Csardas (35 page)

As though two other people were doing it and they were watching, Malie and Eva dragged, pulled, pushed, and finally thrust the old man into the grave. Neither of them could bring themselves to throw soil on top of him and so they collected all the stray clothes, the shawls and undergarments and nightdresses (all the warm things had been taken), and covered his body many times with layers of cloth. Then they were able to put soil on him and bang it hard with the shovel.

When the boys came back with flowers and a cross, Uncle Sandor was already in his grave.

Eva took the reins for the first part of the journey. It was dark and they gave Sultan his head, but the horse knew his master was absent and it was hours before they reached the outskirts of the town.

Mama, crying quietly and moaning, sat in a corner. Malie left her alone. She was too tired to comfort Mama. There was nothing to hope for, nothing to rebuild. Was it always going to be like this? A year since Karoly had died, a year of pretending to be brave and cheerful, of seeking comfort in small things, and now this. Oh, Uncle Sandor, forgive us! Foolish Bogozy women who should have waited until tomorrow, who should have stopped screaming when they were told; so many things the foolish Bogozy women should have done. And now the old man was dead, packed into a shallow trench at the side of a field. Wet soil... worms... oh, God!

The boys were silent. They sat on each side, holding her hand.

“Malie.”

“Yes, Leo?”

“Malie. I saw him, the man who killed Uncle Sandor. He was thin and dirty and he had a red armband. I saw him.”

“Oh, Leo. They all had red armbands. And they all looked alike. They were all thin and dirty.”

“I’m sure I’d know him, Malie. I’m sure!”

But his shrill boy’s voice faltered. He wanted to avenge the old soldier who had been his friend, he wanted to swear an oath that he would find the man who had shot Uncle Sandor and kill him too, but the face in his mind, the face of the killer, was already blurring.

“Malie.”

“Yes, Leo.”

“Malie, I don’t think I can live without Uncle Sandor. He was the most important person in the world. How are we going to live without him?”

How indeed?

They lived carefully and quietly in the town. Papa came back from Budapest, a tired, despondent Papa. The banks, the insurance companies, the large industrial works had all been taken over by the state. Papa was still working in his bank, but it wasn’t his any more. He went there every day, and every day he waited to be told not to come again.

They had closed off most of the house. Marie was still there, but they couldn’t afford any of the other servants. They couldn’t afford new clothes, or black-market coal. Food was expensive, and there was no Uncle Sandor to send up to the farm for provisions. Indeed, it might only be a little while before the farm was officially taken away from them.

Everything seemed transitional. There was no more violence, but they were all uncertain of what was going to happen next. There was still a war, but now it wasn’t clear who was supposed to win. The Czechs in the north, the Romanians in the east, were battering once more against them, but this time perhaps it would be better if they won and brought back the old government. In the south it was rumoured that some of the old Imperial officers had formed yet another army and were fighting against the Romanians
and
against the regime of Bela Kun. Who was fighting whom? And for what? Would the troubled times ever cease?

The only one who was happy was Eva; the news, the shortage of food, the depressing outlook for the future seemed to leave her spirits untouched. Felix was pottering happily in his office. He had to work now, something he had never done before, but there was still time to call, to take Eva for walks, to sit with her on the terrace of the Franz-Josef drinking coffee or, as the warm weather progressed, diluted ersatz cordial. So Eva was happy, not the wild ecstatic happiness of her first adoration of Felix, but a contented pride that lent her dignity and quietness.

One afternoon Papa came home early from the bank. Malie watched him walking from the square and realized, shocked, that Papa was turning into an old man. He wasn’t as big or as dark as he had always seemed. His shoulders were stooped and his coat hung loosely from them. And his hair was quite grey at the sides. He walked slowly, with a plodding motion, as though every step were an effort. They were all in the drawing-room when he came in.

“Good afternoon, Papa.”

“Papa.”

“Zsigmond.”

Papa nodded and walked over to his favourite chair. He sat down, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes for a moment.

“What will become of us all?” he asked despairingly. “How can I provide for my family when all I have worked for is lost?”

Never, never had they heard Papa speak like this. He had been angry, proud, sad, puzzled, but never hopeless.

