Gratitude

by Joseph Kertes

  He’d stopped playing the music, too, late in the night, almost inaudibly. It was too painful at first, but then he’d forgotten, the hole in his stomach that could not be filled drawing everything into it, the music, the love, the air, Budapest, Szeged, his dead parents, his living brother and sister, he hoped, or maybe not by now, drawing them in and grinding them up, unrelentingly, the new ruler, greater than the Germans, greater than the war, demanding more every day until one day, suddenly, and for a few days after, it settled down and accepted its state, revelled in it, found peace, and then forgot, until Smetana showed up with the mouse.

  But it was not his stomach, briefly soothed, that had pulled him out of his despair. It was his heart, fuelled again by red blood. He’d felt ashamed of himself that his love had been blurred by his need, his egotistical need at first, then his animal need. Against the woman who never spoke his name outside these walls, at pain of death, not to anyone, not to the Cyclops who did not blink even as Dr. Janos Benes dangled from a meathook before them.

  And now, damaged, knowing more than he needed to know, knowing as much as those who got to visit the edge of the Earth to peer into the chasm, did he even want to be found? Whatever would happen if he were found? Would he have that look in his eye of the touched, the traveller returned from the East, the visionary down from Mount Sinai, having stared too long at the Burning Bush? Did he want to be found? Had he wanted to be saved? Not by his brother, certainly, not by Marta. Especially not by Marta. It would strain his capacity for gratitude, imperil his ability to love. The cat gives back only as much affection as will earn him his next meal. How much better could he be at the end of these years? How much better had his species proven to be?

  But then there was Marta. How does one repay a sacrifice so great? Whether Marta was dead now, or forever gone, or back home for the holidays, he would not be free of his debt even unto his own grave. At best, he would be married to the debt and to her, a bigamist—at worst, a celibate but for the debt.

  Celibate but for the bars of light, parallel and perfect, never to meet, travelling someday soon over his recumbent bones, by day the children of the sun, thin but still glowing, by night the children of the moon at full blast, skiing across the fleshless bones, the grinning skull, adventurers like the Musketeers, voyagers that light their own path, the glowing needles of Madame LaFarge, weaving out destiny, wasting destiny on grey limbs.

  And yet Istvan would go out. Give the world another chance, if only for her, for the sacrifice she made, a destiny not to be wasted—the ultimate sin: an ultimate sacrifice wasted, a destiny discarded.

  Istvan waited until nightfall, but only just. He took what seemed at the time a terrible risk. He carried his pan of water, now just a third full, to Marta’s little bathroom, lit the second-last of his candles, stood before her mirror, gazed at the skeleton jailed within his skin, found a bar of soap by the sink, stared at the single strand of black hair embedded within it, brought the bar to his nose to smell the hair but detected only the perfume of the soap, took off his shirt and pants, dunked the soap in the last of his drinking water and washed himself, top to bottom.

  He could not wear this dingy shirt anymore—not out. But why not out? Was he going dancing? Was he going to take in a sumptuous meal at the Rosenkavalier? He was going out. Out. He had not been out for months, out on the street, out where other humans roamed. Should he dress for them, dress his body? It was the same body he’d dressed in the morning and undressed at night, the body that had receded from its clothing, receding to the time before its lungs had formed and its limbs could carry it, before it slipped into the world and had to learn for itself how to breathe, walk and dress itself. And now unexpectedly he got to revisit that time, recede until he dissolved into the genetic materials that met in him and which he could share with the planet that conjured him up.

  But he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. As it was, the curfew was upon him. The streets were to be cleared. He wanted to be someone just blundering along, running late in getting home.

  Marta had a big Alpine sweater she’d worn on a cold night walk not long after they’d met. It was the biggest of her sweaters and the least feminine until she put it on. He found it in her closet in no time. In the heart of this generous sweater, where two white Alps formed a valley, he was sure he could make out her scent. He hesitated a moment, considered preserving her fragrance in the garment but quickly saw the other garments hanging there. He had plenty from which to sip her memory, if ever he made it back to this sweet jail and sanctuary.

