János Háy

Four Short Stories

Translated by Eugene Brogyányi

 

Hard

It was hard. Even considering just the sounds. Because the way he grew up, at most there was the clanging of a bicycle chain, or the bellowing of the animals, then quiet.
It was hard for him in the streets the others were so at home in, streets whose names he couldn't even remember. And the buses. If one of his university mates said they should meet at, say, Lajos Street, and gave him the numbers of three conveyances he should take to get there, he'd spend hours eyeballing the map, making sure.
It was hard, and to make it less so, right after classes he'd drop into a bistro on Karinthy Street. Spritzers, rum cocktails. And that's how it went all the time, every day. All his anxieties were quenched there, and after those bistro visits he'd come and go in Budapest like a natural-born Budapester. It was in this liberated condition that he met the woman who eventually became his wife, because she was attracted to country boys, having heard they're decent, the family is very important to them, and they don't get divorced after the first tiff, the way Budapesters do. For his part, the country boy lived up to expectations. He didn't want a divorce and he stayed at the university - true, in the agro-engineering department, which is not exactly the architecture department, but still, it's a department, and there he became a teaching assistant, and then onward. The university made it possible for them to buy a prefab apartment the man was very proud of, in Pesterzsébet, but the wife thought of it only as something to move out of. The man performed his duties as required, and his young constitution processed the alcohol every night, and so he got his doctorate. Ten years later, after they'd had the children - the younger was now six years old, the older eight - the man no longer woke up like someone who'd got through the night; his heart and brain were still struggling with the residue of the day before. Aging, the man thought, without recognizing that the quantity had also changed. Then slowly the teachers and students began noticing that his classes weren't being given, and even when they were, they were useless, and that once he directed one of the groups to the Izsáki bar on Belgrád embankment. And we know what the world's like, as the scientific-socialism prof quoted from some classic: it has a system, and one thing begets another, cause and effect, that sort of thing... In other words, this was happening just when cutbacks were being made, because regardless of the rector's hand-ringing, the government wasn't going to dole out one penny more. The officials were pounding the table - according to the grapevine - that those who weren't holding classes as scheduled should be dismissed, because they, that is, the representatives of the government, have also been hearing things about certain persons holding classes at the Izsáki bar in alcohol appreciation instead of engineering. So the fellow thought the administration had it in for him in particular, when, on instructions from the rector, the department chairman said, "I'm sorry, but we really do have to part ways."
The man then went straight to the bistro and began consuming spritzers, with a bit more drive than usual. This fucking life of his! He started home close to eleven, as always, stumbling around the last buses of the night. By now he knew all the drivers, and he exchanged a few words with them about being fired. "Life's a bitch," said the bus driver, and told him they're in danger of losing something too, some bonus. The man didn't understand exactly what.
It wasn't yet midnight when he started dithering at the door of the prefab apartment. "These safety locks are terrific, you can hardly ram in even the keys made for them. That's the kind of city this is, you have to live behind armoured doors." The two children were still awake. Since they've gotten older, it's been impossible to cram them into bed, and also the wife likes it if somebody's around, as long as the husband isn't. And the children always looked at him with loathing when he arrived. They never thought, "Our poor father, how hard it is for him here in the capital, our poor father has to cope with the noise, with public transport, with being displaced." What they did think was, "This bucket of slime, going to the toilet drunk at night, knocking things over and pissing around the outside of the bowl." They were thinking that at times like this he must believe he's urinating in the yard, village style. That he has no business being here, because he doesn't know how to use the city.
