Nightingale

by Juliet Waldron

  "Well, I've heard of them. Signor Manzoli talked about them and they figure in plays and operas, but I have never seen real ones."

  "You will see plenty of them in Hungary." Akos smiled at her.

  "Yes," Ferenc said with contempt. "They roam all over, the raggedy theives, like cockroaches. I hope our hosts have got their doors locked, for they steal everything that isn't nailed down, including children. The rest of ‘em are probably sneaking into unguarded houses."

  Diners at a nearby table made the sign of the cross at the woman's approach, hissed in Magyar, and waved her away.

  "Carrion crow! Be off!"

  Bowing, a fist raised to the forehead in a kind of eastern salute, and with a smile frozen in place, the woman moved away.

  "What does she offer?" Klara watched after the woman.

  "Fortunes, no doubt."

  Klara, remembering Manzoli’s charts, those charts in which he so implicitly believed, experienced a prickle at the back of her neck. What he had said about Akos!

  "Do you suppose she can really tell the future?" She'd never told Almassy about Manzoli's love for fortune telling, and certainly not about his inferences during their last private meeting at his apartment.

  "Some gypsies are charlatans, certainly, but some seem to be born with something far greater than a knack for a good guess," Almassy said. "I had one give me a reading when I was little that was terrifying."

  "I was there, too, if you remember," Ferenc said, his eyes flashing. "That damned witch!"

  Amalie slipped a plump arm around her husband's shoulder to soothe him. "Now, dear one, it's not as if the woman caused those things to happen."

  "It was something neither of us will ever forget." Almassy tried to catch his friend’s eye again, but Ferenc pointedly looked away.

  "What happened?" It was clear to Klara that her friends were all made anxious by the Gypsies.

  "She told me that I would be surrounded on all sides by death and yet would not die. Three months later, I'd lost both my parents and a brother and a sister." Remembering, Ferenc shook his head.

  "It was a contagion." Amalie stroked her husband's arm. "You almost died yourself. My grandmother Berthe also died of it."

  Neither man said more. The soldiers, Karoly and Sandor shook their heads, then crossed themselves. Klara understood they'd heard the story before.

  She continued, surreptitiously to watch the couple and saw that not everyone was hostile to them. In fact, two women, widows in black, went to sit close to the gypsies as they perched on the low stone wall that surrounded the inn's garden. After presenting coins, they watched attentively while an embroidered cloth was laid on top of the wall. Next, a large deck of cards appeared from within the woman’s leather pouch.

  Ferenc stared blackly at them. "I wouldn't go near those creatures for a thousand ducats."

  Amalie, still soothing him, agreed. "Yes, why should anyone go to a fortune teller? It is far better not to know. After all, what awaits us all in the end but aches and pains, gray hair and death?"

  Klara sighed. She continued to study the gypsy woman and her clients. The cards, she could see, were larger than regular playing cards and brightly colored.

  "I am sorry about whatever happened, Ferenc," Klara finally said, turning back to her new friend. "You must have suffered terribly. Were you young?"

  "Ten. Akos and I dared each other to go to the gypsies when they passed by the Prince’s hunting lodge one spring."

  "Yes, we saved the money. When we heard from the grooms that they had come – stable hands always kept a sharp eye out for them because they are famous horse thieves – we went to find them."

  "What did you want to know?"

  "Well, we both loved music. I wanted to know if I would get into the Prince's orchestra and be taken into his household, or if I would be sent back to labor as my father did, upon the land. I wanted no part of that, you see, because I was small for my age. Farming seemed far too hard to me."

  "Besides," Akos added, "Ferenc loved reading and music. A farmer has no time for such things."

  "And why did you go, Akos? You were already playing in the Prince's orchestra, weren't you?"

  "Yes, but my grandfather was dead set against my continuing."

  Karoly and Sandor nodded. Klara realized they must have all grown up together on the Vehnsky estate. There was probably very little they didn’t know about one another.

