Tranquility (12 page)

.   .   .

First, I drew the head with a luminous horn, then the whole figure, and finally I hung the two tablets around the neck, but they turned out a little
like a double-arched window opening from the chest. Then I painted the background black, with Holló waterproof ink, the smock red with my mother's fingernail polish; I gave the horn a touch of yellow to make it shine better, in short, everything was almost ready, but I still wouldn't dare touch the tablets. Then I gathered my courage and with an eye pencil I wrote nine times BUT, BUT, BUT. The place of
thou shalt not kill
remained empty in the end, upsetting a little the balance of the composition, but I felt it was somehow better this way.

“Does it have a title?” Judit asked.

“
My Stone Tablets
,” I said.

“And why does he have a violin in his hand?”

“I don't know. That's what came to my mind.”

“Nice, except you drew two left feet for Moses. But it doesn't matter, a man with two left feet. And a violin and a broken bow seem more appropriate for Moses,” she said.

“I wanted to draw a whip, but its handle got to be too long. And the two left feet are an accident. I'll try to fix it.”

“Don't fix it; I like it better this way. Would you give it to me?” she asked.

“Sure. But don't go around showing it to everybody,” I said.

“I won't. I'll glue it in the violin case.”

She took out the glue, daubed the back of the picture and let it dry for a while.

“Let's apologize,” I said, because Mother hadn't spoken to us for days.

“Are you sorry?” she asked, and with her nails mounted the image of Moses inside her violin case.

“No.”

“Neither am I. So why apologize?”

“I mean, I regret the whole thing. It was good while she believed it and took me to the hospital in a cab. That she came in her dressing gown and forgot to put socks on my feet.”

“Then why did you break down? The doctor would have believed you too.”

“I don't know.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No.”

“You felt sorry for her.”

“No.”

“There is no other reason for crying.”

“Yes, there is. You cry sometimes, when you practice.”

“That's something else.”

“No, it isn't. I cried, and that's all. Let's apologize.”

“I won't. You can, if you want to.”

“Together would be better.”

“I said I wouldn't.”

“She's got a premiere tomorrow.”

“So what? I'll have a concert on Sunday.”

“She won't go to the concert if we don't apologize.”

“All right. You apologize, and I'll stand next to you.”

“All right,” I said.

.   .   .

“I'd like to apologize, I'll never again be blind,” I said to my mother at breakfast.

“A-ha,” she said, without looking up. She kept spreading the goddamn
butter on a slice of bread. “Come to the theater tonight, both of you. I'll send a cab.”

“The concert is on Sunday,” Judit said.

“I've got a pick-up rehearsal at five,” Mother said.

“It's at three,” Judit said.

“All right then,” Mother said. “But make sure you won't be the last one. These concerts are more terrible than parent-teacher meetings. How do you put up with so many untalented kids?”

“Grossmann is pretty good. Only he matures slowly,” ten-year-old Judit said. She pronounced this
pretty good
exactly as Mother did; still, it meant something entirely different.

“They are holding you back. I'll see to it that in the fall you can transfer to the conservatory,” Mother said.

“I'd rather not,” Judit said.

“We'll talk about it. Put on some decent clothes tonight. I'll send the cab by six-thirty,” Mother said, and then called back to me from the door that I should apologize to Effenbach too, for what happened last time.

.   .   .

I should really hate the theater. Hate the dressing rooms reeking with sweat, the labyrinths of the storage room full of old pieces of scenery, the rhythmic applause and the silence of three hundred empty chairs that follows the applause, the autumn landscape flown in from the flies, and the lighting booth with its myriad switches. At a hundred watts: twilight, at a thousand: summer afternoon. I should hate the grave-sized prompter's box that could accommodate two children, but the fat cleaning woman wouldn't try to climb into it; and the prop pop-guns, the samovars and the tea sets; the mothball-smelling togas and military tunics; the period vests of footmen, with the labels of the Red October Clothing Factory.

I should be nauseated by the noise of the actors' lounge, by the vacant looks of those unable to cope with their roles, the use of gestures stolen from the stage, and the lame puns.

“Some salt, some salt, my country for some salt, my dear Jenőke, and please get me a bit of horseradish to go with this sausage.” And Jenőke, the all-around gofer, motions that he's getting it right away, but he needs a second to mark down the eggnog for Miss . . .

“On the fourth, Jenőke, on the fourth of the month; don't even bother me until then.”

“Of course, of course, not a word until then.”

“Where in the unruly virgin's cunt is my horseradish, Jenőke. They're waiting for me. I've got to be on stage in two minutes,” but he can't even swallow what's in his mouth because on the Tesla loudspeakers they are paging Mr. Richard III to go onstage.

I should use a whip to disperse the high school girls hanging around the stage door who sneak love poems into Coriolanus's pocket while asking for his autograph, and who hope to finagle – if not admission to study at the Academy of Performing Arts – at least a dresser's job. These girls practice in front of mirrors how they would help Mr. Újhelyi put on his wrap, how they would hand him his aluminum sword, and it doesn't occur to them that not even a dormitory of girls could turn Coriolanus on. That he would be so happy if he could remove at least the coat of that boy who's been hanging around under the No Parking sign, waiting for Miss Weér but hasn't got her autograph yet, because Miss Weér either leaves with a bunch of friends or merely says, Next time, my sweet, I must run now. Because Miss Weér's handwriting must be earned; anybody who doesn't persevere, does not stand waiting at the stage door at least two-three times, is simply not worthy of Miss Weér's pearly letters. And Miss Weér knows
just how far she can lead on each contender. She knew at first glance, for example, that if he had to, this boy would stand here for a whole month; isn't he sweet?

