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Literature, PoetryApril 13, 2016

In Memory of M./M. emlékére

 Memories Afloat, multimedia by Alia Bilgrami.

Memories Afloat by Alia Bilgrami. Image courtesy of the artist.

Translated from Hungarian by Erika Mihálycsa

“Why does God demand sacrifice of man and not angels?”
~ Martin Buber/Olga Marx, ‘Tales of the Hasidim’

I was left alone at fortythree in forty-
five. Alone with the painkillers,
the sedatives, the morphine. With the make-
up mirror. With my nurse’s degree and the fiftyish,
bespectacled internist in the office. Alone without my
husband, little daughter, parents, close and collateral
relations. With the Körös riverbanks and the laughter of children swaying from
willow branches till they drop in the water, with my dead class-
mates’ faces on the yearbook picture full of gaps.
With our friends burnt to ashes. With the funny rs
of the Wehrmacht officer: “kann ich Ihnen irrrgendwas helfen?“

“Ja, bitte. I beg you bring them back from
Auschwitz.” I rush home on high heels, shiver
craving the needle in my arm laced with blue
veins. My tresses all afloat, my blue eyes
misting over. Blue, blue, Mary-blue.
I drink green English tea from green Meissen
cups. Green like the trees in spring. Buchenwald:
Beechwood. Tanzen und singen, singen und springen.
Yellow light dawns through the window shades.
I rest, blissfully, in the yellow sun. I hear their wooden
clogs grating on the yellow sand.
“It’s not so bad to be dead,” they flounder.

“We can be where we want to, where we are called back.
We came in two: you called two of us in the same breath.
Here airways are free, we all hover
together. Nothing hurts. We only miss
you. We don’t feel the kicks. The pangs
of hunger. Dampness trickling down the bones.
It’s like watching our story in a film. If you didn’t
bring it up we wouldn’t know it’s ours.
Call me yet. Ask for me on the office telephone.
Let them hear my name and remember I have lived.
Buy some kaiser rolls at the baker’s, tell him it’s for your
daughter. Remind him to put in a few slices of ham.”

“My husband and daughter visited me yesterday,”
I tell the next day. “It’s not so bad to be dead
they say.” The internist takes my arm in his hands.
The mystery of the morphine’s disappearance is solved. “I’m afraid
they will run out of arguments in the end and get fed up
with being dead,” I add, “or that I realize they are
right. I’m afraid of them. I long for them.”
“M. M., I will cure you,” he tells me twice
but I don’t want to hear my name uttered twice any-
more. Let one time be enough.
I am at his service all day long but he should not
want me to feel that he craves or perhaps loves me.

God has taken out my soul, cleansed it, and like
washerwomen at the creek, He soaped it over, beat it,
scrubbed and rinsed and dried and mangled it,
then placed it back, clean. I was seized by hope, I re-
married, moved out of my rented flat. A girl
was born to me. I became a grandmother. The mayor
visited me on my hundredth birthday.
I showed him a few pictures. But I remember
having another life of which no picture
is found in any drawer. A former
husband and a former child? I dare not
ask. What if they answer, yes?

After he had made fire in the oven, the servant
started praying. But the log flared up with a
spark. “Fire!” the others cried out, “why didn’t you watch
over it?” “It is written in the Scripture: and the fire
was quenched,” he answered. And lo, it subsided.
Where have I read this? God has left me here for good.
I am confined to bed but everybody loves me.
They cut up my bread, pour coffee in my cup.
I suggested we visit my native town. They said
the trains were halted because of the heavy snowfall.
So much the better, I’m terrified of trains. My granddaughter
laughs at me: flying is more dangerous but she will fly all the same.

Am I a coward? I commune with death every day.
I’m more afraid of people. I will not cover
my brow when the Reader of Faces looks upon me.
But they pull their hats down to their noses. I open
a book every day but never turn the page.
One word is enough for me to muse over for hours.
At such moments one of my daughters sits on my
bed and reads out from the paper. If I live to be a hundred
and eight I will be the oldest Hungarian alive,
they say and laugh. I caress their happy child-faces.
I had wanted to throw the world away from me, but
is the world mine, that I can throw it away?

~ Zsuzsa Takács

“Miért az emberektől követeli Isten az áldozatot, és miért nem az angyaloktól?”
~ Martin Buber/ Rácz Péter, ‘Haszid történetek’

Egyedül maradtam negyvenötben negyven-
három évesen. Egyedül a fájdalomcsillapítókkal,
az érzéstelenítőkel, a morfiummal. Tükrömmel,
amelyben az arcomat kifestem. Orvos-asszisztensi
oklevelemmel, a szemüveges, ötven körüli bel-
gyógyásszal a rendelőben. Egyedül férjem, kis-
lányom, szüleim, le- és felmenő rokonaim nélkül.
A Körös-parttal, a fűzfán himbálódzó, vízbe
pottyanó gyerekek nevetésével, halott osztály-
társaim fotóival a csonka tablón. Elégetett
barátainkkal. A Wehrmacht-tiszt mulatságos
r-jeivel: „kann ich Ihnen irrrgendwas helfen?“

