I nodded. “Because they love their own cooking,” I said.
“Yes,” Miss Ilona agreed. “But they try on the teeth anyway, and they try the bear’s diet, but they get a little bit of indigestion, and I must tell you that there is no one in the world who feels as sorry for himself as a sick Magyar. So the Hungarians did not take kindly to having to eat bear food. Finally, the Russians said, ‘Now that you are wearing the claws, skin and teeth of the bear, the only thing that remains is for you to learn to bark like a bear.’ And that is when the Hungarians revolt.”
“Because they love their Magyar language,” I said.
“Exactly,” she said. “And that revolt is the first part of the third part of how being ugly saved my life.”
“I see how the boring parts fit in,” I told her.
She smiled, looking very satisfied with herself.
“So it was that in October of 1956, the Hungarian writers—for there are none who love or need their language more—became disgusted with having to wear the Russian bear costume and make sounds like a bear. The writers organized a protest, saying that they would be Communist, but they wanted to be Hungarian Communists, not Russian ones. They wanted to bark in Magyar, not Russian, and that was when violence erupted.”
“Where did the violence break out?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” she answered.
“I asked where, not when,” I said.
As I left the home, I was asked by the receptionist to wait at the desk for a minute, that there was someone who wanted to see me. I waited, and the nurse from the fourth floor came down.
“Listen,” she said, “you’ve got to get someone to listen to the people on my floor. You told them you were working on a plan, and they’ve been asking me several times a day if Phillip has come back yet. Each of them, several times a day. That’s a lot of the same question,” she said. “Listen, Phillip, I beg of you, come up with something for me to tell them. I can’t stand it much longer, Phillip. You’ve got to do for them what you’ve done for Miss Ilona. You’ve got to come up with something.”
I stuffed my cassette between my cast and my chest and put my good hand on her shoulder, and said, “Don’t worry, nurse, I’ll see to it that it gets done.”
Mother had already made the appointment for the cast to come off my arm. The doctor said that after the cast came off, I would have to do some special exercises to strengthen those muscles. I knew that I wasn’t going to have time to do all of the life stories. And then it came to me in a flash. The nurse had said that I must do for the others what I had done for Miss Ilona, and I asked myself, what had I done for her? I had done for her exactly what I had done for myself. I had saved her from being bored to death. Well, once her arm was better, she could have my half of the job. The cassette-listening half.
But I didn’t tell her my decision immediately.
I listened first to the rest of her story.
“You asked me where violence at last broke out in Budapest. It happened outside the Budapest radio building. The people demanded that the Russian army leave our country. As the crowds gathered there, some of the Hungarian police, wearing those Russian bear skins I told you about, fired into the crowd, and that made the crowd madder. To think that Hungarians would fire on Hungarians, that they would have already forgotten who they were.
“The writers were soon joined by students and office workers and even soldiers who suddenly remembered that being Hungarian was more to their liking than being Russian bears. Everyone began marching in the streets, carrying banners, saying, INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM and WE WANT NEW LEADERS and WE WANT NAGY. Remember, Nagy was the Communist who came to power after Stalin had died. The one who loved good drink, good clothes and my cooking.
“There were gatherings in every public square, and in Budapest Square itself the crowd began to pull down the statue of Stalin. They didn’t get the statue down until the next day, but the effort was good.” Miss Ilona looked back into herself and smiled. “Oh, yes, that was good.”
“What did the Russians do?” I asked.
“They did what they always do. They gave the people some of the things they wanted. They put Mr. Nagy back in as head of the government, and they got him to plead with everyone to lay down their arms. It was a wild time in the city. Radios were blasting from all the windows. Between threats and pleas—if you don’t get back to work, we’ll shoot you, and please go back to work and we’ll forgive you—the radios played waltzes and czardas and so on and so forth. The city was a crazy place.
“Then the Russian tanks left the city, and I knew that they were planning something awful.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I recognized the tactics. Remember, I had been exposed to the Nazis. I knew that they would draw back only to be able to get a running start for their final push. I knew that if anything good were to come of it, I would have to be the one to make good out of bad, just as I had learned to make good out of ugly. So while the radios blared forth for us to return to work, I began walking. I headed west to Austria and in the lull between the time the Russians said that they would leave Hungary and the time when they actually came back in and crushed the revolt, I walked on the Budapest-Vienna highway to freedom. About one hundred and sixty thousand of us did so.
“The United States took thousands of us in, and that is how I came to America.”
“Did the Russians come back into Budapest?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Within a few days. They took Nagy prisoner and they clamped down on my poor people and dressed them all in bear suits again. And walking to Vienna is the second part of the third part of how being ugly saved my life.”
“But,” I said, “I don’t see how being ugly saved your life this time.”
“Well,” she answered, “if I had not been born ugly, I would not have been me, and if I had been someone other than me, then it would have been someone else’s life that I would have saved.”
“I hate your story to end,” I said.
“Why?” she asked. “Now you can get the cast off your arm and return to riding your skateboard.”
“Now, listen to me,” I said. “When I first broke my arm I was doing only one thing well, and that was feeling bored and feeling sorry for myself.”
