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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  They leant back on the soft cushions, their hands clasped, not speaking, not moving, almost in a trance, as slowly their little craft emerged from the haunted shadows of the canal into the shining radiance of the lagoon itself where the horizon seemed to be at an infinite distance, the late afternoon sun glistening in a thousand reflections on the smooth waters over which they floated. Everything was marvellously pale, in iridescent shades of grey and pearl, with only the faintest hints of the softer shades of the rainbow. The sky was greyish-blue and the waters bluishgrey, so alike that it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended. Everything melted into everything else, fusing all they could see into one uncertain, vaporous abstraction. Far in the distance there was what might have been the outlines of an island with, in front of it, other smaller islands identifiable only by the unexpectedly dramatic vertical lines of black cypress trees which looked like distant exclamation marks on a faded parchment.

  There was nothing around them but water. Nothing else. Water, only water; and it was as if they were utterly alone in a world of their own, floating over the waters of the lagoon just as their minds floated over the mystery of their love. Adrienne took off her wide-brimmed straw hat and, holding it in her right hand, nestled her left shoulder into Balint’s. However, when he bent down to kiss her, she demurred gently but firmly, with a gesture that somehow was not really denying him but only waiting for the right moment. Her brows came together, her eyes looked at something far, far away. She was thinking. Balint sensed that she was remembering all those things that had happened to them both in the past and had now led to this moment when, as they lay in each other’s arms, they both knew that very soon their love would be fulfilled. Adrienne went over in her mind all she could remember of the turbulent course of their meetings and she knew that they were now approaching the great turning point in their mutual fate, a turning point that she both ached for and yet feared. They were on the threshold of something ineffably wonderful … and yet, reviewing in her mind all that had happened in the past, Adrienne was suddenly overcome by a feeling of bleak uncertainty, of terror at the thought of the unknown future. Balint felt it too. Looking at Adrienne’s pensive face, he recalled the terrible words of the letter she had written admitting the reality of her love for him but begging him to leave her alone because of what the consummation of their love would force her to do.

  He wondered if she still felt the same way. Was she still obsessed by that terrible decision? Was she really prepared to sacrifice her life to pay for these few weeks of happiness? And would he, knowing this, accept the gift of her body? Her soul was already his, so why should he pay such a price to possess her body as well? Because that was what all this amounted to, what it all meant. If they were to have this month of happiness together and then Addy killed herself, it would be far more terrible than dying himself. He could never live on if he carried with him the knowledge that he had allowed it. It would be as if he’d committed murder.

  Obsessed and confused by these thoughts Balint knew that now, somehow, all this must be made clear and that he had to extract a promise from her that she would never do anything as terrible as she had threatened. Her ear was close to his mouth, so close that he didn’t have to bend down when he whispered: ‘May I come to you tonight?’

  ‘After midnight. Before that there are people in the hall …’

  Balint squeezed her fingers. He paused for a moment and then said, very softly: ‘If… if we should … if it happened, would it mean what you wrote?’

  She did not answer and he had to repeat the question. Then she replied in broken uncertain phrases: ‘Why should you care? Don’t ask me that. Don’t think about it.’

  ‘Look, Addy, this cannot be. Things aren’t like that …’ and he started to say in simple words all that had been torturing him ever since he had her letter. He spoke for a long time, repeating himself over and over again, saying that to make love to her knowing what price had to be paid was unthinkable, cruel and wrong. At that price, never! He spoke warmly, begging her, saying over and over again: ‘Not at that price! Not at that price!’

  Adrienne did not reply. She only shook her head to show that her mind was made up. He felt her soft curls brushing his face. Finally, when he had talked for a long, long time she said: ‘I couldn’t live on like that. You, and the other … But it isn’t a sacrifice for me, I’ve thought about it so often.’ So Balint started again: but all that Adrienne would say was: ‘I can’t divorce, you know that. So don’t wish me to live. I couldn’t …’

  They were floating far out in the lagoon. Darkness had fallen and already the lamps were being lit on the three-legged water beacons. Riccardo somehow sensed what was required of him and turned his gondola back towards the town. In the darkness of their little cabin Balint’s voice was hoarse with emotion and grief: ‘But then I couldn’t go on living either! There would be nothing left! I, too … You can be sure of that.’

  Adrienne sat up abruptly and, looking hard into Balint’s face, cried: ‘No! No! That’s not the same at all! That you, who love life … That’s not for you!’

  ‘What else would be there for me? What choice would I have?’ Balint really meant what he said, though subconsciously he also hoped that maybe this at least would break Adrienne’s resolution. But all she now said was: ‘That is something I can’t accept. Very well then, there is only one solution. Go away! Leave! Then there’ll be nothing to torture ourselves about!’

  ‘There is no other way?’

