THE SAINT ANN'S REVIEW

WEST OF SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR
Anita Harag
translated by Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry

Translators’ Notes: Székesfehérvár is Hungary’s third largest city and is in the central part of the country. The reader can think of it in abbreviated form as “Saikesh”.  The region west of it is quite rural.  The sum of 5000 forints is about $25.

 
Shards of brick, a broken bathroom sink, dust.  As if something had smashed through into the bathroom making a hole in the roof.  I look around but aside from debris, all I see is a dead bird. What’s a dead bird doing in here.  Ring-necked dove.  At home I wake up every morning to the cooing of a ring-necked dove.  I wanted it dead.  Then later, that it should live, I would miss the sound.  I got used to it.  Before I knew its name I couldn’t tell it apart from the other doves.  One of the neighbors told me what it is called. 

            The whole house is in ruins.  It is hard to open the outside door, the key gets stuck in the triple lock.  It can barely be turned, I’m always afraid it may break.  I don’t understand why István locked himself in so thoroughly, what was he guarding in this ramshackle place.  A big room, a kitchen, a bathroom with an outhouse for a toilet.  I hate going there, it stinks and there are brown spiders with big bellies on the walls.  According to Ádám, it is good that it is like that, you can retreat there, he takes a small brush and sweeps away the spiders.  He stands behind me, we look at the collapsed roof together.  Apart from the broken bathroom sink and the tub that remained intact, there is nothing else.  What the hell, he asks, and steps slowly into the middle of the debris.  He goes closer to the hole and looks up.  We’ll have a fine day, the weather is clear, he says.  I don’t laugh. 

            For three weeks we have been coming here on weekends.  We get in the car on Saturday at dawn and arrive home late at night on Sunday.  The first weekend we stayed over, I brought bed linen plus an extra small pillow for Ádám, he grasps it while tossing at night.  I couldn’t sleep in the bed where not so long ago, István used to lie.  We leave so early that there are hardly any cars on the highway.  We get here fast, on the way back we leave before or after the evening rush hour.

            I don’t know what to do about a collapsed roof.  Ádám stares at the hole and the broken bricks lying in front of him.  He doesn’t know what to do either.  Should we call a plasterer?   What for?  We don’t want to stay here.  We can’t sell it either.  Who would buy this house in the boondocks.  The garden is in shambles, the fence would fall down in a big storm, and now the roof to boot.  I don’t recall a storm last week, the gravel heap is intact, there is not even a small branch missing from the trees.  I go to the big room for my bag, I left it on the bed, you can tell where István always sat on the beige sofa, the upholstery is darker there.  I take the savory biscuits out of my bag and the coffee in a Thermos bottle and take them to the kitchen.  We brought plastic plates two weeks ago to avoid using István’s cracked china set.  I don’t want to eat from the plates or drink from the glasses he used to use. 

            Would you like a biscuit I shout to Ádám who is still in the bathroom.  Uh huh, he answers, I’ll be there in a sec.  I pour the coffee into plastic glasses, somewhat less for myself.  I like this Thermos, it keeps the coffee warm for hours.  I raise my glass, it still steams a bit.  I sit down by the table that has two mismatched chairs, one made of dark wood, the other, white plastic.  I take a bite of the biscuit.  I hear Ádám puttering in the bathroom, then his approaching steps.  He appears at the door.  We shouldn’t buy biscuits there again.  Why, he asks.  They are as hard as if we had bought them a week ago.  He makes a face.  But they are still edible, I add quickly, have some. 

            Today we wanted to organize the big room.  To remove István’s clothes from the wardrobe and bag them, take them over to the Red Cross and throw out the ones that are beyond salvaging.  I finish eating, sweep the crumbs into my hand and take them over to the garbage.  I get started on the big room, Ádám puts the debris from the bathroom into a black garbage bag, but it is too thin, the larger pieces tear it and the dust that had been previously swept into it pours onto the floor.  God damn it, he says.  I will sweep it up, I say and am about to get the dustpan.  But he says, don’t bother.  We’ll do it later. 

