Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [74]
“Welcome home, my girl,” said Father, who liked to do these things properly, and had waited for Skylark to sit herself down comfortably before greeting her thus. “Thank heavens you're back.”
He too kissed her on both cheeks.
Clip-clap-clop clattered still more kisses.
“Oh!” cried Skylark. “I left it outside.”
“What?'
She came back in with the cage.
“Look, isn't he sweet? Tubi. Tubica. My dear little Tubica. Isn't he a darling?'
Seeing the electric light, the pigeon began scratching with its twisted, sooty feet, turning its stupid, harmless head and blinking at its new mistress with black peppercorn eyes.
“He's quite tame,” said Skylark, opening the door of the cage. “He'll sit on my shoulder. He always does.”
It wasn't a pretty pigeon. It was a tatty, dishevelled little bird.
“And I've got some wheat grain for you, haven't I? Where are my bags?'
Father opened the brown canvas suitcase and the wicker basket into which Skylark had packed everything so neatly, just as he had done a week before: toothbrush and comb in the same tissue paper, shoes in the same newspaper. It was from him she had inherited her love of order.
The tiny grains of wheat lay shrivelled at the bottom of a newspaper funnel fashioned from a page of the Sárszeg Gazette. It was the front page of the Sunday edition, and there in the middle was Miklós Ijas's poem. They fed the pigeon for some minutes, before transporting him in his wire prison to Skylark's table.
“And that's not all I've brought,” said Skylark.
The relations had sent two jars of raspberry jam, two bottles of greengage compote, a whole pork brawn and a splendid cake, in the baking of which Skylark and Aunt Etelka had quite excelled themselves.
It was a coffee-cream sponge, the type they always called “family,” or “Bozsó,” cake. It had been crushed a little by the clothes during the journey, and the filling had oozed out at the sides and smeared the paper. They all observed it for some time, shaking their heads in regret. But they managed to scrape the filling off with a knife, and it was really rather good eaten like that.
While unpacking, Skylark fished out a photograph from between her blouses.
“Guess who!” she said with a giggle, handing it to her mother.
It had been taken by Uncle Béla, who was a keen amateur photographer. Everyone was on it, including Tiger, who sat there proud and stately like a true gun dog, dangling her mammiferous belly, which was so full of gunshot from all the years of hunting that it rattled. So much so, indeed, that Uncle Béla would often wittily remark that Tiger was a veritable dog of iron.
It was a proper group portrait, comprising all the summer guests at Tarkő.
In the foreground, arm in arm, stood the two corsetless Thurzó girls, Zelma and Klári, with hairstyles à la Secession and tennis rackets in their hands. Beside Zelma stood a polished but rather irresolute-looking Feri Olcsvay, who, poor fellow, still didn't know whether he belonged to the Kisvárad or Nagyvárad branch of his family.
Next to Klári knelt cousin Berci on one knee in a mock-heroic lover's pose, leaving a visible snigger on the faces of the two girls, who were hardly able to suppress their giggles.
In the background, also arm in arm, stood Skylark and Aunt Etelka.
“It's a very good photograph,” said Mother. “Those must be the Thurzó girls.”
“Yes.”
“The big one doesn't look very nice. The little one's a bonny creature, but her face is so expressionless.”
Ákos asked to see the photograph. He only looked at his daughter.
She stood by the door of the barn, which was propped open by a wooden rake. With one arm clinging to Aunt Etelka and the other planted against the wall of the barn, she appeared to be reaching out for protection from something that frightened her. She seemed so alone among the others, even among her relatives, her own flesh and blood. Only this gesture of hers was visible, this gesture of desperate escape, which was, in its own way, quite beautiful. Otherwise