Part 2
Nothing. War and peace in the small black picture-boksz. Sins are tempting in my dreams. I'm more afraid than ever. And I don't remember my name. The Star-Being of an Age? how can he be related to other Star-Beings? Where does the soul wander, when it is not here? Dream? Hypnosis? What's that? Lights are dancing in the ark of pictures. Cards and sounds and parts of the body. The Bartóks, the Stravinskys, the Davidhausers. How could we understand; we, simple people, where we go during 'Cosmos'? in eternity. The Screen: the atomic Shield is shining. Pearl drops of parts are falling on and splitting off.
I don't know why I am on the Earth.
I'm a man among milliards.
I'm getting afraid of my guesses: far-seeing does exist indeed, the Great heads could really be pals: the great-grandson of Ruth, the Moabite and the Polish-Russian dancer. They could bind a covenant through the ark of the Lion of Judah. While David danced and Vaslav watched TV? you will get saved, someone will save thee.
By realizing that everything that has happened until now was a mistake. And you accept what you will get from now on. You might even talk about it to others: the personal, coincidental meetings (and not the family trees) can be the Right Track.
The Way of the Found Child.
But I'm talking in vain, they will not listen to me.
I'm turning around the small hut (built since I was here last time) behind the yellow building. The smell of chickensoup, GDR car numbers and petrol vapour, door-knobs humid from sweat? That fat old woman has never heard about the Road of the Red Army, where I'd like to slip through the fence. But I change my mind. I will watch the series "Dr. Cosmos". I begin to accept that I forgot my name and that I don't know who I am.
Cosima wants to go to Pest.
She thinks it's not impossible that she'll find some documents hinting at Löw, the renowned baroque messianic expert. Sure, she should go to Prague too. I don't know what to say. Sure, she should go to Prague too. I don't know what to say. She should know that such documents? if ever? they appear mostly 'by chance'. And even if we don't find anything, it's evident, that 'belief' and 'tradition' reappear in our life, and we should take them seriously. If it's not too late. It is also rather curious, the way this golem-maker rabbi's legend meets the face of Nijinsky: or its twentieth century variation. Since it's a fact, that Nyanyi was playing bridge in the neighbouring flat, and the cards, well, originally, in the Kabbalah, there are supposed to be some magical forces? Who knows? Sure, there is a level in the world, where the magical cards don't have any effect, where the limbs of the body are not bound to planets and crystals, where it's impossible to create the atoms of the human body out of the atoms of the earth? where God is just a figure of speech or a person from an ageold tale? like the Hunter in Little Red Riding Hood.
And unfortunately Dr. Cosmos lives on this level, so he won't let us put this legendary level into the movie about the Russian-Hungarian prisoner.
He says, it's enough if he just looks into the Nought. There is nothing there.
Immanuel Löw (the son of my great-great-grandfather)
Old age has thrown roses on the grave of their beloved, the garden of tombs became a garden of roses. The soul flies away in death like a butterfly, like the flying odour of the rose. The symbolism of the rose comes toward us in the deep poetry of the ghetto.
On the city Council House of Prague we can see the statue of my legendary ancestor? his death's tale is interesting.
The angel of death could not approach the sainted sage whose magic spell made matter breathe, whose eye-twinkle made the dying alive again. So the angel took the form of a rosebud. The charming great-granddaughter of the old man, without knowing what she does, gave the rose to grandpa, and from its smell the great soul slumbers away, flying to the Infinite. The dawn of eternity is reddening toward the soul that searched its secrets? the dawn of the roses of the Garden of Eden. The thorn of sorrow and the dawn of Hope are proclaiming through the rose our faith that reaches over the grave, our faith in the eternal mercy whose love is never restrained, not in life, nor in death. Amen.
Cosima tells me, she has to go to the post, to give in an advertisement to the Zweite Hand, that we need dancers. Okay. I should just feel myself terribly, yes I know they give you this horrid 'downer', just take it easy, relax. Cosima knows that without the drugs I feel better at once, she perceives it at once. And she is able to betray me, she phones to my mother, who would fly here at once, in order to stop my 'sickness'. For them its a sickness when I feel better. Yes, I talk a lot then and quite quickly, probably from relief. It must be annoying. I'm kept down since puberty? since?sixteen. I will accept it while my mother is alive, because you cannot deliberately cause harm and pain? Although its very bad. Should I stay or should I go? Cosima ran away. I'm staying here. I'll watch this cassette that Mom has sent.
I can't go on, no? Well, life is difficult. Now there she goes on video, my mother will teach me what to do and what not to do if? for instance? I meet a gallerist or a producer or an editor.
The phone is ringing. I let it ring.
Cosima runs back from the staircase with reproachful eyebrows.
I open one of my old diaries.
It was your doctor, he says you left there your sunglasses.
1969
I was sawing wood, I was gathering trash, I was on service group. They don't talk much to me, since I don't really understand them, and all that. It's very unpleasant? what you can hear at home in a camp, you can't deal with here, it's so much worse.
