Six Kilograms of Flour
by Rita Taryan
Marika, a widow, had two boyfriends. One was old, married and intelligent: Örzsy. The other was young, single and stupid: Egri. Of course she preferred the mature Örzsy. She could have a conversation with him, whereas with Egri (though he was in his thirties) it was like talking to a child. But it wasn’t just that. Örzsy was an incredible lover. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel undressed, even in an elevator or a restaurant. Marika was very fond of Örzsy, which is why she sat down and asked herself how she felt about the fact that Örzsy was not only having sex with her, but also with his wife and two other mistresses. Marika waited for an answer from herself. She waited several months while still seeing Örzsy every other weekend Sunday. This had been going on for a year. Was she alright with that? Was this normal? Well, she dug deep into her conscience and discovered something remarkable, which was that picturing Örzsy with his wife or with his other mistresses evoked in her the same feeling as looking at a six kilogram bag of flour on a supermarket shelf. In other words, she didn’t care. And that was that. Marika went on seeing Örzsy every other weekend Sunday. They had passionate assignations. Sometimes he’d call her when he was with his other women. He’d sneak away just to have a stimulating five-minute conversation with Marika—“an interludial,” he’d call it. So Marika and Örzsy had many years together. The terms of their relationship never changed. And he always made her feel that she was important to him. Then one day, Örzsy died. He fell off a cruise ship on the Aegean Sea between the island of Naxos and the island of Syros. It wasn’t foul play. It was an unhappy event. And Marika was left with no other option but to see only Egri, who was by then old. He was still single—but also, still stupid.
Rita Taryan is a Hungarian-born Canadian-American. She teaches at Fordham University in New York. Read Rita in Panel Magazine, Hobart, ExPat Press, Room, and elsewhere.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Six Kilograms of Flour”? My family escaped communist Hungary in 1971. I was seven. I didn’t see the place again until I was thirty. Every few years now I go back for a visit. I wander the streets, walk by my old grade school, take a tour of the gilded Parliament, visit the graves of the heroes of 1956, smoke in the old literary cafes, rummage through the vintage bookstores, eat street food. I’m a foreigner there, so I burn my tongue on the Hungarian fried bread (lángos). I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I had grown up in Hungary. “Six Kilograms of Flour” is the product of my wondering. In any case I would have a life story which, like Marika’s, could be neatly summed up—with some compassion—in about 340 words.
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