            The wardrobe is full of clothes.  I make two piles, garbage and Red Cross.  The garbage pile is much bigger.  István kept saving clothes that had completely faded, the once bright green striped T-shirt hardly shows the stripes any longer,  in one pair of trousers the seat is so threadbare that there would be no point repairing it.  Garbage, garbage.  I sniff one of the pullovers.  It’s a reflex, that’s how I select the clothes at home to go into the wash.  Traces of István’s odor are still there.  I don’t know if I will still remember this smell a couple of years from now.  It is not perfume, only coarse soap, it is characteristic of him and is mixed with the odour of tobacco and of the wardrobe.  Perhaps I should save one of the better T-shirts.  I look at the two piles.  Should there be a third.  In the end, the pullover is added to the Red Cross pile. 

            There is someone at the gate, Ádám says.  He is not wearing a T-shirt, his chest is red and shiny with sweat.  He goes to the window.  It’s one of the neighbors.  I go there, too.  There is a man at the gate waving.  I put the clothes I am carrying on the arm of the sofa and go to the entrance door.  Good day.  Hello good lady, the old man answers.  In his sixties, closer to seventy, with a tooth missing in the front.  How can I help you?  Are you István’s daughter?  I nod.  He sure talked a lot about you.  He always said how proud he was of his daughter who lives in Budapest.  I know right away he is lying.  I am sure István never talked about me.  How can I help you, I ask again.  I live just over there, he points.  The third one to the right.  Has your father never mentioned me?  László Kőszeghi, with an “h”.  Lacika.  I shake my head.  But, that’s a problem.  A big problem.  You know, my dear, I lent a refrigerator to your father a couple of years ago.  A Beko.  Now that the old man has died, I would like it back, he only had it on loan.  There is only a Hausmeister fridge here, and a very old one at that, I answer.  Yes, Hausmeister, that’s it!  That’s what I meant.  Beko is the one we have at home.  The man looks at me and doesn’t budge.  There is a scar on his left cheek.  White.  It could be several years old.  I don’t know how long István has had this fridge, or who gave it to him.  All right I say.  You may take it.  Thank you very much, my dear, I’ll come to pick it up this afternoon. 

            What did he want, Ádám asks, still standing by the window.  The fridge, I answer.  The fridge?  He wants to buy it?  No, to take it.  He says it is his.  It was only a loan.  I walk over to the fridge that is open a crack.  There is nothing inside except a cup half filled with salt.  We cleaned it on the first day, we threw out everything: bagged milk that had gone sour, sausages, margarine.  And what did you say, he asks.  He can take it if he wants to.  I close the fridge.  We have no use for it anyway.  And I don’t care.  He doesn’t say anything and goes back to the bathroom.  I pick up the T-shirt left on the arm of the sofa, look at the two piles, then throw it into the garbage pile. 

            Two weeks ago an old woman came through the entrance door, she didn’t even knock.  We were in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen, Ádám was holding the garbage bin and I tossed the expired cocoa and mealy flour into it from the cupboard.  The short older woman with her hair and eyebrows colored red, lives a few doors down, she used to visit István often, sometimes bringing him leftovers.  At least that is what she said.  She lives with her husband, just the two of them, she cooks enough for a family, she can’t get used to the fact that her children had flown the coop several years ago.  There are a lot of leftovers, she used to bring some of that.  When she came she brought over a few savory biscuits, she said we must have gotten tired from all the packing.  It’s awful that he left so young.  We were very good friends, your father was a very good man.  We sat down by the dining table.  How interesting, she said.  That’s where I used to sit, right where you seated me this time, and your father, where you’re sitting now.  Like father, like daughter, it must be.  She talked a lot, mostly about how hard it was to live there with no physician nearby, only in the neighboring village, the factory is far away, she is sixty-four already but they still assign her the night shift if needed, it happens often.  She talked for at least half an hour while Ádám was working in the garden.  After half an hour, she finally came out with it that the old man got the stove from her. 

