Csardas (76 page)

Hermin came again. It was dark outside, and she asked for brandy and coffee and a candle. She did not want to sit under the harsh light of electricity.

“I cannot leave you like this, madame,” the girl faltered. “If you are waiting for Mr. Felix, can you not wait downstairs? He may be all night. You cannot stay here all night, madame.”

“Leave me. Get out.” She poured brandy and sipped. With good brandy she could retain her self-possession for several hours.

The night closed in, and that and the brandy threaded through her brain, making pictures, giving her at last the nightmare of truth that blessedly comes to only a few, the truth of self-knowledge. And with truth she felt her strength—the strength inside her—die. Her body had been tired and crippled for a long time, but she had never given way to age because her spirit had burned fiercely, tugging her body along because it could not be left behind. Now a profound sense of weariness engulfed her.
I
am old, an old woman. I do not care any more about my life.
An irrational longing just to sit in the sun and sleep overcame her. How nice to sit on the terrace and think of nothing.

She heard him coming at last. He came swiftly, quietly, entered the study like a cat. In the candlelight he looked shadowed and evil, but then of course he was evil.

“Why, Mama,” he said smoothly. “What are you doing in my study? And why are you waiting up so late? Do you want to know what I have been doing? Shall I tell you about my work for the last few months?”

She had the revolver in her lap, hidden below the desk. She raised her hands and rested the gun on the smooth top. Her heart was thumping erratically, loudly, and there were momentary spots of blindness before her eyes. She felt as though she were going to faint, collapse into blackness, drown in the terrible thumping of her heart.
Not yet. Be strong for a moment more. What is one more moment after a lifetime of strength?

So many years since I fired a gun.... Hunting. I was beautiful then. Can I remember how? Am I strong enough? Oh, yes, one more moment of strength and then I can sleep, drown in my black heart.

She saw Felix’s face change. He smiled at her, a sly, nasty smile of infinite complacence.

“You are cross with me, Mama. Do you want to frighten me? Punish me a little? But you won’t, dearest Mama. You won’t because I am Felix. You couldn’t possibly want to frighten your darling Felix.”

One more moment, just one. Place the revolver squarely. Steady the right wrist by holding it with the left: such old hands, such old trembling hands.

In the candlelight she had a brief illusion of Felix as he used to be: smooth-cheeked, young, infinitely beautiful.

“I have created a monster, Felix,” she croaked. “And what I have created it is my right to destroy.”

She fired. One last moment of strength and then, blissfully, she went down into the pumping sea of her heart.

He had made provision. He knew one blinding moment of panic when he wasn’t sure what to do first; then everything settled into place. Eva was standing beside him, a slight frown across her eyes.

“It has come, Eva. Fetch the children. Quickly. As quickly as you can. Then change into your old clothes, the ones I told you to keep ready. All of you. Hurry.”

“What’s happened? Why do we have to go now, this very moment?” She was frightened. Her small, still very pretty face was white.

“It’s begun. The Gestapo are rounding up the Jews.”

“But we’re not Jews,” she faltered. “Why should they take us?”

“Don’t argue, Eva. Please do as I say. One suitcase each as I instructed.”

He was past her and out of the house, over to the estate office. He unlocked the safe and from a deep pile of seed invoices he took the false papers. They had cost a lot of money and a great deal of time to obtain but they were as authentic as anything could be. Mrs. Szabo with her two children, Mrs. Szabo, widow of a tenant farmer, poor but respectable. The photographs matched the descriptions. He had gone to a lot of trouble over the photographs, making sure that Eva and the children looked less affluent than they were.

He took the car round to the front of the house and they were waiting for him, a sad, frightened little group standing with three suitcases on the veranda. A lump rose in his throat, but he thrust it hastily away. No time for grief or farewells. Concentrate on their appearance. Eva looked wrong—her hair! It was far too stylish for a working-class woman. He must tell her. Terez was all right, hair in plaits and a shabby dark blue coat; so was George, who wore a darned jacket. He had taken great care over the right clothes.

“Get in... Quickly!”

In panic they tumbled into the car, looking over their shoulders in case they should see a German staff car, or maybe even a truck, coming along the farm path. He started the car and drove away from the direction of the village; then he made a wide detour that took him up into the hills before he turned west again. On the county road threading through the mountains he was able to let the muscles in his neck and back relax.