„Ja, bitte. Könyörgök magának, hozza vissza
Auschwitzból őket.“ Magas sarkú cipőimen sietek
haza. Remegek a vágytól, hogy beleszúrjak kék
erekkel mintázott karomba. Hajfürtjeim röpködnek,
kék szemem elfátyolosodik. Kék, kék, Mária-kék.
Zöldmintás, meisseni porcelánból zöld, angol teát
iszom. Zöld, akár a fák tavasszal. Buchenwald,
Bükkerdő. Tanzen und singen, singen und springen.
Hajnalra sárga napfény a zsalugáter rései közt.
Boldogan pihenek a sárga napban. Hallom,
facipős lábuk csikorog a sárga homokban.
—Nem is rossz halottnak lenni—bukdácsolnak.
—Ott vagyunk, ahol akarjuk, ahova visszahívnak.
Ketten jöttünk, mert kettőnket hívtál egyszerre.
Itt szabadok a légifolyosók, együtt vagyunk
mind és lebegünk. Nem fáj semmink. Csak te
hiányzol. Nem érezzük a rúgásokat. Nem kínoz
éhség. Nem szivárog nedvesség csontjainkba.
Mintha filmen látnánk, ami velünk történt. Ha te
nem idéznéd, nem tudnánk, kinek a története ez.
Szólíts máskor is. Kérj telefonhoz az irodában.
Hallják a nevemet, emlékezzenek rá, hogy voltam.
Végy császárzsömlét a fűszeresnél, mondd,
a lányodnak veszed. Tegyenek bele sonkát!

A férjem és a lányom tegnap meglátogattak—
mesélem másnap. —Nem is rossz halottnak lenni—
mondták. A belgyógyász kezébe fogja karomat.
Fény derül az eltűnt morfium rejtélyére. —Félek
azonban, hogy kifogynak érveikből és megelégelik,
hogy halottak—folytatom—, vagy én látom be, hogy
igazuk van. Félek tőlük és vágyakozom utánuk.
—Meggyógyítom magát, M. M.—mondja egymás
után kétszer, de én nem akarom többé kétszer
hallani a nevemet. Elégedjen meg eggyel.
Bármikor a szolgálatára állok, de ne akarja,
hogy érezzem: megkíván, esetleg szeret.

Kivette Isten a lelkemet, megtisztította, és mint
a mosónők a pataknál, beszappanozta, ványolta
és öblítette, szárította, mángorolta, majd tisztán
visszahelyezte belém. Bizakodás fogott el, férjhez
mentem újra, elköltöztem a bérelt lakásból. Kis-
lányom született. Nagymama lettem. Századik
születésnapomon a polgármester meglátogatott.
Mutattam néhány fényképet neki. Emlékszem
azonban, hogy volt egy másik életem, amelyről
nincsen fénykép semelyik fiókban. Egy előző
férjem, egy korábbi gyerekem? Nem merem
kérdezni mégsem. Mi less, ha azt mondják: igen?

Miután megrakta a kályhát, imádkozni kezdett
a szolga. A fellobbanó hasábból azonban kipattant
egy szikra. Tűz van! kiabáltak a többiek, miért
nem vigyáztál? De az Írásban az áll, hogy: meg-
szűnék a tűz, válaszolta. Erre elhamvadt valóban.
Hol olvastam ezt? A Jóisten végleg itt felejtett.
Ágyhoz szögezve élek, de mindenki szeret.
Felaprítják a kenyeret, bögrémbe kávét töltenek.
Javasoltam, látogassuk meg a szülővárosomat.
Nem járnak a vonatok, válaszolták, a hóesés miatt.
Nem is baj, rettegek a vonatoktól. Az unokám
kinevet, a repülő veszélyesebb, repül mégis.

Gyáva volnék? Minden nap társalgok a halállal.
Inkább az emberektől félek. Én nem takarom el
homlokomat, ha az Arcok Olvasója rám tekint.
Ők az orrukig húzzák kalapjukat. Minden nap
kinyitok egy könyvet, de sohasem lapozok tovább.
Egyetlen szó elég, hogy órákig elrágódjak rajta.
Ágymhoz ül ilyenkor valamelyik lányom, felolvas
az újságból nekem. Ha megérem száznyocadik
évemet, én leszek a legidősebb magyar, mondják
és nevetnek. Megsimítom boldog gyerek-arcukat.
Én el akartam dobni magamtól a világot,
de enyém-e a világ, hogy eldobhassam azt?

~ Zsuzsa Takács

 

Zsuzsa Takács is the doyenne of Hungarian poetry. She started publishing in the early 1970s, gradually developing a consciously understated, slightly elegiac lyric voice coupled with profoundly personal themes, addressing both private and historical traumas. Her work is widely anthologized, and has been translated into English by George Szirtes, Laura Schiff, and Ottilie Mulzet, among others. She lives in Budapest.

Erika Mihálycsa lectures on 20th-century British and Irish fiction at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj. Her translations from English to Hungarian include works by Beckett, Flann O’Brien, William Carlos Williams, Anne Carson, Paul Durcan, Julian Barnes, Patrick McCabe, and Jeanette Winterson. Her translations of Hungarian literature into English have previously appeared in B O D Y and on Hungarian Literature Online. She is editor, together with Rainer J. Hanshe, of HYPERION magazine, issued by Contra Mundum Press.

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Erika MihálycsaHungarianHungarian literaturePoem of the WeekpoetrytranslationsZsuzsa Takács

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at [email protected].

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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