Today, the first time in my life I was waterskiing. I was terribly afraid and I did it at once without falling. It's great. Everybody thought I already did it at home. At four in the night there was a huge storm and we couldn't sleep because of the water flowing into the tents and then because they began to prepare themselves for the souscamp excursion with shouting and running. At half past eight everybody from my group was on the other shore with tents. Me and a guy with some sickness couldn't go. I had cold? and I had cried enough to stay. So we moved into Gilbert's ex-tent with two moniteurs. We even had mattresses. I'm very tired. During the night there was such a storm, that I never saw before, with huge thunderings, lightning and windstorm? and in the whole camp only our tent was blown away by it, so all of my things were wet now, completely. My photo machine went wrong but my watch survived. And we were freezing in hail. So I'm the only Hungarian left here? Bori Sarkadi and Jutka Lakner, they are heroines, they went to the souscamp.
1978
Sepia check-patterned shirt, grey polo? black-and-red jacket? changeant raglan ballon? krüger trousers, grey shoes? mirroring sunglasses: I'm starting to go to the laundry, and I don't care what the passers-by say, seeing my elegance. Or this old woman to the small child: "Come now, we go quickly home and have a rest." My basic astonishment these days is related to the fact that they will change all the bus and tram stop signs. With Lukin we went and took one as a collector's item? I mean the old one, that used to be longish with a round plate at the end. From now on it will be a simple blue cube. Dad says there is an international agreement for them. It has a small bus symbolized in the middle? it's a great joy when you see the bigness of the arriving real bus. Sometimes those hinged ones arrive. They were described fittingly by the International Herald Tribune: "One and a half bus? great in taking the curves."
So I am going through the park "Major", the leaves are falling, and the car numbers before my eyes: PE, TA, CY and TE again? And there's a YOU? A stranger.
He is not my doctor, he's just Dr Cosmos. Leave me alone? answer to Cosima? I'd like to watch TV.
On the screen we see a young guy, standing in the high grass. Suddenly there is a lion on the picture. In the hand of the guy there is some shining object, maybe a piece of bone? so the lion keeps himself away. Kellogg's diet soup without meat? Cosima is mirrored on the screen's surface? she begins to look for something, goes here and there, picks up a guitarre and all the while she is trying to persuade me to go out together to the gay bar: - Sure it will be great? It would do good to you? You should think twice about it? You can't hate yourself that much? From too much sternness evil is born. You can't jump headlong into this movie about a gay star if you are completely unexperienced?
And about some other things.
Completely unexperienced? Should I tell her about the 'case' of the East-German guy some years ago; I was not thirty yet, looking younger and? Even now, years after I'm thinking about him sometimes although the relationship didn't really develop, sometimes I think of jumping over the Wall, I'm only restrained 'cause it might be unpleasant for him. And how should I explain to Cosima, that I don't feel I would like to go to a gay bar nowadays. If there are any left? When i was young, in the seventies, the whole thing had a different aura? But now?Cosima knows I like to be with her, although lately we are much more cool and the traditional act is just skipped.
"You are being lucky with this AIDS paranoia? It was invented for these lazy people like you"? she says? "God aids you."
And I also have some remorse. I have the feeling I'm doing something bad.
No, you don't do anything bad, you are bad? If you don't come with me to the Gigolo? - Cosima makes her black stockings smoother at the bathroom mirror? then?well?I'm going myself and I'll get some guy for you..
I'm always wondering how come Cosima's and the Doctor's name are so much alike.
1968
January 17th. I've never been so much afraid. At the sports' swimming they said there is a test today from biology and physics. But there was none. Thank God, nothing. If only my math test would be '4': Oh, God. In the Young People's Magazine (which is the best newspaper I think) there is everything in it, it's cute; there is a quiz, you have to send in the actors of the 'Stars of Eger' until the 20th. Vera Venczel is my favourite. It's the 17th- Happily I'm in Pest. With the 7000 (code number of a gal), snub-nosed, flecked skinned, we were hanging around for an hour. In a garden there was an amateur group playing rock-beat songs. I couldn't buy 'Ludas'. I'm reading the book 'Mine, Yours, His, Hers'. It's Wednesday.
Is it true? It's a Jolly Joker!
On the screen: a woman with a crown. Nyanyi is pulling out the baking pan from the oven. The Empress. The friendly truth. Yesterday too there were potatoes. We see the left eye. Then: the right hand. Eyelashes. The small crescents of the nails? With the fingers to touch the fingertips? something begins? The fire is cracking? I don't see it clearly? The Four. The sound of 'Dalet' from the aleph-beth-gimel ABC.
The image of the body.
We see the lying body's outlines. The form of matter.
Broad shoulders, strong chest? it already exists with the heart in it? and a tight hip, double half-globe buttocks, softcurved thighs, legs; then comes the solid sole? I'm still at the right hand.The sceptre. The splendor, the glory, the news. The friendly truth.
The angel of Abraham: Tsadkiel. The Wisdom of God.
We could have thought he is not here at all.
The sceptre (Wand)? four: a clean, finished work.
Four of Cups: the peak of joy.
The Empress, the hierarchical knowledge. The amphibious life. The surface of the Earth. I'm feeling love and harmony. Belly touching belly. Small child.
Sharp mind. The Gemini. The doors. The shield of my Mother. The Monday, the Tuesday, Wisdom. Silliness. Highness. The splendid intelligence. Chesed: the cup or ark of mercy.
Left eye, right hand. And: 'Daleth'? Mars.
"Don't let me onto the road of lies."
Four of Swords: withdrawal, peace.
Four of Pentacles (club): wealth, law and order.
I see the first-aid kit in the hand of the ambulance guy.
He is going somewhere. Aha, upwards.
The concrete pool, the blue house, doors, gates, steps.
A little later I'm following him.
