Iza's Ballad

by Magda Szabo

  ‘Go to hell,’ she heard again. ‘Where has the old woman gone? You haven’t frightened her away, have you?’

  ‘Don’t be angry at me,’ said the old woman to her inner Iza. ‘It’s just that I haven’t found out anything. Papa exists, but not the way I imagined. Papa has turned into a house, and a road, and concrete, and won’t answer.’

  She went on trying to think how to do something for her daughter who, now that she was inside her, in the fog, was a child again, a child with curly locks, in an apron, with a runny nose, her mouth open and bitterly complaining. ‘You’re such a nuisance,’ said the child in a thin little voice. ‘I don’t get a moment’s rest because I spend all my time worrying about what to do with you. I have a job to do, you know!’ It was so odd the way this image and this voice failed to match, the laced-up boots, the lisping voice of Iza and words like ‘nuisance’ and ‘job’. ‘I have no life of my own. You are so clumsy. Clumsy. You have ruined my life.’

  ‘My darling,’ thought the old woman. ‘Poor Izzy.’

  The nightwatchman and the drunk were still talking to each other when she arrived at the fourth building and saw, to her disappointment, that there was no way out on that side. They had put up a wire fence. She had to retrace her steps, back past the dog. She was scared.

  The plank divided into two in a V shape. The end that lay on the flat soil led back over the mud – the part she had walked on before – the other was at a slope into the unfinished building that still lacked stairs. There was scaffolding there now, forming a kind of ladder. If she were younger she could run up that ladder. She used to love running along planks with her arms stretched out.

  Vince was back again, angry with her about something and she couldn’t understand why. There were so many things she couldn’t understand. It hurt her that he should be angry and her eyes filled with tears. How could she possibly know what to do if he didn’t tell her? It was obvious that she couldn’t do it alone! Vince should remember that she wasn’t very clever.

  The nightwatchman’s voice was very loud and angry now. He was almost shouting.

  ‘Go break your neck at home if you want, but not here where I am responsible for everything. Get lost or I’ll ring the police! Filthy drunken pig!’

  The words were swallowed by the fog and swirled about in the half-light. Vince was suddenly gentler and the Iza inside her also grew nicer, her round eyes bright and full of longing as they were when she was small, asking for something, for quince, or honey with nuts.

  ‘You have a guardian angel, Ettie,’ Vince once told her, ‘an angel who goes around with you. And you know what? You are the only person in the twentieth century who still has a guardian angel.’ Now she could see the picture that used to hang over her bed, the face of the little girl gathering strawberries, a face whose Old German sweetness vanished, replaced by a wreath of wheat-coloured hair from under which her own wrinkled face looked out, and she saw that, in place of the little basket the running girl had carried, there was now her own black string bag. At that moment she realised what she could do for Iza, the Iza that lived inside her, not the stranger rushing about in taxis or the one who talks in whispers to Teréz and looks up from her books with such a stern gaze. Vince was no longer at her side but this time she didn’t call him. This was a moment when she had to be perfectly alone.

  ‘Go,’ said the old woman to her guardian angel, the angel in the picture. The angel looked back at her and swept off. The plank was bare, utterly bare, the end that led upwards vanished into the mist. The old woman took off her glasses, folded the pink arms and put them into her handbag, then started up the slope.

  For the first time in her life her guardian angel was no longer looking after her.

  2

  IZA WOKE AT nine the next day, cheerful and satisfied. She had never liked Sundays when she was a girl and was soon bored without the weekend bustle of the town. Once she got a job, though, she learned to appreciate those lazy twenty-four hours with their unstructured freedom and to take pleasure in a break that had once been unwelcome. This particular Sunday, when Teréz wasn’t due to come in, when her mother was elsewhere and Domokos was at some reader-writer conference, felt like an unexpected gift to her. She lay in bed, not even raising the blinds, watching the light filter in between the slats, and adjusted her head on the small pillow. She took a simple pleasure in being alone, in not having anyone requiring her company, especially in not having to put up with someone else’s melancholy, unwavering attention in the next room radiating towards her just as she was trying to relax. She was delighted to see how utterly restful it was without the old woman shifting and stirring, shyly opening the bathroom door and tiptoeing around the bath, then the inevitable clatter, because the more care she took with her movements the more likely she was to knock something off. It was almost frightening to feel how much better it was to be alone.

