Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [64]
Their bodies are not fully rested from their daytime sleep. Then suddenly they remember everything. All the extraordinary events of the night before: the spinning of cards, glasses, words, the new direction their lives had suddenly seemed to be taking, before they felt compelled to flee, without fully understanding what had happened, driven by the spectre of time ill spent and a sense of obligation to make amends for their transgressions, to return to their duties and settle back into the old routine. They rise giddily, unable at first to recognise their rooms, their most intimate possessions, the street in which they live. It is as if everything were coated with a thin layer of soot. They haven't seen the sun, which has, in the meantime, burned to a cinder. They haven't greeted the day, which, without their knowing, has completely blackened, leaving only the odd flying ashes and clinkers behind as a disquieting surprise. They don't know whether they are hungry or full, hot or cold. Thus they flounder until they find their proper place in space and time, and only then do they notice that their heads are spinning and sore.
The woman, who first opened her eyes late in the afternoon, towards five, was tortured by such feelings. She was the first to wake. Her husband went on sleeping.
She slipped carefully out of bed, put on her thick flannel dress and wrapped her head in a scarf. She got on with the cleaning like some elderly servant. Dustpan and brush in her hands, she shuffled from room to room.
The lamps still burned by the piano, having kept their vigil night and day. The woman reproached herself for the senseless waste of electricity.
She had much to do. During the week they had often moved the furniture from one room to another. Now she had to sort it all out again and put each piece back where it had stood for decades. She spent a long time searching for Skylark's needlework, the tablecloth under which she had left the pantry key. When it finally turned up she spread it over the marble plinth of the mirror and pressed it flat with the two bronze-clasped photograph albums. She looked around for any more incriminating evidence. Now she only had to tidy up the piano, clear away the music and lock the lid. She took the key into the bedroom and gave it to her husband, who had just woken up.
Here she went down on her knees and scrubbed the dirty, spittle-flecked parquet, sweeping away the cigar ash and gathering up the coins and banknotes which lay strewn all over the floor. She rattled and clattered as she cleaned. The noise drove Ákos out of bed. He dressed briskly. He spoke of indifferent matters.
“What time is it?'
“Half past six.”
Looking in the mirror he saw the traces of bicarbonate of soda still clinging to his chin. He looked away. This morning's scene struck him as childish and tasteless. He didn't mention it at all. Nor did his wife.
“Dark, isn't it?'
“Yes, it's already late. The train will soon be in.”
“It's cold.”
“Yes, it's raining outside.”
The woman opened the shutters and aired the room. A cold, unfriendly stream of air swept the stuffy room, fluttering the curtains.
It was raining.
They could hear the whistle of the wind and the creaking of signboards. The rain spluttered through the glass bulbs of the gas lamps. Damp, round umbrellas swelled. People squelched through puddles in mud-spattered trousers, grimacing as they locked their umbrellas in battle with the storm. The tin mouths of the drains spewed foamy water which gushed in streams into the overgrown ditches of Petőfi Street. A paraffin lamp already smouldered in Mihály Veres's dark, unhealthy workshop.
They both observed this scene for some moments.
“It's autumn,” said Ákos.
“Yes,” said the woman. “It really is autumn.”
They shut the windows.
“You'll have to take your autumn coat,” she said then. “Otherwise you'll catch your death. And an umbrella too.”
“Do hurry up,” Ákos urged.
“I am hurrying.