Tranquility (13 page)

.   .   .

The barmaid has grown used to my sitting in the corner for hours, often without ordering anything. Occasionally she'd empty the ashtray, and once she brought me some peanuts.

“What's up, the wife kicked you out?” she asked.

“I have no wife,” I said.

“But you look exactly as if she did,” she said and went back behind the counter.

Then the Midday Chronicle was over, and Judit lowered the volume because the Play and music in ten minutes got underway. Host: György-Cigány; contestant: Mrs. Kálmán Juhász, a widow from Kecskemét.

“The world premiere of this piece took place in Dresden one hundred and eighteen years ago today, an outstanding example of Romanticism . . .” said GyörgyCigány.

“What's today's date?” Judit asked.

“The seventh,” I said.

“Then it's the Dante Symphony,” Judit said, though the record hadn't even started playing in the studio.

“Why don't you sign up as a contestant? You could win a cake every day,” I said.

“If I want a cake, I go to the pastry shop,” Judit said.

“You know it's not because of the cake, but to win,” I said.

“I've won anyway. So why go to the studio?” Judit said.

“Wonderful! Let's have a round of applause for the widow, Mrs. Kálmán Juhász,” said GyörgyCigány.

“See, you didn't win,” I said.

“You seem to think it's very important what the radio says.”

“I can't stand it when you pretend you don't care.”

“I don't pretend, I really don't care. Why can't you understand that?”

“Then why do you play the violin, for example? Or why don't you play it only at home? If it's all the same to you, what are you doing on the stage?”

“That's very different,” said Judit.

“Not different at all,” I said.

“Listen, when I play the violin, it's not Play and music in ten minutes, get it?”

“The bill, please,” I said to the barmaid, but she didn't count the last spritzer.

.   .   .

For years, the only place in the city where I believed the green of the grass or the rustling of the leaves under my feet was in the Kerepesi cemetery. Where I felt nature was doing what it was supposed to. The concrete-reinforced boulders on the mountains of Buda, the lookout point and the fresh air on Mount János, or rowing in the lake of the City Park always left me cold. Nature as an amusement park never interested me. And when Coriolanus slashed open his veins again, but this time with greater skill, and when I heard that “we are standing here shocked and at a loss,” and that “the reason for your painful decision will remain a dark secret forever,” I told Judit I wanted to go for a walk. We edged our way out of the crowd and while the five speakers kept lying unashamedly to the dead, I tried to get as far as I could from the artists' section of the cemetery.

“You're as upset as if you had never lied,” Judit said.

“Don't tell me this doesn't disgust you.”

“Why, you thought they'd stand around that pit and apologize that it's not advisable to be gay in Hungary?”

“They didn't have to lie right into the face of a corpse.”

“You live only as long as you can lie into the mug of anybody, and without batting an eye. And when you can't anymore, well, it's time to get hold of that razorblade.”

“That's rubbish.”

“Listen to me. You won't find a single corpse in this cemetery that hadn't lived his or her life as a potential suicide. All that happened was that some little thing got in the way: cancer or carpet bombing or premature aging. There was simply no time to fill the quota of lying and to get disgusted enough with oneself.”

“If that happens to you, you know what you should do? Go home and slash yourself open. If it's all a question of time, tear the strings off your violin and cut your wrist to pieces with them!”

“Very inventive.”

“I shit on inventive! Well, why aren't you going? If you know the ending, why wait for it? You want to fill your lying quota completely or what?!”

“I've filled it already. Now I'm only scared,” she said and walked away.

I caught up with her somewhere around the World War Two graves.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“That's not true.”

“That's a good sign. It means I can still lie without batting an eye,” she said.

“I didn't think you'd lie to me.”

“I'd lie to anyone. So stop bugging me.”

“Until now you've never been cynical, and never said so many foolish things.”

“I must be growing up. And when that happens, one makes too big a deal of one's cunt,” she said.

“Now you talk just like our mother,” I said, and then Judit stepped in front of me and wanted to slap me in the face but her hand stopped in midair.

“Don't you ever dare compare me to our mother. Never. Do you understand?!”

“I do,” I said.

.   .   .

We withdrew into the bushes because the mourners were beginning to disperse and we didn't want to see any of them. Just as after an opening night, the crowd broke into small groups and evaluated the speakers. Mr. Réthy unanimously earned the most points. What a charming man he still is, though he is now more like Lear than Oberon. “Really? My, my, you can't be serious! What d'you mean children? He has two grandchildren already. Now that's irresponsibility, I'll swear.” Then somebody spoke up for Mr. Újhelyi. What a Coriolanus he was. Gave me goose pimples. In the flower of his manhood. “Really? My, my, you can't be serious! That he was gay? Come on, that's a myth. He was the one who spread this around, to make himself even more interesting. You don't have to fall for everything. He loved women like kids love candy. Didn't you see, a whole girls' school was sniveling around his grave.” Some people thought it was better this way for Mr. Újhelyi, and others opined that the general manager of the theater would do well to lure Mr. Bojár to Budapest from Kaposvár as soon as possible.

At last, the mourning public departed, leaving only the two of us in the cemetery.

“Please, don't be angry,” I said.

“I'm not angry, but I don't feel like talking now,” she said, taking my arm, and we strolled silently along the paths overgrown with weeds.