Pretending I'm looking for something else.
'Cause the old people are watching me keenly.
They should mind their own business.
There is the turn of the staircase. He's there. Okay.
An iron door.
I am stepping out in my tennis shoes, slowly. There was a Geniusky performance once upon a time in tennis outfit. After the one in the rosebud costume.
So it's better for him here up on the roof. Slowly I'm glancing through the half open door. The sky is grey-white, in the background the yellow-brown and green hills of Buda. I'm watching the first aid guy (who looks like my savings accountant). He puts his coat on the edge of the chimney, then he squats down, raising his hands to his head, he leans his chin on his fist. With closed eyes he looks into the sun, his uniform hat falls down. Then he reposes his hand on the earth and sits down. He opens his eye, turns my way and looks at me smiling. He means I can go to him and sit next to him if I want. With his left eye he's squinting.
I go up to him and I'm leaning my back to the chimney. I don't care if my Clinic uniform with its red sign will get dusty.
He is leaning back too, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth doesn't burn. And over the edge of the roof I see the pavilion of the buffet with that tender white-robed woman, maybe Romola will visit me today too.
Am I sure I belong to her?
He reaches out his right hand, 'Satan's bar1 BETWEEN HIS FINGERS? i DON'T REALLY WANT TO SMOKE, BUT i STILL HAVE THE GOOD MANNERS LEFT OVER FROM MY THEATRE TIMES, THAT i ALWAYS HAVE MATCHES ON ME, EVEN IN THE POCKET OF MY BATHING SLIP. The only role I was at ease with 'outside'? the role of the nice, quiet gentleman. It's a pity I became a prisoner here, because here there are less possibilities to play this role I think.
My hand shakes with the fire. I don't think he realized that, although I see he watches me closely. I don't think I seem to be that young? Maybe nobody will believe me, but except those dark figures? they were a threesome? that doesn't count after all, since they were? well, I mean, I haven't been with anybody? not 'like that'. I mean, never with a man. The only woman I was together with, well? it's another story. I try to pull in my belly. No, I can't cheat any more.
He knows I won't say a word, and he doesn't say anything either. From down under I hear the voice of a woman:
Yesterday we had a visit from Australia?
Another raspy woman's voice asks:
"Friends of friends?"
No, relatives of relatives, very nice kids, from some University, they studied Rustém Vambéry, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, so it was difficult for my English but they wanted to hear about my husband of course?
Now, there is nobody in the buffet pavilion, in the garden.
I think maybe? No? I don't think any 'maybe's'. Down there the glass of the brown-yellow plate mirrors all the other tables, cupboard and window, all those legs in jersey, lilac-yellow-red-blue-green patterned skirts and even pink silk lamé; and all the trousers, jeans and corderoy and ice grey-squared like the roof under my feet.
I see you on the roof of the Hospital as you are sitting behind the chimney looking toward the Small God Mountain, following the clouds.
I see downstairs in the curve of the road as the sign ABC is hanging high up, plastic surfaces on some nails? sparing money. In my heart a very old song is thrumming: "If I don't see you, I don't love you any more, if I love you now, I'll see you forever?" and a new song too, whispering with a childlike or old man's voice: "I like it as I put my arm around your shoulder, or should I ask someone else again?"
My right hand is sweating, that female just arrives from the coiffeur, she even has some rouge on her lips. The first aid guy is nice, he is not forcing me too much around the problem of my name.
My brothers and sisters:
Mute Russian prisoners in the picture boxes and around it!
Everything happens during 'Cosmos' with djinns swarming everywhere. The one who answers to the ten good advisements of God, changing point of view? the one who will be saved. News written on the sky?
I'm closing my eyes now. I lean back. I see some words written:
"The one I chose will repent all his sins!"
II
I don't say a word, because I don't have words in my head, but I'm very grateful toward the first aid guy. You know I think you are good and beautiful and whatever you are doing is good and beautiful. You didn't ask me again, the tenth time if I remember my name at least? or not. We were just sitting on the roof. It's the first time? maybe there were some other times still? that I meet real goodness: I become mute from rapture. I will help the blind old woman to cross the road? her face has a shadow of rouge on the sun? when I get out of here.
A bit later I go to the window and I'm looking out. There is that flower stand. Parallel lines on it. And the curves of that Camel-sign? The mouth of the camel.
In every form we can meet God.
Nothing interests me any more. From now on I'll just be watching things. And if I don't realise who I am? then I won't know it.
When Agathe's grandsons or granddaughters find their grandmother's diary from the forties, about her 'great love' after her husband's murder? well, they will be wondering. But I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to fall in love with her. I want to commit myself to my vocation? I have to stay clean for it.
I don't eat any sugary thing, they are putting drugs in.
I met Romola on the ship Avon. Funny, they say it means 'sin' in Hebrew. I gave her roses, they cost five francs each. I gave her twenty or thirty such roses every day. I felt eternal love and not sensual love. My love was white-not-red. Red roses make me frightened. I am not a coward.
I married her.
Three or four days after the marriage i felt uncomfortable for the first time. I wanted to teach my wife dancing, but she shied away. Any of my body's atoms can draw worlds. They create worlds. My eyes, my mind? they create the world. I am a tool in God's hands.
