They Were Counted (100 page)

For the next two days Laszlo was extremely busy. First of all he went to the jeweller’s in the Dorottya Street where he was told that Mr Bacherach had gone away for a few days but was
expected
back soon: at two o’clock on the day after next he would, no doubt of it, be back in the shop. Then he went up to the old quarter near the royal palace, to the house in Donath Street, gave his notice, paid for the last quarter’s rent and sold his furniture, naturally for far less than it was worth. Then he packed up all Fanny’s things – her silken wraps, kimonos, cosmetics, slippers, everything he could find that belonged to her – and had it all posted to the Beredy Palais. Then he arranged for his piano to be sent to Kozard.

It took Laszlo two days to get all this done. On the second day he gave up the Museum Street flat. He removed all his clothes from the cupboards and carefully packed them in his trunk and suitcases. As he did so he became aware of the new grey
morning
coat which he had worn only on the day of the King’s Cup race and never again since. It was lying on his bed, the striped trousers beside it and on the floor the black and beige shoes with their wooden lasts in place. It was as though the corpse of his
former
life lay there on the bed, empty, inert, disembowelled. He folded everything carefully and as he picked up the waistcoat, a little betting slip fell to the floor from the breast pocket; the
number
nine looked reproachfully up at him from the threadbare
carpet
. He picked it up. It had been the tote ticket for that
ill-omened
bet, the bet he had lost. His superstitious words came back to him; suddenly ringing in his head he could hear his reply when Fanny had asked him how much he had risked: ‘Not much! Only my life!’ How true that had been! He thought about it for a few moments, then slipped the little paper back into the pocket from which it had fallen and packed the whole suit as if it had never meant anything to him. He felt no excitement or emotion of any sort: he might have been packing away the life and
memories
of someone he did not know.

A little before midday, the telephone rang. It was the secretary of the Casino reminding him that precisely at noon that day the forty-eight hours’ delay would be up and that if Count Gyeroffy’s debts had not by then been settled, his name would be posted on the blackboard.

‘Thank you! I understand,’ said Laszlo, and rang off.

So his name would be on the board, which wasn’t black even though they called it so. In fact it was a large rectangle of smooth green felt in a frame two metres wide. On it, fastened only by a drawing pin, would be a little slip of paper with a name written on it, nothing more, but everyone knew what it meant … if the person whose name appeared there had not settled his losses
within
one week he would automatically be scratched from the list of members. Laszlo had once seen there such a name, though now he could not recall whose it was. It hardly mattered, for now it would be his, pilloried there for all to see – Count Laszlo Gyeroffy – just that, no more. It would remain there for a week and then it would disappear … for ever.

The telephone rang again. This time it was Neszti
Szent-Gyorgyi
’s butler saying that his master would like to see Count Gyeroffy at once if that were possible. Laszlo automatically replied that he would, only later wondering why he had been summoned and regretting that he had not refused to go. However, he had said he would and he could hardly back out of it now. Therefore he picked up his hat and gloves and went out, but not before
putting
the packet of money in his pocket, for Mr Bacherach would be in his shop at two o’clock.

Count Neszti lived quite close by in a house surrounded by a
garden
in Horanszky Street. It was a strange house and everything inside bore the imprint of its owner’s tastes. The floors were
covered
with the skins of lions and tigers, killed of course by Count Neszti himself, and the walls were closely patterned by the stuffed heads of more wild game also shot by the owner of the house. Under these trophies, low bookcases contained every issue of the stud book and on the chimney-shelf were arranged a multitude of great cups and trophies which his horses had won all over the world during the past three decades. When Laszlo came in he found Count Neszti seated in a deep armchair, the remains of his breakfast on a table beside him. He was smoking a pipe because he liked it, and because he believed that every pleasure should be indulged even if it were not the fashion.

‘Come along in,’ he said in his usual swift monotone. He
gestured
Laszlo towards a chair. ‘Sit down, I want to ask you
something
.’ He put up his monocle. ‘Did you know that your name has been posted on the blackboard?’

‘I know.’

‘Well? Can you settle … or not?’

Laszlo hesitated for a moment, his elbow pressed tightly against the wad in his pocket.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’ He looked Szent-Gyorgyi firmly in the face. Count Neszti let his eye-glass drop. He lifted a hand to his face and twirled his long drooping moustaches. Not a muscle moved, his features might have been carved from granite.

‘So you can’t! I thought as much.’ He, too, paused for a
moment
. Then he passed a hand over the smooth marble-like surface of his bald skull before asking: ‘How much is it altogether?’

‘Seventy-two thousand on word of honour and five thousand signed for.’

