They Were Divided

by Miklos Banffy

  Among those who had suffered most were the people of Pejkoja. What Simo had done, and was still doing, was to give aid to the money-lenders so that they exacted extortionate rates of interest when the villagers had had a bad year and needed money to tide them over. Then when they could not repay the loans, he arranged foreclosures. In this he was partnered by the rascally Romanian popa, the parish priest of Gyurkuca. Some years before the worst of the money-lenders, one dark snowbound night, had been brutally murdered, and his house, with all his papers, burnt to the ground. Despite this setback Simo had not ceased to plunder the ignorant peasants in the mountain villages, until most of the poor people of Pejkoja had been dispossessed of their land and had been forced to pay rent for what had formerly belonged to them. Abady had tried his best to protect them and had offered to take up their case himself and pay any legal costs, but the villagers had refused, partly because they did not trust the mariassa’s motives and partly out of fear of the priest. Even so Abady had tried to take the matter into his own hands and file a complaint against Simo, which, he had hoped, would lead to the notary being transferred elsewhere. This had failed because Simo’s superiors in the county town had told Abady that he had no legal grounds on which action could be taken. So, until now, all his well-intentioned efforts had been in vain.

  Most of this had happened more than six years before. Since then Abady had not let up in his search for evidence which would condemn the rascally notary, but so far he had not been able to find anyone among the men of the mountain who dared provide him with what he wanted.

  Now it appeared that something else, nothing to do with the money-lending racket, had at last come to light.

  For many years it had been the custom for the peasants to pay their taxes to the notary’s office, a practice which Simo had always maintained was not an obligation on his part but merely a service he was glad to be able to provide. Recently there had begun to be trouble and several of the mountain farmers had received ‘reminders’ from the tax office that the last demands had not been paid. Simo told everyone concerned that this must be due to some clerical error and that he would take care of the matter for them. No one knew what he had done, but at least the threatened bailiffs did not appear. Now, suddenly, the situation got worse and in Pejkoja alone three men found themselves faced with having their belongings seized and auctioned if they did not immediately disgorge what they had already handed over to Simo. One of them was Kula’s grandfather.

  The proof of Simo’s guilt was what he now handed to Abady. It consisted of a receipt signed by Simo, the order for seizure and sale from the bailiff’s office, and a power of attorney for Balint on which old Juon aluj Maftye had put his mark.

  The midday siren had just sounded when Balint bade farewell to his employees at the sawmill, mounted his dappled grey horse and trotted swiftly away. In half an hour he had arrived at the pass.

  He had gone alone without a groom or forester, partly because he knew the mountains so well he did not need a guide, and partly because no mountain pony could have kept pace with his horse. He always did this when not on official business or out stalking, for the forests seemed to him at their most beautiful when he rode through them alone. So he would send the packhorses on ahead and follow at his own speed.

  On this day the ostensible reason for the expedition was to hunt wolves. Reports had been received from shepherds grazing their flocks on the clearings high on the Ursoia that wolves had been seen prowling at night and that they had already done much damage. It was true that this report was ten days old when it reached Balint in Kolozsvar and that wolves rarely stayed for long in any one district. Still, it was just possible that they might still be there and so Balint had thought it worth a try.

  It was sheer chance that wolves had been reported on the Ursoia at that moment, but there was nothing haphazard about Balint’s desire to spend a few nights alone in the mountains. If this pretext had not come his way he would have thought up something else … anything that could be used to camouflage his real reason for going there which was simply to meet Adrienne where they could be alone in a place they both loved.

  They had planned a visit to the mountains long before, but every time they had talked of it, it had been as of some unrealizable dream, some bliss that the unknown future might hold for them; for until recently they could find no way of arranging it without news of their tryst in the mountains being everywhere noised abroad. Now, at the beginning of summer, an opportunity had suddenly and unexpectedly presented itself.

  Since Margit Miloth had married Adam Alvinczy and moved to a small manor house her father owned at Magyar–Tohat, she had begun to poke her sharp little beak of a nose into the running of her father’s estates. Old ‘Rattle’ Miloth, as he did about everything, complained loudly, shouting to all and sundry that he was being robbed by his own daughter; but Margit took no notice and arranged for her husband to look over all her father’s holding explaining that Adam must have some occupation and that this was as useful as any. As a result she had discovered that Count Miloth owned some forestland high in the Upper Aranyos, not much, a mere 900 acres, mostly of apparently unprofitable mixed beech forest. Of course Adam had to go and inspect it and it proved to be quite a nice little forest with a lot of handsome beech-trees, which had little value up there, but there was also a smallish stand of pine, most of it young, for the local peasants had long ago taken to stealing any timber worth felling. This, Margit decided, must be changed and the Miloth forests properly guarded. It was, she declared, a wicked waste to abandon their property like that, and if not properly guarded the next thing would be that the young saplings would be stolen for sale as Christmas trees. A forest lodge was built on her orders and an experienced forest guard was engaged and installed there.

  All this had happened the previous year.

  At the beginning of May Margit’s small son developed whooping-cough and the doctor recommended that as soon as he was well enough he should be taken to the mountains for a change of air.

