Temptation

  “Don’t worry,” I said curtly, manfully, and tried to look impassive, because the news had got me very excited.

  And I was curious about this letter from the Schoolmaster, too. All he’d said to me was that he’d sent a telegram; he never said he’d sent my mother a letter as well. Did he really write that I’d be somebody? My palms sweated with pride.

  “What’ll I do there, in this hotel?”

  “You’ll be a boy.”

  “What’s that, then?”

  “It’s a . . . boy. You know. That’s what they call ’em. They got these red uniforms and the fancy people send ’em to and fro.”

  “And what’s one of them paid, then?”

  “Nothing,” she explained. “ ’Cause you have to be apprenticed four years and the hotel don’t pay apprentices. But there’s some very fine ladies and gentlemen that live there, and the head porter says they tip like anything. Sometimes, he says, you can make two or three pengős a day, but maybe he was talking big on account of the free washing.”

  I started counting in my head. If the head porter said a boy like that earned two or three pengős a day, then he might actually make one or two, and that would be fifty pengős a month. That’s a lot; too much, I thought warily. There must be something wrong about all this. I asked:

  “What hours do you work at this hotel, then?”

  “The usual,” my mother said, “morning till night.”

  There, I said to myself. So that’s it.

  “Can’t do it,” I said.

  “Can’t do it?” my mother looked at me in shock. “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause I have to go to school.”

  “The hell you do. You’re gone fourteen, you’ve finished primary, the law says you’re fine.”

  “The rich make the laws,” I said knowingly. “And us poor stay poor if we don’t learn.”

  “You’ve learnt enough. The Schoolmaster’s very pleased with you.”

  “Oh,” I shrugged, “that’s nothing. Take world history. What did we learn of that? It was all Hungarian history we did. And that’s good, too, don’t get me wrong, but the real thing is world history; that’s how you find out what goes on in the world and why, don’t you? Then there’s natural history. Never learnt that, neither. But that’s what teaches you how the world is made, and without it you just sit there on the tram like an idiot, not knowing what makes it go with no engine. And languages! I’m going to learn lots of languages, ’cause the Schoolmaster says that with Hungarian, you only get as far as the border, and beyond that, it’s no use speaking it, there ain’t no one to understand.”

  “So what?” smiled my mother. “You don’t want to go abroad.”

  “Don’t I!” I blurted out. “I want to see the whole world! God didn’t make it for people not to see it. You ever been abroad?”

  “Me?” my mother laughed. “Why would I have been abroad?”

  “Well, ain’t you curious?”

  “ ’Bout what?”

  “The world. It’s such an amazing place! D’you have any idea of all the things out there in the world? In Venice, they say, even them great marble palaces are built on piles.”

  “What?”

  “Piles. Because, believe it or not, there’s rivers in the streets, and you’ve got to take a boat just to go to the shops. And in Paris there’s a tower as high as Gellért Hill. I forget what it’s called but it’s made of steel, and it’s so big there’s even inns on it. And America! You heard of them hundred-storey palaces? And them incredible countries where the Arabian Nights is set? And Africa? And the jungle, where they hunt tigers? Well, I want to see all that—all of it. I want to meet all the peoples, the yellow ones and the black ones, and the copper-skinned Indians. And the seas. The Black Sea that our Danube flows into, and the China Sea, where they got them wild typhoons. D’you know what that is, a typhoon?”

  “Look here, Béla,” my mother said, somewhat impatiently. “That’s all very well and good, you bein’ so um . . . what’s the word, anyway you knowin’ everythin’ and wantin’ to see everythin’. But your mother’s poor, and . . . you get me.”

  “You think I don’t want to work?” I protested. “I worked for the old woman like a slave. And I don’t want nothing different now. All I’m saying is I want work that I can do and go to school besides.”

  “There ain’t no work like that.”

  “ ’Course there is! There’s all them newspaper boys. I saw them all over the street. Why couldn’t I do that? I could go to school in the morning, and then I could sell papers till late at night.”

  “You’d starve.”

  “Well, I’d do something else, then.”

  “Like what, exactly?”

  That I couldn’t say. My mother smiled.

