Journey by Moonlight (8 page)

“Perhaps it’s true what Pataki says,” he thought. “I am so abstracted and introverted by nature. Of course that’s a
simplification
—no-one can ever be so neatly categorised—but this much is certain, that I am singularly useless and incompetent in all
practical
matters, and generally not the man in whose calm superiority a woman can trust. And Erzsi is precisely the sort of woman who loves to entrust herself to someone, who likes to know that she belongs completely to someone. She isn’t one of those motherly types (perhaps that’s why she has no children) but one of those who really want to be their lover’s child. My God, how deceived she is
going to be in me, sooner or later. I could more easily become a Major-General than play the role of father. That’s one human quality I completely lack, amongst others. I can’t bear it when people depend on me, not even servants. That’s why I did
everything
on my own, as a boy. I hate responsibility and I always come to despise people who expect things from me.

“The whole thing’s crazy: crazy from Erzsi’s point of view. She would have been better off with ninety-nine men out of a
hundred
than she is with me. Any average, normal fellow would have made a better husband than me. Now I can see it not from my own point of view, but purely from hers. Why didn’t I think of all this before I got married? Or rather: why didn’t Erzsi, who is so wise, think it through more carefully?”

But of course Erzsi couldn’t have thought it through, because she was in love with Mihály, and, when it came to him, was not wise, had not recognised his shortcomings, and still, it seems, did not recognise them. It was just a game of feelings. Erzsi with raw, uninhibited appetite was seeking the happiness in love she had never found with Pataki. But perhaps once she had had her fill, because such passionate feeling does not usually last very long …

By the time he got back to the hotel, after a long rambling walk, it seemed inevitable to him that she would, one day, leave him, and do so after horrible crises and sufferings, after squalid affairs with other men, her name ‘dragged through the mud’, as the
saying
goes. To a certain extent he took comfort in the inevitable, and when they sat down to dinner he could already, a little, look upon her as a lovely fragment of his past, and he was filled with solemn emotion. Past and present always played special games inside Mihály, lending each other colour and flavour. He loved to relocate himself in his past, at one precise point, and from that
perspective
re-assemble his present life: for example, “What would I have made of Florence if I had come here at sixteen?” and this
reordering
would always give the present moment a richer charge of feeling. But it could also be done the other way round, converting the present into a past: “What fine memories will I have, ten years from now, of once having been in Florence with Erzsi … what will such memories hold, what associations of feeling, which I cannot guess at at this moment?”

This sense of occasion he expressed by ordering a huge festive meal and calling for the most expensive wine. Erzsi knew Mihály. She knew that the fine meal signified a special mood, and she did her best to rise to the occasion. She skilfully directed the
conversation
, putting one or two questions bearing on the history of Florence, prodding him to think about such matters, because she knew that historical associations, together with wine, drew him out of his solemnity, and were in fact the only thing that could overcome his apathy. Mihály poured out enthusiastic, colourful, factually unreliable explanations, then with shining eyes tried to analyse the meaning for him, the wonder, the ecstasy of the mere word: Tuscany. “Because there is no part of this land that hasn’t been trodden by the armies of history. The Caesars, the gorgeously apparelled troops of the French kings, all passed this way. Here every pathway leads to some important site and one street in Florence holds more history than seven counties back home.”

Erzsi listened with delight. The actual history of Tuscany did not for one minute interest her, but she adored him when he came alive like this. She loved the way that at these moments, in his
historical
day-dreams, precisely when he reached the furthest point from actual living people and the present world, his remoteness left him and he became a normal person. Her sympathy soon merged with more powerful feelings, and she thought with pleasure of the expected sequel later that night, all the more because the night before he had been in a bad mood, and fell asleep, or
pretended
to, the moment he lay down.

She knew that Mihály’s exalted mood could easily be diverted from history towards herself. It was enough to put her hand in his and gaze deep into his eyes. He forgot Tuscany, and his face, flushed as it was with wine, grew pale with sudden desire. Then he began to woo and flatter her, as if trying to win her love for the very first time.

“How strange,” Erzsi thought. “After a year of intimacy he still woos me with that voice, with that diffidence, as if totally unsure of success. In fact the more he wants me, the more distant and
fastidious
his manner becomes, as if to embellish his desire, to give it the proper respect—and the greatest intimacy, physical intimacy,
doesn’t bring him any closer. He can only feel passion when he senses a distance between us.”

