While at home at Denestornya Balint, as he never had before, went to bed late and got up late. For days on end he would hardly leave the house, not even to go out riding, but would sit for hours reading some book or other.
But from the day he returned to find his mother with her beloved horses in the horseshoe court, all was different. At dawn the next morning he rode out with Simon Jäger and jumped all the fences in the paddock. At midday it was with happiness in his voice that he told his mother that for the first time that year he himself had heard the fallow deer calling in that thicket in the park they called Magyaros; and then he told her that he wanted to go to Zsuk for the hunting and wondered if she would let him have three of their good hunters.
‘But of course I will,’ she cried, delighted. ‘You don’t have to ask! Do whatever you like! Take whichever you like! They’re all yours, you know!’
This was no more than Balint had expected. He had known exactly what his mother would say, almost word for word, yet he knew she would have been offended if he had omitted to ask. To play the fairy godmother, to give presents, hand over precious possessions, particularly to her son, was for the Countess Roza one of the great pleasures in life. It was a part she liked to play, and yet it was not really a part as in the theatre but a genuine side of her character. That is how she felt; and the fact of being asked was as important to her as the giving. Had she not been asked, it would have been taken as an affront to her natural goodness and as an unjustified liberty; for no one must ever forget that everything was hers and that everything depended on her wishes.
Balint went on to mention that Baron Gazsi would shortly be paying them a visit and also that he would like to invite over the young Aron Kozma as he wanted to discuss Co-operative matters with him.
Countess Roza looked up at her son with interest.
‘Which Kozma is that?’ she asked. ‘Does he come from the prairie lands?’ and, when Balint confirmed that that was so, she went on: ‘What sort of age is he? What was his father’s name?’
‘He is the eldest son of Boldizsar, and he has his own land near Teke,’ said Balint, who went on to explain what advanced and successful landowners the Kozmas had become and how both generations, the fathers’ and sons’, had all turned out to be serious and hard-working and progressive.
The old lady appeared to be paying attention to everything Balint told her, but when she spoke it was obvious that she was really only interested in the first thing he had said.
‘So this one is Boldizsar’s eldest boy, is he? Boldizsar was the middle one of five brothers and they all grew up here, at Denestornya. Their father was our agent when I was a child, and I knew them all well and used to play with the younger ones. Well! Well! Well! Invite him, do!’ She paused for a moment and then went on, with a little smile at her own private memories, saying, ‘Invite him, but tell him to wire and say when he is coming. I’ll need to have the heating put on in the guest rooms in plenty of time.’
‘It isn’t cold yet, Mama.’
‘It doesn’t signify. The weather might change any day and … it is better to know in advance.’
It did not occur to Balint that his mother had had no such qualms when told of Gazsi’s visit.
Chapter Four
FIVE DAYS LATER GAZSI ARRIVED, riding his thoroughbred mare Honeydew, who was now so changed that it was hard to believe that it was the same animal who a couple of years before, had been the terror of all the jockeys on the track. Now she seemed as quiet as the old spotted farm donkey, though it was true that she allowed no one but Gazsi on her back.
‘I had to r-r-ride over,’ said Gazsi apologetically, ‘because Honeydew needed the work. Actually I would far rather have dr-r-riven and then I could have brought a suitcase with me. But no one else can even walk this beast and only the other day, when I went to my sister’s, she kicked the young stable-boy in the belly. It’s r-r-real slavery, looking after this one,’ he said as he dismounted in the horseshoe court, and he bent his head sideways and looked plaintively at Balint as he always did when making a tragi-comedy of whatever he was doing. This time, however, Balint sensed that he was not joking for he seemed unusually serious and went on to say something quite out of the usual for him: he spoke of his clothes.
‘I know I oughtn’t to pr-r-resent myself to Aunt Roza looking like this,’ he said, ‘so scr-r-ruffy and unkempt, but I have brought something to change into in my saddle-bag. But you can’t get much in, I’m afraid.’