  “That’s all crazy talk,” she said. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you use your head? You’ll be in the best hotel in the country, and if you work hard, in fifteen or twenty years, you could be head porter.”

  “But I don’t want to be head porter, don’t you understand?”

  “What do you want to be, then, prime minister?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I replied hesitantly, like someone who’s considered the question but hasn’t yet come to a decision. “That depends on what sort of a government Hungary’ll have. Because I’d never be prime minister for this lot, not if they paid me ten pengős a day. They’re all a bunch of thieves, they are, a bunch of thieving gentlemen is how the Schoolmaster said it, and the poor folk won’t stand for it much longer.”

  My mother looked at me, horrified.

  “What you sayin’, child?” she shook her head. “Was he a Commernist, that Schoolmaster of yours?”

  All we village children knew about “commernists” was that they were mainly Jews whose primary occupation was betraying the fatherland.

  “How could you say such a thing?” I snapped. “The Schoolmaster ain’t a Jew.”

  “No, he ain’t a Jew,” my mother grumbled. “He’s worse. He’s a drunk, always was. And he leads all them poor dumb children astray, I don’t know how the ground don’t swallow him up. He’s a Commernist, I’m tellin’ you, and you’re talking like one too. But there won’t be no Commernism in my house. I make my livin’ decently, and so will you, or I’ll wring your neck. We’re going to that hotel tomorrow, and I don’t want to hear any more of that talk out of you.”

  With that, it seemed, she considered the subject closed. She stood up, cleared the table, and started doing the dishes.

  I hated her again the way I had when I was a little child. The Schoolmaster was, for me, everything fine and good in life, and she, who had so belittled him, just the opposite. She didn’t so much as look at me for eight years, I said to myself, didn’t even send me a ragged pair of shoes so I wouldn’t freeze my feet off, and now she wants me to waste my mind for the two or three pengős some bloody head porter had dangled in front of her.

  “Well, I ain’t going to that hotel,” I declared with impertinent calm, determined not to show how het up I was.

  My mother turned around so sharply the wet plate almost flew out of her hand.

  “Well what do you mean to do, then?” she cried. “Steal?”

  “I ain’t no thief,” I grumbled.

  “Is that right?” she asked with a malicious smile. “Ain’t me they locked up for stealing.”

  That was all I needed. I jumped up.

  “Don’t you go calling me a thief, or . . .”

  My mother put the plate down and came over with menacing slowness. “Or what?” she said, and her deep-set, small black eyes fixed on me angrily.

  The blood went to my head.

  “You’re one to go calling the Schoolmaster a Commernist!” I bawled. “He was better to me than my own mother. I could have dropped dead as far as you was concerned.”

  “If only,” she barked, and her great bony hand caught my arm. I think she meant to strike me, but she merely pushed me away. “Go to your room,” sh
e screamed, “or I’ll break your neck the first night!”

  Well, I wasn’t going to wait around for that. I went to the room, slamming the door good and hard behind me so she’d see that she was dealing with a man, who would retreat if he had to, but not shirk from a fight.

  “Commernist!” she screamed after me, mumbling something else I didn’t catch.

  There was silence—a suffocating, hostile silence. I stood in the middle of the room in the “family home” and suddenly caught myself yearning to be back at that despicable old woman’s with the seven other little bastard boys.

  I swore horribly. I cursed my mother and the whole “thieving world” that conspired against the children of the poor, and my overheated imagination fabricated wild plans, each more extreme than the last. I decided to run away. As to where, I had no clue, and didn’t care. I just had to get away from here, I told myself, and then whatever happened would happen.

  “What you burning that expensive petroleum for?” my mother called in. “Go to bed!”

  I started taking my clothes off. That sounds natural enough, but not for someone used to sleeping fully clothed in winter. With the exception of the night before my journey, I hadn’t undressed in almost three months. I now took off everything, like we used to do during heatwaves in the village, and climbed, bare naked, under the good warm covers.

