They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  That night Laszlo walked home as dawn was breaking filled with a sense of triumph as he told himself he had defied Fate and crushed that infamous goddess. He would show them, he said to himself, with all the arrogance born of a skinful of brandy, he would show them!

  As he walked he thought also of his broken promise to Klara. Well, Klara was just worried about him. She was as timid and fearful as women were so apt to be; that was the only reason she had exacted that tiresome little promise. There was nothing to fear – women never understood these things. He would explain that anyone who really knew how to play had nothing to fear. And that he, Laszlo, did know, was proved by what had happened that night.

  He would explain, and Klara would see reason. Of course she would see reason, even if she worried a little; and it didn’t matter much if a girl worried a little over one …

  Klara had spent the four days since the King’s Cup Race in a frame of mind quite different from Laszlo’s. She, too, was deeply upset by their separation and, as they had seen each other daily for several months, she missed his presence beside her. However, since her childhood she had become accustomed to having her life ruled by other people and accepted that it was they who decided what she did each day, who escorted her when she went out, watched over her and protected her. It was obvious to Klara that her stepmother was determined to keep her away from any chance of meeting Laszlo, and so the excursions and picnics, the visits to country houses, and indeed all those plans that were kept secret from her until the last minute so that she could not send word to Laszlo, merely made her smile in pity. All this trouble that Mama Agnes took, all this cunning lavished on secret telephone calls and private little messages. It was all so futile! What did it matter if she didn’t see Laszlo for a few days or even a few weeks? After all he had given up gambling and one day, be it sooner or later, she would stand before her father and confront him with the fact. And then, whatever had gone before, she would have won. For Klara, Laszlo’s promise was like a buried treasure whose whereabouts only she knew, for only she knew of its existence, and, as a result, no one could steal it from her. This knowledge kept Klara calm and happy and so, while she docilely followed Princess Kollonich to all these elaborately planned expeditions, she did so with a secret smile and almost pitied her as she dutifully did what she was told.

  The fate of the little maid, which had so affected Laszlo, hardly touched Klara at all since she never knew what had happened. One day she was dressed by Fräulein Schulze and when Klara asked where Ilus was the German maid replied casually: ‘Sie müsste nach Hause gehen – she had to go home.’ And Klara, who knew so little about the girl who had served her daily for so many years, assumed that her parents had sent for her. It did not seem very nice of the girl to leave without saying goodbye, thought Klara, but then she dismissed the idea, reflecting that perhaps someone had died and that the girl had had to leave in a hurry. She did not worry about it, thinking that sooner or later she would be back.

  At noon on the day when Laszlo had gone home at dawn euphoric as only a successful gambler can be, the Lubiansky girls and Fredi Wuelffenstein came to luncheon at the Kollonichs’.

  During a lull in the conversation Niki turned to Wuelffenstein and asked: ‘Is it true that they played higher than ever at the Casino last night?’

  Fredi’s crooked little mouth pouted and he replied only with an odd sound like ‘Pfuh! Pfuh!’ because he prided himself on being as English as possible and knew that things that went on in London clubs were not supposed to be spoken of in front of ladies.

  ‘Do you gamble too, Count Fredi?’ asked Princess Agnes with a disapproving air. Wuelffenstein shrugged his padded shoulders and gestured uncertainly.

  ‘Of course he does,’ said Niki, as mischief-making as ever, ‘only he doesn’t like to admit it!’ and, despite a forbidding look from Peter, he went on: ‘I met several people at the Korso today who’d been to the Casino and watched. They said the game was terrific! Oh, I know all about it all right! You lost a little, but Laszlo Gyeroffy was cleaned out. They say he went down forty thousand!’

  Mama Agnes looked at Klara but said nothing.

