Temptation

by Janos Szekely

  “No. Why would I be? Where you born is chance, but to America people go because they don’t like where they born.”

  “Don’t you like where you were born?”

  “I do, but not because I was born there by chance.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Because is best for me there. Here in Yoorop, I see same everywhere. French man proud because French and hates German because is German. German proud because German and hates French because is French. You, Miki, proud because you Hungarian, and hate Romanian, Serb and I don’t know. Is all like that, Yoorop.”

  “Nonetheless, I am still proud to be a Hungarian,” repeated the Count, this time a little angrily.

  “Proud,” shrugged Patsy. “Look at that old man over there sweeping sand. I respect him, because I respect all work. But if he came here and told is proud because is street-sweeper and hates porter, because porter not street-sweeper, I would say street-sweeper mad. You just as mad, Miki. All Yoorop just as mad.”

  And it went on like this for half an hour. I didn’t take part in this debate, only listened in awe. My God, I thought, the way she’s talking to a Count! It must be good to be American. A rich American. Though it’s also true that being rich was probably a good thing anywhere, even in hell.

  •

  These days went by as quickly as only days of pure happiness can. August became September, and the leaves of the chestnut outside the hotel turned a rusty brown. The days were still intensely hot, but summer was blowing out its hot breath the way a runner pants before collapsing at the finish line. Autumn was climbing into the Buda hills.

  One morning, Patsy said:

  “One week today we leave, Béla.”

  My throat constricted, but I said nothing. Neither did she. We didn’t mention her leaving again. And yet it was as if we were forever saying goodbye.

  One day, she said:

  “Give me photograph, Béla.”

  “I don’t have one,” I said, ashamed.

  “Old one?”

  “No.”

  The next morning, she brought a camera with her and took a photo of me. So then I steeled myself and asked her for a picture too. It seems she’d been expecting this, because she took one out of her bag right away.

  “Old,” she said apologetically. “Still look like little girl.”

  “When’s it from?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a year.”

  I pinched a piece of letter paper and an envelope from the drawing room and wrapped the photo in them carefully, lest it come to any harm. From then on, I had it with me always, in my left-hand pocket, above my heart.

  Another time, she pointed at her hand.

  “How you like mine ring?”

  “It’s lovely,” I gushed.

  She pulled it off her finger and gave it to me.

  “To remember,” she said, blushing slightly.

  I could feel the warmth of her hand in the ring. I examined it, deeply touched. It was a thin, braided little thing, like a sort of round golden thread. There were three small stones in it, two little rubies and in the middle an even smaller diamond. I hadn’t a clue about the value of such things. I thought it cost a fortune.

  “Thank you, Patsy,” I said, moved, “I’d really like to, but I can’t take this.”

  “Why not?” she asked in surprise.

  “Because I have no ring. I have nothing to give you.”

  “Did I ask?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Don’t be so silly! This no value.”

  She kept insisting, but I held firm. Oh, but how I would have liked something to remember her by! It ain’t good to be poor, I thought.

  They left on 21st September. That was a Monday and on the Sunday I had the day off. On Saturday, Patsy suggested we took a day-trip to Visegrád.

  “Is beautiful!” she enthused. “Is old castle. Solomon Tower and everything. And the boat ride . . . oh God! I love Danube. You come?”

  “Of course!” I said happily, because the thought of spending Sunday with her was delicious.

  But when we parted, I came back down to earth. My God, I said to myself, I’ve taken leave of my senses! I can’t put on my hotel uniform on my day off, and I can hardly be seen in my rags. And anyway, where was I supposed to get the money for the outing?

  I spent the whole day wondering what to do. Finally, I wrote her a letter that evening in which I told her I’d caught a cold, had a fever, and couldn’t go to Visegrád with her. I left the letter at reception.

  “Someone just brought it,” I lied, and quickly left the hotel so I wouldn’t be there when Patsy got it.

