Csardas (68 page)

“You haven’t changed, Eva,” she said warmly. “You’re still so slim and lively, just the way you were when we were girls.”

Eva was gratified and tried to make up for her cold greeting. She had been nervous, and she had also been a little confused by the changes in Kati’s appearance. Kati was more... alive than she used to be. She looked around for something nice to say to atone for her lack of graciousness, but when the saw the little boy she didn’t have to search for compliments. She was incredulous. “He’s beautiful, Kati! What an extraordinary thing! He really isn’t one little bit like you, is he?”

“No.” Kati looked proud and pleased. In the old days she had never expected compliments for herself. She had always been pleased to bask in the glamour of her two beautiful cousins. Now she was content to have her son admired.

Eva fidgeted with her gloves and made a few inconsequential remarks and then she blurted out, “Have you seen or heard from Felix?”

“No.”

“You know that he has an apartment here, in the town?”

“No.”

“It’s possible you’ll meet him. What will you do if you meet him?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t want to meet him.”

“But if you do?”

Kati looked distressed. “I shall do nothing. Look away... just nod... then look away.”

Eva fidgeted with her handbag, then took out her compact and studied herself in the mirror.

“Kati, I don’t—I would love to see much of you, but you understand—for me, it is difficult. Felix and Madame Kaldy, living so close, and little George to inherit the estate...”

“Oh, yes,” Kati replied slowly. “I see. Yes, of course it would be difficult.”

“I shan’t tell them I’ve seen you. I think it better that I don’t.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“But you know I’m
thinking
of you all the time. And if there is anything you want... You won’t be opening the country house, will you?”

“No.”

“That’s all right then. I expect it will soon settle down and everyone will be happy.”

Kati didn’t answer, and Eva found she was unable to look at her cousin’s face. She was disconcerted because suddenly, in the midst of talking to Kati, she felt ashamed. She didn’t like the feeling and she pushed the shame away, concealed it in a warm embrace that, in the old days, would have brought a happy flush to Kati’s face.

“Good-bye, dear Kati,” she said, but Kati turned away.

“Thank you for coming, Eva.”

On the train going back she was irritated, restless. Everything that was happening these days seemed wrong. The world wasn’t a wonderful place to live in any more.

To Leo, the Munich pact was yet another disturbing element in his growing confusion. Part of dismembered Hungary was restored. No Hungarian could fail to delight in the return of a portion of the land that the West had wrenched from her after the war. But Hitler had done it. Hitler had given them back their lands and had, at the same time, taken a large piece for himself. Uneasily he waited to see what would happen next, positive that the German juggernaut would not stop at the provisional borders she had newly carved out of Eastern Europe.

In the spring the emasculated remnant of Czechoslovakia succumbed, as Austria had the year before. And in the spring he received notification that he was likely to be called for national service at any time. It surprised him, although it shouldn’t have. He had been available for call-up ever since his return from Berlin. He had ceased to think about it and now, even with war imminent all over Eastern Europe, he still felt faintly indignant.

He reported his news to the editor of the newspaper and was disconcerted yet again when the editor told him he could leave straight away.

“I haven’t been given my dates yet, Mr. Kertesz,” he protested. “I can stay until I have my posting.”

Kertesz for some reason refused to look at him. “No, no, Ferenc, go now. Who knows how long you have? Why not take a little holiday before your military service. Go home and see your family.”

“That’s kind of you, but truly, sir, I would prefer to stay until the last possible moment. I’m sure with all that is happening now I can be useful.”

The editor made some abstract outlines on his blotter with a pencil. He still refused to look directly at Leo. “We can manage, Ferenc. You have done well with us and I’m certainly not sorry I gave you the job in the beginning. But we can manage enough to let you have a little vacation before your military service.”

“I’m very happy to stay, sir.”

Mr. Kertesz looked a little harassed. He still kept his eyes averted, and now he began to flick the end of the pencil back and forth with his other hand. “I’m sorry, Ferenc, but frankly it would be better if you left.”

