I. The News of their Coming
One morning near the end of October, not long before the first drops of the mercilessly long autumn rains began to fall on the cracked and saline soil on the western side of the plot (so that later the stinking yellow sea of mud might render footpaths impassable and put the town too beyond reach) Futaki woke to hear bells. The closest possible source was a lonely chapel about four kilometres south-west on the old Hochmeiss estate but not only did that have no bell but the tower had collapsed during the war and it was too far to hear anything at that distance. And in any case, it was not of distant bells these ringing-booming triumphal sounds reminded him but something quite close (“It was as if they came from the mill...”) swept along by the wind. He propped himself on his elbows on the pillow so as to look out of the mousehole-sized kitchen window that was partly misted up, towards the faint blue dawn sky but the field was still and silent bathed only in the ever fainter bell sound; and the only light to be seen was that percolating from the doctor's window among the other houses set well apart on the far side, and that was only because its occupant had for years been unable to sleep in the dark. He held his breath because he did not want to lose a single stray note of the rapidly fading clangor in order to know the truth (“You are bound to be asleep, Futaki...”) and in order to be assured of it he needed to hear every single sound, however isolated. He hobbled on his famous cat-like feet across the ice-cold stone floor of the kitchen (“But is no one awake? Don't people hear it? Is there nobody else?”), opened the windows, and leaned out. A sharp damp gust caught him so he had to close his eyes for a moment and, apart from the cockcrow, a distant bark and the howling of the persistent wind that had sprung up just a few minutes earlier, there was nothing to hear however hard he listened but the dull beat of his own heart, as if the whole thing had been merely a ghostly game, half-dream, as if (“... somebody out there wants to scare me”). He gazed sadly at the unpropitious looking sky, at the burned out remnants of a locust- plagued summer and suddenly saw, as in a vision, the progress of spring, summer, fall and winter on the twig of an acacia, as if the whole of time were a kind of fooling about within the sphere of eternity, a devilishly clever drawing forth of something straight out of chaos, establishing a vantage point while disguising anarchy to look like necessity... and he saw himself on a cross, its wood comprised of cradle and coffin, as he tried to jerk his body clear of suffering if only so that he might eventually render it - with no identifying mark, no sign of rank and stripped down to its essentials - into the care of those who wash down corpses, all by an order snapped out in the dry air against a background of guffawing from busy torturers and flailers of skin, who had decreed that he should take proper merciless measure of the human condition without the danger of a single path leading him back because if there was such a path it would immediately remind him that he had fallen into the company of cardsharps who had long ago decided the outcome of the game and who would, in the end, strip him even of his last means of defence, of the hope that some day he might find his way back home. He turned his head towards the east where a busy loud estate once stood, now nothing but a set of dilapidated and deserted buildings, watching while the first rays of a swollen red sun broke through the topmost beams of a derelict farmhouse from which the tiles had been stripped. “I should make the decision at last. I can't stay here.” He drew the warm duvet over him again and laid his head on his arm, but he could not close his eyes; the ghostly bells had frightened him but it was the threatening silence afterwards that really did it because he felt anything might happen now. But he did not move a muscle in bed, not until the objects around him that had so far been merely listening started up a nervous conversation (the sideboard gave a creak, a saucepan rattled, a china plate slid into back into the rack) at which point he suddenly turned in the bed away from the sour perspiration smell of Mrs Schmidt, felt with his hand for the glass of water left standing by the bed and drained it at one gulp. Having done so he was free of his childish terror: he sighed, wiped his sweating brow, and knowing that Schmidt and Kráner were only just now herding the cattle together to drive them west from the Szikes towards the Farm byres to the west where they would eventually receive eight-months worth of hard-earned wages, and that this would take a good couple of hours, he decided to try and get a bit more sleep. He closed his eyes, turned on his side, put his arm around the woman and had almost succeeded in nodding off when he heard the bells again. “For God's sake!” He pushed aside the duvet but the moment his naked corn-hardened feet touched the stone floor the bells suddenly stopped as if (“Someone had given a signal...”)... He sat hunched on the edge of the bed his hands clasped in his lap till the empty glass caught his attention: his throat was dry, his right leg was suffering shooting pains and now he did not dare either get up or go back under the covers. “I am leaving by tomorrow at the very latest.” He surveyed the vaguely usable articles in the bare kitchen, from the burned fat and cooking range filthy with leftover scraps, through the handle-less basket under the bed, the rickety table, the dusty icons hanging on the wall and the saucepans, his eye finally resting on the tiny window and the bare branches of the acacia bending across Halicsek's house with its dented roof and teetering chimney, the smoke blowing from it, and said, “I'll grab what is mine and go tonight!.. No later than tomorrow at any rate. Tomorrow morning.” “Dear God!” Mrs Schmidt cried, waking suddenly and stared about her in the dusk, terrified, her chest heaving, but when she saw that everything looked back at her with a familiar expression she gave a relieved sigh and slumped back on the pillow. “What's the matter? Bad dreams?” Futaki asked her. Mrs Schmidt was staring at the ceiling in fright. “Good Lord, and how!” She sighed again and put her hand on her heart. “Such things! Me?!...Who'd have imagined?... There I am sitting in the room and... suddenly there is a knock at the window. I did not dare open it, just stood there, peeking through the curtains. I only saw his back because by now he was shaking the door-handle... and his mouth as he bellowed but God knows what he was saying... He was unshaven and it seemed his eyes were made of glass... it was horrible... Then I remembered I had only given the key one turn the previous night, but I also knew that by the time I got there it would be too late... so I quickly slammed the kitchen door but then I realised I didn't have the key... I wanted to scream but no sound came from my throat. Then... I don't exactly recall why or how but... suddenly Mrs Halics was at the window, grinning?... there she was staring into the kitchen and then, I don't know how, she vanished... though by that time the man outside was kicking at the door and he would be through it in a minute and break in, then I thought of the bread-knife and I dashed over to the cupboard but the drawer was jammed and I kept trying to open it... I thought I would die of terror... then I hear the great explosion of the door bursting open and somebody coming down the hall... I still couldn't open the drawer... then there he was at the kitchen door and now I finally succeeded in opening the drawer and grabbed the knife, and he was getting closer waving his arms about... but I don't know... suddenly he was lying on the floor in the corner by the window... and, yes, he had a lot of red and blue saucepans with him that started flying all over the kitchen... and then I felt the floor move under me and, just imagine, the whole kitchen set off, like a car... and I don't know any more after that...” she ended and laughed in relief. “We're a fine pair,” Futaki shook his head. “I woke to, what do you think? To someone ringing bells...” “What!” the woman stared at him in astonishment. “Someone was ringing bells? Where?” “I don't understand it either. In fact not once but twice, one after the other...” It was Mrs Schmidt's turn to shake her head. “You, you'll end up going crazy.” “Or I might have dreamt it all too,” grumbled Futaki nervously. “Mark my words. Something is going to happen today.” The woman turned to him angrily. “You're always saying that, just leave it alone, can't you?” Suddenly they heard the gate creaking open at the back. They stared each other in fright. “It must be him,” whispered Mrs Schmidt. “I can feel it.” Futaki sat up in shock. “But, but that's impossible! How could they have got back yet...?” “How should I know...? Go! Go now!” He leapt out of bed, grabbed his clothes, stuck them under his arm, shut the door behind him and dressed. “My stick. I have left my stick out there.” The Schmidts hadn't used the room since spring. Green mildew covered the cracked and peeling walls, but the clothes in the cupboard that was regularly cleaned were also mildewed, as were the towels and all the bedding and a couple of weeks was all it took for the cutlery saved in the drawer for special occasions to develop a coating of rust, and what with the legs of the lace covered big table having worked loose, the curtains having yellowed and the light-bulb having gone out one day they moved into the kitchen for good and, since there was nothing they could do to stop it happening anyway, left the room to be colonised by spiders and mice. He leaned against the doorpost and pondered how he might get out without being seen, but the situation seemed pretty hopeless because in order for him to sneak out he would have to pass through the kitchen and he felt too decrepit to clamber through the window where he would, in any case, be observed by Mrs Kráner or Mrs Halics who spent half their lives peeking through their own windows to keep an eye on affairs outside. Besides which his stick, if Schmidt should discover it, would immediately betray the fact that he was hiding somewhere in the house and if that happened he might not receive his share at all since he knew Schmidt did not consider such things a joking matter, and he would have to scram much as he had seven years before - not long after the news spread, in the second month of his renaissance - when he first arrived here hungry in a single pair of ragged trousers and a faded greatcoat with empty pockets. Mrs Schmidt ran into the hall while he put his ear to the door. “No whining, sweetheart!” he heard Schmidt's hoarse voice. “You'll do as I tell you. Is that clear?” Futaki felt a hot rush of blood. “My money.” He felt trapped. But he had no time to think so decided to climb out of the window after all because, “something had to be done right away.” He was about to open the window catch when he heard Schmidt going down the hall. “He's going to have a piss!” He tiptoed back to the door and held his breath to listen. And once he heard Schmidt close the door to the back yard, he carefully slipped into the kitchen, took the measure of a nervously fidgeting Mrs Schmidt and silently hurried to the front door, stepped out, and once he was sure his mate was back inside gave the door a good clatter as if he were just arriving. “What's up? Nobody at home? Hey, Schmidt!” he shouted as loud as he could, then - so as not to leave him any time to escape - immediately opened the door and blocked Schmidt's way out of the kitchen. “Well, well!” he asked in a mocking voice. “Where are we going in such a hurry, friend?” Schmidt was utterly stuck for words. “No, well I'll tell you, friend! Don't you worry, friend. I'll help you, don't you worry!” he continued with a deep frown. “You wanted to make off with the money! Am I right? Have I got it in one?” And since Schmidt still said nothing but was rapidly blinking, he shook his head. “Well, friend. Who would have thought it?” They went back into the kitchen and sat down facing each other. Schmidt was nervously fiddling with objects on the cooking range. “Listen, friend...” Schmidt stuttered. “I can explain...” Futaki waved him away. “I understand without explanations! Tell me, is Kráner part of this?” Schmidt was forced to nod. “A little.” “Sons of bitches!” Futaki raged. “You thought you'd get one over on me.” He bowed his head. He thought. “And now? What happens now?” he asked in the end. Schmidt spread his arms. He was angry. “What do you mean: what's next? You are one of us, friend.” “What do you mean?” Futaki enquired, mentally calculating sums. “Let the three of us split it,” Schmidt answered reluctantly. “But keep your mouth shut about it.” “Don't you worry about that.” Mrs Schmidt was standing by the range and gave a sigh. “Have you lost your minds? Do you think you can get away with this?” Schmidt acted as though he hadn't heard. He fixed his eye on Futaki. “There, you can't say we haven't made it clear. But there's something else I want to say to you, friend. Don't you mess things up for me.” “We've agreed, haven't we?” “Yes, of course, there's no doubt about that, not for a second!” Schmidt continued, his voice changing to a pleading whine. “All I ask is... I want you to lend me your share for a short time! Just for a year! While we settle down somewhere...” “And what other part of your anatomy do you want me to lick, friend?!” Futaki snapped back at him. Schmidt flopped forward and grasped the edge of the able. “I wouldn't ask you if you yourself hadn't said you'd not be shifting from here now. What do you need it all for? And it's just for a year... a year, that's all!... We have to have it, you understand, we just have to. I can't buy anything