Csardas (87 page)

Sometimes, with no prompting or questioning, she would begin to talk. They would be eating their meal or cleaning the apartment and she would begin talking about Lili or Marta or Suzi—women they did not know but who were intimate friends to Malie because she had shared misery with them.

“On the train.... Going to the factory... one morning there is an explosion. We hear bombs dropping and the guard is shouting. And the bombs grow worse. It is hot and Lili falls on her knees and begins to pray: ‘Let the doors open. Oh, God, let the doors open.’ We push, it is a cattle car, and together we push from inside until the bar breaks open. The factory is in flames, the Germans lying dead, and in the sky are noises of cannon—”

She stopped then, abruptly, the way she frequently did. “Yes, Malie, what happened then?” and her blank puzzled stare.

“What happened?”

“Yes, Malie. What happened when you saw the factory burning and the guards dead?”

“We hid. Until the Red Cross came in three days later.” Said without interest, as though it had happened to someone else. And again: “When the guard beat Kati I tried to help her. I was beaten too.” She remembered then and looked at Leo, afraid. “I’m sorry, Leo,” she whispered. “I forgot.”

“It’s all right. Nicky is in his room. He cannot hear.” But he was afraid that this maddened and melancholy woman would one day forget and speak the truth in front of Nicky, who had grown thinner, more feverish, more flushed since he had heard that his mother was dead.

The day following Malie’s return, Janos Marton walked into the house with Terez. It was the first time he had been there since—as a child—he had visited the kitchen. Now, with cool disinterest, he walked through the shabby rooms to stand by Nicky’s bedside.

“Why did you bring him?” Leo hissed furiously at his niece. “Why did you bring him at this of all times? Strangers in the house with your aunt just returned to us and Nicky shocked and ill. Why did you have to let him come here?”

“I asked him,” she replied, “because of Nicky.”

“What do you mean, because of Nicky?” Already the familiar angry spasm twisted through his chest. Janos Marton was part of his life outside the family, part of his work, part of the town and government. He had no right in this house.

“Nicky loves him.”

“Don’t be foolish, Terez. Nicky is grateful to Janos for hiding him during the war. He doesn’t love him.”

“Nicky loves him.” She shrugged. “I thought you knew that. And Janos loves Nicky, in his funny, cold way.”

He hurried into Nicky’s room and saw the pair of them there, Nicky’s eyes bright with unshed tears and Janos, sitting by his bed, cold, expressionless, not saying anything at all.

“Nicky is ill,” he said hurriedly. “He is upset and he must not talk or be disturbed.”

“Oh, Uncle Leo, let him stay! Let Janos stay!” The boy’s voice wobbled unhappily, tears nearly ready to unman the slight composure.

“I have come to talk about the election,” said Janos distantly. “Nicky lies here in bed all day. It is time he learned what is happening to his country—the first free election in the history of Hungary, the first time we have a secret ballot. Nicky should learn of these things and be proud.”

“Let me listen!” Nicky cried, and Leo, strangely miserable, left the room without answering.

“You should not have brought him in!” he whispered again to Terez. “He is nothing to do with us, nothing to do with Nicky or you and me.”

“Nicky’s mother is dead, Aunt Kati is dead,” she said tonelessly. “And whether you like it or not, after his mother, Janos Marton is the most important person in Nicky’s life.”

“No, no, that is not true. Why should Nicky like him better than his own family?”

“Because he is strong, loyal, and because”—a slow flush spread up from the collar of her dress—“because he is a poet and understands about—”

“About what?”

“About how Nicky feels about his mother.”

“And I—we don’t understand?” he asked bitterly.

“Not in the same way.”

He felt again the sour twist of jealousy. He had accepted that Marton was more successful than he at administration, at cool planning and mathematical precision. But now Terez was trying to pretend that the man was also a dreamer, a visionary, the very things that Marton had accused Leo of being.

When Janos came out of Nicky’s room he nodded politely to Leo. “How is your sister?” he asked.

“She will be all right,” Leo replied curtly. He wanted no more of Janos Marton’s interference in his family life.

