Yesterday

by Editions du Seuil

  On my first day at school, my mother washed me, dressed me, cut my hair. She also got dressed up the best she could. She accompanied me to school. She was only twenty-three, she was beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the village, and I was ashamed of her.

  She said to me:

  “Don’t be afraid. The teacher is nice. You know him already.”

  I went into the classroom, I sat in the front row. Right in front of the teacher’s desk. I waited. Next to me sat a very beautiful little girl, pale and thin, with tresses on both sides of her face. She looked at me and said:

  “You’re wearing my brother’s jacket. And his shoes. What’s your name? My name is Caroline.”

  The teacher came in and I recognized him.

  Caroline said:

  “That’s my father. And back there with the bigger children is my elder brother. Back home there’s my little brother, who is only three. My father is called Sandor and he’s in charge here. What is your father’s name? What does he do? He is a peasant, I reckon. Everyone around here is a peasant, except my father.”

  I said:

  “I don’t have a father. He is dead.”

  “Oh! That’s a shame. I wouldn’t like my father to be dead. But there’s the war and lots of people will die. Particularly men.”

  I said:

  “I didn’t know there was a war. But maybe you’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. They talk about the war every day on the radio.”

  “I haven’t got a radio. In fact, I don’t even know what a radio is.”

  “You really are stupid! What are you called?”

  “Tobias. Tobias Horvath.”

  She laughed:

  “Tobias is a funny name. I have a grandfather who is called Tobias, but he is old. Why didn’t they give you a normal name?”

  “I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, Tobias is a normal name. Caroline isn’t a particularly nice name either.”

  “You’re right. I don’t like my name. Call me Line, like everyone else.”

  The teacher said:

  “Stop talking, children.”

  Line whispered:

  “Which class are you in?”

  “The first.”

  “Me too.”

  The teacher handed out the list of reading books and notebooks we had to buy.

  The children went home. I stayed behind on my own. The teacher asked me:

  “Is there something wrong, Tobias?”

  “Yes. My mother can’t read and we don’t have any money.”

  “I know. Don’t worry. You will have everything you need tomorrow morning. You get yourself home. I will come and see you this evening.”

  He came. He shut himself up in the bedroom with my mother. He was the only one who bothered to close the door when he had sex with my mother.

  I went to bed in the kitchen, as usual.

  The next day at school I found everything I needed at my desk. Books, notebooks, pencils, pens, an eraser, paper.

  That day, the teacher said that Line and I couldn’t stay sitting together, because we chatted too much. He sat Line in the middle of the room, surrounded by girls, and she chatted even more than before. I sat on my own in front of the teacher’s desk.

  During playtime, the “big ones” tried to annoy me. They shouted:

  “Tobias, son of a whore, son of Esther!”

  The teacher intervened, all big and strong:

  “Leave the little one alone. If you lay a hand on him, you’ll have me to deal with.”

  They all backed off and lowered their heads.

  At playtimes only Line came to me. She gave me half of her jam sandwich or biscuit. She would say:

  “My parents told me I should be nice to you, because you are poor, because you don’t have a father.”

  I would have liked to refuse the sandwich or the biscuit. But I was hungry. At home I never had such nice things to eat.

  I continued to go to school. I quickly learned to read and do sums.

  The teacher still came to our house. He lent me books. Sometimes he brought me clothes his eldest son had grown out of, or shoes. I didn’t want them, because I knew that Line would recognize them, but my mother made me wear them.

  “You haven’t got anything else to wear. Would you rather go to school naked?”

  I didn’t want to go to school naked, I didn’t want to go to school at all. But school was compulsory. The police would have come around if I hadn’t gone. That’s what my mother said. They could lock her up too, if she didn’t send me to school.

  So I went. I went to school for six years.

  Line would say to me:

  “My father is very nice to you. We could keep my older brother’s coats for the little one, but he gives them to you because you don’t have a father. My mother goes along with this because she too is very nice, she thinks that she should help the poor.”

  The village was full of very nice people. Peasants and peasants’ sons came to the house all the time to bring us something to eat.

  By the age of twelve, I had finished compulsory education and had received excellent marks. Sandor said to my mother:

  “Tobias should continue his studies. He is of above-average intelligence.”

  My mother replied:

  “You know that I don’t have any money to pay school fees.”

  Sandor said:

  “I could find him a free place. My eldest son has one. They are given bed and board. There’s nothing to pay. I can give him pocket money. He could be a lawyer or a doctor when he grows up.”

  My mother said:

  “If Tobias goes away, I’ll be on my own. I thought that once he grew up he would bring money into the house. By working with the peasants.”

  Sandor said:

  “I don’t want my son to become a peasant. Even worse, a farm hand, a beggar like you.”

  My mother said:

  “When I kept this child I was thinking of my old age. And you want to take him away from me now that I am starting to grow old.”

  “I thought you kept the child because you loved me and you loved him.”

  “Yes, I loved you, and I still love you. But I need Tobias. I can’t live without him. Now it’s him that I love.”

