The woman kept wiping away her slow tears with one or other of the many handkerchiefs around her. Vizy sat down and picked his nose. He listened to her railing at him, patient and submissive as an errant husband doing penance for his unfaithfulness. But then the telephone rang and he hurried to his desk. Cupping the mouthpiece in his hand he talked quietly to somebody, answering merely yes or no, then he took his coat and went out.
Mrs Vizy was left alone in the big flat. She continued sniffling for a while then growing tired stared straight ahead of her.
Then Anna was suddenly standing by the bed.
‘I’ve only come to see,’ she trembled, ‘if there’s anything your ladyship would like?’
The woman didn’t answer. Since Anna had given in her notice she hadn’t said a word to her, she hated her so much she couldn’t even bear to look at her.
Anna hesitated in the air of loathing: she felt its cold envelop her. She felt sorry for the honourable lady, because she was ill and was suffering, and because she might have been the cause.
Mrs Vizy sighed. She felt that the ugly atmosphere had lightened somewhat, and the girl was waiting because she didn’t want to go. She adjusted her pillow and in a scolding but calm voice spoke to her.
‘So, you have come to your senses?’
By way of answer the girl bowed her head. Mrs Vizy’s speech was carefully broken up.
‘Because I have to know . . . One scene like this is enough for me, I don’t want another . . . I can’t keep you . . . You are within your rights . . . you can go . . . leave me here alone in the middle of winter . . . One cannot force anybody . . . If you don’t like it here it’s perfectly all right for you to go . . . Though I don’t understand you . . . What was wrong here . . . ? Did anyone harm you . . . ? Didn’t you get enough to eat . . . ? Do you need more money . . . ? Your wages are in the savings bank . . . they’re piling up . . . why don’t you say anything . . . ? You can take your money out whenever you want . . . you can buy something quite expensive with that amount . . . or do you want a rise . . . ? I’m perfectly prepared to discuss that too . . . What do you want?’
Anna took a step forward. The moment had arrived, Mrs Vizy saw, for her to break down that last shred of resistance. The spirit was speaking to her, telling her to be stern, quite stern.
‘You don’t know what you want yourself . . . Do you believe this half-wit who has robbed you of your reason . . . ? I know his type . . . They promise you everything then leave you . . . He doesn’t even earn enough to keep you . . . How do they survive . . . ? Where do they live . . . ? Do you want to rot your life away in a slum . . . ? Such people only want a servant, a free servant who will wash for them . . . they don’t even pay wages . . . they want a fool, not a wife . . . Perhaps if he were young, this sweep of yours . . . but he isn’t even that . . . a widower . . . His daughter is as big as you are . . . I know the little bitch . . . She’ll scratch your eyes out . . . You want to be a stepmother . . . ? Oh, I’ve seen this happen before . . . I’ve had servants before who got married . . . they soon came back, saying how their husbands beat them, how they came home drunk, or unemployed, and ah! bless your ladyship, if only I could come back to my old job here . . . They begged me . . . But once they leave here I won’t have them back . . . So what will become of you . . . ? Where will you go . . . ? Home . . . ? You can go to the Jews . . . to some Jew who will . . . What did you say?’
The girl whispered something, smiling. Mrs Vizy launched a last, milder assault.
‘Don’t ruin your life, don’t waste your youth . . . that blessed youth . . . you will bitterly regret it . . . Listen to someone wiser . . . more experienced . . . If it were something worthwhile that would be different . . . But this . . . ? There’ll be others . . . later . . . who would make you a good husband, with our blessing . . . I am not going to force you . . . Just think it over once more, for the last time . . . Tell me tomorrow . . . But think over carefully first . . .’
Anna ran her fingers over her hair. ‘I have made my decision.’
‘Then you’re staying?’
‘I’m staying.’
Exhausted by her battle Mrs Vizy slumped back on her pillow.
‘Would your ladyship like some supper?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Perhaps a little preserve. I haven’t eaten a thing in two days.’
