Journey by Moonlight (21 page)

“Fine.”

He had in fact selected this venue because, where Erzsi was concerned, he had a morbid suspicion of everything French. In his imagination Paris and the French symbolised for Erzsi
everything
lacking in him, everything he could not give her. In the French cafés (which he particularly loathed, because the waiters were insufficiently respectful, and never brought water with his coffee) the entire French nation would aid Erzsi in her resistance to him, and she would have the advantage. In the interests of fair play he had chosen the cool, neutral extra-territoriality of the English teashop.

Erzsi appeared. They ordered, and Pataki strove to behave as if nothing had happened between them: no marriage, no divorce. Two clever Budapesti, a man and a woman, happening to meet in Paris. He treated her to the latest gossip from home, full and fully spiced, concerning their close acquaintances. Erzsi listened attentively.

Meanwhile he was thinking:

“Here’s Erzsi. Essentially she hasn’t changed, not even after all
that’s happened and all the time that’s passed since she was my wife. She’s wearing one or two bits and pieces of Paris clothing, chic enough, but, I fear, not of the best quality. She’s a bit down. In her voice there’s a certain, very slight, veiled quality that breaks my heart. Poor little thing! That bastard Mihály! What did she need him for? It seems she hasn’t yet got over him … or perhaps she’s suffered new disappointments in Paris? The unknown man … Oh my God, my God, here am I chattering on about Péter Bodrogi when I’d rather die.

“Here is Erzsi. As large as life. Here is the one woman I cannot live without. Why, why, why? Why should she be the only woman I find desirable, at a time when my general desire for women is
nonexistent
? So many of the others were so much ‘better women’, Gizi for example, not to mention Maria … Just to look at them made my blood well up. And above all, they were so much younger. Erzsi’s no longer exactly … Why, despite all this, here and now, in sober mind and free from the heat of passion, would I give up half my fortune to lie with her?”

Erzsi rarely looked at Zoltán, but listened to his gossip with a smile, and thought:

“How much he knows about everyone! People are so much at home with him. (Mihály never knew anything about anyone. He was incapable of noticing who was whose brother-in-law or
girlfriend
.) I don’t understand what I was afraid of, why I got so
anxious
. That old cliché of the ‘deserted husband’, how much truth is there in it? I really might have known that Zoltán could never get into the way of being the tiniest bit tragic. He finds a smile in
everything
. He abhors everything that’s on a grand scale. If his fate led him to a martyr’s death he’d no doubt make a joke and a bit of gossip even at the stake, to take the edge off the tragic situation. And yet he surely has suffered a lot. He’s older than he was. But at the same time he’s played down the suffering. And occasionally he’s felt wonderful. You can’t feel too sorry for him.”

“Well, what’s the matter?” Zoltán asked suddenly.

“With me? What should there be? I’m sure you know all about why I came to Paris … ”

“Yes, I’m aware of the broad outline, but I don’t know why
everything
turned out as it did. You wouldn’t care to tell me?”

“No, Zoltán. Don’t be offended. I really can’t think why I should discuss with you what happened between me and Mihály. I never talked to him about you. It’s only natural.”

“That’s Erzsi,” thought Zoltán. “A fine lady, real breeding. Nothing, however catastrophic, could make her indiscreet.
Self-control
on two legs. And how she looks at me, with such cool,
withering
politeness! She’s still got the knack—she’s only to look at me to make me feel like a grocer’s assistant. But I can’t let myself be so easily intimidated.”

“All the same, you can perhaps at least tell me what your plans are,” he said.

“For the time being I really don’t have any. I’m staying on in Paris.”

“Are you happy here?”

“Happy enough.”

“Have you filed for divorce yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Zoltán, you ask so many questions! I haven’t, because it isn’t yet time for that.”

“But do you really think he’ll still … do excuse me … that he’ll still come back to you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. I don’t know whether I would want him if he did. Perhaps I’d have nothing to say to him. We aren’t really suited. But … Mihály isn’t like other people. First I would have to know what his intentions were. For all I know he could wake up one fine morning and look around for me. And remember in a panic that he left me on the train. And look for me high and low all over Italy.”

