Parallel Stories: A Novel (196 page)

It was clear that this was the character with whom Gyöngyvér would move in.

Then it was Irén’s turn, and the others willingly followed suit; they all spoke quietly and politely of the great dead man.

But in fact, they were all waiting for the great moment.

Nínó kept very quiet, however, no longer feeling any pain.

And when the telephone rang again, Ágost went to answer it and in the name of the grieving family to accept the prompt condolences, whoever might be at the other end of the line. They knew this was to be expected, the phone would keep on ringing because the news had been announced on the radio. The others around the table sank back into reproachful silence, which is to say they pretended they had urgent remembering to do. Of course their silence was directed not only at Kristóf, heartless and ungrateful boy, but at death too, death which treats everyone so unfairly.

But how can anyone be so heartless.

And frankly, Nínó was at this moment rather curious to know who might be calling, because she had not yet heard from the prime minister, though he had informed them via his secretary that he would call personally.

Ágost stayed away for a long time.

The reproving silence did not touch Kristóf; he simply acknowledged it. Ilona cleared away his soup plate but then hesitated between taking the main dish from the platter on the table or serving Kristóf something hot from the kitchen. And nobody else handed him the platter on which lay, in the light of the baroque chandelier, the remnants of masterfully sliced stuffed beef, rare but crusty on the outside, surrounded by evenly cut potatoes sprinkled with parsley.

Ilona could slice any meat without the stuffing spilling out.

And when nothing happened, he stood up irreverently and pulled the platter toward his end of the table. He could have asked Viola for it, with half a smile. It was not enough that he was so heartless and now behaved so disrespectfully, but he also served himself while still standing up, helping himself to meat and potatoes much too generously. With his eyes he searched the table for the pickled vegetables. To go with this meat, according to custom, either pickled melon or pickled peppers stuffed with red cabbage should be served.

Nínó spoke again under the painting of the battle scene.

While you are looking for your cabbaged pepper, if you are at all interested in this information, the Hungarian Academy of Science is being draped in black in honor of your uncle.

She said this in a voice indicating that she needed all her mental strength to control herself, and she would control herself, for her mental strength was enormous; she was unable to say out loud that she wished never again to see her murdered kid brother’s son at her table. Even though this is what the others expected of her. That he should move out immediately. Growing somewhat hesitant, Kristóf sat back down. His hesitancy was due mainly to the conspicuous absence of cabbaged peppers, since eating this sort of meat usually began with a few bites of cabbaged peppers. No matter what his aunt might think of him, she too was capable of stuffing herself with things straight out of the jar. All right, so he started with the meat; it was fattier than it should have been, but it had been well cooked and had a good crunchy texture; he was stuffing himself, to get the meat inside himself as fast as he could and then do the same with the potatoes. But he had hardly put away a few mouthfuls, and the stuffing was as tasty as usual, when, thinking of his barely dead uncle, it occurred to him that he should have gone first to Buda.

Given Simon’s place of work, perhaps Klára had been taken to Kútvölgyi Hospital in Buda; how could he be so stupid as not to have thought of that. That’s where he should be looking. Involuntarily he swallowed the food in his mouth, wiped his lips, please excuse me, all of you, he said softly and properly, and then, to the others’ great amazement, he stood up from the table, nodded politely, almost amiably, and walked out.

That was the moment when Ilona would have brought him the pickled melon or the pickled pepper stuffed with red cabbage.

He crossed the empty rooms and picked up his coat; they could hear the front door close behind him.

They did not understand how Nínó could stand for this.

He took the steps down by threes; his great-grandfather also had not liked his steps too steep.

At Kútvölgyi Hospital, the porter refused to give him any information. He should come back tomorrow morning. Until then no one would tell him anything. It probably would help to get up to the ward and ask the nurse on night duty but the porter refused to allow that; he tried to give him some money, how dare you, shouted the porter.