  She had put aside this time to think the matter through without interruptions. The medical report that had been sent directly to her after her mother’s check-up was reassuring and she genuinely believed that the cooperative work she was offered would bear fruit eventually. There was also the hope that her mother would return from her visit to the country refreshed by the change of scene and more cheerful. Domokos’s absence did not concern her. She was used by now to his irregular hours and to the fact that he didn’t always need to be with her as Antal once did.

  She planned not to dress, just to laze about till the afternoon, flip through journals and magazines, listen to some music, then, after dinner, go for a walk somewhere, in Óbuda perhaps, the most ancient district of the city and a subject of endless interest. She took her time enjoying breakfast, feeling light-hearted and self-confident as though she had succeeded in outwitting some hostile power that had never really let her rest. Her mother was living with her and was safe. She didn’t need to worry about her any more and, with a bit of luck, everything else would sort itself out, including the kind of life she might live with Domokos.

  She was just making tea when the telephone rang to indicate a long-distance call.

  At first she thought it must be a mistake. There was no reason to expect such a call, but then she turned the gas down under the water and ran into the hall. Maybe she had misunderstood something and Domokos was not in Pest but somewhere in the country. He might be ringing her from there. It must be him, who else could it be? It was only twenty-four hours since she had last talked to the old woman, it couldn’t be her. Her good spirits vanished. She hated long-distance calls and her heart always beat a little faster when she heard that broken ringing pattern. That was the way she heard about the death of her father. The old woman had rung her often enough wanting advice, about what she should do because the coal was mostly powder, because someone had undone the ties holding the trees, because someone had stolen a saw or an axe, because Vince wasn’t well, because there was a new postman and she didn’t want to leave the pension money with Kolman.

  She wasn’t worried so much as annoyed because Domokos should know, even if they hadn’t discussed it, not to call her on Sunday, though at the same time one might feel stupidly pleased since one was, you know, important enough to the man to make him ring after all.

  When the operator said it was her hometown on the phone she felt cheated. There she goes, ringing from home again, the same obstinate old woman with no respect for her privacy or her Sunday rest. Angry tears gathered in her eyes as she tried to work out what her mother had forgotten, what she had immediately to send, what had been left out of those two heavy bits of luggage? Her umbrella?

  She could hardly hear Antal’s voice. They both had to shout in order to understand each other.

  They had to try the call again.

  The reception was good this time, relatively clear. It was as if Antal were in the next room. Antal spoke just two sentences in a choked voice then, before she could enquire further, he put the phone down. The operator was surprised at the brevity of the call and asked if th
ey had finished the conversation. Iza put the phone down without replying and it continued to ring on and off, as if the operator couldn’t believe that someone would make a long-distance call for just two sentences.

  Her legs gave way and she slumped down on the chair beside the phone in the hall. She couldn’t believe what she had heard, it was impossible to take it in without any explanation. She thought Antal might have been weeping as he spoke and that he had put the phone down because he hadn’t the strength to hold it. As if by instinct after several years of medical practice, she bent her head back and gently massaged her neck with cold, almost straight fingers. She had never in her life been so close to fainting. She breathed deeply and eventually stood up. She couldn’t begin to analyse what she felt, she was struggling just to stop being sick. Her tears began to flow and she was astonished, not so much to find herself weeping, but at how she wept, with what screams and howls. She stumbled over to the medicine cabinet. Iza was prepared for all kinds of practical illness at home and between the kalmopyrin and the diacilin lay a sealed packet of tranquillisers that she had some difficulty opening. She took one pill, then returned to her room and lay down again.

