“Yeast or leavening puffs up the dough; therefore, the Bible compares it with wickedness. It tells us that sins multiply just like the organisms in the dough and the sinner is puffed up with egotism and arrogance like the bread does. According to the Bible, it teaches a lesson about pride and hypocrisy.”
The old woman was unperturbed and kept on kneading the dough. “Yes indeed, it is a very good lesson, and it demonstrates the concept quite clearly. But once you understand the message it conveys and accept its teaching you may as well forget the supposed harm the leavening carries. The wickedness is not in the dough, not in the microbes, nor in the gases they produce, but in the bad choices we make.”
She took a wicker basket, lined it with a white towel and turned the dough into it to rise. As she cleaned the working surface she concluded the conversation, “When I got married, my mother gave me a mound of leavening to carry the past into my new home to establish the base for my own family’s unique future. On her wedding day my mother received the same gift from her mother. All the way down in the far past, mothers in our family gifted their marrying daughters with this treasure, which carries the chemistry and the love of the family from generation to generation. It is a magnificent continuation and the chain has never been broken. The leavening is guarded with the same care as fire used to be protected at the dawn of history. When my daughter married, she received the same gift from me. If I raised her right she won’t forget the tradition when her daughter marries.”
On some mornings when Lena was working her leavening into the mixture of flour and warm water she wished for such a tradition. For a moment she indulged in the fantasy of seeing a daughter of hers getting dressed in her wedding gown. Before she would be driven to the church to meet her future husband, Lena would give her the magic mound, the precious talisman. She found the imaginary scene so touching that she was ready to spill some tears into the dough. But then she chided herself for putting the coach in front of the horses, instead the other way around. First things first. One needs a daughter before planning the fantasy of family traditions. She was alone in the kitchen and did not have to pretend attitudes she did not have. After all she let a teardrop fall into the dough There you go, she told the microscopic living things in the bowl, get busy and start incorporating that too into the future.
After about an hour spent in her solitary ritual with coffee and bread, Clyde too would wake up. Eventually the maid served an impressive breakfast, but Lena barely touched it. The daily newspaper was consulted, conjugal niceties exchanged and then the daily routine started. But that was another life a few thousand miles away.
When Lena came down from the bedroom on that first morning in Hungary, Juli néni was already in the kitchen and had started lunch. Ignoring the warm spring weather, she built a cheerful fire in the tiled stove in the living room and set the table for breakfast in the alcove. Obviously Juli néni did not share Lena’s preference for a simple meal, because she placed a large platter on the table with cold cuts, sausages, cheese and hard-boiled eggs, enough to feed a smaller military unit returning from field exercises. There was no juice.
Juli néni was not nearly the person she expected. In her teens, Lena read enough romantic novels from which she constructed a personal concept what a country housekeeper should look like. She had to be round, wise, all smiles, definitely a comfort giver, exuding wonderful fragrances made mostly of vanilla and caramel. She should be an earth mother, a nanny, a wonderful cook, a good storyteller and an understanding friend rolled in one.
Juli néni was nothing like it. She was tall and bony and could easily pose for a poster showing what anorexia could do to a body. Her dark eyes sat deeply and the skin on her face looked dry, tight, and yellow like a page in a very old manuscript. She twisted her sparse hair into a severe bun at the nape of her neck, and wore a faded wrap-around apron over her dress. She was undiluted efficiency poured into a bony human form. In surprising contrast to her angular frame and general stern appearance, she also managed to radiate kindness and warmth.
After they greeted each other, Lena in polite English, the old woman in rapid Hungarian, Juli néni brought the pot of coffee to the table.
.
After the first sip Lena thought her teeth would fall out. It was that strong. She read somewhere that cowboys used to joke around campfires about how to tell when the coffee was strong enough. The test was simple: one had to drop a horseshoe into the pot and when it did not sink, the coffee was good. Juli néni surely had the original recipe. Lena tried to dilute it with milk, but it only made it cold. She liked her coffee hot. There was no toast, and not a toaster in sight, but the bread was obviously homemade and the butter was good. The bunch of daffodils on the breakfast table was lovely, and she appreciated the caring touch.
