Adam and Evelyn (19 page)

“For example.”

“Can’t you find another topic for conversation?” Adam said. “Anyhow, you’re not going to find a more beautiful spot anywhere.” He walked with Pepi to the monument.

They heard a sirenlike honking before the train came into view as it pulled into Badacsony. The rhythmic beat of the wheels slowed down. Once the train stopped, they could hear the station’s loudspeaker.

Adam passed his hand over the pedestal of the cross, on which names and dates had been chiseled or scratched. The older the date, the more artistic the workmanship. “Pepi,” Adam said, pointing to a name that stood above a semicircle of two laurel sprigs. “ ‘Kiss Gábor, 1889.’ And here’s another eighty-niner, ‘Bodó József.’ We could ask someone to engrave our names here, that would give people something to wonder about a hundred years from now too.”

“Yes,” Pepi said, nodding. “It’d have to be at night. I know somebody who could do it.”

Adam went “Hm” and nodded. They walked back to the others, he put his shirt on.

Pepi led them on to a viewpoint from where they could see the
peaked hill in the hinterland. She told about the Romans, for whom the Római út was named, and explained how lava, igneous soil, was good for cultivating wine. Otherwise they didn’t say much. Michael put his arm around Evelyn’s shoulder a couple of times, but Evelyn had only monosyllabic replies to everything he said, and the path kept forcing them to walk single file. Pepi stayed in Adam’s vicinity. The last part of the way Evelyn walked between Katja and Pepi, while the two men hurried ahead in the hope of still getting a table on the terrace.

Later that afternoon they walked down to the lake, sunbathed, and drank coffee. Only Katja went into the water. She swam out so far that Pepi wanted to notify the rescue service.

That evening, shortly before seven, they were sitting at the table set for supper waiting for the Angyals to join them.

“That was a lovely day,” Evelyn said.

At almost the same moment they heard Frau Angyal call from the house, her arms fumbling at the plastic strips. She was wearing the blouse Adam had made for her.

“Come in, come in.”

Katja, Evelyn, and Michael raced to the television. Adam poured himself another glass. He stood up, glass in hand. But instead of going inside, he lingered at the little pen to watch the turtle, which had climbed into its shallow bowl of water.

“Adam,” Pepi said.

Frau Angyal’s voice could be heard inside, she was translating.

“Looks like it’s happened,” Pepi said.

She flinched too when both Katja and Michael let out a scream.

“Sorry,” Adam said, set his glass down, and wiped his damp hand on his pants.

IN THE DRIVEWAY
in front of the house Adam and Herr Angyal had layered twigs, branches, and logs. Adam had borrowed Michael’s lighter and started the fire with a rag drenched in alcohol. The Angyals and their guests were seated in chairs around the fire.

“For him it’s a victory, even though he can’t stand Gyula Horn, but it’s almost as important as the funeral for Imre Nagy this past June,” Pepi translated.

“In fifty-six he was nineteen years old, he was part of it,” Frau Angyal said. “He was involved in it all.”

“And he’s really never been back to Budapest since?” Katja asked.

“No. We were at the airport twice. But now, now we’ll definitely make the trip, he has to make the trip now.”

“No matter where you go in Budapest you can see bullet holes in almost every building. Or they’ve been plastered over,” Pepi said.

“To the heroes of fifty-six,” Michael said, raising his glass and nodding to Herr Angyal.

“If I lived here,” said Adam, who had impaled a potato on a stick and was holding it in the fire, “wild horses couldn’t drag me to Budapest.”

“You shouldn’t say that, Adam. For him Budapest was everything—friends, family, girls, cafés, theaters, movies, the baths. To give up all that—Budapest was the most wonderful city in the world.”

“I admire Papa for his resolve. He wanted to go to university, but he decided it was best to give that up too.”

“Why didn’t he go to the West? That would have been possible, wouldn’t it?” Katja asked.

“Nobody understands that, sorry to say. And that may sound strange coming from his wife, since when all is said and done I wouldn’t have met András otherwise. I wonder if he would even have turned his head for a woman like me in Budapest.”

“Oh, Mama, you two would have found each other anywhere. Don’t say things like that.”

“In Budapest there were women, very different women.”

