The tuesday Group
by Anita Harag.
Translated by Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry
Is it my turn? OK, hi, everybody. I don’t really know what to say. I’m fine, these days I walk a lot. But something weird happened yesterday evening. The phone rings, I answer, but there is silence at the other end. I waited and talked into the phone again, still nothing. Then it occurred to me that it could have been my wife, or rather my ex-wife. She hasn’t heard my voice for a long time, and she must have been embarrassed, or perhaps she didn’t even recognize it and so I said “hello” once more. Maybe she was curious to see if I recognized her, even if she didn’t say anything. I seemed to hear something which may have been breathing. I looked at the clock, it was past seven, that’s when she used to get home after running, would stop by the hallway mirror looking at her reflection. After running she felt beautiful. It’s strange what stays with you, isn’t it? Since when? Maybe four years. No, we actually spoke three years ago on my daughter’s birthday. I wanted to take her fishing, but my wife said that it wasn’t a good idea. That it’s not a good idea that my daughter comes fishing with me. After the divorce I brought her over a few times, but my ex-wife said that she was restless afterwards, didn’t sleep and hardly ate. I wasn’t really well after the divorce; you know how that is. My daughter was over at my place for the weekend, she was at home, and I didn’t notice that she came to the bedroom in the middle of the night and lay down on the floor on what was my wife’s side. She was still young—only seven. She lay on the floor all night, just lay there and, in the morning, was looking for her mother, her arms were ice cold. She wasn’t comfortable being with me, even though I tried my best. And then she wouldn’t sleep nor eat for days after having been to my place, after being at home. I phoned my wife every week, but she rarely answered, and then my calls became rare, and later, only on name days or birthdays. That time, on her birthday, it had been months since I saw my daughter, even though she liked to fish. She used to sit beside me on her small camp chair. She had her own fishing rod. One time she was watching the floater so hard that she fell asleep and tilted forward butI managed to catch her in time. The fish had to be thrown back. Bye-bye fishies. And then, thinking of my fishing daughter, it occurred to me that it was she who called and didn’t dare say anything on the phone. It could be that she still remembered the number, we repeated it to her many times when she was small. She loved numbers and counting. Because, oh yeah, I didn’t mention it earlier, it was the landline that rang. Yes, we still have a landline, it’s so old that it has a rotary dialer, because that reminded my wife—my ex-wife—of her grandmother and she liked the way it rang. That’s how I always phoned her at home; I knew she would wait for a bit; she wanted to hear it ring for a while before answering. So, I thought it was my daughter and that I wouldn’t recognize her voice. She’s twelve, her voice must sound like a big girl’s voice. Girls’ voices change, too, don’t they? Right? How old is your daughter? Then she’s younger than mine, mine’s twelve. So, I kept waiting in case she would say something, and, after a few seconds, I said “hello” again in an encouraging way. She didn’t say a word, but I could still hear something like breathing.Then I realized that it must have been my wife calling because our daughter had had an accident and she didn’t know how to tell me that our daughter had been run over or fell from somewhere and places kept swirling in my head where one could fall, a school window, her girlfriend’s house, the terrace of some museum where the class was on a trip, or she got kicked during soccer practice, or fell off her bike and this time it wasn’t only her arm that broke, she had a bad fall and was in intensive care. Let her not be in intensive care. She already broke her arm once, two years ago, my sister called to tell me that my daughter had a fall while biking. Her arm was put into a cast, and she was kept in for the night. In which hospital, I asked, and she told me. I grabbed my coat and went to the hospital, but by the time I got there, the momentum passed, and I slowed down, literally dragged my feet in the direction of the emergency, and, in the end, didn’t go inside. I simply didn’t go inside. I walked around the hospital once, twice, three times. I spent at least two hours walking around the hospital watching the windows wondering in which room my daughter was lying, in which room her mother was sitting by her bedside, there were fewer and fewer rooms with the light on, and then I left. I think I spotted my wife in front of the hospital, of course she wasn’t alone. Then it occurred to me that it was my sister, although she always speaks up, she even talks when she shouldn’t; she’s always the first one to talk, no matter what company, just all the time. Do you also have a sister? Then you know. My sister dislikes awkward silences and she would definitely consider this silence awkward. If something has happened to my daughter, my sister would phone, but perhaps this time my sister doesn’t know how to tell me. Yes, they stayed friends after the divorce, they talk frequently. I found out from her that my daughter does karate. I got really angry at my sister for not saying anything, for not telling me what had happened to my daughter; then asked who was on the line, but no one answered. I tried to talk in a calm voice in case it was my daughter or my ex-wife. My sister tells me that she met the guy, he looks hardly old enough to shave. She thinks that’s what she needs to tell me about my wife’s new guy. He's fifteen years younger than me, ten years younger than my wife, but it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault that my wife met that guy and fell in love with him. Such things happen. My sister found excuses for her. But I didn’t react. That, my sister understood. She understands things. She even said later that she’s sorry, I am her brother, she will always be on my side, and she told me again that she saw that guy in the garden picking apricots from the tree and his chest was almost completely hairless. Besides, she was right, such things happen. Anything can happen, and if anything can happen, then this can happen too. Of course, I didn’t behave very well when she left me, I didn’t talk to her decently. I like telling myself that today I’d do it differently, but I don’t know. I like to think that I wouldn’t scream at her in front of our daughter. I like to think that I wouldn’t call her a whore in front of our daughter. But I was so angry. I had never been that angry before. My wife was crying, our daughter was crying, and after I was crying, too. Prior to that, we never had had a fight, a real one, like she broke something, like a plate, and I punched the wall. There was never anything like that, ever. I loved her. She loved me. That’s all. Then they hung up. Whoever it was hung up, and I sat down beside the phone. I didn’t disconnect it after they moved over to that guy’s place; I couldn’t. So, I just sat beside it and waited for whoever it was to call back. Perhaps the person on the other end kept talking, because she thought I could hear her and when I didn’t reply she understood that I couldn’t hear and hung up and was about to phone back. So, I waited. Later I got up and made myself a sandwich in the kitchen and sat down beside the phone again. I don’t know who it could have been. There was no return call. You think my sister? Why didn’t I call her? That never occurred to me, but you’re right I should call to find out if it was her. Yes, I will call her tonight, or rather tomorrow morning. It’s too late now.
The Author: Anita Harag, the author was born in Budapest in 1988. In 2020 she was the winner of the Margó Prize for her volume of short stories "Rather Cool for the Time of Year”. Her second volume of stories came out in September 2023. This story postdates her two books.
The Translators: Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry are Canadian. In addition to Anita Harag they also translate five other authors; many of these translations have appeared in literary reviews in six countries. Gábor Szántó’s book, 1945 and Other Stories, six of its eight stories translated by them, was published in 2024.