The rich offering on the table did not compensate for the loss of the morning coffee and Lena lacked the words to tell what she wanted. Juli néni was watching intently. When she noticed that Lena was eating only bread and was not touching anything else, she appeared with a dish of apricot jam, unmistakably homemade. There are many unfriendly places where recalcitrant or trouble-making princesses could be exiled, but this certainly was not one of them.
After her first breakfast in exile, sans coffee, she sat in front of the fire somewhat enervated. Jetlag and tiredness lingered in her body and it felt good just to rest in the warm room and think of nothing. Not to have to make decisions, not to have to rise and radiate good will and efficiency whether she felt like it or not, was luxury. She nestled into the soft pillows on the couch and enjoyed the first real vacation she had in years. Juli néni meanwhile finished the food preparation in the kitchen and moved upstairs to clean, although heaven knows, the rooms were not in imminent need of her attention. Obviously she had a different opinion about the state of things.
Long before noon restlessness took over. To be constantly active was her lifestyle and after a good night’s rest and a lazy morning her young body recuperated sufficiently; she was ready for some action. At that very moment she realized with brutal clarity that she had nowhere to go and had nothing to do. The full extent of her bleak situation dawned on her for the first time. The charitable shroud of luxury was lifted and she stared into the desolation of the coming weeks or even months. She was truly in exile, in a very luxurious one to be sure, but still in exile. She could not talk to anyone, because she did not know the language. She could not even tell the housekeeper what she wanted for breakfast. There was nothing to do today, or in the weeks to come. She packed enough books in her trunks to last for a while and after she read them all Clyde would surely provide some more, but she could not spend every hour of her days reading! What else was there to do? She could take walks. She could swim in the lake, and could wait for time to pass until Clyde set her free. She could take up needlepoint, or mark lines on the wall like prisoners do, to note the passing of days. Alternatively, she could silently go insane in this luxurious solitary confinement. What has she done to deserve this and how long would it last? Anger was rising, first just vaguely, like the shadow of some evil yet to come, but it soon turned into a rage. For the first time in her married life she felt raw hatred for Clyde for having engineered this insanity, then the anger turned on herself for having submitted to it. It was all so wrong, so bizarre and she wondered if she could ever forgive him for it.
After most of her anger’s venom was spent, another disturbing thought occurred to her. She realized with sudden clarity and a strange sense of defeat that she lost her respect and admiration for him. Whatever shortcoming this marriage had, there was always respect on her part, because she admired and appreciated his rational ways of handling all problems. But for the first time this marvelous icon cracked; he acted childishly, in a selfish way and the beautiful image of him was gravely damaged.
The sun ascended in the magnificently blue sky, the temperature was rising and she needed some exercise. Taking a light sweater and on second thought some money, although she dou
bted that she would find stores of any kind in this godforsaken place. Even if there were any, she probably could not tell what she wanted. How do they say ‘needlepoint’ in this strange language? She could not even explain to Juli néni that she was going for a walk. Nevertheless, she called upstairs to announce her plan. The old woman appeared at the landing with a mop in her hand and after Lena finished explaining, she nodded her head and called down, “OK. Hello” as if she understood. Not bad for a beginning, Lena thought. The question is who will score? Will Juli néni learn English before she learns Hungarian?
The walk invigorated her. The gloomy thoughts left and she no longer felt like a victim condemned to a cruel fate. She took a path through an orchard under a canopy of pale pink and white apple blossoms. Thousands of bees were harvesting above and the new grass under her feet was velvety. Beyond the trees the lake was a mirror image of the sky. Sailboats moved slowly on its surface and gulls circled making hazardous dives from time to time. A few fat clouds were swimming ponderously above to provide some artistic interest and counterpoint to the scene. Life was enthusiastically bursting all around her as the earth was giving birth to new life. Lena, in contrast to her mood of a few minutes ago felt energetic, ready to absorb this new world and all its novel sensations. One of the special blessings of youth is that black moods have a tendency to dissipate very rapidly.
