… well, Mrs Eszter shook her head for some time, humming to herself and staring sternly at the table, and eventually said, yes, yes … pursed her lips, continued humming, then, finally, drummed a brisk little tattoo on the table with her fingers, looked the candidate — who seemed at the point of collapse — up and down a few times, and then, by way of conclusion, mumbled, almost to herself, ‘I’d like to see the man who can sweep this under the carpet,’ then looked as though she was ready to administer the coup de grâce. The problem, she confessed to Harrer, over the head of the candidate so to speak, was far more serious than she had been led to believe, for, ‘after all’, she was seeking men of unimpeachable character, and though one might describe the present candidate as a troublemaker, loiterer, burglar, desecrator of graves, in fact as many things, it wouldn’t occur to anyone to describe him as — and here she flashed a smile at Harrer alone — precisely unimpeachable. She, for her part, would not wish to cast doubts on his sincerity, but, she sighed, still keeping her eyes on Harrer, there really was ‘precious little’ here to work on, so she didn’t know whether, in all conscience, she could assume responsibility for him, but if she did, that is after consultation with ‘an appropriate specialist’, she could be pretty certain that the best she could offer was a ‘maximum probationary period’. ‘Probationary …?’ the would-be officer of the law swallowed and looked to Harrer for some explanation as to what that might entail, or if nothing else for a simple dictionary definition of the word, but the latter was not about to embark on any kind of exposition for at this point the secretary glanced at her watch and gave a brief right-handed wave to her right-hand man to signal that he should ‘clear the room’ since she had to leave very soon. Harrer dragged the confused and terrified recruit through the door (you could hear him being admonished in the halclass="underline" ‘Don’t you understand? She’s taken you on, stop struggling, you lunk!’), while Mrs Eszter stood up, folded her arms under her breasts and, following her new habit, looked out of the window ‘to take stock of the world’, thinking to herself that, well, this was only a first step, but ‘at least we’re heading in the right direction with big lunks like him’, it was part of planning for the future, the foundations on which she would build and succeed, for by the time they had appointed a new chief (she waved to the chauffeur waiting by the car), he would be greeted by a competent, indeed potent force, heavily staffed by people who were eternally obliged to the secretary. Those were the stakes, she reflected, as she donned her leather coat and clicked the steel press-studs into place one after another: these were necessary precautions, carefully considered and, above all, soberly thought out, precautions that ‘wouldn’t collapse like silly little daydreams but were built on what lay solidly to hand’. For indeed, what else mattered — she checked her handbag again — but fitness for the job, and the most important thing was never to ‘yield’ to illusions, such as ‘people meant well or that there was a benevolent God or some kind of force for good in charge of human affairs’, which were generally clap-trap and lies of the most lethal sort (she stepped out into the hall) that she, for one, was ‘not prepared to swallow’; and as for ‘beauty’, ‘fellow feeling’ and ‘the good inside us all’, please! she puffed out her cheeks at the mention of each one, or even if she wanted to wax particularly lyrical, the best she could say was that society was (she passed through the gate) ‘a foul marsh of petty self-interest’. A marsh, she pulled a face and occupied the forward rear seat of the black Volga: a marsh where the wind bent the reeds, the wind, in this case, being her; and so she waited for Harrer to get in the front door, and, once he did so, said simply, ‘Let’s go!’ then leaned back comfortably in the yellow mock-leather padded seat and watched the houses as they swept by. She watched the houses, though now that most people capable of walking had made their way to the cemetery there were only a few industrious citizens in the street, and, as always when she sat in the car at that point of ‘mobile command’, full of the inimitable magic sensation of ‘sweeping by’, she could see with maximum clarity — like some landowner driving about his estate — that this really was all hers, potentially hers, for the plans to make it hers were in place, and until then, she smiled through the window of the Volga, ‘you can work all you like with your wheelbarrows and pickaxes, because we’ll soon make a start on your souls …’ Even Harrer did not know that the TIDY YARD … epithet represented only the first stage of the movement, and that the ORDERLY HOUSE part — and here the car turned from St Stephen’s Road into the Central Cemetery — was something that would follow only after the streets and gardens were tidy and ‘you could eat off those pavements’, when the committee for competition would make a complete tour of every house and she would hand out numerous prizes of her own (prizes that would outstrip those of the ORDERLY HOUSE committee) for ‘the simplest and most functional lifestyle’. But we mustn’t run ahead of ourselves, Mrs Eszter admonished herself, we must concentrate on what lies immediately before us — the burial, for example, she thought as she sat in the Volga and took stock of the vast crowd gathered before the catafalque, so that there should be no hitches on this highly significant occasion when ‘everything should go like clockwork’, since this was her first opportunity to address the crowd who longed for renewal and for congress with its leader,
