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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 32-3-87
TITLE:             Philemon and Baucis
BY:                Tibor Dery
DATE:              1963-1-29
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Special Translation
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Hungary--Literature, Personalities

--- Begin ---

"E" DISTRIBUTION - 65O	29 JANUARY 1963

RFE TARGET AREA RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Special Translation

Please note that Tibor Dery's short
story, Philemon and Baucis, which
was recently distributed by Radio
Free Europe, may not be reproduced
in part or in toto without the
permission of the author or his agent,
who in the United States is Sanford
Jerome Greenburger, 595 Madison
Avenue, New York City

PHILEMON AND BAUCIS
by
Tibor Dery

The two old people sat quietly on the narrow
gardenbench, upon which the autumn sunshine cast the shadow of the
branches of the walnut tree, naked but for a few remaining
trembling leaves. It was quiet in the small suburban garden.
In the silence, the distant movement of the express train could
be discerned. Another yellowed leaf fell. The old woman was
knitting a gray stocking, and the old man sitting next to her
would have fallen asleep but for the glitter of the knitting
needles, which brought him back to reality from time to time.
"Old Timar is dead," he said sleepily. He had wanted to say it
this morning, but had forgotten.

"What?" asked the old woman, who was a bit deaf,

"Old Timar is dead," the old man repeated, a little
louder.

"What was wrong with him?" the woman asked.

"He committed suicide," the old man said.

[page 2]

The old woman went on knitting. "He was old
enough," she said.

"Only two years older than I," the old man said*

"What?" the woman asked.

"He wasn't that old." the old man said tactfully.

"He was old enough." the Woman said.

The sun shone warmly. The old man mused? "He drank,"
he said.

"What?" the woman asked. "Why do you speak so softly?"

"I was saying that he spent his pension on drink every
Month," the old man shouted, turning his mouth to her ear. "He
spent all his pension on drink."

Another leather-colored leaf fell from the walnut
tree. The old woman watched it for a time, as it drifted slowly
in the air. "How nice and warn the is shining today."

"I'll go and walk a hit," said the old man and stood
up, "Be careful not to catch cold. Shall I bring you a wrap?"

"Don't dear," the woman said. "Gadding about again?"

The old man tested the warmth of the sun with the back
of his outstretched hand.

"I'll bring you the wrap anyway,3' he said. "At this
time of October the sun is treacherous, one catches cold easily.

It was already late in the afternoon, the sky
overcast, when the old man returned from his walk. Under his
overcoat he was hiding the birthday present which he would give the
woman in the evening, during the festive supper: a hearing-aid
hidden in a bunch of asters. He had given up smoking for a year
to be able to pay for it. But now, while quietly entering the
room on tiptoe, he was suddenly overtaken by doubt, and his
heart sank: would he not embarrass her with his present? She
still doesn't believe that she is hard of hearing. Even though
yesterday she had moved her head toward the door at the boom of
a cannon not so far away and said: "Gome in."

[page 3]

The old man entered the kitchen, "I'm "back," he
said. "When is supper ready?"

"You took a long time," the woman said.

"The walk did me good," the old man said,

"Planning some mischief again?" the woman asked. "We
have steak for supper."

The old man clicked his tongue, "It's been a long
time since we had meat."

"I hope you are not going to make me mad with some
kind of birthday surprise. I spent all the money, and the
pension is only due in a week."

"We shall manage," the old man said.

"What?" the woman asked, "What are you muttering?
Set the table, and meanwhile I'll fry the steak."

It began to rain, and sharp, dense drops drummed
against the pane. The old man set the table, since it was a
festive occasion, in the living room. While he set the table,
the rain continued to beat a tattoo on the window, but over this,
another sound could be heard in the distance, stopping from time
to time, then stronger again. The old man stepped to the window
and listened. The wind blew so hard that the noise made by the
branches of the walnut tree could be heard. The two yellow
squares reflected on the pavement in front of the neighboring
house vanished suddenly: they had switched off the light.
The old man quickly let the blinds down, went to the hall and
locked the entrance door. Up till now, the fighting had
stayed away from the suburbs, but it seemed to be spreading
now. The noise of the machine guns could even be heard through
the blinds. The old man went to the kitchen, which was filled
with the garlic smell of frying meat: the spluttering fat
fortunately drowned out the drumming noise from outside.

"It is just as well that I didn't give her the
hearing-aid yet," the old man thought.

"What are you doing?" the woman asked. "Why are you
closing the door?"

[page 4]

"It is pouring," the old man said.
"So what?" the woman asked,

"The wind will blow the rain in," the old man said.

"Why are you locking the door with the key?" the
woman asked. "The kitchen is full of steam. Why don't you
answer? Why are you locking it with the key, I asked?"

