The Reluctant Trophy Wife

by Judith Petres Balogh

“Even then. Virginia Wolf once wrote, ‘Ambition is a harridan; Poetry the witch; Desire for Fame a strumpet .’I memorized it, and nowadays when I am too enamored with my work and start to weave fancy dreams and indulge in unrealistic expectations I keep repeating this mantra lest I forget that I do not wish to be enslaved. But despite these grandiose sentiments I was deeply hurt by the rejection,” she added ruefully.

  At that point Sarah came back with the main course, which was as always delicious and beautifully decorated, and the conversation following was as light as the local red wine.

  It was late afternoon when in a relaxed and happy mood Lena left her friends. The day was still young and she carried her laptop to the alcove to work on the novel for a few hours .Writing came easily and after reading it, she was pleased; even to her critical eyes it appeared good. She was finally losing the gnawing uncertainty that tormented her ever since the refusal of her short story. It was a good day. The conversation at lunch was once again stimulating, she felt loved and accepted on her own terms, and the work she has done so far satisfied her. She went to bed feeling content.

  FIFTEEN

  Almost overnight the benign weather turned into scorching summer and Lena tailored her activities accordingly. She took her walks at the very early morning hours or after the sun already set and visited the lake almost daily for a swim. Thanks to the language books and tapes Father Paul provided and her diligence in learning the basics, she was able to communicate to Juli néni her wish that with the rising temperatures she would prefer lighter lunches.

  After a satisfying afternoon in the garden deadheading flowers, weeding and watering she moved back into the house. Just as she stepped out of the shower Sarah arrived carrying a basket with a pitcher of expertly mixed icy drink and chips. They talked about the day’s labors and about Sara’s plan of adding a fountain next to the arbor where she loved to spend the afternoons. It should not appear man-made, she said. Clear water should be cascading down over moss-covered rocks and past water plants into a small pond, from where the water would be pumped up to the top to repeat its rush down again and again. She brought along the sketches and the lists of plants needed and complained about the difficulty of finding craftsmen to do the job. Always volatile, now in her excitement she was nearing the explosion point about this new project and could hardly wait to start with it. Lena told about her deadheading crusade and Sarah gave some sound advice and information about it.

  After the second cocktail Lena rose and announced that she was famished. “Juli néni of course is gone, but she always prepares a spectacular cold tray to prevent starvation during the night. Please join me; you won’t regret it.” Lena put the tea kettle on the stove and they settled down to a delightful evening meal.

  “I don’t mind to be alone,” Lena said. “As a matter of fact, I rather enjoy this solitude, but I truly don’t like to eat alone. I cannot remember any time in my life when I was alone at a table and I cannot think of food without having company. These lonely feeding times are so terribly dismal, almost prison-like, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes I do. But then there are so many, who have to sit down alone and meal after meal face the chair that is no longer occupied. In this village more than half the women are widowed and they are heartbreakingly alone. Always. On weekdays and on holidays too.”

  “It is depressing and they are truly brave as they accept the inevitable and put up with it .Did you see the movie ‘Out of Africa’?”

  “No, but I read Karen Blixen’s book and loved it.”

  “There was a scene in the movie so touching that I have gone back again to see the film just for that. It is the most moving, most poignant, most noble few seconds ever shown on the screen. Picture it: in the role of Blixen, Meryl Streep is spending the last night on her beloved farm in Africa. She lost everything a woman can lose: her marriage, the farm that was her life, the man she loved, her health, the possibility of ever having children, her future. Her furniture has been auctioned off and she is sitting in a bare, dimly lit room at a makeshift table, eating her supper. Incongruously, there is a crisp white cloth on the improvised crude table and a crystal goblet is filled with wine. She is dressed formally, her back is royally erect. There is no sign of emotion on her face. She is eating slowly, gracefully, as if she were the guest of honor at a formal dinner at the governor’s mansion. What a scene, what an actress, what a director! What a way to elegantly express human dignity and spiritual strength in times of extreme tragedy! That short, crisp, wordless scene tells it all. It was beautiful and she was beautiful. But I am afraid, I am not like her. I don’t like to eat alone and if it were not for Juli néni, I would probably just stop at the sink and have a quick graceless bite of something I could find around the kitchen to still my hunger. And thus I would easily sink to the level of animals.”

