The boy came in somewhat reluctantly, his instructor exhorting him to take more confident steps, his cap in his hand, and approached them with a suspicious look on his face. They gathered round him and spoke to him quietly. The boy had bright passionate eyes, intelligent and stubborn.
“Why did you confess?” asked Béla in a whisper.
The boy cast an anxious glance towards his instructor who was staring out of the window. He gestured for a cigarette and quickly sneaked it into the lining of his cap.
“Because I stole things, you idiot,” he scornfully muttered.
They stared at him, uncomprehending. Then, speaking very fast and very quietly, he launched into a speech.
“What do you think? That I was idiot enough to get myself locked up here if they didn’t have anything on me? Sure, I stole, and more, more than they know. Lucky for me the gang didn’t rat on me. We all stole from the shop, and from the warehouse too.”
He fell silent, looked into their eyes suspiciously, then, relaxing, continued. “You stole more than I did, of course, I knew that perfectly well, but what’s that to do with me? That’s your business. Careful, he’s looking this way.”
The instructor walked up to them, they handed over the packages and said their goodbyes with averted eyes. They crossed the big garden without a word while the child prisoners stopped work and watched them go. Once they were far enough away from the gate Ernõ was the first to break the silence.
“They had a gang too,” he mouthed with amazement.
“And a hiding place,” Béla humbly acknowledged.
Lost in thought, they meandered back towards the town where, presumably, there were many gangs just like theirs with hiding places like the room at The Peculiar. They must be there, all over the world, in towns inhabited by adults, among barracks and churches, little robber gangs, millions and millions of them. All there, with their own hiding places, with their own rules, all under the spell of some extraordinary imperative, the imperative to rebel. And they sensed they would not be part of this strange world for much longer, that pretty soon perhaps they too would be classed as enemies by a pre-adult or two. It was painful to be aware of that, to know that something was irretrievable, and they hung their heads.
WHAT THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE, HOWEVER, WAS that all four of them were virgins.
They had lied so much to each other and to others beyond their circle about this, with lies so extraordinarily convoluted, that the truth that seemed, somehow, to pop out in the actor’s presence was more shocking to them than to the actor. Their anatomical knowledge of the arts of love had seemed perfect, almost infinitely so. Every single one of their previous companions bragged—and not always untruthfully—that they had crossed the threshold and survived love’s ordeal of fire. They had chattered of love and women with such apparent expertise that once the truth was out it sounded quite incredible. Each of them was aware of everyone else’s indulgence in the solitary vice, and there was no particular reason to be skeptical about Béla since he had never denied it.
The actor’s dark Mississippi-minstrel eyes rolled rapidly under the closed lids.
“You neither?” he turned grandly to Ábel who was chewing his lips and shook his head to confirm.
“Ah!” he spun round to Tibor. “But you, Tibor. Not you? Not once?”
Tibor nodded, his cheeks scarlet, to indicate, Never.
“Béla? You, who for such a long time supplied money to last year’s juvenile lead? You told me so yourself!”
The actor fluttered round his room, rubbing his hands.
“And you, Ernõ?”
Ernõ took off his pince-nez as he always did when confused.
“No,” he answered dully.
The actor grew solemn.
“This is a very serious matter,” he said, frowning. He retreated to a corner of the room, his hands linked behind his back, and was visibly shaken. He talked quietly, walking up and down, taking no notice of them.
“Virgins!” he repeated, and flung his arms up to heaven. “You’re not lying?” he turned anxiously towards them. “No, no, of course you’re not lying,” he reassured himself. “But in that case…astonishing, quite astonishing, my friends!” he cried. “How old are you? You’ve had your birthday? Stout chap! And you? Your birthday is yet to come? Oh, my poor little lamb, my poor dear lambs.” He spread his arms wide and brayed with laughter.
“Don’t for a moment think,” he stopped, suddenly concerned, “that I am laughing at you. It is a beautiful thing being without sin…you can have no idea how splendid it is. You must all have guardian angels. If only I had a guardian angel.”
He dropped his arms in a tragic manner.
“Unfortunately I have never had one.”
Ábel stood up.
“I swear on oath,” he said and raised two fingers. “I swear that I have never been with a girl.”
“Never?” Béla inquired. “Should we repeat the oath after him?”
“I swear on oath,” they all said, Tibor blushing but firmly and loudly, Ernõ with bowed head, like someone who had once committed a sin and would never dare repeat the experiment.
They sniffed around each other like dogs. They reminded each other of their old, confused, bombastic lies. Béla had told them he had a child that he visited twice a year. They had spoken of the licensed brothel with such familiarity you would have thought they were practically habitués of it. But now came the revelation that, with the exception of Tibor who had once ventured as far as the door only to recoil from it, not one of them had dared even approach the threshold of the red-light establishment.
