Agota Kristof: The Book of Lies

I say, "And now I'm eight. Tell me, Antonia, what happened? Where did they all go? What happened to them? Mother, Father, Lucas?"

Antonia cries and squeezes me very tight. "I hoped you'd forget about all that. I've never spoken to you about it because I wanted you to forget everything."

I say, "I haven't forgotten anything. Every night when I look at the sky I think about them. They're all up there, aren't they? They're all dead."

Antonia says, "No, not all of them. Only your father. Yes, your father is dead."

"And my mother, where is she?"

"In a hospital."

"And my brother, Lucas?" "In a house of rehabilitation. In the town of S., near the border."

"What happened to him?"

"A bullet ricocheted into him."

"What bullet?"

Antonia pushes me off and stands up. "Leave me alone, Klaus. Leave me alone, I beg you."

She goes into the room, lies down on the bed, and keeps sobbing. Sarah starts to cry too. I pick her up and sit on the edge of Antonia's bed.

"Don't cry, Antonia. Tell me everything. It would be better if I knew everything. I'm big enough now to know the truth. Asking oneself questions is worse than knowing."

Antonia takes Sarah, lays her down beside her, and says to me, "Lie down on the other side. Let's let her fall asleep. She mustn't hear what I'm going to tell you."

We remain there, the three of us, lying on the bed for a long time in silence. Antonia strokes Sarah's hair and mine by turns. When we hear Sarah breathing regularly we know she has fallen asleep. Antonia, looking up at the ceiling, begins to speak. She tells me that my mother killed my father.

I say, "I remember the gunshots and the ambulances. And Lucas. Did my mother shoot Lucas too?"

"No, Lucas was wounded by a stray bullet. It hit him right next to the spine. He was unconscious for months and it was thought that he'd be crippled forever. Now there's a hope that he'll heal completely."

I ask, "Is Mother in the town of S. too, like Lucas?"

Antonia says, "No, your mother is here, in this town, in a psychiatric hospital."

I ask, "Psychiatric? What does that mean? Is she sick or is she insane?"

Antonia says, "Insanity is an illness like any other."

"Can I go see her?"

"I don't know. You shouldn't. It's too sad."

I think for a moment and then ask, "Why did my mother go insane? Why did she kill my father?"

Antonia says, "Because your father loved me. He loved us both, me and Sarah."

I say, "Sarah wasn't born yet. So it was because of you. Everything happened because of you. Without you the happiness of the house with green shutters would have lasted through the war, even after the war. Without you my father wouldn't be dead, my mother wouldn't be insane, my little brother wouldn't be a cripple, and I wouldn't be alone."

Antonia says nothing. I leave the room.

I go to the kitchen and take the money Antonia has set aside for groceries. Every night she leaves the money for the next day's groceries on the kitchen table. She never asks me for receipts.

I leave the house. I walk to a big wide street trafficked by buses and streetcars. I ask an old lady who is waiting for the bus on a corner: "Excuse me, ma'am, which is the bus that goes to the station?"

"Which station, my little one? There are three of them."

"The closest."

'Take streetcar number five, then bus number three. The conductor will tell you where to transfer."

I come to an immense station filled with people. Everyone is jostling, shouting, swearing. I get into the line waiting in front of the ticket booth. We move slowly. When at last it's my turn I say, "A ticket for the town of S."

The man says, 'The train to S. doesn't leave from here. You have to go to South Station."

I get on more buses and streetcars. It's night when I reach South Station and there are no more trains to S. until tomorrow morning. I go to the waiting room and find a seat on a bench. There are a lot of people, it smells bad, and the pipe and cigarette smoke stings my eyes. I try to sleep, but as soon as I close my eyes I see Sarah alone in the room, Sarah coming into the kitchen, Sarah crying because I'm not there. She is left alone all night because Antonia has to go to work and I'm sitting in a waiting room on my way to another town, the town where my brother, Lucas, lives.

I want to go to the town where my brother lives and I want to find him; then we will go look for my mother together. Tomorrow morning I will go to the town of S. I will.

I can't sleep. I find ration cards in my pockets; without them Antonia and Sarah will have nothing to eat.

I must go back.

I run. My gym shoes make no noise. In the morning I am near where we live; I line up for bread, then for milk, and go home.

Antonia is sitting in the kitchen. She takes me in her arms. "Where were you? Sarah and I cried all night long. You must never leave us again."

I say, "I won't leave you again. Here's the bread and the milk. Some of the money's not there. I went to the station. Then another station. I wanted to go to the town of S."

Antonia says, "We'll go there soon, together. We'll find your brother again."

I say, "I would also like to see my mother."

One Sunday afternoon we go to the psychiatric hospital. Antonia and Sarah wait in the reception room. A nurse leads me into a little visiting room furnished with a table and a couple of armchairs. Under the window is a small table with green plants on it. I sit and wait.

The nurse comes back holding the arm of a woman in a bathrobe whom she helps sit down in one of the armchairs.

"Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

I look at the woman. She is fat and old. Her half-gray hair is pulled back and fastened behind her head with a bit of string. I notice this when she turns around to take a long look at the closed door. Then she asks the nurse, "And Lucas? Where is he?"

The nurse answers, "Lucas couldn't come, but Klaus is here. Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

I say, "Good day, ma'am."

She asks, "Why are you alone? Why isn't Lucas with you?"

The nurse says, "Lucas will come too, soon."

Mother looks at me. Big tears start to roll down from her pale blue eyes. She says, "Lies. Always lies."

Her nose runs. The nurse wipes it. Mother lets her head fall to her chest. She says nothing more and doesn't look at me again.

The nurse says, "We're tired, we're going back to bed. Do you want to kiss your mother, Klaus?"

I shake my head and stand up.

The nurse says, "You can find your way back to the reception room on your own, can't you?"

I say nothing and leave the room. I walk by Antonia and Sarah without a word, leave the building, and wait outside the door. Antonia holds me by the shoulder and Sarah takes my hand, but I shrug them off and put my hands in my pockets. We walk to the bus station without saying a word.

When Antonia leaves for work that evening I say, "The woman I saw is not my mother. I'm not going to go see her again. It's you who should go see her to realize what you've done."

She asks, "Will you never be able to forgive me, Klaus?"

I don't answer. She adds, "If you knew how much I love you."

I say, "You shouldn't. You aren't my mother. It's my mother who should love me, but she loves only Lucas. And it's your fault."

The front line approaches. The town is bombed night and day. We spend a lot of time in the basement. We've brought down mattresses and bed covers. At first our neighbors come too, but one day they disappear. Antonia says they've been deported.

Antonia is out of work. The nightclub where she sang doesn't exist anymore. The school is closed. It's very hard to find food, even with ration cards. Luckily Antonia has a friend who sometimes comes and brings us bread, condensed milk, biscuits, and chocolate. At night the friend stays with us since he can't go home because of the curfew. On those nights Antonia sleeps with me in the kitchen. I hold her and speak to her about Lucas, who we will find again soon, and we fall asleep looking at the stars.