When the man got home, he thought he'd tell his wife that from now on there wouldn't even be the money that's been left after the booze, because for the moment it's over. But by the time he was about to start, she said she had an announcement. And then she mentioned the man she'd met at the local municipal office, where she was working as a landscaper, in other words, this man had been shipping the plants from a nearby flower nursery. "Any man who loves flowers can't be bad," mumbled the husband as he stuffed some greasy sausage into his mouth. The wife continued, saying this man fell in love with her, and she with the man. He's so decent, he said he just divorced his wife, because he couldn't imagine having to look at that woman for the rest of his life, but her, that is, the landscaper for the local municipality, he could look at forever. And that they'll be going away for a week, there was a cancellation special to Crete this autumn, and meantime the husband should move out, because she's done with him.
The alcohol kept the man from grasping what in effect was going on, that with a cheap Cretan trip he's been erased from his hitherto life. Only next day. Of course he didn't move out; later he had to be forced, after Crete. And then in a rage directed not only at his wife and the lover, but also at the two children, he said it's all shitty, he's going back to his mother in the country.
In the village they were saying he arrived with the same Romanian-made vinyl gym bag he'd left with in 1972. According to some it was full of five- and ten-thousand forint notes. This latter claim couldn't hold up to his offering his mother's small tractor for sale in the tavern a few weeks later, adding that payment could be made in booze. And then there were other offers. Tools, produce, whatever he found in the attic, and then items of clothing too. When he went through all this, he looked for a job. He went to the Swedish investor, who was renting land there and planning to introduce organic farming, to offer his manpower, which the alcohol had of course somewhat manhandled. He told him about the doctorate, the university, told him he's an engineer and an expert on machinery. The Swede - who as a matter of fact wasn't Swedish, but a Hungarian from Budapest, the Swede's manager, but everybody in the village called him the Swede - anyway, he asked whether the man was familiar with pruning shears as a simple mechanism. To which the man laughed, why of course he does. Then he told him he could offer him a job at the organic farm, pruning with the other farmhands.
The man joined the other workers. They began at seven with booze. The man always said he's from Budapest and a doctor. The workers were amused: what kind of doctor, a miracle-working doctor, and will he cure them if they get sick? They laughed at him, but helped him out when he fell behind, because the man wasn't able to work as hard as those who'd been doing this all their lives.
And the village doctor started and ended the day in the tavern, I can't even say when he could've had a visit from his children. Who of course didn't want to visit him at all. The peasants would say, what kind of man is he, not even his children bother, maybe he's a criminal, or he must've leaned on his kids pretty hard, that's why they hate him. As for the woman, his mother, she'd tell the neighbours when they asked how she can take it, he's my son after all, and it's terrible, of course, but a mother's always a mother, the way a son is always a son. And she didn't say he deserved it, indeed, she sobbed then too, on that November morning when, between the house and the tavern, but a bit closer to the house, they found the man, cold as a paving stone.

