Although with her mind she comprehended the real reasons for her aversion and fear, she could not change her emotions with her intellect.
The moment the door opened, she could see the hapless woman; she sat at the edge of a swan-necked divan in the brightly lit room wearing a faded, floral-patterned print dress. She was whimpering, evenly and persistently, swaying her head to the rhythm of her sounds, to the right, to the left, frighteningly, untiringly, while she kept hitting her paralyzed knees with a fist.
This was the only decently furnished room in the large apartment, or more correctly, Mária had made sure that no valuable object in this room was sold, even in periods of great privation. The room was just as it had been when they set it up, according to Elisa’s taste, during the first, not exactly blissful weeks of their living together.
The repeated gesture was understandable at first sight. She must have been doing it for a long time. It was easy to see she was punishing herself, was passionately dissatisfied with herself, her miserable knees not moving and she being unable to get up from where she was sitting. And it was impossible to forget how well proportioned and shapely these legs had been in their fine silk stockings, with fashionably graceful, thin-soled, indecently high-heeled shoes showing off her ankles, calves, and thighs. Now her swollen feet were forced into two down-at-heel, checkered felt slippers. Her downy blond, naturally wavy hair, richly interlaced with gray, which made her blondness even more exciting, fell into her face because of her continuous, practiced gesture of passionate self-punishment. She looked like a lunatic, but this exaggeration was a part of that particular language of gestures with which she could still express her will and feelings, and for which she mobilized incredible reserves of strength.
Her left shoulder and arm were partially and her lower body completely paralyzed as a result of hereditary arteriosclerosis, which can afflict young people. This diagnosis was well supported by the facts that her grandfather, Baron Dénes Koháry, chief counselor for hunting matters to the minister of agriculture, had died following an unsuccessful treatment of his syphilis, and her father had had a long bout with serious circulatory problems. Elisa’s anus and vagina retained their full sensitivity, however; she felt her needs and could to a certain extent take care of them herself. She could no longer formulate intelligible sentences except for one, though with great effort she could produce sounds that for practiced ears were not completely indecipherable.
A person who, according to all medical prognoses, should have been dead long ago.
Mária hurried to help her up. Relax, patience, she called out coolly. Calm yourself, stop making such a ruckus, for God’s sake. I’m not completely deaf. But she had barely touched her when the blond woman, with the same rage with which she had been hitting herself, now, throwing her head high, freeing her oval face from the dense mass of her blond hair with its silvery highlights, rudely shoved her away.
I don’t know, she shouted in English several times, I don’t know, quickly, angrily, plaintively, passionately. Or so it could be interpreted.
I see you didn’t make any kaka and you didn’t pee, exclaimed Mária, glancing impassively at the bedpan lying in front of the swan-necked divan in which there was nothing but a little water. Then tell me what’s up, but a bit more clearly, what do you need.
I don’t know, Elisa kept shouting, now more desperately, reproachfully, I don’t know, her enormous blue eyes all but throwing sparks as they darted, rolled, and flashed.
Elisa never failed to surprise Irma each time anew with her sorely ravaged beauty. As if, despite all her misery, she was radiating it still, as she had done long ago when Irma saw her for the first time, at twenty, from a distance. And later, to be honest, she had had grave doubts about Professor Bókay’s diagnosis when he’d been called in as a consultant. She would never have told anyone, but her decided impression was that, independent of her grandfather’s youthful syphilis and her father’s wildly fluctuating blood pressure, Elisa’s cerebral hemorrhage had successfully thwarted the breakout of a well-developed schizophrenia.
She couldn’t forget that a week before that catastrophic event they had had lunch together on Margit Island on the terrace of Palatinus Strand, and by then everything about the latent disease was visibly present. Could schizophrenia induce the same process in arteries that arteriosclerosis or syphilis did, that was the question. She was with her children, which required that she divide her attention, but during the short quarter hour when Mária was getting dressed in her cabin, Irma observed something in the seemingly gentle but in fact ruthlessly icy blond woman, something that would have been hard to put into words.
It was becoming overcast.
She would have liked to warn Mária, but kept her peace.
Above them, the wind gently flapped the giant blue-and-white-striped canvas umbrella; still, the air seemed not to move.
A light-music orchestra was playing on the terrace, which the young woman found too loud, and the smell of bacon too strong. It is possible that she was indeed suffering from a constantly changing accumulation of impressions that she could not process properly, from the strength of those impressions, from the incredible fact that everything in the world is present at the same time and with great force; nevertheless, what emanated from her was a benumbing indifference and icy tranquillity. She spoke of herself excitedly and with great agitation as if representing another person, a complete stranger. Which made the blood run cold in the veins of everyone around her; the boys were especially alarmed by her. First, she had a problem with the soup, which she said was sour, then she claimed that the smell of the cucumber salad was unbearable, the vinegar in it, and she asked the two boys not to squeeze any more lemon on their fried veal cutlets in her presence.
I want to tell you, she said, smiling enchantingly, everything around me is too rich in acid reaction.
She issued such reports about her impressions in precise, impassively spoken sentences.
This may be understandable, but she didn’t want people neutralizing her own personal chemical reaction.
Otherwise, she had nothing to say or ask anyone, she talked continually about herself, this other person, or she sat quietly observing this other person in herself.
Usually it was hard to restrain the two lively boys, but now, without a word and looking frightened, they placed the half-squeezed lemon slices on the rims of their plates. This woman is far from being as ready to smile as she tries to pretend she is; she is busy with that grim self of hers, whom she treats as a stranger to be indulged.
She has taken on the dark loveliness of this stranger, though in none of her parts or traits is she identical with that stranger.
The combined din of the tugboats was becoming unbearable; the air shook and vibrated above the terrace restaurant. A pervasive odor of crude oil overwhelmed the river’s evening coolness; heat and the engines’ nauseating, stinking particles of combustion filled the air.
One tugboat was pulling some loud dance music upstream, maybe that’s what reminded her of the orchestra playing light music.
Yes, I know, you’re right, damn my rotten forgetfulness. I forgot again to put your chair here for you, shouted Mária over the noise, giving the impression that despite her contrition, she would not be rattled by the other woman’s agitation.
Since those days, of course, Mrs. Szemző too has looked at everything differently.
If only because misery had fundamentally changed the blond woman, making her attentive, almost humble, which meant that not merely did she suffer but she also managed her suffering. She has softened and warmed up because of her terrible illness; heat emanated from her bare neck and naked arms. But Irma dreaded the very sight, the proximity of this change. She could not rid herself of the notion that in certain cases only at the expense of a physical catastrophe can the human constitution avoid a mental catastrophe. And if this were indeed so, then occurrences in this world must have not only reasons but probably purposes as well. But then she was faced again with the stupid question of who was at the helm, or what could be the thing that had a purpose. And she should also ask who took her children away, why, and why had she been left alive.