Iza's Ballad (24 page)

Iza was already in a rush, not waiting for an answer, changing her clothes. Domokos came in, peeled away the tissue paper wrapping from whatever it was he had brought her and revealed his present: it was a cage with a bored-looking cynical-eyed bird in it. Domokos would never forget the terrified look on the old woman’s face as she saw it. Not knowing how to react, he gave a shrug and left the room to smoke a cigarette.

The old woman carefully covered the pastries with a tablecloth so that no fly should get at them. (There were no flies in Pest, not one, but the old woman was used to flies in summer and from June onwards she always put up a long strip of sticky-backed flypaper that hung on the lamp above her head.) She took out her black outfit. ‘We’re not leaving you alone tonight,’ said Iza, looking radiant. ‘Of course we’re not leaving you behind, dear! I’m taking you to a concert. I want to show off my beautiful blue-eyed mother!’

There lay the deserted pastry, her wrists still aching from mixing the dough, and nobody wanted it. She thought the bird was giving her the evil eye. ‘This bird is supposed to be company for me,’ thought the old woman as she wriggled into her clothes and squeezed her feet into the black dress shoes she had last worn at Vince’s funeral. She immediately felt weepy at the sight of them. ‘This bird is to be my companion. I am supposed to talk to it.’ Iza was slamming doors. Domokos’s breathless voice was urging them to hurry, so they were all breathless by the time they got to the taxi.

There was a great crowd at the island venue and the old woman felt colder than she had expected to. She didn’t really like classical music and there was no Vince to whisper in her ear and tell her what was beautiful about it. His descriptions were so clear. Handel was all scarlet ostrich feathers and silk ribbons fluttering in the wind, great silver trays blazing with candlelight. Wagner was trees creaking and snapping in the storm, foam running up the foot of a cliff, waves sweeping round rocks, black peaks reaching to the sky. Vince was no longer there, it was only the music with no introduction and no commentary. She heard it but didn’t listen or think anything, she only saw Domokos holding Iza’s hand, Iza gazing at the conductor, her mind entirely on the music, both of them enjoying the concert, every so often glancing at her, she being the person for whose sake they had arranged this wonderful night. They were treating her like they would a child with a present. Why wouldn’t they just let her be?

The old woman was thinking of her pastries, of the liqueur she had bought specially from the grocer and the little glasses she purchased to replace those they had given as a gift to Antal so he wouldn’t have to use Iza’s heavy cut glass. This was all because she wanted to offer them something of her own, the things that were now covered with the tablecloth. It was useless now. Domokos saw she was cold, took off his jacket and wrapped it round her. Those who noticed him doing it smiled, while she, for the first time, noticed how bright Iza’s eyes were when she glanced at Domokos. It was a look she had once reserved for Antal alone. ‘I see you are just as good,’ said Iza’s eyes. Domokos straightened up, his strong, broad-shouldered body snug in his immaculate shirt. Those who looked on didn’t mind him being in shirtsleeves. This writer fellow must be a decent man, they thought. He is giving up his jacket to help a shivering old woman. Everyone was happy and satisfied.

The orchestra struck up and the music swirled among the trees like flocks of birds. It was a Beethoven evening, but all the old woman kept thinking was that it was too loud. She raised her head in fright, as if she were in pain; there was no Vince to tell her what to hear. ‘Listen, Ettie, can you hear how earth, heaven and God himself are being called to answer?’

After the concert Domokos ran ahead, his white shirt blazing in the distance. Iza’s face had taken on a tender look, her lips were swollen. She was always moved by music and followed the arcs of melody as keenly as her father had done. Domokos rushed back triumphant, having succeeded in finding a taxi again. He seated the old woman next to Iza and climbed in beside the driver.

The old woman wondered what would happen if she suddenly had to get out of the taxi and find her own way home. She had never been on the island and because of all the bright advertisements could not even tell which way the taxi was going. She really wouldn’t know which way to go, she thought. ‘I could do with some coffee,’ said Iza contemplatively. Hearing this, the old woman’s tiredness suddenly disappeared because she felt everything might be all right again once they got home. Never mind about the board games, it was too late for that, but perhaps they could still eat the pastries and she could brew them some coffee. Then Domokos suggested they could go for coffee at The Palm and she slumped again. They took her home and kissed her goodnight. Domokos escorted her up in the lift because there were times the old woman was a little clumsy with her fingers and couldn’t open the front door. He even put the light on for her and gave her another kiss. He told her the bird’s name was Elemér, then rushed off.

