A Book of Memories (62 page)

I also remember that I fell asleep that night with my clothes on, which I noticed only the next morning; during the night somebody covered me with a blanket; at least I didn't have to get dressed in the morning.

And I mention this not to be amusing but to point out with what trivial little advantages one is ready to console oneself at a time like this.

And when I came home from school, the two coats, Father's heavy winter coat and that other coat, were still hanging on the rack; and I heard the men's voices from the room.

I did not eavesdrop.

I don't remember how I spent the afternoon, though I vaguely recall standing in the garden and not taking off my coat all afternoon, I stayed just as I was when I'd got back from school.

I remember it growing dark as some kind of mitigating circumstance, a red twilight with a clear sky, the moon was up, and everything that had thawed out during the day now refroze, snapping and crackling under my feet as I cut across the forest.

Only when I got as far as Felh
ő
Street up on the hill, and saw Hédi's window, the closed curtain and the light inside, did I become conscious of the air, of the piercing cold I was inhaling.

Two little girls were coming down the darkening street, pulling and yanking a sled that kept getting stuck in the dips and mounds on the icy roadway.

A hell of a time to go sledding, I said to them, the snow had just about melted.

They stopped, gave me a dumb look, but one of them tilted her head a little, stuck her neck forward angrily, and said very quickly, That's not true, on Városkúti Road there's still plenty of snow.

I offered them two forints if they went in and told Livia to come out.

They didn't want to do it or didn't understand, but when I took a handful of change from my pocket and showed it to them, the one with the big mouth took a few coins.

I'd taken the money from János's coat before I left the house; I just scooped it all out, every last coin.

They dragged the sled with them across the schoolyard; I kept pointing and yelling to show them which door to take to the basement.

It took them a long time to maneuver the sled down the stairs, but at last it was quiet, the horrible grating and scraping sound stopped; they just had to drag that rotten sled with them, the little jerks, fearing I might steal it; for a long time nothing happened, and I was about to leave
—I decided several times that I wouldn't wait anymore, I didn't want Hédi to see me—when Livia appeared, wearing sweatpants and a blouse with its sleeves rolled up; she'd been washing dishes perhaps, or mopping the floor, and was now lugging the sled up the stairs.

She wasn't so surprised to see me standing by the fence; she put the cord in the girls' hands, they could now pull it themselves, which they did, and again the sled made terrible sounds as it scraped along the slushy schoolyard, but they also kept looking back, whispering and giggling, curious to see what the two of us might do.

Livia strode across the yard with deliberate steps, she seemed cold, kept slapping her shoulders, stooped over a little to protect her breasts from the cold; when she heard the giggling, she gave the girls such a stern look they shut up and tried to get away as fast as they could, though their curiosity slowed them down.

She came very close to the fence, and the warm kitchen smell emanating from her body and hair enveloped my face.

Those little idiots, now at a safe distance, yelled something back at us.

I said nothing to her, but she could see I was in big trouble, that's what she was seeing in my face; and my eyes were glad to see what her face had brought from their kitchen
—the perfectly ordinary, warm and friendly evening—and we both felt that this was almost like that summer when I always waited for her by the garden fence and she'd come and walk past me, except now I was the one outside the fence, and this belated switch of positions pleased us both.

She pushed her fingers through the fence, all five fingers, and I immediately leaned my forehead against them.

The lukewarm tips of her fingers barely touched my forehead, and when my face also wanted to feel them, she pressed her palm on the rusty wires and through the spaces my mouth found the warm smell of her hand.

She quietly asked what had happened to me.

I'm leaving, I said.

Why?

I said I couldn't stand it anymore at home, and just came to say goodbye.

She quickly withdrew her hand and looked at me, trying to see on my face what had happened, and I felt I had to tell her, even though she didn't ask.

My mother's lover is more important to her, I said, and I felt a short, stabbing pain, as if hitting a live nerve, but what I'd said could not be expressed any other way, and so even the pain felt good.

Wait, she said, truly alarmed, I'm coming with you, be right back.

While I waited for her, the short stab-like pain passed but left behind a queasiness, because, although less intensely, the pain caused by my not-exactly-precise sentence was still coursing through my body, spreading, branching out inside me, reaching every nerve, every cell, with some kind of sensation, like the root of a thought, swinging at the tip of each nerve ending; yet there was nothing more, or closer to the truth, that I could tell her; the pain ran its course and was subsiding, but at the same time
— more significantly than the pain and in apparent tune with the beating of my heart—my brain kept repeating the words "with you, with you," but I didn't understand how she could come with me, how she could even think about it.

By now it was almost completely dark, the yellow glow of streetlamps softened the cold blue darkness.

She must have been afraid I'd leave, because I didn't have to wait long before she came running, her coat still unbuttoned, holding her scarf and red cap in her hand; but she stopped and carefully closed the gate, the lock was missing, it had to be fastened with a piece of wire.

She looked at me expectantly, and this would have been the time to tell her where I was going, but I felt that if I did, it would be all over, the whole thing would seem impossible and absurd, like saying that I wished to leave this world
—which in fact was true; when I had pried open the desk drawer, for a moment I had hesitated between the money and the pistol, but this was something I couldn't tell her.

I did want to run away, for good, but we were no longer children.

With a beautifully peaceful, circular motion she wrapped the scarf around her neck, waiting for me to say something, and because I didn't, she pulled on her cap, too, and just looked at me.

I couldn't tell her not to come, and against my will I squeezed out the words, Come on; if I hadn't said that, my decision would have become meaningless even for myself.

Thoughtfully she looked me over, not just my face, and said I was pretty stupid not to wear a cap and where were my gloves; I said I didn't care; she purposely didn't put on her gloves and gave me her hand.

I grasped the small warm hand, and we had no choice but to get started.

