Chapter 1 — There is fluff everywhere

In the morning, there was fluff on the balcony railing, on the laundry, on the courtyard paving, and in the air. It sat on every object that was a little damp or a little warm, and drifted between those that were neither.

It was falling from the tree in the middle of the courtyard, or at least that's what we thought. But the tree looked the same as always. It stood there, with leaves, branches, and bark, and no fluff was actually shedding from it at the moment. It was simply everywhere.

I stood on the balcony and looked down. The fluff flew from bottom to top, then stopped, then down again, as if it couldn't decide where it belonged. One piece landed on my lip. I tried to blow it away, but with a snort I got it up my nose and sneezed so hard that the door behind me opened.

„What are you doing?“

Mama stood in the doorway with a dish towel over her shoulder and looked at me.

„I was sneezing.“

“I can see that.”

She looked down into the courtyard, then up at the sky and back at me.

„Don't go so close to the railing.“

Then she went inside. A moment later I heard the radio playing from the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the fluff had landed on my t-shirt. Four pieces in one spot, as if they wanted to be friends there. I tried to shake them off, but they stuck to my palm. I shook them off my palm onto the railing, but a moment later another one flew up from the courtyard and landed on my sleeve.

It was like mosquitoes. There was nothing you could do about it.

Márty Németh came running up from below.

Márty Németh lived in the second entrance and usually came running from the side where he was hidden around the corner of the balcony walkway, so it was always a bit of a surprise. He was wearing a blue t-shirt with the number seven, even though he didn't play any sports, and his hair was tousled to the right, even though he woke up on the left side. I didn't make that up. He always explained it to me.

„Did you see that?“ he pointed with his hand up, into the air, into the courtyard, everywhere.

"Fluff."

"Yeah, and a lot of it."

He held out his hand and waited. After a moment, three pieces landed on it.

"Look."

“I see.”

He came closer to the railing and leaned on it with his elbow, even though he wasn't supposed to. I didn't tell him because I was standing too close as well.

"Where does it come from?"

I pointed at the tree.

"From the tree?"

„Maybe.“

Márty Németh scowled at the tree as if expecting an explanation from it. The tree didn't move.

"Does that tree do that every year?"

"I don't know."

"Because I don't remember it." He turned to me. "Do you remember?"

I didn't remember. But it was possible I just hadn't noticed at other times, because at other times there wasn't so much fluff everywhere all at once for a person to have to notice. This year there really was a lot of it.

Then Gyözö Cserdi came down the stairs.

Gyözö Cserdi always walked a little differently than everyone else, as if he had an elephant in one leg and a squirrel in the other. But he claimed that everyone else walked wrong, and it was hard to argue with him because he didn't think about it. He had an old camera slung over his shoulder that his dad had given him, and a mole next to his nose on the left side.

"I know what it is," he said before he even stopped.

"What?" asked Márty Németh.

"Poplar." Gyözö Cserdi pointed at the tree. "The poplar does that every spring. Those are seeds. They get blown about."

Márty Németh looked at him. Then at the tree. Then back at him.

"Seeds?"

“Yeah.”

"Those are the tree's seeds?"

“Yeah.”

Márty Németh picked a piece of fluff off the railing and brought it close to his face, almost to his eye. The fluff trembled from his breath.

"Does that look like a seed?"

"There's a seed inside there," Gyözö Cserdi said. "The white stuff is just hairs. They get blown away and the seed falls to the ground and a tree grows from it."

Márty Németh blew on the fluff. The fluff flew down into the courtyard.

„So I planted a tree.“

Gyözö Cserdi looked at him with his dark eyes.

„You didn't.“

„I blew a seed onto the ground.“

„On the pavement. A tree won't grow from that.“

"Why not?"

Gyözö Cserdi said nothing to that, because it was obvious why. The pavement wasn't soil. But Márty Németh looked as though he wasn't sure, so I didn't say anything either, so as not to rob him of hope.

We went down to the courtyard.

In the courtyard there was even more fluff than upstairs, because down below it clung to the walls and the roots of the tree where there was no wind. It lay in thin layers like snowdrifts, only instead of snow it was light and loose. You could kick it. The fluff flew up and then slowly drifted down again.

All three of us did it. Each into a different pile.

The courtyard was like a shoebox and the tree stood a bit off to the side, closer to the back wall. Beneath it was a circle of trampled earth, and from that earth roots grew upwards and sideways, so that you couldn't really stand there properly. All around were gallery walkways, on every floor, and laundry hung from the walkways. Fluff was settling on the laundry. More on the wet pieces and less on the dry ones. The sheets looked as though someone had added fuzzy edges to them.