  ‘Are you coming to the races today?’ Peter asked the Lubiansky girls, who were sitting across the table from him. He did this on purpose to change the subject as he noticed that his sister had suddenly gone pale and that her lips were compressed into a tight line of pain.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course!’ chirped both the girls in unison. ‘We’ve heard it’ll be terribly interesting today, though we don’t really know much about it.’ And they both simultaneously swept into monologues about when they’d leave, how they’d go and who they’d go with, for they had been taught at an early age that only country bumpkins confined their answers to ‘yes’ or ‘no’, while well-brought-up girls chattered on to show how intelligent they were. Klara was grateful to them as it meant that there was no more talk of the previous night’s chemmy game.

  As soon as the meal was over Louis Kollonich retired, as he always did, his smoking-room. After she had talked to the Lubiansky girls for moment in the drawing-room, Klara joined him. She sat down on the arm the sofa in front of her father and said, a little awkwardly: ‘May I ask you something important, Papa?’

  ‘And what is this important thing, my darling?’ Kollonich was always in a good mood as soon as he had lit his first cigar.

  Klara blushed and hesitated a moment before speaking.

  ‘Last time … when we had a talk here … well, afterwards I made Laszlo promise not to gamble any more, and …’

  ‘Once a gambler, always a gambler!’ interjected her father.

  ‘But he did promise. He gave me his word, and now Niki says … but he’s never liked Laszlo … no never … and I don’t believe, can’t believe … People are so awful, so wicked, they say anything, and it’s often just talk. I’m sure there’s some mistake, or someone’s lying. I don’t believe anybody except you, Papa, because I know that you … Only if you said it…’

  ‘How should I know? I never go to the baccarat-room; as you know I only play tarot, or low stakes, and rarely after midnight!’

  ‘That’s just it. I wanted to ask you if, just once, when Laszlo might be there, when you’ve finished your game … Couldn’t you just look in and see if it’s true? Please go and see, and then I’d know if it’s true or not. Because I can’t believe it, not after he promised, I can’t!’ Klara’s face was as white as death and her eyes were filled with desperation.

  ‘Na! Na! Na! Don’t get so excited. I’ll go and look and then we shall know!’

  Kollonich reached out and tapped his daughter’s knee soothingly. Suddenly she bent down, picked up his hand and kissed it, and then she leant over and kissed him on the forehead above his little pug-shaped nose.

  ‘Thank you! Oh, thank you! And you’ll do it soon, won’t you, Papa?’

  Kollonich nodded: ‘The sooner the better!’ he said.

  At the door Klara turned. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you? It’ll be just between us … no one else?’

  Kollonich understood at once that she didn’t want her stepmother to know.

  ‘Na ja! Na ja! Just between us, natürlich!’ and he gave a wink as he smiled back at his daughter.

  That evening another dance was given at the Park Club, one of the last of the season.

  The Kollonich carriage rolled majestically out of the inner courtyard of their great town house soon after eleven o’clock. Inside were Princess Agnes and Klara. They were a little late because Klara had taken longer than usual over getting ready. For once the princess said nothing, though on other occasions she would not have missed the opportunity for a nagging remark if Klara kept her waiting even for a few moments. Today she knew that Klara was upset and worried, and maybe the delay had been caused by Klara’s pondering over what she had heard about Laszlo that morning. She realized that what Niki had let fall had been a great disappointment to her and knowing her stepdaughter’s character so well, she thoug
ht it wiser to leave her alone with her thoughts. A single acid reference to ‘that Laci’ and Klara would fly angrily to his defence. Accordingly she sat beside her in silence and didn’t interrupt Klara’s train of thought with a single word.

  Ever since lunch Klara had been tortured by confusion and doubt. Was it possible that he had promised her, given his solemn word, and still gambled? It couldn’t be a complete lie, for surely even her brother wouldn’t dare? She didn’t want to believe any of it and so searched her mind for a reasonable explanation, but no explanation seemed reasonable or acceptable. She remembered her stepmother’s words, ‘that two-timing Laci’ – could that really be true too? What about the story of Laszlo and Fanny Beredy? When Mama Agnes had told her of it she had rejected the tale with all the calm conviction and moral superiority of someone sure of her ground. Now Klara began to wonder, and no matter how hard she tried to suppress her growing doubts, they surfaced again and again in the form of a heart-breaking possibility.

