The Confession

6

Agnes listened to a staticky American crooner while she half read a civics schoolbook on the sofa. Pavel was asleep beside her. She wrinkled her nose when I kissed her. “You stink. Are you drunk?” When she took off her glasses to examine me, she seemed very much like a grown woman.

“No, I’m not drunk.” But I slurred the last two words. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I told Stefan to come see us more often. Is he all right?”

“Stefan was here?”

“He called. But not for you. He wanted Mama.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it.

“After she talked to him she was crying. Is something wrong with Stefan?”

I looked around. “Where is your mother.”

“She went out.”

“What about girls’ night?”

She put her glasses back on and returned to the book. “I guess she meant other girls. She went to see her friend Lydia.” After a moment, she looked at me again. “Daddy, are you all right?”

Later, as I lay on the sofa in the dark, a sheet over me, staring at the ceiling, she arrived. First the key clicked in the lock, then light spilled in from the corridor. I waited until she had locked it again. “Where were you?”

I heard her gasp, then the keys being set down. “Out. With Lydia.”

“Come over here, Mag.”

“I’m tired.”

“This is important.”

Her shadowy form moved over to me, and I sat up. I patted the sofa for her to sit.

“Where were you?”

Her profile was black, but I could see her thinking about it. “I told you, Ferenc.”

“We’ve got to talk about this.”

Her profile tilted so she was looking at her hands. “I just need to figure everything out. I don’t know what I want anymore.” She paused. “I can only do this on my own. Can you understand that?”

I put a hand on her knee.

“Don’t. Please.”

I took back my hand. “We used to talk about these things together.”

She turned to me, but I couldn’t make out her expression as she stood up. “Yes. We used to.”