with the rags I'm standing up in, I can't even get a plot of land. Lend me ten at least, eh?” “I'm not interested!” Futaki answered. “I don't give a damn. I don't want to rot here either!” Schmidt shook his head furiously, so angry he was practically crying, then began again, obstinate but ever more helpless, his elbows propped on the kitchen table that rocked each time he moved as if taking his part, begging his partner to “have a heart” and respond to the pleading gestures of his friend, and it wouldn't have taken much more to succeed since he had almost resolved to give in when his eye caught on the million specks of dust swirling in a thin beam of sunlight and his nose became aware of the dank smell of the kitchen. Suddenly there was a sour taste on his tongue and he thought it was death. Since the farm had been split up, since people had been in as much rush to get away as they had been to come here and since he - along with a few families, with the doctor and the headmaster who, like him, had nowhere else to go - had found himself unable to move, it being the same, day after day, tasting the same range of food while knowing that death meant getting used to the soup, then the meat dishes, then to go on consuming the very walls, chewing long laborious mouthfuls before swallowing, slowly sipping at the wine rarely enough set in front of him, or the water, he sometimes felt an irresistible desire to break off a chunk of nitrous plaster in the machine hall of the old pump-house he lived in and cram it into his mouth so that he might recognise the Beware sign in the disturbing riot of normally ordered flavours, because he believed that death was only a kind of warning rather than a desperate and permanent end. “I'm not asking for a gift,” Schmidt continued, flagging now. “It's a loan. You understand? A loan. I'll return every last cent of it in precisely a year.” They sat at the table, both of them worn out, Schmidt's eyes burning from exhaustion. Futaki was furiously studying the mysterious patterns of the stone tiling. He mustn't show he is afraid, though he would have found it hard to explain what it was he was afraid of. “Just tell me this. How many times did I go out to Szikes, all by myself, in that intolerable heat where a man is scared to breathe the air in case it set fire to his insides?! Who got hold of the wood? Who built that sheepfold?! I have contributed just as much as you have, or Kráner, or Halics! And now you have the nerve to touch me for a loan. Oh yes, and it'll all be returned next time I see you, eh!” “In other words you don't trust me,” Schmidt replied, affronted. “Darn right!” Futaki snapped back. “You and Kráner meet up before dawn, plan to make off with all the money and after all that you expect me to trust you?! Do you take me for an idiot?” They sat silently together. The woman was clattering dishes by the stove. While Schmidt looked cheated, Futaki rolled a cigarette with trembling hands and got up from the table, limped over to the window, leant on his stick with his left hand and watched rain billowing over the rooftops, the trees bowing obedient to the wind, their bare branches describing threatening arcs in the air. He thought of the roots, the life-giving sap that was now soaking the earth and of the silence, of the unspoken feeling of completion he so dreaded. “In that case tell me....!” he asked in a hesitant manner, “Why you came back, once...” “Why? Why?!” Schmidt grumbled. “Because that is what occurred to us on the way home. And before we could think better of it we had got back... And then there was the woman... Would I have left her here?...” Futaki nodded. “What about Kráner” he asked after a while. “What's your arrangement with him?” “They're stuck at home, like us. They want to head north. Mrs Kráner heard there was an available copse or something there that had been blown up. We are to meet by the cross after dark was what we arranged.” Futaki gave a sigh. “A long day ahead. What about the others? Halics? The manager?...” Schmidt rubbed his fingers together despondently. “How should I know? I reckon Halics will spend the whole day asleep, there was a big do yesterday at the Horgoses. As for his highness, the manager, he can go to hell at the earliest opportunity! If there's any trouble on his account, I'll drown the sonofabitch in the next ditch, so relax, buddy, relax.” They decided to wait in the kitchen till the night fell. Futaki drew up a chair by the window so that he could keep an eye on the houses opposite while Schmidt was overcome by sleep, slumped over the table and began to snore. As for the woman she brought the big iron-strapped military trunk out from behind the cupboards, wiped away the dust on it, inside and out, then wordlessly began packing their things. “It's raining,” said Futaki. “I can hear,” replied the woman. The weak sunlight only just succeeded in penetrating a jumbled mass of cloud that was slowly proceeding eastwards: the light in the kitchen dimmed as if it were dusk and it was hard to know whether the gently vibrating patches on the wall were merely shadows or sinister marks left by the despair underlying their faintly hopeful thoughts. “I'll go south,” Futaki declared, gazing at the rain. “At least the winters are shorter there. I'll rent some land near a growing town and spend the day dangling my feet in a bowl of hot water...” Raindrops were gently trickling down both sides of the window owing to the finger-wide crack that ran all the way from the wooden beam to the window frame, slowly filling it up then pushing their way along the beam where they divided once more into drops that began to drip into Futaki's lap, while he, being so absorbed in his visions of far away places that he could not get back to reality, utterly failed to notice that he had actually wet himself. “Or I might go and take a job as a night-watchman in a chocolate factory... or perhaps as janitor in a girls' boarding school... and I will try to forget everything and do nothing but soak my feet in a bowl of hot water each night, while this filthy life passes...” The rain that had been gently pouring till now suddenly turned into a veritable deluge, like a river breaking over a dam, drowning the already choking fields, the lower lying of which were running in serpentine channels, and though it was impossible to see anything through the glass he did not turn away but stared at the worm-eaten wooden frame from which the putty had dropped out, when suddenly a vague form appeared at the window, one that eventually could be made out to be a human face, though he could not tell at first whose it was, until he succeeded in picking out a pair of startled eyes, at which point he saw “his own careworn features,” recognizing them with a shock like a stab of pain since he felt the rain was doing exactly what time would do to his face. It would wash it away. There was in that reflection something enormous and alien, a kind of poverty radiating from it, moving towards him, compounded of layers of shame, pride and fear. Suddenly he felt that sour taste in his mouth again and he remembered the bells tolling at dawn, the glass of water, the bed, the acacia bough, the cold flagstones in the kitchen and thinking of these he pulled a bitter pouting face. “A bowl of hot water!... Devil take it!... Don't I bathe my feet every day?...? Somewhere behind him he heard the sound of choked-off sobbing. “What's bugging you then?” Mrs Schmidt did not answer him but turned away, the sobs shaking her shoulders. “You hear me? What's up with you?” The woman looked up at him then simply sat down on the nearby stool and blew her nose like someone to whom speech was pointless. “Why don't you say something,” Futaki insisted. “What the hell is wrong with you?” “Where on earth should we go!” erupted Mrs Schmidt in bitterness. “The first town we come to some policeman is bound to stop us! Don't you understand? They won't even ask our names!” “What are you blathering about?” Futaki angrily retorted. “You will be loaded with money. And as for you--” “That is exactly what I mean!” the woman interrupted him. “The money! You at least might have some sense! To go away with this rotten old trunk... like a band of beggars!” Futaki was furious. “That's enough, now. Don't interfere. It has nothing to do with you. Your job is to shut up.” Mrs Schmidt would not let it rest. “What?” she snapped. “What is my job?” “Forget it,” Futaki answered quietly. “Keep it down or you'll wake him.” Time was passing very slowly and, lucky for them, the alarm clock had long stopped working so there was not even the sound of ticking to remind them of time, nevertheless the woman gazed at the still hands as she gave the paprika stew the occasional stir while the two men sat wearily by the steaming plates in front of them not touching them despite Mrs Schmidt's constant badgering for them to get on with it (“What are you waiting for? Do you want to eat at night, soaked to the skin in the mud?”) They did not turn the light on although objects washed into each other during that agonizing wait, the pans by the wall coming to life along with the icons on the wall and it even seemed there was someone in the bed. They hoped to escape these hallucinatory visions by stealing glances at one another but all three faces radiated helplessness, and while they knew they couldn't get started till nightfall (because they were sure that Mrs Halics or the manager would be sitting at their windows watching the path to Szikes with even greater anxiety now that Schmidt and Kráner were almost half a day late), every so often Schmidt or the woman made a move as if to say, blow caution, let's make a start at dusk. “They're off to see a movie,” Futaki quietly declared. “Mrs Halics, Mrs Kráner and the manager, Halics.” “Mrs Kráner?” Schmidt snapped. “Where?” And he rushed to the window. “He's right. He's darn right,” Mrs Schmidt nodded. “Hush!” Schmidt turned on her. “Don't be in such a hurry, sweetheart!” Futaki calmed him. “That's a smart woman. We have to wait till dark anyway, don't we? And this way no one gets suspicious, right?” Schmidt was edgy but sat back down at the table and buried his face in his hands. Futaki carried on despondently puffing smoke by the window. Mrs Schmidt drew out a length of twine from the depths of the kitchen cupboard and since the locks were too rusty to close, tied the trunk up with it and set it down by the door before sitting down next to her husband and clasping her hands together. “What are we waiting for?” asked Futaki. “Let's share out the money.” Schmidt stole a glance at his wife. “Don't we have time enough for that, old man?” Futaki rose and joined them at the table. He spread his legs and, rubbing his stubbled chin, fixed his eyes on Schmidt. “I say we share it out.” Schmidt ran a hand over his brow. “What are you worried about? You'll get your share when it's time.” “Then what are you waiting for, friend?” “What's with the fuss? Let's wait till we get Kramer's contribution.” Futaki smiled. “Look, it's very simple. We just halve what you've got there. Then when we get what's owing we'll split that at the cross.” “All right,” Schmidt agreed. “Fetch the torch.” “I'll do it,” the woman leapt up, agitated. Schmidt plunged his hand into his trench coat and brought out a package tied round with string and somewhat drenched through. “Wait,” cried Mrs Schmidt and quickly wiped the table with a rag. “Now.” Schmidt shoved a piece of paper under Futaki's nose. (“The document,” he said, “just so you see I am not trying to cheat you.”) Who tipped his head to one side and briefly took stock of it before pronouncing: “Let's get counting.” He pressed the torch into the woman's hand and watched the bank notes with shining eyes as they passed through Schmidt's stubby fingers and slowly piled up at the far side of the table, and, as he watched, his anger slowly evaporated, because now he understood how 'a man's mind might well get addled at the sight of so much cash, that he'd risk a lot to possess it'. Suddenly he felt his stomach cramp up, his mouth filled with saliva and, as the sweat-spotted wad in Schmidt's hand, began to shrink, and swell the piles on the other side of the table, the light from the flickering unsteady light in Mrs Schmidt's hand seemed to be shining in his eye as if she were deliberately doing it to blind him and he felt dizzy and weak, recovering only when Schmidt's cracked voice announced: “That's the precise amount!” But just as he was reaching forward to take his half share somebody right by the window shouted: “Are you in, Mrs Schmidt, darling?” Schmidt snatched the torch from his wife's hand and snapped it off, pointing to the table, whispering: “Quick, hide it!” Mrs Schmidt lightning fast, sweeping it all together and stuffing the bills between her breasts, mouthing almost silently: “Miss-us Ha-lics!” Futaki sprang to conceal himself between the range and the cupboard, back tight against the wall, visible only as two phosphorescent points, as if he were a cat. “Go out and tell her to go to hell!” Schmidt whispered, escorting her as far as the door where she froze for an instant before giving a sigh and stepping out into the hall, clearing her throat as she did so. “All right, all right, I'm going!” “We'll be fine providing she didn't see the light!” Schmidt whispered to Futaki though he himself did not really believe that, and having hidden himself behind the door was so nervous he had a job remaining in one place. “If she dares take a step in I'll throttle her,” he thought in desperation and swallowed hard. These early morning bells, Mrs Halics's unexpected appearance, it must be a conspiracy, there must be some significant connection, and as the slowly drifting smoke enveloped him it fired his imagination once more. “Maybe there'll be life on the estate yet? They might bring new machines, new people might