Tranquility (26 page)

“Please; we've got to hurry. My nails are still sticky.”

“We're not going anywhere,” I said, and saw her gaze freeze.

“She's expecting us at nine,” she said, and we stared at each other in the mirror.

“I don't care when she's expecting us. You won't sit at the same table with that woman.”

“Oh yes I will,” she said and put her makeup box on the shelf, careful not to make a noise.

For minutes, neither of us moved. I wished the mirror would explode, tearing us to pieces, but nothing happened. We didn't even hear our pounding hearts.

“Unnecessary,” I said, only because the silence was becoming unbearable.

“For half a year,” I said, and we were still staring into each other's eyes through the mirror.

“I didn't ask you,” she said and with the towel wiped off everything; her face looked like that of a corpse.

“I wanted to tell you but I couldn't.”

“Then don't tell me.”

“As a matter of fact, there is nothing to tell! I hate that woman! Ever since I first heard her voice, I've hated her! That's all!”

“Stop shouting,” she said.

“I've been disgusted by this whole thing, for half a year now!”

“I see,” she said.

“You sent me there! You wanted this shitty book! I don't need it! All I needed was that you be happy with your writer!”

“I see,” she said.

“No, you don't see! Why did you send me to my father's whore?! You had to know about this. Yes, you knew damn well, didn't you?!”

“I didn't,” she said.

“Don't lie to me. This was something you wanted. You wanted to dirty me up so I wouldn't be able to ask you about your own filth. I never fucked anybody for a passport, I never killed anybody!”

“I see,” she said.

“Of course you see, you murderer! Anybody who lets them put her grandfather to sleep is a murderer, yes, she is!”

“Yes,” she said.

“You had your grandfather scraped under like an unwanted bastard! So you wouldn't have to take care of him! I am taking care of my mother! Don't look at me like that, you louse! You can't besmirch me! I said don't look at me like that!”

“You'd better go now,” she said, and I hit her in the face; blood was streaming from her mouth but she was still standing there, just looking at me. She looked at me as if I were a metal object, a spittoon or a forceps, and then I ran out of the apartment.

.   .   .

That night somebody was kicking at our front door and by the time I got there my mother was standing in the foyer, petrified, grasping the hammer she kept hanging on a hook.

“I forbid you to open the door,” she said.

“Get inside, Mother,” I said, and thought that Eszter would attack me, but she pounced on my mother.

“Why don't you drop dead, you garbage?! Give me back your son!” she screamed, and wrestled my mother to the floor. “Time for you to die already!” she sobbed, and I could hardly wrest the hammer from my mother; in the end, I somehow managed to separate them.

“Take her out of here! Kick her out, right this minute!” my mother yelled.

“Go to your room!” I said.

“Get her out of here! I demand you throw her out on the street!”

“Give me back your son! Give him back! I don't want him to go around fucking whores instead of you! I don't want to die because of this!” she gasped, and my mother wanted to scratch her eyes out.

“Get your hide inside!” I screamed at her, then shoved her into her room and held the door fast with my leg. For a while, Eszter kept hitting my face, and then she collapsed.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Get her out of my house!” my mother screamed while yanking at the door.

“If you don't shut up, I'll throw
you
out on the street!”

“You are both sick!” Eszter sobbed.

“Stop this and go home,” I said.

“Your mother is sick, you have to understand!” she sobbed, and put her arms around my legs.

“Be quiet,” I said.

“She's not a whore but a cripple!”

“Shut your mouth!” I said, and my mother started yanking the door again, and repeating, Throw her out of my house.

“Going to your father's slut won't do you any good! You won't humiliate your mother, only me! I'm the only one you can humiliate.”

“I can humiliate only myself!”

“How could you? God, why do you want to kill me?”

“Scram!”

“Don't you understand that I love you? I am the only one who loves you!”

“I said shut your mouth!”

“Everybody hates you! They either fear you or hate you! Your mother hates you too! Not even your sister wants you, only I do; don't you understand?!”

“Don't love me! Don't! Is that clear? Get the hell out of here!” I screamed, and somehow pushed and shoved her out on the gallery; for a while she kept sobbing there and mumbling, “Animals, they're animals.”

.   .   .

The next day, when I went over to her place, I thought of turning back at the door, but for some reason I didn't. The walls were covered with the pages of my book, my stories served as wallpaper for the furniture, the tiles, the mirror and the tub in the bathroom. The glasses and door handles were wrapped in stories, the sun shone into the apartment through the stories, and only the bucket with the glue and the small pile of the hard covers lay in the middle of the room. She was sleeping on the kitchen floor; she wore some black silk dress and her hair was bleached to the color of my mother.

“Only me,” she said when I shook her to wakefulness, but her lips barely moved. Then, while I was on the telephone, she rose to her knees and with the bread knife kept cutting her remaining locks.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Try to remember,” he said.

“I want to see her,” I said.

