James Stambaugh PTERODACTYL

3:03am, my dog yelps once, a trusting yelp, a knowing yelp.  He knows I will get up and take him outside so that he can pee.  He is a slightly less than three pound Chihuahua puppy, with bad habits of tearing up books and sniffing dirty underwear.  He doesn’t yet sleep through the night.  I blearily unlatch his cage, pull on some slippers, and cover my bare chest with a leather coat.  It’s probably getting close to 3:05 when I leash the dog and unlock the front door.

My front yard is dark; the street light is, at this moment, off, resting, quiet.  The dog rushes down the four blue steps that lead from the front door to the little patch of grass.  He is so small in comparison to the steps, and his head is so big in relation to his body, that every step presents the danger of his tumbling head over heels to the small concrete landing below.  The dog pulls me by the leash onto the slightly overgrown grass. The sprinklers have recently been on; I feel the moisture seeping through the bottom edges of my threadbare pajama pants. 

The ritual of sniffing is an important one to my dog.  First he sniffs around in the grass itself presumably to make sure that none of the neighborhood dogs have desecrated his most sacred ground.  Then he tries to go for the flower bed, but I don’t let him—I’ve just doused the irises with insecticide.  He then makes for the rosemary bushes which reside in a thin bed of gravel between the sidewalk and the street.  He straddles one that is just slightly bigger than himself, and attempts with mixed success to crap on top of the bush.  Without clarity of vision, I look up and down the street.  Sometimes homeless people are wondering through the neighborhood, sometimes sleeping in the park.  Sometimes there are stray dogs, dogs that could eat my dog as an hor d’oeurves before proceeding to my leg as the main course.  I am as vigilant as I can be, half-asleep and without my glasses, which are neatly folded on my nightstand on top of my copy of Twilight of the Machines.
  
As my dog continues to defecate on my ornamental herbs, I am hazily recalling a conversation I had with one of my friends who forages rather than buys his food.  Mostly, he gets his food from the dumpsters of grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants, but just the other day he mentioned being able to find lots of edible plants “in people’s yards or right next to the sidewalk.”  I hope he wasn’t referring to my rosemary. 

The dog is now sniffing around, tugging at the leash.  He wants to explore the possibility of a territorial infringement involving the fire hydrant on the corner.  Across the street is a park, a patch of grass, some of it dead, several large elm trees, a bench or two, and a jungle gym—an elaborate plastic ziggurat planted in a bed of shredded rubber mulch, and flanked by a swing set. I know all of these things are over there in the park, but I cannot see them now at what I estimate is 3:07am.  It is too dark, and the street light, normally orangish-yellow at the near edge of the park directly across from the fire-hydrant, refuses to turn on. 

I watch the dog lift his leg and delicately balance his body centimeters above the rusty yellow hydrant.  My vision suddenly clears.  Several things happen almost instantaneously, though I am profoundly struck with the impression that the very first thing which occurs is that my dog’s ears prick up, next the hair on the back of his neck bristles, and then so does the hair on the back of mine.  A seismic screech explodes in every direction, its epicenter directly above us or maybe from one of the elm trees across the street, not ten yards away.  The shriek is diabolically raw; the noise is tangible and makes our heads swim.  It echoes down the urban canyon of houses, and cars.  It is inhuman, in fact non-mammalian—neither drowning llamas, nor suffocating oxen could ever make a sound so horrific, so malignantly primal, so pre-historic. 

We are in the house.  The door is locked, and bolted, the chain slid into its brass slot.  We pant in the dark, terrified, full of adrenaline.  All I remember is that I almost stepped on the dog as we both leapt for the door, I made it up the four blue stairs in a single bound, the dog, less than a foot long, in two.  I have never been more united in purpose with a member of another species.  We both had the same flight response.  We both knew that we were to either flee or die; run or be torn apart in a mélange of wings or scales, canine and human flesh; the blood of dog and master staining sidewalks and sprinkling rosemary bushes at the hands of…the sound.  What had made it?  I ask myself without daring to move, sitting on the ground, the Chihuahua trembling at my side; our hearts pumping furiously and at roughly the same rate.  What could possibly emit such a grotesquely frightening noise? 

I lean back against the wall by the door, right under the hooks where I hang my coats.  I try not to think about it, and to catch my breath.  I inhale deeply.  Oxygen is once again freely flowing to my brain.  A cacophony of memories come rushing in to the stygian vacuum which had just began to settle over me.  Synapses fire, my eyelids shudder as events are revealed that are moments fresh, before the flight, before the frenzied locking of doors, before the collapse onto the carpet.  I remember three things happening not nearly, but precisely, at once.

The First Thing

The shriek was followed by silence.  I looked toward the park.  There directly above the street’s double yellow center line, was an owl with a wingspan at least equivalent to the length of the Ford Explorer parked nearby.  It was ghost-grey and its eyes were red.  Its noiseless wings rippled and glowed.  Its scythe beak was still slightly ajar.  No doubt, it was finishing its fell squawk on the subsonic level warning the stray dogs to stay away.  Its talons were extended, serrated like rustic steak knives painted black.  It was not interested in me, but in the dog at the end of the leash whose undercarriage was still dripping with piss as he circled around to face his avian apocalypse with what I immediately perceived as a Zen-like attitude more befitting a Shiatsu or Labrador than a dog of his breed.  

I could not stop the bird from snatching the dog.  Its powerful wings cut me down at the knees as it passed.  I fell hard.  The leash was somehow severed; it lay limp beside me like a ran-over snake.  On my back, with gravel in my leather coat, I watched as the two beasts soared above my head bound for a massacre atop some tree or lamppost.  I do not know how long I laid there stunned, catatonic, experiencing grief, and relief, and dumbfounded awe.  Finally, I returned my attention to physical reality.  I sensed an animal presence, and wondered if the owl had come back for a more substantial meal.  It wasn’t the owl.  There was a faint rustling of gravel beneath small paws.  I felt a little tongue licking my hand.  There at my side was the dog.  A small fuzzy feather half-protruded from his mouth as his tongue hung out panting, looking thirsty.

The Second Thing

The shriek was followed by silence.  I looked toward the park.  A fire burned brightly where there was only darkness before.  The flames were taller than the jungle gym, maybe thirty feet to the left of that structure. I could only see the tops of the flames.  The place where fire met ground was obscured by trees and bushes, and tall blades of grass, all of which were made into silhouettes, two dimensional foreground, by the fire’s light.             

I became aware of the drums.  I released had always been there, pounding an ancient cadence.  As I looked, the dog began to bark, angry, confused, defensive.  The fire became closer, or more accurately we moved toward it.  Our surroundings blurred.  Without moving any of our six legs we were ten feet away.  Silhouettes were gone and shadows faded and we were confronted with a demonic spectacle.  We were in a shallow depression in the middle of the park.  The grass was full of dandelions, but these most innocent of flower-weeds some how looked grotesque and menacing, as if they all had just swallowed a bee and were looking for something else to eat. 

The fire was hot and red.  Human or near-human figures danced around the fire, eight of them.  Their bodies were naked and purpled by flame and clotted blood.  Their faces obscured by masks.  At first they danced close to the fire, cellulose, and bellies, and genitalia all wildly shaking and writhing en masse to the rhythm of invisible drums.  Suddenly they moved away from each other and the fire.  They radiated outward, some of them toward us, but they did not seem to see us.  As far as I could tell, their masks had no holes for sight. 

With the bodies not clumped together near the fire, I finally saw the base of the flames, and I almost threw up.  The beheaded bodies of a mastiff and a poodle lay bleeding out in front of the fire, their aortas still squirting blood according to the intervals of a still beating or very recently beating heart.  Each squirt was accompanied by a faint squishing sound which matched the rhythm of drums.  Or was the blood-song itself the sound I mistook for drums?  The figures started singing, and they had been singing all along.  Through their gestures and the words of their song I knew that the animals would be burned.  I did not know what language they sang, but I understood it.  This was a ritual sacrifice, a marriage sacrifice.  My attention was drawn (by the lyrics?) to two of the dancers, a man and woman, newly made husband and wife.  They were the source of the screech which had been created by the orgasmic union of two bodies and two spirits bound together by the magic of blood, and fire, and fur.   I saw that these two were not really wearing masks at all, but wore the heads of the mastiff and the poodle over their own.  I wondered how they fit.   

The Third Thing

The shriek was followed by silence.  I looked toward the park.  There was darkness.  A gathering ominousness was felt behind me, like a land facing monk would feel if a boat of rapacious Vikings were sailing up behind him.  The dog and I turned at the same instant.  A pterodactyl had just landed on the low wall which separated the neighbor’s yard from mine.  Chunks of stucco and cinderblock crumbled silently onto the grass.  At the instant the pterodactyl landed a street light a block away turned back on.  Its orangish-yellow light was eclipsed by the enormous flying reptile, but provided a halo all around its long narrow head, and caused its sinewy, outstretched wings to glow with amber translucency. 

As a precocious child, I had wanted to be a paleontologist, and had conducted enough pre-pubescent study to know that the winged lizard in front of me should have gone extinct 65 million years ago.  Its long, hammer-shaped head swung back and forth as it examined my yard with hungry eyes.  Its cuspate beak opened to reveal a full compliment of needle-thin teeth.  It shrieked again, jerking its head back and forth, extending and distending its razor claws.  Its enormous wings (which are, of course, attached to and a part of its arms) made of membranes, marbled with blood vessels, and fortified with muscle and sinew trembled, pulsated with the monstrous sound of the screech.  My ears rang; the dog (or was it I?) howled in pain.  More stucco on the wall cracked and crumbled opening up huge patches of exposed chicken wire on either side of where the creature perched. 