            Everyone calls István the old man, even though he was younger than this woman and Lacika.  I am packing away the clothes, a T-shirt with the neck torn, an undershirt now grey.  István’s condition declined a lot during the past year.  It was three years ago when I last saw him, and even then he already looked terrible.  His skin exuded that typical penetrating smell of alcoholics.   The woman with the red eyebrows said that even though she gave him the stove, we could use it if we wanted, otherwise she would take it back.  Theirs at home has just given up the ghost.  That’s what she said.  The stove hardly works, and by now this brand has been condemned as dangerous.  Let her take it if she wants, it is not even worth 5,000 forints.  She and her husband, a short pot-bellied man, came over the same evening, disconnected the stove from the gas line and carried it off.  The husband at the front, the old woman whose name I don’t remember at the back.

            By noon I finish sorting the clothes.  The pile for the Red Cross ended up smaller than the one for garbage.  I go to the bathroom, where did you put the garbage bag, I ask Ádám.  Here it is, he hands it to me.  The scent of deodorant hits my nose.  I give him a hug, caress his bare back, my palm gets wet.  He breathes fast, I cuddle up to him, I slowly breathe in and out and he also slowly breathes in and out.  Have you got a lot left, I ask.  This much, he points to the debris swept into the corner.  He found a box, he throws the bigger pieces in it, and when it is full, he takes it out to the side of the house near the gravel heap.  Aren’t you hungry, I ask.  I will soon finish, all I need to do is bag the clothes.  I want to finish this first, he answers, I might only eat in the afternoon.  Where did you throw the bird, I ask.  He doesn’t answer.  He kisses my mouth and keeps on working. 

            I walk back to the living room.  I tear off a bag and start packing the clothes.  There is only one bag for the Red Cross and five of garbage.  These are all the clothes that István ever owned.  He never threw out any, he kept them all.  We don’t throw out anything, was his mantra.  He told that to me, too, when as a child I wanted to throw out the sour cream container I had licked clean.  He always gave me what was left in the container.  I liked eating sour cream on its own.  Mustard, too.  Sometimes when he came home from shopping, he got out a seventy gram tube of mustard from the bag and gave it to me, making sure that mom didn’t see.  I removed the cap and pressed the mustard into my mouth.  Your stomach is made of iron, István used to say at times like that.  He rinsed the empty sour cream containers and tomato cans, took them over to his workshop and kept fishing hooks and nails in them.  He didn’t throw out anything.  These must be all the clothes he ever wore, in these bags.  After the time that he stopped growing.  He only started shrinking just before the end, like clothes made out of viscose if I accidentally wash them in 60°C water. 

            I lean the bags against the wall, go to the kitchen, get the rice and meat I brought in a container, put some on a plastic plate.  I go back to the living room.  The wardrobe is done.  I have already removed some of the china from the cabinet, china that used to belong to István’s mother.  I open the dresser, it has faded sheets in it.  There are a few pictures on the dresser.  István is in front of the house, young, in his forties with a wide grin.  I hardly recognize the house in the picture.  Mom and I stayed in Székesfehérvár after the divorce.  The way I recall it, I cried when István moved here.  Thirty kilometers west of Székesfehérvár.  He already drank heavily then.  He came home drunk more often than sober.  He had a strangely foggy look in his eye.  He went straight to his room and laid down on the bed.  I climbed up on him and pressed my ear against his back and listened to him snore.  I pushed my finger between his ribs to see if he would wake up, he didn’t wake up.  One picture is their wedding photo in a relatively fancy frame compared to the others, with a design with tendrils on it.   There are two black and white pictures displayed as well and an old color photo of me on a red swing.  I don’t remember this red swing.  One black and white picture shows my grandmother in her twenties, I never met her, and one showing a man I didn’t know.  Perhaps one of his brothers, István was the youngest.  The picture was not displayed at home, I don’t recall ever having seen this man among the old pictures.  In the apartment building there were a lot of pictures of my mom and me, on one of them, we look at each other laughing.  Mom liked this picture a lot.  It is now in Budapest, hanging on the wall beside the bookcase.  Her half full perfume bottle is in the wardrobe, its cap has turned yellow.  I brought along one of mom’s favorite dresses, it looks good on me, but I don’t wear it.  It is hers. 

