Iza's Ballad (20 page)

So he appeared every Christmas, nor was it a negligible sum he brought with him. He liked to be told whom the money went to and was happy when the child was pointed out through the window, but would bolt if they wanted to introduce the child to him. When, in 1923, the head learned that Vince had been dismissed from his job, he thought he’d never see him again, but he appeared at Christmas as usual, in the evening this time, as if he didn’t want to be seen by day, thinner, somehow older and more mature, as if it were only now that he had attained to proper manhood. He hadn’t really seemed an adult before, not quite, maybe because he was generous in a way that didn’t quite befit a grown man. The head was doubly pleased to see him this time because he now knew that Vince Szo
̋
cs was a man of principle, that the word of the law was sacred to him and that his sense of justice was not to be trifled with. He only regretted not having visited Szo
̋
cs when the man was first put on a pension; he would surely have appreciated it.

Szo
̋
cs didn’t stay long and the sum was indeed trivial compared with what he used to bring. He apologised and said the money would be enough only for one or two books but there must be some students who loved reading. Then he immediately stood to leave. He was wearing a tattered coat and the headmaster felt he shouldn’t have accepted money from him. But he did accept it and continued to do so each year. After the introduction of the
pengő
as currency in 1927, it was always the sum of twelve
pengő
, neither more nor less.

When the judge’s envelope appeared as usual in 1933, the head called Antal. The boy didn’t want to accept any money, not even when it was explained to him that it was for books alone, the kind of books that might form the basis of a developing personal library. Antal replied that he could only accept money he had worked for.

The head looked at him with increased respect and pointed through the window. The boy followed the direction of his finger to a grey little man in a shabby coat carefully skirting the mounds behind the column dedicated to the Dutch benefactor. ‘That’s the man who donated the money. That man there by the memorial column was a village boy like you who paid no fees because the village supported him,’ said the headmaster. ‘Ever since he earned a salary he has given something to the school. In 1923 they sacked him, so now he can afford only enough to pay for a few books.’

‘They sacked him?’ asked the boy.

The tone of the comment was indifferent, apparently unconcerned. The question didn’t sound much like a question, it was simply the repetition of a phrase as if he thought it would be discourteous to doubt the fact.

‘He used to be a county judge,’ said the headmaster and offered the boy the envelope again. It would be awful if the boy thought Szo
̋
cs was a thief or a murderer and that the school was willing to accept gifts from criminals. ‘They say it was on account of some particular judgment he made when there was a harvesters’ strike in the county,’ he added.

Antal Antal bowed and said he would be happy to accept the gift. The head gazed tenderly after him, as tenderly as if the boy were his own son. It was only after he had left, closing the door quietly behind him as he had been taught, that the head felt some unease, though he would have laughed off any suggestion that he had been scared by a look in Antal’s eyes, a passionate look so different from the neutral expression normally worn by that adolescent face, which was only just now developing a bone structure. It was a gleam that went out as if by command, suddenly, according to some order emanating from deep inside him, from a place so deep a man might wonder whether the gleam had really been there or not.

2

ANTAL MATRICULATED, BUT
only with a Merit, because his result in Hungarian Literature let him down; he never could write a literary essay. The organisation of material into a three-part format bored him and he had absolutely no interest in the nineteenth-century epic’s treatment of ancient national religions. Nevertheless the president of the exam board, one Professor Dekker – it being part of the school’s tradition to invite previously outstanding students to be president of the exam board – read everybody’s papers with a childlike intensity and picked out Antal’s as the only one to give a complete picture of the literary treatment of ancient national religions, albeit in the form of an index or academic bibliography. In the oral part of the exam he noted the student’s carefully measured, rather stiff manner of speaking, his sure grasp of every scientifically verifiable detail of the subject, and his reserved but polite reluctance either to enter into sentimental explanations or to paint vivid word pictures of historical tableaux. Antal hardly looked at him, having been absorbed by the preparation required and being preoccupied by other issues such as whether he would be admitted to the university, how much reduction he might expect in his student fees and whether Cato would succeed in securing him some much sought after university accommodation. It was a nice surprise to him, then, that after the results had been announced he was told that the president of the exam board had promised to support him. Dekker had heard the story of the tankard boy from the headmaster and also happened to be dean of the university that year, so when Antal appeared before him at the ceremonial welcome to new students, after the usual handshake he asked the boy to remain behind.

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t get involved in politics,’ said Dekker, examining his hands. He had unusually short fingers. They weren’t doctor’s hands, more the hands of a wrestler.

Antal looked him in the eye, then immediately looked away. Antal had a passionate interest in politics and knew nothing about Dekker yet.

‘Study and think,’ Dekker continued. ‘That’s not an order, it’s just a personal plea.’

Back at school, boarders were always discussing world affairs, including the subject of the local socialist youth movement. Antal thought the professor meant that he should not get involved in left-wing politics, so he simply stood there and looked at him without saying yes or no. Dekker told him he could go.

It didn’t take Antal long to orientate himself. In October, when he was asked to join the fascist student movement, he declined, saying he had too much to do, as most certainly he did: he had to look after himself now and couldn’t rely on cheap sales clothes or college charity. Dorozs was slipping away into the past: his grandparents were no longer alive and he didn’t have to support them, but the spartan mentality was his own and had little to do with having or not having a family to consider. Antal liked responsibility and though his relationship with his grandparents was functional rather than emotional, he still missed having a proper family.

Dekker’s words at the enrolment ceremony made full sense to him in December when he stopped to allow the dean to pass him at a corner, raising his soft hat to him. They were in the university building, Dekker in his official garments,
plenis coloribus
, hastening to a meeting because, being head of every organisation within the university, he was obliged to attend such things. He saluted back by putting two fingers to the golden ribbon of his professorial cap and stopped. The corridor was lined with palms, the glass roof white with snow. Only the wall lights were on and the marble panelling glowed pale as butter. They could hear the shuffling in the great ceremonial hall beneath. They were alone.

