Could she have walked up.
It seems that way.
Should I open it, if you’d like me to, asked Dobrovan politely.
I’ll get it, came Mária’s firm response, but she was in no hurry.
She wouldn’t have trusted them with opening the door; she needed this opportunity.
That evening, Irma Szemző had made it up the stairs very slowly indeed.
She stopped on all the landings, her thoughts repeatedly carrying her away, or more precisely, for long moments she forgot where she was or where she was going. The higher she climbed, the warmer she felt, even though the gallery windows facing the inner courtyard were wide open. The white marble walls were mottled with yellow- and blue-grained pink spots, and there was silence and cleanliness. Today she hadn’t wanted to look at the concierge’s face, swollen by alcohol — and not just because he disgusted her in general. Ultimately, she was one of those people who, though unwilling to be absolutely honest, battle with themselves to become dishonest since they lack the talent for it. Every evening in the spacious, mirrored elevator cabin, Mrs. Szemző would impassively observe the uncertain, soft, slightly flat profile of this man struggling with melancholy; his eternally bowed head, his short, retracted neck, his strong, well-built body which nevertheless projected weakness and from which the sour odor of mental fustiness emanated; when he spoke, the emanation was overwhelmed by his powerfully foul breath.
She observed the essence of his neurosis, scanned his constitution, which accommodated a strangeness bordering on madness, where, one might say, neurosis found an appropriate breeding ground.
Each time she had to tell herself that he was a borderline case, she could not help him.
In 1944, Varga had helped Mária Szapáry, which had meant taking considerable risks. However, he loathed himself for this as if for some weakness.
He hadn’t done it out of conviction.
He had nothing but contempt for the suspicious characters that turned up at Countess Szapáry’s place: wandering Jews, communists and socialists forced to live and work underground, various kinds of deserters; he thought of them as nothing but riffraff. The reason Hungarians are always divided is that they always have these kinds of people among them. People who, like weeds, should be extirpated down to the last one. Varga was an advocate of a firm hand, strict social order, and Hungarian unity. The Germans, their manners smoothed by their racial brutality, and the screeching Hungarian Nazis, the Arrow Cross men, impressed him. After all, they both meant to do only good: to make permanent order at last in this Jewish whorehouse. He himself was a member of a secret patriotic organization that has gone on operating to this day. But Countess Szapáry simply paid him off, bribed him, overwhelmed him, would not let him choose another way. That was his weakness — money and aristocrats of various ranks and orders who in his eyes, after all, did symbolize everything Hungarian, and against whom he felt defenseless.
He couldn’t very well denounce them to the authorities when at the same time, out of greed, he was helping them save the riffraff.
Two apartments opened from the gallery on each floor, on the top floor only one. Here, stepping out of the elevator, one found oneself in a space made coolly brilliant by marble all around, illuminated during the day by natural light coming through the loophole-like windows; opposite the elevator, one faced a heavy oak door. From a steel door behind the elevator one could, on an uncomfortable steel ladder, climb up to the elevator housing and gain the flat rooftop, but very few people knew about this.
In her slightly damp two-piece pearl-colored dress, Mrs. Szemző waited patiently at the oak door, on her face a wry smile that she had prepared for Mária. She had to breathe more deeply. She wanted to tell her about it right away, the whole thing. When she heard no footsteps within the apartment, she opened her handbag, took out the clean white batiste handkerchief, and blotted up the invisible pearls of her perspiration above her lips.
So what now, what should we do, asked Dobrovan in the apartment.
We haven’t decided.
Of course we have. I’ve decided, replied Mária Szapáry. Adroitly pressing one good finger on the injured one, she made a fist with which she wiped the tears from her eyes, and scrambled to her feet.
Oh, my, she moaned as she straightened up, words addressed to the other women as a new excuse and explanation, my ankles swelled up again. The most natural thing is for us to be quiet about it. We simply won’t tell her anything. As for the secondhand-art dealer, just leave her to me, she said as she left the kitchen.
I’ll call on her, I’ll take care of it, don’t worry, at least I’ll have a chance to avenge everything properly.
In the next few minutes, they forgot what they were supposed to be quiet about.
The feminine bedlam took on the air of a preparation for carnival in anticipation of Irma Arnót’s arrival.
She observed them suspiciously, with a bit of reserve, as she put down her hat and handbag and slowly pulled off her lace gloves and they rushed out into the hallway, interrupting one another with huge explosions of giggling and laughter, to explain about the great catastrophe and whose negligence had caused it. Pushing and shoving, they went back into the apartment. One could not miss the great exaggerations; they were all too talkative, too loud, too aggressive for some reason; their bones were much too large; they looked like awful human robots.
They headed for the foyer and then, led by Dobrovan, returned to the kitchen to clean up the debris.
Somewhere behind Eskü Square there’s a porcelain expert, he deals with just such cases.
And what should I do, take this mess to him in sacks. I couldn’t look at patched-up dishes.
Come, come, Margit Huber protested quickly, how can you say that, Dobrovan, that place is at the beginning of Veres Pálné Street, almost at the corner of Kúria Street.
Throw it all out and forget about it, that’s what I should do, wailed Mária Szapáry.
That’s why I’m telling you, behind Eskü Square.
It’d be more accurate to say behind the Tiszti Casino.
Why are you quibbling.
They slowly picked up everything, quieted down, swept up what they could, and all without quarreling; an ominous peace reigned in the kitchen.
I’m so sorry, I really am, Irma kept saying quietly as she helped Mária.
And while Mária amused herself finding still more pieces of china almost everywhere in the kitchen, Margit and Bella took up positions by the sink and began to wash glasses.
Maybe one day I’ll tell you, Irmuska, why those few pieces meant so much to me.
If we’re going to make some for Elisa too, called Margit Huber from the sink, would you get another glass, Mária.
But only irrepressible jealousy sounded real in this request, at least in retrospect — the wish to keep the two women from being together while picking up the shards.
Bella added a little giggle to the remark, though she was not a party to Médi’s jealousy game.
Watch it, I’m telling you, she said, as if to exacerbate Margit Huber’s hurt, there won’t be anywhere to put those broken dishes in all this mess.
And indeed, Mária had to make excuses about the overflowing trash can. What should she do if she forgot to put it out every night.
What do you mean what should you do.
Just don’t forget. It’s that simple.
Anyway, wait a bit with the fizz until I ask Elisa if she wants any.
But first she had to wash off her injured finger in the bathroom and Irma had to bandage it.
Silently they sat on the edge of the tub, not even looking at each other. Behind them the faucet dripped persistently; and since it had been dripping for months, it had left a yellowish streak on the tub’s enamel. This wasn’t rust but a sulfurous deposit from thermal water — the most ordinary brimstone, usually considered the symbol of hell. Twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, Újlipótváros received its hot water from the thermal springs on Margit Island, and not only did this water leave visible traces but a smell reminiscent of rotten eggs pervaded apartments and stairwells.