them, there were puddles of cold, odourless water.
József opened his eyes when the feeling he couldn’t name became unbearable. His head was flooded with a horrible white stain – it was like sinking in quicklime – and at the same moment he realized that somewhere his lost conscience was trying to make itself heard. It was like the time when, in some entranceway in Budapest, when he was still just a child, he first trampled a nest of birds. And now he again heard that unbearable chirping, the straining of tiny throats, which had diminished with every blow of his heel. Afterwards, feeling completely lost yet also giddy with power, he had run towards the tall front doors. He wanted to get away as quickly as possible, to hide in his mother’s kitchen, but the doors were stuck. For a few seconds he had screamed as if he was being chased by death, of which he knew only what he had learned from the scary stories recounted by the older boys in the courtyard. They had told him: ‘A person who kills isn’t afraid of death.’ Then, suddenly, he had come to his senses and was instantly calm. He was sitting on the damp, grimy floor. The entranceway was dark and full of silence.
József lifted himself off the billiard table, where he had been lying in an embrace with a woman who for him had no name, and walked barefoot to the small balcony. It was only when he was outside that he put the woman’s silk dressing gown on his naked body; it did not even reach his knees. It was dark outside, as dark as that entranceway had been, which was still in his head. Nothing was moving; only somewhere in the distance, beyond the land that, like a black, ravenous sea, was eating into the houses on the far edge of town, there were flashes and muffled explosions from artillery fire.
It was now that József Sárdy, secretary of the Office of the Special Military Tribunal, thought of death. He knew it was close; he felt it like an invisible shadow clinging to his body with a cold hand.
He succumbed to reveries entirely unrelated to his present life. But still, he asked himself, where have those years gone when he was learning to survive on the streets of Budapest? It’s not proper, it suddenly occurred to him, for an officer whom fate has appointed to lead the final battle but who in fact makes no real decisions since all the deciding is done by others, which is how it’s always been in this phoney life of his – it’s not proper for such an officer to indulge his memories. And again he thought: I can’t walk away now; some higher necessity has appointed me to show for at least once in my life what I’m made of, and if death is the only way out, then that is what I’ll choose; it’s the only thing those lost boys from my street will appreciate, who are now probably hiding in some damp, dark entranceway taking their rage out on birds, if there are any birds left in Budapest.
József no longer believed that killing could save you from death, but he did believe that, for a soldier, it was the only way to fight it.
16
In the tall windows of the Hotel Dobray, which looked out on Main Square, rifles were still pointing into the night. Somewhere deep inside, a paraffin lamp was glowing. Silence lay all around, disturbed only by the relentless scratching beneath one of the windows, as if the hotel was infested with termites.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
