What is it you were going to keep quiet about, if I may ask.
Mrs. Szemző couldn’t possibly outshout these two females behaving so outrageously, but she kept inquiring.
Again behind my back, right behind my back.
Which also turned into a shrill screech.
She regretted that such selfish sounds, recalling bad memories, were bursting from her throat. But it was no longer possible to withdraw from the air her delusion of persecution, for it needed to be in the light of day, and in that case, she too was nothing more, yes, nothing more than a common hysterical woman.
Like them.
Time to admit it.
In a weak voice Bella tried to intervene. Erna Demén claims, at least she had been so informed, that you were together with her daughter, her big girl whom the Gestapo took away from Kerepesi Cemetery, where the poor things were holding a silent demonstration at Pál Teleki’s grave.* We thought there was no need to tell you about such a silly thing.
Yet as you can see it became a matter of contention, whether to tell you or not.
While she was talking, she expected Mária to help her, at least with a few words.
In difficult situations, Mária always remained stubbornly silent.
And Bella did not dare mention the name of the place where they might have been together.
But in fact that’s exactly right, Mrs. Szemző remarked quietly.
For a few weeks, I was indeed together with her, with her big girl.
Which was something none of the women had expected to hear, though no surprise was visible on their faces. They simply looked at her as they might some idol.
Mária Szapáry was going up the steps of a dim rear stairwell. She did not know why she was reminded of this now. She came home not through the main entrance, from the direction of Via della Lungara, but through a side door, from Via dei Riari.
It must have been the third time they got soaked to their bones that afternoon, and again they were running to get inside, away from the soft warm rain, a man was holding Margit Huber’s hand, and then somewhere between rue Réaumur and rue de Vert bois they ran under the striped awning of a café.
She did not know where exactly they were in their lives then.
These human monsters, having shed their erstwhile stature and character, were standing in pale lamplight and looking back at her with the immeasurable indifference of outsiders. She could expect nothing else, least of all from those closest to her.
Their faces clearly showed they understood, after all, they were not stupid, yet were unable to move a hand or foot or single facial feature. Mrs. Szemző also realized they couldn’t do otherwise because it follows from the cult of crime that crimes will be committed.
Which nevertheless caused something profoundly childish to burst from her mouth.
And now what am I supposed to do with this bad behavior, she asked loudly, frightened and frightening. What am I to do with you, with your lack of compassion.
They did not know this side of her.
These were the lonely nights.
During the day she had to overcome and rise above things, but at night she could at least count on the body’s fatigue. Or she might have killed herself. That had remained her most ardent wish. She was vigorously nodding at each of her words; her discipline lapsing, her usually cleverly concealed tic was defeating her. Now they could see something of this too, have a taste of it.
What should they do with their own stories and with those of the others.
They were all carrying their own losses, their total, all-encompassing failures. No human on earth could answer their questions, and they found no god to whom they could entrust them. The nocturnal breeze, the heartwarming chirring of crickets, the puffing of tugboats receding in the distance, and the fragrance of sweet petunias barely grazed their silence.
If that’s really so, began Mária Szapáry a moment later, more curious than reproachful, why haven’t you looked her up before. Or, oh, I don’t know, you might have figured something out, after all, it was her child she had lost.
What, what could I have figured out.
And what exactly could I have said, and where, to whom, and why. That’s the main thing, why would I have said anything.
How should I have known she did not know.
Nobody asked me. When would I have told anyone, yes, when. One cannot just tell it at any old time, and one doesn’t think about it all of the time.
They remained silent again, as if contemplating the ways one could get around relating such a story if this entire thing, the situation in which they found themselves, had no time, place, or genre.
But I’d be very happy to tell you, and I shall, said Mrs. Szemző, who with this frivolous turn tried to restrain her tic. She pulled herself back from the opposite shore, bounced back to her usual passionless vocal range.
And you can simply tell Erna Demén to give me a call, period. You don’t have to bother your heads about this. All evening I’ve been trying to tell you that before coming here, by chance, I don’t know, though I’m sure I didn’t do it on purpose, I opened the door on my subtenant, that woman.
You don’t say, responded Mária, her voice filled with muted resentment.
Really, very interesting.
At the same time Margit Huber rose, somewhat indignant.
What are you saying, she asked, elongating her vowels, what do you mean you opened the door on her, what is that supposed to mean.
The leather squeaked under her body, the sofa’s worn-out springs moaned, and as she sat up her huge crown of white hair became unfastened and fell unattractively to her shoulders.
I assume it’s clear she wasn’t alone. It was like watching copulating caterpillars or something like that.
They spoke of such things very rarely and, when they did, very cautiously.
As if she were saying to them, keep out of my experiences.
She excluded them from their common past, punished the dumb goyim who understood nothing of the creation of the world, whose great compassion was also a fiasco.
Mária Szapáry, as a person interrupted in exercising her hereditary superiority, stepped closer to the table and, to make order out of the chaos of the story, lifted her glass out of the puddle of the drink. But this was no improvement because she did not understand what had happened. Sugary liquid dripped from the bottom of the glass back onto the green felt. In the meantime, she ostentatiously avoided Elisa’s eyes.
She did not want to see her.
If I understand correctly, you mean she was with somebody, in flagrante, is that right, asked Margit Huber, and with two quick twists of her fists she rubbed tears from her eyes.
Like caterpillars, as I’ve said, earthworms, but there was enough light for me to have no serious doubt about what I was seeing.
But what did you do, for God’s sake.
What could I do, that’s what was so interesting, that’s why I want to tell you about it. I pretended I didn’t see it.
I see.
It couldn’t have gone better.
Izabella Dobrovan decided she had to step in before the battling fronts froze into immovable positions.
She had been a dancer in her younger years but her burgeoning career ended with a serious onstage accident. She probably owed her imperceptible, modest decisiveness to her dance training. With her barely graying black hair brushed straight back and gathered in a bun, with her thin limbs, dry white skin, and ramrod-straight carriage, she was the most impressive-looking among the four women to this day, even though her looks were not particularly striking.
Her dark silk dress rustled across the room.
They had been observing one another for decades; they could see even when they closed their eyes.