  “ I understand, because you are not alone. There are not many Blixens around in this sorry world of ours. Corrections, perhaps there are. I think these widows in our village come pretty close to displaying the same inner strength we admire in Karen Blixen.”

  Lena brought the tea to the table and for a while they were content to enjoy the peace of the evening. Only the crickets offered the inevitable evening symphony. At last Sarah was getting ready to leave, although reluctantly. “Dearest child, this was such a pleasant evening that I almost forgot to tell the purpose of my visit. I actually came to invite you for a bit of volunteer work. Our Father Paul has the longstanding habit of taking the local school children for a three day holiday to a convent nearby. It is a reward given generously to the kids for whatever virtue he could find in them during the school year. I assure you, he finds something for every one of them. To my knowledge not one child was ever left out of it. Perhaps they made good grades, or served at the altar, or have shown fine behavior, if only one single time. He can always find something that should rewarded. This all-inclusion clause might reduce the value of the reward, but he seems to know best. There is no charge for the kids; it is a gift. The convent is huge; it was built at a time when girls gladly heard the call and chose this lifestyle. Now it is almost empty, only a few cemetery-fugitives live there in saintly solitude and they welcome the itty-bitty income they get for letting us use the place. Of course, the old nuns do love the kids. The kids in turn treat them as if they were kind grandmothers or fairy godmothers. Father Paul keeps them busy, you and I cook and serve, and everybody is happy. Although the convent is not far; actually it is located on the shore of this very same lake, but for convenience we too shall stay there overnight with the kids. In the evening Father Paul treats us to organ concerts designed to break your heart, and it is followed by uplifting conversations that are supposed to improve the mind and the soul and enlarge our store of knowledge. Or so he believes. Anyhow, would you join us?”

  “Sounds interesting, even noble-- and yes, of course I would gladly come along, that is, if you believe that I could help. I am not known to be a kitchen queen.”

  “Done deal. You’ll peel the potatoes and scrub the pots and pans; no talent needed for that.”

  “Who finances it?” Lena wanted to know.

  “Don’t be vulgar, darling. Have you not listened to him when he says the grace at our lunch table? Does he not say week in and week out that the Lords feeds the birds of the sky, and so on?”

  “I understand. But did you not mention that your husband would soon arrive? Won’t he mind?”

  “George is the most understanding man on the face of the earth, and he is used to this routine. He is also a big boy and can take care of himself. Then it is all settled and you should expect your call on duty about the end of July— hopefully you will still be here.”

  And she was off in the gathering evening shadows.

  Sarah’s husband arrived and he was a happy addition to their threesome. He was witty, full of life, white-haired and white-bearded like a casually dressed Santa Claus and huggable like a big, soft teddy bear. He obviously loved his wife, and just like Sa
rah, was a passionate and gifted cook. They were a perfect match and loved to share the work in the kitchen, took pleasure in their guests and welcomed them with exuberant joy. Apparently some benevolent household god blessed them, because they never had problems, never were out of sorts, and never had aches or pains. Or at least they never talked about them. The Sunday luncheons continued as before, although the tone of conversation changed slightly. There was more laughter, more bantering and the topics discussed were usually lighter.

  Lena in her turn frequently invited them for brunch or for a late evening cookout. While she did not shine in the kitchen, Lena was skilled in the art of outdoor cooking, because her family was devoted to grilling and she learned the tricks along the way. Sarah, George and Father Paul had standing invitation, but she also included in her impromptu parties vacationing couples from the neighborhood, Hungarians and Germans as well. At first, Juli néni was shocked at some of the foods Lena introduced.

  “You should not roast vegetables over an open fire,” she informed Lena and could not hide how scandalized she was at this heretical method.

