Tranquility by Attila Bartis

cleaned the feathers of the ripped-apart pillow off Cleopatra’s hands, and by then the sobbing was beginning to subside.
    This is good, said Cleopatra, and turned around so Antony could get to the feathers stuck to her face, too, and to the real tears rolling over the stage make-up, to the pulsing artery of the long neck, and so that the heaving of her breasts, decorated with glass rubies, might be soothed with a damp kerchief.
    Don’t cry, Mother, said Antony and with her kerchief he smoothed the valley of the belly, starting from below the breasts, all the way down to the golden sash under the navel.
    Take this junk off me, Son, Cleopatra said, and I unbuckled her belt; she raised her hip so I could remove the gilded imitation-snakeskin strap.
    Bastards, they think they can turn me into an extra, she said, and I picked the feathers off her thighs.
    Oh, that feels so good, Son. Do my soles, too, she said, and raised her foot to put it in my lap, but I grasped her ankle and kept the foot in front of my face.
    Relax, Mother, I said, warming her sole with my breath, before beginning to massage the slender toes. I put her heel on my left shoulder becauseI didn’t dare put it in my lap, but I didn’t want to put it back on the bed, either. We stayed like that for long minutes: she propped on her elbows, the wig half slid down on her blonde bun, and me holding one of her feet on my shoulder, the other in my hand. Maybe for the first time in my life I felt something warm in her expression, but I didn’t dare raise my head, because I knew the feeling would last only until we looked each other in the eye. And of course I knew that I couldn’t sit like this, with my head down, for the rest of my life. Then slowly she pulled her foot out of my hand and held it in front of my lips for me to kiss it.
    Women will love you, Son, she said and hurried into the bathroom.
    .   .   .
    One sunny morning, Comrade Fenyő called my mother into his office, offered her some Napoleon cognac and said, “No sorrow is greater than ours now that our beloved actress cannot make full use of her talent. For example, there is this screenplay with this marvelous leading role in it, and it’s an international co-production to boot, which means it involves travel as well. True, only to Bulgaria, but a sea is a sea. Would you like another shot of cognac? However, comrade actress, you must acknowledge the presence of some upsetting factors in the given circumstances. Of course, these factors could easily be eliminated – well, if nothing else, these French sure know how to make a good cognac, don’t they? – for instance, if your little girl came home; after all, in music we are a superpower, are we not? We have Liszt and Bartók, and Lehár, and the MÁV * Philharmonic; in other words, we are at a loss, we simply don’t know what your daughter was thinking of. But if she came home, we’d look on her little faux pas as a study trip, and I can assure you that she could continue to benefit not only from her talent but also from her newly made contacts, applying of course theappropriate measure of discretion and self-discipline. Not to mention that here we are with the screenplay I told you about before and all the many other leading roles, you see, desperately waiting for someone to do them justice at last. Well, here’s one more for the road.” And that very evening my mother sat down and wrote her first letter, saying nothing about the leading roles but emphasizing the study-trip nature of Judit’s defection, to which my sister replied only that Esteemed Mother, next week I have a concert with Menuhin, you couldn’t possibly be serious, could you, when suggesting I join the MÁV Philharmonic?
    But my mother didn’t give up; she consulted even with the party secretary.
    â€œWrite to her that she should think of her family,” said Comrade Fenyő, and after a