by Magda Szabo
And in truth she didn’t need the country. She had no wish to join the people who oversaw the sweepers. But because she sought nothing for herself it never occurred to her that in her eternal negativity she was political. Had she behaved like that under Horthy, her employers of the time would have found it highly amusing. Józsi’s boy told us she did once, during that period, spend a few days in prison for making inflammatory statements. Every phase of her life must have followed the same horrendous pattern. When she did get going, it was best to keep clear, and people fled when they heard her sounding off about Gagarin’s space flight, or the dog Laika. When Laika’s heartbeats were first broadcast she denounced it as cruelty to animals. Later, she consoled herself by claiming they’d used a ticking clock — no dog in its right mind would rush over and volunteer to sit inside a marble, or whatever it was, and race round the heavens for fun — who could believe that? As for Gagarin, she was a real prophet of doom. Projects like that should be left well alone. God usually ignored us when asked for something, but he invariably granted what we feared. If she levelled the score with a neighbour who trampled her flowerbed, why shouldn’t God do the same to his intruders? The heavenly bodies weren’t put up there for people to wander round. The day Gagarin died, when she was forced to see for herself the reaction of a shocked and horrified world, even the hopelessly dim Adélka stayed away. She stood on her porch, gesticulating vehemently, telling anyone who’d listen how she’d predicted that God wouldn’t tolerate us exceeding our powers. She used other words, but that was her meaning. She was the only person on the entire planet who felt no more sorry for the young man who burned up like a star than she would have for Kennedy or Martin Luther King. She looked on East and West equally, without bias or sympathy, declaring that there were sweepers and their bosses in America too; that Kennedy was one of the bosses, and a negro who hadn’t yet made it into the circus but still travelled around performing non-stop must be a king among sweepers. Everyone had to die one day. She’d shed a tear for all of them as soon as she could find the time.
Years later, when Józsi’s boy and I met beside her grave and talked about how impossible it was to change her view of the world, the young man spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He reckoned peace had arrived too late for his aunt. His father had taken a more rational view of things. He had never forgotten the hard times they had been through, but he was both contented and progressive. But Emerence had been prone to these bitter outbursts all her life. I must have noticed how peculiar they were, a hostility almost without an object. She was as much against Franz Josef as she was against anyone else in a position to influence the history of the nation, even for the good. I didn’t tell him about the lawyer’s son. I sensed that the cause of her rage somehow lay with him. In the end it was the Lieutenant Colonel who provided an explanation: Emerence probably hated power no matter whose hands it was in. If the man existed who could solve the problems of the five continents, she would have taken against him too, because he was successful. In her mind everyone came down to a common denomination — God, the town clerk, the party worker, the king, the executioner, the leader of the UN. But if she experienced a sense of fellow feeling with anyone, her compassion was all-embracing, and this didn’t extend only to the deserving. It was for everyone. Absolutely everyone. Even the guilty.
I could have said more than anyone about that, because the old woman had confided in me. But I wasn’t stupid. All it needed was for me to give them the full picture. On one occasion she was kneeling in front of me, using a damp cloth to pick dog hairs off the rug — Viola was shedding his winter coat. Sitting at my typewriter, I heard her talking away. “Dear God,” she muttered into the damp cloth, “I hid the German because his leg — what little was left of it after the machine gun caught him — was falling off. I thought, if they found him they’d beat him to death. Then I stuck the Russian in with him, at the closed-off end of the cellar. They just stared at one another. Now you never heard that, and you never will, and if you once open your mouth about it you’ll see what I do to you. When I moved in, there was no-one else living in the building, only that old cripple Mr Szloka, the one I later buried. The owners had gone to Switzerland, and the other tenants hadn’t yet started to drift in. I went all over the villa, from the attic to the basement, and I saw it would be possible to make a perfect underground hiding place if I arranged the firewood in the right way. There was a tiny door behind it, opening on to a windowless space. So I dragged the wood in front of it, and I hid them all in there, anyone who was on the run. You can imagine the look on their faces when I moved the Russian in with the German. He must have been hit in the lung because his blood was all frothy. They babbled away at one another, neither understanding a word. I hid their weapons — I have them to this day — not that they’d be worth using, they make so much noise. But I knew how to. My boss was an officer and a big hunter.
“They died, both of them, before they had time to make friends. That night, I laid them out in front of the house. No-one has ever worked out how they came to be lying there, side by side, so peacefully. I also hid Mr Brodarics in the same place. Rákosi was after him. As if I’d just hand him over! He went off to the drilling site with his helmet on each day, and when I found him the oil wouldn’t come off his hands. A spy — the hell he was a spy! Whoever said that about him was the real spy. So yes, I’d just let them take him away, and leave his poor wife, who scrubbed and cleaned all day, to fend for herself. And besides, Mr Brodarics showed a real respect for people. Often he would crouch down beside me when I had to light a fire for the cauldron. He showed me how to use less coal. I learned the secrets of fire from him — everything has its secrets, even embers. Rákosi’s man arrives. I open the gate. Where is he? Well, he certainly isn’t here, I say. The others took him away early this morning. But make sure you get him — he owes me money for bottling jam. So he survived it all, in my little nook. After that it was empty for a while, but then I hid a member of the secret police. He’d collapsed in the garden. He was a decent man, someone I knew. It would have been a real shame if anything happened to him. He helped me out when my arm was broken — he set up the drying rack — so why shouldn’t I have hidden him? But as for the other one, the one I took in later, I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire for him now. But I kept him for a few days because he was so miserable. He was sweating big clear drops like a dog when he sees them lifting the stick.”
