A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  Our secrets carried us into the world of the powerful, initiated us into adulthood by making us prematurely mature and sensible, and of course set us apart from the world of ordinary people, where everything worked more simply and predictably.

  These love letters referred openly and unequivocally to the hours in which, by some peculiar mistake, we had been conceived—by mistake, because they didn't want us, they wanted only their love.

  For example, in one of her letters to my father, Mária Stein described in great detail what it was like to be embraced by János Hamar and then by Father. In her letter, and I distinctly remember this, it was the stylistic value of the word that troubled me most; I would have loved to understand "embrace" as a hug, a kind of friendly hug and squeeze, but of course there was no doubt that the word alluded to something else, which for a child was a little like watching an animal in heat that suddenly starts speaking—interesting but incomprehensible; the letters Mother got from János Hamar before I was born were no less ardent; this was the same János Hamar who then disappeared from our lives as mysteriously and unexpectedly as Maria Stein did; neither of them came around anymore, and I was supposed to forget them, because my parents wanted it that way; Maja, on the other hand, was visibly pained by the fact that her father was still seeing this Olga woman, even though as far as her mother knew, the affair had ended long ago; Maja was forced to become her father's silent accomplice, though she loved her mother more.

  I imagine the archangels covered God's eyes while we pored over these letters.

  We made things somewhat easier on ourselves by quickly dismissing the letters as unimportant and silly—how could respectable, middle-aged people scribble such smutty things to each other?—thus extinguishing the flames of our interest, which had been fanned by our own nature, we went about even more desperately looking for crimes that did not exist, at least not in the form we imagined.

  Except I couldn't take it anymore: there was nothing premeditated about my decision; it was a sudden and complete indifference toward the whole business, a feeling, that these drawers with all the papers in them no longer interested me; they had before but now for some reason didn't, and I must leave.

  While the setting sun still shone outside, a soft dimness was already spreading within; it was nice, and somehow made the large desk loom even larger and more gloomily, and in the fine layer of dust covering its smooth dark surface, I could see Maja's telltale fingerprints.

  And there was something else: a strange, unfamiliar, and infinitely light sensation that I in fact existed, not irresponsibly but in full awareness of my responsibilities, and that I should stop doing what I was doing, and it would be not cowardly to stop but, on the contrary, an act of courage; I was still bothered by how tensely and crookedly she drew up her shoulders, that movement bothered me, and so did the traces our search had left behind; it may have been the feeling of being conscious of my body, that earlier erection provoked by her nearness, which now removed me from the childish games that we had transformed into a seemingly serious activity; I don't quite know what it was, except I felt that I must break out of this, and now! it seemed that all I wanted was that these lovely, slender, restive shoulders of hers—I did love it that she looked so impossibly thin in her mother's dress, I liked them more than Hédi's fuller, broader shoulders, which would have no trouble filling out such a dress— yes, I wanted these shoulders to relax, to be like, like .. . but just what they should be like my wish failed to spell out; and if I had said anything then, if I had said that I didn't want to go on, her probable reaction would have been quite different from what I wanted.

  And I also knew I would lose her, something would come to an end, but this knowledge caused me neither pain nor fear; the feeling was as if, within me, what would occur between us only in the next moment had already come to pass; some things had to come to an end, and one need not regret them.

  But I did not want to be rude to her; this had gone too far, but still, I mustn't end it rudely.

  Somebody's coming, I said quietly.

  The hand with which she had just pulled out the bottom drawer stopped for a moment; she listened, then quickly pushed the drawer home, but since there was not the slightest noise to be heard, it was the sound of my voice rather than the situation that made her wonder; she couldn't understand why I was lying so obviously as to give myself away; it wasn't a decent thing to do.

  And as if she'd just been slapped in the face—which she wouldn't have minded as much—she looked up, her hand still on the drawer.

  It's nothing, I thought somebody was coming, I said a little louder; to make it more believable, I should have shrugged my shoulders, but I indicated I was still lying, and deliberately, by leaving my shoulders motionless; in the meantime, my eyes followed the subtle change taking place in her as the result of an emerging but still unfocused emotion; she blushed as if embarrassed, and at the same time the very thing I hoped for actually occurred: her whole body was relaxing, and as she crouched there in front of the drawer her shoulders relaxed.

  She didn't understand me, but she didn't seem offended.

  I have to go home, I said, sounding pretty dry.

  Had I gone crazy? she asked.