Once I have heard Gustave Mahler and Thomas Mann speaking in the garden? they were talking about the Hungarian sanatorium 'Siesta', if it was better than the 'Leopold' clinic in which I dwell now. The doorknob moves
The ambulance guy with his first aid kit arrives. He is smiling. For me it's okay to be here. Romola will have a child. Until then they might let me out. And then I'll be sitting before the house watching the thighs of the passers by, the wheels of the cars, the swirling red lights on the road, under the trees, the rectangular windows, the flickering TV lights. I'm watching this beautiful world.
Even the machines are answering you. Telephone-crickets are chirping over the autumn fields. Maybe these forms, all these globes and rounds and openings? and? and? is it possible they all exist even without ourselves?
I'm standing at the window. The first aid guy eats some salami from a grease-proof paper, I don't watch him. He is ordered to stay with me continuously, to supervise me waiting for my regaining of name-consciousness. If I would remember my name i would tell it at once. I don't do this directly.
Jehuda Löw (Leva) ben Betsalel (1580)? great-great-grandfather's great-great-grandfather's great-great-grandfather
"Those, who are telling lies against the non-Jews, having prejudices against them, are classed amongst the blasphemous ones. Talk with the Non-Jew tells him his mistake? If a Jew is attacking a Non-Jew and there is another Jew present, this last one has to defend the Non-Jew, even if he has to kill the dangerous Jew. It is not advisable at all to be prejudiced against the non-Jew, because it's written: 'To be unjust is a sin in the eyes of God.'
On the other question? why do his former friends keep apart from the baptized Jew? The answer is: every King has many different soldiers; infantry, navy, royal bodyguards, and so on? They are all under the commandment of the Supreme Lord of Armies. Still, they consider it to be a blasphemy to the flag if a soldier flees from one corps to the other, and his fellows, whose flag he deserted, are despising him, as much as if he went over to the enemy."
I'm watching the 'Dr Cosmos' series
So the production awaits me to enter into the spirit of the hero's role. Coveting means to suffer. Maybe that's why it is a 'don't'.
Cosima will not be happy if I begin to watch the Budapest video without awaiting her coming back. If she is angry, she shouts, "One of these days..!" She was rather upset once, realizing that I have never heard about the Prague rabbi Löw? except for the legend of the clay-man, which is just a legend. In reality he is considered to be the spiritual father of the later Jewish conversions and assimilations, since he interpreted the Scripture saying "the Saviour comes from Edom", meaning from the Evil Empire, which Kabbalists call 'golem', thus saying that the Saviour need not be Jewish?
On TV we are seeing how a Berlin senator, just talking about how it's time to stop the newest vogues of godlessness, pornography, AIDS and seed-killing? Somehow it's not easy for me to imagine God as a policeman, although he is policing us. He did accept us killing each other, even in His name? probably, because of free will? It's also possible, that if somebody does some evil thing, he or she falls out of God's world? over into the 'pre-world'. Or our words are not adequate, and in some unimaginable way the otherworldly judgement does exist: if nothing else, maybe in the last second of death -?time ceases, there's a Rewind: and man or at least his soul will know who he is, what he's done all along his life's course.
I switch over to the video? Rewind
It's funny, one can even forget his own mother? the way she dyes her hair; sure, she does, but I'm still surprised. And I forgot about all the shoutings that took place when living under the same roof. The lines on her face are not so evident; so you can see, she was really beautiful when she was young. Nobody ever will look at me with my mother's loving eyes?
Still, I get nervous when she begins to give me her advice. When I was at home we burst together into laughter; but now, she only goes on telling me how to? and even if she keeps silent: something lacks.
Yes, it's her presence. The personal presence.
Suddenly it cuts into my heart, how great it would be to go home, to find the adequate geniusky protagonist and to shoot in Budapest, since he was a war prisoner from 1914 there, it was there he ran mad, his wife having been Hungarian.
They were living in the Cool Valley. This thing about his getting crazy is a bit suspicious. I don't believe somebody just gets crazy. The camera shows us the panorama. The Cool Valley. The City Park 'Major'. The Small God Mountain. The Field of Leopold with the Clinic.
There he walks around.
You have to be born mad.
Or: who knows.
I'm watching TV. My mother is just pushing her folding chair backwards? they are sitting before the house on the veranda with the pillars. It could be in new jersey, if the bricks couldn't be seen behind the plaster. Nyanyi, my mother, is always being active; now, as the camera runs, she is wondering how to steal the show, she tries to get a better position, angling in her deck-chair, looking here and there, looking up suddenly:
Gyuri, I'll be writing to Mr Basquiat to tell him not to raise your rent, we had a common friend in his mother, you know, we were together in Paris in the thirties?
There is a small telephone table before her, on her legs I see the red-black chequered hairy cover. She is playing 'patience' with cards. Two of Diamonds: balance. Three of Clubs: originality.
Take that ark up in the kitchen? she waves to somebody outside the frame. I don't follow it, I hate nostalgies. I mentioned the name of Mr Basquiat in a letter, because it reminded me of the name of a Warholian painter. Anyway, my mother found out who he is, and she will attack him with letters about the rabbi Löw. I only hope Cosima will find some real 'document' to make Nyanyi happy.
Meanwhile, Anna arrives on the screen, infant on her arm. Funny, what a sweet kind person she has become, Anna?I'm sure it's my other cousin, Sanyi, behind the camera.
