The Doctor Asks Me - Yesterday

The doctor asks me:

“Why did you choose the name ‘Line’ for the woman you are waiting for?”

I say:

“Because my mother was called Line and I loved her very much. I was ten when she died.”

He says:

“Tell me about your childhood.”

I was waiting for that one. My childhood! Everyone is interested in my childhood.

I dealt with his stupid questions quite well. I had my childhood worked out ready for every occasion, my lie was in good working order. I have already employed it several times. I have told it to Yolande, to my small handful of friends and acquaintances, and I will tell the same story to Line.

I am a war orphan. My parents were killed in the air raids. I am the only survivor from my family. I have no brothers or sisters.

I was brought up in an orphanage, like so many other children at that time. At the age of twelve, I ran away from the orphanage, I crossed the frontier. That’s all.

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

I am certainly not going to tell him about my real childhood!

I was born in a nameless village in an insignificant country.

My mother, Esther, begged in the village, she also slept with men, peasants who gave her flour, grain, milk. She also stole fruit and vegetables from fields and gardens, sometimes even a chicken or duckling from a farmyard.

When the peasants slaughtered a pig they would keep the offcuts for my mother, the tripe and stuff like that, whatever the villagers didn’t want to eat.

For us, everything was good.

My mother was the thief, beggar, and whore of the village.

I sat outside the house, I played with the clay, I molded it, I made huge phalluses, breasts, buttocks. I also sculpted my mother’s body in the red clay and made holes in it with my tiny fingers: the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the ears, the sex, the anus, the navel.

My mother was full of holes, like our house, my clothes, my shoes. I stuffed the holes in my shoes with mud.

I lived in the yard.

When I felt hungry, or tired, or cold, I went into the house, I found something to eat, grilled potatoes, cooked grain, milk curds, sometimes some bread, and I lay down on the mattress next to the stove.

Most of the time the bedroom door was open to allow the heat from the kitchen to spread through. I saw and heard everything that went on.

My mother came into the kitchen to wash her behind in a bucket, wiped herself with an old rag, went back to sleep. She hardly ever talked to me and she never kissed me.

The most surprising thing was that I was an only child. I still wonder how my mother managed to get rid of her other pregnancies and why she “kept” me. Perhaps I was her first “accident.” There are only seventeen years between us. Perhaps she then learned what she had to do to avoid being burdened with kids and to survive.

I remember that she would sometimes stay in bed for several days at a time and all her old rags would be saturated with blood.

Of course, I wasn’t bothered by any of this. I can even say that I had a happy childhood, since I didn’t know that childhood could be any different.

I never went to the village. We lived next to the cemetery, in the last street in the village, in the last house. I was happy playing in the yard, in the mud. Sometimes the sky was clear, but I loved the wind, the rain, the clouds. The rain stuck my hair to my forehead, to my neck, in my eyes. The wind dried my hair, stroked my face. The monsters hiding in the clouds told me about far-away lands.

It was harder in winter. I also loved the snowflakes, but I didn’t stay outside long. I didn’t have clothes which were warm enough and I got cold very quickly, particularly my feet.

Sometimes a man came out of the bedroom into the kitchen. He gazed at me for a long time, he stroked my hair, he kissed me on the forehead, he pressed my hands against his cheeks.

I didn’t like that, I was afraid of him, I trembled. But I wasn’t brave enough to push him away.

He came often. And he wasn’t a peasant.

I wasn’t afraid of the peasants, I detested them, I despised them, they disgusted me.

I met this man, the one who stroked my hair, at school. There was only one school in the village. The teacher gave lessons to the pupils in every year, right up to the sixth.

On my first day at school, my mother washed me, dressed me, cut my hair. She also got dressed up the best she could. She accompanied me to school. She was only twenty-three, she was beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the village, and I was ashamed of her.

She said to me:

“Don’t be afraid. The teacher is nice. You know him already.”

I went into the classroom, I sat in the front row. Right in front of the teacher’s desk. I waited. Next to me sat a very beautiful little girl, pale and thin, with tresses on both sides of her face. She looked at me and said:

“You’re wearing my brother’s jacket. And his shoes. What’s your name? My name is Caroline.”

