A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  Even as a child, with my still limited comprehension, I concluded that the system I lived under could not possibly regulate life by enforcing the inhumanly rigid and passionless rules it had devised. I sensed that only in the gaps and loopholes of this incomprehensible and absurdly rigid set of rules could I develop my own potential. True, I couldn't decide whether they fell into my trap or I into theirs, but I wasn't eager to know. I did know, however, that I wanted to get into that restricted zone. And the very people who created restricted zones were the ones to get me there. The condition of entry was my knowledge of Russian, yet it would never have occurred to me to study the language seriously if my father hadn't perished in a POW camp or maybe in that bullet-riddled automobile. The only way I could crawl through the tiny gap they offered me was by cunningly revealing something of my real intentions. If I could appear trustworthy enough to be able to go on being insincere. My knowledge of Russian and my pretty face got me in, and all they asked for was a trifle, that I pledge my faith. And why shouldn't I have considered myself worthy of speaking any foreign language? It's true of course that in the process I wound up rejecting my father and betraying my friend. But the system compensated me for my pledge of faith and for my services. It revealed its weakest side to me. Namely, that for all its professed ideals, it can make soup only from the vegetables that grow in its own garden.

  If all this had happened a year earlier, or had the restricted zone really been significantly different from its surrounding area, if they had led us into a marble hall instead of a conventionally furnished living room, if the cocoa were not lukewarm and the disgusting skin on its surface hadn't reminded me of the milk we got in the school lunchroom, if the cream had been whipped properly and wasn't limp and slightly sour, or if I hadn't suddenly had the impression that the reason the much-feared and respected couple seemed in low spirits had nothing to do with lack of sleep but most likely with a simple domestic quarrel they had to suspend because of our arrival, if, in other words, the visit hadn't turned out the way it did, it would never even have occurred to me that the small gap I was offered could accommodate all of me. The system's forbidding sternness seemed to leave no room for the contingencies of human life. No wonder, then, that seeing so much ordinary action and mundane behavior in the restricted zone would make me all the bolder. In exchange for new and exciting opportunities, I was ready to give up my childish fantasy of someday becoming an officer in some army. I was in, inside the gap, I could feel its proportions and believed I could make decisions according to its rules. But all my calculations proved false. They rapped my knuckles very quickly.

  The same day I submitted my application to the military academy, signed reluctantly by my mother, I was called into the principal's office. All the windows were open, though a fire was burning. When I walked in, the principal was rubbing his back against the tile stove. For a long time he didn't say anything, just kept shaking his head in disapproval.

  Then he pushed himself away from the stove, walked across the room to his desk. He must have had some back problem; he bent over a little, favoring one side, sidling rather than walking, and it seemed that only by pressing his back to the warm stove could he straighten up properly. As he pulled out my application from a pile of papers and handed it to me, he quipped, Miracles don't happen twice. If you know what I mean.

  Obligingly, I took the application from him. He was quite pleased with himself. Then he motioned for me to go. But I got stubborn and wouldn't budge. And that irritated him.

  Anything else? he asked.

  I stammered that I didn't understand.

  That would disappoint him, he said, because I was not only the best pupil in his school but also a young man who was as clever as he was cunning. So why try to outsmart him? If he were to forward my application, he would get into trouble. His advice to me was to apply to a school where my background did not present a problem. Considering my scholastic record, he wasn't telling me to go to a vocational school, but a specialized technical high school was out of the question. And he wasn't recommending a parochial school either. The only thing he could do for me was to help me get into the science program of a regular public high school. I should just go home now. He was giving me permission to leave early. And I should fill out a new application.

  My eyes filled with tears. I saw that he noticed. I knew this wouldn't move him, though it might have some effect. I felt he misunderstood: he thought these were tears of sadness and desperation, when in truth they were tears of anger. His long desk was between us. Nice and slow, I let the application drop on the desk. It wasn't real impudence, just a bit of cheek. As if to say: you can wipe your ass with it. No way was I going to take that application with me. Mumbling the usual parting words, I started backing out toward the door. Even in normal circumstances the required phrase was hard to utter with a straight face. According to the rules we were supposed to say, "Forward, Comrade Principal." The idea of calling a man who just wrecked my future a comrade! Saying forward while backing out of his office! Pointing to the form on the desk, he told me to pick it up and leave. But I left, pretending to be too confused to have heard his last words.

