Fellmonger, she repeated the strange word.
Furrier too, I explained, perhaps this mink is from his business. I explained that what Budapest parlance calls mink is in fact the name of an innocent animal. There is something inexplicable in this whole fur business, and I probably thought about it only because I had an aversion both to furs and also to this uncle of mine.
So what should one think about when one says mink.
Minks are living animals, and wearing a coat like that is like having committed a robbery and being proud of it.
She interrupted to say that my uncle must have been a Jew.
Indeed he was, I said. Actually, he still is, but that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t stand him.
We both laughed hard at this and our mingling laughs echoed for a while, but that did not please me much.
My jocular mood began to dissipate. It seemed we were offending this miserable dark building with our echoing laughter.
Our laughter probably disturbed her a little too. Hurt a little.
Let’s go, she said, seeming disconcerted.
All right if she wanted to, I replied, but I’d like to know why this was important or interesting, interesting from what point of view.
Why wouldn’t it be interesting, she asked. Everything is interesting, so is this. Just as it is interesting that she is a Catholic apostate. That’s something of interest, isn’t it.
Perhaps she’s right and everything is equally interesting. Still, it’s also interesting that she was interested in this in particular. Because she could have asked so many other questions. She could have asked what was the color of my uncle’s eyes and I would have willingly answered, black, my uncle has black eyes or brown, which is to say I don’t know, I don’t remember. Or she could have asked whether he had a mustache or was he bald, and I would have answered, yes, my uncle is bald, has a small trimmed mustache and a disgustingly hairy body, and he stinks from his furs and leathers.
She doesn’t understand why I’m so irritated all of a sudden.
I am not irritated at all.
Then she doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. She doesn’t understand what I am insinuating.
She thinks I’m the one who should do the explaining.
No, I don’t have to explain myself. She’d be happy to answer all my questions — but hopes this won’t keep us from starting out.
Prevent or not, I replied sharply, that depends on what kind of explanation I get.
This strong emotion that could not be concealed attacked us from the outside, and it paralyzed us both.
Why is she asking me that, of all things.
Out in the courtyard the wind was making loud noises.
We were both angry and agitated, and we looked at each other with alarm; actually we were looking out, searching for whatever it was in each other that was causing our inability to endure each other’s words for another moment. This was something neither she nor I could give up, let alone terminate.
Let this business end right now, if it has no chance, if nothing good can come of it.
I should forgive her, she said angrily, but she’d really like to go.
I’m afraid it would hinder me in many ways if I don’t get an acceptable explanation.
Right now I was the one hindering her, if I hadn’t noticed.
In what way might I be hindering her.
In my free movement, she answered with a little laugh. But, believe her, not for long.
I laughed back. Only until I get the explanation. She should consider that the condition of her freedom to leave.
She was afraid I had a persecution complex. She was afraid that I had to overcome it on my own. How could I have thought for even a moment that I’d be able to stop her, that I could be violent with her. Did I dare imagine dictating conditions to her.
We were standing on the stairs in this cold, dim, filthy staircase, and the whole thing no longer had any sense, purpose, beauty, or charm. She wanted to go but she didn’t, because she didn’t want to offend me by pushing past me, leaving me high and dry. But I thought — for who knows how many times that evening — that I shouldn’t stay, despite the alluring promises of happiness, I shouldn’t stay with her, not even for a moment, no.
If I stayed, I’d be engaging with an impossible and unpredictable monstrosity, I would seal my fate forever.
Not for a single day could I endure that other man’s company.
She had begun the same game with me that the two of them had been playing together for who knows how long.
And even if I could put up with him, what would I do with my own lie. How could I correct it, make it right. Even if I confessed to her that I wasn’t studying at the School of Physical Education, what reason could I give for lying to her in the first place.
A lie I couldn’t sustain. Yet I could not tear myself away from it either, and every moment, whether we were talking or not, pushed me into something or shoved me on to something that was mine and also belonged to her, and these two could not be separated.
This something had no external signs; more correctly, I saw her looking for it in my face, on my forehead, my scalp. Her gaze rested on my shoulders as if at any moment someone might chase this something away. And I did the same in the same restless way on her naked neck, on her heavily painted lips, on the hillocks of her breast, on her shining knees and beautifully arched feet.
Our glances ran on rapid courses but they did not find what they were looking for, always finding something else; they found the beauty of another, strange body. Why should I have to swallow her remark about Jews. And I grew even angrier because my cock was sticking to my underpants. There is always that one fat drop of seminal fluid that bubbles up, smeared at the top of the foreskin, and then it doesn’t matter that the erection subsides, the smeared drop acts like glue. I should reach for it, pull the underpants away from it. I can’t do that without drawing attention to it. And my anger at this frustration somehow linked up with my anger at her words about Jews.
This is a Jewish neighborhood, yes, and this is a Jewish building, why did they move in here if they didn’t like it.
What did I want from this insensitive young lady from the country.
She should have swallowed my little insult of not letting her get past me, for I was acting with her exactly as her uncouth husband would have. There was something unpleasant in the parallel; I couldn’t tolerate it, and she couldn’t either. Selfishness was whimpering, I want to be left alone, to break off, to put an end to it. At moments like this one forgets one’s screaming, shrieking loneliness. I’d rather have no one. Our shared and desperate anger must have stemmed from this, because she was crying out against me and I against her. I was protesting that I very much wanted something of which I knew nothing. I wanted her but did not know who she was, and how is it possible to want a person; I didn’t know that either.
Then you’d better go. I finally stepped out of her way, let her go.
At the same time she must have reached the opposite conclusion. She’d rather surrender; she’d give up the game, whatever happened.
She said I shouldn’t be angry but she couldn’t tell me everything in one go. However much she wanted me to know, there was a terrible sense of decency that would not let her, or maybe it was her terrible Catholic upbringing. She is a good Christian girl from a good family, and this should never be forgotten. She admits that her question was unguarded or inconsiderate, and she understands my sensitivity, believe her.
I cut in, saying that we weren’t talking about sensitivity.
All right, so it’s not sensitivity, it doesn’t matter. There’s really no need for us to talk like this. If there’s one person I shouldn’t be afraid of, it’s her.