Tranquility (23 page)

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When I opened the shutters, I had no idea how many days I had been wallowing in the room reeking with the smell of vomit and a feverish body. Eszter was standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. I would have liked to close the shutters again but she already saw me. I motioned to her to wait, quickly changed clothes and was about to leave when I asked myself what would happen if she had come up. No, that's impossible. She'd never come up, I thought; if she'd wanted to, she would have come up by now. No, for her, that half a minute was enough for a lifetime, I thought while stuffing my tattered clothes and the puke-stained sheets under the bed, and then I realized that my face was still smeared with artificial blood, which she most likely had seen. Yes, she must have, and I went to the bathroom to wash off the paint – and my mother was sitting there before the mirror like a statue. She must have been sitting there like this all the time, I thought. She must feel real lousy, I thought. I shouldn't have asked who that woman was, I thought. And she must also have run out of bread days ago, I thought, and I called to her to say that I'm going to Eszter's, Mother, because I wanted her to know I wasn't going to that other woman, and then I said I'd first bring her some bread.

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“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Since two,” she said, swallowing her tears.

“What time is it now?” I asked.

“Five thirty,” she said, still without breaking down completely.

“Come on, I've got to buy bread for my mother,” I said and put my arm around her shoulders and we walked silently to the food shop. Her hair was in a bun, like a widow's, there were rings under her eyes, and I thought that I could have come downstairs right away, just as I was, in my vagina-smelling rags because I was going to tell her everything anyway. I'd only do
the shopping, then take her home and tell her the whole thing. Yes, I'd tell her exactly the way I usually tell her my dreams. The only difference is that this happened before falling asleep, I thought, and the basket was already full with inedible canned food and no need for them powdered soups when I noticed the bluish imprint of that woman's teeth on my wrist. I pulled down the sleeve of my jacket and by then I knew that I'd be willing to lie straight into Eszter's face, about anything, throughout my whole life.

“Haven't you got anything to say?” she asked when we got home.

“I have temperature,” I said.

“If only I had known what was wrong with you. I thought I'd die right there under the window.”

“I'm telling you, I came down with a temperature. I ate my sister's chalk.”

“But why?”

“I felt like it. I wanted to be feverish, and succeeded too well. That's all.”

“I even went to the publishers' to see if they knew anything about you,” she said and I felt my stomach churn.

“Don't you ever go there again! Do you hear? I don't need your patronizing! I can take care of my own affairs!” I yelled, and she looked at me petrified. “I've had enough! It's more than enough for me that my mother keeps asking where have you been son and when are you coming back, you understand? I had a temperature! I ate chalk and got a temperature, just like I used to when playing hooky in school! I want to play hooky! I don't have any extravagant wishes, I just want to play hooky; just hang around for no purpose at all, if no place else, at least on the shithouse chain. Can you comprehend that?! So, don't you go around asking about me, and stop loitering under my window! I'm not going around asking about you! I obey
you; no inquiries about how you had spent your life before you wound up in the loony bin! I will not wind up in the madhouse, is that clear?! There is nothing in my life about which I cannot tell you or anyone else! Is that clear?! As long as I don't know who your father is, you've no business standing around under my window! As long as I can only guess who fucked you into insanity in your childhood!” I screamed.

“Don't you ever come here again,” she said quietly, and I thought I'd fall on her throat, and then I kicked the desk so hard it spun around freely in the air and then came down, its top hitting the floor first. I threw the key at her and was already in the foyer when the wooden case of the typewriter split open as it made contact with my head. When I came to, she was sitting on top of me, pummeling my face with her fists.

“Nobody fucked me into insanity, you understand?! You fucked your own mother into insanity! I know you two fucked! I know! You leave me alone, you louse! Don't you dare call me insane! Get out of my apartment! Get the hell out of my life, you writer!” she screamed and dug her nails into me to pluck out my heart and shove it down my throat.

“Let go of me, you piece of rot!” she screamed when I pressed her hand to the concrete floor.

“I'll kill you!” she yelled when I tore off her dress.

“I'll kill you and your mother, too! Don't touch me!” she sobbed and spat in my face, but our waists were convulsing together, she bit my lips bloody, and her legs clamped around me and held me in a vise like iron shackles.

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It probably happened on the way from Bucharest, but definitely on the Transfogaras highway. Probably as if in a routine road check, but it was
certain the man in uniform was not the senior officer or official. And it probably happened at night, though it may have been in daytime.

The man in uniform asked only for the travel report, but that wasn't enough for the two civilians. In their view, it was superfluous to refer so vehemently to constitutional rights, since after yesterday's reception the comrade minister was not content. The district attorney was probably no longer alive when they put him back into the car, but it's certain that the eleven hundred cc engine was not running when the white Dacia dropped down eighty meters.

At first, Adél Fehér insisted only on opening the lid of the coffin, then she would have insisted on an autopsy, and finally she referred to UN resolutions, constitutional rights, and began taking measures to prevent being shipped off to an insane asylum. For example, she wrote many letters to acquaintances at home and abroad, and all these letters in the end arrived at the same address; and she made many phone calls, but there were always three people on the line, and one of them never said anything. In short, when it was becoming truly risky to lock her up in an asylum, two plainclothes men helped her, in her sorrow over her husband's death, to hurl herself in front of the 4:20 express.

