The Book of Lies

by Agota Kristof

  One night Father comes home dressed in a uniform. He hangs his coat and belt on the rack near the living room door. There is a revolver holstered on his belt.

  During dinner Father says, "I must go to another town. War has been declared and I've been called up."

  We say, "We didn't know you were a soldier, Father. You're a journalist, not a soldier."

  He says, "In wartime all men are soldiers, even journalists. Especially journalists. I have to observe and describe what happens at the front. It's called being a war correspondent."

  We ask, "Why do you have a revolver?"

  "Because I'm an officer. Soldiers have rifles, officers revolvers."

  Father says to Mother, "Put the children to bed. I have something to talk to you about."

  Mother says to us, "Off to bed. I'llcome tell you a story. Say good-bye to your father."

  We kiss Father and then go to our room, but we immediately come back. We sit silently in the hallway just behind the living room door.

  Father says, "I'mgoing to go live with her. It's war and I have no time to waste. I love her."

  Mother asks, "What about the children?"

  Father says, "She's expecting a child as well. That's why I couldn't remain silent."

  "Do you want a divorce?"

  "It's not the time for that. After the war we'll see. Meanwhile I'm going to recognize the baby. I might not make it back alive. One never knows."

  Mother asks, "You don't love us anymore?"

  Father says, "That's beside the point. I'llkeep on taking care of the boys and you. But I also love another woman. Can't you understand?"

  "No. I can't understand and I don't want to."

  We hear a gunshot. We open the living room door. It is Mother who has fired. She has Father's revolver in her hand. She is still shooting. Father is on the ground and Mother keeps on shooting. Beside me Lucas falls too. Mother throws down the revolver, shrieks, and kneels next to Lucas.

  I run out of the house and down the street shouting "Help!" Some people grab me, bring me back to the house, try to calm me. They also try to calm Mother, but she keeps shrieking, "No, no, no!"

  The living room is filled with people. The police arrive as well as two ambulances. They bring us all to the hospital.

  In the hospital they give me an injection to make me fall asleep because I am still shouting.

  The next day the doctor says, "He's fine. He wasn't hurt. He can go home."

  The nurse says, "Go home where? There's no one at his house. And he's only four."

  The doctor says, "Go see the social worker."

  The nurse brings me to an office. The social worker is an old woman with her hair in a bun. She asks me questions:

  "Do you have a grandmother? An aunt? A neighbor who's fond ofyou?"

  I ask, "Where's Lucas?"

  She says, "Here, in the hospital. He's hurt."

  I say, "I want to see him."

  She says, "He's unconscious."

  "What does that mean?" "He can't talk right now."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No, but he must rest."

  "And my mother?"

  "Your mother's fine. But you can't see her either."

  "Why? Is she hurt too?"

  "No, she's sleeping."

  "And my father's asleep too?"

  "Yes, he's sleeping too."

  She strokes my hair.

  I ask, "How come they're all asleep and I'm not?"

  She says, "That's how it is. These things happen sometimes. A whole family goes to sleep and the one who doesn't is left all alone."

  "I don't want to be alone. I want to sleep too, like Lucas, like Mother, like Father."

  She says, "Someone has to stay awake to wait for them and to take care of them when they come back, when they wake up."

  "They'll all wake up?"

  "Some of them, yes. At least we hope so."

  We are quiet for a moment. She says, "You don't know anyone who could look after you while we wait?"

  I ask, "Wait for what?"

  "For when one of them comes back."

  I say, "No, no one. And I don't want to be looked after. I want to go home."

  She says, "You can't live in your house by yourself at your age. If you don't have anyone, I have to send you to an orphanage."

  I say, "I don't care. If I can't live at our house I don't care where I go."

  A woman comes into the office and says, "I've come for the little boy. I want to take him home with me. He doesn't have anyone else. I know his family."

  The social worker tells me to go for a walk in the corridor. There are people in the corridor sitting on benches, talking. They're almost all dressed in bathrobes.

  They say:

  "How horrible."