‘You’re in everyday clothes,’ Dekker remarked, looking at his hat. ‘Are you not coming?’

He gazed in polite indifference at the professor’s glittering outfit. ‘I’m not a member of the movement,’ he answered.

Dekker removed his cap and ran his fingers through his dense unruly hair. ‘I’m pleased you listened to me,’ he said and set off towards the stairs.

Dekker could never walk at an even pace, he either sauntered or rushed. At that point he was rushing. Antal watched him and felt he liked him. Later, in 1945, when Antal was the president of the committee examining Dekker’s papers and a member argued that Dekker should not remain in his professorial chair, and that his activities before the war should count against him, Antal did not cut the man off but, once he was finished, revealed Dekker’s work behind the scenes, and how golden ribbons and
dominus
caps were a cover for his faultless organising ability, his intelligent treatment of the fascist movement and his brilliant acts of clinical sabotage when the town was evacuated. Dekker for his part cursed softly and dismissed it all as nonsense. He hated being praised.

Antal’s love life was very simple. Suddenly, what had been very difficult at boarding school became very easy in the medical faculty. He had great fun with provincial female medics who, in 1935, the year Antal entered university, were still a little drunk on their own courage in taking up such a daring career rather than spending their time in quiet university libraries and were all too keen to prove how unrepressed they were. They wanted to show that nothing about nature and the body scared them.

Antal took from them what they were willing to offer and responded with whatever courtesy seemed due; he danced with them, he helped them in class discussions or when they were in trouble, and patiently heard them through whenever they bawled their eyes out or complained. The university was located among centuries-old oaks and was comprised of four faculties, and the students’ rooms were mixed up, not organised by faculty. Antal got on with all his room-mates but chose his friends carefully. The leaders of the youth movement left him alone. Dekker’s patronage protected him from the loudmouths and his excellent marks, combined with his fierce independence, excused him from taking part in fascist activities. On one occasion when he was accused of something, the leader of the movement spoke in his defence, asking how in heaven’s name could he be a member and take a full part in it when he was earning his living by teaching Jewish children, and receiving his fees from all those rich lawyers and doctors who wouldn’t hire him if he were member of a well-known anti-Semitic organisation. Antal’s taste and judgement were formed in his boyhood. He and his friends watched the Hungary of the Thirties and the rise to power of Hitler like circus lions who knew they’d have to jump through the flaming hoops before long, and that they’d need all their strength for the moment. At the funeral of his old headmaster he sang the hymns of mourning along with the rest, and tears ran down his cheeks as he stood by the bier and saw for the last time the simple champion of Roman virtues who felt more at home in the ancient world than among the children of his contemporaries.

It was at this funeral he met Vince Szo
̋
cs.

He recognised him immediately, though he looked thinner and more exhausted than he had that winter when he was shuffling in ordinary shoes past the column with its statue of the Dutch donor. He stood at the very back, more outside the funeral hall than in, as if he feared that his appearance might cast a bad light on his late friend, and once the procession started took care to walk at the back of that too, constantly looking round as if ready to scuttle off among the graves at the first awkward moment. No one took any notice of him and when anyone did his face betrayed nothing except the obligatory normal signs of mourning.

Szo
̋
cs was not alone; he was accompanied by a girl of unusual slenderness. She was taller than him and Antal couldn’t work out her age. She was too thin, her waist was far too long, her legs were like the legs of a thirteen-year-old as were her clothes, her gloves far too big so they slopped about on her hands as if they had been borrowed, and her black handbag was creased. Her brow, her entire face, but most particularly her look threw him into confusion: it was the face of a young soldier on sentry duty, it was how she moved beside Vince, unblinking, her gaze moving around the mourners. She moved as though she were escorting a seriously ill patient, watching the time and keeping an eye on her surroundings, the road and the place generally, worried in case the air was too chill for someone who had hardly recovered. Later, when he tried to conjure Iza’s face it was this young, timeless face he kept recalling, that military look, Iza as the line of defence, Iza with the floppy gloves and unusually white lips, walking side by side with Vince.

Antal was with Dekker who, by this time – in view of Antal having reached the final year of qualification – had started addressing him as
te
, the familiar form of you. It was clear by now that he wanted to train him up as his assistant and they had various passionate conversations about politics. Dekker didn’t look up but stared at the ground, finding the whole affair boring and painful, his view being that death was a purely personal matter and that any ritual associated with it was a form of superstition meant to make people feel better, a sort of communal sport. Nevertheless he came along because he liked the old Calvinist citizen of Rome and because they were once classmates who went to the same inns and bawled the same drinking songs. He trod through the autumnal slush muttering to himself: why didn’t they simply do as old Cato might have wished and burn him on a pyre according to Roman custom in Donor’s Square where a toga-clad
histrion
wearing a Calvin mask might imitate his familiar gestures in the authentic way? It was Antal, not the professor, who noticed that Vince Szo
̋
cs wanted to speak to him.

It was impossible not to notice. From the moment his shy glance fell on Dekker it had not shifted. Szo
̋
cs was whispering something to his daughter who had been standing straight enough before but now stood even straighter. She was like a tall exotic flower growing before his eyes. Antal slowed until they were almost beside them and Dekker slowed his own steps to please him. It wasn’t proper to say anything and, fortunately, there was no need to since the professor finally noticed the judge and greeted him warmly. A look of uncertain pleasure, a kind of hope, flashed across Szo
̋
cs’s face. The girl took an appraising look at the professor, the way one looks at goods in a shop: what was he worth?