Temptation by Janos Szekely

Author:Janos Szekely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2020-04-07T12:27:20+00:00

14

ABOUT NINE O’CLOCK THAT EVENING, the telephone rang.

“Is that you, Béla?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Elemér.”

I shuddered. What could he want? Maybe Franciska had snitched on me, and . . . I quickly closed the door of the booth so no one would overhear.

“Yes?” I said apprehensively.

“Could you wait for me in the morning?”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Has something . . . happened?”

A small silence. Then:

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Meet me at the front door at eight thirty.”

“All right.”

I looked at the clock. It wasn’t even nine thirty. I had to wait another eleven hours. Eleven hours is six hundred and sixty minutes, and those are minutes in which great ideals don’t much count. I thought of the hard days of starvation, the six hours of walking, the nights filled with coughing. Of Berci, my mother, the bottle of lye. And I asked myself: was it really worth it?

A frightened silence took hold inside me. If I told myself yes, the voice inside me answered: no. If I told myself no, the voice inside me said: yes.

Yes. No. Yes. No. Who was right?

Was it Franciska yet again? Yes. Yet again. He wouldn’t do something that stupid. He’d say: what does it get me? Only I could be that stupid, I scolded myself, but my heart was deeply proud of my “stupidity”. I was proud that I wasn’t as “smart” as he was. And I was indescribably jealous of him.

•

Elemér was punctual as always, “ridiculously punctual”, as the boys used to say. He wasn’t early and he wasn’t late. He stepped out of the front door at precisely the moment the minute hand on the electric clock on the corner touched the six.

“Walk with me? I’m going to police headquarters.”

I shuddered involuntarily when he said police headquarters.

“I’m dropping off the registration cards,” he said, and pointed to the bundle he was carrying.

Of course, I thought, he goes there every morning. I’m really losing it.

“Let’s go,” I said, and we set off together.

We walked in silence beside one another. Elemér was clearly waiting for me to start the conversation, but I didn’t say a word. I was focused only on my rep now. I walked along beside him, hands in my pockets, chin pressed down onto my neck, the way I did when I was a child.

Eventually, it was Elemér who broke the silence.

“You heard?”

“What?”

“Franciska’s in hospital.”

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked with forced calm.

“Don’t you know?”

“How would I?”

“You’re the one who saw him last.”

“There was nothing wrong with him then.”

I didn’t look up, but I could feel Elemér looking at me.

“Well, he’s in a pretty sorry state now,” he said. “The doctors are afraid he might have internal injuries.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

No use denying it, it wasn’t Franciska’s internal injuries I was worried about. I was more concerned with my own potential injuries. I looked up, but Elemér’s face didn’t reveal a thing. It was expressionless as always. Pokerface, I thought to myself angrily.

“And what are they saying in the hotel?” I ventured.

“They say it was a car accident.

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