1968
It's Thursday, and for the sake of variety, it's the 18th. After getting up at 9, I prepare the writing housework, then at 10 I go over to Sanyis, to learn and watch TV at home. Mom doesn't want TV. While going to the school, two (2) chimney-cleaners, who will? I hope? bring luck for tomorrow, for the phsics' test and for gymnastics, but anyway I will be telling my knee aches, because there will be this 'cat's springing' course. Oh, gymnastics? If I had luck tomorrow, school. Today in school: the gal of Maté said 'yes' through Macska, the '7000' told me while going home quickly, what Hoffmann, the idol of the girls had said. Do I believe in God? Not in a religious way. But I believe in something that has power and people made it 'saint'. But the people of primal times did believe in him, to have some consolation, support. Basically it's the same with me, I have my special prayer method, that? to sound like a real prayer? includes the saints too. Biologically, naturally, the creator is an impossibility, but I need someone to trust. That's how it is. And I'm also superstitious. Mainly in schooltime, and it's only since? two years, that I'm writing down every day: Oh, if tomorrow I would be lucky? January 19th, Friday, day of Sarah. Sun gets up at 7.26, sets 16.24. Moon gets up in 53 mins. It's 20.00 now. Sets 9.39. I do write in this light mood, but I haven't been so cheerful when I got up at half past six, since I had to be at Zsóka's flat at half past seven (mom's colleague's third daughter), and then we went to the German and Belgian Embassy with Sanyi, I don't know why.
We have been talking about the Hungarian language, that it hasn't got any nasal or 'rolled r', so Hungarians learn languages easily.
School. Hungarian. Uncle Tottery? like some dried up cream on a muddy shoe, but the poet, Attila József didn't write it that way, I'm sorry. Physics: although 240: 80 = 3 and not 30 my test was good enough. History: Fascism. The Comrade Director is always saying: 'blood-vaporouis faschism". I will note his platitudes too, like the ones of Mrs Dancshazi: the murmuring of Uncle Tottery is covering his golden heart. Gymnastics: exempted. Biology together with the 'B' class (they are very bad), poor teacher. Russian: the teacher, who came instead of David, is like the one before, quite good. But she said: "Russian is not in your blood." Father and Mother laughed a lot when I told this.
High buildings on the screen. Demonstrators. Japanese or rather Korean writings. Watercannons. Now we see a balding head, talking.
It's terrible, one's mind constantly turns to sex. It isn't worth while to philosophize upon it too much. As if there were electromagnetic? I mean unseen? waves, that are striking out and they either hit somebody else, or not. Well, yes, this is a kind of force. And the most astonishing in the whole thing is that no rational decision is valid? it's a passion that drifts you along.
The first-aid guy sits on the bed next to the window reading the news. I'm standing with my back towards him, but I feel he is watching me. It's funny how people can sense if they are watched. As if some rays would come out of the eye. In the mirror I discover my face. Unfortunately I don't know this man. If I would move away a bit, I would see the first-aid boy, his grey uniform's jacket and his belt are hanging on the white banister of the bed.
It's the face that comes now. And the left hand. The face? The nose, the cheek and this line here, and here too? the front? the eyebrow. Like this. We sing the letter 'he', the Five. The Ram.The letter of cleanness. The Sword, the Belt, the letter of the jury. The sound of Fear. The sound of elements. The seal of Highness.The liver. The liver will be here? sidewise. Under the skin, under the muscles. Here. The Joker is the Emperor.
The Emperor? Might. Self-control. Decisiveness. Wild animals. Gravitation. Territoriality, house-gods. Gamael, the angel of Samson. March? the month of Nissar. The 'me'? joy, fright, extasy, despair and the sound of sorrow: he. Life. Neighbours. Dragon's blood. Rubin.
The cup of Five: Sternness, Truth (Geburah)
I see in the mirror that the first-aid guy is telling me something. He is probably interested how I feel, what's up. Probably he is not just a medical orderly but a doctor. I don't understand what he is saying; anyway, I can't say either yes or no, whatever he asks. His trousers must be too tight if he put off his belt? his white shirt hangs loose. He waves me to approach him.
Don't covet:
I'm rather afraid. But still I? feel: it's okay this way. If my guess is correct I should never want anything other than what actually does happen. Or anything else, except who I am. There is a teethbrush in one of the five glasses on the plate over the washbasin.
I'm squatting next to his bed.
I feel, as he touches my face with his left hand, smoothing my cheeks, and he puts a question, probably, about who I am. Maybe loving kindness, trust, will help me getting back from my amnesia. The five of cups: the cup of happiness fell apart. Melancholy.
The first aid guy mildly slaps my face and then, suddenly, gives me a real backhanded knockout.
I see the stars. But my name doesn't jump in.
I know he means well. He looks at me eagerly? his eyes are full with tears. He is my helper. Five sceptres: fight. The animal side.
Tears go down my cheeks. I point to the TV screen with my head, to tell him, to switch it on, "Cause he was leaning on the switcher.
In the "Dr. Cosmos," the protagonist watches the home-made videos he's got. With Anna, we always argued, when we were young. Blonde and blue-eyed, she is like Cosima; it's a pity Cosima doesn't see her, she would be searching the medieval Jewish families even more passionately. I wonder what kinds of monsters she will take home from the bar. Otherwise it's a good place, flowers hanging in every corner, for quite a fortune; sure, there will be a return on that too and there are these plastic tubes, like on construction sites, the bar seats are on them... And the guests are also wearing these working uniformlike dresses, loose, linen, it's very trendy? with holes at the adequate places.
Some, of course, do come in tail coat.
