As we walked along the snowy streets we kept bumping into each other. If scientists had been monitoring us with thermographic equipment, each touch would have registered as a bright, multicoloured flash, a flare of intense energy.
Handlet was wonderful: Hamlet adapted by two British puppeteers who used their four hands to play everybody and everything on a stage the size of a television. When Ophelia went to drown herself, a hand dressed in a gown dove off stage with a little scream and we heard a ker-ploof that brought to mind an elephant tripping into a pool. The audience rocked with laughter. Yet at other moments it was deadly serious and we were silent and rapt; the puppeteers had extraordinarily expressive voices. Handlet, micro-dwarf prince of Danemark, was as moving as any Hamlet I've seen. Yorick was thimble-skulled, yet no one laughed.
A heavy snowfall had blanketed the city that day. The snow was still falling, but softly, without a wisp of wind. Big fat clusters of snowflakes crashed into our faces or dented the carpet of snow. We walked along a street that hadn't been cleared yet. The snow came up to our knees, but it was light; it glittered as we easily kicked our way through it. Except for our voices, all sound was muffled. I was aware of a growing excitement within me. The snow was not snow to me, but gold dust. And the street lights were not street lights, but tiaras of diamonds twinkling in the night. And every other colour was not just a colour but a precious gem. Tito suggested we go for a coffee. More gems. Love is a form of childhood in the way we become capable again of being wholly enthralled, able to believe so much so easily so intensely. Tito and I spent hours talking over cups of hot chocolate. And after that, we walked on. When we finally reached my place, late, late into the night, we lingered outside. We would wait; we both felt that. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses. We floated away from each other. "Bye, Tito. See you tomorrow." It has only happened to me twice in my life: I could hardly see him for the fish in my eyes. A density of angelfish, clownfish, goldfish, tigerfish, starfish, a suspension of seaweed, a gentle cavalcade of sea-horses.
I closed the door to my apartment and leaned against it. "Today I have found someone to love. Today I have found someone to love. Today I have found someone to love." The prospect it opened was infinite. It was not a promise, not a hope, not a delusion. It was a simple, defining certainty.
I have never wavered in that certainty. Don't talk to me of the wearying effect of habit, of waking up one morning with a cold heart for the man in your bed. This never happened to me. I was with Tito for roughly three years. Once, afterwards, I counted the days and it came out to 1001, whereupon I changed my unit of measure from days to nights, and then, since days were as important as nights, to both, so that the sum was 2002 days and nights. But early mornings were special too, and afternoons after he'd finished work, so it went up to 4004 days and nights and early mornings and afternoons. I applied myself to refining the units and increasing the sum total of something that is indivisible and never-ending, that has never stopped or decreased since the night I leaned my head against the door to my apartment and repeated to myself, "Today I have found someone to love."
"Why did you move to Montreal?"
"My mother. She remarried and he lived in Montreal. Zoltan Radnoti, a retired electrical contractor. He's very nice, you'll see. I was coming here regularly to see her. I liked the city, its European feel. But it was crazy. After years of studying and reading English I was finally fluent, and then I decide to move to Quebec and it's 1980, the year of the referendum, and it seemed every Anglophone was leaving the province. I sometimes feel I've spent my life taking language courses."
Tito's French was better than functional. He could deal with any letter-carrier situation, he could get by in restaurants and stores and he didn't miss too much in French French movies that weren't subtitled. But rapid-fire Quebec French lost him. If he handled Hungarian like his bare hands, English like worn-in leather gloves, Slovak like mitts, German and Russian like knives and forks, then French he handled like chopsticks.
The first time was at my place. He unbuttoned my shirt. He proceeded with gravity and delicacy, first pulling my shirt out from my pants and then dealing with the buttons north to south, with a gentle east-west spreading as each one was pushed through its buttonhole. I felt a stillness, as if I were in a perfect balance, my every sense poised. My bra, my socks, my pants, my underwear came off in a similar way. Every touch, every little kiss, every breath against my skin was felt twice: once at the point of contact and then the barest reverberation, a tickle in my vulva. Such a sweet deliquescence it is. I reached his chest in a somewhat rougher way. We got to my bed. He went down on me. It felt so powerful it was nearly unbearable. I pulled him up, turned him over and kneeled over him, slowly enclosing him within me, as far as it would go, to the very centre of me, where I didn't want him to leave, ever, even when he came and muttered something in Hungarian. We fell asleep. The light was the clear white light of an overcast winter day.
