Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

That hot summer afternoon when she stepped onto the main road from the forest path, the soles of her red sandals crunched a few more times and only then did her searching glance stand out in the quivering silence, a moment before meeting my eyes; and I was standing by the fence, among the bushes, as I did every day, hoping for and being terrified of something, not knowing what but feeling that something was going to happen, something had to happen, but also knowing that as soon as she appeared, my fantasies, however innocent, could not be realized; I had barely swallowed the last bite of my bread, and holding the fence with one hand I was about to wipe my other hand on my thigh, smearing the lard, but then our searching eyes met and couldn't part, we kept staring for a long time, without stirring, endlessly, like that time in the gym, except then, without acknowledging it, we were protected by both distance and the crowd, whereas here we were utterly defenseless, at the mercy of our deepening emotions; yet the present moment was as inexplicably accidental as that encounter in the gym, for on many other occasions our eyes, our faces, and our gestures could have been this close, but it never happened, not once after that first time, though we kept looking at each other all the time, kept looking for the chance to gaze at each other from afar and near, though cautiously, stealthily, and as soon as we had the chance, we ruined it almost on purpose, looked away, fled, then quickly looked back to see if the other still felt the same desire, the same pain; once, she ran away and looked back while still running, then tripped and fell but quickly jumped up and continued running; her compulsion to flee made her so graceful and nimble that I couldn't even laugh at her as I would have wished; that early spring morning began to haunt me again, though much had changed since then, if only because without either of us talking about our relationship it could not remain a secret; after a few weeks passed, the word was out that Livia Stili was in love with me.

Actually, it was not so hard to tell, we had given ourselves away already in the gym; after Livia turned discreetly away, her gaze was still with me though she was no longer looking at me, so she was the one who put an end to the moment whose beginning I couldn't exactly recall: first, she simply unfixed her stare, as though it had been a mistake and she'd been looking at not me but Prém, and there was something undeniably flirtatious in how she withdrew her glance; then she turned her head, thoughtfully, seriously, but that, too, for all the subtlety of the motion, was blatantly theatrical! she could stand there, calm and dutiful, ostensibly meeting all the requirements of the silent ritual, as if nothing had happened, as if it had been an accident, an error, yet by turning away she in fact reinforced the effect produced by her glance — what could I do? ashamed of being so vulnerable, I, too, turned away, yet still I felt that I should look back, that something important was being taken away from me — just how important I hadn't even realized until then — though what was truly important was not that I got something from her but that it could be taken away so easily, every minute without her looking at me now seemed wasted, empty, unbearable, a time in which I did not exist; mostly those eyes stayed with me, but her mouth and forehead, too, and I had to have them in front of me, no amount of fantasizing would do, without their visible presence everything would recede to an oppressive, faraway dimness; but for all that, I didn't look back, which took a lot of effort: my face, neck, shoulders, even my arm grew numb, but I didn't want to look, and making yourself not do something is always a struggle, you stretch it until the effort becomes unnatural; the longer I stood there, abandoned, the stronger and more painful my awareness of this altogether impossible sensation, almost as if my body had swelled and swallowed another, my distended skin was covering more than my own body and my brain was beginning to think another's thoughts; the more agonizing this state became, the more offended and angry I got, desperate in need of relief, for the real state of affairs, the true balance of power, seemed perfectly clear: I weighed the opportunities afforded by each passing moment but had to concede, and it wasn't easy, that I didn't have the upper hand; it was she who had both provoked my attention and then abandoned me; therefore, in no circumstance should I look back now, for if I did, it would be clear that she was winning, was the stronger, and it would mean that once again somebody had subdued me, triumphed over me, this servant, this ugly girl, just a girl, a maid, this angry conclusion being not totally unfounded, since she seemed to play the same role around Hédi and Maja that Prém did around Krisztián and Kálmán Csúzdi, so my feelings about the two servants neatly merged, and just for that I vowed that even if she stared at me for the rest of her life, I'd never so much as cast another glance at her, she'd never be able to do this to me again! let her turn blue in the face, let her admire me to her heart's content, let there be someone who follows me and only me with her eyes — and let me pretend it means absolutely nothing to me; but when I finally did look back — I couldn't help it, her burning face made me — I could feel nothing stronger than again that look, that face, looking at me; and if she kept looking, then after a while I could let go, just for a moment, look and then quickly look away, to make her look even harder, feel more painfully my absence, let her know how serious it can be when I take my eyes off her; but it wasn't she looking at me — I was deceived again! — it was Hédi Szán, standing a few rows over, in a perfect position to observe both of us, and no doubt she did, because ever so sweetly, softly, albeit with a hint of malice, she made a face.

Our last class was canceled, we were sent home at noon.

And as we lined up for dismissal, we heard church bells, first only four peals breaking the bright blue silence outside, then the great bell tolling, answered by a clanging smaller one, and then both boomed and pealed as though nothing had happened and it was simply noontime on an ordinary day, no different from any other.

I didn't want to walk home with anyone, get into a conversation, so on the staircase I fell out of line before the others thundered down the steps, unruly and irrepressible, shouting, a pent-up herd squeezing through the narrow doorway out into the open, where one could finally catch one's breath as if breathing for the first time in one's life and where the teachers' hysterical yells no longer made a difference, and I headed for the third floor, which is why Krisztián may have thought I was going to the teachers' room to report him, but in an unguarded moment and very cautiously, lest I be seen, I continued on; past the third-floor landing the staircase became narrow and dusty — since then I've often dreamed of myself ascending those dusty, untraveled stairs, which they obviously seldom cleaned, I am the only one ever to climb these stairs and in my dream this has special significance, for I am doing something forbidden, I shouldn't be here, thick, soft dust rises with every step and is slow to settle, so when I look back I see I've left no footprints, I prick my ears but nothing stirs, it's all quiet, I feel safe, though I know I could get caught, and no matter how alert I am and certain that no one saw me, I still have the feeling somebody is watching, and perhaps I am that somebody, unable to hide my little secrets from myself; anxiously I reach the attic door, which of course is locked; the black iron door was always locked and yet I always tried it anyway, in case someone might have left it unlocked by mistake.

This was my last refuge, the sort of hideaway one instinctively seeks out; I had such a place in our garden, too, also dark, but where the light was blocked by the foliage of a chestnut tree and honeysuckle crawling up the high bushes — it was interesting to watch the struggle of the two, with the bushes letting out new shoots and the honeysuckle, as if waiting in ambush, creeping after them, by autumn covering all the new shoots; here, by the attic, I had a pile of old desks, file cabinets, chairs, blackboards, crumbling old wooden platforms, and the neutral silence of discarded furniture; there, in the garden, my solitary daydreams and a lingering memory of secret games with Kálmán, which I believed to be sinful; moving in the neutral silence of discarded furniture, now bending down, now creeping sideways, I tried to avoid the hard edges and sudden protrusions, and when a bunch of old things began to shift and creak and seemed about to topple, I froze and instinctively covered my head, but kept inching toward the inner sanctum — nothing more than an up-ended old leather couch pushed against the wall with just enough room to slip behind, where I let myself be pressed against the wall by the overhanging cushions, which I clung to and which clung to me; the darkness was total and the leather, as always, cold, until I warmed it with my body.