A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  Then the trail melts into the tall grass of the clearing, his bare feet are anointed with dew, now he is accompanied by soft rustles and whirs, the summer sky is still glimmering above him, but except for him nothing appears to be moving, and that seems unreal to him; then a bat flits by silently, returns to circle above him, but he's reached the upper end of the clearing and stepped back in the woods where the trail continues, now branching off into two, and he can go on up the hill.

  At the top, an abandoned road marks the end of the forest, and Felhö Street is only a few steps away, and that's where Hédi lives, in a small yellow house opposite the now darkened school building; at this hour Mrs. Hűvös closes the curtains and is ready to turn on the lights.

  From Hédi's window you can see Livia's.

  This time, though, at the fork I took the other trail.

  No matter how late I got home, no one ever asked where I had been.

  The forest was not so dense here, I could make out the ridged roof of the Csúzdi house; the feeble rays of the porch light projected long pale spots and strips into the dark forest; the effect was friendly, reassuring, revealing something about the attractive solitude of the house; and taking this route home I could be almost sure to find Kálmán still outside.

  I was still far away, but his black dog already yelped into the silence.

  The house stood in the middle of a rectangular piece of land cut out of the forest, with a cornfield in the back and a large orchard in front; they called it a farm—an impressive, very old frame house whose simple front, in the manner of the building style favored by the original owners, ethnic German wine growers, was adorned by a raised open porch, protected by the overhanging gabled roof; under the porch a heavy double door opened to the wine cellar; at the other end of the spacious yet intimate brick-paved yard a similar but lower frame house served as stable, garage, and barn; in the middle of the yard, enclosed by a simple hedgerow, stood a large walnut tree and, a little farther on, a tall, hard, tightly packed haystack; it all seems incredible today, but back then, on the rocky and clayey slopes of Swabian Hill, this low mountain so close to the city, there were still these peasant homesteads, cut off from the world, living out the last phases of their existence.

  Lazily, Kálmán's dog came down to the hedgerow to greet me, not barking or jumping up on me as it usually did, staring absentmindedly, with occasional swipes of its tail, waiting for me and, as if to signal that something unusual was afoot, leading me across the yard, ambling pensively.

  It was warmer here; stones were exhaling the sun's warmth and the dense hedgerow kept the cool forest air from penetrating the yard.

  At the time the Csúzdis still had a horse, several pigs, two cows, some chickens and geese; the dovecote over the hayloft echoed with the cooing of turtledoves; one after another, a pair of swallows alternately nose-dived out of their nest built under the eaves, one flying out as the other headed homeward; around this time, at dusk, the yard resounded with the noise of animals, seeking calm and rest as they prepared for the night, and the warm, still air was filled with the powerful smell of urine, droppings, and fermenting manure.

  Surprised, I followed the dog, and soon saw the yellow light of a kerosene lamp, which seemed strange in the bluish twilight; Kálmán was standing in the open door of the pigpen, watching something intently, something the raised lamp lit up in the dark.

  The flame flickered and smoked under the glass, its yellow light licking Kálmán's bare arms, back, and neck.

  From early spring until late autumn, as soon as he got home from school, Kálmán would kick off his shoes, pull off his shirt and trousers, and lounge about in his long johns all day, and as I had occasion to observe, he also slept in them.

  A deep rattling sound was coming from inside the pigpen, which soon rose into a high squeal, suddenly stopped short, and after a brief pause reverted to a deep-throated rattle.

  But he didn't look funny in his black long johns, his strong legs and muscular buttocks filling them out completely, the creases and folds of the fabric, faded into gray from washing, hugging his large body and accommodating all its possible moves, stretching over his stomach, bulging around his crotch, fitting itself to him like a second skin, making him look naked.

