Katalin Street by Magda Szabo

Author:Magda Szabo [Szabo, Magda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681371528
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2017-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

THE CLANG of the doorbell made her start, and the now familiar sense of despair flooded over her once again. There was no one she could rely on: only herself. In this family of four people she lived like an orphan, entirely alone. When anything went wrong she could never behave as naturally as she would want. There was always someone in a bad mood, someone needing to be nursed or comforted. From this not even her father was exempt. So deeply ingrained had been his conviction that his life’s work was based on an unshakable moral foundation and that the truth, after however many trials and tribulations, must eventually triumph, that he was now in a state of collapse. Week after week his ideas and ideals were undermined—statesmen reneged on agreements made only the day before, citizens lost their rights from one day to the next, fully grown adults hurled incendiary bombs into hospitals for mewling babies at the breast. When the Helds were deported it was almost more than he could bear, but after the killing of Henriette—though he never could understand how she came to be in her old garden—he completely lost his balance. Irén watched him searching for a tranquilizer, then standing for ages staring at the tablet in his hand, both hand and tablet shaking as in an earthquake.

Irén’s mind reacted to Henriette’s death as if one of her limbs had been anesthetized: the thought had sliced through her like a scalpel, but she felt the pain only later. After Mrs. Temes left, Blanka had taken to following Irén around with a tear-streaked face, explaining over and over again the very circumstances she most wanted to forget. Now Irén had sent her off to their bedroom and her little sister was lying there, dabbing her eyes with a towel, blowing her nose and using her one free hand to torment her childhood teddy bear, which even at this age she still kept on the table beside her bed. Irén desperately wanted to be alone, to lock herself in the bathroom, so that no one could make her feelings even more painful by talking about their own. But Blanka was forever wanting something from her or asking her questions. At one point she felt she could stand it no longer and was on the point of screaming at her, “Quiet, you murderer!”

Once again her mother was proving the least of her problems. In exceptional circumstances she always produced exceptional behavior, as on the day of the engagement when she had worn those tight shoes because they looked so pretty, had eaten so beautifully at breakfast, and generally attempted to conduct herself in a dignified manner. On this occasion she had wept for a few minutes, then quite impartially and almost without emotion, but in the most obscene language imaginable, heaped curses on those responsible. Her husband blanched and fled to his study, fighting down his nausea: in his house even such innocent words as “shucks” or

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