Fatelessness Read Online Free Page B

and the fumes of the food and the thick tobacco smoke. By now all that got through to me, separating themselves out from the surrounding fog as it were, were disconnected scraps of some face or gesture, especially the tremulous, bony, yellow head of my stepmother’s mama as she served each plate; the two palms of Uncle Lajos’s hands raised in protest as he refused the meat, since it was pork and his faith forbade it; the pudgy cheeks, lively jaw, and moist eyes of my stepmother’s older sister; then Uncle Willie’s bald cranium unexpectedly looming pinkish in the cone of the light’s rays, and fragments of his latest blithe anatomization; on top of which, I also recollect Uncle Lajos’s solemn words, received in dead silence, in which he invoked God’s assistance in the matter of “our being able, before long, to gather together again at the family table, each and every one of us, in peace and love and good health.” I barely saw anything of my father, and all that I made out of my stepmother was that a great deal of attention and consideration were being paid toward her— almost more than toward my father—and that at one point she complained of a headache, so several of them pressed her as to whether she would like a tablet or a compress, but she didn’t want either. Then again, every now and then, I couldn’t help noticing my grandmother and how much she got in the way, how she had to be guided back to the sofa time and time again, her umpteen complaints, and her blind eyes, which through the thick, steamed-up, tear-smudged lenses of her glasses looked just like two peculiar, perspiring insects. A moment came when everyone got up from the table. The final farewells ensued. My grandmother and grandfather left separately though, somewhat before my stepmother’s family. What stayed with me as maybe the strangest experience of that entire evening was Grandfather’s sole act to draw attention to himself when he pressed his tiny, sharply defined bird’s head for no more than an instant, but really fiercely, almost crazily, to the breast of my father’s jacket. His entire body was racked by a spasm. He then hastened quickly to the door, leading my grandmother by the elbow. Everyone parted to let them through. After that I too was embraced by several people and felt the sticky marks of lips on my face. Finally, there was a sudden hush after all of them left.
    Then it was time for me too to say good-bye to Father. Or maybe more for him to say good-bye to me. Hard to say. I don’t even clearly remember the circumstances; my father must have gone outside with the guests, because for a while I was left on my own at the table, covered as it was with the remains of the supper, and I only came to with a start on Father’s return. He was alone. He wanted to say good-bye. There won’t be time for that at dawn tomorrow, as he put it. He too recited much the same sorts of things about my responsibility and my growing up as I had already heard before that afternoon from Uncle Lajos, only without God and not so nicely phrased, and much more briefly. He also mentioned my mother, suggesting that she might try now “to lure me away from home to herself.” I could see that notion troubled him greatly. The two of them had battled for a long time over my custody until the court eventually ruled in my father’s favor, so I found it quite understandable that he would not wish to lose his rights in regard to me now merely as a result of his unfortunate situation. Still, he appealed to my judgment, rather than the law, and to the difference between my stepmother, who had “created a cozy family home” for me, and my mother, who had “deserted” me. I started to prick up my ears at this, because on that particular detail I had heard a different story from my mother: according to her, Father had been at fault. That is why she had felt driven to choose another husband, Uncle “Dini” (or Dénes, to be more correct), who had