Once the women were settled comfortable in the back and the man turned around, looking at them expectantly, she no longer had any doubts. This is a superannuated ÁVH man. He flicked up the visor of his cap with his thumb and asked where to. Who knows what kinds of thing he must have done in his life. Everyone knew they kept themselves in a permanent state of preparedness and were very influential. This man, with his small graying mustache, was not at all bad-looking. His lips were too pretty. Unpleasant, very unpleasant to ride with such a person, she was brooding to herself, as if to pluck cautiously the familiar strings of dread in her memory.
Or maybe he was Arrow Cross.*
We are going to Kútvölgyi Hospital, she called out, in a voice unlike her usual one, as if making an official announcement through her nose.
The cabbie’s playful glance did not change. One could feel he was not ready to accept this tone.
He asked if the hospital would be their final destination.
His wrinkles seemed to radiate all over his face from the inner corner of his eyes.
That’s correct, our trip ends there, came Lady Erna’s short, unfriendly reply, and, so as not to be exposed to the impersonal, penetrating look of those eyes, she turned away.
The driver started the cab, drove across the square, but the tension between them remained, and in the rearview mirror he quickly sized up the other woman too.
She wore a tolerant, slightly suffering, restrained smile. It wasn’t easy to figure her out; the impression she gave was that with her entire devoted being she would go along with and support Lady Erna in everything that might happen. Though it was also obvious she was playing a role, and that Lady Erna did not object to this.
They were sitting too close together. This had never happened before. Which was somewhat embarrassing for both of them. As if trying to keep their bodies at a distance, they did not turn to each other. Gyöngyvér played her role well. Lady Erna, despite her resentment, couldn’t but admire the young woman. Perhaps she envied her son for having her and may even have feared for her. For she knew the relationship could not last and already felt sorry about the inevitable complications of a breakup. She had occasionally helped to speed up the predictable separations. Carefully yet relentlessly she had let her son feel she did not think this was the right woman for him. She admitted that a person from such a low social class, with nothing and no one in the world, who not withstanding dressed so impeccably and showed such diligence in her behavior, well, however silly she might be, she must have talent of some kind.
She must be truly knowledgeable in something to which her son clings steadfastly. No question. Of course, Lady Erna could not even think of these talents without summoning up their opposites. A chameleon, she said to herself, a common little minx who disguises her eagerness and greed in a rather primitive way.
She had better be careful with her.
Yet, her eyes could never have enough of the young woman’s body. She had made detailed reports of it to her best women friends.
It was her general experience that it was best to be forthright and unhesitating when talking of dangerous things. Her friends had a great laugh. What wouldn’t that Nínó make up, what fanciful new tale.
To talk openly of a mature female body was not among the conventional conversational habits at Café Gerbeaud, the Abbázia, or even the casino on Margit Island.
Ultimately: nowhere.
Although she had talked of it unreservedly, her repugnance got the better of her. What a miserable little chameleon. Her stunning figure and perfect appearance can’t be denied, even if she isn’t really beautiful. No, she isn’t. God, her low forehead right away tells you where she’s from. The less said of her mental abilities the better. And her character isn’t exactly flawless. But there was no flaw in her taste. This irritated Lady Erna, who had a broad education and a practical background in art history; she had been an appraiser for a while, and among her friends she was considered a kind of expert in aesthetic matters.
In fact, it was not the young woman’s flawless taste that fascinated her but the ascetic nature and dry austerity of this taste. She could not look at her without seeing her as a precious object she must guard and look after, precisely because she was so aware of precious works of art.
As if her surface were dry and rough, and her inside swelling with delicious juices; as if a subterranean secret vein nourished it with its fluids, a rich oasis in a windblown desert, a tiny lake hidden under drifting sand, a small secret body of water.
What first caught her attention was that the woman did not leave her things all over the apartment, as had all her hysterical, chaotic predecessors who’d stayed for a few weeks or sometimes only a few days. On the contrary, she barely leaves a trace. She eats exceptionally small amounts. She gives the impression of someone making choices from a huge wardrobe. And picks things correctly. Others, driven by greed or insecurity, keep piling up objects around them — the entire fragile, dark art trade is built on this emotional instability — but this one must be infallible when she makes her purchases. She takes the one piece that others would never choose in a lifetime. Lady Erna kept an eye on her to see whether she was a secret eater, stuffing herself at odd times and places, whether what she saw was only false asceticism or hypocrisy. It was not.
Everyone strives to be infallible. Lady Erna herself could not resist eating too much; she had a special weakness for sauces and spicy gravies, chewed every bone dry, sucked everything from chicken bones, dipped fresh bread into the fat gravy of roast meat or with a crust of bread spooned the golden cream off the top of curdled milk or the sweet icings from so many surfaces, gobbled up floating islands.
She had indulged her curiosity too. She wanted to solve the secret of this serious asceticism. She found all sorts of reasons to open the doors of the closet in which, right after moving in, Gyöngyvér had put all her little things. She told Ilona not to stop ironing; she herself would put everything back. Ilona kept silent, shrugged her shoulders and looked put out; she did not know what to make of Mrs. Lehr’s unexpected zeal. An unfamiliar scent that assailed Lady Erna from the closet bore witness to the same, almost painful parsimony that emanated from Gyöngyvér’s supple body. And because she had done this not once or twice but more or less regularly, as if to keep track of what was taking place among Gyöngyvér’s belongings, Ilona slowly began to figure out what the lady of the house was up to.
She used some inexpensive, insignificant perfume; still, Lady Erna had to admit, well, she had got it right. The scent was almost too sweet, yet overall it was rather dry and acrid; on her skin it was as if the sweetness came from summer hay and sun-dried spices. It matched her bodily endowments, as did the style with which she wore her clothes. This was her maddening quality, and this is what probably intoxicated her son.
When she opened the closet door, Lady Erna felt her heart thump in her jugular vein. This wasn’t completely unjustified, since her son kept his shirts there too. She imagined she was doing some harm to her heart with such powerful excitement and also felt that what she was doing was somewhat absurd, but she did it anyway. And if not in the clothes closet, then she rifled through Gyöngyvér’s shoes in the foyer.
Gyöngyvér’s feet, as is the case generally with dry beings, probably did not smell.
And she would tell Ilona, but more for her own benefit than anything else, that she couldn’t find this or that item.
Gyöngyvér did not wear down the heels of her shoes, either; the sight of her graceful feet filled Lady Erna with particular envy.
She removed the cambered silver lid of the ground-glass candy box in which Gyöngyvér kept her cheap costume jewelry and a few pitiful real pieces. She looked at the thin little trinkets, which Gyöngyvér must have received from previous admirers. She glanced at the sloughed-off skins of cast-off lives. The pretty candy box was among the objects Lady Erna had managed to save from her grandfather’s manor house in Jászhanta the night before the inventory was taken for the public auction. She reached in only with her fingers, to expose everything to her eyes, and chuckled, a little ashamed to think that her son, cheap and stingy as he was, would probably add nothing to this poor collection. But she did not take out a single piece, seeing none she cared to examine.