Tranquility (31 page)

“Let's take a break,” he said and then rinsed out my mother's teacup in the sink and put a glass of water in front of me, though it would have been better if he had asked me whether I was thirsty. If he had said something, or just signaled that he was satisfied or dissatisfied. I gulped the water at the rhythm of the alarm clock's ticking, tiny gulps, because I knew that this time there would be no cigarette, that this time the break would be as long as it takes me to drink the water, and when I put down the glass my throat was just as parched as before, and I thought that I should have left a little bit of water because I probably wouldn't get any more again. Then I thought it didn't matter, on the contrary, it was a mistake to drink this glassful because it was clear that this whole thing would last until I lost consciousness. And in that case the sooner the better. Obviously, they're not interested in my confession. Yes, that was quite obvious. They'll never ask me why. I shouldn't have told them to ask me that.

“Nice apartment.”

This is worse than where have you been son, I thought.

“And it's furnished prettily, too.”

They don't have the right to do this.

“But five hundred a month covers everything.”

Actually it does, I thought.

“Even for two people.”

Eszter will come back, for sure, I thought.

“Nice and prettily but five hundred even for two.”

Eszter, I thought.

“Your boy got a little tired, comrade captain.”

“I guess he did,” said the waxen-eyed one, and then I began to sob and scream, you animal, you rotten secret service bully, I'll kill you too, you shithead, but they weren't interested. They got up and left me there like a rag, on the kitchen stool, and then I heard them boarding up the entrance door and when the nails went through the board I was startled by my own screaming, aware of being soaking wet in my own sweat and of the loud banging on the door, and suddenly I didn't know where I was; and then I panicked, because I thought Eszter came back and was now banging on the door because I had left the key in the lock and she couldn't get in, and I couldn't even remember what I should lie to her about Mother being in the hospital, and then I peeked out the small vent of the room but it was only the bill collector.

I waited until he shoved the payment notice between the door and the doorpost, then I washed up and that made me recover completely; I put everything in its place, the chessboard,
The Magic Mountain
, the bedding. I collected all the empty cracker bags and cigarette packs, I cleaned the coffee grounds out of the coffee maker, and placed the toothbrush in the glass exactly the way Eszter used to, because I didn't want her ever to find out that I had spent these days at her place.

.   .   .

Well, that needle has had it, I thought while still at the door, because I heard the crackling of the record player. There had been something
wrong with it for years; the arm wouldn't go back to its place. The carpet was covered with Judit's letters – Esteemed Mother, yesterday I had a concert in Amsterdam; Esteemed Mother, today I have a concert in Lisbon; Esteemed Mother, tomorrow I'll have a concert in Toronto – all laid out in chronological order like a game of Solitaire. And that's when I saw that my desk drawer had been forced open and emptied of everything, from the envelopes addressed to nonexistent hotels to the meaningless application forms for compensation, and my mother, in moth-eaten street clothes, was lying on my bed, in her hand the remnants of the torn-up Gypsy girl from Caracas and the notification from the Red Cross, and for a second I thought she was still alive because her eyes were open and she looked through me as through milk glass.

.   .   .

“She exited about a day and a half ago,” the doctor said. He was a well-groomed man, close to retirement age, wearing a dark gray suit, his fingernails manicured. “It was probably her heart, we'll know after the autopsy.”

“Is an autopsy necessary?” I asked.

“Theoretically, yes,” he said, slightly emphasizing “theoretically.”

“I'd like to know what she died of, but without an autopsy,” I said and shoved five thousand forints into his hand.

“Cardiac arrest. With a thirty-year practice, one can tell at a single glance,” he said while he took out his wallet, folded the bills and put them neatly away.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes, I am. But if you have any doubts, you'd be better off with an autopsy. It's not so terrible, and today they can sew the body up very nicely.”

“How do you know she didn't die of starvation?” I asked.

“You haven't seen anyone who died of starvation, have you?” he asked, and I told him that, actually, I hadn't.

.   .   .

