The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown

by Geoffrey Household

  What was the use of saying that a foreman shipwright was not a dock labourer? He was alarmed at the gathering storm and exclaimed that he wouldn’t care if her father was a boot-black and that with all the future in front of them....

  ‘Don’t worry about the future! My father will certainly set you up in some little business.’

  Mr. Brown, looking back on it fifty years later, forgave her. His Magda—possibly slaughtered in her late and beautiful forties, possibly a distinguished old lady doing her best with poverty—had no doubt felt it her duty to disillusion him, but she need not have been so cruel.

  ‘I thought we loved each other,’ he said miserably.

  ‘Oh, what’s the good? What’s the good? Yes, Bernardo, you were the perfect choice.’

  She left him without a kiss or another word. He hoped that in the morning some burst of tears or invective would explode the quarrel and leave peace when the smoke had cleared, but meanwhile there was plainly going to be no sharing of bed or waiting in the gallery.

  Bernardo lay awake till the small hours, at first resentful then bitterly blaming himself for impertinence in daring to criticise her and folly in dragging up the social disparity between them, of which, as likely as not, she had always been more conscious than he. The silence of the great house at last soothed him into deep sleep. He never even heard the car leave; he did not know she had gone until the valet brought him a note and at once retired. It said nothing except that she was never coming back and that he should forget her. He clung to his only scrap of comfort: her cry of ‘what’s the good?’ It had no more meaning than her puzzling revelation that he had been chosen, but her remembered emotion preserved him from the agony of utter despair.

  The days of hot sun emphasised lonely monotony. Inside the house he could not mistake a change of mood, though hidden in the mist of an unintelligible language. There was obvious relief that Magda had gone and yet a shade of disappointment that no one was left to serve except the stranger. His status as the lover of Kalmody’s daughter should have been immensely enhanced. It was not. He sensed only a warm, unspoken pity.

  Nepamuk was more casual than before. He no longer gave the impression of obeying the Count’s orders with regret; he was more like a prison warder patronising his favourite, and exacting conversation with that persistent whine for which in London one could feel affection but was exasperating, when isolated among the emphatic bird-song of the Magyar language, as the saw in the timber mill when the wind was the wrong way. Bernardo took refuge from it in the stables. Even there Kovacs and Perico were inclined to limit their conversation to saddlery. The week was desperately long until Sigismond Pozharski turned up with a new set of teeth and a smile more incorrigible than ever.

  Melancholy was difficult in his presence. He never gave time for it, snapping up Bernardo, radiating geniality and trotting with him round house and estate as if he owned them. Even the difficult Perico admitted that Pozharski was a good fellow—too good, for if he really did own the place he’d never get much of an income out of it. Nobody would be afraid of him.

  At dinner that evening, with Lajos relishing his new customer, Bernardo said he had heard that a landowner couldn’t make money unless his peasants were afraid of him, that they only responded to kicks and what did Pozharski think about it?

  ‘Perfectly true, dear boy, if you want to regiment them into efficiency. Look at Russia! But the worst possible way if you want devotion. Istvan knows that. Magda doesn’t care. Your own interest in people she called slumming. Of course under the circumstances she was a bit on edge.’

  ‘You have seen her?’

  ‘Just a word in passing.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Smiled like Mona Lisa and said somebody ought to cheer you up. So I came over. What upset her?’

  ‘I didn’t like the way she treated Kovacs and others. It would serve her right if they talked.’

  ‘They won’t. They are too loyal to the family. Were you ever actually caught at it?’

  Bernardo felt he ought to ask: caught at what? But Pozharski so evidently knew more than he should.

  ‘Er—no,’ he said, blushing slightly.

  ‘Want to be cured?’

  ‘If you mean what I think you mean, no!’

  ‘Europe, my dear Bernardo, is paved with the solid granite of hearts once broken by her. Dear Lajos, we are going to need some of the 1870 Tokay if you would be so good.’

  ‘But she is so very genuine.’

  ‘She can persuade herself of anything, dear boy. She could fill all the boxes of the Nemzety Theatre and have even politicians weeping the starch out of their shirt fronts.’