‘And what do you intend to do about it?’ said Count Neszti with ice in his voice. Laszlo continued to look the older man in the eye, but he did not answer or move, only his fingers
imperceptibly
caressed the money in his pocket.

There was silence for a few minutes. Then Szent-Gyorgyi put his monocle once more to his eye and, his words clipped hard like the clanking of a rusty cog-wheel, he said: ‘I shall settle the debt. For your part you will immediately inform the Casino of your
resignation
as a member. I will arrange that this is accepted without query. You will do this in writing. There is paper on the table.’ and he pointed with the stem of his pipe to a writing desk that stood in front of the window.

Gyeroffy did as he was told. He walked over to the desk and when he had finished writing and handed the paper to his host, he tried to stammer out his thanks, saying that naturally as soon as he could he … Count Neszti interrupted him: ‘I care nothing for all that! And please do not thank me. I am not doing this for you but because I do not like to see disgrace fall on someone
bearing
a noble name like yours. That is the only reason.’ The
monocle
dropped from his eye: for Count Neszti the matter was settled, the case finished and there was nothing more to be said. He did not put out his hand when Laszlo rose to say goodbye and the latter knew that his punishment had started.

What would he have thought if he’d known that the money was in my pocket all the time, thought Laszlo, smiling in cynical self-mockery as he found his way out through the garden to the street.

 

When Laszlo arrived at the jewellers he was told that Mr Bacherach was in the shop and would be with him in a moment. Then he was shown into the room lined with showcases where
Fanny
had arranged to pawn her pearls. He sat down in the same
armchair
that had been offered to the Countess Beredy. After a short wait the fat bespectacled little jeweller came in and asked who it was that he had the honour to serve. Laszlo gave his name.

‘And how can I serve your Lordship?’ asked Bacherach, seating himself at the chair behind the table.

‘Before leaving for Italy Countess Beredy entrusted me with the sum which you had advanced her on the security of her pearls. Eighty-six thousand crowns, was it not?’

‘That is so,’ said Bacherach, counting the banknotes that Gyeroffy had placed on the table. When he had finished he said: ‘What does her Ladyship wish me to do with the pearls?’

‘The Countess would like you to keep them in safe custody until she returns. Then she will send round for them. In the meantime, however, please give me a paper confirming that the Countess’s account has been settled and that the pearls are at her disposal any time she might wish to collect them. Naturally the paper will
mention
only Countess Beredy’s name. Mine should not appear.’

A discreet smile hovered for a moment over the merchant’s fat face. Then he bowed slightly, rose, and said: ‘Certainly, your Lordship. It will be done at once!’ He hurried out of the room and in a few minutes was back with a letter, which he signed in Laszlo’s presence before putting on the firm’s official stamp and handing it over.

Laszlo went straight to the post office and sent off Bacherach’s receipt to Fanny by registered letter.

With the words ‘It is finished’ ringing in his head, Laszlo stepped out, head held high, and walked briskly home. As he passed the Casino, on the other side of the street, he looked across defiantly thinking that at last he had rejoined the ranks of the just.

Back in his little apartment, which was now empty of nearly all his things, he looked around to make sure that nothing had been forgotten. From the wall he took down a hand-coloured photograph of his father that he had brought from Kozard and laid it in a suitcase that had not yet been closed. Then he thought he must write some line to Fanny for good manners required at least that. He had no writing paper so he took a visiting card from his case and wrote on it: ‘
Thank you for
everything!
’ It was enough. It said all that was necessary. Then he addressed it to the Beredy Palais so that she would find it on her return.

Now it was nearly dark. Laszlo looked at his watch and saw that it was already after five. He had decided to take the six o’clock train, hoping that he would see no one that he knew and so would be able to travel alone. He called down to the hall porter to carry down his luggage and summon a carriage and, while waiting, went over to the window embrasure.

The trees in the Museum garden were still bare. Above them the sloping slate roof of the Kollonich Palais could be clearly seen rising high above the corner of Sandor Street, the long elegant lines emphasized by the copper ribbing that had been placed every few metres and now glowed in the light of the street-lamps. The roof was cluttered with many chimneys which could only be seen from high up and far away. Laszlo gazed at that
enchanted
house, now for ever beyond his reach, and he thought back to the evening when he had returned from Simonvasar
delirious
with happiness and how on that evening he had stood at the same window and looked for a long time at the same distant roofs. Then the boulevards had been illuminated with a thousand
brilliant
lights, lights that were set in long straight rows and had seemed like the symbol of his triumph. Funeral torches now! he thought grimly. Down below the brakes of a tram screeched like an animal in pain …

A
FTER KOSSUTH’S AND ANDRASSY’S NEGOTIATIONS
with the King’s representatives a new coalition government had been formed under the leadership of Dr Wekerle. Then in the first week of May there was a general election. A large majority was won by the candidates of the 1848 Party and, along with other members of the old opposition, the liberal party of Count Tisza was practically wiped out, only a few of his old supporters
obtaining
seats as independent members. The representatives of the
ethnic
minorities increased their numbers to twenty-four, but this signified little in a house of four hundred and fify-three seats. Among the successful candidates from Transylvania was Uncle Ambrus, old Bartokfay, Farkas Alvinczy, Bela Varju, Dr Szigmond Boros, who was appointed a junior minister, and young Kamuthy, who just managed to scrape in a few weeks later as a result of a controverted election which had to be re-held.

