Mother's body hangs decorously from the rope, her shapely legs doing a light pirouette.
I stumble out to the kitchen and ransack the drawers. The cold stone floor burns the soles of my feet.
"Where are your slippers!"
I turn a deaf ear. Besides, the radio drowns us out as a sugar-coated voice announces the exact time, then shamelessly coaxes all those nice folks out there who will now kindly get themselves off to work, on the double. I can’t find the knife. We have just one sharp knife, and we use it for everything.
It smells of Wednesday, a stifling smell. It comes seeping in through the cracks in the window, it comes pouring forth from the puss-yellow light of the naked ceiling lamp. WHERE IS THAT KNIFE?
I look out the window and freeze like a turkey with its neck forced to he ground. The dust swirls and eddies in the courtyard; dented tubs and leaky basins make a musical clatter on the balconies. But across the way the world's most deadly-dull office building is awash with neon light as a surging tide of sour-faced cleaning women moves from room to room, doubling over with the futility of their labor. The dust and dirt they won’t touch, though; it is left to the fastidious aparatchniks to gather it up with their tongues or with small office tweezers between eight in the morning and four-thirty in the afternoon so that when it’s time to go, or at home -- unheedful even of their families -- they should gulp it down at their convenience.
Somewhere an alarm clock shrills. Someone jumps out of bed. I release my neck from the noose. I move about among the dirty dishes, pretending to look for the knife, whereas I am much more interested in the grounds stuck to the bottom of my coffee cup.
Why do I bother going to the municipal library anyway?
Who is Ervin Szabó, and why is it named after him?
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?!
"Look on father's bed. He was paring an apple again last night."
Dad visits us from the grave to eat apples. He waits until it grows dark and we are fast asleep, then sneaks out to the kitchen and makes a racket with the plates and repeatedly slams the pantry door. After a while he backs into the room, settles on the edge of a chair, and chomps on an apple. Gorges himself on it. And makes mother wake up. No wonder. The dead respect neither man nor God. Also, he throws the skin on the rug. Thumbs his nose at neatness.
Also, he plays dominoes.
He lies on his stomach in the moonlight and pops his cheeks every time the dominoes come out right. The small wooden blocks keep knocking against each other. Maybe he thinks we can’t hear. well, we hear! We even hear him when he makes a dash for the wardrobe when either of us climbs out of bed and heads for the john. And at dawn he hides under the rug and breathes very loud. We have to walk gingerly around the hump. We wouldn’t want to step on him.
"I’m still hanging here. You want I should be late?!"
I go to mother and put one hand around her waist. With the other, the one holding the knife, I try to cut the rope. But I can’t reach up far enough and must stand gingerly on my tip-toes. Besides, mother hinders me as usual, turning her head every which way, making sure she sees.
"That’s not how."
"Don’t butt in."
"That’s not how. Want I should show you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Must you meddle?"
"Where are your slippers?"
"LATER, MOTHER, ALL RIGHT, MOTHER? LATER!"
Boom! Mother comes crashing down on top of me and I end up spread-eagled on the floor. For a moment, our bodies make contact. She pulls herself up, unties the knot around her neck, and rearranges her small feathered cap. Though she is wearing clunky rubber-soled shoes, she does a pirouette or two, this time on the floor. Testing herself, no doubt. "You know about Pali Weiner? The one that used to call me Cow-Eyed Hera the Wonder Woman?"
"No kidding."
"He’d walk me up to the fifth floor, glaring at my legs. 'You are a real woman. My woman!' Stuff like that. At Mrs. Gréti’s Dancing School, on Csengery Street, we made such a handsome couple. Oh, that Pali! How he could step inbetween my legs. You should have seen him! He later sent me two hundred and fifty-nine letters. Each had a heart-shaped seal on the back, surrounded by oleanders."
"So?"
