A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  Bitter traces of his ironic smile hovered around his lips even during his attacks, as if behind the protection of his closed eyelids he were making fun of his own gasping and choking, considering the futile struggle his body was waging against him as a pitiful if unavoidable mistake: the body would not, still it would not, let happen what must inevitably happen.

  Grandmother observed this struggle rather angrily, if only because his peculiar frivolous ways made him an exasperating patient; he would have liked to die but couldn't; therefore he didn't entrust himself to his nurse but, with a kind of ultimate wisdom, offered up his body and soul to the force his faith told him held sway over him, withdrawing from the merciful, worldly benevolence of treatment; he made human attempts to cure him look frivolous.

  But from Grandmother's wounded vantage point this attitude must have seemed as though he was going through all this, this ungratefully long agony, all this fuss, only to annoy and offend her to the bitter end.

  At the same time, as far as appearances were concerned, there was nothing shameful, awkward, or shabby in this struggle, in their tug-of-war; they both gave it its proper due.

  I never saw my grandparents in scanty, slovenly, or even casual attire: they were always meticulously, impeccably dressed; although he never left the house, Grandfather shaved every morning, wore only white shirts with starched collars, silk cravats tied in big, bulky knots, crisply pressed, wide-bottomed trousers, and short beige corduroy housecoats; Grandmother washed dishes, cooked and cleaned in slightly elevated, morocco-leather house shoes, in narrow-waisted house robes that flared, bell-like, over her ankles; depending on the season and occasion, they were made of cotton, silk, soft wool, or dark rich velvet, and they graced her figure as exquisitely as evening gowns; she did not look at all ludicrous but, rather, stern and dignified, moving about cautiously, squeamishly touching the objects that had to be dusted, as if by accident, smoking one cigarette after another; she engaged help only for the strenuous chores like spring cleaning or doing the windows or waxing the floors; "I'll have a girl in for that," she liked to say at such times, just as she would "have" a taxi or streetcar take her, rather then "taking" a taxi or "getting on" a streetcar. She had Kálmán's mother do our laundry; once a week she came to pick up the dirty clothes, and returned them clean and pressed.

  That night, in the short pause between two long whistling gasps, Grandfather said something like Air! Window! but we couldn't quite make out the words, so garbled were they by his convulsive breathing. And Grandmother did get up, but instead of opening the window she turned off the lamp over Grandfather's head and sat back in her chair.

  It must have been around midnight.

  We are not going to open the window for him, she said in the dark; I don't feel like mopping the floor in the middle of the night, and there's plenty of air in here, plenty.

  Whenever I was with them she spoke to him as if she were speaking to me.

  And then we went on waiting in the dark for his attack to subside, or for something to happen.

  Despite the long night vigil, I awakened quite early the next morning.

  It was a remarkable summer morning, quite remarkable: the rising mist of last night's storm made the sky a clear, downy blue, with not a single cloud; the wind was blowing in fierce gusts.

  High, way up high, it blew, who could tell where, with an even boom, a ceaseless howl; in mighty swoops it ran through the trees, bending their crowns into itself, struck the bushes and lashed across the shimmering grass, shaking, rattling, and tearing apart things in its path; for the duration of this onslaught, the sounds of the whirling, colliding, rustling leaves, the sounds of cracking tree trunks and crashing, groaning branches harmonized with the howl on high, made everything terrestrial slide, vibrate, and flash because the wind jolted light and shadow from their natural positions, out of their plane, dislocated them, and while the wind could illuminate and rearrange things, it could not make a permanent new place for them in time, before the onslaught was over, and only the rumbling in the blue firmament remained, bringing nothing, fulfilling no expectation—as a thunderclap would in the wake of lightning—and with the next downward swoop it began all over again, unpredictably, again bringing neither clouds nor rain, neither bringing back the storm nor disturbing summer's tranquillity, being neither cool nor warm, the air clear, in fact becoming clearer and less humid, no swirling funnels to churn up the dust, one could even hear a woodpecker tapping; still, it was a storm, perhaps it was pure force, dry and empty.

  A raging fury to which we yield uneasily, fearfully, a bit ruffled, like birds that at times like these let themselves be buffeted by the harmless wind.

  It was good that the wind was blowing, and it was also good that the sun was shining.