I should be preparing the next Nijinsky scene.. I've got the feeling we ordered somebody to come here, only I don't find my notice book again? So we're on a ball, women in silk gown, men in tuxedo.
Sweat pearls on the front of the dancer.
He can't answer the congratulating honey-sweet smiles all round him. A small, stocky, moustached, tail-coated man with a monocle steps over to him, with one white curl in the middle of his black hair. He grasps his arm at the biceps.
A princess with sparkling diadems leans over to ask:
The puppet is, of course, the symbol of passions that are pulling us on-line? isn't it?
The man with the white curl? Diaghilev, the manager? evades the answer:
I'm sorry, the artist needs some rest?
Oh, I'm so much afraid.
Am I afraid!
Oh, my God. Oh, God. I can't do anything else. A brake. Swishing of a car. Dribbling water. Leaves of a platan. Chopin. Oh, my God, my God, I can't do anything.
The leaves on the trees. They don't do it otherwise either.
I'm putting on a disk. I'm at home. The camera is showing the garden; we hear the sound of somebody dusting a carpet. There's the cherry tree. Down under, it's the triangular roof of the school, built by Karoly Koós, also a Transsylvanian Hungarian, like the gentry family of Pops'? inside it's paint oily green with yellowish lines, and photos on the wall about houses being built, black-and-white, with the subscription: Debrecen (city hall).
It sounds as if the voice of the piano would come from out house. They are putting chairs on the veranda, green leaves run all over the house, this man here from behind, is probably Charles, he puts down a green fauteuil with metal tubes and he waves to the camera: "No, not yet?" And I see Nyanyi with her cards, the pictures whirl away: Five of clubs; Poorness, worries, but not to lose hope! Sure, they agreed, that once, after the family meal -?mostly on Saturdays, and I found some reason to evade even then? well, they'll come together to send me a message on video. Nice idea. I'll send them one too.
Poor little cards without Jolly. King of Diamond. The untouchable. It helps, that the ten of diamonds is there too, it means: the worst is over.
Sometimes I would like to stop? I feel like it's all over. Okay, in '90 there will be this Nijinsky jubilee? or we can honor him later, no need to run. Okay, the Doctor wants a film, it's his business; well, Cosima wants to prepare for her doctorate? very well. And there were already many other films made about Nijinsky and there will be several others yet. And about the golem, too.
He is travelling with a ship to Rio, the wind caresses his hair, with the tennis racket in his hand he sees the Hungarian aristocratic little Comtesse with her tennis shoes, Romola Pulszky: in her sunglasses he sees the Christ-statue on the mountain high up over the harbour.
Yes, and then the rupture with Diaghilev, who will pay money for a theatre worker to throw a beam on his head. "Diaghilev didn't love me, if I didn't give all my money that he used for the ballet." Picasso. Cocteau. Rodin. 1914. Budapest. He becomes a prisoner of war, since he is Russian and Polish. With his last statement? Sankt Moritz, on a silk in cross-form, with his naked dancing? some say he proclaimed himself to be the saviour. He is mute and immobile in Buda. And maybe this "golem-family" lives in the last four-hundred-and-thirty years. Funny, this was the number of the years spent in Egyptian slavery. The Jews are harassed continually, and in every three-hundred years there are massive killings too? and not many papers are left after the fire; however dilligently the masters have written their notes with the Assyrian-originated letters. Even Herodes began his reign by making the family papers burn.
It would be great if we found some descendants of these neighbours. But it's hopeless. And I don't have money. Not that much. And I don't even know, if I woulld like to go back into this shabby, voluntaristic little town to breathe its used air? On the other hand, there is nowhere else I want to be. Some say, the best place for meditation, apart from india? it's Buda. Here is the place where the Blue Ribbon touches the Earth. A light-path. Oh, Buda!
Knocking on the door.
I switch off the voice from my mother, she just raised her stick, beginning to tell about how they will pull down the neighbouring house, that's why we see these ruins? I never understood why she was always so fascinated by the neighbours, even if they were Nijinsk's and all those stars.
One of the reasons of my deserting home.
Here too, the neighbours are astonishing? one of the elderly ladies dying her hair bluish green and putting some of the coloured dyes on her cats? sha has seventy cats, and she goes out on the street once in a month, to go to the hairdresser. And there is this balding, fortyish gentleman, who plays an oboe, and with puppets? dressing huge barbie puppets, sometimes when angry at them, putting some of them before his door. Cosima once? stopping researching Egon Erwin Kisch and Sacher-Mazoch (Budapest stars)? took these puppets in our loft, they will do nicely at the rehearsing of the ball scene.
Somebody knocks at my door, no doubt it's here.
On the screen I see the Page of Cups at the family garden party, all alone. In the Middle Ages there were two Jacks; a jack-boy and a jack-girl. Boy-boy and boy-girl.
I am looking through the hole; it's a boy. I reach the doorknob. It's round and metallic. I open the door and a small yellow-green-grey boy is swirling inside, his back is bent, his ears are big, his mouth is thick, his nose is lightly curved, his eyes are deep.
Surely he came for the ad. He doesn't look like a star. Although? His legs are really beautiful and his arms too. If the lights are good? No, no, no. What shall I tell him?
On the screen I see a moustached man. He is the Tsar now, his name is Stalin. And now, many little people running around the place; they are like ants. It's at the time of the first war. We see the father of Agathe, in 1907, in a Paris hotel, in pajamas. He was delighted by the 'undressing man' and the 'Russian dancer'. And the 'projected pictures'. Tomorrow, there are negotiations again; they want to buy 'concrete'.