And then the pterodactyl began to speak to my dog.  I knew this because its piercing violet eyes were not directed at me, but down at my feet where my now placid dog sat nodding his head in comprehension as the pterodactyl hissed and hummed and made little motions with its beak. 

After a moment the dog turned to me and said, “The pterodactyl comes from another planet.  She and her noble colleagues have come back to earth after 65 million years to bear an important message to the dominant species.”  The dog turned back to the reptile and sneezed.  The reptile again spoke to the dog.  After a time the dog turned to me.

“The pterodactyl, whose name is Quetzgloteropolext, was sent to relay this message to you so that you can tell others.  She says it is a message and a warning.  She says she and the others will be watching.” 

Another round of translation followed.

“Quetzgloteropolext has this to say to you and to all humans: you have forsaken the practices of your forefathers and strayed from the purposes for which you have been made.  You plant things and then poison them.  You domesticate plants, and other animals, and each other.  These things should not be.  You were made to hunt, to gather, to climb, and crawl and jump and stand tall over the plains and on the mesas and mountaintops.  Instead you live like insects in colonies of iron that threaten to stamp out all life.  This is not why my noble colleagues and I created you 5.2 billion years ago.” 

While my dog was relaying this message the pterodactyl turned her terrible hyacinth eyes on me; reading my mind; judging all of my thoughts and actions past, present and future; nodding her head, as if to provide me with cool assurance that I would be held accountable. The next thing I remember was pissing my pants, right there next to the fire hydrant.  Warm urine ran down my leg to join my dog’s in soaking the gravel.    

I suspect that it is about 3:12am, though the red, LED alarm clock is in the other room.  I don’t bother to go back to bed.  Instead I strip off my leather coat, ignore my moistened pajama pants, and lay down on the carpet by the door.  The Chihuahua curls up a few feet away.  A bloodied feather is stuck to his right front paw.  I try to go to sleep knowing full well that somewhere members of a satanic blood-ritual cult are enjoying their honeymoon while the pterodactyls are keeping a watchful eye on us all.

 

 

James Stambaugh is a writer, garden designer, and activist living in Albuquerque, NM.  His previous work has been published in The Daily Lobo, The Northern Light, and theophiliacs.com.

Renae Andruse ON GAS STATIONS

“It smells like dinosaurs
all up in here,”
I giggled to my sister
as we parked in that lot.

Tumbleweeds might as well be
rolling through—your wheels run
over fossils as we pull out.

We wave goodbye to the past
with our skeleton key hands

creating an eternal cycle of commercialism.

Philip Kobylarz THE BACHELOR OF NEW ORLEANS

 

It seems to me and the thousands of others I live with in this jungle that the leaves have a capacity to drip. Just as they are now, everything is dark green, as if it is slightly gouty with the color of photosynthesis and wrought iron fence. It is too damn hot to do anything but drink. Tea, chilled wine, beer from the bottle, cold coffee and vodka in crushed ice. Just to drink.

Someone once said the balconies here were exquisitely designed for the purpose of funeral viewing. I beg to differ. Truly, they’re platforms from which gentlemen might look down the blouses of women. Or young girls fresh from the innocence of schooling. the absolute proof being that they were indeed invented in France.

French, however, the weather declines a certain inclination of being. A breeze from the dread North has removed the powder from beignets aging the laps of Café du Monde patrons in a sweet, delectable snowfall. One can only wonder what the sugary Vietnamese waitresses think about this, among thoughts on the placement of chairs, noodled soup spiked with hot sauce, the total absence of cleavage, and the 47 bus dreamily waiting for them at the squeaky end of the St. Charles trolley. Passenger cars halting at the thought of returning home.

How boring it is on days too cold to foment revelers like a fine head of mold or a pie slice of Roquefort. Umbrellas are meant to soak up showers of sun and carapace the sidewalks in vibrant bloom. Why most umbrellas are black bodes ominous meaning. Bats wings carapacing wind.

That I don’t have a cat is a stereotype in itself. My German Shepherd is stretched upon the floor like a seal on a newly discovered beach. A pesky moth assails a lamp and throws a puppet show on the wall both beautiful and disturbing as to keep even a Malay occupied without a cherished nut of Betel. DeQuincey would be at home in a place like this, where no one really lives in but occupies. Each time they leave the privacy of home, it’s a new gothic dream to be enhanced by their novel perceptions. There is always wisteria to be noticed.

The mime on a plastic milk crate whose heels are bleeding from lack of care points to me and cracks an unorthodox smile. He will always be here and you’ll see him when you come to visit. You won’t leave him a sous.

Off of Dumaine, under steel and concrete alligator tails of freeway overpass, a house stands. Its color is almost orange that is pinkened by the sun. The windows are out, blackened teeth that have transported vines from the underneath and grow like a bejeweled lampshade covering the roof. The blue of the street sign is  too much contrast.

In this coffin that would impress a mid-continent African, she lies. She has been there for six days.

Countless Mardi Gras ago, there was a float when I was so desperate as to have taken a room at the Hotel Royale and spent the weekend looking over prospective ladies in its lobby– I remember her. Forty feet long, legs outstretched, perfect man-made toes, an Egyptian dancer costume that owed much to the invention of the bikini, she was a gigantic Gypsy Rose Lee with an Italian smile. Bright green scarabs of last summer’s flies could not compare to her Byzantine inscrutability.

On one particular day much like this one, I sent a drink over to a street vendor who had glitter in her hair and on her balmy face. She wasn’t offish nor would ever accept such an aspersion. She came over and said “Hi” and rubbed a glittery concoction of lotion and baubles into my mane. As she did this, her partner looked away, a man of some thirty odd years.

So many and such are these connections in a city blessed by a Turk’s scimitar. We talked a while about selling clothes, studios in the city of Algiers.  We lingered and langered. We looked into each other’s eyes. It was that simple. It always is. To be crude, this is how it goes down. As simple as a credit card transaction. And anonymous.

We went to a motel of her choosing I know a few just outside of the Quarter, don’t make me name them. Though their names ring with the pungency of the ever present tropical air and smoke of long ago seeping inform their curtains. Honeysuckle and Mayflower bloom irresolutely. There is always the scent of flowers in the background.

This particular inn is a clubland all to itself. The drapes are a science fiction of satin rose. They are stained with what we presume to be food. The furniture is 1950s stock. A desk. A nightstand. A toilet and a bathtub. A badly functioning t.v. If we’re lucky, a small refrigerator sweating. All that any two people will ever need.

And a recording camera.

* * *

A dog sleeps on a bench next to a knapsack. This takes place in an area where the sidewalks are mostly weed grown through and cracked by tree roots. There is garbage collecting in the hollers. Vaguely, there’s the smell of the fish markets. The Tandu market’s sign has suggestive words I don’t need to understand to feel. THUC PHAM A DONG.

I have met a delightful lady. Madam street vendor. We get to our destination: room 229 on the corner of the concrete and steel railing complex. The second and top floor, a premiere etage if there ever were one. The room smells of smoked smoke. We watch t.v. for a while or drink some grocery store bought wine. The volume of the television is quite loud, the way I prefer it. The blue flashes of lighting it makes on the walls is our paparazzi.

She poses. I capture digital still lifes. I am Bellocq with technology. This is our Storyville. I throw a towel over the wall lights to mute the texture. These masterpieces will fill galleries of men’s minds. I am a premiere artisan and she is the perfect life study.

Then the real fun begins. Vaudeville without costumes. She denudes, totally. She reveals thighs untouched by the daily sun. Her panties remain imprinted on the broad expanse of her buttock. The Venus of de Milo has nothing on her.

Her breasts plop out of her brasserie like ripened fruit peeled fresh from black lace skin. Her artwork is fully exposed from a gleaming nape to a small spider inked in above her right ankle. She is made of a mixture of porcelain and alabaster.

She is mine to manipulate. Awkwardly, as is routine, I remove my own sartorial shackles. With the camera on and slightly breathing, it sometimes beeps with excitement and watches politely, perversely as I begin our situational escapade.

What we do you have perhaps seen many times, in course lighting, accompanied by some poor studio musician’s dream of a successful jingle. But the details, in which either God or the Devil lie, are never caught on tape. Reality comes in waves, as light particles have the habit of doing.

A modern day voodoo act my art is and she rarely objects to anything I suggest, my silly duchess. She’s in need of bodily unencumbrance. Her body is a rare letter in Old Church Slavonic and it wishes to be morphed into new characters which all signify unmet desire.

 

* * *

 

It’s raining again. Water is always in the air here. It’s why seeing blooming birds of paradise becomes somewhat boring. Like chicory flavored coffee, great meals of gumbo, silk cakes, bourbonned drinks. In Marigny, there is a restaurant ambitiously named “Feelings”. In acts and deeds, this city harbors few worth noting.

Everything becomes cliché. Fried dough cakes of any other name. Five men dressed as nurses, one carries a large syringe and they all have drinks in red plastic cups. Men in eateries, not the fine kind or those of any caliber, lick their forks as if they are the tongues of the food they decimate, bone by bone.

On the freeway leaving the city behind as an improbable aquarium on a lake of knife blades, an alligator is run over by an interstate truck driving towards a rest stop in Lafayette.

Parasols, wooden mood flooded with jazz and the absence of the smell of vodka, paintings of what remind one of dreams never dreamt. A flock of nudes in pastel is always so appropriate for the lighting. That art will sell for more than it’s ever worth and will hang in an established neighborhood.

Old people in the riverside park feed seagulls.