Anna skipped away to serve her, happier than ever. She brought a bottle of Spanish cherries. Mrs Vizy noticed the writing on the label. It was Katica’s spiky scrawl.
‘This is last year’s. Katica made this,’ she said. For the first time in a long time she thought about Katica. While she was spooning up the dark-red liquid and spitting the stones out into the saucer, her mind dwelt on the last maid, whose entire bodily strength seemed to have been concentrated in this stoppered jar which, being opened, exploded, expelling the trapped energy. The cherries lasted a few more days. Whenever she ate them certain images flashed across her mind but once the label had been discarded in the waste-bin they no longer troubled her.
In any case there was blessed peace. Anna went across to the sweep of her own accord, and gave her refusal in such a forthright manner that he was quite insulted, and within a fortnight had married the widow from Erzsébetváros, who had a little house of her own. Anna wasn’t too upset. When asked whether she had made the right decision she answered that she might well have.
There was less excitement in the house. Even Stefi was no longer minded to argue the toss. She went about in low spirits. There had been some unpleasantness in her life too. Having learned the circle dance and even bought herself some lacquered shoes for the ball where she should have danced with the daughters of gentlefolk, she received a letter from the organizing committee, ‘most regretfully having to dispense’ with ‘her services’.
Anna’s conversation value declined daily. She became so much a part of the day-to-day household that she practically disappeared: no one noticed her, no one talked about her. Like many servants she began unconsciously to imitate her mistress. She picked up precisely Mrs Vizy’s manner of smoothing her hair, and when she answered the telephone even acquaintances were sometimes hard put to it to know whether it was the maid or mistress whose voice they heard.
17
Carnival
The daily post was brought to József Elekes in the currency section by one of the porters; it consisted of a single item edged in black. He opened it and was so shaken by the contents he almost dropped the announcement.
Framed in black, in heavy block letters, stood the name of the deceased, his best friend, János Pátikarius.
He hadn’t heard anything of him for months. Without a word to anyone, he had simply disappeared from the bank from one day to the next; he had given no notice; his name was excised from the roll of clerks. All they were able to say at his bachelor flat was that he had gone away somewhere. The Vizys thought he was in Vienna, but he had written neither to them nor to anyone else.
The announcement read:
Ferenc Patikárius and his wife, née Terézia Jámbor, are joined in their grief by all their relatives, in most sorrowfully announcing that their only son
JÁNOS PATIKÁRIUS
has, on the sixteenth day of February 1920,
quit this life
of all solemn pursuits and intends henceforth to live only to amuse himself and others, for which reason this gayest of corpses takes
this unoriginal opportunity to invite his friends
on the day named above
at precisely twelve o’clock midnight,
at The Club des Parisiens,
to a long and hearty rout of champagne
where they may assist him in ceremoniously
interring all their cares.
Good humour is compulsory. Down with gloom!
Ashes to ashes, RIP
Elekes leant against a safe for support in his astonishment and kept turning the card over in his hand. This joke was really too much. In his terror a
faint grin flashed across his face. He read the announcement through again, this time in admiration, marvelling at the ever more daring refinements and delicacies of the text. The blighter had him properly fooled this time.
Jancsi arrived that day on the Vienna express. From the station he took a cab straight to the Danubian Restaurant overlooking the river and occupied a room on the first floor. He took a bath and went to dine in the restaurant. The estate agent he had summoned by telegram was already waiting at his table. They quickly tied up the deal. Jancsi signed some statement to the effect that his flat, together with all fittings and furnishings, should be passed over freehold, in return for which the fellow immediately showed the colour of his money and Jancsi carelessly stuffed the great wad of dollars into his wallet. It was a real fast deal, big business USA style. They pressed flesh on it.
