A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas

Author:Péter Nádas [Nádas, Péter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780312427962
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2008-07-21T23:00:00+00:00

He'd begun to understand a lot of things, János said, so many things that he'd almost become a liberal, would you believe that, Ernő?

What d'you know! Grandfather said.

Can you imagine that?

Then maybe you should run for office in the next election.

And one pair of hands again grabbed the other pair, and the two men literally laughed in each other's face, coarsely, loudly, knocking against each other in their drunken laughter, and then the laughter suddenly drowned in silence, which must have never left them, not even during their laughter, which had been there all along, biding its time.

I was still standing in the door, unable to tear myself away or to follow the events with my body and make it enter the room; I suppose this is the state we describe as being beside oneself; I had to turn away; I saw my little sister, still clutching her spoon, with her big head tilted, who was staring at the men; now with little giggles and a grin, now with drooping lips and whimpering sounds on the verge of sobbing, she also seemed to be experimenting, trying to decide what would best suit this unusual occasion; she could experience any emotion now, most likely experienced a great many, could perceive the situation as friendly, just as easily feel it to be hostile, and because she was not choosing between fine shades of emotion and was perhaps terrified by the impossibility of choosing, she began a dreadful bawling.

Which anyone who had never lived in close proximity to a mentally defective child might have considered the capricious creation of chance.

Later, it was Father who had to push me to the table; I was so paralyzed by my sister's bawling I couldn't make it there on my own; I remember using the excuse that I wasn't hungry.

Grandmother came in with a steaming soup tureen.

As precisely as my memory has preserved the events leading up to this meal, it has buried just as deeply those that followed it; I know, of course, that memory mercilessly retains everything and I do admit my weakness: some things I don't want to remember.

Like how Mother's face slowly turned yellow, a very dark yellow, I could actually see it happening, but she kept pretending there was nothing wrong, and that's why I didn't dare say anything to her or to anyone else.

Or what happened earlier, when she came in wearing her navy-blue skirt, a white shirt, showing off her long, pretty legs in high-heeled lizard shoes which she saved for the most special occasions; as she hurried over to my little sister, I saw a colorful silk scarf tucked under the wide-open collar of her blouse; I hadn't seen her dressed for months, and that scarf showed just how much weight she had lost, she looked as if she had been put into the clothes by accident and the scarf was supposed to hide the weight loss; when my little sister behaved like that, it was best not to touch her, so Mother crouched down next to her and made a bunny rabbit from the napkin.

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