Then something went wrong in the system and the authorities came for the child only several days later, though the orphanage at Marosvécs had been notified in advance to expect the arrival of a new six-year-old.

It took another half a year before the head of the orphanage made up her mind and, against instructions from higher up, handed over Eszter Fehér to the old gentleman who every week, in starched shirt and with a walking cane, appeared out of nowhere.

Mór Fehér, Sr. was also aware of the law, but had not referred to it for
more than forty years. Only by referring to emotional reasons did he want to gain custody of his grandchild, whom he had seen for the first time, also for emotional reasons, at the funeral of Mór Fehér, Jr.; you see, we are only half-Hungarian, our other half's gone up in smoke, but son, we never marry half-Romanian women even if they are Protestant.

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In short, in a half-year's time, comrade Porumb decided that if it was worth it, the most delicate matter could be solved by a little clever paperwork. After all, in an orphanage one's name makes no difference, order is much more important, and so a newly arrived mute gypsy girl became Eszter Fehér, and the real Eszter Fehér was free to pack her things and leave. Comrade Porumb was greatly strengthened in her decision by two silver fruit dishes, a twelve-place Meissen dinner set, a gold-cased Schaffhausen watch, and three Mednyánszky paintings; she realized only later that with a bit more perseverance, she could have done even better.

The old gentleman and the child sat in the back, a horse-smelling man drove the hundred-year-old Pobeda. Every few kilometers they changed the water in the radiator, and then turned off the highway onto dirt roads and, leaving the shore of the river, entered an area of streams and brooks; dawn was breaking when they arrived at the out-of-the-way place, so remote it may have been behind God's back. In front of the house on the lake, Eszter said, “I've got to pee,” which was remarkable because this was the first thing she had said in half a year. From that moment on, and for the next twelve years, everything progressed flawlessly because half-Hungarian-half-aristocratic-half-philosophers-turned-country-photographers, and villages left off maps, along with pine forests behind God's back, are basically flawless.

And then a flaw slipped into the flawlessness; in their advanced age,
certain tissues began to grow wild, and when there was no doubt that to live another day wasn't worth the effort, the old gentleman made Eszter fetch the veterinarian with whom they often played cards and occasionally chess, though he wasn't very good at the latter.

First, the horse-doctor finished up what God would have fiddled with for days, then helped get rid of the house without asking for anything except a few books out of the ten thousand, and he even found out who one should see in the emigration department.

If we take Comrade Fenyő as the standard, then comrade Vultur was almost human. He took a passport out of one drawer and put the price of the passport into another, but this won't be enough, he said, and then locked the padded door with a key, because it was obvious that with a person ready to pay half the cost of a housing settlement for a single passport, anybody can do anything. He didn't ask many questions, deflowering had been his weakness for many years; he liked it best if during the act fists pummeled his face, which he would not resist. Slobbering and panting, he withstood the pummeling and also offered his consolation, namely: don't you worry, if there is a problem, those Horthyist doctors over the border will clean out your little Jewish cunt, my angel.

“And then, with one suitcase and eleven thousand and three hundred forints I arrived at the Nyugati Station in Budapest, and after sitting on a bench along track five for the second straight day, they took me first to the police station and then to the László Hospital. I hope you feel much better now.”

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We were lying on the shore of a lake that had been formed by groundwater filling up an abandoned mine. It was already dark; the local vendors had long closed their stands, only a few people remained under the stunted
acacias. One of the daddies made a last splash to show the family how to take a real headfirst dive, and then they too began gathering their things. The men put out the fires, the women folded the camping chairs and tables, the children deflated the rubber mattresses; they packed everything into two Zastavas and we were left to ourselves. Lying on my back, I was looking for satellites in the sky but saw only the flashing lights of an airplane. I'd probably be scared up there, I thought, at least until rising above the clouds. The ones already up there, I thought, probably think they're closer to God. Then I thought they really had nothing left to count on except God, because there wasn't even a single cloud under them.

“I want you to move in with me,” she said.

“You know perfectly well that's impossible.”

“No it isn't. I didn't say right away or that you should abandon your mother. All I want is for us to live like people should. Not just us, but your mother too.”

“Even Christ could bring back only the recent dead.”

“I'm not talking about a corpse but about your mother. She'll never leave the apartment so long as there is somebody to lock the door on her, do her shopping for her, and send her phony letters. And I think she even knows that you're writing them.”

“If she did, I would too.”

“Maybe. That makes no difference anyway. I want you to call Judit home. She is the only one who could help her.”

The wind began to blow; I spread a blanket over me and kept quiet.

“At the time I made inquiries here and there, but nobody heard from her. She must have changed her name.”

“The bank in Zurich should be able to tell you from whose account the money is sent to your mother.”

“Out of the question. If they gave out information like that they'd have to close shop.”

“I know somebody at the Red Cross. They'll find her, no matter where she is.”

“They may find her, but they can't pass on her address unless she agrees to it.”

“Why don't you want to find her?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said.

“That was worth a hundred ‘I don'ts,'” she said.

“But I do.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I don't know.”

“I can tell you, if you want me to.”

“Of course you can. But that doesn't mean that then I'll know.”

“Did you see that?”

“What?”

“A falling star.”

“I didn't.”