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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  ‘Could I speak to you in private?’ asked the countess.

  ‘I would take it as an honour,’ replied Bacherach, bowing again before he ushered her through the curtained door into a tiny room which was also surrounded by glass-fronted showcases. In one corner a large safe had been built into the wall and in the centre of the room was a small desk lit by a green-shaded table-lamp. Bacherach offered Fanny the comfortable upholstered armchair which stood by the desk and seated himself on an upright cane chair that was placed opposite it.

  ‘How can I serve your Ladyship?’ he repeated.

  ‘You remember my pearls? I had them re-strung here last year.’

  ‘Who could forget them? They are extraordinary, unique I should say. Five identical strings! Magnificent!’

  ‘I … I’m thinking perhaps of selling them. What do you think I might get for them, Mr Bacherach?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. Of course they are extremely valuable, exceptionally so, but for that very reason it might not be so easy to find a buyer. Es wäre Schade zie zu verschleudern – it would be a pity to throw them away. One would have to wait to find a serious buyer. Oh, they exist all right, if not here then in Paris, or London, or the Riviera.’

  ‘I have them with me. You can see them. What do you think then? How much could I get for them?’ She reached into her blouse, took out the pearls, unfastened them and placed them in the jeweller’s fat little fingers. For a moment he weighed them in his hands, shutting his eyes. Then he placed them on the green baize table top.

  ‘Perhaps … hm … on the international market two … two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Maybe even three hundred wenn ein Amateur sich fndet – if one came across a real lover of such things.’

  Fanny made as if she was thinking the matter over. Then she spoke again:

  ‘Look, Mr Bacherach, I will leave my pearls with you until I make up my mind. You are quite right, it would be a crime to throw them away. I’d like you to keep them for me. But I do need rather a large sum of money at once, and so I wondered if maybe you could advance me something, just until a proper buyer can be found?’

  Bacherach smiled discreetly and for a moment he closed his eyes again. ‘Of course, your Ladyship, everything is possible. What figure did your Ladyship have in mind?’

  ‘I would need eighty-six thouand crowns now.’

  ‘Hm … eighty-six thousand. It shall be done at once.’

  ‘Would it be all right – if I changed my mind – if I paid you back the money … with interest, naturally … and then we might call off the deal?’

  ’Quite all right,’ said the old merchant and then, rather more slowly: ‘… and how much time would your Ladyship need to, er, change her mind?’

  ‘Could it be four or five months?’

  ‘We’ll say six. In the meantime I’ll make enquiries in the market. If at the end of six months your Ladyship has not decided to cancel the sale I will have the right to proceed, within the price range we have already mentioned. I suggest a reserve price of twenty thousand francs if your Ladyship agrees?’

  ‘That will be quite satisfactory. Thank you very much. Oh! And how much interest would I owe you should I decide not to sell?’

  ‘Nothing at all, your Ladyship! I am only too happy to be of service to my clients. Would your Ladyship prefer a cheque or cash?’

  ‘Cash, please, Mr Bacherach. When would it be convenient for me to call for it?’

  ‘Your Ladyship can have it at once. I believe that quite a large sum has come in today.’

  In a few moments he placed in Fanny’s hands a large wad of new thousand-crown notes. She looked down at the pearls which still lay in a glowing pile under the lamp on the table and for a moment it hurt that she had to part with them.

  Pulling herself together she turned again to the jeweller and in a calm voice asked: ‘I wonder if I could telephone?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bacherach, who immediately opened a small cubicle in the wall in which the telephone was kept. He then discreetly left the room.

  When the operator answered Fanny asked for Szelepcsenyi’s number and waited until, after a few moment, she heard the voice of her old friend.

  ‘Carlo, is that you?’ she asked. ‘Does that little door still exist, the one onto the side-street? Yes? Then I’d like to come round now, in fifteen to twenty minutes? Would you leave it open? It would be better if I didn’t have to ring … Yes, I want to ask you something important. Thank you so much, you are a dear. In twenty minutes then, I’m coming on foot.’ Then she laughed at something Szelepcsenyi said. ‘Don’t be silly! That’s an old story!’ and replaced the receiver.