  “Why not?”

  “It is unhealthy. The smoke is poisonous and it burns off all the vitamins. It kills the goodness of them. Vegetables should be well cooked in salt water and presented in a proper cream sauce.”

  She was barely over the shock of the abused vegetables when she had to witness the horror of Lena’s salads. For one thing she boiled the broccoli with raisins. Juli néni already had a devastating opinion of the broccoli that seemed to suffer from a serious identity crisis. It pretended to be a flower, but didn’t quite make it, and it did not look like a proper vegetable either. Now the raisins paired with it was the last straw. As a final offense, during the cooking process it emitted a smell so odiferous that it could drive a saint to tears. Juli néni raised her hands in desperation as if to say ‘Why bother with it?’ As if this was not insult enough to her culinary sensitivity she had to witness the indignity of watching Lena as she added fruit sections to green salads in another bowl. She mumbled unhappily at seeing these unorthodox preparations which contradicted everything she knew about the art of cooking and had now unquestionable poof of the common superstition that American women do not know how to cook. She suffered greatly from such exotic intrusions into “her” kitchen, but gradually capitulated as she saw that Lena’s guests instead of dying from the food, enjoyed it very much and were asking for the recipes. Although Juli néni never sank low enough to taste any of it, she accepted the strange taste of these foreigners, who instead of decently cooked vegetables preferred them almost raw or else charred. As long as she could add her own specialties to the outdoor feasts, she was pacified. It was a culinary culture crash, but it ended peacefully, albeit some unspoken reservations remained. Lena still didn’t like Juli néni’s coffee and the old lady refused to taste a “hamburger” made not with meat, but with grilled mushrooms.

  The stiff correctness of former meals, including the requirement to use a fish knife and to drink the proper white wine with the perch-pike was quickly forgotten. The desire for social success and professional advancement belonged to another world. At times, they shamelessly put aside forks and knives, and ate the grilled chicken thighs using their hands. Juice of fresh, ripe fruits trickled down on chins and made hands sticky, but nobody cared.

  Although many of her guests were retired people, conversations about aches, pains, medications, surgeries past and present were absent. Years were swept away and Lena was once again back in her early youth, when her family gathered with friends of all ages for shared meals in the garden or on the beach.

  The spontaneous grill parties were great fun with lots of laughter as the guests tried to communicate in three languages. Invariably Lena was the star, as she was the neophyte in the Hungarian language, not counting Sarah, who could never master even the simplest level of it and never uttered a single Hungarian word in company. Lena’s guests were greatly entertained by what they called her “adorable accent”, and also by some of the words she used, or the way she had the tendency to always add the wrong suffix to a word. They encouraged her to talk and Lena obliged.

  “Yours kind lake, she be is adoringful and substantially,” she announced in her fractured Hungarian to the amusement of all.

  “Not so very substantial,” one of her guests corrected, not the language, but the geographical misinformation. “The lake is truly very large, over two hundred square miles. As a matter of fact it is the largest in Central Europe, but it is shallow. Its depth is an average of just about ten feet; only at the northern side does it manage to reach forty feet. On the southern shore you can wade in until you get tired, and still the water is barely to the knees. A real delight for children. Because of this shallowness, the water readily reacts to atmospheric changes, heating and cooling, and then sailors beware!”

  “And then this ‘adoringful’ lake can turn menacing within minutes,” a silver-haired lady added, who was so frail that she probably never went near the lake, not even in good weather. “A sudden wind can agitate it and then the placid mirror turns into a raging horror. It churns up the sand from the bottom and even after the storm settles it will display an interesting striated surface of several colors for a day or two.”

  “And the lightning, that luminous electric discharge from heaven, the personal weapon of Zeus! Watching from a safe place it is the most magnificent firework you ever saw.”

  “Sio, can be really frenetic when she is vexed,” added Sarah.

  “And who is Sio?” one of the German guests wanted to know.