come, everything could start all over again. They could mend the walls, give the buildings a fresh coat of lime-wash and get the pumphouse going. They might be wanting a machinist, mightn't they?” Mrs Schmidt stood in the door, her face pale. “You can come out,” she said in a hoarse voice and turned on the light. Schmidt leapt over to her, blinking furiously. “What are you doing? Turn it off! They might see us!” Mrs Schmidt shook her head. “Forget it. Everyone knows I'm at home, don't they?” Schmidt was obliged to nod in acknowledgment as he grabbed her arm. “So what happened? Did she notice the light?” “Yes,” Mrs Schmidt replied, “but I told her I was so nervous on account of you still not having returned that I fell asleep waiting and when I suddenly woke and turned the light on the bulb blew. I said I was just changing the bulb when she called out and that was why the torch was on...” Schmidt murmured in approval then grew anxious again. “What about us? What did she say... did she spot us?” “No, I'm certain she didn't.” Schmidt breathed a sigh of relief. “Then what in God's name did she want?” The woman looked blank. “She's gone mad,” she replied quietly. “No surprise there,” Schmidt remarked. “She said...” Mrs Schmidt added, her voice hesitant, looking now at Schmidt, now at the tensely attentive Futaki, “she said that Irimias and Petrina were coming down the metalled road... they were on their way to the estate! And that they might already have arrived at the inn...” For a minute or so neither Futaki nor Schmidt were capable of saying anything. “Apparently the conductor of the long-distance bus... he saw them in town...” the woman broke the silence and bit her lip. “And that he set out... they set out for the estate... in this furious weather, this time of judgment... the conductor saw them as he turned off for Elek, that's where he has his farmstead, he was hurrying home.” Futaki sprang to his feet. “Irimias? And Petrina?” Schmidt gave a laugh. “That woman. Mrs Halics really has gone mad this time. She's been at the Bible too much. It's gone to her head.” Mrs Schmidt stood stock still. Then she spread out her helpless arms and ran over to the range and flung herself on the stool propping her head on her hand. “Should it be true...” Schmidt turned on her, impatient. “But they're dead!” “If it should be true...” Futaki repeated quietly as if completing Mrs Schmidt's line of thought, “then the Horgos kid was simply lying...” Mrs Schmidt suddenly raised her head to look at Futaki. “And we had only his word for it,” she said. “That's right,” Futaki nodded and lit another cigarette, his hand trembling. “And do you remember? I said back there was something not quite right about the story... there was something about it I didn't like. But no-one listened to me... and eventually I gave in and accepted it.” Mrs Schmidt kept her eyes on Futaki as if she were trying to transfer her thoughts to him. “He lied. The kid simply lied. It's not so hard to imagine. In fact it's very easy to imagine...” Schmidt stared nervously, now at him, now at his wife. “It's not Mrs Halics that's gone mad, it's you two.” Neither Futaki nor Mrs Schmidt ventured an answer but looked at each other. “Have you lost your mind?!” Schmidt burst out and took a step towards Futaki. “You, you old cripple!” But Futaki shook his head. “No, my friend. No... You're right, Mrs Halics has not gone mad,” he told Schmidt then turned to the woman, announcing: “I'm sure it's true. I'm going down to the inn.” Schmidt closed his eyes and tried to govern his temper. “Eighteen months! Eighteen months they've been dead. Everyone knows that! People don't joke about such things. Don't fall for it. It's just a trap! You understand? A trap!” But Futaki hadn't even heard him, he was already buttoning his coat. “It will be all right, you'll see,” he declared, and you could tell by the firmness of his voice that his mind was made up. “Irimias,” he added, smiling and he put his hand on Schmidt's shoulder, “is a great magician. He could turn a pile of cowshit into a palace.. if he wanted to.” Schmidt lost his head entirely. He grabbed hold of Futaki's coat and yanked him closer. “It's you who's a pile of cowshit, friend,” he grimaced, “and that's all you'll ever be, let me tell you, a pile of shit. You think I'm going to let a peabrain like you do me down? No, friend, no. You're not going to get in my way!” Futaki calmly returned his gaze. “I've no intention of doing so, old man.” “Yes? And what will become of the money?” Futaki bowed his head. “You can split it with Kraner. You can make like nothing has happened.” Schmidt sprang to the door and barred their way. “Idiots!” he screamed. “You're idiots! Go fuck yourselves, the pair of you! But as for my money...” he raised his finger, “you will deposit that on the table.” He looked menacingly at the woman. “You hear me, you lousy... You'll leave the money right there. Understand?!” Mrs Schmidt made no move. An unusual, peculiar light flashed in her eyes. She slowly rose and moved towards Schmidt. Every muscle of her face was tense, her lips had grown extraordinarily narrow and Schmidt found himself the object of such intense contempt and mockery he was forced to step back and gaze at the woman in astonishment. “Don't you go screaming at me, you dummy,” said Mrs Schmidt quite quietly. “I'm going out. You can do what you like.” Futaki was picking his nose. “Look friend,” he added, his voice also quiet, “if they are really here you won't be able to escape Irimias anyway, you know that yourself. And what happens then?...” Schmidt felt his way over to the table and slumped in a chair. “The dead resurrected!” he muttered to himself. “And these two happy to take the bait... Ha ha ha. I can't help laughing!” He brought his fist down on the table. “Can't you see what the game is?! They must have suspected something and now they want to lure us out... Futaki, old man, you at least should have a drop of sense in you...” But Futaki wasn't listening; he was standing by the window, his hands locked. “Do you remember?” he said. “The time the rent was nine days late, while he..” Mrs Schmidt brusquely cut him off. “He always got us out a mess.” “Filthy traitors. I might have guessed,” Schmidt mumbled. Futaki moved away from the window and stood behind him. “If you are really so sceptical,” he advised Schmidt, “let's send your wife ahead... She can say she is looking for you... and so on...” “But you can bet your life on it it's true,” the woman added. The money remained in Mrs Schmidt's bra since Schmidt himself was quite convinced that was the best place for it though he insisted he would far rather it were secured there with a piece of string and they had to work hard to persuade him to sit down again because he was off somewhere to look for something. “All right, I'm going,” said Mrs Schmidt and, quick as lightning, was already in her coat, pulling on her boots and was off running, soon disappearing into the darkness through the ditches surrounding the carriageway leading to the inn, avoiding the deeper puddles, not once turning back to look at them, leaving them there, two faces by the window, the rain washing over them. Futaki rolled a cigarette and blew out smoke, happy and hopeful, all tension gone, the weight lifted from him, dreamily contemplating the ceiling; he was thinking of the machine hall in the pumphouse, already hearing the cough, the splutter, the painful but successful sound of machines long silent starting up again, and it was as though he could smell the freshly limewashed walls... when they heard the outside door open and Schmidt had just enough time to leap to his feet before Mrs Kraner was announcing: “They're here! Have you heard?!” Futaki stood and nodded and put his hat on. Schmidt had collapsed at the table. “My husband,” Mrs Kraner gabbled, “he has already started and just sent me across to tell you if you didn't know already though I'm sure you know, we could see through our window that Mrs Halics had dropped by, but I've got to go, I don't want to bother you, and as for the money, my husband said, let it rot, it's not for the likes of us, he said and... he's right because why hide and run, with never a moment of calm, who wants that, and Irimias, well you'll see, and Petrina, I knew that it couldn't be true, any of it, so help me, I never trusted that sneaky Horgos kid, you can tell from his eyes, you can see for yourselves how he made it all up and kept it up till we believed him, I tell you, I knew from the start...” Schmidt examined her suspiciously. “So you're in on it,” he said and gave a short bitter laugh. Mrs Kraner raised her eyebrows at that and disappeared through the door in confusion. “Are you coming, old man?” Futaki enquired after a while and suddenly they were both at the door. Schmidt led with Futaki hobbling behind with his stick, the wind snapping at the edges of his coat as he held on to his hat to prevent it flying away into the mud and tapped his blind way in the darkness, while the rain poured pitilessly down washing away both Schmidt's curses and his own words of encouragement that eventually resolved into a repeated phrase: “Don't go regretting anything, old man! You'll see. It will be cushy for us. A golden age”
II. We are Resurrected
The clock above their heads shows a quarter before ten but what else should they be waiting for? They know what the neon-light with its piercing buzz is doing on that ceiling with its hairline cracks and what the timeless echo of those slamming doors is about; they know why those heavy boots with their half-moon metalled heels are clattering down those strangely high, tiled corridors, just as they suspect why the lights at the back have not been lit and why everything looks so tired and dim; and they would bow their heads in humble acknowledgment and with a degree of complicit satisfaction before this magnificently constructed system if only it were not the two of them sitting on these benches polished to a dull glow by the rumps of hundreds upon hundreds of those who have occupied them before, obliged to keep their eyes on the aluminium handle of door Number Twenty-Four, so that, having gained admittance they should be able to make use of the two or three minutes ('It's nothing, just...') to dispel 'the shadow of suspicion that has fallen...'. For what else is there to discuss except this ridiculous misunderstanding that has arisen on account of procedures initiated by some no-doubt-conscientious but somewhat over-zealous clerk?... And so the words prepared for the occasion tumble over each other and begin spinning round as in a whirlpool, having formed the occasional frail if painfully useless sentence that, like a hastily improvised bridge, is capable of bearing only the weight of three hesitant steps before it gives a single crack, bends, and with one faint, final snap, collapses under them so that time and time again they find themselves back in the whirlpool they entered last evening when they received the sheet with its official stamp and the formal summons. The precise, dry, unfamiliar language ('the shadow of suspicion that has fallen') left them in no doubt that it was not a matter of proving their innocence, for to deny the charge or, conversely, to demand a hearing, would be a pointless waste of time, if only the opportunity might arise for a general chat where they might state their position regarding an all-but-forgotten matter, establish their identities and perhaps modify a few personal details. In the past, seemingly endless, months, ever since a stupid difference of opinion so slight it is hardly worth mentioning, had led them to being cut off from normal life, their earlier, now clearly frivolous, views had matured to a firm conviction, and if opportunity arose they could answer correctly any questions regarding such general ideas as might be grouped together under the heading of a 'guiding principle' with startling certainty and without any torturous inner struggle; in other words they were beyond surprise now. And as regards this self- consuming and constantly recurring state of panic they could take courage and put it down to 'the bitter experience of the past' because 'no man could have got out of such a hole without some injury'. The big hand is moving steadily closer to twelve when an official appears at the top of the stairs, his hands behind him, moving on light steps, his whey-coloured eyes clearly fixed ahead of him until they are drawn to the two strange characters sitting there, when a faint flush of blood enters his grey, hitherto dead-looking face and he stops, raises himself on tip-toe, then, with a tired grimace, turns away again to disappear down the stairs, taking time only to look up at the other clock hanging beneath the NO SMOKING notice by which time his face has returned to its normal grey. The taller of the two men assures his companion, saying, “The two clocks say different times, but it could be that neither of them is right. Our clock here,” he continues, pointing to the one above them with his long, slender and refined index finger, “is very late, while that one there measures not so much time as, well, the eternal reality of the exploited and we to it are as the bough of a tree to the rain that falls upon it: we are helpless against it.” Though his voice is quiet it is a deep and musical manly voice that fills the bare corridor. His companion who, it is obvious at a glance, is as different 'as chalk from cheese' from the individual radiating such confidence, resilience and firmness of purpose, fixes his dull button-like eyes on the other's time-worn, suffering-hardened face and his whole being is suddenly suffused by passion. 