  "It's a pity, such a nice family."

  "She was in the right."

  "Men. That's men for you."

  "They're a disgrace, these young women."

  "And the war breaking out and all."

  "There really are other things to worry about."

  The woman who said "I want to take him home with me" comes out of the office. She says to me, "You can come with me. My name is Antonia. And you? Are you Lucas or Klaus?"

  I offer my hand to Antonia. 'I'm Klaus."

  We get on a bus and then walk. We come to a little room where there is a big bed and a smaller one, a crib.

  Antonia says to me, "You're still little enough to sleep in that bed, aren't you?"

  I say, "Yes."

  I lie down in the crib. There's just enough room; my feet touch the bars.

  Antonia goes on, 'The little bed is for the baby I'm expecting. It will be your little brother or sister."

  I say, "I already have a brother. I don't want another one. Nor a sister either."

  Antonia is lying on the big bed and says, "Come, come next to me."

  I get out of my bed and go up to hers. She takes my hand and puts it on her stomach. "Can you feel it? It's moving. It will be with us soon."

  She pulls me against herself in the bed and holds me.

  "I hope that he'll be as handsome as you."

  Then she puts me back in the little bed.

  Each time Antonia held me I could feel the baby moving, and I thought it was Lucas. I was wrong. It was a little girl who came out of Antonia's stomach.

  I am sitting in the kitchen. The two old women told me to stay here. I hear Antonia's cries. I do not move. The two old women come in from time to time to heat water and to say to me, "Sit there quietly."

  Later one of the old women tells me, "You can go in."

  I go into the room; Antonia holds her arms out, hugs me, and laughs. "It's a little girl. Look. A pretty little girl. Your sister."

  I look inside the crib. A little crimson-colored thing is screaming. I hold her hand, count, and stroke her fingers one by one. She has ten. I stick her left thumb in her mouth and she stops crying.

  Antonia smiles at me. "We'll call her Sarah. Do you like that name?"

  I say, "Yes, the name doesn't matter. It isn't important. She's my little sister, isn't she?"

  "Yes, your own little sister."

  "And Lucas's too?"

  "Yes, Lucas's too."

  Antonia starts to cry. I ask her, "Where will I sleep now that the little bed is taken?"

  She says, "In the kitchen. I asked my mother to make a bed for you in the kitchen."

  I ask, "I can't sleep in your room anymore?"

  Antonia says, "It's better for you to sleep in the kitchen. The baby will cry a lot and wake everyone up all night long."

  I say, "If she cries and bothers you, all you have to do is put her thumb in her mouth. The left thumb, like me."

  I go back into the kitchen. There's only one old woman there, Antonia's mother. She gives me honey sandwiches to eat. She makes me drink some milk. Then she says, "Get into bed, my little one. Choose whichever one you like best."

  There are two mattresses on the floor with pillows and
blankets. I choose the mattress under the window; that way I can look at the stars and the sky.

  Antonia's mother lies down on the other mattress. Before going to sleep she prays: "Lord almighty, help me. The child doesn't even have a father. My daughter with a fatherless child! If my husband even knew! I lied to him. I hid the truth from him. And the other child, which isn't even hers. And this whole sad business. What must I do to save this sinner?"

  Grandmother mumbles and I fall asleep, happy to be near Antonia and Sarah.

  Antonia's mother rises early in the morning. She sends me off to run errands at a neighborhood store. All I have to do is hand over a list and give them money.

  Antonia's mother cooks the meals. She bathes the baby and changes it several times a day. She does the laundry, which she hangs on cords over our heads in the kitchen. She mumbles the whole time. Prayers, maybe.

  She does not stay long. Ten days after Sarah's birth she leaves with her suitcase and her prayers.

  I'm happy all alone in the kitchen. In the morning I get up early to fetch bread and milk. When Antonia wakes up I go into her room with a bottle for Sarah and coffee for Antonia. Sometimes I give Sarah her bottle; afterward I can watch her being bathed, and I try to make her laugh with the toys that we have bought for her, Antonia and I.

