Contentment did not attract me, in my youth it frightened me. I received in satisfaction in knowing that love, matrimonial love with that most attractive man was within my reach, but I wanted more. At that point in my life I was under the false impression devotion was an everyday occurrence. When I met other women on my life’s journey, they were on the same road I traversed as an escapee: I pitied, some I disdained. My goal was to write and to show the world and perhaps even the future the reality of my world and time. I felt it was up to me to preserve the moment in which I lived.
I will not allow pride to alter my story. My parents were rich and my father doting. I disappointed my mother with my decision to pursue a career, but she had two other daughters with whom she could plan weddings and parties and thank God they allowed her that pleasure. I was told of the festivities later, when thoughts of me were of a wishful memory to my family. Distance, time and the lack or rather the inability to communicate had left them the inevitable conclusion that I had died in my endeavors.
Wish to God I had.
I grew in a mountainous region full of cliff hanging farms and tiny strict God-fearing churches. Isolation was the underscoring theme of my country. Unless, like me, you had land owning parents who also had obscure little titles, one would live one’s life in the region and believe that the world was similar. My first trip to Paris exploded all my notions of devote Catholicism and I imbibed deeply of that wine, knowledge and… what shall I call it… not freedom, no not that but happy defiance. I felt among the living.
Depravity was never my goal. In that first year I wrote, kept tight control of my funds, and did not squander. I found however that my style of writing my commentary was not what publishers wanted. None the less until the day I met him I kept a sense that my fellow human beings were indeed the image of God and that I must treat each with respect. There were those who earned a higher esteem than the man or woman whom I passed on the street, but again I tried to respect all.
Who was ‘him’? A grand passion? A conquest? No. I refer to Vilmos as ‘him,’ because he was once a man.
As I pen these words, I strive for honesty because it is all that is left to me. Existence is soon over, and they will not allow me out of this cell. There are no bars, no locks, but behind that door, courteously shut by my guards, is an image that subdues me and keeps me here until my execution.
Honesty. Yes, I must proceed. I had left my native Hungary and traveled to Paris by train. The Great War had just ended, and the lights and the parties were many. I was at first intrigued and then bored. The poets were self-gratifying and blamed their ill tempers on the memory of war. My suggestion of fresh air and aid in repairing the damage met with disdain. I shrugged off the fickle friends and left them to their deep red wine and constant allegorically charged regurgitation.
I found Vilmos in a dark alley in Paris killing a young prostitute, draining her. He threw her down and turned on me, his hearing acute. Here at last I felt that my occupation as writer and journalist would begin. I thought I had come upon life in its most base form, and it terrified me. Murder! If I survived, I would write.
He stood before me, tall, gaunt and handsome in a gruesome, powerful way. I felt the invisible charge of his adrenaline as it cracked through the air between us. I believe now my life would have been instantly forfeit if not for my reversion back to my native Hungarian language.
“Kannibal. Istenem
Vilmos stopped, for he had lunged toward me. “Honnan szarmazol?” His voice was deep and surprisingly soft.
I was terrified and remained so, though I tried to speak in an attempt to save my life. At that moment I did not know what manner of man stood before me, but I understood murder had just transpired.
“Ne felj!” His slender body arched inward; shoulders stooped as if he were trying to make himself less frightful. Impossible! My teeth chattered in response to his hushed question and attempted assurance. The blood that smeared across his lips and chin, the body of the young girl between us now emitting a thin mist as if her soul were rising from her cooling body. “Meggyilkoltad azt a lanyt.” I croaked out at last. But even in my fear my mind churned to remember the lighting, the smell, the shadow of the place in which I felt certain my life was finally beginning and soon to end.
Vilmos stood erect and smiled. I sickened and fought faintness. “Run, silly girl,” he said in English. I squared my shoulders and screamed, but he stifled me in a moment. I looked into his ice-blue eyes and saw the triumph of a hunter.
“For a little while little country woman I will have you. We will do well together and then I will send you to the priests for disposal. They know what to do with girls like you.”
His crypt in Paris is well hidden. Nothing opulent and I have told the priests.
Cruel? Yes. He relished in the pain of my conversion. I begged for my life, for my soul, and he smiled. There were moments he questioned me about my hopes and ambitions. I awoke once within his crypt and my writing materials were beside me. I wept as I held the pen and ink that were a gift from my father. But within that small box of journals, pen and ink was a smaller box of hairpins and comb. The lock to the crypt was heavy, and I wept in frustration at every failure, but at last the lock sprang.
I left the stone enclosure screaming. The tunnel was narrow and winding. I ran, tripped on the rags of my clothes, and felt he was just behind me, closing in and furious. I imagined his powerful grip, the victory in his eyes when I, like so many of his victims I watched die, finally succumbed myself.
Perhaps he was just behind, perhaps I was only seconds away from his grasp, but I heard voices, shouts ahead of me. Later the priests told me it terrified them that someone had been buried alive or had wandered too far into the ancient Paris catacombs. They knew immediately however when they saw the marks on my neck and my terror of their crucifix.
I could still stand the light of day and they took me into the country. They tried to feed me and nurse me, but neither light nor food enticed me. The young priest, so somber in his black cassock. “Is there anyone you wish to write or communicate with?”
“What will happen to my soul?”
“You will be with God. I promise.”
“Why has this happened? I wanted to write. I wanted to write and tell the world about life.”
The young priest turned and looked out the window. I could see the pulse of his heart in his neck. I forced myself to stillness and waited. Yes, I could hear, at first faintly and then with more profound sound, the beat of his heart. I felt a strength in my hands I had not felt before. He was young, supple. The old priest who stood by the door cleared his throat.
“Come Father, she’s had enough for today.”
I know that they will be as kind as possible. I sleep profoundly during the day and they have my patterns of rest and wakefulness known. They will lay me to rest in Hungary and in sacred ground, as they have promised.
My name is Aletta and I tell myself this as the sunsets.