A Book of Memories (58 page)

It was as if nature had unveiled to me the feeling created by the union of two bodies.

Today I know that this peculiar, powerful, and triumphant feeling began to germinate when my body made me experience what "girl," a word familiar to me for thirteen years, really meant, and the feeling blossomed to fulfillment the moment my body made me refuse any further rummaging through those drawers; I took this feeling with me that day like a rare treasure, to be shielded, protected, and kept out of harm's way, submerged so deeply in myself that I didn't notice where I was walking, I was merely putting one foot before the other, as though my body was not mine but that of this feeling; coddling this feeling, my body kept walking on the familiar street, in the summer twilight, between the shores of the forest, only vaguely aware of being accompanied, behind the fence of that restricted area, by the watchdog on duty; and my body felt neither fear nor aversion, since this wonderful feeling was there to shut out everything obscure, secretive, and forbidden; today I know that as the afternoon turned into dusk that day this feeling caused a complete change in me: it did not want me to know or understand what I could never hope to know or understand, it kept me from plunging to the depths of despair and revulsion and at the same time let me know where my place was among the world's creatures, which, for a body, is certainly more important than some ideals and their degree of purity; I was happy, and if I didn't believe that the feeling of happiness is nothing but concealed remembrance I'd say I was happy for the first time, happy because I felt that this sweet tranquillity, surfacing so suddenly and guiding my every move, had extinguished all my pains, conquered them once and forever.

It extinguished them with a kiss, and it is also true that in that kiss there lingered the memory of another, grievous kiss; at that moment, on Maja's lips I said goodbye to Krisztián, said goodbye to my childhood, feeling strong, omniscient, as one who, annealed by dread and sorrow, can size up all his possibilities, understand the meaning of words, rules, regulations, one who need not go on searching and experimenting; this was the nature of my happiness, or this is what made me happy, even though this feeling, which seemed to explain and resolve so many things, was nothing else, nothing more than a reprieve of the body, necessary for its own self-defense and granted to us for only a brief moment of transition.

That is how our feelings look out for us, deceiving us so as to protect us, giving us something good, and while we hold on to our momentary pleasure, distracted by happiness, the evil is quickly taken back, which is not really deception, because every evil feeling leaves a residue behind.

I am talking about a momentary reprieve, though Maja and I never again played detective; my precious feelings, my final shrinking back, my blissful defense mechanism ended our perverse activities, and our relationship also broke off almost completely; we no longer knew what to do with each other, because what could be more interesting than mutually perverting the emotional ties we had for our respective parents, and since nothing was more exciting than that, we pretended to be offended, barely saying hello to each other, so that under that pretext we could forget the real reason for our anger.

And I would have forgotten about the whole affair, and in the meantime maybe a whole year had gone by.

When, on an innocent afternoon in the earliest spring, having returned from school, I saw that strange coat hanging on the rack in the foyer, and the chain of events that followed reawakened in me a world of secret feelings, suspicions, and forbidden knowledge which, following the wrong path but enjoying the dark pleasure of our reckless games, Maja and I had acquired.

Our silly searches were also dictated by a singular feeling, hinting and intimating that despite our environment's aggressively maintained appearance of wholesome well-being, something was not quite right: we looked for reasons and explanations and, finding none, discovered the frightful agony of doubt, became well acquainted with a feeling which, in a way, was the emotional form of the day's historical reality.

But how could we have understood, how could our childish minds have conceived that in our feelings the most complete form of truth was made manifest to us? we were after something more tangible, something to hold in our hands, and that is how our feelings were guarding us against our feelings.

We couldn't have known yet that destiny, which would eventually also reveal to us the palpable contents of our feelings and explain in retrospect the connection between seemingly disparate emotions, always travels in roundabout ways, arriving secretly, inconspicuously, and quietly, and one need not rush it; it cannot and should not be rushed.

It arrives one afternoon very late in the winter, almost like all other winter afternoons, announcing itself in the form of a strange overcoat with an unpleasant, musty smell, shabby-looking, and only one of its buttons resembles the buttons on Krisztián's coat, maybe its color is also like that of his coat.

