Cafe Europa

by Ed Ifkovic

  Bertalan Pór was dressed smartly in a Norfolk gray flannel jacket buttoned up to the neck. With his regal good looks and tiny Ben Franklin spectacles, he could also be dismissed as a Beau Brummell playboy, some wrecker of a fickle young girl’s heart. But he, too, I realized, possessed fire in the gut.

  And then there was small ferret-like Harold, head bobbing like a baby bird in a nest, happy to be noticed.

  “I do have spies,” Harold insisted. “You are all my spies. I watch all of you, and I’ll learn the secret.”

  “What secret?” Winifred wasn’t happy that Harold had intruded on this little visit. Since meeting the two artists, she’d brightened—and I was thrilled. Perhaps her horrors of London could be forgotten, at least for now. Her escape, I realized, was to lose herself in the echoey halls of an art museum. I knew she wanted to talk Art, capital A, hungry to discuss Gertrude Stein and Matisse and Expressionists…and nightmarish abstractions cavalierly plastered onto canvas. Selfishly, I was relieved to see the pesky reporter because he would save the afternoon from the all-consuming specter of Pablo Picasso.

  Bertalan Pór ordered for all of us, and I marveled at the smooth, lyrical Magyar language. It seemed a gentle hiccough, the rhythmic emphasis of words like a ripple on still waters that drew you along. Words piled on—attached—willy nilly, it seemed, until you lost your breath. Impossible to learn, I’d been told, but I wondered. My German, fluent since a child, paled beside it. The Magyar tongue was the language of a Gypsy camp, the fierce horsemen gathered around a fire on the plains, the wild dancing of the czárdás, earthenware jugs of water, the violinist on the street corner…or had I simply appropriated such romantic imagery from the pages of my Baedeker and my sentimental imagination? No matter. That was why I’d come to Budapest—to sit in this splendid, expensive café and imagine myself in a lyrical Léhar operetta.

  “What do you think of Café Europa?” Bertalan Pór asked us, speaking in stilted English.

  “They like it,” Harold answered for us, speaking in German.

  “I can speak for myself,” I said sternly. I deliberated. “It has the hominess of an old coat.”

  “Meaning?” The artist looked puzzled, but Lajos Tihanyi had read my lips, and scribbled on a pad. “She means,” his friend read to us, “that you always know when you put it on how it will fit. And where the seams are giving out.”

  I laughed. “Exactly. It’s the place Americans go to hear others talking American.”

  Harold added, “And to watch the Americans make fools of themselves.”

  “Cassandra?” Winifred asked.

  “Not only her.” Harold went on. “Even the British”—he glared at London-born Winifred—“speak more pompously to show the Americans how English is supposed to sound. The King’s English.”

  “That’s why there are folks like Mrs. Pelham in the world,” I said. “The angrier she gets with her recalcitrant charge, the more British she becomes.”

  “Cassandra shames us all,” Winifred remarked.

  I took some issue with that. “She does like her hair-raising scenes in public places. But something else is going on, I’m afraid. Yes, she’s a spoiled American brat—very much as that judgmental poet”—I hesitated and Bertalan Pór grumbled “István Nagy”—“so rudely proclaimed, a girl born to wealth but also to loneliness. An only child, sold like a carpet in the marketplace to the highest bidder. What we’re seeing in the café is a young woman who doesn’t know how to handle the world she is tossed into.”

  Winifred fretted. “She could say no.”

  I shook my head. “She doesn’t have the vocabulary to say no. What she has is frustration and sobbing and hysteria and acting bratty…annoying those around her. A dutiful daughter who suddenly fears her parents. And probably the count. But I tell you—when I caught her eye this morning, I spotted something else there. Yesterday she was vain and silly. Today she was vain and silly, but now she’s also frightened. That is one scared child.”

  Harold added, “You see things that no one else sees. Yet it doesn’t help that she had this wild love affair with the dashing Endre, some cowboy hero out of a melodrama who swept her off her feet and took her horseback riding through fields of sunflowers at sunset. That’s hard to leave behind for a stiff-backed aristocrat from a crumbling regime.”

  Winifred opened her eyes wide. “My, my, Mr. Gibbon. Once again—twice now—I do believe we’re seeing a romantic under that lizard skin.”