  It was the first time in my life I’d lain in a bed. How often I’d dreamt of this on the long winter nights when I’d wake in the wet straw to the chattering of my teeth. But I couldn’t enjoy it. Under the warm covers, I realized that I wasn’t going to run away, because after all, where could I go, especially now, in winter, when I had no one and nothing in the world, not even a pair of damned trousers. Male pride or no male pride, the salt tears started flowing from my eyes, and I fell asleep like an infant crying himself slowly to sleep.

  •

  I woke to terrible swearing. A hysterical girl was pushing and shoving in the doorway, curses pouring out of her like brown filth from a broken sewer. Her hair was bright yellow, her face painted, and the lipstick on her flapping mouth all smeared. My mother was standing in front of her, barefoot and in pyjamas, trying to calm her down.

  “Manci, dear,” she kept repeating. “How was I supposed to know you’d be home on New Year’s?”

  “New Year’s or no New Year’s,” bawled the girl, “the bed’s mine and I ain’t paying good money for you to lay your dirty son in it!”

  She suddenly tottered and hiccoughed. Only now did I see she was drunk.

  “Should I make some coffee?” my mother asked meekly.

  “To hell with your coffee!” bellowed the girl. “That’s it, I’m givin’ notice.”

  “But look, Mancika,” my mother tried again, but Mancika simply shoved her out into the kitchen and slammed the door in her face.

  I would have jumped out of bed long before had I not been naked, but as it was, I didn’t know what to do. So I closed my eyes and lay still as if I was sleeping. Then there was a whiff of stale alcohol and the girl grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Get the hell out of my bed,” she shouted, “or you’ll be sorry.”

  “But I ain’t got no clothes on,” I said dumbly.

  “So? Nothing I ain’t seen before.”

  There was nothing else I could do; I jumped out of bed. But in my fright, I couldn’t find my clothes and ran about looking for them desperately.

  I suddenly felt the drunk girl looking at me. She wasn’t looking at me the way you look at a child, but . . . I didn’t yet quite know how, myself. A strange, panicky anxiety came over me. I climbed quickly into my trousers and threw on my shirt and waistcoat and, with my back to the girl, stood before the window. It was dark outside, the glass mirrored the lighted room, and I could see her starting to undress. I was an excitable young man, and used to lose my cool if the wind so much as caught a girl’s skirt, but now that I was watching this Manci undress I felt nothing but cold, frightened revulsion.

  I turned away. I heard her climb into bed and later saw her take a big swig from a bottle of pálinka. Then she spread a newspaper out before her, though only she knew why, because she certainly wasn’t reading it. She crossed her arms under her head and stared at the ceiling, immobile. You could still hear the Gypsy music from downstairs.

  “Music ain’t bad,” she mused.

  I didn’t reply. There was silence for a while.

  “Poor Gypsies,” she piped up. “They’ve got it bad too. Before, people would go around stickin’ banknotes on their foreheads, and now they’re sleepin’ in the park. And that old bitch that owns the bar comes to ’em and says, ‘Why don’t you come and play at my place, son?’ ‘Yes, ma’am!’ says the poor Gypsy. ‘How much do you pay?’ ‘Pay? How could I pay?’ the old tart gasps. ‘It’s only a little tavern, son, it don’t make any money. I just saw you there, sleeping on the bench and all, and thought you could come sleep in the bar. There’d be a bit of food in it for you.’ That’s how she gets her Gypsies, the slut. Then, if one of them turns out handsome, she pounces like a hawk and drags him into her bed. What you standing there like a mute for?” she snapped at me. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “What’s with your manners?” my mother called in from the kitchen, “Why don’t you answer Manci when she’s talkin’ to you?”

  But Manci was in a conciliatory mood.

  “Let him be,” she said. “Shakes ’em up, Pest, kid like him. I remember how frightened I was when I came up from my village. Oh well,” she sighed. “Come in, then, Anna, there’s still a bit left in the bottle.”

  My mother didn’t need asking twice. She was in such a hurry that she was still tying her underskirts, which she’d thrown over her shirt in the dark, as she walked. Manci handed her the bottle of pálinka.

  “Cheers!”

  My mother lifted the bottle.

  “Happy New Year, Manci dear!”

  Manci looked at her watch.

