"Eliot," I said. "But your stroke—"
"Sometimes there is good luck," Nagyi said. "Sometimes bad luck. This was bad luck."
We sat in silence. What was going through my Nagyi's thoughts as she lay there in the bed? Surely she knew that she was not going to leave this hospital. But she lay smiling, peaceful. Her breath rasped through the tubes.
"How is Eliot?" Nagyi said finally.
"He's...he's doing well," I said. "He finally finished the proof we were working on."
"Your mathematics!" Nagyi said. "You finished it!"
"Yes."
"Congratulations, Brynn. You are such a bright young girl."
"It was mostly him," I said, embarrassed. I really hadn't done much work apart from the base cases.
"A smart woman needs a smart man to keep her in check. Where is he?"
"He's not...he didn't come back to America with me."
"Oh?"
"He had work to do. Math stuff. He had to talk to the people at the Academy there about the proof."
"Will he come later?"
"Maybe," I said. "I...I don't know. I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I...don't think we're meant for each other," I said, the words forming slowly, gradually as I spoke them. "We're in different worlds. We're too different."
"But you love him?"
"I—"
I couldn't answer that question. I did love him, that much was certain. My heart ached for him, and now that I had left Hungary, the longing was all the more acute for its being impossible. But I had left him, and I did not think that I would ever turn back, nor would he follow me now that I had abandoned him. Can you love someone who is half a world away from you?
"It's alright, child," my Nagyi said. She smiled, her eyes almost entirely closed. "You'll figure it out. There isn't a problem in the world that isn't solvable with love." She coughed and raised her hand to her chest. Her breath rasped through the tubes.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine, child. I'll be alright soon." She didn't speak for a while, and I thought she might have gone to sleep. Then she opened her eyes and turned to me.
"Could you brush my hair?"
"Your hair?"
She shifted in bed, picking at the white strands of hair around her shoulders.
"They've gone and undone my braid. It's all a mess. Please?" Her voice sounded small. A child's voice.
"I'll brush it," I said. "Do you have a comb or something?"
She pointed to the drawer by her bedside, and I pulled from it a tortoiseshell brush, the bristles soft and thick. I helped my Nagyi to sit up slowly, carefully on the hospital bed, and put a pillow behind her back. The hospital gown opened in the back, and I could see the outline of her spine, the bones protruding from beneath her delicate skin and stretching it tight.
I began to brush her hair, being careful not to let my hand tangle in any of the IV lines. Nagyi hummed as I worked, a melody I'd heard her hum a thousand times before. I started at the bottom, brushing out the tangles at the ends of her hair., then worked my way up. Her hair was like white silk in my hands, so fine and soft. Her hum became a song, the words coming out softly in Hungarian.
Cifra palota,
zöld az ablaka,
gyere ki te tubarózsa,
vár a viola.
Kicsi vagyok én,
majd megnövök én,
esztendőre vagy kettőre
férjhez megyek én.
I'd never listened to the words when I was a child, but now that I knew some Hungarian, the meanings of the lilting sounds uncovered themselves. The act of translation, of discovering what meaning there is, is much like discovering a new result in mathematics. Is the process creation, or discovery? Is the meaning there all along, waiting for us to find it? I paused, the brush hovering over her hair, trying to translate in my head. Nagyi turned and peered over her shoulder.
"Do you know the words to this poem now, child?"
"Some of them. Maybe."
"Braid my hair and listen closely."
I took her long white hair in my hands and separated it cleanly into three sections. It had been a long time since I had braided her hair, but the motions were as familiar to me as breathing. My fingers moved deftly, swapping the middle part with the sides one by one, the sections of hair crossing over each other in a more orderly tangle.
She recited the poem again to me, more slowly, and the meaning became clear. I spoke in English along with her, my words halting, my fingers moving unconsciously while my brain fought to understand the language.
The adorned palace
Has windows of green,
Come out, rose,
The violet is waiting for you.
I am little,
Someday I'll be grown,
In a year, maybe two
I'll be married.
"I'm not so sure about that last line," I said.
"You have it right," Nagyi said.
"I mean I don't think I'll be married in a year or two."
My Nagyi laughed.
"Don't worry, child," she said. "And don't worry. Love will come to you. It already has come once. Now it knows where you are, it will come again."
"Maybe," I said. I took the strands of hair near the end of the braid and pinched them between my finger and thumb. The plait had thinned down as I went, and as I wrapped the elastic around the end of her hair I thought to myself that I would grow my hair out this way, when I was old.
She reached behind her head and patted the braid, making sure there weren't any loose strands.
"Wonderful," she said. "Perfect." She lay back down on the hospital bed and I arranged the sheet around her. Her face was pale, her skin nearly as white as her hair.