Only in the courtyard did I let them put the lid on the temporary coffin, because, if her eyes had stayed open already, I wanted her to see something of the outdoors; the neighbors were amazed to see the body-bearers with the tin body-tub making their way to the second floor, because during the past fifteen years they had forgotten about my mother just as they had about the communal toilets or the collapsed laundry room under the stairs leading to the attic. Then I told the woman in the office that I'd like to bury Mother later because I wanted to wait for Eszter, but the woman in the office quoted some new regulation and also because the body was already two days old, she wouldn't continue with the refrigeration, not even for extra payment.

“Why not cremate her?” she asked. “That's a lot more practical because you could pick a time convenient for everybody in the family,” but I only said I wouldn't incinerate my mother, and put my signature in the book where she showed me to.

I was glad that at least with the grave I wouldn't have much difficulty; Mother had bought the plot in the Kerepesi for twenty-five years and that was only fifteen years ago. The stonecutter said that chiseling out the name Judit Weér would make the stone very ugly, and I thought it would be all right if instead he carved under it Rebecca Werkhard, and under that the name Rebeka Weér, and there would be still some room left on the stone.

“Don't you want some kind of motto?” he asked.

“No, not that,” I said.

“People usually do,” he said. “A brief prayer or a line from a poem; I can show you a samples book.”

“I'd rather not,” I said. “But can you carve an image in there?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

“Then carve a pelican,” I said.

“It's not in the samples book. Only crosses and weeping willows and things like that,” he said.

“Here is a sample. You can keep it, too; it's got a gold nib,” I said.

.   .   .

Saturday morning I went to Eszter's place to see if she had come home, and would have liked her to be at the funeral, more exactly I would have liked her to see the withered body, the nails bitten to the quick on the knobby fingers with the seven souvenir rings – from the Juliet of the Year souvenir ring through the Friends of Poetry souvenir ring all the way to the Moscow Festival souvenir ring – from which the gilding had long peeled off and, depending on whether they were made of copper or aluminum, stained her fingers green or black. I wanted Eszter to see the sticky straw-blonde hair on which the dye would become smeared more and more unevenly every year, and through which the ashen hue of the head's skin would glow dimly; the breasts made firm and taut again by rigor mortis, but which, way back then, after barely a month and a half of breast-feeding, she smeared with salt lest the nipples become elongated; but most of all I would have liked Eszter to see the dead countenance, the countenance that was in no way different from the live one and whose bluish glimmer at last, from now on, would be lighting up the depths of what had finally become a real grave.

The payment notice was in the same place, by the door handle, where I had shoved it back. I wrote on it that my mother had died and then I grabbed a cab to take me to the Kerepesi because I was already late.

The gravediggers had nothing to complain about; there were no weeds, no pheasant nests, and no ivy roots to remove. The stonecutter messed up the family coat of arms: he carved three young pelicans into the nest, and that irritated me, but then I remembered that it was my fault, I should have told him that two would be enough, and that the image should not exactly match the one on the fountain pen, this wasn't a space for advertisements but a tombstone. The man couldn't help himself; he had been used to copying samples, I thought, and then I told the cabdriver to wait for me.

“All right, but I'll leave the meter running,” he said.

“Sure, but back up a little,” I said because I didn't want the meter to tick tock into the Lord's Prayer. They lowered the coffin, I threw in the single flower I had brought, and that's when I noticed that the pile of dirt was full of decomposing shreds of paper, here and there I could make out something of sheet music and family photos; I saw that fifteen years might not be enough for some jobs, not even for the worms. The four gravediggers began to shovel the dirt; occasionally a spade would slice a worm in half, and then I sent the cab away because I decided to go for a little walk.

.   .   .

Because of painting, the Pearl of the Balkans was closed. The door was open to help the air circulate in the cellar, but a broom had been placed crosswise at the entrance and the steps were covered with plastic sheets. Jolika was having a fight with the workers downstairs because the wall had turned out to be darker than she had expected.

“When it dries, it'll be exactly like the sample you picked, dear lady, to a T,” said the man wearing a homemade paper hat.

