by Peter Nadas
She laughed silently, her head thrust back dramatically.
But she’d rejected the proposal, that was the limit. That somebody should be such a louse. She chased him away, out of my sight, you animal, scram, back into the belly of your mother who spoiled you rotten. She did not say all this to him but she had chased him away. He’d missed the boat, he was too late. This Ágost thinks he can just do anything he feels like doing. For weeks he’d been torturing her. Now she’s completely drunk, but she wants to tell Kristóf quite soberly what she’s not yet told Ágost.
Go ahead then, tell me.
If he can hold his mouth, while he’s so drunk.
Why couldn’t he.
He should swear to it.
No, he won’t swear to it.
As they breathed these words into each other’s mouth along with the odor of alcohol and tobacco, and were simultaneously feeling that everything was in its best possible position even though they hadn’t wanted it but simply found it, Kristóf thought, the hell with Klára, let her go, who cares.
In two days, no more, she’s moving out. This she hasn’t told even that idiot Ágost. Now she should marry him, now, when she can’t even stay in the same room with him. But she will tell him this only at the last minute. Kristóf can’t imagine the things this pig has done to her, this monster. One day, she’ll tell Kristóf all about it. She is moving out. Today she’ll tell him, while they’re here, she’s just waiting for the right moment, when it would hurt him.
Once in his life something should hurt him.
As early as tonight, she will sleep in the maid’s room, together with Ilona.
How could she do that.
Ilona would sleep with her child and Gyöngyvér would sleep where the child usually sleeps, they had already arranged it. She is not a cruel or vengeful person, but Ágost had so debauched her that he now deserves the pain; he should hurt, feel the pain.
But where is she moving to.
She doesn’t know yet.
He was sure she did.
Kristóf did not understand himself, which at this moment meant that he did not understand Creation either; how could this be happening to him.
He would have liked to disappear in his shame, but he could not stop anything. With great zeal and vulgarity they thrust themselves against each other. They made contact on the suitable points of elevation for them to seem most promising to each other, while talking about something else.
Actually, what he really felt was contempt for this stupid broad who, head thrown back, was laughing as vindictively as an infuriated provincial prima donna. The contempt added something to his cheap thrill. He could not wholly deny it to himself.
He was toying with the thought that at the right moment he’d turn around, reject his contempt for her, and make a move for his own sake.
But not yet.
He won’t reject her yet but instead will continue to enjoy her a little longer.
He turned around, though, to see whether Klára could actually see him.
Kristóf shouldn’t be so cruel to her, should stop talking so harshly. And now he should tell her who the dame was he’d fallen for so hard.
Hearing this, Kristóf realized he must have convinced only himself that he had felt Klára’s eyes on his back.
Or Klára might have disappeared.
First Gyöngyvér should tell him who her next victim was.
It’s still a secret, laughed Gyöngyvér, the future will tell; and she became beautiful, as the chosen person seemed to appear in the mirror of her face.
She really wants to leave Ágost.
Or they’re just having fun with each other.
She had already drunk a toast to it, to this great decision, champagne, with her best girlfriends, so she could forget this whole fucking past year and everything about it.
It wasn’t even a year.
Forget it then; she already has, who gives a shit. Why don’t they go over to the next room and dance a little. She really feels like dancing because she wants to forget everything.
No, he won’t go with her.
But this is the most cheerful day of her life, so Kristóf shouldn’t be fucking around with her.
He’d still like to find his friend because, Gyöngyvér won’t believe this, his friend is sitting and crying all by himself on the stairs.
He managed to retrieve a hand from under Gyöngyvér’s fingernails, but then she grabbed his thighs, and he didn’t want to leave her splendid loins so fast, her cunt.
That’s all he could think of, though he wanted to leave.
Gyöngyvér should quickly tell him, before he had to go, what happened to the old man.
Nothing; what should have happened.
He tensed his thighs, to show a bit of protest, but he enjoyed the new situation even more. Giggling, Gyöngyvér was shrugging her shoulders.
She doesn’t care about Uncle István’s idiocy either; the old man’s now home free.
You can’t be serious.
She and Nínó had already designed Nínó’s mourning dress, in the taxicab, but nada, it was a false alarm. They were hoping he’d kicked the bucket at last. But they even had a conversation with him. His hand had to be guided a little, but he did sign the contract. The old fart wouldn’t give in easily.
You people can now sell his house, but even you can’t succeed in everything.
They had gone to eat and drink something in the Serbian restaurant, sitting there until late afternoon, planning to go back to the hospital but, Kristóf won’t believe this, Nínó got a little tipsy, smoked, and was very candid.
