Journey by Moonlight (16 page)

“The comparison doesn’t hold. Opium is much more harmful than champagne.”

“That’s such a European idea. It’s true that when a European takes up opium smoking he doesn’t know when to stop. Because Europeans take everything to excess—gluttony, house-building, violence, all equally. But we know how to preserve the golden mean. Do you think opium has done me any harm? I smoke it regularly, and I eat it.”

He puffed out his powerful chest, then displayed his biceps, somewhat in the circus manner, and was about to raise a leg when Sári intervened: “Slow down. You’d better leave something for next time.” 

“Excuse me … Alcohol is another thing Europeans take to excess. What a horrible feeling it is when you’ve too much wine in your stomach and know that sooner or later you’re going to be sick. The effect of the wine gets steadily stronger until you
suddenly
collapse. It doesn’t produce the steady, controlled ecstasy that opium does. There is no greater pleasure on earth … Really, what do people in Europe know about it? You should consider the circumstances before you meddle in the affairs of other countries.”

“This is why we want to make this educational propaganda film with you,” said Szepetneki, turning to Sári.

“What? A propaganda film about opium smoking?” said Erzsi. Up to this point she had found the Persian’s point of view
somewhat
attractive. Now she was horrified.

“Not to promote opium smoking, but the free movement of the product and human rights in general. The film is dedicated as a great individualist statement against every form of oppression.”

“What’s the story-line?” asked Erzsi.

“The opening shots,” replied Szepetneki, “take you into a
family
living peacefully on a simple, kind-hearted, traditional opium farm in Persia. For reasons of social rank they can only marry their daughter (the heroine) to the young man she loves if they can find a buyer for the year’s harvest. Whereupon the bad guy, who is also in love with the girl, but is a wicked communist
prepared
to do anything, betrays the father to the authorities and, in a night ambush, seizes the entire stock. This bit will be very exciting, with car chases and sirens blowing. But later the girl’s innocence and nobility of soul so impresses the hard-nosed general that he returns the seized opium, which sets off merrily for China, in
tinkling
wagons. That would be the outline of the story … ”

Erzsi had no idea whether Szepetneki was joking or not. The Persian listened solemnly, with an air of naïve pride. Doubtless the story was his idea.

After the meal they went to a fashionable dancing-place. Here they were joined by some other acquaintances. They sat round a large table and made conversation, in so far as the general din allowed. Erzsi kept her distance from the Persian. János Szepetneki asked her to join him, and they began to dance.

“How do you like him?” he asked as they stepped out. “A very interesting character, don’t you agree? A complete romantic.”

“Do you know, every time I look at him I think of the words of an old English nonsense poem,” said Erzsi, visited suddenly by a flash of her former intellectuality: “
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright / In the forests of the night
… ”

Szepetneki looked at her amazed, and Erzsi felt embarrassed.

“A tiger perhaps,” said Szepetneki, “but he’s come a terribly hard road. And yet he’s so naïve, so unsure and cautious in
business
matters. Even the film people can’t take him in. But it isn’t for commercial reasons that he wants to make the film. It’s for the
message
. And the other main reason, as I see it, is so that he can make a harem out of the female extras. Now, when did you leave Italy?”

“So you recognised me?”

“Of course. Not just now, a few days ago, in the street, when you were with Sári. I’ve a pretty sharp eye. I actually arranged this evening so that I could talk to you … Tell me, where did you leave my good friend Mihály?”

“Your good friend is probably still in Italy. We don’t write.”

“Sensational. You separated on your honeymoon?”

Erzsi nodded.

“Great. That’s really great. That’s Mihály’s style. The old boy hasn’t changed one little bit. All his life he’s always given up. No stamina for anything. For example, he was the best centre-half, not just in the school but, I dare say, of any school in the whole country. And then one fine day … ”

“How do you know that he left me and not the other way around?”

“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked. But of course. You left him. I get it. You couldn’t put up with someone like him. I can
imagine
how difficult it must have been living with such a cold fish … someone who never gets angry, who … ”

“Yes. He left me.”

“I see. My very first thought, by the way. In Ravenna, you remember. You know, I say this in all seriousness, Mihály isn’t cut out for a husband. He’s … how do I put this?… a seeker … All his life he’s been looking for something, something different. The sort of thing this Persian no doubt knows a lot more about than we
do. Perhaps Mihály should be taking opium. Yes, that’s absolutely right—that’s what he should do. I must tell you quite frankly, I never understood that man.”

