Journey by Moonlight (23 page)

T
HE NEXT DAY
he received a letter. The handwriting was familiar, very familiar, though he found, with some sense of shame, that he couldn’t quite place it. It was from Erzsi. She informed him that she had come to Rome because she wished absolutely to talk to him, on a matter of great importance, great importance concerning him. He would be able to appreciate that this was not a question of some womanly caprice. Her self-respect would not permit her to seek a connection with him if she did not wish to defend his interests with respect to an extremely painful
matter
; but she considered she owed him that much. Therefore she strongly desired him to call on her, at her hotel, that afternoon.

Mihály was at a loss what to do. The thought of a meeting with Erzsi filled him with dread. His sense of guilt was particularly bad at that moment, and besides he could not imagine what she might want from him. But this soon gave way to the feeling that he had hurt Erzsi so much in the past he could not hurt her yet again by not meeting with her. He took his new hat, bought out of the money received from Pataki, and hurried off to the hotel where she was staying.

Word was sent up to her, and she soon came down to greet Mihály unsmilingly. His first impression was that he could expect little good from this meeting. Her brows were knitted into the frown she wore when she was angry, and she did not relax it. She was beautiful, tall, in every matter of taste elegant, but an angel with a flaming sword … After a few terse inquiries about the
journey
and one another’s health, they walked together in silence.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“It’s all the same to me. It’s so hot. Let’s sit in a
pâtisserie
.”

The ice-cream and
aranciata
brought momentary relief. But they soon got to the point.

“Mihály,” she said with suppressed anger, “I always knew you were pretty useless, and had no idea about anything going on around you, but I had thought there was a limit to your stupidity.”

“That’s a good start,” said Mihály. But he was secretly rather pleased that she considered him a fool and not a villain.

She was surely right.

“How could you have written this?” she asked, and placed on the table the letter he had written to Pataki at Szepetneki’s behest.

Mihály reddened, and in his shame felt such weariness he could not speak.

“Say something!” shouted Erzsi, the angel with the flaming sword.

“What should I say, Erzsi?” he said in a desultory tone. “You’re an intelligent person, you know why I wrote it. I needed the money. I don’t want to go back to Pest, for a thousand reasons. … And this was the only way I could raise money.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t explain such incredible immorality. What an incredible pimp I am. Anyway, I know it. If the only
reason
you came to Rome, in this heat, was to tell me that … ”

“The devil you’re a pimp,” she said in extreme exasperation. “If only you were! But you’re just an idiot.”

She fell silent. “Really,” she thought, “I shouldn’t take that tone with him, seeing I’m no longer his wife … ”

After a while he asked: “Tell me, Erzsi, how did that letter come your way?”

“What do you mean? So, you still haven’t worked the whole thing out? They conned you, János Szepetneki and that disgusting Zoltán. All he wanted was to show me your total lack of principle, in writing. He sent the letter on to me immediately, but first he made a photo-copy, duly notarised, which he kept.”

“Zoltán? Zoltán does that sort of thing? Duly notarised? Such incredibly dark doings as that, something that would never even enter my mind, such fantastic shabbiness? … I don’t understand it.”

“Well of course you don’t understand,” she said, more gently. “You’re not a pimp, just a fool. And Zoltán, unfortunately, is well aware of the fact.”

“But he wrote me such a kind letter … ”

“Oh yes, Zoltán is kind, but he’s clever. You’re not kind, but you are a fool.”

“But then why is he doing all this?”

“Why? Because he wants me to go back to him. He wants to
show me just what sort of lad you are. He doesn’t take into account that I know it anyway, have known it a lot longer than he has, and that I also know what baseness lies behind his goodness and his gentle devotedness. Now if it were simply a question of getting me back, then the whole business has had the opposite result to what he wanted, and that wouldn’t have been so clever. But it’s not just about that.”

“Go on.”

“Listen to this.” Erzsi’s facial expression changed from
exasperation
to horror. “Zoltán wants to destroy you, Mihály. He wants to wipe you off the face of the earth.”