“Terez, your mother’s hair is wrong. Make it look less sophisticated. Comb it straight over her ears.”

“Yes, Papa.” A small frightened voice, but he must not listen, must not let it affect him.

“Where are we going, Papa?” George, trying to be brave and manly. George, who was so normal, such a healthy, ordinary boy, that it seemed ridiculous he should have to hide from persecution.

“I shall take you to a village outside of Eger. You will get a bus into the town, and from there you will take a train to this address.” He pushed a scrap of paper into Eva’s hand. “There you will ask for Mrs. Ladi. You may recognize her; she is a sister to Janos Marton. You will be her cousin, Eva. You will be Eva Szabo, widow, now homeless because your husband has died on the Russian front and the holding has been taken away from you. Here is money.” Another package. “This will serve for your daily needs. You will not need to pay Mrs. Ladi or her husband. I have already paid them, and they will receive more at the end of three months if you are all safe. You will only stay there three months; it is not safe to remain in one place longer. I will send fresh papers and directions at the end of that time. You must never, never try to contact me. They will be watching me all the time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Eva?”

She began to cry, a silly, sniffling cry that hurt him because of its helplessness.

“Eva, Eva! Don’t make it worse! You must do this well or we shall all be in danger. You must try and be sensible.”

“What happened, Adam? Why should they come for us so soon? We are not Jews, not registered Jews. Why do we have to go away like this?”

His hands tightened on the wheel. “We have been... betrayed,” he said tonelessly. “We have an enemy who has seen that we are punished first.”

“Papa.” His daughter’s voice was trembling but controlled. “Papa, what of the rest of the family, Aunt Malie and Uncle David, all of them—Jacob—” The control wobbled and broke a little. He dared not look in the rear mirror at her. He could not look at any of them.

“Them too. As soon as you are at the village I shall telephone them.”

“Can’t you telephone now?”

“No.” His heart was breaking because he had to decide who to help first. If he had stopped to telephone from home his own family might have been lost.

“Have they got false papers too, Papa? Has Uncle David made plans for hiding too?”

“I hope so, Terez. I hope so.” He hoped, but he doubted. He had warned Amalia and David several times. He had listened to the secret broadcasts of the BBC and had believed the reports of vast populations of people—Slavs, political prisoners, anyone with Jewish blood—disappearing into a nameless void, “deported” but never heard of again. David had tried to find other escape plans, some way of getting the old people out of the country. But all along Adam had said the only answer was false papers and a plan of constant movement.

He stopped the car once to buy mineral water and fruit which they ate as they were travelling. Every mile away from the estate made him feel easier but made him dread the parting that was coming. He stopped the car just outside the village. “You must walk in, like respectable farming tenants. No one will be able to trace you back to me then.”

They stood by the roadside, all four of them. Terez was pulling her mother’s hair down flat over the ears and settling the black felt hat more squarely on her head. Eva’s huge dark eyes gazed at him, luminous with tears, pleading, miserable. “Oh, Adam, I’m so frightened!” she sobbed. “I don’t think I can manage without you!” He held her hard against him, his silly, spoilt, thoughtless little wife who had broken his heart so many times. He held her, aching with love and anguish, not knowing how he was going to be able to send her away.

“Good-bye, Papa. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her. I’m the man now. I’ll see everything goes the way you’ve planned it.” George was trying hard not to cry, looking worried at the responsibilities he felt he was taking on. He reached up and patted his mother on the shoulder, and she turned tearfully and clasped her son to her. Adam pulled Terez to one side. She was calm, still. Only a nerve beating at her temple told of her agitation.

“Terez—” Large soft eyes, just like Eva’s, stared intently at him, listening to his words. “Terez, you know you will have to do most of the planning. You will have to watch, guard, see that nothing is done or said that could bring down suspicion.”

“Yes, Papa. I know.”

“Your mother”—he coughed and stared down at the road—“she’s not a very clever woman, but I undertook to look after her when I married her. This is one time I cannot protect her and you have to do it for me. It is not a fair or a right thing to ask a daughter. But she cannot manage alone, Terez. She has to be protected.”

“I know, Papa. I understand.”

