Tranquility by Attila Bartis Read Free Book Online Page A

a moving escalator, at a streetcar stop or in a pub; the chatter of people at the next table has never done any harm to the monologues of Father Zossima or Marmeladov; the parallel speeches manage all right. Actually, sometimes it was downright interesting to listen simultaneously to an altercation over a crucial soccer game and at the same time peruse the Critique of Pure Reason . Only landscapes bother me, which is not a blessing. I’ve always envied people who can sit and read a book on Margit Island or put pen to paper in a rose arbor. For some reason I never could, so I didn’t even try to look at the book the priest had given me, only kept gazing at the Plain and waited for the conductor, for the checking of tickets to be over. For years I’d dreaded the moment when a ticket-inspector would find something wrong with my ticket and make me get off the train, which of course is rubbish, still one can’t have a quiet moment until the checking is over. Why can’t that damn conductor come already, I thought, but quickly realized that I wasn’t afraid at all. On the contrary, if he made me get off, I’d wander around in the wilderness for forty days and that would be something very useful. Without me, you can’t even turn on the faucet, Mother, I thought. You’d have to be very economical with that half a kiloof bread you have in the house, I thought. Because not even God would run down to the corner store for you, I thought. And you, Mother, happen to live almost exclusively on bread, I thought. On the best white bread of the Rákóczi bakery, I thought. If there is a drop of humanity in this conductor, he’d find some flaw in my ticket and throw me out of the speeding train into the wilderness, and you will go downstairs to do the shopping yourself, I thought. Of the monthly five hundred francs, you’ll have enough for the no need for them Béres drops and the nobody sees it anyway makeup, I thought. By the way, it’s not my kid sister but my older sister; you could have learned that much by now, Mother, I thought. The two of us had decided that when we were just seven. Because it would have been a stupid waste to spend a lifetime fighting over that half hour difference, I thought. So, while you were rehearsing some review about the labor movement, the two of us in the prompter’s box stared each other down; the one who lasted longer without blinking became the older one, period, no questions asked, I thought. And we told you about the decision, too. At least then, you could have learned that Judit was my older sister, I thought. Good day, tickets please, said the conductor. Here you are, I said. At least you could have pretended to remember more from that labor movement review than the bursting dam and an injured eye, I thought. This is a nonsmoker, said the conductor. Sorry, I’ll go outside, I said. Though one definitely pays attention when one’s sex organ is injured, I thought. Just pull the window down, said the conductor, that’ll be enough. All right then, I said, I mean thank you.
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    When the mailman delivered Judit’s first letter from America, the comrade minister of culture summoned Comrade Fenyő, the party secretary of thetheater, and told him that his heart would not bleed too much for Miss Weér, partly because he preferred buxom yet slender and swarthy actresses, and partly because the line for the various prizes and souvenir rings was growing so long that a vacancy at the top of the seniority ladder would come very handy at this time; however, as reported by The New York Times , Miss Weér’s little by-blow’s been sawing away pretty smartly on her violin out there. In short, it would be a pity to give up on someone like that; after all, we are a musical superpower, are we not? Not to mention that while fiddlers are dazzling and attractive, they are also easy to hold on a short leash. They