Kornel Esti

XVII

In which Ürögi drops in for a chat.

IT WAS SEVEN IN THE EVENING WHEN DANI ÜRÖGI CALLED.

Unfortunately, few will know who he is nowadays. He’s still around. He works in the office of a pottery factory, and his sideline is teaching ladies to play bridge. He writes hardly anything. In the old days, however, he wrote a lot and talked about it a great deal.

In the time when the coffeehouses of Budapest were differenti-ated not by their price lists, their coffee, and their cold meats but exclusively by their “literary” tendencies, he too used to sit with his pale face in the baroque gallery of the New York like a faint but ever more brilliant star in the literary firmament.

Ürögi had one very famous sonnet and one very short piece of blank verse in which the word “Death” occurred no fewer than thirty-seven times, always with a different tone color, always more surprisingly and alarmingly, and then one rhyme, a very long, thirteen-syllable rhyme — and no one has yet discovered a more fortunate one.

But it was sufficient for the World War and sundry revolutions to break out, for twenty million to die on the planet (some on the battlefield, some from Spanish flu), for a few kings to be reduced to refugee status, a few world banks, a few countries to be completely ruined — and people forgot those poems and him personally as if they had never been.

Kornél Esti was not such an ingrate. He forgot nothing that happened, he remembered everything that was really important.

As soon as he heard that this infrequent visitor had arrived, his face lit up. True, more than once, a year had gone by without his seeing him. When he did see Ürögi, however, he was always pleased. At such times the colored lights of his youth blazed up, far of, behind the summer foliage of merrymakings, the ragged curtains of theaters.

Dani Ürögi was pale and bald. The poor fellow was no longer a star, only a faint, dying moon among the black storm clouds of economic world revolution. He had always had an anxious disposition. But now he too was past the age of forty, and with advancing age had become even more anxious.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” replied Esti.

“Really?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I won’t trouble you for many minutes,” he added sternly.

“Really, please. I’m glad you’ve come. Sit down. Have a cigarette, Dani. Here.”

Dani sat down. And lit a cigarette. But as the match flame danced above his slender fingers he glanced at Esti, threw the match into the ashtray and the cigarette after it, and jumped up.

In a calm but determined voice he declared:

“I am disturbing you.”

“Idiot.”

“Oh yes, yes: I am disturbing you.”

“Why should you be?”

“I can tell.”

“From what?”

“From everything. From your eyes, first of all. You don’t usually look at me like that. Now it’s as if a kind of artificial light were pouring from them, as if you’d switched them to a new circuit. It’s not natural. Nor is your pleasant, encouraging, master-of-the-house smile natural, which you’ve stuck onto your mouth simply in my honor. Nor is your tone natural, the way you say ‘Not at all’—simply not natural.”

“You’re an ass,” Esti shrugged. “I suppose you’d prefer it if my eyes closed and I yawned? Believe me. If I tell you that you’re not disturbing me, that means neither more nor less than that you’re not disturbing me. If, that is to say, you were disturbing me, I’d say ‘You’re disturbing me,’ and that would mean precisely ‘You’re disturbing me.’ Now do you see? Is that clear? So, why aren’t you answering?”

“Give me your word of honor that it’s really so.”

“On my word of honor.”

“Once more.”

“On my sacred word of honor.”

Esti called for coffee, a whole water-jugful, and filled tumblers so that they could drink coffee as they used to in the old days.

Dani sat back down. He said nothing for a while. Only after that silence did he speak. He said that he’d been out for a walk there in the Buda hills on that fine moonlit evening — which was beside the point — and there he’d suddenly thought of his friend and decided to look him up, surprise him — but that too was beside the point — and he’d like to ask a favor, which he was going to tell him about shortly.

His sentences crawled along, pausing amid a thousand doubts and changes of mind, like the wheels of a train descending a mountain. In the middle of one sentence he stopped. Did not finish it. His mouth remained open. Suspicion gleamed in his dark eyes. He jumped up again. He wagged a forefinger at Esti and said, in a tone that brooked no contradiction:

“You were working.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were,” he repeated darkly, like a prosecuting counsel. “And here am I round your neck, holding you up, and you secretly — and quite rightly — are wishing me to the devil.”

“I hadn’t the slightest intention of working.”

