A raging fury to which we yield uneasily, fearfully, a bit ruffled, like birds that at times like these let themselves be buffeted by the harmless wind.
It was good that the wind was blowing, and it was also good that the sun was shining.
My little sister was already in the garden, standing on the steps leading to the gate, her hand clinging to the rusty iron, her head dangling, heavy and helpless, down to her breasts, her long white nightgown ballooning out in the wind.
With a mug of warm milk in my hand, I stepped out of the house into the wind, slightly annoyed to find her there, because I knew that if she noticed me I'd have a hard time getting rid of her; this was never easy, and the truth is that no matter how willingly I played with her, my ultimate goal in those little games was always to shake her off somehow.
But so early in the day the danger wasn't too great, for after walking Father out to the gate, sometimes she'd just stand there for a whole hour, not budging, sunk in her sadness.
Sometimes her misery put her in a state of such numb immobility that not even Grandmother could drag her away, although Grandma was the one person she truly feared.
My little sister had a very reliable internal timetable; trusting her uncanny secret sense, she could feel, to the second, when Father woke up in the morning, and then, giggling merrily, she'd climb out of bed, walk him to the bathroom, and position herself by the sink to watch him shave; this was the high point of their relationship, the moment of fulfillment in the love life of my little sister, a rapturous joy repeatable and repeated daily: Father stood in front of the mirror, and as he began to lather his face with the shaving brush, a low hum would issue from his throat; the foamier the shaving cream became under the brushstrokes, the louder his hum would grow, as if he was pleased with his ability to whip up such nice, firm, tastefully towering mounds of foam out of nothing; my little sister would imitate his noises, and when he was finished with the lathering and his hum had grown into a loud, singing bellow, he'd suddenly fall silent and she'd follow suit; in the welcome pause of silence Father would rinse out the brush, replace it on the glass shelf, and with a ritual gesture raise high his razor; with bated breath my sister would stare at Father's hand, and he'd watch her eyes from the mirror; while emitting a pleasurable moanlike scream, and repeating it with each stroke, Father would stretch his skin with his finger, plunge the blade into the foam, get down to the business of removing the stubble underneath, their game being to pretend the razor was hurting the foam, though it also made it feel good, and my sister joined Father's sounds with squeals of pleasure and pain of her own each time the knife sank into the foam, and afterward she watched excitedly as he got dressed, and sat next to him, buzzing and babbling, while he ate his breakfast; but when he got up from the table and wiped his mouth with a napkin, ready to leave, which meant this wasn't Sunday, when the quick wipe would be followed by a leisurely smoke, then the cheerful look on her face was replaced by one of panic and despair; she clutched Father's hand, his arm, and if it so happened that he had forgotten to set out the papers he was going to take with him that day, he had to drag the silently clinging child across the hallway, into his study, and back again; Father enjoyed the shaving game, but this was a bit much, and he'd often lose patience — under his controlled smile he'd flinch and grouse about the circus he had to go through every bloody morning, at times he'd be on the verge of hitting her, but always recoiling from the thought, he then became even more indulgent; by the time they reached the front door and parting was inevitable, my little sister would plunge swiftly from the heights of desperate rage into the resigned indifference of sorrow: she'd let Father take her hand, and hand in hand they'd walk all the way to the garden gate, where his car, engine running, was waiting for him.
Who could say why I started walking toward her now, when my aim was to avoid her and not disturb her in her grief, which at the moment suited me just fine; in any case, I had no idea how jealous her unconditional devotion to Father had made me, nor that it was this jealousy that made me seek out her company, because, willy-nilly, we were compelled to share the object of our mutual affection.
Just as I grew close to Kálmán because of our mutual affection for Maja.
She was holding on to the gate; I sat down on the steps and sipped my milk, making sure none of its wrinkly skin slipped into my mouth; what I was really doing was enjoying, with the most insidious humility, the grief emanating from her body.
The body really does emanate its emotions, but you have to be close to feel it.
What I actually sensed was a distorted version of the grief that the absence of Father's naked body had evoked in me, an absence that would forever remain in me.
After a while she turned to me, followed my movements, which made me drink my milk even more slowly, so it would last longer; in general, I pretended not to know, see, or feel her presence, and in so doing I instinctively hit her where it hurt most: I reinforced her sense of abandonment.
I kept this up until she completely transferred her sense of abandonment to me, hoping to find solace in my mug, in the milk.
I didn't have to wait long; she reached for it, but I raised it to my mouth and took another sip.
Letting go of the gate, she took a step toward me — more precisely, toward the mug, toward the sip of milk, toward the instinct of drinking.
She was standing over me, and between us this amounted to a conversation.
I was still pretending not to notice that she wanted my milk; as if by chance, I slid the mug between my raised knees and guarded it there.
When she reached for it, I lifted it from between my knees, out of her reach, openly withdrawing it from her.
She let out a single whiny sound, that hateful sound with which she waited for Father every afternoon.
For not only did she sense instinctively when he got up in the morning, she also had a secret intuition about when he would return at the end of the day.
In the afternoon when I'd be waiting for Livia, usually between four and five, no matter what she was doing my sister would suddenly become cranky and irritable and let out this strange, drawn-out whiny sound, as of joy heralded by pain, and she went on repeating it until she began to cry in earnest, rocking, driving herself into crying, actually not real crying, there were no tears, more like an animal whimpering, which she kept up as she wandered through the house and roamed the garden, clutching the fence, until Father arrived.
Come to think of it, the only time my little sister did not give way to these displays of joy, rapture, pain, and sorrow was when the family was together, when everyone was present after our Sunday dinners.