“You take me for an idiot?” shot back Jolika. “Didn't I tell you yesterday that this cellar never dries out? Did I or didn't I? Do I have to say it again? Now go over the whole thing and paint it like I asked you. On the double!”

“And would you be buying the material necessary for that, dear lady? Because you see, this here paint is already mixed, and it's fixed for that certain color. Ergo, I won't be investing in additional paint and other material, you see, and I'm sure you know that too, dear lady,” said the man, brandishing his brush, the paint splattering on the plastic sheets.

“Oh yes, Pityuka, you will be investing in additional material, and how! I'll give you a whole year's guarantee on that. Maybe you can fool people in Buda, but not me; you just try and see how miserable I'll make your life.”

“Don't you make no predictions, dear lady, 'cause if you do, you can consider this here conversation of ours to be over for today.”

“It's not our conversation that's over, Pityuka, but our contract is;
stornó
, over, withdrawn, canceled, you hear? If I say you'll paint it over, you'll paint it over, or
stornó
for the job, and take your ladder with you.”

“Tomorrow, dear lady, when you buy twenty kilos of special thinner, tomorrow we'll repaint the whole thing to screaming sky blue or any color of your choice, but until then we can't touch it because it must dry first. And when it dries, dear lady, it will be exactly the color you wanted; to a T. Please be kind enough to compare it to the sample. I wouldn't presume to tell you how to water down beer, dear lady, and similarly, you should complain only when the wall is already dry and still doesn't match the sample,” said Pityuka, and I left for home to clean up the apartment.

It was for the better, I thought, that Eszter did not come back; what would she have done at the funeral; she had met Mother only twice and that was twice too many. It will be enough for her to know it's all over. Yes,
now at least I had a chance to put the apartment in order before her return. I'll tell her cardiac arrest; that would be more than enough. She wouldn't be asking questions anyway. I've never bothered her with questions either. I let her pummel my face with her wrist, crack the Remington's wooden case on the back of my head, and for years I put up with knowing nothing of her past. Of course, I also made some mistakes, and pretty big ones too, but at least I'd come to know myself. Indeed, there is hardly anything more important than getting to know our own weaknesses. We get to know them and then we get a good grip on them. And for that, this Évajordán was very necessary, you see, instead of shitting in my pants, I should know what to do when, looking in the mirror, I see a beast instead of my two beautiful eyes. And my constant references to my mother may have been an even graver mistake than Évajordán. And to try cleansing oneself in somebody else's filth – when you think about it, there is no more wretched or absurd way of running away from things than that; just as there is no greater affliction than cowardice. Not even doing time in solitary confinement makes you as lonely as does a lie. The way each bottle of chlorine-smelling liquid soap had separated us was as severe as Saint Andrew's martyrdom and crucifixion, but it's no longer important. In fact, it is good that it has happened. It's something every couple must go through. We have tortured each other, but at least we are over it now, I thought.

Things may have turned out differently if I didn't have to take care of my mother for years. But she
was
my mother; I couldn't put her in the old actors' home or in an insane asylum. She received more from me than she had given to her two children put together. Few people cook for their insane mother every day, and even fewer would have put up with her self-imposed house arrest. Or with the way she turned the apartment into a crypt and ran her life so that in the end even a party secretary spat
in her face. There may have been people who would have put up with cooking, or would have ordered food from a soup kitchen, but nobody would have endured these fifteen years of prison existence. Actually, it's a miracle that she had lasted this long. At her age, heart attacks are daily occurrences, claiming their victims as Spanish influenza used to in the old days, I thought. Then I noticed an elderly woman in the Museum Garden, walking a lapdog; her gait on the pebbles was just like that of Miss Weér's, but I knew immediately it was only a deceptive resemblance to Mother, and that it wasn't the last of such experiences; I would see her on the streetcar or with her back to me on the trolley bus; yes, I could count on that; and what we can count on is already in our hands. After all, I didn't split her head open with an axe, I thought. The doctor said cardiac arrest, didn't he, I thought. However, it may have been cerebral embolism, because she had never had any problem with her heart.