“Are you telling the truth, Kornél?” he asked, smiling like someone who has caught out a child in some crafty fib, and while the smile spread over his face like a mask he wagged his raised forefinger slightly and began to threaten his friend. “Kornél, Kornél, don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” Kornél protested. “I haven’t been able to get anything done for a week now. I hate all work. Especially my own. The stuff I’m scribbling at present is so atrocious that if my enemies and the people who envy me were to find out how little I think of my talent they’d surely start to argue with me, rise in my defense, and finally accept me as a friend forever. Today I’ve just been sitting about and feeling bored. I was just hoping that one off my creditors would call me and take my mind of things a bit, but even they aren’t speaking to me. Then I wanted to swat some flies, but there aren’t even any flies in my apartment. Then I started to yawn. If someone’s very bored, even yawning is an amusement of sorts. I yawned for about two hours. Finally I got tired of yawning. So I stopped yawning and just sat in this armchair where you see me now, waiting for time to pass, getting a couple of hours older, a couple of inches closer to the grave. Please get this straight: at present, the thought that that terrible acquaintance of mine, whose idea of a joke has for years consisted of calling his wife ‘old girl,’ would knock on my door, that some complete stranger would come in and ask me for a loan of a hundred pengős for ten months on his word of honor, or that some unappreciated writer would do me the favor of reading me the novel he’s working on — that thought would have made me happy at once, but the thought that you would call, Dani, you, for whom I constantly thirst, who shared my former years of beggary and my vagrant fame, my brother in ink and passion — that thought would have rendered me ecstatic, and so enticing, so remote a thought was it, so like a fairy vision, that I didn’t dare even to dream it. Excuse me, don’t interrupt, I’m talking. As to my work plan for today, I’m free until nine, for two whole hours, and at your disposal. We’ll drink coffee here, chat or sit in silence together, and then I’d like to go for a walk, because I haven’t been out of this dump all day. If you’ve no objection I’ll keep you company, see you home. All right?”

“All right.”

Dani breathed more easily and took a gulp of his espresso. He spoke again about the circumstances of his coming, of the irrelevant Buda hills, the irrelevant idea that had whirled him to Esti’s, and the request to which he would come in a moment, but with which he would not trouble Esti yet because it was important only to him, not to Esti, and therefore it too was irrelevant. Suddenly he was silent. Something had come into his mind. He said:

“Besides, I’ve only come for a couple of minutes. I know, I know. You’re very kind to me, but you are to everyone. ‘Don’t take seriously the polite request to stay.’ I’ll stay for seven or eight minutes at the most. Did I say seven or eight? I’ll stay for seven only. Exactly seven minutes. Where’s your pocket watch?”

“Why?”

“Please get it out. I’ll get mine out as well. There now. Thank you. Goodness knows, I always feel more relaxed if I can see the time. So — when the minute hand gets to — look, here — I’ll be gone and that particular stone will fall from your heart and you’ll be able to sigh ‘at last he’s gone,’ and do whatever you feel like. Promise, however, that you’ll remind me. As soon as the moment of release comes — let’s call it that — you’ll stand up and say to me word for word ‘Dani, I’ve been glad to have the pleasure of your company, but even more so to be rid of it, off you go and God bless.’ Yes. Throw me out so fast that my feet don’t touch the ground. Or don’t even say that, just look at me. It’ll be enough for you to look at me, not crossly, but as you do at other times, the way you’re looking at me now. I assure you, there won’t be any need of that either, because in seven minutes’ time — beg your pardon, six minutes’ time — I shall have vanished, and only the painful memory of my presence will linger in the air of this room.”

“Listen here, you lunatic,” said Esti to him gently, in the confident tone of established friendship, “I don’t want you to go away, I want you to stay. But if you absolutely insist on these seven minutes — or these six minutes — that too I’ll accept conditionally. I’ll only ask one thing of you. While you’re in my apartment, don’t have misgivings, don’t fidget, don’t make excuses, but feel at home. So tell me quickly

what you want. Then we’ll talk. What? You can rest assured. Yes, yes. I’ll do as you wish. As soon as I’m tired of you I won’t beat about the bush, I won’t even look at you one way or another, but I’ll get up, grab you by the collar, and throw you out — even kick you downstairs if you tell me to. I hope that makes you feel better?”

Dani accepted this unselfish promise of amicable generosity with obvious pleasure. He seemed to gather strength from it, and he gulped his espresso. But how long did the effect of Esti’s calming solution last? Scarcely a minute or two. After that he began again, and had to be disarmed again. In growing waves of self-accusation and soulsearching he continued to explain why it was not his custom to steal other people’s valuable time, he pondered and dithered, returning again and again to his former excuses and objections, then to Esti’s arguments and remonstrations too, but as he wished to quote everything verbatim and couldn’t remember the words he became confused, stared in front of him, and wiped his perspiring forehead.