  I had a dreary Sunday. Cadet practice was cancelled and I could finally have had a lie-in, but I had become so accustomed to getting up early that I started awake at dawn. I was alone in the flat. Manci hadn’t come home and my mother had gone to do the washing at the head porter’s because she didn’t want the work she did for free to interfere with her weekdays. The house was still asleep. It was so quiet, I could hear the dripping of the water pipe in the kitchen. She’s off tomorrow—was my first thought, and I lay in bed as if her train had already run over my heart.

  Time refused to pass though I did everything I could to kill it. I tidied up the flat, patched my clothes, washed and ironed my shirts. And it was still only nine a.m. For want of anything better to do, I started making lunch. I made potato soup, with dry crusts to go with it—good and filling. By eleven, I had even finished the washing-up and was at a definite loss what to do.

  I went and sat on the walkway in front of our door and waited for someone to come and talk to me. The kids were playing football on a vacant plot next door. I could have gone and joined them, but I couldn’t quite face it. When you work all week on an empty stomach and walk six hours a day to boot, you don’t feel like kicking a ball about on Sunday, even if you have absolutely nothing else to do. But adults didn’t come and chat to children where we lived, or at most Old Gábor, but he had recently given up treating Sunday as a day of rest. He was terribly busy. They had evicted a jobless family from the second floor and a very young locksmith had moved in in their place with his even younger wife. It had been three months since they’d come, but their flat was still as empty as the day they’d rented it. They slept on the bare floor and had two old chests and nothing else besides. So Old Gábor took pity on them. He promised to furnish the apartment on spec, if they got the raw materials together, and the locksmith got them all right. The whole thing cost him twenty fillérs, at least that’s what they said in the house. For there was a lumber yard nearby, and on the yard there was a night guard. The locksmith got friendly with this night guard and spent every night for a full week playing cards with him. He lost no more than twenty fillérs, and that only out of courtesy. Meanwhile, his little lady dragged home the wood they needed, finding it easier not to bother the owners of the yard with the details.

  So Old Gábor was working at full capacity. His weekdays were taken up with the young couple’s furniture, and it was only on Sundays that he could work on his coffin. The magnum opus still wasn’t ready. Or rather, it had been ready several times already, but Old Gábor kept starting again from scratch because he was never satisfied with it.

  “You want to do your best for them up there in heaven,” he told me once, “but it’d be nice if people down here understood it too. That’s the artist’s difficulty, my boy.”

  I listened to his hammering and all at once felt jealous. It’s good when you get to work on something you like, even if that’s making your own coffin. It’s good to believe in something, even if that something’s nonsense.

  The building was beset by dreary Sunday boredom, the open windows looked like they were yawning. You could hear Márika singing from the typesetter’s apartment:

  By the river singing, a canary

  You’ve lost your head now, young Mary

  Broke away from your true rose

  Like a dove from her partner does
/>   Well, I couldn’t take too much of that. I went into the room and lay down on the bed. I thought the same thing as so many millions of the poor: oh, I wish it wasn’t Sunday! At least on weekdays you get by somehow. Someone’s constantly breathing down your neck, you don’t have time to think. But on Sunday you’re left alone with your troubles, loneliness caging you with them like with a wild animal. It’s a bad pairing, a dangerous combination, and anything can happen. There’s no one—only the bottle of lye watching over you from beneath the sink.

  And Márika kept on singing and singing:

  Silk scarf, string of pearls,

  Oh Mary, you’ll be like those girls,

  The orphan birds that hop

  From branch to branch and never stop.

  It was only now that I got the meaning of this old song. Márika still doesn’t get it, I reflected. Good for her.

  Suddenly, there was a knock. I opened the door, and I thought I was seeing things. It was Patsy.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, stunned.

  “I ask your address,” she smiled. “Come on, let’s see. You have still fever?”

  “No,” I muttered awkwardly, and led her into the room.