Parliament reassembled in a cheerful mood. After the Royal Decree announcing that the new Parliament’s first duty was to work out and put into effect a programme of universal suffrage, the Speaker’s opening address, which spoke of the ‘sovereignty of the people’ had no more effect than the distant rumbling of a thunder storm that had passed. Peace had been declared: now it was time to get down to work to catch up and complete all the
essential
business of government which had been so neglected
during
the unconstitutional period of Fejervary’s government. There were national commercial agreements to be ratified, defence and other national estimates to be voted and, in the counties and districts, order had to be restored and the confusion resulting from the ‘Guardsman’ government’s appointment of
unacceptable
officials, cleaned up: for it was essential that these unpopular ‘lackeys’ should be weeded out, like tares among the corn. Joska Kendy, who now became Prefect in Kukullo, set about the task with undisguised delight and vigour, so much so that his zeal
rivalled
even that of Ordung in Maros-Torda, who was now busy finishing off his old enemy, Beno Peter Balog.

Balint saw something of this unscrupulous settling of old scores when he went to Lelbanya. There someone had slandered the honest notary Daniel Kovacs who had served the little town so long and so unselfishly and who had been so helpful with the starting of Abady’s altruistic schemes for the co-operative and cultural centre. It took him a week of hard work in Kovacs’s
defence
before the matter was settled and he could return to the capital.

In Budapest Balint attended the sitting of Parliament though he was in a depressed mood and found it difficult, however hard he tried, to work up much interest in the proceedings. He also tried to get on with the book he had started in Portofino, but
inspiration
was lacking. It was as if the spring that had spurred him on had broken when he had to give up Adrienne. ‘Beauty in
Action
’ had been his theme and now, though he tried hard to
convince
himself that there was beauty in his renunciation of her, perhaps even heroism, he could not rid himself of the
disconcerting
thought that maybe after all he might subconsciously have been acting from caution, from a desire to escape his
responsibilities
. Surely it could not be that. Adrienne had written those
agonized
and agonizing words ‘
Don’t
kill
me
…
I
beseech
you
…
don’t
kill
me
…
!
’
What could he have done but obey?

 

When Isti Kamuthy was finally elected, second time round, he came to the capital to take his seat. One of the first people he saw in Budapest was Balint, and he at once told him how he had
travelled
in the same train as the Miloths, for old Rattle was going to Baden where his wife now was, while Adrienne and her sisters were going to stay at the Lido in Venice in two days’ time.

‘I expect you know that Judith ith a little touched in the head,’ he lisped. ‘They didn’t thay a word on the whole trip, though I did my betht to make agreeable converthathon!’

Balint did not reply, but turned on his heel and walked away. He did not want to hear any more; he did not want to discover, even by chance, where they were staying. He had promised
himself
that he would not see Adrienne again and if he knew where she was it would not be easy to keep that promise; so he decided that for the next few days he would not eat out except in the
Casino
club dining-room.

That very evening his resolve was broken.

In the centre of town it was stiflingly hot, unbearably so. Accordingly, Balint had himself driven out to the Wampetics Restaurant near the Zoological Gardens. After looking round he told himself that it was so full of people also trying to escape the heat that there would be no point in staying there. He walked across the road and into the City Park. Here, at the Lake
Restaurant
, it was just the same: throngs of people and the only table free was so near the band that he would be deafened. He decided it would be better to go to Gerbeaud, for though it was much more expensive it was sure to be less crowded …

He saw them as soon as he came in. There, sitting on the left, was the whole Miloth family group. Luckily Rattle and Judith were sitting with their backs to him and could not see him.

It looked as if Margit had not noticed his arrival either. Even Adrienne, though she was facing him, had not looked in his
direction
and so was unaware of his presence. She was talking to Isti Kamuthy and Joska Kendy and she looked unnaturally pale. Balint decided to place himself so far away from them that they would be unlikely to see him, and also so that, if by chance they did, there would be so many tables between him and them that he could either wave a greeting from a distance or else pretend that he was so pre-occupied with his own affairs that he had not
noticed
they were there.