  ‘That,’ said Bernardo, ‘only shows that she is all woman.’

  ‘It does indeed. Now, an intimate question! Did you notice that she took no precautions?’

  ‘I wondered. But she isn’t fertile, the poor darling.’

  ‘O dear God! The theatre in tears again! Bernardo, didn’t I once tell you that my speciality was delicate missions? To my personal knowledge Magda’s ovulation would win a prize at a poultry show,’

  Bernardo was tense with anger. This was all a lie—a crude attempt to make him lay off for ever a generous, emotional girl who was in love with him and could not allow herself to be. He murmured something about her marriage.

  ‘Marriage, yes. Well, that’s just the lead we wanted to carry on the cure. Try the Tokay! It’s out of this world. Now, Pforzheim is a very worthy fellow, conscientious and extremely wealthy—a point which Magda has never overlooked. Not a breath of scandal since her marriage. One sinner who repenteth and all that. But Pforzheim carries some nasty stuff in the family. He shouldn’t breed and he won’t. Duty to God and man. On the other hand, an heir, eh? So, as you’re an admirable chap, don’t exist and aren’t here, Istvan told his daughter to run down and look you over.’

  ‘She didn’t spend long looking,’ Bernardo said bitterly, for this revolting story at last made sense of that ‘perfect choice’.

  ‘Well, there’s a compliment for you!’

  ‘Does her husband know?’

  ‘That is a matter between him and his spiritual adviser and we will not enquire. Pforzheim is a good Catholic of princely generosity to the Church. But he is not likely to have a long life, and both the first and second heirs are Baptists or Buddhists or something. So one can see that Rome might take a fatherly interest in the matter of the succession.’

  ‘I wonder they didn’t choose you for the delicate mission.’

  ‘So do I sometimes. But Magda and I know each other too well. However artistic my performance, she would at once have detected the lack of spontaneity.’

  ‘You dirty old bugger!’

  ‘That, dear boy, is exactly what I was trying—with rather less coarseness—to express. No better than that stuff out of a bottle when you come to think of it.’

  Such intolerable geniality! One might as well try to be angry with the devil.

  ‘What stuff out of a bottle?’ Bernardo asked wearily.

  ‘Latest thing in Vienna. Artificial insemination they call it. Chap gives his offering to nurse. Nurse pops it over the screen. Doctor delicately intervenes. Could have done the job himself without all the fuss, I always say. Magda wouldn’t hear of it—said it was disgusting and boring and ran to Daddy.’

  ‘I am told he may be good enough to set me up in a small business.’

  ‘God, you must have stung her on the raw! You didn’t bring up the question of her socialism, did you? A small business indeed! A big one or complete repudiation of you—that’s Istvan!’

  ‘How are things in Spain?’

  ‘Sticky. But I’m not quite up to date. All I know is that Zita has been writing to the Pope. You haven’t bumped off a cardinal by mistake, have you, or anything else that will take a bit of fixing?’

  ‘I haven’t bumped off anyone, Mr. Pozharski.’

  ‘You need practice. That’s what it is. Pity the partridge season
isn’t open yet.’

  He never knew how to take Pozharski. This descendant of imperial bastards did not seem to care whether a chap was innocent or guilty, as if the question were of no importance compared to good manners and the ability to accept with casual unconcern whatever life sent up from the basement. It was a civilised attitude for which there was a good deal to be said, provided one had friends, position and especially money.

  Bernardo was without any of them and could get no useful advice out of Pozharski who pointed out—as Nepamuk had—that the Kalmodys seldom carried cash and that he had only to ask for whatever he required. Quite true and on the face of it reasonable. Yet the real motive for keeping him penniless was obviously that he should not be able to escape. Bernardo had the tact not to say it and so make matters worse by showing that he had escape in mind.

  Pozharski, though more than double his age, was at least an amiable companion, staving off his melancholy by trivialities and a remarkable standard of what a meal should be in content and conversation. But when Pozharski had gone back to the clubs and chandeliers, there was nothing left except the memory of Magda. The cure had not worked and—considering his desolation—could not work. He was more in love with her than ever, persuading himself that in spite of her original motive she too would be unable to put him out of her mind and that some time, somewhere unspecified, both would try to meet again.

