Then I was hit with the most terrific hangover. It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t been through it. Your imagination is still tickled by all the food, but your palate and your stomach are not. You’re full, but you won’t acknowledge it—you don’t want to acknowledge it. You keep eating, wolfing down the food, stuffing yourself. You’re seized by a hysteria that’s impossible to satisfy, the same one that drives infatuated lovers when—after much waiting—they can finally be together for a night, and everything is suddenly possible. You want more, and more, and more, you want that point of ecstasy people seek at the table and in bed in vain, that exists only in the tropical world of an overactive imagination and in the visions of the deranged.
My mother was the first to feel unwell. Her face turned suddenly yellow, her brow was filled with sweat and a sort of grin appeared around her mouth, because the poor thing was trying desperately to smile so we wouldn’t notice what was wrong. Eventually she got up and went out to the lavatory. We pretended not to have noticed anything. My father made her drink some rye pálinka when she got back, and that—it seems—pacified her stomach, because she started eating again. I was next, and then finally my father. We ate, threw up, and ate again. We couldn’t, we didn’t want to stop.
Suddenly, we heard a strange commotion from the stairs.
“What’s that?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know,” said my father, but you could see that he knew all too well.
He didn’t let us look outside—he charged our glasses and made a toast.
“Forever young!” he cried.
“Forever young!” I cried, too.
My mother didn’t say a thing, just turned away in silence. The noise grew louder outside, but in the room there was such a sense of quiet that I shivered.
Then a Gypsy band struck up outside our front door. They started off very softly at first, with a man singing sotto voce:
Darling, open up the door!
A woman’s voice just as softly replied:
I won’t, I won’t, they’ll hear next door!
And then my father put his arms around my mother and let loose his deep, full baritone:
If they hear, then let them hear—
They already know both far and near
That it’s you alone I love
I love
You I’ll be always
Thinking of.
It was well executed, and you could tell that my father was very pleased with himself.
“Come on in, then,” he called out at last.
“We can’t,” replied a Gypsy voice, “iss shut.”
“Oh, of course.”
My father went and opened the door, laughing all the while. A ragged little Gypsy violinist tumbled into the kitchen.
He clicked his heels together smartly and drew his bow from under his arm like a soldier drawing his sword to present arms.
“Four Gypshies and a barrel of wine reportin’ for duty, Shir!” he cried.
“And a hundred thousand onlookers!” my father rejoined with a laugh, because the walkway was by then crowded with people—the whole building had turned out for the show.
The Gypsies rolled the barrel through the door and my father called out to the masses:
“Grab a glass and form a queue!”
The Gypsies propped the barrel on a couple of kitchen stools and my father gave them each a glass of wine. It was nasty, sour wine, but wine nonetheless, an incredible amount of it—enough to get the whole house drunk. Back then, intoxication was cheap in Hungary—the ruling classes, like quack doctors, calming the convulsive misery of the people with palliatives rather than cures. Their intoxication came now from inside the barrel, and now from on top of it—they plied the people with wine and incitement, so they wouldn’t sober up to the truth. The poor drunk went home and beat his wife, the people in uniform beat the “enemy”, and they both only noticed afterwards that, oh dear, the people they’d beaten weren’t the ones they’d meant to beat. “Forever young!” they’d been crying for centuries while the country slowly fell apart—and only very rarely because of anything the “enemy” had done. Here, peace was always more dangerous than war, because the bomb has yet to be invented that can do as much damage as poverty itself.
“Forever young!” cried the building, holding its glasses to the tap.
The band played and people got quickly drunk, because even a little is enough on an empty stomach. Even people who didn’t care for it drank. It was a palliative for bitter wounds, and everyone there had some need of it. The devout Mátyás got drunk—who’d had even the Virgin taken from him—and so did his pretty wife, whom Herr Hausmeister no longer wanted. Little Rozi got drunk, who’d wanted a child so badly, as did old Máli, who killed babies on credit. Old Gábor got drunk, too, the coffin maker who’d have taken on the world to regain Hungary’s lost territories, and even Áron the Sabbatarian got tipsy, though he believed only in the Kingdom of God. Mózes got drunk as well, who—despite his name—couldn’t strike a rock and make the water flow, and so did his wife, who loved her Little Mózes so much she’d wanted to strangle him. Blind Samu got drunk and his seeing wife, and so did all the people who used to climb out through their window at night to go stealing, working for Herr Hausmeister for free by day. Everyone got drunk. The building was like a buzzing madhouse—no one was quite steady on their feet; even the walls, it seemed, were swaying.
Herr Hausmeister restrained himself for quite a long time. He was afraid of my father and must have reckoned that it would soon be midnight anyway, and then he’d finally be rid of this dangerous man. But the noise grew so great that he did, eventually, come poking out of his lair.
“Quiet!” he shouted, “or I’ll call the police!”
That sobered up the drunken house a little. They quietened down for a few minutes, but then my father cried:
“What is this, a funeral?”