“As long as I am the physician in charge here, you won't set foot in that ward.”

“How much do you want?” I asked.

“I'd like to throw you out like a piece of shit,” he said.

“That should be easy,” I said and got up.

“Sit down,” he said, and I obeyed.

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

“Just about everything.”

“That's too fucking much,” I said. “For that, you come from too good a family.”

“Spare me your cheap humor.”

“First, I want to see her.”

“It wouldn't do any good. She can't talk. That's why I'm forced to question you.”

“What have you done to her?”

“We haven't done anything, but you've done quite a lot. Unfortunately, I can protect her only while she is in my ward.”

“Considering you haven't asked anything sensible, you know a lot already. She's not an addict, if that's what you want to know.”

“What I want to know is how you've lived,” he said.

“Like animals,” I said. “And she is the love of my life.”

“Maybe you shouldn't use that word; I'm afraid you haven't the slightest notion about love.”

“That's possible,” I said. “I'll try to phrase things differently.”

“How long have you been living together?”

“We don't live together. I live with my mother. And she is crazy too.”

“What's wrong with your mother?”

“Just the usual things. She had her daughter buried alive, interrupted a promising fuck with her son, things like that. Since then she's stopped taking walks.”

“That's enough.”

“I told you you've come from too good a family for things like this.”

“And enough of this tone too.”

“Let me see her! Right now, let me in, you professional hangman!” I screamed and jumped at him across the table. I tore off his smock, pulled him out of his armchair and pressed his head against the metal-framed data sheets. I felt his skull was about to crack under my fingers, that in the next moment I'd tear his brains out and slap them against the wall like a piece of shit. Three orderlies burst into the room and twisted my arms behind me; one of them clamped my legs and lifted me off the floor while I kept screaming that I must see her; if they dare give her shocks I'd blow up the hospital; if they as much as touch her, I'll waste every henchman; and I'll kill every psychiatrist if they dare use D.C. current to burn me from her brain. The orderlies kept standing in the middle of the room, holding me like a sack of concrete, waiting for the doctor's word: the rubber room or an injection; and when I could barely catch my breath, he told them to turn me loose, leave the room and not to worry; he believed we were ready to talk to each other the way human beings should.

.   .   .

He gave me a glass of water and then I told him everything, whatever could be told at all. Occasionally he asked me things, like what was I expecting
from the forged letters, what was I afraid of when my mother wanted to leave the apartment, and why did I really put up for years with Eszter's silence about her life, and things like these that I'd ask myself anyway, and it doesn't matter that I also have all the answers too, because these lousy answers are good enough only to understand exactly why Jolika turns Naomi Campbell into slop, but they're sorely inadequate to prevent me from turning my own life into pigswill. Then he prescribed two different medications and I promised to take them but he should not expect anything more; I respect his knowledge, but the two of us would not get anywhere.

“What makes you think that?” he asked.

“I may not know much about myself, but this much I do,” I said.

“It wouldn't hurt to get rid of some of your blind spots,” he said.

“I'll do that by myself,” I said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“What if you can't?” he asked.

“Then the whole thing isn't worth a damn,” I said.

“You should leave this woman out of it,” he said.

“All right,” I said.

“Stop having sexual relations,” he said.

“All right,” I said.

“It would be best if you didn't see each other at all,” he said.

“That would finish off both of us,” I said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“But this is not love, it's an obsession,” he said.

“The essence of love is obsession,” I said.

“Poets make lots of mistakes,” he said.

“I'm a writer. And writers may make mistakes too,” I said.

“Move out of your mother's place,” he said.

“I'll try,” I said.

“I imagine you wouldn't put her in an institution,” he said.

“Never,” I said.

“I understand,” he said, and then asked me not to see Eszter until the following day.

.   .   .

Where have you been son?

Painting an apartment, Mother.

.   .   .

Her roommates encouraged her, go on, you can do it, and somehow she stood up. The woman opposite her only peed in her bed every night, but the one by the window hadn't dared to touch her child for eight years for fear of killing it just by putting her finger on it. Otherwise, she was a very good mother; decorated the Christmas tree, attended all PTA meetings and whenever her husband couldn't find the time, she accompanied her daughter to school. They'd walk side by side, almost holding hands, and now she was the one encouraging Eszter most enthusiastically, stand up, my beauty, you are all better, don't scare that poor man, come on, hold on to his hand, go on. Then I put my greatcoat over her dressing gown and we went out to the park because there one could smoke. Actually, she was stronger than she had been after the abortion, though this time they hadn't touched her womb.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“And your mother?” she asked.

“The next day she didn't remember anything,” I said.

“That's good,” she said; autumn was creaking under our feet; we sat down on a bench. Visitors were hurrying along the pebbled path toward Building B, so they could bring their ill relatives to the sunshine.

“About your grandfather . . . I didn't mean to say those things.”

“I know,” she said. “Will you bring some clean underwear next time?”