Should I tell you the story just as it happened? I’m not boring you? I’ll stick to the essentials as far as I know them. After the initial shock when I was left alone in my embankment hotel and my baggage had been brought over, I fell asleep. I slept a long time, exhausted. It was late in the evening when I woke. The telephone had not rung, not once; neither Judit nor my wife called. What could they have been doing in those hours when one of them finally knew for certain that she had lost me and the other had cause to believe that she had won this small, silent war that had started so long ago? They sat at opposite ends of town, each in her room, thinking, naturally, not of me but of each other. They knew there never was a complete end to things, that their own duel was just approaching its most difficult period. I slept as if drugged. It was evening before I woke and rang Judit. She answered calmly. I asked her to wait, told her that I was on my way, that I wanted to speak to her.
It was that evening I first began to really know this extraordinary woman. We went to a restaurant in the city center, somewhere I was unlikely to bump into anyone I knew. We sat down at the set table, the waiter brought the menu. I ordered the food and we talked in hushed voices of ordinary things. Throughout the meal I was watching Judit’s movements. She knew I was watching her, and occasionally broke into a mocking smile. She never quite lost that mocking smile. It was like saying: “I know you are watching me. Well, watch closely. I have learned what there is to learn.”
And indeed she had learned to perfection, maybe even a little too well. This woman, if you please, had made herself study, in a few bare years, everything that people regard as correct behavior, good manners, and social graces — all that we had received as a given and had learned by simply being creatures of our environment and education: properly trained animals. She knew how to enter, how to greet people, how not to look at the waiter, how not to take notice of the service, while at the same time understanding how one should be served by maintaining an air of studied superiority. Her manner of eating was correct to a fault. She handled her knife, her fork, her napkin, everything, like someone who had never dined any other way or used different cutlery, under different circumstances. I marveled at her dress sense too, not just that first night but the rest of the time. Not that I am an expert in women’s fashions; it is just that, like any other man, I know whether the woman I am stepping out with looks right in her clothes or has made an error of taste, given way to some personal quirk. She, in her black dress and black hat, was so beautiful, so simply and terrifyingly lovely, that even the waiters gawked at her. The way she moved, the way she took her place at the table, drew off her gloves, and listened, smiling and nodding over her shoulder, as I read her the menu, agreeing on the choice of food, then immediately changed the subject of conversation, charmingly leaning toward me: all this was one hideously difficult test, a test she passed that first night, like the brilliant student she was, with flying colors.
I, for my part, was full of anxiety, inwardly willing her on, and once she passed I was wild with joy, satisfied and relieved. It was, you know, as when we understand that nothing happens without a reason. Everything that had happened between us had happened for a reason, and what it showed was that this woman was a truly extraordinary being. I immediately felt ashamed on account of my earlier anxiety. She herself sensed this, and sometimes — slightly mockingly, as I have already said — she smiled at me. She behaved like a lady in the restaurant, like a woman of the highest rank who had spent her life in places like this. No, wait — she behaved much better than that. Upper-class ladies don’t eat as faultlessly as she did, cannot hold their knives and forks with such refinement or maintain such firm discipline of gesture and posture. People born into a rank tend to rebel a little against the constraints of rank. Judit was taking her exam, not so as you’d notice, of course, but she was following all the rules.
It began that evening and so it continued all the days after, over months and years — every evening, every morning, in company or alone, at table or in society, and later in bed, in every possible situation — the terrifying, hopeless, endless exam that Judit passed each day with flying colors. In theory it was wonderfuclass="underline" it was just that we both failed the practical examination.
I made mistakes too. We watched each other like tigers and trainers in the middle of a performance. Never, not once, did I utter a single word of criticism of Judit; I never asked her to wear something else, to behave or speak in the least differently. I never “educated” her. I received her soul in its maturity, as a gift, the way it was created, and then as whatever life had made of it. I didn’t expect anything out of the usual of her. It wasn’t a “lady” or a glittering socialite I yearned for. I hoped for a woman with whom I might share a lonely life. But she was terrifyingly ambitious, as ambitious as a young, newly appointed officer in the army wanting to conquer and take occupation of the world, one who spends all day mugging up, practicing, training for the part. She wasn’t scared of anything or anyone. There was only one thing she feared: her own hypersensitivity to offense, some mortal wound to the pride glowing in the depths of her life, her very being. That is what she was afraid of, and everything she did by word, silence, and deed was a form of defense against it. It was something I could never understand.
So we dined at the restaurant. What did we talk about? Well, London, naturally. How did the conversation go? She answered questions exactly as though she were sitting an exam. The answers came pat: “London is a great city. It has a vast population. The poor cook with mutton fat. The English think and act with deliberation.” And then, among the clichés, suddenly something to the point: “The English know it is necessary to survive.” When she said this — it might have been the first personal observation she had ever addressed to me, the first truth she had discovered for herself and revealed for my benefit — the light in her eyes suddenly flashed, then went out. It was as if she couldn’t contain herself and had voiced an opinion, but immediately regretted it, as if she had given something of herself away, unveiled a secret, demonstrated that she too had a view of the world, of herself, of me, and of the English, and that she had been forced to speak out about it. People don’t talk about their experiences in the presence of enemies. I sensed something strange in that moment, but I couldn’t have said what … She fell silent for a moment. Then she was back with the clichés again. The exam clock was running. “Yes, the English have a sense of humor. They love Dickens and music.” Judit had read David Copperfield. And what else? She answered calmly. She had brought along the latest Huxley as travel reading. Point Counter Point was the title. She was reading it on the way and was still reading it … she could lend it to me if I liked.
So that’s how things were. There I was, sitting with Judit Áldozó in a city restaurant, eating crab and asparagus with a heavy red wine, chatting about the latest novel by Aldous Huxley. Her handkerchief, open before me on the table, had a heavy, pleasant scent. I asked her what scent she used. She mentioned the name of an American beauty product, her English pronunciation perfect. She said she preferred American scents to French ones because the French were a little overpowering. I gave her a skeptical look. Was she teasing me? But no, it was no joke, it was serious, that was her honest opinion. She gave her opinion the way some people pin down facts based on experience. I didn’t dare ask her how a Transdanubian peasant girl came by such experiences, how she could be so certain that French perfumes were “a little overpowering.” And in any case, what else did she do in London apart from being a maid in an English family home? I knew London a little, and had some experience of English households, and I knew that being a servant in London was not a lofty station. Judit looked steadily back at me, expecting more questions. And even then, on that first evening, I noticed something I was to keep noticing right to the end, every evening.