  Sandor said:

  “If you really love him, go away. He’ll never turn out well with a mother like you. You’ll be nothing but a burden, an embarrassment to him, all his life. Go to the city. I’ll pay for your ticket. You are still young. You can still pass off as a woman in her twenties. You could earn ten times what you get from these lousy peasants. I’ll take care of Tobias.”

  My mother said:

  “It’s because of you that I stayed here, and because of Tobias. I wanted him to be near his father.”

  “Are you really sure that he is my son?”

  “You know very well he is. I was a virgin. I was only sixteen. You ought to remember that.”

  “I know that the whole village has had you over the years.”

  She said:

  “That’s true. But what would I have lived from without that?”

  “I’ve helped you.”

  “Yes, old coats, old shoes. I had to eat too.”

  “I did what I could. I’m only a village schoolteacher and I have three children of my own.”

  My mother asked:

  “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  The man replied:

  “I’ve never loved you. You bewitched me with your face, your eyes, your mouth, your body. You possessed me. But I do love Tobias. He belongs to me. I will take care of him. But you have to go away. It’s over between us. I love my wife and children. Even the one who was born of you I love. I can’t stand you anymore. You are just a youthful indiscretion, the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life.”

  As usual, I was on my own in the kitchen. From the bedroom came the usual noises, which I hated. In spite of everything, they were still making love.

  I listened to th
em. I shivered on my mattress, under my blanket, and the whole kitchen shivered with me. I tried to warm my arms, my legs, my stomach with my hands, but to no avail. I was racked by a sob which couldn’t escape from my body. On my mattress, under my blanket, I had suddenly realized that Sandor was my father and that he wanted to get rid of my mother and me.

  My teeth chattered.

  I was cold.

  I felt hate rising within me against that man who claimed to be my father and who was now asking me to abandon my mother at the same time as he was abandoning her himself.

  A void opened up inside me. I had had enough, I didn’t want anything anymore. Not to study, nor to work with the peasants who came every day to have sex with my mother.

  I had only one desire: to leave, to walk, to die, whatever. I wanted to get away, never come back, disappear, melt away into the forest, the clouds, no longer have memories, forget, forget.

  I took the largest knife from the drawer, a meat knife. I went into the bedroom. They were asleep. Him lying on her. They were illuminated by the moon. It was a full moon. A huge moon.

  I plunged the dagger into the man’s back, I pressed down on it with all my weight so that it would go well in and also go through my mother’s body.

  After that, I left.

  I walked through the fields of maize and wheat, I walked through a forest. I went towards the setting sun, I knew there were other countries in the west, countries different from ours.

  I went through villages begging and stealing fruit and vegetables from fields. I hid myself in goods trains, I traveled with truck drivers.

  Without realizing it, I arrived in another country, in a large city. I continued to steal and beg the necessities of life. I slept on the streets.

  One day, the police arrested me. They put me in a “children’s home” for boys. There were delinquents, orphans, and homeless boys like me.

  I didn’t call myself Tobias Horvath anymore. I had made myself a new name with the names of my father and mother. I was now called Sandor Lester and I was treated as a war orphan.

  They asked me lots of questions, they made investigations in several countries to find any surviving family, but no one claimed Sandor Lester.

  At the home we were clean, well fed, and well educated. The principal was a beautiful, elegant, very stern woman. She wanted us to turn into well brought-up men.

  When I was sixteen, I could leave and take up a trade. If I had gone for an apprenticeship I could have stayed at the home, but I’d had enough of the principal, the restrictions of the timetable, having to share a bedroom with several other people.

  I wanted to earn enough money to be completely free as quickly as possible.

  I became a factory worker

  Yesterday, at the hospital, I was told that I could go home and go back to work. So I went home, I threw the pills they had given me—pink, white, blue—down the toilet.

  Luckily it was Friday, I had another two days before I had to go back to work. I used them to do my shopping, to restock my fridge.

  On Saturday evening I visited Yolande. Then, when I got home, I drank several bottles of beer and I wrote.

  I Think

  Now I have very little hope left. Before, I used to search, I moved around all the time. I was waiting for something. What? I didn’t know. But I thought that life could be different than what it was, in other words, nothing. Life should be something, and I waited for this something to come, I looked for it.

  Now I think there is nothing to wait for, so I stay in my room, sitting on my chair, I don’t do anything.

  I think there is a life outside but in this life nothing happens. Nothing for me.

  Perhaps things happen for other people, it’s possible. That is no longer of interest to me.

  I am sitting on a chair, at home. I dream a little, not really. What could I dream about? I sit here, that’s it. I can’t say that I am all right, I don’t stay there for my own wellbeing, quite the opposite.

  I think that it’s no good sitting here, and that I will eventually have to get up, later. I feel a vague unease, sitting here doing nothing for hours, maybe days, at a time, I’ve no idea. But I can’t find any reason to get up to do anything at all. I simply cannot see anything I could possibly do.

