After our glances met for the third time, she grinned into my face, showing her somewhat uneven teeth, and I, involuntarily accepting the grin, passed it on to the man. But I quickly realized I had first received a smoother, more discreet version of that grin from the young man. Now he took my grin and slipped it back to her. And then, simultaneously, we turned away, taking each other's grin with us.
Outside, the broad avenue, trees, and buildings were running after us. And then, again together, we turned back. It would be almost impossible to say where we trained our eyes. The grin we couldn't wipe off by turning away was now growing stronger, and it seemed as if something terribly important was lying on the greasy floor of the streetcar and our eyes had to find it. We were staring not at each other but at a point equidistant from all three of us, sending our grins to the geometric center of the imaginary triangle we formed. And somehow we had to stay together even when we threw back our heads to accommodate the laughter that burst out of us. But the laughter was not equally distributed among us. The woman giggled, tittered, let out little squeals and tiny bubbles of laughter, popping them and sucking them in again. The man was almost silent as he laughed, chuckling at short intervals, as if trying to form words. This stammering, almost talking laughter made me notice on his otherwise smooth face a deep, bitter crease around the mouth that wouldn't let the laugh fully erupt, even though he was shaking harder than the woman or me. Of course I could hear my own runaway horselaugh, too. With it I revealed all my innocence, but I didn't mind. The streetcar was crawling along, though to me it felt as though it was tearing up the tracks. Maybe the only time you feel free is when you don't bother about consequences, when you trust the moment and let yourself go.
The laughter was unstoppable, it terrified itself, its own brazenness made it falter; and we didn't just spur one another on with liberating little jabs; it seemed that we all had our own reserves of laughter, and their variety created such an enjoyable common sound that it would have been senseless to stifle it. Yes, let it come; no one has anything to be ashamed of. And it came, it grew, it hurt, it made us cry. This felt good, because all the while my sheepishness made me tremble; I felt my arms and legs shaking visibly. The streetcar was approaching the intersection of Thököly Road and György Dözsa Road, it slowed down. The young man thrust himself away from me, though he seemed to shove himself out of his laughter. He slipped his fist out of his pocket and raised a warning finger. A single finger held way above his head. We watched that single finger in the air, and in a flash all laughter stopped. The woman let go of the strap and just stood there with her ticket, her impudence gone from her blue eyes. Then slowly she stepped out onto the platform. It was perfectly clear what was happening, and I was trembling too hard to do anything about it. The young man bounced off the still-moving streetcar and looked back not at the woman stumbling after him but at me, taking in with one last sweeping glance my schoolbag, which I placed in front of me to cover my embarrassing state of arousal. There was still time to back out of the situation. For a moment we froze. A pair of huge liquid brown eyes in that smooth face. There was nothing to think over.
We probably needed that tiny delay. It made the mad race that followed that much more frantic. Our mouths were good only for catching our breath, but our feet could giggle and clatter away on the pavement. Dashing across streets and roads, weaving through crowds without bumping into anyone while your feet, your arms, your eyes became alert sensors, jumping on and off sidewalks. Feinting and dodging smoothly, the man was galloping ahead and sending us a message with his every move. Whatever he had been unable to tear from himself with laughter he was now pouring into his running. With his shoulders squeezing and thrusting, his neck craning, and his back straight, he not only controlled the situation but played it out for us. It looked as if at any moment he would cross the finish line; having pulled away from his rivals, he was already in the straightaway, unchallenged. That's how he kept playing with us. He'd change direction with lightning speed and careen into a side street. Somewhat confused, we'd follow, but just then, without curbing his leaps, he'd disappear into an open door. The woman had a funny way of running; she wasn't clumsy, yet she seemed heavy and sluggish as she filled the trail cut for her by the man. Not until the next day did I check the name of the street.
It was cool in there. Dark. Smell of cats. We crashed against the flaking plaster. Watching one another's eyes and body. I could still beat a retreat, but I seemed to have run the trembling out of my limbs, and a quiet but sober voice told me to stay. If not now and not like this, it would happen some other time, some other way, so why not get it over with? We were panting. We were looking at one another as if we were at the end, and not at the beginning, of our story. Everything was calm. There was nothing to be afraid of. The woman sneezed into this panting silence. Which would have been cause for renewed laughter, but the man raised a finger to his lips and, as if to continue this warning gesture, started up the stairs.
Through the slats of lowered blinds, the hot afternoon sun streamed into the completely empty apartment. A slight breeze was also blowing in through the open windows and doors. In the long hallway and three large interconnecting rooms there was not a single piece of furniture. Except for a couple of mattresses thrown on the floor of the largest room, with pink and not altogether clean bedding: a turned-up blanket, wrinkled sheets, just as he must have left it in the morning. On picture hooks left on the wall hung a pair of pants, a shirt, and in a corner there was a pile of shoes. I knew we were beyond all rules and conventions. I was ignorant of what was to follow, yet I made the first move. I flung myself on the mattress, lay on my back, and closed my eyes. Showing them just how inexperienced I was — not that they could have had any doubt about that — whereas they seemed to be familiar with the ritual. During the time I spent in that apartment not a single word was spoken. But no explanations were needed. I knew I was in one of those flats whose occupants had left the country the previous December, or early January at the latest. And the man had to be a squatter. He couldn't have been a friend or relative of the former tenants, because then they would have left him something: a chair, a bed, a cabinet. He must have broken into the abandoned apartment, for if he had bribed the caretaker and got the key to the apartment, then he would have let us laugh freely in the stairway.
I have no way of figuring how long I may have stayed in that apartment. Perhaps an hour, maybe two. The three of us were sprawled out in three different positions on the mattress, two of us on our back, the woman on her stomach, when at one point I sensed that I was in the way. The feeling just came over me, even though neither of them gave a signal or made a move. Perhaps they began radiating a different sort of calm, and the energies passing so evenly between the three of us until then simply changed course. As if with their special calmness they were detaching themselves from me. They both seemed to want it this way, and I knew that with my more restless repose I could no longer find my place between them. Very gingerly I slipped my finger into the inside curve of her drawn-up knee. I was hoping she might be asleep. If she was not, she'd squeeze my finger by closing her knee. She stirred. First she turned her head toward the young man, and then she drew her knee up even higher so as to escape my finger. The man slowly opened his eyes and with his look said what the woman had told him with hers. There was no mistaking their message. It would have made no sense to experiment further. I should have felt very hurt, but what made the rejection bearable was that in the young man's eyes there lurked an almost paternal encouragement. I lay on the mattress, quite defenseless, yet my fiercely persistent erection could not have been offensive, as it was alluding to our joint endeavor up to that point. Nevertheless, standing in that state would have been awkward. I waited a little; I closed my eyes. But this way I sensed even more strongly what they had hinted at just before, that they wanted to be alone. I gathered up my scattered clothes, and while I was pulling on my shirt, my shorts, my pants, and buckling my sandals, they both fell asleep — I didn't think they were feigning.