Csardas (67 page)

Felix felt a pounding over his eyes. It took several moments for the shock to be absorbed, digested into a part of his mind which could cope with hiding reactions. They were looking at him! Laughing! Everyone was looking at him and now he knew the reason. This is why they sniggered and whispered! He must try and pretend that he had known all the time. He must act like a man of the world and pretend to disinterest, not let them see the shock, the horror that possessed him.

“Really,” he answered, as coolly as he could. His hand was shaking and he saw that Egry noticed the trembling fingers and the spilled wine.

“You knew, of course?” Egry eyed him watchfully. “You knew she was back in town?”

“Of course,” he lied.

“I was surprised to learn that her family have received her,” continued Egry with an assumed blandness. “Old Mr. Ferenc and his wife—I would have thought they were too old-fashioned to accept such a situation. But no, it seems they have taken her into their home. I hear, even, that your own sister-in-law—yes, your brother’s wife—has met her.”

Rage began to well up from his disordered stomach, rage that Kati and the Ferenc family should do this to him. Here with his friends, his good friends, he was being humiliated, scorned, and it was all their fault. The wine and coffee curdled into bile and he wanted to scream and spit.

“Mr. Jeno and I were distressed when we heard all this,” whispered Egry. “Surprised and distressed. But condoning such behaviour, encouraging it—a man’s own sister-in-law encouraging it—is only a symbol of the corruption and decadence in our country. These things are what must be controlled, disciplined, destroyed!”

His mind was a mess of whirling reflexes: Kati... a son... Eva... the Ferencs... his mama... Terez and George... his beautiful manor house... Terez and George...

“Why, it seems that it might not be impossible for your own brother to take your wife into his home. And from there who can say where it would end?”

Kati’s son. Yes, he knew very well where it could end! His own mama, who had rejected him because Eva had spawned, would take this new child into her home and give his beautiful house and possessions to a bastard! She would flaunt the child and they would all laugh and stare. He would lose his friends.

“You are pale, my friend. Have some more wine.” Egry poured and watched. Felix drank, and the wine tasted of gall. The scalding sensation in his stomach spread out and consumed him, spreading up into his chest and throat and eyes so that he could hardly see. His fingers curled round the stem of the empty glass, gripped, and snapped it. The two men were watching him. They had given up all pretence of believing his fiction and were waiting to see in which direction his fury would explode.

Through the rage of blood in his head a single thought began to crystallize. It was the Ferencs who had done this to him! Gizelli Ferenc had plotted with his mother to marry him to her vile daughter. Eva Ferenc had displayed herself, offered herself, humiliated him, and then ousted him from his mother’s love. The old Ferencs had taken Kati into their home and finalized his degradation. The Ferencs had ruined his life, robbed him of his birthright!

He stood and stared out across the square, unseeing and mad. His friends did not try to stop him when he lurched between the tables and started to run.

“Wait,” Egry said softly, “just wait. I know him, know the functioning of his mind. He will return. He needs us.”

Mr. Jeno nodded and emptied the rest of the wine into his glass.

Malie had made the first move. Leo had telephoned her from Budapest and she went to the station to meet Cousin Kati. In her mind she had shelved the problems that must be faced. She had left David to inform Papa of the news, which was cowardly, but wise, because with the passing years she had discovered that Papa listened more and more to David, indeed had become a little dependent on him. David would be able to break the news in the best possible way.

When they alighted from the train, Kati and a small figure beside her, Malie ran up the platform, forgetting everything but the affection of blood for blood, of family for family. “Darling Kati!”

Stupidly her eyes filled with tears. So much had happened to them all and still it was not over. Still the upheavals of emotion brought conflict into their lives.

“Kati! Oh, I’m so pleased you’ve come home!”

Kati was clinging to her, clinging, and suddenly she was sobbing too. “Home, Malie? Yes, I suppose it is home.”

They drew away, ashamed of their outburst, smiling at one another, reassured because whatever had happened, whatever was going to happen, their loyalty and affection was as strong as ever.

“And this is Nicholas?”