The teacher came in and I recognized him.

Caroline said:

“That’s my father. And back there with the bigger children is my elder brother. Back home there’s my little brother, who is only three. My father is called Sandor and he’s in charge here. What is your father’s name? What does he do? He is a peasant, I reckon. Everyone around here is a peasant, except my father.”

I said:

“I don’t have a father. He is dead.”

“Oh! That’s a shame. I wouldn’t like my father to be dead. But there’s the war and lots of people will die. Particularly men.”

I said:

“I didn’t know there was a war. But maybe you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. They talk about the war every day on the radio.”

“I haven’t got a radio. In fact, I don’t even know what a radio is.”

“You really are stupid! What are you called?”

“Tobias. Tobias Horvath.”

She laughed:

“Tobias is a funny name. I have a grandfather who is called Tobias, but he is old. Why didn’t they give you a normal name?”

“I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, Tobias is a normal name. Caroline isn’t a particularly nice name either.”

“You’re right. I don’t like my name. Call me Line, like everyone else.”

The teacher said:

“Stop talking, children.”

Line whispered:

“Which class are you in?”

“The first.”

“Me too.”

The teacher handed out the list of reading books and notebooks we had to buy.

The children went home. I stayed behind on my own. The teacher asked me:

“Is there something wrong, Tobias?”

“Yes. My mother can’t read and we don’t have any money.”

“I know. Don’t worry. You will have everything you need tomorrow morning. You get yourself home. I will come and see you this evening.”

He came. He shut himself up in the bedroom with my mother. He was the only one who bothered to close the door when he had sex with my mother.

I went to bed in the kitchen, as usual.

The next day at school I found everything I needed at my desk. Books, notebooks, pencils, pens, an eraser, paper.

That day, the teacher said that Line and I couldn’t stay sitting together, because we chatted too much. He sat Line in the middle of the room, surrounded by girls, and she chatted even more than before. I sat on my own in front of the teacher’s desk.

During playtime, the “big ones” tried to annoy me. They shouted:

“Tobias, son of a whore, son of Esther!”

The teacher intervened, all big and strong:

“Leave the little one alone. If you lay a hand on him, you’ll have me to deal with.”

They all backed off and lowered their heads.

At playtimes only Line came to me. She gave me half of her jam sandwich or biscuit. She would say:

“My parents told me I should be nice to you, because you are poor, because you don’t have a father.”

I would have liked to refuse the sandwich or the biscuit. But I was hungry. At home I never had such nice things to eat.

I continued to go to school. I quickly learned to read and do sums.

The teacher still came to our house. He lent me books. Sometimes he brought me clothes his eldest son had grown out of, or shoes. I didn’t want them, because I knew that Line would recognize them, but my mother made me wear them.

“You haven’t got anything else to wear. Would you rather go to school naked?”

I didn’t want to go to school naked, I didn’t want to go to school at all. But school was compulsory. The police would have come around if I hadn’t gone. That’s what my mother said. They could lock her up too, if she didn’t send me to school.

So I went. I went to school for six years.

Line would say to me:

“My father is very nice to you. We could keep my older brother’s coats for the little one, but he gives them to you because you don’t have a father. My mother goes along with this because she too is very nice, she thinks that she should help the poor.”

The village was full of very nice people. Peasants and peasants’ sons came to the house all the time to bring us something to eat.

By the age of twelve, I had finished compulsory education and had received excellent marks. Sandor said to my mother:

“Tobias should continue his studies. He is of above-average intelligence.”

My mother replied:

“You know that I don’t have any money to pay school fees.”

Sandor said:

“I could find him a free place. My eldest son has one. They are given bed and board. There’s nothing to pay. I can give him pocket money. He could be a lawyer or a doctor when he grows up.”

My mother said:

“If Tobias goes away, I’ll be on my own. I thought that once he grew up he would bring money into the house. By working with the peasants.”

Sandor said:

“I don’t want my son to become a peasant. Even worse, a farm hand, a beggar like you.”

My mother said:

“When I kept this child I was thinking of my old age. And you want to take him away from me now that I am starting to grow old.”