‘Really, Gazsi,’ said Balint, ‘that doesn’t matter for you! Why, my mother’s quite used to receiving you booted and spurred.’
‘Of course, of course! Who would expect anything else from a peasant like me?’ and he sounded so bitter that Balint instantly regretted speaking as he had.
As it happened the saddle-bag produced a sort of dinner-jacket which had been made by a tailor in Torda. Though his shirt was wrinkled and his collar worn, when he presented himself at the dinner table, Gazsi looked tolerably presentable, indeed almost European. He had obviously made an effort to look civilized, hopeless though his case might be, and he wore an unusually serious air.
Later that evening, when the two young men had drunk tea and eaten some stewed apples with Countess Roza in her little first-floor drawing-room, Balint escorted his guest back through the huge empty dining-hall and down the stairs to the ground floor. They did not speak, for Balint had already noticed how unusually silent and preoccupied his guest had been, both at dinner and afterwards. It is true that he had told a number of amusing tales, in his usual wry, self-mocking humourous way; how he fell into the water while chasing an otter and how the beast just sat on the shore laughing at him; about the guard-dog at a vineyard who was tethered by a long wire and how he had stood still while the dog ran circles around him until it was he who was tethered – and then the dog had bitten him; and several others of the same sort, all clownishly acted out for the amusement of his hosts. Even so Abady sensed that he was going through the motions of being his normal self while his heart was not really in it. He had noticed that each time Gazsi paused for a moment a slight frown appeared on his forehead, suggesting that the same dark thought had once more taken possession of him. Balint wondered what on earth could be the matter and became increasingly worried, waiting for his guest to tell him what it was. At last he did. When they reached the foot of the stairs, Gazsi turned aside and said, ‘I’d like to talk something over with you. Can we …?’ and stopped.
‘Better come to me,’ said Balint. ‘The servants will soon be round to take away the lamps as my mother doesn’t like to keep them up late. I’ll give you a candle to get back to your room.’ They turned and crossed the entrance hall, and as they did so they could see the lights on the floor above going out, one after the other, until finally one solitary glimmer could be seen moving slowly along until it too disappeared behind an arch and was seen no more.
Soon the two young men were seated facing each other at the table in Balint’s circular ground-floor room in the castle’s north-west tower. A small reading lamp cast a glow between them, but the rest of the room was in darkness.
Kadacsay hesitated for a moment before starting to speak. Looking now more than ever like a raven with his beak tilted slightly to one side, he seemed to be looking hard at the armrest of his chair as if he would get inspiration from it. Then, speaking slowly with long pauses between each phrase as if to underline that he was choosing his words with extra care, he said, ‘I have just made my will … Yes, my will. It seemed the r-r-right thing to do … now … and that is why I came to see you, to ask … to ask you to agr-r-ree to be my executor-r-r …’
Balint found this sinister and upsetting. The fate of his own father flashed through his mind, for Count Tamas Abady had developed cancer when he was hardly older than Gazsi was today, and had died within a few months. Had this happened to his friend? Was this why he had seemed so sad and preoccupied? So, trying to hide his concern, he interrupted Gazsi, saying, ‘You’re
not ill, Gazsi? If anything is worrying you I hope you’ve seen a doctor?’
‘No, no! I’m all r-r-right … as good as ever-r-r, I just thought it seemed sensible to … to be pr-r-repared, to be r-r-ready … just in case … in plenty of time …’
Then he went on to tell Balint exactly how all his affairs stood and that he had settled everything with his sister when he had been over to see her a few days before. He explained all about what his property brought in, with detailed facts and figures, and told Balint that he had settled all those small debts he had incurred when still in the hussars so that all that now remained was the disposal of his family inheritance.
‘For Heaven’s sake, what makes you think of death when you’re still so young and healthy?’ broke in Balint again, now somewhat irritated by such gloomy thoughts when he himself felt so happy.
