Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

No, no, the events of the last few months had finally restored his senses, Father said without raising his voice or looking at anyone, and this was followed by another silence, hollow yet grating; as a matter of fact, he added, the reason he had asked them to come was that he was still hoping to find a few men in this country who, like him, had managed not to lose their good sense.

Fully aware of his dignity, returned to him by the men's silence, his professional confidence marked by his smoothly flowing sentences, he remained seated comfortably in his chair, his hands on the armrest; he did not wish to create a scene or to give a lecture, he went on very quietly, it was a simple, sentimental human impulse that made him remind those present of their obligations which all of them had taken on themselves, not here and not now but for a lifetime, and, he smiled before continuing, in the present political situation he couldn't see how anyone could possibly ignore these obligations; he wasn't looking into anyone's eyes, his smile seemed to be meandering among the faces with that inexplicably sharp glance which always terrified me, which I took to be the sign of madness or deliberate cruelty or maniacal paranoia; he had a very simple proposal to make, he said, speaking without a pause now, the words rolling out as if from a recording, after due consideration he had concluded that to prevent a possible counterrevolutionary takeover, they should establish an armed group totally independent of the army, the police, and the security forces that would be accountable only to the highest echelon of the government.

The last words hovered in the air, then froze between the two potentialities of unqualified endorsement of a self-evident idea and vehement rejection, and only then did pandemonium break out — everything from deliberate and accidental knocking over of chairs, pounding on tables, slapping of knees, bellowing, hissing, yelling, shrieking, hostile whistling, guffaws and laughter of all kinds, although some of the guests remained quiet, and the young woman thrust herself away from the doorpost, seeming to want to say something, her face flushed with indignation, while in the middle of the room the colonel was slowly turning his round, smiling face this way and that; the sad-faced elderly man stopped rocking his chair long enough to silence his daughter with a wave of his hand, and then resumed.

I must confess, I told Melchior sixteen years later in that Berlin streetcar, that I hadn't found the scene at all painful, on the contrary, rather enjoyed it, it made me happy, and not only because — rational consideration notwithstanding, which I'm sure I wasn't capable of at the time — I was impressed by Father's regained prestige, determination, and reckless resolve, qualities that to an adolescent boy are always attractive and admirable regardless of their motivation (even Prém, whose fascist father beat him with sticks and straps, was proud of how strong that drunken beast was); no, my satisfaction had a quite different source: I knew something about Father those men could not have known; they weighed what was happening in political terms, and I weighed it emotionally, I knew that for all his insistence on not wanting to, he was creating a scene, mad performance being the only possible way to escape his own madness, to externalize his innermost insanity, for he was insane, so why shouldn't I have been happy to see this unexpected, purging release; ever since Mother's death, more precisely since János Hamar's return, he had been struggling with this madness; only a few days earlier we had been sitting in the kitchen having dinner when he suddenly looked at me, and I could tell he was seeing not me but someone or something else, something tormenting him, the compulsion to overcome which grew so powerful that his mouth, though full of food, dropped open and he began screaming at the top of his voice, half-chewed bits of food squirting out of his mouth and spattering all over the table, all over my face, and tears streaming from his petrified eyes: "Why, why, why?" he howled at me as I sat leaning against the white-tiled kitchen wall, "why, why?" — he could not stop himself, and as I struggled along with him in that howl, he fell silent just as abruptly as he had started screaming, and it wasn't my touch or hug that calmed him, not my hand or the proximity of my body, I don't know what made him stop, maybe he just resigned himself to being defeated by that someone or something within him, because my hands and body told me he was feeling nothing, he was hard as stone, was no longer there; his head sank into his plate, into the soggy vegetables, as if part of the humiliation he had to endure was soggy vegetables on his plate.

Melchior let go of the strap and motioned with his head that it was time to get off.

We were standing on a square, at the end of the line; the streetcar moved on, making the tracks shriek as it slowly turned, taking its lights with it from behind us; we should have started toward the Festungsgraben, where, among drab little houses, the festively illuminated theater stood, one of the few buildings to have survived the war unscathed, though the lovely little park around it had been completely destroyed.

Others were headed in the same direction, too — black, spit-shined men's shoes, the hems of cheap evening gowns sweeping the pavement and getting caught on gilded high heels — but we stayed there for a while, as if waiting for everyone to leave so for a few moments we could have the dark square all to ourselves.

The feeling that we must be alone now was palpably mutual.

It was also strange, I continued after we started walking down the dark street toward the theater, that Father always made the mistake of calling Marx Square by its old name, Berlin Square — meet me at Berlin Square at such and such time, though as soon as he said it he'd correct himself, I mean Marx Square, under the clock; the only reason I thought of this now, I explained, was because that Sunday they couldn't agree on anything, they kept on shouting and arguing for hours without making any sense, until the young woman in the silk dress began to speak despite her father's warning signal; they seemed unable to decide what they really thought of Father's proposal: on the one hand, they accused him of factionalism, sowing discord, some even yelling conspiracy and calling him a provocateur, demanding to know whose agent he really was, telling him they had no choice but to report him; and on the other hand, they admitted the situation had indeed gotten out of hand. State Security had been forced into a corner, the police were unreliable to begin with, the army officer corps was visibly disintegrating under constant, intolerable political pressure, something had to be done before it was too late, before even ordinary criminals were let out of the jails; if yesterday everybody had been an enemy, today everybody was everybody's brother; the most trustworthy Communists were being vilified, people were looking for scapegoats and finding them, directives went unheeded or never reached their destination, everyone was raking up the past, fishing in troubled waters, even the glorious Communist past, even the Spanish Civil War, was open to scrutiny, the whole Party apparatus was full of opportunists and obstructionists, miserable hacks and pen pushers were demanding freedom of the press, nobody worked anymore, public order had virtually collapsed, people were wrapped up in their private affairs, cynically serving two masters, and on top of all that were the enemy's subversive activities; in a word, the country was becoming ungovernable, and for this very reason every firm measure seemed a provocation, unity should not be destroyed by new factional strife, yet who had the right to talk of unity if they themselves could not agree on a proper course of action, it would be irresponsible to incite the various organs of the state against each other, not dissent but confidence had to be strengthened, which all depended on the right kind of propaganda, radical measures only added oil to the fire, the press had to be curbed, anyone with plans like Father's was playing into the hands of the enemy, after all, you can't piss against the wind, when a house is on fire you don't put it out by pouring oil on it; throughout all this, Father sat motionless, saying not a word; but now he was not looking at his friends as from afar, his glance wandering among the faces, but with a vaguely satisfied, friendly smile he gazed at them like one who has finally reached his goal, come home, behavior which made the situation much more complicated: those who were hostile neither to him nor to his proposal might wonder whether he wasn't a provocateur, after all, sitting there so calmly, having used the pistol trick to make people come clean; and his most vociferous accusers might ask themselves how he could stay so calm, so impervious, unless he was indeed backed by people in the highest places, and what did he know that they didn't, while they had unthinkingly revealed their most guarded cards?