  Sarah becomes prettier and prettier. She grows hair and teeth, she knows how to laugh, and she has learned to suck her left thumb.

  Unfortunately, Antonia has to go back to work because her parents no longer send her money.

  Antonia goes away every evening. She works in a nightclub where she sings and dances. She comes back late at night and in the morning she is tired; she can't take care of Sarah.

  A neighbor comes every morning; she gives Sarah her bath, then sets her down with her toys in her pen in the kitchen. I play with her while the neighbor makes lunch and washes the laundry. After doing the dishes the neighbor leaves, and after that I look after everything if Antonia is still asleep.

  In the afternoon I take Sarah for walks in her carriage. We go to parks where there are playgrounds; I let Sarah run around in the grass or play in the sand, and I balance her on swings.

  When I am six years old I have to go to school. Antonia comes with me on the first day. She speaks with the teacher and then leaves me there alone. When class is over I run home to see if everything's all right and to take Sarah for a walk.

  We go farther and farther afield, and it is because of this, completely by chance, that I find myself on my street, the street where I lived with my parents.

  I don't mention it to Antonia or anyone else. But each day I walk by the house with green shutters, stop for a moment, and cry. Sarah cries with me.

  The house is abandoned. The shutters are closed, the chimney makes no smoke. The front yard is taken over by weeds; in the back, in the courtyard, the nuts have almost certainly fallen from the tree and no one has gathered them.

  One evening when Sarah's asleep I leave the house. I run through the streets noiselessly and in total darkness. The lights in the town are out because of the war; the windows of the houses have been carefully blacked out. The light of the stars is enough, and all the streets, all the alleys have been engraved in my head.

  I climb the fence, go around the house, and sit at the foot of the walnut tree. In the grass my hands touch nuts that are hard and dry. I fill my pockets. The next day I come back with a sack and gather as many nuts as I can carry. When she sees the sack in the kitchen Antonia asks me, "Where did these nuts come from?"

  I say, "From our garden."

  "What garden? We don't have a garden."

  "The garden of the house where I lived before."

  Antonia takes me on her knees. "How did you find it? How do you even remember? You were only four years old at the time."

  I say, "And now I'm eight. Tell me, Antonia, what happened? Where did they all go? What happened to them? Mother, Father, Lucas?"

  Antonia cries and squeezes me very tight. "I hoped you'd forget about all that. I've never spoken to you about it because I wanted you to forget everything."

  I say, "I haven't forgotten anything. Every night when I look at the sky I think about them. They're all up there, aren't they? They're all dead."

  Antonia says, "No, not all of them. Only your father. Yes, your father is dead."

  "And my mother, where is she?"

  "In a hospital."

  "And my brother, Lucas?" "In a house of rehabilitation. In the town of S., near the border."

  "What happened to him?"

  "A bullet ricocheted into him."

  "What bullet?"

  Antonia pushes me off and stands up. "Leave me alone, Klaus. Leave me alone, I beg you."

  She goes into the room, lies down on the bed, and keeps sobbing. Sarah starts to cry too. I pick her up and sit on the edge of Antonia's bed.

  "Don't cry, Antonia. Tell me everything. It would be better if I knew everything. I'm big enough now to know the truth. Asking oneself questions is worse than knowing."

  Antonia takes Sarah, lays her down beside her, and says to me, "Lie down on the other side. Let's let her fall asleep. She mustn't hear what I'm going to tell you."

  We remain there, the three of us, lying on the bed for a long time in silence. Antonia strokes Sarah's hair and mine by turns. When we hear Sarah breathing regularly we know she has fallen asleep. Antonia, looking up at the ceiling, begins to speak. She tells me that my mother killed my father.

  I say, "I remember the gunshots and the ambulances. And Lucas. Did my mother shoot Lucas too?"

  "No, Lucas was wounded by a stray bullet. It hit him right next to the spine. He was unconscious for months and it was thought that he'd be crippled forever. Now there's a hope that he'll heal completely."