I didn't give a thought, yet again, to fertility. My period had ended some days earlier. Tito apologized for not having mentioned protection, but I just waved a hand, with a raised-eyebrow expression that said, It happens elsewhere, not here. Yet his semen was spermful, potent, bearer of consequence. But I was lucky that time -- and time and again when I went on the pill and took it at irregular hours, sometimes later, sometimes earlier, even missing a day sometimes and having to take two. Never was there a result other than the usual ache and twist of my uterus deciding that there wasn't going to be a baby after all and the wallpaper could go.
It's a luck I bitterly regret now. Even then I sometimes felt a baffling ambivalence. After the shock and the anguish, after the harrowing day of thinking, "This is it. You're going to have a baby. You've thrown your life away, girl," the blood would come like a manumission and I would breathe a deep sigh of relief. "I'm saved." But there would be an afterglow of sadness. Yet again you've stalled fertility, would whisper a part of my mind. Yet again you've not fully engaged life. What if you dared, what if you dared ...? But I was always lucky, as I've said. When my luck ran out, it was too late.
Over the next weeks and months, we spent time exploring each other's territories. His neighbourhood, my neighbourhood. His friends, my friends. His bed, my bed.
"Megerkeztunk. Ime lassad: ez a Kekszakallu vara. Nem tundokol, mint atyade. Judit, jossz-e meg utanam?"
"Megyek, megyek, Kekszakallu."
"Megallsz Judit? Mennel vissza?"
"Nem. A szoknyam akadt
csak fel. Felakadt szep selyem szoknyam."
"Nyitva van meg fent az ajto."
"Ez a Kekszakallu vara. Nincsen ablak? Nincsen erkely?"
Nincsen.
"Hiaba is sut kint a nap?"
"Hiaba."
"Hideg marad? Sotet marad?"
"Hideg, sotet."
"Milyen sotet a te varad. Vizes a fal. Kekszakallu, milyen viz hull a kezemre? Sir a varad!"
"Ugye, Judit, jobb volna most volegenyed kastelyaban: feher falon fut a rozsa, cserepteton tancol a nap."
"Ne bants, ne bants, Kekszakallu. Nem kell rozsa, nem kell napfeny. Nem kell. Milyen sotet a te varad. Szegeny, szegeny Kekszakallu."
"Miert jottel hozzam, Judit?"
"Nedves falat felszaritom,
ajakammal szaritom fel. Hideg kovet melegitem, a testemmel melegitem. Ugye szabad, Kekszakallu. Nem lesz sotet a te varad, megnyitjuk a falat ketten. Szel bejarjon, nap besusson. Tundokoljon a te varad."
"Nem tundokol az en varam."
"Gyere vezess Kekszakallu, mindenhova vezess engem. Nagy csukott ajtokat latok, het fekete csukott ajtot. Miert vannak az ajtok csukva?"
"Hogy ne lasson bele senki."
"Nyisd ki, nyisd ki! Minden ajto legyen nyitva. Szel bejarjon, nap besusson."
"Emlekezz ra, milyen hir jar."
"Gyere nyissuk valem gyere."
"Aldott a te kezed, Judit."
"Jaj!"
"Mit latsz? Mit latsz?"
"Lancok, kesek, szoges karok
, izzo nyarsak...." "Ez a kinzokamra, Judit."
"Szornyu a te kinzokamrad, Kekszakallu. Szornyu, szornyu."
"Felsz-e?"
"A te varad fala veres. A te varad verzik."
"Felsz-e?"
"Nem, nem felek. Nezd, derul mar. Ugye derul? Nezd ezt a fenyt. Latod? Szep feny-patak."
"Piros patak, veres patak."
"Minden ajtot ki kell nyitni. Szel bejarjon, nap besusson, minden ajtot ki kell nyitni."
"Nem tudod ni van mogottuk."
"Minden ajtot ki kell nyitni. Minden ajtot."
"Judit, mert akarod?"
"Mert szeretlek."
"Vigyazz, vigyazz mirank, Judit."
"Szepen, halkan fogom nyitni. Szepen, halkan. Add ide a tobbi kulcsot."
"Nem tudod, mit rejt az ajto."
"Idejottem, mert szeretlek. Itt vagyok, a tied vagyok. Most mar vezess mindenhova. Most mar nyiss ki minden ajtot."
"Judit, Judit, hus es edes, nyitott sebbol ver ha omlik."
"Nyisd ki a hetedik ajtot. Jaj, igaz hir, suttogo hir!"
"Judit!"