'Bough of a tree to the rain.....' he turns the phrase over in his mouth as if it were fine wine, trying to guess its vintage realising somewhat indifferently that it is beyond him. “You are a poet, old man, you really are!” he adds and marks it with a deep nod like someone frightened by the idea that he has inadvertently stumbled on some truth. He slides further up the bench so that his head might be at the same level as the other man's, sinks his hands into the pockets of the winter coat that seems to have been made for a giant and fossicks among the screws, sweets, nails, the postcard of the seaside, the alpaca spoon, the empty frame of a pair of spectacles and some loose Kalmopyrin tablets that are to be found in there until he discovers the piece of sweat soaked paper and his brow begins to perspire. “If we don't put the lid on...” He tries to prevent it escaping his lips but it's too late. The creases on the taller man's face grow deeper, his lips tighten, his eyelids slowly close since he too finds it hard to suppress his emotions. Though they both know they made a mistake that morning in immediately demanding an explanation and bursting in through the marked door, not stopping till they reached the innermost room: not because they received no explanation, they never even met the boss, since no sooner had they got there he simply told the secretaries in the outer office ('Find out who these people are?') and they found themselves outside the door. How could they have been so stupid? Was it a mistake? Now they were piling one mistake on top of another since even these three days were not enough to recover from such bad luck. Because ever since they had been released to breathe deep of the air of liberty and to cover every inch of those dusty streets and neglected parks, the sight of homesteads declining into autumn yellow made them feel practically new-born, and they had taken strength from the sleepy expressions of the men and women they passed, from their bowed heads, from the slow gaze of melancholy youths leaning against a wall, the shadow of some as-yet undefined ill fortune had followed them around, like something without a shape, and they would glimpse it in a pair of eyes that flashed up at them, or some movement here or there would betray its presence, admonitory, inevitable. And just to crown all this (“Call me Petrina, I call that terrifying...”) the incident last night at the deserted station when - who knows, who could suspect that someone else might want to spend the night on the bench next to the door that led to the platform? a spotty-faced lout of a lad stepped through the revolving doors and, without a moment's hesitation, strode over to them and pressed the summons into their hands. “Will there never be an end to this?” the taller one had asked the dumb-looking messenger and it is this that now comes to his shorter companion's mind when he timidly remarks: “They are doing this deliberately, you know, in order to...” The tall fellow smiles wearily. “Don't exaggerate. Just listen more closely. It's stopped again.” The other man jerks back at this as if suddenly caught in some guilty act, is embarrassed, makes a waving movement and reaches for his improbably large ears, trying to smoothen them down while flashing his toothless gums. “As fate dictates,” he says. The taller regards him for a while with raised eyebrows then turns away before registering his abhorrence. “Ugh! How ugly you are!” he exclaims and turns back from time to time as if he could not believe his eyes. The jug-eared one shrinks despondently away, his pear-shaped little head hardly visible above his turned-up collar. “You can't judge by appearances...” he mutters, wounded. At that moment the door opens and a man with a squashed nose and the look of a wrestler steps through with a considerable amount of fuss but instead dignifying the two characters who rush to greet him with a glance (and saying, 'Please come with me!') stomps past them and disappears behind a door at the end of the corridor. They stare at each other indignantly as though they had reached the end of their patience, hang about for a while desperate and ready to do anything, just one step from committing some unforgivable act when the door snaps open once again and a little fat man sticks his head out. “Whah are you waihing foh?” he asks mockingly, then with a wholly inappropriate gesture and a harsh, 'Aha!' he flings the door wide before them. The large office inside is like a stockroom with five or six plain-clothed men bent over heavy shiny desks, above them a neon light like a vibrating halo and a distant corner where the darkness has been squatting for many years, and even the light filtering through the closed slats of blinds vanishes and disappears as if the dank air beneath were swallowing it all. Though the clerks are silently scribbling (some of them are wearing black patches on their elbows, others have glasses slipping down their noses) there is a constant whispering sound: one or other of them quickly cast half an eye at the visitors, squinnying , sizing them up with barely concealed malice, as if speculating when one wrong move might betray them, when the well brushed overcoat might flap aside to reveal a flea-bitten bum, or under the shoes socks in need of darning. “What's going on here!” the taller one thunders then stops in his tracks as he crosses the threshold of the stockroom-like space ahead of the other for there, in the room, he sees a man in shirtsleeves on all fours on the floor feverishly looking for something under his dark-brown desk. He keeps his presence of mind though: he takes a few steps forward, stops, fixes his eyes on the ceiling so as tactfully to ignore the embarrassing position of the man he must talk to. “Begging your pardon, sir!” he begins in his silkiest voice. “We did not forget, nor have forgotten our duties. Here we are ready to comply with your request, as described in your letter of last night, according to which you wish to have a few words with us. We were citizens, faithful citizens of this country and therefore - voluntarily, that goes without saying, would like to offer you our services that - if I may be so bold as to remind you - you have been kind enough to draw upon for a good many years, albeit in an irregular fashion. It will hardly have escaped your attention that there has been a regrettable intermission because of which you have had to do without us. We guarantee, as your agents, that, now, as always in the past, we reject all shoddy work and deprecate other, still worse errors. You may believe me when I say that we offer you the same high standards of service that you have been accustomed to. We are delighted to be at your service.” His companion nods and is clearly moved, barely able to prevent himself from grasping his comrade's hand and giving it a firm shake. The chief meanwhile has got up off the floor, gulps down a white pill and, after struggling a little, manages to swallow it without a sip of water. He dusts off his knee and takes his place behind the desk. He crosses his arms and leans heavily on his worn old mock-leather folder, glaring at the two strange figures before him who are standing loosely at attention, looking at something over his head. His mouth twists in pain and settles all the lineaments of his face into a sour mask. Without moving his elbows he shakes a cigarette free of the packet, puts it in his mouth and lights it. “What were you saying?” he asks suspiciously. his expression puzzled, his legs beginning a nervous little dance under the table. The question hangs uselessly in the air, as the two bumpkins stand stock still, patiently listening. “Are you that shoemaker fellow?” the chief tries again and continues blowing out a long plume of smoke that rises above the tower of files on his desk and begins to swirl around him so it is minutes before his face becomes visible again. “No, sir...” the jug-eared one replies as if deeply insulted. “We were summoned to appear here at eight o'clock...” “Aha!” the chief exclaims with satisfaction. “And why did you not appear on time?” The jug-eared man looks up accusingly from under his brow. “There must be some misunderstanding, if I may... We were here precisely on time, don't you remember?” “I understand.” “No chief, you don't understand anything!” the little fellow replies suddenly full of life. “The thing is that we, that is to say him next to me and I, we can do anything. Making furniture? Farming chickens? Castrating pigs? Real estate? Repair of anything and any matter thought to be beyond repair? Overseeing markets? Trade?... Come off it! Don't make me laugh! Oh and... well, supplying information, if I may put it like that. On your payroll, if you care to remember. Because the situation, if you know what I mean, is...” The chief leans weakly back, slowly examines them, his brow clears, he springs to his feet, opens a little door in the back wall and calls back to them from the threshold: “Just wait here. But no what's it... if you know what I mean!” Within a couple of minutes a tall, blond, blue-eyed man stands before them, rank of captain, sits down at the table, carelessly stretches out his legs, and gives a benign smile. “Do you have any papers?” he asks encouragingly. The jug-eared man searches in his enormously large pockets. “Paper? Certainly!” he announces in delight. “Just a moment!” He produces a slightly rumpled but perfectly clean sheet of writing paper and puts it down in front of the captain. “Would you like a pen too?” the taller man enquires and reaches for his inside pocket. The captain's face darkens for an instant then opens in a cheerful smile. “Really witty,” he concedes. “You two certainly have a sense of humour.” Jug-ears looks down modestly. “True enough, you don't get anywhere without it, chief...” “Yes, but let's get to the point,” the captain grows more serious. “Do you have papers of any other sort?” “Of course, chief. Give me a moment...!” He reaches into his pocket again and pulls out the summons. Flourishing it in the air with a gesture of triumph he puts it down on the table. The captain glances at it, then his face reddens and he bellows at them: “Can't you read!? Fucking idiots! Which floor does it say?” The question is so unexpected that they take a step back. Jug-ears nods furiously. “Of course...” he answers for want of anything better to say. The officer tips his head to one side. “What does it say?” “The second...” the other replies and by way of explanation adds, “beg to report.” “Then what are you doing here!? How did you get here!? Have you any idea what this place is?!” Both men shake their heads, feeling weak. “R.P. Register of Prostitutes” the captain bellows at them leaning forward in his chair. But there is no sign of surprise. The shorter man shakes his head as if to reject the information, and purses his lips in thought, while his companion stands beside him with his legs crossed apparently studying the landscape picture on the wall. The officer props an elbow on the table to support his head and starts massaging his brow. His back is straight as the path of the righteous, his chest is full, his uniform is crisply washed and ironed, his perfectly starched blinding white collar is in splendid harmony with his fresh, rosy-cheeked countenance. One lock of his otherwise immaculately wavy hair is hanging over his sky-blue eyes and lends an irresistible charm to his whole appearance that radiates a childlike innocence. “Let start,” he says in a southern sing-song voice, “with your IDs.” Jug-ears produces two ragged-edged packages from his back pocket and pushes aside one of those big towers of files so that he might smooth the package out before handing it over but the captain snatches it from his hand with a youthful movement and riffles through the pages with a military air without even looking at them. “What do they call you?” he asks the shorter man. “Petrina, at your service.” “Is that your name?” Jug-ears nods in melancholy fashion. “I would like to have your full name,” says the officer leaning forward. “That's it, sir, that's all there is,” Petrina answers with wide-eyed innocence then turns to his companion and whispers, “What can I do?” “What are you, a gypsy?” the captain snaps at him. “What, me?” Petrina asks, frightened and astonished. “Me, a gypsy?” “Then stop fooling about! Give me your name!” Jug-ears looks helplessly at his mate, then shrugs and stumbles as if utterly confused, as if unwilling to take responsibility for what he is about to say. “Well, Sándor-Ferenc-István... er... András.” The officer leafs through the ID document and notes menacingly, “It says Józef here.” Petrina looks as though he has been pole-axed. “Surely not, chief, sir! Would you mind showing me...?” “Stay right there!” the captain orders him, unwilling to put up with any more nonsense. The taller man's face shows no sign of anxiety, not even interest and when the officer asks him his name, he blinks a little as if his mind had been elsewhere and courteously replies: “I beg you pardon, I didn't get that” “Your name!” “Irimiás,” the answer rings out, as if he were proud of it. The captain puts a cigarette in the side of his mouth, lights it with a clumsy movement, throws the burning match into the ashtray and puts it out with the matchbox. “I see. So you too have only one name.” Irimiás nods cheerfully. “Of course, sir. Doesn't everyone?” The officer looks deep into his eyes then, when the office head opens the door on them (and asks, “Have you finished?”) waves to them to follow him. They follow him a couple steps behind past the clerks and their sly looks, past the desks of the office outside, into the corridor and set off up the stairs. It is even darker here and they almost trip over at the turns of the stairs: a crude iron balustrade runs alongside them, its polished and worn underside streaked with rust as they move from step to step. Everywhere there is the sense of everything having been thoroughly cleaned and not even the heavy fishlike smell that follows them everywhere can quite mask it.
