He patted my cheek and gave a bleary smile, then raised his glass. “To our Magyar comrades-in-arms. Kick those bastards out!”
I allowed myself a slow, quiet intoxication. It was a gift for writing again, for surviving Stefan’s stab at collapsing my marriage, and for not thinking too deeply about Magda’s late nights out, with Lydia. I swept through the rooms and back again, caught by half conversations about Budapest and Moscow and Washington, DC, and the Suez, and about writing. Stanislaus was working on a series of poems remembering the end of Stalinism, and Bojan was in the final edits of a surrealist memoir-a “dream book.” A couple artists were ridiculing Vlaicu, probably the most popular state painter at that time. A journalist I’d never met before provoked a few words on what I’d been writing and seemed genuinely interested in my vague answers, which helped my mood. There were more students, a few making out, and another young couple in a corner, telling Georgi loudly that there would be a strike very soon. “Citywide,” the girl said earnestly. “It will be unambiguous. They’ll know how the People feel.”
Georgi was humoring their optimism, but an older painter whose name I didn’t remember asked how they expected to get word around. “How are we supposed to know when to strike?”
“We won’t need to utter a word,” said her boyfriend. “The government will tell everyone when to strike. All they need to do is close down one demonstration. Just one. Then the People will react.”
The painter laughed, and the ensuing argument lasted a long time, all shouts and condescending one- liners.
Then, very late, as the party was clearing out and I thought I’d avoided it, Vera cornered me.
She had made herself up very well: Her dark hair hung loose down her back, and she’d worked hard on blackening her eyes. Red sweater and one of those tight skirts I’d seen a lot of in the summer. Stockings and heels. I’d noticed all this when I first saw her in the kitchen, but now, drunk and a little aroused, I couldn’t ignore it.
“Where’s your lovely wife?”
“Home. Your husband?”
“Writing, somewhere. Why don’t I ever see you anymore?”
“We run in different circles.”
“That’s a shame.”
Vera had studied philosophy in Switzerland during the war, and returned to teach and marry her childhood love, Karel. But over the years their fights had been as public as her subsequent affairs. When she turned her attention to me the previous Christmas, no one knew about the problems in my marriage, but Vera’s philosopher eye had been able to divine our secret without much trouble.
I tried to change the subject to the one still lingering around us-the fighting in the streets of Budapest-but she stood on her toes and leaned close to my ear.
“Don’t bore me,” she breathed. “I expect better from you.” Then she rubbed a hand down my tingling arm. “Do you have a cigarette?”
I lit it with a match because I’d never replaced the lighter Martin had taken. She stared at me through the smoke. I said, “Agnes is doing some fitness program now. They gave out uniforms.”
“She’s a pretty girl. Are the boys showing interest?”
“I hope not.”
She picked something off her lip with her long nails.
I started rambling about wanting Agnes to go to a foreign school in order to learn languages. “The French high school is exceptional, but they won’t take her unless she passes the exam. She’s not studying her French.”
But Vera wasn’t listening. She gazed at the living room, which was empty except for the young couple we’d caught in Georgi’s bed. They were on the sofa, and the girl was determined to smear her lipstick again. Vera stroked my back. The drunkenness slid up to my scalp. When I turned back, she was back on her toes, our faces close, and her lips were on mine. I could taste smoke and bitter lipstick in her long kiss, then her tongue sliding against my teeth, probing deeper. Her hands held my head still.
It was Christmas again, her body pressed on top of mine, her saliva filling my mouth, hips shifting over me.
I held on to her waist and pulled her closer.
Then I let go. I pushed her down by her shoulders. She looked up at me, licking her lips. “You want to go somewhere?”
I shook my head. I even said no-either to make it clear to her, or to myself.
I could tell by the sudden widening of her jaw that her teeth were clenched behind her lips. “Ferenc, I’m not going to wait forever.”
“I know.”
“Once a year, that’s not enough for any woman.”
I looked at her a moment more, at her hard, determined expression, then gave her shoulder a squeeze.
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.”
7