"There's a strong wind," the old man said. "The door
opens easily, the wind might tear it open and blow the water in
and then we'd have to mop it up."

"You're imagining things again," the woman said. "I
can't hear any wind."

The sound of gunfire was quite near now and coming
even closer. Rifle shots could be heard, too, but mostly
rounds following one another -- drumming without pause and
without becoming more distinct. The old man returned to the hall,
the door of which led to the street; from there it was easier
to make out where the fighting was going on. Passing the
living room he snatched up the flowers and the hearing-aid and
hid them behind a cushion on the couch. The fighting had
reached the street and was moving toward the house. Luckily,
the door and window of the kitchen looked to the back, to the
small garden. The old man returned to the living room, took
the tablecloth away, put the plates and cutlery on a tray and
brought them to the kitchen.

"What are you doing," the woman asked, "Are you
only now setting the table? And why here in the kitchen?"

"But..." the old man said.

The woman faced him and looked into his eyes, "Have
you forgotten, dear?" she said after a few moments,

"What?"

"That it is my birthday today," the old woman said,
smiling quietly, but her brow flushed a bit. "And that we eat
in the living room on my birthday?"

The old man flushed too, all his wrinkles reddening,

[page 5]

"I forgot," he said, and placed the tray on the kitchen table
while his hands were trembling. "I don't understand how I
could forget it.

"Never mind, dear," the woman said. "At least there
will be no smell of cooking in the living room. Would you mind
looking in the hall, I think someone is knocking."

"This late?" the old man said.

"What did you say?" the woman asked.

"No one is coming to see us at this late hour," the
old man shouted,, bending toward the woman.

"But I can hear the knocking," the woman said.

The old man went out to the hall. He pressed his ear
to the entrance door, it seemed to him that the shot just heard
had been fired in their street, opposite their small garden gate.
He squatted down, remembering that a stray bullet might go through
the door. The sound of the wind, the wild crackling of the
branches of the walnut tree covered the noises from the street,
like jamming on the radio, but above the din, the old man seemed
to hear the steps of heavy boots, nearing the house. Another
round. "Come, supper is ready," said the woman's voice from the
kitchen. "Coming", the old man shouted.

"Is someone coming?" asked the woman from the kitchen.

"No one," the old man shouted. His gaunt, dried-up
body had not sweated for years, but now his palms were moist,
and drops of sweat appeared on his brow. "Come on," said the
woman from the kitchen, "the food will get spoiled."

"I'm coming," the old man shouted. "I only want to
have a look at the dog, to see if her time has come yet.

The dog lay quietly in her basket in the small dark
corner of the hall. The old man quickly stroked her head and
returned to the hall. Between the irregular sounds of the wind,
a single machine-gun round could still be heard, now fading away.
The shooting passed beyond the house.

"Why aren't you coming to eat your supper?" said the
woman in the kitchen. The food is getting spoiled.

[page 6]

"I'm coming," the old man shouted. "You can dish it
out.

He returned to the dark corner in the hall where he had
hidden a bottle of red wine for the birthday meal, then took his
dark coat from the bedroom cupboard, hastily threw his other coat
on the couch.

"What's keeping you so long?" said the woman from the
kitchen.

"You don't feel sick, I hope?"

"Why should I feel sick?" the old man shouted, "I feel
fine." Again he went out to the hall and listened with his ear
pressed to the door. In his excitement he unconsciously pressed
the light switch and the light went on in the dark hall, he had
to turn back again to switch it off. He turned the light off in
the room, too. When he opened the kitchen door, he saw, like on
a picture post card, the lighted, beloved, clean room, the
peacefully smiling old woman, sitting at the set table, in her
well-worn clean black dress, her silver hair, the long shining
knitting needles in her hand and the long gray stocking hanging in her
lap. Naturally, she could not hear the door opening. He stumbled
on the threshold, polished to a shine, and then, unmistakably,
strong knocking could be heard from the hall.

"At last you're here," the woman said. "What are you
stopping for?"

A strong rapping on the door could be heard again, even
the dog yapped in her corner, but did not move from her basket.

"What are you hiding behind your back?" the woman asked.
"Some mischief again?"

"Someone is knocking," the old man said.

"No one is knocking," the woman said, "I can't hear
a thing."

"But someone is knocking, I said," the old man shouted.

The woman smiled. A cold shiver ran down the old man's
spine, this self-assured smile disgusted him and so did the
bright kitchen around him and the nauseating cleanliness of the
table. The knocking continued.

[page 7]

"You still don't hear it?" he asked quietly. He
turned, and crossing the room, leaving the door open this
time, went out into the hall again. The key turned twice in
the lock and a young man, a stranger, entered, his hand pressed
to his groin. His face was bloody, too.

"Lock the door behind me," he said. "Switch off the
light!"

"Whom are you looking for, son?" asked the woman
from the room, behind the old man's "back.