  “She is the enchanting spirit of our lake. She is beautiful, capricious, kind, mysterious, whimsical, vain, playful and has a streak of cruelty. She is the woman about whom men dream on moonlit nights,” George informed them.

  “If I were able to take you seriously, I could be jealous,” Sarah told him.

  “And rob the meager joy of wishful thinking from an old man? You have no heart. Lena my darling, pour us some more wine so we can drink to the health of Sio and to all the lovely ladies present.”

  Juli néni dutifully tore off the pages of the wall calendar and Lena acknowledged with mild surprise that it was past mid-July. She could not account where the time has gone, unless the number of pages of her novel accounted for its passing. The children’s vacation at the convent arrived almost as a surprise.

  She rose early on Thursday morning, although she had plenty of time until she was to join Sarah in the afternoon for the drive to the convent. It was a shimmering summer day, complete with the obligatory bird song, morning-glory blue sky and soul-warming sunshine. It was just the kind of day made for creative work and she was looking forward to a few hours of uninterrupted writing before duty time at the convent.

  Although Juli néni was free until Tuesday morning, she appeared at the door almost the moment Lena sat down at her laptop. She was surprised, even slightly irritated; Juli néni was definitely not part of the morning schedule. She walked to the kitchen and considered how to use her frail communication skills to express politely her objection to the housekeeper’s presence. However, Juli néni ignored the obvious irritation of her mistress and was whirling around with youthful vitality as she put eggs, sugar, flour and large piles of other food stuff on the kitchen table. She pointed to herself, then to the kitchen stove, and rapidly repeated “gyerekek, baba, pupa, baby” and then thinking hard she added the German word for children, ‘Kinder’. OK?”

  Lena eventually understood that Juli néni wanted to bake and cook something for the vacationing children at the convent and answered with an animated OK. She was even somewhat ashamed that she did not think of this on her own, and was grateful for the older woman’s thoughtfulness. To show her appreciation she collected all her language skill and thanked her, “Köszönöm szépen, nagyon kedves”.

  Judging by Juli néni’s puzzled look, her pronunciation must have been approximate only, but after she repeated it very slowly, the old woman fi
nally understood. The grateful delight Juli néni displayed every time Lena talked to her in a somewhat broken Hungarian, was touching. She moved to Lena now and first hesitantly, but then with obvious joy hugged her and let loose a torrent of words, which Lena did not understand, but it hardly mattered. Both women were happy because a new understanding was established and each was grateful to the other, although for different reasons. After they created this new bond, Juli néni started to work with mixer, grinder, grater, rolling pin, and added lots of things to the pots, rich in fragrances and calories, but did not wish any help. Lena moved back to the laptop and happily submerged herself into the world of ideas and words.

  In the afternoon she packed the few things needed for the three days at the convent, but sadly left the laptop on her desk. There would be no time for writing. Juli néni carried the trays of cookies, the bucket of fried chicken, the pot of mysterious soup and the huge pan of noodle casserole with cottage cheese, cream, bacon and fresh dill to the car. A few minutes later Sarah’s auto, also packed with food, drinks, and games pulled up at the gate. After quite a noisy ritual of greetings, Juli néni delivered detailed instructions in that strange nonlanguage the two women developed. For the time Lena was left out of this important conference; obviously Juli néni did not quite trust her newly acquired language skill. Sarah was familiar with only a few very basic words in Hungarian, but using animated gestures they communicated well. Both kept the volume of their voice raised as if the other were hard-of-hearing. Apparently there is some universal agreement that it is possible to understand a foreign language as long as it is shouted at the other party loud enough. The fate of the casserole, the fried chicken and the cookies were discussed in great detail at an impressively high decibel, although no outsider would have understood a word of their conversation.

  Finally, they took off, Sarah showing the way to the convent and Lena followed with some apprehension. She was a veteran in doing volunteer work, but this was something else. The difference between English-speaking elderly ladies and gentlemen and a bunch of boisterous, Hungarian-speaking youngsters was enormous. She was wondering what would await her.