  She was already aware that she was feeling shock and despair as well as sadness. Her screams had been not quite human. She was like a wild animal that had climbed a tree in a forest thinking it had escaped the hunters, then suddenly heard them closing in again and had to run for its life once more. But where to run – Iza shuddered – where can you go where the hunter can’t find you? She covered her tear-swollen face with her hands. Some time back in her youth she had been immensely proud and would never admit that she was depressed or suffering in any way. Being entirely by herself in the empty flat, there were no such constraints; every old wound inside her, every scar that she thought had healed over, suddenly opened up; she was back in the house with the dragon-shaped spout waiting for Antal to finish packing; she was hearing Dekker’s voice telling her, ‘Vince has cancer, Iza. If you love him wish him a quick death.’ How alive that medical report felt in her fingers now!

  She tried in vain to conjure up her mother’s face. It was as if someone had stolen it, snatched it from her grasp, leaving only an outline, her bent shoulders and the angle of her neck that had changed so much in the last three months. The old woman was always looking down recently, never looking up at the sky. The sense of being alone crushed her: it was as if a heavy stone had fallen on her. Being alone was no longer a pleasure. Now it was good to know that Domokos was in some specific place, that she might be able to reach him, share her grief and ask him to travel home with her. She washed her face, tidied her hair and got dressed. The pill she took was taking effect. How useful, she thought, hating herself. A person feels she is falling apart, then one pill and it’s already better. The panic that had seized her subsided. She rang the director of the clinic – she was perfectly calm by that time – she wrote a note for Teréz and packed her things for the journey. She did what had to be done. The flat seemed very spacious all of a sudden, as if the knowledge that the old woman would never again sit silently in her room and would never again be clumsy with the blinds and pull them right off had somehow increased the size of the rooms. It was very strange realising that she had neither mother nor father now. It felt new and raw, like drawing her fingers along both edges of a knife.

  She slipped on her coat. Domokos had told her where he was going today; it was just that she hadn’t been listening because she wasn’t interested. She was too happy thinking of the free Sunday before her and didn’t want to hear. But if she thought very hard, she would remember what he said and where he was going. She did indeed remember.

  She called a taxi and they soon arrived at the conference. There were a lot of people in the factory culture hall, everyone in good humour, all in Sunday best. There were no tickets and no one on the door, it was a free event. Domokos, who was normally quiet, was showing an entirely new side of his personality here, almost too happy and talkative. He was leaning against a table, waving his arms around, telling stories about his childhood, incidents he had never mentioned to Iza. People smiled at him and asked him questions as he went on. The door creaked when Iza entered. Domokos raised his head but did not register her appearance at first, but when he saw who it was his expression changed, he lost his easy unselfconscious flow, and was clearly startled and confused. The audience, who had turned round at the unexpected opening of the door, also grew more solemn and couldn’t understand his confusion. After all, it was just a woman coming in, someone who might have been from anywhere, from the Central Library or the Writers Union. She closed the door quietly and sat down in the back row.

  Domokos, who had lost his thread between two interconnected sentences, announced that he had answered almost all the questions, took a quick bow, shook hands with the people to the right and left of him on the platform, accepted a small bouquet offered by a frightened little girl and went over to Iza, took her by the arm and looked into her face. Iza’s eyes immediately filled with tears. The audience looked at them as if they had been forced to witness some shameful event. Before Iza arrived their mood had been sunny and confident, a mood that defied autumn, but now it was as if everything had clouded over. The barely finished speech was no longer part of a pleasant morning’s entertainment. ‘That was not very nice,’ thought the librarian. ‘That sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed to happen.’ It was disappointing, frightening and incomprehensible. She felt sad and tired.

  Domokos’s car was parked in front of the factory, on the left of the square – he had bought it only two days before and they hadn’t yet had the opportunity to sit in it together. He drew Iza to him and pushed away her hair as he might have a child’s. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Where would you like me to take you?’

  It felt good to be with him, inexpressibly good. Antal seemed far away again. Antal was different, more impulsive and more difficult at the same time.

  ‘Home. Not back to the flat. Home.’