The two of them are best friends now. But if she stayed, if she took her seriously, if she were not to move out, Nínó would just humiliate her again. She’s willing to humiliate her in front of anyone. She does it even in front of Ilona. This whole thing has happened because of her. And then Ágost sent André to bug her, to convince her to stay. But she won’t. All she had to say to André was, listen, André, I will never be the wife of Ágost Lippay Lehr, do you understand, never.
If you like him so much, I said to André, why don’t you marry him.
Your leaving him will kill him.
Kristóf should imagine that André, that hairy monkey, had the nerve to tell her that she would kill Ágost. Go back to him then and tell him to go ahead, he can hang himself. But it’s best they don’t talk about this now, and Kristóf should shake a leg, it’s time to dance a little.
They took off together, but then, luckily, they lost each other. Perhaps they let go of each other while dancing. He didn’t mind this, he did not mind anything, he drank and wanted to leave at last because there was no point in hanging around without Klára.
Everything became boring and disgusting.
He felt, no, he knew he was lost without Klára, but he was so drunk that he couldn’t feel sorry for himself about this. And he had found out everything from Gyöngyvér; that was his great satisfaction for the evening. At least he wouldn’t have to see this dizzy dame at the dining table anymore. He managed to get out to the staircase, but he didn’t find that fucking Pisti.
At least other people let him drink; they kept bringing the booze in corked bottles from Városház Street, where the inn was open.
It was good kövidinka, cheap white wine.
Or he went over to the bar of the Gourmand with some other people so they wouldn’t have to drink that crappy kövidinka, let whoever had a taste for it drink it.
That is how he wound up in the middle of the street, asphalt below, sky above, and the stupid tree branches in between.
Then unexpectedly he found Pisti, just as they were coming back to the apartment from somewhere. With his head buried in coats, Pisti was asleep on that fucking platform. If only he didn’t have to look at this fucking platform. And then he lay down next to his friend, so he’d be in a good place too. When he awoke, his friend was looking at him but Kristóf did not know who the person was who was looking at him as a friend. B
ut then who was his friend. And then they had a fairly intelligible conversation, they held on to each other and quietly talked about how it was with the girls in Wiesenbad, reminded each other of the time they had walked over to Wiesa or Annaberg, and does Kristóf remember that old dame, that nurse, Sister Klára or somebody.
To whose place they walked over one Saturday afternoon.
Because Sister Klára had invited them.
They slept at her place.
They woke early in the morning to the sound of church bells.
She was a nice woman, that Sister Klára, that’s for sure.
She gave them hot chocolate for breakfast.
She liked Hungarians because her son lived in Budapest.
Kristóf understood, through the drunken haze, that something had happened to Pisti that he didn’t want to talk about; instead, he kept talking of other things.
Yet no matter how drunk he was, Kristóf wanted to know what had happened.
One day he’ll tell him.
He had always wanted to tell Kristóf, not anybody else.
But he won’t now because he couldn’t bear it.
Kristóf knew this was no joke.
They held on to each other even more tightly, almost hugging.
They remained silent.
In this harsh silence, in which Kristóf sobered up a little, he asked his friend if he had been beaten up.
No, he had not been.
Still, he should tell him now what happened.
His friends, his best friends, had ruined him.
Kristóf of course wanted to know what friends.
He can’t tell him, he won’t tell him, but one day he will.
No you won’t.
But what kind of friends.
It doesn’t matter, damn it.
Why doesn’t it.
Why should anything matter; Kristóf wouldn’t understand anyway. Doesn’t understand a thing about why people are the way they are; my prick understands more.
Then it must have been those friends he had told him about on the train.
You’d better stop asking. Can it already, will you.
What’s important for me is to know that you’re sure I couldn’t have been the one.
Please, leave me alone right now; it’s not worth it.
What’s not worth it.
Nothing in this world is interesting enough to bother about, that’s what’s not worth it, but I never thought you ever did anything against me. Fuck it, man, you’re too little a boy for that.
So you want me to get the hell out of here, leave you alone.
Yes.
That is where he saw Pisti last, in his unbuttoned white shirt, among the coats, but he shouldn’t have gotten up and left him. And all the time he wanted to tell him, very openly and simply, that he loved him. To be precise, additional long years had to pass before unexpectedly they met again.
Then he learned many things he had failed to learn that night or at any time before.
They were well into the night when a grave silence enveloped the crowd.
The person at the piano kept banging away but then he too noticed that the silence around him had deepened. He could no longer pulverize it with felt hammers on wires. This person was a poet who happened to play the piano well, a rather soft-spoken poet who barely six years later, not too far from here, on a night very similar to this one, simply walked out the window of a sixth-floor studio apartment. In secret, he loved the wife of his best friend and had lured her away from him. Perhaps he was even more hopelessly in love with his best friend. If properly provided with drinks, which meant that his friends had to dish out his drinks in small dozes but continuously, and mainly choice whiskey, champagne, white Cuban rum, and the like, the poet could spend an entire night lost in his own thoughts and playing the piano without using any scores.
