Uzdy now turned to Abady and, looking down at him from his great height, said: ‘I didn’t know you were here, otherwise I wouldn’t have dared …’
At these words he laughed softly and pulled at his long moustaches. Standing there by the fireplace, his body lit from behind by the leaping flames of the fire, he could well have been taken for a devil, long thin legs outlined in red fluttering reflections of light, long thin form towering to an unearthly height. His feet were pressed closely together so that his body gave the impression that it swayed slightly with the uncertain outline of a disembodied apparition. Slowly he looked from his wife to Balint and then back to his wife again. His right hand, Balint noticed, was hidden under his coat, just where he kept the little Browning pistol that he had pulled out in the Casino when he had shot at the light bulb above Kamuthy’s head. Balint wondered if he were about to draw it now and shoot him. Whatever he does, I won’t even speak! thought Balint, and laughed to show Uzdy that he was not afraid.
‘Everything’s ready at Almasko, Adrienne. If you so wish we could move back next week,’ Uzdy said to his wife.
‘Whenever you like!’ she replied. ‘One day’s notice is enough for me.’
Uzdy turned to Balint. ‘Would you care to join us? They tell me you like shooting and you’ll find some excellent roebuck in my woods. I don’t know much about it myself but they tell me there’s good sport to be found there. If it would amuse you?’ Then without any apparent reason he burst out laughing before going on: ‘Roebuck! Yes, roebuck! It’s only a sort of game, of course, but some people like it.’
‘You’re most kind, but I have to go to Budapest tonight. There’s a sitting of the House.’
‘Of course! Of course! Parliament, politics … Very important, politics! Well, perhaps when you come back? You will be coming back, will you not, sooner or later? Then perhaps you will do me, do us the honour? That’s right, isn’t it, Adrienne? He must do us the honour, both of us. Even if our place cannot compare with Denestornya, at least we can offer you a hearty welcome, an old-fashioned Hungarian welcome. Right?’
‘I will come with pleasure as soon as I return,’ said Balint. ‘And I’ll bring my new Schonauer rifle, if I may?’
‘That won’t be necessary. I have several excellent guns. I don’t often shoot for sport but I like shooting at targets! You can use any of my guns … anything of mine, can’t he, Adrienne? As you please. Bring your own if you wish.’
‘Naturally!’ said Adrienne drily, ashamed of her husband’s strange, sneering manner, so superficially polite, so laden with menace.
‘Very well, then I’ll count on your coming! And don’t think I don’t mean it; this is not just a conventional invitation, don’t think that! Send a wire to our post box at Nagyalma and a carriage will meet the train at Hunyad. That’s our station.’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I get back!’
‘Very well, then. Au revoir – until we meet again.’
Uzdy stepped forward, leaned down over his wife, took her face between his long fingers and kissed her swiftly and unexpectedly on the forehead.
‘Don’t move!’ he said. ‘Please stay! Au revoir.’ He walked swiftly to the door, opened it, said ‘au revoir’ again without looking round and went out, closing the door behind him so quietly that they could hardly hear the click of the lock.
Adrienne and Balint looked at each other in silence. For some moments they did not move. Balint sensed that Adrienne had been deeply affected by her husband’s mocking ambiguous phrases. What had Uzdy meant by that invitation? Did he have some sinister ulterior motive, a shooting accident perhaps? After all such things happened. Guns did go off unexpectedly through someone’s ‘carelessness’! These thoughts were soon chased from his mind by Adrienne who came to him, buried her face in his shoulder and held him tightly to her. He noticed that she was crying, soundlessly, but with sobs that racked her whole body. For a long time she continued, holding him ever more tightly as she fought to control the tears she could not stop. She went on so long that Balint began to be worried not only about her but also because if they did not soon separate the maid would come in to light the lamps and would find them in each other’s arms. However, it was not possible to push her away and so they remained for a long time, Adrienne pressing herself ever closer to him as if in his arms she was seeking a refuge from life.