  Szelepcsenyi’s little town house stood at the junction of Eotvos street and Szekfu street. Fanny walked past the main entrance and stopped at a little door just around the corner which yielded at once to her touch. She swiftly went inside, shut the door behind her and mounted a short stair of some ten steps. On a landing, standing in front of a tapestry that hid another doorway, Szelepcsenyi was awaiting her. Pulling back the tapestry, he opened the door and ushered Fanny into the room behind. It was the old statesman’s bedroom in the middle of which stood a huge ornate bed made by Andrea Brustolon at the end of the seventeenth century and bought by Szelepcsenyi in Venice during the sixties. It was hung with cut velvet of the same period, as were the walls of the room. This background suited Szelepcsenyi who, with his wide forehead, jutting chin and closely trimmed beard himself had all the air of a Renaissance tyrant. However, he did not stop there but led Fanny on into the big drawing-room beyond. This room, so much larger than one would have thought possible from looking at the elegant exterior of the house, combined the functions of living-room with those of art gallery and museum. The walls were covered with the best works of the modern painters whose style was then coming into vogue and the ornate console tables that lined the room were covered with rare and costly examples of the work of Renaissance gold and silversmiths. On one side of the room was a giant baroque fireplace made of black and orange marble, and it was in two comfortable armchairs on each side of this that Fanny and her host sat down.

  ‘Well, well, my little Fanion,’ he said, using his old pet-name for her. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

  Fanny sat bolt upright, clutching hard with both hands to the elegant handbag which now held all the banknotes given to her by the jeweller. She hesitated for a while before answering: ‘Someone we know lost a lot of money at the Casino last night …’ she started.

  ‘We needn’t enquire who, need we?’ said Szelepcsenyi to help her. ‘Go on!’

  ‘I have here everything that is needed to settle the debt. But, of course, I can’t do it myself. Therefore I thought that, maybe, you would do it for me? Send someone round? I don’t even know what the procedure is … but it must be settled right away.’

  The old man shook his head with faint mocking disapproval. He smiled: ‘Well! Well! Well! It’s gone as far as that, has it?’

  Despite herself Fanny felt herself blushing, a rare occurrence for her.

  ‘He gave me this money himself, this morning.’ She lied only to maintain a fiction for the sake of good form, knowing full well that Carlo would not believe a word of it. Indeed, with a smile of knowing complicity, he deftly changed direction.

  ‘Do you know to whom the money is owed?’

  ‘Of course, I’ve got it all here,’ Getting up from her seat she moved over and sat on the arm of Szelepcsenyi’s chair. From her bag she took out the banknotes and the list she had copied from Laszlo’s. ‘Here is the list. Everything’s there: names, figures, everything.’ and she brushed against him, catlike, provocative. ‘You will do it for me, my dear, won’t you? Now! It would be so sweet of you, and it’s very important to me. Straight away?’

  Szelepcsenyi looked sharply up at her. It was possible, indeed probable, that Fanny was doing this without Laszlo knowing anything about it. That would certainly explain why she seemed in so much of a hurr
y, for then she would be able to return to him and present him with a. fait accompli. He put his arms around her shoulder and pressed her gently to him.

  ‘It will be done at once!’ he said, going over to the big Italian refectory table that he used as a writing desk. He put on his glasses and carefully copied Fanny’s list onto another sheet of paper.

  ‘Just go into the bedroom for a moment will you, my dear,’ he said to Fanny. ‘It is not necessary that my man should see you!’

  Countess Beredy went into the adjacent room, but she did not close the doors behind her. She therefore heard Szelepcsenyi giving orders that the money should be given to the Club Steward in Count Gyeroffy’s name and that a receipt and all the original IOUs should be put in an envelope and brought back immediately. The servant was told to take a hired carriage and be quick about it. When he had gone Szelepcsenyi called to Fanny: ‘Fanion! Come and look at my newest acquisition!’

