Mother knows right well what I’m laughing at.
Hungary’s always been lost because of discords. There’s nothing to laugh about there.
Haven’t you been lost yourself, haven’t you said the same thing yourself plenty of times. Then why are you laughing at others. Just because you’ve seen the world, you don’t have to put your nose in the air.
The cover on the double bed, piled high with eiderdowns and pillows, was made of smooth, glossy yellow cotton twill, as was the upholstery on the two chairs, the round pouf in front of the dressing table, and the armchair, all of which were overlain with heavily starched handmade lace. Whenever Mrs. Madzar reminisced about the oath, Madzar had to smile because his mother truly did not consider herself Hungarian. We are German, she would say proudly, raising her white-kerchiefed head high. She said it as if she were removing her son from among the Hungarians.
Luckily, my son, she always said, with your nature you take after me more than after your father.
If only you didn’t urinate on the roses the way he did.
She moved out into the summer kitchen, sleeping on the cot, so that the precious bedroom would remain untouched until the guest’s arrival. A commodious white porcelain chamber pot was also part of the furnishing. They had never used it, because inside and out it was painted full of pretty little blue forget-me-nots. Still, during every spring and fall cleaning, Mrs. Madzar scrubbed it spick-and-span. Since she has been alone, she uses a blue, zinc-coated bucket at night so on cold nights she needn’t leave the bedroom and go outside. She was afraid, scared of every shadow. But she did not want more dogs in her life, because she’s had to beat enough of them to death. Earlier, they kept the bucket, if not this one, out on the veranda. It was not nice to let the man hear the woman’s dribbling. But even in the coldest winter nights her husband thought nothing of standing on the steps of the veranda and pissing from there.
I’ve never regretted marrying a Hungarian, but this I could never forgive the two of you.
That you have to piss on my roses, making the whole yard stink.
I can’t understand how Hungarians don’t smell their own stench.
Since they talked about a possible guest, she had been airing out everything, mercilessly chasing the tiniest flies and numerous mosquitoes. Every evening, she collected the day’s eggs in separate baskets. Her zeal irritated Madzar, her humbleness and servility because of the supposedly upper-class guest.
Why must you prepare so much, Mother. But he restrained himself, did not say anything. They talked very little anyway. Unless his mother was doing one of her well-practiced monologues, silence reigned in the house and above the yard. At most, the power saw screeched on the wood. The feeling itself was unjust toward his mother. Still, he did not show his real feelings. And Mrs. Madzar was very indulgent with her son, that was the reason — not thoughtlessness — she always talked with him about something other than what they should have talked about.
There were so many things that a mother could not talk about with her grown son, anyway.
She did everything not to hurt her son.
Because what she feared most was that this, her last remaining son, was about to leave her for good.
He was in such a hurry he did not even bring any luggage and he walked around in his father’s clothes.
Very carefully, she said to him, son, people will laugh at you in your father’s clothes.
Actually, her son confused her in these clothes.
You’re paying for your expensive hotel room in Pest instead of bringing your fine clothes here.
I’d keep them in fine order here.
Come on, Mother, who would laugh at me, I don’t know a soul in the whole city.
The city knows you’ve come home, son. At least when you leave the house you should wear your own clothes. Can’t you see how much you take after your father. He also saved money on things he shouldn’t have.
Oh, Mother, stop chewing my ears off.
As if you were only a tradesman, that’s what you look like in your father’s clothes.
Well, Mother, what should I look like.
You’re working here and paying for your expensive hotel in Pest. Gottlieb’s older son has two cars in America. I’m afraid your studies may have been in vain. The way you’re going, you’ll never have anything.
What have I got to do with Gottlieb’s older son, Mother.
He uses one to deliver merchandise. In the other he takes his family on outings.
How many times have I asked you not to interfere with my life.
But try as he might, no matter how much he felt he was behaving very properly, exercising the correct measure of self-discipline, with his mother he was unable to use a different tone.
Please be quiet.
Don’t you tell me to be quiet.
I know what I’m doing.
In a few days, he could see how thoroughgoing her secret preparations had been. And he also failed to banish Mrs. Szemző from his mind, because whenever he finished his daily work — before twilight, for he did not feel like working by lamplight on this sensitive wood with its delicate color and proportions so easily distorted by electric light — then suddenly he felt very lonely. There was nothing to be done about it, and he was disturbed by the thought that he had no way of knowing what he was doing.
He sensed, like a heavy premonition, how utterly alone he would be in America if he ever got there.
On top of it all, the day was approaching when he would have to interrupt his work here and go back to Budapest for the work on Dobsinai Road. And he worried that the apartment would not turn out as he had hoped. That it wouldn’t satisfy his demands for architectural purity. Don’t let the telegram come just yet. If Bellardi arrives at night, he’ll be getting off at Mohács on his way from Vienna. Or else he might come five days later on the ship arriving from Belgrade at four in the afternoon.
But he did not come at either time, and Madzar again had to wait three more days, and he could be glad that no telegram came either. In his great expectation, he went so far as to leave his work quietly at the relevant hour and take a leisurely stroll down to the boat station. He went as is, in his father’s work clothes, to see with his own eyes whether Bellardi would disembark or not.
But he did not see him on the bridge.
He could have sent him a message, because he saw the Mayer boy.
But, outwitting himself, he had to pretend that only by coincidence was he observing from the willow trees along the shore the Carolina’s spectacular and noisy arrival and then its painful departure. When the Carolina was receding from Mohács, with its streaming, clattering wheels turning against the current, the wailing of its horn lingered for a long time. At such times, Madzar usually stopped either behind the customhouse or at the silk factory’s stone wall, but from there he did not see Bellardi either when the ship came or when it left.
Sometimes he would run out of the house at the doleful sound of the horn, just as he had in his childhood, hurry down to the dock and from the old fishing-boat landing watch the slow passing of the Carolina.
Once he saw Chief Counselor Elemér Vay get off, on his way back from Belgrade; the Mayer boy lugged his suitcases behind him. The smartly dressed, severe-looking gentleman was conveyed from Fish Market Square in the Hotel Korona’s black, crest-adorned carriage, while simultaneously, amid much blowing of its horn, the ship set out upstream, taking its passengers leaning on the railing. And this not only pained Madzar but also made him dread the pain of longing to be off.