And he made a gesture of hopelessness.

But Erzsi sensed that this casual dismissal was simply a pose, and that Szepetneki was dying to know exactly what had passed between her and Mihály. He stuck very closely by her side.

They sat down together. Szepetneki was letting no-one near her. Sári was now receiving the attentions of a distinguished
elderly
Frenchman, and the Persian with the burning eyes was seated between two actress-types.

Erzsi was thinking: “It’s interesting how different, and
contradictory
, things appear from close up.” On her first visit to Paris she had been full of the superstitious prejudices acquired in her schooldays. She had thought of Paris as an evil metropolis full of perverts, and the Dôme and the Rotonde in Montparnasse, two harmless coffee-houses for painters and émigrés, had been for her the two gleaming fangs in the devil’s gullet. And now here she sat, among people who no doubt actually were evil and perverted, and it all seemed perfectly natural.

But she had little time for these reflections because she was listening intently to Szepetneki. He clearly hoped to learn
something
important about Mihály from her. He chatted happily away about their years together, though of course everything was slanted to fit his point of view, and he painted rather a different picture from Mihály’s. Only Tamás remained wonderful: princely, death-marked, a young man who was too good for this world. He had left it young before he had to compromise with it. According to Szepetneki, Tamás was so sensitive he couldn’t sleep if someone was moving about three rooms away and a strong smell would have completely finished him off. The only problem was, he was in love with his sister. They had become lovers, and, when Éva fell pregnant, Tamás killed himself from remorse. In fact, everyone was in love with Éva. Ervin had become a monk because of his hopeless passion for her. Mihály too was hopelessly in love with her. He followed her around like a puppy. It was comical. And how she treated him! She took all his money. And she stole his gold watch. Because of course it was Éva, not himself, who stole it, but
he didn’t want to say that to Mihály out of delicacy. But she was in love with neither of them. Only with him, János Szepetneki.

“And what has happened to Éva since? Have you seen her?”

“Me? Of course! We still get on very well. She’s made a splendid career; not entirely without my help. She’s a very great lady.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well now, she always has the most aristocratic patrons
possible
—cheese barons, petroleum kings, actual heirs to thrones, not to mention the great writers and painters she takes on for the publicity.”

“And what of her at present?”

“Right now she’s in Italy. If she can, she always goes to Italy. It’s her passion. And she collects antiques, as her father did.”

“Why didn’t you tell Mihály that she was in Italy? And while we’re on the subject, how did you get to Ravenna that time?”

“Me? I was passing through Budapest and I heard there that Mihály was married and on his honeymoon in Venice. I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to see the old boy and his wife, so I made a detour through Venice on my way back to Paris. I went to Ravenna when I heard that you had gone there.”

“And why didn’t you mention Éva?”

“I had it in mind. So that he could go looking for her?”

“He wouldn’t have gone looking for her—he was with his wife, on honeymoon.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t believe that would have restrained him.”

“Come on. For twenty years he hadn’t thought of looking for her.”

“Because he never knew where she was. And besides Mihály is so passive. But if he actually knew … ”

“And what harm would it do you if Mihály did meet Éva Ulpius? Are you jealous? Are you still in love with her?”

“Me? Not at all. I never was. She was in love with me. But I didn’t want to cause any trouble in Mihály’s marriage.”

“Are you such an angelic little boy, or what?”

“No. Just that I instantly found you so attractive.”

“Wonderful. In Ravenna you said exactly the opposite. I was pretty offended.”

“Yes, I only said that to see if Mihály would slap my face. But Mihály doesn’t slap anyone’s face. That’s what’s wrong with him. He always turns the other cheek. But to get back to the point: from the first moment you had an enormous effect on me.”

“Amazing. So now I should feel myself honoured? Tell me, can’t you seduce me with a little more wit?”

“I don’t know how to seduce wittily. That’s for weaklings. If a woman attracts me, all I think is that I want her to know it. Then she responds or she doesn’t. But women usually respond.”

“I’m not ‘women’.”

But she was fully aware that she really did attract János Szepetneki: that he desired her body, in a hungry, adolescent way, devoid of adult restraint, single-mindedly, obscenely. And this so delighted her that through her whole being the blood moved faster under the skin, as if she had been drinking. She wasn’t used to this raw instinctuality. Men generally approached her with love and fine words. Their addresses were always to the well-born, well-educated daughter of a good family. And then Szepetneki had come along, that time in Ravenna, and deeply offended her female vanity. Perhaps that had been the start of the collapse of her marriage, and she had ever since carried inside her the sting of Szepetneki’s words. Now here was her remedy, her satisfaction. She behaved so coquettishly towards him that she actually ceased to believe what she really knew: that she was at last taking revenge for the insult at Ravenna, a revenge all the colder for the delay.

