A Book of Memories (60 page)

Look, he said, drawing out the word as if with this one word he could gain precious time for himself, you must know much better than I what you may or may not ask of me, but first of all, don't shout at me, don't try so desperately to be right! and second of all, please let me ask you, like this, very calmly, that aside from my so-called case
—because in our relationship that case no longer makes any difference—tell me, how many death warrants have you signed? I'm curious, purely for statistical reasons.

Father remained quiet for a while, but they kept looking at each other, their eyes locked; and now it was Father's turn for fancy language, saying that he did not consider the question justified, since János must know that he could not have signed a single death warrant, that wasn't part of his job, therefore the question, at least in this formulation, was inappropriate.

Oh, of course, sorry! he'd completely forgotten about that
—he begged Father's pardon.

That's right, Father said, he too drawing out his words, as a prosecutor he might ask for the death penalty in a given case, but as is well known, two members of the people's tribunal and a people's judge brought in the verdict as they saw fit.

Why, of course, János cried, that's how it is, this jurisdiction, these legal proceedings, it's all so complicated, Father should forgive him, but he always got lost in them, got everything all mixed up.

Yes, that's how it is, and one shouldn't mix it all up.

Well, in that case, everything's all right!

I would have liked very much to get out of there, but I didn't dare move the air in the room.

Because he was of the opinion, Father continued ominously, slowly and quietly, that based on their former acquaintance, and he didn't know which one of them had been more radical, János wouldn't have acted differently in a similar situation; he would have discharged his duties to the best of his beliefs, wouldn't he? and therefore he saw the roles they had been assigned during the past five years as the work of mere chance.

Their voices were lowered to the level of whispering, of hissing, while Mother also kept up her whispering: No, don't, not now, I beg of you, not now.

There, you see, János whispered, I would have forgotten about the role of chance, but even if it was a series of chances, they've become facts which now, for some reason, seem to bother you, why? why this ludicrous display of emotion? if that was my role, as you say, then it's all right, we're all set; I'm over here, and you're over there, and there's nothing I want to tell you, you understand?

He was ready to tell him everything he knew, everything, Father said; all he was asking now
—asking, not demanding, because he really had no right to demand—all he was asking was that János tell him what circumstances he had been alluding to earlier.

Because your honor is at stake, János said.

Yes, my winter-coated father said, my honor.

It got very quiet again, and in this quiet I started for the door; the silence made Mother open her eyes, because she wanted to see what was happening in the silence; I walked past her, right in front of her eyes, but she didn't notice that I could walk again.

You're conducting my interrogation very skillfully, János said, but then you really know me, you know almost more about me than I do myself.

What was he talking about? Father asked.

He wasn't talking about anything, and he didn't want to talk to him about anything at all.

This I heard as I was on my way out, but I couldn't actually leave, because Father began to scream; it was as if the earth itself was shaking and everything that man had ever built on its thin crust was going to collapse, crash, crumble; the sound was that of crying and wild yelling, the kind of male sobbing that's only a breath of self-discipline away from murder; pressing his hands against his temples so he wouldn't murder the other man, or maybe to keep his head from splitting open, he was crying and screaming, But why? why like this? I can't stand it! I can't! and he went on screaming that János didn't understand anything, how could he ever tell János about the nights spent waiting, when he thought he was going to be next, when he felt completely alone; yes, he was ashamed, but didn't understand; no, he wasn't ashamed, just didn't understand why his best friend, who made him die a thousand deaths, didn't want to talk to him.

You are disgraceful, ridiculous, you are disgusting, János said clearly and calmly.

I was holding on to the doorpost, to the white wood.

But why, why? he can't see it, he can't stand it anymore, it hurt so much.

When you walked in here, János said, and I looked at you, I thought there was enough decency left in you
—no, not decency, just common sense—to take a look at what you've done.

Father's hands dropped, for an instant his breath seemed to stop, his lips were parted by the child's pain that erupted with those murderous manly sobs; still, I felt that these were not signs of weakness, his body remained strong.

It was as if this body were telling him that his life was nothing more than a minute curiosity and nothing mattered except what this other body was telling him.

All right, János said gravely, let's get it over with, and with his big blue eyes growing even bigger he looked into Father's blue eyes, and every last wrinkle on his face relaxed; order returned to his face; but I don't want you to misunderstand, he said, listen: on the second day, and you should know very well what the second day means in there, they showed me a piece of paper signed by you, a confession stating that when I was released in May '35 I'd told you, in tears, that I couldn't take the beatings anymore, and Sombor and his fascist thugs got me to work for them as an operative
—he faltered for a moment and took a deep breath—and you took it on yourself not to report me because I was crying so hard, he said, and under some pretext you let me lie low for a while so I'd have nothing to report to my new handlers; no, this is not a confrontation, not a settling of accounts, I'm not calling you to account! he shouted, but when I prevented our operation at Szob and Mária was caught because of me, then you became convinced I was working for them, after all.

But that's ridiculous, Father said, everybody knows we worked together in our hideout for two whole months after that.

From the second day on, make that the third day, János corrected himself, because he'd needed a bit more time to grasp things, he admitted everything, anything they wanted him to.

But he never signed any statement, Father insisted.

Not only did he sign it, he even corrected the typos, as always, as János remembered his friend and his meticulous ways.

No, no, there must be a misunderstanding; he never made out a deposition about János, nobody ever asked him for one.

You're lying, János said.

I was holding on to the smooth white doorpost, hoping it would help me slip out of the room, and I almost made it, I was almost out.

János, believe him, he's telling the truth now, I heard Mother's faint voice.

He is lying, János said.

At that moment, without the sound of her footsteps announcing her, Grandmother appeared, our bodies nearly colliding in the open doorway.