  It was a clear night when he slipped out of the front door. The sky was crisp, the moon half full, the air cool. He thought right away of the water he’d used up to wash, wanted clouds, wanted to smell moisture. Smetana was nowhere to be seen.

  Three doors down, a light was on in the window. He ducked the second he saw it. He had neighbours. No one next door, a poor old woman in the next, he knew from Marta, possibly even gone by now, passed or departed to a friendlier place, but here were neighbours he didn’t know about. Who were they? Would they turn him in? Had Marta mentioned them? Why had they kept to themselves? Were they squatters from the city?

  He found himself huddling close to the ground, next to a dense bush, more suspicious than if he’d stood upright on the sidewalk and casually smoked. What was he to do out here? The open air and the bright half-moon didn’t buoy him up, they shut him down, turned him into a criminal, a paranoid. Who lived here? Who stood there in the shadows? Who made that noise?

  He should have been a bat, he thought, vacuuming the air of its bloody-minded insects, quieting the buzz, peering in with blind eyes at the menacing forms in the light, the evil designs plotted out in their warm and quivering glow.

  Could he do just that—go blind?—go nearly blind?—shut one eye and close down half his brain? He could not bear his thoughts anymore. Five months of thoughts, an over-exercised brain within the ruins of his body. Or cut the wires between his senses and his mind. Use them to alert, use them to attract, use them to sense surfaces, but not to feed his battered mind.

  Istvan wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. He was sure he knew of a few farms on the road into Szeged. If he could make it there, he could help himself in the dark to some pears, this time of year, possibly, or peppers, or corn. But it would take him much too long to get there by foot, and he was sure to be detected by someone during so long a trip. How would he explain his wanderings then? What was worse, he was not very good at being furtive. He knew he didn’t want to galumph through the bushes and up walks like the mad marauder of the night, so he would try to be subtle, do the very best he could.

  He also remembered the address of Mrs. Ella Brunsvik, his very last patient, remembered it from the card he himself had drawn up when she first became a patient, before Marta, before the fancy equipment from Rochester, when Mr. and Mrs. Brunsvik were still able to pay a little something for Istvan’s work, not just chicken and dumplings. He’d made his notes about their mouths on that card a couple of dozen times, knew their addresses and their mouths better than he could know them. But how kind Mrs. Brunsvik had turned out to be the last time Istvan had seen her in his office. She’d pushed him to flee almost as urgently as Marta had, just before the goons had arrived.

  He thought often in his warren of Mrs. Brunsvik, not only because of her kindness, but also because she lived in the same district as Marta, Tower Town, in a little cottage on the other side, at 17 Lovas Street, not that far from the impressive twin towers of the Votive Church. Istvan used to love the concerts in the square in front of the church, and the ancient Greek plays. He saw Lysistrata just the summer before, it seemed a century before. Inside, the Madonna stood near the altar, dressed in a fur coat and wearing red slippers she could have got only in Szeged.

  Istvan wondered what the Brunsviks were doing now in their little house, why they hadn’t visited Marta in all these months, whether they’d continued with Dr. Janos Benes in Istvan’s absence, or if the war had
come between the Brunsviks and the new doctor. He would find out now. He’d visit them, though it was late, and ask them for a little help.

  But what lured him first was this light coming from the cottage three doors down. He had to peek, just to know who shared the shadows that fell on his house and the sounds all these months.

  He crept toward the cottage. The honey light poured out unabashed through the window, beckoning. He found he could not take another step, turned away, and instead looked up at the sky. He was gawking at Venus, nestled brightly among the stars, impersonating the stars. He remembered once, many years before, lying in a field by Lake Balaton with his brother and sister. It was very late at night, or it might merely have seemed that way to him as a child. Istvan lay in the middle as befitted his years. He was fourteen, Paul, to his right, was almost three years older, and Rozsi, to his left, nine years younger. She’d been having lessons at home with a private tutor and was about to begin school. Paul pointed straight up at Venus, and Rozsi asked why it was so bright. Paul said it was a star with special powers. “She’s so greedy she has the power to swallow the light all around her, causing her to reign alone in the dark bed she makes for herself.”