  “Ain’t New Year’s yet,” she said. “And maybe there’ll never be another happy one anyway. It’s a dog’s life, this, a dog’s life.”

  “What’s wrong?” enquired my mother. “Why you home on New Year’s Eve?”

  “What’s wrong?” Manci shrugged. “You can’t make a decent living from November on, on account of Christmas, ’cause anyone with money goes and spends it all on presents. So then you’re waiting for New Year’s like nothin’ else. And then this happens!”

  She laughed a nasty, sick laugh.

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  “What?” Manci’s laughter turned to tears. She buried her head in the pillow and sobbed: “It’s my time of the month!”

  My mother just stood there next to her, helpless, as if she knew that there was no comfort for a blow like this.

  “It ain’t no life, bein’ poor,” she said softly and she, too, started crying.

  Then the bells rang out, the violin downstairs played a crescendo, and there was the sound of wild cries—crazy shrieks from the women and hoarse, wine-soaked laughter from the men.

  “Happy New Year!” they croaked. “Happy New Year!”

  Well—I thought—this year’s off to a damn fine start!

  2

  IN THE MORNING, I WAS WOKEN by my mother shaking me by the shoulder.

  “Get up, will you!” she said, “We’ve got to go.”

  As to where, she didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I knew, in any case. It was a cold, sober, winter morning and I was cold and sober too. I thought of my plans—now up in smoke—the way peasants think of hail; it’s a shame, of course, but what can you do? I remembered that bitter autumn morning when the old woman had called me a gallows rat because I wanted to go to school. But I’d outsmarted her in the end, I consoled myself, and I’d outsmart my mother, too. Knowledge, like bread, was hard to come by for a poor boy. If you really wanted it, you had to steal it.

  I clambered up. There was a liverish half-light in the room. Manci was still asleep. The noise she
made as she slept sounded like she was sawing wood. As if she were trying to cut bits of wood out of her throat so she could exhale. Outside, it had stopped snowing. It ain’t no life, bein’ poor, I thought.

  I went out into the kitchen and washed. My mother put a glass of milk and a thick slice of bread in front of me. The bread wasn’t fresh, though she’d just cut it, but I wasn’t surprised by that. I knew that the poor didn’t buy fresh bread—it was too good, you ate it up too quickly. But I was surprised by the milk. Till then, I had only known milk you got from a cow or a goat. This was something else. It had been invented for us poor by the upper classes. It was called skimmed milk, but it should really have been called milkless milk instead. It was more grey in colour than white, and tasted more like water than milk. Before I drank it, I took out my little notebook and entered it—along with the bread—in the “Owed to” column. I deliberately wrote it in front of my mother, but not the way I had the stew the night before. That had been from the heart; this was nothing but bile. I wanted to show my mother that ours was a purely business relationship: and her food was merely an advance, not a gift.

  My mother didn’t say anything. She put on her faded brown coat, tied the threadbare black kerchief on her head and took the duvet and pillows off the camp bed, tying them up in the sheets. I had slept on the floor, but I too had had a duvet and some pillows. My mother took those and tied them up in a sheet, too. She brought the bundle out into the kitchen and handed it to me.

  “Take this,” she said. “I’ll take the other.”

  I was curious as to why we were taking our bedclothes to the hotel, but I didn’t ask in case she thought I was ready to make peace.

  We descended the narrow twisting stairs in silence. The dirty walls, eaten away by saltpetre, were black with graffitied comments. These highly informative little musings were primarily concerned with the relations between men and women, with an especial focus on their private parts, which the authors would illustrate, mostly beside the text, to avoid any danger of misunderstandings. These inscriptions were very varied indeed, and even included some that were quite poetic. On the third floor, I recall, someone had written “18th May 1926—We were happy” under a heart with an arrow through it. But the residents also took an interest in politics. On the wall of the second-floor toilet, someone had made a somewhat indecent suggestion to our Regent. Beside that instruction, another like-minded visitor had written in large, scrappy letters: “Mine too!!!” But the most common were phrases like: “Down with the exploiters!” “Long live organized labour!” “Capitalists, we’re coming for you!” One folksy lyricist had characterized the Prime Minister thus, between the first and second floors: