Temptation

“What sort of business?”

  “All sorts.”

  They went on like this for a while. My mother asking this and that and the man giving her evasive answers. I had an uneasy feeling. Something isn’t right with this man, I said to myself. God knows who my mother had picked up!

  “So, can I sleep here, then?” he asked again.

  “I already told you you can’t. But if you’ve got nowhere to stay, I could put in a word for you with the Bognárs. They live downstairs. They might still be up. You want me to come down with you?”

  “No, it’s all right.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not important. Let’s leave it.”

  A few moments of silence followed.

  “Here,” said my mother. “You didn’t go and spend all your money at the inn, did you?”

  The man did not reply.

  “My God,” said my mother, “you really are the biggest spendthrift I ever saw. You take me to dinner, wine flowin’ like there’s no tomorrow, throwin’ all that precious money at the fiddler; and then you ain’t got nothin’ left to find a bed with!”

  “It’s the way I am,” the man said, not without a touch of pride. “When I take a woman out, I don’t think about what comes after. I’ve never been cheap with a woman. It’s just my nature.”

  “You’ve not changed a bit, d’you know that?”

  “Not much, no,” he admitted, “though I’m fifteen years older.”

  “Don’t you go making yourself younger than you are. It’s been more than sixteen years, it has. I should know.”

  I was struck by a shocking thought. It couldn’t be . . . My throat clenched up.

  There was silence in the kitchen for a while. Then my mother said:

  “Well, if Manci don’t come home with the last tram, then I don’t mind, you can go sleep in the bed. If only I knew what time it was.”

  “The last tram left ages ago.”

  “How d’you know? You ain’t got a watch.”

  “I don’t need a watch to tell me that,” he boasted. “A sailor can feel the time in his bones!”

  Sailor! I repeated to myself. It’s been more than sixteen years, it has . . . I should know . . . I felt a cold sweat coming over me.

  “I’d rather sleep with you out here,” he whispered tenderly, and then there came the sounds of a quiet struggle.

  “Oh, come on . . . you mad? You’ll wake the boy!”

  “So what? I can’t hardly wait to meet him anyway.”

  “You’ve not been so impatient these fifteen years!”

  “How could I have been when I didn’t know he existed!” And then, more softly: “Come on, Anna, don’t be like that . . . You’re the mother of my child, and all!”

  Something metallic fell loudly onto the stone floor.

  “You see!” he whispered. “It’ll be you that ends up waking him!”

  There was silence.

  “Go get yourself in the other room, there’s a good boy,” said my mother. “And don’t you strike a match! The bed’s at the back, by the wall.”

  “A dark soul’ll find his way in the dark, my dear. Well, g’night. Not even a kiss good night?”

  “G’night,” my mother replied, curt and impatient.

  The door opened quietly and closed again. Slow, careful steps, someone feeling their way. Suddenly, the bed creaked. More feeling of the way, then the soft sounds of someone undressing. The dull thud of a shoe on the floor.

  My heart was in my mouth. I could hear my mother opening up her folding bed and climbing into it. A few minutes later, the bed in the room also gave a groan. Then silence. Silence, silence, silence.

  The minutes liquefied and dispersed into time unbearably slowly, a calm, steady breathing coming from the bed, and not a bit of noise from outside. They were both asleep. Chunks of snow sometimes fell softly off the roof, rattling the window frames and spattering loudly on the stone of the walkway outside—you could hear the dripping of the pipe in the kitchen. My father, I thought, and stuffed my hand to my mouth so they wouldn’t hear me crying.

  •

  I had just dropped off when the door sprang open. A yellow shaft of light filtered into the room and lit up my mother’s white underskirts. She tiptoed over to the bed and started trying to wake my father.

  “Get up, Manci’s here,” she whispered.

  “Oh damn it all!” my father grumbled sleepily, but then jumped out of bed, climbed into his clothes, and went out into the kitchen.

  A long discussion followed, during which my father referred to Manci as a “pretty lady”, too—more than once—and Manci—as far as I could tell from her voice—was strangely enough not at all upset that he’d been sleeping in her bed.

  “He’s warmed it up for me,” she giggled, and her voice sounded different than usual.

  Finally, she bid them good night and came into the room.

  “You asleep?” she asked quietly.

  She asked that every night, though I had never once replied. I always pretended to be asleep when she came into the room. I felt a strange revulsion for her, a revulsion mixed with a hatred that was hard to define, and tingling curiosity; and though I never actually admitted it to myself, I was also slightly afraid of her. I couldn’t forget the way she’d looked at me when she was drunk, how her gaze had moved over me on New Year’s Eve, when I’d clambered out of her bed. Yes, I was a little scared of her.

  I heard her light the lamp and begin to undress. I knew the process of her undressing so intimately that I could have told you even with my eyes closed when she was taking off her stockings, when she was undoing the elastic of her bra, and so on. I was also familiar with the noises that came after she had undressed—the creaking of the bed as she climbed in, the rustling of the paper as she laid it out before her, the clink and swish of the pálinka bottle as she took a swig and the dull, searing sound of the petroleum lamp as she blew it out. Then there was a short pause, followed by that deep, scary snoring that sounded in the dark like she was having to saw bits of wood out of her throat to be able to exhale.

  But tonight, I was only half aware of all that. I was constantly trying to hear what was going on in the kitchen. It was so quiet, it was as if there hadn’t been anyone in there at all, though my father had not yet left. Or had he left without me hearing him? I even held my breath now and then to hear each little noise, but in vain. There was silence—mysterious, unbearable silence. I don’t know how long I lay there listening: five minutes, half an hour, or an eternity. I’d lost my sense of time completely.

  Suddenly, I heard whispering from the kitchen.

  “Don’t, Mishka . . . they’ll hear!”

  “ ’Course they won’t. Listen to her snorin’.”

  “No, Mishka, really . . .”

  “Aw, don’t be so . . . come on.”

  “Mishka . . .”

  The bed gave an enormous creak, and then all I could hear was unintelligible muttering. Their words were aflame and floated darkly, vaguely, in the silence like burning ash. Till then, I’d thought only the dying groan, moan and pant like that. I wanted to go deaf so I wouldn’t hear, but at the same time I listened to every noise like a doctor examining the symptoms of an unknown illness.

  When there was silence again at last, I, too, nodded off. I don’t know how long I slept. It was still pitch black when I started awake. There was a heavy fog inside my head; I remember thinking I’d dreamt the whole thing. And then reality and dreams really did get all mixed up: I fell into a slumber. When I jolted awake again, I’d sweated through my shirt. It must be late, I thought, my mother might come in at any moment. I was gripped by some inexplicable fear at the thought. I didn’t want to see her. Not her, nor that man. Never, ever again.

  I jumped up. The floor creaked with the sudden movement. I listened in fear to see if anyone had heard. No one had. Manci was snoring away and there was steady breathing from the kitchen. I tiptoed to the window and opened it slowly, carefully. The sharp, snowy
air struck my face. Outside, nothing was moving. The house was still asleep. I perched up on the windowsill, pulled up my legs, swung silently around and stepped out onto the walkway. Then I raced down the stairs like a man possessed. I felt so relieved when I got out into the street, it was as if I’d just managed to escape a brush with evil.

  I didn’t want to go home again. I spent the whole day dreaming up plans for escape, most of them fit for a thriller, of course, but I knew, with my peasant’s common sense, that I would end up going home after all, because what else was there to do? But I was simply unable to imagine what would happen when I saw my mother, not to mention . . . that man. I tried to reassure myself by saying that my mother would be asleep by the time I got home anyway, and that tomorrow I could once more climb out of the window.

  •

  I had decided on this course of action as I headed home. But as I was passing the scrapyard, I heard my mother’s voice behind my back.

  “Béla!”

  I turned in surprise. My mother was in the Sabbatarian’s hut and had called after me from the door.

  “Yes?” I muttered, my mouth dry, trying to avoid her gaze.

  My mother came out after me but didn’t say a thing. We walked in silence across the vacant plot. I noticed she was clutching the little satchel with which she used to go to work in the morning; she hadn’t been home. She’s been lying in wait, I told myself, and waited, suspiciously, to see what happened next.

  It was long gone midnight. There was a cold winter moon in the sky, the snow sparkled on the empty plot, and a silvery-blue fog hung in the distance.

  “There was no need for you to go climbin’ out the window like a thief,” she said all at once, without any introduction.

  I didn’t reply. The snow crunched under our feet, unnaturally loudly.

  “He is your father, after all,” she added. It had been intended as a reproach, but had ended up more of an apology. “Ain’t you curious to meet him?”

  “No.”

  The word burst out of me like a deadly bullet and it silenced my mother for good. She didn’t say a word all the rest of the way.

  When we got to the building, we were greeted by an unbelievable racket. A party of drunks was yelling and singing in one of the upstairs flats.

  We exchanged a look, despite ourselves. We knew that the almighty Herr Hausmeister didn’t stand for people so much as talking loudly, and we couldn’t understand what was going on. There was no way he hadn’t heard the noise.

  “He must be out,” my mother said. “There’ll be hell to pay when he gets back. Where’s it comin’ from?”

  “The second or third,” I guessed.

  “It ain’t us, is it?”

  “Who’d be making that kind of racket at ours?”

  My mother didn’t reply, but grew increasingly uneasy as we got farther and farther up the stairs. By the time we got up to the third, I could see why. All that noise was coming from our flat.

  “Mother of God!” she whispered, petrified, and quickly crossed herself.

  No one heard us open the door amid all the noise. The kitchen was empty. We stopped in the dark and stared, astounded, into the room through the half-open door.

  It was a dreadful sight. A large man, worker’s cap drawn down over his eyes, was drowsing in Manci’s bed, my mother’s gingerbread heart was now hanging around some tottering drunk’s neck, and there were broken glasses, overturned bottles and cigarette butts everywhere. The freshly scrubbed floor was stained with puddles of red wine like little lakes of blood. The room was full of tobacco smoke and the furniture seemed to be swaying amid clouds—stormy and unbearably smelly clouds—in which the smell of sweat and alcohol had mixed with the nauseating stench of drunken burping. The lights, too, were on, the precious electric lights that not even Manci was allowed to touch. The table lamp was flat out atop the wardrobe, dripping petroleum, as if it, too, had been blind drunk.

  The drunks were falling over each other. They were a strange bunch, a strange bunch indeed; I, at any rate, had never seen the likes of them before.

  I’d known peasants, workers and gentlemen, but these men were neither one nor the other of those things. Their exteriors were far too humble for gentlemen, and far too gentlemanly for the poor. They dressed with hell-raising carelessness, but there was something very studied in their carelessness. They wore loud ties with bright, multi-coloured handkerchiefs hanging out of their breast pockets, and their speech was even more bizarre than their dress. They spoke in a casual slang, the words tumbling out of their mouths with limbs mangled and broken; I could barely understand them. They were now standing, or to be precise, tottering, in a circle around the table, shoulder to shoulder, bawling at the top of their lungs that uplifting and—at the time—very popular little ditty that went:

  And they say Budapest has no whores.

  Then what are those fine ladies for?

  Their eyes are blue, can’t ask for more,

  It’s what the Good Lord made them for!

  In the middle of this group stood a huge, handsome man. He was waving an empty wine bottle above his head, conducting the drunken chorus. His rich baritone fluttered over the voices of the rest like a flag, his soft, coal-black hair dancing on his forehead, his strong, fine teeth almost glowing. I stared at this unknown face that was more familiar than any I’d ever seen and felt a frightening trembling in my heart. Those grey, daredevil eyes with their heavy lids, the strong, meaty, sensual lips, that nose, that brow, that determined, angular chin . . . where did I know them from? I shuddered. I suddenly realized I knew them from the mirror. That face, which I was seeing for the first time, was my face. That man, with whom I’d never exchanged a word, was my father. I wanted to run away, but I just stood there and gawped. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  Suddenly, as if he’d felt my gaze upon him, he turned around. His mouth fell open when he saw me, and a total silence fell. I can still hear the silence in that room. It was as if that silence—like the drunks—was tottering too, as if it had leant against me, trying to tip me over. My father came over to me, took my chin in his hand, and looked me in the eyes. Then he smiled. There was nothing of his former nonchalance in that smile; it was a gentle smile, almost emotional. It broke across his face like clear water, and washed off it—almost before my eyes—the muddy fug of drunkenness. He didn’t say a word, just looked at me and smiled. He smiled, but he was serious.

  Suddenly, though, he seemed to grow embarrassed. Or was it just his drunkenness coming back? Then he gave a great cry, picked me up with one hand and, like a glass of wine, light as air, stood me on the table.

  “Gentlemen!” he yelled, like a circus crier. “Behold Dappermishka’s son!”

  I couldn’t define what I felt at that moment. Nothing, I think. Patients under local anaesthetic must feel this way: seeing, hearing they’re being operated on, and not feeling a thing. I stared, vacant and dull, at the puffy-faced drunks who stood gawping at me like some two-headed freak of nature.

  “Three cheers for Dappermishka’s son!” someone shouted, and from every corner of the room came deafening cries:

  “Hip-hip hooray!”

  “Hip-hip hooray!”

  “Hip-hip hooray!”

  My father propped himself against the wall and examined me, like a sculptor his latest masterpiece.

  “Oh yes,” he said, satisfied. “We did a good job with him, Anna. Well, what do you say to that, then, boys? A genuine, large as life poet!”

  “But does he know it?”

  “ ’Course he does, he’s a real poet!” my father boasted, and produced the newspaper in which my poem had been published from his pocket. “Look, look here! He writes for the finest papers. Come see for yourselves!”

  One of the drunks snatched the paper out of his hand and started reading my poem aloud. I felt an unpleasant pressure in my gut. I wanted to strangle him, though the poor man was gushing.

  “Rhymes damn well!” he noted when he�
��d finished his performance. “Is he really just fifteen?”

  “Just so, my friend, just so!” my father answered lightly. “Hell of a kid, this one. A real boy wonder. He’s going to be bigger than Petőfi! And look at his muscles!” he said suddenly, because meanwhile, he’d been feeling my biceps. “Takes after his old man. Go on, have a feel!”

  They started feeling my muscles as if I were a horse at auction. My mother, meanwhile, just stood in the door, saying nothing.

  “Get down from there!” she screamed at me suddenly, as if she had only just awoken to what was going on. With that, she was beside the table in the blink of an eye and yanked me down. “Mishka!” she yelled at my father. “You mad? What is all this?”

  “This?” my father replied jovially. “It’s a christening! It ain’t every day a man has a fifteen-year-old son born to him. I brought my friends to see him. This deserves a celebration. We waited for you, but you didn’t come, so . . . we thought we’d start rehearsing.”

  “So’s not to disappoint!” someone called.

  “Will you stop yellin’, for the love of God!” my mother begged, on the verge of tears. “Herr Hausmeister’ll be up, and . . .”

  “Oh, he’s been up already!” my father said cheerfully, and the others—I didn’t know why—started laughing uproariously.

  My mother went white as a sheet.

  “He’s been up?” she asked, petrified. “What happened?”

  “Well . . . in he comes and starts throwing his weight around . . . Telling us to do this and do that, and how we should shut our traps or . . .”

  “Tell me what happened!” my mother interrupted.

  “What happened?” my father winked. “I grabbed him by his lapel like this,” he said, and immediately demonstrated on one of the drunks, “and I said to him: friend, I says, people don’t talk to Dappermishka that way. Either you drink this wine and take my hand, the way friends should, or you can say your prayers. ’Cause with me, one punch is enough. A second would be mutilatin’ a corpse!”

  “Don’t go on so,” my mother begged. “What’d he do?”

  “What could he do? He drank! Not just that one glass, either. Or two, for that matter. He’s just popped out to be sick.”