I listened in silence. St Emerence of Csabadul, the madwoman of mercy, who asks no questions but rescues all alike, since whoever is being pursued must be saved, the Grossmans and those hunting the Grossmans; on one side of her banner a drying rack, on the other Mr Brodarics’ helmet. This old woman is not just oblivious to her country, she’s oblivious to everything. Her spirit shines bright, but through a cloud of steam. Such a thirst for life, but so diffused over everything; such immense talent, achieving nothing. “Tell me,” I once asked her. “You only rescued people? You never handed anyone in?” She glared at me, with hatred in her eyes. What did I take her for? She hadn’t even informed on the barber, though he had cheated her, robbed her of everything. Even his dreams were lies. When he left her and made off with his loot, she said nothing. If he needed it, let him have it. But from that day on, if a man got close to her, he reminded her of the barber, and she wasn’t going to lose everything she’d put together again, especially not the money. She made a plan for the future, and there were no barbers, or Kennedys, or flying dogs in it. There was no place for anyone but herself, and the dead she would gather in.
She threw down what was in her hand, and rushed out. She had remembered that she had to collect a prescription for someone who was sick. She asked if I wanted her to get anything. I stood there gazing after her, wondering why she still stuck with me when I was so very different from her. I had no idea what she liked about me. I said earlier that I was still rather young, and I hadn’t thought it through, how irrational, how unpredictable is the attraction between p
eople, how fatal its current. And yet I was well versed in Greek literature, which portrayed nothing but the passions: death and love and friendship, their hands joined together round a glittering axe.
NÁDORI-CSABADUL
Something else Emerence also almost never referred to was the part of the country where she was born, not far from my own birthplace. I was forever disparaging the city, its water, its air, and at the start of spring, when the sodden earth began to thaw and mists rose between the lingering mounds of snow, I would be seized with nostalgia and yearn to be back home. Emerence didn’t join me in these little outbursts, though she too noticed the fragrances bearing the message of the season and the barely visible shoots of green, not yet a full canopy, or a bud, not even a baby leaf, appearing on the branches, reminding us that work was beginning in the fields; and in our villages the new-born light, diffracted in spring’s prism, would bring back the girl who once jumped and danced without a thought or care — the girl I once was, the girl she had been.
On one such day, in late February, I received an invitation from the Csabadul library. I immediately dashed over to Emerence and asked if she would go with me if I accepted. She wouldn’t have to listen to my talk, just travel with me, and while it was going on she could visit the cemetery or look up her relatives. She left me with no real reply, and I took this as a refusal, but I agreed to do the lecture anyway. Eight weeks stood between us and the appointed date, and a good month later she brought up the subject of the trip. She asked whether we would have to spend the night there, as that would be out of the question, but if we could set out early and be back by the evening, it was conceivable that she might come. Sutu had offered to sweep the pavement, and Adélka would do the bins, so if I still wanted to take her, she’d come. This surprising decision had breathed a hint of colour into her normally pale face. She went on to ask if, when we got there, I would refrain from telling anyone how we were connected. This really annoyed me. Did we treat her like a mere employee? I offered to introduce her as my husband’s relative. I couldn’t pass her off as one of mine because her family would know otherwise, but she might well be related to someone they didn’t know in Budapest. The look she gave me, blending ridicule and forbearance, was unlike anything I’d seen from her before. “The master would be delighted,” she said drily. “Don’t trouble yourself. I was just curious to see whether you’d agree. But you did. And yes, you did because you’re so stupid. You understand nothing. What do you imagine they think I became? A king? They put me into service when I was still a child. My family aren’t dreamers. I shall tell them I am a caretaker: it’s a perfectly respectable job.”
By then I was so furious I lashed out at her in rage. As far as I cared, she could introduce herself however she liked, as a dog-catcher or someone who skinned dead animals. No-one could possibly respect her for keeping a multi-storey villa in order, plus all the other houses, and looking after us as well — and the best reason of all was the last, because, though she didn’t believe it, I’d been invited to Csabadul for precisely the thing she set at nothing: my writing. There were people, even in the place where she was born, who didn’t think writers were idlers; people, unlike her, who didn’t dismiss out of hand names such as János Arany or Petőfi. She made no reply, nor did she mention the trip again. Right up to the last possible day I had no idea whether or not she would come. But I let things be. I was afraid that if I exerted any pressure, she’d stay at home.