  He frowned at her.

  I raised my voice. “I insist Cassandra is a victim here.”

  Tihanyi had trouble following my impassioned speech, but he was nodding furiously, perhaps catching some of it. He spoke a garbled sentence that left his friend puzzled. Quickly he jotted something down on his pad and handed it to Bertalan Pór. His friend contemplated it but seemed hesitant about his translation.

  “What?” I demanded, smiling. “Is your friend taking issue with me?”

  He laughed. “To the contrary, Miss Ferber. He says this…this spirit in your face confirms his desire to paint you. In red.”

  “Stop. Really. A painting of me?”

  “He insists your…passion demands it.”

  “He’ll have me fragmented, one eye elevated above the other, my one hand in the air holding a hyacinth and the other in…in a buckled shoe.”

  Tihanyi obviously caught the tenor of my remarks because he laughed. He struggled to utter something, but I caught none of it. This poor deaf and dumb soul—no, I stopped myself. Not poor. Lamentable, really. For, in truth, here was a man who accommodated what he lacked with a grace and a power that overwhelmed.

  His friend caught me watching Tihanyi’s moving lips. “My friend lost his hearing and speech when he was eleven. Meningitis, I think you call it. He always drew, largely self-taught, and his father, a wonderful man, asked me, five years older than the boy, to tutor him. I’d been wandering in the cafés, selling my drawings to make money. I gave him Nietzsche to read.” He winked. “Subversive. We both come from old Jewish families in the city. But his father fears his son will become Catholic—to convert. It’s common among artists here.”

  He glanced at his friend. “And today we are the artists that so many in Budapest despise. The avant-garde. In 1910 an exhibition in Berlin was mocked and censured. Abused. Lajos’ daring depiction of wrestlers—figures unlike any other on canvas—was seen as the end of life as we know it.”

  Tihanyi scribbled on his pad. Bertalan Pór read to us: “He says that was how we knew we were a success. The critics damned us.”

  Winifred was delighted by the conversation. “Freedom of the artist suggests freedom for the masses. Finally, for women. In England I founded the Artists’ Suffrage League in 1907. Last year I was in Budapest at the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance Congress.”

  Bertalan was nodding. “Yes, suffrage for all.” He pointed at Lajos. “We are members of the National Reform Club, dedicated to universal suffrage.”

  Winifred’s mouth fell open. “Yes, I know them, I…”

  She stopped because Harold groaned out loud. He had been following the conversation, but looked unhappy. Finally, he withdrew his pad from a vest pocket and jotted down some notes.

  “Are we being immortalized?” I asked him.

  “I was just reminded of something. Nothing to do with this…this art. I’m thinking of something Franz Ferdinand said to his friend, Kaiser Wilhelm. About the bond of the Aryan races.”

  “Not now,” Winifred insisted, her voice hard. “We’re having coffee and delicious pastry.”

  “There is only one topic in this part of the world. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Serbian Question. The anger of the Serbs. The Black Hand. Terrorists…”

  I groaned. “For Lord’s sake, Harold, a respite, please. Your book will wait. Your boss Hearst will dream up another war—let’s say in Mexico. Sip y
our coffee. Listen to the music. Try the coffee ice cream with whipped cream. It’s singular…”

  A bell sounded. Conversation ceased.

  Everything in the café stopped. Total silence. Even the waiters stopped moving and put down their trays. Two red-faced boys in Fauntleroy suits rushed to lay out a red carpet in the entrance, straightening the edges and then backing away out of sight. One solitary last tinkle of a spoon against the side of a cup. Then silence. Suddenly everyone stood up, at attention. The two artists nodded at us, compelling us to rise. So I stood there, a little foolish, anticipating some oom-pah-pah band to break into a brassy rendition of the national Austrian anthem, if such a patriotic song existed.

  But quiet, eerie, certainly uncomfortable.

  Though no trumpets blared, the effect of a royal entrance was evident. Harold quietly whispered that the Countess Carolina, mother of Count Frederic, had arrived in a carriage. Accompanying her was a bewhiskered old gentleman in a starched black cutaway suit, striped trousers, and a black vest. A carnation in his buttonhole. A military sash over his chest. A derby on his head.

