Work Text:
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Móricz Ilona regarding a…
ILONA
Ask my grandchildren, dear, I just want to get back to my knitting. Did you know that there are hundreds of thousands of patterns online? I got a whole pendrive full of just knee warmers. You should look into it.
ARCHIVIST
I shall make note of that.
ILONA
You shall. You might as well get something out of me being here. I apologize for wasting your time, but you know young people, they just can’t… how do kids say it… chill as it were. If you ask them, they will tell you that I’m in mortal danger and all the like, but I’m quite content actually. In my old age you take every opportunity to find companionship.
ARCHIVIST
Still, just for the record… what is this regarding?
ILONA (sighing)
Family matters I suppose?
ARCHIVIST
… sure. Statement of Móricz Ilona regarding family matters, taken directly from the subject on the first of March, 2016. Recorded by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Please continue
ILONA
First of all, you really should look into knitting patterns. The young man who let me in seemed like he would appreciate a nice hat or vest. He seemed lovely, even offered me tea. A real catch if you ask me.
(uncomfortable silence)
Not a warm kind of fellow, are you? You’ll learn to appreciate things in time. That’s what many young people don’t understand about the world. It may be a bit broken and unsettling but what is life if not learning to love imperfections? That’s what I think about it anyway. You know my original plan was to just sit here and talk about cats and whatnot until my grandkids were satisfied but you look like you could learn a thing or two.
ARCHIVIST
Do I.
ILONA
I married young and I got divorced not much later. You young people have all these fancy words for it now like abuse and gaslighting and whatnot, in my time we used words like asshole and [unintelligible Hungarian swearing].
I was left with three kids who consumed my every waking moment for thirty years until the last of them moved out five years ago. It’s hard to describe this utter loneliness you feel after you are left alone for the first time in decades.
It’s liberating in a way, but I never knew what to do after dark.
You see, that was the only time I had for myself, when the kids had gone to sleep and no one called or emailed or asked me where the scissors are. And now I had the whole day to myself. Everything I wanted done, I’ve gotten it done long before sundown and I was never fond of reality TV or any of the activities you might associate with the elderly.
Soon I got into just walking in the neighborhood in the dark, basking in the feeling of being the only one out there, still wide awake. I discovered hidden alleyways, cute little parks with teenagers in them, and made friends with the cats who were let out for the night. My children didn’t know about this habit of mine until recently, I didn’t want them to worry about me. Who would care about a silly old lady walking around anyway?
Still, after a while it became… strange that no one started anything with me. There was not one attempt of robbery, no pranksters, even the teenagers were respectful and kept their distance. I don’t know what actually bothered me. Maybe after a long time of being told that it isn’t safe to be a woman outside after dark it seemed unnatural to just… go out and be safe. Anyway, after I started to pay attention to it, I noticed that something or somethings were following me. It was the smell that gave them away. It was a smell so familiar I had to sit down and take a few minutes to reorient myself.
You see, my father was a vet. Before we emigrated here, he was a well known and respected man, but he never got used to being uprooted from his home country, so he had to accept all kinds of jobs here. For a couple of years he worked part-time in this shady shelter. I was ten or eleven, and since we couldn’t afford anything else, I hung around this place a lot, so my father could keep an eye on me. It operated the way you expect a shelter to, with a few exceptions.
There were these… special animals, who needed to be prepared, my father used to say. I never really knew for what exactly, but I hated it with every fiber of my being. They said “preparation” but it really just meant torture. They left these poor cats and dogs alone in small, dark cages for days, put them in never-ending labyrinths, and fed them worm-infested meat. I cried for them for weeks before accepting that I couldn’t stop any of it. I was just a child. So I did my best to soothe their suffering. Offer them a pet on the head or a piece of my sandwich when no one was looking. Eventually they all went away, I didn’t know where exactly, my father never said anything except that he was generously compensated for his efforts.
I still don’t know how he could do all of those things. My relationship wasn’t the best with him after. The smell of that shelter stayed with me for a long time and I thought it would be impossible to forget such a… core memory, but still. As I sat on that sidewalk it hit me how much I’ve forgotten about my past, how I blunted the edges of the imperfections of my own story. But there it was. And there they were. Poor things.
I won’t go into details, they deserve privacy after all those horrible things they've gone through, even if my grandkids don’t think so. Not that I fault them of course for being jumpy around a bunch of… well. They are all different in their own way. Kiskukac leaves worms everywhere and likes digging in the garden. Homály likes the darkest corners, usually sleeps under the sink, and hissed until I throw out all the lightbulbs from the kitchen. Setétke is nothing but a black void in the shape of a cat and eats my yards sometimes. And so on and so forth.
I tried to explain it to my children, but they weren’t too understanding after they saw my little Lángos blazing hellfire inside the garden. They seemed to be fixated on the idea that you will know how to get them to go away, blah blah blah, statements, experts, etc. Now. As I told you before, I’m quite content. If you decide to come by, you’re welcome to a cup of your drink of choice, but not much else.
ARCHIVIST
I see.
ILONA
Do you now.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
Ms Móricz proved to be a quite difficult subject. After the interview she proceeded to talk for an hour about how she gets her pets out of doors that weren’t there before. She also talked a lot nonsense about how fundamentally changing doesn't make anyone unlovable or damaged but I rarely paid attention. She is clearly senile and since she insists on us disregarding her statement, there is little to be done here. I sent Tim for a follow-up but he came back slightly drunk, with a bottle of homebrew pálinka and two pairs of matching knee warmers “for the grumpy little fellow and the nice tea-boy”. I told everyone to avoid that place at all costs.
But ever since she was here, multiple balls of strings appeared mysteriously in almost unreachable places in the archives. They didn’t stop appearing until I… well. Until I started to learn how to knit.
End recording.