  I nodded, and sensed the feeling of lightness growing stronger, because I felt no need to explain anything and there was no point in spoiling this feeling.

  Because it was so fragile, I was afraid it might vanish altogether and then everything would be as difficult as it had been before; this feeling had to be treated with care, and this game of maintaining my inner balance had to do with the fact that I couldn't just suddenly turn around or back out of the room, I had to do it so that she would wish it, too, or at least so it wouldn't happen without her, even though she'd stay—at least that's how I felt.

  Come with me, I said, because suddenly I wanted to be magnanimous.

  She stood up very slowly, her face lingering near mine; she looked serious; in her surprise she opened her mouth just a little, wrinkled her nose and forehead, as she did when she was reading and wanted to understand from a distance what was there in front of her eyes.

  But I immediately felt it was impossible; she had to stay, and that was a pity.

  You chickenshit, she said, as if she had opened her mouth only to close it again so I wouldn't see that she understood everything.

  She understood all my hidden motives; the smile she saw playing on my lips—I didn't want to smile but felt it anyway—filled her with such hatred that she turned red again, because seeing my treachery made her feel ashamed for me.

  What the hell was I waiting for, then, she said, I should go, get the fuck out of there, miserable coward that I was, what was I standing there for like a prick?

  My head began to move toward the mouth spewing the invectives, I wanted to bite into it, and as my mouth, my teeth, reached the light playing on the dark skin of her spitting mouth, before making contact, she quickly closed her eyes, but I didn't close mine, because I was involved not with her but with my own feelings; I saw that as her lips stirred under my teeth, her eyelids were trembling.

  I wanted to stop her mouth with my teeth, but those warm, soft lips, parting curiously, seemed to be longing for my mouth, and we drew back, simultaneously, because her mouth sensed the sharpness of my teeth.

  And when I stepped out the garden gate and began walking up the hill, I would have liked Kálmán to be there waiting for her again; I imagined motioning to him casually: Go on in, she's all yours; this could happen only in my imagination, because in reality they were far from each other, everyone was far away, and at last I was alone with my own feelings.

  It was as if nature had unveiled to me the feeling created by the union of two bodies.

  Today I know that this peculiar, powerful, and triumphant feeling began to germinate when my body made me experience what "girl," a word familiar to me for thirteen years, really meant, and the feeling blossomed to fulfillment the moment my body made me refuse any further
rummaging through those drawers; I took this feeling with me that day like a rare treasure, to be shielded, protected, and kept out of harm's way, submerged so deeply in myself that I didn't notice where I was walking, I was merely putting one foot before the other, as though my body was not mine but that of this feeling; coddling this feeling, my body kept walking on the familiar street, in the summer twilight, between the shores of the forest, only vaguely aware of being accompanied, behind the fence of that restricted area, by the watchdog on duty; and my body felt neither fear nor aversion, since this wonderful feeling was there to shut out everything obscure, secretive, and forbidden; today I know that as the afternoon turned into dusk that day this feeling caused a complete change in me: it did not want me to know or understand what I could never hope to know or understand, it kept me from plunging to the depths of despair and revulsion and at the same time let me know where my place was among the world's creatures, which, for a body, is certainly more important than some ideals and their degree of purity; I was happy, and if I didn't believe that the feeling of happiness is nothing but concealed remembrance I'd say I was happy for the first time, happy because I felt that this sweet tranquillity, surfacing so suddenly and guiding my every move, had extinguished all my pains, conquered them once and forever.

  It extinguished them with a kiss, and it is also true that in that kiss there lingered the memory of another, grievous kiss; at that moment, on Maja's lips I said goodbye to Krisztián, said goodbye to my childhood, feeling strong, omniscient, as one who, annealed by dread and sorrow, can size up all his possibilities, understand the meaning of words, rules, regulations, one who need not go on searching and experimenting; this was the nature of my happiness, or this is what made me happy, even though this feeling, which seemed to explain and resolve so many things, was nothing else, nothing more than a reprieve of the body, necessary for its own self-defense and granted to us for only a brief moment of transition.

  That is how our feelings look out for us, deceiving us so as to protect us, giving us something good, and while we hold on to our momentary pleasure, distracted by happiness, the evil is quickly taken back, which is not really deception, because every evil feeling leaves a residue behind.

