Tranquility (21 page)

“Éva Jordán,” the woman said and looked me over from top to bottom
while shaking my hand. “Coffee?” she asked and I said yes, and then sat down in one of the easy chairs and thought they hadn't had time to replace the imitation leather furniture and the Erika typewriter; and she called to the next room for two coffees.

“I like your book,” she said, and I said thank you, though from the moment she had sized me up, like some quality merchandise, I would have been happier if she didn't like it. I've always had a revulsion for women who with cosmetics manage to knock off a whole decade from their fifty years, but shake your hand like a soldier. Who can change the tire on a Polskifiat in five minutes without doing any harm to their Margaret Astor fingernail polish, and who after a pleasant screw or even an unpleasant divorce still know exactly what the meaning of life is. Her tobacco-hoarse voice also irritated me. She shouldn't like my book. Not her, I thought, and while she was looking for my file, I stared at the calendar on the side of the filing cabinet: December snowstorm on the plains, though the pages should have been turned back to the inland waters of April.

“Of course, we will have a bit of work with it. I've scribbled all over it, I hope that won't be a problem,” she said, and I looked into the manuscript; on the edges there were remarks written in black ballpoint, here and there underlines and question marks, and all I felt was that this woman messed up what Eszter spent weeks typing.

“No problem,” I said.

“I think you should look over the whole thing, and let's talk afterward.”

“All right,” I said.

“Call me at home. On the weekend, if possible,” she said and wrote the phone number on the folder. “Here, in the office, we can't work anyway.”

“All right,” I said.

“What do you like to drink?”

“Tea,” I said and put the manuscript away, stood up so I could get out of there faster. Then we shook hands again. Her hand is five thousand years old. That, at least, cannot be hidden by makeup, I thought.

“How is your mother?” she asked, and suddenly I froze because I had forgotten to include this among the possible questions; for this, I wasn't ready with any kind of answer. I would have loved to slap her in the face.

“How do you know my mother?” I asked.

“I interviewed her once.”

“You must be mistaken,” I said.

“You must be right. I like your handshake,” she said; only then did I realize I was still pressing her hand as if mine were pliers; so hard, I almost crushed her bony fingers. I walked out the door without saying goodbye, got on the paternoster but forgot to get off on the main floor and, not knowing how it worked, when it got down to the dark engine room I desperately held on to the handles because I thought the box would turn over and I would fall out. I thought that along with my shitty manuscript I'd be ground up by the cogwheels.

.   .   .

“My God, what's happened to you?” Eszter asked.

“I don't . . .” I said.

“They didn't give it back, did they?”

“I'll want it back.”

“I beg you, please tell me what happened.”

“I don't want to.”

“What don't you want?”

“This whole thing,” I said and wormed my face in between her breasts,
but I still couldn't tell her properly what had happened at the publisher's, except that the elevator took me to the basement, wanted to grind me up, because there they know everything, they even know my mother. Then I felt her hand on my groin. “Relax,” she said. “All right,” I said and began to explore her lap but she guided my hand back to her neck. “Why?” I asked. “Quiet,” she said and closed my eyes as for a dead man, and then lowered her head on my chest. “Don't,” I said when her nails skidded across the taut veins, but she didn't reply. Her fingers closed in on me, and I knew her eyes were open. I felt she was watching my groin and her wrist hardly moved. “Don't,” I said again. “Let me,” she said, and her palm smoothed my drenched belly as if wiping the perspiration from the forehead of a sick person.

.   .   .

“Well, are you feeling better?” she asked.

“I miss your rapture,” I said.

“Now it's better for me this way.”

“I still miss it.”

“Why don't you tell me what happened at the publisher's?”

“I want to ask for it back.”

“Right. If you didn't, I wouldn't recognize you.”

“For me it's enough that you've read it. Maybe one day it will be published too.”

“Go on. I like it when you say things like this. Nonsense, but I like it.”

“On top of it all, this culturecunt doodled all over everything you typed.”

“More. Flatter yourself some more.”

“Don't you want to know what this culturecunt's like?”

“If I remember correctly, I was the one who dropped off your manuscript. And she's not a culturecunt at all. She's an ambitious Jewish journalist.”

“No racist remarks.”

“I'm allowed.”

“How come?”

“That's just how it is. In short, I see you like her. I'll make sure you get to your working suppers plenty sated.”

“Even her smell nauseates me, and there won't be any working suppers.”

“Then I'll drag you there on a leash.”

“I'll bite everybody.”

“Mainly that culturecunt?”

“I won't pick and choose.”

“I'll get you a muzzle. By the way, you were right,” she said.

“What was I right about again, all by myself?” I asked.

“About this,” she said and took out the newspaper from her bag. Among the news about a deputy minister's mistresses and abuse of powers connected to privatization, a banner headline reassured the readers that
Pigeon-Killer Also Ends Own Life!
After continued investigation, the police found the body of a Rebeka V., aged 69, a former prostitute, who had annihilated the pigeons of the city's VIIIth District, using poisoned wheat, and she also consumed a fatal dose of Yugoslav rat poison. Experts are puzzled by the case because according to neighbors, and judging by the material evidence found in the woman's apartment, the perpetrator was fond of birds (see article on p. 16).

Where have you been son?

At the publisher's, Mother.