Esti listened to these expositions, these allusions, these digressions, these references, these hints, these circumlocutions, these angles and aspects. By this time he too was pale and weary. Now and then he stared in exhaustion at the ceiling and at his pocket watch as it ticked away in front of him. Nine o’clock passed, as did half past nine. Then slowly, with a certain solemnity, he rose and began to speak, at first quietly, then more loudly, as follows:

“Look, my dear fellow. You told me to let you know when six minutes were up. I’m telling you that those six minutes were up a long time ago. It is now, by Central European time, nine forty-two, almost a quarter to ten, so you can see that you’ve been squatting here for two and three-quarter hours, but you still haven’t been able to utter a single proper sentence, and you haven’t been able to bring yourself to tell me what on earth I have to thank for this honor. Dani, consider, I too am a man, I too have nerves. Are you holding me up? Infinitely. Am I tired of you? Inexpressibly. There’s no word for how damn tired of you I am. Just now you were so kind as to advise me how, at the right moment, I should show you the door, and, scrupulous as you are, you presented me with a script for the purpose. That script, which I have in the meantime been considering carefully, would have more or less expressed my feelings, but only an hour after you arrived, at about eight. I’ll confess that at about half past eight I was already thinking of adding a dose of cyanide to your coffee and poisoning you. Then toward nine I decided instead that while you were talking there I’d get out my revolver, fire a shot or two into you, and kill you. As you can see, the situation hasn’t changed at all. Your script now strikes me as pale and feeble. I can’t use it, and I return it to you — do whatever you like with it. At this moment I could do with a spicier, more elaborate script, an eloquent cascade of reproaches and insults compared to which the tirades of Shakespeare’s heroes would be lemonade. But I gave up the idea of exterminating you with poison, bullet, or words because I consider you such a pitiful worm that you aren’t even worth it. Instead, I’m telling you like this, quietly and in friendly fashion, to get out of here. Get out, this very minute. Did you get that? Get lost. I’m not joking, I swear, take your hide out of here, because I can’t stand the sight of you, and don’t have the ef rontery ever to come back, I’m fed up with you, sick and tired, you rotten egg, you dead loss …”

Esti was by this time howling so that he choked, his lips writhed, and he gesticulated. One of his gestures swept the water jug off the table, smashing it to fragments, and the black liquid that it contained soaked into a white silk Persian rug.

Dani burst out laughing. He laughed heartily and happily. Only now did he realize that he had been gladly allowed to remain and that he had been a burden to no one. He settled down comfortably, lit a cigarette and his tongue was loosened.

He explained his business.

His request was simple, indeed, extremely simple.

He was asking a favor, a huge favor, which obviously was only huge to him, but perhaps not all that huge to the person who would do it, though perhaps it was huge, or significant, though it could also be that it was nothing at all, but even so he pointed out in advance that his friend might refuse it, no need to say why, just look at him, or not look at him, just say nothing, he’d understand and wouldn’t take it amiss, the friendship between them would continue just as smoothly as before, as if nothing had happened: to put it in a nutshell, the point was that he would be interested in seeing the latest number of the neoactivist-simultanist-expressionist-avantgardist literary periodical Moments and Monuments, and would like to borrow it for twenty-four hours on condition that on the expiration of those twenty-four hours he himself brought it back entire and undamaged — naturally, however, if Esti himself hadn’t read it yet or had read it and would like to read a few things in it again, or not actually to read properly but just to skim through, merely dip into it here and there, or keep it by him on the off chance, or give it to somebody else — or if he had the least shadow of suspicion that he wasn’t to be completely trusted and would lose the copy or tear it, sell it to a bookseller or goodness knows what, do or not do with it all sorts of things which it was impossible really to detail or list fully there and then — then he should not undertake this favor however much he might press him, and then he would abandon the whole idea from the start, his request would be null and void, and it should be considered that he had not said a single word.

That sentence, which was in fact much more exhaustive and exhausting than that, he finished at two minutes past eleven.

Esti thereupon went to the wastepaper basket and took from it the latest, still uncut, number of Moments and Monuments. Dani thanked him for it, clarified a few secondary obscure points, and made to leave. Esti escorted him to the stairs. That did not pass off quickly either. When Esti had closed, locked, and bolted the gate behind him and returned to his room, his watch said that it was seventeen minutes past twelve.