Csardas (90 page)

“Don’t tell Mama yet,” she whispered. “Let me tell her first. I’ll wait until I feel better. Don’t tell her yet.”

“Why was the door—oh.” Eva scowled and stared at him. “What are you doing in my daughter’s room, Janos Marton?”

“He came to see how I was, Mama. He heard I was ill and came to see me and there was no one here so I called him in.”

“You should not have done that, Terez.”

“It was kind of Janos to come, Mama.”

“Mmm....” Her dark eyes raked over Janos, then flashed quickly round the room as though looking for something.
“
Yes
,
it is pleasant to have visitors when one is ill. I remember when George was born and I had to come into the town to the hospital; your papa visited me every day, Terez.
Every
day.”

“I know, Mama. You’ve told me before.”

“Every day,” Eva repeated complacently. “And every day he brought a bunch of roses. There were enough to fill the entire hospital by the time I came home.”

It was incredible to think that anyone could be so shallow. She believes I should have brought flowers or something, he thought, astonished. She really does judge me on whether or not I bring flowers! The rebuke was intended for him but it didn’t act the way she meant it to, for he had a sudden memory of his own mother, pregnant, with her legs and feet so swollen she had to hoe the patch sitting down. He remembered being sent out of the cottage when the children were born, and his father caring only about how soon she would be able to work again.

“Good-bye, Terez.”

“Janos!”

No, he must not be cruel to Terez because her mother was a mean and selfish woman. He forced himself to smile, then switched the smile away as he turned to Eva. “Good-bye, Madame Kaldy.”

Walking home he was at first irritated, then nervous. He had committed himself, had admitted that he was as weak as other men, had placed his pure code of ethics on the altar of passion. There was a moment of regret in his heart for the asceticism he had renounced, and then he remembered her face and was engulfed in love.

Even though the world had changed, though men and women had died and the social order was uprooted, the family were still shocked at Terez’s news.

They did not shout or storm at her, but their dismay expressed itself in a thousand ways. Eva, surprisingly, had not given way to hysterics or shouted protestations. Her face had blanched and, horrified, she had whispered, “Oh, this dreadful war! What it has done to us all... that my child should mate with a peasant boy!” After that she had said no more. But she stared at Terez as though her daughter was suffering from an incurable disease and was soon to die.

Adam, who visited his family once a month, came down before his time and took her gently to one side. “Terez, my child. I don’t know why you are doing this, but if it is because you think it will help the family, marrying a Party man, I beg you not to make such a sacrifice. Times may change—it is too early to tell. What if the old ways came back and you awoke to find you were tied to Janos Marton, a peasant school teacher with a Communist record! What would your life be then?”

“It’s nothing to do with politics, Papa. No one understands that. I care about Janos Marton. I want to marry him, no matter what he is or what he may become.”

He seemed not to hear her, or at least not to understand. “The boy has been good to us. I do not deny that. He has proved his loyalty to his old master; he has more than repaid the debt he owed us. But to marry him? I knew you were his friends, all of you, you young ones, and I made a point of not interfering because I believed he had earned the friendship, and when a man has been as good as he has been, then old prejudices must be put aside. But Terez! You cannot completely ignore the old ways! The son of a peasant! His father was a thief, a constant trouble to me on the farm. I kept him only because of
his
father, the old man who was with me in Russia.”

“Janos is the grandson of that old man, Papa.”

She was angry with her father, but sad more than angry, because until now he had always understood, had always known her heart, followed her dreams. Now he was expressing standards and creeds that meant nothing to her. He was preaching customs that she believed had been discarded long ago. She tried to explain her heart to him, her feelings and admiration for Janos. She tried to tell him how brave and gentle he was, how patient, how fair. But her father only shook his head and begged her to reconsider.

Uncle Leo had hurt her most of all. He had ignored her for a week, refusing to listen when she talked about it, pretending that it had never happened. And when her father had gone back to the farm (taking George with him, ostensibly to help on the land but, Terez suspected, because he did not want Janos Marton to steal any more of this children), Leo had called her quietly into his room.

