Iza's Ballad

by Magda Szabo

  Passing through Dorozs, Iza averted her eyes and was silent. Domokos drove down the main roads and took a long look at the unusually beautiful sanatorium, wondering why no one had told him about it. Dorozs was doubly painful for Iza, because of Antal but also because of her mother. The old woman had stood here, her face younger and smoother, her skin more glowing, her gentle features ever young, her eyes always bright, waving and rushing to her when she came to meet her! No more now – it was the end of that. ‘Where do the dead go?’ Iza wondered. ‘Where has my father gone? Where’s my mother?’ She felt ashamed asking such naive questions. She knew too well what a frail structure, what cheap deteriorating fabric it was she worked with day after day. Where do the dead go? Precisely nowhere. The hot springs of Dorozs were now in their red stone caves surrounded by a ring of concrete on which visitors could stand and peek in towards the source. Antal had been a child here, his silly little feet sinking into the mud that burned his soles.

  Iza’s birthplace wasn’t like the image Domokos had formed of it from her descriptions. The high street was exactly like any other busy city road with precisely the same shops as you find in Pest. Billboard after billboard announced the national conference of agronomists.

  ‘Which way now?’ asked Domokos when they reached Kossuth Square. It felt strange to her saying turn right, turn left, as they swept down the streets of her youth. The town that had changed a great deal since she was a child yet was exactly as she remembered it. Domokos saw how her lips began to tremble as they passed a big school and turned down Budenz Alley where the street they were looking for suddenly appeared. He glanced at the gate of number 20, Iza’s old house, but Iza got out at 22 and began tearing at the bell cord. No one answered; the gate was locked. The moments he spent standing beside her, reading the name: Margit Horn, cloak-maker, and listening to the ridiculous tinkling that sounded quite profane, far from the mood that seized them both, would be etched on his memory. Years later when he thought back to Iza, it was that face he always saw, that hollow, scared, intently listening face as she reached up for the bell pull, the way children do when reaching for anything just a little too high, and kept tearing at that piece of simple wire, quite without hope, as though she were ringing an alarm.

  Gica wasn’t home. They had to try Antal’s.

  The gate was open. ‘Now we’ll meet,’ thought Domokos. ‘What will he be like? What effect will he have on me? Will I hate him?’

  He took to him immediately. He liked the confidence radiating from the compact body, the thick eyebrows and the wide mouth. It was almost a pretty face but there was something good about it, something clearly, unmistakably decent. It was just that Antal looked more careworn than Iza. There were shadows under his eyes, and he looked exhausted as though he hadn’t slept.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting two of you,’ he said, without any animosity in his voice, nothing as if to say, ‘Oh, I see you are together, I know what’s going on.’ ‘The hotel is no good. I’ve already rung, there is an agronomical conference going on and the ministry has taken all the rooms. On the other hand Dekker has offered a room so one of you can go there, the other can stay with me. Mama . . .’

  Iza was looking at him as though she couldn’t hear him. Antal broke off.

  It was the first time in many years that Domokos listened to anyone without direct literary interest. Normally he studied everything, processed the information and stored it away in his imagination. He made no mental note now, did not try to register it in his memory. He looked at Antal not as a writer might but as another human being.

  The word Balzsamárok meant nothing to him, he was astonished that the old woman should have been found there at night after she had fallen from one of the floors of an unfinished building. How concisely he expresses himself, thought Domokos. He is always careful to say she died rather than she had an accident, though that is what must have happened otherwise she wouldn’t have been found on a working building site.

  ‘Balzsamárok . . .’ Iza repeated. She was looking at her gloves. Her voice and eyes were those of a stranger.

  Antal told them how he had brought the old woman over to his house, how they had dined together and how he had then left her alone, and later how they had looked for her at Gica’s, at the teacher’s house and at Kolman’s, in fact everywhere that she might have gone on such a foggy night. Their first thought after her unexpected disappearance was that her memories might have been too much for her and that she simply had to go out. Iza’s back felt stiff and she leaned into her chair. Antal, they learned, had rung the police and it was the police who informed them at about eleven that she had been found and that the ambulance had taken her to the clinic. ‘What is this talk of “we”,’ Iza wondered. ‘Who was he with?’ The nightwatchman at the building site said nothing would have happened had not the old lady been frightened away by a drunk. She was just sitting there thinking, turning the wheel on the well. It was foggy yesterday, unusually foggy, and he couldn’t see where the poor thing was running.

  Domokos felt pity for the old woman but was noting the details: the fog, some well or other, the lovely name of the place, a drunk waving his arm . . . such memorable images! Iza didn’t look up; Antal was breathing quite heavily.

  ‘We all have to go to the police station tomorrow,’ said Antal. ‘It’s unavoidable, I’m afraid. You’ll sleep here, won’t you?’