  I am talking about a momentary reprieve, though Maja and I never again played detective; my precious feelings, my final shrinking back, my blissful defense mechanism ended our perverse activities, and our relationship also broke off almost completely; we no longer knew what to do with each other, because what could be more interesting than mutually perverting the emotional ties we had for our respective parents, and since nothing was more exciting than that, we pretended to be offended, barely saying hello to each other, so that under that pretext we could forget the real reason for our anger.

  And I would have forgotten about the whole affair, and in the meantime maybe a whole year had gone by.

  When, on an innocent afternoon in the earliest spring, having returned from school, I saw that strange coat hanging on the rack in the foyer, and the chain of events that followed reawakened in me a world of secret feelings, suspicions, and forbidden knowledge which, following the wrong path but enjoying the dark pleasure of our reckless games, Maja and I had acquired.

  Our silly searches were also dictated by a singular feeling, hinting and intimating that despite our environment's aggressively maintained appearance of wholesome well-being, something was not quite right: we looked for reasons and explanations and, finding none, discovered the frightful agony of doubt, became well acquainted with a feeling which, in a way, was the emotional form of the day's historical reality.

  But how could we have understood, how could our childish minds have conceived that in our feelings the most complete form of truth was made manifest to us? we were after something more tangible, something to hold in our hands, and that is how our feelings were guarding us against our feelings.

  We couldn't have known yet that destiny, which would eventually also reveal to us the palpable contents of our feelings and explain in retrospect the connection between seemingly disparate emotions, always travels in roundabout ways, arriving secretly, inconspicuously, and quietly, and one need not rush it; it cannot and should not be rushed.

  It arrives one afternoon very late in the winter, almost like all other winter afternoons, announcing itself in the form of a strange overcoat with an unpleasant, musty smell, shabby-looking, and only one of its buttons resembles the buttons on Krisztián's coat, maybe its color is also like that of his coat.

  The dark coat on the rack could mean only one thing: a guest had arrived, an unusual guest, because it is a stern-looking coat, quite unlike those that usually hang on the rack; it cannot be the doctor's or a relative's, which would have a different smell; this is more like a coat emerging from the depths of imaginings, from the distance of anxieties, from oblivion; I heard no strange noises or anyone talking, everything seemed as usual, so I simply opened the door to Mother's room and, without fully comprehending my own surprise, took a few steps toward the bed.

  A strange man was kneeling in front of the bed, holding Mother's hand and bending over it as it lay on the coverlet; he was crying, his shoulders and back shaking, and while he kept kissing the hand, with her free hand Mother held the man's head, sinking her fingers into the stranger's short-cropped, almost completely white hair, as if wanting to pull him closer by his hair, but gently, consolingly.

  This is what I saw when I walked in, and like a knife tearing into my chest the thought hit me: So it's not just János Hamar, there was another one! oh, the hatred welling up in me! but I did take a few more steps toward the bed, driven now by hatred, too, and saw the man lift his head from Mother's hand, not too quickly, while Mother abruptly let go of his hair, leaned forward, raising herself slightly off her pillows, threw me a quick glance, and, terrified that I might have just discovered her repulsive secret, told me to leave the room.

  Rut the man told me to come closer.

  They spoke simultaneously, Mother in a choking, faltering voice, at the same time her hand rushing to her neck to pull together her soft white robe so I would not see that her nightgown was open, too, and then I knew immediately what they had been doing; she had shown him, she'd shown her breast to the stranger, her breast that had been cut off, she had shown him the scar; the stranger spoke in a kind, soft voice, as if he were truly glad to see me come in now, unexpectedly, at the wrong moment; in the end, embarrassed and confused by the contradictory signals, I stayed where I was.

  A slender shaft of late-afternoon sunlight pierced the window, outlining with wintry severity the intricate patterns of the drawn curtains on the lifeless shine of the floor; and it seemed that everything was booming, even the light; outside, the drainpipes were dripping, melted snow from the roof sloshed and gurgled through the eaves so loudly it sounded amplified; leaving Mother and the stranger in the shade, the shaft of light reached only as far as the foot of the bed, where a small, poorly tied package lay; as the man straightened himself, wiped the tears from his eyes, smiled, and stood up, I already knew who he was, though I didn't want to know; his suit also seemed strange, like his coat on the rack outside, a lightweight, slightly faded summer suit; he was very tall, taller than the János Hamar preserved in my memory, the man my turbulent feelings did not want to recognize, these booming emotions were trying to protect other emotions; he was very tall, his face pale and handsome, both his suit and white shirt wrinkled.