 

Feri Herner's Old Man

My old man's a cop," said Feri Herner, and Béla Krekács quickly smacked him in the face with the back of his hand, to make it clear to the kid that words carry weight around here.
Feri Herner brought up his old man three times, and Béla Krekács routinely smacked him in the face when Feri Herner said he'll have his father come with his pistol and shoot Krekács right there in the classroom, by the coal-burning stove, which was what they still used for heating then. A huge iron stove, which Krekács's blood was going to gush all over, because his father can shoot anybody he wants to - claimed Feri Herner - especially anybody who messes with his son, which is why he became a cop, to defend his son from the Krekács types, these son-of-a-bitch Krekács types who're making their lives miserable, his life, Feri's that is, and the other Hernerses' too, his mother's for sure, in the shop, where they don't give her the right change, she said at home, and they don't talk to her when she steps in the shop - Herner heard his mother talk about this at home - the women don't want to talk to her because she's the cop's wife, so whenever she walks into the shop there's total silence, everybody just rustles paper bags, bags of candy, and she can't stand that sound any more, that rustling sound. "But my old man," said Herner "is gonna shoot everybody fulla holes, you'll see, fulla holes..."
This "fulla holes" was the point at which Krekács again smacked Herner, whose nose began bleeding, and Krekács leaned into Herner's disgusting fleshy face, smeared a streak of blood across his skin, and shouted into his eyes and his ears that his old man, that is, Krekács's old man, has a big pistol too, and if Herner's old man was going to use his pistol, then so much for Herner's old man, because Krekács's old man would shoot him into so many pieces, his corpse wouldn't even be recognizable, because, said Krekács, "My old man's not afraid of these shitty cops, he shot better people than that in the war, for instance, where he got the pistol from."
Herner meantime was slipping away from Krekács, slipping toward the wall, but Krekács didn't follow him, thinking that by now he might as well go to hell before Bezeczki, the math teacher, comes in and smacks both of them, especially Krekács.
Next day Herner's old man's motorcycle pulled up outside the Krekács house. The policeman unbuckled his crash helmet, then called in, asking is Krekács's old man home. Krekács's old man was in the back stacking firewood when he heard the yelling, and it scared the shit out of him because he didn't see the cop, but recognized the voice, the stupidest voice in the village, so high, which shouting sent even higher, all the way to screeching. He got so fucking scared because that day he brought home a bag of pig feed from the farming co-op warehouse, and he was pretty sure he'd been found out, that somebody, let's say Uncle Pityu Szabó, ratted him out to the cop. Oh well, he thought, it's too late now. He went out to the street door, to the cop, with halting steps, as if he didn't really want to make headway, and was creeping forward only by accident.
"I started thinkin' you weren't even home," shouted the cop.
"I was in the back by the wood," said Krekács's old man, and opened the door.
The cop headed in and said there's a serious problem here he's got to investigate. Krekács's old man said it can't be that serious, not such a big deal, and that it can probably be taken care of like this, between the two of them.
"It's about the boy," Herner's old man said.
"The boy," said Krekács, "the boy's not involved in anything. He's innocent as a two-year-old."
"But in school, they said..."
"Well, in school," said Krekács's old man, "there's all kindsa things there." Meanwhile he was thinking, I'll let him have it across the face if he's been yapping there about the feed.
" 'nother words," Herner's old man started again, "he said you're hidin' a weapon."
Krekács's old man stood and stared like someone hung-over, looking into the eyes of a cow being watered in the morning, looking, his eyes getting rounder, exactly as round and big as the cow's, and in those four round eyes some very deep chasm opens, so deep, that if a person falls in, next stop: the hospital, and we know about hospitals, especially the one in Vác.
"What?" he finally blurted, "a weapon?"
"A weapon," the cop responded, "a pistol."
Those big empty circles remained in place of Krekács's old man's eyes. They were what the cop now looked into, and their two gazes met there, those two spaces that come together mornings, with the cow.
"I thought," said the cop "there's nothin' to this whole thing, that the boy... it's just that I gotta," and he patted Krekács's old man on the shoulder, "I gotta investigate in any case, and then the report... you know, that kinda thing," then he buckled on his crash helmet, kick started the Pannonia and peeled off. Krekács's old man stood another minute or so, looked with those empty circles at the departing cop as the wheels of the Pannonia raised dust over the horizon, then slammed the door.

