Life Is a Dream, page 21
Janet had no reason as yet to suspect her man’s thoughts, since basically she doubted that a man, at the dinner table, was capable of minding anything else but his belly. Therefore she chatted on, as she always did at noon when Kalkuttai showed up for lunch: ‘I know that some doctors, such as the scientific-minded Sebastian Kneipp, consider saffron toxic for the liver and the cause of all kinds of facial blemishes, but I simply can’t imagine a real soup without saffron. It gives a touch of colour even though its value as flavouring is close to zero. It makes a good-looking soup that’s kind of like a woman with a pretty façade but nothing much inside. It’s the greens that provide inner content for a soup, especially ruddy peppers just torn from the stem, ripening kales, potatoes with some girth, and then soup bones, with bits of fat and chunks of meat. But a penny for your thoughts, Kalkuttai …’
To all appearances Kalkuttai seemed to be spooning his soup in the same manner as he had once observed a certain provincial guest at an old hostelry in Pest delving into his soup, goggle-eyed like some huge fish, ignoring the bored village dames who sat down at the next table probably hoping for a fling in the capital, for something not possible back home in the sticks. That’s right, Kalkuttai now slurped and chomped his dumplings with the same gusto that his anonymous paragon had exhibited, as if expecting these sounds of mastication to generate an even heartier appetite. He even indulged in a performance that never failed to please the ladies, lifting his soup bowl and tipping the last drops into his spoon like some country pharmacist vacationing in Budapest.
But as a matter of fact his mind wandered far from here, back to his youth when one dawn in early summer he arrived at the Kassa train station and devoured two portions of the local smoked ham, with a julienne of mild horseradish in long thin strips. (He was no fan of the wickedly mordant, Phtrugy variety of horseradish.) Ah, would he ever in his life eat ham and horseradish like that again, seeing as how he’s got himself involved with this woman whom sooner or later he would have to marry? Those landscapes of his youth were so beautiful; the gentlemen wore cummerbunds of white or blue polka-dot silk around the waist, the ladies had their white gowns trimmed with blue braid, and their faces were the colour of vanilla from all the ice cream, their hands smooth, white and firm as pianists’, who always take very good care of their hands.
The lady across the table watched Kalkuttai with seemingly impassive eyes, although these same eyes were capable of beautiful dark flames that would smoulder after peaceful digestion has taken its course, like marsh fires over fertile bottom lands.
She took away Kalkuttai’s empty plate. ‘Of course you didn’t even notice the soup was yesterday’s, because a consommé is best on the second day. It must have a chance to settle down, and come into its own, just like a man who in the course of a lifetime had got over-excited about all sorts of phonies and fakes. The real flavour of a consommé arrives only after it’s past the first boil. The same way, a man becomes truly lovable only after he’s tried a thing or two in life, been around a while, had his ups and downs, tasted both bitter and sweet …’
Hmm, thought Kalkuttai, this woman’s trying to make me older at any cost, even though I’m not even up for section chief at my office.
‘Moreover, you had better give up the boiled beef, although I know it’s your favourite. After all, life is not all filet mignons, one gets tired of even the finest cuts of beef – although in the old days women used to enrich the consommé with small pieces of pork. That’s why some old portraits show men with pig’s snouts and the head of an ox. So, my good sir, what do you say to some sort of migrating bird – say a duck, or a goose? …’
Done with the sweet talk, Janet rose to personally supervise the plating up in the kitchen. Ladies always meant this gesture as a great honour, and loved to don the white apron that, upon returning to the dining room, they would undo with a distracted air.
Kalkuttai did not mind being left alone at the table with his droll thoughts that were impossible to share with this solemn and dignified lady.