“I was in second grade,” recounted Tibor in a dreamy, singsong voice, “when one morning in the town where we then lived, I took a roundabout route to pass the brothel. I was perfectly clear about its function, about who lived there and who called on them. I knew it was full of girls and I think I had even heard something about the tariff from someone. There was nothing particular in my head as I passed it, nothing either pleasant or unpleasant. I merely turned my head towards it. I had a school satchel on my back, full of books. It was half past seven and, as I passed, a young man came out of the house. He wore a cap and a shirt open at the neck. As he slammed the door the bell rang and he stopped to tie up his shoelaces, propping his foot on the step. He didn’t look round. He didn’t care who saw him, he simply continued tying his shoelaces, as if he were at home, sitting on his own bed. There was nothing strange about this and I knew where the young man had come from and, roughly, what he had been doing in there. He had been with the girls. Not that I knew precisely what he would have done with the girls but I suspected it was that about which adults lied to us, that which they had kept a secret. I had learned almost everything from the servants. But what shook me, and shook me so powerfully I had to stop, and with all those books on my back, lean against the wall of some house, wasn’t that the young man had been with the girls, but that, inside there, he had taken his shoes off. He had been with a girl and had taken his shoes off…What could he have been doing, what kind of thing can anyone do that involves taking off your shoes? It’s hard for me to say this. Perhaps because…that was why I didn’t really dare go with a girl myself. Because there I was at the threshold of the place, my hand on the doorknob, when the image of the boy came back to me, this boy doing his shoes up. Silly thing of course, he had slept with the girl, he must have taken his shoes off. But as far as I was concerned…laugh if you like, but for me there was something terrible about this, as if someone had told me he had killed the girl, or simply committed some indescribably filthy act in there.”
“Worse than that,” said Ernõ solemnly.
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Tibor, turning to Ernõ with eyes full of wonder, and continuing in that same even singsong voice. “I too think it was far worse. The boy unhurriedly tied up both shoelaces, pulled the cap down over his eyes, and went on his way, whistling blithely. It was early morning and there wasn’t anyone else in the street. I
could hear the tap tap of his shoes as he walked away into the distance. I was still leaning against the wall. What could he have done? What could he have done? He was with a girl, they were both naked…without even a shirt perhaps…I was all twisted up inside…but the shoes, the shoes. Why did he have to take them off? It must be a terrible form of nakedness, I thought, where one person has to take off his shoes in front of someone, and then lie down with her in a bed, shoeless.”
The actor kept blinking and was pursing his lips as he waited.
“Well, that tops it all,” he said and nodded.
“Indeed it does. The whole of that morning I couldn’t help thinking about it. I didn’t dare ask anyone. But as always happens, you know, something inevitably comes along to raise the pitch of one’s terror…That lunchtime when I got home I put my books down still nauseated and disgusted, sick with excitement, and went into the dining room where I found my father sitting on the divan, cursing. I kissed his hand and waited. Father had just returned from the stables. He was wearing a summer jerkin, breeches, and riding boots. He was cursing because he had been calling for the servant. The servant having gone off somewhere, he ordered me to pull off his boots and bring him his slippers. There can’t have been anything unusual about this but I don’t recall him ever asking us boys to do this kind of thing and it hasn’t happened since. And it had to be just that day…I stared at my father’s dusty boots in despair and I couldn’t bring myself to extend my hands towards them. But Father leaned back in the divan and read the paper, paying no attention to me, simply extending his leg towards me. I put out my hand to touch the boots and fainted.”
“You started vomiting,” the one-armed one recalled without emotion. He was sitting calmly in the corner, his knees drawn up high, his chin propped on his remaining hand, crouched and expectant.
“Yes, I started to throw up. The trouble with that was that once I had come to, my father started beating me with the horsewhip because in his indignation he couldn’t imagine any reason for my sickness other than that I found the sight of his feet repulsive. The truth is I had never felt any disgust regarding his feet because I never even considered the possibility that my father had feet.”
“And that’s why you remained a virgin,” the actor declared as if establishing the fact.
“That’s why I remained a virgin,” Tibor repeated in the same flat singing voice. He opened his eyes wide and gazed calmly around the room.
“There, that wasn’t so hard,” said Ábel, his voice cracking. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly strange about the fact that we…we haven’t been with women. Don’t you think there’s a reason for that? Perhaps we’re together, the four of us, because…because not one of us has been with a woman. I don’t know. But I don’t think there’s anything impossible about it.”
The one-armed one let go his knees and leapt from his chair.
“But I…,” he gabbled, “…ever since it was cut off…I haven’t dared show it to a woman.”
