He sat down beside her. He picked up a weekly newspaper that was warmed by the sun and smelled of printer’s ink, but he did not read it. He was unconscious of everything but the girl, hot from fever and with dark rings around her eyes — rumpled, wan, and so desired.
“Come,” she whispered and put his head on her shoulder, holding him to her like a child. “Stay this way a moment. No, don’t kiss me. I’m sticky. Lie against me. I want to enjoy knowing that you’re here. You will never understand that hunger.”
“I understand,” he murmured, and it seemed to him that he really did. His eyelids touched her bare neck, with swelling greenish veins under her golden skin. He saw tiny wrinkles, or rather their distant harbingers — the signs of the way she would look when time lay on her. Now only sweat and the dust of the moment outlined them, dust sifted from the shifting white dunes through the warm, gusty air that rocked the coconut palms and rattled their fronds like a fire close by.
“I’m better. Tomorrow I’ll try to get up. Istvan, forget about that blind singer. Leave that to the people here. Let them see to it that justice is done.”
“Did you want me to say that?”
“No.” She was silent for a moment; they heard the whishing of the tide, the squawks of startled gulls and the cautious scratching of a water rat who was climbing on a pole under the floor. “I was thinking of our old house, of all our family. If you knew them, you would know at once why I am as I am. My grandfather held tight to his money to the last. My father trained under him as a bank executive. Grandpa never spared him humiliation; he would give him tongue-lashings in front of the staff. On Christmas Eve, instead of presents, he would give us checks in envelopes — a gift that didn’t require him to think about us. He didn’t have to find out what we wanted, go to the shops and buy things; it was simpler just to fill out the checks.
“I remember Christmas on the yacht, spending the night on the bay. A huge turtle baked in its shell, stuffed with bananas. As long as mama was alive, we observed tradition: a festive dinner, the men in jackets, I in a long white dress with lace — the kind of dress I thought I would be married in. But that’s in the past for me; don’t worry.” She stroked him jokingly as if to reassure him.
“It’s terrible — the way time obliterates the past. Whenever I was rummaging in the cabinet and came across a handkerchief of mama’s, the smell of perfume would bring her back so vividly that I would cry like a little chit of a girl. Our cousin Donald…”
He saw tears on the ends of her lashes, but she was smiling. His look encouraged her to speak.
“I told you about the old clock in the hall.”
“The one in the shape of a woman with arms akimbo and the clock dial for a face,” he whispered, knowing that she would be glad.
“Yes. Donald took an air gun and shot at the pendulum. Grandpa caught him and was furious, not because the clock was a precious family piece, only because the target was so large — as big as a saucer — and he had missed it. Grandpa took the gun, put in the bolt, and missed as well. ‘You can’t shoot with that. It will ruin your eye,’ he yelled, and threw the gun out onto the street. Before Donald could run down the stairs, some little scamps had taken it away. It’s foolishness I’m telling you about, but that was my home — my real home. The others were just places to sleep.
“One returns home. That is where I want to give birth to our son or daughter. Best of all, one of each. You’ll like it. You’ll see. It will be ours. My father prefers a more modern house; I prefer the old one. Anyway, my father only thinks of his new child now. I’ve been pushed into the corner, and I annoy him; he stumbles over me as something that belongs to the past. I can’t manage to be happy about this little brother, probably because I haven’t seen him. Besides, I’m used to being an only child — and perhaps you make it hard for me to see anything else.”
He was touched to the quick by the memory of a rambling whitewashed house with streaks of bluing bleeding through. The high, chipped doorsilclass="underline" how hard it had been for him to crawl over it! For whole years they had split the kindling on it. Sharp splinters had stuck in his bottom. He saw the hall, with its smell of dry clay, inlaid with flat stones. His ears rang with the squeal of a swarm of chicks, yellow with brown stripes on their backs, which fled at the rattle of the wrought iron door handle in the form of a ram’s horn. Dim light: windows filled with myrtle and pots of impatiens. Piles of pillows on the beds and a light scent of fresh air and moisture, for the linen had been taken to the orchard to be aired in the breeze and warmed by the sun. He had been born in a bed like that, and he could have slept for ever, listening to the placid chat of the neighbors and the whinnying of horses, the far-off barking of dogs and the creaking of the well-sweeps.
But he could not live in that house anymore. In Budapest, where the boys were, and Ilona…that was only the place where he hung his hat. He could change it with no regrets, move into another street. Even to Buda, near the castle. If a house had lost its significance — changed into a temporary stopover — could a country as well? Is it not enough to be a human being — free, without roots?
“Listen.” Margit was worried. “Did you send holiday greetings to your people?”
“To the boys? Quite a while ago. Two weeks ago.”
“I was thinking of your colleagues in Delhi. Of the ambassador.”
He shrugged. “They’re not thinking about me, either.”
“But you should be thinking of them. Send New Year’s cards. You’ll shame them.”
“You’re a good girl.” He rose, for he heard footsteps on the stairs to the veranda.
“Sahib!” Daniel called softly. “He took me with him on a special errand. I am to give you a present. He has already gone.”
“I told him I didn’t want any presents.”
“He was certain that you would accept this trifle.” Daniel grimaced in the glare of the low sun and held up the round green center of a young coconut. “Perhaps you will drink the fresh milk. It is very healthy. Shall I cut into it?” he asked, reaching for a knife.
Istvan looked undecidedly at the smoothly gleaming green heart of the coconut, which was the size of a soccer ball. Several scratches could be seen in it — evidence of the coconut’s having been cut with a chopper. He raised it to his ear and shook it. There was a soft splashing inside.
“The blade has to be driven in three times at the base, where the shell is still soft. You remove the piece you cut out like a three-cornered cork.” The servant demonstrated; the fibrous tissue crunched under the point of the knife. He brought a tall glass and Terey poured in the cool, cloudy liquid. Suddenly something emerged from inside the coconut: a gold chain with a pendant in the shape of a leaf like a hand.
“Margit!” he called, then asked in astonishment, “How was that so cunningly placed in the center?”
“A surprise, sir.” Daniel doubled over and slapped his thighs with excitement. “He is wise. He knew that you would accept the coconut. We stuck in two knives and pushed apart the pulp. The chain slid in as if it were an alms box and the nut closed with hardly a trace. Sir, a medal with the hand of Buddha brings luck.”
“Go and give it back to him right now.” He fished out the necklace with a knife. Drops of coconut milk trickled from the metal.
“I told you, they are gone. Perhaps memsab likes the necklace?” he suggested with a friendly, knowing wink.
“Do you want it for a souvenir?” Istvan held the chain on his fingertips. The gold hand with the lineaments of a lotus flower flashed red in a stream of sunlight.
“Beautiful work.” She was holding up her hair with one hand and trying to do up the zipper at the back of her neck.