So like Eva, and yet so like Malie too. Strong and honest. A heart full of hope and serenity, trying already to be brave and responsible. His daughter whom he loved, born out of anguish and suspicion, misery and betrayal. His daughter whose heart answered his own on so many occasions.

“Go now, Terez.”

She bit her lower lip hard. Not yet eighteen and having to cope with all this. “Papa—” She stared hard, unblinking at him, and then threw her arms round his waist. “Oh, darling Papa!” Unashamedly his face screwed into a mask of pain and grief. Then he pushed her away and ran for the car. He didn’t look back, dared not. He drove for several miles, forcing emotion away from him, making himself calm and controlled once more.

He stopped at the first post office he came to and asked to telephone. He waited and waited. The line was dead, the operator reported. He tried again, this time with Leo’s number in Budapest. That was all right; the café owner answered and Adam apologized for troubling him and asked if he would fetch Mr. Leo Ferenc downstairs to the telephone. There was a strained, uncomfortable pause. “Mr. Ferenc has not been here since the invasion, since March the eighteenth.”

“Did he—did you see how he left? Was he with anyone?”

“He left on his own. He had given up his room. He came back once, the next morning, for coffee. I have not seen him since.”

“Has anyone else asked for him?”

Again the pause, then, nervously. “The Gestapo came for him, one week after he had left. I know nothing else. Nothing at all. Good-bye.” The telephone was slammed down abruptly. He waited, thought. Of course! How stupid. Kati. He could phone Kati. The operator again reported the line was dead.

He went back to the car, the relief of his own family’s escape already being superseded by another anxiety. He turned the car and began to drive towards the town. It seemed strange that the countryside looked exactly the same as it always looked in April. It should have been beautiful, but it was tinged with the atmosphere of nightmares, and the blossoming trees, the young maize, the flowers growing in old wine flasks all had an unreal, sinister quality about them.

When he drew near to the town there were German trucks, tanks, soldiers in abundance. There were also more Arrow Cross men, as though the German invasion had flushed them out of holes and cellars. They had been suppressed and disapproved of by the authorities for such a long time that now, with the power of the Gestapo behind them, they strutted with boorish aggression through the streets and cafés of the town.

The house was empty. He knew before he even knocked at the door, knew while he was driving the car into the courtyard. It had the stillness, the dead emptiness of permanence that is different from the emptiness of a house left alone for a few hours. Several pigeons whirled against the eaves, outlined first against the old brown roof, then against the blue sky. A few leaves and papers unswept from the yard lifted and blew in a gentle spring breeze. He knew it was empty, but he knocked anyway and heard the echo reverberate away inside.

He stared up at the windows, closing his eyes and praying to a reflex god, the same way he used to pray in the first war. What can I do? How can I find out what has happened? He climbed back into the car and drove slowly out of the yard, heading in the direction of the Racs-Rassay house, although he knew what he would find there also—nothing.

He began to let the car drift idly through the centre of the town, looking for someone whom he could trust enough to ask. Finally, on his fourth turn through the square he noticed that some Arrow Cross men were regarding him with surly interest and he hurriedly parked down a side street near the market place and sat in a café, trying to think what to do next.

He must stay away from every official source of information: police, county offices, the newspaper. They would all be interested in his interest, and later, when it was discovered that his wife and family had vanished, they would not believe his story of a visit to Budapest and a subsequent disappearance. Whom could he ask? He must choose with care, someone he could trust and someone whose own well-being would not be threatened by his inquiry. A sense of lethargy began to creep over him, a feeling of fatalistic despair that he knew he must fight. He still had to get home and prepare to answer questions. He had to face his brother and, in some way, try to control him. He had to cope with that mad, bigoted, still-powerful woman who was his mother. He ordered another coffee—filthy wartime stuff—and tried to push everything away for a few more seconds: his wife’s frightened little face, his gawky adolescent son trying to be a man, Terez’s cry,
Oh, darling Papa!
He hadn’t said good-bye to them. It was more than probable he’d never see them again, and he hadn’t said good-bye! He wanted to weep as the realization of his loss swept over him. His tiny family, knit together with so much grief and endeavour in the past, all gone. He gulped his coffee, closed his eyes, and forced order back into his mind. When he opened his eyes there was a figure he recognized walking across the market place. Instantly he was on his feet, shouting from the café doorway, “Marie! Marie!”