THE ORDER OF the next few days was determined by rural funeral customs. The mourners who came home with her were not too fussed about proprieties and stayed longer than the generally approved fifteen minutes though the old woman didn’t mind: she liked talking about Vince. She served liqueur to her guests because the weather was unusually cold again, as if March were at war with itself, bringing hard winter days to frustrate the promise of spring. Iza said it was a barbaric custom having crowds round before a burial. She hated guests and was never at home. But there was no alternative and there was so much to do. Iza spent one morning at the clinic with Dekker, arranging things with the trade union social services, organised the funeral and was constantly negotiating at the estate office since it was no simple matter selling the house.
Apart from one unexpected local council member and a young clerk of court who was a total stranger, there was no one who failed to speak of Iza as well as Vince. Iza’s reputation, her important job and the money she sent monthly, the regular supply of fuel she ordered for her parents, how she took them to the shoe shop, to the tailor’s and to the doctor, was a matter of constant street gossip. The idea that she was moving her mother to Budapest was no surprise to anyone. Iza couldn’t have done anything else; that was just the way she was. She was not only a brilliant doctor, a properly grateful child, but a good person. Mrs Szőcs must be so pleased with her. Old Vince had gone, of course, poor thing, but here was his daughter to take his place as protector. What delight it must be to move to Budapest, to leave sad memories behind and to enjoy a happy old age in new circumstances: it was not just to be free of cares and worries but to avoid loneliness at seventy-five and to give oneself over to peaceful reflection! Iza would look after her, she’d have nothing to worry about for the rest of her life.
Iza really did do everything for her mother, even tiny, insignificant-looking things. She cooked for her, made sure she ate, and when the doorbell rang and she happened to be at home she ran to answer it to make sure her mother didn’t have to rush. Her great head of hair floated after her as she made speed. Vince hadn’t been the same for ages and had to be excused various duties so all the responsibility was on the old woman’s shoulders, right down to apparently small and insignificant tasks like opening the gate, which could be a serious problem when it rained in the winter because of the mud. Now it was Iza who would run to answer in the heavy downpour in her black skirt and pullover, looking as young as she had when she lived in the house as a girl, or as a bride of two days.
There was plenty for her to do and not much time for crying or thinking.
Before she left Pest she had taken a few days out of those due for her summer vacation and wanted to settle everything in that time – the funeral, discussions about the inheritance, the sale of now useless possessions, the moving and even the matter of the house. ‘I don’t want you to be involved in the removals,’ she told her mother, ‘you wouldn’t be able to stop helping me and you won’t be in top condition after the funeral. You’re going to take a couple of days off in Dorozs, mama, I’ll phone the sanatorium this evening. There you can relax, have a lie-in, look at the trees, read, sleep and buy a couple of sessions at the baths because it looks as though your bones need it. Once I’ve arranged everything I’ll come to fetch you. Dekker is going to Pest on the eleventh and can give us both a lift in his car.’
Dorozs was a nearby town some fifteen kilometres away and had a sulphur-iodine spa whose hot waters had been described three hundred years ago, though the spa-sanatorium in the park was only six years old. It was a place they had longed to go to and had several times decided to take a trip there but, though there was an hourly bus, something always got in the way so they never went, just as they had never made it to the seaside, or to a good many other places in the world that they had talked about and prepared for. The old woman looked down into her lap as she listened to Iza’s offer, then felt around for her handkerchief. It made her so happy to think how much Iza loved her and took care of her, but she had never been so sad in her life as when she finally went to Dorozs.