            Ádám carries another box of debris to the yard, I throw the plastic plate into the garbage.  A few kernels of rice end up on the floor, I pick them up.  Ádám is talking to someone outside.  I go out, he doesn’t like to talk with strangers.  He is talking about the roof collapsing. collapsed, the man asks back.  It has.  We don’t understand how either.  Good day, I greet him.  Have you not seen anything, I ask.  Wasn’t there a storm?  Storm?  Well there was a storm, the man answers, my birds went crazy a bit.  I have a few birds, doves, you know, but even then it is still strange.  A roof doesn’t collapse just like that.  We keep nodding.  I put my hand on Ádám’s shoulder.  You are Barbara aren’t you?  Bara, I answer.  Yes, Bara.  Your father and I spent a lot of time together.  We played cards, talked.  We watched that old TV.  You know that TV is no good anymore.  You need to kick it to turn it on.  The picture is blurry sometimes.  The sound has hiccups, too.  It becomes full of static, you know.  A while back we were in the middle of watching a game when the picture got blurry and the sound distorted, and we didn’t know whether what we heard was cheering, applause or it was only the TV acting up.  What would you like, I interrupt.  Now that you ask me, I would like to have the TV.  It’s not good for much anymore, the remote doesn’t work very well either, it is just taking up space.  It would make me happy, it would remind me of Pista.  I walk to the gate, open it, the man goes into the house and says something but I am not listening.  I stay outside beside the fence, the wind blows, I lick my lips.  I used to lick my lips until the skin got all red around them.   He comes back with the TV in his arms.  Before he leaves he says he’s glad that those vultures hadn’t taken away the TV, too.  What do you mean, I ask.  Well I saw it.  The other week Borsa came over, you know Borsa the redhead, or Erzsike, if you like, and her husband.  And now it was Lacika.  Vultures, he repeats, and leaves with the TV in his arms. 

            I close the door behind him.  I don’t even know his name.  Let’s call him Lacika Two.  There is a broken mirror hanging on the wall beside the door with a long crack across it.  I look at my face.  As a child I used to like my thick lips, straight nose and blue eyes.  Mom also liked István’s thick lips, straight nose and blue eyes.  She was glad that I had inherited those sky blue eyes.  By now I neither like it nor hate it that I resemble him so much.  Sometimes I’m sorry that I didn’t inherit mom’s brown eyes. 

            I go back to the living room to deal with the sheets.  Some of them show brownish stains.  I tear off a garbage bag and stuff them inside then lean the bag against the wall beside the others.  The woman with the red eyebrows who brought the biscuits is called Erzsi Borsa.  I wonder if Borsa is her maiden name or her husband’s.  Four years ago, when Ádám and I got engaged,  I didn’t want to take his name.  I wanted to keep my own, Barbara Petrovics, father István Petrovics, mother Magdolna Szigetkúti.  At the end, two years ago, when we got married I took his name anyway.  I take out my ID papers from my bag, Barbara Boda.  The wife of Ádám Boda.  Sometimes that is how I think of myself.  That I am not only Barbara but also someone’s wife.  That is what Ádám calls me in front of others, my wife.  My husband.  Our child, if we ever have one will be called Boda and not Boda-Petrovics.  We had to make a declaration about it before we got married.  Ádám asked me several times if I was sure.  I was sure. 

            I told the woman with the red eyebrows, namely, Erzsike, that we wanted to sell the house.  She was shocked, she couldn’t say a word for a couple of seconds.  To … to sell?  This house?  There is no one who will buy it, she said.  Who would buy it, she asked.  It’s worth a try, I answered.  Erzsike kept shaking her head, then left.  Now that it has a hole in the roof, I certainly won’t be able to sell it.  I don’t want to put any money into it.  I still have to talk it over with Ádám, but he also only wants to be done with it.  We’ll come here one more time, if we come at all. 