Who doesn’t like oysters and working hard, long hours, coming home to a kitchen that is scented with couscous spice and boiled lamb? Most homes are hotels we get to decorate at any rate. We rarely think “theme”. Carpets of roasted almond.

There is a smell the Spanish moss gives off to those daring enough to climb the oak trees octopus limbs. This is where I enjoy my art in almost immediate playback. No one ever sees me. No one ever wonders, anymore. Peeping Toms keep resumes that are dot-matrix printed and scant at best. Most people, these days, drive through parks. Only the very young or the destitute invade them anymore to climb their moss-enshrouded trees.

As slowly as barges make way into the liquid darkness, a few patrons of Antoine’s leave, still tasting the meal in their mouths as they exit. It is a type of sex, good food, and the garbage that leftovers will become, eventually making it into the streets. A meal of meal to be washed away by the street cleaners.

Pity those who work on oil derricks who cannot see me editing in nature. None too soon, they’ll log on and burn their own midnight fires.  The video screen itself burns like an essential oil. My signature appears only as a gesture and a wink that goes unseen.

Renae Andruse ON REGARDING A SLEEPING LOVER

Your breathing rustles
Like the blankets did last night
Around our bodies-
Shifting like continental plates.

Speaking of shifting,
You move and underneath
Your skin are earthquakes.

A petite Niagara falls of morning
Gathers at the corner of your mouth-

Lewis and Clark scratch marks all over your back.

Farida Samerkhanova WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME

 

My past has a striped black and white pattern. I am a Zebra. Whites are my youth, my children’s birthdays, career ups and immigration. Blacks stand for my bad luck and definitely for my being here.

 

My head is a gorgeous tender flower, still up in the air. I would be flawless but black balls of terrible headache spoil the picture. Doctors say it will soon go away, but I don’t believe them.

 

Two of my Zebra legs have roots. One leg belongs to Canada, where my home is. The other belongs to my native country. It is a beautiful land, lost on the map. By now it has been a Russian territory for almost five hundred years. My front legs have no roots and I can move them. I try to avoid the black balls, but it’s hard: they are everywhere.

 

Yesterday I came to Moscow after 11 years of not visiting. I have a plane ticket for my home city, but I am not going: three hours ago I got blasted in the subway. I don’t know much, but I overheard that two women did it. They lost their husbands in war. People call them black widows. They were from a small republic, like my own.

 

I don’t feel my body. My sick brain replays my life. Three patients from my ward have already passed away. I know I am the fourth. Other sixteen patients watch me. They still have a chance to survive.

Damien Walters Grintalis SORROW IN THE SHAPE OF A SOLDIER’S SMILE

He stood at the edge of the forest with slumped shoulders and a cigarette tucked between cracked lips, waiting. His hair, in porcupine spikes of disarray, had not seen water in months. A cloud of road dirt and forest detritus rose up from his filth-encrusted uniform, but his nose no longer wrinkled at the smell. He whispered words in his native tongue. A prayer first, then a curse.

His eyes closed for a long minute, the cigarette hanging forgotten. Finally, he opened his eyes and walked into the forest. Shadows turned the white bark of the trees to grey. The moonlight crept down between the tall branches, just enough to illuminate his path. Small twigs broke underfoot, and the splintering sounds reminded him of tiny bones crushed beneath boot heels. He’d been a good soldier, always obeying orders, even those which damned his soul.

The stink of war lingered on his uniform. It was a smell he would never rid himself of, not in one year, ten, or a hundred. When he reached the army’s useless age of retirement, they sent him on his way with a monthly pittance, a pocketful of grim nightmares, and a hunger for unthinkable things.

Wind pushed through the trees, and the sound was a heavy sigh of sorrow. He walked and smoked and thought of screams and the sound of bullets piercing the frigid air. Faces drifted up from his memory. A young girl with her dress torn in two, held down as soldiers…  He shuddered. Her wrist beneath his hand was fragile, like a bird’s. He turned away, unable to bear the sight of her tears, unwilling to say words to make the others stop, but hadn’t he taken his place, after Mischa, despite the fact she reminded him of his brother’s daughter? Hadn’t he laughed when the butt of the gun came down on her head, shattering her hopes and dreams?

They made him a monster, he thought and pulled in another lungful of smoke. But was that true? Perhaps the monster was inside him all the time, waiting for the spark needed to turn it loose. A monster in the shape of a man, hidden behind a tattered uniform. A wolf howled in the distance, low and mournful. He smiled. A wolf in the shape of a man. He was that and nothing more.

The old man and woman who’d offered bread, although their pitiful frames said they had not enough to spare, were repaid for their kindness by thrusts of a knife. His hand did not shake as he watched the old man’s eyes fade to nothing at all. The woman did not die as quickly.

When he finished his cigarette, he crushed the embers into the ground and moved on. He deserved pain and torment for the uniformed parts he played, but he deserved far worse for the pleasure he’d taken from those acts and for the things he still longed to do.

A tree branch slapped across his face, and blood ran in a warm crimson tear down his cheek. It came away dark on his fingers. Blood always appeared black in moonlight.

The wolf sang out again, and he picked up his pace. This deep, the forest smelled of animal droppings, rotting leaves, and the promise of winter. The night air sent a cold, slow finger down his spine. A small animal scurried off to the right in a flash of pale fur, rattling leaves and twigs in its haste to get away.

Even the animals knew he was a monster.

A pregnant woman called them the same name, and worse, when they slaughtered her children, one by one. Her husband, dead on the cold ground, said not a word. His blood, a bright pool of red, was only the start. When they soldiered on, they left behind eight more war casualties. How they’d laughed that night, before and after.

Yes, he’d been a good soldier.

He kept a fast pace through the forest. His feet were well used to keeping time. Right and left and then again. Moving forward. Into the forest. Into the night.

Howls from two separate wolves slid through the trees and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The forest wolves were large and fiercesome, something to avoid at all costs. They were monsters, like him, but driven by nature, not government sanctioned blood lust. Or a dark compulsion which gripped hard in the middle of the night.

Right and left, his feet propelled him on. He lit another cigarette without stopping, and the smoke trailed back over his shoulder in a thin ribbon. He exhaled the smoke in time with his good soldier feet. The soft chirp of crickets rose up around him and the wolves howled again. Night music. Forest music. Still, he walked, his feet marking time.

Finally, he stopped in front of an old tree. Its trunk was large, too large for his arms to circle. Deep enough now. He was a good man before the war. Before the uniform. Now, he was something much less. Something unspeakable.

Sinking down with his back against the tree, he took out his knife. If he’d notched the handle for every victim felled by its blade, nothing would remain of the wood. The hand-carved surface was worn smooth by misuse. He held it up, and moonlight played along the edge of the still-sharp blade. It was a monstrous knife, wielded more times than he could count.

The wolves howled, and the air filled with their musky scent. They moved closer, drawn to the reek of his sweat-thick skin. With a sigh, he ran the blade down his forearm, splitting the skin wide. He welcomed the pain. Blood, as black as the stains on his heart, poured to the forest floor. The blood would call the wolves even closer. Was this enough? Would he be forgiven? He threw the knife into the woods and waited. Soon, very soon. He would not fight them off.

He was ready.

 

 

Damien Walters Grintalis

is a writer of dark tales and a poet. Her short story, ‘The Depository’, appears in the April 2010 issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly, and her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Emerald Tales, Rose & Thorn Journal, Every Day Poets, and Baltimore’s City Paper. We welcome Damien’s story-telling to our pages.

Penn Kemp A BAN

 

he
she
is he
she’s
he’s fall
she’s failing
he’s falling
she’s falling fur
he’s falling fur there
she’s falling further in
he’s falling further into
she’s falling further into the
he’s falling further into the trap
she’s falling further into the trappings
he’s falling further into the trappings of
she’s falling further into the trappings of pass
he’s falling further into the trappings of pass shun
she’s falling further into the trappings of passion ate
he’s falling further into the trappings of passionate in
she’s falling further into the trappings of passionate in tense
he’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intense it
she’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with
he’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with gay
she’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with gay a
he’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with gay a ban
she’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with gay aban done
he’s falling further into the trappings of passionate intensity with gay abandon

 

 

Penn Kemp
As Western’s writer-in-residence for 2009-10, I host Gathering Voices, an eclectic radio show on Radio Western, archived on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. All 2009 Gathering Voices programs so far are now available as podcasts on http://previous.ncra.ca/exchange/index.cfm?seriesID= 92319.  Muse/news, renewed for 2010 on http://mytown.ca/pennletters/, features Upcoming Events! My talk, "Courage, My Love", on a career in the arts, plus a sound poem for inspiration, is now up on http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BD70C42528F0921E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL. The participatory sound poem is Part 3!   Pictures from recent events are up on http://picasaweb.google.ca/gavinstairs.

As ever, DM thanks Penn for her continuing support and friendship.

Dezso Kosztolányi A HOLIDAY SWIM

 

The sun shone white.

 

As if illuminated by flashlight for a night-time photo, the small holiday resort at Lake Balaton glowed and sparkled in the sun. Everything, from the whitewashed huts to the maize sheds, looked perfectly white within the framework of the sandy beach. Even the sky was white and the acacias’ dusty leaves were as white as writing paper.

 

It was about half past two.

 

Suhajda had had an early lunch. He came down the porch steps leading to the little peasant garden in the courtyard of the summer cottage.

 

"Where are you off to?" asked Mrs. Suhajda, crocheting amidst the small bright flowers.

 

"Bathing," yawned Suhajda, holding a pair of cherry-coloured swimming-trunks in his hand.