The room was hot and stuffy. She swept the pastries from the plate, put them away in an old shoebox lined with a napkin and stuffed the board game away in the bottom of the wardrobe where she had found it. She covered the birdcage as she had learned to do at Aunt Emma’s where it was her job to clean the cages, folded away her birthday dress and lay down. She had completed her seventy-sixth year. Suddenly it felt shocking to have lived so long. She thought of Vince, of Vince’s grave and the headstone on which she had arranged to have her own name engraved under his. Gica had been so precise in her descriptions of it. The bird was a little restive in its strange new environment and made soft nestling noises the old woman didn’t like.

She put up with it for a fortnight but every time it made a noise it reminded her of the humiliation of packing the pastries away into the shoebox, of that incomprehensible Beethoven piece and the cancelled board game. One beautiful summer day she decided to let the bird fly away. It didn’t want to go and she had to frighten it through the open window with a towel. She was a little uncertain and felt a stab of guilt seeing the bird roosting on the boughs of a dry tree, looking depressed. It was like someone who had lost not only his home but all hope, who had given himself over to fate. She leaned out of the window, worried that she hadn’t thought the matter through. Condemning anyone, even such a soulless pariah, to homelessness was a terrible thing to do. She called the bird and tried to tempt it back, while down below trams clattered on in the busy traffic. She kept sight of it for a while, the simple colours of its plumage glimmering through the boughs, but then Teréz arrived, saw the open window and made a gesture of hopelessness, muttering something about how that didn’t last too long, then closed the door and advised her not to lean out too far in case she got dizzy and fell out. In any case, said Teréz, the doctor would no doubt bring her mother another bird.

But Iza didn’t bring any more birds and Domokos felt a little hurt. ‘I really wish they were speaking a foreign language in my presence, the way I did with her father when she was just a little girl. It’s not worth bringing me presents, I am so clumsy,’ thought the old woman. The empty cage vanished. Domokos threw it on to the tip. It was just another thing weighing on her heart after that. Sometimes she woke in the night and saw the bird, whose name she never wanted to use while he was still with her. ‘People shouldn’t call birds such extraordinary human names,’ she thought, while imagining Elemér in hiding, sticking his small beak under his wing, a creature with fewer possession than even she had, with not a roof over his head and nothing to eat, all because she didn’t like him being there, near to her.

The old woman lost weight. She spoke less and less.

That frightened Iza, and Domokos, who had, surprisingly, been annoyed by the old woman’s thoughtlessness, felt less angry. Iza said she had expected that Vince’s death, leaving her old house and moving from the country into the capital would be something of an ordeal for the old woman, but she didn’t think she’d find it so hard to adapt. After all, she didn’t have to worry about anything and there was no way of ensuring that she could fill the day with the same things she used to in the old house. In any case her mother was no longer as capable and young as she imagined, and the managing of a Budapest household was quite a different matter, simpler in some ways but also more complicated, and in the end it was a hundred times easier having Teréz run the flat. She could work better and rest better too with Teréz at her side. She didn’t need to ask her gerontologist friends for advice in order to know that the old woman needed something to do in order to exercise her remaining energy, that work was the strand that connected the old to life. But she really couldn’t leave the housekeeping to her: she wasn’t up to doing perfectly ordinary things. One day she bought a lot of wool and gave it to her mother suggesting she might knit a cardigan for her. The wool was a nice lavender-blue colour. She and Domokos spent an evening making balls of it for her. The old woman thanked them, turned and turned the clever little nylon pack with a hole in it for the yarn so it shouldn’t get unravelled, but didn’t go on to take Iza’s measurements. ‘Mama knows I am just giving her something to do,’ said Iza, ‘She knows I’d never wear it because I could buy a nicer one in the shop. What to do?’