  The question was addressed to Domokos who thought it perfectly logical that he should stay here and felt happy to be doing that. But Iza wouldn’t have it. Domokos must go to the clinic to Dekker’s. She wanted to sleep here. She was almost hysterical in her insistence, her voice rising, imperative. Antal looked at her, then closed his eyes, his lashes long, like a child’s, dense, dark curves. ‘She doesn’t want us to be here together,’ thought Domokos. ‘She doesn’t want me to talk to Antal. But why?’ He tried to decide what it would mean to him if Iza slept in the same house as her ex-husband and was surprised to find that it didn’t mean anything. Really nothing, it was just that he felt like spending some time with Antal himself. He had long wanted to get to know a real doctor, a true hippocratic who took his oath literally.

  Antal was clearly not keen on the idea but made no objection. He said he’d escort Domokos over to Dekker’s and told him he could get some food there. He could take the meal up to his room if he wanted. Iza would presumably eat here. She shouldn’t let in anyone while he was away, not if she wanted some peace. Gica had a key and might want to call. Don’t let her. Bolt the door.

  Antal was there when Domokos kissed Iza goodbye. Iza noticed how little it annoyed Antal, what little effect it had on him. She heard them closing the hall door and heard Captain barking, a sound that suddenly cut her to the quick. Then she heard the two men’s voices in the garden, their immediate camaraderie breaking into conversation. ‘Domokos never speaks to me like that,’ thought Iza.

  She felt sorry now that it wasn’t she who would be spending the night at the clinic, though the thought of being under one roof with whatever remained of the old woman was no more tolerable than the thought of Antal and Domokos growing friendly, sitting up and talking through till dawn. Once she calmed down she simply shrugged and hated herself for her cowardice, for not daring to go out to Dekker’s, for not daring to leave the two men alone. After all, what could Antal tell Domokos that she herself would not? She had never told him anything but the truth: Domokos knew that it was Antal who left her and not the other way round. Though if they had stayed here and if it were she on her way to the clinic now she would have the bitter smell of the wood for company.

  Now everything was coming alive around her. Objects started speaking. It was the kind of dusk Vince used to call golden, the descent of the internally lit warmth when the heating in the house is on and when you know it will be biting cold by the evening. The objects, Antal’s new things and her parents’ old ones, were so alive around her she could almost hear them breathing. The small black sideboard had turned back into a
bar cabinet; when she opened it she found her father’s funny thick drinking glass. ‘Balzsamárok,’ thought Iza in her exhaustion. ‘Oh, the poor thing!’

  She couldn’t bear to sit down. She went into the next room where Antal slept and looked at his books. He had as many now as he did when they were married. She clearly couldn’t spend the night here, but there was the third room where they once lived together. If Antal hadn’t brought the old woman over, if he hadn’t worried that she’d be cold at Gica’s . . . But Antal was always too sensitive. The old woman should have stayed in the cold house; at least she’d be alive.

  She crossed the hall. Vince’s cherrywood stick and tobacco filter hung next to the small hooks where mama’s amusing cross-stitched, nylon-backed, polka-dot brush holders were ranked with their sacred texts. She opened the door to what had been her parents’ room and searched for the light switch.

  She hadn’t yet turned it on but was already aware of her mother’s scent. Everything in the wardrobe smelled of lavender, the whole room swimming in that clean, heavy smell. The bed was untouched, the suitcase – closed but unlocked so as not to crease the clothes and let them air – stood there like an animal watching, waiting to be called. The string bag had gone, only its contents remained here and there, a folded kitchen towel, the tin of pastries, empty. She hadn’t even noticed that the glass with the remnant tea was missing in Budapest. She had no idea it was here. ‘She cheated me,’ thought Iza as her tears started again. ‘She had made tea. They sell sparkling water on the train but she wouldn’t believe it.’

  She opened the case, then immediately closed it again: there were personal items there she couldn’t bear to look at. It was not only that the room was almost as it used to be when her father and mother lived there, it was as though everything that had vanished was in good repair, including her childhood. It was as if the old woman had only popped out for a moment. When someone pushes a case under a bed there is nothing to show the stay is merely temporary. She returned to Antal’s room, couldn’t even bear to think of eating and lay down. By the time Antal had returned and put on the light he found her there crouched on the bed, open-eyed, smoking a cigarette and staring at him.

  ‘I can’t sleep in there,’ said Iza.

  ‘Fine, then stay here, I’ll move.’

  For a moment, for one crazy unforgivable moment as he leaned over to pick up two half-read books, she thought he’d stay with her. They had never had twin beds, nor a double bed wider than this. Domokos and the old woman were both a long way away. If Antal were to draw her to him one more time, if he were to embrace her, if she felt him next to her again, the terrible tension, that inconsolable sadness, would pass.

  He did not stay with her, just leaned over, put his hand on her brow and quickly took her pulse. She snatched her hand away in anger and disappointment. He was touching her like a doctor, the way he used to touch her mother.

  ‘Do you want a sleeping pill?’

  ‘No,’ she said crisply.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  The door no longer creaked as it had done in her father’s time; it opened quietly, but she was immediately and simultaneously aware of both past and present, of the smooth movement of the door and the creak that was no longer there. She shivered under the eiderdown. Two humiliating negatives. It was a mild night, unexpectedly much milder than most autumn nights. She seemed to hear great wings beating softly over the garden.

  3

  SHE FELL ASLEEP about dawn. A host of memories and images kept hovering and flittering around her.