“Really. But he isn’t big enough for that yet. How do you think he’d try?”

“Look Mihály, I don’t know exactly, because I’m not as cunning as Zoltán. I’m only guessing. First of all, I’d do everything I could to make your position in your family impossible. Which, at least for the time being, won’t be difficult, because you can imagine what sort of face your father will make, or has already made,
seeing
this letter.”

“My father? But you don’t think he’d show it to him?”

“I’m quite sure of it.”

Now he was horrified. A shivering, adolescent dread filled him, dread of his father, the old, old terror of losing his father’s
goodwill
. He put down the glass of
aranciata
and buried his head in his hands. Erzsi understood his motives, he knew that. But he could never explain them to his father. He had lost credit with his father, once and for all.

“And after that he’ll get to work in Pest,” Erzsi continued. “He’ll make up such a story about you, you won’t be able to walk down the street. Because, my God, I know that the crime you wanted to commit is not so very unusual. There are hordes of people
running
around Pest who in one way or another have sold their wives and continue to enjoy general respect, especially if they’re in the money and God’s blessing goes with their businesses—but Zoltán will make quite sure that the weekly press, and other leaders of public opinion, will see it in a way that will mean you won’t be able to walk down the street. You’ll have to live abroad, which won’t worry you very much, except that your family will barely be able
to support you, or in fact not at all, since Zoltán will certainly do his utmost to destroy your father’s business.”

“Erzsi!”

“Oh yes. For example he’ll find a way of forcing me to take my money out of the firm. When news of that gets out—and I will have to do it, your father himself will insist—that in itself will be a terrible blow to your people.”

For a long time they sat in silence.

“I’d just like to know,” Mihály said at last, “why he hates me so much. Because he used to be so understanding and forgiving it really wasn’t natural.”

“That’s exactly why he hates you so much now. You really can’t imagine how much resentment was stored up behind his goodness even then, what frantic loathing there was precisely in that
forgivingness
. No doubt he himself believed he had forgiven you, until the opportunity for revenge presented itself. And then like some wild animal reared on milk, suddenly given its first taste of meat … ”

“I always thought of him as such a soft, slimy creature.”

“Me too. And, I have to confess, now that he’s assumed such Shylockian proportions, he impresses me much more favourably. A decent chap, after all … ”

There was another long silence.

“Tell me,” began Mihály, “presumably you’ve some plan,
something
I, or we, must do, that brought you to Rome.”

“In the first place, I want to warn you. Zoltán believes that you’ll walk as unsuspecting into his other traps as you have into this. For example, he wants to offer you a wonderful job, so that you’ll go back to Pest. So that you’ll be right on the spot when the scandal breaks. But you mustn’t go back, at any price. And then I want to warn you about a … friend of yours. You know who.”

“János Szepetneki?”

“Yes.”

“How did you meet him in Paris?”

“In company.”

“Were you with him often?”

“Yes, often enough. Zoltán also got to know him through me.”

“And how did you find János? He’s really unusual, don’t you think?”

“Yes, really unusual.”

But she said this with so much apparent deliberation that
suspicion
flashed through Mihály’s mind. Was it really? … How strange it would be … But his considerable discretion instantly rebelled and he suppressed his curiosity. If it were at all like that, then he should say nothing more about János Szepetneki.

“Thank you, Erzsi, for the warning. You’re very good to me, and I know how little I deserve it. And I can’t believe that in time you too will come to hate me as bitterly as Zoltán Pataki does.”

“I would think not,” said Erzsi, very solemnly. “I don’t feel any desire for revenge against you. There’s no reason why I should, really.”

“I see there’s still something you want to say. Is there something else I should do?”

“There is something else I must warn you about, but it’s rather painful because you might perhaps misunderstand my reason for saying it. Would you still think I’m speaking out of jealousy?”

“Jealousy? I’m not so conceited. I know I’ve thrown away every legal claim on your jealousy.”

Deep down, he was well aware that Erzsi was not disinterested. Otherwise she would not have come to Rome. But he felt, and
chivalry
dictated, that he ought to ignore the fact (which his male ego would normally have insisted on) that she might still be attracted to him.