Up on the second floor a window opened and someone shook out a little dustpan. The fluff in the courtyard swirled up.

“Hey!” Márty Németh shouted up.

The window closed.

“It didn't land on us,” I said.

“Still, he could've looked.”

Gyözö Cserdi aimed his camera at the spot where the fluff was thickest and pressed the shutter.

“What are you taking pictures of?”

"Fluff."

Márty Németh caught a large snowflake right in the palm of his hand and stared at it for a long time.

“Do you think this is edible?”

“What?” asked Gyözö Cserdi, still staring through the camera viewfinder.

„Fluff. Do you think it's edible?“

„Why would you eat it?“

„I don't want to eat it. I'm asking if it would be possible.“

Gyözö Cserdi lowered his camera. He fell into thought, but not as if he were thinking about fluff. It looked as if he were waiting to see if the fluff would crawl out of his ear.

„They're plant fibers. You could eat them, but they don't taste good.“

„How do you know they don't taste good?“

„Well, just look at it.“

Márty Németh opened his mouth and placed a flake of fluff from his palm onto his tongue.

Gyözö Cserdi looked at him.

„Márty.“

"What."

„Why did you do that?“

Márty Németh closed his mouth, thought for a moment, then opened it and blew the fluff out. Part of it stayed on his bottom lip and a bit on his tongue. Then he started coughing.

Gyözö Cserdi looked away.

"I wasn't laughing," Márty Németh said once he stopped coughing.

"I don't know," Gyözö Cserdi said to the wall.

"You were laughing."

"I looked away."

I looked away too, but in a different direction. I wasn't laughing either, or at least I tried really hard. In the end, I was laughing into the wall, so technically I wasn't laughing at Márty Németh, but at the wall.

Then I saw Rósza.

Rósza was sitting on her bench by the main entrance of the building, right where the bench always stood, by the wall and slightly in the shade. She was wearing that dark clothing of hers that looked as if it had been sewn in a museum. Once I was in a museum and they had clothes like that there. Even the scarf she wore on her head. She was swinging her wooden leg and the leg was creaking.

Every sway: a creak.

Then a pause.

Then again.

Fluff was flying around her and some of it landed on her scarf and on her clothes. Rósza didn't look at the fluff. She was looking ahead at the pavement.

Márty Németh nudged me in the shoulder.

“How old is she?”

"I don't know."

“Power.”

„I know.“

Rósza evidently didn't hear us. Or she heard us in a way that she didn't need to register us. She was swinging her leg and it squeaked regularly like a pendulum, only slower.

„Does she always sit there?“ asked Márty Németh.

„Almost always.“

„Even in the winter?“

„Less often in the winter.“

„But a little bit, yes?“

„I guess so.“

Gyözö Cserdi looked at Rósza calmly, this time without his camera.

„She has a wooden leg,“ he said.

„We know,“ I said.

“Should I take a picture of it?”

“Rósza?”

“No. That leg.”

“I don't know.” I thought about it. “Probably not.”

Gyözö Cserdi didn't raise his camera.

Rósza looked at us. Or she turned her head in our direction, because she had poor eyesight and I never quite knew if she actually saw us or just knew that someone was standing there. She turned and nodded with her foot.

Creeak.

We walked back to the tree.

“So what's up with that fluff, then,” said Márty Németh when we were standing by the roots and Rósza couldn't see us.

“Poplar,” said Gyözö Cserdi.

“Yeah, I know that already, but what happens to it when people eat it.”

„Nothing.“

“Nothing at all?”

„It gets stuck in your throat and you'll cough,“ said Gyözö Cserdi. „Like you.“

„I didn't cough.“

Gyözö Cserdi looked at him with those dark eyes of his and said nothing.

Márty Németh flushed a little. Not much, but it was noticeable.

„I had a bit of it in my throat,“ he said. „That wasn't a cough.“

„That was a cough.“

„No, it certainly wasn't.“

I plucked a piece of fluff from the air and looked at it. It was exactly as Gyözö Cserdi had described it. In the middle was a tiny, hard seed, and around it white hairs so delicate they were almost invisible, merely trembling. As I held it, they trembled with my breath.

„And does a tree really grow from that?“ I asked.

„If it lands in good soil, yeah.“

„And if it lands inside a person?“

Gyözö Cserdi looked at me.

