The Quiet Mother

22

Konrád put down the magnifying glass, rubbed his tired eyes, and thought of his father’s enemies and how easily he seemed to have made them. He looked over the mess on the table. He’d taken from storage a few boxes of papers and small things that his father had left behind. Among them were some personal effects, such as a gold ring that the man always wore on his little finger, a Ronson lighter, faded on the sides from use, gold-plated cufflinks and a wristwatch missing its strap. Knick-knacks that didn’t really matter, yet that reminded Konrád of his childhood, for better or worse. There was also an object or device or whatever it was that had been lying on the floor of the basement flat, and which Konrád had found when he was going through his father’s belongings immediately after his death. For some reason, this peculiar thing had accompanied Konrád over the years, and on the rare occasions when he looked in the boxes, he took the thing out and wondered about it, trying to guess what role it played. The object wasn’t remarkable-looking and fitted easily into a trouser pocket, was made of wood with a thin metal wire strung between two nails. A small spring was attached to the wood beneath the wire and had been loose at one time, but could no longer be moved at all.

Konrád recalled his father saying once that he’d never made as much money from anything else, and in his mind, he connected the object to a visit his father had one evening. Konrád hadn’t got out of bed that day because he’d come down with something quite debilitating. He had a high fever and muscle aches and he was already haunted by hallucinations and nightmares as he dropped in and out of a sleepy haze, and sometimes felt that the visit never took place except in his own delirium. Through the fog of his illness, he noticed his father looking in on him every now and then without seeming particularly concerned, and suddenly he started from his stupor at the noise of the basement door being pounded violently.

His father sat in the kitchen drinking, as he did often. He could sit all day at the kitchen table by himself, drinking cheap brandy and either throwing dice or playing Solitaire. He had the radio on, but so low that it could barely be heard, and drank from a small shot glass to the muffled slapping of cards or the dice dancing along the tabletop. Fucking hell, he whispered to himself if it went badly.

Konrád heard his father get up from the table and go to the door. He heard him muttering, which turned into a clamour that carried into the flat. The door closed again.

‘What’s the meaning of this, storming in here? Get out of here! Out!’

Konrád didn’t hear the response.

‘I’m telling you, this is a misunderstanding,’ he heard his father protest. ‘I’ve never heard of this woman.’

‘Fucking good-for-nothing, preying on a defenceless woman,’ a man said. ‘What kind of scumbag loser does such a thing?’

‘This is just a misunderstanding,’ Konrád’s father repeated. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m no medium. Do I look like a medium to you?’

‘We want the money you took from her,’ said another man.

‘This is fucking bullshit! I didn’t take any money, so get the fuck out of here!’

‘Your friend said otherwise.’

Konrád’s father hesitated.

‘My friend?’

‘It didn’t take him long to point us here. Said you were the one behind it all. And what a hero! A pissant loser who uses fraud and deception to prey on defenceless widows. You should be ashamed of yourself, you bastard!’

‘He’s a liar and a drunk,’ said Konrád’s father. ‘You’re even stupider than you look if you believe anything he says.’

‘Do you keep it here?’

‘What?’

‘The money? Is it here?’

Konrád had propped himself on his elbow, weak as he was, in order to hear better, and now he heard a commotion, chairs being pushed, drawers slammed, cupboard doors torn open, his father protesting. Suddenly a man appeared in his bedroom doorway and stared at him in astonishment.

‘Who’s this?’ he asked.

‘My son,’ said Konrád’s father. ‘Leave him alone!’

The man was around forty, ugly and wearing a winter coat, it being December and cold outside. He looked around the little bedroom.

‘Do you know what he’s done with the money?’ the man asked, but Konrád, completely bewildered, just stared at him. Konrád had no idea what prompted this visit and what money the men were asking about and why there was so much hostility between his father and them. The man barged into the room, and started looking under his mattress.

‘Leave the boy alone!’ his father shouted from the living room. ‘He’s sick as hell, can’t you see that? Get out of here!’

The man backed out of the room and disappeared, and again Konrád heard a commotion and a tussle, until suddenly one of the men shouted that Konrád’s father had a knife.

‘You’d better watch out, you bastard,’ said the man.

‘Yeah, shut the fuck up!’ Konrád’s father exclaimed fearlessly. ‘Get out.’

‘You never know what might happen to a scumbag like you.’

‘Get out. Out! Get out, I said! Get the fuck out of here right now or you’ll pay!’

The tumult started up again. His father swore at the men and threatened to stick his knife in them, and they yelled that this wasn’t over, they’d come back or jump him and he’d get what he deserved. The tussle continued like that all the way to the front door, but finally all fell silent.

‘Dad?’ shouted Konrád. ‘Dad! Is everything OK?’

A good while passed before his father came to the bedroom door. He was still holding the knife.

‘Who were they?’ Konrád asked.

‘No one,’ said his father. ‘No one! Just some scumbags. Go back to sleep, son.’

‘What money did they want?

‘They’re fools. They think I stole some money. Don’t worry about it. Try to sleep.’

Konrád lay back on his pillow and his father began tidying up after the scuffle, before sitting back down at the kitchen table. Soon the dice were heard dancing over the tabletop. Konrád dozed off into a disturbed sleep, and didn’t know how much time had passed before he woke and found himself feeling a little better. Despite being weak, a bit sick to his stomach, and having a headache, he plodded to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water and saw his father sitting alone in the dark with that peculiar thing in his hands, entirely in his own world.

Konrád contemplated the object and thought about that strange visit in the past. He had no idea what role that simple, useless thing played. It was probably because of those mysterious visitors that he didn’t throw it away when various other bits of junk belonging to his father went to the dump. He only knew that his father was fond of it, and that at some point he’d used it to make money that the strangers wanted him to return.