As twilight approached, the statues under the poplars grew paler. It seemed as if it had been decreed a hundred years ago that the graves of
well-to-do families should be guarded not by images of the tormented Christ but by statues suggesting the perpetuity of sexual desire. For families with an income of a thousand crowns and above: Aphrodite; between five hundred and a thousand: Christ with a cross; all the rest: a cross, without Christ. But almost all the gravestones had been covered by ivy. Tendrils were snaking across marble loins, wisteria and linden undermined the pantheons, roots protruded through the cracked lids of the crypts, and all of it was far, far more reassuring than the possibility that General Manager Várkonyi would succeed in luring Mr. Bojár to Budapest from Kaposvár. From that day on, I would go out to the Kerepesi at least once a week, because that was the only place in the city where one felt that nature still had a chance.

.   .   .

I asked the barmaid for the bill, and then I ate a vegetable dish in a self-service restaurant while trying once again to figure out where I could go; from the Krémers' peasant house to places of former lovers, everything seemed ridiculous. In short, by the time I finished the string beans, with a bit of meatloaf, it became obvious that the Kerepesi was the only place I could go to see what my life would be like from now on. For one thing, wherever I'd be, from Tierra del Fuego to Kamchatka I'd always ask for
Film Theater Music
should the news vendor try to scare me; for another, it's one thing to leave home with a world-class violin, and a whole other thing to walk out with only a bagful of clean underwear.

It is possible, Mother, that one forgives anything to one's loins, but the chambers of the heart are far more sensitive than the clitoris, I thought to myself. If weeds overgrow the auricles, sooner or later one's self-respect turns to shit, I thought. You should know at least this much, Mother; after all, on the average, two hundred people bawled in the theater every night
watching your self-respect turn to shit, I thought. But now we're not talking about something between seven and nine in the evening, after which you take off your makeup, I thought. If you have really had a tombstone erected for your daughter, no vanishing cream or greasepaint can color you human again, I thought, and though I had walked around the whole cemetery three times, I still wasn't finding anything.

A real corpse lay under each stone, people finished off by a bullet, cancer, or old age. Honest-to-goodness dust-and-ashes bodies who listen peacefully from below to the chattering of pheasants, the sighs of the rubber factory's valves and the whimpering of lovelorn high school girls, while some clicking is steadily approaching because, in time, the hub of the rear wheel on the custodian's bicycle had become rusty. “Hot damn, what the hell do you think you're doing? This is no whorehouse! The people resting here include Endre Ady and Mór Jókai! If you're in heat, get thee to the New Public Cemetery!” and while the girl is rearranging her underwear, the boy objects to the custodian's tones: “I don't remember being introduced to each other, so don't address me in the familiar form. Besides, Mr. Custodian, rest assured that even if Jókai did, Endre Ady surely wouldn't mind in the least that we are making love here, which is not exactly the same as being in heat. Not to mention that pretty soon I'll be resting here myself, somewhere between Endre Ady and the rubber factory, except that I will see to it in my will that your kind of moral dogcatchers can't even come close to my grave!” Even if the girl's shameless laughter is somehow overlooked, this “moral dogcatchers” proves to be too much. The custodian throws his bike to the ground and, brandishing a toppled-over cross, chases the two youngsters across the heroes of the Red Army, toward the cemetery's exit.

A sweat-suited custodian was riding his bike toward me on the path.
On his head he had a beret and around his neck a pair of binoculars which he used to spy out grave desecrators, violators of morality, and those who come here to sleep until the district council assigns them a former laundry room.

“In case you don't know, this is a place of reverence, sir. Would you mind refraining from smoking,” he said.

“I beg your pardon,” I said and stepped on the butt, though I knew he had just thrown away
his
cigarette.

“I'm looking for somebody,” I said.

“You won't find anyone here now; we're closing in ten minutes.”

“Judit Weér. They buried her yesterday morning,” I said.

“Look for her tomorrow. And now please be good enough to leave the cemetery.”

“My sister,” I said.

“Section eleven, in the rear, by the rubber factory. But hurry up; at eight we turn loose the dogs.”

.   .   .

I'm home, Mother, I said in the doorway, but she didn't answer. She was lying on the bed the same way I had left her a day earlier, only the towel on her face had dried and become wrinkled. Then in time, her whole body dried up that way. During fifteen years, the web of nothingness entangled her as the spider does the rose chafer, but even through the web, one could sense the beautiful chitin armor.

I'm home, Mother, I said again, and then I took the towel off her face because I thought she was asleep, but she was awake. True, she wasn't looking anywhere or at anything in particular. The moment I saw the vacant face, I knew there was no point in talking to her. I went into the kitchen
to make some tea, and she came after me, though she could barely stand on her feet.

Where have you been, Son, she asked, perhaps the first time in this life.

It doesn't matter, I said.

That's what she deserved. If only she could rot in the ground, together with her sheet music. May she rot wherever she is!

I'm tired, I said, and stood up but she grabbed my arm.

So you believe it? You really believe all this garbage?

It doesn't matter, I said.

It does matter! Every word of that letter was a rotten lie.

You're probably right, I said.

I never made her do anything!

Maybe so, Mother, I said.

She was a grown woman. She did only what she wanted to do! She screwed whoever she wanted to! And I screw whoever I want to!

I know that, I said.

And that abortion; that was an out and out lie! It was an ordinary checkup! A routine test, do you understand?!

Probably so, I said.

Shuttup! Not probably! Every thirteen-year-old girl is taken to the doctor for a check-up, do you understand?