Prague Read Online Free PDF Page B

worked, this was how you paid your gas bill, and would the U.S. Army be shooting people against walls? They agreed to a two-year lease, the rent payable every three months to a friend of Szabo's who lived two apartments over, this was how you worked the TV, this was how the bath/shower unit heated up, and if there was any information about Russian or Hungarian prisoners that Szabo could provide, he'd be happy to help. He     ; had never been interested in the Communist Party, but as a worker, he had truly had no choice. This was a good apartment, and he was lucky to have gotten it. It was thanks to the Party that he and his wife had been brought into the city from the countryside, had gotten a factory job and this flat, had been able to raise their son here. He lives near Pecs now with his wife and daughter. It has been a good life in Pest. Andrassy is a good street, this is a good district. This is how to light the stove. The Party seems to be doing a good job. It's hard not to think things are better now that they're in charge. Szabo and his wife moved in just last year, and they hope to have a child soon; Szabo wants a girl, but Magda wants a boy. The Party has been a great help in getting them started. This is the key to the building's front door, this is the key to the apartment door, this is how to get an outside line on the telephone, this is a picture of my wife, Magda, she died in 1988. Here is my son's telephone number in the country. Good luck with everything. Thank you for coming. See you tomorrow at three. "Viszontldtdsra," said the old man. "ViszontMtdsra," said Charles.
     
    John nodded, smiled his mute good wishes, and the Americans left to find dinner.
     
    THE    NEXT    DAY    AT   THREE,    CHARLES    WAS    AT   WORK,    SO    MOVING    IN    WAS    A
     
    matter primarily of sign language. John felt no trepidation, however, at being alone with the old man, who proudly welcomed Jews: Gabor had admitted the previous evening that he had invented that comment because the negotiations had grown boring. Szabo had in fact been marveling at the opportunities in America, considering that a man of John's age had risen to such power.
     
    John found the old man's son, nearly fifty, helping pack for the move to the countryside. He spoke a few words of English and, to John's relief, seemed pleased at the bargain his mentally incapacitated father had struck. "Good business okay" was his repeated validation of the contract. "Good business okay." He added, "Dezso the name me."
     
    "John. Juan. Jan. Johann. Jean." John produced his name, accelerating, in as many languages as he could muster.
     
    "Janos." Dezso the younger provided the Hungarian. "Janos the name you," he said, and tapped John twice on the sternum. "Exactly. Thank you. Janos the name me."
     
    John's luggage (college graduation) was quickly installed. He mimed an offer to come back later, after they had corralled the old man's proliferating, scattering belongings, but the son refused. "House yours," he said. He took John's arm and walked him to the yellow chair. "House yours. Rest." For twenty-five minutes John straddled the chair's obtrusive springs, watched the son pack suitcases and cardboard boxes and then haul them down to a waiting car, each time refusing John's wordless offers of help.
     
    And at last the apartment was objectless and lifeless, merely furnished. When the son was downstairs on his final trip, the father stood in front of his starkly empty armoire and simply stared at it. His head rolled slowly to his shoulder, then he lowered himself slowly onto the floor, ending up cross-legged. John too felt the undeniable force of the gaping, emptied closet, its doors flung open in melodramatic pleading. Its emptiness gave the room a different light, even a different smell. Szabo, his back to John, stared up at the open wardrobe, the crack in its wood lightning-bolting down its back panel, the hanger-bar sagging under