Iza's Ballad (9 page)

She’d like to have known whether there were people staying either side of her, and whether she could leave everything safely in the wardrobe when she went out because there might be thieves in such places too. She consoled herself with the thought that, because of Iza, they would take special care of her, so eventually she started looking around. She opened every door, including the cupboard doors, thinking they might lead to a sitting room or a parlour, and she inspected the bathroom and the cupboards inside it. She found it all strange, uncomfortable and cold. She dragged her finger along the arms of the chair and felt confused and disappointed: the furniture was ugly. The colours, the patterns, the vases, the ashtrays – everything – was somehow comical, frightening, almost grotesque. She was sorry that Iza’s fine plans had been so much ignored, that they had ruined her dreams. There was a picture on the wall, nothing but a mass of blotches that might perhaps represent a landscape – she had done some drawing in her youth and thought she understood art – and immediately concluded that the thing couldn’t be worth much. There wasn’t any pattern she could pick out on the carpet either, though later she spotted an image of some kind of bird in the blue material, a bird with broken wings. Poor little creature.

She unpacked and was amazed to see how Iza knew exactly what she needed: all her washing things were there, the medicine to take for her blood pressure and the laxative. She’d even put a book in, one of Vince’s books, by someone called Kis, next to her lilac bed jacket and her reading glasses. Iza wouldn’t know, of course, that she rarely read now because her eyes were increasingly not up to it. She leafed through the book and started in horror. Under the title page there was money, hundred-forint notes. How lucky she had spotted them and hadn’t left it out! Why did the girl give her so much money, after all, she was coming herself and would pay the bill, wouldn’t she? How could she walk around with so much money on her? She’d worry about leaving such a sum in the room in case someone stole it, but if she took it with her she’d be in fear of everyone in the street. Five hundred forints! It was a vast amount.

Feeling fed up, she put the money in her cardigan pocket, which she fastened with a safety pin. She pondered what to do. She didn’t feel like walking and rather fancied a lie down but was worried in case she fell asleep and missed dinner. That was another thing she’d like to get over and done with: it was frightening to think of going down into the restaurant by herself and ordering food. Iza had packed her crochet work too; however did she find it? She hadn’t done any crocheting for years; it was three years since she started on that nice star pattern but then Vince had ever more problems, there was far too much to think about, not to mention her eyes, and she had abandoned it. But how nice it would be to crochet again.

She tried starting on a small star, crocheted for a few minutes, then dropped the yarn because it wasn’t going well. What a shame, that was one less harmless pastime. Though she had been given the pattern by Gica and it would have made a beautiful tablecloth, just right for Iza’s flat.

Thinking of Gica suddenly terrified her.

Rural customs cast their long shadows over her so she couldn’t see anything else. The leafless, agitated trees and the tremulous sunshine disappeared. Dear Lord, she had failed to register who had been at the funeral; Iza had sat her in the car before she could count them and discover who had sent flowers and wreaths, and now she couldn’t thank them. Custom demanded that she should stay home for a week after the funeral, then, in the second week, begin to do the rounds of mourners and write the appropriate letters of thanks for flowers and for being there. She was bound to remember the local people but, to her embarrassment, she couldn’t remember whose hands she had shaken that morning, nor did she hold out much hope that Iza would remember because she didn’t know everyone in town and, if she herself paid insufficient attention, how could she expect the girl to have done so when she was busy looking after her mother too? Apart from a couple of close acquaintances and friends she recalled just one face: Lidia’s, with childish tears in the corner of her eyes. There were some unfamiliar people there, who looked like doctors and might have been old colleagues of Iza’s. Who else was at the funeral? Whom should she write to?

Iza hadn’t put any paper in the suitcase, but maybe she has a calling card somewhere. Aunt Emma had taught her always to have one. Yes, there it was. She found a pencil and listed the names of people who had visited her at home. She felt a little easier now. This was at least one thing she could do, having left town so quickly without thanking anyone. How fortunate that she realised it in time – it would have been a gross insult if she hadn’t.

She was startled to hear someone knocking and said nothing, just waited. When they knocked again she went to the door and opened it just a little so she could look out. It was the waiter bringing a menu, who explained that the doctor lady had arranged for her to have her meal in the room.