We are seeing the daughter of Agathe in the lap of Attila József, the poet. We see her later as she tries to resign to having lost everybody she ever loved, and even their house they lost, she has to go to a bureau to work every day, the guy she loves refuses her, so she makes a marriage just to show off to him; then she divorcesand does everything till her death for her child.
Oh, such a pity I can't say a word, I'd like to console this little girl! What was the sin of this generation? The generation of Agathe and husband Gyuri strayed away from God with the rationalism of friends Mannheim and Max Weber. But their children? And their children? (yes, in the bible, sin is punished until the third or fourth generation).
I'm not happy to see what I'm seeing. What was the sin of this generation born in the twenties-thirties? that their young age fell on the years of barrack-building and ditch-digging? When uniformed youngsters were shouting with the greatest minds of the age till these died. And later, when for decades, orange was a luxury item, and from behind glass windows and from under their perms, the honest man was looked upon with distrust?
Tennis shoes on the camel. A sign: Adidas.
Hospital.
No plaster in the corner of the room. I'm lying on my bed, he lays on his. If there are others, they're not inside. So maybe this Nijinsky was in the very same room watching TV. It would be great to get up, but I'm full of drugs, I can't move. János Sebestyén plays cembalo? Haydn, Scarlatti and bach. Then: comrade Kádár speaks about the stabilisation program. Five of clubs: poorness.
Yes, sometimes I become very quick, because I had to take medicines that made me slow for fifteen years. It not only made me tired, but it changes my attitude, takes my faith, and I become full of doubts, hopeless, cynical, terrified from death: but I remember how much I was happy when I didn't have to take the drugs! Life was beautiful! The cosmos was shining? But it has passed away. They took me off it. But what's my name? Who am I? A hero from the 'Cosmos' series? Geniusky, the star of the tsar? Transylvan gentleman or a lecherous Jewish prince? Come on: common Hungarian, during cosmos.
Now, to place the bible? Somewhere on the side? How silky his skin is? This way? All the while singing the 'vav', the Six: oo-oo-ou-w-oo-woo-ough? And to place in the hearing, although the ears don't exist as yet. 'Vav' means the godly force of virtue. Light. Crystals. Six: the Beauty, the holding Cup of Tiphereth. Six of Sceptre: victory. Six of cup: delight. Six of sword: (diamond): success. Six of clubs (pentacles): no worry in material questions.
The Sun. The Seal of Deepness. Raphael. And Pheliel, the angel of Yitshak. The month of April, Iyyar. The sign of Taurus. The High Priest: the society of children, the horde, the group. The ape. The lion. Apollo.
The Jolly Joker of the High Priest. Goodness. "My hand reaches toward Your Law"- Here I will smooth out the skin.
It's simple: I like to touch another body? even if I don't want to be touched, mostly. Of course it would be great to have children from a woman. My mother always said at that: you should have been born a high priest? No she wouldn't say that. I'm so abundantly an outsider from everywhere, sometimes I begin to think I might be chosen. But of course, probably, it's a misunderstanding, after all, our human eyes can fail in these bodily questions, who knows what the body in reality is?or means? Between lions I'm an ape, between apes I'm a lion.
1974
Fright woke me up, when it became evident, that in my dream, I'm not 'at another place', but 'anywhere', in such a way, that maybe it will not be possible to come back? Of course this should be read only afterwards? Like?like torn skinsurfaces on the flesh, that's how it was anywhere.
I'm waking up. No, it was not Satan, no. It was the feeling of my own self one minute after. ONE MINUTE AFTER THE ONE BEFORE.
And all this was high upon the Back of Baghdad, behind the Night: the High Priest Backwards.
Backwards: from two directions at once? looking like a dandy, a? stocky, moustached, country gentlemanlike, jovial, turn-of-the-century? person. Backwards: now here, now there? disappearing in the light? no, it's not blood, not blood, it's clouds, it's the wine of sacrifice, it's seen from another angle of the mirror? the other side of the Back: instead of the cold, humid hill?
Loveless mercy, covering itself into physical and other pain: and white silk sheets forming a cross.
I don't know what to say to this guy. Behind the door? just a board? Berlin is throbbing. I tell him to come inside, this floor is never closed, and inside it's warmer too. I packed up a bit, I tried to hide the disorder. I threw the stockings of Cosima behind the folding screen next to the oven. How pearls can stay, and to the pillar? grey-and-white? I pushed the TV and the writing machine.
His skin is too dark to play the role of a Russian dancer.
On the other hand? His face is beautiful. On video it's quite okay.
I should offer him something to drink. Where was this cocktail? Yes.? A Manhattan?
He waves, no. I don't drink either. One of the carpets is laying in the middle of the bathroom, I don't know why. I don't watch him. But I should.
Oh, my God, how do we come here, into this world? There are all these people around us, they've got their hands, legs and eyes? and everybody does a million different things, and from the many, many houses, suddenly somebody pops up here? I don't know, how many there were before him, I think thirty at least? and I have to watch carefully this stranger, to prepare him for the rehearsal. The studio-loft? as Cosima says? gets its sun-ray portion through the round window. The guy is shining even more, like a diamond.
On the screen I see the polished nails of Mom: Four of Diamonds: Conflict with positive outcome.
