My fate had once been shaped by coincidences, but for some time now I had been gripped by decisiveness.
After voicing my awkward proposition, I hadn’t expected much beyond a sweet little laugh and then her telling me, come on, kid, what do you think I am. That would have been a game, something joyful. I had a prepared sentence for it too. And when it didn’t happen that way, it was precisely my calculated decision, nurtured over several weeks, that made me not know what to do. Not with her sadness, her resigned indifference, or my prepared sentences. I didn’t understand anything.
Why is it already turning out differently, why can’t it be predicted.
Other than what my eyes let me see, I knew nothing about her. I did not understand what complete strangers might possibly do with each other so suddenly. Or why they didn’t sink into the ground in shame if they wanted to start something together. I had entered into something that offended my sense of decency, though I’d expected it to turn quickly into liberating pleasure. When you live in a herd of juveniles or students, everything happens by itself, because one way or another everyone is familiar, everyone is driven by similar compulsions to a wild search. Now I was standing by the counter, bare and exposed, having stripped naked. This woman wasn’t a classmate whom I’d run into because of coincidences in our class schedules. It was as if I had said to her, very loudly, that I wanted her and that I wanted to realize this wish of mine as quickly as possible.
Which wasn’t true.
I didn’t even want her by my side. I liked looking at her; at most, I’d have liked to find a way not to have to observe her secretly. I didn’t even want to talk to her. What did she or I have to say to a complete stranger. And I definitely did not think of touching her.
What I wanted was something I always had to be alone with, otherwise it couldn’t have raged.
I thought to myself, all right, now we’ve tried this too. I’m free to go. As if again I had several persons within me, which was not at all surprising, and one of them has been incited by the others to commit this stupidity.
But now it was all over.
She wasn’t looking at me, as if I were no longer there or never had been. I was free to go, all right; nothing was stopping me. I kept standing there clumsily with my glass of coffee, undecided whether to put it down on the marble counter but remain flagrantly in place, or perhaps withdraw with it and watch her secretly in the mirror as I had done many times before, or put down the coffee, which was only an excuse for my staying, and simply walk out of the place.
On the rainy street, a bus pulled up and spewed out a cluster of people in overcoats, some of whom came inside.
On this blustery spring day, central heating was still going strong. The small establishment’s vaporous warmth was filled with the smell of coffees, teas, pastries, and wet coats.
It seemed unlikely that we could exchange any more words.
There are moments when one’s attention is so reduced that one sees only a single object, nothing else. At other times one’s attention may be so fierce that objects aren’t even visible. There was this big coffee machine with horn-handled levers and small towers of glasses on top placed inside one another, warming up. She grasped a lever with both hands, pressed it down, and kept her entire weight on it until the hoisting gear clicked across a buffer; only then did she let it go. She had to make a big effort because her body in her white work coat was incredibly light; I truly enjoyed watching. Her breasts or bra bounced against the robe, I could see the outlines, and her strong buttocks and hips made an equally good showing. The lever returned to its original position; out of the resulting steam she smiled at the older man who stopped before her, holding his receipt. It was as if I saw nothing but the irritating glitter of the heat-and-steam-producing metal cylinder and heard only voices in the distance.
You certainly came early this morning, Counselor.
They began to talk right away, speaking as if the words had no meaning, only a place and a role to play.
I knew this older man by sight, a lawyer and confirmed bachelor. He lived nearby, behind the boulevard, in Eötvös Street, very close to the noisy maw of the Hunyadi Square covered market, in the so-called Podmanicky Palace, which had once been a very grand building, but the neighborhood was now considered one of the least attractive in the city.
They were playing exactly the kind of game I should have learned. They said nothing that was not ridiculously simple. First, they talked about the coffee, whether today it should be stronger or weaker, that’s how the game began. They were inexhaustible even on this simple subject, not because they had something valuable or new to say about coffee but because they observed in each other’s words and eyes new possibilities opened up by their lighthearted, carefree expressions.
As if with their words they could coax out of each other’s mouth this special, this elusive and secret something.
Then came the weather: today it will probably be like this or like that.
The wind was howling, raging, and they readily agreed it was raging, sweeping water out of gutters, tearing off roofs; the wind uprooted trees, and they said that it uprooted trees. The red flags and national tricolor flags were soaked in the rain, and the wind slammed the drenched rags onto flagpoles and electric cables.
Somewhere, the aerial cable of a streetcar had snapped, the lawyer mentioned in a whisper, and had electrocuted a number of schoolboys. I understood this happened at the National Museum, the site of the official ceremony. The boys were being led across the street on their way to the Museum Garden. Nobody knew how many casualties there were, but the entire area had been closed off. The official ceremony had been canceled.
The police are on a general alert.
According to a reliable source this might be considered a counterrevolutionary provocation.
I would never have ventured to talk about a topic that did not interest me or that irritated me, and that’s why I’d never lose my clumsiness. And how could I be sure that a stranger might be interested in something that depressed me or made me happy. And if, protected by their lighthearted words, they played with each other so cleverly, why didn’t they arrange a date immediately.
I didn’t understand that either.
They kept playing with secret challenges. I had never reached this point, so in theory jealousy should have been eating away at me. He stepped closer to the woman, who very quietly asked him something, hissing between her teeth, as if I weren’t there at all.
They took me for air.
Who knows, replied the lawyer a little more loudly, but seeing that fortune’s wheel keeps spinning around, today at least we are free.
As he spoke he plopped his big briefcase on the marble counter, and this movement also had something homely about it. He placed his hat carefully on top of the briefcase. As if, in the proximity of the woman and for however brief a moment, he was allowed to set up house. A worn old briefcase a little heftier than a doctor’s bag, a hat made of water-resistant rabbit fur. Now I didn’t have room to put my glass down. At any rate, continued the lawyer confidentially, all court cases have been postponed with no prior notice. And I mean every trial. Well, this also has an advantage, I could see your pretty face earlier.
They should have had a titillating little giggle at this remark, but the smiles meant for each other had faded.
I didn’t exactly understand that.
The tragedy at the museum must have been too large and the pervasive police presence too dangerous for everyone.