"Are you feeling alright?" I asked. "Do you need something? Water?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No water. I'm tired, that's all. I've been going a long time. I'd like to rest. Brynn? Dear?"
"Yes?" I should have been tired, too—I'd been up for over a day now with no sleep—but I wanted to stay with her for as long as possible.
"Brynn," she asked, smiling weakly, "could you tell me a story?"
"Of course," I said, before even thinking. I would do anything for her. Anything at all to keep her here with me.
"Thank you, child," she said, squeezing my hand. "I love you."
"I love you too, Nagyi," I said, willing myself not to tear up.
I pulled my chair closer to the bed so that she could hear me more clearly. She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow, looking for all the world like an angel at rest. I thought about what story I could tell her, and then I knew.
"Once upon a time," I started, "in a castle far, far away, there lived a handsome prince..."
Her breathing grew regular as I spoke, and halfway through the story she was deeply in sleep. Looking at her lie there in bed, the exhaustion of the past few days caught up to me. I was so, so tired. I leaned forward and tucked the sheet up to her chin, then kissed her on the cheek. Her skin was warm and soft, papery, and she smelled like vanilla.
"Goodnight, Nagyi," I said. "We'll finish the story tomorrow."
Stories wind themselves around each other. The stories we tell to others, the stories we tell to ourselves. The stories we tell to those we love.
My story did not start with me. It started with my mother, who is now dead but once had her own story to live, and with my grandmother, who had to watch the ending of my mother's story before she was ready. My grandmother, whose long white hair lay in a braid on her pillow, the length of a life well-lived. We all live through tragedies, and we all bear scars both seen and unseen. My grandmother had a beautiful smile, but some of the light in it was diminished when she said goodbye to her daughter and took me to raise as her own. For all of our laughter, she and I were both no stranger to tears.
When I woke up that morning, my Nagyi was gone.
It took me a moment to realize why the room was so silent. Her body still lay in the bed in front of me, but the story of her life was over. On her face was a soft smile, as if she'd slipped into a pleasant dream.
"Nagyi," I whispered. "Nagyi, I love you so much."
I took her hand, the skin already cool, and pressed it to my lips. Tears fell hotly from my eyes.
When my mother was killed, my father abandoned me, and I was left all alone with my grandmother. People at school would whisper about the girl with no parents, and tease me because my grandmother bought me strange clothes to wear. I didn't care. I loved my Nagyi, and I knew she would always be there if I needed a lap to sit on or a shoulder to cry on.
I'd lived my whole life without knowing my parents. But I had never felt like an orphan before that morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Eliot
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
Muriel Rukeyser
Eliot was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of brandy, when Otto came into his house without knocking.
"They're pointing fingers at me." Otto threw the newspaper onto the table and wiped his face. "God, but it's pouring out there. And why aren't you answering your phone?"
Eliot sipped his drink without looking down at the paper. He had seen the headlines coming. Brynn's tragedy had been splashed all over the news now that the journalists had gotten ahold of the details. Pictures of all of the victims had been leaked, and while Hungary's newspapers and television stations didn't carry the photos, the more unscrupulous tabloids had already posted them—they were sure to have been seen by everyone. Eliot's phone hadn't stopped going off every minute or two while he watched the news coverage about the killer. At first he'd answered every time, to see if it was Brynn. When it wasn't, he'd bought the bottle of brandy. And now his phone was off and he was drinking.
"Who's pointing fingers at you, Otto?"
"The damned Assembly. Your girl is all mixed up in this murder business and with the riots...where is she? Is she here?"
"No," Eliot said, choking on the word. Brynn wasn't here. She had left him. She had left Hungary. Tears rose to his eyes, but Eliot blinked them back. He would not cry in front of his brother. Otto was still talking, and Eliot tuned back in.
"How, I don't know, but this has to end. It can't continue."
"I agree," Eliot said.
"There's no way I can stay in the government when my brother is—wait, what did you say?"
"I said that I agree," Eliot said. He took a sip of brandy. The glass was empty. How had that happened? He'd thought it was full just a moment ago. He poured another glass.
"Agree? Agree with what?"
"With everything," Eliot said. The brandy burned the back of his throat, heating him from the inside.
"When did you start drinking again?" Otto asked. "You were trying to cut back—"
"I started drinking," Eliot said, being careful not to slur his words, "as soon as I got back to the house."
"Your clothes are soaked!"
"Mmm." Eliot could not feel the chill of the rain anymore. In fact, he couldn't feel much of anything anymore. He knew only that he had lost everything to him which was precious. Brynn had disappeared without him. His mathematical career was over—he didn't care about the proof, he didn't care about the paper.