“Do you really think so?”

Erzsi lowered her head.

“You’re right. I don’t really think so.”

“Why was I so frank?” The question gnawed at her. “Why did I give myself away, as I have to no-one else? It seems there’s still something between me and Zoltán. Some sort of intimacy, that can’t be wished away. You can’t undo four years of marriage. There’s no other person in the world I would have discussed Mihály with.”

“My time hasn’t yet come,” thought Zoltán. “She’s still in love with that oaf. With a bit of luck Mihály will mess it up in the
fullness
of time.”

“What news have you had of him?” he asked.

“Nothing. I only guess he’s in Italy. One of his friends is here, someone I also know, by the name of János Szepetneki. He tells me he’s tracking him closely and will soon know where he is, and what he’s doing.”

“How will he find out?”

“I don’t know. Szepetneki is a very unusual man.”

“Truly?” Zoltán raised his head and gazed at her steadily. Erzsi withstood the gaze defiantly.

“Truly. A very unusual man. The most unusual man I ever met. And then there’s a Persian here too … ”

Pataki dropped his head, and took a large mouthful of tea. “Which of the two was it? Or was it both? My God, my God,
better
to be dead … ”

The tête-à-tête did not last very much longer. Erzsi had some business, she didn’t say what.

“Where are you staying?” she asked absent-mindedly.

“At the Edward VII.”

“Well, goodbye, Zoltán. Really, it was very nice seeing you again. And … don’t worry, and don’t think about me,” she said quietly, with a sad smile.

That night Pataki took a little Parisienne back to the hotel. “After all, when you’re in Paris,” he thought, and was filled with unspeakable revulsion against the smelly little stranger snoring in the bed beside him.

In the morning, after she had gone and Pataki was up and
beginning
to shave, there was a knock at the door.

“
Entrez
!”

A tall, too-elegantly dressed, sharp-featured man made his entrance.

“I’m looking for Mr Pataki, the Director. It’s important. A
matter
of great importance to him.”

“That’s me. With whom do I have the pleasure?”

“My name is János Szepetneki.”

N
IGHT WAS FALLING
. Slowly, with a slight dragging of the feet, Mihály trudged over the Tiber.

For some time now he had been living on the Gianicolo Hill, in a shabby little room Waldheim had discovered, where a scruffy crone cooked most of his meals, simple pasta
asciutta
, which Mihály supplemented with a bit of cheese and sometimes an orange. Despite its creaking antiquity it was much more the real thing than any hotel room. The furniture was ancient—real
furniture
, large and nobly proportioned, not the pseudo-furniture one finds in large hotels. Mihály would have been very fond of his room had its state of cleanliness and hygiene not constantly provoked the painful sense of having come down in the world. He even complained to Waldheim, who simply laughed and
delivered
lengthy and not very appetising lectures on his experiences in Greece and Albania.

Thus he came face to face with poverty. Now he really did have to ponder every
centesimo
before parting with it. He gave up drinking black coffee, and smoked cigarettes so foul he could take only a few at a time. His throat was permanently inflamed. And the thought was seldom from his mind that what money he had would soon run out. Waldheim was always assuring him that he would find a job. There were so many stupid old American women running about in Rome that one of them was sure to hire him as a secretary or tutor for her grand-children, or perhaps as a caretaker, a really cosy position that. But at present these American women existed entirely in Waldheim’s
imagination
, and besides, Mihály had a dread of any occupation he might equally find in Budapest.

Anyway, he already had two occupations, and between them they were quite enough for him. The first was, on Waldheim’s instructions, to ‘read up’ on everything Etruscan, to frequent
libraries
and museums, and listen every evening to the conversation of Waldheim and his current academic friends. Mihály did not for a moment feel anything of Waldheim’s immense, genuine
enthusiasm
for the subject, but he clung desperately to the routine of
study for the slight relief it gave from the suffocating middle-class guilt which he still felt, so pointlessly, about his life of idleness. Mihály had never really liked work, but in his bourgeois years had applied himself obsessively because he loved the feeling at night of having done a good day’s worth. Moreover, study momentarily diverted his attention away from his second and more important occupation: waiting for a meeting with Éva.

