Anna Edes

by Dezso Kosztolányi

  Her husband watched astounded while his wife acted out the whole furious charade, as though she were an actress performing to an invited audience. He felt he should say something. ‘And what did you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Do? What I always do. I took it. I’d love to have kicked that great lump of . . .’

  ‘You know what these people are like.’

  ‘All they do is gobble,’ she lamented. ‘Enough for two. And fool around with the soldiers. But this one,’ she bent to whisper in his ear, ‘to top it all, this one is not in the best of conditions.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘Just that. Her condition,’ she added significantly. Mrs Vizy fixed her husband with a look of horror.

  ‘She doesn’t show it.’

  ‘I saw the signs on her underwear.’

  ‘She is fat after all.’

  ‘But that’s why she’s so swollen. It’s in the legs, those puffed-out calves of hers. They’re repulsive. And her brother comes here too, that hooligan, the engine driver. Our house is nothing but a public bar. One feels frightened in one’s own home. She is a viper in our bosom, and we pay her for it. If only I never had to look at that ugly pasty face of hers again. It would be bliss.’

  ‘You want another maid?’ asked Vizy absently. ‘Forget it. They’re all the same.’

  Mrs Vizy took a deep breath and was on the point of protesting, but decided to suppress her indignation for the time being. She had never in her life met such a bestial creature. Katica was slothful, rude, immoral and common. Above all, common. She waddled about the flat as if she owned it, as if she had nothing to do with those who happened to live here. When they asked her in the morning what she intended to cook that day she simply pouted and said she didn’t care. Would you believe it! She refused to queue up for things. It was left to her employer to stand about at the grocer’s with filthy servants, left to her to roam the streets for a packet of lard, even to the point of collapse. Katica in the meantime was out amusing herself with her fancy man, with that repulsive tattooed sailor, Lajos Hack, who spent a fortune on her, heaven knows where the money came from.

  Not that she hadn’t tried speaking nicely to her: she’d lectured her, reasoned with her, commanded her. All in vain. It went in one ear and out the other. What did she care that her employer was weak, that she had lost a lot of weight through all this rushing about, that she had grown positively thin? It didn’t matter to her that she was left to do all the errands, all the work right down to the polishing of the floor. She just stood back and let her do it, the slut.

  Hands in her lap, Mrs Vizy went on brooding in her usual solitary long-suffering fashion. What were the others like? Were her previous servants any better?

  Certainly not, judging by Katica’s predecessor. Lujza Héring was worse than a magpie. She stole everything but particularly handkerchiefs. She was sacked on the spot and they spent two months without a maid. Working-class girls from Pest were notorious thieves. One of them had robbed her of a gold watch that she had inherited from her mother, another had pinched the feathers from her duvet. As for peasant girls such as Örzsi Varga, they worked all right but they kept sending things home, jams and herbs and such. And they ate! Lord how they ate! They’d have eaten them out of house and home. Even while they were doing the cleaning they’d be munching bread. To be fair there were a couple of reasonable ones but either their mothers refused to allow them to live as servants, or they were lured away by some relative or other. The Germans were clean but untrustworthy. The Slovaks were hard working but had loose morals. There was Karolin who had two lovers at once, one a corporal in the infantry, the other a well-known writer whom they found lounging on their settee when they returned from a summer holiday.

  Who knows what they are really like? Take Lidi for example, plain little Lidi, the nursemaid with the funny plait on top of her head. Who would have believed it? She was as ugly as sin, but one morning, there she was in the kitchen, lying on a blood-soaked mattress, unconscious from loss of blood, her face ashen, already gasping for breath. The ambulance came for her in the nick of time. She had tried to perform an illegal abortion on herself. She went with anybody. If they sent her down for some beer or wine she would quickly find herself a man, there beneath the gateway. She was the siren of the local stores and shops.

  Those who did not go whoring were no less difficult. They broke the sink, burned holes in the clothes when ironing, caterwauled from morn till night, hung about the Horváth Gardens, read theatrical magazines and burned with unrequited passion for the juvenile lead in some operetta.

