There was a bitter man and his piano in his empty house. Next to him a shot of whisky and on his lips an eerie song. He was lonely.
He hit the first keys slowly, with the hesitation of a man trying to remember the notes. He never forgot them. The slow dirge soon followed; his voice low and husky. His Hungarian was rusty, but decent enough for an occasional speaker.
Szomorú vasárnap, száz fehér virággal
Vártalak kedvesem templomi imával...
(Woeful Sunday, with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer...)
Hungarian had never been his forte. There was a time when he only knew how to ask his way. He learnt a lot more ever since.
Álmokat kergető vasárnap délelőtt
Bánatom hintaja nélküled visszajött...
(A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you...)
He had heard of the poem first, though. Those words were the first he heard before the war began. They became his prayer when he hopped in his plane in 1940. And then came the song... It was quickly banned. There was enough misery to bear for everyone. It was called war. Another euphemism for what really was just a mass execution.
Although this time they willingly offered their heads to the block. There never was enough time for a last drink, though.
Azóta szomorú mindig a vasárnap
Könny csak az italom kenyerem a bánat...
(It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...)
He had no idea of what it meant, back then. He barely spoke Hungarian. But the melody never left... And he knew the feeling behind it. It was his bread. The bread he shared with millions of people.
He wished he never learnt its meaning. Whatever compelled him to ask had been their downfall...
Szomorú vasárnap...
(Woeful Sunday...)
... And it became his curse.
Utolsó vasárnap kedvesem gyere el
(This last Sunday, my darling please come to me)
He murmured the notes and he hit the keys, again and again... The same way he had played this song, again and again. Endlessly. The years following the war hadn't been his brightest.
Pap is lesz, koporsó, ravatal, gyászlepel
(There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet)
They all said it was because of the song. They all thought it was cursed. Was there anything that wasn't cursed because of the human race? Even life was cursed. Otherwise, why would they slaughter millions of men?
Akkor is virág vár, virág és koporsó
(There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin)
It wasn't the song that killed them... Words didn't put a gun against one's head. War did. Pain did. Woe did. It wasn't the song that doomed them... It was the ones who doomed the song. The ones who started it all. The ones who killed him and his whole kind.
Virágos fák alatt utam az utolsó...
(Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey...)
He never got to live again after that. No matter the number of times he died. He never came back. There was nothing left to bring back. The last ruins had been grinded to dust and faded away with the sands of time.
How could one only live once but die a thousand times...?
Nyitva lesz szemem hogy még egyszer lássalak
(My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time)
Waking up from a bullet to the head no longer meant what it was supposed to mean : coming back among the living. It was just the beginning of another suspended sentence. He just drank it away until he signed another death warrant.
These lyrics were his last words to a world they would never reach. He had no will. There was nothing to be left behind.
Ne félj a szememtől holtan is áldalak...
Utolsó vasárnap...
(Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...
The last Sunday...)
He didn't have much time left, now... He smiled a weary smile. He hoped this time would be the last.
Maybe he could enjoy his shot for once...