“Papa’s best friend was so badly wounded that they had to amputate both legs. He put a bullet through his head then. That’s why my name is Jozefa, Josephine,” Pepi said.

“The depth of his resolve has always frightened me. I had never seen anything like it. I was seventeen when Pepi came. And what did he learn here? How to snap his fingers and drink wine, that’s what he learned.”

“Papa just remarked that they were betrayed on all sides, betrayed by everyone.”

Herr Angyal went on speaking. His voice sounded brittle, as if at any moment he would have to clear his throat.

“They thought the Americans would help them at least. They didn’t even send guns. A young friend of his—who had attended boarding school in Switzerland, nothing but diplomats’ kids—he knew right away that no one would risk helping the Hungarians.”

Herr Angyal got up and on unsteady legs disappeared behind the house.

“Stay here, Mama, let him.”

“He’s so difficult sometimes. We shouldn’t have started with this.”

“He started talking about it. And don’t make such a face, he’s hardly drunk anything.”

“You must excuse us, please, we never talk about this.… My husband still believes that Europe’s freedom will be decided by us Hungarians.”

“Those aren’t Papa’s words, they come from Lajos Kossuth.”

“How does that poem go?” Frau Angyal asked, “ ‘Abandoned the Magyar … abandoned …’ ”

“ ‘Abandoned, and alone, forsaken by craven nations, the Magyar.’ Papa was even a member of the Petőfi Club.”

“What kind of club?” Katja asked.

Everyone turned around to look at Herr Angyal. Pressing something to his chest with his left hand, in his right he held a newspaper, which he gave Evelyn. Staring from the front page of a
Time
magazine dated January 1957 was a rather intellectual-looking young man, his head slightly lowered, in his hands a short rifle, fingers more patting the barrel than gripping it. Underneath it read, “Hungarian Freedom Fighter.” In the upper-right-hand corner, as if on a banner, was written, “Man of the Year.”

Herr Angyal stopped. He spread open a piece of cloth and held it before him with both hands. One corner had been singed.

“A flag?” Michael asked.

“Papa rescued it. If they’d caught him with it—”

“What if I tell you now—” and Frau Angyal waved for Pepi to be silent. “About the search, an official search of the house.”

“What? Neither of you has ever said anything about that!”

“You had only been born. He was in the cellar, oh my, when I think about it, but they didn’t open the cellar hatch, just running back and forth, back and forth. He had set fire to the flag, it did not burn. He had poured alcohol over it, but they were gone by then. I washed and washed the flag, but the smell never left, nothing I could do. It stinks for twenty years now.”

“And if they had found him with it?”

“Prison, at least.”

“He wanted to burn it in order to save it,” Adam said.

“What do you mean by that?” Michael asked.

“Well yes, better to burn it than for it to fall into the wrong hands. There can be no greater proof of love.”

“What is it?” Evelyn asked. “What are those rivers?”

“Our Kossuth coat of arms,” Frau Angyal whispered. “Four rivers and three mountains.” She turned to her husband with an even softer whisper. He didn’t so much as glance at her. When Pepi gently prodded him, he responded with a few brusque words. And his glasses slipped from his forehead to his nose.

“Papa wants to raise the flag, someday he wants to raise it high for everyone to see.”

“And who should see it here, please? The neighbors? He is drunk, once again drunk.”

“My father was born in thirty-three,” Adam said. “In 1945 they were too young to get involved in any of it but old enough to realize what was happening. None of them went to the West, and none of them joined the Party. No one understood that either.”

Herr Angyal folded up the flag, held it in both hands, and then kissed it. He sat down in his chair, the flag in his lap, pushed his glasses back up on his forehead, and bent down to pick up his glass.

“It seems clearer and clearer to me now,” Adam said. “They weren’t about to be taken in by anybody. They kept their distance from all of it—if they had some character.” He fingered his potato and tried to peel away the black skin.

“Maybe I don’t understand, because it sounds so sad, hopeless, as if life were over right from the start. A person had to have tried at least,” Katja said.

“What do you want to try? What are you supposed to want?” Adam asked.