"I think they've shot me in the balls," the young man
said.

"What is he saying," the woman asked. "I can't
understand him. What is he saying?"

"He's been wounded," the old man shouted, bending
down to her ear.

"Don't shout," the young man said. "They might still
be here, around the house."

"What did he say?" the woman asked. "Why are you
mumbling, the two of you?"

The old man bent down to her ear: "He said they
shot him through the thigh.

"What?" asked the woman. "His thigh," the old man said.
The woman smiled at the young man. "Sit down on that
chair in the corner, son," she said.

"Wait a moment. What do you want to do with him?"
she asked the old man as soon as both of them went into the
room and the woman had closed the door behind them. "Do you
want to keep him here?"

The old man stared at her.

"He cannot stay here," the woman said. "His clothes
are all bloody. Where could I put him. The couch would be
stained with blood."

[page 8]

"It would," the old man said.

"Well, of course," the woman said. "Take him over
to the Molnars. They have three rooms.

"They have no spare bed," the old man said.

"Why don't you put the wine bottle down," the woman
said. "Take him over to Old Timars, the have an empty bed now."

"He hasn't been buried yet," the old man said. "They
didn't even take him away yet from the house."

The old woman looked at him from under her silvery
crown, this time she did not smile. "He cannot stay here,"
she said. "Where was he wounded in the thigh?"

"I don't know," the old man said.

"Of course he would stain the couch with his blood,"
the woman said. "I won't let him stay."

"You can't stay here, son," she said to the young man,
who was stretched out on the chair, his hand still pressed to
his groin. "You ought to know that I lost three sons during
the war, two on the battlefield, the third, the last one, was
executed by the Arrow-Cross Party. I have had enough of this,
leave me in peace. Go, son, I'm not angry with you, but go.
There is only room for two dead people in this house."

The young man stayed in the chair. "Didn't you hear
what I said?" the woman asked. "There is no room here. My
husband will take you to the neighbors.

When the old man returned after 15 minutes, the woman
was sitting in the kitchen, next to the set table, knitting.
The old man went into the hall, hung his overcoat on a hanger,
took the forgotten wine bottle and put in in the middle of
the table. "Come nearer," the woman said. "I think he
smeared some blood on you, too."

"Where?" the old man asked, looking down at his suit.

"Come closer," the woman said. "Your collar is smeared
with blood. Your shirt, too, I see."

[page 9]

Not only his collar and shirt were smeared with
blood, but also his trimmed gray mustache and the corner of
is mouth. "My dear, your nose is bleeding," the woman said.
"Come in the room and lie down."

"Don't bother," the old man said. "I'll sit on a
chair and bend my head back."

But when he reached the room, he suddenly reeled. As
the woman saw that she would not be able to drag the tall,
heavy-boned body to the bed, she put him down on the
grass-green couch, next to the kitchen door, took his handkerchief
from his pocket -- which was bloody, too, -- pressed it under
his nose and pulled the heavy cushion away from under his head,
so that he could lie flat on his back. The bunch of asters and
the hearing-aid fell to the floor. The old woman picked them
up and put them on a table next to the couch. Luckily enough,
she had a small wad of cotton in her linen cupboard, with whose
help she was able to stop the blood. She put a cold compress
on the old man's neck, untied and took off his shoes and
covered his feet with the old plaid blanket. But blood
streamed from the old man, the cotton in his nose was soaked
in a matter of minutes. The grass-green couch also became
smeared with blood, but luckily the old man did not notice it.
The woman pulled up the blind and opened the window. The old
man again heard the crackling of machine guns, as if it was being
strung.

"Put the light out," he said.

The woman did so. "Is the fresh air doing you good?"
she asked.

"Yes," the old man said. "Did you find it?"

"Yes," the woman answered.

"Did you look at it?"

"Not yet," the woman said. "It would be better now if
you wouldn't tire yourself by talking."

"Don't be angry, Rosy," the old man said. "I think
you will make good use of it.

"I hear quite well without it," the woman said. "It

[page 10]

was a pity to spend so much money for it."

"Can you hear the shooting?"

"I can," the woman said, "don't talk now."

"You hear better in the dark, don't you?" the old
man asked.

"Better," the woman said. "Are you still bleeding,
dear?"

"I don't know," the old man said. "Maybe it has
stopped."

There was no more cotton in the house and the cold
compresses didn't help either. Blood was streaming from the
old man's nose. The woman did not take her coat from the
cupboard, so that her husband wouldn't notice that she was 
going to get the doctor.

"Where are you going, Rosy?" the old man asked when
the kitchen door opened, and the narrow yellow square of the
electric light was reflected on the floor.

"I will be back soon," the woman said. "I believe there
is some cotton somewhere in the pantry."