UPPER FLOOR
I FLOOR
II FLOOR
The captain, slender as an officer of the hussars, proceeds before them with long ringing strides, his shining, half-length military boots almost musical as it strikes against the polished ceramic tiles; he casts nor a single look back at them but they are acutely aware he is scrutinizing them all the way from Petrinus's labourer's boots to Irimiás's dazzlingly loud red tie, having perhaps simply memorised such details, or maybe because the thin skin stretched over the back of his neck is capable of receiving deeper impressions than the naked eye can discover. 'Identification!' he barks at a lushly moustached, swarthy, large lump of a sergeant as they step through another door marked 24, into a smoky, stuffy hall, he not slowing for an instant, indicating with a wave of his fingers that those leaping to their feet at his entrance should sit down, while snapping out his orders: “Follow me! I want the press! I want the reports! Give me extension 109! Then a line to town!” before he disappears behind a glazed door on the left. The sergeant remains stiffly at attention then, as he hears the lock click to, wipes his arm across his sweating brow, sits down at the desk opposite the entrance and pushes a printed form in front of them. “Fill it out,” he tells them, exhausted. “And sit down. But first read the instructions over the page.” There is no movement of air in the hall. There are three rows of neon lights on the ceiling, the illumination is dazzling, the wooden blinds are closed here too. Clerks are running nervously between a mass of desks: when they occasionally find themselves obstructing another's path in the narrow gangways between tables they impatiently push each other aside with brief apologetic smiles as a result of which the desks are shifted a few centimetres every minute leaving sharp scrape marks on the floor. There are also those who refuse to move out of the way, who, though the piles of work in front of them have grown into huge towers, prefer to spend most of their working time bickering with their colleagues for constantly shoving them in the back or pushing their desks aside. Some perch in their red fake- leather chairs like jockeys, telephone receiver in one hand, a steaming cup of coffee in the other. From wall to wall, from the back of the hall to the front, there are aging female typists sitting in rows that are straight as a die pecking at their machines. Petrina watches their feverish labours with astonishment, prodding Irimiás with his elbow though the other man simply nods, busily studying the 'Instructions' on the back of the form. “Do you suppose there's a canteen here?” whispers Petrina but his companion irritably gestures for him to be quiet. Then he looks up from the document and starts sniffing the air, asking: “Can you smell it?” and points upward. “It smells marshy,” Petrina declares. The sergeant looks at them, beckons them closer and whispers: “Everything is rotting here... Twice in the last three weeks they've had to lime wash the walls.” There is a treacherous light in his deep-set, puffy eyes, his jowls are constricted by his tight collar. “Shall I tell you something?” he asks with a knowing smile. He leans into their faces so they can feel the vapour of his breath. He starts to laugh silently as if unable to stop himself. Then he speaks, emphasising each individual word, as though placing a series of landmines gently before them, as if to say, “Get out of this, if you can,” but what he actually says is: “You're screwed anyway.” He pulls a gleefully mocking face and taps the table three times as though he were repeating what he had just said. Irimias acknowledges this with a superior smile and goes back to studying the document while Petrina stares in horror at the officer-in- charge who suddenly bites his lower lip, gives them a contemptuous look and leans back in his chair, cold and indifferent, part of the dense matrix of noise from which he had emerged for a moment but which now swallows him again. But once they have completed their forms and he has led them back into the captain's room, all trace of fatigue, of the almost terminal exhaustion that had seemed to be his lot, vanishes from his features, his steps are firm, his movements crisp, his speech military and sharp. The furnishings of the office suggest a measure of comfort. To the left of the writing desk stands an enormous potted ficus plant on whose deep luxurious green the eyes may rest, while in the corner by the door a leather covered sofa squats complete with two leather armchairs and a smoking table of 'modern' design. The window is covered by a heavy set of green-as-poison velvet curtains and a strip of red carpet runs over the parquet flooring from the door to the desk. You can sense rather than see the fine dust sifting slowly from the ceiling, a dust hallowed and dignified by countless years. There is a portrait of some military figure on the wall. “Sit down!” the officer orders, pointing to three wooden chairs in a tight row in the far corner. “I want us to understand each other.” He leans back in his high-backed chair, his waist pressed against the bone-coloured wood, fixing his eye on some distant point, some faint mark on the ceiling, while his voice, a surprisingly sing-song voice, swims towards them through a clearing cloud of cigarette smoke, as though he were speaking from elsewhere, not from within the stifling fug that catches at their throats. “You are summoned because you have endangered our common enterprise by going absent from work. No doubt you have noticed that I have not given the dates. That's because the three months is nothing to do with you. I myself am inclined to forget the whole matter. But that depends on you. I hope we understand each other.” Time solidifies round his words: they are fossils cushioned by damp moss. “I suggest we put the past aside. That is providing you accept my suggestion regarding the future.” Petrina is picking his nose, Irimias is trying to free his coat from under his companion's rear. “You have no choice. If you say no I shall make sure you're put away so long your hair will be grey by the time you get out.” “I beg your pardon but what are you talking about?” Irimias interrupts, clearly not comprehending. But the officer continues as though he hasn't heard him. “You have three days. It never once occurred to you that you should set to work. I know exactly what you have been doing. I give you three days so that you should see what was at stake here. I'm not making any wild promises. But three days you'll get.” Irimias spits in indignation but then thinks the better of it. Petrina is genuinely terrified. “I understand sod all of this, if you'll pardon the expression...” The captain lets that go, pretends not to have heard, and goes on as if he were bringing in a judgment, a judgment that is expected to take into account the snivellings of the condemned. “Take note, because I won't say this again: no more loitering, no more bumming around, no stirring things up. That's over. From now on you are working for me. Is that clear?” Jug Ears turns to Irimiás. “Do you understand what's going on here?” “No,” he rumbles back. “I haven't the faintest idea.” The captain shifts his gaze from the ceiling and his eyes flash furiously at them. “Shut up!” he says in his old fashioned, sing-song voice. Petrina sits on the chair, his hands clasped across his chest, or, to be more accurate about this, he is almost recumbent, the back of his neck against the chair back, blinking in panic, his heavy winter coat spread about him like petals. Irimias is sitting upright, his mind feverishly working, his pointed shoes a blinding bright yellow. “We have our rights,” he comments, the skin on his nose forming delicate wrinkles. The captain is annoyed and blows out smoke, a brief sign of exhaustion flickering across his face. 'Rights!' he snaps eventually. “You talk of rights! The law for your type is simply there to be exploited! Something to cover your back when you get into trouble! But that's over... I'm not arguing with you because this isn't some gentlemen's club, you hear? I suggest you quickly get used to the idea that your lives are strictly - and legally - controlled from now on.” Irimias massages his knees with sweaty palms. “What kind of law is that?” The captain grows stern. “The law of comparative power,” he says, his face pale, his fingers turning white on the arms of the chair. “The law of the land. The people's law. Do these concepts mean anything to you?” he asks, employing, for the first time, the less intimate form of 'you'. Petrina is roused to speak (“What's going on here? Are we tu or vous now? As far as I'm concerned I'd rather you...”) but Irimias restrains him, saying. “Captain, sir, you know what the law is as well as we do. That's why we are all here together. Whatever you may think of us, we are law-abiding citizens. We are aware of our duties. I would like to remind you that we have frequently demonstrated that to be the case. We are on the side of the law. As are you. So why all these threats?...” The captain smiles mockingly, fixes his big, sincere, open eyes on Irimias's inscrutable features and though the words are suddenly filled with warmth at the back of his eyes there sparkles a real fury. “I know everything about you... but OK...” he gives a great sigh, “I am happy to admit I am none the wiser for that.” “Now he is speaking nicely,” the relieved Petrina prods his companion in the side, then casts an endearing look at the captain who recoils from his gaze and stares threateningly back at Petrina. “Because, you know, I can't stand this kind of tension! I simply can't bear it!' Petrina anticipates the officer, though he sees and feels that this is going to end badly. “Isn't it better to talk like this, rather than...” “You just shut that flabby face of yours!” the captain screams at him and leaps from his chair. “What do you think? Who the hell are you, you cheap shits?! You dare think you can chinwag with me?!” He sits back down, enraged. “You think we're on the same side!...” Petrina is immediately on his feet. Waving his hands about in panic, trying to rescue what can be rescued of the situation. “No, of course not, for God's sake, beg to report we, how shall I put it, we would not dream of it!....” The captain says nothing, not a word, but lights another cigarette and stares fixedly ahead of him. Petrina stands there at a loss and gestures to Irimias for help. “I've had enough of you two. That's it!” the officer announces in a steely voice. “I've had enough of the Irimias- Petrina duo. I am fed up of creatures like you, who think I am answerable to them, you miserable dogs!” Irimias quickly intervenes. “Captain, sir. You know us. Why can't things remain as they were? Ask... ('Szabó,' Petrina helps him out)...Sergeant-Major Szabó. There's never been any trouble.” “Szabó has been retired. I have taken over his group too,” the captain answers bitterly. Petrina rushes over to him and squeezes his arm. “And here we are, just sitting here like a load of sheep?!.. Many congratulations, chief, my heartiest congratulations!” The captain is irritated and pushes Petrina's hand away. “Back to your place! What do you think you're doing!” He shakes his head in hopelessness then, because he sees they are genuinely shocked, he changes to a warmer tone. “All right, now listen. I want us to understand each other. Please note, it is quiet here now. People are satisfied. That's just how it should be. But if they read the papers they would know that there is a real crisis out there. We are not going to allow that crisis to fence us in and destroy all we have achieved! That's a big responsibility, you understand, a serious responsibility! We are not going to allow ourselves the luxury of having characters like you wandering around just where they please. We don't want whispers and rumours here. In any case you can be useful in the common enterprise! I know you have ideas. Don't think for an instant I don't know that! I am not concerned with what you did in the past, you got what you deserved for that. But you are to adapt yourselves to the new situation! Is that clear?!” Now Irimias shakes his head. “Not at all, captain, sir. Nobody can make us do anything we don't want to. But when it comes to duty we will do all we can...” The captain leaps up again, his eyes bulging, his mouth beginning to tremble. “What do you mean none can make you do anything you don't want to?! Who the hell are you to talk back to me?! Fuck you rotten, you hopeless bastards! Filthy bums! You will report to me after tomorrow