Translated by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess
The Name
Whose name do you keep saying in your sleep, my girlfriend asked. You kept repeating a woman’s name all night long. What are you talking about, I asked. She already sounded offended. Don’t you know? Then she said the name. I lied that it was my cousin’s and that she had died when we were still children. She didn’t know about my cousin. She didn’t know that I saw her die. My girlfriend felt ashamed. She couldn’t feel anything else with a dead cousin. She stopped asking questions; she was sweet and attentive in case I was going to add something. She couldn’t accuse me of having made up the whole story.
I didn’t used to talk in my sleep. I was a silent sleeper; I went to bed and then got up in the morning. Sometimes I woke to take a piss, but I didn’t grind my teeth, didn’t sleepwalk, didn’t even snore. I had to make up a story; it had to be a relative, a distant relative she didn’t know. My real cousin wouldn’t work; why would I talk about her, she lives in the country with two kids and her marriage may be in trouble. I had to make up a story so that she doesn’t live in the country and her marriage isn’t in trouble; she’s not married, she died when she was ten and I was nine. A tragic accident; that’s all I said at the beginning. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise; that’s the only way I can dream about her twenty-five years later. It has to be credible, and it’s only credible if I was a child when she died, I had to witness it all.
You dreamt about her again, my girlfriend said. She’s a light sleeper, even at night she wouldn’t miss a sentence. But what kind of accident, she asked. Tragic, I answered, and I didn’t want to talk about it; but I felt that sooner or later I would have to talk about it. It’s not possible not to talk about a tragic accident. Double negative. You must talk about a tragic accident.
I found a few pictures of my cousin as a child. I pointed at her and said: she’s the one. She’s the one I talk about in my sleep. Fortunately, we haven’t been in touch since childhood. Our parents had a falling out about some inheritance. I know from Facebook that she is married with two children. She “likes” my photos, but we don’t talk. I look at her recent photos and I only recognize her childhood face if I really concentrate. Fortunately, she doesn’t look like herself.
Why is it now that she is so much on your mind, my girlfriend asked. It happened around this time, I answered. This time, twenty-five years ago, once the first snow had fallen. She must have frozen to death or the ice broke under her. Perhaps it broke under me as well; that’s why I don’t like to skate. Those are the thoughts that must race through my girlfriend’s mind. What else could occur to her, a tragic accident, winter. It cannot be a ski accident; I don’t ski and how could I have been present at a ski accident. She knows a lot about me; the dead cousin is something new. It bothers her that there is something she doesn’t know. She’s the inquisitive type. She has a question about everything. She would prefer to start listing off whether the ice broke under my cousin or whether she froze to death on a winter’s night, or had a bad fall on a sleigh, but she stops herself; she is more empathetic than that. I can tell that curiosity and empathy are struggling with each other. Her curiosity always wins in the end. That’s when suspicion sets in. The interrogation starts. It is necessary to lie believably.
Sometimes I woke up with my girlfriend leaning on her elbow beside me, looking at me with empathy. You dreamt about her again and started patting my head. You kept repeating her name. She wiped my face and showed her hand. It was wet. You would feel better if you talked about it, she said. Talking helps. I can’t yet, I answered. At times like these, she falls silent and looks at me with compassion. She wouldn’t show as much damned compassion if I told her the truth. She wouldn’t caress me so that I would fall back to sleep.
I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t know anyone with that name; she wouldn’t have believed it. It’s not possible to believe this and she would think that I had an affair with a woman with that name. I changed my lifestyle; I walked more, ate less just so that I wouldn’t need to listen to her, I cannot stand her voice. I tried sleeping in the living room with the justification that I didn’t want to wake her. But she told me that she couldn’t sleep if I wasn’t by her side. When we have a fight and then make up, she says she sleeps well again, at last. I tried sleeping on the sofa and slept in a way that she wouldn’t have the heart to wake me; all bundled to my neck. But she always woke me and kissed me or stroked my face with her hand; come, let’s go to the bedroom.
I tried to keep my eyes open in the dark. You mustn’t fall asleep, I kept repeating to myself like a mantra. All the while I was thinking about the woman in my dream. Who can this woman be who preoccupies me so much; all I knew about her was her name. It’s not such a rare name, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t associate a face with it. How is it possible that I don’t know anyone by that name? That I’ve never met anyone by that name? I don’t even like it. I could repeat a much nicer name. A more feminine name. A foreign name. This one is so average, almost boring. Perhaps there is something calming about its sound. Yes, it’s the sound that I like. The more I repeat it to myself, the more I like it. I remember when I first said it out loud, I smiled. When my girlfriend wasn’t at home, I even repeated it in front of the mirror. The bathroom acoustics suited it; I watched my mouth form the sounds. The day started out well if my girlfriend left early and I could stay by myself with the name. When I thought I heard the name on the street I turned in the direction of the sound and got annoyed that others could say it too. When I got anxious at work, I went for a walk and whispered it to myself and this calmed me down. Other names seemed false next to it. They all had something wrong about them; or often the people to whom the names belonged. People ruined names. This was the only one no one could ruin. This name was perfect, I had to admit. Whispering suited it best. I asked my girlfriend how it sounded in my sleep; she didn’t understand; I asked again, do I shout it, or whisper it or say as if I were calling the person? You just say it, she answered, not quietly, not loudly. Normally, like you would say a name. It’s not a nickname, it’s more as if you were talking about someone, only the story is missing. Are you still not ready to talk about it?
According to my girlfriend by now I keep saying the name every night. I’ll soon have to share the story of what had happened to my cousin. I’ll have to figure out how she died. And if she died and I was with her, why didn’t I die as well. First, I thought that I had nothing to do with her death; it’s not possible that it’s my bad conscience that makes me think about it after all these years. I saw it from a distance, I couldn’t help. I was young, it’s an excuse that I was young. By now I tend to feel that I did have something to do with it. I could have helped, yet I didn’t. Or that I was the direct cause of it. I wasn’t that young. Perhaps I will say that I lied and that I wasn’t nine but thirteen. A thirteen-year-old could have done something. It’s not necessary for me to have a major role in her death, only a small but an unforgivable one. This should enter my girlfriend’s mind, so that I would see the way she looks at me differently as the days pass, she sizes me up, more and more. Then she won’t be able to think of anything else and will have to leave me. Then it will be just the two of us.
—from the Hungarian
Anita Harag was born in Budapest in 1988. In 2020 she was the winner of the Margó Prize, awarded to the best first time fiction author of the year, for her first volume of short stories. Her second volume of stories came out in September 2023. “The Name” postdates her two books. Walter Burgess and Marietta Morry are Canadian translators.