The Stone World by Joel Agee

Author:Joel Agee [Agee, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2022-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

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Then dinner was served—duck breast, roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, carrots and peas, stewed cherries on the side. The waiters kept coming to refill the glasses. Pira drank Coke.

Everyone at the table was talking, mostly in English or in Hungarian. One of the Hungarian men at the far end of the table translated for the Mexican woman. The conversation was too grown-up for Pira to follow. He was bored and hoped the party would end soon.

Agnes smiled at him from across the table.

“Do you like the food?” she asked him.

“I do,” he said. “I like everything except the peas.”

Several people laughed. Bruno patted Pira’s hand. The people who had laughed looked at Pira kindly. It was all right.

Every once in a while, someone stood up and clinked a spoon against a glass until several people said “Toast, toast,” and everyone stopped talking. Then the person, still standing, would speak.

“Why do they say toast?” Pira asked Bruno.

“A toast is a speech people give at a party.”

So toast meant two things, just like party meant two things.

All the toasts were about Sándor, and they all had words like “victory” and “glorious” in them, which gave the speeches a kind of hurrah feeling Pira liked a lot. After each toast, people drank and shouted and clapped their hands.

The queen-like lady with the flowers in her hair gave a toast in Spanish. She didn’t stand up. Instead she held her glass high above her head. The young man who had rolled her around earlier translated her words into English:

“To Sándor—to music—to life and to love. When you go back to Hungary, do not forget Mexico, Sándor. Remember our sad and beautiful land.”

Then everyone shouted: “Viva México! Viva la revolución!”

Now Sándor stood up, holding his glass with red wine in it, and everyone quieted down.

“How could I forget Mexico? That is not possible. I would sooner forget my own mother, or a woman I love. Of course, strictly speaking, Hungary is my mother and Mexico…”

He stopped talking and rubbed the top of his head.

“Mexico was a kind stranger who welcomed me into her home.”

Pira could tell by Sándor’s slurred speech that he was drunk.

“But that is not right, is it? Mexico, Hungary…I think they are sisters.”

He halted again.

“But that would make Mexico my aunt. No, no.”

People were laughing. Laughing with him, Pira assumed.

“What I mean is…the heart of Mexico and the heart of Hungary are not different…even though they are not the same.”

Again he stopped talking. He rubbed the middle of his forehead with his fingertips.

“This is impossible to say in words…”

He turned around and went to where his violin case stood leaning against the trunk of the tree whose branches stretched over their table and came back to put the case on his chair. He opened the case and took out his violin and bow.

“István, can you help me?”

On the grass behind István stood a large square suitcase made of black wood. István opened it and took out a foldout table with four slender legs.

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