  One was a gossip, another was choosy about her food, left her vegetables and wanted to eat the same pastries and fine meats as her employers, and always harped on about her previous situation where she had the best lean bacon for breakfast. And even the precious Margit was something of a whited sepulchre. She only touched things with her fingertips for fear of getting dirty, but she was dirty herself dear girl, she wallowed in it, the dust lay thick on the furniture, the glasses were sticky and she threw the cutlery – knives, forks and all – into the drawer, just as they were, greasy. Fortunately she did not stay long.

  The only trouble was that others kept leaving. Often they had hardly arrived, and not one stayed for more than six months. Mrs Ökrös was only here for two hours, having returned her advance with one hundred per cent interest.

  Mrs Vizy was not afraid to experiment: she tried everyone. She even had a girl from the orphanage, and attempted to bring her up. She had been the rudest of the lot. Three months of it was enough and after the scandal she created, she thanked God she was rid of her. Then there were Mari and Victor and Ilona (Ilona Tulipás, that was), and Emma Zakariás and Böske. Böske Rózsás? Was that her name? Which one was she? A whole regiment of women trooped by before her, blondes, brunettes, thin ones, fat ones, all those who had passed through the house in the twenty years of her marriage. They were becoming confused in her memory. One’s head had settled on another’s shoulders, a second had lost her body entirely and a third was merely a headless torso. She continued to cast about in this peculiar lumber-room for a while then threw the composite monstrosity back where it belonged. It was a fruitless search, she found little to comfort her, she couldn’t recall a single one who had amounted to anything. All had deceived her, exploited their positions of trust, and every time she was left with the exhausting task of finding a new maid. It was like living under a curse. She had to admit her husband might have been right: it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.

  Her mind finally settled on the last of them. Katica was the one she hated most of all, since it was always the present incumbent she hated most, whose presence it was which most increased the sum of her misery. Her husband meanwhile was still pacing about the room, holding forth about the next day’s meeting of representatives which would have to take up some appropriate position vis-á-vis the new political situation.

  Mrs Vizy sat crouched in the chair, far, far away as usual. Her face darkened.

  Suddenly the frowns vanished. Her face seemed to brighten as if artificially lit from within by one of those torches used by doctors to inspect the throat. ‘There’s a girl who might be available.’

  ‘Excellent,’ muttered Vizy.

  ‘Excellent,’ she mimicked him. ‘You weren’t even listening.’

  ‘Of course I was. Who recommended her?’

  ‘Ficsor did.’

  ‘When can she start?’

  ‘She’s employed at the moment.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not far from here. In Árok utca.’

  ‘Whose place?’

  ‘Some people by the name of Bartos.’

  ‘Who can they be?’ pondered Vizy. ‘Bartos . . . Bartos . . . let me think. No,’ he exclaimed, perplexed, ‘I don’t know them.’

  ‘How could you possibly know them,’ retorted Mrs Vizy, who couldn’t bear her husband’s ditherings. ‘How could you expect to know everybody.
You say the oddest things.’

  ‘And what does this fellow Bartek do?’

  ‘To begin with his name is Bartos,’ she corrected him. ‘He is a revenue inspector. What on earth does a revenue inspector do anyway? I’ve no idea.’

  ‘It’s financial post. He deals with income. He has his own department. He performs inspections round the country.’

  ‘Yes, that fits, he always seems to be away. He is a widower with two children.’

  ‘What about the girl? Is she fit, capable and hard working?’

  ‘How should I know? I know no more than you do. In Ficsor’s opinion she is excellent.’

  ‘In that case dismiss Katica.’

  ‘What, and be left alone again. No thank you.’

  ‘All right then, don’t dismiss Katica.’

  ‘All Ficsor could tell me,’ her voice hardened, ‘was that it is possible she might be available. Might!’ she emphasized. ‘We’d have to lure her away. That’s not so easy nowadays. And for all I know I might be getting the worse of the bargain.’

