Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

And I was glad I was rid of her, because this did not mean that I'd lost her, on the contrary, this way I'd possess her for good, precisely because I had the strength to stay alone.

The road was waiting, and I did take it, though I don't think it would make much sense to describe the details of my flight.

My foolishness had me believe that I was the story, and this bleak cold night merely its setting, but in fact my real story played itself out almost independently of me or, more precisely, occurred parallel to my own little adventures.

It was eight in the evening when we'd left home, I remember hearing the church bell, and it must have been a little before ten when she got home, just about the time I left behind the cliffs of Ordőgorom and reached the wide plain that starts at the foot of the mountain; I was glad to see the dim lights of Budaörs, which were far away, but it wouldn't be hard to stay on course in their direction.

I found out later that she sneaked into her room unnoticed, threw off her clothes, slipped into bed, and was almost asleep when they discovered her; they turned on the light, started yelling at her, but not wanting to give me away, she said she'd had a headache and gone out for a walk; then she started to cry, her mother slapped her, and she was so afraid of what might happen to me that she told them.

By then I had reached Budaörs via a long, dark, winding road that was hardly more than a pass, very like an unpaved trench, with frozen cart tracks; tall thickets on either side gave some protection, and it seemed warmer there than in the open field, but also spookier, because I never knew what might be lurking around the next bend, and also because I kept thinking I was going in the wrong direction, and by way of consoling and encouraging myself I decided that if I did reach the distant lights I'd pay for a night's lodging somewhere, I had the money, or simply ask to be allowed in for the night, but reaching the first village houses brought no relief, because a dog dashed out from one of them, an ugly, frostbitten mutt with a stringy stump for a tail, and it kept following me, yapping and snapping, with every step I took I had to kick so it wouldn't get at my pants; it kept baring its teeth, snarling and yelping, and that's how we passed by the village inn, where they were just pulling down the shutters; two women and a man gave me a long stare, wondering why the dog was following me like that, it looked suspicious to them; and I quickly gave up the idea of looking for lodging there.

In the meantime, Livia's father put on his coat and went over to my house.

It must have been around midnight when I left the village and when Livia's father rang our bell.

With its legs spread wide apart, the dog stood barking away, in the middle of the street leading out of the village, which sloped slightly, while all around us the crisp outlines of silent hills were etched against the shimmering sky; I realized the dog had stopped following me, wouldn't snap at my legs anymore, and I was safe, I was all alone, incredibly happy to be able to breathe freely; as the barking turned into a long, soft whine behind me, I marched out of the village so jauntily that I even forgot how cold I was, and of course the excitement and the walking were warming me up a little.

At home they were waiting for the ambulance to take Mother to the hospital.

Livia's father was standing in the hallway, telling them what had happened, when the ambulance arrived; János went with Mother so Father could stay home and call the police.

Having lost track of time, I kept dragging myself along the silent road and didn't even realize that what I now wanted to hear, with all my young and immature being, was the sound of an approaching car, which first I thought I'd flag down and, whatever its destination, ask for a lift, but since I was afraid to do that, I got off the road, stepped into a ditch, into ankle-deep snow, and waited for it to pass.

It zoomed by and I thought they hadn't noticed me, but then I heard the screeching of brakes, of wheels, and the car spun around on the slippery road, banged against the shoulder that was slightly higher than the road, and, rebounding, slid into a stone marker; the engine stopped, the lights went out.

After the sounds of screeching, skidding, and banging, there was a split second of silence, then the two front doors flew open and two dark coats were running toward me.

I tripped and slid down the side of the ditch, and then started running on the frozen ground of a snowy meadow, spraining my ankle in the effort.

They grabbed me by my coat, near my neck.

You little motherfucker, you; almost wound up in that ditch because of you!

They twisted my arm behind my back; they both held on to me as, pushing and shoving, they dragged me to the car; I didn't protest.

They threw me on the back seat — bash your head in if you so much as move! — and had a hard time starting the car, so they kept up their swearing the whole way, but it was so nice and warm inside, my body tingled, and in this tingling softness and with the droning engine, the swearing slowly receded and I fell asleep.

It was getting light when we stopped in front of a big white building, they showed me the dent on the bumper — they're not gonna be the ones to pay for it, that's for sure, and they'll teach me not to fall asleep at a time like this.

They took me upstairs and locked me in a room.

There I tried to pull myself together; I wanted to think up a story I could tell, but I had to rest my head on the table.

For a while the table felt too hard, I tried to cushion it with my arm, but that was also too hard, and then it turned soft.

A key turned in the lock, I must have fallen asleep, after all; a woman in uniform stood in front of me, and behind her, out in the corridor, I saw my grandfather.

In the taxi, just as we made the turn from Istenhegyi Road to Adonisz Road and drove past the high fence of the restricted zone, he told me what had happened during the night; it was as if not a single night but several years had passed in the interim.

It was a bright morning, everything was melting and dripping in the sunlight.

Mother's bed was covered with a striped bedspread, as it had been years ago, before she got sick.

The way it was covered made it feel as though she no longer lived here.

And my feeling did not deceive me, for I never saw her again.

Our poplar tree was holding on to its last leaves, which had to turn their deathly yellow before they could fall; they rustled in the breeze— too slight to disturb the arching branches, which merely trembled now and again — twirled and twisted on their short stems, bumping into one another.

It was sunny outside and the flickering, twisting spots of pale yellow made the distant sky even bluer; you could see deep into the mistless blue, as though eyes could distinguish between far and near and one weren't staring into a void that ended somewhere only because it wasn't infinitely transparent.

It was pleasantly warm in the room, the fire humming quietly in the white tile stove, and with our slightest move the smoke of our cigarettes sank and rose in thick, sluggish layers.

I was sitting at his desk in his comfortably wide armchair — he always let me have this special corner of his room — working on my notes, which really meant that while staring out the window through the softly curling layers of bluish smoke, I was trying to recall what had happened during rehearsals the day before, superimposing image on image.

There are gestures and words the meaning and motives behind which we comprehend all at once, and we also notice the minute irregularities that at the moment of occurrence may seem contingent and accidental, cracks and chasms of imperfections that separate the player from the play, the actor from his role, and that the actors, in accordance with the strict rules of their craft, would somehow like to bridge, as if to eliminate the sad truth that total fusion, total identification, does not exist, even if it is the ultimate desire of many a human endeavor.