  "Grandfather Almassy made me spend part of every day with him, working in his garden, or helping with his treatments. Not that I minded. I liked that, too, but I didn't want to be kept from music. Grandfather said that if I tended the garden and helped him that would please him. Still, I didn't want to be a full time apothecary and only a part-time musician."

  "Your grandfather was also against your military training." Sandor, absently fiddling with his fork, remarked.

  "True," Akos said, "but the Prince had the last word."

  "And a good thing he did," Klara said. "Otherwise, I don't think we would have escaped that night Oettingen's men came after us in the street."

  "Akos is annoyingly good at that, too." Ferenc shook his head and smiled.

  "His head is swollen big enough," Karoly said with a tolerant smile. "Don't make it worse."

  "What did your gypsy look like?"

  "She was old and withered and bad smelling. Her hands were like dirty claws."

  "She was inside a dark tent with just one candle burning," Akos said, "and we were terrified before she even started. We’d felt very grown up until we saw her."

  "I went first," Akos said. "And my fortune was not bad. She said I'd get my wish, but it was a little scary when she said that I had two strong men pulling me in opposite directions, which was true. Then she laid out Ferenc's cards. By the time she turned up the cards of Death and the Broken Tower, our hair was standing on end."

  "We ran out of there like rabbits."

  "Yes, but the worst was that within a month, the contagion began."

  Akos nodded. For a few minutes, there was silence. Klara wished she hadn’t pursued the matter. A shadow seemed to fall across the bright evening sky.

  "That's how they came to be such good friends.” Sandor broke the silence.

  "When his Grandfather Almassy learned that no one from the village would go into Ferenc's house," Amalie explained, "he went there himself. Ferenc was raving with fever – everyone else was dead. Akos helped put Ferenc in the back of their pony cart. They took him to a little hut in the woods Grandfather Almassy cared for him, or he would have died, too. There was so much fear that many died from plain neglect."

  Klara nodded. She had heard such tales, but never from people who were so intimately involved. She noted that the men had withdrawn from what was obviously an unhappy memory, leaving Amalie to finish the tale. It was easy to allow their attention to wander to a bout of arm wrestling between two brawny working men, just a few tables away.

  Bets were handed around, and a company of spectators gathered. Apparently, this was a long standing rivalry. Shouting and boasting grew loud. When the men excused themselves and moved off to watch, Klara found her attention wandering back again to the gypsies, who were still sitting on the stone wall, now reading for a man with a heavily scarred face.

  Klara had found herself thinking more and more about her own future. She had left Vienna knowing that she was going into exile. There would be no return to the glittering capital while Max lived. And she knew that their unrestrained love making had quickly taken effect. She had embraced another great danger in embracing her handsome husband – childbirth!

  How would she fare? Max had taught her to fear it and had had women show her ways to avoid it, but with Akos she had not even used the simple trick of the sponge.

  Suddenly, the image of Madame Wranitzsky crossed her mind. Was she installed now in all the best roles, with the most generous protector in all of Europe? Happy as Klara had been since she'd left Max and Vienna, that happiness was not unall
oyed.

  Perhaps this fortune teller could tell her?

  Even if it was bad, she reasoned, it would prepare her for what was to come. She wasn't sure that she agreed with Amalie about preferring ignorance.

  Klara watched while the gypsies entertained a steady stream of customers. Finally, reaching into her pocket, through the opening in the petticoat, Klara began to finger the small coins she carried.

  Nearby, the rough and tumble of arm-wrestling had changed to an actual wrestling match. The crowd moved further away to accommodate the action, out into a side street. A quieter group remained behind in the garden. Voices rose in song. From a little distance she could see Akos and Ferenc gesturing, offering to bring out their fiddles. When the suggestion was well received, they excused themselves and went into the inn. Klara and Amalie were now quite alone.

  "I shouldn't, but I’m going to that fortune teller."

  "I've been thinking how happy you look today. Really, Klara, from what I know, it's for almost the first time in your life. Why risk spoiling it?"