After the brilliance and sheer size of Vienna, its poor little cousin Budapest seemed so intimate that Jancsi began to feel quite sentimental. It was a mild, dreamy afternoon, idyllic and fresh, a winter afternoon when one’s appetite for life is keener than ever. The town was covered in a coat of crisp snow. Snow had settled on the manes of the lions at the entrance to the Chain Bridge: they looked as though they were wearing white headscarves. Skates jingled in women’s hands as they hurried to ice-rinks, sleighbells tinkled. The frost, severe yet healthy, brought a glow to people’s faces. Chandeliers sparkled in the Gerbeaud konditorei and Váci utca and Crown Prince utca, and all the old nineteenth-century streets of the city centre were aglow with shops and window displays where everything seemed more desirable, more entrancing than ever before: the shoes, the books, the flasks of mineral water arranged on a mossy rock beside a miniature fountain, the jars of quince jelly, the little piles of hazelnuts and walnuts, and the heaps of tasty, still moist Tunisian dates, everything suggesting a distant childhood and memories of presents and Santa Claus. The whole theatrical spectacle was aided and abetted by the sky which changed momently. First it loomed apple green behind Mount Gellért, then it blushed a deep pink over the Royal Palace, then again it melted into a soft ashen grey which was quickly pierced by the tiny powerful winter stars.
In the evening the Vizys had a lady visitor. The maid led her into the sitting room where she sat and waited while Mrs Vizy quickly changed her clothes in order to receive her.
The visitor drew the otter fur tightly about her as she waited. She seemed to feel the cold. As soon as her hostess entered she began chattering in a high bird-like twitter, addressing her with the familiarity of her class. She spoke about Mr Vizy whom she knew through the ministry, and about the Patikáriuses whom she had met in Eger, generally continuing to cluck and peer at the lady of the house through her lorgnette.
Mrs Vizy regarded her with some reserve. At first it was hard to tell what she wanted. She thought she might have been a member of one of those committees so popular nowadays which were for ever recruiting and trying to raise money for vague charitable causes. She kept dropping the name of a countess. She babbled quietly in a generalizing and perfunctory manner which suggested something bogus. Her green shoes and silk stockings peeped from beneath the fur. Later she removed her feather boa, opened her coat and revealed her flat, powdered chest and dinner gown, which was a conventional silk piece, richly embroidered with golden pearls.
Mrs Vizy was just answering some question and, her suspicions aroused, was on the point of asking her to provide some proof of her identity when she changed her mind. Instead she took one more glance at her, stepped over and snatched off her hat to reveal a scraggy wig of roughly the same blonde colour as her own hair.
‘You scoundrel,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m off to a fancy dress-ball, Aunt Angéla. May I kiss your hand?’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘Vienna. Tell me,’ he asked his aunt as he paraded round the room slightly raising the fur coat to reveal his legs, ‘don’t you think I’d make a pretty girl?’
‘Oh yes. Very ornamental. Your poor father has no idea what has happened to you. What are you doing in Vienna?’
‘Business.’
‘You’re a dealer?’
‘In coal. Do you need any? How many wagons would you like?’
‘Idiot. How long are you staying in Budapest?’
‘Just for the day. I’m off again tomorrow morning. How are you anyway? And Uncle Kornél?’
‘Haven’t you heard? He is to be an under-secretary of state.’
‘Congratulations. Perhaps he could do something about the state. If Uncle Kornél comes to Vienna he must definitely look me up. I have a nice flat in Rothenturm Strasse, number one. Well, I must go, Aunt Angéla, my friends are waiting for me, Elekes, the whole gang. ‘Bye for now. Allow me to kissa-da-handa.’
‘You’re not going out into the street like that?’
‘There’s a car waiting for me.’
‘Look after yourself, Jancsi dear,’ Mrs Vizy advised him. ‘And do write to your poor father.’
He entered the Club des Parisiens through a side door. He was surprised to see how mean these side entrances could be. Some coats and canes were hanging on the rack, the waiters were still in their shirt sleeves, combing their hair. The proprietor himself came to greet him. He knew he was expecting a Viennese coal magnate. Bowing very low he ushered him into the curtained private room where they had set ten places for him as arranged. They discussed the rest of the arrangements in German. Jancsi, having asked for bouquets to be placed on the table and for a waiter to be assigned to their sole use, examined the menu. It was all in order. His final request was that the guests should be shown into the room and that his own presence should not be revealed to anyone.