  I ask, "Is Mother in the town of S. too, like Lucas?"

  Antonia says, "No, your mother is here, in this town, in a psychiatric hospital."

  I ask, "Psychiatric? What does that mean? Is she sick or is she insane?"

  Antonia says, "Insanity is an illness like any other."

  "Can I go see her?"

  "I don't know. You shouldn't. It's too sad."

  I think for a moment and then ask, "Why did my mother go insane? Why did she kill my father?"

  Antonia says, "Because your father loved me. He loved us both, me and Sarah."

  I say, "Sarah wasn't born yet. So it was because of you. Everything happened because of you. Without you the happiness of the house with green shutters would have lasted through the war, even after the war. Without you my father wouldn't be dead, my mother wouldn't be insane, my little brother wouldn't be a cripple, and I wouldn't be alone."

  Antonia says nothing. I leave the room.

  I go to the kitchen and take the money Antonia has set aside for groceries. Every night she leaves the money for the next day's groceries on the kitchen table. She never asks me for receipts.

  I leave the house. I walk to a big wide street trafficked by buses and streetcars. I ask an old lady who is waiting for the bus on a corner: "Excuse me, ma'am, which is the bus that goes to the station?"

  "Which station, my little one? There are three of them."

  "The closest."

  'Take streetcar number five, then bus number three. The conductor will tell you where to transfer."

  I come to an immense station filled with people. Everyone is jostling, shouting, swearing. I get into the line waiting in front of the ticket booth. We move slowly. When at last it's my turn I say, "A ticket for the town of S."

  The man says, 'The train to S. doesn't leave from here. You have to go to South Station."

  I get on more buses and streetcars. It's night when I reach South Station and there are no more trains to S. until tomorrow morning. I go to the waiting room and find a seat on a bench. There are a lot of people, it smells bad, and the pipe and cigarette smoke stings my eyes. I try to sleep, but as soon as I close my eyes I see Sarah alone in the room, Sarah coming into the kitchen, Sar
ah crying because I'm not there. She is left alone all night because Antonia has to go to work and I'm sitting in a waiting room on my way to another town, the town where my brother, Lucas, lives.

  I want to go to the town where my brother lives and I want to find him; then we will go look for my mother together. Tomorrow morning I will go to the town of S. I will.

  I can't sleep. I find ration cards in my pockets; without them Antonia and Sarah will have nothing to eat.

  I must go back.

  I run. My gym shoes make no noise. In the morning I am near where we live; I line up for bread, then for milk, and go home.

  Antonia is sitting in the kitchen. She takes me in her arms. "Where were you? Sarah and I cried all night long. You must never leave us again."

  I say, "I won't leave you again. Here's the bread and the milk. Some of the money's not there. I went to the station. Then another station. I wanted to go to the town of S."

  Antonia says, "We'll go there soon, together. We'll find your brother again."

  I say, "I would also like to see my mother."

  One Sunday afternoon we go to the psychiatric hospital. Antonia and Sarah wait in the reception room. A nurse leads me into a little visiting room furnished with a table and a couple of armchairs. Under the window is a small table with green plants on it. I sit and wait.

  The nurse comes back holding the arm of a woman in a bathrobe whom she helps sit down in one of the armchairs.

  "Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

  I look at the woman. She is fat and old. Her half-gray hair is pulled back and fastened behind her head with a bit of string. I notice this when she turns around to take a long look at the closed door. Then she asks the nurse, "And Lucas? Where is he?"

  The nurse answers, "Lucas couldn't come, but Klaus is here. Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

  I say, "Good day, ma'am."

  She asks, "Why are you alone? Why isn't Lucas with you?"

  The nurse says, "Lucas will come too, soon."

  Mother looks at me. Big tears start to roll down from her pale blue eyes. She says, "Lies. Always lies."

  Her nose runs. The nurse wipes it. Mother lets her head fall to her chest. She says nothing more and doesn't look at me again.

  The nurse says, "We're tired, we're going back to bed. Do you want to kiss your mother, Klaus?"