  Vince’s proximity was what least scared her because her father’s death was logical and he died in a manner appropriate to his circumstances, not in Balzsamárok while a drunk and a nightwatchman were having an argument. She thought a lot about Domokos too, about how far he was from her, about where he was sleeping, about the far end of the path through the woods, about the clinic and the narrow divan where the professor would sometimes doze off after he had spent the night tending a particularly sick patient. It was as if she had become one with her mother during the night, as if mama had entered her, and that, from a place inside her, from somewhere between her tendons and sinews, she was speaking in broken words, in sentences that sounded in her ear. Only one person was distant from her and that was the person sleeping in the next room, Antal. He was further off than the vaults of heaven.

  She woke in the morning tired and this time she wasn’t able to avoid Gica. Gica burst into tears when she saw her, her face and clothes smudged with tears. For once Iza was glad of her awkward presence because the cloak-maker kept telling her how happy darling Etel had been, poor soul, and what a dreadful tragedy the accident was. Under normal circumstances Iza would not have had much time for Gica, finding her obsessions, like her vow never to buy any item of clothing that wasn’t black, or never heating the house before the first fall of snow, however cold the house was, rather infuriating. She was surprised by the warmth of her feelings now. Gica was an old and lonely spinster leading a difficult life but she had at least known the old woman and could understand her.

  Antal was making coffee just as he used to – it was always he who made the morning cup of strong black brew when they were married – but he stopped with the flask in his hand as he saw Gica. The cloak-maker was babbling and visibly shaken. She had brought over the remaining pastries and partly consumed red roast chicken defrosted on a plate, and handed these over to them as one might hand over to the family a bequest, something that had accidentally come into one’s possession, like the loved one’s last message from the world beyond. Here it was: a piece of chicken and some sugared pretzels. Iza couldn’t bear even to look at the food and apparently Gica hadn’t been able to eat it either, though she usually snapped up anything that came free. Only Antal reached for one of the pastries and bit it in half to go with his coffee. It was something he would never be able to taste again. He ate sadly and respectfully. Domokos arrived at nine, having crossed the woods. He was very happy with the accommodation at the clinic. He had even managed to have a brief conversation with Dekker. Gica’s eyes practically devoured him; the sight of Iza’s fiancé down from Pest almost alleviated the sense of mourning.

  They drove to the police station in Domokos’s car, Gica nearly fainting with delight at travelling with them. Iza was anxiously keeping an eye on Kolman’s shop as they got in, wondering whether he would rush out and mutter some conventional words of consolation, his eyes full of tears, tugging at his moustache. But this being a Monday, Kolman hadn’t appeared yet. He spent only some half an hour about noon serving at his counter. Iza breathed a sigh of relief once they passed Budenz Alley; it was a lucky escape.

  The first person she saw at the police station was Lidia.

  Lidia was wearing gloves now, though it was her fingers Iza remembered, the way they closed then suddenly straightened when Iza gave her the envelope full of money after Vince’s death. ‘Is it a photograph?’ asked Lidia and Iza felt a kind of cold fury rising in her. Just because, due to some misunderstanding, this girl had been given the painting of the mill, why should she imagine she was owed a photograph too? But if she wanted to call the money a photograph, that was up to her. Iza very much looked down on those of her colleagues who hoped to receive a gift from dead people’s relatives as a reward for taking charge of some particular patient, but she also knew that this girl had done more than was necessary and had given a lot more than her profession obliged her to. One had to respect this in some way and respect it she did.

  Antal was standing beside her and blushed when she handed over the envelope, which made the moment particularly awkward. Lidia didn’t slip it into her pocket as she was supposed to do, but opened it, there in front of them, with some strange eager look in her eyes, and Iza couldn’t tell her not to do it, not in front of Antal at least. Everyone knew Lidia was not supposed to accept money. Lidia’s fingers ran along the edge, revealing the hundred-forint notes. It was shocking because the expression on the nurse’s
face clearly showed that it really was a photograph she was expecting and desiring, as though she had some personal reason to possess a keepsake of Vince’s face, the way he looked when he was still healthy. Iza was amazed to see how white Lidia went on seeing the money, and how Antal turned his back, walked over to the corridor window and looked out. The nurse put the envelope down on the top of the radiator and left without saying anything. The envelope immediately started curling with the heat. They were on the ground floor on corridor B, close to the furnace, where the heating was at its most intense.

  Once Lidia’s steps had receded down the corridor Antal turned back, picked up the money, opened Iza’s handbag and put the envelope back in it. He made no comment. Iza felt as if she had been given a beating and put in the stocks in a public square. What did the nurse want? It was common practice to slip underpaid medical staff some money after a completed course of treatment or a death. She hated feeling obliged. And why did Antal seem to agree with the nurse and remain silent like that, his lips twitching? What did they want from her anyway? Who were they to lecture her on medical ethics? She was being ethical. Iza was genuinely grateful to Lidia, had great respect for her inexhaustible energy and conscientiousness and was aware how much Vince too liked the girl. People knew that. She had been so consumed with shame that she hardly said goodbye to Antal, but ran outside.