morning at eight o'clock sharp! Now get lost! Scram!” So saying his body gives a compulsive shudder and he turns his back on them. Irimias lopes towards the door, his head hanging and before drawing it shut behind him in order to follow Petrina who - like a snake - is slipping out of the room, he glances back a last time. The captain is rubbing his brow and his face... it is as if he were covered in armour; grey, dull yet metallic, he seems to be swallowing light, some secret power is entering his skin; the decay resurrected from the cavity of the bones, liberated, is filling every cell of the body as if it were blood spreading to every extremity thereby announcing its unquenchable power; in that briefest of moment the rosy glow of health vanishes, the muscles tighten and once more the body begins to reflect light rather than absorb it, glittering and silvery, and the finely arced nose, the delicately chiselled cheekbones and the microscopically thin wrinkles are replaced by a new nose, new bones, new wrinkles that wipe away all memory of what had preceded them to preserve in a single mass that which, years from now, might be absorbed by the earth's negative aspect. Irimias closes the door behind him and begins to walk faster, crossing the busy hall to catch up with Petrina who is already out in the corridor not even looking back to see whether his companion has followed him because he feels that he if he did look to see he might be called back in again. The light percolates through heavy clouds, the town breathes through their scarves, an unfriendly wind swirls down the street, houses, sidewalk and freeway soaking helplessly under the downpour. Old women are sitting at their windows gazing at the dusk through net curtains, their hearts contracting at the sight of faces fleeing beneath the eaves outside, faces full of such wrongs and sorrows that not even steaming cookies baked in hot ceramic stoves can banish them. Irimias strides furiously through the town, Petrina following him on little feet, complaining, indignant, getting left behind, occasionally stopping for a minute to recover his breath, his coat billowing in the wind. “Where now?” he asks miserably. But Irimias does not hear him, moves ahead, muttering imprecations: “He'll regret this... he'll regret this, the bastard...” Petrina walks faster. “Let's just forget the whole shit business!” he suggests, but his companion is not listening. `Petrina raises his voice. “Let's head for the Upper Danube and see if we can get involved there...” Irimias neither sees nor hears him. “I'll wring his neck...” he tells his partner and demonstrates how. But Petrina is just as stubborn. “There's so much we could do once there... There's the fishing for example, you know what I mean.... or, listen: say there some lazy wealthy guy who, let us say, wants something built...” They stop in front of a bar, Petrina put his hand in his pocket and counts their money then they go through the glazed door. Inside there are only a few people hanging about, a radio in the lap of the old woman minding the conveniences is ringing out loud; the sticky wiping up cloth, the tables with pools of damp ready to witness a thousand little resurrections but mostly unoccupied for now, tipping this way and that; four or five men with cavernous faces, their elbows propped on tables some way from each other, wearing disillusioned expressions or slyly eyeing the waitress, or staring into their glasses or studying letters, absent-mindedly sipping at coffees, or cheap spirits or wine. A damp and bitter stench blends with cigarette smoke and sour breath rising to the blackened ceiling; beside the door, next to a smashed oil heater, a bedraggled rain-soaked dog trembles and stares panic-stricken outside. “Shift yourselves, shift those lazy asses of yours!” shrieks a cleaning- woman as she proceeds past the tables with a scrunched-up rag. Behind the counter, a girl with flaming red hair and a baby face is propping up a shelf laden with stale desserts and a few bottles of expensive champagne while painting her fingernails. On the drinkers' side of the counter leans a stocky waitress, cigarette in one hand and a dime novel in the other; when she turns the page she licks her lips in excitement. On the walls a ring of dusty lamps serving for atmosphere. “A single blended,” says Petrina and leans on the counter next to his companion. The waitress doesn't even look up from her book. “And a Silver Kossuth,” adds Irimias. The girl behind the bar levers herself away from the shelf, carefully puts down the bottle of nail-lacquer, clearly bored, and pours out the drinks, her movements slow and sluggish, taking the odd glance at what she is doing, then pushes one towards Irimias. “Seven seventy,” she says indifferently. But neither man moves. Irimias looks into the girl's face and their eyes meet. “The order was for a single!” he growls. The girl quickly looks away and fills two more glasses. “Sorry!” she says, a little abashed. “And I seem to remember ordering a packet of cigarettes too,” Irimias continues in a low voice. “Eleven ninety,” the girl gabbles, glances over at her colleague who is stifling a giggle and waves to her to leave off. Too late. “May I ask what is amusing you?” All eyes are fixed on them. The smile freezes on the waitress's face, she nervously adjusts her bra strap through her apron then shrugs. Suddenly everything has fallen quiet. Next to the window opening onto the streets sits a fat greasy man in a bus-conductor's cap: he watches Irimias in astonishment then quickly sinks his piccolo and clumsily slams the glass down on the table. “Excuse me...” he stutters, seeing how everyone is looking at him. And at that point, one cannot quite tell from where, a gentle buzzing or humming begins. Everyone is breathlessly watching everyone else because for a moment it seems as though it is a person, a living person doing the humming. They steal glances at each other: the humming becomes a tad louder. Irimias raises his glass then slowly puts it down again. “Is someone humming here?” he rages to himself. “Is someone taking the piss?! What the hell is it? A machine? Or, or might it be... the lamps?...No, it is a person after all... Could it be that old crone by the WC?... Or the shithead in the gymshoes? What is this? Some kind of revolt?” Then it suddenly stops. Now there's only the silence, the suspicious glance... the glass is trembling in Irimias's hand. Petrina is nervously drumming on the counter. Everyone is sitting still, looking down, no one dares move. The old woman at the washrooms tugs the sleeve of the waitress. “Should we call the police?” The girl behind the bar can't stop giggling out of sheer nervousness so to bring things to a head she quickly turns on the tap in the sink and begins making a noise with the beer glasses. “We will blow up the lot,” says Irimias in a strangled voice, then repeats it in a ringing bass. “We'll blow up the lot. We will blow them up one by one,” he turns to Petrina, “those cowardly worms. One stick of dynamite per jacket! That one there,” here he indicates someone behind him with his thumb, “will get one stuffed in his pocket. That one,” he continues, glancing towards the fire, “will find one under his pillow. There'll be bombs up chimney-flues, under doormats, hung from chandeliers, up their assholes!” The girl behind the bar and the waitress move closer to each other for comfort at the end of the counter. The patrons look at each other in fright. Petrina weighs them up, his eyes full of hatred. “Blow up the bridges. The houses. The whole town. The parks. Their mornings. Their mail. One by one, all neat and tidy, everything...” Irimias purses his lips and blows out smoke, pushing his glass to and from in pools of beer. “Because we have to finish what we started.” “True enough, what's the point of all this uncertainty?” Petrina nods furiously. “We will bomb them in stages!” “All the towns. One after the other!” Irimias continues as if in a dream. “The villages. The remotest little shack!” “Boom! Boom! Boom!” cries Petrina, waving his arms about. “You hear! Then blaam! The end, gentlemen.” He pulls a twenty from his pocket, throws it down on the counter right in the middle of a pool of beer, the note slowly drawing the liquid up. Irimias too moves away from the bar and opens the door but then turns back. “You have a couple of days left! Irimias will blow you to pieces!” he spits out by way of parting, curls his lip contemptuously and, for a finale, runs his gaze slowly over the terrified larval faces. The stench of sewers mixed with mud, puddles, the smell of the odd crack of lightning, wind tugging at tiles, power lines, empty nests; the stifling heat behind low ill-fitting windows... impatient, annoyed half-words of lovers embracing... demanding wails of babies, their cries sliding off into the tin- smell of dusk; streets pliable, parks soaked to their roots lying obedient to the rain, bare oaks, half-broken dry flowers, scorched grass all prostrate, humbled by the storm, sacrifices strewn at the executioner's feet. Petrina wheezes at Irimias's heels. “To Steigerwald?” But his companion does not hear him. He has turned up the collar of his checkered coat, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head raised, he hurries blindly from street to street, never slowing, never looking back, his soaked cigarette drooping from his mouth, though he doesn't even notice it; Petrina continues to curse the world with an inexhaustible supply of oaths, his bow legs buckling every so often and once he is twenty paces behind Irimias, vainly shouting after him ('Hey! Wait for me! Don't be in such a rush! What am I, some bull in a stampede?') but the other pays him no attention at all and to make it worse he treads in a puddle up to his ankles, gives a great puff, leans against the wall of a house and mutters “I can't keep up with this...” But, after a couple of minutes, Irimias reappears, his wet hair hanging over his eyes, his pointed bright-yellow shoes caked in mud. Water drips off Petrina. “Look at these,” he says pointing to his ears, “Gooseflesh, all of it...” Irimias nods reluctantly, clears his throat and says, “We're going to the estate.” Petrina stares at him, his eyes popping out. “What...? Now?! The two of us?! To the estate?!” Irimias pulls another cigarette from the packet, lights it and quickly blows the smoke out. “Yes. Right away.” Petrina leans against the wall. “Listen here, bosom buddy, my master, my saviour, death of me, my murderer! I am frozen through, I'm hungry, I want to find somewhere warm where I can dry out and eat and I have no desire at all, God knows, to tramp out to the estate in this foul weather, in fact I am quite uninclined even to follow you, to run after you like a lunatic, damn your already damned soul! See!” Irimias gives a wave and says, indifferently, “If you don't want to stay with me go where you please.” And he is gone. “Where are you going? Where are you off to now?” Petrina shouts after him in anger, setting off to follow him. “Where would you go without me... Stop for a second. Come on!” The rain eases off a little as they leave the town. Night descends. No stars, no moon. At the Elek crossroads, hundred meters ahead of them, a shadow sways; only later do they discover it is a man in a trenchcoat; he enters a field and the darkness swallows him. On either side of the highway gloomy patches of woodland as far as the eye can see, and mud covering everything; and since the fading light blurs all clear outlines, consuming all traces of colour, stable forms begin to move while things that should move stand as if petrified, so the whole highway is like a mysterious rocking boat stuck fast, idling on the muddy ocean of the world. Not a bird is stirring to leave its mark on the sky that has hardened to a solid mass, that like a morning mist, hovers above the ground, only a solitary frightened deer rises and sinks in the distance - as if the mud itself were breathing - preparing to flee in the far distance. “Dear God!” Petrina sighs. “When I think it will be morning before we get there I get cramp in my legs! Why didn't we ask Steigerwald if we could borrow his truck? And that coat too! What am I? A weightlifter??!” Irimias stops, puts his foot up on a milestone, pulls out a cigarette, they both take one, and light them using their hands as shelter. “Can I ask you something, you murderer?” “What?” “Why are we going to the estate?” “Why? Have you anywhere to sleep? Do you have anything to eat? Money? Either you stop your eternal whining or I strangle you.” “OK. Fine. I understand. This