Csardas (15 page)

“Papa tried to restrain him; it is due to Papa that Karoly did not come here. Papa explained it would make things worse for Malie. And Papa promised he would try and talk to Uncle Zsigmond, assure him there was nothing wrong with the picnics. Karoly quietened a little, and then just as he was leaving he shouted at Mama. ‘Your brother is a monster!’ he said. ‘I want to marry one of his daughters; what is so wrong with that?’” Kati’s eyes grew round as she remembered how someone had actually shouted at her mama. “And she didn’t answer him. She was so silent and white I thought she was going to faint—although Mama never, never faints.”

Eva nodded again, longing for Kati to leave.

“Oh, Eva! They must love each other so much! What do you think will happen? Will your papa send Malie away? He could send her to your grandparents. The Bogozys live a long way from the town, don’t they? He might send her there.”

“I don’t know,” said Eva, slumping wearily against the sweet-smelling leaves of the vine curled round the post. A tiny cluster of hard green grapes pressed against her cheek. “I don’t know. I’m so tired I don’t know anything any more. I don’t understand why Papa is like this. Sometimes he is kind and proud of us, and then—”

“Mama hasn’t grumbled at me once this evening.” Kati prattled on. “Did you notice how she didn’t once speak to me about my hair or the way I was sitting?”

To Eva’s relief the Racs-Rassay coach came round from the stable. Behind, led by Roza’s eldest son, were the Kaldy horses. The good-byes were said quietly. There was no lighthearted calling through the night, no lingering pleasantries and promises of tomorrow. Aunt Gizi suddenly stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother on both cheeks. The second kiss she held for a moment, with her beautiful long fingers gripping his shoulders and her eyes tightly closed. And Eva noticed that Papa, who was so undemonstrative and lacking in affection with anyone except herself, swayed a little and allowed his head to bow towards Gizi’s. There was pain on his face, but Eva was too emotionally exhausted to feel sympathy for him. She said, “Good night, Papa. Good night, Mama,” and walked back into the house. She hesitated outside the door of Malie’s room. It was now locked, and she wondered whether to whisper through and try to tell her about Karoly leaving for the garrison. Then she envisaged what would follow if Papa overheard, and so she crept into the little boys’ room and lay down, fully dressed, on the temporary bed which had been set up for her there.

During the week that followed, while Malie remained locked in her room, the news from Budapest grew more and more disturbing. Alfred’s surmisings of a military confrontation with Serbia began to sound not quite so ridiculous. The newspapers, which did not arrive until the afternoon, spoke of alarm and counter-alarm, of what might occur if this were done or that were done, of what and with whom Berchtold and Tisza and the Kaiser and Franz Josef were talking. The arrival of the newspapers became the most important event of the day. Until they came there was silence in the house. Papa spoke to no one, neither at mealtimes, nor in the yard, nor round the farm. His straight, cold figure could be seen inspecting the crops and cattle, with Uncle Zoltan a nervous and supplicating figure at his rear. Eva, Mama, and the boys did not dare leave the farm. Just once the little boys had set off with the dogs down in the direction of the river, and suddenly Papa had appeared before them, not saying anything, only staring at them in fury. Now Leo and Jozsef spent what time they had away from the house in the stables with Uncle Sandor. His small smelly cupboard became a refuge in a house of chilly madness.

Mama and Eva tried to occupy themselves inside the house, but the constant silent presence of Papa suppressed anything but a nervous staring, either at a book or from the window or at each other. They were aware, all the time, of the locked door and the silence behind it. Papa never referred to Amalia either—at least not after the first morning when he had stared at Mama and said, “Your daughter will not be sent away until I have seen how the international situation develops. She will remain here until we know if there is to be a war.”

“Thank you, Zsigmond.”

“You are not to communicate with her in any way.”

“No, Zsigmond.”