  ‘I suppose we would all like our youth back if we could have it,’ old Mr. Brown said. ‘Yet the suffering was far worse and enjoyment not that much keener. They say these young lost souls take to drugs because they have too much imagination. Quite wrong! It’s because they haven’t any. I could kid myself that she would take me back if she had to pick me out of a Budapest gutter. Unbelievable!’

  But even that romantic gutter was impossible to reach without money, an identity and a passport to prove it. He was shut up with his emotions and no way out. A very likely definition of hell. And he could well have landed down there in good earnest via the estate graveyard if it had not been for Nepamuk.

  On his daily visit to the stables he was greeted with unusual eagerness by Kovacs and Perico. A policeman had bicycled over that morning to demand Perico’s residence permit which had never been renewed. Perico was worried by the man’s severe formality though insisting loudly that there was no need to worry since the Police did whatever the estate told them to do. That seemed to Bernardo too vague a phrase; he asked who actually dealt with the police. Nepamuk.

  It was difficult to get exact details. Perico’s Hungarian, while adequate for the routine of the horses, was not up to translating into Spanish Kovacs’ explanations and resentment. It appeared that the Master of the Horse had already tackled Nepamuk who pretended to know nothing. Bernardo must short-circuit him and appeal directly to the Count. Kovacs reasonably assumed that he must have influence, being a friend of the family and on the best of terms with the Baroness Magda.

  On his return to the house Bernardo remembered Pozharski’s advice to keep Nepamuk in his place; he decided to play the superior and summon the steward from his office. He explained the anxiety over at the stables and asked Nepamuk to fix it, pointing out that Perico was someone to talk to.

  ‘It’s me you ’ave for company,’ Nepamuk answered.

  ‘And very welcome,’ Bernardo said politely. ‘But when you are busy I am sure the Count would not object to my talking to Perico.’

  ‘Sure, are you?’

  Well, no, he wasn’t. It could well be that Kalmody had forgotten all about Perico when he assumed that Bernardo would be limited to Nepamuk or to swopping a little kitchen French with Lajos. This was not going to be an easy interview. Nepamuk hardly bothered to conceal his lack of respect under the usual obsequiousness. It sounded as if he were jealous, too.

  ‘Sorry, Mr. Brown, but we can’t ’ave ’im ’ere no longer.’

  ‘Orders from the Count?’

  ‘I don’t wait for orders when I sees what the family interests are.’

  ‘But Kovacs wants to keep him.’

  ‘That’s why I ’as a short word with the police.’

  ‘It’s a dirty trick. Perico doesn’t know anything about me.’

  ‘’E knows you’re in trouble and no bloody guest.’

  ‘I shall appeal to the Count.’

  ‘Know ’is address?’

  ‘No, Mr. Nepamuk. But naturally I have a way of getting in touch with the Baroness.’

  ‘You ’ave, ’ave you? But she don’t like Perico no more than what I do.’

  So much for bluff. Bernardo was helpless. Even Kovacs would not risk having Nepamuk as an enemy. How had he dealt with the peasants who seized the estate in 1919? Every one must know but not a soul mentioned it. Nepamuk was like the devoted Chief of Police of a dictator, and Kalmody tolerated him. He could put right the worst of Nepamuk’s injustices whenever he came home and get the credit for it.

  After Bernardo’s evening ride the following day he remained with Perico instead of resigning himself to the melancholy of the house. As soon as the horses had been delivered to a stable lad, Perico fussed over his precious Argentine ponies. It was his pride to keep them as if there were likely to be an international polo tournament the following week, though in fact Kalmody had never got nearer the game than a passing enthusiasm and half a dozen lessons at Hurlingham.

  Perico did not think there was enough good grass for them, the paddocks being brown and dry in the blazing Hungarian summer, and decided to fetch sweet, new hay from a group of stacks out on the plain. Bernardo walked with him over the stubble and sat on a hand-cart entertaining him with anecdotes of Basque character while Perico forked down hay. Such memories of his freedom a bare month earlier kept his mind off Magda, though only the externals of the past—sea, mountains and friendship—seemed desirable in a world where she had not existed.