“I will come again, to see Nicky. I will come as often as the elections allow,” he said, and strode down the stairs without waiting for an answer.

“How young he looks from the back,” he heard Terez murmur beside him, and he stared at the retreating figure, noting the bony shoulders and the dark blond hair curling in at the back of his thin neck. “He looks rather sad from behind,” she continued dreamily. “He doesn’t look important or strong when you see the back of him, does he, Uncle Leo?”

Leo didn’t answer. His heart was too full of wild and varying emotions.

He came to see Nicky two or three times a week, and all he ever did was talk about Hungary, the election, the future of which Nicky must, one day, be a part. To Nicky, trying to escape the sound of his Aunt Malie’s weeping, the visits of his friend were an escape from his own misery and from the misery of those around him.

His grief for his mother was not assuaged by the kindness of his family. Aunt Eva’s sentimental tears—“You still have us, my darling boy! You have lost your dearest mama, but you have your old aunts who love you just as well!”—served only to emphasize his loss. His Uncle Leo’s admonishments to “try not to grieve too much, Nicky” and even George and Terez’s silent sympathy did nothing for him, only served to refresh the memories of the woman who had been his one tie with warmth and love for the early and most important part of his life. Only his friend, Janos Marton, gave him brief respites of peace from his memories: Marton’s dispassionate greetings and casual farewells, his impersonal discussions about the election (which
were
emotional, but in a safe and abstract way), these things gave him hope, lifted him from his misery—made worse because of his forced inactivity—and encouraged him to believe that there was a future without pain, a future in which he could take interest and heart.

After a few such visits it became the custom for first George, then Terez, to join the little parties in Nicky’s room. It was as though Janos Marton was holding a youthful seminar, lecturing on the future of their country, on the new emancipation and legislation that would soon take place. Leo, joining them once, had been filled with such rancour that he was never part of them again. Everything that Marton had said to the children was right and true—he could not have said it so well himself—and therefore he could not argue or correct. But his resentment was such that he needed, in some way, to remove the adoration from Nicky’s eyes and the interest and warmth from Terez’s. There was nothing he could say, nothing that would not bring disrepute upon himself, for any criticisms he levelled at Marton would have to be personal. Even in his jealousy he was not small enough to ridicule the many things available to ridicule—the clothes and accent, the mannerisms of the country that Marton had not entirely succeeded in throwing off.

The election consumed them both, in time and energy and emotional endeavour. Leo’s articles and editorship of
Liberation
became more ardent. There were constant meetings in which he was by the side of—but slightly subservient to—Janos Marton, and even while his own enthusiasm was keen, he was able to observe that Marton’s became almost frenzied. The man was tireless, his thin body hurrying from one meeting to the next, organizing, directing, giving his heart to a cause as he had never, since childhood, given it to a living person.

The Party did not get in. In their town they were successful, and in fact their defeat made little difference to the overriding power of the Party—the Russians were there to see the Party was never... overlooked—but the defeat was a strongly psychological one. Could it be that Hungary did not want a Communist government?

When the national results of the election were known he watched Janos Marton crumble, and though he should himself have been sorry, his first reaction was one of deep gratification.

“So,” he said, trying to hide his satisfaction, “your prognostications have not come true. We shall have to wait a little longer for your perfect Hungary.”

The blue eyes turned to stare at him and he was suddenly ashamed. They had both worked hard. Was his dream, his ideal, so much less than Marton’s that it could be swept away in momentary revenge?

“Perhaps... next time,” he mumbled, but Marton’s blue eyes continued to stare, cold, calculating, and in their depths something of hurt, the betrayal of a child.

“Next time, or the time after that,” he said slowly. “It must be so.”

When he came to talk to Nicky after that there was no more of the election. But still the talks were of the future, of the proud new Hungary that was going to emerge.

They got through the winter of ’45–’46 somehow, as everyone else did. There was only just enough food, just enough fuel, just enough money. The gutted downstairs apartment was requisitioned by the authorities and given to a refugee family from Pozsony. George went back to school, an unheated and thinly staffed school, and Nicky continued resting—and coughing. The worst of that winter was Malie.