  They went on talking and looking at the old man’s treasures until the footman returned. As before, Fanny disappeared into the bedroom while the man was in the room. When Szelepcsenyi was assured that all had been done as he wished he called her back and together they checked that everything was in order. When this had been done Fanny put the envelope in her bag and, glancing in an antique mirror to be sure that before she could allow herself to be seen in the street the Countess Beredy looked her usual immaculate self, she went back through the bedroom to the landing beyond the tapestry-hung door. There she turned again to her old admirer, gave him a hug so tight that he could feel the swell of her breasts beneath the light silken dress. This was her gift to him.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you! I thank you more than I can say!’ She lifted up her head and planted a kiss right into the middle of his well-trimmed beard, for Szelepcsenyi did not bend down to her but remained standing erect, his head held high as ever. He patted her on the shoulder in a fatherly way and then stood, still motionless, at the head of the little stairway until Fanny had reached the door below.

  ‘At your service always, my Fanion!’ he said softly as she waved goodbye to him from the door.

  Half an hour later, Fanny was back in the little flat near the royal palace, carrying, as well as her handbag, a large parcel in which were cold tongue, ham, a little pot of foie gras, two slices of coffee cake covered with whipped cream and a bottle of champagne – ‘to drown his sorrows in!’ she had thought when selecting these things on her way back from Szelepcsenyi’s.

  Laszlo was still asleep, just as she had left him. Fanny’s first move was to put the champagne bottle under a cold tap and leave the water running so as to cool the wine. Then she undressed completely and slipped into a silk kimono which she selected from half a dozen others that she always kept there. Then she wound a green chiffon scarf round her blonde hair, glancing into the long looking-glass to be sure that she looked her best, and went back into the darkened room where Laszlo lay asleep. Without disturbing him she pulled forward a small table and arranged on it the food she had brought in, fetching china, cutlery, glasses and a white table-cloth from the minute kitchen which opened off one side of the room. Finally she rescued the champagne from the sink and put it in a bucket with some cold water. Only when all this had been done and Fanny had checked that no detail had been forgotten, did she sit down on the bed beside Laszlo and awaken him by kissing his closed eyelids.

  Laszlo smiled with pleasure when he saw the woman bending over him, but in a moment, he remembered what had happened and his eyes widened in horror as the details all came back to him.

  Fanny touched his mouth with her tapering fingers.

  ‘Don’t think about … about all that darling! Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see! Look! I’ve brought some food, all the things you like best, and a little wine too, champagne. Now we’ll have lunch together. Come along, I’m terribly hungry!’ So she encouraged him, coaxed him, consoled him with light caresses, stroking his cheeks until he got up and joined her at the table. They sat on stools, facing each other, and Fanny did all she could to charm him so that the sad memories of the disastrous evening before would be obliterated and forgotten. In the dark blue kimono with the pale green chiffon scarf wound round her head, Fanny looked even more like a great cat, dark-skinned and blonde-headed, her mouth smiling with mysterious pleasure and her long eyes only half visible through her thick black eyelashes. Her pleasure sprang from the fact that Laszlo ate with a good appetite, happily quaffing the champagne from an ordinary water tumbler as they had nothing else to drink from in the flat.

  When their lunch was over Fanny went back to the couch. ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Come close to me, and I’ll tell you what I’ve done about that problem of yours.’ She spoke proudly, thinking how adroitly she had managed everything. Laszlo lay down beside her.

  ‘Look!’ said Fanny, taking the Casino’s envelope out of her bag. ‘Everything has been settled. Here are your IOUs – two for five and one for three thousand. See, they’ve been torn across and countersigned by the club cashier! And here is something else …’ and she handed him a slip on which was written: ‘I hereby certify that I have this day received from Count Laszlo Gyeroffy the sum of 73,000 crowns (that is seventy-three thousand crowns) for Mr Gedeon Pray.’

  Laszlo raised himself on his elbow, taking the little slips of paper from her and studied them carefully. He could hardly believe what he saw. It was true; the IOUs and the cashier’s receipts were all there, just as she had said. Laszlo was flooded with an immense sense of relief, but then he suddenly straightened up and stared at her with wide eyes.

