Almost simultaneously, we began crawling toward each other on the floor, our hands proving to be of great help, she pulled me and I pulled her. However solemn and meaningful the moment may have appeared, the simultaneity of our desire to move could not but strike us as amusing; by then my eyes had located the reassuring focal points of her lovely body, though these were not isolated, single points, or some totality of what I was seeing; somehow I perceived her breasts, her waist, and her open vulva all at once, and I could afford to pick out these details from the whole because as I coolly surveyed the whole I could be certain I would not be disappointed, I was getting exactly what I had wished for, her dress had not deceived me: a perfect body came into my possession, and almost as if the attraction of those remaining, still distant points of her body had made me move, I began to laugh out loud, and heard as well as saw that she, too, had burst into laughter, so we actually began to laugh at the same time; and the fact that we both knew that we both had had the same thought, and found our simultaneous move and laugh comical, made this laughter so loud that it turned into an unrestrained roar, yes, we were roaring, I can still hear it, as if, with our gales of laughter, a huge wave of some irresistible force was crashing down on us. When my mouth was above her breasts I hesitated for an instant, catching a glimpse of her ripely glistening gums, because I couldn't decide which one I desired more, I may have wanted both, and the laughter shaking my whole body now reminded me somehow of my sobs of a moment ago; I placed my palm on her vagina, my fingers ready gently to penetrate the adored lips of her flesh, into softness, into wetness, into the depths; on my back and shoulders I felt her hair spreading over me like a tent; and perhaps the back of my neck was the spot she had been looking for, because as I carefully took her hardened nipple into my lips, she pressed her lips to my neck and also put her hand between my thighs; and now all at once it was quiet; as I recall this now, I cannot but think that then, there in that room, we must have been sitting in God's hand.
Slowly the Pain Returned
And now here I was again, standing in our hallway, perhaps at the very same time of the day, catching sight in the mirror of a coat hanging on the rack.
Looking at it like this, in the dim light, reflected in the mirror, I couldn't tell what color the coat was, only that it was made of a heavy, coarse material, the kind that repels water but attracts every bit of lint and fuzz.
Water was gushing and gurgling through the gutters on the eaves, on the steep rooftops snow was thawing, turning to slush, and there I was, schoolbag in hand, standing in front of the mirror.
Maybe it was navy blue, an old, mustered-out military overcoat with a single gold button under its wide collar, which mysteriously remained while all the other buttons had clearly been replaced.
And perhaps it was that gold button sparkling on the dark coat that made me think of him, again of him, as he was walking toward me across that snow-patched clearing, and the painful mood of that moment touched me once more; it was the same hour, and then, too, I'd been standing like this in our hallway and had not the slightest hope that the pain I felt for him and because of him would ever pass; I kept looking at myself in the mirror and believed that everything, everything, would forever stay the same, and indeed nothing really changed: the snow had been melting then, just as it was now, and to avoid having to walk home with him, I again took the route through the woods and, just as then, my shoes got soaking wet; I seemed to be hearing the very same sounds from the dining room, the sounds I heard then and always: against the background of clattering and clinking dishes, the annoying silly squeals of my little sister, my grandmother's voice, untiringly chiding and regularly interrupted by Grandfather's good-natured growls — sounds so familiar that one understands them without really hearing, without paying attention; it must have been this multitude of similar occurrences that made it seem that there was no difference between then and now; slowly the pain returned, but it was that strange and unfamiliar coat on the rack that suggested that I wasn't standing here then but now, after all, though it also evoked the futility of my struggle against the love I had for him, which I always hoped would pass, and if it wasn't then but now, perhaps this, too, would somehow also pass.
But Mother was still lying in her bed the way she always had, her head sunk into large white pillows, apparently asleep as always, opening her eyes only when someone entered the room.
And this time, too, I headed first for her room, just as I'd been doing ever since that day — where else could I have gone?
But back then, the first time, I had done so quite unintentionally— doltishly raw instincts led me there, I'd say; until then I'd always have my lunch before visiting Mother, and only from that day on did it become my habit to sit on the edge of her bed and hold her hand, waiting until my little sister was fed and the dishes cleared away before stepping into the dining room, so that I'd find only one setting on the table, mine, and I'd be alone, spared the sight of my sister, which was more and more burdensome, for what had seemed natural or nearly natural before was now turning repulsive: I hear myself saying "before" and "now," involuntarily dividing time into periods before and after the kiss, for that kiss, I now realize, caused fundamental changes in many aspects of my existence, ordering my affinities into a different sort of naturalness, but at the time whom else could I have turned to if not to my mother? the pain I felt over Krisztián stemmed not only from his inability or unwillingness to return my secret affections but mostly from the fact that these emotions and longings had inescapable physical manifestations — in my muscles, my mouth, fingertips, and, let's admit it, also the pressure in my groin, for is there an instinct stronger than the one to touch, to feel, to smell, and even to possess what can be touched, caressed, and smelled, possessed with one's mouth, devoured? but all these desires to touch I had to consider as unnatural, something peculiar to me, which separated me from others, isolated and branded me, even if nothing would have been more natural to my own body, which I alone could feel; I had to be ashamed of that kiss and of the desire to kiss; however subtly, he had managed to communicate this to me, once he could distance himself from me and, to a certain extent, from his own true impulses; because for a moment something did erupt from the deep, but it had to be suppressed, and he did suppress it; it had to be concealed, and he concealed it, even from himself, whereas I kept recalling it, relentlessly, obsessively; one might say I lived by it, but how could imagination satisfy the palpable desires of the body? and aside from Mother, who else was there around me whom I could touch and feel and kiss and smell as freely as I would have liked to kiss him?