*

Of course, I was listening from the kitchen, and I was scared shitless about what was comin'," Béla Krekács said to Herda and to Banda out in the street as they were scraping the weeds by the side of the ditch. "The old man walked in, didn't say a fuckin' word, came at me and beat the shit outa me, first with his open hand, then he took off his belt, and my back was fulla welts. Next day Herner was laughin' at me. So what's up, when's your old man gonna wipe out my old man? He was laughin' with that grease-ball head of his, and I went over to him and the way my back hurt, that was how my voice sounded when I told him: you shitty murderer, that's what I said, I said he was gonna turn out to be a shitty murderer when he grows up, a rotten, murdering piece of shit, that's what I said to his face, but I didn't smack him, 'cause I was so disgusted by his snotty blond head."
"They did go missin' from the village," Herda interjected. "They didn't even last three years."
"The wife couldn't take the rustlin'," laughed Banda, "she couldn't take the shop always rustlin' when she went in."
"Then Sanyi came along," Krekács said. "There was no problem with Sanyi, Sanyi was an all-right guy, he drank with us all the time."
"Yeah, he was an all-right guy," Herda said, Banda too.
They were clearing the roadside ditch on Dózsa Street, because Marika at the local government office said they have to do Dózsa Street today, because the rain's been flooding the sidewalk all the time there lately, and the residents are complaining to the Mayor, saying what the hell did we elect you for, Lajos, if there's sludge running on the sidewalk, and Lajos can't stand it any more, said Marika, because he's a decent guy, that's for sure. They got as far as number forty, but they didn't strain themselves, no point, there's always tomorrow.
"All right then, that's it for today," said Banda, "let's take the hoes back."
The administration building stood on the main street in front of the curve, behind it was a storage shed for the communal tools, which is where they took them, then dropped in on the secretary, saying: Marika, we took care of half of Dózsa Street. "All right, tomorrow pick it up from where you left off," said Marika, who was about to go meet the Mayor in the café, and was holding a little mirror up to her face, paying particular attention to the eyes and the mouth, touching up this and that. Krekács and Herda and Banda watched the gussying, then headed out toward the bus stop.
"I don't get it. Know what I mean? Don't get it," said Krekács as signs of thinking flashed across his brow, but mainly in his eyes.
"Me neither," Herda shot back as a big yellow bus was cutting in front of them, blocking their view of the bus stop across the street.
"What don't you get?" asked Banda.
"Same as Béla," said Herda.
"Oh," nodded Banda, "all right then."
They stopped about three steps from the bus, shifting their weight from foot to foot, craning their necks to the left, then the right.
"Which way should we go around?" asked Krekács.
"Which is shorter?"
"I don't know," said Krekács.
Then they started off to the left, toward the driver's compartment. Karesz was taking his stuff down.
"Nice goin', Karesz, fuckin' pullin' in here," said Herda.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do?" yelled Karesz from the bus, "I can't just lean it against the wall."
"The way I heard it is that when the high school girls come along, you drop the fuckin' change, those twenty-forint coins, so you can check them out from below."
"The hell I do, the hell I do," Karesz screamed, "After twenty years of the bus shakin' my dick to shit..."
"Okay," Krekács cut in, "but from memory maybe..."
Karesz told them to go fuck their mothers, then jumped off the bus, locked the door from the outside and went into the office, while Krekács and the others headed for the tavern.
"Anyway, we're supposed to get the unemployment for nothin'," said Herda, "my brother-in-law in Pest gets it for nothin', for instance, he doesn't have to bust ass in the street."
"Yeah, but the money's not enough for the time left over, you know?" said Banda. "What if we were free all day, what the hell would we do then?"
"You got a point," said Krekács as he sat down at the outdoor metal table, followed by Herda and Banda, their chairs scraping the concrete terrace floor.
"Nothin' changes around here," said Banda, "like twenty years ago, that's how everything is. These cheap iron-frame chairs, the slats are always hangin' off them. Last time too, it musta pinched my ass, 'cause next day I had a big black-and-blue mark there."
"Maybe Vizi gave you a hickey there, only you don't remember any more."
"How the hell could she gimme a hickey there when I'm sittin' on the fuckin' thing."
"Well, she puckered her mouth between the slats."
They laughed.
"Anyway, why'd you tell us that stupid Herner thing?"
"Oh that," Krekács jerked up his head, "well, my mother told me."
"What'd your mother tell you?" asked Herda.
"That there was that case in Komló, they didn't say who the guy is, what his name is, only that he's F.H., but everybody in the village knows it was Feri Herner. That thing in Komló. My mother saw it on TV-2."
"I can't remember exactly what the fuck happened in Komló, just that somethin' did..."
