Everybody gets my goat and I have to be afraid of women too.
Yet she had never before experienced such profound sexual contentment with a man.
It was more than ever before; simultaneously, she moved with him in various deep layers and on high plateaus, simultaneously.
Well, goddamn it, it’s not all the same to me.
It was new and shocking, just thinking about it was enough to make her brain cells come, but she was just as enthusiastic about that old saying she had heard in Tiszavésztő, that humans are mortal and licentious. She must have picked it up during a Bible lesson, or maybe it was from a familiar psalm, but which one.
Then it must be something by Bach. She vainly searched her mind for the fucking psalm. So she could quietly console herself with it in the endless city night.
Which made her realize for the first time in her life — she in fact saw — what a wide ditch yawned between physical and mental gratification.
If this was so, then all these years she’d been getting fucked in vain.
Only for things to be a little better.
I’ve been getting myself screwed for nothing; with their puny cocks, these wretches could give neither of those gratifications. If they had the cock for it, they lacked the necessary rhythm. What’s to be done if, in her case, one ability does not exist without the other. They can reach neither her body nor her soul. They could never get it up enough to screw her properly or, who knows what and why, something was always off. They stayed too far away or pushed themselves too close and left her no room to feel, but feel what. Because of her mortality and licentiousness, then, she had thrown away her soul’s opportunities. She’s been wandering soullessly in this earthly existence, but this too is but a psalm.
Because this one too will be only a dumb little technician in her life; they try hard, they pant, they hope to make every effort, which is why they shove, push, chew, and lick so desperately and so fast.
The moment they stop, their things droop; men become miserable because of me.
With his beautiful body, he works very nicely for me though he’s completely soulless toward me, as I am to him. I don’t love him, that’s the truth, I just needed to chalk up one of these well-educated men. She saw her fate before her; the terrible ditch opened up like this, like a wound. To this day, she knew exactly where the ditch ran between the reapers. Only the big boys could jump across it, in the spring, when the ice began to melt and the ditch filled with water. She couldn’t jump across it, but she thought nothing of getting into a fight with them. You weren’t careful with your clothes, were you, you snot-nose, you little shit, you useless thing, you, who will buy you clothes now, you barren creature. From the very beginning she had to give up things because she not only had been born a girl but was a foundling. Children can jump that far only if they get their milk every morning and without the sweet cream taken off the top beforehand, and if they also get potato noodles. She understood that the Bizsók boys had to have the cream so that their noodles would grow better, but who decided that she shouldn’t be a boy but a foundling, this she did not understand. Mrs. Bizsók made the decision. She understood that girls did not have to grow as much as boys because girls didn’t have noodles between their legs. Mrs. Bizsók beat her soundly when she got her dress wet in the ditch. She’d done something wrong, spoiled something again. But Mrs. Bizsók always had some cream, so why didn’t she have one between her legs, and why wasn’t she more understanding toward her. You knew I forbade you to jump across, but you went ahead and tried just the same. I always ruin things because I don’t understand what I have to give up. A foundling should behave herself, lie low. You can’t have anything to demand of us, not even before the law, little girl. And a female child should be especially obedient. You should be glad I’m teaching you, you useless thing, you. Who will slap your face, you little shit, or spank your butt if not your foster mother. And she always talks back to me, this state orphan here.
She barely sticks out of the ground and she’s already working her jaw.
We barely get anything to raise you on, you hear me.
A father only has to beat his son, can’t your tiny little brain remember even this much. You’d like your foster father slapping your ass, wouldn’t you.
I’d let him have it for that, I would.
She’d like that, yes, she would.
It’s always her impatience and her demands that ruin her life. She’ll fuck things up with this lovely, ravishing man too, just as she fucked it up with the old Jew, which is why she hasn’t inherited anything, but what the hell am I talking about, I can’t believe the things my mind can dredge up. At least his feet don’t stink. You’re safe with these people, you can even lick their asses. He not only shits but properly washes it for himself. And he also knows what is where in the other person’s body, he knows what he’s supposed to lick patiently, for a long time, oh, so delicious, what to keep softly sucking or what to stab with just the right force.
And if she loses him, it would be just as it was with Bizsók. Or with Médike, from whom she could really learn, finally, where to look for what in her own system.
Her dumb adoration and thirst for revenge scare them away.
She must be on her guard.
This time — because of the hungry hatred she felt for them, her will to take everything and learn everything from them, feel contempt for them, be better than they and better than everybody — the F sharp found its right place.
More correctly, several necessary things found their proper places all at once, and because of that she could at least put the note in its right place. If not her entire life, retroactively and in anticipation. She was busy contemplating her hatred — clearer than daylight — and remembering Médike’s prediction that if and when she ever put the note in its right place she, Gyöngyvér herself, would hear it.
She would feel it as though she had acquired an entirely different system of hearing.
The Holy Spirit or some such thing must have seized her.
You’ll be standing next to yourself, listening to your singing.
To hear what you’ll be hearing then, you won’t need your ears, my dear.
Or perhaps sweet Médike lent her own hearing to her.
A feeling of triumph will be swelling in your body.
In her joy, she felt like pissing on Mrs. Szemző’s old piano stool.
It was only her dumb urge to pee that put the note in its place. Of course, in this miserable maid’s room, where she could hole up thanks to the generosity of these grand ladies, she’d caught another cold. Sweet Médike would be glad to predict everything for her. Now she can suffer again for weeks with her bladder infection and ovaritis; she’ll be bleeding and then she’ll have to send away even this rotten pretty boy too.
Experiencing the convergence of so many different things enthralled and moved her so much that she propped her arms on the keyboard and then lowered on them her migraine-tortured pretty little head. She continued with her infinite self-pity, lamenting that she had been dealt such a cruel singing teacher who was nevertheless the best voice coach in the city. That she pays fifty-seven forints per hour. Every month she has to give half her salary to this woman; she can’t buy herself a damn thing, every one of her best pieces she has had to charm off somebody. How could she be so hapless, such a shiftless, hopeless case who can’t exploit her own talents, such a useless mortal. Doomed to suck cocks as babies do tits, but without finding a man who at night would give her what’s rightfully hers and love her tenderly.