When the papers came down from the village Papa would immediately settle down to study them and then, as though against his own will, he would read the conflicting reports from the capital aloud. Relieved to hear him say anything, anything at all, they would gather round and listen with great respect and concentration. Eva and Mama would try to pass intelligent comments, and the little boys just listened and nodded, and gradually Papa would unbend. Then he would suggest that Uncle Sandor take them over to Alfred and Gizi’s to discuss the news. That was good too, because it got them out of the house to where there were other people. The boys, who were too little to go, would wait until the coach was out of sight and then run screaming all round the farm.

Eva wondered what they would all do when the news and excitement died down and the papers had nothing worthwhile to report.

At the end of a week, when they were returning from Alfred and Gizi’s, Mama broke. She had grown thin and tired in the days since Papa’s arrival, and suddenly she said to him, quite loudly, “When are you going to let my daughter out of her room?”

Papa stared and did not answer, and Mama began to shout, leaning forward on the seat and looking at him with hatred and fear.

“You have imprisoned her for a week. She has seen no one except Roza, and you have forbidden Roza to speak when she takes her food in. You do not know if she is ill, or starving herself to death, or what has happened to her. If she dies I shall tell your sister what you have done to my child!”

Papa’s eyes flickered for a second. Eva knew that sign well, and her heart lifted and became confident and strong again. She always knew when it was safe to try and persuade Papa of something. It could not always be done, but now Papa had returned to them from whatever terrible place he lived in while fury controlled him. Now it would be possible to speak to him again.

“Malie doesn’t even know about the Crown Prince,” she said, very quietly and carefully. “You have explained everything to us, Papa—all about Russia and Serbia, and France and Germany. But Malie has been told nothing. If there is a war surely she has right to know why.”

Papa did not answer, but when he stared out of the carriage window it was in a different way, absorbed and thoughtful. The next morning he went into Malie’s room very early and, after an hour, led her out. Silently they sat at the breakfast table. Mama swept from her place and wrapped her arms round her elder daughter. Her voice was trembling as she plied Malie with hot bread and apricot jam. Then she rushed from the room and returned in a few moments with a comb of fresh honey on a plate.

“There! Uncle Zoltan has just taken it from the hive.” She smiled her silly Mama smile. “If you listen you can still hear the bees singing in it!”

Malie nodded, her mouth doing its best to smile back at Mama. Round her eyes were large dark circles and the lids were unhealthily swollen. Her hair was limp and dirty and her skin looked bad too; the golden soft complexion was pallid and slightly mottled. “Thank you, Mama,” she managed at last. The words were stiff, as though she had forgotten how to speak.

“Your sister has reminded me that you are unacquainted with the historic events of the last week,” Papa said quietly. “It is possible that the Empire stands on the brink of war.”

Malie stared obediently at Papa, and he began to recite the readings accumulated from the past week’s papers. Eva, under the table, squeezed Malie’s hand. Leo and Jozsef gazed at her with barely controlled longing. Suddenly all the things they had missed her for seemed unimportant. It was just enough to know she was there again. And they had a surprise for her, a lovely surprise. Malie did not yet know that Uncle Sandor was the most wonderful man in the world.

By the middle of July it appeared that the furore over Serbia and the killing was dying down. It would fizzle out, as these things usually did, in long and dreary talks at diplomatic levels. The harvesters had arrived and the fields were full of big brown men with scythes. It was difficult to take Serbia or the newspapers too seriously when the harvesters were here. The war—anyway—had finished without ever beginning and now the important things had to be carried on: the hay stacked up, wild strawberries picked, the cheeses made for the winter. Everything was still controlled and melancholy, because of Papa, and now that the international situation seemed to be settling there was mention of Malie’s being sent away to a school in Berlin famous for discipline. They tried to ignore it, tried to pretend that this was a summer just like any other.

The war happened before they had even caught up with the news. There was an ultimatum, and then a declaration of war from Vienna, and the next time they went into the village a crowd of men and women stood round the schoolhouse door reading the mobilization order. One or two of the peasant women were crying, but the men seemed jovial and noisy. Papa called to Uncle Sandor to drive them straight to Gizi and Alfred’s. When they arrived Madame Kaldy, Felix, and Adam were there. Madame Kaldy had two bright spots of colour on her cheeks and her back was rigid. “My sons have their mobilization orders,” she said proudly. “They have been called to the reserve, Felix to Budapest, Adam to the garrison in the town. They will go tomorrow.” She glared at them all, forbidding expressions of sympathy or offers of help. “I shall manage the farm myself for the next few weeks,” she announced.