“Hello, Aunt Malie.” He smiled shyly at her, and Malie raised a querying eyebrow at her cousin.

“I told him his Aunt Malie would meet us at the station. I knew you’d come,” Kati said simply.

“I have been to your house this morning. I’ve told the caretaker to light a fire and air two of the bedrooms. I didn’t have time to do anything else.”

“Do they know? Uncle Zsigmond and Aunt Marta, do they know?”

“David is telling them now.”

Malie observed, as Leo had done, the changes in Kati. Age had not given her beauty, but it had given her confidence and a personality that was arresting. The old Kati would have been trembling at Uncle Zsigmond’s probable reaction. This Kati just asked and nodded.

“And the rest of the family?” she asked.

“Jozsef will do whatever Papa says.”

“Eva and Adam?”

“I telephoned Eva this morning. She said very little, but I think she will come to town this weekend to see you.”

She wasn’t at all sure of that. Eva had sounded dismayed on the telephone and there had been long awkward silences. She knew it was more difficult for Eva, living in the shadow of the manor house and having Felix for her brother-in-law, but nonetheless she felt embarrassed that Eva might betray the bonds of family that had always held up until now.

Eva, at that moment, was sitting drumming her fingers against the window, consumed with indecision. She was staring out through the rain, waiting for Adam to come back for the evening so that she could tell him the news. When she finally saw him trudging towards the house her patience broke and she hurried to open the door.

“Adam, Malie telephoned me! What do you think has happened? Kati has come back to live in the town, and she’s brought the boy with her!”

Adam stared, then began to peel his wet raincoat from his shoulders. The maid came forward to take it but he waved her away.

“What are we going to do, Adam? How could she do this to us? She knows my position! How could she embarrass us like this?”

“I would like to enter the drawing-room and dry myself, Eva.”

She hustled to one side and followed him in. His hair was very wet and rain trickled down his face. He held his hands out towards the fire and a few droplets fell into the flames and sizzled. For years his silence had irritated her and on some occasions it drove her to a frenzy of rage. She could feel herself growing angry with him now.

“Don’t you hear what I say, Adam? Kati’s come back with her bastard! What are we going to do?”

“Do? Why, she is your cousin. You must go and see her.”

“Oh, Adam!” She was so cross she stamped her foot. “How can I? With your mama being so gracious to us now, and George to inherit the estate! How can I upset your mama—and Felix—by being friendly with Kati? How can I condone what she has done?”

“How can you not?” asked Adam quietly.

A chill moved over her. Once every five years or so Adam said something like that, something that shook the roots of her security. She was never sure if he knew. When she saw him with Terez she was convinced he could not possibly know because he obviously loved the child with a deep, abiding devotion. But occasionally he stared at her or said something that made her afraid and unsure of herself.

“Well, of course I’m not going to sit in judgment on my cousin,” she went on quickly. “But obviously your mother and Felix are going to be very distressed about it. We cannot aggravate their embarrassing situation by being friends with Kati.”

“There is no need to invite her here,” he answered. “I think she would not wish to come in any case. She has her own house by the river if she wants to come up here. But I think you should go to town and see her.”

“Oh, Adam! Don’t be so dull and stupid! What happens to us if your mama is angry? What happens to George, to me and Terez?”

“Nothing can happen to any of us. My mother knows very well who manages the estate. Sometimes she behaves like a madwoman, but when it comes to the running of the farms she is practical and astute. In this house rests everything my mother needs for the future. Here is her grandson, and here the best bailiff she has ever had.”

“But what of the future?” she screeched. “Supposing she dies tonight. What will happen to us then?”

“We shall remain here.”

“Ha! With Felix in charge, hating both of us because I have taken the part of his unfaithful wife!”

Adam’s slow green eyes considered her. Once those eyes had cried because she had left him, but nowadays they only considered her, as though she were an interesting phenomenon growing on his land.

“We shall stay here,” he repeated. “Felix can do nothing to us. When Mama dies everything is left to George, but Felix has the use of the house and an income until his death.”

“Oh,” she said, nonplussed.

“I arranged it that way when George was born.’’

“You arranged it?”