It was an enormous relief to her that she wouldn’t have to live by herself in a house bereft of Vince, but it was terrifying not to be present while Iza packed up ready for the removal men. ‘You’d only torture yourself,’ retorted Iza, ‘you have spent enough time crying. I know my flat, know where I am taking you, I know where things will fit and what will look best. I want you to be happy from now on.’ The thought that she would be looked after, that someone else would do her thinking for her, moved her again: her eyes filled with tears of gratitude. Iza was right, of course, she always was, it really would be awful if she herself had to pack Vince’s belongings, it might be quite beyond her to fold away his familiar old-fashioned clothes and his brightly coloured caps. Ever since he got older, Vince had refused to wear proper hats and always wore caps with visors. Let Iza get on with packing those, once they are up in Pest and she feels better, she can put them into some order and stow them in the wardrobe. It will be as though both of them had moved up to live with Iza and maybe she would even talk to Vince’s walking stick sometimes, or his heavy glass, his tin can, the one he used to warm shaving water in on the stove when the winter was extra cold. She secretly hoped that they could take everything to the city with them. Iza hadn’t received a proper trousseau when she got married and Vince in particular felt very ashamed that it was only their own belongings they could share. Now she could happily make a gift of the lot, let it all go to Pest. She watched the girl’s face in hope that she might like the idea of the gift but Iza shook her head and told her not to worry about things like that but to leave the job of moving to her. She calmly accepted: Iza always knew everything better than she did and no doubt she knew better now. Pity it seemed she couldn’t take everything. Well, no doubt the girl would choose what she thought they would need in the big city, and as for the rest . . .
It does no good to think about that, she thought, so she turned her mind elsewhere.
She had spent a lifetime with this furniture that had grown old and tired along with her, every piece with a history of its own. It hurt that she couldn’t take it all. It hurt that she couldn’t take the entire house and carry it with her to Budapest, because the house was only frightening if she had to be alone in it; if her daughter could be with her it would the most desirable of residences. But Iza had a freehold flat, why should they continue to pay tax on the house – if she wants to sell it, that’s what she should do. And who would buy it? Anyone – she wished them well of it. But it was a shame about the little things that would have to be left behind. Never mind, there was no way round it. When Vince was alive he arranged everything for her, now it would be Iza. Wasn’t it great that she wouldn’t have to negotiate with the property office!
The night before the funeral, on that wholly unexpected evening, just as Iza was struggling to prepare a fish in the unheated kitchen, Antal appeared again. It was she, for once, who let him in. Iza was frying fish in breadcrumbs and she shouted to her to open the gate as she had to attend to the meal. It was raining, as it had done constantly for days. Antal was bareheaded, and his hair and brow were dripping. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him in a hat; in winter his head was always covered in snow. Hearing his steps, Iza looked out of the kitchen. Seeing it was him, her face immediately froze into a polite smile. She excused herself, said she was cooking and asked if he fancied supper with them because there was enough. Antal thanked her and said he had already eaten. That clearly wasn’t true but it wasn’t something you could argue with.
Antal didn’t beat about the bush. He asked how much it was for the house. Last time Iza was at the clinic she mentioned it was for sale. He himself was looking to move and would be pleased to buy it if they could agree a price.
She stared at Antal in astonishment. She hadn’t thought of him as someone who would ever buy a house.
‘If you cared to leave some furniture behind, mama,’ said Antal, ‘I would be happy to take that off your hands too.’
She looked so delighted, she hadn’t felt as happy since just before Dekker’s diagnosis three months before. She still didn’t know what Iza wanted to keep or sell, but she was already sorry for such items as fell into other hands; it was as if they were endowed with life, with voices and feelings, that they were beings who, having enjoyed long-term security, were now obliged to go into exile and spend the night in strange people’s houses, sighing for home. Antal, it is true, had abandoned them, but in some ways he did belong here.
But, having heard this, she had to call in Iza now.
Iza smelled of fish and oil, and this made her unrecognisable in some way. Iza was always so clean, so cool, it was as if she wanted to distance her body from the grime and grease of housekeeping, so she was quite shocked to see her flushed with cooking. There was something in Iza that didn’t resist this time: she was about more important business so she let the kitchen get the better of her. ‘It’s a matter of care and necessity,’ the girl had explained once. ‘A person can be in possession of herself, even in a kitchen.’ She was not in possession now: cooking and its ingredients had overcome her composure. Iza was less bothered with herself this evening. What was she bothered with?
She stood and listened to the reason for his visit. Later the old woman would be puzzled to explain the peculiar look on her face. For some reason she did not seem to welcome Antal’s offer. She was inwardly praying that her daughter, whatever her reasons, would not reject it. If they couldn’t be here at least let Antal remain. She didn’t dare say anything since all her life it was someone else who arranged things, but deep inside her she would have been willing to let the house go at any price Antal offered, provided the dragon spout was looked after and Antal was conscientious about watering Vince’s flowers. Antal had always helped Vince chop wood and knew that the trunk they used to cut on had its own pet name, Dagi.