The lobby was empty. For a while, he pondered which way to go, how to get around the burly man, but the porter was watching him no less attentively. He made one little move, and the man shoved him between the wings of the revolving door and then out to the street.

Shit on him, he’d look for the service entrance. He had to go around the building, climb across a fence, and then there were two such entrances, both closed with heavy metal doors.

Through one of these entrances he could get to the sixth floor.

This is where his dead uncle was too, somewhere inside this enormous building with its lit-up windows. But by then the old fascist had been taken down to the basement to be prepared for transportation. Kristóf stayed for a long time, leaning against the flue of the wheezing, puffing ventilating system; he tried to follow his uncle on his way.

But he did not find Klára on the gynecology ward in this hospital when he returned early the next morning.

In the meantime the sky became overcast again and March turned very wintry.

He got on the bus in front of the hospital and decided that no matter what, he would ring Andria Lüttwitz’s bell, she must know what had happened.

He did ring the bell, but he said not a word about the mink coat. They stood in the hallway where nothing had changed in the past decade and Andria Lüttwitz leaned on the same silver-handled cane. Klára was in the hospital on Üll
ő
i Road, after all, and it’s a good thing Kristóf showed up because, on top of everything else, Simon must go out of town early tomorrow morning. She can’t find Klára’s mother because she must have gone to Nagymaros. Kristóf went back to Üll
ő
i Road. Where everything started all over again. They did not let him in. He should come back tomorrow during visiting hours. The rear entrance was carefully guarded; a slovenly guard was stacking dishes full of leftovers. Kristóf took the streetcar to Újvilág Street, where perhaps somebody had found the mink coat in the meantime.

The house was wrapped in grave silence.

He rang the bell for a long time before a young man, about his own age, whom he must have interrupted in some engrossing activity, came to the door. Very reluctantly, he said he knew about the matter but nobody had found a mink coat.

Kristóf still wanted to come in.

The young man would not let him.

The next day, during visiting hours, he found a very pale and terribly weak Klára, a Klára whom he did not know but loved more insanely than ever, loved with bated breath. For a while, he sat politely on a chair by her bed, and then they held each other’s hands and stayed that way. Klára closed her eyes as if to doze off; he watched the wonderful vaulting of her eyelids, and when she started up from her sleep, they leaned against each other and cried, moaned, whimpered, and sniveled in the big ward, where seven other women lay in their beds in conditions similar to Klára’s. These women also had visitors, but Kristóf and Klára were so far away from them and everything was so stark, bare, and bleak that they did not reach them with their voices, pain, or looks.

He came at a good time, because she was going to be left alone for a while, she didn’t know for how long.

They could weep freely, nobody heard them, and if they did nobody cared. They were not very loud, anyway; they showed remarkable discipline with their pain.

Simon’s travels are strictly confidential, now he has gone to Brussels and Paris, but Kristóf must not know this.

From that moment on he took care of her. He came to visit her several times a day, bringing fruit, flowers, compote in a small bowl and delicious chicken soup from Andria; he took and washed her laundry so Klára would have a clean nightshirt every day; she had to change her underpants frequently too.

She washes and rinses them in the sink.

No.

When she had to get out of bed, she could hardly stand up. She couldn’t walk out into the corridor without holding on to something.

He found a way to get into the hospital outside visiting hours.

Klára waited for him.

It was a quiet happiness, but they were very happy with each other and because of each other.

And he did not say a word about the disappearance of Andria’s coat. He had a strategic plan about it.