"Kekszakallu, nem kell, nem kell."
"Tied a legdragabb kincsem."
"Jaj, jaj, Kekszakallu vedd le."
"Szep vagy, szep vagy, szazszor szep vagy. Te voltal a legszebb asszony. Es mindig is ejjel lesz mar ... ejjel ... ejjel...."
I spent countless hours in the company of the Hungarian language. I met the former Mrs. Imilac, Mrs. Radnoti at present, Judit to me quickly. Tito's mother took me in as her own daughter. She was a warm and considerate woman, quick to smile, very much her son's mother. She had a single broad streak of grey that went through her hair, a perfect complement to her naturally elegant way. Her English was idiosyncratic, her French non-existent -- she had always moved within the Hungarian community, even after nearly twenty years in Canada. When she spoke with her son, I listened to their voices. Since I couldn't understand a word they said, it was their emotions I heard. Their manner was easygoing, attentive, respectful. They seemed never to interrupt each other. Clearly, mother trusted son and son trusted mother. Mr. Radnoti -- "Please! Call me Zoltan. You make me sound like old man. I'm only sixty-four" -- was indeed very nice. He was a funny, unpretentious man who had a talent for making his wife laugh, which plainly gave him great satisfaction.
As for the other Hungarians I met, they were of all ages and stations. The younger the generation, the better their French and English, naturally, but whenever I met them in a group it was de rigueur that Magyar be spoken. I remembered in my own case how it was inconceivable that I should have addressed my parents in English. Our relationship was a French-speaking relationship. To communicate in any other tongue would have denatured it. And so with these Hungarian Canadians. Tito worried that I was bored silly on these occasions, but I assured him that I wasn't, and indeed I wasn't. Sitting in a room full of Hungarians was a trip to the Near Abroad, a motion-
less form of travel. For Magyar is spectacularly incomprehensible. It tricks you with the familiarity of the Roman alphabet and the dress and deportment of its speakers, but then it erupts -- and you might as well be in China. Not a single morpheme will trouble your comprehension. The first time I heard Tito speak his mother tongue, with ease and delight, my draw jopped, as I put it to him later. A new Tito seemed to arise before my eyes. With a changed mien, with a different register in his voice, with expressions and gestures I hadn't seen before. I wasn't sure I knew this Tito. I had to tap him on the shoulder and say, "Tito, is that you?" He laughed. "Yes, of course it is." He was Tito again, and I had another visa stamp in my passport. Even after three years I could renew my sense of wonder at his fluid gibberish.
When I didn't want to travel, when I tuned out, then Magyar became a seashore, a soothing background noise amidst which my day-dreams could float. Anyway, whether flying for free on Malev or sitting by the seashore, I was never alone for long. One Hungarian or another invariably interrupted my reverie with words that I understood. The older ones took to me greatly. I remember Imre, a Methuselah not five feet tall, with eyes deeply set amidst whorls of wrinkles, who delighted in Tito's Indo-European girlfriend. He would perch himself next to me, feet swinging from his seat, settle his happy eyes on my Indo-European tits and chat me up in English. After a while, by unintended imitation, my English would become as broken as his. I think he was second only to Tito in loving me.
We can stay as long as you want, I would always tell Tito. Let's not leave because of me.
And so it would go on, this Magyar -- spoken, shouted, laughed, whispered.
Right from the start, we spent all our nights together. It went without question. A night without him was a night in a cold bed. Even our sleeping bodies did not brook distance. We would fall asleep in our own little spheres of space -- Morpheus seems to be a timorous hunter who only preys upon solitary quarry -- but I don't think we ever made it through a whole night without one of us reaching out. Invariably we would wake up in the morning with at least one point of contact, a leg, a hand or an arm, me wrapped in him or pressed against his back. As if our skins were gossips who were keenly intent on pursuing their chatter in the still of night.
Whoever was closer to that point where somnolence becomes uncontrollable would make the effort of saying "Goodnight" and reach out for a kiss, which the other, only slightly more alert, would echo. Only after those two words and that kiss did we let ourselves dip into sleep. They officially signalled the end of our day.
He lived in Park Extension, farther north, so when we did something downtown we tended to sleep at my place. On weekends or on quiet nights we stayed at his. His apartment was larger and better set up than mine.