"Inside?"

"Well, if you swallowed it. The seed and everything."

Gyözö Cserdi thought about it. Really thought about it. Not like when he said he was thinking and wasn't thinking.

"It wouldn't survive in the stomach," he said finally. "There's acid in there."

"Yeah, but," Márty Németh said, putting his hands on his chest, "what if it got somewhere else? In the lungs, maybe."

"In the lungs?"

"Yeah. If you inhaled it, not swallowed it."

Gyözö Cserdi didn't answer right away. And when Gyözö Cserdi didn't answer right away, it meant either that he didn't know or that he was thinking. Both were about equally unsettling.

„There's moisture in the lungs, too,“ he said finally.

„And dirt?“

„No.“

„So it wouldn't grow.“

„It wouldn't.“

Márty Németh looked a bit disappointed.

„Pity.“

„Why a pity?“ I asked.

„Well, if a tree grew there, you'd be able to see it from the outside, wouldn't you? The way that thick fiber grows right out of your chest.“

„A catkin,“ said Gyözö Cserdi.

„What?“

„That thick filament is called a catkin. On the poplar.“ He paused. „I think. Or an anther. I have to check.“

Márty Németh placed his hands back on his chest and pushed, as if testing whether there was anything solid underneath.

„Nothing’s growing in mine,“ he stated.

„Because you didn't try to inhale it.“

„I had a bit of it in my throat, though.“

„Nothing grows in the throat.“

„Are you sure?“

Gyözö Cserdi looked at him.

“Yeah.”

Márty Németh pulled his hand back. He looked a bit relieved, but also a bit like he wished it had been more interesting.

We sat on some tree roots for a while, because the roots had grown out of the ground enough to sit on, even if it wasn't comfortable. Fluff was flying around. A piece of it landed on my eyelash and I had to blink to get it out. Then I pulled it out with my finger and it was wet from my eye.

„Look,“ said Márty Németh, „what if the fluff went into your ear?“

„Into your ear?“

„Yeah. Into your ear. If it crawled inside.“

Gyözö Cserdi listened to him.

“So what?”

„Well, the seed would be deep in your head. Near your brain or something.“

„It wouldn't go inside on its own.“

"But what if it did," Márty Németh insisted. "If it got really deep, it would reach the brain, and it's damp in there, right?"

"It's damp," Gyözö Cserdi conceded.

„And dirt?“

"Not dirt." பள்ளத்தா

Márty Németh frowned. You could tell it didn't make sense to him. Poplar fluff needed dampness and dirt, but dirt was outside on the ground and not inside people. That was the problem.

"And what if," Márty Németh said slowly, "what if a tree didn't need dirt, if it was inside a person? A different kind of tree. An internal one."

Gyözö Cserdi gave him a long look.

"An internal tree."

“Yeah.”

"You're making up a new kind of tree."

"It doesn't have to be a tree," Márty Németh said. "It could be something else, too. A root. Or a long fiber. Or a beard. A beard growing inside your head."

"A beard in your head," Gyözö Cserdi repeated.

"Made of fluff."

Gyözö Cserdi paused for a moment and then said:

"If you swallow it or inhale it, you'll just start coughing or you'll have to pull fibers out of your throat. Nothing else happens."

„Are you sure?“

“Yeah.”

"One hundred percent?"

Gyözö Cserdi looked at the tree. Then at Márty Németh. Then he said:

"Ninety-nine."

And that was the problem.

Ninety-nine percent was a lot, but one percent remained. Márty Németh knew it and I knew it too. And one percent was enough for a person not to be entirely sure whether beards wouldn't grow out of the fuzz in their head.

In the afternoon we tried to catch the fuzz in a box.

Márty Németh brought the box. A small tin for candies, grey with a red stripe. It was an idea so that the fuzz would be stored and last. Márty Németh didn't say exactly why he wanted it to last, but maybe he wanted it for his mom for Christmas.

Catching fuzz in a box was harder than it looked.

The fuzz couldn't be collected from the yard, because as soon as you got close, it flew right somewhere else. It could be collected from the laundry where it stuck, but that was one piece, another piece, a third piece, and that wasn't enough to fill the box. It was from candies and a lot of candies fit into it.

Márty Németh tried running across the yard with the open box in front of him, like a ship. The fuzz fell into it a little, but not much. It moved along with the air and the air went with Márty Németh, so the fuzz was always right behind him or next to him, but not in the box.

"Try slower," said Gyözö Cserdi.