“My wife, my children, all the land I bought, everything I built—nothing.” He placed one gaunt hand over his face and bent his head forward, a tired old man. Papa, old?

“I have been trying to think of something to save us,” he said. “We could try and get to Vienna, but Vienna is crowded and conditions there are worse than in Budapest.”

“Papa....” Malie spoke diffidently. The years of habit, of not interrupting, were deeply ingrained and she was nervous of making any kind of comment. “Papa, could we not wait a little longer, wait and see what happens? All the armies... if they defeat Bela Kun everything will be just the way it was before the war.”

“No, Amalia. Things will never be like that again.”

He was so sad, so slow, so... kind. He had been kind once before, when Karoly died. The hatred she had felt for Papa had begun to fade then. She could never love him—he was not a man who needed love—but she was aware of a strange sensation in her breast. Pity? Affection?

“We could also try and get through the frontiers to Switzerland. If we could get to Berne I think Mr. Klein would help us. Mr. Klein has many business houses in Switzerland and, possibly, he would help us.”

“Leave Hungary, Papa?” asked Eva. “Leave our friends and our family—Uncle Alfred, Aunt Gizi, our Bogozy relatives?”
And Felix Kaldy
was in everyone’s mind as they looked at her. She had worked so hard for so many years to win Felix. And now Papa was threatening to take her away. “We have to live, children. We have to live.” It was all speculation, suggestion, but the seed had been planted and Eva was afraid. Later that night she waited until Mama had gone to bed and then she joined her father in the drawing-room.

“Papa, if... if we—you—go to Switzerland, or even Vienna, I—”

“Yes, Eva? What is it you are trying to say?”

“Papa, Felix has a post. Even in the new government he would probably have a post.”

“I expect so. As much as anyone can tell—and who can tell anything in these times?”

“Papa, if Felix were to ask me to marry him—if he were to ask you—would you let me stay here as his wife?”

Papa looked at her, his face so sad she had to turn away.

“To lose you, Eva? To lose my little Eva?”

“Oh, Papa! It would only be until things were better.”

“Of course.” He slumped in his chair and nodded. “Felix Kaldy. A fine young man, a fine family. But they have nothing now, even as we have nothing.”

“He has his post, Papa! It pays only a little but we could manage.”

“Has Felix suggested this?”

She flushed and shook her head. “No, Papa, but how could he? You have just said that he has nothing. But I know he wants to marry me. He is waiting for something to happen before he asks me.”

Papa bowed his head. “Then we shall wait, either until he comes to speak to me or until we decide to go to Switzerland.”

“But, Papa!”

She crossed over to him and knelt by his chair, the way she had done so many times in the past. She had always managed to get her own way with Papa, and now, with this new, softer, tired Papa she didn’t see any difficulties. She put her small, soft hand into his palm and pressed her cheek against his hand.

“I promise you, Eva, that I will come to no decisions without first discussing it with you and Felix.”

“You like him, don’t you, Papa?”

He smiled at her. “A fine young man,” he repeated. “In other times—but there, we cannot dwell on what might have been.” But he was dwelling on it, thinking how magnificent it would have been: his younger daughter married to the head of the Kaldy estate, all that land linked with his—and Alfred’s on the other side of the river—and the name, the Kaldy name, putting yet another seal of respectability on the dynasty he was building.

“If Felix comes to see me,” he promised, “I shall be happy to speak to him. And together we will see what can be done.”

She was satisfied. At least she was satisfied with Papa. Now all she had to do was convey, tactfully, to Felix that if he wanted to ask her to marry him it was quite all right.

They were defeated. The Hungarian Red Army was defeated by the Romanians, pushed steadily north until there was nowhere for them to go except into the mountains where they could disperse and vanish.

Leo and Jozsef were returning from school when they heard the distant rumble, the
thud-thud
of an army marching in orderly retreat, and just as they turned into the square they saw them, line after line of soldiers, the same ones who had been fighting for the last five years. Even the uniforms were the same old Imperial uniforms, except that now they had red stars or armbands instead of the insignia of the King and Emperor.