He simply could not accept the possibility that he would never see her again. The day after that memorable night he had
wandered
round the city in a stupor, with no idea of what he wanted, though he later saw clearly that there was only one thing he could want, so far as the word ‘want’ had any meaning in the case. The academics had taught him that there are degrees of Being, and that only the Perfect was wholly, truly alive. The time he spent in quest of Éva had been more alive, far more truly caught up in
reality
, than all the months and years without her. However good or bad, however bound up with hideous anxiety and trouble, he knew that this was the life, and that without Éva there was no reality other than in thinking of her and waiting for her.

He was tired, oppressed with the sense of his own mortality, and he dragged his feet as if lame. Reaching the river bank he became aware of a feeling that he was being followed. But he dismissed it, persuading himself that it was just his nervous imagination.

However as he trudged through the alleyways of the Trastevere quarter the feeling became ever more insistent. A strong wind began to blow. There were far fewer people than usual about in the streets. “If someone is following me,” he thought, “I must get a glimpse of him,” and he turned round periodically to look. But people kept coming. “Perhaps someone is following me, and perhaps not.”

As he made his way up the narrow streets the feeling
gradually
became so insistent again that he decided not to turn left, up towards the hill, but to continue on through the Trastevere alleyways with the idea of waiting for the pursuer in some suitable place. He stopped outside a little tavern.

“If he wants to attack me,” he thought (in the Trastevere district this was not difficult to imagine) “here at least I can count on help. Someone’s bound to come out of the bar if I shout. But in any case I’ll wait and see.”

He stood outside the little inn and waited. More people came along, having followed him out of the alleys, but none took the slightest notice of him. They simply continued on their way. He was just about to move on when a man approached in the
semidarkness
, and Mihály instantly knew that this was he. With beating heart he realised that the man was making straight for him.

As the shape loomed closer he recognised János Szepetneki. In the whole episode the strangest thing, perhaps the only strange thing, was that he was not particularly surprised.

“Hello,” he said quietly.

“Hello, Mihály,” said Szepetneki, loudly and jovially. “I’m glad you decided to wait for me. This is just the place I wanted to take you. Well, come on in.”

They entered the little tavern, whose strongest feature, apart from the smell, was the darkness. The smell Mihály could tolerate. For some reason the smells of Italy did not bother his normally
sensitive
nostrils. In this particular smell there was something
romantic
, a hint of fatality. But the darkness he did not like. Szepetneki immediately shouted for a lamp. It was brought by a ravishing, distinctly slovenly Italian girl, shockingly thin, with flashing eyes and huge earrings. It appeared Szepetneki was an old
acquaintance
. He slapped her on the back, at which she smiled with her great white teeth and launched into a story in the Trastevere dialect, of which Mihály understood not a single word, though János, who, like all con-men, had a flair for languages, interjected skilfully. The girl brought wine, sat down at the table, and talked. János listened with delight, ignoring Mihály completely, or, at most, offering the occasional comment in Hungarian, such as:

“Fantastic girl, hey? They know a thing or two, these Italians!” or:

“How’s that for a pair of eyes, eh! You don’t see them like that in Pest” or:

“She says, all the men who were going to marry her got locked up, and I’m sure to be the next … what a wit, eh?”

Mihály nervously downed one glass of wine after another. He knew János Szepetneki, knew that he would take ages to get round to what he really wanted to say. For everything he had to establish an appropriately romantic context. So Mihály would have to wait
for this little farce with the Italian girl to run its course. Perhaps Szepetneki ran a gang of burglars in the Trastevere and this girl and this tavern were part of it, at least as a setting. But he also knew that Szepetneki hadn’t come to sort out his gang but because he wanted something from him; and he was profoundly troubled about what it might be.

“Just leave the girl alone and tell me why you followed me, and what you want from me. I haven’t got the time or inclination to witness this little comedy.”

“But why?” asked Szepetneki with a face of innocence. “
Perhaps
you don’t fancy the lady? Or the hostelry? I just thought we could have a bit of fun. It’s such a long time since we were together … ”

And he resumed his chat with the woman.