After the first weeks of madness and isolation from them all, she began to eat... and eat... and eat. There was little except black bread, potatoes, and beans, with sometimes a few eggs and a small ration of cheese, but Malie ate everything that came her way and then went out and found—somewhere—more rations, extra food. Automatically they saved the best for Malie and Nicky. The rest of them, even Eva, left the biggest portions, the few delicacies, for these two who by their very condition needed more than the rest. Malie ate, and still it was not enough. In her room she kept a tin containing bread that she sprinkled with sugar from their joint rations and ate throughout the night. His room, that he shared with George, was next to Malie’s, and at night he could hear the lid of the tin being removed, or the rustling of paper if she had won some special treat during the day. Throughout a winter of thin, tired, sallow-looking people, he had to watch his sister (she had been so graceful) swelling with the unhealthy fat of a badly balanced diet. The thin, stick-like legs changed within months, feet swelling over her cracked shoes, clothes straining across her bulging stomach and thighs.

“Malie, my darling, why do you eat so much?”

“I am hungry.”

What could he say? What could any of them say? The eating was better than the weeping, though sometimes he thought it was the same.

In January she came out of her room one morning dressed in the greatcoat tied up with string.

“I need money, Leo,” she said quietly.

He thought she was going in search of food again. “How much?”

“I need the fare to Budapest.”

“Later, Malie. Perhaps in the summer I will take you to Budapest. It is not a good place to go now.”

“You think I am mad, Leo,” she said gently. “I am not mad. I am going to look for my sons. Mrs. Hofer has said there is a place in Budapest where one can find news of soldiers who went to Russia. Karoly—remember he was in the Labour Corps—he was in Russia. Perhaps he has come home, perhaps he is sick somewhere, or a prisoner. I must go and look for him. And then Jacob. Someone must have news. I can ask everyone, all those who came back.”

“You can’t go now, Malie. Wait until the weather is warmer.”

Very gently she began to cry. “All the time, in the camp, in the factory, I prayed to God: ‘Please let one of my sons be alive, just one.’ I did not pray for David or for Mama and Papa—even then I knew it was no good—but if only one son is left, I said, just one son—” She put her hand to her mouth. “Give me the money to go to Budapest and look for my son.”

He was afraid to let her go alone, so he gave them both the money, Eva and Malie. Eva made her remove the man’s coat and wear something she had bartered from the refugee family below. He saw the two of them to the station, wondering just what fresh catastrophe might occur to them in the war-torn capital, and with the Russians still swarming over the land. He was mad to let them go, but it would have been worse to have prevented her.

They were gone for two weeks and returned tired and sad. There was no news, but Malie had heard of someone at Debrecen whose son had returned from Russia, from Karoly’s Labour Corps. She rested a few days, then went to Debrecen, and returned without news except that a man in Eger had been a prisoner of the Russians, captured just where Karoly was stationed.

She stopped eating now. She became thin again and every few days—weeks—he saw her to the station, sometimes with Eva, sometimes without. Every time she returned she was a little more tired, a little more sad, and yet with each hopeless trek he sensed that something of the old Malie was returning. She was tired and old now—she would always be that—but beneath the sorrow and hopelessness was sanity.

There came a day in April when she said to him, “Your chest is better now, isn’t it, Leo?”

He looked at her carefully, wondering if once more she was thinking of her year in the camp, of some old ailment that had afflicted one of her fellows.

“Your chest,” she said again. “Don’t you remember, Leo, when you were a boy you had a weak chest and had to go and spend the winter with Eva and Adam at the farm. Don’t you remember?”

Relief flooded over him, relief and with it joy, because this was the first time she had spoken of anything except her sons or what had happened to her.

“It was Nicky coughing in the night,” she said. “It reminded me of when you were ill and I wondered if we could send Nicky to the farm.”

“Adam says it is not safe. The Russians are headquartered in the old manor and everything is very difficult.” The difficulties that he did not want to worry her with were the increasing bad feelings between Adam—a relic of the old aristocracy—and the local committee. There was no knowing how long Adam would be in possession of what remained of his land.