I don't approve of that.

You don't have to, Mother.

A scoundrel, that's what she's made of you, a regular scoundrel, that whore!

Leave Eszter out of this, and let me work, Mother.

You're not a writer. You know what you are?! A butcher! That's what you are! A butcher!

Maybe I am, Mother.

You write with the blood of others!

I write only with black ink, Mother.

That's not ink, that's my blood!

If it's blood, it's only my own, Mother.

You besmirch me!

I have never besmirched anyone, Mother.

You've besmirched me, with my own blood!

Be quiet, Mother!

I will not be quiet! Murderer! Matricide! Besmirching me!

Shut your face! Shut it and get the hell out of my room!

.   .   .

“I've already cooled your tea. But I hope you'll take it with some vodka.”

“With lemon,” I said and scanned the antique furniture, oriental rugs and contemporary paintings. In fact, the place was a crypt very much like ours, only it wasn't stuffed with stolen bits of scenery, I thought, and made room for the manuscript on the small table between the Zsolnay ashtray and the Meissen teacup.

“I guess music won't bother you,” she said.

“Music doesn't,” I said.

“Bach?”

“That's good,” I said.

“You were a bit irritated when you left last time.”

“I'd had a lousy day.”

“I'm glad I wasn't the one who offended you.”

“You didn't say anything offensive.”

“Your tea is getting warm. Are you sure you don't want anything in it?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with a writer being irritated sometimes.”

“Not only writers get irritated,” I said, but I felt that I was more arrogant than I should be. After all, she can't help it if even her smell nauseates me. I also irritate many people, I thought. Most people hate even my greetings, I thought. Or the way I ask for another glass of soda water to go with my coffee, I thought.

“No problem. One is more tolerant with talented people.”

“I don't think talent gives anybody any kind of privilege,” I said.

“Luckily you don't really mean that.”

“But I do, most seriously,” I said.

“Then you are a master at self-deception.”

“You're probably right,” I said.

“Are you Jewish?”

“Not to my knowledge,” I said, shocked, because Jew has been shouted into my face, but nobody's ever asked me if I was one.

“I know. I just wanted to see what you are like when jolted out of your
role,” she said and handed me a napkin, so I could wipe the spilled tea off my jacket.

“Sometimes, even my reactions are quite human,” I said and felt like getting up, but it would have been ridiculous now, so I put two more lumps of sugar in my tea.

“That's what makes your prose so good,” she said, took up the manuscript, and we went over the entire text. At first, I was angry that she had noticed several dozen mistakes that I had overlooked or didn't take seriously, that I hadn't been thorough enough and didn't weed out the redundant elements, but after a while everything went like a routine operation during which the physicians have little to argue about. She wanted to leave out two stories – and she was right about that – and I asked for vodka to go with my third cup of tea; and the Germanisms I thought to be important were left in, because some things are just worthless without Germanisms – even if that goes against the rules of style – and the sentence loses its tension; and then she prepared some warm sandwiches before we discussed the book's cover; and then I forgot my fountain pen there.

.   .   .

“Well, did you bite her?” Eszter asked.

“You sent me there, so it's for you to guess,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I'll bite you if you don't stop this.”

“You'd better not. I'm bleeding enough as it is.”

“You promised it would be over today.”

“I fooled you. The bleeding is heaviest today.”

“I'll ban the Gregorian calendar. I want months of three hundred and sixty-five days.”

“Or you can just wait twenty years and I'll have my menopause.”

“I think you are trying to fool me now. Show me the bloody sheet,” I said but in the next moment, I rued my very ability to speak. Her face turned gray, as if she were caught at doing something wrong, and then without a word she went into the bathroom and I heard her turn on the water. I lit up, and smoked one more cigarette. If only she had slammed the door, I thought.

“May I come in?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, and there she was, lying in the ice-cold water. She was all goose pimples. Tiny bubbles clung to the fuzz of her thighs and to the hardened purple nipples. She looked at her body as if at a strange object whose usefulness is not clear yet one still wouldn't want to part with it.

“Here we go,” I said, and she let me lift her out of the tub; I dried her off and took her into the room, but she kept shivering even under the cover.

“Let me have a cigarette, please,” she said; I lit one for her but it broke in half in her hand.

“You think that I no longer . . .” she said.

“No, I don't think that,” I said.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“Then why does God keep punishing me with this?” she said and clinging to my neck finally began to sob. “Why doesn't he just kill me? Let him kill me! Somebody, please, kill me!”

.   .   .

A puny little man sat at the adjacent table; he was about fifty, wearing sneakers and a checkered jacket and for a half hour had been reading a book from before the war, and then had words with Jolika, telling her there was a fly in his beer, but several people had seen him put it there, taking the fly out of a matchbox.

“Try this in the self-service restaurant. Throw flies in your food there,” said Jolika and insisted that the man pay. “A mug of Kőbányai, that's what you owe. You can eat all the flies in the joint, for all I care, but the beer you're going go pay for, I'll guarantee it,” she said, and somebody got up saying they should call the police, but Jolika made him sit back down because she didn't want the police in her place. She could take care of this without a nightstick; she got hold of the mug by its handle and kept knocking its bottom to her left palm, as if checking the mug's weight, whether it would be worth hitting the man with it or should she use the ashtray?