The dark coat on the rack could mean only one thing: a guest had arrived, an unusual guest, because it is a stern-looking coat, quite unlike those that usually hang on the rack; it cannot be the doctor's or a relative's, which would have a different smell; this is more like a coat emerging from the depths of imaginings, from the distance of anxieties, from oblivion; I heard no strange noises or anyone talking, everything seemed as usual, so I simply opened the door to Mother's room and, without fully comprehending my own surprise, took a few steps toward the bed.

A strange man was kneeling in front of the bed, holding Mother's hand and bending over it as it lay on the coverlet; he was crying, his shoulders and back shaking, and while he kept kissing the hand, with her free hand Mother held the man's head, sinking her fingers into the stranger's short-cropped, almost completely white hair, as if wanting to pull him closer by his hair, but gently, consolingly.

This is what I saw when I walked in, and like a knife tearing into my chest the thought hit me: So it's not just János Hamar, there was another one! oh, the hatred welling up in me! but I did take a few more steps toward the bed, driven now by hatred, too, and saw the man lift his head from Mother's hand, not too quickly, while Mother abruptly let go of his hair, leaned forward, raising herself slightly off her pillows, threw me a quick glance, and, terrified that I might have just discovered her repulsive secret, told me to leave the room.

Rut the man told me to come closer.

They spoke simultaneously, Mother in a choking, faltering voice, at the same time her hand rushing to her neck to pull together her soft white robe so I would not see that her nightgown was open, too, and then I knew immediately what they had been doing; she had shown him, she'd shown her breast to the stranger, her breast that had been cut off, she had shown him the scar; the stranger spoke in a kind, soft voice, as if he were truly glad to see me come in now, unexpectedly, at the wrong moment; in the end, embarrassed and confused by the contradictory signals, I stayed where I was.

A slender shaft of late-afternoon sunlight pierced the window, outlining with wintry severity the intricate patterns of the drawn curtains on the lifeless shine of the floor; and it seemed that everything was booming, even the light; outside, the drainpipes were dripping, melted snow from the roof sloshed and gurgled through the eaves so loudly it sounded amplified; leaving Mother and the stranger in the shade, the shaft of light reached only as far as the foot of the bed, where a small, poorly tied package lay; as the man straightened himself, wiped the tears from his eyes, smiled, and stood up, I already knew who he was, though I didn't want to know; his suit also seemed strange, like his coat on the rack outside, a lightweight, slightly faded summer suit; he was very tall, taller than the János Hamar preserved in my memory, the man my turbulent feelings did not want to recognize, these booming emotions were trying to protect other emotions; he was very tall, his face pale and handsome, both his suit and white shirt wrinkled.

He asked me if I recognized him.

I was watching a red spot on his forehead and saw that although he had wiped his eyes, one of them still had tears in it, and I said no, I didn't recognize him; I didn't want to, and somehow there was something totally unfamiliar about him, though the real reason I said no was that I still wanted to hold on to the lie with which my parents for years had eliminated him from my life; I hoped that insisting on this lie would keep him away from Mother.

But my adored mother did not or, rather, would not understand my insistence, and she lied again, she felt she had to, and with her lie she pushed me away, crushed me; she pretended to be quite surprised that I didn't recognize this man; she was doing this for his benefit, with this pretended surprise trying to suggest that it was only my forgetfulness, and not them, she and Father, to blame for erasing this man from my memory; the excitement of her own lie dried and choked her voice; it was repulsive to listen to it then; today, however, having recovered from the shame of my powerlessness and from the deep wounds of childhood injuries, I rather admire her self-discipline; after all, I did come in at the most dramatic moment of their reunion; what else could she have done but seek refuge in a familiar role; she felt she ought to play the mother now, a mother speaking to her son; she very quickly wanted to change back into being a mother, her face underwent a complete alteration as a result of this mental exercise: a strikingly beautiful, red-haired woman was sitting in that bed, her cheeks flushed, her slightly trembling, nervous fingers playing with the cord on her bedjacket
—she seemed to be choking herself with them; this woman seemed a stranger, her voice phony, as she refused to believe I'd so quickly forgotten this man, the man I hated, but her lovely green eyes, narrowing and fluttering, betrayed how completely defenseless she was in this painful and embarrassing situation.

And this, in fact, made me happy; I'd have loved to come right out and say she was lying, shout to the whole world that she was lying, deceiving everyone, but I couldn't say anything, because I was stifled by the constant booming in my ears, and tears that wanted to spill from my eyes were trickling down my throat.