  From the moment that Niki had let drop those mischief-making words at lunch Klara had tormented herself, though she had said nothing to anyone else for that would have been too humiliating. All afternoon she had been with others, either paying calls or having tea at Gerbeaud’s. At dinner she had made a great effort to appear natural and unconcerned, but these nagging thoughts had never left her. Afterwards, when dressing for the ball, she had decided that she would purposely make them leave late for, if they arrived as early as they usually did, Laszlo would have a chance of speaking to her before her father had a chance to find out the truth. Before talking to him she had to know whether or not he had broken his word to her. No doubt Mama Agnes would be cross but this was worth risking and, indeed, she hardly cared. The only important thing was that they should arrive when Laszlo was so completely taken up with organizing the ball that he would not have time to see her and deny everything before she knew whether he were lying or not. The fear that he might lie to her hurt her most, for that would be the most terrible thing that could happen. Nothing would be worse than that! To be doubly sure that he had no opportunity, she decided to arrange matters so that he would be unable to sit next to her at supper.

  It turned out just as she planned, though Klara found herself obliged to do it rather more obviously than she would have wished. When the last figure of the cotillion had come to an end, Gyeroffy had been standing just behind her and so it was impossible that he had not noticed that she had led her partner from one table to another until she had found one that had just two places unoccupied, leaving no room for Laszlo to join them. She had to do this in a rush, for she was afraid that someone would have noticed. In reality nobody did except Laszlo who, with growing astonishment and pain, saw what was happening and understood what she was doing. What made it worse was that it was Warday who was seated on Klara’s right.

  Laszlo stood behind her for a few moments and Klara knew it, every nerve in her body signalling that he was there, trembling with surprise, disappointment and indignation. She forced herself not to turn round and give him a smile of encouragement and consolation as if it were merely an unlucky chance that things had turned out; but she did not do so. Instead she slowly pulled off her long gloves and placed them carefully on the table beside her. But all her attention was fixed on listening until she was sure Laszlo was no longer there.

  At last – it had seemed like eternity – she heard the young man’s footsteps as he moved away. Then she felt that something between them had been torn apart.

  It was already daylight when the ball came to an end. Laszlo, by dint of his office, had to remain until all the guests had left, but Klara went home early. Filled with gloom, hatred and spite, Laszlo danced almost to breaking point, so as to tire himself out, and when dawn was breaking, drank a great deal to help him sleep – and indeed he did sleep, in a deep, dreamless slumber that lasted until the afternoon.

  When he finally awoke he was filled with the sense of having suffered some great calamity. Slowly he went over in his mind all that had happened on the previous evening and then he was suddenly struck, as with a sledgehammer, by the realization that Klara had deliberately avoided him, coldly, icily, cruelly avoided him. She had intentionally broken the tacit agreement that they had had since the beginning of the Carnival season, that they should always sit together at supper; and now she had shown that she didn’t even want him at her side but preferred to sit by Warday, of all people. She had shown him that it was Warday she wanted near her, Warday! She had therefore broken the understanding that, though never put into words, had been such a strong link between them. Of course this had to mean that everything was finished, that it was all over!

  After what seemed like hours of self-doubt, and while more and more demons of jealousy and speculation had chased themselves round and round in the darkening room, Laszlo got up and dressed and went to the Casino.

  It was dinner-time when he arrived and he sat down at a crowded table between Arzenovics and Zalamery. When these two, after coffee and several glasses of liqueur, went straight up to the baccarat-room, he went with them.

  This time Laszlo did not wait to be asked but sat down immediately at the table and joined the game. From the start he played very high indeed, for should his banks prove disastrous and his loses huge it would somehow be a vengeance on Klara for breaking this agreement. That he himself was breaking his solemn word never for a moment crossed his mind. Though Laszlo had had plenty of wine at dinner and had continued to drink steadily all evening, he felt completely sober, stone cold sober. The only effect the wine had had on him was to deepen his resentment until his body seemed aflame with it. Once again, at the card-table, he felt this same strange sixth sense which told him when to say ‘Banco!’ and when to pull out. He bet very high and, apparently, wildly, but his winnings piled up in front of him umtil he was surrounded by gleaming little walls of chips.

