THE BASS SAXOPHONE by Josef Škvorecký

but you aren’t. You aren’t. You aren’t. You’re just the same as all the rest, she said. But Emöke! No, don’t say anything, I know it all. Why don’t you at least consider your fiancée’s feelings, if you don’t consider mine. Basically, I’m just a stranger, you’ve only known me a few days. But her feelings … Emöke! That’s nonsense! I exclaimed. It was that idiot schoolteacher who made you believe that. But he’s lying! Can’t you tell he’s just a dirty old man? Don’t call him names, she said. It was honorable of him to call my attention to it. But it’s not true! Emöke! Don’t lie, please. You showed him her photograph. But … (I had shown the schoolteacher a picture of Margit and her two-year-old son, Peter, I don’t know why, maybe out of stupid male vanity). Then show me your identity folder if you say it isn’t true, said Emöke, and that was when I remembered that the picture was in my identity folder; I had taken it out to show to the schoolteacher, and he had even told her that — Margit with the flirty bangs, the cleavage in the neckline of her summer dress, and with that sweet little blond two-year-old in the grass among the dandelions. I can’t, I said weakly. But it isn’t true. Don’t lie, said Emöke. Please, don’t lie at least. I’m not, I insisted, I’m not lying, but I can’t show you the identity folder. Why not? I just can’t. Because … Why? said Emöke with a penetrating look, and once again it was the little animal looking at me, but this time it was as if someone really had taken something away from it, an illusion of forest freedom, as if it were staring into the maw of a wild beast it hadn’t known existed in its green and sunny world. Why can’t you? she said urgently, inan excited voice that I hadn’t heard her use before and the eyes of the little animal grew large as in the final, ultimate flash of comprehension beneath the yellowed fangs of the beast, and then the monastic pallor of her cheeks flushed an unnatural crimson and nervously, painfully, almost weeping, Emöke said quickly, Let me go, I have to leave. I’m taking the train at one o’clock in the morning. Goodbye! and she tore herself away and left the room swiftly, she disappeared while I stood there, she vanished.
    I turned and saw the schoolteacher, squatting at the table, his face smoldering with wounded righteousness.
    I was waiting for her at half-past midnight in front of the building, but she came out with her roommate, another Hungarian girl, in a group of about five Slovaks who were all taking the night train. It was obvious that she had asked the other girl not to leave her alone with me because she stayed close beside us the whole way. So I couldn’t say anything to Emöke, I just asked her if I might write to her. Of course, she said, why not? And will you write to me? Why? she said. I lowered my voice so the other girl wouldn’t hear and said, Because I love you, Emöke. Believe me. I don’tbelieve you, she replied. The other girl had stepped aside a bit but she was still within hearing distance so I had to keep my voice down. Believe me, I repeated, I’ll come to see you in Košice. May I? Why not? she said. But will you speak to me? May I visit you? Of course, she said. Then will you believe me? She didn’t reply. Will you believe me, Emöke? She was silent a while longer. I don’t know. Maybe, she said after a pause, and by then we were at the station, a little village station with the train already waiting, and the uniformed stationmaster standing beside it. The vacationers boarded, a Slovak helped Emöke get her suitcase inside and then she appeared like a black silhouette at the carriage window. Emöke, I said, aiming my words upward as if I were casting a spell on her, as if I could draw from her an answer to the eternal and monotonous question of my life, so empty with its eternal variations on the love ritual, so sleazy, so lacking in values, in honesty,