Siege 13. Tamas Dobozy

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СКАЧАТЬ me? wondered József, rising from the sheets and drawing Sándor’s head to his chest. You don’t know what you need, he thought, as if there were two pulses beating in counter-rhythm within Sándor, two desires moving him in opposite directions. He held him like that for a while, feeling his friend’s eyelids blinking regularly against his skin, thinking of how Sándor had run out of the zoo after Gergő and Zsuzsi, trying to gather up their limp forms, of how often they’d found him squatting in the cage of this or that dead animal, as if by lifting a wing or an arm or a leg he might reanimate them, or, as József had once observed, actually put on the animal like a suit of clothes and become it, leaving his humanity behind. At the same time Sándor had been moving in the opposite direction, trying to keep in mind who he was, who he’d been, what he cared about.

      “Listen, Sándor,” he murmured, frightened by what was taking place in his friend’s body, the spasms that passed through it as he held him. “You have to pull yourself together,” he said, “the siege won’t last forever.” But Sándor was already past the idea of waiting, József knew that, past thinking of what had happened and what was to come. What he really wanted, what he needed, had nothing to do with József at all, for József was already disappearing for Sándor—disintegrating into the state of war, falling apart with the capital and the zoo, with the death of the animals—and all Sándor needed to realize his own disappearance was this one last act, this final favour. But things weren’t like that for József, not yet, for the presence of Sándor was still keeping him intact, as if the strength of their friendship, the history they shared, whatever it was in his character that Sándor loved, could recall József to himself. He looked at Sándor and saw what the war had done to friendship after it had finished with everything else—with sympathy, with intelligence, with self-awareness, with loyalty and affection and love—all those impediments to survival, all those things that got in the way of forgetting who you were. It was for this that József envied Sándor, for Sándor had forgotten him just as he’d forgotten that the soldiers he’d fed to the lion were men, that the bodies the birds fed on where those of women and children, that there was even such a thing as his own life, or anyone else’s, and that it might be worth preserving.

      When he finally rose up with Sándor that night, carrying him in his arms like a child, József wasn’t sure if he could do what Sándor wanted him to do, because he was still clinging to his friend’s memory, unwilling to let him go, as he would weeks later, even more so, after the conversation with Zamertsev, after the Soviet hunting party had gone out—sober this time, no horses—carrying flashlights and head-lamps, determined to do it right. He had set out that night in exactly the same way, out the door, moving along, bent with Sándor’s weight under arc lights and stuttering street lamps, dodging patrols that weren’t really patrols but an extension of the three days of free looting the commanders had granted their troops.

      By then he knew what Sándor needed as much as Sándor did—this is what József would not tell Zamertsev—and when they arrived at the subway entrance and swung open the door and looked inside, József hesitated. And when Sándor, resting his head against his old friend’s chest, asked to be put down on the threshold, József laughed and said no, it was fine, they could go in together, it didn’t matter. “Please,” said Sándor, jerking limply in József’s arms. “You’ve been better with your grief,” he said, “better able to use it—to help make yourself stronger.” With this, József finally understood what Sándor wanted, and why, and József would remember it as the moment when he finally gave in to the siege, to its terrible logic, to what Sándor hoped to become, what he needed József to witness. He said goodbye before putting Sándor down and closing the door on him. Then there was only the weakness, from carrying his friend across the ravaged city, from using up what little strength was left in closing and slumping against the door, too tired now to pull it open, knowing he would have nightmares in the years to come—nightmares of banging on it, wrenching at the handle, calling out to Sándor—only to wake to the terror of loss, alone in the dark with all he’d been separated from, as if there was no way to figure out where he was, where he began and ended, until he realized what was out of reach. It was Sándor’s last gift, to József and the lion both, what he thought they needed to live, as if grief could work that way, though in the end it was only what he’d wanted: the death of whatever it was—affection, friendship, love—that kept him in place, reminding him of what he was and in that way of what he’d seen, when all he wanted by then was the roar and the leap—the moment when he was finally something else.

       Sailor’s Mouth

      T WAS 1957 and the sailor built a plastic boat. Everything on it was transparent—plastic hull, plastic mast, plastic sail—and he lay down in it with a sack of kifli and a jug of water and headed south from Budapest, down the Danube, toward the Black Sea.”

      “Did he make it?”

      “No, he was seen. His boat is in the Museum of Failed Escapes.”

      “There’s a museum like that?”

      “It’s in the ninth district. A private collection. One day I’ll take you there.”

      “How did you get in?”

      “I’ll tell you later.” Judit shrugged, her skin dark even for a Hungarian, long hair trailing on the pillow like rays from a black sun.

      Her daughter, Janka, was five years old, with the same black hair. She was standing in the doorway the first night I carried her mother home. It was the tail end of an ordinary flirtation, Judit pretending she was drunk and her guard was down and she was doing something she didn’t do for any man—show him where she lived—while I held her arm saying the streets of the eighth district were no place for a woman in her condition, all giggles and hiccups, fingers fluttering in my face. But it was really Janka I was after, having listened to Judit describe her, the life they led, their home, the food they ate, the kind of places the girl played. When we arrived, there was an old woman holding the door—the grandmother I guessed—hair covered in a lace shawl, standing stooped on the other side of the open door threatening Janka with a beating, no dinner for a week, if she didn’t come inside immediately. The old woman was unsurprised when Judit and I stumbled through, little Janka trailing behind grasping after her mother’s hand. I put Judit on the couch, mumbling that she’d be okay, that she was just sleepy. The old woman stared at the floor, shaking her head. “I told her never to bring anyone here.”

      I was supposed to have stayed in Budapest only a day, then gone on to Romania. “You stay as long as it takes,” my wife, Anna, said. We had a child already, seven years old, Miklós, who was as eager as his mother for a brother or sister, it didn’t matter, he’d been waiting as long as he could remember, smiling into my face as I said goodbye at the airport, telling him I was going to a place where orphanages were overflowing with children desperate for older brothers. Anna stood there also smiling, stroking the back of Miklós’s hair as I spoke to him, once in a while backing up what I said, even jumping in to describe what the little girl would look like—olive eyes, curly hair, dark brown skin—the three of us picking out names—Juliska, Klára, Mária—as we waited for me to go through security.

      Anna and I had been cleared to adopt years ago, when it became obvious that the magic that had produced Miklós was gone, vanished along with the conversations we’d once had (apart from how our son was doing, how much money we needed for daycare, renovations, bills), and our interest in concerts and art galleries and sex with each other—everything gone except the three or four glasses of wine we drank every night (that we could still agree on), though by the time of my departure for Budapest Anna was slipping even in this, and making up for it by criticizing СКАЧАТЬ