  Getting out of school before noon, without your schoolbag, is in itself one of those semidelirious experiences. You are free. But your schoolbag, which you stuffed nervously in your desk drawer, still ties you to the scene of eternal bondage. You feel like a plaything of fickle fate. It seems to you that this early-afternoon life around you, proceeding at its own normal pace, could be yours as easily as anybody else's. The sense of liberation, so short-lived, was fading fast. I was in a daze, and also fuming. And then, at the Városkuti Road station of the old cable car, just as I was counting out change for the fare, I realized where I was heading. It would have made no sense to go home. I wasn't about to create new anxiety for my mother, who in those days worked as a typist for a foreign trade company. By the time my plan could have scared me, I was on the train.

  I went to see my father's onetime friend and comrade Colonel Elemér Jámbor, at the Ministry of Defense. When I got downtown, I had no money left for a streetcar, so I rode without a ticket. We had been to his place only once, and he never visited us. Yet Mother was convinced that the allowance that arrived each month came from him. At Christmas, Easter, and on my birthday, he sent me presents, accompanied by a brief letter, which I had to acknowledge with an equally brief thank-you note. The navy-blue gold-buttoned overcoat my friend describes in such loving detail was also one of his gifts. Mother believed that it was his quiet intervention that had saved us from being deported from the capital. Owing to the awful turn of events, we were able later on to repay his family some of his concern and kindness for us. He was arrested in late November 1956 and executed the following spring. His widow lost her job, and she had to raise two daughters, both of them about my age, on her own.

  The guard at the gate said that the comrade colonel could not be reached at the moment. For about an hour and a half I roamed the neighborhood. In Miksa Falk Street there was a pet shop with cages and a fish tank in the window. I stared at the fish as they kept returning to the glass wall of the tank and with their mouths agape nipped at something invisible. A little farther on in the same street, I saw a girl with close-cropped hair charge out of a house, crying. She ran like crazy, as if being chased, but then stopped in her tracks and spun around. Her eyes fell on my curious glance, and that much sympathy was enough for her to burst into tearful sobs. I half expected her to throw herself into my arms. But she ran back and disappeared into the doorway. I waited for a while, thinking she might reappear. Later, I walked to the Parliament. The huge square was deserted. From a proper distance I watched the comings and goings at the side entrance on the right. Now and then a barge-like black limousine pulled up, a gate opened, someone got into the car. The glossy blackness, the gleaming chrome receded majestically in the midday sun. People were leaving but no one was going in. I figured enough time had passed, I'd try again. The guard was annoyed
but agreed to ring the office. Cupping his hand over the receiver, he not only gave my name but added with a chuckle, It's a kid, and pretty pushy, too. I could tell he was talking to a woman. And I was let into the lobby, where I could sit in a comfortable chair. While waiting, I was troubled by a single unpleasant thought: What's going to happen to my schoolbag if I don't make it back to school in time.

  It must have been four in the afternoon when I finally got to see my father's friend. The guard took me up to the fifth floor, and in the bright, spotless corridor I saw the colonel coming toward me. He put his large, heavy hand on my shoulder, as if to make sure it wasn't some tragedy that brought me here. He led me into a room where a military operation might have been discussed before. Rolled-up maps seemed to imply this, as well as heavy cigarette smoke hanging in the air, empty coffee cups and glasses and ashtrays still filled with cigarette butts on the glass-topped conference table. He offered me a seat, walked around the table, and on the other side made himself comfortable, too. He lit a cigarette. So far he hadn't said a word and I'd offered no explanation. He was a husky man, bald, with blond hairs on his powerful hands. I could see it wasn't just the cigarette smoke that made him blink and smile. He was sizing me up and was responding favorably to my appearance. He addressed me in the pleasantly solicitous and jocular tone of voice many adults used with me. He asked what mischief I was up to this time.