Then there was some whispering and movement in the rooms. The last pedaled sounds of the piano had not quite settled in the air when a loud male voice could be heard from the outside.
Echoing shouts from the staircase.
From which it was clear that the police were here and the gathering would be brutally dispersed.
Kristóf recognized the second voice, also loud, that followed the first, the second one speaking over the first; he could recognize Simon’s voice even from the depth of the innermost room.
Where he stopped, frozen in place.
No one moved; instead they listened, sunk into themselves or with their heads thrown back, knowing what they had to prepare for.
Where to escape.
Kristóf could not have known any more than this because only a few moments earlier he had fled from the bathroom.
Where for a while, no matter how drunk they were, he and Gyöngyvér very seriously and with the greatest devotion wanted to understand each other’s bodily intentions. But they failed abysmally, could not find what they were looking for. Soon they were only grappling, their half-naked limbs awkwardly entangled, because what was happening between them, who wanted what or what was not wanted and by whom, was barely comprehensible.
He literally had to tear himself away from her because he did not understand how he could have demeaned himself so much; how he could have done such a thing; what had his body still wanted from him when Gyöngyvér began to scream, don’t fuck me, please, I beg you, don’t fuck me, even though a moment earlier she had wanted it, and then she shoved him away unexpectedly.
He didn’t want it either.
Then how could she say such a thing.
Or maybe he did.
Then why not, after all.
Simon, in the outer room, with the ominous reassurance of the aggressive drunk, was demanding that the commander of these plainclothesmen and uniformed policemen be brought to him.
It also became clear that plainclothesmen had been mingling with the partying crowd for some time.
He did this just in time, and a good thing too, because the police were about to begin beating up people and chasing them out of the apartment.
Klára did not see what was happening but she heard it.
Two men grabbed Simon by his arms, one on each side, and a third one was poised to bring his nightstick down on Simon’s head when André Rott came rushing to his aid.
He whispered something into the ear of one of the policemen, who immediately lost confidence and stopped yelling. People around them heard only the word comrade and then once more comrade. The policeman with the nightstick let go of Simon’s arm. Although he didn’t want to; for him it would have been nice to see the well-aimed blow hit its target and to complete the cry of victory already on his lips. And the other two policemen quickly followed his example.
The nightstick-wielding policeman may have been the assigned leader of this operation, but the two others must also have heard what André said. They looked at each other as if they had made a big mistake. Everyone could see they were uncouth country policemen ordered up to the capital only on big holidays.
Now the two of them, Simon and André, very politely took hold of the policeman with the nightstick, one on each arm, very courteously, and, to the amazement of the crowd, steered him out of the apartment to talk about the necessary details in the stairwell.
Since all three policemen were strapping, strong men, the occurrence made visible the carefully disguised true hierarchy of force.
People made way for them willingly.
The plainclothesmen, however, stayed awkwardly within the apartment.
There, tension ran so high that the only reason people did not faint by the dozen was that the tension itself kept them afloat on the surface of their dread. And it couldn’t be released even if one knew the answers to harsh questions like who belongs to which side, who is with whom here or against whom. Maybe there were some murmurs in the innermost rooms, but they soon subsided because people could hear snatches of a loud altercation in the corridor.
Not even the people in the outer rooms could make out the
words, but they felt their strength, their suppressed and infectious bluntness. Crisscrossing shouts quickly rose to a fever pitch. Received by deadly silence both inside the apartment and out. Then footsteps, shuffling, as though people might be fighting, after all, rumbling on the stairs. But nothing like this was happening. It may have been a projection of desperate imaginations.
André and Simon came back, furious, explaining the situation to each other, and in a little while the plainclothesmen left.
A few of them probably stayed.
These two continued to unload their words on each other in the midst of the drunken crowd as if this were the most natural thing in the world. They were evidently not satisfied with having saved the evening. They wanted to drink some more right away because they had to sober up from the excitement they had just experienced.
To which the others could hardly contribute since from the start they had been excluded from the company of these two.
The silence dissolved very slowly.
At best people could let them drink from their own bottles, the two heroes.
But some people just waited for a chance to leave as soon as they could.
This time they managed to squeak by.
In a little while one could hear more careful openings and closings of doors; nobody was slamming them. People left separately, anything but going together, each person alone, singly, cautiously, properly.
Those who stayed gathered strength to bear up decently, that’s what they told themselves, decently, though decency had nothing to do with it.
First they turned on the tape recorder; the poet stayed at the piano, his hands in his lap, but for a long time Elvis failed to make anyone move.