much anyway. But tomorrow we got to go back, haven't we?” Irimias grinds his teeth but says nothing. Petrina gives another sigh. “Look mate, you really could have thought of something else with that clever head of yours! I don't want to stay with those people the way I am. I can't stand being in one place. Petrina was born under free skies, it's where he has lived all his life and that's where he'll die.” Irimias dismisses him with a bitter gesture. “We're in the shit, mate. There's nothing we can do about that for a while. We'll have to stay with them.” Petrina wrings his hands. “Master! Please don't say things like that! My heart is already all knotted up.” “OK, but there's no need to shit yourself. I'll take their money then we'll move on. We'll manage somehow...” They set off again. “You think they have money?” Petrina asks anxiously. “Peasants always have something.” They proceed without speaking mile after mile, they must be half way between the turn-off and the local inn: occasionally a star twinkles in front of them only to vanish again in the dense dark; sometimes the moon shines through the mist and, like the two exhausted figures on the paved road below, escapes with them across the celestial battlefield, pushing its way past every obstacle towards its target, right until dawn. “I wonder what they'll say when they see us, these bumpkins...” Irimias says over his shoulder. “It'll be a surprise.” Petrina picks up the pace. “What makes you think they'll be there at all?” he asks in his anxiety. “I reckon they'll have scrammed ages ago. They must have that much intelligence.” “Intelligence?” grins Irimias. “Them? Servants are what they were and that's what they'll remain until they die. They'll be sitting in the kitchen, shitting in the corner, taking the odd look out of the window to see what each other is doing. I know these people like the back of my hand.” “I don't know how you can be so sure of that, friend.” says Petrina. “My hunch is that there won't be anyone there. Empty houses, the tiles fallen or stolen, at best one or two starved rats in the mill...” “No-o-o,” Irimias confidently retorts. “They'll be sitting in exactly the same place, on the same filthy stools, stuffing themselves with spuds and paprika every night, having no idea what has happened. They'll be staring at each other suspiciously, only breaking the silence to belch. They are waiting. They are waiting patiently, like the long- suffering lot they are, firmly believing that someone has conned them. They are waiting, belly to the ground, like cats at pig-killing time, watching for tidbits. They are like servants that work at a castle where the master has shot himself: they hang round the body at an utter loss as to what to do...” “Enough poetry, boss, I am terrified enough already!” Petrina tries to calm him while pressing his rumbling stomach. But Irimias pays him no attention, he is on a roll. “They are slaves who have lost their owner who nevertheless cannot live without pride, honour and courage. That's what keeps their souls in place even if at the back of their thick skulls they sense that these qualities don't emanate from them, that they have simply enjoyed living in their shadow...” “Enough,” Petrina groans and rubs his eyes because the water keeps running down his flat forehead. “Look, I don't want you to lose your temper over this, but I just can't bear listening to such stuff right now!... You can tell me all about them tomorrow, for now I'd sooner you talked about... a good steaming bowl of bean soup!” But this too passes Irimias by and he goes on undisturbed. “Then, wherever the shadow falls they follow, like a flock of sheep, because they can't do without a shadow, just as they can't do without pomp and splendor either ('For God's sake! Cut it out, mate, please!...” Petrina cries in his toils.) “Anything so as not be left alone with the pomp and splendor, for when they are they go mad, like mad dogs they fall on it and tear it to bits. Give them a well heated room, a cauldron bubbling with paprika stew, the dogs, and they'll be dancing on the table every night, and even happier under warm bedclothes, panting away, with a tasty piece of the neighbour's stout wife to tuck into... Are you listening to me Petrina?” “Ayayay,” the other sighs in reply and adds in hope: “Why? Have you finished?” By now they can see the blown over fences of the roadside houses, the tumbledown shed, the rusty water tank, when right beside them, a cracked voice addresses them from behind a high stack of weeds: “Wait! It's me!” A twelve to thirteen year old boy, completely chilled down and soaked to the skin, wearing trousers rolled up to the knee rushes towards them, drenched, grinning, his eyes shining. Petrina is the first to recognize him. “So it's you...? What are you doing here, you little goodfornothing!?” “I've been hiding here for hours, God knows ....” he announces with pride, and quickly looks down. His long hair hangs in knots over his spotty face, a cigarette glowing between his bent fingers. Irimias takes patient stock of the boy who steals the odd look at him but immediately lowers his eyes again. “So what do you want?” Petrina quizzes him, shaking his head. The boy steals another glance at Irimias. “You promised...” he starts, stutters and stops, “that... that if...” “Come on boy, spit it out!” Irimias hassles him. “That if I told people that you were ...” the boy finally blurts out kicking the ground in the meantime, “... dead, then you'd fix me up with Mrs Schmidt...” Petrina pulls the boy's ear and snaps at him: “What's this? Still covered in egg-yolk but you already want to climb into ladies' knickers, you scoundrel! What next?!” The boy frees himself and shouts, his eyes flashing in anger. “I tell you what you should be pulling, you old goat. The skin off your dick!” They would start fighting if Irimias did not intervene. “Enough!” he bellows. 'How did you know we were on the way?' The boy stands a careful distance from Petrina, rubbing his ear. “That's my business. It makes no difference in any case... Everyone knows by now. The conductor told them.” Petrina is cursing, looking up at the sky but Irimias gestures for him to be quiet ('Use your brains! Leave him alone!') and turns to the boy. “What conductor?” “Kelemen. He lives by the Elek turning, that's where he saw you.” “Kelemen? He's become a conductor?” “Yeh, since spring, on the cross-country route. But the bus isn't in service at the moment so he has time to loaf around...” “OK,” says Irimias and sets off. The boy leaps to keep pace with him. “I did what you asked me to do.. I hope you'll keep your part of...” “I generally keep my promises,” Irimias answers coolly. The boy follows him like a shadow; sometimes he catches up with him and squints up at his face then falls behind again. Petrina trails still further behind, a long way back, and though they cannot make out his voice they are aware he is continually cursing the ceaseless rain, the mud, the boy, and the world at large ('to hell with it all!') “I still have the photograph!” he says some two hundred yards on. But Irimias does not hear him or pretends not to have heard, his head raised high he is striding down the middle of the road, slicing the darkness with his hooked nose and sharp chin. The kid tries again: “Don't you want to see the photograph?” Irimias turns slowly to look at him. “What photograph?” Petrina has caught up with them. “Do you want to see?” Irimias nods. “Stop beating about the bush, you little devil,” Petrina hurries him. “You won't be cross?” “No. OK?” “You must let me hold it!” the boy adds and reaches into his shirt. They are standing in front of an urban stall, Irimias on the right, his hair combed and parted on the side, wearing a dogtooth-check jacket and a red tie, the crease on his trousers broken at his knee; Petrina is beside him in a pair of satin breeches and an outsize undervest, the sun shining through his jug-ears. Irimias has screwed up his eyes and gives a mocking smile, Petrina is solemn and ceremonial, his eyes happen to be closed, his mouth slightly open. Someone's hand intrudes into the picture on the left, the fingers holding a banknote, a fifty. Behind them a merry-go- round that has been tipped over, maybe in the act of being tipped over. “Well, would you look at that!” Petrina remarks in delight, “It's really us, friend. I'll be darned if it isn't! Pass it over, let me get a better look at that old mug of mine.” The boy pushes his hand away. “Nah! Get lost! You think this is a free show I'm giving here! Get your filthy paws off,” and so saying he slips the photo back in the clear plastic sachet and back inside his shirt. “Aw, come on kid!” Petrina purrs, pleading. “Let's have another look. I hardly had a chance to see anything.” “If you want to see more of it... then..” the boy hesitates, “then you'll have to fix me up with the pub landlord's wife. She has nice big tits too.!” Petrina curses and sets off. ('What next, you brat!'). The boy slaps him on the back then rushes after Irmias. Petrina fishes in the air after him for a while then he remembers the photograph, smiles and hums, and walks a little faster. They're at the cross-roads: it's only half an hour from here. The boy looks at Irimias adoringly leaping now to the left, now to the right of him... “Mari has it off with the pub landlord...” he loudly explains as he goes, taking the odd puff at his cigarette that has burned right down to his fingers by now. “... Mrs Schmidt does it with the cripple, has done for a long time, the headmaster does it to himself... Really repulsive... you can't begin to imagine, ugh!...My sister is totally dumb, does nothing but listen and spy, she spies on everyone all the time, ma beats her but it's no use, nothing is of any use, it's like people said, she will remain gaga all her life... believe it or not, the doctor just sits at home all the time, doing nothing, absolutely nothing! Just sits there all day, all night, he even sleeps in his chair, and his whole place smells, it's like being in a rat's nest, the light on day and night, not that it matters to him, he sits there smoking top-class cigarettes, you'll see, it's just like I told you. And, I almost forgot, today's the day when Schmidt and Kráner are bringing the money home for the poultry, yes, that's what they've all been doing since February, except ma because the filthy swine did not include her. The mill? Nobody goes there, place is full of rooks, and my sisters because that's where they go to whore, but what idiots, just imagine, ma takes all their money and all they do is sit and weep! I wouldn't let that happen, you can be sure of that. There in the inn? That doesn't work any more. The landlord's wife is so full of herself now, she's swollen up like a cow's ass, but luckily she has moved into the town house at last and will stay there till spring, because she said she wasn't going to stay here up to her neck in mud, and, you got to laugh, the landlord has to go home once a month and when he comes back he's like he's had the shit kicked out of him, she lays into him so... In any case he has sold that great Pannón bike he had and bought some crap machine that he's having to push round all the time, and everyone's around, the whole estate when it starts up - because he is always delivering something to somebody - but then everyone has to push it, that's if the engine starts at all... And, yes, he tells everyone that he has won some county race riding that wreck, you have to laugh! He is with my little sister for now because we owe him for seed since last year...” By now the window of the inn is visible glowing ahead of them, but there is no sound, not a single word to be heard, as if the place were deserted, not a soul... but now, someone is playing the harmonica... Irimias drags the mud of his lead-heavy shoes... clears his throat... cautiously opens the door... and the rain begins again, to the east, swift as memory, the sky brightens, scarlet and pale-blue and leans against the undulating horizon, to be followed by the sun like a tramp daily panting up to his pitch on the temple steps, full of heartbreak and misery, there to establish the world of shadows, to separate the trees one from the other, to raise, out of the freezing, confusing homogeneity of night in which they seem to have been trapped like flies in a web, a clearly defined earth and sky, distinct animals and men, the darkness still in flight at the edge of things, somewhere on the far side on the western horizon, where its countless terrors vanish one by one like a desperate, confused, defeated army.