  “She’s a lovely star,” Rozsi said. “She’s very good at sucking up the light.”

  “Venus is not a star,” Istvan said, already the scientist. “Venus is like us, like Earth and the moon. We merely reflect the sun’s, our own star’s, light. We must look like that to the Venetians, too, except there aren’t any.”

  No one made a sound, and when Istvan turned toward his young sister, he saw that she was crying. He looked at Paul on his other side, and he was still staring up into the sky. Istvan got up onto his knees and said to Rozsi, “Do you want me to turn Venus back into a star?”

  “No,” she said. “You can’t. You were the one who took away her starhood in the first place.”

  As he looked down again, Istvan wondered about his young sister. He wished he could ask her how she was doing this night in Budapest, if she wasn’t with Marta. Could they have met up wherever they were taken and introduced themselves? He gazed all around again at his street, felt momentarily exposed, but saw the window that beckoned. He didn’t want to be detected as he approached, and he was lucky. A weeping willow stood before the window, so he could hide under it. His breath left him as he looked in. A woman sat at a white dressing table with an oval mirror, brushing out her long russet hair, brushing languidly, unleashing the golden oil of her scalp into her hair. She had fleshy lips, pouty full red lips. Istvan found himself trembling inside his Alpine sweater. He was faint. Hunger and deprivation had made his appetites run together. He’d developed an Impressionist’s eye. The woman was suddenly half red lips and half red hair, the hair long as a garment. He saw now she wore a silk nightie, nothing more, one long leg slung over the other, the upper foot bobbing as if to music, urging its owner onto a dance floor. The woman ceased her operations, set down her brush on the dressing table, arrested her bare, rhythmic foot by planting it on the floor. She looked directly into the mirror, took a violet cloche hat that sat like a straw helmet awaiting her, and fitted it onto her head, wiggling the hat until the posy of straw flowers at its front stared straight back at her in the mirror. She shifted the flowers off to one side for a second, then tried the other. All that was missing was a flapper dress.

  How could Istvan visit with her without setting off some alarm? Where could he have come from after all this time, and how must he look? Like someone dredged up from the bottom of the sea, full of seaweed and silt. If Istvan longed for a little lamplight and tea, if he tapped at the window, would she lunge at his throat, plunge a knife in his heart, lunge at the darkness and formlessness of night outside her window?

  Was it too late to call? Was she getting ready for bed already? He knew the exact time, 9:13. He always did, now, without checking. With nothing but a cat and clock to tutor him over these months, he’d internalized the ticking as surely as the desire and need behind the scratching on the floorboards.

  There might be a man. There was surely a man—she was surely not alone—not with so alluring a nightgown and so ardent an effort at brushing her tresses.

  He would be neighbourly—not too neighbourly. If this neighbour was a surprise to him, imagine what he would be to her. And he couldn’t tell the truth. He didn’t want to implicate Marta, not after all she’d been through.

  Istvan was at the door now, and he knocked. For a moment, he could not hear a thing and then the door opened a crack. A wedge of light fell out. The woman looked at him, just a nose and eyes, sizing him up. He peered in. She hadn’t bothered to conceal herself. She was still in her nightie, without shoes.

  He said, “My car broke down a few blocks from here. May I come in?”

  “Your car?” she asked. “I have no phone, not anymore.” She kept looking him over as she spoke. He took half a step forward, and she didn’t flinch.

  Who would he have phoned if she’d had a working phone?

  “May I come in for a moment?” She didn’t answer. “Would it be all right? Is your husband here?”

  “No, he’s not. He can’t help you. He’s an officer, and he’s on duty tonight. He could come back any time. But even if he was here,” she continued, “he wouldn’t help. He’s not mechanical.”

  “I can wait a little. Maybe your husband could help me push the car off to the side.” What was he saying? What if she agreed to his request? The car could have been stolen, then, gone from where he left it, that’s all.

  The woman said, “I don’t know when my husband will be back. Marton’s his name. He’s a corporal.”