  I was wearing my shorts, which were very much on their last legs, my shirt that was several sizes too small and patched to death, and the Schoolmaster’s enormous, mended shoes. It was only now that Patsy noticed, and it seemed that it had all become clear to her. She didn’t ask me about my illness any more. We sat down.

  “Your parents not home?” she asked.

  “My mother’s gone to work,” I replied evasively.

  “On Sunday?” she asked, surprised. “What kind shop she has?”

  “She doesn’t have a shop,” I said, avoiding answering again, and went from one blush to another.

  I was horribly ashamed. At first, I was ashamed only of our poverty, but then I was even more ashamed of being ashamed of it.

  “My mother’s a washerwoman,” I blurted out, “and we’re so poor that sometimes we can’t afford bread. That’s why I didn’t come today, the rest was lies. I don’t even have money for the tram, I walk six hours a day. These are my only clothes—look at them! Would you have gone to Visegrád with me looking like this?”

  Patsy did not reply. She was looking at the picture of the Virgin above the bed, as if that were the only thing she was interested in. But her face was white as a sheet.

  She took my hand. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me. Her hand was warm—it almost melted my heart.

  “I would have really liked to go to Visegrád,” I said. “You do believe me?”

  She nodded. We sat in silence.

  “Béla, I have taxi waiting. Come.”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Wherever you want.”

  “I can’t go like this, Patsy. I don’t have any other clothes.”

  “We go somewhere they don’t see. Hűvösvölgy, OK? Nice big forest there.”

  She stood up, took me by the arm, and I didn’t protest any more.

  The taxi caused quite a commotion in the house. This was probably the first one ever to have drawn up here. People’s mouths hung open when they saw me getting into it. I didn’t know what to do, I was so flustered.

  It was the first time I’d ever sat in a car. My God, I thought, sitting there on the cushioned seat, if only I could do something for her, too! Something. Anything! If, say, we were attacked by bandits, and I could protect her. You don’t need money for that. Or if the driver turned around and held her up at gunpoint, and I sacrificed my life to save her. But the driver did not turn around, only at the edge of the forest where we’d stopped. Then he thanked her politely for the tip and we were left alone, without any obvious peril in sight.

  We walked slowly through the forest. Few people came here, mostly the poor, and I forgot about my ragged clothes. Patsy produced some peanuts and we munched them in silence. It was warm, it was calm, the birds above were singing.

  Deep in the forest, we lay down in a clearing. Here, there was no one. We were alone, and it was as if the world had closed its eyes. We lay in silence. Burnt leaves lay on the grass, the forest was turning slowly to autumn.

  “Autumn soon,” Patsy said, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else.

  “Yes,” I said, my mind somewhere else, too.

  Where would she be this time tomorrow? That’s what I was wondering. My God, if I could only kiss her hand, I thought, but I avoided even her gaze, like a murderer his victim’s. I lay motionless in the grass and stared at the sky. The sky was blue, a herd of white clouds grazing upon it. I want to die for her, I thought.

  •

  A squirrel ran across the path. Patsy tried to tempt it over with peanuts, but to no avail. The squirrel ran up a tree and didn’t go for the peanuts even when Patsy threw them far away.

  “Funny squirrel,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Why funny?”

  “Because he no want to eat peanut.”

  “He does,” I explained expertly, “but he’s afraid. All squirrels are like that.”

  “Oh no!” Patsy protested. “In New York, squirrels eat from people hands in park. That’s difference between America and Yoorop, you see. Here, Yoorop, everyone afraid. Though always big trouble from fear, always. You know what happen to me once?”

  “What?”