  My little sister was already in the garden, standing on the steps leading to the gate, her hand clinging to the rusty iron, her head dangling, heavy and helpless, down to her breasts, her long white nightgown ballooning out in the wind.

  With a mug of warm milk in my hand, I stepped out of the house into the wind, slightly annoyed to find her there, because I knew that if she noticed me I'd have a hard time getting rid of her; this was never easy, and the truth is that no matter how willingly I played with her, my ultimate goal in those little games was always to shake her off somehow.

  But so early in the day the danger wasn't too great, for after walking Father out to the gate, sometimes she'd just stand there for a whole hour, not budging, sunk in her sadness.

  Sometimes her misery put her in a state of such numb immobility that not even Grandmother could drag her away, although Grandma was the one person she truly feared.

  My little sister had a very reliable internal timetable; trusting her uncanny secret sense, she could feel, to the second, when Father woke up in the morning, and then, giggling merrily, she'd climb out of bed, walk him to the bathroom, and position herself by the sink to watch him shave; this was the high point of their relationship, the moment of fulfillment in the love life of my little sister, a rapturous joy repeatable and repeated daily: Father stood in front of the mirror, and as he began to lather his face with the shaving brush, a low hum would issue from his throat; the foamier the shaving cream became under the brushstrokes, the louder his hum would grow, as if he was pleased with his ability to whip up such nice, firm, tastefully towering mounds of foam out of nothing; my little sister would imitate his noises, and when he was finished with the lathering and his hum had grown into a loud, singing bellow, he'd suddenly fall silent and she'd follow suit; in the welcome pause of silence Father would rinse out the brush, replace it on the glass shelf, and with a ritual gesture raise high his razor; with bated breath my sister would stare at Father's hand, and he'd watch her eyes from the mirror; while emitting a pleasurable moanlike scream, and repeating it with each stroke, Father would stretch his skin with his finger, plunge the blade into the foam, get down to the business of removing the stubble underneath, their game being to pretend the razor was hurting the foam, though it also made it feel good, and my sister joined Father's sounds with squeals of pleasure and pain of her own each time the knife sank into the foam, and afterward she watched excitedly as he got dressed, and sat next to him, buzzing and babbling, while he ate his breakfast; but when he got up from the table and wiped his mouth with a napkin, ready to leave, which meant this wasn't Sunday, when the quick wipe would be followed by a leisurely smoke, then the cheerful look on her face was replaced by one of panic and despair; she clutched Father's hand, his arm, and if it so happened that he had forgotten to set out the papers he was going to take with him that day, he had to drag the silently clinging child across the hallway, into his study, and back again; Father enjoyed the shaving game, but this was a bit much, and he'd often lose patience—under his controlled smile he'd flinch and grouse about the circus he had to go through every bloody morning, at times he'd be on the verge of hitting her, but always recoiling from the thought, he then became even more indulgent; by the time
they reached the front door and parting was inevitable, my little sister would plunge swiftly from the heights of desperate rage into the resigned indifference of sorrow: she'd let Father take her hand, and hand in hand they'd walk all the way to the garden gate, where his car, engine running, was waiting for him.

  Who could say why I started walking toward her now, when my aim was to avoid her and not disturb her in her grief, which at the moment suited me just fine; in any case, I had no idea how jealous her unconditional devotion to Father had made me, nor that it was this jealousy that made me seek out her company, because, willy-nilly, we were compelled to share the object of our mutual affection.

  Just as I grew close to Kálmán because of our mutual affection for Maja.

  She was holding on to the gate; I sat down on the steps and sipped my milk, making sure none of its wrinkly skin slipped into my mouth; what I was really doing was enjoying, with the most insidious humility, the grief emanating from her body.

  The body really does emanate its emotions, but you have to be close to feel it.

  What I actually sensed was a distorted version of the grief that the absence of Father's naked body had evoked in me, an absence that would forever remain in me.

  After a while she turned to me, followed my movements, which made me drink my milk even more slowly, so it would last longer; in general, I pretended not to know, see, or feel her presence, and in so doing I instinctively hit her where it hurt most: I reinforced her sense of abandonment.

  I kept this up until she completely transferred her sense of abandonment to me, hoping to find solace in my mug, in the milk.

  I didn't have to wait long; she reached for it, but I raised it to my mouth and took another sip.