Mihály stood up and made to leave.

“No, Mihály, for God’s sake, don’t go yet. The only reason I came to Rome was to talk to you. Just stick around for one minute.” And with that he turned to the girl: “Just be quiet a moment.”

“How did you know I was in Rome?” asked Mihály.

“Oh, I always know everything about you, my Mihály. Have done for years. But until now none of it’s been worth knowing. Now you begin to be interesting. That’s why we’ll be meeting more often.”

“Fine. And now be so kind as to tell me what you want from me.”

“I’ve something to discuss with you.”

“You’ve got something else to discuss? And what’s that about?”

“You’re going to laugh. Business matters.”

Mihály’s face darkened.

“Have you been talking to my father? Or my brother?”

“No. Not at present. For the time being I’ve no business with them, only you. But tell me truly, isn’t this girl fantastic? See what a fine hand she’s got. Pity it’s so dirty.”

And once again he turned to the girl and began to rattle away in Italian.

Mihály leapt to his feet and rushed out. He struggled up towards the hill. Szepetneki ran after him and soon caught up with him. Mihály did not turn round, but simply left Szepetneki to address him from behind his back, over his left shoulder, like a familiar.

János spoke quickly and low, panting slightly from the uphill walk.

“Mihály, listen here. I happened to meet a man, a man by the name of Zoltán Pataki, who, it turns out, was your wife’s first husband. But that’s nothing. It also turns out, that this Pataki, believe it or not, still loves her ladyship to death. He wants to take her back. He hopes that now you’ve chucked her over, she’ll perhaps come to her senses, and go back to him. Which would undoubtedly be, for all three of you, the best solution. Well, have you nothing to say? Great. You still don’t understand where the business lies in this, and what business it is of mine. But you know me, I gave up tact a long time ago. In my profession … So, listen to this. Your lady wife not only doesn’t want to divorce you, she still secretly believes that one day you’ll make a happy and contented couple, and perhaps heaven will bless the marriage with children. She knows that you’re not like other people, though she really has no idea what that actually means. She thinks about you a very great deal, to the point of nuisance, and at times when she really shouldn’t. But you needn’t feel bad about her. She’s getting along very nicely, though I don’t want to spread gossip. She’s doing very nicely without you.”

“What do you want?” shouted Mihály, stopping in his tracks.

“Nothing at all. It’s a question of a little business arrangement. Mr Pataki believes that, if you were to take a decisive step, your wife would see that she can no longer expect anything from you, and that it’s all over.”

“What kind of decisive step are you talking about?”

“Well, for example, you might sue for divorce.”

“How the devil would I do that? Since I was the one that left her. And besides, even if she had left me I wouldn’t do it. That’s the woman’s part.”

“Well, yes, naturally. But if the woman doesn’t want to do it, then it’s up to you. At least, that’s Mr Pataki’s point of view.”

“Pataki’s point of view is none of my business, and the whole affair is none of my business. You talk to Erzsi. I’ll fall in with whatever she wants.”

“Look Mihály, this is precisely what our business is about. Use your common sense. Mr Pataki isn’t asking you to give this divorce
for nothing. He’s prepared to make substantial material sacrifices. He’s horribly rich, and he can’t live without Erzsi. So he’s
authorised
me to make you the immediate down payment of a small sum, quite a tidy little sum.”

“Rubbish. On what grounds could I sue for divorce? Against Erzsi? When I was the one who left her? If the court decides that we have to live together again and she comes back to me, what would I do then?”

“But, Mihály, have no fear of that. You sue for the divorce, we’ll see to the rest.”

“On what grounds?”

“Adultery.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Not in the least. Just trust me. I’ll guarantee a wonderful
adultery
, pure as the driven snow. I’m an expert in these things.”

By this time they had reached Mihály’s door. He could hardly wait to get inside.

“God preserve you, János Szepetneki. This time I don’t offer you my hand. What you have said is a lot of disgraceful drivel. I hope I don’t see you for a very long time.”

And he rushed up to his room.