But above all she responded to Szepetneki’s advances because she felt with her woman’s instinct that he was treating her essentially as Mihály’s wife. She knew what a strange
relationship
Szepetneki had with Mihály, how he always, by whatever means, wanted to prove that he was the better of the two; and this was why he now wished to seduce Mihály’s wife. Erzsi bathed in Szepetneki’s desire with a sickly, widow-like need for consolation, and she felt that now, with this desire, this awakening, she was becoming Mihály’s authentic wife, she was entering the magic circle, the old Ulpius circle, Mihály’s true reality.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she said, but under their table their knees caressed sensuously. “What are you actually doing in Paris?”

“I make links between large companies. Only very large
companies
,” he said, and began to stroke her thigh. “My finest
connections
are with the Third Empire. You might say that in some respects I am their local commercial representative. And besides I’m trying to bring together this Lutphali business and the
Martini-Alvaert
film studio, because I need pocket money. But tell me, why are we talking so much? Come and dance.”

They went on till three in the morning. Then the Persian piled the two film studio girls he had been entertaining into a car, invited the others for Sunday afternoon at his villa in Auteuil, and took his leave. The others made their way home. Sári was escorted by the French gentleman, Erzsi by Szepetneki.

“I’m coming up with you,” Szepetneki announced when they reached the door.

“How charming. Especially as I share with Sári.”

“Damnation. Then come to my place.”

“It’s clear, Szepetneki, you’ve been a long time away from Budapest. Otherwise there’s no other way to explain how you could so little understand the sort of woman I am. You’ve ruined everything.”

And without a word of parting, she went off in great triumph.

“Hey, what was all that flirting with this Szepetneki?” asked Sári when they had settled into their beds. “Just be careful, that’s all.”

“It’s already over. Can you imagine: he wanted to come up with me.”

“Did he now? You’re behaving as if you had never left Pest. ‘My child, never forget that Budapest is the most moral city in Europe.’ That’s not how they take these things here.”

“But Sári, the first evening … So all it needs for a woman’s dignity is … ”

“Of course. But then you should never even talk to men … Here that’s the only way a woman can ‘defend her dignity’. Just as I do. But tell me, why should a woman defend her dignity? Just tell me why. Do you think I wouldn’t have happily gone with that Persian if he had asked me? But did he ask me? It was in his mind. What a wonderful man! Otherwise, you did well not to get involved with this Szepetneki. He’s very good-looking, I won’t deny, and very much the man, but I have the feeling … look, what I’m trying to
say, but you know this already, he’s a crook. He’ll end up taking your money. ‘Take very great care, my child.’ He once stole five hundred francs from me on a similar occasion. So, night night.”

“A crook,” Erzsi thought to herself, as she lay without sleeping. “That’s just what he is.” All her life she had been the model of a good girl, adored by her nannies and
fräuleins
, her father’s pride and joy, the best pupil in the form, sent abroad to academic
competitions
. Her whole life had been sheltered and ordered, the good bourgeois life consecrated to a sternly supervised moral order. In due course she married a wealthy man, dressed elegantly, took on a grand house and presided over it as a model housewife. She always wore the identical hat sported by every other woman of the same rank in society. She took her summer holidays where fashion dictated, held the same opinions about theatrical
productions
, uttered the turns of phrase currently
de rigueur
. In everything she was a conformist, as Mihály would say. Then she began to get bored. The boredom developed into a full neurosis, and then she chose Mihály for herself, because she felt that he was not entirely conformist, that in him there was something utterly alien to the conventions of bourgeois existence. She believed that through him she too could get beyond the walls, into the badlands, the wide flood-plain and what lay there in the unknown distances. But Mihály was simply trying, through her, to become a conformist himself, using her as a means to become a regular bourgeois, only stealing out into the badlands, into the bushes, furtively and alone, until conformity no longer bored him and he was used to it. Now if János Szepetneki, who had no wish to conform, who lived more or less as a professional bandit beyond the walls, who was so much more untamed and vigorous than Mihály … if he … “
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright/In the forests of the night
… ”