I Rarely Go Around - Yesterday

I rarely go around to Paul’s. We are so sad that we can’t find anything to say to each other. All three of us feel guilty about having gone on holiday without Vera. Me even more than the other two. I watched Yolande getting a tan while Vera killed herself. Perhaps she was in love with me.

Kati doesn’t have the courage to write to tell her mother that her little sister is dead. Her mother continues to write letters addressed to Vera and the letters are returned marked “deceased.” Vera’s mother wonders what this word in a foreign language means.

I don’t go to the bar very often either. There are fewer and fewer of us there. Those that aren’t dead have gone back to our country. The young and single have gone farther away, they have crossed the Ocean. Others have adapted, have married partners from here and they stay at home in the evening.

At the bar I see mainly Jean, who is still living at the refugee center, where he gets to know other foreigners from all over the world.

Sometimes, Jean waits for me on the stairs of my house:

“I’m hungry.”

“Didn’t you eat at the center?”

“Yes. A sort of gruel at six o’clock. I’m hungry again.”

“Have you still not got a job?”

“No, nothing.”

“Come in. Sit down.”

I place two plates on the waxed tablecloth, I make some bacon and eggs. Jean asks me:

“Do you have any potatoes?”

“No, no potatoes.”

“It’s not very good without potatoes. Do you have some bread, at least?”

“No, no bread either. I haven’t got time to go shopping. I go to work, you see.”

Jean eats.

“If you like, I could do your shopping while you’re at work.”

“I’ve no need of that. I can get by on my own. I have done so for years.”

Jean insists:

“I could also repaint your flat. It’s not my trade, but I’ve done it lots of times.”

“It doesn’t need repainting, it’s fine as it is.”

“It’s disgusting. Look at that blackened kitchen, look at your toilet, your bathroom. It’s not presentable.”

I look around:

“You’re right, it’s not presentable. But I don’t have any money.”

“I’ll do it for nothing. Just to eat. Just to work. So that I don’t feel useless. You’ll only need to pay for the paint and give me a bite to eat, just like now.”

“I don’t want to exploit you.”

“I’d only be walking around town or hanging around the center. And your place is very dirty.”

He is right, my place is dirty. I’d stopped thinking about it. For the last ten years, the flat has remained in the same state it was in when I moved in. Even then it wasn’t very clean.

So I tell Jean to start with the kitchen.

I think that, when Line comes, everything will be clean: the kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet.

The bedrooms are decent. There is the bedroom where I sleep, with its walls covered with books and a double bed for the two of us. There is also the small room where I keep my junk, which will serve as my study, with a table, a typewriter and sheets of paper.

I must remember to buy a typewriter and paper for the typewriter and ribbons for the typewriter.

At the moment, I write with a pencil in school notebooks.

Jean works quickly and does a good job. I don’t recognize the flat. Line could come now. I wouldn’t feel ashamed.

I buy some new linen for the bathroom and the kitchen. I put it in a drawer.

I pay Jean as much as I can afford. He is very pleased, more pleased than I am, with the work he has done. He would also like to repaint the two rooms, but that’s not absolutely essential.

Jean is happy:

“That’s the first time I’ve been able to send my wife some money. The money you gave me.”

“Poor Jean, it’s not very much.”

“Back home, it’s worth ten times what it’s worth here. My wife has been able to buy the children shoes and clothes for the autumn. They have to be properly dressed for school.”

I ask:

“What will you do now, without any work at all?”

“I don’t know, Sandor.”

“Go back home, that would be best.”

“I can’t. The whole village would laugh at me. I promised everyone I’d make a fortune. If you could help me, Sandor. Find clients for me. You know a few people. You’ve seen, I know how to paint, I can do other things as well. Gardening, for example. Vegetable gardens or flower gardens. I’d do it for next to nothing. For a bit of food. If I can carry on getting free lodging at the center, I can send all the money I earn to my wife.”

I find a few odd jobs for Jean, but I can’t get rid of him. He comes around to my place almost every evening, he stops me writing, he stops me sleeping. He reads me letters from his wife, his children. He talks to me about how homesick he is, how he hates not being able to live with his own.

He cries almost all the time. I’ve got nothing to console him with except bacon and potatoes. Once he’s filled his stomach, he goes off to sleep at the refugee center, in a dormitory full of bunk beds, which he is now used to, where he is chief through having been there the longest.

When he finally leaves, I start to write.