‘Addy, my darling Addy!’ he repeated over and over again, stroking her hair, her neck, her arms, as one does to a child crying for protection from some nameless horror. Even though Adrienne’s whole body, from shoulders right down to her legs was pressed deeply into his, her full breasts crushed against his chest, he felt no desire other than the burning wish to help, calm and console her and bring her back to the world. He prayed that she would understand him, trust him, realize once and for all that he was her friend, for ever on her side against the whole world. For a long, long time they remained entwined together in the chaste embrace of orphans, brother and sister, abandoned and having only each other for comfort.
‘Forgive me! Forgive me!’ She put up her hands to arrange her hair which had once again fallen about her shoulders with some strands, wet from her tears, clinging to her face. ‘I am very ashamed … I’ve never …’
Balint was very moved. He did not know what to say, how to reply, so he took her hand and kissed it, saying:
‘Addy! My little monster! My darling Addy!’
Adrienne managed a mirthless gallant little smile.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You are right! You have to leave tonight?’
‘I must, alas! This has been marvellous, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ She spoke so low he could hardly hear, and they embraced calmly as if they really were brother and sister.
Balint got up and went slowly to the door. Then he looked back at Adrienne who had not moved from where she sat among the cushions. The fire had died down and gave hardly any light so that he could barely see her as she waved him goodbye before letting her hand fall resignedly to her lap.
While putting on his coat Abady saw that his right shoulder was wet from her tears.
He walked home slowly, making a wide detour so as not to get there too quickly. As he slowly placed one foot in front of another he was surprised to realize how deeply touched he had been by Addy’s distress and how now he felt only compassion and tenderness.
The street lamps shed pools of light in the mists of evening, iridescent, shining, as if filtered through a web of tears.
PART FOUR
Chapter One
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CARNIVAL SEASON, Laszlo Gyeroffy had found himself appointed to the much sought-after and respected post of elotancos – leading dancer and organizer of all the balls, public and private, that were given in Budapest during the social season. Every hostess giving a dance for her daughter would consult the leading dancer on all aspects of her party and rely upon him to see that everything was carried out properly. It was his skill, energy, unflagging attention to detail, good humour, tact, high spirits and knowledge of the sequence of the quadrille with its many complicated steps and formations that made a success or failure of the party; and as elotancos he also had to lead each dance. Everything depended on him, on his ideas, his stamina, his knowledge of music and authority over the gypsy musicians and, no less important, his iron control over those young men who seemed reluctant to dance and who, not infrequently, had to be practically ordered on to the floor. When the elotancos knew his job, there were no wallflowers and everyone enjoyed themselves. No one doubted the importance of the position and there were few who did not envy the man appointed to the post.
Laszlo had succeeded to the post when his predecessor, Ede Illesvary, had become engaged in the middle of January and resigned. Although Laszlo had been Illesvary’s assistant, this in itself was not enough to ensure his succession, and he would not have been chosen had not something occurred which added to his social prestige just at the critical moment. Until then Laszlo had
been thought of merely as one of a crowd of well-born younger dancers, related of course, to the Kollonichs and the Szent-Gyorgyis, sort of an ‘extra’, one who carried a spear in the battle scene but who only got a featured part when some girl needed a partner for the garland dance. To be considered for appointment as leading dancer something more was needed, some demonstration of authority, of standing, of exceptional social poise.
Laszlo achieved this almost by chance. One evening towards the end of January a gypsy party was being held in one of the private rooms at the Casino where Laszlo’s cousin, Peter Kollonich, used to go with Kristof Zalamery and some other rich young men. Laszlo was invited because no one was better than that ‘good Laci’ in keeping the gypsy band up to the mark until the special guests – two new little dancers from the Orfeum – could get away from the theatre after the evening’s performance.
On this particular evening the host was Zalamery, who was much richer than most of the others and who loved to entertain his friends with plenty of champagne and brandy served in huge goblets. As well as his cousin Peter, Laszlo found Fredi Wuelffenstein there. When the girls finally arrived they danced, either with each other or solo, while the men drank and watched them, or else told gossipy tales of the demi-monde while sipping their wine and moving flirtatiously from one man to another.
Laszlo was bored. He did not know many of the men in this group, and even those he saw only occasionally, and he did not know who or what they were talking about. More and more he felt himself an outsider; so, to anaesthetize himself, he began to drink more heavily than usual. After a while he glanced at his watch and found that it was already past two o’clock. Since he had come back from Simonvasar he had attended the Academy of Music with unfailing regularity, not only from ambition to become a great musician himself, but also to prove himself worthy of Klara’s love. ‘I must be there by eight!’ he said to himself, realizing, as he looked round the darkened room where the girls were reclining on divans whispering and giggling with the young men, that it would be easy to slip away unnoticed.