 

"Come on, take him with you" pleaded the woman.

 

"No."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because he’s naughty," answered Suhajda. "Because he’s a good-for-nothing brat." And after a pause he added: "Because he won’t study."

 

"He does study," protested his wife, shrugging her shoulders, "he has been studying the whole morning."

 

In front of the kitchen a boy of about eleven sat on a bench pricking his ears. In his lap lay a closed book, his Latin grammar.

 

He was a skinny child, with a shaved head. He wore a red gym shirt and linen trousers, and had leather sandals on his bare feet. He blinked towards his father and mother.

 

"Well," said Suhajda harshly and with a severe toss of his head, "how do you say: ‘They shall praise me?’"

 

"Lauderentur," mumbled the child in confusion without thinking, but standing up before answering as if he were in school.

 

"Lauderentur," nodded Suhajda ironically, "lauderentur indeed. You will fail in your second examination too."

 

"No, no, he knows it," interjected the mother trying to find excuses for the boy, "but he gets all tangled up. You frighten him."

 

"I shall take him out of school, honest to God I will," the father said, working himself into a rage. "I’ll make a locksmith out of him, or a cartwright."

 

He had no idea why in his anger he had chosen these particular trades, which he knew nothing about.

 

"Come here, Johnny," said the mother, "you will study, won’t you, Johnny darling?"

 

"He’ll be the end of me, this snivelling brat," interrupted Suhajda, for anger was the spice of life to him. "The end of me," he repeated sensing how his wrath was widening his arteries and chasing away the afternoon’s boredom.

 

"I’ll study," stammered the boy in a whisper. And in his humiliated nonentity he glanced for support towards his mother. He could hardly bear to look at his father. He did not see him. He only felt him. Everywhere, always, hatefully.

 

"Don’t study," said Suhajda with a deprecatory gesture. "Don’t bother about studying. It’s quite unnecessary!"

 

"But he does study," repeated the mother, cuddling the boy’s head. "And surely you will forgive him. Johnny," she added in the same breath, unexpectedly, "bring your bathing-trunks down at once. Your father will take you for a swim."

 

Johnny did not quite understand what was happening. He did not even realize that his mother’s intervention had in some miraculous way settled the long drawn-out squabble between his father and himself. Anyway, he rushed up to the porch and into his little dark room. He searched wildly for his cherry coloured bathing-suit. It was exactly like his father’s, only smaller. Mrs. Suhajda had made them both.

 

The father seemed to hesitate. Without answering his wife’s request directly, he stopped at a gooseberry bush, as if waiting for his son to catch up with him. Then he appeared to change his mind and went out by the little garden-gate. He walked towards the lake somewhat more slowly than usual.

 

It took quite a few minutes for the boy to find his bathing trunks.

 

Johnny had failed in Latin at his exams in the second grade of secondary school. He was preparing to try again in the autumn, but was rather lax about it.

 

As a punishment his father had forbidden him to bathe for a whole week. He would have had two more days without bathing, so now he felt he had to make the most of this golden opportunity. He turned everything inside out. When he at last discovered his bathing-suit, he did not even bother to wrap it up, but just flourished it in his hand as he rushed down to the courtyard. There his mother was waiting for him. He stretched up to kiss the sweet face he so worshipped, and then hurried after his father.

 

His mother called after him that she would be coming down to the shore later on.

 

Suhajda was about twenty steps ahead of his son on the footpath. Johnny’s leather sandals sailed through the dust as he ran after him. He caught up with his father by the campion hedge. But he did not rush right up to him, just sidled up shyly like a dog which is not quite sure of its welcome.

 

The father did not say a word. His face, which the child watched with quick sidelong glances, was unapproachable and non-committal. He threw back his head, and stared into space. He paid no attention to the boy at his side, as if he were unaware of his existence.

 

Johnny, who had felt quite happy a few minutes ago, again became downcast and flustered. He felt thirsty, would have liked to drink, run behind a tree, or even turn back. But he was afraid that his father might shout at him again, and so he had to bear the situation he had created lest it should turn from bad to worse. He kept wondering what would happen to him next.

 

It took hardly more than four minutes to walk from the house to the beach. As resorts go, the place was pretty shabby. No electricity, no comfort. The beach was pebbly, the whole place sadly second-class. Poorly-paid clerks passed their summer vacation here with their families.

 

Under the mulberry-trees in the sweltering courtyards, men and women sat around barefooted and scantily clad, munching water-melons and corn on the cob.

 

Suhajda greeted his acquaintances in his normal friendly voice. During these blissful minutes of armistice the boy confidently concluded that his father was not as angry as he pretended to be.

 

Before long, however, his father’s forehead clouded over once more.

 

Crickets were chirping in the sunshine. A sweetly stale whiff from the lake reached their nostrils, as the decayed bath-house came into view. But Suhajda still kept silent.

 

The woman in charge, Mrs. Istenes – a dotted red scarf wound round her hair – opened their respective cabins. One for the father; the second, in which Mrs. Suhajda generally undressed, for the boy. There was no one else at the beach, aside from a young fellow who was occupied with repairing an old skiff. At the moment he was trying to straighten some crooked rusty nails with a hammer.

 

Johnny got undressed first.

 

He came out of his cabin, but did not quite know what to do. He did not dare to go into the water by himself, though he had yearned for it so long. Waiting for his father in confused embarrassment, he studied his feet with painful interest as if he saw them for the first time.

 

At last Suhajda stepped out of the cabin in his cherry-coloured bathing-trunks. Although tending to corpulence, he was a strongly-built man, and his chest was covered with black hair that aroused the child’s constant admiration.

 

Johnny looked up at him, trying to read in his eyes. But he could not see into them, the gold-framed spectacles shone too brightly.

 

Blushing with embarrassment he watched his father walk into the lake.

 

He did not follow him until Suhajda flung at him over his shoulders:

 

"Come on."

 

Even then he did not plunge into the water or swim about like a frog as he generally did. He just stumbled timidly after his father, waiting for a word of encouragement. Suhajda noticed the boy’s behaviour.

 

"Afraid?" he asked sullenly over his shoulder.

 

"No."

 

"Why do you act like an idiot then?"

 

They stood beside the pole where the water reached up to the chest of the child and a little below the father’s waist. They both crouched in the water up to their necks, luxuriating in its mild caress, its apple-green and milky-white shimmer.

 

A sense of well-being inspired Suhajda to playful teasing.

 

"You are a coward, my friend."

 

"No."

 

Suhajda grabbed his son with both arms, lifted him high and threw him into the water.

 

Johnny flew through the air and fell back with an enormous splash, landing on his bottom. The lake opened under him, and then closed in over his head tempestuously with a mysterious droning. It took him a few seconds to struggle back to the surface. Water bubbled from his mouth and nose. He rubbed his blinded eyes with both his fists.

 

"Nasty, what?" asked the father.

 

"No."

 

"Then once more. One, two," and he took the boy in both his arms.

 

At the word "three," he flung the boy with a big swing in the same direction, but a little farther than before, beyond the next pole to which several ropes were tied. He, therefore, did not observe how his son after turning a somersault, fell into the water with head thrown back and arms stretched out. Suhajda turned away without misgiving.

 

In front of him lay the sunlit shore, and the water in between sparkled as if millions of butterflies were fluttering over its surface on diamond wings.

 

He waited a few seconds like the first time, and then asked in annoyance:

 

"What’s up?"

 

Then, as the silence continued, he raised his voice threateningly, hoarsely:

 

"Come on! Don’t play-act like that."

 

Still no answer.

 

"Where are you?" he cried a little louder, looking all about him and peering near-sightedly even into the distance, for Johnny could swim under water and so might pop up almost anywhere.

 

Yet all the while Suhajda had the uncomfortable feeling that much more time had gone by than on the previous occasion.

He became thoroughly alarmed.

 

He sprang up and, pushing his way through the water as fast as he could, tried to reach the spot where his son had presumably disappeared, all the time shouting:

 

"Johnny, Johnny!"

 

He did not find him behind the pole. Now he began to dig around with both his arms, as if shoveling gravel. He churned up the water at random. He tried to peer down to the bottom but the muddy lake remained inscrutable, even when he put his hitherto dry head below the surface till his eyes protruded behind their lenses like fish eyes. Then he started to search under the water more systematically, lying flat on his belly in the mud, kneeling, crouching, leaning first on one elbow, then on the other, going round and round in circles, or moving sideways – but all in vain.

 

The boy was nowhere to be found. And all around him water, the terrifying uniformity of water.

 

He came up for a long breath, panting and sputtering.

 

While under water, he vaguely hoped that by the time he came up his son would be there too, laughing, standing beside the pole or even further out, perhaps he had already run to his cabin to dress. But when Suhajda came up, he realized that, although time had seemed endless down there, he had only been under water for a few seconds and that his son could not have left the lake meanwhile.

 

Above the surface there reigned a calm indifference such as he would have found it impossible to imagine previously.

 

"Hallo, hallo!" he shouted towards the shore in a voice he himself could not recognize, "I can’t find him anywhere!"

 

The lad who was tinkering with the boat, cupped his hand to his ear.

 

"What is it?"

 

"He is nowhere!" cried the father in despair.

 

"Who?"

 

"I can’t find him," he yelled till his voice broke. "Help!"

 

The lad put his hammer on the seat of the skiff, kicked off his trousers – so as not to soak them – and waded into the lake. He hurried as fast as he could, but to the desperate man in the water it looked as if the other was just dawdling. Meanwhile Suhajda plunged again and again and, crawling along on his knees, searched in another direction. Then, shocked to see how far he had advanced, he each time returned to his point of departure, where he – as it were – stood on guard. He clung to the pole with both hands, so as not to succumb to the dizziness which befell him.