  The dog stopped listlessly in front of the pen, wagged its tail, and then, as if it had changed its mind, decided to get behind Kálmán and settle down there on its hind legs as it let out a somewhat nervous yawn. -

  In a stall separated from the other pigs, a huge sow was lying on her side; Kálmán had raised the lamp so high that the light was partly cut off by the door frame, and at first all I saw were her teats sprawled on the sloshy floor and her rump turned in our direction—the sounds were coming from the darkness.

  I wanted to ask what was happening but decided not to.

  Certain questions one had better not ask Kálmán; he wouldn't answer them.

  He must have been standing there for a long time, that's why he was resting his forehead on the door beam, staring into the pen, motionless, almost indifferently, but I knew him well enough to recognize this look as a sign of tension near the breaking point, if not the point of explosion.

  And as I stood next to him and watched what he was watching, the sow's eyes and open snout began to emerge from the dimness; we listened to her rattling, the sudden breaks in her breathing, the whistling of her narrowing and expanding nostrils that became a sharp squeal; and all this time she was trying to stand up, though her short, thrashing legs seemed unable to find the ground, as if a great force were holding her back; her thick skin rippled helplessly over the heavy layers of fat on her foundering body; contradictory impulses made all her muscles twitch at once; then suddenly, without even looking at me, Kálmán thrust the lamp into my hand and climbed into the stall.

  I tried to hold the lamp straight; the glass cover was hot, and if the kerosene sloshed a little over the wick, the lamp started to smoke and the flame blackened.

  Kálmán must have been afraid a little, because he flattened himself against the partition of the pen, ready for any eventuality.

  Maybe he was scared the sow would get angry and bite him.

  But then he grabbed hold of the pig's head, at the base of her ears, scratching her, trying to calm her, and though the animal gave an angry grunt, he managed slyly to keep her head flat against the floor, so that with his other hand he could explore, and not too gently either, the mountainous belly and sunken hollow of her flank; to this she responded with expectant silence.

  And then he made another curious move—until then I hadn't noticed that under the darkly wrinkled anus, her fully dilated vaginal cleft, like a huge multilayered set of pink lips, spilled out of her body and hung, swollen, clean, firm, silky, and smooth, over her rump streaked with feces and urine; Kálmán now passed his finger ever so carefully over this live, burning crater of flesh, and the responding quiver of her rump was just as delicate as his touch had been, but then he quickly backed out of the stall and obliviously wiped his finger on his thigh.

  The animal seemed to be looking straight at us.

  Impatiently Kálmán grabbed the lamp from me; the pig's watchful eye dissolved in the darkness, she was quiet for a few seconds, all we could hear were the restless grunts and stomping feet of the other animals in the adjacent stall; and once again Kálmán leaned his forehead against the splintery beam.

  It's been an hour, her waters broke at least an hour ago, he said.

  It would have been silly to ask what waters.

  And they left her here, just upped and left, he said, the words erupting with such force that the lamp began to shake in his hand, the glass knocking against the door beam, and he cried out again, desperately, but his body remained stiff, the tension wouldn't let the tears come, he tried to swallow but choked; they left her here alone, he repeated a third time, even though they knew, they knew and still they left, the bastards.

  The sow's rump twitched on the slick floorboard, her head fell
back and flip-flopped, then slipped along the floor, because she kept opening her mouth as if gasping for air, and it was horrible to hear no sound issuing from her despite the cramped straining.

  Something was happening inside her that was not ending.

  He must get his father.

  Kálmán's father and his two much older brothers were bakers; the bakery where they worked used to belong to them, so Kálmán, being the son of a former property owner, was considered a "class alien," as was Krisztián; the men would leave in the afternoon to prepare the dough and light the ovens, and return early the next morning, after the bread had all been baked and delivered; his mother also left the house after the two cows had come back from the pasture and she had milked them; she had a night job cleaning wards at János Hospital.

  So we were both free; no one at home ever asked me where I was off to, and Kálmán was left alone every night.

  At our feet, the dog was switching its tail and whimpering quietly.