She stopped for a moment in the open kitchen doorway
and listened. Love gave her back her hearing. The shots sounded
close by, spaced at intermittent intervals, filled only by the
smooth chatter of the falling rain. The woman drew her scarf
over her head, ran through the back garden, and passing by the
yard of the Molnar house, ran to the street. The road was dark,
the lamps destroyed by shots. Puddles splashed under her feet
and dirtied her clean black dress. In the neighboring houses all
the blinds were drawn or the lights put out. The presence of
humanity was marked only by the sound of shots coming here and
there, or intertwined like chains. The old woman continued to run
in the wind, but her mouth trembled with fear. Darkness was more
fearful than the shots, as darkness gave an indication already of
what they would be followed by. While running, the old woman
looked at the sky, but it, too, was covered evenly by darkness,
void of the usual reddish glow reflected by the town of Pest.
The old woman did not pray, but she was afraid. The next street

[page 11]

was also dark. Her eyes got accustomed to the darkness, but
only enough to be able to distinguish between non-existent
pace and existing objects, the latter more terrifying because
of their shapelessness. She ran into the middle of the road;
there were fewer objects there. She had not fallen up to now.

If there were only no people behind the darkness, she might be
able to die happily. It was people she feared. To reach the
doctor's house, she had to cross a narrow street ending in Marx
Square. This street, too, was covered by darkness, only one
lamp shone at one end; by chance it had remained intact. When
the old woman turned into the street, the shape of a man could
be seen running, stooped, through the shining wall of rain.

The square itself, as far as could be made out from the street,
was also completely dark and echoed with shots. The doctor
lived directly in back of the square. From one of the windows
of the corner house, the flash of a machine gun traced small
semi-circles in the darkness from time to time. The old woman
was hit by two bullets. She fell a few steps from the doctor's
door, her face turned up toward the sky. She did not close her
eyes. She did not feel any pain and was nearly happy, even, for
a time: there was nothing she had to render account for any more.
Later, as she increasingly lost blood, she started to be afraid
again, but not of people any more.

The old man on the couch also lost a lot of blood.
He slept for a time, out of weakness. When he woke up, he was
cold and drew the plaid blanket closer to his head. He would
have liked someone to close the window. A cold autumn wind blew
in from the street, straight at his couch. In vain he called the
woman, she did not answer. Through the open kitchen door the
boiling pots could be heard.

"Rosy," he shouted. Still I'm glad I bought it
for her, he thought after a time, looking at the small black
hearing-aid lying on the table. He would have liked someone
to shut the window. Bat the woman did not answer. He did not
dare get up for fear that the nose bleeding might start again.
The wind beat the rain through the open window. The old man
was happy, because he had bought the hearing-aid.

When the dog started to whine in her corner, he got
up. When he sat down next to the animal's basket, pulling a
small stool under himself, the first puppy, with its long, 
disproportionate, worm-like tail, its pink paws, was already
struggling; one of the folds of the blanket under him was filled with

[page 12]

amniotic fluid. The corner was lit up only by the electric
light from the hall. There was silence in the apartment,
the dog, too -- assembling all her strength -- worked 
without a sound, only the rasping sound of her tongue could be heard
as she licked the slick black coat of the newborn. A new
birth-pang made her stop for a moment, when it was over, she immediately
turned to her first-born and started to wash it with her devoted
red tongue. The creaking of the open window could be heard from
time to time in the neighboring room.

The old man sighed and his stomach trembed with
excitement. The second puppy was also black, shining glassily under
the caul. Everything was quiet now in the apartment, only
the boiling pots could be heard from the kitchen. The shotting
in the street had stopped, too. The old man could not make up
his mind to leave the basket and to call the woman from the
pantry, surely he did not need the new package of cotton any more.

He propped up the dog with the palm of his hand, resting her
weight on her right front paw, she strained her neck backwards,
every muscle of her strong body trembling. While she was 
bringing her third son into the world, the first had already found a
teat and started to suck. The second puppy made a noise like a
door that hadn't been oiled. The mother licked them, one after
the other. A little blood seeped onto the blanket from the third
puppy's chewed umbilical cord.

The old man went to the room to close the window, so
that the new-born would not catch cold in the draft. He was
sorry for them, but also hated them a bit. When he sat down
on the stool again, holding his white head in his hands, the
dog lay on her side for a moment and looked at him with an open
mouth and hanging tongue. Her big black eyes shone with 
happiness. The old man stroked her. He did not know how much time
had passed since he had been sitting on the stool and listening
to the untiring rough sound of the dog's tongue in the quiet
apartment, but he did not feel any tiredness, and something of
a strange little happiness crept into his heart. He was so
deeply sunk in his thoughts that he did not even notice that
his wife was still in the pantry.

The dog's tail stiffened: another birth-pang had
started.

End

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