  The group of stacks, a thatched shelter, a well and a vast manure heap formed an island in the plain cut off from the house and its gardens by a belt of chestnuts. On the other side were miles of stubble, the far-away, white walls of a Kalmody village and, beyond it, the blue line of Transylvania and the foothills of the Carpathians. It was impossible not to be momentarily at peace in that isolated depository of handouts for horses.

  The sun was setting when he saw Nepamuk emerge from the line of trees coming towards them from the direction of the house, not the stables. Presumably he had news for Perico or was anxious about his prisoner’s absence at an hour when Bernardo should have been helping himself from the table of drinks at the end of the hall. The steward stumped across the paddocks with his usual air of a self-important government official, turning about to close gates as if on parade and continuing his march to the stacks.

  Ignoring Bernardo except for a nod, he stopped five yards from Perico instead of walking up to him and sharply beckoned to him to approach. He spoke at length and slowly so that Perico might understand. It was like listening to a couple of talking statues: Nepamuk commanding, Perico disregarding bad manners and occasionally responding with the coldness of a Spaniard standing on his rights.

  ‘He says I have no permit to be in Hungary and that I cannot work here,’ Perico explained. ‘I’ve no objection but he must pay my fare back to Argentina.’

  Bernardo repeated this in English, and thereafter both of them used him as interpreter.

  ‘Nothing abaht that in ’is contract, Mr. Brown.’

  Perico insisted that there was, but added that he would not mind taking another job until the Count came home.

  ‘No, ’e can’t.’

  ‘What is he to do then?’ Bernardo asked.

  ‘Go and eat ’orse turd for all I care.’

  Bernardo was so angry that he translated this exactly.

  Perico took two steps forward and let Nepamuk have it in Spanish. Roughly speaking, he had been born in a brothel where his mother had brought him up as a bugger boy and taught him to steal from their joint customers as he did to this day from the Coun
t. Bernardo passed all this on with relish and at the full speed of a United Nations interpreter, adding a few personal details when he could not immediately jump on the English equivalent of the fighting language of up-country Argentina. Nepamuk slapped Perico’s face, still with dignity as if he were an insolent peasant of the estate.

  Bernardo grabbed his friend’s wrist as the knife blade glowed red in the last of the sun.

  ‘Careful, Perico! What you like, but not that in a foreign country.’

  ‘What I like? Good, then! What I like, and I go for ever.’

  Perico jumped back for his pitchfork and lunged at Nepamuk, stopping an inch from his broad stomach.

  ‘March! Or it goes in.’

  Nepamuk appealed to Bernardo, assuming that he must be on the side of property and stewards, just or unjust. Bernardo was not. His personal loathing of Nepamuk did not really count, for at that time he was still a mild-mannered fellow who could not approve of violence as an expression of dislike. What did count was his resentment of the indecent power of the man over these cheerful, kindly people like Perico and Kovacs. In the case of the latter the true culprit had not been Nepamuk, but he was in no mood for distinctions. He was finally revolted by the whole set-up—no money, no identity, no freedom and then being used as a Kalmody

  ‘You’d better march. He means it,’ Bernardo answered.

  There was no arguing with a bloodthirsty groom from South America and a political prisoner who was himself a possible assassin. Nepamuk marched, pricked onwards by Perico through the line of stacks to the manure heap.

  ‘Down on your knees!’

  Nepamuk obeyed, turning to Perico in the belief that he was being forced to apologise.

  ‘Other way round! Crawl in, bastard!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Use your hands; Dig! Dig!’

  This time the prongs went through the seat of Nepamuk’s breeches. He screamed and dug until the steaming trench was four feet deep.

  ‘Now get a halter from the shed, Bernardo, and tie his hands and feet!’

  Bernardo did so, shocked at himself for departing from good English neutrality; he had not intended to interfere so long as Perico confined himself to humiliating the man. But he was conscious now of an overwhelming sense of release. Damn what might happen afterwards! At least it would mean change—a getting to grips with something solid instead of sitting through a nightmare of frustration.