I immediately took off the seat belt. More hilarity ensued. “No, no,” Margit said, “keep the belt and feel safe!” I said that wearing a seat belt didn’t reflect a judgment about safety, it was automatic, because at home it was against the law to not wear a seat belt. This, too, they found hilarious. “If we are driving to the fields and a policeman catches us, he might put you in jail!”
The fields were a few minutes’ drive away. Gyula took a shotgun out of the trunk and disappeared into the corn. A female scarecrow lolled on a tall stake, her dress flapping in the wind. Margit said it was her own old dress. “It shrank, so Nóra and I made a scarecrow. For some reason, Nóra gave it a cat’s face.” Sure enough, the scarecrow had a little cat nose and whiskers.
“That should be scary for the birds,” I said.
“Unfortunately, our birds are very brave.” We walked around the fields and Margit pointed out the different crops: tobacco, wheat, chickpeas, watermelons, other melons, poppies, grapes, cherries, apples.
Back at the house, Margit put the children to bed, and then brought out an apple cake she had made. Gyula set a bottle of whiskey on the table. I felt embarrassed to eat cake without the children. Margit, who seemed to guess what I was thinking, said that Feri didn’t like cake, and Nóra had to cut down on sweets, though she was only seven. Did anyone ever get as much of anything as they wanted?
“Now,” said Margit, when Gyula had poured the whiskey. “Tell us all about yourself.”
“But I have,” I said. “You already know everything about me.”
“Now you will tell us the long version,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “We have so much time. We have all night.”
It made such a strong impression on me when she said that. Just for a moment, as if in a flash of lightning, I seemed to glimpse some unseen vista stretching out before me and opening in all directions before it went dark again.
Margit asked what I wanted to become after the university. I told her what I wanted to become. “You’ll write a novel about us,” she exclaimed.
“Maybe someday,” I said.
I was surprised when she asked if I had a boyfriend. I thought it was clear that I wasn’t someone who had boyfriends. But when I said I didn’t, she seemed disbelieving. “I thought maybe you had a Hungarian boyfriend,” she said, “and that’s why you came to Hungary.”
“No,” I said. “What gave you that idea?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s just something I thought of.”
? ? ?
The alarm went off at a quarter to eight. I lay in bed a few minutes puzzling over why exactly I had to get up and teach English to schoolchildren now—whether I had made some mistake and, if so, where.
Nóra was already at the table with her little backpack, eating a roll with butter and jam. Why did the children have to learn English over the summer? Margit made me a really strong Nescafé, and we all got in the Ford Fiesta. I fell asleep and woke only as the tires were crunching over the gravel behind the school building.
The classroom was completely devoid of antlers, indeed of anything more weaponizable than a potted fern, some children’s drawings, and a map of Hungary. The students sat at three long tables arranged in a U shape. Margit sat at the lowest table with the smallest children and smiled expectantly. I hadn’t realized she would stay. I felt so relieved.
I asked the kids to say their names and ages, and how long they had studied English. ádám, who was fifteen, had taken three years and was really good—he could really talk to you. Róbert, who was the same age, had never studied any English at all. Neither had many of the younger children, including Nóra. The smallest boy, Miklós, was four and could barely say anything in any language.
Katalin, who was seventeen, was beautiful, with waist-length flaxen hair and a perfectly plain face. Why was “plain” a euphemism for “ugly,” when the very hallmark of human beauty was its plainness, the symmetry and simplicity that always seemed so young and so innocent. It was impossible not to think that her beauty was one of the most important things about her—something having to do with who she really was.
Miklós’s mother, Tünde, worked in the school. Thin, with mousy hair, big glasses, and a beseeching smile, she often lingered in the classroom and hovered over Miklós, who was incredibly small, even for a four-year-old. Feeble, pink, he resembled an infant squirrel. If you asked him anything, he twisted in his seat in paroxysms of shyness. Tünde would actually prod him with her finger, and then he would squirm more. She gave him a lot of advice, all of it wrong, insisting with particular tenacity that he pronounce all silent e’s. If he ever managed to say “one” or “five,” she corrected him. “Oh-neh. Fee-veh.”
“Five,” I said loudly.
“Fee-veh,” she repeated, with her obsequious smile.
“Is there any way to make her stop doing that?” I asked Margit.
Margit thought about it. “We will ask her to bring an eraser.” There was no eraser at the board, just a chalk-saturated rag. Tünde disappeared for the rest of the morning. The next day she was back, sitting at the teacher’s desk with a big pink heart-shaped sponge and a tub of water. Every time I looked in her direction she held up the dripping heart. She continued to urge her son to say “Fee-neh” when asked, “How are you?” Róbert, who was suggestible, also said “fee-neh” and “fee-veh.” Nóra, who never took sides, mumbled something in between. Whenever Miklós made any utterance, no matter what, Nóra clapped her hands and stroked his head and shoulders.
At noon every day, everyone went home except for me and Róbert, whose mother was the school principal. Róbert and I went into a large supply closet where, at a wooden desk surrounded by rolled-up maps and projector screens, we were served an elaborate lunch by the school cook, Vilmos, who wore a white apron and chef’s hat. First was soup, then either chicken paprika, beef stew, fried cutlets, or cabbage rolls, and finally fruit preserves artistically laid out on dessert plates. We addressed these meals with dedication, industry, and few words. Sometimes I asked how he was, and he said he was “fee-neh.” Then he asked how I was, and I said I was fine. At first it seemed strange to go into a supply closet every day and eat a three-course meal with a fifteen-year-old boy, but soon I came to view it as part of the natural course of things.
After lunch, I tutored ádám and two other fifteen-year-old boys for the English entrance exam to a special computer school. It was easier than the morning session, because the three boys already knew a lot and worked hard, and also because Tünde didn’t sit in—she dropped by only to bring a two-liter bottle of flat Pepsi and one glass on a silver tray. I would pour myself a glass, then give the bottle to the boys. Usually they took only polite sips, but one day they spent their lunch break playing soccer and then they swigged down the entire two liters. It disappeared into their bodies, soaked up by their cells.