He was forty years old and took care of his bunions, which was why he could still strut like a cock of the walk whenever his customary even temper flared up into high spirits. But in fact his comfort came first and foremost, a quality he had inherited from his grandfather, along with a predilection for certain kinds of cheese. When his official business called for travel he liked to pre-plan the venue and menu for every lunch. He envisioned entire protocols well ahead of time, down to the amounts of wine he would consume, how many glasses before resorting to the sodium bicarbonate; also, where he would find the picture – or illustration cut out of a newspaper, showing the execution of the Emperor Maximilian by a Mexican firing squad, or else a plate from some decades-old fashion magazine – usually pinned on the walls of WCs in provincial inns, an image to contemplate with teary, blinking eyes for the duration of a proper bodily function that follows digestion. He knew the places where the tavern-keeper gave discounts to travelling government officials, and he made sure to inventory his socks and handkerchiefs in any hostelry where the chambermaid wore too much make-up. His job at the tax bureau required sitting around a lot, so he looked forward to official outings, a chance to drink his fill of beer at the train station without having to worry about his cantankerous supervisor and his busybody colleagues. On the road, he could indulge in feeling superior to a certain extent, mildly ribbing fellow travellers, especially itinerant salesmen of sundries and dry goods, for he had inherited from his grandfather, along with a love of cheese, a tendency to chaff and banter. But he never carried it far enough to be ejected from a tavern; he preferred to leave, complaining indignantly. No, seeing this unremarkable person you would not have suspected he had a clandestine passion for womanizing – another trait inherited from grandpa who, on his deathbed at age ninety-two, married his housekeeper, a woman with cracked heels.
Janet now re-entered the room with the giant strides of a major-domo leading an entire procession whereas she had only that certain servant girl in tow whose two hands now held a great serving tray made of burl wood.
‘I see a bird! A fine-looking fowl!’ rejoiced Kalkuttai, even though secretly he had been reminiscing about a bean soup brimming with tender bits of smoke-cured ribs and an especially toothsome kind of sausage, along with noodles, so that regardless of whether it was needed or not, you could stir in a few drops of wine vinegar. This vision also included the dark-haired lady of the tavern hovering in the background, undecided as yet about which guest to favour with her after-dinner conversation.
Janet sat down at her place and received the platters from the maid, positioning them with great care in the middle of the table within reach of Kalkuttai. An oval serving platter presented roast goose with an abundance of gravy. The drumsticks pointed upwards, as if about to run off into some green meadow; the thigh meat, sliced into a stack, still swelled as mightily as in the days when the goose took its first tentative flight over a pond.
Janet held forth like some schoolmarm. ‘I didn’t dare to roast it very long for fear of drying out the meat. Only certain kinds of beef can take that much roasting. This tender goose is for nibbling and “sucking on”. Each little bone can be taken into the mouth one by one, some you can chew without hurting your insides. My first husband had the habit of picking up even large marrow bones to gnaw the scraps off, because usually those are the most delicious titbits. You don’t need to save anything for the dog since we don’t have one. But what are you thinking of, Kalkuttai, choosing that breast piece when there’s all that nice thigh meat? Will I live to see you forget to dunk your bread in the gravy?’
No, Kalkuttai did not forget to dunk, although in the meantime his thoughts had secretly wandered back to a certain cashier lady named Gavotte whom he had once seen at a café in Kormend. He knew not why she came to mind, for this cash till queen, courted by lieutenants of the local infantry regiment, paid no attention whatsoever to a transient government official. She somehow managed to look right through him, her eyes aimed in the direction of the market square, where a kaftaned orthodox Jew happened to be bargaining for a shipment of onions. What was so remarkable about him that made Gavotte absorbed enough to withdraw her hairpin from her chignon, only to reinsert it in another place? Kalkuttai recalled the capacious purse the Jew paid from, scornfully pulling banknotes from various compartments, like one who is all too aware of the wretched value of money – he refrained from licking his fingers to count the banknotes, the way Gentiles do, thereby acquiring all kinds of mouth ailments. Anyway, this Gavotte … forever remained a dream for the tax official Kalkuttai.
None the less he diligently kept dipping his bread into the gravy, after meticulously paring the crust from each slice. As he carefully affixed the piece of bread on his fork and rolled it around in the drippings, his face acquired the solemn expression of a chemist synthesizing an important compound in the laboratory. The gravity of his face relaxed only when the piece of bread, darkened by all the drippings it had soaked up, was ready to be transferred with an arc-like movement of the fork into his mouth. Alas, a few drops were wasted; they fell on the napkin. Kalkuttai repeatedly shot indignant looks at the napkin suspended from his neck and shook his head in disapproval, as if blaming someone for the waste.