  The imperious woman paused at the threshold, surveyed the room of standing subjects, and then walked to a table at the back, partitioned off from the rest of the hoi polloi. She wore an elaborate crepe de chine dress trimmed with sable. The crowd sat down, though the silence persisted for a moment. The countess, sitting with her back to the room, was immediately waited on, bowed to, whispered to, hummed to—a circle of waiters colliding like sun-drenched houseflies. The orchestra resumed playing.

  A tiny woman, though broad like her son, the countess wore a preposterous hat of streaming ribbons and festoons and cockamamie feathers and doohickeys galore, a menagerie of sensation atop a head of spit curls the color of rust. She sat in a velvet chair—almost painfully, it seemed, an iron-stiff posture, hands dropped into her lap, head staring across the table at the crusty old gentleman who was doing all the talking, though he did manage to light a pipe. The smell wafted across the room.

  Never one to be interested in the trappings of aristocracy—I always saw myself as a small-town working-class girl who wrote about working-class folks in the American heartland, the children of the American Republic—I was intrigued by this ritual of the old regime, flabbergasted, in fact, that a body of people would rise for a second-rate countess simply because she was a countess. And one whose husband embezzled funds that necessitated he kill himself. A scandal, so I’d heard. Even Bertalan Pór and Lajos Tihanyi, revolutionary artists whose mission it was to crack that nineteenth-century veneer of stale respectability—their paintings fresh assaults on representational art and life—stood out of respect.

  But what followed immediately was disturbing. Within minutes, Cecelia and Marcus Blaine entered the room, followed at a distance by Cassandra and her chaperone, Mrs. Pelham. Obviously, protocol demanded that the countess not be seen entering with the American riffraff, moneyed though they were—and salvation for the impoverished household of that very countess and her retinue. Mr. and Mrs. Blaine were bedecked in formal toggery, she with diamonds and emeralds, in a crimson gown that matched the carpet on which the countess had just walked, and an ermine cape despite the day’s heat. Her husband checked his gold watch fob self-consciously and fiddled with a top hat similar to one Woodrow Wilson sported at a convention. They tried to walk with a debonair air, as though to the manor born. It didn’t work, quite. Instead, the two Americans looked like overfed burghers going to a potluck dinner at the grange hall—admittedly the pretentious, wealthy shopkeepers of the village, but drab folks, nonetheless.

  Cassandra trailed after like the family pet, her guardian close by, her head leaning into the girl’s neck. Surveying the room, Cassandra spotted our table. Surprised, she paused, ready to say something to us as she walked by.

  But Mrs. Pelham, pressing forward, bumped into the girl’s back, and uttered a distasteful grunt. “Move, child,” she ordered.

  Everyone looked unhappy. The countess, the old anonymous man, the mother and father, Cassandra, Mrs. Pelham, all performing for someone not there. An obligatory afternoon at Gerbeaud’s, lolling on the red plush seats, the old gentleman and Marcus smoking cigars, an afternoon perhaps calculated by the countess to show the power her title still held among the peons assembled for whipped cream and coffee ice cream. Let the rich Americans know what they were gaining in this dreadful marriage.

  Harold spoke too loudly. “A marriage made in hell.”

  “Harold, manners, please,” I said.

  He grinned. “Imagine Christmas Day at the palace. The countess on a throne and the Americans bringing frankincense and myrrh.”

  Winifred added, “Cassandra hiding in the water closet, weeping.”

  “Dreaming of Endre and those eyes of his,” I added.

  Harold grumbled, “Count Frederic has two eyes, too.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but some men have…eyes.”

  Winifred nodded.

  Bertalan Pór cleared his throat and invited all of us—his glance even took in Harold, who he assumed was the obligatory American at any occasion—to his studio at our convenience. Tihanyi tapped his friend on the arm, and Pór added that Tihanyi would also like us to visit his studio.

  “He lives nearby, at 12 Drava Street. A stone’s throw.”

  Then, to my discomfort, Tihanyi pointed a bony finger that had some dried green paint at the knuckle, a scamp’s smile on his face, and indicated with an elaborate movement of his arm that he wanted to paint me. He mimed a canvas and easel and…me, sitting still.