After a pause, with everyone looking at her, Katja said, “Well, to be happy, to go someplace where things function, where you can live reasonably. I would keep on trying, over and over, or I’d throw myself out the window.”

“It’s not always a matter of either-or,” Adam said without lifting his eyes from his potato. “You can’t say that this is nothing here. And besides, it’s enough that people like András or my parents didn’t sell themselves, couldn’t be corrupted. That’s worth knowing and thinking about.”

“A real philosopher, our Adam,” Frau Angyal said.

“I’m not criticizing that, Adam, really I’m not. Who am I?” Katja said. “It’s just a feeling that that’s exactly what I don’t want. I never wanted to get out as much as I do now, at this moment. I’d love to just pick up and leave this instant.”

“For you it’s sure to be the right thing,” Pepi said.

“At least it’s a good thing for Katja,” Adam said.

“Papa, let’s hear that snap, please!” Pepi repeated her request in Hungarian. Frau Angyal shook her head. Suddenly Herr Angyal raised his hand—a report so dry and loud it was as if his fingers were made of wood.

“Again,” Pepi cried, tucking her head between her shoulders. But Herr Angyal was already bending down for his wineglass. “Gute Reise,” he said in German to wish them well on their way, and toasted first Evelyn, then Katja. Except for Adam—who was tossing his hot potato from one hand to the other—they all raised their glasses. Evelyn’s was empty again by now. But she set it to her lips anyway, and swallowed.

“GOOD ONE
—as if I could fall asleep now.”

“But in the state you’re in?”

“Driving’s always the last thing I can’t manage, believe me, the last thing. Are you afraid?”

“Well, you don’t have to step on it on my account. Besides, that’s a pretty nasty draft.”

“She’ll be sorry! I know she’s sorry! She was drunk, just plain drunk!”

“We all had a little too much to drink—”

“I mean, later in the night, she was really plastered by then. Raving like a madwoman, saying the same stuff over and over again, as if she’d totally lost it.”

Katja lit a cigarette and handed it to Michael. Because of the smashed window she had pulled on his sweater and his windbreaker and wrapped a T-shirt around her head. “Turn around, turn around. I’ll get across one way or another.”

“I can’t. No can do!” Michael banged the steering wheel so hard the car went into a brief swerve.

“Are you nuts!” Katja cried.

“Why can’t any of you understand that I don’t have any more vacation days, this week was pure goodwill—last week was pure goodwill.
They’re all waiting for me. But none of you would know anything about that—real work, that’s a totally strange concept to you.”

“No it isn’t,” Katja said. “Except that if you love Evi, if you really love her … I shouldn’t have come along.”

“It was for her sake that I suggested it, so she wouldn’t be alone, to make things simpler. And what thanks do I get? It’s so damn absurd, to throw that in my face.”

“So it’s true.”

“What’s ‘true’?”

“It’s true that I’m to blame.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But it was me you were talking about.”

“She admires you. She told me straight out that I should leave with you.”

“With me?”

“Because of the whole thing with the trunk. That you’d do better in the West than she would and stuff like that.”

“I was certain she’d be coming along.”

“
You
were certain! I just have to think of all the things we’d planned. She wanted to go to university, wanted to start right away. She wanted to go to Brazil and New York, to Italy, and I said yes, we’ll do it, we’ll do whatever you want.”

“You were a whole new world for her.”

“I was, past tense, was, over and done with.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“It’s how I mean it.”

“You need to turn around—really, turn around!”

“She came slinking across night after night. I had spotted it right off, the needs dammed up inside her. She was literally starved—”

“For sex?”

“For everything, for sex, for hugs, for caresses, for making plans, for everything. She told me how she felt in that Podunk, buried, six feet under, that’s what she said, buried alive. And he doesn’t get
any of it. Or doesn’t want to. At least I’m rid of him. That much at least.”

“Adam’s happy as things are—some people are undemanding.”

“Undemanding! You call him undemanding? She caught him at it. I was there when she arrived sobbing her heart out because he’d been screwing around with some old biddy, and not for the first time either. She told me all about it. And then started hugging Mona and me when we said, ‘Come on, we’re on our way …’ ”

Michael passed a Wartburg and despite oncoming traffic stayed in the middle lane until he had overtaken a long line of East German cars.