  Kálmán shoved the lamp into my hand again, and he seemed hesitant— I thought he was going to run for help, after all, which would have meant leaving me there, alone and helpless, with this horrible thing; I would have liked to say, You stay here, I'll go—or just go without saying anything—but now the pig was slipping and sliding so quietly that Kálmán decided to climb in again.

  I moved closer, to give him more light; I wanted to do it right, though I had no idea what he could possibly do, or whether he knew what one was supposed to do in a situation like this; but somehow I trusted him, he'd know what to do, even if at the moment he looked as though he didn't—when it came to plants and animals, he knew everything; to me the sight was so incomprehensible, the feelings it aroused so confusing, and the suffering (which, because of our helplessness, immediately became our own suffering) so overwhelming, giving us neither time nor strength to escape, that I was grateful to him for not leaving me there, for trying to do something, in a way doing it for me, so that all I had to do was hold that lamp straight.

  He crouched behind the animal's rump and for long seconds did nothing.

  In the stench and stifling heat it was getting harder and harder to breathe, but that didn't bother me then, because I sensed the presence of death, though I knew I was witnessing birth.

  And then he slowly lifted one of his hands, raised it from his lap, oddly, tentatively, with a pensive look on his face, his fingers loosely crooked, and slipped the hand through the thick folds of those swollen rosy lips; I could see his hand disappear up to his wrist.

  This made the animal twitch, and she was finally able to breathe; when the next contraction wrenched her body, the sound she emitted was not so much a rattling as a retching one; she was kicking and slobbering, and snapping her teeth, as if ready to bite Kálmán.

  He yanked his hand free, but could not get away while still crouching, I was blocking his way, standing with the lamp in the narrow doorway, too scared to jump back quickly; he plopped down on his butt, right into the muck.

  But the pig dropped her head back, her mouth still open, hawking and gasping in irregular bursts, snapping at the precious air, and from below bristled lashes, her light-brown eyes seemed to be fixed on Kálmán.

  I could feel the even panting of the dog on my leg.

  As the sow lay there, looking at Kálmán, I saw that the whites of her eyes, bulging almost completely out of their sockets, were all bloody.

  By then Kálmán wasn't trying to figure out what to do—he was also watching those eyes—he got on his knees, sank his hand again into the animal's body, and as he slowly penetrated farther, paying no attention to slipping and sliding in urine and shit, he laid his body on the animal's swollen side, pressing down with his full weight; they were looking at each other all the while and breathing together, because as he pressed down, the animal exhaled smoothly, and when he lifted his body slightly, she inhaled helpfully; his arm was inside her, up to his elbow, but then, as though hit by an electric shock, he jerked out his hand and, his whole body shaking violently, he began to yell at the top of his voice.

  He was yelling something but I couldn't understand what; I heard him yelling words but couldn't make them out.

  The sow squealed, slid farther on her rump, gasped for air, her feet stuck out, stiff, and she squealed again, so shrilly, so long, and so loud it sounded like a human scream; she writhed, then stiffened again, but somehow her body preserved—more precisely, it refined—the rhythm the two of them had found before; and not for a second did she take her eyes off Kálmán, she remained fully alert, and his eyes were also glued to hers, even as he raised his soaked, gooey arm, illuminated by the lamp, and held it before him as if it were some strange object, and just as abruptly as he had started yelling moments before, he now fell silent; if I were to say the sow's eyes were pleading for help, if I said she was begging him to do something and was also guiding him toward that goal, if I said she was grateful to him and urging him on, with her willingness reassuring him that Yes! Yes, we're on the right track, let's keep going! then with my sentimental human notions I'd be defiling that direct raw but by no means brute sensual power that I suppose only an animal's eyes can convey.

  The pig responded to his screams with squeals of her own, and he answered her silence with silence.

  In spite of being apart now, they stayed together.

  The depth of the open vaginal orifice was frothing and bubbling with spasms and thrusts whose rhythmic repetition was like breathing or the beating of a heart.