“Perhaps we should leave this—this question of my feelings,” Erzsi said with some exasperation. “They really have nothing to do with it. So … as I say … look, Mihály, I know perfectly well on whose account you’re in Rome. János told me. The person
concerned
wrote to him that you’d seen each other.”

Mihály lowered his head. He sensed how very much it hurt Erzsi that he loved Éva. But what could he say to alter what was true and unchangeable?

“Yes, Erzsi. If you know about it, good. You know the
background
to all this. In Ravenna I told you everything there was to know about me. Everything is as it had to be. Only it shouldn’t have to be so hard on you … ”

“Please, drop it. I haven’t said a thing about it being hard on me. That really isn’t the point. But tell me … do you know what this woman is? What sort of life she leads nowadays?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never enquired about it.”

“Mihály, I’ve always marvelled at your coolness, but you begin to surpass yourself. I never heard of such a thing, someone in love with a woman who has no interest in who or what sort of … ”

“Because all that interests me is what she was then, in the Ulpius house.”

“Perhaps you aren’t aware that she won’t be here much longer? She’s managed to hook a young Englishman who’s taking her with him to India. They leave in the next few days.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, but it is. Take a look at this.”

She drew another letter from her reticule. The handwriting was Éva’s. It was addressed to János. It gave a brief account of her impending trip to India, and the fact that she did not propose returning to Europe.

“You didn’t know?” asked Erzsi.

“You win,” said Mihály. He got up, paid, and went out, leaving his hat behind.

Outside he staggered for a while in a blind daze, his hand pressed against his heart. Only after some time did he notice that Erzsi was walking beside him, and had brought him his hat.

Erzsi was now quite changed: meek, timid, her eyes all tears. It was almost moving, the tall dignified woman in this posture of a small girl, as she walked beside him, in silence, with his hat in her hand. Mihály smiled, and took his hat.

“Thank you,” he said, and kissed Erzsi’s hand. Timidly, she stroked his face.

“Well, if you’ve no more letters in your reticule, then perhaps we can go and dine,” he said with a sigh.

During the meal they exchanged few words, but those were full of intimacy and tender feeling. Erzsi was filled with a loving desire to console, Mihály with his own suffering, and the great quantity of wine he got through in his unhappiness made him gentle. He saw how much Erzsi still loved him, even now. What happiness, if he in turn could love her, and thus free himself of the past and the dead. But he knew it was impossible.

“Erzsi, in the depths of my heart I wasn’t to blame for what
happened
between us,” he said. “True, that is easily said. But you see,
for so many years I had done everything to make myself conform, and I only married you, as a kind of reward, when I really thought that at last everything was all right, that I had at last made my peace with the world. And then all the demons turned on me—my entire youth and all that nostalgia and rebellion. There’s no cure for nostalgia. Perhaps I should never have come to Italy. This
country
was created out of nostalgia, by kings and poets. Italy is the earthly paradise, but only as Dante saw it: the earthly paradise on the peak of Mount Purgatory, a mere stopping place on a journey, a supernatural aerodrome where spirits take off for the distant circles of heaven, when Beatrice lifts her veil, and the soul ‘feels the great power of the old yearning … ’”

“Oh, Mihály, the world won’t tolerate a man giving himself up to nostalgia.”

“It doesn’t tolerate it. It doesn’t tolerate any deviation from the norm. Any desertion or defiance, and sooner or later it turns the Zoltáns on you.”

“And what do you want to do?”

“That I don’t know. What are your plans, Erzsi?”

“I’ll go back to Paris. We’ve talked about everything now—I think it’s time I went to my room. I’m leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Mihály paid, and escorted her back.

“I would love to know that you will be all right,” he said as they walked. “Say something to reassure me.”

“It’s not as bad for me as you think,” said Erzsi, and her smile was now genuinely proud and satisfied. “My life is very full now, and who knows what wonderful things lie in store for me? In Paris I’ve found myself to some extent, and what I want in life. My only regret is that you’re not part of it.”