“It can't be any slower. Then you won't catch anything at all.”

“Walk at a pace, stop. Step, stop.”

Márty Németh walked step by step and stopped.

Step by step and he stopped.

Two wisps landed in the little box and one flew right back out.

“That doesn't work.”

“It sort of works.”

“Two wisps an hour, we'll be here till the end of the holidays!”

Gyözö Cserdi took the box and tried it differently. He stood under the branches of a tree where the down was thickest, and waited. He did nothing. He just stood there and held the box open.

Slowly, in a minute or two, five pieces landed in the box. Then seven. Then a couple flew out, but overall more stayed in there than escaped.

"That's how it goes," he said.

Márty Németh came over and looked inside.

"There's a little in there."

"There's more than a little."

"But it's not enough to fill it."

"We don't have to fill the box."

"Why not?"

Gyözö Cserdi looked at him.

„Because we want it as a sample. We don't need a supply.“

„A supply of what?“

To Gyözö Cserdi didn't answer, because even he didn't know a supply of what. The most important thing was that the down in the box was there.

We went to the stairs by the entrance and closed the box.

„Will it stay there?“ I asked.

Gyözö Cserdi thought about it.

„The box is airtight, so there won't be enough air in there for it to fly. But the seeds are inside, so yeah.“

„Open it,“ said Márty Németh.

Gyözö Cserdi carefully opened the lid.

Inside was fluff. It lay at the bottom, curled up and quite dense. Without movement. It looked different than outside. Outside it was alive, moving and unpredictable. In the box it was only white and silent.

„It's sad,“ said Márty Németh.

„What's sad?“

„Well, come on. It was outside and now it's in a box.“

Gyözö Cserdi closed the lid.

„Seeds are collected to be planted. That's not sad. That's the purpose.“

„But we're not going to plant it.“

„No.“

“So we locked him up and nothing's going to come of it.”

Gyözö Cserdi said nothing. He handed the box to Márty Németh. Márty Németh held it for a moment, then gave it back to Gyözö Cserdi. Gyözö Cserdi slipped it into his pocket.

“We'll leave him there,” he said. “As a specimen.”

We walked outside.

Toward the end of the afternoon, granny Edit came over.

Granny Edit lived elsewhere, but she came to our place a lot. She arrived with a bag, put it in the hallway, and then went into the kitchen to see mamá. I heard them talking, but I didn't understand everything because they spoke Hungarian, and granny Edit spoke Hungarian differently from mamá. Differently from papá. Sort of hooting, like an owl. But in a strange way. I always imagined her bending a spoon with her tongue inside her mouth.

I walked past the kitchen and peeked inside.

Mamá was standing by the stove and granny Edit was sitting at the table with a cup. Granny Edit had purple eyes. Everyone who saw her knew that. Those eyes were staring at the cup, probably searching for another spoon to bend in her mouth. But our spoons don't disappear, so it must be something else.

“Bencík,” she said without raising her head.

I stopped.

“Yeah.”

„Have you been out all day?“

“Yeah.”

"Fluff," she said, as if that were an explanation, and gestured toward her shoulder, where a bit of fluff was perched.

She shook him off.

“There's a lot of him today,” I said.

"There's a lot of it every year."

She raised her head and looked at me with those purple eyes.

"Poplar."

"Gyözö Cserdi said poplar."

“She's right.”

She turned her head back to the cup.

“Go wash up.”

I went to wash up.

That evening I lay in bed and couldn't fall asleep right away. Not because I wasn't tired, but because it was tickling me behind the ear. I reached up and felt something small and light on my finger. I brought my finger closer to the bedside lamp.

A dandelion seed.

Small, a bit squished from how I'd been lying, but whole. A seed inside, hairs all around. It had come home with me. It had been outside all day, all afternoon in the courtyard, and then it came inside with me and hid behind my earlobe.

I blew it off the tip of my finger and watched it fly toward the ceiling and then slowly, very slowly, drift down. It landed somewhere on the blanket and vanished among the fibers.

I turned off the light.

There was still fluff in the courtyard. I knew that because fluff disappears slowly and not all at once. Tomorrow it will be there too, even if a little less. And the day after tomorrow even less. And then it will stop, or something like that. Exactly when, nobody knows.

The tree will be the same as always again. It will stand in the middle of the courtyard as if nothing had happened. As if the fluff wasn't even its own.

But today the fluff was everywhere.

And one came home with me.

That seemed important to me, even though I didn't know why.

And then I fell asleep.