This guy, as I'm watching his bright eyes, his open smile, the skin covering tightly his cheekbones? well, he certainly isn't such a miserable mewing moron, like myself.
Oh, again I'm having a soul?
Gosh, he just found our ad two months ago?
Jesus, it's also possible he's just some maniac from the Cosmos Bureau, as the Doctor calls it. Maybe he's just bringing money. Or he just heard about the production. A 'dancer' film: 'Shooting in Budapest'. What a pity we cannot get there by ship from Berlin. There is this wall. Maybe they'll build one on the Danube too. They have begun. What can they do about it? There are astonishing types that ring at the doors. One of them had an alligator once.
Now I see the eyes of this nice, thin Asian. Sure, he's a Chinese prince.
Why did they call Nijinsky 'Chinese'? I ask him, where he comes from?? I'm Rapanui. And they call me? because of those stone faces on the Easter Island? they call me Ko-ne Zi-u Ma-to. You may call me just? Ko-Z-Ma.? Kozma?? I raise my eyebrow: in Greek it means ornament and order.
It seems to me I've heard this name somewhere.
Hm. I'm going into the background of the room, to the little cassette-cupboard that even has a bullet from fifty-six in it? to give him a script.
He is standing in the shadow. His shoulder is sweating. Like a peach that fell into yellow-grey-pink-green shoecream: anguish and hope on his face. I begin to switch on a few lamps. Why don't we call the old lady? No? no? Kozma? Funny name. (Maybe my own name is beginning with 'K' too?)
I see he is reading, standing. I sit down. So does he, without looking up. This is the part, where Nijinsky is pulled by Diaghilev behind the velvet curtain at that party? golden fringes, old prints, Persian carpets, a porcelain leopard? the boy is trembling with tears in his eyes and, behind the window, under the deep grey Petersburg sky, he hears the cry of the gulls over the carriages sliding and ringing in the snow.
And, as you know, Diaghilev, the impressario tells him in his silky voice:
"Yes. Of course, you are afraid. My sweet little gull. All normal people have fears. And you just take on yourself their fears. You don't need it any more. Say it after me: I'm not afraid of people?"
"I'm not?"? says the boy and shakes his head. He doesn't want to tell it.
"Yes. We agreed, you will accept my advice. Repeat: "I'm not?afraid?" I?I'm?nooooooootafraaaaa?..raaaaaaiiiiid," the guy began crying. And even shouting, hoarsely, tearing the velvet curtain:
"But I am really afraid of all of you!!!"
"Oh? my sweet little prince? who is my little prince?"
Diaghilev stands up here and reaches toward his light-green and pink homegown, and there is the small silver bell to ring the lackey.
"I told you; I ask you to tell the exact opposite of what you really feel in your head.While you are afraid you are still saying? "please? I am not afraid."
"I am not afraid?I am not afraid of anybody," says the young dancer and smoothes the fringes of his uniform-shoulderplates, his yellow eyes sparkling.
But then his regard is darkening and tears drop out of his eyes? who knows, he might think about his mother, who is just doing the ironing in a cellar, next to the bare white-washed wall? and then he suddenly grabs the good-smelling, grey-locked, monocled uncle, Diagow-Diagow: like a kid he is shaken by sobbing. They are both sobbing and then laughing. And the last one(says the children's rhyme): a big beating.
Teardrops in the corner of my eye. Smile on my lips. I pat on my knees.
"Why does he do that?," my Rapanui aboriginal friend looks up, turning his catlike eye and thick eyebrow towards me, and his nicely formed mouth is smiling a bit together with his lightly cracked nose expressing wonder.
"You have to act this role. You don't have to understand,"-I would tell him.
But he doesn't really follow me. His English is not the best.
Neither is mine.
I'm looking around.The lamp is shining.Golden greenish purple copper switchboard. Light dust on its legs. Grey-white pillars. Boxes all over the place. Like a stable.
It's not easy to imagine in this place some velvet curtains at the turn-of-the-century Petersbourg. Where snow is falling. Some three-horse carriages trot, ring their bell in a rhythm that was not so bad for the health. Nijinsky makes it stop, looking around. Which one might be the palace of Diaghilev? The one with lions at the entrance? A general in a general's uniform: Feodor Vassiliewitch, the porter of the Mentor.
If this guy really comes from the Easter Islands? can he learn the right shade of shyness, the one that this young and talented Russian-Polish dancer feels when he is invited for the first time to the official Maecenas of the age, who is laying now up there at one of his bearskins at the fire of the fire-place, mixing his cards slowly.
The blunder won't repeat itself. But shame burns forever.
Could Kozma ever hear about Russians?
Does he know what it's all about? Has he ever been in such a situation, when it was not Fate that stood against his will, but the net of will of other people, who are also lazy, evil and self-deceiving? Was this man ever over the Wall? I have to ask him. He does live here for some reason. He is reading so concentratedly. Maybe a Russian should be played by a Russian. But?They say Russians are extremely cruel or extremely good, so maybe one should not be too carefool.Still, it is astonishing that such "national" characteristics do exist at all. Yes. It is very funny, that there are differences between people from the point of view of skin clour, constitution of body, hair colour and I don't know what else.
Except that Jews are of the colour of the rainbow as we know.
The heart is throbbing when throbbing.
Oh, if ever there will happen something interesting to me, I'll tell you about it.
Kozma Gyorgy lives in Budapest