But the stranger, who sensed nothing of what was happening between me and Mother, burst into a loud resounding laugh and, as if coming to my aid and neutralizing the tone of resentment in Mother's voice, said, "It's been five years, after all," which made it clear to me how long had passed since his disappearance, and now I was touched and consoled by his voice and by his laughter, he seemed to be laughing off those five years, making light of it all; as he began walking toward me, he indeed became familiar; I recognized his easy, confident stride, his laugh, the candor of his blue eyes, and, most of all perhaps, the trust I could not help having in him; my defensive and self-protective attitude was gone.

He embraced me and I had to surrender; he was still laughing and saying that it was five years, not exactly a short time; his laughter was meant more for my mother, who kept on lying, saying they had told me he was abroad, which of course wasn't at all what they had really told me: only once did I ever ask them where János was, and it was she, not Father, who said that János Hamar had committed the greatest possible crime and therefore we must never talk about him ever again.

She didn't have to tell me, I knew, that the greatest crime was treason, and therefore he was no more, didn't exist, never had, and if by any chance he was still alive, for us he was as good as dead.

My face touched his chest: his body was hard, bony, thin, and because I automatically closed my eyes, submerging myself in that loud booming, withdrawing into the only refuge my body could provide, I was able to feel a great many things in his body: his tenderness radiating warmly into my body, the excitement of his joy still unable to break free, his lightness, and also a wound-up, convulsive strength that seemed to cling to his sinews, bones, and thin flesh; still, I did not yield completely to his embrace, I could not tear myself away from my mother's lies, and the way I trusted his body seemed much too familiar, harked back to a buried past, spoke to me of the absence of my father's body and, somewhat more remotely, of the pains I'd suffered for loving Krisztián; his body spoke to me of the perfect security provided by a male body and the repeated withdrawal of that security; reopened the past of five years earlier when I could still touch anything with absolute confidence; precisely this excessive openness of feelings made me undemonstrative in his arms.

I could not deny and absorb time any faster; I couldn't have known that the time of fate cannot be stopped; they began talking above my head.

Why should they lie, he was saying, he'd been in prison.

At the same time Mother mumbled something about not being able to explain to me exactly what that meant.

Then he repeated, more lightly and playfully, that yes, he'd been in jail, that's where he'd come from just now, straight from the slammer, and although he was talking to me, he meant the mischievous undertone for Mother, who, finding some possibility for evasion in this playful tone, assured me that János hadn't stolen or robbed or anything like that.

But he wouldn't let her have her little detour and retorted that he'd tell me about it, why not?

But then Mother's voice, deep and filled with hatred, pounced on him, challenged him to tell me if he felt he must, which meant of course that she was forbidding him to say anything; she was trying to protect me and to invalidate him.

It felt good that she hadn't thrust me away from herself, after all, that her protective voice was lashing about behind my back, even if this odd sort of protection quickly pushed me from the threshold of knowledge back to the dark realm of suppressed information; the stranger made no reply, their argument remained suspended above my head, and though I felt I must know, had the right to know, his eyes told me hesitantly that perhaps now was not the time; gripping my shoulders firmly, he pushed me away from himself so he could see me, take a good look at me, and as I followed his glance sweeping over my face and body, I felt time opening up in my body, because the sight before him, me, with all the changes and growing, made him happy and infinitely satisfied; his eyes seemed to devour the physical changes my body had undergone in five years, with great delight making them his own; he shook me, slapped me on the back, and for a brief moment I, too, could see myself with his eyes, and I was hurting terribly, everywhere, in every part of my body that he now looked at, his glance hurt me, because I felt as if my body were deception itself; he was enjoying it so much yet I was standing before him unclean, and that hurt me, hurt me so terribly that the tears stuck in my throat broke out in a quiet, pitiful whimper; he may not have noticed it, because he planted a loud smacking kiss on each of my cheeks, almost biting me, and then, as if unable to get enough of my sight and touch, kissed me a third time; that's when Mother behind us told us to turn away because she was getting out of bed; by then I was sobbing, making gurgling and rattling sounds, and after the third kiss I clumsily, the clumsiness caused by my emotions, touched his face with my mouth, that musty smell on his face, I was touching this erupting pain of mine to his face; but he didn't care, roughly he yanked me to himself and kept me pressed to his body, and of course he cared, he cared for me because he wanted to drink up my sobbing with his own body.