  Of course, I could tidy up a bit, do a bit of cleaning, I could do that. My place is dirty, neglected.

  I should at least get up to open the window, it smells smoky, rotten, stale in here.

  That doesn’t bother me. Or it bothers me a bit, but not enough for me to get up. I’m used to these smells, I don’t notice them, I only think what if, by chance, someone came in . . .

  But there is no “someone.”

  No one comes in.

  To do something at least, I start reading the newspaper which has been lying on the table for a while, since I bought it. I don’t bother picking it up, of course. I leave it lying there on the table, I read it from where I am, but nothing comes into my head. So I don’t bother anymore.

  In any case, I know that on the other page of the paper there is a young man, not too young, just like me, reading the same paper in a round, sunken bath; he is looking at the advertisements, the stock-market prices, very relaxed, a fine whiskey within arm’s reach on the side of the bath. He looks handsome, lively, intelligent, he has his finger on the pulse.

  When I think about this image I have to get up and I go and vomit in my stupid non-sunken sink which is attached to the kitchen wall. And everything that comes out of me blocks this sink with misfortune.

  I am amazed at the sight of this gunge, which seems to be twice as much as I could have possibly eaten in the last twenty-four hours. As I look at this horrible stuff, I feel a new wave of nausea and I rush out of the kitchen.

  I go out into the street to forget. I walk around like everyone else, but there is nothing in the streets, just people, shops, nothing else.

  Because of my blocked sink I don’t want to return home, I don’t want to walk either, so I stop on the pavement, with my back to a large shop, I watch the people go in and come out and I think that those coming out should stay inside, that those going in should stay outside, that would save a lot of tiredness and moving around.

  That would be a good piece of advice to give them, but they wouldn’t listen to me. So I say nothing, I don’t move, I am not cold here, in the entrance, I take advantage of the warmth coming from the shop through the constantly opened doors and I feel almost as good as before, when I was sitting in my room.

  Today I start the idiotic routine again. I get up at five o’clock in the morning, I wash, I shave, I make some coffee, I set off, I run to the main square, I get on the bus, I close my eyes, and the full horror of my present life stares me in the face.

  The bus stops three times. Once in the town and once in each village we pass through. In the fourth village is the factory in which I have worked for ten years.

  A clockwork factory.

  I lay my face in my hands as if I were sleeping, but I do it to hide my tears. I cry. I’ve had enough of the gray overalls, I’ve had enough of clocking in, I’ve had enough of starting up my machine. I’ve had enough of work.

  I put on the gray overalls, I clock in, I go into the workshop.

  The machines are running. Including mine. I only have to sit in front of it, take the parts, place them in the machine, press the pedal.

  The clockwork factory is a huge building that dominates the valley. All the people who work there live in the same village except for the odd few, like me, who come from town. There aren’t many of us, the bus is almost empty.

  The factory produces spare parts for other factories. Not one of us could assemble a whole watch.

  I have to pierce a hole in a particular part, the same hole in the same part for the last ten years. That is the sum total of our work. Place a part in the machine, press on the pedal.

  This work enables us to earn just enough to eat, to live somewhere and, above all, to be able to come
to work the next day.

  Whether it is dark or light outside, the neon lights are on all the time in the huge workshop. Soothing music is piped out of loudspeakers. The management thinks the staff works better with a bit of music.

  There is this little chap, one of the workers, who sells sachets of white powder, tranquilizers which the village chemist makes up especially for us. I don’t know what it is, I buy some occasionally. With this powder, the day passes more quickly, you feel a little less unhappy. The powder doesn’t cost much, almost all the workers use it, the management turns a blind eye, and the village chemist makes a killing.

  Sometimes there are outbursts; a woman gets up, shouts:

  “I can’t take any more!”

  They take her away, work continues, they tell us:

  “It’s nothing, her nerves are shot.”

  In the workshop everyone is alone with their machine. We can’t talk to each other, except in the bathrooms, and even then not for very long—our absences are counted, noted, recorded.

  After work in the evening there is just enough time to do some shopping and eat; you have to go to bed early to be able to get up early in the morning. Sometimes I wonder whether I live to work or whether it is the work which keeps me alive.

  And what sort of life is it?

  Monotonous work.

  Miserable wages.

  Loneliness.

  Yolande.

  There are thousands of Yolandes in the world.

  Blonde and beautiful, all more or less stupid.

  You pick one of them and make do.

  But Yolandes don’t fill the solitude.

  Yolandes don’t work in manufacturing if they can help it, they work in shops where they earn even less than they would in a factory. But shops are cleaner and it is easier to meet a future husband.

  It is mainly mothers of families that work in factories. They run home at eleven o’clock to prepare the midday meal. The management allows this, since they are on piecework. They come back at one o’clock with the rest of us. Their children and husbands have eaten. They have gone back to school or the factory.

  It would be easier if they all ate at the factory cafeteria, but that would be too expensive for a family. I can afford it. I have the dish of the day, which is the cheapest. It’s not very good, but I’m not bothered.