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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Balint watched her with an amused smile, thinking that it wasn’t fair to allow her to get so upset. He really shouldn’t tease her so, he thought, and anyway, this was the moment to strike and tell her why he’d come. Accordingly he grabbed her arm and pulled her down on to the cane sofa beside him. ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘That’s enough now!’

  Dinora looked up at him, both surprised and hopeful, thinking that now he would start to hold her in his arms, caress her and kiss her and ask for love. All this she read from the expression on his face, for she had seen it before, long ago when they had been lovers.

  During the brief moment that elapsed since she fell into his arms the voice of Balint’s conscience spoke to him again, saying, Wait! Not now! Do it when you come back from Almasko. You can’t go there straight from another woman’s bed, it would not be right. Indeed it would be downright distasteful! So, instead of begging for Dinora’s love, he merely said: ‘You make me dizzy, spinning about like that!’ He tried to laugh convincingly so that she should think he had only been making a joke of it all. For a fraction of a second a worried look passed over her face, as if she had sensed her former lover’s thoughts and had found there something new – something dangerous and unexpected.

  ‘I only wanted to demonstrate what a fat woman looked like with no clothes on …’

  A little later Tihamer Abonyi came out of his room. He made every effort to make Balint feel at home and welcomed him effusively. The conversation was about nothing in particular, and at dusk, just before Dinora’s husband had to leave for Aranyos-Gyeres to catch the Budapest train, Balint called for his horses and rode home.

  Early next morning, when Countess Roza went to visit the stables, she spoke to the groom who had accompanied her son to Lelbanya.

  ‘Where did you stop to rest the horses?’

  ‘We went all in one go, my lady,’ said the boy. ‘But on the way back from Mezo-Varjas …’

  ‘Ah, so you went there too?

  ‘Yes, my lady, we slept there the day before yesterday. But coming back we stopped at Szilvas. I gave them their feed there, and I rubbed them down before we saddled up again.’

  ‘So you were there for some little time?’

  ‘We arrived about four, and didn’t leave until nearly eight, my lady.’

  ‘You didn’t have any trouble with the horses? They stood up to it all right?’

  Countess Roza then walked over to look for herself, feeling the horses’ backs to see if there was any soreness, and running her hands over their tendons. She then left the stables well satisfied. What she had heard was good.

  As she walked back to the house to have breakfast with her son, a tiny roguish smile, almost invisible, might have been discerned on her round little face.

  Chapter Three

  THE YELLOW BRICSKA, Count Uzdy’s travelling carriage which had been sent to the station to collect Balint, turned at great speed into the forecourt of the castle of Almasko, tore round the central lawn, and came to an abrupt halt in front of the main entrance.

  On the steps was standing Uzdy’s butler, a grey-haired man with wide powerful shoulders, a short beard and clipped moustaches. His eyebrows were long and bushy and below them his eyes were large and unusually sad. He bowed correctly and stepped forward to offer his arm to Abady as he descended from the high-slung carriage. For a second Balint availed himself of the man’s aid and was astonished, when he touched the butler’s arm, to notice that the old man’s muscles were as hard as steel. As the butler preceded him up the steps the carriage moved on as swiftly as it arrived; presumably the luggage would be taken off somewhere else.

  ‘The Countess will receive your Lordship in the salon,’ said the butler in a lugubrious monotone and, leading the way across the oval hall, silently opened a pair of double doors. Balint went through and the doors were closed as silently as they had been opened.

  The salon was a long room, oval like the entrance hall but much larger. The shutters were all closed, even those of the floor-length french windows which, presumably opened on to the castle’s garden front. Balint needed a few moments for his eyes to become adjusted to the gloom. The ceiling was high and covered with baroque stucco-work. The walls were painted a cold grey and the furniture, mostly heavy sofas and armchairs dating from the 1860s, was covered in tobacco-coloured cord. There were one or two old family portraits hung sparsely on the otherwise bare walls. There did not seem to be anything personal in the room and the general impression was stern and cold with every object carefully, symmetrically, and severely in its place.

  Balint walked up and down for a little, waiting, his heart beating strongly in eager anticipation of Adrienne’s appearance. What would she say and how would she look in that curiously impersonal room? As he strolled over to the windows for the third time he was surprised, for he had not heard anyone enter, to hear a voice behind him. ‘Count Abady, how nice of you to come!’

  It was Clémence Absolon, mother to Pali Uzdy and widow of his father Domokos, a thin elderly lady who stood very straight. She was the image of her son, but an old, female version, and it was clear that she must once have been very beautiful. She wore a grey dress, buttoned up high to the chin where a narrow white collar emphasized the severity of her appearance. On her abundant white hair was pinned a little lace widow’s cap. Countess Clémence walked with a curious stamping tread as if she had to force her body to move. A cold, distant smile hovered uncertainly on her thin lips. She seemed distant and unapproachable.

  Seating herself in the centre of the principal sofa in the room Countess Clémence waved her guest to an armchair opposite. Her manner was formal and ceremonious.

  ‘Pray sit! Tea will be brought presently. I hope you had an uneventful journey?’