  After I told him, he rapped his signet ring on the glass tabletop. He said the school would definitely forward my application. That much he could promise. Of course, that didn't mean I'd be accepted. While he respected my decision to apply, there was nothing optimistic he could say about the possible outcome. But whether I'd get accepted or not, from now on I'd have to fend for myself.

  He put out his cigarette and got up. He rounded the table and, while I was getting up myself, again put his hand on my shoulder, and this time there was indeed nothing encouraging in this gesture. I should heed his advice not only because his own influence was very limited but also because anyone unable to make the best of his own opportunities could no longer understand his own situation. My own father would not think otherwise. He spoke quietly. With his hand still on my shoulder, he was steering me toward the exit.

  A month later I was notified that my application had been rejected. No reason was given for the decision.

  In all probability I must have responded with stubbornly laconic answers to my friend's persistent questions, and he must have gathered from this that there was some struggle about my going to a military academy. I know he was afraid of losing me. He hoped that my hopes would be dashed and then we might still wind up in the same high school. But frankly, that possibility got as big a rise out of me as my soldierly aspirations did out of him. In any case, there was no struggle at home. If anything, my mother was happy. Prém conceded defeat and decided to become an auto mechanic. I remained alone with my obsession. The anger I felt for my father's friend would not abate. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't help. I felt like a child who craves chocolate and can't understand why adults don't eat chocolate day and night—after all, they have the money to buy it. I did the very opposite of what he in his paternal wisdom advised me to do. Or more precisely, in my anger, I did exactly what he advised me not to do.

  I wrote or rather tapped out a letter on a typewriter and sent it to István Dobi, President of the Republic. I kept a copy of it for years and destroyed it only after I noticed that my wife had been rummaging through my papers. Shame keeps me from quoting the actual words used by that humbled, abject child. What I said more or less was that making the acquaintance of Comrade Rákosi—and of the new Soviet man, or rather woman, in the person of his wife—was a fundamental turning point in my life. I continued by mentioning that in our family the love of the Soviet people was a tradition; it was by following in my father's footsteps that I mastered the Russian language. That's how I got to somewhat safer ground. I acknowledged that my father was forced to fight in an unjust war against the Soviet people, but I asked that his steadfast anti-German attitude also be taken into consideration. Finally, I vowed that I'd dedicate my life to righting the wrongs committed by him. I wanted to lend credence to my words with documentary evidence. Nothing I have done in all my life fills me with greater shame. I appended four notebooks with checkerboard covers to the letter—they were my father's war diaries.

  I know very little about opera and even less about ballet. I find people singing and dancing onstage both fascinating and repugnant. People comporting themselves in a way that normal, sober adults would never do in public. Still, I am amazed that these people are capable of such shamelessness. The voices, the bodies, the decor, the cloying splendor of opera architecture so repels me that it's a trying experience whenever I have to set foot in an opera house. It feels as if I were sitting inside a fancy powder box and somebody was stuffing cream puffs into my mouth. As soon as the curtain goes up I begin to feel queasy, I have to close my eyes, and before long, without noticing it, I doze off with all that music going on. And on that November evening we weren't sitting just anywhere but right next to the huge imperial box.

  I've no idea how this particular opera is supposed to be staged, but behind the curtain that rose to the first strains of the overture, another curtain became visible. It was tacked together from shimmering silks, shreds of gold-spangled muslin, smoke-gray tulle, as well as pieces of coarse sackcloth and soiled rags. While the orchestra was busy playing, this multilayered patchwork, independent of the music, was slowly pulled, floated, flapped, and fluttered before our eyes. This went on until the set of Red Square appeared, where crowds of people with smoky torches, candles, and swaying lanterns were dancing. And at last you understood that the curtain was supposed to represent the slowly lifting morning fog.