‘Does everything have to have a reason?’ asked the other, and smiled quizzically. ‘Perhaps one day my darling Honeydew will go a little cr-r-razy again, throw me and then r-r-roll all over me? Who knows, she killed a jockey like that once! R-r-rather a suitable durned up at Denestornya, the Coeath for me, don’t you think? After all, everyone knows I only know about horses. Anyhow, why be frightened of death? Didn’t Schopenhauer say something about it being only our will to live which makes us scared of death and that it was a purely animal reaction? Or perhaps I’ve got it wr-r-rong …?’ and he waved his hand in a gesture of mock dejection before laughing briefly. Then, far more seriously, he went on to tell Balint that he had decided to leave everything he could to his sister’s two sons on one condition. That was that each of them, before he came into his inheritance, must spend at least two years at some university abroad, in England or in France, and that it would be Balint’s responsibility to choose where. If they didn’t agree they were to get nothing. ‘I’m determined,’ he said, ‘that they shan’t turn out to be useless fools like me!’
Touched by what he was hearing, Balint listened hard to everything that Gazsi had to say; and all the time he was thinking how tormented his old friend must have been, and how for years he must have lived with this inner turmoil and so now was doing the only thing he could to provide for his nephews what he had yearned for in vain for himself. Later he would remember one or two especially poignant things that Gazsi had said about himself, about his unfulfilled hunger for knowledge and self-understanding, and how this hunger had led him to grab eagerly at any book he could lay his hands on, especially those on history and the modern school of German philosophy. In this way, it seemed, he had tried hard to compensate for years spent only in the saddle and in playing the fool.
‘Of course I’ll do what you ask,’ said Balint. ‘I’m flattered that you should have that sort of faith in me. All the same it’s not very likely that I’ll have to put my oar in. You’ll probably live for years and send the boys to England yourself… and any others who are not yet born!’
Gazsi got up, laughing as he said, ‘Even Habakkuk got a r-r-rude answer when he asked the Lord about the future!’ and, so as to cover his deep emotion at Balint’s ready acceptance, he laughed loudly at his own irreverence. Then he took Balint’s hand, wrung it warmly, holding it in his for a little longer than usual, in the way that one does when saying goodbye.
At eight o’clock the following morning they went out riding; not before, because at that time of year the dawn was invariably followed by a thick fog on the flat land beside the Aranyos which was where Balint wanted to go to try out the young horses. Since Gazsi had brought Honeydew, who had been ridden in several first class flat races, they were only going to try short distances so that the novices from the Denestornya stable could keep up with the experienced thoroughbred mare.
Five horses had been saddled and were waiting for them in the horseshoe court. Apart from Honeydew, there were Csinos and Ivy with Balint’s own saddles, and Menyet and Csalma with the stable lads. All four were very much alike, tall bay mares, about sixteen hands, with long elegant necks, wide shoulders and ‘a lot of ground under them’. The only difference between them was that one was a shade darker and one a shade lighter than the others, and if Honeydew with her fine bones and pulled-up belly like a greyhound had not been in sight – she was being held slightly apart from the others in case she should take it into her head to start kicking out – they too might have been taken for English thoroughbreds with those unmistakable lines of the true racehorse.
The little band of riders walked slowly out through the great gates of the courtyard, Balint and Gazsi side by side in the lead – though Gazsi prudently held Honeydew a pace or two behind because the mare was already beginning to put her ears back and he needed to be careful to control her uncertain temper – while Simon Jäger and two stable lads followed a couple of lengths behind them. The hoofbeats echoed loudly as they rode under the wide arch.
After crossing the bridge that spanned the former moat they turned left towards the river. Below them most of the wide valley was still covered in wave after wave of thin mist, so diaphanous that it might have been made from the torn remnants of some giant shawl of soft cotton. It spread over the whole plain far beyond the junction with the Maros and, wherever the sun’s rays had been strongest, glimpses could be caught of the trees and meadows beneath. In some places, where the plantations were thickest, the park could clearly be seen, but in others thin wisps of early mist still clung to the tips of the tallest poplars until the tiny patches of autumn leaves looked like golden coins suspended in the air. The little band rode down through the bright contrasting colours of the separate groups of birch, pine and maple until, after describing a wide arc, they found themselves where the lingering morning mist reduced all colours to pastel. Although by now one could see some distance ahead it was like looking through milky glass, as in a dream landscape where everything appeared to be at an infinite distance.