  Letting go of the gate, she took a step toward me—more precisely, toward the mug, toward the sip of milk, toward the instinct of drinking.

  She was standing over me, and between us this amounted to a conversation.

  I was still pretending not to notice that she wanted my milk; as if by chance, I slid the mug between my raised knees and guarded it there.

  When she reached for it, I lifted it from between my knees, out of her reach, openly withdrawing it from her.

  She let out a single whiny sound, that hateful sound with which she waited for Father every afternoon.

  For not only did she sense instinctively when he got up in the morning, she also had a secret intuition about when he would return at the end of the day.

  In the afternoon when I'd be waiting for Livia, usually between four and five, no matter what she was doing my sister would suddenly become cranky and irritable and let out this strange, drawn-out whiny sound, as of joy heralded by pain, and she went on repeating it until she began to cry in earnest, rocking, driving herself into crying, actually not real crying, there were no tears, more like an animal whimpering, which she kept up as she wandered through the house and roamed the garden, clutching the fence, until Father arrived.

  Come to think of it, the only time my little sister did not give way to these displays of joy, rapture, pain, and sorrow was when the family was together, when everyone was present after our Sunday dinners.

  But now, because I didn't feel like listening to her crying anymore, I stuck my index finger into the mug and lifted out the skin.

  This bit of silliness made her laugh; she plopped down next to me on the step and opened her mouth, indicating that she wanted it.

  I dangled it like bait, even lowering it into her mouth, but when she was about to slurp it up with her lips and stuck-out tongue, I pulled it back; we repeated this stunt until she again made a face as if to cry, and then I let her have it along with my finger.

  She sucked it off; to increase her pleasure, I put the nearly empty mug in her hand, and behind her back sneaked through the gate and ran off, so by the time she realized what had happened, she'd see nothing but the empty street.

  Kálmán was standing on the trail.

  This was the trail that led from their farm, above the cornfield, into the forest; he had a stick in his hand, pointing it at the ground, but seemed to be doing nothing else with it.

  The wind was scraping through the deep-green corn leaves, making a shrill sound; the forest was booming.

  What was he doing there, I asked him when, still panting, I reached him up on the hill, I had to scream almost to outshout the wind; but he said nothing, slowly turned his head toward me and stared at me as if he didn't exactly know who I was.

  Right before his feet, in the middle of the trail, a dead mouse lay on its side, but Kálmán wasn't touching it with his stick.

  I had no idea what was eating him; when I had quietly looked for him earlier in their yard—no shouting was allowed then, his parents and brothers were asleep—everything seemed fine; he'd already let out the geese and the chickens, the stable was empty, and in the pen the little piglets were busy suckling at the teats of the sow, sprawled peacefully on the floor.

  When I stopped in to see how she was doing, she raised her head, gave me a long series of grunts; she recognized me, was happy to see me, and it was this silly feeling I wanted to share with Kálmán, that their sow loved me.

  A little way off, his dog kept circling a bush, stuck its nose roughly into the layers of fallen leaves, scratching feverishly, and then ran around the bush some more until it hit a spot that must have promised some important and exciting find but that it couldn't get to, and began scratching and digging again.

  And then, thinking I'd found a way to make him talk, I quickly squatted down on the trail, because I suddenly discovered that he must have been looking at the maggots toiling around the carcass of the mouse; his silence annoyed me, and maybe because of the wind, I don't exactly know why, I felt too energetic and excited to adjust my mood abruptly to his; at the same time I couldn't very well ask him what was bothering him, you didn't just come out and ask a thing like that.

  I definitely couldn't, if only because whatever was bothering him was serious enough for him to ignore my helpfully inquisitive gesture; he pretended to be standing there by chance and even seemed embarrassed at having been looking at the dumb bugs; his posture, standing motionless, implied that I was mistaken to think he'd actually been doing something before I got there; he wasn't watching those insects at all, he had no intention of doing anything, none whatsoever, he was just hanging around, wanting to be alone, and he wasn't interested in anything; I might be an eager beaver, of course, but he didn't need me, I might as well buzz off, instead of pretending to be so interested in those bugs, he could see right through me; wasn't it enough that the wind was blowing like crazy and the sun was beating down so hard and his dog had gone nuts, so why didn't I just get the hell out of there?