Before attacking the goose proper he used his fork to plant pieces of bread crust at various strategic locations in the platter of goose drippings, the way a fisherman casts the baited hook. Having disposed of these coming attractions, he pulled back the flaring shirt cuffs on both wrists, and with thumb and forefingers picked up certain pre-selected morsels of meat.
‘Don’t mind my fingers, little lady!’ he said in a conciliatory tone before taking the first bite of tender young goose breast.
‘That’s how I prefer it, too,’ responded Janet from the other side of the table, likewise picking up a piece, the smallest and boniest, as befits the hostess.
Even though Kalkuttai smacked his lips, clicked his tongue, licked his teeth and the corners of his mouth and his moustache while eating the meat that was dripping with goose fat, Janet kept up a stream of talk, as if to conceal some inner anxiety:
‘Please make yourself at home. If your seat is uncomfortable, try another chair. Feel free to lift a leg every once in a while, for good circulation is paramount, and gas and bloating causes serious damage in a man who bottles up natural impulses. The pit of the stomach must stay unencumbered during a meal. Alas, we womenfolk have too many strings and bands in our skirts and underthings to do what is required for proper digestion. But you men have it easier – all you need to do is loosen the belt, let it out a notch, undo one button, and your circulation gets a tremendous boost.’
It would have been truly enjoyable to listen to Janet go on, if Kalkuttai’s shoes had not started to hurt him. His corns occasionally flared up, sometimes even right after a trimming, and this gave Kalkuttai a doleful expression.
The omniscient Janet noticed this at once. ‘Go ahead, slip your shoes off under the table. My husband used to do the same, with his comfortable elastic-sided boots. After lunch he always rose from table and walked to the sofa in his socks. I like a man who acts naturally.’
Kalkuttai was too ashamed to confess that he could not untie his shoelaces until bedtime, because that morning his shoelaces had broken and only with a great deal of trouble was he able to make them usable again. He chose to suffer in silence, and the home-fried potatoes paid the price. He failed to praise them sufficiently.
Janet complained: ‘Give me a man who, as soon as he comes home, gets down to shirtsleeves and slippers. With that kind of man you never have to worry that at your first word, your first little comment, he will grab his hat and run off to some smoky gambling casino or worse, to some stinky tavern. My kind of man settles in for a stay at home, because he knows that a woman needs some “looking after”. Take those home fries for instance. At this time of the year not everyone would dare to make them. They say it’s best to save potatoes for the winter when fires burn throughout the long evenings. Then a husband will rush home even from the next county if he catches scent of the young potatoes his wife is frying up.’
‘True, home fries are an excellent family meal,’ replied Kalkuttai, ‘but they still need those winter evenings, just as crayfish is best in June and July, when you soak your feet in a basin of cool water, next to which you place a wicker basket full of small crayfish that you can eat a hundred of, if you have nothing better to do.’
Janet wrinkled her forehead, and was not appeased even when Kalkuttai dipped a few potatoes in the drippings of goose fat. She had expected greater acclaim for her potatoes. She said nothing, and, to break the uncomfortable silence, Kalkuttai ventured a remark: ‘Come to think of it, maybe I’ll have some of that cucumber salad,’ as if he had just noticed, whereas he had been eyeing this favourite delicacy for some time.
Then, after preparing further bits of bread for dipping, he went on in a storytelling vein: ‘Once I had an acquaintance, a man of course, who was a wizard at concocting all sorts of salads. He wasn’t a cook; he was a land surveyor and assessor by profession. I had run into him during official field trips at a number of inns, at Vac among other places. Now Vac is known for its penitentiary, but you must also know that women from there go to Budapest for their rendezvous, just as women from here like to meet their beaux at Vac. Well, there’s an old hostelry called the Kuria in Vac, and it is quite a reliable place. That’s where the surveyor liked to mix his salad dressings. He travelled with a case full of various mustards and sauces in little bottles, because in the provinces you can’t always find authentic Dutch or English mustard. True, there are Hungarian mustards, especially homemade varieties, that will stand comparison with any foreign brand, but this surveyor was a fanatic when it came to his recipes. He used four different mustards for his lettuce salad.’
