He went over to the window, looked out, then closed it. But he did not light the table lamp. Instead he spoke to me in the darkness.
“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked.
And when I did not answer, he went on in the murk, his voice farther away now.
“If you really are so absolutely convinced, why won’t you look at me? I have no kind of power over you. I have no rights. And yet there is nothing you can do against me. You can accuse me of anything you like, but you must know that you are the only person in the world before whom I am innocent. And there came a day, and it was I who returned. Do you still believe in words like ‘pride’? Between people who are bound to each other by fate there is no pride. You will come with us. We will arrange everything. What will happen? We will live. Maybe life still has something in store for us. We will live quietly. The world has forgotten all about me. You will live there with me, with us. There’s no other way,” he said aloud, exasperated, as though he had finally understood and grasped something, something so simple, so blindingly obvious, that he resented arguing about it. “There’s nothing else I want from you except that just this once, for the last time in your life, you should obey the law that is the meaning and the content of your life.”
I could hardly see in the dark by now.
“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice quiet, coming at me from a long distance. It was as if he were talking to me out of the past.
“Yes,” I said involuntarily, almost in a trance.
That was the moment the curious numbness started, the kind sleepwalkers must feel when setting out on their dangerous course; I understood everything that was happening around me, I was fully aware of what I was doing and saying, I saw people clearly, as well as those parts of their souls that manner and custom tend to draw a veil over, but knew at the same time that whatever I was doing so sensibly and so firm of purpose was to some degree unconscious, that it was partly a dream. I was calm, almost good-humored. I felt light, without a care. There was indeed something I understood that moment in Lajos’s words, something stronger, more rational, more compelling than anything else, something over and above his charge against me. Naturally, I did not believe a word he said, but my skepticism amused me. While Lajos was speaking I understood something, the simple, assuring truth of which I could not have articulated in words. He was lying again, of course…I didn’t quite know in what way or in what respect, but he was lying. Maybe it wasn’t even his words or feelings that had lied, it might have been just his very being, the fact that he, Lajos, could not do anything else, not before and not now. Suddenly I was aware of myself laughing; I had burst into laughter, not a mocking laughter but a sincere, good-humored laughter. Lajos did not understand why I was laughing.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Do please carry on.”
“Do you agree?”
“Yes,” I said. “To what? No, of course I agree,” I quickly added.
“Good,” he said. “In that case…Now look, Esther, you mustn’t believe that anyone is against you or wishes you harm. We have to arrange our affairs as simply and as honorably as we can. You are coming with me. Nunu too…maybe not straightaway…a little later. Éva gets married. We have to redeem her,” he said more quietly, as though we were plotting. “And me too…You can’t understand it all yet…But do you trust me?” he asked uncertainly, his voice quiet.
“Carry on,” I answered, just as quietly, joining the air of conspiracy. “Of course I trust you.”
“That’s most important,” he muttered with satisfaction. “Don’t think,” he added more loudly, “that I will betray your trust. I don’t want you to make a decision right away. There are just the two of us here. I’ll go and call Endre. He is a family friend, a notary, with an official role. You should sign it in his presence,” he declared with a large gesture.
“Sign what?” I asked him in the same conspiratorial tone, like someone who has agreed and volunteered for a task and is merely inquiring after details.
“This piece of paper,” he said. “This contract that authorizes us to arrange everything and to have you come and live with us.”
“With you?” I asked.
“With us,” he said uncomfortably. “With us…Near us.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Before you call Endre…before I sign…Just clear up one matter for me. You want me to leave everything and go with you. I understand that much. But what happens after that? Where, near you, will I be living?”
“What we were thinking,” he said slowly, turning the matter over in his mind as if it were perfectly normal, “was that it would be somewhere near us. Our apartment, unfortunately, is not suitable…But there is a home there where lonely ladies of a certain standing…It’s quite close. And we could see each other often,” he added generously, as if to encourage me.
“A sort of workhouse, I imagine?” I asked, perfectly calm.
“A workhouse?” he replied, wounded. “What an idea! A home, I said, with ladies of good upbringing. People like you and Nunu.”
“Like me and Nunu,” I said.
He waited a while longer. Then he went over to the table, found a match, and lit the table lamp with clumsy, unpracticed movements.
“Think it over,” he said. “Think, Esther. I’ll send Endre in. Think hard. And read the contract before signing it. Read it very carefully.”
He produced a sheet of paper folded into four from his pocket and placed it modestly on the table. He looked me over one more time with a friendly encouraging smile, gave a little bow, and, sprightly as a young man, turned and left the room.
19
By the time Endre entered a few minutes later I had signed the contract that empowered Lajos to sell the house and garden. It was a proper contract, full of the proper terms, the text entirely composed of professional-sounding phrases, exactly like wills and marriages. Lajos had titled it “A two-party contract.” I was one of the parties, Lajos the other, who in return for the rights to the estate comprising both house and garden contracted himself to look after Nunu and me. The details of the “looking after” were not indicated.
“Lajos has told me everything,” said Endre once we had sat down, face-to-face, at the round table. “It is my duty to warn you, Esther, that Lajos is a scoundrel.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It is my duty to warn you that the terms and intentions of the contract he has sprung on you are dangerous and would be so even if Lajos followed those terms to the letter. You two, dear Esther, thanks to Nunu and the garden, have enjoyed a modest but stable existence here, and Lajos’s plans sound, to a stranger’s ear at least, a little sentimental…But I have no faith in Lajos’s sentiments. I have known him, and known him well, for twenty-five years. Lajos is the sort of man, the sort of character, who does not change.”
“No,” I said. “He himself says he does not change.”
“He says it too?” asked Endre. He took off his glasses and looked at me with his myopic eyes, blinking rapidly and clearly confused. “It doesn’t matter what he says. He was sincere just now? Deeply sincere? It means nothing. I have had many sincere meetings with Lajos. Twenty years ago, if you recollect, Esther…for twenty years I have kept this quiet. But now is the time to tell you — twenty years ago when old Gábor, your father, dear Esther…forgive me, he was a good friend, a really close friend…in other words, twenty years ago when your father died and it fell to me, as his friend and the local notary, to conduct the bitter task of sorting out your estate, it turned out that Lajos had faked certain bills in the old man’s name. Did you know about this?”