Leo was angry. He had worked hard, accepting low rates because he was thankful to get a job at all. He worked evenings and on Sundays, giving more time to the paper than anyone else on the staff, partly because he liked his work and partly because he was still hoping to be transferred to one of the group’s bigger newspapers. He knew that unemployment always hovered in the background, but he also knew that at the present time there wasn’t a necessity to cut the staff. And Kertesz was telling him he didn’t need him any more.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m dismissed?” he said angrily. “Are you trying to tell me my work is unsatisfactory? Or that there isn’t enough news to keep an extra translator-reporter occupied?”

“No, it isn’t that,” the editor answered, looking unhappy.

“Is my work not speedy enough for you?”

“No, it’s—it is disagreeable to have to speak of but—it has been... indicated to me that it would be advisable if you didn’t work for this group any more. I didn’t know how to tell you, and your call-up seemed a perfect answer for both of us. I wish you hadn’t pressed me into this ridiculous situation.”

His anger evaporated and he felt defenceless, insecure, and uncertain of himself. Who had thought it advisable that he didn’t work for them any more? And why?

“Some of your... connections,” continued Mr. Kertesz, reading his unspoken thoughts. “They are not popular with the owners. You haven’t concealed some of your views too well. And of course you’ve mixed quite openly with those who frequent the Balasz. This and one or two other things have placed me in a very difficult position, my dear Leo.”

His voice grew more bland, more fatherly, as the content of what he was saying grew more disturbing. Leo didn’t ask what the “other things” were that made him undesirable on the staff. He was afraid to know.

“I can’t think why you have never tried to conceal your opinions, Leo. You know how dangerous they are.”

“If less people had concealed their opinions in the last few years, we shouldn’t be where we are now,” he retorted. “Waiting like prisoners in the condemned cell to see if we are next on Hitler’s list!”

“Ssh.” Mr. Kertesz, afraid, stared in the direction of the partially open door. “Quiet, Leo,” he whispered. “Someone may hear—and you know as well as I that it is dangerous to talk of the Nazis like that. We don’t know what may happen in the future, and someone may remember words spoken carelessly in anger.”

Leo closed his eyes for a brief moment, disgust racing through him. Kertesz had given him his first full-time job. He had helped him, guided him in the principles of journalism, taught him how to be a professional. And now Kertesz, like everyone else, had succumbed to the spectral fear of Adolf Hitler. He turned, went back to his desk, and began to pack up the flotsam he had collected in five years.

At the Balasz he said a gloomy good-bye to old friends. This very ordinary restaurant had been his spiritual home ever since he had arrived in Budapest. Here, for the first time he had met gifted and talented men who expressed concern over the condition of their country, not Bolsheviks and bloody revolutionaries, as his father described them, but highly respected artists, playwrights, musicians, even a Member of Parliament, men who had wanted to introduce by legitimate means the simplest aspects of democracy, men who had spoken of freedom of the press, secret ballots, and the right to hold varying political views as the sum of their ideals. The Balasz had kept him sane, had given him the companionship and trust that Hanna’s betrayal had destroyed. He felt that once he had left the café for the last time and returned home, he would walk out of the light into a dark and stifling paper bag.

When he announced that he must return home, he was greeted with regrets and repeated glasses of wine. And almost immediately he was given information and names and addresses of people he must contact in his own town, people he had never realized existed, who believed, like himself, that the world’s salvation and freedom lay in brotherly love and the teachings of Karl Marx.

“Some bright men there!” Roth had shouted jovially at him. “The top man—very young, but gifted—contact him and offer your help. Hitler is only weeks or months away from us. We must fight him, not with guns, for we have none, but with our minds, Leo, with our minds!”