No, János, I would know about it, I heard Mother say inside the room; I wouldn't have let him, János; but nobody ever asked him to do it.

Grandmother had come from the direction of the kitchen, and her face was flushed with the steam and vapors of cooking, with the gentle expression of bashful triumph and anxious anticipation that is inscribed on a housewife's face only when cooking is not a bother, not a burdensome daily chore but a myriad of tiny conditioned gestures and moves, when peeling, grating, lifting the lids, tasting the food, yanking pots off the fire, scalding, rinsing, stirring, and straining receive their true, lovely, and festive meaning from the heightened attention and dedication of the cook, because sitting in a distant room, a beloved guest is waiting for the meal, and now that it's all ready it must be announced, but will they really like it? and it was clear that she wasn't coming straight from the kitchen but had first stopped in the bathroom to fix her hair, touch a powder puff to her face, and put on a little lipstick; she probably changed, too, so as not to bring the kitchen smells with her; she was wearing the silver-gray corduroy housedress that went so well with her silvery-gray hair, and now, as she hugged me for a second to avoid our crashing into each other, I got a whiff of her freshly applied perfume
—two dabs behind the ears, always.

It was unlikely that she hadn't heard the last few sentences spoken in the room, and even if she hadn't caught their meaning, filled as she was with the excitement of her own activities, it was impossible that she wouldn't have sensed from the intonations, just from the way the three of them were standing
—far apart, frozen in place, stiff in the grip of their emotions—the awesome tension in the room; but she was not to be distracted, and with a deliberate but not rude gesture she swept me aside, in her high-heeled slippers she stepped quickly into the room, and with a solemn face, as though she were blind and deaf or incredibly stupid, made her announcement: Come on, everybody, dinner's on the table!

Of course she sensed what was going on, but with her gentility and fastidiousness, her long stiff waist, puritan humorlessness, fuzzy upper lip, and chiseled, somewhat dry features
—at the moment made more lively and feminine by the kitchen heat and the excitement of János's presence—Grandmother was like an antediluvian creature of bourgeois decorum; she came, and with the cruelty of her obtuseness she plowed through events and phenomena of human life that, in her view of the world, could not be reconciled with the demands of propriety and dignified behavior, as if to say with her superior air (in which there was nothing aristocratic because she was not above but only bypassed the things she was critical of) that what we cannot find solutions for is better left unacknowledged, or at least we should not let on that our eyes see everything, and with the illusion thus created we ought to facilitate the inevitable unfolding of events, and we ought to deflect, stall, wait, let ride, and evaluate things before taking action, because action is judgment, and that is a very tricky business! as a child, I was terribly disturbed by this attitude, disgusted by the lying it implied, and a very long time had to pass before, in light of my own bitter experiences, I made its wisdom my own, before I understood and could sense that seemingly phony, willful blindness and feigned deafness require much more flexibility and understanding than openly demonstrated sympathy and helpfulness; her approach assumes more considerateness and a greater allowance for human fallibility than so-called sincerity, a more forthright, truth-seeking response, does; her mode of behavior is a way of curbing innate aggressiveness and hasty judgment, albeit at the price of another kind of aggressiveness; at that moment she must have been in her element; without batting an eye she entered the room as if it were a drawing room in which guests were making small talk while sipping aperitifs; just how fully aware she was of the seriousness of the moment became apparent when, without giving herself time to catch her breath, she turned to Father, expressed surprise at seeing him there—we'll need another setting— and in her most casual manner, in a kind of chatty, slightly military tone, told him he should take off his coat, wash up, and then let's go, yes, everybody, she wouldn't want the food to spoil! and she had already turned to János, to whom this playacting was addressed, the performance meant to say that no matter what happens, we are a normal, loving, smoothly functioning family; perhaps it wouldn't be inappropriate to interject here that the last qualifier points to the wise moral of bourgeois propriety, to its practicality, which was that life must remain functional at all times and at all cost; this won't be much of a lunch, just something I've thrown together, she said, smiling; she looked at János for a long time, giving him a chance to collect himself, then gently touched his arm and told him he couldn't possibly imagine how happy she was to see him.

My grandmother's staunchly resolute dissembling in itself could not have cooled emotions which had reached the boiling point, or steered them to the calmer waters of reason and understanding; in their present state, it was not only difficult to see how these murderous emotions, which required clarification, could be cooled from one minute to the next, since they all desperately needed to arrive at the truth, but was also conceivable that Grandmother's obvious falsity might be the last straw, and all the anger, shame, despair, suspicion, and pain that had erupted during those few moments, seeking solace in a palpable truth, would now rain down on her head; Mother turned red with hatred for her mother, as if she wanted to yell at her to get out! or to fall on her, grab her by the throat, and smother that detestable false voice, but she was prevented from yielding to the impulse by their moral code, my parents' the exact opposite of Grandmother's, whose essence lay in making the finest, most subtle distinctions among the means of their tactics and strategies in pursuit of a certain end, between their legal and illegal conduct, and in making these distinctions they must remain appropriately discreet and unpredictable, which is what ensured them of moral superiority and practical power; therefore, any extreme manifestation of word or gesture, would be tantamount to treason, a betrayal of their mutual trust; they wouldn't allow themselves to express their emotions freely, the inner conflict of their secret lives had to remain a secret; this was the restricted area they guarded with the same conspiratorial means they had used to set it up, they had to settle everything between themselves and totally exclude a hostile and suspicious outside world; for me, the most remarkable thing about this whole scene was the way the two modes of behavior
—nourished by two totally opposite motivations and with dissembling and illusion for their common ground—wound up blending peacefully into each other.