  "Well, isn't it possible the future could be good?"

  "Well, yes, of course. I do have a black view of life. I'm always waiting for the next blow to land."

  Klara, however, had made up her mind. She got up and approached the gypsies, just now unoccupied.

  As she advanced, the woman's eyes met hers. They were flat black, like the eyes of the Negro slaves Max kept at his Italian villa.

  "Your fortune, Jungfrau?" The woman spoke a heavily accented German, responding to the clothing Klara wore.

  "Yes, good Frau."

  Taking a silver kreutzer bit from her pocket, she offered it. She hoped it would be enough. There was a slight hesitation as the eyes studied the Austrian money. Then, a dirty brown hand snatched it up.

  "A question about love?"

  "More about the future, about the course of my life."

  After she'd nodded understanding, she said to Klara, "You must be the one to shuffle the cards."

  The pack was handed over. Amalie had come trailing behind, but seeing the reading already begun, discreetly sat down at a nearby empty chair.

  "When do I stop?"

  "Until you feel they have become yours."

  Klara concentrated and did as she was told. The cards were old, heavy, and oily to the touch. At first shuffling was not easy, but after a few minutes she got the knack of it.

  "Now, Jungfrau, when you are ready, set them down and cut them in two."

  Klara neatly separated them into equal piles.

  "Now put one pile on top of the other."

  A silence followed while the woman regarded not the cards, but Klara. Then, with deliberation, she picked up the stack and began to lay them out upon the cloth. Like the cards, the cloth was embroidered with mysterious signs: triangles and spirals, eyes and stars.

  The first card down was a shock, for what should Klara see but the Devil, horns, fiery eyes, hooves and tail. Before she could quite absorb this, clearly a card of ill omen, another card came down. This was rather like the King in an ordinary deck, except that he was enthroned and held a large cup.

  In quick succession the Gypsy dealt the rest. One depicted three chalices. Below she laid another face card, this time a knight on a red horse carrying a leafy staff. To the right of this figure was a ten, man carrying a sword.

  Then last four were laid down off to one side, and in a straight row: a loving couple, eight stars, four staffs. Last of all came an ace, a mysterious sword held by an arm emerging from a cloud.

  Why, Klara thought, did I ever start this? From the little she knew, she understood that this cast did not look good.

  The gypsy raised her black eyes. "Some good and some bad. The bad comes soon."

  Klara stared at the cards. They seemed to glow. A dirty nailed brown finger pointed at the first card.

  "See here! Devil means danger and trouble, a thing behind you now. It isn't your fault, but something evil, something woven deep in your life line, is going to catch up with you."

  Every hair on the back of Klara's neck promptly stood up.

  "Will he get me?" She was as terrified as a child caught in a nightmare.

  "The Devil always hits his mark. He's like a big wind. All you can do is bend and pray you don't break when he blows through. Now, this next card is the knight who will fight the Devil for you. He is a dark man with a craft by which he makes his living. And," she smiled, "I see him behind us, with his fiddle, your handsome Magyar husband."

  Although she tried not to, Klara shivered from head to foot. She wanted to bolt away from this little dark woman, but she felt rooted to the spot.

  "This is happiness," the gypsy said, pointing to the crowning card. "A little bright time, maybe right now." Broken teeth flashed.

  "Are you new married, lady?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, this one, this King, he is a fair man, a man from your past. He is a gray-eyed man, very powerful and very rich. See, here he is reversed, full of cruelty, bent on wickedness. He is the one through whom the Devil works.”

  Klara swallowed hard. This was no riddle!

  "He is the danger you see coming?"

  "Yes. He is also the corner stone upon which your fortune sits. Next, is what is coming." The gypsy shook her head. "Ten of swords. You will suffer a defeat. I warn you, lady – it will be soon and very bad."

  It was as if someone was inside her skull, trying to smash their way out.

  "Here you are with your man, the card of the lovers. It is true, is it not?" The black, black eyes turned towards her slyly. "You have the love where souls join."