‘And what about his cucumber salad?’ asked Janet with a trace of mockery, reminiscent of a schoolteacher interrogating a student she had caught in a lie.
Kalkuttai was determined to go on, but first he stirred up the cucumber salad in its capacious serving plate, using his fork to herd back into the thick of the salad those bits of black pepper, paprika and slivers of onion that had fled to the edge of the dish.
‘He used no mustard in his cucumber salad, but he had the presence of mind, whenever he had a rendezvous at the Vac hostelry with some woman from Budapest, to blow thirty-one kreutzers on a telegram, requesting advance attention to a properly prepared cucumber salad. This way he never had to contend with a cucumber salad that was bitter or not marinated, for the cucumbers had a whole night to imbibe all those devotional articles, the spices and flavours necessary for producing a decent salad. You can always find the right wine vinegar in a place that sells unadulterated slivovitz – usually in the neighbourhood of an orthodox synagogue.’
Janet started to smile now, which did not suit her character as a grave and serious woman. Her smile was a meld of a certain amount of disappointment, a bit of sorrow, but also resolve. ‘Well, I confess this cucumber salad has been marinating only since this morning, maybe that’s why it fails to meet Mr Kalkuttai’s approval,’ she said in a restrained tone of voice. ‘In any case one can certainly learn from that surveyor because any man who takes his own case of mustards and condiments to the inn at Vac cannot be a total loss. Tell me, Kalkuttai, have you ever done any surveying, by any chance?’
Kalkuttai, still in a playful mood, answered in a rather jocose manner: ‘I would have liked to, had I not chosen government service.’
… After this, the lady of the house had little more to say, other than wishing him good health after the meal. She cleared the table, coming and going, disappearing for a while only to return and find Kalkuttai staring at the ceiling, nursing post-prandial daydreams. We may very well guess the nature of these after-lunch thoughts, and so did Janet, and therefore it is understandable that she took her revenge upon her lover in the following manner.
After a while Kalkuttai retired to the small chamber without a window or any other egress, to stare at yellowing fashion plates and an illustration depicting the execution of the Emperor Maximilian pinned to the wall. Immersed in his reveries he did not notice that Janet had silently locked the door from the outside, sent the servant girl away, and gone out to visit a girlfriend whom she had not seen in a long while.
(1926)
The Ejected Patron
In the manner of storytellers of old, I respectfully warn my readers before they jump to any conclusions about the title of this piece. No, we are not talking about some infamous pub-crawler, some notorious drunkard who vomited torrents of lies and jests reeking of garlic, and whose shamelessly provocative behaviour made him unwelcome to those tavern-keepers and their patrons who, in the former Hungary that stretched from the Carpathian mountains to the sea, had at least once a day occupied every available tavern seat (that is, the guests did); had filled every single glass (that is, the tavern-keepers did), glasses that were as much in evidence as the painted ones, topped by an abundant head of white froth signifying since time immemorial a freshly tapped keg, calculated to put thoughts into the head of every thirsty man passing by these weathered tin signs that protrude into side streets. Why, on some occasions (holidays or fair days) they even filled up the glasses that had apparently been enjoying a much-deserved rest in some melancholy niche or on a cobweb-laden shelf that the ageing tavern-keeper rarely uses, thereby avoiding unsavoury quarrels with patrons because of certain items (chipped glassware or vessels containing funerary ashes) on the same shelf alongside glasses that happen to be perfectly good, but possess an iridescent rainbow tinge … (Yes, it can be disheartening to see rainbow colours, vibrant as a blast of organ music, on the side of an old drinking glass! As if some drunken devil had lifted the rainbow from the sky to beautify the glasses he drank from during his wicked benders, just as certain experienced females often daub the hues of innocent maidenly charms on their cheeks.)