III. To Know Something
At the end of the palaeozoic era the whole of Central Europe begins to sink. Naturally, our Hungarian homeland is part of this process. In the new geological circumstances the hill masses of the palaeozoic era sink ever lower until they have reached rock bottom at which point the sedimental sea inundates and covers them. As the sinking continues the territory of Hungary becomes the north-western basin of that part of the sea that covers Southern Europe. The sea continues to dominate the region right through the mesozoic era. The doctor was sitting by the window feeling morose, his shoulder up against the cold, damp wall, nor did he have to move his head to look through the gap between the dirty floral curtain he inherited from his mother and the rotten window frame in order to see the estate, he only had to raise his eyes from his book, take a brief glance to note the slightest change, and if it now and then happened - say if he was utterly lost in thought or because he had focused on one of the remotest points of the settlement - that he missed something, his exceedingly sharp ears immediately came to his aid, though it was rare for him to be lost in thought and still rarer for him to rise in his fur- collared winter coat from the severally-blanketed, stuffed armchair whose precise position was determined by the cumulative experience of his everyday activities, he having succeeded in reducing to a minimum the number of possible occasions on which he would have to leave his observation post by the window. Of course, this was by no means an easy a task on a day to day basis. On the contrary: he had to collect and arrange in the optimal fashion all that was necessary for eating, drinking, smoking, diary writing, reading and countless other little necessary details of daily life, what was more it meant he had to give up the idea of letting the odd slip - due entirely to some personal weakness - go unpunished, for, if he did so, he would be acting against his own interests, since an error due to distraction or carelessness increased the danger and the consequences were far graver than a man might lightly think: one superfluous movement might mask a sign of the onset of vulnerability; a matchstick or brandy glass in the wrong place was a monument to the destructive effects of declining memory, not to mention the fact that it necessitated further modifications of behaviour: sooner or later it would mean reconsidering the place of the cigarette, the notebook, the knife and the pencil too, so that soon 'the whole system of optimal movement' would be obliged to change, chaos would ensue and all would be lost. It had not been the work of a moment establishing the best conditions for observation, no, it took years, a series of day-by-day refinements - a process of self-flagellation, punishment, and wave after wave of nausea following endless errors - but with the passing of initial uncertainty and the occasional bout of despair, the time came when he no longer had to watch each and every distinct movement, when objects finally arrived at their fixed, final positions and he himself could assume firm, automatic control of his sphere of action at the minutest level, at which point he could admit to himself, without any danger of self-deception or overconfidence, that his life was capable of functioning perfectly. Of course it took a while, even months after achieving this, for the fear to leave him because he knew that however faultless his assessment of his situation in the neighborhood might be, he still, alas, depended on others for his supplies of food, spirits, cigarettes and other invaluable items. His anxieties about Mrs Kraner, whom he had entrusted with his food shopping, and his doubts about the publican, immediately proved to be unfounded: the woman was punctilious and it was possible to wean her off the practice of appearing at the most inopportune moments with the some exotic foodstuff she had purloined on the estate, crying, “Just don't let it cool down, doctor.” As regards the drink he bought it in large quantities at long intervals, either buying it himself, or - more frequently -as a kind of insurance, entrusted the publican with the task, since the latter feared that the unpredictable doctor might one day withdraw his confidence thereby depriving him of an assured income, and therefore did his utmost to satisfy the doctor in every particular, even when that particular seemed downright stupid to him. So there was nothing to fear regarding these two people and as for the other residents of the estate, they had long abandoned hope that they might encroach on his privacy with a sudden attack of fever, stomach upset or general accident as pretext without at least a warning call since they were all convinced that with his withdrawal of such privileges his professionalism and reliability had also vanished. While this was clearly something of an exaggeration the feeling was not entirely unfounded since he dedicated the greatest part of what strength remained to him to preserving his powers of memory and letting all inessential matters take care of themselves. Despite all this he still lived in a constant state of anxiety because - as he noted in his diary with conspicuous regularity - 'these things take all my attention!' so it didn't matter whether it was Mrs Kraner or the publican he spotted at his door he would scrutinize them silently for minutes on end, looking deep into their eyes, checking to see whether they would look down, to note how quickly they averted their gaze, to see, in other words, how far their eyes betrayed them, revealing their suspicion, curiosity and fear, from which evidence he endeavoured to tell whether they were still willing to stick to the agreement on which their financial arrangements depended, only allowing them to approach once he was satisfied. He kept contact to a minimum, refusing to return their greetings, casting only a glance at the full bags they carried, watching their clumsy movements with such an unfriendly expression on his face, hearing their awkwardly formulated questions and excuses so impatiently, muttering away the while, that they (particularly Mrs Kraner) constantly bit off their sentences, quickly put away the money he had put out for them and hastened away without counting it. This more or less explained why he was so nervous about being anywhere near the door: it made him feel decidedly ill, gave him a headache or made him feel breathless, every time he was obliged (due to some carelessness on their part) to get up out of the armchair and fetch something from the far end of the room, so that each time he did this (only after a long preliminary struggle with himself) he strove to be through with it as quickly as possible, but, however he quickly he did it, by the time he got back to his chair his day had been ruined and he was seized by a mysterious bottomless anxiety, so his hand holding the pencil or the glass began to tremble and he filled his journal with nervous little jottings that, naturally, he scrubbed out with crude, furious movements. It was no wonder then that everything in this accursed corner of the estate was upside-down: the mud that had been trailed in had dried in thick layers on the wholly rotten, disintegrating floorboards; weeds grew by the wall nearest the door and off to the right lay a barely-recognizable hat that had been trampled flat, surrounded by remnants of food, plastic bags, a few empty medicine bottles, bits of notepaper and worn-down pencils. The doctor - quite contrary, some believed, to his perhaps exaggerated and probably pathological love of order - did nothing to remedy this intolerable situation; he was convinced that his end of the estate was part of the hostile outside world and this was all the evidence he needed to justify his fear, anxiety, restlessness and uncertainty, for there was only a single 'defensive wall' to protect him, the rest being 'open to attack.' The room opened on to a dark corridor where weeds grew, this being the way to the toilet whose cistern had not worked for years, its absence being supplied by a bucket that Mrs Kraner was obliged to refill three days a week. At one end of the corridor were two doors with great rusty locks hanging from them, the other end led outside. Mrs Kraner, who had her own keys to the place could regularly the smell the strong sour stench as soon as she entered: it soaked itself into her clothes, and she always insisted, crept into her skin as well so it was no use however she tried to wash it off, even washing twice, on the days when she was 'visiting the doctor'. It was the reason she gave Mrs Halics and Mrs Schmidt for the brief time she spent indoors: she was simply incapable of enduring the smell for more than two minutes at a time, because “I tell you, that smell is unbearable, simply unbearable, I don't even know how it is possible to live with such a terrible smell. He is after all an educated man and can see...” The doctor ignored the unbearable smell as he did everything else that did not directly impinge on his observation post, and the more he ignored such things the more attention and expertise he devoted to maintaining the order of objects around him: the food, the cutlery, the cigarettes, the matches and the book, all with the correct distance between each other on the table, the windowsill, the area round the armchair and the constantly aggressive rot on the already ruined floorboards, and at dusk he would feel a warm glow and a degree of contentment on surveying the suddenly darkening room recognizing that everything was under his firm, omnipotent control. He had been aware for months that there was no point in further experimentation but then he realized that even if he wanted to he was unable to make the slightest change to any of it; no modification could be proved to be unarguably for the good because he was afraid that the desire for change was only a subtle sign of his failing memory. In fact he did nothing, simply remained careful to preserve his failing memory against the decay that consumed everything around him, much as he had done from the moment that he - once the closing of the estate had been announced and he personally had decided to stay behind and survive on what remained until 'the decision to reverse the closure should arrive' - had gone up to the mill with the elder Horgas girl to observe the terrible racket as the place was being abandoned with everyone rushing round feverishly and shouting, the trucks in the distance practically fleeing the scene, when it seemed to him that the mill's death-sentence had brought the whole estate to a condition of near collapse, and from that day on he felt too weak to halt this triumphal progress of the wrecking process by himself, however he might try, there being nothing he could do in the face of the power that ruined houses, walls, trees and fields, birds that dived from their high stations, beasts that scurried forth, human bodies, desires and hopes; knowing he wouldn't, in any case, have the strength, however he tried, to resist this treacherous assault against humanity; and knowing this he understood, just in time, that the best he could do was to use his memory to fend off this sinister underhand process of decay, trusting in the fact that since all that mason might build, carpenter might construct, woman might stitch, and since all that men and women had brought forth with bitter tears would turn to an undifferentiated, runny, underground, mysteriously ordained mush, his memory would remain lively and clear, right until his organs surrendered and 'conformed to the contract whereby their business affairs were wound up', that is to say until his bones and flesh fell prey to the vultures hovering over death and decay.
László Krasznahorkai was born in 1954, in the town of Gyula in the east of Hungary, close to the Romanian border. Having studied law first then literature in Budapest, he went on to publish a series of novels and other writings. His works include Satantango, The Melancholy of Resistance, War and War, Animalinside, and Seiobo there Below. His books have been translated into several languages and have received international prizes. The first two of his novels have been made into films by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr and they have co-operated on a number of films.
George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948. His family were refugees from the 1956 Uprising and settled in England where he studied sciences at school, trained as an artist and finished up being a poet and translator. His first book, The Slant Door won the Faber Prize in 1980. His twelve books since have won various awards, most recently the T S Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). He has been translating from the Hungarian since his first return in 1984 and has published over a dozen books of translated prose, verse and drama, that have won a number of prizes. He has edited a number of anthologies of Hungarian writing and written a book on art as well as a number of libretti and musicals. He reviews for The Guardian, The Times and other papers and teaches part time at the University of East Anglia. He is married to the artist Clarissa Upchurch, with whom he has published Budapest: Image, Poem, Film (2006).