She was childishly pleased about this. She chose the children’s portions because they were cheaper, and once they had removed the dishes from the room she lay down on the sofa with the maddening pattern and immediately fell asleep.

It was the first time since Vince had died that she slept without dreaming. When she woke she felt frightened and upset. Throughout these last days she had somehow felt her husband’s presence close to her, had seen him in all her dreams, but now, as never before, she felt he had forsaken her. He wasn’t there any more; he had flittered off somewhere. At home she would get such a fright at Vince’s returning image that she would wake up, even in the middle of the night, and burst into tears; here she missed the fright those dreams had given her.

At first she thought she might go for a walk, but then decided otherwise. Dorozs – Dorozs the village – seemed too much of an excursion for the first day, it would be better if she sat down and wrote those letters. She made her way down to the check-in desk and asked if they could get her some writing paper suitable for correspondence. They gave her a whole dozen: fine, long, narrow sheets of paper, satin-textured, with a blue stamp in the corner saying Dorozs Sanatorium, showing a fountain spurting a high slender stream of water. Nothing to pay – the clerk just smiled.

She wrote the same letter to everyone. It took her a long time and a lot of care, and she had to keep rubbing her eyes because it was tiring work. She had trouble addressing the envelopes because besides their own, she only knew a few of the more recent street names; they had been changed so often she lost track and it was only the wartime changes of name that she recalled or, sometimes, the original name of her childhood. The letter to the newsagent she addressed to
The House at The Unicorn Pharmacy
, which she knew must be wrong because the name, The Unicorn Pharmacy, had long been changed to some ordinary number and instead of the clumsily drawn, melancholy unicorn’s head there was a simple black trade sign over the entrance. Ever since that sign was put up she had hated going to the chemist’s. Why couldn’t they have a standard red pharmacy sign: red stood for health. Why black? She couldn’t remember the name of the street where the teacher lived either so she addressed it to
Franz Joseph Street
and immediately felt ashamed because Vince had no time for Franz Joseph. She put ‘ex’ in brackets next to it. So many names:
Sóvágó Street
,
Salétrom
,
Oldalkosár Road
,
Gubás Street
. Everything had a new name, even Balzsamárok Street. The post office would know.

She planned to order some coffee, toast and a boiled egg for supper but however she studied the menu she couldn’t find the items on it. Then, of course very shyly, she asked the waiter about them and he, after a moment’s hesitation, brought her everything she wanted. Having dozed off in the afternoon she thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but as soon as she climbed into bed she was gone. Her last thought was that the convertible bed was far too narrow and uncomfortable for the purpose.

She woke in the morning thinking that somehow she was not so fond of Dorozs after all.

It wasn’t a simple feeling: there was far too much involved in it. Because she liked Dorozs itself, and that included Dorozs the village too; it was a good place for walking in, gazing at the shops, watching the traffic pass through the narrow streets, the voices of strangers buying souvenirs in the general store, taking pictures of the sanatorium from every possible angle. She liked the baths too and she took pride in the main weights pool, the little booths with their steam-covered walls, the hot springs where the afflicted could splash about inside a glass cage shaped like a cave, under the cooling pipes. She liked the spa quarters of the hotel, but not the hotel itself. She felt it wasn’t homely, not even as comfortable as a guesthouse might be, every object in it confusing and as alien to her eyes as the electric toaster back home. She could hardly wait to get to Pest and start building a proper home again, complete with Captain, house plants and old furniture . . .

She had one carefree afternoon when she imagined furnishing their new flat. She felt good about this, cheerful, almost happy. She had never seen Iza’s flat in Pest, had never really seen Pest itself. The only time she had visited it was on her honeymoon; their marriage was preceded by so much trouble, so many arguments and family anxieties, and life seemed so uncertain, that their lives together started on a very tight budget. They had to go somewhere, because every couple they knew went away on honeymoon. Venice was too far away, as was the mountainous Tátra region and Transylvania; Pest looked more likely and it didn’t much matter where they went really, the main thing was that they shouldn’t become objects of local gossip. When she was a young woman it was improper not to go away after you were married.