Tired men, disillusioned men, they had believed in an ideal and the ideal had turned sour. The dream of an Eldorado state had died.

Leo stared hard at every face, looking for the one that haunted his dreams, the one he wanted to denounce and destroy. Two nights ago Uncle Sandor had appeared in one of his dreams. He had lifted him up onto his horse and had said to Leo, “Now we must go and kill the King of Prussia!” They had whooped and galloped, and Uncle Sandor had been popping bread and onions into his mouth as they rode. Then, in the middle of an acacia wood, they had come to a bench and there was the King of Prussia. “Shoot him,” said Uncle Sandor, and Leo threw the onion at the King, who rolled over and died. The King was thin and hungry and he had a uniform with a red armband. Then he and Uncle Sandor rode away and Uncle Sandor was singing, bellowing out a folk song in his great bass voice.

When he woke up he felt happy and safe for a moment. And then he remembered and everything crumbled and he was lost. There was no one to seek for reassurance. But then he remembered the King of Prussia’s face and he said to the ceiling, “I’ll kill him, Uncle Sandor. I’ll kill him.”

The soldiers, surprisingly, were marching in step and their rifles were held at a uniform angle over their shoulders. Leo squinted into the column.

“There he is!”

“Where?”

“That one! In the middle, with the torn coat—oh, he’s gone!”

“Are you sure it was him?”

“It was him.” But he wasn’t sure. For a moment he had been convinced, but the face had blurred again in his mind. How could he catch the man when the face moved and changed? He had seen the man more than once, in the street, serving in the Franz-Josef, and always the memory blurred before he could be sure.

“Let’s go home,” said Jozsef tiredly. “I’m hungry. And it wasn’t him. I’m sure it wasn’t him.”

They turned and began to trudge back along the street.

“This is the first summer we shall not be going to the farm.” Images chased across their minds: the sheepdogs, the orchards, the river, Uncle Sandor.

“Perhaps Malie will take us into the country for a day,” said Leo hopefully. “We could drive Sultan ourselves and go a little way into the hills.”

“I’m fed up with going around with a lot of women!” Jozsef was at middle school now, but because the last year had been so disruptive, so dangerous and confused, he had not been able to make new friends. Now they were breaking up and he wouldn’t have a chance to develop his acquaintanceships. The holidays loomed ahead, empty and dull. He was tired of being continually in the company of Eva and Malie. He wanted male talk, male doings, horses and tales of hunting and old wars. Uncle Sandor.

All the houses in Petofi Street were shabby, none more so than theirs. The stonework was chipped and the shutters peeling. They trudged into the yard, their bulging schoolbags clasped to their chests.

There was a carriage in the yard, a pony cart that was neat and shiny with smart black wheels and polished harness. It shone, misplaced and incongruous in the dust and dingy surroundings of the yard.

“Visitors!” They ran into the house, chased upstairs straight into the kitchen. Marie was stirring goulash at the stove and even she seemed cheered and stimulated.

“Go and wash,” she called brightly. “We have a visitor. Mr. Klein is here!”

Mr. Klein, incredibly just-the-same Mr. Klein, tall and sleepy with beautiful clothes and gracious manners. The last Papa had heard he was in Switzerland, but now he had, in some mysterious way, travelled unharmed and with affluent dignity through two frontiers, through a Budapest rent by yet another government on the point of falling, through a country rife with a disintegrating Bolshevik army and advancing Romanians and White Hungarians. Mr. Klein didn’t even mention how he had done all these things. They asked him once and he waved his hand deprecatingly in the air and said softly, “A little inconvenience at one or two places,” and after that it seemed discourteous to question him about his journey.

The difference in Papa was amazing. His tiredness had evaporated and though he still looked old and shabby (especially compared with Mr. Klein, he seemed shabby) all his old authority as head of the tribe was back.

“Mr. Klein believes that soon we shall return to economic stability,” he said. “A new government is being formed at Szeged. It has the approval of the enemy”—Papa coughed and corrected himself—“of the English and French. Mr. Klein says it is almost certain that eventually the Romanians will be forced to withdraw and then the country will be restored to peace and order.”