  ‘Excellent, thank you, Countess,’ said Balint, and, as his hostess remained silent for a moment and it seemed polite to keep some sort of conversation going, he started to tell how the Uzdy bricska which had been sent to meet him at Banffy-Hunyad had taken all the hills and valleys at such speed that it might have been one of the new automobiles.

  ‘My son likes to travel swiftly. That is why our carriage horses are all American trotters. My son says they are the best!’

  Here was another topic. It was good for ten minutes, during which they discussed all the advantages and disadvantages of using American trotters. They then got on to their breeding. Balint began to wonder if Adrienne would ever come in.

  The old butler brought in tea, placing the tray on a table by his mistress, and vanished as silently as he had come.

  Now they talked about tea, whether China or Indian were preferable, or maybe Ceylon, and how nowadays in Transylvania more and more houses were serving tea instead of the traditional coffee with whipped cream. This was good for another fifteen minutes.

  ‘When did you get back from Budapest?’ The countess’s languid question revived the conversation which, by now, was beginning to falter. Abady recounted the latest political moves in the capital, explaining the different problems and any solutions that had been proposed. He spoke disinterestedly, as befitted conversation on such matters in good society. This was a useful subject for it could be made to last a long as anyone wished. The old lady sat bolt upright, unyielding and severe, listening to what her guest said and occasionally, out of good manners and not because the answer would be of any interest to her, she would ask a question – for keeping a conversation going was the duty of a well-bred hostess.

  From time to time she took a delicate sip at her tea.

  At last Balint heard a door being opened behind him. He started and then relaxed again. They were not Addy’s footsteps that he could hear, though they were obviously those of a woman. At the same time he could tell that a child had entered the room as well: it was the English nanny with Adrienne’s little daughter. They went straight over to Countess Clémence. The child did not open her mouth but the nurse, speaking in English, said: ‘It’s time for our walk now, if your Ladyship agrees?’


  Balint now saw Adrienne’s daughter for the first time. She was a strange-looking child who in no way resembled her mother. The girl’s face showed neither joy nor sadness; her expression was closed as if she must hide her thoughts, her complexion was pale and her big brown eyes seemed to look around without seeing what was in front of them.

  ‘Very well,’ said Countess Clémence, also in English, ‘you can go out now!’ She looked at the clock. ‘Walk for an hour and a half at the edge of the woods. I’ll join you later.’

  The nanny and the little girl turned away and left the room without another word. The girl did not hop about, or jump or skip, as other children of her age would have done, but walked out sedately, politely. In a moment they were gone.

  ‘You were telling me about the latest talks with Burian?’

  So the widowed countess and Abady went on making desultory conversation, both choosing their words carefully, though neither was in the least interested in what the other was saying.

  When another half hour had passed, Countess Clémence rose from her seat ‘Shall we go into the garden?’ she asked.

  They left the room, crossed the oval entrance hall and went out on to the forecourt through the castle’s main entrance. Once outside they turned left and walked round to the side of the house which faced over the valley. The house had seemed, from the entrance court to be only one storey high, but Balint soon saw that as it was built on a steep slope the façade looking over the valley had two floors and it was only from that side that one could see the house properly.

  It was a pretty building in the baroque style with, in the centre, an enormous covered balcony that stretched the full length of the salon within. The balcony had tall columns which supported the half-cupola domed roof above and was itself supported on vaulted pillars beneath which a doorway led to the rooms below.

  Gazing past the balcony he saw that another wing had been built jutting out at right angles from the main building and extending even further out from the hillside. This wing was entirely unexpected. Its lower walls were of rough undressed stone, the upper part of red brick, and the whole edifice had the air of a defensive redoubt. The roof was made of flat shingles, jutting well beyond the line of the walls with, as is to be found in Swiss chalets, an elaborate cornice of carved wood. At the far end a tower built of wood obviously housed a staircase, for none of its windows were on the same level. On the lower floor of this wing all the windows were heavily barred. The wing itself jutted out so far over the slope on which the house was built that at its farthest end it was three storeys high and seemed completely out of proportion to the beautiful old house to which it was attached.

  ‘My poor husband built that wing,’ explained Countess Clémence. ‘He fell in love with the alpine style when we visited the Tyrol together. I often think it should be pulled down, but my son seems to have got used to it.’

  They descended a steep, well-kept path to a lawn so well seeded and maintained that no sign of a weed was to be seen. Here and there were planted groups of thuja, dwarf juniper or pyramid-shaped biota, and the paths were edged by well-trimmed box. Everything was neat and tidy, but it was strange to see a garden with no flowers and no flowering shrubs either. Below the lawns the park stretched down to the north and was closed by great groups of fine old oak trees. Above the leafy crowns of the park oaks the valley could be seen continuing, interrupted only by little forest-covered hills, to the foot of the steep cliffs on which stood the giant ruins of the old fortress of Almas, for the sight of whose lonely towers Balint always searched when his train emerged from the Sztana tunnel. From the distant railway line one could see what looked like two index fingers rising from the forest. Once he had thought it must be the Uzdy house itself, but standing now at Almasko, Balint realized that those two shining vertical lines were in reality formed by the two sides of the ruined keep between which the connecting walls had crumbled.