Before she knew it she reached the village that huddled just below the hill on which her witches’ nest stood. There were few people on the only street; but after all, it was a very small village, the kind you leave almost as soon as you enter it. On one side of the road there was a small church surrounded by a cemetery, and next to it a severe, low building, undoubtedly a school, if not a prison. Across it was the post office and next to it a tiny store. The few small houses, carbon copies of each other, stood side by side on either side of the street; each had a very small garden in front. An unbroken line of insultingly ugly fence ran from one end of the village to the other, separating the sidewalk from the front gardens. Apparently the owners of the houses were fed up with the uniform look of their village; therefore in order to show individuality, each decided on a different design, material or color for his own short section of the fence. No two of these sections were alike and the abominations created of stone, iron or wood presented an offensive patchwork, bristling with ugliness and disharmony. Lena’s aesthetic sensibility rebelled against the hideous and chaotic barbarism, but she understood the need to add something individual to the lethal sameness of the dwellings.
As she walked past these monstrous fence segments, angry dogs ran from the backyards to the front and promised a slow and painful death to Lena, should she be foolish enough to enter their domain. At the church she crossed the street and this obviously pacified the dogs; they only voiced short, grumbling afterthoughts about the scandal of a stranger walking past their house. Tranquility returned. The bustling world was hundreds of years and thousands of miles away.
She stopped and looked curiously across the wrought iron fence into the cemetery. Because she did not visit many such places before, she was certainly not a cognoscente of memorial parks, but this was obviously quite different from the few she had seen. The graveyard was divided into regular small plots, each somewhat larger than the size of a very large coffin, although some were double as large. She guessed that these must be resting places for several members of a large family, who opted to stay together, almost as in a king size bed. Each plot was enclosed by a low border of stone or granite, and these small enclosed areas were overflowing with flowers and small shrubs of every kind. Even those graves that were completely covered by marble or granite slabs were not bare. Loving, caring hands placed wreaths or cut flowers in vases on the slabs giving the impression as if the burial had just taken place. The masses of flowers exploded in an orgy of colors and lent the cemetery a festive and heady gayety. The place was not one of hushed grief and of silent tears, but it spoke loudly of an almost pagan celebration that was most unexpected at such a place. People, who created such graveyards, must have come to terms with the concept of death. The place showed no fear, no regrets, no everlasting mourning. It was also evident that the grieving relatives had an ongoing competition to see whose plot is the most beautiful and there was an obvious good-natured rivalry to outdo the neighbor’s graveside efforts. Instead of gloom and solemn gravity an exquisite and gentle charm greeted the visitor. It was an irresistible invitation, and Lena entered.
At every turn there were people with hoes, watering cans and boxes of new plants, doing their graveside gardening. There were more people among the graves in the cemetery than on the streets. They greeted each other as old friends do and socialized happily at this unlikely meeting place. Lena did not understand what they said, but guessed that they discussed the weather and their back pains, the price of fuel and the joy of a newborn grandchild. Having exhausted these important topics they bent over the graves again to continue their meticulous work in the tiny gardens.
As she walked on the narrow paths separating the plots she stopped here and there to gaze at the creatively crafted headstones, which probably reflected both the taste and the size of the bank account of the family, who erected them. She longed to read the farewell messages carved into the stones, but of course could not. Only the dates of birth and death were understandable to her.
Deep in thoughts she considered how to include this cemetery in her novel. In its irresistible gayety it was a delightful contradiction. Or perhaps it was not. Perhaps in old villages where life happened in its most simplified form, people developed a different concept of life and death and saw no reason to be gloomy about either. The thought of a happy burial place was refreshingly inconsistent; this incongruity would fit well into the planned book.