To get his coat, which had been left in the cloakroom at the foot of the main staircase, Laszlo had to cross the open courtyard. As he did so, the cold night air struck him and he realized that he had drunk far more than was good for him.
With considerable effort he managed to steady himself and control his legs which were showing a disconcerting tendency to stagger under him. A cold light rain was falling steadily and, seeing that he would get soaked to the skin if he walked home, he asked the cloakroom attendant to fetch him a hired car. There were none, he was told, they had all been taken, though no doubt they would return later. Laszlo told the man that he would be in one of the public rooms upstairs and asked to be informed when a car was available.
The big rooms on the first floor were all empty, the chandeliers dimmed to half their brilliance. Walking through them Laszlo saw that light was coming from the card-room at the top of a secondary stair and realized that the usual chemmy session was probably still going strong. He went up to see, as he had several times before, not to play, as he was quite indifferent to the game, but simply to stand behind the players and watch, for it was better than remaining in the public rooms to be bored by the endless talk of politics, horses or farming. Sometimes he had stood by the chemin de fer table for an hour. The play was always high and huge sums would change hands each evening.
There were nine men seated round the table. Laszlo stationed himself opposite Ernest Szent-Gyorgyi, whom everyone called Neszti. He loved to watch this magnificent-looking man, who much resembled his second cousin, Laszlo’s Uncle Antal. They had the same tall, lean greyhound figure, the same finely modelled aquiline nose and cold grey eyes. In one respect only did they differ: while Antal’s iron-grey moustaches were clipped close in the English fashion, Neszti’s were long and jet-black, and curved in a thin line on each side of his mouth giving a haughty air of disdain to the otherwise noble lines of the face. Apart from the closely shaven bluish line of the jaw Neszti’s skin was as pale as an ancient parchment, perhaps because nowadays he lived most of his life after dark, rarely being seen outside his house during the daytime. This ivory colour was spread evenly over his cheeks, forehead and the bald crown of his head where the skin shone like polished marble. Neszti Szent-Gyorgyi was immensely rich. He had never married and at this time must have been about fifty. It was said of him that he enjoyed life so fully that it would have taken a hundred years for any ordinary man to do as much as he had in his first half-century. Every pleasure that a rich man could buy had been his and he had exploited to the full advantages of excellent health, good looks and high social position.
In India he had hunted tiger and in the Sudan he had stalked lions. He rode to hounds in England, Ireland and France as well as in his own country. He kept a steam yacht on the Riviera and his racehorses were famous all over Europe. Many beautiful women had been in love with him and given themselves to him, but none had been able to tie him down, though he had fought duels to defend their honour considering this just another form of sport that was an essential part of the turmoil and confusion of life.
Through all these dangers – on safari, in the hunting field, in the gymnasiums and quiet meadows where sabre slashes had settled affairs of honour – Neszti had coolly passed unscathed, perhaps because no matter what he did his aristocratic heart never beat faster in passion nor paused in fear. Nothing seemed to touch him or ruffle the gentlemanly disdain with which he treated all who came near him. In his way he was the beau ideal of the fin de siècle man of the world. He had become the recognized authority on all that concerned the behaviour of a gentleman, and his judgement, cold and laconic, was never questioned. Sometimes he did not even have to open his mouth, his monocle spoke in his place. This little glass disc seemed to have its own language, as if Neszti had developed an extra organ of communication. He wore the rimless eyeglass attached to an almost invisible silken thread, and when he put it up to his eye he could express an infinite variety of opinion merely by varying the gesture: comic surprise, irony, increased interest or incipient boredom, appreciation for a woman’s beauty or reprimand for a man’s presumption. If, while someone was speaking to him he let the monocle drop by a deft movement of the eyebrow alone it would mean, as often as not: ‘This subject is now closed!’ or ‘What an ass you are!’ And no one was ever in doubt as to what was meant, whether it were approval or contempt or a whole range of subtle nuances in between. His timing was inimitable and it was widely recognized that Neszti’s monocle was as much the symbol of his sway as was the sceptre of kings.