He put on his black silk mask and stepped into the dance hall. The club was in full swing. The jazz band was roaring away though only a few couples were actually dancing. The staff released thirty huge balloons which slowly drifted upward in the opalescent light then settled by the arc-lights wreathed in coloured crêpe-paper, quite close to the ceiling, whence they stared down as if in mild surprise. Slowly the other masqueraders began arriving. Pierrot with his Pierrette, a single gypsy girl, a peasant in boots carrying a steel hoe and some needle-grass, a green-haired jester and another with red hair, the usual red noses, mandarin moustaches and grey beards, fool’s caps with bells and paper shakos. The greatest sensation was created by a well-known fat stockbroker who appeared in a blood-red executioner’s outfit, in a blood-red hood and blood-red mask, carrying an enormous executioner’s axe.
Jancsi stood in a corner, observing from behind his fan as the seething human mass grew ever thicker. He sought his pals, the nine invited guests. At first he could only discover Elekes, in a long frock-coat but without a mask, who was accompanied by a blonde pussycat. It was already becoming difficult to dance. The floor was so crowded that couples could not move vertically, leaning against each other. He was swept into their midst. A man he didn’t know invited him. He lost his partner in the confusion somewhere near the band. Elekes happened to be loitering there and put his arms around him, swept him on and, holding him tightly, watching his eyes shining through the holes of the mask, took him through one or two rough tours of the floor and squeezed his hands in his own pleasantly damp lukewarm palms. The whole thing was so peculiar that after this Jancsi himself took the opportunity of picking partners, men and women alternately.
By this time he could hardly wait for supper so that he could relax among his old neglected friends. At midnight, when everyone removed masks, he looked around. Under the masks were the faces of strangers. He took off his own and his wig and, unbuttoning his dress, headed for the private room.
Those gentlemen who having waved their black-edged announcements had been admitted and seated by the waiters, greeted their host with great glee, while he in his motley costume glared at them in mock disapproval. Elekes smothered him with kisses, the others raised his skirt and fumbled at his breasts. There were four of them alto
gether. Apart from Elekes there was Dani Töttösi, Pista Indali to whom he was bound by a vague sense of comradeship because they had attended so many parties together, and Gallovich who held an enormous ox-head in his hands and who was a rather distant acquaintance he didn’t even mean to invite. Those on whom he most counted, the people from the bank, had not turned up at all. This depressed him. He quickly changed and played the proper host and rang his five missing friends but was told in every case that the gentlemen were not at home.
They waited for them a long time but eventually they had to make a start on the supper. There was plenty of eating and drinking: clear soup in a cup, pike-perch (from the Balaton) suprême, roast turkey with Californian plums, and top quality Badacsony and Rajna wines. The maître d’hôtel brought in buckets of icy French champagne, lightly sprinkled over with snow.
Jancsi sat at the head of the table; to his left – and closest to his heart – sat Elekes with his beautifully parted hair, his monocle and his creole complexion, to whom he confided his latest adventures, his head practically resting on his chest. Having not spoken his mother tongue for some time he was particularly talkative. All those things he had for months been wanting to say tumbled out of him for the benefit of his audience. He was wallowing in money, not only the dollars he had earned as a result of selling his flat, but two hundred more dollars on top of that, as well as Austrian bills and bonds and devalued Hungarian thousand-kroner notes. He told them how he lived in a five-room flat with his lover, a Polish dancer called Daisy, who helped him conduct his business affairs. From his wallet he pulled a signed and dedicated photo of the showgirl in question and several letters from her in German, just as proof. These were passed from hand to hand. It was certainly convincing.
Gallovich, the repulsive Gallovich, kept annoying him though.
‘You keep her, eh Jancsi? How? Like you keep fleas?’
Jancsi bore this for a while then with a withering look he growled at him, ‘I like a flea, especially the twittering kind,’ and turned his head away.
Anna Edes Page 17
