to him like a second skin, making him look naked.

The dog stopped listlessly in front of the pen, wagged its tail, and then, as if it had changed its mind, decided to get behind Kálmán and settle down there on its hind legs as it let out a somewhat nervous yawn. -

In a stall separated from the other pigs, a huge sow was lying on her side; Kálmán had raised the lamp so high that the light was partly cut off by the door frame, and at first all I saw were her teats sprawled on the sloshy floor and her rump turned in our direction
—the sounds were coming from the darkness.

I wanted to ask what was happening but decided not to.

Certain questions one had better not ask Kálmán; he wouldn't answer them.

He must have been standing there for a long time, that's why he was resting his forehead on the door beam, staring into the pen, motionless, almost indifferently, but I knew him well enough to recognize this look as a sign of tension near the breaking point, if not the point of explosion.

And as I stood next to him and watched what he was watching, the sow's eyes and open snout began to emerge from the dimness; we listened to her rattling, the sudden breaks in her breathing, the whistling of her narrowing and expanding nostrils that became a sharp squeal; and all this time she was trying to stand up, though her short, thrashing legs seemed unable to find the ground, as if a great force were holding her back; her thick skin rippled helplessly over the heavy layers of fat on her foundering body; contradictory impulses made all her muscles twitch at once; then suddenly, without even looking at me, Kálmán thrust the lamp into my hand and climbed into the stall.

I tried to hold the lamp straight; the glass cover was hot, and if the kerosene sloshed a little over the wick, the lamp started to smoke and the flame blackened.

Kálmán must have been afraid a little, because he flattened himself against the partition of the pen, ready for any eventuality.

Maybe he was scared the sow would get angry and bite him.

But then he grabbed hold of the pig's head, at the base of her ears, scratching her, trying to calm her, and though the animal gave an angry grunt, he managed slyly to keep her head flat against the floor, so that with his other hand he could explore, and not too gently either, the mountainous belly and sunken hollow of her flank; to this she responded with expectant silence.

And then he made another curious move
—until then I hadn't noticed that under the darkly wrinkled anus, her fully dilated vaginal cleft, like a huge multilayered set of pink lips, spilled out of her body and hung, swollen, clean, firm, silky, and smooth, over her rump streaked with feces and urine; Kálmán now passed his finger ever so carefully over this live, burning crater of flesh, and the responding quiver of her rump was just as delicate as his touch had been, but then he quickly backed out of the stall and obliviously wiped his finger on his thigh.

The animal seemed to be looking straight at us.

Impatiently Kálmán grabbed the lamp from me; the pig's watchful eye dissolved in the darkness, she was quiet for a few seconds, all we could hear were the restless grunts and stomping feet of the other animals in the adjacent stall; and once again Kálmán leaned his forehead against the splintery beam.

It's been an hour, her waters broke at least an hour ago, he said.

It would have been silly to ask what waters.

And they left her here, just upped and left, he said, the words erupting with such force that the lamp began to shake in his hand, the glass knocking against the door beam, and he cried out again, desperately, but his body remained stiff, the tension wouldn't let the tears come, he tried to swallow but choked; they left her here alone, he repeated a third time, even though they knew, they knew and still they left, the bastards.

The sow's rump twitched on the slick floorboard, her head fell back and flip-flopped, then slipped along the floor, because she kept opening her mouth as if gasping for air, and it was horrible to hear no sound issuing from her despite the cramped straining.

Something was happening inside her that was not ending.

He must get his father.

Kálmán's father and his two much older brothers were bakers; the bakery where they worked used to belong to them, so Kálmán, being the son of a former property owner, was considered a "class alien," as was Krisztián; the men would leave in the afternoon to prepare the dough and light the ovens, and return early the next morning, after the bread had all been baked and delivered; his mother also left the house after the two cows had come back from the pasture and she had milked them; she had a night job cleaning wards at János Hospital.

So we were both free; no one at home ever asked me where I was off to, and Kálmán was left alone every night.

At our feet, the dog was switching its tail and whimpering quietly.

Kálmán shoved the lamp into my hand again, and he seemed hesitant
— I thought he was going to run for help, after all, which would have meant leaving me there, alone and helpless, with this horrible thing; I would have liked to say, You stay here, I'll go—or just go without saying anything—but now the pig was slipping and sliding so quietly that Kálmán decided to climb in again.

I moved closer, to give him more light; I wanted to do it right, though I had no idea what he could possibly do, or whether he knew what one was supposed to do in a situation like this; but somehow I trusted him, he'd know what to do, even if at the moment he looked as though he didn't
—when it came to plants and animals, he knew everything; to me the sight was so incomprehensible, the feelings it aroused so confusing, and the suffering (which, because of our helplessness, immediately became our own suffering) so overwhelming, giving us neither time nor strength to escape, that I was grateful to him for not leaving me there, for trying to do something, in a way doing it for me, so that all I had to do was hold that lamp straight.

He crouched behind the animal's rump and for long seconds did nothing.

In the stench and stifling heat it was getting harder and harder to breathe, but that didn't bother me then, because I sensed the presence of death, though I knew I was witnessing birth.

And then he slowly lifted one of his hands, raised it from his lap, oddly, tentatively, with a pensive look on his face, his fingers loosely crooked, and slipped the hand through the thick folds of those swollen rosy lips; I could see his hand disappear up to his wrist.

This made the animal twitch, and she was finally able to breathe; when the next contraction wrenched her body, the sound she emitted was not so much a rattling as a retching one; she was kicking and slobbering, and snapping her teeth, as if ready to bite Kálmán.

He yanked his hand free, but could not get away while still crouching, I was blocking his way, standing with the lamp in the narrow doorway, too scared to jump back quickly; he plopped down on his butt, right into the muck.

But the pig dropped her head back, her mouth still open, hawking and gasping in irregular bursts, snapping at the precious air, and from below bristled lashes, her light-brown eyes seemed to be fixed on Kálmán.

I could feel the even panting of the dog on my leg.

As the sow lay there, looking at Kálmán, I saw that the whites of her eyes, bulging almost completely out of their sockets, were all bloody.

By then Kálmán wasn't trying to figure out what to do
—he was also watching those eyes—he got on his knees, sank his hand again into the animal's body, and as he slowly penetrated farther, paying no attention to slipping and sliding in urine and shit, he laid his body on the animal's swollen side, pressing down with his full weight; they were looking at each other all the while and breathing together, because as he pressed down, the animal exhaled smoothly, and when he lifted his body slightly, she inhaled helpfully; his arm was inside her, up to his elbow, but then, as though hit by an electric shock, he jerked out his hand and, his whole body shaking violently, he began to yell at the top of his voice.