‘Do you really want to settle here?’ asked Iza.
Her voice was calm and so controlled that even the old woman noticed it was costing her a great deal of effort to hold something back, that there was an unspoken question lurking somewhere in the background. Antal didn’t answer but looked for his cigarettes while Iza just stood there. The old woman muttered something, feeling Iza wouldn’t mind if on this one occasion she broke the agreement not to leave them together by themselves. Yesterday, or the day before yesterday, they had after all been obliged to speak to each other when Iza was at the clinic thanking Dekker and that nurse for their kindness. She whispered something about supper and sneaked out. The oil was simmering on the cooker though Iza had taken the pan off the flame. Suddenly she felt she couldn’t eat a mouthful: the oily half of the fish was glimmering as if it were alive.
She sat out there a good while till eventually Iza raised her voice to tell her Antal was leaving.
‘Have you agreed?’ she asked in hope.
He was setting off but the old woman didn’t want to let him go out unescorted so she saw him out. Antal hesitated in the doorway for a moment, as though he wanted to say something conciliatory or reassuring but said nothing in the end, simply kissed her, turned up his collar and went off into the rain. She gazed after him until he was gone, though it wasn’t Antal she wanted to see but the image, to hold on to it as long as possible, the gentle curve of the street, the lights in the windows, Kolman’s crude but proudly lit shop display. People squelched their way through the water, the tops of their umbrellas flashing in the light. The wind was southerly again, the clouds, the moonless sky, squatting on the low roofs. It was the first time in her life she felt the earth was round, not flat; that it was slowly but unmistakably turning under her feet. How could Vince’s tiny and ever more wasted body represent such security for her? She stood there, leaning against the gatepost that hadn’t seemed quite real to her for days, as if Vince had taken the reality of the stones and planks away with him and left only a ball of white noise, a mere fog behind. Under the teeming March evening and the cloudburst sky she felt once more, as for the last time, the close physical presence of Vince, his grey hair floating around the street lamp at the bend of the road. Fog was settling, a spring mist, and in the distance she could hear the swish of wheels cutting through standing water in the rain-drenched main road.
They were driven to the funeral in Dekker’s car. The professor was sensitive and ordered a taxi for himself so as to leave Iza and the old woman alone. Mrs Szőcs had wanted to set out long before the ceremony started but Iza wouldn’t let her, which seriously upset her; she wanted a few minutes alone with the coffin before it was surrounded by strangers. ‘You are my only relative,’ said Iza, keeping her lovely, serious eyes on her. ‘I am both your daughter and your doctor, mum. It’s not just the dead that need to rest, the living do too. I don’t want you to have cried your eyes out: your heart is old, you are no longer young. I have to take care of you.’
She didn’t cry at first, not because of the medicine Iza made her take, but because her grief was tinged with a kind of awkward joy: it was days since she had seen Vince and now that she knew she would see him one more time she would be free to kiss him and adjust his tie. She did not look out from the car window but kept her eyes fixed on her lap, thinking of what she would say to him when she saw him. He must know that Iza had decided to take her back to Pest but he might not have caught up with Antal’s offer yet. She would promise him to eat more from now on, and apologise to him for not giving him enough painkillers but she had very much wanted him to live, to live at least as long as possible. She was preparing to talk to him as though he were alive, the only problem being that time was limited.
All the same, she was trembling before they arrived at the mortuary. The velvet-covered doors and the bare ornamental trees in their plant stands frightened her. The first person she saw on opening the door was Kolman, who was wearing a black tie – she liked that – and then the bier. She stopped on the threshhold and burst into tears. The coffin lid was closed.