“I told Mama I would leave unless provision was made.”

“I see.” The uneasiness returned. Adam frequently did things, important things, without telling her or, indeed, anybody. One jogged along for years, growing accustomed to his dullness and lack of ambition, and suddenly a veil was pulled away and a rather frightening, powerful Adam was glimpsed.

“I think you should go to see your cousin,” he said quietly. “And if the farm can be left, I shall come with you.”

She was jealous. For some stupid reason she felt a twist of envy in her breast. Jealous of poor old Kati with her illegitimate child? How foolish! But the jealousy persisted. “You always did like Kati,” she said sourly.

“Mmm.”

“I suppose you think it’s all very admirable, what she’s done—living like a Bohemian and then coming back to flaunt herself.”

“I think she has been brave... and honest.”

What did he mean? The uneasiness stirred again and she forced herself to relax. She crossed over to the fire and slid her hand through his arm.

“All right, Adam,” she said softly. “If you think it’s right for us to go and see Kati, then we shall.”

They welcomed her in different ways. Mama burst into tears and clasped Kati to her breast in an orgy of emotion. Jozsef looked embarrassed and asked her if she had made her bank transfers yet. David Klein just smiled at her and then—with an expression of shocked dismay on his face—produced a peach from his jacket pocket. The peach had a face and a little hat on it. Nicholas stared in disbelief, then grinned widely and reached up his hand.

Papa, frail and unhappy, stood apart from the others. He was uncertain, at sixty-eight too old to accept such things. He wanted to help his dead sister’s child, but his every instinct told him that her behaviour had been immoral and that he was condoning things his sister would have hated. He closed his eyes and thought of Gizi, remembered her when they were young and poor, remembered the old man dying, ashamed of both his children, remembered Gizi lying stretched and yellow on her bed, her hand in his. He crossed the room and kissed Gizi’s child on the cheek.

“You should have come home to us much sooner, Kati,” he said sternly. “Indeed, you should never have left us.”

“Thank you, Uncle Zsigmond,” Kati said, but she wasn’t meek or frightened, just quiet.

The young ones all stared at each other, like animals staking a claim. Jacob, Karoly, and Terez saw one of the most beautiful boys they had ever known, soft gentle brown eyes, a smiling mouth, and tight black curls just like Uncle Leo’s. Nicky saw two solemn nearly grown-up boys who looked exactly like the nice man who had given him the peach, and a leggy girl who looked familiar.

“You look like me,” the girl said, and then he realized what she reminded him of—his own face in the mirror.

“I’m Terez. And this is Karoly, and Jacob. They’re Aunt Malie’s sons.”

“Yes,” he answered.

“I’m twelve. How old are you?”

“Eight.”

“My brother George is ten. He’s up in the country with the
Fräulein.”
She smiled at him, and he offered her the peach. Later the big boys took him out into the cobbled yard and showed him the German car that belonged to their papa. They were very serious boys, but he liked them, and gradually the wariness left the four children and they sat in the car, pretending to drive, already relaxing into casual friendship. Inside the house it took longer. Kati had done something dreadful: she had betrayed not only her moral standards but also the honour and reputation of the family. They were saddened or embarrassed or confused, according to their varying ages and temperaments. They welcomed her because she was a member of the family, but there was a reservation, a tiny barrier that separated her and her child from the rest of them.

Later she began to talk of the
Anschluss,
of the Germans marching into Vienna, of Jews being terrorized in the Graben. “I had to come back,” she explained, a hint of apology in her voice. “I had to bring Nicky home because it is unsafe in Austria for anyone who is even half a Jew.”

A sliver of fear insinuated itself between them, reached out, touched, moved on. What if—? Supposing—?

“I would not have come home if I had not been afraid,” she whispered.

They drew together, bonds of blood and family tightening against the alien threat. The barrier of respectability that separated them from Kati dissolved, swept away by a greater and more urgent emotion.

Two weeks after their return, Eva came up from the country. She remained for only a couple of hours and her greeting to Kati was restrained. Kati didn’t seem to notice. She was as admiring, as pleased with Eva’s vague courtesies as she had been when a girl.