Iza's Ballad Read Free Page B

her even angrier. But then she saw that Lidia was looking at Vince, not her, and that Vincent’s mouth was trembling again in a way that reminded her of how he used to smile, and how it lit up his face for a moment before immediately fading again. Lidia crouched down by the bed and held Vince’s hand.
    The old woman felt she no longer existed, that she had been ignored, cut out, cheated. She glared at Lidia. Lidia was a complete stranger, someone she’d never met before, whose face was packed with a meaning she didn’t recognise, and she felt a peculiarly fierce hatred for her; it was as if, for the first time in her life, her eyes had finally been opened and she could see. Thief, cheat; she was stealing the last moments of her husband’s life. It was Antal who had chosen this nurse! Antal had selected her to attend on the sick man. Iza wouldn’t have done that. Now there she is, crouching by the bed, holding Vince’s hand. A nobody. A stranger.
    ‘Go on, sleep,’ said Lidia. ‘I’m here.’
    The old woman sank back on to the bed. She was so angry that she felt no pain at all. She snatched at Vince’s other hand, the tender body lying held up by the pair of them. Vince didn’t speak again, his breathing was barely audible. Lidia was still crouching beside him. Her face was no longer visible as she had bent her brow over Vince’s hand.
    Outside, the March light had frozen between the trees. The old woman closed her eyes and stiffened at the waist. When she looked again, Lidia was standing. Vince lay precisely as before but was quieter still.
    ‘He’s gone,’ said Lidia. ‘It wasn’t water he wanted, it was his daughter, Iza. I’ll get Dr Antal.’

2
    A CAR STOOD waiting outside the door. Antal led her to it. It took her some time to understand that Dekker had arranged to have her taken home in his car. She shook her head in terror, no, certainly not, out of the question. It was incomprehensible to her that she should get into a car now and be driven home as if it were a wedding. She’d cut across the small copse of trees in the park to where the rails ran and get a tram home. Or better still, she’d go on foot. She wanted to walk, to move. Antal took a long look back at the porter’s cabin where the porter’s cape was hanging on a hook. It was as though he wanted to put it on while seeing her home. Don’t follow, leave me alone! She just wanted to be left alone. She wouldn’t feel ill, why should she, it’s fine, just let her go. And she was very grateful for everything, grateful to him and to Dekker.
    ‘At least leave your baggage behind,’ Antal begged her.
    ‘Why leave it, it isn’t heavy.’ The doctor still did not want to let her go so she just set off without saying goodbye. She knew it was churlish and rude but she also knew that if she didn’t start she’d have no strength left. Antal shouted something after her, something about telephoning, but she didn’t catch it. Couldn’t he just leave her alone for God’s sake!
    The park looked exposed, almost angry, as if it were being dragooned into spring against its will; a few mounds of snow remained dotted about the grass. Birches had been planted. The trees bent their thin pale bodies with the wind. The grass at the lake’s edge had begun to sprout but this was no sweet March, it was severe, the sky clouded over, edgy and dark, with something of Easter about it, the buds on the twigs not dreamy but threatening, a kind of purplish green, like rotting flesh. At the top of the hill stood three threadbare old firs, their flaking trunks so thick only the branches registered the movement of the air; some of last year’s cones were still nestling in the boughs. A thin membrane of ice lay over the water, washing away footprints along the path.
    There was a bridge to the island in the middle of the artificial lake and she hesitated a moment when she reached it, but she walked across anyway. From here the chimneys of the clinic were clearly