 

By the time the young man reached him, Suhajda was panting dizzily. He could not give any articulate answer to the lad’s questions.

 

Both of them were floundering about aimlessly.

 

On the shore, Mrs. Istenes was wringing her hands. Her screaming drew a crowd of twenty or thirty people to the shore. They brought boat-hooks and nets with them. Even a small boat set out for the scene of the accident – which was really quite superfluous as the water there was quite shallow.

 

The news spread quickly all over the village that somebody had drowned. Already as an established fact.

 

At that very moment amidst the flowers of the peasant garden Mrs. Suhajda was putting down her crocheting. She went up to the little dark room, where Johnny a little while ago had looked for his bathing-suit. She locked the room and started to walk towards the lake as she had promised him.

 

She walked slowly under her parasol, which protected her against the glaring rays of the sun, wondering whether to bathe or not, but finally deciding against it. As she reached the campion hedge, the thread of her thoughts broke off confusedly, and she shut her parasol and began to run. She kept on running all the way to the beach.

 

There she saw two gendarmes and a muttering crowd, mostly peasant women. Many of them were crying.

 

The mother understood at once what had happened. Wailing uncontrollably, she stumbled towards the beach, where a small group formed a close circle round her son who lay sprawling on the sand. They did not let her approach. They seated her on a chair. She was close to fainting as she asked, over and over again, whether he was still alive.

 

No, he was not. They had found him, after searching for fifteen minutes, right behind the pole where the father had knelt and plunged all the time. His heart had stopped beating. His pupils did not react to light any longer. The doctor had held him upside down, shaken the water out of him, propped up his chest, tried artificial breathing, applied gymnastics to the tiny dead arms for a long time, listened to the heart with his stethoscope – all in vain. Finally he had thrown his instruments into his bag and left.

 

This death, which had happened so suddenly, with such apparent capriciousness, was by now as everlastingly real, as firm and immovable as the mightiest of mountains.

 

The mother was carried home in a peasant cart. Suhajda was still sitting on the shore in his cherry-coloured bathing-trunks. His face and his spectacles were dripping with water and tears. He kept on sighing beside himself:

 

"Oh God, oh God, oh God."

 

He was helped to his feet and led to his cabin to get dressed at last.

 

It wasn’t three o’clock yet.

 

1924

Andor Endre Gelléri WITH THE MOVERS

 

I was out of work. I had flung myself down in a park, and was drowsily watching the play of green colours on the lawn and in the treetops. As the clock struck eleven, a pretty young miss came walking down the lane, her breasts gently dancing. My intoxicated gaze followed her to the far edge of the park, where she disappeared like the sun dipping below the horizon. And darkness took possession of me again.

 

I was startled out of my brooding by the rumbling of a dray cart. It was drawn by a lustrous gold-brown horse which beat the asphalt with heavy hooves. The shirt-sleeved driver kept swishing the whip, as if whistling a merry tune with it. Clustering behind him and clinging to his seat, were a noisy bantering gang of drink-loving removers.

 

They were headed for the trees where they snuggled their cart up to the kerb. One of them climbed on a pile of tools and held a spy-glass to his eyes, as if scanning the ocean. "Anyone want to earn a couple of pengoes?" he shouted, and out I jumped from the park as from a green prison, and leaped on the cart. No sooner had I drawn myself up that the man who had shouted came over to me and laughed gaily into my face. "Here, Jack," he said, handing me some bread. "Have some grub first, so you don’t topple over… You’ll get your two pengoes afterwards… It’ll take us a couple of hours… and a gallon of sweat."

 

"Been out o’ work for long, chum?" asked another fellow. The words he spoke were almost drowned by the jolting of the cart as his mate’s had been. And I, forgetting the weeks of bitterness behind me, mumbled through my stuffed mouth: "Six… weeks…"

 

Our job was to lug a safe up to the first floor of a mansion with a marble staircase. I had been trying to act the man of experience, but was genuinely amazed to see how smoothly the massive thing slid off its base and was trundled along on two iron bars up to the stairs as if it weighed no more than a stone. It barely took five minutes. All my strength seemed to have flown back into me when, harnessed to the sturdy wooden trundle like human horses, we started to pull-and-push the safe up the dazzling white stairs to the accompaniment of lusty "heave-ho’s." The iron rings along the sides of the trundle creaked plaintively from the pull of the rope passed through them. A cheerful lot but a moment ago, the men like myself were now breathing hard and their ruddy faces began to perspire. But when we were received on the first floor by the chatter of an appetizing chamber-maid while a bewhiskered private secretary with a Frenchman’s air about him showed us the way; and when, as we jauntily moved the safe through the rooms, we were welcomed by a sparklingly elegant lady amidst tapestries and cut mirrors which reflected our cocky gait and the safe as it rolled on in its leisurely way – well, then and there I suddenly took such a strong fancy to this trade that, on the way back to the pub where the gang had set up their headquarters, I caught the hand of big-mustachioed Old Joey, and, looking him square in the eyes, said, "Couldn’t you take me on as a regular?"

 

The other fellows heard my words too, and peered into the air as if the answer were written there, and pursing their lips, shrugged their beefy shoulders and complained that business was slack, that they could hardly earn enough to buy their food… But then, with a sudden change of mind, they shook hands with me on it.

 

I’ve been one of them ever since. I sit, when we’re idle, behind the fleecy foam of my pint of ale; or I watch the trunkless heads bobbing up and down in lively conversation behind the high-set windows. When a job comes our way, I stretch my limbs, yawn, and then clamber onto the cart. I have by now acquired that cock-sure air with which my mates whistle their way through the streets, and let my well-fed frame be jolted about just as unconcernedly as they. We fling obscenities at the girls we pass, and rumble on. Szepi is the strongest member of the gang: he lifts weights every morning; and the six of us wouldn’t think twice before tackling thirty-odd students.

 

When we pass along a park, it’s my duty to climb on the heap of tools and shout at the jobless men lingering there, "Hey you chaps, come along and help!" And if one of them looks too skinny or sickly, I wave him back. "We don’t want skeletons, my boy," I tell him, and as we giddy-up our fat brown horse, Sári, I can see the one who’s been rejected hang his head and walk away with heavy feet, perhaps even weeping.

 

They make me do this on purpose to remind me of bad times past.

 

Many’s the time we go in for a drinking-bout. Last night, too, we had a splurge in the company of two tarts, blonde Tess and ginger Gisella. We made a hot evening of it, alright! We had plenty of beer and peppered wine. Old Joey grabbed the pot-bellied accordion player, shoved him under the table and told him to make music there; then, taking the red-haired hussy by the waist, he danced with her on the table, as brisk and lively as if he had never seen fifty.

 

The two wenches took it out of us pretty badly at the hotel, so this morning we sit around our pub, with leaden faces, swallowing large quantities of sodium bicarbonate and sharp paprika. Only Old Joey shoots proud glances at the table, even stroking the spot where he footed it with the redhead last night.

 

It is high summer, and the place is swarming with big bluebottles. The coolness of the sprinkled floor feels good under our feet; and we hardly mind the pub-keeper’s dog Bodri licking the tips of our idle fingers.

 

Szepi has dozed off on his chair and is snoring away in the sun; and we, too, merely raise our heavy eyelids from time to time only to shut them again tighter than before.

 

The languid quiet is shattered by the buzz of the phone. The pub-keeper motions me towards it with his long-stemmed pipe. (He always calls for me, as I’m more intelligent-looking and a smarter talker than the rest of the gang.) Reluctantly I walk up and, puffing and sighing, put the receiver to my ear.

"Hullo," I mumble. "Yes, ma’am, at your service… What number did you say?… Number seven, Trefort Street, second floor… A safe… I’ve made a note of it, ma’am… We’ll be there in an hour, and be done in another… Well, fifty pengoes, if you please, ma’am. Rock bottom and no haggling… It’s very hard work, you see… With full responsibility, of course. Thank you, ma’am, we’ll be there… Good-bye."

 

Back in the room, I clap my hands and shout: "C’me on, Franci! Bring up the old cart." The fellows stretch themselves; and then jolting along on the cart, they deliberate how many extra hands we should pick up at the park.

 

"Two will do, in the rear."

 

We pass through the streets, yawning all the while. Our limbs are heavy, our waists as stiff as stone. We have to unbutton our shirts, the day is so hot. It would be pleasanter to take a nap, instead of having to work. But then, if we give four pengoes to the extra hands, we shall still have enough left to keep the six of us going for two or three days.

 

"Any concrete in that safe?" Old Joey turns on me suddenly. I scratch my head: "I clean forgot to ask about that."

 

"If there’s concrete in it, you’ll have to take on six extras, not two. And then good-bye to our money!"

 

Well, we shall see. I wave my hand like they did to me before, and five blokes run up, out of breath. They are mighty anxious to get the job. Now which of them shall I take? That little stocky fellow with the big, strong hands will do. Who else? The lanky one there must be a better sort, judging from his looks – but he’s too thin for the job… Aw, let him come along.

 

The little stocky fellow is called Paul; he asks for a fag in advance, and instantly starts swearing and talking smut. He goes over big with everyone. But the lanky one is a silent bird, with that thin neck of his; he stares straight ahead, blinking, his hair tousled by the wind. He looks like someone riding in a car and enjoying the caress of the breeze. He’s a good sort, so why not give him a chance to make some dough? But as we get off in Trefort Street and I see him produce a pair of nickel-rimmed specs and put them on, I cannot help thinking the gang will send him packing because he looks just a bit too toffish. But without waiting to be told anything, he picks up the heavy casters, goes to the trundle and does everything without so much as a word – quite unlike the little stocky chap. I begin to be glad that I picked him.