She was marvelous for not asking any more questions, for not asking anything, for knowing exactly what she had to know.

Walking along Felhó Street, hand in hand, there was no need to say anything; our hands were talking excitedly, about something entirely different, naturally enough; when one hand feels the warmth of the other and finds its place inside the other, it's a good sensation, but also unfamiliar, and the palm gets a bit scared; then, with little squeezes, the fingers come to help, and the reluctant muscles of the palm relax into the soft frame of the other palm, fit into its dark shelter, and that seems so right that with great relief the fingers clasp each other, closely entwine; but this poses a further complication, because the very pressure of the hands keeps them from feeling what they really want to feel.

The fingers should be completely relaxed to the point of having no will of their own; they should just be, wanting nothing, and they should be allowed to stay entwined; but then a light, playful curiosity surfaces from the fingertips: what's it like to touch, to stroke, to want to feel, and yes, to want the tiny little cushions of that other palm, to go down into the little valleys created by the clasping fingers and in gentle brushings against and cautious retreats from the skin to explore the other hand, until slowly and gradually these contacts are transformed into a firm grip; and then I was deliberately squeezing her hand hard, pressing her into myself, let her ache, too; and she cried out
—but of course it wasn't too serious— just as we began the steep climb up Diana Road.

We didn't look at each other after that; we wouldn't have dared.

Hands is what we were then, because it seems that the pain was serious, after all; offended and hurt, her hand wanted to pull out of mine, but my gentleness wouldn't let it, and with diminishing force we glided down from the peak of her little pain to a quiet reconciliation, which was so final that all previous struggle and play lost their meaning.

We continued on Karthauzi Road, and though I had no set route in mind, I led her instinctively and confidently in a direction I felt proper, which would take us to my uncertain, distant destination, which I'd picked out with a rather childish self-assurance; still, I don't regret my impulsiveness; but for her hand, the feeling that we could not change the situation would have paralyzed me; if I had been alone, if her hand hadn't forced me to take responsibility for my impulsive, senseless adventure, I would certainly have turned back at some point, the remembered warmth would have lured me back to the place whither, in my right mind, I could never have returned; but with her hand in mine, there was no turning back; and now, as I reminisce and follow the two of them with my sentences, I can only keep nodding like an old man: yes, let them go on, good luck to them; their foolishness, I must admit, is very dear to me.

Above us, on the still snowy embankment, two lit-up but nearly empty cars of the cogwheel train passed by; only a few people were trudging along the road, meaningless shadows of the world we had left behind.

We carried our shared warmth in our clasped hands. When the two hands rested motionless in each other for a little too long, it seemed, not only because of the cold but also because of having grown used to each other, that one hand began to lose the other; it was time to change position, but carefully, so the new hold wouldn't upset the peace and calm of the old one.

At times our two hands fit so well, found such a natural and balanced position, that it was hard to tell which one was mine or where exactly was hers, whether I was holding hers or the other way around, which caused the vague fear that I might lose my hand in hers, a fear that then became the reason for shifting position.

The strange shadows were gone, we were alone; the crunching of our hurried, perhaps too hurried, steps echoed into the ill-lit road, into the darkness the moonlight conjured out of the bare trees; we heard dogs barking, sometimes in the distance, sometimes close by; in the air
—so cold that the fine hairs in our noses froze with every breath, a very pleasant sensation—we could smell the acrid smoke of chimneys; on the left side of the road, in the gardens below, snow was glimmering in large patches; the smoke was coming from these mostly darkened villas.

There was a full moon that night, and walking up the Swiss Steps we came face-to-face with it; there it was, glowing at the top of the steps, as if its motionless round visage had been waiting just for us.

This interminably long set of steps confused our hands; on the flat road our steps had automatically assumed a harmonious rhythm, but now either I pulled her or she pulled me, and it wasn't even the stairs disrupting the rhythm, for we still managed to stay together on them, but the interim landings; every third stair was followed by a landing that took four steps to cross; on one of these, in the middle of taking the four flat steps
—I was actually counting them—she asked me where I wanted to go.

She didn't ask where we were going but where I wanted to go, and asked it as if the question were part of her heavy breathing, and therefore the wording didn't seem crucial, so I didn't have to stop.

To my aunt, I said.

Which wasn't quite true.

But luckily she didn't ask me anything else, and we kept climbing the stairs, still not looking at each other, which was just as well.

Perhaps a half hour went by, and when we reached the top we looked down, as involuntarily one always does from the top.

And as we did, to see how far we had come, our faces brushed against each other, and I could see that she wanted to know, but I had nothing to say, or rather, it would have been too complicated to tell her, and then, both at once, we let go of each other's hand.

I started walking, she followed me.

Rege Street is mildly steep here; I quickened my pace, fleeing from having to explain things; and then, after a few steps taken in this state of nervous estrangement, she reached out her hand to me.

She reached after me because she already knew, and I could feel it from her hand, that she would leave me, and my hand did not want to make her stay, it wanted to let her go.

We kept walking on the treeless hilltop, past the hotel's long wire fence, and where the fence ended, the city's last lamppost waited for us with its yellow light in the blue darkness, as if illuminating thé outer limits of our possibilities; the road ended there, only a trail led farther, nothing but a few lonely oaks and sparse shrubs; and after we left this last yellow light behind us, I sensed that at any moment my hand might let go of hers.

We walked on like this for another half hour, maybe a little less.

We were inside the deep Wolf Valley, whose high rims were covered with untouched, bluish snow; snow crackled and crunched under our feet; and there it finally happened.

She stopped; I immediately let go of her hand, but she held on to my open palm and looked back at me.

She kept looking, but could not see what she wanted to see, couldn't see the lights we had left behind; we were deep inside the valley.