  Vizy hated arguments like this which turned in never-ending circles, but he could see no easy way out.

  ‘Why don’t you get someone else? A number of people have offered you servants.’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘Mrs Moviszter.’

  ‘Mrs Moviszter should shut up. I don’t want her consolations. “Oh my poor dear, I’m so sorry for you with this constant stream of awful girls, but just you wait, I’ll find you one.” She has been leading me on like this for two years. All she thinks about is the theatre. First nights and poetry readings.’

  ‘What about Mrs Druma?’

  ‘As you know she is jealous. It pleases her to see me in difficulties. She comes down here to “marvel” at Katica. It’s easy for her. Her Stefi might be crazy but she gets everything done. She even nurses the children. As for the Moviszters, Etel has been with them for twenty years, assists that sickly doctor and even helps out in the surgery. Her mistress is never home. She pays half what we pay to Katica. They don’t provide any better food than we do. But the maid remains, God knows why. It’s a matter of luck as everything is. All we need is a bit of luck. Some people are lucky I suppose, we’re not. I don’t know what we have done to deserve it. Well,’ she sighed, slowly beginning to remove her tortoiseshell hairpins, ‘one goes on taking the punishment and paying through the nose for it, losing out as always. Life isn’t worth living.’

  Vizy too grew sombre. He suggested that they should go to bed. It was getting on for ten o’clock. The light could be seen even through the shutters, and they should put it out in case the soldier on patrol noticed it. Once in July he had fired at the window.

  ‘Why don’t you come to bed,’ urged her husband who had already started to undress in the bedroom. But the woman just stood at the door as if frozen there.

  ‘Come on,’ he pressed her. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are your nerves playing up?’ He was astonished at her behaviour. ‘You’re like a child. You’re always fretting about these servants. Nothing but servants all the time. It’s really very petty! Tell me, is it worth it? All because of a servant? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’

  Mrs Vizy stepped into the bedroom and turned back the covers. It was then he noticed that she was crying.

  ‘Angéla,’ he pleaded with her, and sitting himself down on a chair he watched her smoothing the pillows while the great tears sparkled and rolled down her cheeks, as Asta Nielsen’s did in the movies. ‘Your nerves, like everyone else’s, have been shattered by this dreadful period. But it’s over now. A new age is about to begin, an entirely new and happy age. Life will change. We shall start our lives anew. Today, 31 July 1919, is no ordinary day. It is a historic day.’

  Mrs Vizy pulled on a hairnet for the night.

  They lay down together in the wide double bed, where for a long time now they had done nothing but sleep. Vizy turned off the bedside light. Darkness fell on them, shadows ran like waves along the floor, and the furniture lost definition and merged with the wall.

  Vizy suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘I can hear shells exploding,’ he whispered.

  ‘No,’ answered Mrs Vizy, who had also sat up.

  ‘They’re shells all right, near the Vérmező.’

  But now it was silent. Only the air still trembled. Cars were speeding along towards the Vár which at times of political change invariably served as a register of the city’s, and indeed the whole nation’s blood pressure. A few dogs were barking.

  ‘Perhaps it was only a burst tyre,’ suggested Mrs Vizy. ‘Go to sleep.’ In the past few months they had got so used to the sounds of bombardment that they could fall asleep as easily as troopers in the trench.

  After a few minutes she spoke again. ‘I think we’ll try this girl after all.’

  ‘Try her out then,’ yawned Vizy. ‘Do what you like. Try her out. Goodnight. Go to sleep.’

  For a while they lay flat beside each other, naked under the thin summer sheets. Then a curious light kindled behind their closed lids. They suddenly stood up, left each other, walked through walls, down long passages of years, each going his or her own way, crossing unknown landscapes, fully dressed now in the strangest theatrical costumes. They were in the grip of the most ordinary of miracles: they were dreaming.

