The dog was running about the yard, yelping and running, round and round it kept running in ever widening circles, which was also part of the same kind of conversation.
The porch lamp shed a sober light on us.
In a daze, exhausted, we made our way slowly up the steps.
Water was still steaming in a pot; while waiting for the afterbirth to come out, I had put it on so he could wash the pig's teats in warm water.
He went to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
First I looked at the things in the kitchen: the white enamel stove, the apple-green cabinets, and the pink eiderdown on a narrow cot, then I put the kerosene lamp on the table; because we left the door behind us open, there was a slight draft and the lamp was giving out more smoke than light; then I also sat down.
There we were, just sitting and staring into space.
God's prick, he said quietly after a while.
We weren't looking at each other, but I felt he didn't want me to go yet, and I didn't want to leave.
And his swearing, sounding like someone making quiet amends, was addressed to me.
Kálmán seldom cursed and, unlike the other boys, rarely used foul language; I can recall only two other instances — when he talked about Maja, saying what he would do to her, and the thing he'd told me in the school bathroom.
That I could eat Prém's prick for lunch.
That last one remained with me like a stinging insult, like a wound that wouldn't heal; I forgot it, but could not forgive it.
By blurting out that seemingly harmless obscenity, he joined forces with Krisztián and Prém, but could he have done otherwise? no matter how much it hurt, I couldn't really blame him, for I sensed in his act the permanent and in many ways exciting uncertainty inherent in all human relationships; for it seemed to be the way of the world, or maybe the spirit of our times, that you could never tell your friends and foes apart, and in the final analysis everybody had to be considered an enemy; it was enough to recall the fear and hatred I felt while passing by the fence of that restricted area with the dogs to make me realize I had no idea where I myself belonged; and there was the pain of knowing that because of my father's position the other boys labeled me a stool pigeon even though I had never betrayed anyone; but Kálmán, by allowing himself to join the other boys with that statement, betrayed the deepest secret of our friendship — even if the others could not have known what he meant when he'd said I could eat Prém's for lunch, couldn't have known what he was alluding to, but still! as if he had said in front of all of them, which was more than shameless betrayal, that I'd once held his in my hand; he said it as though I had no other wish in the world than to eat it for lunch! as though what had happened between us hadn't been by mutual consent, as though he hadn't himself initiated it.
He got up, kicked the chair out from under him, and took a bottle of brandy and two glasses from the kitchen cabinet.
He denied the act with the same unthinking courage that he'd displayed when his hand had reached toward me that time.
To avoid embarrassing himself in front of the others, he renounced his own most intimate gesture; but now, as if trying to make up for his betrayal by those swear words, he seemed to be thanking me for being here.
Which released such a flood of emotion that the less said about it the better.
And I could not tell any of this to Maja, just as I could not talk about girls while resting my head on my mother's arm.
Without a word, the two of us got drunk on the brandy.
If one could learn the most important things in life, one would still have to learn how to keep quiet about them.
We sat there for a very long time, staring drunkenly at the kitchen table, and for some reason, after his swearing, we didn't look into each other's eyes anymore.
Even though those words cleared up everything, for a lifetime; above all, they spoke of ultimate loyalty, of how no one could ever forget anything.
He started fidgeting with the lamp, trying to put it out, but though he lowered the wick the flame would not go out, it only started smoking even more; and then he took off the glass cover so he could blow out the flame, and while he was blowing it — he had to make several attempts and he started laughing because he couldn't hit the flame, always blowing next to it — the hot, smoke-darkened glass slipped out of his hand, fell, and broke on the kitchen floor.
He didn't even look down.
It felt good to hear the sound of breaking glass shattering into a thousand pieces.
Later, it seemed to me I was quite alert as I drifted into this pleasant state of feeling good, or as I simply got lost among my own thoughts, though I couldn't have said what I was thinking about or whether I was thinking at all; the feeling of sensations dulled by drunkenness had become this state of thinking without thoughts, and I didn't notice that at one point he got up, put a large wash bucket on the floor, and poured the leftover hot water into it.
The image wasn't blurred, only distant and uninteresting.
And he simply kept pouring the water.
I'd have liked to tell him to stop pouring, enough.
Because I didn't notice that he was now pouring some other water into the bucket.
From a pail.
And I also failed to notice when he threw off his long johns and stood stark naked in the wash bucket; the wet soap slipped out of his hand and scooted under the kitchen cabinet.
He asked me for the soap.
I could hear in his voice that he was also drunk, which should have made me laugh, except I couldn't get up.
The water splashed and sloshed, and by the time I managed to get up he was already scrubbing himself.
His wasn't nearly as large as a horse's, but rather small, solid, and thick; it always stuck out, overlapping his balls, pushing out his pants; he was busy soaping it now.
I was already on my feet, and realized it hurt, really hurt, that I'd never know whose friend I really was.
I don't know how I made it from the table to the wash bucket, the decision must have carried me unnoticed over the time necessary for the trip; I was standing before him, motioning to him to give me the soap.
This closeness, past love's passion, was the kind I had longed for with Krisztián, this nearly neutral feeling of brotherhood which I had never managed to reach with him and which is as natural as seeing, smelling, or breathing — the genderless grace of human affection; and perhaps it's no exaggeration to speak of the warmest gratitude here, yes, I was grateful and humble, because I got from Kálmán what I could never hope to get from the other, and what's more, I didn't need to humiliate myself or be grateful to him; gratitude was just there all by itself, simply because he was there, the way he was, and I was there, just the way I was.
He looked at me hesitantly, tilting his head a little, trying to look into my eyes, but could not catch my glance, yet he understood me immediately, because he thrust the soap into my hand and crouched down in the wash bucket.
I wet his back and began scrubbing it carefully, I didn't want it to be dirty.
I knew the only reason Prém said that idiotic thing was because his was so big; Krisztián sometimes asked him to show it to us and we would stare at it, laughing with pleasure at the possibility that it could be so big.
I was indescribably happy that Kálmán was my friend, after all.
I got a whiff of the pigpen's smell rising from his sudsy back; I had to rinse him really well.
And the only reason Prém had said what he said was to stop Kálmán from getting close to me, to make sure he remained their friend.
But the soap slipped into the bucket, sank, and disappeared between his spread legs.
That minute I hated Prém so much, I just had to go outside for a breath of fresh air.