  He reached in again, back to the very spot that had made him recoil before, but this time matter-of-factly, the way we return to familiar places when necessity compels us.

  Simultaneously he turned his head away from the sow in my direction, but he closed his eyes.

  The animal was quiet now, as if to oblige him by holding her breath.

  It seemed he kept his eyes closed because he was doing something inside and did not want to see anything, the better to feel what he was supposed to do.

  And then he pulled out his hand, slowly, wearily, got on his knees; his head slumped forward and I couldn't see his face.

  It was still quiet, the animal lay motionless, but then, as a delayed response to his manipulation, her side began to undulate, then her whole body was moving in waves from the pressure and the gasping, and at the end of each spasm she let out an alarming squeal that died away in the stifling stench of the narrow pen.

  She won't make it, he said, she can't do it, he said quietly, as one who could not be moved even by this undulating suffering because he already saw what lay ahead, he could see all the way to death; and though he did not move away, he stayed put, there was nothing for him to do.

  But whatever was happening in the animal's body was far from over.

  For in the next instant something red appeared in the heaving folds of that slit, and he, shrieking and wailing like the pig, jumped to grab it; immediately he fell silent, because that something, as if a strange bone had gotten into the sow's flesh, slipped out of his fingers; he grabbed it again, and again it slipped out.

  The rag, he screamed, and this was meant for me, yet I felt that a very long time, important and precious time, went by until I grasped that there must be a rag here somewhere.

  A sudden paralysis, a grievous failing at this moment, might keep me from finding the rag.

  There was no rag.

  It was as if suddenly I had no idea what a rag was, had lost the meaning of the word, in my own language! and in the meantime that thing—Get me a rag!—slipped out of his hand again.

  He was howling at me.

  And then the lamp's glass cover almost tipped over; I was going to look outside, and the lamp accidentally knocked against the door beam, and in fact the rag was there, I could see it, the dog was beating it with his tail, but I had to catch the glass first.

  It didn't break—what an accomplishment! a victory I haven't experienced since!—and I could make a grab for the rag, too.

 
Two tiny cloven hooves were sticking out.

  He wrapped the rag around them and pulled; he slowly backed away, still squatting, while the pig pushed and squealed.

  It's the struggle that is long, the event itself unnoticed.

  The little body slipped out so smoothly that Kálmán, still squatting, couldn't retreat fast enough; he plopped down on his butt, and between his spread legs there it was: the palely glistening lifeless body of the newborn, inside the glassy sac resting on the filthy floor.

  I think all three of us stopped breathing.

  The mother was the first to move, I think; she lifted her head as if wanting to see for herself, to make sure the thing had indeed happened, but she sank back from sheer exhaustion, though just as her head hit the floor some new excitement of elemental force coursed through her body, a happy force, because it made her nimble, adroit, quick, resilient, and inventive—which one would never have expected from such a large ungainly animal; she managed to shift her weight and turn over slightly, the long umbilical cord allowing for the movement, so that the piglet still between Kálmán's legs hardly stirred; grunting and snorting jubilantly, she leaned closer, sniffed her baby, trembled with joy at recognizing its smell, and then with two sharp snaps bit through the cord; while Kálmán maneuvered his way out of the pen, sliding clumsily on the seat of his pants, the sow got up, sprang up really, and began licking and prancing around the little body, grunting as she impatiently prodded it, poked it, lapped it up almost, until it finally began to breathe.

  When about an hour later we shut the pigpen door and the wooden bolt slid quietly home, there were four piglets sucking on their mother's hot, milk-filled, purple-red teats.

  The summer night was silent, dark, and full of stars.

  The dog followed us.

  Kálmán went to the back, dropped his pants, and took a long leak.

  I was alone in the middle of the yard, with only the dog standing next to me.

  There, in the manure pile, Kálmán also buried the afterbirth.