So it was. Mihály’s desire spoke to her across a distance, in the knowledge that she would leave him. Already she had become for him a sort of beautiful memory. He drank heavily to sustain this mood, to make himself believe that he wasn’t with Erzsi but with the memory of Erzsi. With Erzsi as history.

But meanwhile Erzsi drank too, and on her wine always had a strong effect. She became loud, jolly and extremely impatient. This Erzsi was rather new to him. Before their marriage she had had little opportunity for unguarded behaviour when with him in public. He found this new Erzsi extremely attractive, and they went up to the bedroom with equal haste.

That night, when she was at once the new Erzsi and the Erzsi of history, Erzsi-as-memory, when Zoltán Pataki’s letter, with its implicit reminder of the Ulpius days, had so deeply shaken him, Mihály forgot his long-standing resolution and admitted elements into his married life which he had always wanted to keep away from Erzsi. There is a kind of lovemaking fashionable among certain adolescent boys and still-virgin girls, which lets them seek pleasure in a roundabout way, avoiding all responsibility. And there are people, like Mihály, who actually prefer this irresponsible form of pleasure to the serious, adult, and, as it were, officially approved variety. But Mihály, in his heart, would have been
thoroughly
ashamed to acknowledge this inclination, being fully aware of its adolescent nature, of its adolescent limitations. Once he had arrived at a truly serious adult relationship with Erzsi he had
determined
it would express itself only along the ‘officially approved lines’, as befitting two serious-minded adult lovers.

That night in Florence was the first and only derogation. Erzsi was filled with wonder, but she accepted him willingly and
reciprocated
his unaccustomed gentleness. She did not understand what was happening, nor did she understand afterwards his
terrible
depression and shame.

“Why?” she asked. “It was so good that way, and anyhow I love you.”

And she fell asleep. Now he was the one who lay awake for hours. He felt that finally, definitively, he was facing the bankruptcy and
collapse of his marriage. He had to acknowledge that here too he had failed as an adult, and, what was even worse, he had to concede that Erzsi had never before given him so much pleasure as now, when he made love to her not as a partner in adult passion but as an immature girl, a flirtation on a springtime outing.

He climbed out of bed. As soon as he was sure she was still asleep he went to the dressing table where her reticule lay. He
rummaged
in it for the cheques (Erzsi was their cashier). He found the two National Bank lire cheques, each for the same amount, one in his name, the other in hers. He withdrew his own, and in its place smuggled in a sheet of paper of similar size. Then, very carefully, he put it in his wallet, and went back to bed.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
they continued on their way to Rome. The train pulled out of Florence into the Tuscan landscape, between hillsides green with spring. It made slow progress,
stopping
for ten minutes at every station, where the passengers
disembarked
until it was ready to leave, then drifted back, chattering and laughing, at the comfortable pace of the South.

“Just look,” observed Mihály. “You see so much more from the window of a train, here in Italy, than you can in any other
country
. I don’t know how they do it. The horizon is wider here, or the objects smaller, but I bet you can see five times as much in the way of villages, towns, forests, rivers, clouds and sky here, than you would from a train window in, say, Austria.”

“Indeed,” said Erzsi. She felt sleepy, and his worship of all things Italian was beginning to irritate. “All the same, Austria’s more beautiful. We should have gone there.”

“To Austria?!” cried Mihály. He was so offended he couldn’t continue.

“Put your passport away,” said Erzsi. “Once again you’ve left it out on the table.”

The train stopped at Cortona. When he saw the little hilltop town Mihály had the feeling that once, long ago, he had known many such places and was now savouring the pleasure of
renewing
old acquaintance.

“Tell me, why do I feel as if I spent part of my youth among these hilltop towns?”

But Erzsi had nothing to say on the subject.

“I’m bored with all this travelling,” she remarked. “I wish I was already in Capri. I’ll have a good rest when we get there.”

“What, Capri! It would be so much more interesting to get off here in Cortona. Or anywhere. Somewhere unplanned. For example, the next stop, Arezzo. Arezzo! It’s just incredible that there really is a place called Arezzo, that Dante didn’t make it up when he compared their gymnasts to devils because they used their
backsides
as trumpets. Come on, let’s get off at Arezzo.”

“I see. We’re getting off at Arezzo because Dante wrote that
sort of rubbish. Arezzo will be just another dusty little bird’s nest, doubtless with a thirteenth-century cathedral, a Palazzo
Communale
, a bust of the
Duce
on every street-corner, with the usual patriotic inscriptions, several cafés, and a hotel called the Stella d’Italia. I really am not very interested. I’m bored. I just wish I was already in Capri.”