  “I was then eight and went to see friend mine to do math homework. I was always bad math, but homework was so hard that even friend mine could hardly do. We think and think long time and suddenly I see is ten o’clock night. I very afraid because friend mine live not good neighbourhood, out, far, you know. And suddenly, when I walking desert little street, man calls to me. I no say anything, just run, but then man grabs me and I scream: help! help! Then other man come grab him and say: you not ashamed chasing little girl? Don’t be stupid, first man replies, I know this girl and if you don’t let go right now, you regret. Then they fight and fall in puddle both and policeman come and take us all police station and call father mine. And then turns out—you know what? Man who call to me is friend father mine, only I no dare look at him in street because I afraid. And other man good man too. Two good men almost beat each other to death because silly little girl afraid. You know what father mine said when we see Berlin, Paris, and everywhere, how Yooropeans afraid each other? He say: all this Europe will finish like those two good men. Only with no police to make order.”

  Later, when this tale had turned into history, I thought a lot about those two good men. But even then I had no idea that Patsy’s father, who had so eerily prophesied our future, would—two decades later, when he left his oil company for a senior position in the US government—act just as rashly as the two “Yooropean” good men. It seems that fear can pop even American corn. Or maybe it wasn’t corn with Patsy’s father at all, but oil; who knows? He was a good man, and always tipped me.

  •

  The next morning they left. They came down late and were in a big hurry. Patsy’s father kept looking at his watch. Patsy kept staring at her shoes. She didn’t look at me except when the lift stopped.

  “See you next summer,” she said, and got out quickly. But then she cried, “Oh! I forget something up in room!”

  She explained this to her father in English, and got back in the lift. Halfway between the second and third floors she said:

  “Stop the lift!” she said, half in English.

  I didn’t understand what she wanted.

  “Stop it!” she said impatiently, this time in Hungarian.

  I stopped the lift.

  “I just wanted say goodbye,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” I muttered, and I felt my throat clenching up with sadness.

  We didn’t look at each other. We stood there for several minutes in silence, not looking up. All at once, she threw her arms around me and kissed me quickly on the lips.

  “Come on,” she whispered and I started the lift again.

>   Neither of us could speak. The lift stopped and Patsy ran out. A minute later the whole thing seemed so unreal, it was as if I’d dreamt it all.

  The next morning, I woke to my mother’s screaming.

  “You stealing again? Ain’t you ashamed?”

  I looked at her blankly. She was holding Patsy’s ring.

  “How d’you get this?” she screamed.

  “I don’t know,” I said and told her the story of the ring, stuttering and embarrassed.

  “Is it that girl whose photo you carry in your pocket?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  It seemed to me that something like a smile crossed her face. But she didn’t say anything and went quickly out into the kitchen.

  I’ve lost many things since then, but that little child’s ring I still have. As I look at it, I have to say, the things that come to mind aren’t terribly original. That’s life, I think. If someone hadn’t got into a lift in Budapest at 8.42 on the morning of 3rd July 1928, I might never have ended up in America.

  7

  AFEW DAYS LATER, ON A RAINY October night, I suddenly stopped the lift halfway between the second and third floors, where Patsy had kissed me, and said aloud:

  “I’m going to America.”

  Later, even I thought the idea childish. How was I going to get to America when I couldn’t even arrange a passage to Újpest? But reason only went so far. The idea had taken root, and I couldn’t, didn’t want to, kill it.

  The backdrop to my stories now became American, and of course they always featured Patsy. But I could dream only at night, on the way home from work—during the day I was occupied with sober, practical planning. First of all, I’d decided to learn English as a matter of urgency. Yes, but how? How was a poor boy supposed to buy knowledge of the English language? A school was an impossible dream, and I immediately excluded it from my calculations. I’ll learn on my own, I said to myself—all I need is a textbook. Well yes, but where do I get one? How much can they cost? I had no idea.

  I started looking into it. I was meticulous. On my days off, instead of getting rested, I traipsed into the city for noon and spent the rest of the day, till nightfall, examining the windows of the bookshops. I didn’t dare go in, because I had learnt that it wasn’t a good idea to show yourself in the company of gentlemen in the kind of clothes that I was wearing. They might have refused to talk to me. Maybe they’d even have thrown me out. Slowly, I realized there were shops that sold used books as well, and I began concentrating on these. I went to one after the other, and one day I found what I was looking for.