“I want you to look at this photograph, Terez,” he said, holding out a picture of a girl with short hair and a funny old-fashioned droopy dress. “I don’t know if you will remember her—you were only a little girl when she came here—but I want you to look at her.”

“Yes, Uncle Leo.” Obediently she looked, wondering what great influence the picture was supposed to wreak on her.

“She was German, the daughter of a shipyard labourer. She worked in a shop in Berlin when I was a student there.”

“Yes, Uncle Leo.” Fragments filtered back to her, half-heard pieces of conversation that had hardly interested her at the time.

“I was in love with her, Terez. We lived together in Berlin for over two years. I wanted to marry her in spite of all the differences between us. Grandpapa Ferenc was against it, but it made no difference to me. I was in love with her.”

She was interested in spite of herself. She guessed that the story would only illustrate some point as to why she shouldn’t marry Janos, but the image of Uncle Leo, twenty and in love, was an intriguing one.

“She loved me too, I know she did. But one day she discovered that Papa was a Jew, and even though she loved me, she found she was unable to overcome the barriers and marry me.”

“What’s that to do with Janos and me?” she snapped. “Janos doesn’t care what I am, and I don’t care what he is. We just love each other, that’s all.”

“Terez.” He sighed. “I have told you this because I want you to understand that it never works, to marry someone too different from yourself. You think it is all right, and then one day a gulf yawns, a gulf that no amount of love can bridge.”

“Uncle Leo, it’s no good trying to tell me these things. If you had been told the same things at twenty you would not have believed them either.”

He put the photograph down and sat in silence for a moment. “Terez, your father would not forgive me if he knew what I am about to say. But Adam is an old-fashioned man in many ways. He doesn’t understand what it is to search and seek for what is new in life. Terez, if you love this man you do not have to marry him. Please, I beg you. Make no permanent commitment yet. Do what you must, what you want, but don’t marry the man—don’t marry him!”

“I want to marry him!” she sobbed. “I hate you for saying that, Uncle Leo! It’s none of your business what I do! You have no right to tell me how I should conduct my life!”

She ran out of his room and he sat down on the edge of his bed, allowing his careful restraint to evaporate in hatred for Janos Marton. He had forced himself to talk to her without prejudice, trying to put aside the fact that what especially nauseated him was the knowledge that it was Marton whom she loved, not another peasant turned successful leader, but Marton who had shadowed him from childhood. Every way he turned the man was there, at work and now in his private life. Terez, his favourite, the golden girl who was like him in so many ways, to be ruined by the ambitious desires of a murderer’s son!

He couldn’t speak to her again for several days, but he could think of nothing else, nothing else but her and Marton. When he received a message to go and see him he felt relieved because at last he could fight without having to consider feelings and family. He walked along to the Party offices shaking with a mixture of rage and delight, knowing that he was going—at last, at last—to say the things he had stored away for so many years.

“Sit down, Ferenc.” Leo could see that Janos was embarrassed. He felt a surge of wild elation. Already the man was uncomfortable, knowing there was going to be a quarrel, a lancing of the bitter emotion of years.

“I would rather stand. What we have to say cannot be discussed across a table like a Party matter.”

Janos looked surprised. “But it is a Party matter.”

“No! This is to be treated differently. This has nothing to do with our varying levels in the Party. This is a personal matter, between you and me!”

Marton rustled some papers on his desk and stared without expression at Leo. “It has nothing to do with us,” he said. “Whatever I feel personally about your editorship of the paper, I would take no steps to remove you on my own authority.”

“The paper?” What was he speaking of? What had the paper to do with Terez?

“I tried to warn you, Leo. I tried to tell you that the paper wasn’t right for Party needs. But you’ve continued to do it your way, and now the leaders in Budapest have noticed. They have stated that”—he consulted the papers before him—“‘Comrade Ferenc’s early participation in the production of the paper was timely and in the spirit of that period. It is now considered that Comrade Ferenc’s many and special gifts can be put to better Party use in a different sphere of activity. The Party thanks Comrade Ferenc for his early work in founding
Liberation
and asks that he will report to Budapest for duties of equal importance to the creation of our social and democratic state.’”

