Tranquility (4 page)

“Yes,” I said.

That's all that came to my mind, even though the moss-covered nest with the Pelecanidae was our family's coat of arms – until things like that had gone out of fashion. To be more accurate, the phoenixes were still going up in flames, the large brown bears were still snarling, the winged lions were busy roaring on the better escutcheons, and the entire heraldic fauna was still flourishing when the blood with which our pelican fed its young had already turned to water. That was the reason my mother, at age seventeen, could make her debut as Juliet without having to blush for the past, and I, also without feeling ashamed, could delight in the Günther Wagner variety of the pelican nest emblazoned on the cap of my Pelikan fountain pen.

.   .   .

About ten years ago, I spent weeks going to a second-hand dealer because I had decided that by Christmas I'd retrieve our ancient coat of arms for my mother. Mr. Rosenberg and I became pals, we already greeted each other with Shalom, still he had nothing better to offer me than a fountain pen; what I wanted, however, was some parchment or at the very least some etching taken from an old book. Somehow, I didn't like the idea of putting a pen in my mother's hand. And I did have my Montblanc. No way would I exchange the bakelite snowflake for a nest full of cackling pelicans, I thought. I already knew the floor plan of the Dachau concentration camp as well as I knew the palm of my own hand, could tell you the name of every kapo and find the soup cauldron with my eyes closed, even in my dreams, still I'd be gripped by the awful thought that the only reason I went to the pawnshop every day was because I couldn't make up my mind: the Montblanc or the Pelikan; and then I told old Rosenberg to sell the pen to some collector because I had no use for it, and he said I should stop talking nonsense, not to be so touchy, and if he went along with that kind of attitude he might as well eat turnip soup all his life. Believe me, he said, you need this pen more than a hundred sheepskins. He offered to take it home, wash it out, and put a good dose of people's democratic ink into it, because I didn't have any. And I soaked the pen in lukewarm water for a whole night to get the little pump working again; and it was already working for weeks but I still didn't know what to do with it. Then somebody was going to Brussels, and from then on I used this pen to write my sister's letters to my mother.

.   .   .

“Have you ever been here before?” asked the priest.

“No, I haven't. But I'll try to feel at home,” I said.

“Most recently the place belonged to the workers' militia,” he said.

“Looks like they used it well,” I said.

“They had their rifle practice back there, in the apple orchard. At first, they used regular cardboard targets, but when the local dogcatcher joined the club, they also availed themselves of stray dogs. Of course, that seems like a children's prank when compared to a priest annihilating his flock with sacred wafers.”

“I'll be straight with you, Father, I was hoping you harbored none of that clerical resentment,” I said.

“Come on, clerical resentment left me a long time ago. Why do you think they transferred me to this godforsaken place from a cathedral in which kings had been crowned? By your criteria, I am a positively good priest.”

I held the flashlight for him while he worked the key inside the lock, and then we stepped into the kitchen that used to be the gym and he turned on the light.

“Unfortunately, they took the wall bars with them, but the springboards and the vaulting horses are still kept in the attic.”

“Out in the world, one's expectations are different.”

“Well, what would you like, celery or liver dumpling soup?”

“Celery.”

“I could make some eggs.”

“Don't bother,” I said. “Your cook's run away?”

“Yes, but let's call her my wife. True, there was no marriage before God, but wife fits her more than any other description.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing special. I taught geography, she physics, and then a new gym
teacher came to our school. I don't suppose I am adding anything new to the many moving tales of love. Luckily, there are no children.”

“In general, though, the road from divorce doesn't always lead straight to joining the clergy.”

“I was lucky. I might say I had a divine experience. My hand slipped in the school library and instead of
The Golden Ass
of Apuleius, I took Saint Augustine's
Confessions
off the shelf.”

“Not bad for a divine experience.”

“Maybe a bit too much for a beginner. At first, I must have been more zealous than was necessary, because I was asked very soon to leave education. I calmed down and, at thirty, enrolled in theological studies. That's about the size of it.”

“And what did you take off the shelf once they transferred you to this Godforsaken place?”

“Again Saint Augustine's
Confessions
.”

.   .   .

While the water for the celery soup was heating on the gas, we brought in some wood and built a fire in the guest room, in the weapons room, to be more exact; and to be even more exact, in the smoking room of one of the Weér counts of yore who, according to my calculations, must have been my great-great-granduncle or my great-great-great-granduncle, but in the worst case one of the cousins of my great-great-granduncle. I didn't really have anything concrete on which to base my calculations, because as the family kept dwindling, as the family's land and the laborers tilling it were diminishing, as the half-eaten leg of mutton shriveled into chicken rump bought for a fortune on the black market, as the hunting horns faded out and the cry of hungry children increased in volume, as the yelping of
foxhounds subsided and was replaced by the clatter of sewing machines on which shirts were mended, and just as the blood with which the pelican fed its young turned to water, that is how the wealth and power of bygone days increased in one's memories. So much so, that my mother took to the stage as Juliet, unashamed, as if she were the secret owner of half of Greater Hungary, and she followed the more exciting moments of nationalization by putting together all the bits of gossip she heard in the theater's snack bar. Which is to say that, like many others, she also received a brief visit from the nationalization team, but in the room she resided at the time, as a subtenant, they found nothing of worth except a first-class violin, and at the time, the working class had no use for a violin made by an Italian master. Moreover, the youthful Miss Weér kept sitting on the kitchen stool, casting occasional bewildering smiles at the three nationalization officials, whom her breasts, outlined alluringly by her silk dressing gown, had nearly jolted out of their beastly role, making them swallow hard, very humanly. Then, stammering, they begged her pardon for the inconvenience, while my mother kept silent about half of Greater Hungary.