  She had never referred to her birthplace in those terms but Domokos understood. He sincerely had no idea what could have happened to upset her so much and when he discovered it his hands simply flew off the steering wheel. He listened, let Iza cry, then stopped off at his own place first and left her for five minutes so he could pick up some necessary things, then they drove over to Iza’s and rang for the janitor so they might use the lift. ‘He understands,’ thought Iza. ‘He understands how I couldn’t bear to go up for my bags alone, that I can’t bear to be in the flat now. How strange. How does he know? Because he’s a writer? Or because he loves me?’

  The lowland journey wasn’t particularly autumnal.

  Every season was a visual experience for Domokos. Whenever he left the capital the winter seemed to him a drawing in chalk, spring a watercolour, summer an oil painting and autumn an etching or a linocut. But he had never seen an autumn landscape like this before. This was autumn in oils, the land summery, the sky a deep blue with some leaves left on the trees, not yellow but obstinately green, the ploughed earth a cheerful brown, no wind and the sun burning through the windscreen, the field of golden marrows brilliant, ready for roasting.

  The writer sat up front, Iza behind, huddled in a corner. Domokos took an occasional look at her in the mirror. He felt he hardly knew her face, let alone her being. Who was this woman? She looked younger today than before, as if she were twenty-four or so, awkward, childlike. ‘Who is she?’ thought Domokos. ‘Who is this Izabella Szőcs? And what happened to the old woman? ‘Mama’s dead. Come at once.’ Then Antal put the phone down. How did she die? In what way? Why? She had had her check-up just three weeks before, Iza had showed him the report: she had an old person’s heart, an old person’s lungs, her blood pressure was appropriate for her age, but otherwise everything was fine. Had she got overexcited by the headstone and suddenly felt unwell? Had she been hit by some vehicle, the poor thing was after all quite clumsy so it wouldn’t be out of the question. He could
see half of Iza’s face in the mirror, her lips open as she wept. He quickly looked away, he was so sorry for her. ‘Will ours be a good marriage?’ Domokos wondered. ‘Will this woman make me a good wife? One thing is certain, she is dedicated to her work, she’d leave me in peace and she wouldn’t nag me about wanting to go to the opera or demand to have friends round when I was working. Is that enough?’

  They stopped halfway to have some lunch.

  Domokos, who normally had a healthy appetite, ate a couple of cabbage pancakes, then pushed the plate aside while Iza made do with soup but drank thirstily, finishing off an almost full bottle of soda water. The Tisza was green, an oil-green river with thin waves wrinkling its surface between brown reed banks. Domokos had never been here and felt he might have enjoyed it more another time; now he only knew that this sparse landscape was strange and moving.

  What could have happened?

  Iza had always talked perfectly calmly about Antal. There was never any hint of passion when he came into the conversation. Now she was explaining how Antal had to get involved in everything that happened in the street. It was small-town mentality. Domokos wouldn’t understand it. The fact was, whatever had happened, Gica could only rush over to Antal and tell him because only he and Kolman owned a phone.

  It was the first time Domokos had heard anything about Iza’s background and it was startling, not to say frightening. He had heard Dekker’s name before, knew everything about Dekker, but not about Kolman, the newsagent and the cloak-maker . . . ‘I don’t like meeting Antal,’ said Iza, and that struck him, though Domokos was not a jealous man in the normal sense of the word and had no strong feeling of possession either in terms of people or things, thinking that people had the right to be wrong, to have shameful memories, even to cultivate their obsessions. He had never minded Iza mentioning Antal but didn’t like it that she was afraid of meeting him. Why would it be bad to meet him? It’s not unpleasant meeting most ordinary people, just boring. What kind of man was Antal and why did he want to be involved in everything? Was it just that he was a small-town person? Antal was the doctor who had tended Iza’s father. Antal informed Iza of her mother’s death. Antal bought Iza’s family house. Is that what being involved meant? He’d have to take a trip to some small provincial town else he’d never be able to imagine how such people lived.