.   .   .

Mr. Újhelyi, on the other hand, spends a good half hour each time giving autographs to potential thespians or dresser girls. He chats with them, praises their hairdos and is always ready with one or two bons mots regarding the essence of theater. When he is done, he rushes like a bullet past the high school boy waiting for my mother, because even a longish glance at the boy would be irreconcilable with socialist morality. If something like this were discovered, if it were not overlooked, it would be worse than if someone's daughter had defected. He could serve time in the Vác prison until losing his mind for life, or become a lifer in the insane asylum of Buda.

“How come such a handsome virile man hasn't got married, comrade Újhelyi?”

“I'm trying to live only for the theater, Sir Party Secretary.”

“Come off it, comrade Újhelyi, even the priesthood grumbles about celibacy. The male of the species demands to satisfy his needs. How about a small shot of cognac?”

“Thank you, Sir Party Secretary.”

“Don't you think it's time the idol of our high school girls established his own family? Or that he had at least some unambiguous flirtation, a little romance with the prompter lass, or something like that. Because the way things are, comrade Újhelyi, this great dedication to work could be misconstrued.”

“Yes, sir; I understand, Sir Party Secretary.”

“Now you're talking. And believe me, you can count on us. What would you say to a little bonus or a souvenir ring? You know, so you won't be shy of those few extra forints and could stop subletting one of your rooms to that underage boy. Because having some young lad for one's subtenant couldn't serve one's healthy relationship to the Party, could it, comrade Újhelyi?”

“That's right, Sir Party Secretary.”

“Well, one more for the road. Hot damn, I say, those French sure know how to make a drink, don't they?”

“That's right, Sir Party Secretary.”

And Coriolanus went home as if going before the firing squad. “I'm a piece of shit. Shit, shit, shit!” he sobbed. “But I can't bear it. They are bent on finishing me off, don't you understand? Pack up and go back to Szeged. These are not human beings. They're worse than mad dogs! Yes, my spine is made of snot, but I don't want to die! Is that really such a shame? Get out of here! Grab your suitcase and scram! Beat it!” screamed Coriolanus at his barely sixteen-year-old subtenant, slammed the door and spent the night weeping on the catafalque of male love, and then canceled three performances, because he realized that with a snot-spine it's just not worth going on; that there are things one can never forgive oneself. And then they sewed up his wrist in Korányi Hospital so he could again hold his sword.

.   .   .

“Hey, are you ever gonna come out of there?!” asked the barmaid, banging on the door because I had been retching in there for half an hour.

“Just a minute,” I said, and quickly washed my face with cold water.

“Don't you do something stupid in there,” she said. “I don't want no ambulance and no cops here.”

“I just feel a little sick; I drank too much.”

“Then you should drink beer, not spritzers,” she said, and put a mug of Kőbányai in front of me. “Drink it slow; you've got time, don't you?”

“I do,” I said, and drank slowly.

Under the stairs, by the coat racks, there were as many piles of newspapers as you'd find coats in a cloakroom. Except here, nobody receives any numbers; everybody knows which bunch is his:
Népszava
or
Radio TV News
. Each stack is tied several times with thick wire because wire weighs more than string, which of course the man at the used paper collection place also knows, but he is willing to overlook the small difference in weight. The only thing he wouldn't stand for is a stone or some other crude weight snuck into a pile of old newspapers. He can detect something like that, even without a scale; when it comes to weights, his hands and arms are more accurate than any instrument. With his eyes closed, he can tell whether a certain batch is a year's worth of
Nőklapja
tied with strings or of
Rocket-Romances
bound with wires, so nobody had better try to get over on him, not with some stone or a broken cooking range, because finding it, for him, is a matter of honor and pride. “Don't you take me for a fool, my dear Karcsi. In this batch you've got at least four cans of shoe polish. Come on, let's open it and see, shall we?” And indeed, between the September 8th and 9th issues of the
Népszabadság
, there lie four innocent cans of shoe polish, each filled with wet sand; and there is nothing more humiliating than a sight like that. The others in the line gasped, because this was a bit too much and two of them slinked away, carrying their batches of last year's
Füles
, the riddle and puzzle journal, pretending they had come only to look around, but in the adjacent lobby they quickly checked that no polluting material had been mixed in with the crossword puzzles. Like a few roof tiles, say, which could harm the socialist paper industry, something that would bring the
machines to a halt. In short, because it was not worth trying to deceive anybody, the wall by the stairwell was lined only with proper batches of newspapers, as orderly as coats in the cloakrooms of better restaurants, and their owners were quietly consuming their first spritzers or half-pints. The days would begin with this special silence. What everyone still feels at this time is that it probably would have been better not to awaken at all, that this kind of life belongs in the garbage can, just as the man from the Housing Department of the District Council had told Jolika. Then slowly the first spritzer takes effect somehow, Jolika turns the knob and one can listen to the sports news on Kossuth Radio. And it still makes a difference whether one listens to the great sportscaster JenőKnézi or to the worms in the New Public Cemetery; about that point, the comrade manager in charge of housing may have erred. After a double spritzer and the sports news, one sees everything much clearer: the Fradi soccer game has been thrown again. The cup final is shaping up to be as much of a mess as the five-year-plan has been. How come it's all right to kick Törőcsik in the shin without being penalized and we can't even slip a bit of metal between the issues of
Népsport
?