  ‘This is not possible!’ he said. ‘How did you do it? Where did you get all this money? You? You? I can’t accept this! No! Never!’

  ‘Why not? It’s only a loan … a loan, I tell you. I found someone ready to lend it to you.’

  ‘A loan?’

  ‘Yes, just for a few months, to give you time to raise the money. A few months should be enough.’

  ‘Who lent it? Who? I want to know!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s enough that I know. You’ll give it to me and I’ll pay it back.’

  ‘I insist on knowing who it is!’ cried Laszlo, furiously. ‘There’s something very tricky about all this. That … through you … I can’t possibly accept it … and I don’t believe a word of what you’ve said unless you tell me who! Tell me at one, who is it? Who?’

  Fanny tried to lie: ‘It’s an old lawyer of my father’s. You don’t know him; he worked for my father. He’s very rich!’

  ‘His name! Tell me his name at once!’ Laszlo grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and then flung her back brutally on to the bed. As he did so the kimono fell open revealing Fanny’s white body against the dark blue satin. Laszlo stared at her, fascinated – the pearls! There was no sign of the pearls, either round her neck, nor over her breasts, nor wound round her waist or thighs. The pearls had gone, vanished!

  It was only slowly as he looked at her with amazement that the connection came to him. Then, in stunned disbelief, he said dully: ‘You sold your pearls!’

  Fanny sat up. She pressed herself to him and clung to him tightly. ‘No! I didn’t sell them, really I didn’t!’ And she told quickly how she had gone to the jewellers and pawned them as she often had in the past when she needed money. That it really didn’t signify – everyone did it, there was nothing to it, it was the most natural thing in the world. One could get them back any time, at a moment’s notice, a few days, a few months, it was all the same. It really didn’t matter at all and it meant nothing. That’s all she had done. It was no sacrifice, nothing he couldn’t or shouldn’t accept from her. Why, it cost her nothing; wearing the things concealed by her blouse or leaving them there for a little while, it was all the same to her. And she clung to him even more fiercely.

  Laszlo did not respond, either to her words or to her embrace. He stood there, quite still, his arms hanging down loosely, his whole body slack as if he were infinitely weary. He only moved his
head, shaking it continuously from side to side and muttering over and over again:

  ‘No! No! No! No!’

  Fanny went on trying to cajole him. She became more eloquent in her love for him which, perhaps even now, though she did not realize it was a real love, inspired her to find the right words, the most persuasive arguments. What was done could not be undone. The debts had been settled, the money paid over and accepted. Nothing could be recalled. The only thing for him to do was to accept the fact and to forgive her – and he must get it into his head that he was not humiliated or dishonoured by what she had done – it wasn’t even a favour, it was really nothing. And he would do her a favour if he would forgive her. Possibly she had been thoughtlessly impulsive but she was only a woman who didn’t understand these things and who meant well. She had done it because she loved him as she had never loved anyone else and she had suddenly realized that if she lost him she would lose everything … everything. As she said these things she was seized with the fear that she might still lose him and the panic that possessed her then gave an even more convincing ring to her arguments and a warm softness to her voice. With renewed passion, now completely real and not, as when she had first started, carefully calculated to impress and persuade him, she clung to him tightly as if she feared ever to let him go, and for the first time in her life broke into deep wracking uncontrollable sobs, her tears running down his chest as she continued to murmur incoherently, kissing his neck, his ear, his hair, hurriedly, hurriedly, as if she feared that if one word were lost she would lose him be for ever. So she talked and talked and kissed and sobbed and held him tightly to her, her warm limbs naked under the kimono enlaced with his until, involuntarily, almost unconsciously, he began to respond, stroking her body automatically and then out of habit, returning her kisses, face to face, all possibility of argument or reproach submerged in their mutual desire. Fanny sank back on to the bed, drawing him down upon her until they were both lost to the world as they came together in the deep sensuous depths of their passion.