this, this would mark her first ‘proper’ public appearance, the first chance she had of proclaiming their ‘unity’. Now we’ll see whether we are worthy of people’s confidence, she cautioned Harrer, then stepped from the car and, with her customary decisive stride, set out for the catafalque through the crowd that immediately opened before her, then, having reached it, positioned herself at the head of the coffin, tapped the microphone a couple of times to make sure it was working, and, as a last gesture, sternly surveyed the scene before reassuring herself that her right-hand man had made a thoroughly competent job of the funeral arrangements. The orders she had given three days ago stipulated that the funeral service should express the spirit of the new age, which meant dispensing not only with the Church’s presence but with ‘all the usual saccharine appurtenances’; Harrer should junk all the ‘redundant trash’ and ‘give the whole a social character’, as indeed he had done; she nodded to the stage-struck producer in acknowledgement, surveying the unplaned coffin as it rested on a simple but well-polished butcher’s block beside a small open red box (its inscription, ‘For outstanding sporting progress’, hidden of course) which served to display the ‘posthumously awarded’ medal that marked the status of the departed, and, instead of the usual candelabra — a little startling perhaps but effective — two men who used to be Harrer’s assistants, who, for lack of time, had now been fitted out as hussars and carried two great plastic broadswords (borrowed from the local costume shop) in their firm hands, the purpose of which was graphically to remind the crowd of the reason they had gathered here, which was to bury an exemplary and heroic figure. She surveyed the coffin with Mrs Plauf inside it and, while the assembly quieted down and realized that things were ‘about to start’, contemplated the memory of her — she could say it now—‘pre-revolutionary’ visit. Who would have thought then, she asked herself, that just over a fortnight later this ‘little dumpling’ would, by her agency, be beatified as an exemplary hero; who would have thought that night when she left the suffocatingly cosy flat in such a temper that just sixteen days later such an idea might even occur to her, that she should be standing here by the coffin, no longer angry, on the contrary — no point denying it — when she recalled the figure of Mrs Plauf and her idiotic ways, she really felt rather sorry for her. Though whatever happened to her, she meditated on the catafalque, was chiefly her own fault for not being able to bear the disgrace, as her neighbour described it, and setting out to drag her son through the street by his hair after dark, setting out at that time simply, as luck would have it, to bump into some brigand who was just in the process of disguising himself, and who — according to the witnesses cowering behind their curtains in Karácsony János Street—‘dedicated’ five minutes of his precious time to ‘amusing himself with her’ in the lowest way possible before ‘silencing’ her. It was a personal tragedy, she decided with a sad face, tough luck, a truly tragic turn of events at the end of a ‘sheltered life’, since she, after all, was the last person to deserve such a fate, not having laid herself open to it, but at least, she reflected as she took leave of her, she is getting a hero’s send-off, and at this point she snapped open her handbag, took out the typed copy of the speech, and, seeing that she had everyone’s complete attention, took a deep breath. But just as she was doing so, owing to some muddle over the arrangements, four more hussars appeared from behind her back and, before she could interrupt them, took two planks cut to size, slipped them under the coffin, raised it and, following their instructions, started off with it in the direction of the crowd of mourners, who, having grown accustomed to unusual procedures, immediately and without any question, made way for them. She cast a withering glance at the deeply flushed Harrer, who stood as if rooted to the spot, but it was no use: if this was the way things were then there was nothing to be done but set off after the four hussars, who were cleaving their way through the startled crowd towards the freshly prepared grave with enormous gusto, clearly delighted that it should have been they, the physically strong, to whom Mrs Plauf was lighter than a feather, who had been chosen for this momentous task. It wasn’t only the speaker who was obliged to keep step with them, but, if they did not wish to be left behind, the whole assembly too, and, what was more, in order to maintain a modicum of dignity, everyone had somehow to disguise the fact that they were ‘practically running’—though this proved to be the least of their troubles, for the real problem was with the coffin itself, the hussars, despite numerous low whistles and whispered warnings, jauntily continued swishing along, oblivious of the fact that it too was tossing and bouncing in a jaunty, though rather more dangerous, fashion. Gasping and choking, they arrived at the grave with commendable dignity in the circumstances, and ‘it would be no understatement to say’ that everyone was much relieved to see that the coffin was still intact, and if nothing else, the strangeness of this ‘last journey’, accompanied by continuous whispering, had engendered a real fellow feeling among them, ready as they were to take their last farewells, so that everybody there was wholly intent on Mrs Eszter as she finally launched into her speech, holding two fluttering sheets of paper in her hand.