Áron tried to talk some sense into him, appealing to his better nature, telling him not to go bringing the police down on our necks—after all he knew full well that no one’s affairs were quite in order, and if Herr Hausmeister got really angry, we’d get the worse of it.
“I’ll go quiet him down a bit,” said my father with an ominous smile, and was off.
I wanted to go after him, fearing there’d be trouble, but he was outside, and I was in, and the flat was so full of people that by the time I managed to make my way through the crowd, I could no longer see him anywhere. So I headed for the ground floor, but only got as far as the first. I heard terrific shouting from the courtyard.
I ran out onto the walkway to look. My father had got Herr Hausmeister down on the ground, tied his hands behind his back, and was stuffing his mouth with a rag. Then he tied his handkerchief over his eyes and, to shouts of joy from all three floors, dragged him up to the apartment.
The band played a drum roll as they entered, and a general hysteria came over the building. People were jumping about, dancing, shouting their heads off, clapping each other on the shoulder—they just didn’t know what to do with themselves. My father jumped onto the table and dragged up Herr Hausmeister. He grabbed him by the neck, showing him off to the drunken crowd the way the criers used to show off the “cannibals” at the fair.
“Laydees and gentlemen!” he cried. “I give you the great cannibal chief, the amazin’ savage who’s stronger than us all. No illusions, ladies and gentlemen, this is the real thing. Come see for yourselves! This beast in human form can have your hides at any time. He makes men his slaves and women his concubines. He’s stronger than the Devil, and more powerful than God. We all owe him somethin’, and now, thanks to yours truly here, it’s time to pay him back. Don’t miss this once-ina-lifetime opportunity! One blow per person, soldiers from the rank of sergeant down get two. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, step right up! The entertainment has begun!”
That was all the wild crowd needed. All of them wanted to hit Herr Hausmeister at once, but before th
ey could get near him, my father jumped off the table and established order.
“Get in line, get in line!” he cried. “No favouritism here! This is a democracy!”
He got two people to hold Herr Hausmeister down and lined up the rest facing his backside.
Mátyás went first. He had spent a lifetime with a hammer, but I doubt he’d ever struck the anvil as hard as he now did Herr Hausmeister’s backside. The building cheered his effort as the band played:
The Germans weep now in old Wien
If only they had never been!
“Cut it out!” my father yelled. “His being German ain’t the problem, it’s his heathen behaviour. The Germans ain’t no worse than any other people—the problem, dear friends, is that sometimes they think they’re better.”
But his fine little speech did not have much effect. There was barracking from the back:
Never trust a German,
Even if he sounds so certain!
“That ain’t how it goes,” Mózes barked. “The way we sing it, it’s different.”
“How?”
“Out with it! Out with it!”
Workers, never trust the upper class
Remember that they’re talking out their arse!
When there’s trouble they make nice,
and fetch the coppers so you pay the price!
They’ll let your children starve to death
And as you’re coughing out your final breath
They’ll cross themselves all holy
And go to auction off your dead body!
“Hear! hear!” they cried. “Hear! hear!”
The blows, meanwhile, resounded on Herr Hausmeister’s backside. They’d have beaten the life out of him long before if my father hadn’t been careful to make sure it was only his backside they could reach.
It was now old Áron’s turn. Silence fell over the flat—everyone was curious to see what the Sabbatarian would do. He was no longer steady on his feet, either, and the alcohol seemed to have caught fire within him. His eyes were glowing, and his face burned with crimson patches—only his thin, transparent, vellum-like nose remained eerily white. He hiccoughed heavily, then leant down to Herr Hausmeister, who had his eyes still covered, and made the following, slightly slurred but nonetheless solemn speech:
“It’s me, Áron, the Sabbatarian. Can you hear me, Herr Hausmeister? I’m not going to hit you, because I don’t like people treatin’ other people ill, but don’t think it’s because I’m on your side. I’m not on your side, you heathen, but on the Nazarene’s. And I can tell you this is the kind of lesson they’re going to teach the whole world if it don’t turn to my Saviour in time.”
“All right, all right,” Mátyás’s wife—thoroughly tipsy—said, shoving him aside. “Enough of the speeches, it’s my turn.”
With that, before my father could stop her, she flipped Herr Hausmeister round, quick as a flash, and kicked him where it most hurts a man. It must have been a hell of a kick because the big German fainted there and then, crashing to the floor.
“That’s enough!” my father said. “He’s got his deserts.”
That was what saved Herr Hausmeister from being beaten to death, and meant that fifteen years later, as SS Kommandant of the concentration camp at B——, he could go on to murder innocents by the hundred. But now he was docile like anyone who’s fainted, and a lot of people were starting to feel sorry for him. Áron and the one-eyed wheelwright picked him up off the floor and carried him out of the flat like a big sack.
“And now,” my father called, “everyone go fetch your axes!”
I remember very clearly: no one asked why. They just went and fetched them. They would have fetched anything at that point, done anything. At that moment, they were capable of anything.