  Once again there was silence between them as they sat together surrounded by the darkness of the night, feeling that endless sadness had spread over the murmuring waters. This was the end. Definitely, finally, for ever, the end. As the gondola edged its way into the narrow entrance of the little canal and dark shadows of great palaces close round them, Balint said: ‘I’m too late to catch the night express. Can I come and talk to you, just the way we always have … and tomorrow, in the morning, I’ll go away.’

  ‘All right. Just as we always have …’

  When Balint went to Adrienne that night there were no lights in her room. She had purposely not allowed the lamps to be lit for she had cried for a long time and did not want him to see this in her face. It was not completely dark, for the light from the lamps that illuminated the quay outside cast a faint glow through the soft folds of the white net curtains and it was reflected from the ceiling on to the bed like the first light of dawn. The room was heavy with the mingled scent of the woman and that strange aroma from the lagoon, composed equally of the salt of the ocean and the decay of the city.

  Balint sat down beside her, leaning against the cushions behind her head. They started to talk, but not coherently, both of them uttering short broken phrases that had no beginning and no end. Their faces came ever closer to each other, their mouths not just touching as they whispered to each other sad words of farewell, goodbye … goodbye … goodbye. As they did so, from time to time their lips met in a tender kiss, a caress that was sorrowful rather than passionate. And slowly, for Adrienne, it was as if her mouth, her hands, her hair and skin, had a separate life, totally independent of her will. She herself felt that she was dreaming and around her head the thick black curls fell tumbling over her face released by some magic power from the tight coils and knots into which she had bound them earlier that evening. Like Medusa’s snakes, the curls of Adrienne’s unruly hair moved mysteriously over her face, covering her eyes, her mouth and having a life of their own, leading her of their own volition to madness and abandon. Her fingers, long, slender and searching along his back, his neck, pressed him to her as if she needed to be reassured that he really was there, and all the while her wide, swelling lips kissed Balint’s face and hands, kissed the curls that fell between their mouths like a curtain, and even kissed the air. In Adrienne that great, latent force of nature, so long suppressed, was now at long last set free so that she was totally possessed by that joy of life which Balint had seen in her so long ago at the
skating rink. Now her back was arching, as it had then, and her legs moving rhythmically, her arms flung wide until, a little later, softly, so softly that he hardly heard her words she asked, in wonder: ‘What am I feeling? What is this? What is this?’ with the astonishment of one who, for the first time experiences a marvel whose existence until then was unimagined.

  The young man leaned above her, his approaching fulfilment pulsating through him like great waves of intoxicating fever. Now there was nothing left of the hunter, the coarse human stalking its mate; these had been wiped out by the terrible reality of a primeval, eternal emotion that had swept over him with the inexorable force of a tropical storm. In one tiny corner of his conscious mind, however, there still lurked the memory of their talk that afternoon, the knowledge that in four weeks’ time all this joy must be paid for … Gently, but urgently, he whispered in her ear: ‘Do you want to? Now?’ fully aware to what he was committing them both. And when Addy did not answer in words, but flung her arms around him, drawing him down upon her, opening wide her mouth to receive his ardent kisses, surely she knew it too?’

  For a long time they lay together in each other’s arms, and from outside the room could be heard a faint rustling sound, which might have been the night breeze in the trees of some distant garden or the soft movements of the waters of the lagoon but which to them sounded like the beating of the wings of fate, that fate which had now and for all time chained them to one another.

  From far away in the distance could be heard the soft notes of a tenor voice singing a late-night serenade to his beloved. The white folds of the voluminous net curtains moved in the early morning breeze, and outside the sky began to lighten with the approach of dawn. Adrienne, who had been lying wide-awake in Balint’s arms, said: ‘It’s time for you to go!’

  ‘Already? But it’s still dark!’

  ‘It’s time, and I want to be alone. I have to think.’ Adrienne’s amber-coloured eyes were serious. She was asking, beseeching, but she was also giving an order.

  ‘We’ll meet this afternoon? At the same place as yesterday? We’ll meet there again?’

  ‘Yes. But be there at six, I shall be free by then.’

  This time Balint waited in the gondola to be sure that no one witnessed their meeting. Before him on the bench lay a huge bouquet of dark red roses, but when Adrienne had arrived he did not give them to her, indeed he did not even mention them. As she stepped into the boat he rose and kissed her hand as he always did, but today with even a touch more formality and respect than before: and when she sat down beside him his first words were not of love but were a simple question, spoken softly, asking if she would like to visit the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. He explained that it was very close to where they were now, and was a miracle of beauty made out of white marble by Pietro Lombardi. He spoke so quietly and in such a matter-of-fact way, allowing no trace of triumph of possession to colour his voice or manner, that there was nothing to remind Addy of what had passed between them only a few hours before. In this way he helped her to pass through what could have been for her an awkward moment after holding him off for so long. Even later on Balint did not speak of their night together: only the bunch of red roses spoke for him. There it lay, almost at her feet, paying homage to her with that great splash of red, the colour of passion, the huge blossoms wide open to symbolize the ripeness of fulfilment.

  Only later, as they floated gently back, did he murmur in her ear: ‘May I … like yesterday?’