  Margit had seen no reason to go to some expensive resort miles away when they had their own little lodge at Albak which, at an altitude of twelve hundred metres, was certainly high enough. The little house there was clean and new, and it had a marvellous view. They would be able to stay there for two or three weeks, which would cost them nothing, breathing in mountain air that was as clean and fresh as any in the high Alps.

  And so it turned out that at the end of June Margit and her son, together with the maid, who was also the child’s nurse, and the cook, moved to the lodge for two or three weeks. The forest guard went to sleep in the stable, and a summer oven was built close to the house. The lodge only had two rooms and a little kitchen, but it was quite enough for the three women and the child.

  It was Margit’s visit to the mountains which had made it possible at long last for Balint and Adrienne to make their dream come true. Adrienne would go up to visit her sister for a few days and then, saying that she wanted to go on directly to Almasko, which would take her by way of the Beles and Banffy-Hunyad, she could easily slip over to meet Balint on the Ursoia which was near the source of the Beles and only some three hours’ walk from the Upper Aranyos. There she would be able to sleep in Balint’s tent, and the following day walk down through the Valko woods to the government mill on the Szamos river where the carriage from Almasko would be waiting for her.

  They had just worked it all out when news came that wolves had been seen on the Ursoia. This delighted Balint as it gave him a perfect reason to go up the mountains and to go alone … for it was still important that Adrienne’s name should be protected from common gossip.

  It was quite a distance to the high ridge of the Kaliniassa. They had to go up the valley of the Szamos and through the Valko estate lands, and even then there was another ridge to pass. It was dusk before Balint’s little group arrived on the Ursoia and darkness had fallen by the time his tent had been erected. Then Honey Zutor and the gornyiks set off once again
for the Kaliniassa with strict orders not to move from there or wander about in the forest until Balint came down himself. At the Kaliniassa there was a log cabin and a barn where the horses could be stalled, for after the news that wolves were in the area it was too dangerous to turn them loose to graze in the forest meadows. On the way wolf tracks had been seen, though it was impossible to say if they were new or a few days old.

  When Balint was alone he dined by the light of a small lamp off the bread and bacon he had brought with him and then sat outside the opening. He did not light a fire, but just sat there quietly. It was a glorious starlit night with the countless stars of heaven shining brightly in the dark sky. He thought he had never seen so many, and the Milky Way was like a vast river of light, its darker patches like islands, that wound its way from one horizon to the other. The great constellations were like letters of fire in the sky and, in Balint’s imagination, seemed to be making their way ever closer to him so as eventually to disclose some ageless secret message even to that worm-like creature that was man, the secret, perhaps, of life and death … and of eternity …

  The distant horizons could still just be made out, especially where it seemed that some tiny reddish star could be glimpsed trembling through the tips of the sharp fang-like pines that covered the mountain ridges in front of him. Occasionally, and very far away, a dog could be heard barking in the valleys below. Then silence, only silence: but it was not the silence of an empty room, solitary and deadly; rather was it a living silence, a silence that pulsated with the life of the great forests.

  Balint stayed where he was for a long time, alone outside his tent in the cold quiet night. His soul was filled with the beauty by which he was surrounded; and he fancied that he could almost hear Adrienne’s light steps as if she were already hastening towards him along forest paths paved with stars. Though they would not be together until the following day it was as if their desire for each other throbbed in unison on the mountain ridges that lay between them.

  Two days before Adrienne had arrived at Margit’s little lodge. She was not the only guest. Pityu Kendy was already there and making himself extremely useful because, with the family there, there was too much work for the forest guard who found himself not only having to look after the two ponies, scythe the grass and bring it in for their fodder and bedding, but also to go down to Albak to fetch milk and poultry and Margit’s letters. So Pityu was at once put to work cutting wood and splitting kindling for the fire, cleaning the horses’ tack and also, which was far more important, pushing the perambulator along the mountain paths, seeing that it was first in the sun, then in the shade, and then in the sun again. Here in the mountains this was no longer women’s work, for there were more stones than soil on the rough tracks round the lodge. Pityu did everything he was asked with joy in his heart, for since he had transferred his hopeless love for Adrienne into an even deeper devotion to Margit, he was in total bondage to her. It was a happy bondage because Margit never teased him, as her sister had done, or saddened him by seeming to flirt with other men, as Adrienne had, but just accepted his hopeless devotion and listened to his litanies of love with an almost motherly tenderness and sympathy. Sometimes she would scold him, taking him to task for his tendency to drink too much, but she always treated him as a human being worth scolding and not as some sort of toy, which was how Adrienne had treated all her admirers. And the more she scolded the happier he was, because it meant that at least she had some use for him even if it was only splitting logs. As a result Pityu was happy; and it did not matter to him that he had to sleep at the other end of the barn from the forest guard, nor that he had to wash at the well as he was not allowed in the house until the rooms had been cleaned.

  Adrienne’s coming did not make him any happier, for it was difficult for him to forget that, before Margit had married Adam Alvinczy, both men had vied with each other in their protestations of eternal love for her elder sister. Pityu was always embarrassed when he found himself in company with the two sisters together. He was afraid that Adrienne would laugh at him. He was afraid to open his mouth in front of her, afraid to remain silent, and afraid even to look at Margit lest his love for her should be too obvious. He felt very awkward.

