Agota Kristof - The Book of Lies

"They'll all wake up?"

"Some of them, yes. At least we hope so."

We are quiet for a moment. She says, "You don't know anyone who could look after you while we wait?"

I ask, "Wait for what?"

"For when one of them comes back."

I say, "No, no one. And I don't want to be looked after. I want to go home."

She says, "You can't live in your house by yourself at your age. If you don't have anyone, I have to send you to an orphanage."

I say, "I don't care. If I can't live at our house I don't care where I go."

A woman comes into the office and says, "I've come for the little boy. I want to take him home with me. He doesn't have anyone else. I know his family."

The social worker tells me to go for a walk in the corridor. There are people in the corridor sitting on benches, talking. They're almost all dressed in bathrobes.

They say:

"How horrible."

"It's a pity, such a nice family."

"She was in the right."

"Men. That's men for you."

"They're a disgrace, these young women."

"And the war breaking out and all."

"There really are other things to worry about."

The woman who said "I want to take him home with me" comes out of the office. She says to me, "You can come with me. My name is Antonia. And you? Are you Lucas or Klaus?"

I offer my hand to Antonia. 'I'm Klaus."

We get on a bus and then walk. We come to a little room where there is a big bed and a smaller one, a crib.

Antonia says to me, "You're still little enough to sleep in that bed, aren't you?"

I say, "Yes."

I lie down in the crib. There's just enough room; my feet touch the bars.

Antonia goes on, 'The little bed is for the baby I'm expecting. It will be your little brother or sister."

I say, "I already have a brother. I don't want another one. Nor a sister either."

Antonia is lying on the big bed and says, "Come, come next to me."

I get out of my bed and go up to hers. She takes my hand and puts it on her stomach. "Can you feel it? It's moving. It will be with us soon."

She pulls me against herself in the bed and holds me.

"I hope that he'll be as handsome as you."

Then she puts me back in the little bed.

Each time Antonia held me I could feel the baby moving, and I thought it was Lucas. I was wrong. It was a little girl who came out of Antonia's stomach.

I am sitting in the kitchen. The two old women told me to stay here. I hear Antonia's cries. I do not move. The two old women come in from time to time to heat water and to say to me, "Sit there quietly."

Later one of the old women tells me, "You can go in."

I go into the room; Antonia holds her arms out, hugs me, and laughs. "It's a little girl. Look. A pretty little girl. Your sister."

I look inside the crib. A little crimson-colored thing is screaming. I hold her hand, count, and stroke her fingers one by one. She has ten. I stick her left thumb in her mouth and she stops crying.

Antonia smiles at me. "We'll call her Sarah. Do you like that name?"

I say, "Yes, the name doesn't matter. It isn't important. She's my little sister, isn't she?"

"Yes, your own little sister."

"And Lucas's too?"

"Yes, Lucas's too."

Antonia starts to cry. I ask her, "Where will I sleep now that the little bed is taken?"

She says, "In the kitchen. I asked my mother to make a bed for you in the kitchen."

I ask, "I can't sleep in your room anymore?"

Antonia says, "It's better for you to sleep in the kitchen. The baby will cry a lot and wake everyone up all night long."

I say, "If she cries and bothers you, all you have to do is put her thumb in her mouth. The left thumb, like me."

I go back into the kitchen. There's only one old woman there, Antonia's mother. She gives me honey sandwiches to eat. She makes me drink some milk. Then she says, "Get into bed, my little one. Choose whichever one you like best."

There are two mattresses on the floor with pillows and blankets. I choose the mattress under the window; that way I can look at the stars and the sky.

Antonia's mother lies down on the other mattress. Before going to sleep she prays: "Lord almighty, help me. The child doesn't even have a father. My daughter with a fatherless child! If my husband even knew! I lied to him. I hid the truth from him. And the other child, which isn't even hers. And this whole sad business. What must I do to save this sinner?"

Grandmother mumbles and I fall asleep, happy to be near Antonia and Sarah.

Antonia's mother rises early in the morning. She sends me off to run errands at a neighborhood store. All I have to do is hand over a list and give them money.

Antonia's mother cooks the meals. She bathes the baby and changes it several times a day. She does the laundry, which she hangs on cords over our heads in the kitchen. She mumbles the whole time. Prayers, maybe.

She does not stay long. Ten days after Sarah's birth she leaves with her suitcase and her prayers.

I'm happy all alone in the kitchen. In the morning I get up early to fetch bread and milk. When Antonia wakes up I go into her room with a bottle for Sarah and coffee for Antonia. Sometimes I give Sarah her bottle; afterward I can watch her being bathed, and I try to make her laugh with the toys that we have bought for her, Antonia and I.

Sarah becomes prettier and prettier. She grows hair and teeth, she knows how to laugh, and she has learned to suck her left thumb.

Unfortunately, Antonia has to go back to work because her parents no longer send her money.

Antonia goes away every evening. She works in a nightclub where she sings and dances. She comes back late at night and in the morning she is tired; she can't take care of Sarah.

A neighbor comes every morning; she gives Sarah her bath, then sets her down with her toys in her pen in the kitchen. I play with her while the neighbor makes lunch and washes the laundry. After doing the dishes the neighbor leaves, and after that I look after everything if Antonia is still asleep.

In the afternoon I take Sarah for walks in her carriage. We go to parks where there are playgrounds; I let Sarah run around in the grass or play in the sand, and I balance her on swings.

When I am six years old I have to go to school. Antonia comes with me on the first day. She speaks with the teacher and then leaves me there alone. When class is over I run home to see if everything's all right and to take Sarah for a walk.

We go farther and farther afield, and it is because of this, completely by chance, that I find myself on my street, the street where I lived with my parents.

I don't mention it to Antonia or anyone else. But each day I walk by the house with green shutters, stop for a moment, and cry. Sarah cries with me.

The house is abandoned. The shutters are closed, the chimney makes no smoke. The front yard is taken over by weeds; in the back, in the courtyard, the nuts have almost certainly fallen from the tree and no one has gathered them.

One evening when Sarah's asleep I leave the house. I run through the streets noiselessly and in total darkness. The lights in the town are out because of the war; the windows of the houses have been carefully blacked out. The light of the stars is enough, and all the streets, all the alleys have been engraved in my head.

I climb the fence, go around the house, and sit at the foot of the walnut tree. In the grass my hands touch nuts that are hard and dry. I fill my pockets. The next day I come back with a sack and gather as many nuts as I can carry. When she sees the sack in the kitchen Antonia asks me, "Where did these nuts come from?"

I say, "From our garden."

"What garden? We don't have a garden."

"The garden of the house where I lived before."

Antonia takes me on her knees. "How did you find it? How do you even remember? You were only four years old at the time."