 

"You fellows will stay in the rear," says Old Joey, and he gives a rap on the metal wall of the safe. "You hear that? It’s got concrete in it… Now you, Isaac, or whatever your name is," he goes on, turning to the greenhorns again, "you get the crowbar and don’t let the safe slide back, not even half an inch, though it breaks your back. And you, Paul, you push it on the side and keep on pushing like hell."

 

The safe is mighty heavy. And the staircase is narrow, with the wrought-iron work of the handrail sticking out in places. What is more, the stairs curve sharply at each landing.

 

We take up our stations at the end of the rope. "Heave-ho!"

 

The blasted thing won’t budge. We exchange significant glances: we still are feeling pretty lazy, and our muscles are awfully stiff.

 

"Blast you! – Heave! Up!" It moves upwards two steps and encouraging each other with our shouts, we clutch the rope with our cramped hands and pull till our veins bulge fit to burst.

 

Glancing back through the blood-red haze before my eyes, I cannot see the little stocky fellow; he must be taking it easy somewhere below. The lanky one, however, his spectacles running with perspiration, his panting mouth as wide as a gate, is almost collapsing under the strain of raising the huge weight with an iron bar.

 

"The devil take it," Old Joey pants and shakes his grey head, causing the sweat pouring down his face to spray in all directions like a spring shower. My shirt-tails have slipped out of my pants, and the draught from above feels cool upon my flesh. Franci, his belly protruding, sticks out his two bad upper teeth almost down to his chin, while his nostrils quiver from the exertion. Usually I can tote ten times as much, but that crazy binge last night and that hateful blonde Jane have used up my strength, and my companions are in no better shape. It seems as if only my bare bones were heaving and the muscles were hanging from them flabbily.

 

Luckily, we at last reach the landing on the first floor. The air resounds with our cursing and swearing. We spit and wipe our faces, red as horse-meat, on our shirt-sleeves. Szepi, well-nigh choking with a cough that never leaves him, is about to light a fag when Old Joey strikes the whole packet from his hand and sends it flying down to the ground floor. "Wait till we’re done," he grunts. "Have you got so much wind to spare?"

 

Little stocky Paul is leaning against the banister and spitting across the safe at the wall, he accompanies this action with a violent curse.

 

Lanky keeps on wiping his glasses, holding them against the sun and breathing on them. He does not say a word till I ask him: "Some weight, eh?" Then he nods: "Sure is…"

 

Soon we are at it again. It is bad enough that the landing is covered with linoleum, so that our heels slither about as if we were sliding on ice. After an agonizing struggle we reach the first stair leading up to the second floor. Fifty pengoes are a mere song for a chore like this one. It would be best to take a good rest or send for more hands. One floor – that’s a child’s play; but when you tackle the second, everything seems twice as heavy. Yet it would be a shame to give up now we’ve begun the job, a team of eight men! None of us so much as opens his mouth… To be a man is to keep on pulling and heaving even if you feel you can’t any more!

 

I am one with my mates, heart and soul, I know that what is too heavy for me is too heavy for each of the others. So I get pretty scared at the curve in the second flight. I keep on pulling, I can hardly stop myself from yelling, my feet slip again and again on the edges of the stairs, and I am hardly able to get a foothold.

 

The safe refuses to budge and even slides back one stair.

 

"Hang on, Joey, for Christ’s sake," I groan.

 

"I’m hanging on," says he, getting more purple in the face than ever before.

 

Oh, those wicked females and that booze last night! Now there’s hell to pay, all right.

 

"Give it a pull, boys!" Franci bellows.

 

"Heave-ho!" thunders Szepi’s rich bass. The big hulking fellow is standing on tiptoe, as if wanting to break loose from the earth… But he sinks back, his limbs shaking, without the safe having budged half an inch. Yet here we are, rounding the semicircle of the curve with the back of the safe swinging out in mid-air, ready to tip over any instant. And even if the fellows at the back manage to jump aside, it will surely crash through the staircase as it swings back. We stand there flushed and breathing heavily. Slowly but surely the safe seems to be wrenching our waists and arms out of their sockets. The rope is already slipping a little through my hand, and the trundle is wobbling threateningly.

 

We look back. We can’t hold out much longer. Lanky is struggling with all his strength, gasping for breath; the iron bar is lying across his shoulder, his mouth is awry, his knees buckle under him but again he rises and heaves away.

 

‘What will come of this?’ I ask myself and close my eyes. "Up!" I shout. "Heave!… Up!"

 

Suddenly I am petrified at the sight of stocky Paul popping up from behind the safe, bending over the smooth banisters and gliding down them like a little boy.

 

"I’ve no mind to croak for your two pengoes," he shouts up at us, as he disappears.

 

I haven’t the strength to shout after him: "You dirty skunk!"

 

But the fair-haired lad, completely absorbed by the struggle, continues to hold his ground. Now the safe is about to crush him together with his bar, but he draws himself up again, peering at us, goggle-eyed. "I say…" he groans huskily, "I say…"

 

We can’t give up, even if it kills us. I’d better shout for help. Let all the tenants turn out and turn out quick. But my cry for help is no more than a half-choked whimpering, like that of a little boy. That fellow at the back is done for! And this two-ton monster is going to crash through the staircase, and we shall come tumbling after.

 

At this moment, what at first seems to be a blown-up white shirt comes sailing up the stairs. The white shirt reveals the rotund outlines of a fat belly. And now, I catch sight of a pair of short legs being lifted by their puffing owner from stair to stair; and beside him the blonde mop of hair belonging to a skinny little servant-girl, carrying a shopping-bag full of vegetables. The fat bastard blinks at us, and stops dead, instead of rushing to our assistance! I yell at him as if I had paid him a hundred pengoes, "Quick, give us a hand, or it’s going to fall on you." At this, still unruffled and with slow, deliberate movements, he peels off his lustre jacket, gives his moustache a twirl and rolls to the side of our bespectacled lad like a meatball. Now Lanky, shifting his iron bar on to the fat shoulder of the newcomer, applies his arms and body to the safe. The meatball turns red in the face and begins to pant; he too is alarmed by the swaying of the safe. Almost touching the stairs with out foreheads, we give the trundle a pull in a last, desperate effort.

 

With much creaking and grating it shifts at last and follows us obediently from stair to stair, as if its great weight has melted away. On reaching the second floor, we sit down on the edge of the safe, every one of us. Sweat is streaming down our cheeks and from time to time we inspect our bleeding palms. There we sit, and we would like to go on sitting there until nightfall. Meantime that silly chatterbox of a maid gives free rein to her tongue. "I dunno what you’d have done," says she, "if Mr. Frey hadn’t lent you a hand!"

 

"Ahem," says Mr. Frey, puffing and blowing, and putting on his lustre jacket, from which he produces a long cigar. "You should have brought along a few more hands."

 

And off he goes proud and priggish, with the skinny little maid. I hear him speak disparagingly of us, while the girl fawningly echoes his opinions.

 

Now the safe rolls on through a set of luxurious rooms. We shove it along, as if in a dream, still afraid that the floor may give way under our feet any minute.

 

At last we get our fifty pengoes. The lady of the house tries to beat down the price.

 

Clutching the money in one hand, I hold the iron ring of the trundle inertly in the other: we carry it downstairs like a big beetle. Lanky has shouldered the iron rollers and carries them like a pair of rifles.

 

We step out into an empty street: it is lunch-time. The sun is undisputed sovereign. He is baking the houses as if intending to dine on them in the evening. At the wagon-pole, Sári welcomes us with her neighing and kicks at the air.

 

"Whoa!" I shout weakly. "Whoa!"

 

Lanky silently mounts the cart and lets his feet dangle from the side. His shoulder is marked with black-and-blue weals, imprinted by the iron bar. Sári trots along gaily. Franci almost drops the reins. He never once swishes his whip as he’s so fond of doing, but huddles up in as little space as possible, so as to prop up his tired limbs. My shirt and pants are drenched with sweat, and whole puddles seem to fill my boots. This damn cart will jolt the life out of us by the time we get to the pub.

 

We stop at the park. I produce a five-pengoes piece and my companions nod their assent: he has earned it. But Lanky does not stir, he just sits there with his feet dangling and his eyes closed. Looks like he has dozed off.

 

"Shall we take him as far as the pub?" I ask. "And besides… You see, Old Joey, he’s a decent chap, Lanky is. S’pose we feed him up a bit, and…"

 

But now he gives a start and, seeing the park, jumps down instantly. He looks up at us in embarrassment.

 

With a sudden gesture I hand him the money and hear his murmured "Thank you… Thank you." Franci cracks his whip at Sári, and we rumble off.

 

And now we’re back again at the pub sitting at the green covered tables and groaning from exhaustion.

 

Without waiting for orders, Gus, the waiter, brings us the usual froth-glasses of ale. Old Joey orders a goulash.

 

"You got to get some grub," he says bitterly, "you just got to."

 

Sipping my ale, I stare drowsily into the sunlit liquid.

 

Little by little the heads around me sink onto the table: the boys fall asleep in broad daylight. Empty and forsaken the very beer-glasses are napping around them.

 

The mirror on the wall reflects the images of the dozing men; I draw myself up a little and cast a tired glance into it.