They rode over a little bridge, beneath which the river seemed to be giving off wisps of steamy vapour. A kingfisher darted past them with a startled cry, its sapphire-blue plumage drawing a sharp line just above the surface of the water for an instant before it vanished into the deep vegetation beside the river.
‘It’ll soon be winter if that one has arrived,’ remarked Kadacsay in a whisper: and then again they did not speak.
The horses’ hooves made hardly a sound on the soft turf. The landscape before them seemed more and more unreal with tall groups of Austrian pines looking like black islands in a white sea. When they were quite close to the woods in which they would soon be engulfed those orange-coloured rays of the sun that had succeeded in penetrating the mist above cast a pale dove-grey haze over the silver foliage of the poplars and gave a rosy tint to the dense leaves of the undergrowth. It was as if Nature were blushing as she was undressed by the sun.
From the depths of the mysterious woods suddenly came a deep rumbling roar not unlike the roll of some giant drum, or empty wooden barrel, though it clearly came from some living source and not from any dead piece of wood. It was an angry sound, filled with demand and desire, a mating call or a battle cry.
They all stopped and the horses pricked up their ears.
‘It must be a fallow stag,’ whispered Balint. ‘He can’t be far away!’ and he turned his horse and trotted swiftly along a narrow grassy path which led through the wild tangle of willow trees and elders, beneath arches of giant topolya, until they reached the ford. The reeds by the riverbank were tall now and stood like a wall in front of them. A narrow path had been cut through that led down to the flat pebbles below the bank. At that season there was not much water in the sluggish little stream, indeed it barely came up to the horses’ hocks because most of it had been diverted a mile further upstream to drive the mill. The Aranyos was always like this in autumn and it was hard to believe that the mighty torrent to be seen in spring was the same river. Of course the proof was there to see on the further bank, which was a small perpendicular cliff two or three metres high, cut clean like some geological illustration with cle
ar-cut layers of pebbles, dark humus, alternating strands of clay and stones, until finally reaching down to a base level of bluish-coloured slate which had once been the bed of some prehistoric sea.
They followed the path through the reeds and crossed the ford, and now, for the first time, they could look out over the Keresztes plain, the largest in Transylvania, towards the bald slopes of the Mezoseg, broken only by canyons of yellowish clay, with here and there little square patches of vineyard; over to the right to the hills of the Maros and to the left, far, far away, to the vertical line of the Torda cleft. Still further in the distance, almost melting into the clouds, were the soft grey outlines of the Jara range. The plain was bathed in sunshine and in front of them were the great fields of now harvested oats at the sides of which enough ground had been left unploughed for three horses to gallop side by side. These were the autumn training grounds, for here the going was not so hard as it became inside the park itself. Along one side posts marked a six-hundred-metre stretch.
They rode the horses twice round the perimeter of the field, as a preliminary workout, and then tried out the speed of the five-year-old Csalma and the novice Menyet against that of the experienced Honeydew.
Balint, Simon Jäger and one of the stable lads watched from the side. The first try-out went smoothly enough and Csalma kept up with Honeydew without difficulty, even though the mare went full out.
‘She’ll do us proud, my lord,’ said Simon, and then, almost under his breath. ‘I wouldn’t give any of our horses for that spindly goat! At five thousand metres she’d be well behind!’
Gazsi now trotted over to Balint, said a few words of praise for the Denestornya mare and then, signalling to the lad to bring up the young colt that was to be tried out next, cantered back to the starting post. Then something quite unexpected happened.
They Were Divided Page 8
