War & War Read Online Free PDF Page B

were not among the first to use it, absolutely phenomenal, they said.
    19.
    Another long freight train rumbled by below them and the footbridge shook gently along its whole length until the train was gone—leaving two blinking red lights in its wake—when the noise of the very last car began to fade along with the rattling of wheels, and, in the newly settled silence, after the two red lights disappearing in the distance, just above the rails, no more than a meter high, a flock of bats appeared and followed the train toward the Rákosrendezö, utterly silent, without the least sound, like some medieval battery of ghosts, in close order, at even pace, indeed at a mysteriously even pace, swooping strictly between the parallel lines of the rails, suggesting somehow that they were being drawn toward Budapest or riding in the slipstream of the train as it went, the train that was showing them the way, carrying them, drawing them, sucking them on so that they could travel perfectly, effortlessly, with steady, spread wings, reaching Budapest, at a precise height of one meter above the crossties.
    20.
    Funnily enough he didn’t smoke, said Korin, and he only happened to possess this pack of Marlboros because somewhere on his journey he had to get some change for the coffee machine and the man in the tobacconists he wandered into, would only oblige if he bought a pack of cigarettes, so, what could he do but buy one, but he didn’t throw it away because he thought it might come in useful some time, and would you believe it, he added, he was so pleased that it had actually come in useful, even if he himself had no use for it, or rather, only on one occasion, said Korin raising his index finger, for he had to be honest about it, there was one single moment, and only one, when he would happily have lit a cigarette, which was the time when he returned from the IBUSZ bus company’s ticket office without having accomplished his mission, all because of the two male nurses from the Psychiatric Unit; for he was aware of their eyes following him as he walked away, then as they looked at each other, not in any significant way, or at least not yet, not yet in a way that might show they were resolved to act, though soon enough they did start off after him, a fact of which he was absolutely certain without having to look back over his shoulder, for every cell in his body knew they were close behind him, after which, said Korin, he went home, straight home without a thought, and started packing, and though the apartment was already sold, and many of his possessions already cheaply disposed of, a disposal that involved the wholesale liquidation of a terrifying pile of accumulated notes, scraps, diaries, exercise books, photocopies and letters, not to mention photographs, and, apart from his passport, all his official documents including his birth certificate, his TB inoculation card, his personal ID, etc., the lot tossed on the fire, and yet, having survived the entire process and come through feeling that no earthly possession remained to burden him, the moment he stepped into his room he experienced a sense of utter despair, because now that he was ready to leave immediately, the very copiousness of his preparations for leaving had appeared to be an obstacle: he was incapable of resolving himself to simply go, even though the feeling of long preparation, he said, was misleading because there had not really been “copious preparations” as such, since one generous hour was all that had been needed for him to free himself of his material possessions and make ready to go, and please imagine, he continued, raising his voice, imagine that one bare hour was enough after all those months of forethought to set out, there and then, on his long journey, to open the door and leave the apartment to which he would never return, a single hour for his plans to be carried out and become reality, to leave everything forever, but then, just when he was as ready