            I find a T-shirt under the sofa.  Three years ago when we came to visit István on his birthday, he was wearing this T-shirt.  We brought wine and non-alcoholic beer for Ádám.  I had a guilty conscience.  As we were driving on the old Highway 7, it occurred to me that it was the year before when we had visited István last, for his birthday, that time, too.  István never wanted to visit us in Budapest.  The gate was open, we entered.  Ádám was carrying the bags, and me, the cake for eight.  Russian cream cake.  The door was locked, we knocked in vain.  We unloaded the parcel in front of the door, I looked up István’s number in the phone.  We had talked the day before.  He knew we were coming.  It rang but he didn’t answer.  I pressed my ear against the door to find out if I could hear the phone ringing.  Nothing.  I walked to the end of the street and back to the gate.  Ádám was sitting on the stoop.  After forty minutes, István showed up, he had been drinking with his buddies, celebrating.  The time flew past.  It happens.  Inside the house, there was no place to put the casserole of lasagna I had brought, the table and the counter were covered in dirty plates and empty bottles.  Just shove them aside, István said, in his slurred voice.  Ádám always stroked my back or my arm whenever he passed me as we were cleaning up.  We threw the bottles in the garbage bin, or lined them up beside it when it was already full.  Don’t throw them out, István shouted, we don’t throw out anything.  I pretended not hear it and after a while István went into the living room.  A few months later I called him to invite him to come for Christmas.  István agreed but the day he was due, he phoned and said he couldn’t make it, broken pipes.  I was already familiar with all his excuses. 

            I put the T-shirt in the garbage pile.  I stick my head through the bathroom door.  The wardrobe is finished, I say.  Ádám is sweeping, stirring up the dust that fills the air.  I am about to finish, as well, he answers, just need to sweep and that’s it.  Don’t stay here, it’s very dusty.  I walk back to the living room.  I sit down on the sofa and cross my legs.  I don’t sit where István normally did, but on the other side.  The room is empty.  There are no clothes behind the closed wardrobe door.  There is nothing on the shelves, the pictures have been packed away, I don’t yet know what is to be done with them.  The TV is not here, however the remote is still on the coffee table.  Lacika Two left it here.  István is not here.  There is a liter and a half bottle of mineral water on the dresser that is half full.  It is past one o’clock.  I should have drunk it all.  Ádám always tells me that I don’t drink enough.  I get up and start drinking the tepid water.  I cannot drink any more.  I am going to throw up, but I don’t, and finish rest of the bottle.

            We load the Red Cross bag in the car, turn off the electricity, close the outhouse.  I don’t lock the entrance door.  Lacika Two will come back and take the remote.  From now on Lacika Two will be slamming it with his palm, pressing hard down with his thumb on the big keys to change channels.  Lacika One hasn’t taken the fridge either.  He will be coming, too.  We get in the car.  There is a dark stripe left on Ádám’s neck after he washed himself.  I wet my finger with saliva and wipe it off.  We start off, turn right onto the main road.  We take the new Highway 7 to Budapest. 

Anita Harag, author of the short story “West of Székesfehérvár”, was born In Budapest in 1988. After finishing her first degree in literature and ethnology she completed graduate studies in India Studies. Her first short stories that appeared in magazines earned her several literary awards and prizes. In 2020 she was the winner of the Margo Prize, awarded to the best first time fiction author of the year, for her volume of short stories "Rather Cool for the Time of the Year". The present story is from that collection.

Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry are both Canadian; they translate fiction from Hungarian. In addition to the stories of “Rather Cool for the Time of Year” by Ms Harag, they have translated fiction by Gábor T. Szanto, stories (five of which have appeared) and a novel “Europa Symphony”, “We’re Going Home”, a set of stories by Péter Moesko, three of which have appeared, and a novel "It is not Proper to Garden on Good Friday" by Zsófia Czakó. Marietta Morry and Lynda Muir have translated the memoirs, "As the Lilacs Bloomed", 2014 (which won the 2015 John Glassco Translation Prize of the Literary Translators’ Association) and "In the Hour of Fate and Danger", 2020, both published by the Azrieli Foundation.