She followed the path among the graves around the church, when just behind the bend she came upon a man. He wore a checkered shirt, worn jeans and his straw hat was well past its state of respectability. He hid his eyes behind dark and obviously expensive sunglasses, which somehow did not go with his otherwise shabby attire. He was absorbed examining one of the gravestones and did not see her. Surely he must be a mourner, she thought, or perhaps the caretaker. As she neared he finally noticed her. To her great surprise he greeted her in English.
“You must be the American lodger in the witches’ nest,” he smiled pleasantly. “I knew about your coming, but have not seen you around, not in the village and not in church.”
“It is probably because I have not been around for long and I am not a church-person.”
“Aren’t you a believer?”
“And aren’t you a bit too personal for a stranger?” she retorted.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to intrude. I’m Father Paul, the parish priest.”
“Sorry for my mistake. I took you for ... something else. I am Helena Cambray, and am already on my way and out of here. Glad to have met you.” But in spite of the attempted politeness she was not glad as she turned abruptly. The brief and awkward encounter disturbed her. She always disliked when strangers accosted her, but if it did happen she knew how to handle the situation graciously. This abrupt and rude exchange was not her usual style and it left her upset and confused. She did not understand what disturbed her, but decided that the lingering jetlag and tiredness made her short-tempered. Or perhaps he upset her with the unexpected question, which caused her to react so abruptly.
Was she a believer? She shrugged impatiently wanting to shake off a disturbing thought. Her religious life was in a state of painful uncertainty. She did not fully believe, nor did she deny, but in general preferred not to think about it one way or another. There was a thick, black wall, which reached from the hard earth all the way up to heaven. It effectively concealed all the answers, which could give peace and reestablish belief. She did not build the wall and did not think that it was in her power to destroy it.
Absent-mindedly she started the walk back home, when on a sudden impulse entered the sto
re. She looked around curiously, but there was not much to see. Flour, sugar, rice, salt, bread, bags of cookies were stacked on one shelf, and on the next the offerings from the USA: familiar toothpastes, shampoos and detergents, as well as chewing gum and bars of candy with names strangely incongruous in this small village, where aside from the parish priest probably nobody spoke English. Almost ready to leave the store she spotted on a back shelf a pot of honey. Further exploration on that shelf yielded a jar of instant coffee. She read the label with the triumph of a successful discoverer. It informed in English that said coffee was aromatic, mild and freeze-dried to perfection. Greedily she picked the bigger of the two glass jars. It could not compete with her favorite percolated Arabica, but it would give the pleasure of a “long cup.” Henceforth she could drink it leisurely in the mornings, just as she used to do at home.
When she was ready to pay it was a mystery what the woman behind the counter said in a rapid flow of words. Lena assumed that among other things she was quoting the price of her purchase. Alternatively, she might have been telling about the history of the village, the weather, the quality of the honey, or about her grandchildren. Perhaps a new war broke out somewhere and she was informing Lena about the impending disaster. No, that could not be it, because as the words of that strange language rolled off her tongue she smiled broadly. Lena randomly took a bill from her purse and produced her best smile to show the woman that she understood and was equally happy about the weather, the grandchildren, the history of the village, the honey, or about whatever the woman was relating to her. A smile can tell a great many things. “OK”, said the woman and then with more smiles added, “Hello”. Lena marched home with her treasures. The small adventure in the store erased the uncomfortable memory of the awkward encounter in the cemetery.
Juli néni inspected what she bought, said OK, but then opened a cupboard and showed Lena a very large pot of honey. Now it was Lena’s turn to say OK and thus having reached an agreement she left the kitchen and went upstairs to unpack, but Juli néni was there before her. All her dresses were hanging, her shirts, sweaters and underwear were neatly placed into drawers, the cosmetics arranged in the bathroom and the books placed in the study. Juli néni seemed to know exactly how to arrange her personal items. Lena sat at the edge of the bed and sighed. Apparently, she was not expected to do a single thing and she had no way of telling the old woman that she wanted to do some of the work.
The Reluctant Trophy Wife Page 12
