But what I was confronted with, in that room behind the locked door, was not like that.
The woman who occupied this room had quite deliberately stripped away all elements of comfort, bric-a-brac, and cheap glitter. You could see she had strictly, ruthlessly, denied herself anything the world might cast away or regard as luxury. It was a severe room. It was as though the woman had undertaken certain vows to live here. But the vows, the woman, the room — none of it was welcoming. That’s why it frightened me.
This was not the room of some kittenish little flirt who inherits her mistress’s silk stockings and discarded clothes, secretly sprays herself with Madam’s French perfume, and makes eyes at the master of the house. The woman facing me was not the normal household demon, the lower-orders lover, the alluring siren of an ailing, decadent, bourgeois home. This woman was not my husband’s sweetheart, not even if she kept his portrait in a locket suspended on a lilac ribbon around her neck. Do you know what this woman was like? I’ll tell you what I felt: I felt she was hostile but my equal. She was a woman just as passionate, sensitive, strong, worthy, vulnerable, and full of suffering as I was, as is everyone who is conscious of her rank. I sat in the chair, the lilac ribbon in my hand, unable to utter a word.
Nor did she say anything. She was not agitated. She stood up straight, as I do. She had powerful shoulders — not slender, certainly not slim, but very well proportioned. If she had walked into the house we were at last night, among all those famous men and beautiful women, people would have looked at her and asked: “Who is that woman?” … And everyone would have felt she was someone who mattered … Her figure, her bearing, was what people call regal. I have seen a princess or two in my time, but none of them had that regal bearing. This woman had it. And there was something in her eyes, in her face, something about her, in her things, in the look and feel of the room, that — as I say — frightened me. I’m reminded of the phrase I used before: conscious, voluntary resignation … But beneath the resignation there was a tense alertness. A readiness. Something that demanded all or nothing. A prowling, untiring instinct, instilled over years, over decades. A close attention that would never relax. Nor was the resignation humble or selfless, but proud — even haughty. Why do people jabber on about the aristocracy being proud, puffed up with self-importance? I have met a great many countesses and princesses, and not one was proud in that sense. On the contrary, they were, if anything, hesitant and a little shamefaced, like all aristocrats … But this Transdanubian peasant girl, whose eyes met mine so boldly, was neither humble nor shamefaced. Her gaze was cold and glittering. It was like a hunter’s knife. She was self-controlled and had a clear conscience. She said nothing, she made no move, she didn’t even blink. She was a woman fully aware that this was the crowning moment of her life. Her whole body, her soul, and her sense of destiny were living that experience.
Did I say a guest room in a convent? … Well, yes, that too. But it was also a cage, the cage of a wild animal. For sixteen years she had stalked up and down in her cage, brushing against its bars, or in another cage exactly like this. She was a refined wild animal embodying passion and patience. I had stepped into her cage and now we were watching each other. This woman wouldn’t be paid off with cheap little knickknacks. She wanted it all, life entire, destiny with all its dangers. And she could wait. She was good at waiting, I admitted to myself, and shuddered.
The locket and ribbon were still lying in my lap. I sat there, paralyzed.
“Would you please give me back the picture,” she finally said.
When I made no move, she continued:
“I’ll let you keep one of them, the one taken last year, if you like. But the other one is mine.”
It was her property. She said it as if she were pronouncing judgment. Yes, the other picture had been taken sixteen years ago, before I had met Peter. But she already knew him then, probably better than I ever did. I took one more look at the pictures, then, without speaking, I handed her the locket.
She too looked at the pictures, checking them over attentively as if to make sure no harm had befallen them. She went over to the window and, from under the bed, brought out an old battered traveling case, found a tiny key in her bedside drawer, opened the worn case, and stowed the locket away. She did all this slowly, deliberately, without the least sign of excitement, as if she had all the time in the world. I watched her carefully and registered, as it were in passing, that just now, when she addressed me and asked for the photographs, she did not use the normal class honorifics, no “miss,” no “ma’am.”
There was something else I felt in those few moments. It’s many years ago now and I see it all more precisely. This feeling all but overwhelmed me, telling me that everything that was happening just then was nothing out of the ordinary. It was as if I’d seen it all before. I was, of course, astonished by how right Lázár had been the previous night when he told me directly that the woman with the lilac ribbon, the finding of whom was a matter of life or death to me, would be so close, merely a few streets away, at my mother-in-law’s apartment. I was astonished that she was someone I had often met and had even talked to. When I set out that morning, like a woman obsessed, to find my one and only enemy in life, I did not expect my very first venture would lead straight to her … No doubt about it, if someone had predicted this yesterday, I would politely have asked them to change the subject, as I don’t like to joke about serious matters. But now that it had happened, I was no longer astonished. I was surprised by neither the person nor the room. All I knew about Judit before was that she had been a “splendid support” to my mother-in-law, that she was regarded as practically a member of the family, miraculous evidence of what proper training could achieve. But now I felt I knew much more about her: that I knew everything. Not in words, not intellectually. I mean by instinct, as part of my destiny: I knew everything about her, and myself, despite never having spoken to her in all these years other than bidding her good day, asking whether anyone was home or if I could have a glass of water. I must have been scared of her: her face. There was simply this woman on the other side of the tracks, going about her business, waiting and aging, as I was … and there I was on my side, not knowing why my life lacked something, why it was unbearable, or what to make of the feeling that haunted my days and nights, those feelings that worked their way into my bones like some wicked, mysterious radiation, the sense that things were not quite right … I knew nothing about my husband or Judit. But there are moments in life when we understand that the most unlikely, the most impossible, most incomprehensible things are actually the simplest and closest to hand. Suddenly life’s mechanism is laid bare before us: those we considered important vanish as through a trapdoor and out of the background step figures about whom we know little that is certain but for whom — we suddenly understand — we have been waiting, as they, with their own burden of fate, have been waiting for us, for this precise moment …
And it was all exactly as Lázár said it would be: right on my doorstep.
The situation was that a peasant girl had been keeping my husband’s photographs in a locket hanging round her neck. She was fifteen when she moved from her village into town, to work for this upper-middle-class family. Naturally, she falls in love with the young master of the house. In the meantime the young master grows up and gets married. The maid and the young master see each other occasionally but are no longer close. The class difference proves ever more a chasm between them. And time ticks on for them both. The man ages. The girl is practically an old maid. She has never married. Why has she not married? …