Esther's Inheritance

16

He looked at me and smiled a peculiar, modest smile as if to say: You see, it’s not such a big thing really! It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had rubbed his hands together at that point, like a satisfied businessman left to meet his family after a particularly good deal, contemplating ever new deals and ever more tempting offers in the exhilaration of the moment. There was not a trace of shame or doubt on his face. He was in a good mood, happy as a child.

“I slept really well, Esther,” he said expansively. “It’s as if I had come home at last.”

When I did not answer he took my arm, led me to an easy chair, and courteously sat me down.

“Now at last I can look at you,” he murmured. “You haven’t changed. Time has stopped in this house.”

It did not disturb him at all that I remained quiet. He walked up and down, gazed at various photographs, occasionally smoothing his thinning gray mane of hair with a cheap, stagy gesture. He meandered around the room with no more care than if he had popped out twenty-five years ago because he needed to be somewhere but was back now, absentmindedly resuming a conversation out of mere good manners. He picked up an old Venetian drinking glass from the table and gazed at it in wonder.

“This is a present from your father. For your birthday, wasn’t it? I remember,” he said amicably.

“When did you sell the ring?” I asked.

“The ring?”

He looked at the ceiling with a studious, puzzled expression. His lips moved silently as if he were counting.

“I can’t remember,” he said, perfectly charming.

“A likely story, Lajos,” I pressed him. “Think back. I am sure it will come to you.”

“The ring, the ring,” he obligingly repeated, shaking his head as if he would be delighted to satisfy someone’s whim, a peculiarly whimsical curiosity of little significance.

“Really now, when did I sell that ring? I do believe it was a few weeks before Vilma died. You know, we were so short of money at the time…Doctors, social life…Yes, it must have been that year.”

And he pinned his shining eyes on me, bright with innocence.

“But Esther,” he went on, “why are you interested in the ring?”

“And then you gave me the copy. Remember?” I asked, and took a step toward him.

“I gave it to you?” he repeated mechanically, and instinctively took a step back. “I might have. Did I really give it to you?”

He was still smiling, but a little less certainly now. I went over to the sideboard, opened it, and went straight to the ring.

“You still don’t remember?” I asked, and passed it over to him.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Now I remember.”

“You sold the ring,” I said. I too had instinctively dropped my voice, the way one does only when speaking of something deeply shameful that has to be kept secret, even from God perhaps. “And when we returned from the funeral you gave it to me with a grand gesture as Vilma’s bequest, as the one family heirloom of any great value, as something I alone should have. I was a little surprised. I even protested, do you remember? But then I accepted it and promised you I would look after it and pass it on to Éva when she grew up and when she needed it. You still don’t remember?”

“You promised that, did you?” he asked lightly. “Well, give it to her if she asks for it now,” he added over his shoulder. He had started to walk about again and had lit a cigarette.

“Last week you told Éva that I was looking after this ring for her. Éva needs money: she wants to sell the ring. The moment she goes to have it valued, she will find out it is a fake. Naturally, I am the only one who could have had it faked. That is your doing,” I said hoarsely.

“Why?” he asked astonished. It was a simple question. “Why you? It could have been somebody else. Vilma, for example.”

We stood silent.

“How low will you sink, Lajos?” I asked.

He blinked and examined the ash on his cigarette.

“What sort of question is that? How low will you sink?” he asked uncertainly.

“How low will you sink?” I repeated. “I imagine everyone has a kind of gauge, a spirit level that determines what is good and bad within them. It’s universal, everything has a limit, everything that is to do with human relationships. But you have no gauge.”

“Mere words,” he said, and waved them away as if bored. “Gauges, levels. Good and bad. Mere words, Esther.”

“Have you thought,” he continued, “that the great majority of our actions are undertaken without reason and have no purpose? People do things that bring them neither gain nor joy. If you looked back on your life you would notice that you have done a good many things simply because they seemed impossible to do.”

“That’s a little too fancy for me,” I said, depressed.

“Fancy? Nonsense! Just uncomfortable, Esther. There comes a time in life when a man grows tired of everything having a point. I have always loved doing those things that have no point, things for which there is no explanation.”

“But the ring,” I insisted.

“The ring, the ring!” he muttered, annoyed. “Let’s not get started with the ring! Did I tell Éva that you were looking after the ring? I might have. Why would I have said it? Because it seemed the thing to say at the time, it was the simplest, the most reasonable thing. You bring up the ring, Laci talks about some bills…what do you want? That’s all in the past, these things no longer exist. Life destroys everything. It’s impossible to live all your life with a burden of guilt. What soul is as innocent as you describe? Who is so high and mighty that she has the right to stalk someone else all their life? Even the law understands the concept of obsolescence. It’s only you people who insist on denying it.”

“Don’t you think you are being a little unfair?” I asked more quietly.

“Maybe,” he said, also in a quieter voice. “Levels! Gauges of the soul! Please understand that there are no gauges in life. I might have said something to Éva, I might have made a mistake yesterday or ten years ago, something to do with money or rings or words. I have never in my life resolved on a course of action. Ultimately people are only responsible for the things they consciously decide to do…Actions? What are they? Instincts that take you by surprise. People stand there and watch themselves acting. It is intention, Esther, intention is guilt. My intentions have always been honorable,” he declared with satisfaction.

“Yes,” I replied, uncertain. “Your intentions might have been honorable.”

“I know,” he said, more gently now, a little wounded, “I know I am a misfit in the world. Should I change now, in my fifty-sixth year? I have never wanted anything but good for everyone. But the chances of good in this world are limited. One has to make life more beautiful, or else it’s unbearable. That’s why I said what I said to Éva about the ring. The possibility consoled her at the time. That’s why I told Laci fifteen years before that I would repay him, though I knew I would never do so. That’s why I promise people all kinds of things on the spur of the moment and know, as soon as I tell them, that I will never do what I promised. That’s why I told Vilma I loved her.”

“Why did you tell her?” I asked, surprised at how calm and detached I sounded.

“Because that was what she wanted to hear,” he said without a thought. “Because she had staked her life on me telling her that. And because you did not stop me from saying it.”

“I?” I whispered, confused, especially confused now because I was practically choking. “What could I have done?”

“Everything, Esther,” he said, innocent as a newborn child. It was the old voice, the voice of his youth. “Everything. Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not answer my letters while you still could have? Why did you forget the letters and leave them with us when you left? Éva found them.”

He came over to me now, quite close, and leaned over me.

“Have you seen these letters?” I asked.

“Have I seen them?…I don’t understand, Esther. I wrote them.”

And I could tell by his voice that for once, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was not lying.