“No, no,” Kamilla protests. “I’m not used to being treated so well. I am very comfortable, thank you. But sit down, my dear. I am a lucky mother to have such a nice daughter. I’m serious, my dear. I really appreciate your kindness. But you should be more kind to your father, poor man,” she sighs, pulling out a jewel-studded antique cigaret case. “I don’t understand what has changed him so. I remember how different he was in Budapest. And now...what a sad, strange, lonely life he has been living in that big house by himself. I have become resigned to the injustice of fate that I have no place in the family, but your father really deserved better. Ever since you were born he has lived only for you. It’s his great tragedy that the only creature he loves gives him no affection. Poor lonely man.”
“But mother, you left him.”
“I left him?” Kamilla repeats incredulously. “What are you talking about? You mean the divorce?”
“That’s right. You divorced him and married Zoltan.”
“The divorce,” she laughs. “I wanted to make it easier for your father when you decided to go to America. It was to make everybody happy. How unjust everybody is! My dear, I never did anything to hurt your father. I had been going out with Zoltan for the past five years; it was how Father wanted it; he didn’t have time for me so he asked Zoltan to take me out for concerts and dancing and vacations. Your father wasn’t interested in these things, he only cared about his work and you, but he wanted me to enjoy myself. To say that I was unfaithful to him, when he asked Zoltan! He and Zoltan were best friends. Of course the whole town knew about it. Zoltan didn’t like the situation; he wanted to marry me. But your father just laughed and said he could have me any time. He didn’t want a divorce because of you. Then finally when he decided to go to America, I told him I wanted a divorce to make the decision easier for him. I knew that he and you would be happier without me. I married Zoltan so that you and your father could leave for America with a free conscience. The truth is,” she concluded tearfully, “that I really love your father. I am the only one who really loved and understood him.”
“Then you should have stayed with him.”
“No, he didn’t want my love. My love was only a burden for him. It was your love he wanted. That’s how people are, they want what they can’t have,” she sighs philosophically, her eyes fixed on her daughter with a strange, sorrowful look. Pity for her who was born to be the cruel daughter?
“Didn’t you have affairs before Zoltan? Before I was born?”
“Really, my dear, you make me laugh!”
“You mean all the stories I heard about you aren’t true?”
“I don’t know what stories you’ve heard. Naturally I had many affairs. But it was all right, your father wanted it.”
“That’s very strange.”
“I’m serious. He encouraged me. I hope you will forgive me for saying that your father was a little neurotic. The first-generation Freudians, you know, were not properly analyzed. It gave him pleasure that I had affairs. He wanted to be the husband of the woman who had the most admirers.”
“And you?”
“I couldn’t help it, my dear,” Kamilla tells her sadly. “I went to the best psychoanalysts in Budapest and they told me that I had to have affairs to prove to my mother that I could have all the men. When I was a child my mother told me that I was so ugly no man would want me; therefore, you see, I had to make every man desire me, even though I had the most wonderful husband. This was the tragedy of my life. You can’t imagine how much I suffered. I was in analysis for fourteen years. We can’t change our nature,” she sighs. “People are the way they are. You too, my dear. You can’t help that you are unkind to your parents. It’s useless to fight our nature. So now I live alone in my little cottage in New Jersey. I see no one; I speak to no one and you know something? I am happy for the first time in my life! But tell me something about your life,” she asks wistfully. “I have no idea what you’re doing since you went to Europe five years ago. You have left that awful man—Father told me. And are you finally divorced? Well, thank God that’s over. How could you stand to live with...But let’s not talk about Ezra. Tell me about yourself. I think the last time we talked was when you were in Budapest in 1947, you were interested only in metaphysical ideas. I remember how sweet you were trying to explain to me...You know when I came to America in 1952, you were like another person. It was impossible to talk with Ezra around and then the children. I am so glad they’re in a good school. And now we can talk. Tell me about yourself. I want to know everything you are doing, thinking, feeling, everything about your life, your work, your ideas interests me.”
“I am writing a novel.”
“My daughter is writing a novel!” she repeats grandiosely. “How wonderful! But tell me is it mainly romantic, or something philosophical or psychology? Father told me that you have asked him for material about the family for your new book. Is it that? I could tell you so many stories...But tell me,” she ventures shyly with childish eagerness in her eyes, “do you have someone, a lover? You have a lover!” she exclaims.
“It’s a secret.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. It’s the most important thing, my dear. I won’t