  And so the days passed, each as dreamlike as the last. Sometimes they visited a church, or looked for a little-known picture that hung halfconcealed on the dark walls of some neglected Scuola, but mostly, unlike the tourists who never tired of sight-seeing, they remained in their gondola, floating down obscure canals and always, in the end, out on to the great expanse of the lagoon, lying there in each others arms in sweet exhaustion, fingers entwined while they were still in town, kissing with joy and abandon as soon as they were away from the shore. They always had the same gondolier. From his post behind their cabin, their faithful Riccardo plied his oar so slowly and silently that it seemed that the gondola was propelled by no human hand. Each day, they would go even further from the city, until it seemed that they were the only two people in the whole wide world and that they would float on for all eternity, surrounded only by the mother-of-pearl waters of the lagoon and the faint rainbow iridescence of the late afternoon sky. Time stood still and nothing was real except their love, only their love.

  Never again had either of them made the slightest allusion to what they had so long discussed on their first day together. Both were aware, all too aware, of what the future might hold, but by tacit mutual understanding, they pushed aside such thoughts as if they never had been and never would be.

  Adrienne passed her mornings on the Lido beach where the sun beat down ferociously, very different from the soft radiance of the afternoon light over the lagoon. She and her sisters used to swim for hours together as all of them had been strong swimmers since the days they had splashed about in the great lake at home and been taught to swim when still young children. They felt quite at home in the water and now, in Venice, they bathed separately, Adrienne consciously taking herself a little way off from her sisters for she had noticed that Judith’s face still hardened if she came near. It was quite enough to be with them at lunch or sit with them in the hotel lounge in the early afternoon when Mlle Morin went upstairs to take a nap. In the mornings she swam alone, energetically and with great long strokes and almost savage pleasure, just as she did when she walked, or skated or danced.

  Often Adrienne swam a long way out to sea, where the waters were dark and deep and far bluer than closer inshore. When she returned after swimming far out she would often stop for a moment as soon as she arrived in shallow water where she could stand with the little waves just below her knees. Sometimes she would stand there for a long time, quite motionless, and then, the water running off the black swimsuit which clung wet and shining to the lines of her body, she was like some polished marble statue.

  She stood there, oblivious of the many men who eyed her from the shore. She never even noticed their looks. For her only one man existed, and he would be waiting for her later in the gondola by the quay under the Ponte Canonica. So she would stand there just gazing out to sea, looking towards the far horizon, head held high, brows knitted as if she were thinking hard.

  Where she stood, the waves flowed over her feet and legs and were yellowy-green in colour, for here it was shallow and the golden sand beneath could be seen through the translucent water. Only farther out, where the deep waters started, did the sea become dark and mysterious.

  There were no ships to be seen except, very occasionally in the far distance, they could glimpse the sails of fishing boats going towards the shores of Istria where the catches were unusually rich for the Adriatic. One little boat was always there, riding at anchor. It was the boat of the life-guard placed there by the authorities to make sure no one swam out too far or got into difficulties out of reach of the shore. Outside the limits of where most people swam there were dangerous currents against which even the most experienced of swimmers were powerless. Once taken by one of these no one could get back without help. Adrienne often looked out towards that little boat, anchored there so far from the shore.

  She seemed thoughtful, as if weighing up something in her mind …

  Chapter Eleven

  ON THE SECOND SATURDAY IN JULY, Riccardo Lobetti, the gondolier, who had hardly ever opened his mouth when he was with them as if he knew and understood that they wanted to be alone with their love, suddenly made them a proposition, volubly and excitedly crying: ‘Domani sera, la festa del Redentore. Una bellissima festa. Magnifica! Aaah … magnifica …’

  The great feast of the Redeemer, the most famous of the Venetian Carnivals, was to take place the following evening. Riccardo wanted them to see it from his gondola.

  ‘Bisogna vederla! Bisogna vederla! Gran’
festa! – You must see it, it’s a great festival’ he said, waving his hands in the air to emphasize what an important occasion this was. They accepted at once.

  About ten o’clock Riccardo arrived at the Palazzo Dandolo, where he picked up Adrienne and rowed her to the Piazzetta where Balint was waiting. Lobetti, who normally wore a grey linen garment, none too clean and much worn, was now clad in all his finery; a bright red silk shirt, white and yellow striped cotton trousers, and round his waist a magnificent broad green cummerbund with golden tassels. He was resplendent, and his gondola was the same. In the place of the canvas-covered cabin he had constructed a great sea-shell of basket-work covered all over with flowers, and flowers also decorated the length of the gunwales right up to the high curved prow from whose top hung a lighted oil-lamp.

  ‘Per la donna – for the lady!’ repeated Lobetti several times, bowing deeply when they congratulated him. They moved off slowly towards the Giudecca.

  There were some lights visible in the distance, but the moment that they had rounded the point of the Dogana they were greeted by a marvellous and unexpected sight.