Pest had been a special experience, one she wouldn’t forget. Even today she treasured its charm, its bohemian quality, its mild frivolity, that certain lightness in the air, the women and men with their quite different looks. Well now, there were real hotels there, with real beds and real wardrobes with mirrored doors. Poor Iza, how excited she was about this building. She must have felt like a mother does about her child – even the ugly looks beautiful.

Antal left Iza in 1952. She changed clinics and moved out in 1953. It took her less than six months to find a suitable flat in Pest. Two rooms, a hall and a servants’ room – Iza had written – the furnishing was far from settled. That was no surprise to either Vince or herself; it takes a long time to make a home, a very long time. There was probably about as much space in the flat as there was in the house, though sadly it came without a garden, but then it might be possible to do something with the balcony. How wonderful it would be to furnish Iza’s flat, how happy she would be when she first came back to the finished thing and saw everything in its place, just as she remembered it from childhood, and mama’s best home cooking.

She made a drawing of the flat using her imagination and planned where she would put everything, finding room for all the furniture. It might be a little crowded but it would all be there apart from the kitchen table and the pantry cupboard, the silly girl having arranged a built-in kitchen, which meant having to sell some of the older items, though it was the best wood and the paintwork was only a little worn, because they took great care of it. She took great delight in the effort, drawing little semicircles for chairs, a square for the table and oblongs for the beds. She carefully put the plan away in her bag so she could produce it when Iza appeared and they could get straight to work. The furniture would have arrived by now, Iza will have sent it up by truck. There’d be plenty to do once they got to Pest. But it would be good work and it made her happy to think about it. Making a home.

It was a week before Iza came for her.

She was already asleep when, on the third day, the phone on her bedside table rang and she felt around for it in a panic. She didn’t know how to put on her reading lamp and it was always the ceiling light that came on instead. She picked the phone up clumsily, in the same state of agitation she experienced each time it was Budapest on the other line. In fact, the old woman was as terrified of the phone as she would have been of some tamed but unpredictable wild animal.

It was Iza calling from Pest. She kept gripping the phone. How come Iza was in Pest? Why had she left her here?

‘I had to change the plans,’ said Iza, ‘though it meant rearranging my timetable. I realised it would be best for me to come here first and attend to things. Can you hear me, darling?’

She had heard.

‘Everything will be ready by the time you arrive. Pleased?’

She wasn’t pleased, but she didn’t say so. She was happy that, once again, everything had been done for her, but she thought of the slip of paper in her handbag and tears came to her eyes. She would so have loved arranging the flat herself! It was Iza having to manage everything again. What she and Vince had been hoping for round about Christmas – that once, just this once, she would forget to give them a present and that there would only be presents for Iza under the tree, small, worthless, glittering things they had bought for her – that hope was gone. Iza always arrived with a mass of presents, and it made everything they had bought look so cheap and insignificant that they felt ashamed each time they lit the candles and, furthermore, it sometimes occurred to them that Iza was having to tear herself away from so much work that the festive season and Christmas Eve must be a nuisance to her.

‘I’ll be with you by Thursday,’ Iza promised. ‘I’ll come by train. You can meet me at the station if you like and we can turn right round after I’ve had a quick lunch. I’ll pick you up and carry you home the way a dog does its puppies. We’ll dash off to Pest. I’m so looking forward to seeing you, mama!’

This calmed her somehow and she felt more at peace though Thursday was four days away yet and she still had no idea what to do with the time. She was ‘looking forward’ to seeing her, said the girl. She played around with the expression and was still thinking about it the next day as she went for a walk to the village and back, gazing at the fields that were being readied for spring, aware of the bitter scent of bark and leaves and snowmelt that promised the onset of milder weather. She ventured into the forest too but stuck to the path parallel with the trunk road because she felt safer there, bending down now and then to pick up a small twig. If they were heating the flat for the first time they could use her twigs to start the fire. She would dry out the twigs in the hotel where it’s always far too warm, the heat rising from a sheet of metal punched full of holes under the window. She’d place the twigs in the grate and they’d be dry as bone. Once the fire was lit the twigs would conjure her birthplace, even the old house perhaps, so there’d be no break, life would simply continue, its seam unbroken.