 

Suddenly I hear Sári whinnying in the street: someone will have to go and get water for her. I borrow a pail in the kitchen, and presently, leaning against the pole, I find myself watching her open mouth, her yellow teeth, her greedy tongue. Amazing how much she can drink.

 

"Hey, Gus," I shout in through the window. "Bring me another pint."

 

And together we drink, the horse and I.

 

1930

Géza Csáth THE RED-HAIRED GIRL

 

"The stories in this lovely picture-book were written by daddy Andersen, and only well-behaved children are allowed to read them. That’s what makes this book different from all others which Santa Claus brings even for naughty little boys when they haven’t been particularly bad. But Andersen’s book is only for good children, and when they behave badly, it is taken away from them until they have mended their ways. So bear that in mind!"

 

I was six years old, when my father told me this one Christmas Eve. He spoke seriously, but without frowning, and looked straight into my eyes, while I stroked his cheek. The barber had been there that afternoon; and I thought how queer it was to have so young a father.

 

My parents were playing cards with my grandparents who had come for a visit. My sister Terka’s small fist was filled with bright gold coins. My younger brother, Gudi, was tucking away six oranges and building three houses with his new building blocks. And I lay stretched out full-length on the drawing room settee reading the Andersen book until it was time to go to bed, when I put it under my pillow.

 

This was how my friendship with Andersen began. After that the book lay beneath my pillow every night, for I never went to bed without it. My father did not confiscate it more than two or three times, but he always returned it when I went to bed, as I could not go to sleep without it. I can still remember the occasions when the book was taken from me. The first time was, when I climbed to the top of the chicken coop and broke the roof in, the second when I refused to eat my tomato soup, and the third, when I cut all the roses in our garden and scattered them on the bed of red-haired Eszti^[26], my younger brother’s nurse. This time it was grandpa who insisted on my being chastised, as it was always he who cut the roses.

 

I had known well in advance that I would have to pay for this, but Eszti was such a lovely girl! She did not wear stiff skirts that smelt of starch as did the cook or the chambermaid, and her clothes were deliciously soft. Her laughter, too, had such a charming ring in it. She also was fond of Andersen’s stories, and enjoyed my reading them out to her. Her favourite tale was that of the Snow Queen, and we often read it. The one about the Red Slippers was not to her taste. I could detect no other reason for her dislike than her belief that she resembled its heroine, the beautiful Catherine, who suffered so terribly for her vanity. I, therefore, ceased to annoy her with the tale of the Red Slippers and read it only when I was alone. But every time I did so, I had the feeling that the vain and lovely Catherine was actually Eszti. And when I reached the point in the story, where the executioner cuts off beautiful Catherine’s feet and the red slippers go on dancing, I closed my eyes and fancied that I saw the feet, Eszti’s blood-stained feet, dancing towards the forest. That is why I read the story over and over again.

 

One night, I dreamed of the Dauntless Tin Soldier, probably because the book, as usual, was lying beneath my pillow. The little dancer in my dream was Eszti, and I was the tin soldier. At the end of the tale both the little dancer and the tin soldier are burned to death in the stove. The day after, the maid, in cleaning out the stove, finds a small tin heart in place of the soldier, while all that is left of the little dancer is the charred tin star which adorned her head. At this point, I began to cry in my sleep. It was Eszti who woke me. "Have you had a bad dream, Józsika?" she asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed. I silently stroked her arm. We were alone in the room. Terka and Gudi were still asleep in their little beds. Outside it was snowing. A fire was already burning brightly in the stove, for it was one of Eszti’s duties to make the fire every morning when it was still dark. I got a whiff of the pleasant scent of Eszti’s hair and noticed that she had already washed in fresh cold water. Suddenly I sat up in bed and, laying my arms about her neck, kissed her lips. Eszti warmly returned my kiss and pressed me passionately to herself. I was so happy, I could have cried for sheer joy.

 

Andersen and I remained friends to the last, but Eszti left us six months later.

 

I was much grieved at having lost her, but eventually got over it. Only I never dared read any more the tale about beautiful Catherine. I was afraid of awakening painful memories.

 

Time passed, and I grew into adolescence, wore long trousers, and had to learn algebra. After my algebra lessons, I would again turn to Andersen, feeling that all the truth and beauty which Man could ever experience in this world were there in that much-thumbed little volume. And when I sauntered through our garden in the twilight of an Indian summer evening, I often expected that, at some bend of the garden-path, I would suddenly find myself face to face with Andersen, whom my fancy pictured as a stooping old man, with kindly blue eyes, wearing a powdered wig, and leaning on a gold-topped ebony cane.

 

The cool evening made me visualize him with a big chequered comforter hanging from his shoulders, and I was sure his clean-cut, wrinkled old face would break into a smile, and he would begin to chat with me, remarking:

 

"Good evening, my young friend; the days are growing cold, and an old man like myself has to be careful. How are you getting on? So you like my stories, I am delighted to hear it."

 

But Andersen never came, and so I gave up the hope of ever meeting him. I even began to lose my belief in the immortality of the soul. I grew negligent about going to confession, and deliberately had breakfast before communion. To use my mother’s words, I became more and more estranged from God and addicted to sin.

 

At this time – but not for long – I neglected the Andersen book. I took an interest in the works of the naturalist writers, and thought that Andersen, as an artist, could not hold a candle to these perfect and close observers of life. I did not then know that wisdom was to be found neither in sincerity nor insincerity, but elsewhere, beyond the two.

 

Of course, I did not realize this until much later, after I had come to live in Budapest, where I attended the university as a medical student and took courses in anatomy, histology and other branches of medical science. It was then that I also found my way back to Andersen. One might believe that important events had occurred in my life the while, yet nothing had happened, save that there had been a gradual change in my world outlook. Perhaps that was a disadvantage. My father advised me, in one of his letters, to become acquainted with life in the capital, adding that a little innocent amusement in the company of friends now and then would do me no harm. But I did not take his advice; I had no friends and took no pleasure in merrymaking.

 

I was eighteen years old and spent all my Sunday afternoons with my relatives, who said I was a sober, nice young fellow who had not ruined his ruddy provincial complexion through the city’s night-life, and that I was evidently keeping early hours and not frequenting the coffee-houses. Only my uncle Gyula, an army colonel, hinted – soldier-fashion – that one could no longer live without women once one was eighteen. I think it was chiefly the wish to annoy his jealous wife, Aunt Margaret, that prompted him to this remark. She, in turn, tried to persuade me to "stick to the straight and narrow," until I married.

 

Aunt Margaret’s arguments did not impress me. I refused to admit the soundness of her view that the same rules applied to men and women alike. But it was autumn, and my studies kept me busy enough. Anatomy especially caused me worry and fatigue at the beginning. After the hated years at secondary school, I at last learned to like studying. In winter I would work far into the evening in well-heated dissecting rooms of the Anatomical Institute. Then, having washed my hands with soap and warm water, I would saunter home through the well-lit streets, imbued with the refreshing feeling of having been reborn. After supper I was glad to be able to devote some time to my favourite books.

 

Andersen’s tales had, of course, accompanied me to the capital, too. The binding had grown very shabby, the corners were frayed, and the coloured picture on the cover had turned grey. I very seldom reached for it now.

 

Walking home from the laboratory, one evening in January, I stopped in front of a millinery shop. In glancing at the hats in the window, I became aware of a woman a couple of steps from me, also gazing at the window display. She was a pretty girl, slender and of medium height, wearing a hat trimmed with feathers and a dress which was almost fashionable. Her complexion gleamed white in the light of the electric lamps.

 

Suddenly she started, her red hair flamed, and she looked at me intently. It was red-haired Eszti! She too recognized me at once. We shook hands and laughed with delight at our unexpected meeting. Soon we were as deep in conversation as if we had parted only the day before. I accompanied her home. It did not take me long to learn that she had come to town as a maid a year and a half before, and had since gone wrong. Yet she was not dressed like an ordinary street-walker. I praised her clothes, and she replied that she hated anything in bad taste and only wore what suited her. Meanwhile we had walked through a number of back streets and reached her flat. So far Eszti’s beauty had made no impression on me, probably because my afternoon’ work, to which I had lent all my attention, had exhausted me. I was about to take leave of her, but she forestalled me by asking if I wouldn’t like to come up. So we went up to her room. She made tea, and for a time we talked quietly of my home, of my father and mother, my brother and sister, and of the past.

 

Eszti recalled with pleasure the years she had spent with us as nurse and chamber-maid, and had not even forgotten that I had once strewn her bed with roses. Then she excused herself for a moment and disappeared behind the screen next to the stove. I could now let my glance wander round her large, conventionally furnished room with its scarlet curtains, high-backed settee, polished bed and table. The wall, as far as could be discerned in the dim lamplight, was covered with dark paper and decorated by two large gold-framed pictures of cross county hunting-parties. My leisurely contemplation of the room was suddenly interrupted by Eszti. She stepped from behind the screen, clad in a heliotrope silk dressing-gown which left her throat and arms bare. My heart began beating wildly, and I felt myself growing pale. She came up to me, without uttering a word, and clasping my head with both hands, bent forward and kissed my lips. The blood rushed to my cheeks and I buried my face in her fragrant hair. Once more the exultation which filled my entire being with overflowing happiness, made me want to cry.

 

Eszti became my mistress. But the blissful moments, during which I learned the great secret of life, were followed, especially in the first days, by hours of bitterness. Was it not undignified, I asked myself, for me to accept the love of such a woman? What would my father, a man of very strict principles, think of it? On the other hand, I did not dare to offer Eszti money. Indeed, the girl’s behaviour revealed such charm, attachment and honesty that I simply could not conceive of her leading a life of easy virtue, or how she had avoided becoming vulgar.