  No one noticed the passing of time.

  The Steward came round at one o’clock with the players’ signed chits. Some were settled at once in cash, others by the return of winning chips, while the big gamblers, if they were on a losing streak, had their debts added to their running accounts. The game went on undisturbed.

  The boards on the landing outside the card-room creaked. Someone was coming up. Laszlo, who was sitting opposite the doorway, looked up: it was Louis Kollonich!

  He came straight over to and stood with the onlookers directly in front of Laszlo. He stood there in silence, puffing at the Havana cigar that drooped from his mouth.

  What does he want here, why has he come, he who was never seen in the gaming-room? Of course, it was obvious! He had come to spy, stalking Laszlo as if he were a rogue deer, sent probably by Aunt Agnes – or could it have been Klara? That idea filled Laszlo with dismay and horror. Could Klara really have gone so far as to involve her parents in the sacred pact between them, using her father to bear witness against him so that she would have cause and justification for abandoning him for Warday? Well, if that was what she wanted, here goes!

  The pack reached Laszlo. With both hands he quickly pushed all his chips to the centre of the table, the carefully built piles of iridescent mother-of-pearl spilling in profusion over the baize cloth.

  ‘The bank is twenty thousand!’ he said. ‘Faites vos jeux!’

  About twelve thousand was put on the table. Laszlo dealt deliberately, slowly. He looked at his own card with apparent calm: it was a five. ‘Je donne!’ he said dryly. His opponent replied: ‘Non!’ Laszlo took a card, glanced at it, saw that it was a three, and spread his hand upon the table: eight! Picking up the remaining cards, Laszlo raked in his winnings with the small ivory rake and again uttered the cool, formal phrase: ‘Faites vos jeux!’ All this was done with an absolutely straight face, without a flutter of the eyelids, wooden-faced, wooden-voiced, under control, as he had seen Neszti Szent-Gyorgyi do it so often. Since his Uncle Louis was so good as to come to the chemmy game and so descend to spying on him, he might at least be
given his money’s worth!

  Old Louis stood there for only a few minutes, looking quietly at the scene with his tiny pig-like eyes. Then he turned and walked slowly back to the doors. The stairs creaked as he went down. He had gone.

  As this was happening Laszlo dealt another coup, which he lost. In correct order he paid each winner, for his sense of discipline never wavered, and then leaned back in his chair racked by a pain so terrible and implacable that he almost fainted from dizziness. It’s all over now: everything is finished! he said to himself. Suddenly a veil of cobwebs was spun over his eyes so that he could hardly see what was going on in front of him; everything, the table, the players’ faces, the room itself, disappeared into a fog of nothingness. For a long time he sat without moving until, when the pack returned to him, he pushed it away mechanically, murmuring: ‘Passe la main!’ Then he got up and left the table.

  As Laszlo moved towards the door, reeling unsteadily, someone behind him said: ‘Gyeroffy’s drunk as a lord!’ but he himself heard nothing. Somehow he reached the stairs and, clinging for support to the banister rail, slowly managed to get down, carried by his feet alone, for he knew not what he did. At the bottom of the stairs someone helped him into his cloak and hat and from there he walked out into the night like a somnambulist, unconscious of what he was doing or where he was going. For hours he walked the streets aimlessly, walking, walking, walking. He felt like an empty husk … and inside the shell of his brain and body and spirit there was nothing, no thought, no feeling, no life, no pain.

  At dawn he found himself wandering in the Nepliget, the People’s Park, with no idea how he came to be there. He was terribly tired, and his thin patent-leather evening shoes were filthy and split. After a while the first tram came rumbling by, its lamps still lit. Laszlo boarded it and went home.