  “In red,” Bertalan Pór added, smiling. “He sees you in red.”

  A stir in the room as the countess, seated for a matter of minutes, perhaps changing her mind as royalty is wont to do, suddenly rose and headed out of the restaurant with the old gentleman. With scarcely any notice, the packed crowd stumbled to its feet, spoons dropped, napkins slipping to the floor, elbows banged, chairs dragged, so precipitous the woman’s departure. Doubtless it surprised the Blaines because they also struggled to stand, perplexed looks on their faces, the husband whispering something to his wife, and, waiting until the countess was out of sight, began the march to the exit. It all seemed too awkward and unnecessary, capricious, especially the pandemonium it created in the café.

  Cecelia Blaine looked back over her shoulder. “Cassandra, let’s go.”

  But the young girl shook her head back and forth, her mouth set in a grim, petulant line. “I’ll finish my coffee. After all, isn’t that why we came here—to perform?”

  Her mother stepped back but looked toward the front entrance. Of course, the countess was nowhere in sight. She seethed. “Right now. Do you hear me?”

  “No.”

  “Now.”

  “I’ll be back home in a bit.”

  “Don’t talk to anyone, please.”

  Suddenly conscious of the customers gaping at her, Mrs. Blaine shuddered, appalled that the world would treat her so, and stormed out the front door, tugging at the sleeve of her befuddled husband. Triumphant, Cassandra sat back, though Mrs. Pelham was making a cacophony of short, jerky animal noises. An unhappy soul, that hired pasha.

  Cassandra obviously had other plans. She took a sip of coffee, then slid the cup away and stood up. Mrs. Pelham smiled, as though her pesky pleas had brought about a change of heart in the young girl. Cassandra pushed back her chair, deliberated, and then turned to Mrs. Pelham. “Sit down. I have something I have to do.”

  Confused, the old woman sat back down, reaching for an enormous lace handkerchief to dab at the sweat on her brow. She stared, helpless and furious, at the back wall.

  The young girl moved quickly toward our table and stood too close to me, watching. Her face was trembling, and her cheeks were moist with perspiration. With the back of her hand she dragged sweat from her face and then wiped the hand on her lovely tea gown. I was remin
ded of the rough-and-tumble lumberjacks in the back woods of northern Minnesota, where I’d once visited as a reporter. I’d watched one grizzled old axe man perform that very gesture, though his hand rubbed his denim overalls and not an expensive frock. I loved it, truly. But Cassandra, trying to smile but grimacing, leaned into me. “We meet again.”

  “Miss Blaine,” I said quietly.

  Cassandra eyed the others at my table, Winifred, Harold, and the Hungarian artists. No one said a word, focused on the hapless girl. “A moment of your time.” The young girl waited a second, breathing hard. “Please.”

  “Please sit, my dear.”

  She slid into a chair, but turned it so that she faced me, her back to the others. Her head was a foot from my face, her dull eyes blinking madly. She whispered, though I’m certain everyone at the table could clearly hear her, especially Harold, giddy with the moment, who had leaned so far forward I feared he’d rest his bony head on her trembling shoulders. Winifred, cross, narrowed her eyes but sat back, arms folded over her chest. The two artists were baffled at the bizarre moment, and Lajos Tihanyi made a gasping noise. His face crimson, he looked angry, as though an interloper had disturbed his precious moment. Bertalan Pór put a restraining hand on Tihanyi’s forearm. A crooked smile on his face. Its message was apparent: calm, calm.

  I suspected Lajos Tihanyi was a man with violent spurts of fury, perhaps irrational and sudden. Flash floods of panic, always that lively and creative eleven-year-old boy, suddenly ailing. Bedridden, fed nostrums that did nothing, finally waking up deaf and dumb, a lad ready to strike out at a world he didn’t understand. Probably a life in which chronic pain leveled him. Such juvenile bluster warred with his artistic temperament and innate intelligence—or maybe it fed into that creative juice.

  “What?” I whispered to Cassandra.

  “When you looked at me earlier, well, your eyes told me you understood…I don’t know what but…Everyone else pities me or laughs at me and manipulates me or uses me or…You know…”