My father gathered the people with their axes around him.
“We’ve got ten minutes till midnight,” he said. “In that time, I want you to shred every single thing in sight, so there ain’t nothin’ left for those dogs. I’d give you everything I got, friends, but they’d only come and take it off you again. This way, at least you get to burn it. Right, get to it!” he bellowed, and took such a whacking swing at the wardrobe with his axe that the rickety old thing fell to pieces there and then.
The drunken crowd had at the furniture and I could feel, I knew, as I watched their savage faces that they would have done the same to their fellow men if someone had told them to at that moment. They broke, and smashed, and devastated. There was finally something for all those unemployed men to do.
By midnight, the flat was empty. They’d rolled the barrel next door to Old Gábor’s flat, and the people followed the wine.
Suddenly, I realized I was alone. I looked at the bare walls on which only a few light-coloured spots showed that the flat had ever had furniture and pictures in it, and—drunk as I was—I burst loudly into tears.
“What are you crying for?” I asked myself. “Was it all really so good?”
No, no it wasn’t. It was more than that—three summers, three autumns, three winters. Creation, flood, heaven, hell: the first flush of youth. My father, whom I had first met here. My mother, who’d first cooked székelygulyás for me. Manci, who had taught me love and revulsion here, and something else besides, something vaguer that she herself was not conscious of. This was the door through which had stepped Patsy and joy, and it was here in this kitchen that my mother had drunk lye. This was where we’d played cards, drunk, sang, in that wild spring when the tooth fairy had had her birthday ever night. This was where we’d starved and revelled, sat up and dreamt, argued and made love. It was good. It was rough. It was life. We hounded each other, and worried for each other, we couldn’t understand each other, but we loved each other—we were a family. And now it was over. They’d smashed something along with the furniture. Something had died that I could never again revive. I slumped against the bare wall and the salty tears flowed into my mouth; I shook with sobbing. And then I suddenly saw they’d forgotten something in the flat.
I shuddered. It was the bottle of lye. That was all that had survived the destruction, nothing else—only that. It hid beneath the water pipe, sinister and calculating, like a cunning beast, and as I looked at it blearily, it seemed almost to be baring its teeth. I swore loudly. Then I staggered out into the kitchen, picked up the bottle and threw it as hard as I could against the wall.
That sobered me up a little. I suddenly remembered my mother. Where was she? I had completely forgotten about her in all the commotion. Where was she? Where was she?
I ran out of the flat. The band was playing next door, and the drunken house was dancing and shouting for joy.
Where was my mother?
There was such a crowd at Old Gábor’s that I couldn’t get through the door. The window, too, was clogged with people wanting to see what was going on inside. It took me some time to make my way through the throng so I could finally get a look inside the apartment.
It was an eerie scene. Two enormous candles were burning in the middle of the room, with Old Gábor sitting under them in his coffin. He was waving a wine glass around above his head and kept singing at the top of his lungs:
If I die, I die
Angels sing my lullaby
If I croak, I croak
The Devil take me in one stroke
The band played and the couples, like madmen, were dancing the csárdás all around the coffin.
“Forever young!” they cried. “Forever young!”
The feet pounded, the candles flickered, and everything tottered and wobbled, dust flying everywhere.
“Forever young! Forever young!”
Out in the kitchen, people were banging saucepan lids in time to the music. Jóska, the watchmaker, was riding the wine barrel.
“Giddyap! Giddyap! Forever young!”
Skirts were flying, there was the smack of kisses, Rózsi even tore her shirt off.
“Forever young! Forever young!”
“S
ilence!” Áron bellowed, standing at the head of the coffin and lifting his thin arms to the sky in frenzy. “Can’t you see, my brothers, that this is a funeral? On your knees! Reflect! This is the funeral for a whole world, a sinful and wicked world that . . .”
“Shut it!” Old Gábor yelled from inside his coffin. “Shut up, you damn saint!”
If I die, I die
Angels sing my lullaby
If I croak, I croak
The Devil take me in one stroke
I finally spotted my mother. She was dancing with my father, making merry like the rest, but when I saw her face I suddenly felt, I knew, that this merriness would end in tragedy. No, she would never go out into the Népliget with the homeless masses, not her. She was preparing to go somewhere different, somewhere quite different.
I was now completely sober. I had to do something, I told myself, I had to do something right away. Suddenly, I knew what.
The thought frightened me at first, but then I shrugged.
It doesn’t matter.
None of it matters any more.
I’ve got to do it.
15
I SNEAKED IN THROUGH THE STAFF ENTRANCE. It must have been around three in the morning; the hotel was fast asleep. I slipped up to the second floor and stopped in front of the familiar door. The corridor was deserted, and there wasn’t a sound from beyond the door, either. Was she asleep? Or . . .
I shuddered. It sounded like someone was walking around inside. Surely Exfix hadn’t come back from Geneva? Or was she with someone else?
I listened intently. Nothing stirred now. It was so silent, I thought I could hear my heart thump.
Temptation Page 71