That hurt her more than the last four days with all their sorrows had. Iza took her arm and led her to the bench. She sat down, the tears escaping through her gloved hands. Iza said nothing, just sat beside her, her back straight, absolutely still. She knew Iza was acting for the best, that it was wiser to behave like this, that Iza was protecting her, that she was acting as a barrier between her and death, but still it hurt that she could not see his face which even four days ago had begun to look like that of a stranger. She listened to the service, weeping throughout, feeling it was not addressed to her or anything to do with her; she couldn’t follow the prayer either and felt further from the peace of the grave and the thought of resurrection than she had ever done. She sobbed stubbornly like a child, and was not in the least comforted by the promise that the grave represented calm after a life of tribulation and that it would be followed by eternal light. She clung to Vince’s body as she had done in the first terrifying, passionate months of their marriage. Heaven was a long way off and offered no recompense.
When the funeral procession set off she followed the coffin, leaning on Iza’s arm, not seeing who came after them, feeling simply that there were more people than she expected. The carriage left deep tracks in the mud, the dripping damp soaked into their coats. No one put up an umbrella: no one felt it was appropriate. Vince had never ridden in such a vehicle before, such a dignified, black, glazed car, and no one had ever paid as much respect to him as these people from the undertaker’s. Everything she was going to say remained unsaid and she couldn’t even string sentences together as they trooped along. There was nothing of Vince on show, just the lid of the coffin that covered him. The priest looked a little offended at the graveside, possibly annoyed at having wasted his time promising eternal joy to people who didn’t appreciate it, but she carried on sobbing as the earth was shovelled in. Vince’s grave was small, somehow much smaller than she had imagined it would be. She didn’t care how many people were looking; she knelt down and kissed the wooden headpost.
As she was bending down, wiping away the tears, she spotted Lidia. She was in a black coat that she must have borrowed because it didn’t fit her, with black gloves and hat. She had never liked this girl, and was pained by the sad look in her eyes and the movement with which she laid a small bouquet on the mound.
When they reached town the car stopped in the central square without turning down their street. She stared ahead. There was the yellowish glow of the hotel where they had sat just three months before in the café with the red curtains discussing Vince’s impending death, and next to it, in the downpour, the travel and airline offices, with a bus, and in the yard next to it a long-distance coach, its heavy blue bulk washed with rain.
Iza got out; they were looking for something at the back of the car and emerged with a suitcase. It was Iza’s brown travelling case, the light luggage she had arrived with. Iza shook the driver’s hand and the car drove off.
‘Now you are to drink some coffee and then you’re off.’
She didn’t understand at first and simply stared.
‘You need coffee because you’re frozen through, then you are getting on the bus. It leaves in ten minutes for Dorozs. Here’s your case.’
‘Now?’
‘Now,’ Iza answered. ‘You’ve shed enough tears. If you went back to the house now you’d only go round and round the rooms and get yourself worked up again. I’ll arrange everything here and once I’ve finished I’ll follow you. There are books and medicine in the case, and I have asked the hotel to get the desk clerk to help you fill in the official papers relating to your arrival.’
She followed her obediently, in silence. There were just three people in there. They immediately brought the coffee. She stared at the brown surface of the liquid, stirring it. It was very dreamlike. Here she was, a small child again with a bag on her arm, led by her mother, an adult Iza – Iza in black, looking pale. Iza’s hand was strong, as was her voice telling her, ‘No crying!’
Would she never see this town again, nor the house where she had lived with Vince?
Iza rose and paid.
The bus smelled of petrol. There were hardly any passengers on board: a woman with a stick was clambering on before them. Iza put the case on the luggage rack. She must have packed it at night, while she was asleep, and when would she have had time to talk to the hotel?
The bus set off so soon they didn’t even have time for a proper goodbye. Iza simply took a step back and the conductor slammed the door. The rain was so dense it was almost impossible to see through it and she could only guess at her daughter’s shape as she stood in the hotel entrance. ‘To Dorozs?’ asked the conductor. The word suggested summer, the scent of flowers, and Vince was present, somewhere behind the words, but suddenly it was as if a force had seized him: he was sliding away, vanishing. The bus was passing through the railway workers’ quarter, over the big bridge. She could see the white board of the railway station, trains were puffing under the bridge. The rain fell in sheets.
‘To Dorozs,’ the old woman confirmed.
The windscreen wiper was moving up and down the windscreen.