In the days leading up to the lecture we carried on as before. Emerence dusted the bookshelves, took delivery of the mail, listened whenever I spoke on the radio, but she passed no comment, she wasn’t interested. She took note when we dashed off to a conference, meeting or presentation by some literary group, or occasional language lessons. She saw our names on the books. She returned them to the shelves duly dusted, as she would candleholders or matchboxes. They were all the same to her, misdemeanours that might be overlooked, like eating or drinking to excess. Some childish ambition made me want to win her over to what I saw as the irresistible enchantment of classical Hungarian literature. I once recited Petőfi’s My Mother’s Hen to her. I thought this poem might appeal to her because she loved animals. She stood there, staring at me with the duster still in her hand, then gave a dry, grating laugh. The stories I knew defied belief. What is a stone? What was all that about? What is a stone? And what was this word thou? Nobody spoke like that. I left the room, choking with rage.
In the end, she didn’t go with me on the trip. It was no-one’s fault in particular. Sutu was ordered to report to the city council offices that day about the licence for her stall, and the night before we were to leave she ran over to Emerence’s to say there was nothing she could do about it, she was very sorry, but she couldn’t stand in for her; she had no way of knowing when her turn would come, or how long it would take once she was called. The scene that passed between them was too brutal to imagine. The more clearly Emerence came to see Sutu’s innocence, the more savage her insults became. More than anyone, she’d had the same experience herself, time after time: you planned something for a particular hour of the day, and then everything fell apart because someone somewhere else had made other arrangements. She knew that Sutu was as much a captive as the rest of us. If she was summoned, she couldn’t tell them she had other things to do. So there was no point in arguing about it, or insulting Sutu left and right. But she did. Sutu withdrew, a veritable Coriolanus, and it was a long while before they were on the same good terms again.
On the day of my outing Emerence arrived at dawn (much earlier than usual) to take a sleepy Viola for his walk. While I was getting ready she never left my side. She found fault with my hair, my dress, everything. My nerves were in shreds. Why was she interfering and ordering me around, as if I were off to a royal ball? As she pulled and twisted my hair, she told me she hadn’t been home since ’45, and then she went there and came straight back again on the next available train, after trading a little food for various bits and bobs. In ’44 she did spend a full week there, and didn’t enjoy it, but in those days her people were in a miserable state. Her grandfather had always been a tyrant, and the rest of her family on her mother’s side were unsettled because of the circus. “Circus”, in Emerence’s vocabulary meant national disasters — in this case the Second World War — all those situations where women become neurotic, grasping and stupid, and men go berserk and start knifing people, as happens in the wings of history’s theatre. If it had been up to her, she would have locked the youth of 1848 away in a cellar and given them a lecture: no shouting, no literature; get yourselves involved in some useful activity. She didn’t want to hear any revolutionary speeches, or she’d deal with them, every single one. Get out of the coffee houses, and back to work in the fields and factories.
Only when she saw the official car turning into the street, with Nádori-Csabadul, the name of her birthplace, painted on it, did she give me my instructions. If I could find the time, would I look to see what state the family graves were in, and if possible, the old house too, where she was born, on the outskirts of Nádori? Also, if there was time, she would like me to go to the station at Csabadul and walk all the way to the end of the goods platform. That was important — the goods platform. If I came across any members of the family — there must be some, because they wrote to Józsi’s boy — they weren’t Szeredáses; there were none of them left, only descendants on her mother’s side, the Divéks — she had no message for them, but if they did ask I shouldn’t say too much, just tell them the truth, that she was alive and well. I promised nothing. I had absolutely no idea what free time I would have. Any such meeting would depend not only on road conditions but also on whatever had been organised for me when I got there. These events almost never started when advertised, because they had to wait for an audience, or for the librarian to arrange lunch. I could hardly start inquiring about cemeteries, but I would do what I could. The car had in fact arrived rather earlier than arranged. Perhaps, if I really tri
ed, I’d manage to make time for everything she’d asked.
At the very last moment Sutu appeared in the street and opened fire. She mocked Emerence for staying at home even when she’d changed the lock on her door. She knew why she’d done it. She didn’t trust her, Sutu. She reckoned that she’d be burgled on the one day when everyone knew she was going with me, and who in all likelihood was best placed to do it but her, Sutu? And she could have taken Viola too. “Go and kill yourself,” Emerence coolly replied. Sutu was dumbfounded, but she stood her ground. The curse was as unexpected, and as little justified, as her own accusations had been.
And that was my last view of them from the car. Sutu, with her head turned to stare at Emerence as if they were doing karate and the old woman had struck her such a blow that she was paralysed. I called out to Emerence that I’d do my best to be back early; I hoped before midnight, if possible, because by then I’d be so tired I wouldn’t be able to speak. “Tired? What from? It’s those poor people having to listen to you who’ll be tired. By the time they’ve been herded into the cultural centre they’ll have had to finish feeding the animals, milking them, bedding them down, and five million other things you know nothing about. All you’ll do is sit and jabber a lot of nonsense.”