Time-worn steps creaking beneath my hurried pace as I am rushing down the staircase of the apartment building with the kid in my arms, countless bags, stuffed animals, a nursing bottle, and dozens of whatchamacallits swinging from my fingers. For some reason the elevator had to be out of order this morning and I’m already terribly late.
Undoubtedly the world is callous, reality is soul-wrenching, plus I didn’t have time for breakfast.
Eine Kleine Gigue starts playing in my coat’s inside pocket. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s lovely piano piece has never been this annoying. The vow of the moment flashes through my mind: change your ringtone ASAP!
I couldn’t answer the phone even if I had nine arms, not even if my life would depend on it, I’m thinking to myself, and then I realize my life might actually depend on this call, maybe it’s about the job interview. I imagine my future boss waiting on the other end of the line patiently. But for how long? Perhaps another few seconds.
I move quickly but carefully, so I don’t drop my daughter, and I twist around myself like some accidental escape artist. Plastic tastes plastic that gets confirmed as I grab some of the bags’ handles between my teeth, and I reach into my pocket. My fingertips are chasing the phone, but it keeps slipping away. A droplet of sweat forms on my forehead, and in the meantime, Eine Kleine Gigue slowly drives me nuts. Finally I can grab the phone and pull it out. I take a deep breath to get ready answering my future boss.
Mozart plays, the screen says ‘Mom’.
Lava-hot wave of impatience floods my mind: my mother has a special talent for calling me in the most unsuitable moments and this is one of them indeed. However, the ambush of a side thought hits me dead center and makes me stop. I have to lean against the handrail as I can feel that this particular thought is too powerful — one could say shocking —, and I wouldn’t like to stumble off the stairs with my three-year-old in my arms.
Actually, this thought whispers, your mother isn’t the one always calling you at the wrong time; you are the one for whom it is never the right time. Because you are constantly in a hurry. You are always so busy; you are always doing something extremely important that cannot wait. As if you’d be constantly paving the way for the universe. Just like now, with all those bags in your mouth.
Without prior notification all the cells of my body start jumping around at once and I cannot help but burst out laughing. All the stuff in my mouth is falling on the floor. My daughter is just staring at me first; she doesn’t understand how I became so overjoyed all of a sudden, but she promptly joins me in laughter. The staircase amplifies our voices in rolling waves, Mr. Mozart keeps on playing and I soon feel my abs like I haven’t felt in a long time.
It’s Granma, I’m telling my daughter, and I put her carefully on the ground, like a potted plant, so she doesn’t tumble. I wait ‘till she grabs the handrail, then I wipe a fat teardrop from my eye and pick up the phone.
“Hi Mom, I’m so happy you called!” I tell her wholeheartedly and again some of those jumpy cells in my body give me a final chuckle.
Perhaps my mom cannot really make sense of my unusual joyfulness. She’s hesitantly silent, and in these few moments, I’m convinced that whoever is making sure the universe is okay is doing a damn fine job sometimes after all.
“I just called to remind you to say happy birthday to your father.”
And now I’m the one who’s lost for words. I take a look at my daughter; she’s already fiddling with the handrail. She’s intensely examining the crackled blue color painting of the iron. She’s immensely occupied. I crouch right next to her, and I stroke a tuft of hair out of her face.
“Son, are you still there?” I hear the woman that gave me birth and raised me asking from the other end of the line.
“I know” I heave out quickly “It’s the second. I swear I won’t forget it this year.”
My daughter starts to scratch the paint.
“Today is the second.”
I am proud that I can fit everything work-related precisely into an imaginary calendar. I can create an optimal schedule, and I can stay on it. It’s unbelievable that I’m unable to do the same with my private stuff. I often feel that in my personal life my brain rejects the notion of the dimension called time. The fancy, colorful timeline composed of known dates does not fit on the plane of any actual calendar.
I catch myself scratching the paint too. Under the crackled blue I can see the previous color; it could be any color, but it’s just a slightly different blue again. I wonder what might be under that one.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I speak to dad?”
Tamás Inczédy is a well-known Hungarian writer, author of novels, several short stories and tales in the Hungarian language. He graduated from the University of Economics and then quit his office work and moved to Indonesia for three years. He taught at an Islamic university, while completing his first cycle of short stories The Juggler and the novel The Soup of Man. “Full Stop” was translated into English by Zoltán Botos.