  It was a great relief to Pityu when, on the second day of Adrienne’s stay, a little mountain pony arrived from the Szamos brought by a lad employed as a servant by one of the Gyurkuca farmers. The boy said that the pony had been hired down in the valley for some doamna – lady – so that on the following day she could ride down to the Beles where her carriage would be waiting.

  A relief that Adrienne would be leaving? Yes, thought Pityu; but that night, lying in the darkness of the barn, the dismaying thought came to him that of course he would be expected to act as Adrienne’s escort and so it would be most impolite of him if he did not at once offer to go with her.

  What a disaster! Two precious days of his stay with Margit would be lost, for he certainly wouldn’t be able to get back before the evening of the next day at the earliest. It was also a very long walk. Not so bad while they were going downhill, but afterwards, climbing up again – why, it would take at least six hours! Pityu was all too conscious that with his increasing girth and short fat legs he was no mountaineer. Moreover he would probably get lost; and even if he didn’t he would be dog-tired by the time he got back. Worse than that was the realization that he would have to spend hours alone with a woman with whom for years he had fancied himself in love and to whom he had spoken only of love. What could he do now? What could he say to her? How should he behave? Should he try to justify his desertion in favour of her sister? It seemed to him that whatever he might say would only be an admission that all those sighs of love and years of adoration had been no more than moonshine and empty rhetoric!

  Poor Pityu did not know which way to turn; and it weighed on him all the more that he did not want to admit to himself that neither the old love nor the new had ever been real, that it was all a pose, and a habit. When he and Adam made such a performance of being in love with Adrienne, they could console each other with mutual complaints about how cruel she was to them both. Even now, when the adoration had been transferred to Adam’s wife Margit, he could still pour out his heart to Adam who was not in the least jealous any more than he had been when they both fancied themselves in love with her sister. If he were now to face up to reality he would have to admit to himself that none of it had ever been more than play-acting. Poor Pityu lay awake racked with the impossibility of finding any solution to his problems, and logical thought was not made any easier firstly because at the far end of the barn the forest guard Gligor was snoring loudly, and secondly, because though the straw bed was comfortable enough, the old blanket that covered him stank of stale sweat and there was an equally noisome smell from the boots of the boy from Gyurkuca that were hanging up to dry nearby.

  It was so difficult to think straight in these uncomfortable surroundings that Pityu found himself repeatedly reaching under the drinking trough for the sizeable flask of old brandy that he had hidden there. It had had to be hidden because Margit had forbidden him to touch a drop while he was there; but it was his only comfort, and after several generous swigs he finally fell asleep – though still without finding any solution to his woes.

  He was up at dawn. His first job was to rub down the newly arrived pony, brush it and prepare the animal just as he had been taught during his period of military service as a hussar. When Adrienne’s bags were brought out from the house he fastened them with professional skill to the wooden saddle and then stood there, in hob-nailed boots and with a rucksack on his back, waiting for Margit and Adrienne to come out. Gligor, also dressed ready for a journey, and the boy from Gyurkuca, waited with him.

  It was eight o’clock before the sisters came out of the house and walked over to where the pony was waiting.

  Pityu at once offered to go with Adrienne. He begged her to accept his services, perhaps a shade too fervently for during the long wait he had p
aid several swift visits to the barn to get some Dutch courage from the clandestine brandy-flask.

  Margit did not give Adrienne time to reply but answered swiftly, ‘Certainly not! You’re not leaving here!’ Then she laughed and said, ‘What an idea! Leaving two women alone without a man to protect them! It’ll be quite enough if Gligor goes.’

  ‘I don’t need him either,’ said Adrienne. ‘The boy knows the road; he came up it only yesterday.’

  But Pityu insisted. ‘Impossible! Going alone through the forest with some lad you don’t know! I can’t allow it, I can’t! I can’t possibly let you go like that, I can’t!’ And, holding his beaky nose high in the air, he started gesticulating wildly.

  Margit turned sharply towards him and said, ‘What a way to talk! If I didn’t know there was no liquor in the house anyone’d think you’d been drinking!’

  Brought up short by such a suspicion Pityu stopped insisting at once, and from then on concentrated so hard on being careful that he hardly said another word.

  The sisters said their goodbyes and Adrienne set off on foot along the ridge. The forester went first, followed by Adrienne and behind them the boy leading the pony.

  Margit waited until they reached the second turning on the path and then called out after them, ‘Addy! When you get to the top, send back Gligor if you don’t need him any more. The post arrives today and I’d like him to go down to the village.’

  ‘All right, I’ll send him back,’ called Adrienne, and the little band disappeared from view. Young Countess Alvinczy gazed after them for a moment or two, a tiny smile on her face. Then she turned abruptly to Pityu and said roughly, ‘Well? What are you standing about here for? Take off that rucksack and split some wood. No lunch for anybody who doesn’t work!’

  Clumsily the young man started to take the bag off his back, and as he did so Margit looked hard and suspiciously at him.