Alfred was noisy and belligerent. “Just as I said. We’ll teach the dirty Balkan shepherds not to tamper with the Monarchy. We’ll handle the Russians too if they interfere!”

Even Papa was confident. “Quite the best thing to do,” he said. “Get it over before the bad weather sets in.”

Adam was silent, Felix gay. Eva gazed at him, imagining how he would look in his uniform. The picture that came to her mind was almost too much to bear.

Everyone except Madame Kaldy decided it would be sensible to return to town where the news could be obtained quickly and where Papa and Uncle Alfred could be within speedy reach of Budapest and the bank. As they pattered back to the farmhouse there was an air of expectancy about them, a taut excitement as though great things were going to be asked of them, splendid and dramatic actions which they would nobly perform.

Just as Uncle Sandor pulled the coach into the yard, Mama looked out of the window at the young peasants bringing in the last of the grain and her gaiety vanished. “All the young men who are going to be killed,” she murmured sadly. “We cannot stop them... they will be killed.” She turned to her daughters, relieved because they were not sons, and saw in their faces the fear of women who love men who are old enough to go to war.

The town was a riot of bunting and flags and martial music. Young men with suitcases and bundles arrived in carts, on horses, and from the station, all converging on the garrison. Mostly they were peasants, because the land around the town was farming country, and everyone suddenly felt proud of the healthy, stocky young men that the land had bred. At other times they were stupid, lazy, dishonest, and dirty, but now, with their bags of bread and sausage, they were strong and reliable and brave. The Russians wouldn’t be able to defeat men like that. Several peasant women had come into town with their men. The young ones were smiling and wore flowers in their hair, but the old women, with their black skirts and head scarves and faces like year-old apples, were silent. They pressed extra
kolbasz
and fruit into the bags and parcels of their men and tried to say, with the food they had prepared themselves, what anguish was in their hearts.

Felix and Adam called next day to say good-bye. Felix was on his way to Budapest, and Adam, although he was only reporting to the garrison, did not know if he would see them again either. Papa shook hands with them and told them what a fine and splendid thing they were doing. Mama kissed them both and pinned roses on their coats. Eva laughed and flirted and finally managed to corner Felix for herself.

“You are not to forget me!” she cried playfully. “If you are too dazzled by the girls in Budapest it will quite break my heart.” She smiled up at him through her long, dark lashes to show that it was all a joke, that she was flirting the way she had throughout the summer. She couldn’t quite understand the tiny pain in her chest. If she could cry it would be better, but she had no right to cry for Felix Kaldy. They had laughed and teased each other all through the long summer days, and the gaiety must be preserved. It was her gaiety he liked so much.

“There will be no time to make new friends!” he cried. “Do you think we shall allow a handful of Serbian peasants to keep us from the hunting season? Dearest Eva! We shall be back for the autumn. There will be your birthday in November; do you think I could possibly miss your birthday?”

He snatched her hand and kissed it with great gallantry. She was still laughing, but the pain grew worse and finally she had to say to him, “There will be no... no danger, will there, Felix? You will be careful, won’t you?”

He laughed again and pulled from his pocket a watch engraved with the Kaldy crest. “See,” he cried, “I shall give you this to guard for me. It belonged to my papa, and it is the most beautiful and valuable thing I possess. If I leave it in your trust there will be no danger of a southern beauty taking it from me!” And Eva, eyes shining, held the watch in both hands because surely he would never have given it to her if she hadn’t been very special to him.

Adam was quiet, and Amalia, who was also quiet, sat beside him for a few moments without saying anything. She wanted to ask a favour of him but was afraid that Papa might hear.

“Adam,” she whispered. “In the garrison. Could you manage to see Karoly?”

He frowned, irritated. “Malie, how can I? The garrison is only a central mustering point. There will be thousands of men arriving and departing. Karoly may already have left.”