I had a schedule in my life now, time imperatives that I had to contend with. There was Slave-Work Time, Novel-Work Time, Miscellaneous-Things Time and Tito Time. I had to juggle to fit them all into my day. I adapted myself to Tito's innate early clock. He had to be at the depot to sort his day's mail at six in the morning. Most weekdays I awoke with him at five. It sounds painful, but it's a matter of habit. I am thankful for all the sunrises I witnessed. And it made for blessed naps together in the mid-afternoon. I usually spent the morning working on my novel, worked the lunch-hour shift at the restaurant, met Tito at two or two-thirty for our nap and spent the evening either working on my novel again or doing something with Tito, depending on how we felt. Breakfast and evening shifts varied the schedule. We usually went to bed a little before ten.
Paradoxically, the more pressed I was for time, the less I thought about it, unlike most resources. As a result my time with Tito seemed to go by in an instant. And I have difficulty remembering the order of things. In my memory the past and present tenses do not measure out temporal sequence, but emotional weight. What I cannot forget repeats itself in the present tense.
FILM LOOP NUMBER 67: I slowly rise to consciousness, sensing that on the seashore someone's beckoning me from my deep blue floating. I surface unwillingly and crack open an eye. Sure enough, Tito and his two wide-open eyes are inches away. He removes two protective strands of brunette seaweed from my face and tosses them onto the pillow. "Are you awake?" he announces. I categorically refuse to answer and my oyster of an eye snaps shut. I go back to work on the pearldom of sleep. I know it's Saturday and we don't have to get up.
I'm on my side, facing him. The sheet rises -- he's looking at me. I feel an exploratory finger climbing the slope of my thigh, reaching the summit of my hip, sliding down to the saddleback of my waist, then moving up along the ridge of my ribs until the predictable fall to my breast, where four more fingers join in on the fun. Then the solitary finger ventures south, lingering over my stomach and plunging into my belly button before moving down to scratch my hairs gently. Bitch of a nipple betrays me and starts to get hard. "It is one o'clock in the afternoon, you realize," says Tito. "What?" I moan, falling for it, and I make the colossal effort of turning over and peering at the alarm clock. I sink back into the pillow. "It's six-thirty in the morning. You turn
ed the clock upside-down." "Oh, sorry," he says. I turn onto my back. He moves closer, fitting himself to me. "Big sandstorm last night," he says. He gently rubs the corners of my eyes, removing the grit. His hand, this time a band of merry fingers, goes softly traipsing over my body again. I feel with my hand and seize his erection. I sigh. "Et tu, Brute?" He laughs. I look at him through weary, bleary, love-shot eyes, and I stretch. He buries his face in my neck and kisses me voraciously. He brings his mouth to my ear. In an explosive whisper, all wind and hot breath, he makes me an indecent proposition. I laugh and nod. His head disappears under the sheets.
Thus is the night banished. Thus does the sun rise.
FILM LOOP NUMBER 15: We're on a walk up the mountain. It's a radiant spring day. A man appears on the path with a dog on a leash. It's a big, grunting bulldog, complete with stubby crooked front legs, no neck, a flat face and a dreadful underbite. I erupt into giggles and make a beeline for it. The creature's bulging eyes go into orbits of delight as I bend down and play with its multiple folds of skin. The owner benignly assents to the attentions I pay his pet; he must be used to it. The dog's enormous chest is balanced by such a puny rear that I'm surprised he doesn't keel forward, back legs frantically beating the air, as I pat him on the head.
As we walk away, Tito says, "What a monstrosity. I can't believe you liked it."
I look at him and laugh.
"What?" he asks.
"Well, I was thinking about dicks."
"I don't follow."
"You see," I manage to say, still laughing, "the penis, it's so graceless, wouldn't you agree? When it's cold and shrivelled up, it looks like W. H. Auden in his old age; when it's hot, it flops and dangles about in a ridiculous way; when it's excited, it looks so pained and earnest you'd think it was going to burst into tears. And the scrotum! To think that something so vital to the survival of the species, fully responsible for 50 per cent of the ingredients -- though none of the work -- should hang freely from the body in a tiny, defenceless bag of skin. One whack, one bite, one paw-scratch -- and it's just at the right level, too, for your average animal, a dog, a lion, a sabre-toothed tiger -- and that's it, end of story. Don't you think it should get better protection? Behind some bone, for example, like us? What could be better than our nicely tapered entrance? It's discreet and stylish, everything is cleverly and compactly encased in the body, with nothing hanging out within easy reach of a closing subway door, there's a neat triangle of hair above it, like a road sign, should you lose your way -- it's perfect. The penis is just such a lousy design. It's pre-Scandinavian. Pre-Bauhaus, even.