“I thought you kept the child because you loved me and you loved him.”

“Yes, I loved you, and I still love you. But I need Tobias. I can’t live without him. Now it’s him that I love.”

Sandor said:

“If you really love him, go away. He’ll never turn out well with a mother like you. You’ll be nothing but a burden, an embarrassment to him, all his life. Go to the city. I’ll pay for your ticket. You are still young. You can still pass off as a woman in her twenties. You could earn ten times what you get from these lousy peasants. I’ll take care of Tobias.”

My mother said:

“It’s because of you that I stayed here, and because of Tobias. I wanted him to be near his father.”

“Are you really sure that he is my son?”

“You know very well he is. I was a virgin. I was only sixteen. You ought to remember that.”

“I know that the whole village has had you over the years.”

She said:

“That’s true. But what would I have lived from without that?”

“I’ve helped you.”

“Yes, old coats, old shoes. I had to eat too.”

“I did what I could. I’m only a village schoolteacher and I have three children of my own.”

My mother asked:

“Don’t you love me anymore?”

The man replied:

“I’ve never loved you. You bewitched me with your face, your eyes, your mouth, your body. You possessed me. But I do love Tobias. He belongs to me. I will take care of him. But you have to go away. It’s over between us. I love my wife and children. Even the one who was born of you I love. I can’t stand you anymore. You are just a youthful indiscretion, the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life.”

As usual, I was on my own in the kitchen. From the bedroom came the usual noises, which I hated. In spite of everything, they were still making love.

I listened to them. I shivered on my mattress, under my blanket, and the whole kitchen shivered with me. I tried to warm my arms, my legs, my stomach with my hands, but to no avail. I was racked by a sob which couldn’t escape from my body. On my mattress, under my blanket, I had suddenly realized that Sandor was my father and that he wanted to get rid of my mother and me.

My teeth chattered.

I was cold.

I felt hate rising within me against that man who claimed to be my father and who was now asking me to abandon my mother at the same time as he was abandoning her himself.

A void opened up inside me. I had had enough, I didn’t want anything anymore. Not to study, nor to work with the peasants who came every day to have sex with my mother.

I had only one desire: to leave, to walk, to die, whatever. I wanted to get away, never come back, disappear, melt away into the forest, the clouds, no longer have memories, forget, forget.

I took the largest knife from the drawer, a meat knife. I went into the bedroom. They were asleep. Him lying on her. They were illuminated by the moon. It was a full moon. A huge moon.

I plunged the dagger into the man’s back, I pressed down on it with all my weight so that it would go well in and also go through my mother’s body.

After that, I left.

I walked through the fields of maize and wheat, I walked through a forest. I went towards the setting sun, I knew there were other countries in the west, countries different from ours.

I went through villages begging and stealing fruit and vegetables from fields. I hid myself in goods trains, I traveled with truck drivers.

Without realizing it, I arrived in another country, in a large city. I continued to steal and beg the necessities of life. I slept on the streets.

One day, the police arrested me. They put me in a “children’s home” for boys. There were delinquents, orphans, and homeless boys like me.

I didn’t call myself Tobias Horvath anymore. I had made myself a new name with the names of my father and mother. I was now called Sandor Lester and I was treated as a war orphan.

They asked me lots of questions, they made investigations in several countries to find any surviving family, but no one claimed Sandor Lester.

At the home we were clean, well fed, and well educated. The principal was a beautiful, elegant, very stern woman. She wanted us to turn into well brought-up men.

When I was sixteen, I could leave and take up a trade. If I had gone for an apprenticeship I could have stayed at the home, but I’d had enough of the principal, the restrictions of the timetable, having to share a bedroom with several other people.

I wanted to earn enough money to be completely free as quickly as possible.

I became a factory worker

* * *

Yesterday, at the hospital, I was told that I could go home and go back to work. So I went home, I threw the pills they had given me—pink, white, blue—down the toilet.

Luckily it was Friday, I had another two days before I had to go back to work. I used them to do my shopping, to restock my fridge.

On Saturday evening I visited Yolande. Then, when I got home, I drank several bottles of beer and I wrote.