I looked up at him, astonished, because I wasn't sure he was talking to me.
But he smiled at me and I stood up.
PART III
The Year of Funerals
I couldn't cry; the last time I cried was about a year and a half earlier at my mother's funeral, when the frozen clumps of earth began raining down on the coffin, knocking and rumbling, echoing inside it, and I felt the rumbling in my brain, in my stomach, in my heart, the dreadful noise knocking apart an inner peace of the body I hadn't even known before, making me aware — abruptly, with no warning — of the misery of my physical existence.
And if up to then no crying, emotional upheaval, fear, joy, or shock could touch this darkly unconscious inner peace, from then on everything seemed to function as it turned inside out: colors, shapes, surfaces, and textures that could be described as beautiful or ugly simply lost their meaning, yet the stomach went on digesting with nervous spasms when food was shoved into it; the heart beat cautiously, as if looking out for itself, to pump the blood through the veins; intestines grumbled reluctantly, stinking as they twisted with irritation; urine stung the skin it issued from; with each breath the raw pain of having a body wanted to escape the lungs but couldn't, and remained within; and this anxiety— for no physical function could expel the soul's oh so profound pains— made me hear my own breathing, which sounded as if any minute I might gasp my last breath; I was nauseated by my own physical existence, yet every nerve in my body was trying to gauge what was happening inside me, or what else might happen, though outwardly I remained calm, impassive, nearly indifferent to everything around me, and of course I couldn't cry, either.
From time to time, however, something did break to the surface, like phlegm coughed up, and each time this happened I hoped that the warmth of the tears would take me back to the radiant oblivion of childhood, where the gentle strength of an embracing arm can offer consolation; but it was that very thing, that embracing warmth, that was missing, and what forced itself through from time to time was not crying but bursts of cold, wrenching shivers that no one would have noticed had anyone cared to watch me, because they passed quickly and with scarcely an external sign.
Actually, I was playacting, even finding pleasure in my new role; it pleased me that I was burdening no one with complaints about my physical and mental anguish.
On the afternoon about which I'd like to speak, now that I'm nearing the end of my story, I was lolling in bed and aware — if it's possible to describe the state of fatal anticipation with such an intimate word — of silence, a silence in which one feels the total absence of grace; that's the kind of silence that pervaded the house as the cloudy December twilight was descending, softly, heavily; considering the state I was in, this was the most welcome time of the day, since light repulsed me at least as much as did the sensations of my own body or darkness itself, and only the dimness of dusk promised relief; all the doors were wide open, no one had turned on the lights anywhere in this suddenly alien house where, because of the coal shortage, the radiators were only lukewarm, and now and again Aunt Klára's powerful voice reached me from the distant dining room, as she kept up her unrelenting dialogue with Grandmother's silence, which had become more or less permanent: the day Father took my little sister away from her and put her in an institution somewhere near Debrecen, Grandmother had stopped talking; although I could not make out the faraway words, not that I was listening especially, my ears did register this curious, one-way, emotional pulsation that, in another sense, seemed to echo my mother's voice, as if something of hers had lived on, something familiar and vaguely reassuring.
This was the twenty-eighth day of December in the year 1956; the reason I remember so clearly is that the next day, the twenty-ninth of December, was the day we buried Father.
When the doorbell rang for the second time, I heard footsteps, the door opening, and muffled words; a short while later, not to make it too obvious that I didn't care who might be coming or what else might happen that day, I sat up in bed; Hédi Szán was standing in the doorway.
If I wanted to be more accurate, I'd have to say that an awkward creature with arms much too long dangling at her side was standing there, a human form in the dimness reflecting off white walls, a little girl dressed as a woman, a frightened child who bore little resemblance to the beautiful, captivating, grown-up, womanly Hédi I had once known.
She stood there in her mother's fur-collared coat, an ancient coat fished out of mothballs, but everything she had on looked wrong, and she appeared to be exhausted, in need of sleep; her hair — that luxuriant, beguiling golden mane that used to flow and bounce with every step she took, its thick strands rippling with her slightest move, that fragrant forest I so enjoyed sinking my fingers into — was now hanging down like a piece of strange fabric, a limp and colorless frame for her face; her skin was chapped by the cold, she seemed to shiver with fright, looking as if she had got into a predicament against her will; perhaps she was very much like everyone else in those days.
But I wasn't really interested in her loss of beauty, the beauty she perhaps never possessed, or in her coat; it was the look in her eyes that hurt so much, seeing her so frightened and unsmiling; I smiled at her so she wouldn't see my own pain; it was her helpless empathy that hurt, that pathetic attempt learned from adults to wade into other people's suffering without feeling the suffering itself.
I felt my whole being recoil from her in protest and dread, because I knew why she had come.
Still, there was one calming aspect of her appearance, rather appropriate to the circumstances: she was wearing hiking boots and thick socks folded down at the ankles.
She said hello and I must have done the same, though I remember only my forced smile, because I wanted to give her one of those bright, carefree smiles that used to be ours, to smile at her as if nothing had happened and nothing could happen so long as we both had this smile; we took a few steps toward each other, then stopped, hesitated; it seemed odd and repulsive to both of us to meet this way, in roles that made us remember, and remind one another, of all that had happened; there had been too many tragedies, too many deaths; to get over the hard part, I laughed and said it was really nice of her to come, after all, we hadn't seen each other since my mother's funeral.
My laugh seemed to increase her fright and she must have taken my words as a reproach; her big eyes welled with tears — who knows how long those tears had been in the making! and to hold them in, and also to keep me from rebuking her further, she threw back her head defiantly, her hair flowing through the air almost as in the old days; no, that's not the reason she had come, she hadn't lost her mind completely yet, she didn't want to hurt me, there was nothing she could say to me, anyway, she just came to say goodbye to us — that's how she said it: to us — because there was a fairly promising opportunity the next morning: someone had agreed for a reasonable price to take them as far as the border town of Sopron, and there they would see, she said, and shrugged her shoulders; she had gone to Livia and to the Hűvöses, and at Livia's nobody was at home, so if I saw her I should tell her — well, just what to tell her? — on second thought, just tell her that she was here and that she left! and since she had come through the woods, she thought she'd drop by Kálmán's, too; then she fell silent and waited for me, her eyes pleading, imploring me to make her believe the unbelievable, and quickly, too, because there was a curfew and she had to get home.
And then she couldn't stop talking, and forcing her tears back, she rambled on about the situation, explaining things in great detail — but about the important thing, the one thing that touched us both most deeply, she said not a word, almost as if trying to protect us; still, she changed, was transformed back to her old self, not beautiful, but strong, which may have been what we had thought of as beautiful in her before.