A vaguely condescending grimace slid over the professor’s face, as if silence was what he had expected. He raised his fountain pen and made a note on the yellow pad that lay in front of him. Sándor had the sickening sense that this was hopeless, that nothing he could say or do would alter the professor’s verdict.
The man raised an eyebrow.
A tiny, defiant spark of rage ignited somewhere within Sándor. He had worked for this. And he knew he could do it. Or, at least some of the time he knew that, when he wasn’t allowing himself to be reduced into a speechless, nervous wreck just because a man behind a desk looked at him with disdain.
He took a nervous, gasping breath and ventured into an explanation of supranational legal theory. His account was concise, well-structured, and laid out in order of priority. He put treaty law over common law, debated peremptory norms with himself, put forward hypotheses and arguments, drew conclusions. He talked and talked, and the professor didn’t interrupt him even once. He spoke for so long that he lost his sense of time, but eventually he sensed a certain restlessness among his fellow students seated behind him. Was there anything else to add? Not without moving off-topic, he decided. He repeated a couple of his main points by way of a summary, and then fell silent. Relief had already begun to spread through his body, and he was not without admiration for the arrogant, old academic behind the desk. With his seeming indifference, he had forced Sándor to give an independent presentation at a very advanced level, instead of steering him around the circus ring with questions. Sándor’s performance had been better for it, he conceded. But dear God, it had been uncomfortable in the beginning.
The professor made another note on his yellow pad.
“Fail,” he said, without looking up.
Someone behind Sándor dropped a pencil. He could hear the crisp little smack as it hit the table, followed by a clicking roll.
“Excuse me?” Sándor said, thinking he must have misheard.
The professor ripped the yellow page off the pad, folded it carefully, made another note on a grading sheet that was waiting next to him, and placed both sheets into a manila envelope. He pushed the envelope across the mahogany desk toward Sándor.
“If you have any questions, please direct them to the guidance counselor,” he said, his eyes already moving on to the next student. “Dora Kocsis.”
The girl stood up. She was deathly pale, and her skin looked clammy. Sándor could see the disbelief he himself was feeling reflected in her face. Maybe she was wondering what you had to do to pass if Sándor had failed.
“Please leave the premises,” the professor told Sándor. “Don’t forget your envelope. It contains important information about your situation.”
Sándor took the manila envelope with numb fingers.
“I don’t understand.…” he began, but he could tell from the steeliness of the arrogant face that his initial impression had been right: It didn’t matter at all what he said or did today. The outcome had been determined in advance.
It wasn’t until he reached the door that he received something that resembled an explanation. “Horváth.”
Sándor turned halfway around.
“A law degree is a weapon. The law itself is a weapon.”
Sándor still didn’t understand, not until the professor added:
“What makes you think Hungary wants to arm someone like you?”
HE DIALED LUJZA’S number and then found he couldn’t force himself to speak.
“Sándor? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God. Are you … did they release you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t say anything. There was so much distance between him and those words, between her and him. Someone like you.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“I’m coming over. Don’t go anywhere.”
“No. I mean, no, don’t come.”
“Sándor! Why not?’
“Because … I’m not going to be here by the time you get here.” Now it was her turn to be silent. He sensed her confusion, her hurt feelings.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just have to go home for a while.”
“Now? Don’t you have your exam?”
“No.”
He hung up, because he couldn’t bear to explain. She called back again right away, but he turned off his phone.
He sat on the bed, in just his underwear again. He had hung his suit neatly on a coat hanger; even now habit took over. He unfolded the three sheets of paper that had been in the manila envelope again.
One was a copy of the official grading sheet, where after Evaluation it succinctly said Fail. The second was the sheet with the professor’s notes from the examination. It said only two things. In the name field, the professor had written Sándor Rézmüves, not Sándor Horváth. And underneath that there was just one sentence: Has nothing relevant to say.
The third sheet was an official letter from the university informing him that since he was no longer enrolled, they had to ask him to vacate his room at the Szigony Dormitory by May 15. The name Horváth was crossed out and replaced with Rézmüves. He wasn’t sure if the administration office had done that or the professor himself.
He stood up and went over to his desk. All of his books and notes were gone, and the police had also confiscated his computer, but Tamás’s mobile phone number was still sitting on the slip of paper he had tacked to his bulletin board. He turned his phone on again. He supposed he ought to be glad they had let him keep that.
Tamás answered after two rings.
“Yes?”
There was static and motor noise on the line, and Sándor had the impression Tamás was in a car or a bus. “What the hell are you up to?”
“Sándor? Relax, phrala, it’s just a bit of—”
“You little shit. I’m on my way to Galbeno. And when I find you, I’m going to wring your fucking neck.”
Tamás just laughed and hung up.
“I mean it,” Sándor said to the empty room, which was no longer his.
The rage he had felt when he spoke to Tamás two days ago had long since evaporated. Maybe it would come back again when he saw him, but right now he couldn’t feel anything other than a thick, gray sense of failure. What the hell was he going to do when he arrived? Galbeno wasn’t “home,” even though that was what he had told Lujza. It hadn’t been home since … no, he couldn’t actually put a date on it, not even a year. He knew when he had been taken away, but he couldn’t nail down the moment when his inner compass had stopped pointing to the green house in Galbeno whenever someone asked him where he lived.
Grandpa Viktor had roared and raged that day, and the policemen from the white cars had needed to restrain both him and some of the uncles. One of them had his hands full just trying to manage Grandma Éva. Sándor had also scratched and kicked and struggled when they put him in the minibus with Vanda and Feliszia and little Tamás, but it was no use. The door closed, and there was no handle on the inside. Finally they drove away, up the same road where the ambulance had taken his mother, and through the rear window he could see Grandpa Viktor running after the vans, but he couldn’t run fast enough.
They had driven for a long time, without anything to eat or drink. There were two other children in the bus besides Sándor and his siblings, a boy and a girl. He had never seen them before; they must have been from another village. They held hands and didn’t speak. Neither did Sándor. The boy had peed in his pants, and it didn’t smell good.