"So nothing. It just came to mind." She winds the rope round her wrist. "I hope you don’t mind, but I'm in an awful hurry. It’s past seven. I can’t help you on with your shoes today. Besides, since last week, you can tie your own shoes, so I don’t see why I ..."
In her checkered tweed suit, mother takes to flight effortless as a bird. She hovers in mid-air, suspended, wondering what to do next. Well, I know! She should be heading out to the hall to look for her gloves.
"Oy is me. I’ll be late."
Mother stands looking at me. The air quivers all around us. The central heating comes on with a furious roar. For our benefit. THESE ARE NOT EASY MOMENTS, YOUR HEART FLUTTERS, I CAN TELL.
"Dear listeners, you snotty lot! The exact time is seven-fifteen. It's time you got moving, don't you agree? The weather is glorious, the air like velveteen. And now, brass instrumentals performed by the Firemen's Brigade of the Workers Union for Trade, Finance and Catering!"
This can’t be true. I will not stand for it. I protest! For instance, what the fuck is TRANSPORT CATERING SERVICES? ROLLER COMPETITION? NATIONAL GUARD VOWS? RASPBERRY YOGURT? WORKERS UNION? WORKERS UNION?
"Have you seen my gloves?"
They’re on top of the fridge, but I don’t feel like telling her because the air on Boráros Square, it tastes of soot and iron and the Suburban Railway carries passengers with sadness in their eyes. The herding into the cattle wagons goes on day and night, and she's being taken to Bosnyák Square on bus number seven, all heads accounted for.
"Dear listeners, you lazy bastards! It is seven twenty-five. I repeat. It is seven twenty-five. LOVE IS ALL IT TAKES, by György Korda. Okay. And now, move your ass!"
All around me the room is soaking, unheedful, in the morning's filth. I grow dizzy by degrees and roll under the sofa. I breathe in the downy feathers, I am about to faint. Just then mother's thin ankles swim into my field of vision. Miss Skin-and-Bones of the Nylons opens up a flower-printed parasol, and at a loss, turns round and round the boundless meadow. "What’s up?"
I hear bunny whining. I wrestle my way out from under the sofa and reassuringly pat her knee.
"Mother, will you please stop that. You always do that."
She shrugs, her hair grown pale against her tweed suit weighed down with sorrow. Then she points and mumbles something, too, but the brass band drowns out her words. It's a brass band again. I don’t even try to lower the volume, because at such times the knobs are centrally controlled.
Mother wraps an arm around my neck and pulls me very close, as close as she possibly can.
"In the bathroom, the brush, that nasty brush, came at me! It struck me on the temple when I was extracting the hairs. The one with the handle! Tell me, how am I supposed to go to work with such a huge lump? The old bag, with a swelling that big on her head! They are going to make fun of me, like always, saying I look good, regardless."
I am looking at the floor. The rug is rippling on the parquet. Stirring.
"You look fine."
"You don't know what you're talking about, son. Just look out the window."
I go over to the window, I draw aside the all too familiar curtains and press my forehead against the window pane. What does she expect me to say? I SEE IT.
"Can you see it?"
"No."
"Well, it's there."
"What’s there, mother? Why don't you leave me alone."
"Don’t you try and comfort me, son. Not like that, especially. We haven’t come to that yet!"
My bum sweaty inside my cute little rose-strewn pajamas, I say, "I’m not trying to comfort you, mommy, I just don’t care shit."
"Shit?"
"Shit."
"Yes. That's just like you. Go get me a hankie."
I fetch her one from her storeroom. She flings her small handbag, smelling of tobacco, over her shoulder. She even manages a smile. Her lashes quiver.
"In ‘38 I lived in Buenos Aires. The sun was always shining."
"I know. You told me. You told me all about it."
"Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye."
And she was gone. It wasn’t easy for her, but in the end, she managed.
I walk over dad.

Translated by Judith Sollosy
From: Végre élsz! – Alive at Last!, 1991
In: Give or Take a Day. Contemporary Hungarian Short Stories, Corvina, 1997