Free The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony Page B

swooped as he grabbed and pulled at the strings. In his small hands, the instrument made high-pitched crying noises that ached over the horsefields, setting off the wolves. He was a terrible violinist. One evening, as he played, Janka couldn’t take it anymore. She ran out from the kitchen, grabbed the instrument from his fingers, and threw it off the porch. The violin whistledthrough the air and landed, invisibly, in the long weeds of the horsefields. Crickets exploded into a chattering mayhem.
    Grandfather Ákos said nothing. He stared, motionless, into the dark fields. Mosquitoes
zizz
ed above his head, drunk on the porch light.
    “I’m sorry,” said Janka.
    For a long moment, Grandfather Ákos did not move or speak. When he finally set his eyes upon her, they were round. Black. Janka stepped back into the hallway of the farmhouse. “I’m
sorry
,” she said, but the old man leaned in. Something shifted beneath the shoulders of the wool coat—
    “Ján!” she cried.
    Ján came running out from the barn, and together they searched the horsefields. They searched all night, and into the next morning. When they returned to the house empty-handed, Grandfather Ákos led them to the couch in the living room. He sat them down.
    “I said I was sorry,” said Janka.
    Ján kicked her.
    The old man looked at them both carefully. He breathed out through his nose. He cleared his throat. “
Nincs kegyelem
,” he said.
    Ján jumped up. “What?”
    “You’re cut off.”
    Ján opened his mouth to protest, but Grandfather Ákos held up one finger. “Until,” he said, “you find it.” He stood up and began buttoning his coat, and it was then that the boy, watching from behind the kitchen door, noticed the buttons. They gleamed as he maneuvered them between his fingers. Ten perfect circles of gold. Grandfather Ákos finished buttoning and walked towards him into the kitchen. He rolled up the newspaper, and then took the boy’s head in his hands once more. He bent down and looked so closely, the goatee tickled the boy’s chin. He clucked his tongue, the clean smell of lemons on his breath—
    “They say it’s in the eyes,” he said, and then turned and left the farmhouse.
    Now, years later, Ján Pfliegman still has not found the violin. He pours himself a glass of whiskey and plunks down at the dinner table. “Screw it,” he says, rubbing the mud from his shoes. “We don’t need the money.”
    “That’s right,” says Janka. “We don’t. We have everything we need without him.”
    She brings over a large glass jar full of pickled eggs and places it on the table. A piece of masking tape is taped to the front of the jar that says
Tojás
: eggs. Janka keeps big glass jars above the cabinets in the kitchen, and writes everything on the masking tape in Hungarian:
Bors
. (Peppers.)
Káposzta
. (Cabbage.)
Krumpli
. (Potatoes.)
Kompót
. (Stewed fruit.) She brings over a bowl of tomato soup, and Ján starts shoving in spoonfuls. He reaches a hand into the jar of eggs and removes two. He eats them whole, like cookies. He takes another drink of the whiskey and then he looks over the table at the boy sitting across from him. He seems startled, like he’d forgotten the boy was there, and is suddenly struck by a moment of unpredictable hilarity. He takes another egg and pops it in, chuckling that he has a hairy little son who won’t speak to anyone. He giggles like a child.
    Janka thinks he’s laughing at her cooking. “You better cut it out,” she says, but the man cannot help himself. The weird little frame. The lumpy head! He bursts out laughing. In a fury, Janka turns and hurls the stirring spoon from the stove.
    It slaps him, hard and wet, right on the neck.
    He jumps up from the table and reaches for Janka, punching her clean on the head. She kicks him with her wooden clogs and gets him swiftly across the shins. Ján cries out and grabs his legs. Then he stands up and throws a fist into her back. She bends over and