Because of the mourning and the preparations for the funeral, the apartment on Teréz Boulevard was constantly filled with dissembling people. It was not simple to carry out his plan. One sunny morning the prime minister showed up with his secretary, Karakas, but luckily Kristóf happened not to be home. These dissembling people repelled him, they seemed to be light-years from the quiet, painful happiness he was sharing with Klára, and, since she had given him a key to take or return things she needed, he preferred to stay in Simon and Klára’s apartment in Dembinszky Street, sleep in their bed. When he had to go home for clean underwear, some clothes, or his notebooks—because he did go over to Buda to look in on some lectures at the teachers’ college—Ilona told him what had been happening or what could be expected to happen and when. Gyöngyvér will not move out after all, oh no, now everything has changed; they will be getting married just as soon as possible. They will do it in the greatest possible secrecy, avoiding all formalities, not to crush Nínó completely.

They will go on their honeymoon right after the funeral, which is something she, Ilona, doesn’t understand, what’s their hurry, she doesn’t understand that either. But something has really changed between them; all day long they bill and coo, behave as if nobody had died in the house.

They’ll simply go over to the district council office, Hansi and André will be the witnesses, then they’ll go out to eat somewhere; not only is she, Ilona, forbidden to cook anything, but she’s not even to know about this.

She begs Kristóf too not to know anything.

One doesn’t do something like this to one’s dead father or mourning mother, she doesn’t understand it.

She does not understand them, simply does not.

Andria Lüttwitz picked her words carefully when he dropped in on her. It’s clear that Klára will have to stay in the hospital for at least ten days. Such a tremendous loss of blood.

When they bring her home, though, Andria would like to see her mink coat again. Kristóf shouldn’t misunderstand her, not because she needs it, she no longer goes around in such coats, no rush either, there’s no need to hurry, Kristóf shouldn’t trouble himself too much.

The elderly woman’s shyness was touching, and Kristóf was furious that Pisti had done this to him and to Andria.

Andria waited anxiously for Kristóf’s response and, looking for his goodwill, added, when I die it’ll be hers, anyway, because I’ll leave everything to her.

Even if he knew where to look for Pisti, he didn’t have the courage to squeal on him.

No matter how weak Klára still was, Kristóf had to tell her about it.

The coat had not reached her consciousness or she did not care, which made Kristóf’s situation easier. Klára fell asleep, Klára woke up, Kristóf fed her, gave her something to drink, holding her by the elbow, he took her to the toilet; he was on good terms with the nurses, who were curious to know who this handsome young man was, who was not her husband, who had so suddenly disappeared.

First he went to see his uncle in the apartment on Damjanich Street, where he had not been for years. To find out whether it was possible to purchase a mink coat in Budapest, preferably a full-length one, new or used, any kind.

The real question was how much would one spend for it.

Kristóf was very interested in this question.

It would depend, of course, on the quality of the animal, and for whom the coat was to be made, if I am not offending you with my questions.

Actually, Kristóf enjoyed talking about this as dispassionately as if they were real merchants. He did not yet want to say more to his uncle. He wanted to figure out whether his plan could work. This is where he learned from Irén that he had to move out of the Teréz Boulevard apartment because he had irrevocably offended Nínó. He didn’t care; how could he have offended her. And he did not even believe it, because he knew Nínó better. Then he looked up in the telephone book whether that certain photographer, István Stefanek, still existed on Köztársaság Square.

He had to do it before the front gates were locked, so that neither Balter nor old Mr. Pálóczky, helpless since his wife’s death, would see him. He figured he’d do it on the eve of the funeral. The body was indeed lying in state in the lobby of the academy, on a splendid catafalque surrounded by huge clusters of floor standards, and the next day it would be taken from there to be buried.

The widow with her son and brand-new daughter-in-law had not yet come home from their audience with the president of the academy.

He chatted for a while with Ilona, and when he was left to himself in the passageway used as the dining hall, he simply took the painting of the 1848 battle scene off the wall. In his room, he wrapped it in an immaculate lightly starched sheet but, before tying it carefully with string, he had to admit to himself that this would not be enough. He took another painting off the wall of his own room, packed it along with the first one, and left the apartment unnoticed. He chose these pictures because they were not so large that he couldn’t take them by taxi and he guessed that their value would cover the cost of a mink coat.