‘Why not get her to apply for a job,’ Domokos suggested. Iza was shocked at first, then gave it serious thought. There was no chance they could just turn up somewhere and ask for retirement employment for her. She couldn’t take on proper work and even if they did employ her, she thought, her mother tended to be careless at times. She could perhaps look after children but you couldn’t know what kind of family would employ her, and she might get into an argument when they asked her not to tell the children stories about angels, because all mama’s stories involved angels with long blonde curls who looked to see what the little boy or girl was doing and either rewarded or punished them. You also had to consider what people might think if they heard that she was making her mother work when she herself was earning good money and her mother was in receipt of a bigger than usual pension. Domokos was lying on the sofa eating a cantaloupe, practically assaulting it, tearing it from its rind. Normally he was a most refined eater with delicate manners, but occasionally he liked to behave as if he hadn’t yet grown up. ‘Well, if there’s nothing suitable,’ he said, the mouth smiling but the voice serious, ‘then just try to see more of her.’

‘Idiot,’ said Iza, ‘I have no life of my own as it is.’ She threw down the newspaper she was leafing through and went over to the window, clearly angry.

The next day she called at the Women’s Association.

They knew her there and held her in great respect, inviting her to all their receptions, even asking her to give advice and the occasional talk. Iza got straight to the point and told them what the problem was. The official gave her a big affectionate smile. ‘What a splendid woman she is,’ thought the official, ‘she spares absolutely no effort.’ She took out her files and leafed through the possibilities. She couldn’t work as a voluntary nurse because not every block has a lift and she was no longer young, neither her heart nor her legs were up to it, and besides there was her effect on sick people to consider. Children were too unruly, too exhausting, and if her eyesight was poor she might lose them in the playground. She was simply not strong enough for housework. On the other hand there was assembly-line work in a factory that produced plastic goods. It was positively relaxing, light and pleasant piece work, more like playing really. It wasn’t something you even had to look at to do, eyesight was not an issue, it was relaxing. Does the old lady have a sewing machine? Yes, said Iza, she used to but it was an old thing they had brought up from the country so she would buy her one. Mama could work at the factory, or at the association itself, where there were many people aged seventy or so, but if that was too tiring she could work from home and keep herself busy there.

Iza rushed home. The old woman listened patiently and thanked her for going to so much trouble. She said she’d go to the association, take a look around, but it wouldn’t be worth it yet – not yet – because Vince’s headstone would soon be ready and she had to travel down on the day it was to be installed. Iza would come, of course, and Domokos too once everything was prepared. She didn’t seem to be too worried about sewing. Her hands were still nimble, she said, and when they were very poor she had stitched a good many toys for Iza.

Iza relaxed – it was at least a gleam of hope.Why not let her pay a visit home, let the old woman go and pray for the departed according to her faith. Domokos said he wouldn’t go. He said he never went to cemeteries of his own free will and would have to be carried to his own, but if Iza wanted company he could go down with her, not to the cemetery itself, but to the town at least. It was bound to be refreshing for her to see the changes in the area, as well as old familiar faces.

Iza spoke to her mother about it. ‘I won’t go to see dad with you,’ said Iza and her voice quavered a little so she sounded almost childlike. ‘I loved him very much and it’s very hard for me to think of him as no more than a grave.’

‘Then don’t bother with the train,’ said the old woman immediately. There were no changes involved and she’d find her way home. Gica would look after her. She could stay with Gica. It would be perfectly natural to do so. She hated the hotel. She wouldn’t stay with Antal because the house no longer belonged to them but to Antal.

Iza bought the sewing machine and brought it home. The old woman took a long, careful look at it. Her old one stood there. It wasn’t the sort with a cover, one you could fold away; compared with the new one it was clumsy and ugly. She didn’t know how to open the new one or how to use it. She put it in front of the window, covered it with a small embroidered tablecloth and never gave it another look. When Iza looked in to give her a kiss, she found her in the armchair again just gazing out of the window. She was looking with intense fascination at the transport workers moving the tram tracks, the way the machines raised the old asphalt surface and the workers picked up the cobbles, under which for a moment she glimpsed the earth that was as brown and gentle as anywhere out in the country where the roads were not surfaced. ‘It’s not easy,’ thought Iza, then kissed her again. ‘Not easy for her, nor for me. But maybe it’s just a little easier for her. She can give shape to her loss in headstones and wreaths. It would do no harm to give her another examination before she leaves, though. She is dreadfully thin.’