  Istvan said, “I was heading for an evening meal when my car conked out.” They both knew about the curfew. “It was hours ago. I tried to fix it myself but couldn’t.” She looked at his hands, his Alpine sweater, looked him over again, top to bottom.

  He was ready to back off and maybe run. If she didn’t have a phone, she couldn’t have him pursued, not right away. He could make it away, but he didn’t want any authorities scrutinizing the neighbourhood. He would have to stay away for days. He had backed up several steps when she opened the door wide. “Come, sit with me. We can talk a little and maybe solve your problem. There’s someone a block or so away.” She stood absurdly exposed in the doorway, her long hair acting as a russet scarf as the night air flowed in. She rubbed her own shoulders. “Please, come in. I’m Piroska.” She offered a single warming hand to greet him, and when he took it, she tugged gently, and he was inside in a second with the door closed behind them.

  It was warm in the little house and comforting. He saw a bowl of fruit on the wooden table beside them. He expected her to withdraw, put some more clothing on, allowing him to steal a pear, but she asked him to sit as they were in the parlour, a room not much bigger than his own, three ancient doors down the way.

  He’d barely sat in a wooden chair opposite her, barely settled back, when she said that Marton would not be coming back that night. “He’s not on duty. He’s a gambler and a drunkard.” Her eyes welled up. He looked across the little room at the mantel. They had no clock. In its place stood a photograph in an ebony frame of an officer, a handsome young man with dark hair and eyes, proudly holding a rifle with a bayonet. She saw what he was looking at and made no remark.

  “But he could come back, couldn’t he? He could be back any second.”

  She shook her head. “He’s been gone three days.” She began to sob in earnest now, stood a moment, glanced through watery eyes at the mountains on Istvan’s sweater, came over to him and stood before him, her bare knees knocking against his knees as she swayed her distraught form. He thought she might faint. Her eyes were closed. He thought she might throw herself at him, throw herself at a chance, believing in his kindness the way he was hoping he could believe in hers. She was rubbing herself again as she swayed, rubbing her upper arms, then she let them fall to her sides. Was the warm heart of a mouse enough to give him potency? Befo
re he knew it, he was on his feet and she was in his arms, both of them benefiting from Marta’s generous wool sweater.

  She opened her wet eyes. They were purple in the honey light. He thought she might kiss him with those ample red lips. He glanced again at the fruit, toward the dark little room at one corner, then the other, the one where he’d first seen her. What a world away were these rooms, just three doors down from his own hideout, the table laden with food, the wayward officer, the friendly, needy woman Marta’s age. What house was this, centuries before? The home of a carriage driver? A stable hand? The royal florist? And whose ancestors creaked upon these little floors? Piroska’s? Marton’s? Did their ghosts still hover about the place in the hulking shadow of King Mathias’s ghost, the fragrance of fresh flowers awaiting arrangement and delivery?

  He found himself plunking backward in a soft chair, Piroska on top of him, straddling him like a jockey her horse. She kissed him, and he felt himself sink into those luxuriant lips. He held back. “Please,” he said, feeling queasy.

  She pulled her head back, her arms still around his neck. She looked at his eyes, lips and neck, as if she were sizing him up again. “What do you do?” she asked. “Are you from here?”

  “Yes. I’m a dentist.” He immediately regretted telling her. What if she told Marton, or anyone?

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. He was relieved. “You don’t look like a dentist.”

  “Then I’m not,” he said. “I’m a car mechanic.”

  She looked him in the eyes, surprised, but then she giggled. She got off him for a second and lifted her nightgown, exposing herself, the damp triangle of auburn hair, then mounted him again, began to fumble with the buttons of his pants. He didn’t want her to take off his sweater, didn’t want her to see how scrawny he’d become. How warm she was in the cool night air. They made love like crazed people. She bathed the whole lower half of his face with her mouth. Her hungry tongue jabbed at his throat. And then she became rigid and pulled her face away. Her eyes blazed at him. She concentrated all her energy below. From deep within her throat, she released a strangulated cry, chilling. She seemed to swoon away before him, and he clung to her, but the chill froze over her, too, as it had him, enveloping her.