The
barack
had flowed and the evening that was to have been so desolate turned into a triumphant farewell. Drunkenly his friends accompanied him home, and drunkenly he promised he would lead the intellectual revolution in his home town. Hot, boastful words were spoken; enthusiasm for the cause grew strong with the increasing level of alcohol in their blood. They were nearly all young men and they had spent the idealistic period of their lives in controlled frustration. Now, for a few hours of drunkenness, they indulged in the fantasy that their visionary dreams might one day come true.

When he awoke the next morning he had all the depressed remorse of the drunkard, now sober. His head ached and every time he raised it from the pillow the room tilted at a sickening angle. He tried to remember what his elation of the night before had been and finally recalled that it had been no more than a list of names and addresses of people he could contact at home. Just another collection of people, he supposed bitterly, who went to their favourite café when work was over and whispered of the reforms they would like to make.

By his pillow was the crumpled piece of paper that had been thrust into his hand upon leaving his comrades. With his eyes screwed against the light from the window he smoothed the paper and read the names. The one at the top of the list was Janos Marton.

They met in a café on the poorer side of the town, between the garrison and the steelworks. He had lived a large part of his life in this town but he had never visited this particular street or café before, and he stared curiously at the shabby apartment houses opposite the café—chipped stone buildings with stairs covered in litter leading to the upper floors. A girl selling matches and bootlaces hovered outside the café entrance.

Janos Marton stood up as he entered. He was a polite young man. He held his hand out and Leo, after a moment’s pause, took the proffered palm in greeting.

“How nice to see you again, Mr. Ferenc,” said the young man brightly. He had nearly, but not quite, lost the accent of the
puszta.
He waited for Leo to sit, then sat himself and ordered beer.

“I would prefer coffee,” said Leo disagreeably, and the young man smiled and said, “Of course,” and changed the order.

They sat in silence until the waiter returned. Janos Marton was still very thin, but now his thinness had a hard whipcord quality about it. His dark blond hair was cut and combed neatly about a strong but finely boned head. Blue eyes, carefully guarded, gazed from beneath long, almost girlish lashes. He could have been good-looking were it not for the tenseness, the feeling of muscle drawn against muscle in preparation against constant attack.

“I hope it was not inconvenient for you when I telephoned your home,” he said politely. “I had a message from Mr. Roth in Budapest. He said you were coming home for a short period and that you would be exactly the right person to meet our requirements.”

Absolutely self-possessed, the little peasant boy whose father drank and stole, whose mother carried him to school on her back and begged for a place at the
Gymnasium.
Self-possessed... and inhumanly cold. Leo suddenly longed to smash the self-possession.

“How are your parents?” he asked cruelly. “Are they still working on my brother-in-law’s farm?”

“They are dead. Thank you for your inquiry. My mother died just before I qualified as a teacher. She had cancer. My father died last year. He drank too much, fell in the river, and subsequently died of a chill—pneumonia, I imagine. Your parents are well, I believe, Mr. Ferenc? I see them occasionally when I am in that part of the town.” The face was dispassionate, the eyes blank, the lips drawn back in a controlled mask.

“I’m sorry to hear of your mother’s death. I believe you were very attached to her.”

“All only sons are attached to their mothers.”

“I heard from my sister that you were intended for the village school. I believe they were all most disappointed when you refused to take that post?”

“I believe they were.”

“And now you are teaching here? In the town?”

Janos Marton bowed his head in acknowledgment. “There is much to be taught here,” he said lightly, “which is why I contacted you, Mr. Ferenc. I organize one or two little educational schemes in this part of the town, and we would like you to give a series of informal—secret—lectures if you would. Mr. Roth said he could think of no man better informed for our needs.”

“What kind of lectures?” Leo asked sullenly.

“On Marxist doctrine. To the workers in the steelyards.”

There was a little damp clutch of fear in Leo’s stomach. Janos Marton was serious. He was quietly asking Leo to preach heresies against the government in a steel factory. This was different, very different, from all the other things he had done. The articles in
Gondolat,
the boisterous conversations at the Balasz, the defiant declaration of his views before his reactionary colleagues on the paper—all these things were like the bragging of a child compared with Janos Marten’s request.