At the oval table brightly lit by a green-shaded lamp sat Szent-Gyorgyi, Odon (‘Donci’) Illesvary, younger brother to Ede Illesvary who had just resigned as leading dancer; Janos Rosgonyi, a short, tubby little man who was a famous breeder of race-horses; and the millionaire Zeno Arzenovics from Bacska constituted the hard core of big gamblers. With them were five others who played for smaller stakes but who occasionally initiated a modest bank or combined to share a stake when the play was high. These more modest players held back from the nerve-racking battles played by the first four whose initial bets would often run into thousands of crowns.
The lowest stakes were played by Gedeon Pray, but no one minded as they all knew that he was completely ruined and so they forgave the fact that he never pushed forward a chip worth more than a hundred crowns, and then only if the taille had come to him. And he only bet against the others if he seemed to be on a winning streak and if his opponents were on a run of bad luck.
No banknotes ever appeared on the table. The big players all made deposits with the Club Steward and collected whatever chips they needed on this security. Those who had made no deposit merely signed IOUs – for every club member had the right to ask for credit up to a limit of five thousand crowns – which had to be settled within forty-eight hours.
Laszlo sat in silence, still feeling as much a stranger here as he had with the young men revelling in thei
r private room. Though he was not interested in the game it was still agreeable to be in company and to watch the play undisturbed. Indeed he was more at ease in the card-room than he had been downstairs. There he had been made to feel on sufferance, barely even treated as an equal, not even as another guest but rather on the same level as the bandleader or drummer, whose presence was tolerated as a tiresome necessity. In the past, prepared for this treatment by his orphaned childhood and his homelessness, he had become resigned, accepting that it was his natural destiny, but since he had held Klara in his arms in the angle of her little room in Simonvasar he felt quite different. Now, whenever some young blood filled with thoughtless goodwill spoke patronizingly to him, Laszlo felt himself swelling with resentment and rebellion. Earlier that evening, for example, when someone had said lightly: ‘Oh, yes, come too, if you wish!’ and then had asked him to play the violin or get the music-hall girls to dance, just as if he were the major-domo or hired organizer of their revels, he had felt it was insufferable and that he would no longer put up with it. It was not worthy of him and certainly not worthy of the man that Klara, before all others, had chosen for herself and to whom she had offered her mouth. Ah, the memory of that kiss! Her mouth had been warm and generous and reminiscent of sun-drenched fruit and the mere thought of it made him giddy. That memory was shut in his heart as if he carried with him in secret the world’s biggest diamond, a jewel so precious, so rare, so imbued with pre-eminent magic powers that whosoever carried it in his breast should pass first wherever he went. Sitting quietly at the chemmy table Laszlo, inflamed by the excess of brandy and champagne that he had felt forced to swallow earlier in the evening, felt his blood run hotly within him, clammering for this royal command to be obeyed. As he sat impassively beside the excitable Illesvary, silent and modest for all to see, within him boiled a turmoil of resentment and proud determination. The ‘shoe’ of gleaming mahogany now passed to Zeno Arzenovics. Before dealing he pushed out the entire pile of chips in front of him, which consisted of five hundred-and one thousand-crown pieces, and said: ‘Faites vos jeux!’ He looked around expectantly, turning his head in every direction while his pointed beak of a nose, which curved out so acutely from his profile that everyone called him the ‘Black Cockatoo’, a sobriquet all the more appropriate since his thickly pomaded hair rose from his forehead like a crest of black feathers – seemed to dominate the table. For a while no one spoke. Arzenovics looked around expectantly, his cold prune-black eyes disdainfully seeking someone to meet his challenge. He played to the gallery, sure of his reputation as a famous gambler and hoping to astonish and horrify the usual group of anonymous watchers standing in the shadow behind the players’ chairs. Even at this late hour there was no letting up. Arzenovics had to live up to his fame, which is why he always played the highest stakes, never accepted a partner and never retired from the game. Even had he wished he could now not have played in any other way. His principles were too well known, as he had so often expounded the wisdom of his methods to groups of awed and deferential onlookers.
They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy) Page 39