  Balint and the old lady walked on through a grove of beech trees to an orchard that was planted with the new dwarf apple trees. The fruit trees were set in rows with military precision, each in its circles of well-hoed earth and each having a band of sticky grease round its trunk as a protection against destructive insects.

  At the foot of the twentieth tree in the first row a woman was kneeling. She had her back to them and was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head. Her dress was protected by a yellow canvas apron. She seemed to be busy doing something at the roots of the tree. At her side a flat basket lay on the grass. Countess Clémence led Balint towards her.

  When only a few steps away the old lady called out: ‘Adrienne! A guest has arrived!’

  Adrienne turned, still on her knees, to see who had called to her. Balint was struck with wonder, for here before him was another Addy, different from the others he already knew. The yellow apron reached up to her neck and fell in narrow pleats to the waist. Below the tight belt it emphasized the lines and movements of her thighs as far as her bent knees. The late afternoon sun shone slanting down on to her face under the brim of the same sort of straw hat as was worn by the peasant-women of the Kalotaszeg, a flat hat like a saucer without a crown and which was kept on by a ribbon tied under the chin. With this thin body-clinging canvas covering and the floating disc of a hat, under which dark curls framed her face, she looked to Balint like a Tanagra figurine come to life.

  Adrienne looked up. She was a striking figure, her pale oval face framed by a starling red ribbon like a shining, laughing mask of ivory, her amber eyes smiling and her lips as red as the ribbon tied under her chin.

  ‘Ah, AB, it’s you! I thought …’ but she stopped and did not finish the sentence, her face clouding over as if she had suddenly remembered where she was. She stood up, threw her secateurs into the basket and brushed the earth from the apron which covered her knees. ‘Look how dirty I am! I can’t possibly shake hands!’

  As they moved back towards the house the first to speak was Countess Clémence: ‘My daughter-in-law is a great gardener, really a great gardener. She takes care of all the fruit trees and makes herself very useful.’ This might have sounded like praise if the tone had not been so condescending.

  ‘I only started last year,’ said Adrienne somewhat deprecatingly. ‘I’ve still got a lot to learn, but it amuses me, and gives me something to do.’

  They walked slowly, the old lady in the middle, Balint on her right and Adrienne on her left. When they reached the grove of beeches Countess Clémence turned to Balint and said: ‘I must hand you over to my daughter-in-law now. So, until dinner, I’ll say au revoir.’

  ‘Where is Pali?’ asked Adrienne.

  ‘In his room, I expect. He does his accounts at this time and he hasn’t come down yet,’ said Countess Clémence before turning away and marching along the path through the trees with her distinctive stamping tread.

  The two younger people stood watching in silence as the dark upright figure went on its way and was finally lost to sight among the soft shiny new leaves of the beech trees.

  When she could no longer be seen Balint and Adrienne also left the orchard and followed the path through the wood.

  For a few moments they walked together, side by side without speaking.

  Under the century-old trees last year’s fallen leaves made a soft carpet underfoot. When they reached a twist in the path Adrienne stopped, looked swiftly around her, and then offered her mouth to be kissed. Their embrace lasted only a brief second but never before had Addy kissed him with such fervour and such abandon. Not, however, that this wild kiss was a kiss of love or surrender; rather it was an act of revenge or defiance, as if it gave her some savage satisfaction quite unconnected with him. After a second or two she pushed him away and walked on, her head held high, and her close-knit brows giving a serious and somewhat sad expression to her face. As they stepped out of the shadow of the trees into the sunlight of the meadow she turned once more towards him. ‘It’s so good that you came, AB. You don’t know how good it is!’

/>   They started to mount the winding path to the terrace.

  ‘That awful wing jutting out there!’ said Balint. ‘It completely spoils the lovely old baroque house.’

  ‘It was my father-in-law. He did it. Of course it’s hideous, but, you know,’ and Addy lowered her voice even though no one could possibly have overheard what she was saying, ‘you know that he was mad, and later … I’m sure you’ve heard …’ She broke off without saying the words that in that house were taboo.

  Balint did know. Many years before he had been told by his mother that Domokos Uzdy had died insane in his own house where his wife had kept him locked away in secret so as not to let the outside world know about it.

  ‘Yes, I did hear.’

  ‘That – er – butler … you’ve seen him already, old Maier, was his keeper, his nurse. They brought him from somewhere, I don’t know where, and afterwards, well, he just stayed on.’ For a little while she did not speak, then, with a little dry laugh, she said: ‘He might be needed again some time!’ and the bitterness in her voice made him realize that she was thinking that it would be for her.

  When they arrived at the base of the solid Swiss wing a footman was just carrying a tea-tray down the stairs which led from the wooden gallery above.

  ‘Which room is Count Abady in?’ Adrienne asked the man. Before he could reply a voice was heard coming from a window high above their head. It was Pali Uzdy, saying: ‘My mother has put him in the main guest room upstairs. That’s his room!’ and he laughed meaninglessly before going on: ‘I’ll welcome him, too, of course, but I’m still busy. In the meantime look after him, entertain him, take him for a walk!’ The mirthless laughter went on for a moment above them.