  4

  Anxieties

  Kornél Vizy slept cautiously. He rolled himself up into a ball, like a hedgehog, occupying as little space as possible. From beneath the shelter of his white pillows he gave out ambiguous statements and smiled on his foes, the Bolsheviks. He remained a politician, even in his sleep.

  When he woke in the morning he ought to have felt as if his hopeless life had taken a dramatic turn for the better, but having chewed things over in his mind so long the night before, he had quite forgotten the previous day’s events. Once he sat up though, reality filtered back and he recovered his previous good humour which had grown more certain, more novel and even more fascinating in the interval.

  He stretched once and leapt out of bed. A glass of water glittered silver on his bedside table. He decided to do without breakfast and go for a walk. Those who had seen him but a few days ago turned to look at him. He was a dandy of a bygone age come to life again. He wore a suit of dove grey, a freshly laundered white shirt and an elegant tie. Acquaintances and strangers on every side greeted him as he passed. His spats squeaked and sparkled as they caught the light. It was as if a grenade had exploded at his feet, showering him with golden sparks.

  His wife was still asleep, breathing lightly, her face waxen and pale. Her waking was markedly different. There was a terrible shock in store for her.

  Although she had prophesied that Katica wouldn’t be home till dawn, she herself had not seriously believed it. But when she rose at nine she found the table still laid, the teapot unemptied, the plate dirty. She hastened into the kitchen where the campbed lay folded and covered with a horsehair blanket. She tried room after room, quite disorientated. A bitter lump rose in her throat. Here was the living room. The piano had been pushed into a corner, mirrors lay on top of it, and everything was covered in sheets as if someone had died. Beneath the sheets she found basketfuls of clothes. The laundry box was in the dining room and a ramshackle old sideboard stood close by ready for use in case the rabble attempted to force their way in. It was because of them that everything was topsy-turvy. In the morning light this rag and bone shop brought back to her all the horrors of the siege.

  The curtains and the paintings were gone. On the bare walls only the crucifix remained – this she had refused to take down despite her husband’s entreaties – and on the display cabinet stood the photograph of Piroska, her only child, six years of age, surrounded by flowers and candles as she lay on her bier. Piroska was in her first year of school. She came home one April morning complaining of a headache, was put to bed, and by dusk she was dead. The scarlet fever epidemic had carried her off in six hours.

  Her husband was out. He wa
s striding about the world again, wrapped up in his affairs, his adventures. She knew that he cheated on her. Mrs Vizy was in the sanatorium for years after the death of her child and it was then that he had grown estranged from her, that he began, politely and delicately, to cheat on her. He had continued to cheat on her ever since.

  Then there was this slut of a maid who couldn’t get home in time. She was the embodiment of all her misery. Seizing the feather duster Mrs Vizy furiously began to dust everything in an attempt to forget her frustration. And in the meantime she was plotting a suitable homecoming for the maid.

  Katica had spent the night with her sailor friend carousing at The Woman of Trieste. It was ten in the morning by the time she returned, sleepy, unkempt, her lipstick smudged, emanating a faint odour of wine.

  However Mrs Vizy tried to control herself, her voice trembled with excitement as she informed the girl that she was giving her her notice and that she could leave by the fifteenth.

  Some people respond to a firm box on the ear with silent insolence. The girl gave no answer but took the duster out of Mrs Vizy’s hands and went on with the cleaning. She could at least try to hide her hurt feelings by working.

  It was only now that the woman took fright at having dismissed a servant without any certain prospect of replacing her. The die was cast. Feeling her world crumbling around her she rushed down to find Ficsor.

  Ficsor was just at that moment removing the red flag from its bracket on the elevation and was attempting to roll the cheap paper-cloth around the staff. Mrs Vizy grabbed his arm and ushered him upstairs.

  Even though accompanied by the honourable lady of the house, the caretaker took care to knock at the door and vigorously clean his shoes on the scraper before entering. He who had but lately been used to dining at the special canteen rigged up at the National Assembly Hall and had made himself very much at home in the Vizy’s flat now trod rather nervously there.