“That’s two things,” she said.
“You’re right,” I said. “The same two things you were doing. When you’re feeling sorry for yourself, everything looks beige and gray. Even people. I couldn’t separate out one Beige and Gray from another. Until you. Until you told me that you were ugly and that being ugly saved your life. At first I was listening to Mr. Malin and not listening to him at the same time. Because something in my head wouldn’t make room for seeing him as anything but beige and gray. Now, I’m still having trouble sorting out the people on the fourth floor, the Whites, but I figure that that will be your responsibility. Yours and Mr. Malin’s.”
“Never!” she said. “They would bore me to death.”
“Someone has got to listen,” I said. “And, Miss Ilona, you’ve got to overcome your prejudice about old people. How can you ever see a small blue tattoo if you’re blinded by beige and gray? Now, since Mr. Malin has use of both his arms, I’m putting him in charge of the cassette, but I’m putting you in charge of Mr. Malin.”
“They’ll bore me to death,” she repeated. “I’ll become a Beige and Gray. I told you that Hungarians always take on the habits of their conquerors.”
“Up to a point,” I said. “You’ll remember that you’re orange-red, fiery Miss Ilona, and I think that will sort of add color to the Beige and Grays. Someone’s got to listen to these people, and I think it has to be you.”
“What have these people got to say?”
“How will you ever find out if you don’t listen?”
“They’ll be boring.”
“Parts of them will.”
We more or less quarreled until it was time for Miss Ilona to go to bed, but when I walked home, I wal
ked home with her agreement that she would do it. And I walked home with something else—with the feeling that she had wanted to give in after a good fight.
Two days later when the cast came off my arm, it looked about as ugly as an arm could look. It in no way matched my other arm because it was smaller and purpler, and it looked so pitiful that I thought it was going to mew because it looked and felt as weak as a kitten. I insisted that Mother and I drive to the home to show Miss Ilona and Mr. Malin. Mr. Malin met us in the lobby, and we all went upstairs together.
Miss Ilona said, “I’ve got three more weeks to go before my cast can come off, but Jacob and I have already started on Mrs. Silverman’s story.”
Mother said, “The volunteer women would like to make duplicate copies of the tapes and keep them in the library of the home. We’d like to save these lives as part of the history of the home.”
“Well, Leona,” Mr. Malin said to my mother, “you can thank Phillip here for getting us all started.”
“Not at all,” Miss Ilona said. “You can thank me.”
“Now, why is that?” Mr. Malin asked, obviously irritated with Miss Ilona.
“Why? Because Phillip paid no attention to anyone until he noticed me, and he never would have noticed me if I had not been so ugly. So you might say that my being ugly saved all of our lives.”
“On tape,” Mr. Malin corrected.
“Not only on tape,” Miss Ilona said, “not only on tape.”
I liked that. I liked ending with a beginning of the first part of the fourth part. And so on and so forth.
With Bert & Ray
by William
If I have to start at the beginning of things, I guess I would have to start with Pa. Or the end of Pa, I should say. I had long ago heard the expression of someone being dead drunk. Well, that was Pa. Or the end of Pa. He died dead drunk when I was six, and that was that many years ago. Half my life ago. For a long time before he died, he couldn’t get anyone to sell him any more insurance, and I can’t say that I blame them. Anyway, the little bit he did have, didn’t hardly pay for his funeral, and the little bit that Ma got from the Social Security didn’t hardly carry us from one month to the next.
So what Ma did, after Pa had been dead for three years and we had some powerful dentist bills mounted up, was to sell off all his stuff. Wasn’t any of it she wanted around the house anyways. He had hunting guns and duck decoys and all the issues of National Geographic back to when it was started. Pa could pitch a classic fit if anyone ever did touch his stacks of National Geographics. He never read the blame things, just stacked them up in a corner of the bedroom and made misery for anyone who got them the tiniest bit out of order.
Ma and I put GARAGE SALE signs up at the light poles on the street leading to our house, and people snuck around to our back door trying to get in and buy some of Pa’s things even before eight a.m., the time we said we was starting. They paid right good money for some of the stuff Pa collected, the guns in particular, and even them fancy Jack Bean bottles. We was sold out before noon, and we had brought in two months’ worth of dentist bills from that stuff of Pa’s.
Two of the people who came to the sale were Bert and Ray, this couple who have an antique store over in the section of town called Huntington. Bert and Ray were at our sale early, and they were kinda thrilled about the duck decoys and the prices Ma had put on them. We had made them odd numbers like the stores do. We put two ninety-five and like that on them, except for the biggest one that we made an even four dollars. They didn’t touch the National Geographics or the Jack Bean bottle collection or any of the old camping equipment, but they sure did tuck them decoys under their arms real quick and paid Ma exactly what she asked for them and gave her a card, saying that she should please to call them whenever she did another house sale. Ma took the card and said that she sure would call them if she ever did another. I was speculating about what else Ma could sell until I realized that Ma is just a timid soul who says “scuse me” to the chiffonier when she bumps into it.