The actor stepped over to him and put his arm round his shoulder to console him. But the one-armed one pushed him away, snatched the empty sleeve of his jerkin from his pocket with two fingers, and held it high with a look of contempt. They immediately surrounded him, talking to him. Béla stroked the stump where his arm should have been. Lajos was speaking, leaving words unfinished, his bloodless lips trembling, his whole body shaking. They laid him down on the actor’s bed and sat silently at his side. The one-armed one eventually stopped shivering and closed his eyes. They said nothing. Tibor held the one-armed one’s hand. A single teardrop ran from under the closed eyelids all the way down his face onto his jerkin. The one-armed one bit his lip. Quietly Tibor stood up and with elegant, light steps went over to Ábel, beckoning him to follow him to the window recess.
“You won’t be in a position to know this,” he whispered, “but Lajos has never cried before. I beg you to believe me. Not once in his life.”
THE ACTOR WAITED UNTIL THEY HAD GONE. Then he ambled out of the apartment, sucking a perfumed mint. The girl with the rickets was playing in the doorway. The actor selected a mint from his pocket and asked the girl to dance a little dance on point for him. He joined her in the dance, and they twirled round in the entrance for a few moments, the actor’s arms raised high above his head, the white sweet in his hand glittering temptingly while the rapt child gazed at it like a puppy, her crooked little body finding it hard to twirl and remain on point at the same time. The actor took a few turns with her, then shook his head sadly like a talent scout who had lost faith in his latest discovery, and with a tired gesture popped the sweet in the child’s mouth. A thin woman in a headscarf had stopped to watch the man and child dancing. She weighed them up with grave, close attention. The actor greeted her amiably and drifted away under the boughs of the wayside trees. He was thinking that he should ask for an advance at the theater where they hated him. He smiled, thinking of that, and looked haughtily in front of him. He was thinking he should send his light green spring outfit to the cleaners. He was thinking it had become impossible trying to buy a decent American Gillette blade in the monarchy, that German razors were nowhere near as good as American ones. He was thinking he should start dieting next week. He remembered the name of a masseur who once worked on him for a week and who later hanged himself. He might have gone mad while shaving my throat, he thought and wagged his head disapprovingly. He gazed at the light green boughs of the trees and quietly whistled an aria from the new operetta. There were two steps back to make here, and one thing to duck, so…He looked around; no, not here, it wouldn’t do. He thought he might leave town soon. Once the war was over he would have the hernia operation. He was just passing the pastry shop and he thought of his younger brother who once, for no discernible reason, purchased a box of honey-loaf cakes and brought it over to his place in town where he was working as apprentice to a photographer, as a gift, then, next day, having finished his business, went home. Later he worked as a machinist. He disappeared somewhere in France. He thought he should keep an eye on Ernõ. These quiet hang-dog types could be dangerous. There was that incident with the one-eyed beggar: he had woken one night to find the man standing over him with a knife in his hand, grinding his teeth. You had to watch everyone, even the one-armed one, but Ernõ more than most. He was whistling. He passed the drugstore and spent some time examining the display, being strongly tempted to go in and buy some balls of camphor, not so much as a defense against moths as a fragrance. The strong, sour smell of camphor flooded his senses. He walked on in a bad mood. After all, anyone can afford to buy camphor, even the poorest people. He only had to saunter through the door in an indifferent manner and casually ask for a pinch of camphor. No one would suspect that he wanted the camphor not as moth repellent but to sniff. He didn’t have a penny on him. He had to have a word with Havas before he got to the theater. He felt uncomfortable about this. Never, not once in his life, not for a second had he felt certain that he would not have to pack and move on at a moment’s notice, in the middle of the night. He felt tense: the air he sniffed was full of menace. It was as if everything in the world were perishing. He wrinkled his nose. He wanted to speak to Havas to tell him that he should take care of his fingers. Nothing more than that he should take care of his fingers. He took a deep breath. The air was dense with the fresh, heavy smell of loam.
The pawnbroker sat behind the barred window. He was alone. The actor entered, whistling and swinging his cane, his hat pushed back to the crown of his head but carefully lest it disturb his wig. The pawnbroker stood up, came out from behind the counter, and propped his elbow against the grille. The actor looked about him dreamily as if it were his first visit, taking in the board that said “Receipt of Goods” and its partner, “Issue of Goods.” He leaned against the bars without a word of greeting and stared in front of him.
“Just imagine!” he remarked casually, swiveling his Kentucky minstrel eyes. “They’re all virgins.”
3
THE PERFORMANCE WAS OVER. THE REVOLVING doors were in full swing and the night regulars were arriving, in dribs and drabs, including members of the company. The bon vivant who had not removed all traces of theatrical makeup passed the booth, stopped, flashed his gold teeth, and dropped some quiet remark to the comic. Both laughed. The actor ignored them. He had delivered his major sketch about the effects of vodka on the human sensitivity to color. Now he was sitting, panting slightly, recovering.