It filtered through a stunned brain still obsessed with thoughts of Terez. What was Marton saying, that they were taking the paper away from him? His paper. His own special task that had come to be so important to him.

“I don’t understand,” he cried. “What do they mean, the production was ‘in the spirit of that period’?”

Marton rustled the papers again. “It means that you are not doing what they want. And with the new election every paper is going to be of vital importance. This time we must win. And it is felt that you are not an editor to help us win.”

He sat down, feeling that his life’s energy was draining away from him. He could hardly believe it. He was being dismissed!

“But they can’t do it!
Liberation
is
my
paper. I created it. I have made it from a single news-sheet into a comprehensive, well-balanced journal. They can’t take it from me!”

He noticed that Janos Marton wouldn’t look at his eyes. He stared down at the desk and, if it had been possible for Marton to look uncomfortable, he would have done so now.

“No, Leo. It is not your paper. That is the trouble. You have been behaving as though it were your paper instead of the Party’s.”

“I shall not accept this decision! It is a slight to me personally and I do not believe you had nothing to do with it. This is a personal thing, Janos Marton. You want me away from this town because of Terez!”

Silence, the cold silence that Marton was so skilled at creating. And then, as though Leo had not spoken, “Your duties in Budapest could prove to be exciting and interesting. You are to act as translator at the preliminary talks on setting up a trade mission. Possibly you will travel with the mission to countries of both West and East. It is a post in which the Party places great trust and responsibility in you.”

“A translator!” The blood began to pound in his head. He could have accepted many things—a junior place on a national paper, an editorial post of any kind—but this was a calculated insult. He was to act as a glorified clerk to a band of civil servants and bureaucrats!

“I refuse! This is more than a Party decision. This is a personal vendetta, and I will not countenance it. I demand to see Comrade Lengyel!”

“I do not advise it, Leo. Comrade Lengyel is... a different kind of member from the rest of us. He is stricter, Moscow trained. I suggest you do not speak to him.”

“I insist! If you block this I shall file a complaint against you!”

“Very well.” A small pulse beat in the side of Marton’s brow. He lifted the telephone and spoke to someone at the other end. There was a long wait, then a voice. He replaced the receiver. “If you wait outside Comrade Lengyel’s office, he will try to see you sometime later this morning.”

Leo turned and flung out of the room, hating Marton so much he could not even throw a final vitriolic word at him. He was shattered. The paper was the culmination of his editorial life. He had spent time and energy in composing what he considered exactly the right mixture for a socialist party in a county town: some simple but intelligent editorials, poems by local patriots and writers, a small column of theatrical and arts criticism, and a diary of the social progress being made by the Party. He had felt the way old Heinlein in Berlin must have felt, as though he were creating a mouthpiece for the truth to be presented to the world. And now it was to be taken away, because he would not accept his niece’s affiliation with a dangerous political rival.

He had to wait for an hour outside Comrade Lengyel’s office and during that time his anger had a chance to evaporate a little. In its place grew a slight unease. Could it be entirely Marton’s fault? No, Marton was not that powerful. Some remaining spark of judgement made him admit that neither would Marton stoop to personal vengeance. There was something else behind it, something he didn’t quite understand. By the time Comrade Lengyel opened his office door, a chilly premonition had superseded everything else in his heart.

“Comrade Ferenc, I understand you are dissatisfied with the decision to transfer you to new duties in Budapest?”

Lengyel was plump and had a bland round face sheltering behind thick pebble glasses. He smiled, but the smile was solely a movement of the lips. Behind the glasses magnified pale eyes observed.

“I cannot understand why now, when I have achieved my aims with
Liberation,
I should be taken away. I have worked to create a balanced socialist paper that everyone can read and appreciate—”