Next thing I know, we are over in the Huntington section of town, having our dentist appointments, and right there on Elmhurst Avenue where we stood, waiting on the bus, there was a house that had a sign out front, a neat, lettered sign saying, HUNTINGTON ANTIQUES, Bertram Grover and Raymond Porterfield, Proprietors. Right up on the front door was attached another sign, a littler one, and this one just said, OPEN. Ma remembered that that was exactly the name on the card given her by the couple that had bought them decoys on the day of our sale. She took the card out from her pocketbook, and sure enough, even the style of the lettering on the card matched that what was on the sign.
“C’mon, Ma,” I said, “let’s pay them a visit.”
“Aw, William,” Ma said. “It’s not nice to pay a call so unexpected.”
“C’mon, now, Ma,” I said. “This here is a place of business, and heck, you don’t need no appointment to walk into a open business unless’n it’s a dentist.” I marched right up onto the porch and beckoned to Ma to follow, and she did. I pushed on the doorbell that was right next to the small sign that said OPEN.
Took a pretty minute or two for them to open the door and Ma was ready to back on down, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her to stand right there by the door. I noticed that the porch was fixed up right nice with wicker chairs and lots of plants in pots. On the wicker rocker was a little sticker, white with a red border that said one hundred forty dollars and then I found another sticker on a chair that said one hundred thirty dollars. Each pot that had a plant inside it had a numbered price, too. I didn’t have time to point any of this out to Ma, because there at the door appeared Ray, who was smiling and welcoming us in.
Bert was standing in the front hall, and he pointed the way into their parlor, and Ma and me sat down on this here sofa with legs so skinny they didn’t look like they could hold up the sofa cushions let alone Ma and me. Bert and Ray asked us to have some tea with them, and I must say that they served it up real fine in little cups you couldn’t hardly fit your finger through the handle. I put my cup and saucer down on a end table and picked up a ashtray and saw one of them little white stickers with a red border on it and written on it was some letters and then a price, twenty-five dollars. It wasn’t a very big ashtray neither. I got up from that skinny-legged sofa and began to wander around their parlor, and whatever I took to picking up had a red and white sticker and some letters and some number wrote on it.
“What’re these here letters for?” I asked.
Ray kinda winked at me and said that that was a big secret, that that there was their code, saying how much they paid for something. Knowing that, it wasn’t too much trouble figuring things out because sitting right there on their sideboard was one of Pa’s decoy ducks, and I picked it up kinda casual and saw that it said RIB, and right under that code was written twenty-five dollars. Well, I knowed that we had not charged them but one seventy-five for that there decoy. All of the decoys was marked twenty-five dollars, even though we had charged different amounts, up to four full dollars for them. I just lifted each duck sort of casual like and, remembering what we had charged, I memorized that EAB was two ninety-five, PAB was three ninety-five and UNN was four dollars even. I had already spotted RIB at one seventy-five.
Bert and Ray asked Ma if she often managed house sales, and Ma said no. Then they told her that if she ever wanted help with any, they would be happy to give it to her if she would just let them in first. Ma said she’d be more than happy to let them in first, not quite understanding everything they were asking and telling.
We left their place, and I couldn’t hardly wait a minute to write down the number and the letters of that there secret code. I took the card that had our next dentist appointment reminder, and I done my figuring on it.
If EAB was two ninety-five, then E was the second letter and A was ninth and B was fifth.
So I wrote all the numbers in a row and in order and I fitted the letters with their numbers like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
R E P U B I A N
Weren’t but one word could fit into all that, and that word had to be REPUBLICAN, which Bert and Ray probably were.
Thing that happened not long after that was that Ma got a call from Ray, saying that there was the contents of this house to sell. Some old lady had died, and the family that was left wanted Bert and him, Ray, to handle the whole thing, but that since they had opened their Huntington Antiques Shop, they didn’t want to do that kind of business anymore. So they was calling Ma to see if she wanted to handle it. They said that they would come on over to the dead lady’s house with her to help her and teach her what to do if she’d just remember that she was supposed to let them in first.
Ma said sure she’d like to help them, not even knowing what was in it for her, but she wanted to thank them for having her and me to tea. She asked Ray if I, William, could help, too. I guess she figured that I ought to since I had had some tea, too, and Ray told her yes, that certainly William could help. He told her that they would lend her one of their standard contract forms to use until she could get some of her own printed up. And Ma said thanks for that, not even knowing for sure what she was thanking for, but living with Pa for as long as she had, she had got into the habit of being thankful for just any kind of common courtesy.
The contract when it came said that Ma was to get twenty cents on the dollar of whatever money she took in from the sale of household goods.
Bert and Ray showed us how you have to go around and put these prices on everything, even old bath towels so wore out that you’d be right ashamed to hang them on a clothesline, which these people didn’t because they had a clothes dryer. And I didn’t think any self-respecting person would leave such a kitchen when they died. You would think that Cockroaches United was having a county convention. Ray taught Ma how to tag and mark everything, and Bert taught her how to keep track of what was sold to who and how to do the book work, and they taught me how to clear out the cupboards and drawers and wash the stuff that needed it.