"Well," said Krekács, "this F.H., this Feri was a hunter, that was his hobby, huntin' when he wasn't workin', like Uncle Jani Szabó, he'd take his gun and hunt. My mother told me they were showin' it on TV-2, tellin' the way it happened, that he wanted his boy to be like him, 'cause that's what everybody's old man wants, and he took him huntin', and the wife said, why take a little boy like this out there, and Feri said, 'cause I want him to know what his father does, and it'll be good for him in the fresh air, and it did turn out real good, 'cause the boy was rompin' around in the woods, and Feri was huntin', and the boy didn't know he was in a bad spot, and Feri - you know, every hunter's a total idiot, all he sees is the game, he'll even shoot at the wind, even the fuckin' wind, if it rustles the leaves, 'cause he sees the game there behind the rustlin', even though it's just the wind, but the boy didn't know that, 'cause they didn't whack him on the hand, like when he reached into the socket, tellin' him: hey, leave that alone or you'll get zapped by the current, they didn't whack him on the hand so he wouldn't move the branches in front of Feri, 'cause Feri, see, Feri shoots, 'cause he's an idiot hunter. He shoots right at the boy, see, at the boy."
"Christalmighty," said Herda, then Banda too: "Christalmighty."
"So much for the boy, see, on the spot, that was the end of the little kid. He was four years old. And Feri was bawlin' on the TV the way he was back then, when I smacked him in the face, he was bawlin' about how he didn't want to, and little boy, my little boy, that's what he said, the way he said my old man back then, only this time he was cryin' for real, not 'cause he was hurtin' like back then, this time Feri's face really was all wet, my mother told me, and his chest.
"Christalmighty," Herda and Banda said again, "christalmighty."
"Then I remembered that whole thing I told Feri. About things turnin' out the way I told Feri they were gonna," said Krekács, his eyes darting, now at the beer, now into the air, as if here too, there too, lurked malevolent cops, the kind who take action once Krekács says something, who zoom through the air, through the days and the years, and pounce on the victim at just the right moment.
"You mean you say somethin' and that's how it turns out? Holy shit," muttered Herda, "holy fuckin' shit."
They drank, Banda kept silent, Herda slurped his beer and pushed it back and forth through his teeth, so that it distended the corners of his mouth, then vanished, and when he swallowed, the bulge could be seen going down his throat.
"I always said to Uncle Lajos at the rectory, when I was takin' the wood in there," Krekács drank, then continued, "that the reason I don't go to church, is 'cause goddammit, I say to him, it's a fuckin' sure thing there's no God, 'cause if there was, the whole thing wouldn't be such shit, so it's a fuckin' sure thing there isn't.
A fuckin' shittier world than this, I say to him, there can't be, Uncle Lajos, 'cause then it woulda come apart already, this is the shittiest, that's for sure. And if there is somehow a God, he doesn't give a damn what goes on here, that's for sure, he doesn't give a damn, 'cause then they wouldn'ta taken out one of my old man's lungs, that's for sure, and he didn't even smoke; if there is, he doesn't give a damn. He says to me I should go to church and pray, Uncle Lajos says, I should go pray, 'cause what I'm sayin' isn't true, and that I don't know what's true 'cause I don't go pray."
"I don't get it," Herda grumbled in a besotted voice.
"What don't you get?" asked Banda.
"This Uncle Lajos business, what he's got to do with Feri Herner."
"Oh," Banda said but didn't give the answer, only drank like someone who knows it but doesn't feel like saying it right now. Why shouldn't the other guy think too?
" 'nother words," said Krekács, "what if I was really wrong, and everything's worse than I thought after all, I said to Uncle Lajos, 'cause God spread some power of his into the people on earth, so there's somethin' of him in people, for instance in me too, and that's why I say somethin' out loud, and it turns out just the way I say, just the way I say or worse, of course I don't know how things oughta turn out, this way or that way, see, I don't know that..."
"Like the thing with Feri Herner, that he turned out to be a murderer, that he turned out the way you said? God-all-fuckin'-mighty," Herda shouted again, "god-all-fuckin'-mighty."
Banda rigidly fixed his murky eyes on Krekács, then suddenly reached across the table, grabbed Krekács by the shirt, pulled Krekács against the iron table, and howled in his face: "And what the fuck did you say, goddammit, what the fuck else did you say, about me, what did you say, you fuckin' doofus, what the fuck?" He tugged at Krekács, whose head was tossing, his chest knocking against the table, then some thick yellow foam spurted from his throat and he spat, then after spitting, with breath reeking of vomit, he said in Banda's face:
"The problem, goddammit," he spat again, "the problem is, I don't remember."

János Háy
is a poet, author of short stories and a playwright. He has published fourteen volumes, of which the last one, Gézagyerek (Géza-boy), is a collection of his plays, most of which are based on his short stories.