To sum up: by the time I acquired the ancient coat of arms, in the form of a fountain pen's trademark, the telephone book had become the most reliable family tree. And I obtained not only the Budapest phone book, but also those of the rest of the country. I stole them from phone booths; if they were chained to steel brackets, I cut out the W page with a razorblade. She considered these her favorite gifts, at least during the time we still bothered to give gifts to each other. Sometimes I would hide a promising phone book until Christmas, and she would write to every single Weér that appeared in it. Some of them answered her, but usually to inform her that they had Hungarianized their name from Weérhagen or that their grandfather's
name was simply Vér, but with a name like that, which means blood, one had better not open a private health clinic. Interestingly enough, those whose ancestors were born with the name Weér never responded; the ones who learned about the more exciting moments of nationalization not in the theater's snack bar and for whom the displacement of undesirable persons was not a fairy tale heard from a third party. They were the ones who did not intend to correspond with never-seen relatives or with eight- or ten-times-removed cousins, something I began to understand in time, though my mother understood it less and less.

They must have changed their address, Son.

Yes, Mother, their address must have changed more than once, but now you should really go to bed, it's past four in the morning, I said, and when I saw that wealth kept increasing even in its demise and the former estate of the Weérs kept expanding by a few counties every year, I began, on my own, to chop up this phantom country, this cancerous giant tree. Very carefully, at first, because this is the well-known case of cutting off the branch on which one sits, but then I took an ax to it and for years I hacked away at the branches reaching into nothingness and the roots clinging to wishes and desires, until I arrived at the only palpable reality: my sister's superb master violin.

.   .   .

The firewood was wet, even with the help of kerosene we had a hard time getting the fire started in the potbelly stove. After the third or fourth attempt, the priest went outside for another batch of newspaper, while I took a closer look at the bookcases made from the weapon racks of the workers' militia. Finally, we managed to get the fire going, and the priest brought me a red sweater from one of the Dutch relief packages, so I could
hang up my jacket to dry. We went back into the kitchen, which, judging by its stuccowork, may have been designed to be a living room rather than a kitchen or a gym. While he poured the Maggi soup powder into the boiling water, I took the plates out of the credenza.

“I must admit, I thought you'd be more enthusiastic,” he said.

“Because of that coat of arms?” I asked.

“More because of the spirit of the place.”

“I wouldn't say it leaves me cold completely, but I find nothing to be enthusiastic about. We are probably the farthest out of all collateral branches of our family.”

“You're sure you don't want an omelet? I've got onions and bacon too.”

“I'm sure, thanks,” I said.

“For some reason, I thought you'd be more interested in your roots.”

“My roots are under a stage,” I said.

“A family of artists, in other words.”

“Something like that.”

“If it bothers you so much, I won't pry.”

“Good idea,” I said, and that froze the air around us a little, though all I wanted was not to let the conversation turn into an inquiry about the retired Miss Weér's wellbeing. We finished our soup in silence, and then he strolled over to the other end of the kitchen for the wine. He poured, we drank, he poured again, but we were still silent, and although I don't like to talk about the Almighty any more than I do about my mother, I said to him to go ahead, make your opening skirmish, after all it was part of his professional calling. To which he replied that if he could help it, he too would like to avoid fiascoes.

“Giving up without even trying?” I asked.

“Having listened to your horror story about Albert Mohos, I don't think even a divine experience could help you now. If I could squeeze water out of this cutting board, you'd probably say, very nice, too bad I'm not thirsty. But you will get thirsty, eventually. And I'll just wait,” he said, and then took off his cassock, hung it on the hook screwed into the side of the credenza, and that's when I noticed that both his arms were full of scars and traces of stitches.

“I wanted to beat up the gym instructor,” he said and put on a sweater.

“And you don't anymore?” I asked.

“Yes, I do. But for something else,” he said. “And he's pretty strong, too. I spent a month and a half in the hospital back then. So now I'd rather just pray for him.”

“You mean, you'll just bide your time,” I said, because for some reason I felt that if I'm not talking about my mother, then it's better that he doesn't talk about the gym teacher either. “As a matter of fact, you are the first priest who doesn't rush to help me.”

“Don't tell me that surprises you. You knew that already in the library, otherwise you wouldn't have let me drag you over here. You would have chatted very nicely with the school principal about the difficulties in education and in publishing.”

“You are probably right,” I said.

“By the way, it's the nonbelievers one can try to win over, not those who hate God,” he said, and for a second I felt somebody had spat in my face. I've got to get out of here, I thought. Take the first train back to Budapest, I thought. Or go over to the principal's house, this minute, and with fork and knife eat some chicken, I thought. Then get stinking drunk and molest the principal's sixteen-year-old daughter, I thought. And tomorrow I should
go see Eszter and tell her I can't stand this anymore, I thought. That we either try to live like human beings, or she'd better get the hell out of my life. That she should beat it back to her pine forests. Where have you been son – I was talking with somebody about God, Mother.

“I've never hated God,” I said and lit a cigarette.

“Of course you have. The way you hated the sales clerk who cheated you when weighing your candy. I would say your image of God is somewhat infantile, and you are intelligent enough to realize that. And talented enough to write about it heartrendingly. Shall I go on?”