  Two huge black cars came to pick us up at the hotel. And although I managed to end up in the same car with the girl, I soon had second thoughts about joining them. Apart from the secret, largely unexpressed joy of seeing each other again, there was nothing much my friend and I could talk about. For one thing, I was tired, and also distracted by the girl. What's more, they were rather loud under the influence of something they'd had earlier, while I was still in need of a drink. And the strenuous effort to conceal from each other the joy of seeing each other created an unpleasant tension between us. As for the girl, I could only watch her, keep an eye on her, but could not really get any closer. She let me know that any advance on my part would be met by a refusal. One thoughtless move and she'd rebuff me so spectacularly, I'd have to give her up for good. Which also meant that she didn't want to give me up. She hadn't made up her mind yet. We kept avoiding each other's eyes, but we couldn't avoid the desire for each other's glances. The whole time we kept each other in a state of tension. The only thing I permitted myself to do was politely to take her fur-collared coat from her when she took it off. She thanked me with the same noncommittal politeness. The tension was mutual, because we both tried to hide from the others our mutual interest. We couldn't succeed completely, not only because the four people and the interpreter accompanying them had already had an afternoon of copious drinking behind them, but also because they shared the special intimacy that develops among people traveling together. I remained a stranger among them.

  One member of the group, a bearded young man who appeared anxious to call attention to himself at every turn, was especially eager to show me up. It's possible the girl had sounded so cool on the telephone because she wasn't alone in the room. The bearded young man was watching me, and I was watching them. Later it turned out that my suspicions were not unfounded. My friend and the third man in the group were watching and waiting to see where all this was leading to. And the interpreter, an unfailingly kind and solicitous lady, kept a watchful, maternal eye on the entire group. Reminding them of my position as a guest, I politely let them go first, and took a rear seat deep inside the box, next to the lady interpreter. The girl sat in front of us, leaning forward on the railing. F
rom time to time I had to look at her bare neck. Her unruly hair was gathered in a bun. And she sensed every time my glance lingered on her neck; she'd move imperceptibly. Or rather, she seemed to dictate to me when I should be looking at the stage and when at her bare neck.

  When the last shreds of the fog's silks and rags had lifted, the ideological significance of the vanishing fog-curtain also became evident. The rags-and-riches motif was now repeated onstage: rich and poor folk were whirling about and mingling in apparent confusion, though in still identifiable clusters. Princesses like golden puppets, drunken boyars wrapped in furs, merchants and lascivious priests frolicking with courtesans in flimsy silks, half-naked beggars, contortionists in dirt-encrusted rags, wounded soldiers writhing in blood-soaked bandages, peddlers hawking their miserable wares, and here and there, among gaping loafers and street people, provincial grandees in gaudy folk costume, demure maidens and handsome lads. All this abundance made me sick to my stomach. I felt like leaving. I felt like going to Pervomayskaya. Where I was expected. Where I wouldn't feel so out of place. Where in the morning three women in large pink satin bras and even larger pink satin panties paraded around the house and I could scratch and mope to my heart's content. Searching for a deeper clue to my discomfort, it occurred to me that for a disciple to sit in a theater just one day after his master's demise was an unseemly thing to do.

  The whirling and dancing were still in progress when the bearded man put his paw on the girl's hand resting on the railing. He leaned over and whispered something into her ear. I could see they were accustomed to such intimate whispering, though it immediately made their two companions curious. They craned their necks, wanted to be in on whatever was going on. The bearded man, without letting go of the girl's hand, began to explain something to them. And my friend, after catching only the first few words, quickly moved closer and over the bearded fellow's shoulder whispered something to the girl. They both laughed. But the girl tilted her head so that I could catch a glimpse of their merriment, and at the same time she pulled her hand out from under the bearded man's paw. And that gesture, too, was meant for me. She made up my mind for me: I couldn't leave now. But all this fidgeting and chuckling and carrying on made me extremely uncomfortable. I belonged to this group yet had nothing to do with it. I understood their game but wanted no part of it. Because from this point on, everything that happened onstage made them laugh. I couldn't completely ignore the solemn atmosphere in the theater, but from then on I was compelled to see the stage with their eyes.