Certain things they would talk over, occasionally, briefly, and preferably in private, but they would refrain from making the kind of judgment that only a little while earlier Margit Huber had allowed herself to make. Although in a weak moment she had entrusted Mrs. Szemző with the great secret of her life, of which even Izabella Dobrovan had no knowledge. Although Izabella had followed the lines of the secret story as sensitively as she was now helping Mária return from her temporary embarrassment to the bastions of her superiority.
But the reason Mrs. Szemző’s news affected Margit Huber as it did was that Gyöngyvér Mózes was her pupil.
She had helped her obtain the maid’s room in Mrs. Szemző’s apartment, though Irma did not really need the rent of a subtenant.
Any way one cared to look at it, their lives were well intertwined.
In addition, Margit Huber loved to organize other people’s lives and to hold all the strings in her hands, as it were. Since Irma had a concert piano in her hallway, she might, who could tell, occasionally feel like accompanying Gyöngyvér, or so Margit had thought. Irma was not a brilliant pianist, but she would do. There was nothing affected about her playing. And she wouldn’t be so alone all the time.
Kick her out, she said.
I wouldn’t think of it.
Don’t misunderstand, I gave up on her a long time ago. As far as I’m concerned, you can kick her out.
Give me that glass, said Dobrovan, and she took the dripping glass from Mária Szapáry’s hand. I’ll get a rag to clean up this mess, if I may.
I’m rather annoyed with myself, replied Mrs. Szemző. A pretty young woman, why shouldn’t she live her life.
A hopeless slut, take my word for it. Hopeless, despite all our efforts.
Why is she hopeless, and what does hopeless mean, anyway.
You can’t be the judge of that.
I never claimed I could.
It’s not her voice, it’s that she has no psychological reserves. She herself is hopeless. And luckily she doesn’t know it.
The moment she starts singing, she is very convincing, especially with her concentration and her passion.
If someone’s foundation is shaky, then it’s all in vain.
She has presence, she can fill the space with herself.
Regrettably, passion is more of a danger, it carries her away, regrettably, and that’s when you can see she has no background, no depth. And when you consider that for someone who is almost too old to be a beginner, she is lazy and uneducated.
Lazy.
Elisa was whining in the armchair, but she was really begging for forgiveness.
Mária could not see how upset she was.
And Bella, in her imperceptible and passionless way, started off with the glass toward the door.
Wait, Mária called after her, I’ll do it myself.
No, no, my dear Médi, this is a suppressed, concealed, strictly controlled passion. Take no offense, but I’ve more experience in this. The situation is that she is blocked by something very strong, and whatever it is, it should be eliminated first.
Irma was talking as if secretly she feared for Gyöngyvér and wanted to save her for herself.
And this, in turn, could not escape Margit Huber’s attention because she feared for Gyöngyvér even more passionately, and she also dreaded her own failure, which Irma clearly recognized; she inveighed against her so she could then take her under her protection.
She is blocked, you say, all right, but what can I do with that. These are empty psychological commonplaces. I need to know what is blocking her. I wouldn’t say it’s her low origin, some people can overcome that, some can’t, and it’s not a question of talent. She has no more time for preparation, she’s the one who hasn’t got another five years, not I.
They all felt again that what was happening went on being something other than what they were actually talking about, which stretched every moment dangerously beyond acceptable limits.
What’s the point of behaving in a certain way, even normally, if what they’re trying to conceal with their behavior is visible, and each one of them can sense that they all see through these efforts.
They aren’t in protective trenches anymore.
Dobrovan chose to wait a moment, and Mária hadn’t left the room either. They were tarrying not only because they had to split their attention in so many directions at once, not wanting to be left out of anything or to miss anything, not a single word, but also because Margit Huber’s emotional tactics were becoming clear to them. Not only did she not want Mrs. Szemző to throw out this unknown Gyöngyvér, but she was obviously fighting for her, hoping ardently that Irma would take her under her wing.
Which was something Mrs. Szemző would no longer do for anyone, not for anything. After she’d given up her practice, she’d found work in the district clinic as a medical clerk.
For ten years, until her retirement, she insisted on being a medical clerk and nothing else.
But now she was wavering.
Similarly, Mária Szapáry felt it would be better to keep silent about all this, that it was too perilous, but she would not prevent them from talking. Yet she could not tear herself away from them. All she wanted was not to confuse things more with her own words, and she could not have said what they should clarify or how that could be done. In the meantime, the two other women were not only talking but also watching Bella help Mária, who had fallen out of her role, and trying to figure out how all this was connected to Elisa’s whining.
Which Mária cannot bear, which is the reason she must leave the room. As if they are raking through her nerves.
They all led different and less personal lives; still, there were moments when the air filled up to the point where nothing more could be accommodated.
They are locked into one another.
A force, functioning independently of them, condemned them to one another; they must break out of one another.
The question has become this, who will begin tonight, and who can bring about her breakout with the smallest sacrifice.
Of course, the warm evening had cooler edges, currents, breezes, brief thrusts and puffs from above the heavy, darkly rolling water, which the body unconsciously absorbed. The many sensations and fragrances of early summer colored their feelings, imperceptibly came between them, occasionally modified the measure and direction of their emotions. On Margit Island during these days, the yellow clusters of Japanese acacias burst into bloom among the ruins of the Dominican cloister, where human urine and feces stank and burning cigarettes glowed and died off in the darkness.
In the light of distant gas lamps, lonely men roamed, showing themselves to one another, and then stopped in one of the ruins’ impenetrable shadows and cautiously opened their flies.
The fragrance of the heavy, dense acacia clusters is not sweet but forbidding and scabrous, like chipped metal, or like raw beef.
VOLUME II: In the Very Depth of the Night
Margit Island
I’ve got another life.
Kristóf ran headlong into the bushes, flowery branches hitting him in the face.
Yes, he did have another life.
He was fleeing.
He heard the long, hurrying steps pounding behind him, the wild breathing of his pursuer; the tightly packed footpath through the trees and bushes reverberated under their feet.
I’ve gone too far, he whimpered to himself, much too far. He could not help going too far, no matter how much he admonished himself, because he was far from everything and everybody. He was playing with danger to feel he was alive, though his other self weighed everything soberly.