He sat down near the lattice-work screen that divided the restaurant from the garden. In the distance he could just see Adrienne’s wide-brimmed Florentine straw hat under which her hair seemed even more raven-hued than ever. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of her lips as she conversed with her
companions
, and once or twice he saw her whole face; but when a fat man sitting near Abady leant forward to shovel more food into his mouth, then Adrienne was once again hidden from view. It was enough, however, to know that she was there even though
separated
from him by table after table of total strangers. He felt a sort of misterious warmth creep over him.

All at once the crowd in the restaurant started to thin out and Balint’s fat neighbour got up and left. Now he could see Addy
unimpeded
, and now, too, something sang in his heart: Adrienne was looking straight at him, her gaze fixed as if she were trying to say something to him from afar. Her lips moved. After a little while the Miloth party rose and started to move away along the central pathway between the crowded tables. Rattle led the way followed by the two younger girls, Kamuthy and Joska. Adrienne lingered behind the others, apparently engaged in pulling on her gloves. She paused, and as she did so she turned towards Balint, summoning him to come to her.

In an instant he was at her side.

‘Tomorrow. Room 23 … the King Istvan Hotel … four o’clock.’ It was an order issued so quickly that he barely heard it, her voice barely more than a whisper, feverish and desperate. It was hardly out of her mouth before she had turned and
rejoined
the others. Balint returned to his own table, his heart
racing
so hard he thought it would pound its way out of his chest.

 

Abady found his way to the little old-fashioned hotel where only people from the country stayed, and promptly at four o’clock he knocked on her door and went in.

Addy came forward to meet him, her expression unusually
solemn
and serious. She did not let him put his arms round her or kiss her cheek but pushed him away with a single imperious
finger
. She did not even use the familiar form when addressing him. They sat down in two chairs near the window.

‘I wanted to see you for just a moment. We haven’t got long. The girls have gone shopping with Mlle Morin and they’ll be back soon. Did you know? We are going to Venice. We are all very worried about Judith. Since … well, you know all about that. Since then she’s been like someone in a trance, like a
sleepwalker
. And sometimes she gets so muddled, not often and luckily only those who know her well seem to notice. The doctors told us to try a change of scene, to get her away from all the places that remind her of what’s happened. My mother’s still away ill and Father cannot get away for long as there’s the whole place to run. That is why I am going with them. It wasn’t easy to arrange, I can tell you, but in the end I managed it!’

They were silent for a few minutes. Balint trembled with
expectancy
. He was sure that something else was coming, something that Adrienne had not yet allowed herself to say, but which was fully thought-out, definite and serious. When she spoke at last her voice was cool, with no trace of excitement.

‘We are planning to stay at least four weeks, possibly five. At Almasko they have agreed to that …’ Adrienne’s onyx-coloured eyes opened very wide. She looked straight into Balint’s face and very slowly she said: ‘So we have one month. That’s all, one month, a whole month … if you would care to join me …?’

‘Addy! My darling Addy!’

Even now she did not allow him to come any closer to her.

‘Not now! No! Later, in Venice. We’ll have four weeks
together
. It’s not much, I know, but four whole weeks … and after that – well, after that it’s over!’

‘What do you mean, over? Surely you don’t mean what you said up there … that you would …?’

‘What does that matter to you? Why should you care?’ Addy laughed a new laugh he had never heard, like the deep cooing of doves, a laugh that sprang from some deep, unknown joy. ‘Why should you care? Four weeks together … why should you care what comes after that?’

She rose from her chair, moving her fingers in the air in front of her face as if she were counting.

‘You’d better go now. The others will be back any minute and it wouldn’t be good if Judith saw you.’ He put his arms round her to say goodbye, and she gave him a swift, absent-minded kiss her, thoughts obviously far away. Then she pushed him out of the door.

 

Abady arrived in Venice in the early afternoon. The sun was shining brightly when he stepped into a gondola and gave the
directions
of a little-known hotel behind the San Marco Square which few foreigners ever discovered. At seven o’clock the same evening he went to the Ponte Canonica, just as they had planned in their letters. It was easy for Adrienne to find her way there through the little backstreets where no one would see and
recognize
her. She was staying in the Danieli Hotel in the old Palazzo Dandolo on the Riva, though she was the only one of her party to do so. Her sisters and Mlle Morin were installed in one of the huge palace hotels on the Lido where Adrienne joined them each day, bathing with them, eating her meals with them, and then
returning
to Venice in the late afternoon or evening. ‘It’ll be better like that,’ she had said to Margit. ‘I can’t sleep out here with the roaring of the sea in my ears. Anyhow it’s better for Judith if I’m not always before her eyes.’