“That’s interesting. Perhaps you no longer swoon at the sight of a Fra Angelico or a Bel Paese because you’ve been to Italy so often. But I still feel I am committing a mortal sin at every station where we don’t get off. There’s nothing more frivolous than travelling by train. One should go on foot, or rather in a
mail-coach
, like Goethe. Take me, for example. I’ve been to Tuscany, but I haven’t really been there. Oh yes, I travelled past Arezzo, and Siena was somewhere nearby, and I never went there. Who knows if I will ever get to Siena if I don’t go there now?”

“Tell me: when you were at home you never showed what a snob you are. What does it matter if you don’t get to see the Siena Primitives?”

“Who wants to see the Siena Primitives?”

“What else would you want to do there?”

“What do I know? If I knew, perhaps it wouldn’t be so exciting. But just to say the name Siena gives me the feeling that I might
stumble
across something there that would make everything all right.”

“You’re daft. That’s the problem.”

“Perhaps. And I’m hungry. Have you got anything to eat?”

“Mihály, it’s appalling how much you’ve been eating since we came to Italy. And you’ve only just had breakfast.”

The train pulled in to a station called Terontola.

“I’ll get out here and have a coffee.”

“Don’t get off. You’re not an Italian. The train might start at any moment.”

“Of course it won’t. It always stands for a quarter-of-an-hour at every station. Cheers. God bless.”

“Bye, silly monkey. Do write to me.”

Mihály left the train, ordered a coffee, and, while the espresso machine coaxed the marvellous steaming liquid out of itself, drop by drop, he began to chat with a local about the sights of Perugia. Finally he drank the coffee.

“Come, quickly,” said the Italian, “the train’s going.”

By the time they got there the train was half way out of the station. Mihály just managed to clamber onto the last coach. This was an old-fashioned third-class carriage, with no corridor. Every compartment was a separate world.

“Never mind,” he thought. “I’ll move up to the front at the next station.”

“Will this be your first visit to Perugia?” asked the friendly native.

“To Perugia? I’m not going to Perugia, unfortunately.”

“Then you must be going on to Ancona. That’s not a good idea. Stop off at Perugia. It is a very old city.”

“But I’m heading for Rome.”

“For Roma? You are joking.”

“I’m what?” asked Mihály, thinking he must have misheard the word in Italian.

“Joking,” shouted the Italian. “This train doesn’t go to Roma. My, what a witty fellow!” (using the appropriate idiom).

“And why shouldn’t this train go to Rome? I got on at Florence with my wife. It said Rome on it.”

“But that wasn’t this train,” the Italian replied with glee, as if this was the greatest joke of his life. “The train to Roma went
earlier
. This is the Perugia-Ancona train. The line forks at Terontola. Wonderful! And the
signora
is happily on her way to Roma.”

“Terrific,” replied Mihály, and stared helplessly out of the
window
at Lake Trasimene, as if an answer might come paddling across it towards him.

When he had taken his cheque and passport the night before he had thought—of course, not really seriously—that they might
perhaps
find themselves separated during the journey. When he got off at Terontola it had again flitted across his mind that he might leave Erzsi to continue on the train. But now that it had really happened he was amazed and disturbed. But at all events—it had happened!

“And what will you do now?” urged the Italian.

“I shall get off at the next station.”

“But this is an express. It doesn’t stop before Perugia.”

“Then I’ll get off at Perugia.”

“Didn’t I just say you were going to Perugia? You’ll get there,
no problem. A very old city. And you must visit the surrounding countryside.”

“Great,” thought Mihály. “I’m on my way to Perugia. But what will Erzsi do? Probably go on to Rome and wait there for the
following
train. But she might also get off at the next station. Perhaps she’ll go back to Terontola. And she won’t find me there. It won’t be easy for her to work out that I left on the Perugia train.

“Yes, that’ll fox her. So if I now get off at Perugia, it’ll certainly be a day or two before anybody finds me. It will take even longer if she doesn’t stop in Perugia but carries on from there on God knows what line.

“Lucky that I’ve got my passport with me. Luggage? I’ll buy myself a shirt and whatnot—underwear is good and cheap in Italy. I was going to buy some anyway. And money … how are we off for money?”

He took out his wallet and in it discovered his National Bank lire cheque.

“Of course, last night! … I’ll change it in Perugia, there must be a bank there that will take it.”

He snuggled into his corner and fell deeply asleep. The friendly Italian woke him when they reached Perugia.