 

I never broached these subjects to her, which were too painful even to let my own thoughts dwell upon. At first I contemplated writing my father, and asking him to raise my monthly allowance, at the same time making a clean breast of it by telling him openly that I was keeping Eszti.

 

I even started writing the letter, but never finished it, and tearing it up, resolved to let things take their course.

 

Usually Eszti would be waiting for me by the gate of the Anatomical Institute at six o’clock each evening, and we would then go for a walk. We would have supper together at some small restaurant, or at her flat, and I would remain with her until 9 o’clock. I was surprised to see how much culture the girl had acquired, although she didn’t care for reading, and had little taste for the arts. She could converse pleasantly and with fluency. She often recalled the years she had spent with us, and had a charmingly frank way of relating the memories out of the past which came to her mind. She had a sensitive emotional life which she willingly revealed to me, and always showed much interest when I spoke of my affairs.

 

I realized that it was not curiosity, or lust for money, or, as is mostly the case, a peculiarly passionate nature which had brought her to Budapest and had been the cause of her fall, but a refinement and sensitivity too great for a girl of her social standing. She must have felt that she had been born for better things than to become the wife of a peasant or servant, and she had certainly succeeded, as far as circumstances would permit, in rising above her original station in the world.

 

I loved her because I realized that the perfect beauty of her body was far surpassed by that of her soul. Our relationship was harmonious and undisturbed to a degree I had never dared hope for. And Eszti fostered my passion with infinite tact.

 

It happened during the second month of our renewed friendship that I was suddenly taken ill. True to the promise I had given my mother, I sent her a postcard notifying her that I had taken to my bed. I had contracted influenza. In the evening, fever developed. At such times it is as though the air has become as dense as oil, and everything seems to be swimming in a soft warm fluid. The wardrobes quite naturally begin to lean to one side or rise to the ceiling. You take fright, for a moment, as the stove, black and awe-inspiring, bends over you; the next moment, it retreats into the corner as harmless as a small grey kitten. Green balls, in groups or singly, keep swimming between you and the objects in the room, bumping into each other with a slow motion, and then separating again. All this serves to tickle your fancy and, at the same time, makes you feel giddy.

 

The lamp was burning on the table when I awoke, and I saw small, slender green circles playing hide-and-seek in the corners of the room. The landlady was in the act of replenishing the fire. Suddenly I remembered Eszti, who would surely be waiting for me this evening, as usual. Although it cost me a great effort, I asked for my writing-pad and wrote her that she should forgive me for having let her wait for me in vain, but I had been taken ill and send her my love and many kisses until we should meet. Then I again dozed off.

 

I awoke early, and the drab, blank wall, beyond my window fixed me with its cold stare. I began to think of what the mornings at home had been like, when I had been ill. I saw my father hurrying to my bedside as soon as he was awake. He feels my pulse, examines my eyes and throat and then leaves to wash his hands. The maids cross the room on tiptoe. My room looks out on the street, and I watch the shops opening, one after another: István Miskolczy’s book and stationery shop, Joseph Löwy’s assortment of tombstones, Jakab Schmunzer’s salt-and-flour store, and Menyhért Kocsis, the barber and hairdresser. Dawn is succeeded by daylight. The pain has abated, and I relax at the thought that I need not attend school and would not even be allowed to if I wanted to. The table is being set in the next room, I can hear the clinking of china and silver. The chamber-maid is toasting thin slices of bread over the stove for breakfast, and mother asks me how I slept and promises to read to me before lunch.

 

My kind-hearted landlady interrupted the train of my reminiscences by bringing in coffee and engaging me in conversation, but all that was nothing compared with the happiness of being sick at home…

 

I felt better in the forenoon, and read the paper and dozed by turns. Having no appetite, I did not eat any lunch, yet my temperature went up again in the afternoon. I was gazing with tired, feverish eyes at the grey winter sky above the blank wall, when there was a knock at my door and Eszti slipped into the room. She sat down on the edge of my bed, kissed my face and forehead, smoothed my pillows and the wrinkled sheet, and then proceeded to take off her coat. It was wonderful how kind and simple she was… She had combed her hair smooth as in her servant days. She asked how I had been taken ill and how I was feeling. The girl’s extraordinary feminity had an exhilarating effect upon me. She said I should not talk so much and, drawing the cover up to my neck, told me to try and sweat. I willingly obeyed, but stipulated that she should read to me. Andersen’s ragged and faded volume of fairy-tales was lying on the bookshelf among my notes and voluminous medical books. She found the tale of the little Snow Queen and read it to me. By the time she had finished, it had grown dark. Eszti put on the tea-kettle, and then we had the lamp brought in. The next story was the one about old Mother Elder, a tale for children in bed with a bad cold. Eszti read it slowly, pausing now and then to prepare the tea, squeeze some lemon-juice into it and bring it to me on a tray, after which she sat down again and continued reading.

 

Suddenly there was a ring at the door outside. Soon after, we heard the front door being opened; and the next instant my mother entered.

Embarrassed, and probably stammering a bit, I greeted her with a "Good evening, Mother!" She smothered me with kisses, stroked my head and hands, and looked into my eyes. I could see her relief on finding me not seriously ill.

 

"Thank heaven, you have almost no temperature," she said. Eszti meanwhile had risen from her chair, and curtsied when my mother’s look caught hers.

 

"Good evening, Madam."

 

A familiar look of severity spread over my mother’s features. I was overwhelmed with fear and felt a cold shiver running down my spine.

 

"Eszti and I are reading Andersen’s tales, mother," I brought forth abruptly. "She is just reading me the story about old Mother Elder while I’m drinking the tea she made for me."

 

My mother smiled faintly and asked:

 

"What else have you been reading in Andersen’s book?"

 

"The tale of the Snow Queen," Eszti answered.

 

"That was my favourite story when I was a child," I said. "Do you remember, mother, how often Eszti used to read it out to me in those days?"

 

"It’s a lovely story," replied my mother, in a quiet, soft voice, as she took off her coat and hat, "but I believe you liked the story about beautiful Catherine and that of the dauntless tin soldier equally well in those days."

 

"Yes," I murmured drowsily, "and the story of Catherine appealed to me specially, because I always imagined that Catherine was really Eszti."

 

"Eszti was never as stuck-up or hard-hearted as Catherine," answered my mother, bestowing a warm glance upon Eszti.

 

"That wasn’t why I thought of Eszti," I said. "It was because lying in bed one morning I dreamt that I was the dauntless tin soldier and the maid was scraping my earthly remains out of the stove in the form of a small bit of tin, while she found nothing of my sweetheart, the little paper dancer, but the tiny tin star, among the ashes… I cried in my sleep, and it was Eszti who woke me, and I threw my arms around her." Here I lost the thread of what I was trying to say. I could yet hear my mother and Eszti pottering about the room; but the little green fever circles had again begun dancing before my eyes. Abandoning myself to the soft waves of heat that enveloped me, I stared fixedly at the door, which suddenly approached me, only to retreat again into the distance, along with the walls. When the door had receded so far that it almost seemed to have shrunk into nothingness, it opened slowly and noiselessly.

 

An old man entered with bent back, and powdered wig, leaning on a gold-tipped ebony cane, and came towards me.

 

I soon recognized him. It was dear old Andersen. He looked at me with his deep-set blue eyes and stopped beside my bed.

 

"You recognize me, don’t you, my young friend," he said. "You know how fond of you I am. As fond as I am of the tin soldier, the little dancer, old Mother Elder and beautiful Catherine. I am also very fond of Eszti, and am glad indeed that she too is so fond of you. It is pleasant and charming to see a young boy and girl who understand each other… You have often come across such a thing in my tales, haven’t you?"

 

"Yes," I whispered.

 

"Do you still remember the tale of a mother?" he asked.

 

"Yes, I remember, it is about the mother who goes to the land of death to save her child."

 

"In that story the mother sacrifices all she possesses in order to find the land of death."

 

"Yes, she gives her eyes, her hair, her arms, and all her tears," I continued mechanically and sadly.

 

"But it is not only in fiction that such things occur. Your mother would do the same, my boy," Andersen said in a tremulous, persuasive voice. "Youth and desire are like two big flowers growing on one stem. And it is a sight that gladdens the beholder…"

 

Here he paused and gently tickled my cheeks with his cane. "But the expert gardener fears the two flowers will destroy one another through their splendour, and seeks to protect them. Do you understand, my lad?"

 

The old man looked into my eyes, and I did not know whether to laugh at his words, as at some fable, or to shed tears. I returned his look, tranquilly, seriously. He bent his knee in so droll a manner that I was afraid he might lose his balance or vanish altogether, but he said instead:

 

"Remember the two flowers and bear in mind that if one of them withers, the other will wither too… And now, goodbye."

 

He turned to go. The door and walls again receded into the distance, and Andersen too grew ever smaller as he withdrew. He reached the door at last, opened it and disappeared.

 

I felt a light, cool touch on my forehead. It was my mother’s hand. She was seated on the edge of my bed. When I opened my eyes, she asked whether I felt hungry?

 

I begged her to read me the story of a mother. It did not occur to me until the following day that Eszti had no longer been in the room.

 

I was allowed to get up three days later and to accompany my mother to the station, wrapped up in my warmest clothing.

 

On the way back, my steps of their own accord led me towards Eszti’s flat. There I was told that she had gone away the day before, no one knew where.

 

It was very hard, at first, to return home alone each evening, and many an hour I lingered in the street, hoping to see Eszti coming towards me. But she never did, and I never heard of her again.

 

(1908)