They were coming from Maja's house and were on their way to Livia's or Hédi's, and chose this route as a shortcut, or to give Hédi a chance to pick flowers; she was assertive and narcissistic enough to advertise that she looked good picking flowers, just as she looked good playing the cello or having refined, pretty things around her; her room was full of little mugs and glasses and tiny vases; she picked fresh flowers every day and kept the withered little bunches for a long time; she was forever chomping on some plant or other, a blade of grass, a leaf, a flower; she never folded back the edge of a book page or used a bookmark, but placed a flower or, in the autumn, a colorful leaf between the pages; if you borrowed a book from her and weren't careful, a whole dried-up arboretum was likely to fall from its pages; she also took cello lessons and played her large instrument quite skillfully.
She played her cello at school functions, and once asked me to go with her into the city, where she was supposed to perform at some Jewish social event and didn't want to travel alone, especially since she'd be coming back late at night; she was also worried about her expensive instrument, not to mention all those insolent men; actually, Hédi lived in the city, in Dob Street, not far from the Orthodox synagogue, in a gloomy old apartment house on whose ground floor was a hostel for workers, who washed themselves in the courtyard in huge wash buckets; Hédi's mother, whom I hadn't yet met, had sent Hédi to live with Mrs. Hűvös over in Buda, partly because of the fresh air — Hédi supposedly had weak lungs — and partly because Mrs. Hűvös had a big vegetable garden, kept animals, and her food would be richer; but Hédi told me this was just an excuse and the real reason she became a "foster child" was that her mother had a lover, a certain Rezsö Novák Storcz, whom Hédi "couldn't stand, with his smarmy manners"; her mother wasn't home but left a note tacked to the door telling Hédi that they'd be waiting for her at the party, and also what dress she should wear; I probably remembered all this because Hédi wore the same dark navy-blue silk dress that afternoon which Maja had on now, in the woods, and Hédi's mother had some reason to object to it then: we were standing outside their door on the depressing gallery, the inner balcony running along the apartments, and it suddenly occurred to me that her father must have been deported from this very spot, an appalling nightmarish scene it must have been, thickset characters hauling off a live human being as if he were a piece of furniture, a couch or a cabinet; now all I could see were gleaming brass door handles, the pretty, old-fashioned brass buttons on bells and nameplates, the walls showing traces of bullets, alterations, badly done repair jobs, smaller holes close together in the soot-blackened plaster, left there by bursts of machine-gun fire; it was autumn and still warm, rays of the sun were sliding languidly down the slanted roofs, and down below, workmen stripped to the waist were washing up, splashing each other playfully, the whole courtyard, decorated with oleanders, resounding with their cries; in a kitchen somebody was beating eggs, through an open window we could hear choral singing coming from a radio; pressing the huge black cello case between her knees, Hédi read her mother's note as if it contained some dreadful news, read it several times, turned pale, seemed incredulous; I asked her what it said, even tried to peek, but she pulled it away, and then, sighing deeply, reached down to get the key from under the doormat.
In the spacious apartment, dark and cool, the doors were tall and white and they were all wide-open. Hédi ran straight to pee; deathly silence; the windows facing the street were shut, fringed wine-red velvet drapes hung over the heavy lace curtains fully drawn; everything in the apartment seemed layered, piled up, and invitingly soft: dark-toned hangings on the silver-patterned wall, on which were hung gilt-framed landscapes, a still life, and a painting of a nude woman illuminated by the scarlet glow of a fire in the background; striped red runners were spread over the carpets, and the flowery slipcovers of the deep armchairs and the straight-back chairs all had lace antimacassars; from the ceiling of the central room, where I stood waiting for her, hung a chandelier, wrapped like the mummy of a frightful bloated monster in a white protective cover twisted in a knot at the bottom; everything was spotless, unpleasantly, too neatly, permanently arranged — glass, brass, silver, china, mirrors, everything polished to perfection and, at least in the dim light, mercilessly free of dust.
It took a long time for Hédi to return; I had missed the sound of her trickle but heard the flush; when she came out I could tell she hadn't gone to pee but to have a little cry; she had the look of someone who has just put an end to something that was terribly important but was now over and done with; "This is the sitting room," she said, wiping her eyes again, for the last time, though there were no tears, only redness from rubbing, "and that's my room over there," she said; her pain must have been the kind she wanted to get over quickly, yet as much as she tried to smile at me, I felt she didn't want me to see her struggle, would have preferred me not to be there.
She seemed to turn very quiet in that apartment, indeed said nothing after that, but opened the big black cello case, took out the instrument, and sat down with it by the window; she tightened the bow, tested it, applied resin, took a long time tuning, while I had a chance to walk around the apartment: each room opened into another, and it was easy to imagine someone being hauled out of here, but what could not be imagined was that every night, in the completely darkened bedroom that gave onto the courtyard, this Rezsö Novák Storcz was doing something to her mother that Hédi had said always "got on her nerves."
I got back to the sitting room just as she started playing; the piece began with soft, long, deep strokes of the bow; I loved to watch her tense, absorbed face, her fingers feeling the long neck of the instrument as she quickly attacked a chord, held down the strings, her fingers quivering; then, in reply, came rapid, plaintive sounds dying quickly, higher and higher notes, reaching a level from which, with unexpected shifts and the blending of two positions — highs and lows, long and short notes played simultaneously — the melody should have emerged, leading to a clear statement of the theme, but she missed some notes and after several tries, she stopped playing, obviously annoyed.
The annoyance was for my benefit, though she pretended I wasn't in the room.
Leaning the cello against the chair, she stood up and started for her room, but changed her mind, came back, effortlessly picked up the instrument by its neck, and carefully placed it in its case, put bow and resin into their compartments, closed the case, and stood silently in the middle of the room.
For some reason I didn't say anything either, just kept watching her.
She would flop today, she said; no wonder she couldn't concentrate, she said; it was bad enough that her mother dragged along that idiot of a disgusting beast everywhere she went, she said softly, with such hatred that her body trembled, even though her mother knew, knew damn well, that just seeing him drove her to distraction; at least she should have the decency not to bring him to her performances, because that really made her unbearably nervous; all of which seemed very strange to me, since I'd never heard anyone speak with such open hostility about their own mother, and it embarrassed and shamed me; I would have liked to protest, ask her to stop, I felt I was being dragged into something I wanted no part of; she couldn't stand it anymore, she went on, she couldn't stand this man sitting there, staring at her! and as though that weren't bad enough, she said with a bitter laugh, he always has to butt in about what she should wear — Yes, yes, your little white blouse, Hédi dear, and that pretty navy-blue pleated skirt — so she'd look ridiculous and ugly! she hadn't worn those things for two years at least, because she'd outgrown them, but she pretended not to notice, hoping that slimy animal wouldn't be staring at her.