  Her tears welled.

  Springtime, and with it, her sense of freedom, her happiness, shriveling….

  "Eight of pentacles. Something well begun may suddenly end. The card below is your hopes and fears. You imagine tranquility in a new life, but you worry, too. Perhaps you fear that the bonds of marriage will grow too tight. But that is your fate, is it not? For a woman it does not matter whether she is rich or poor; some man will be her master."

  Klara could neither force a sound from her tightening throat or stand and run away.

  "This is the last card, what will come. Ace of swords is here, a card of hard beginnings."

  Klara stared, mesmerized, at the naked arm holding a sword and emerging from a cloud.

  "A beginning? At the end?"

  "Yes, that is often the way. Swords are a hard suit, lady, and there are many here. They bring us trouble and trials, even when they open a door. There will be force, even violence, surrounding this end, but, at the same time, something good will also begin. Sometimes," she added, gazing at Klara, "this card tells of a child. Whatever it means, it will be a new path for you, a time from which the rest of your future springs. So, Jungfrau," she ended, "while it seems that you should not despair, you and your man must be on your guard."

  Then the gypsy raised her eyes to focus on someone coming up behind Klara.

  "Klara!

  Akos!

  She leapt from the low wall and ran into his arms, buried her spinning head against his shoulder. It didn't matter what anyone thought about the public display of affection. All she wanted was to fill her senses with his warm, living presence, to pray that the touch of him would drown out her terror.

  ***

  "I can't think of anything else."

  "I know. But we won't be able to leave here until the day after tomorrow, when the boatmen get sober enough to take us to Gyor. From there we will travel to a little town where Prince Vehnsky keeps a house and some horses. Another day's journey and we shall reach his estate."

  "I've never sat on a horse in my life."

  "There is a cart. You and Amalie will go in that."

  They were alone in the darkened room, in the bed with painted flowers on the headboard, the one where they'd shared so many pleasures. Rowdy songs rose from the street below. Lights shone on the ceiling as torches passed below.

  "How I wish I
had never gone to her!"

  "Well, perhaps it's good you did. I won't say that I absolutely believeeven with past experience, but the fact remains that we have not been prudent, stopping here for so long."

  Neither husband nor wife slept well. Just at dawn, they rose, washed in the basin and dressed. Going out hand in hand, Akos took Klara to hear Mass again.

  Klara was surprised, on the way, to pass a plain white painted Protestant church.She had never lived where such beliefs were tolerated, but Akos explained that was the rule in her new country. In fact, he said, his wise Grandfather Almassy was among these heretics.

  The young people in church this morning were profoundly tired. Incense rose in clouds, and the atmosphere was thick in every way. Klara prayed fervently, gazing towards the flower-decked altar, choosing as the object of her prayers the Blessed Elizabeth of Hungary, whose statue stood nearby. She also prayed, as usual, to the Blessed Mother.

  Could these two heavenly ladies save them? Save her new won, precious freedom?

  As they made their way back to the inn, they were buffeted by a fresh wind which had sprung up while they'd been at Mass. The eastern sky was full of rushing clouds, all dyed a horrible black.

  "Bad weather," Akos said, gazing east. "The river will be in a roil. Just as well we aren't to travel."

  As they broke their fast, the rain began, slow and steady at first and then, later, with some violence. It did not end, either, but pattered on and on, bringing with it a gray afternoon. In the end they went back to bed and stayed there, drifting in and out of sleep, and listening to the steady dripping as water dropped from the dormers.

  Klara was nauseated, feeling gray as the day. Akos got up several times and brought her food and wine, but Klara couldn’t manage much more than a taste. Her mind was rushing with thoughts, like the river below.

  “My darling,” she finally said, touching his hand, “I should just return to him.”

  “Klara! What madness is this?”

  “This is not madness. What is madness was to believe I could escape him. The cards showed him, that he is on his way with his men to take us. They showed me your danger. You, my beloved, must not sacrifice your life for me. I am not worth it.”