They Were Counted (91 page)

 

Up in the mountains it had been snowing hard for two days. Almasko was already blanketed in snow, as was the whole
Kalotaszeg
district. The wolves started to appear.

As soon as this was known to Honey, he cut up some goat meat and poisoned it with strychnine, threaded the pieces on lengths of wire and going to the edge of the forests, tied them to low boughs of pine and juniper. He covered the whole region, making sure the poison was placed wherever the presence of wolves had been reported, in the woods beside the waterfall in the district of Szentyisora and in the country around Pejkoja; everywhere that the wolves were known to gather. That night, his work finished, Honey returned to his forester’s hut in Scrind.

That night, too, a band of silent men left their houses in
Pejkoja
. They were all dressed alike, in felt jackets, rough peasant’s boots and black sheepskin hats. Each man, as always, carried an axe and a long wooden staff. One of them also carried something else, something that hung on long wires, red and chunky, like an outsize bouquet held upside down. Without making a sound they moved quickly through the heavily falling snow with sure
movements
of men used to the ways of the forest.

Although it was pitch dark and the paths were covered they found their way unerringly. For a long time they walked down to the valley of the Szaka and then up to the crest of the mountain on the far side. Finally they left the forests and emerged by the peak below which Balint’s caravan had formed up on leaving Rusz Pantyilimon’s house. Now they had only a hundred yards or so to go.

The leader of the band, Turturika, called back: ‘
Moy
Kula!’ he said softly. ‘Go ahead with the meat and throw it in. If the dogs make no noise, rattle the door so that they can hear you. Mind you chuck the meat about so that they all get some!’

Young Kula, for it was he who had carried the poisoned
bouquet
, went ahead. He had agreed to do that for the others, but only that, and only because he knew that he must. When he had gone a few steps he was swallowed up in the falling snow. The rest of them remained where they were, leaning on their long sticks like shepherds on watch. Soon, though slightly muffled by the curtain of snow, they could hear the dogs barking.

The first sounds seemed to come from farther away down the hill, but then the barking came from nearer at hand, probably from the upper corner of the fortress-like compound: it was the sound of dogs fighting over something. Kula came back and joined the men who had been waiting. Soon the barking stopped, but the men from Pejkoja did not move. They waited for a long time, for the people of the mountain are patient. They had to wait, so time did not matter. After an hour had gone by, Turturika gave a few brief orders and they started off downhill. Two men with axes went to the door while the others went to that part of the wall nearest the mountain, threw a felt jacket over the jagged broken glass that was fixed along the top, and climbed over.

The next day the enquiries started. Gaszton Simo came to the village and, instead of bringing the usual two gendarmes, he came accompanied by four of them, all heavily armed. This was unheard-of and caused much comment in the village.

The great oaken doors were still intact, locked and barred. The house too seemed untouched, until one saw that smoke was seeping out of the windows darkening the walls above with dark smears of soot, and that part of the roof had caved in where the flames in the living-room had caught the beams above. The
falling
snow had nearly extinguished the fire, but it still smouldered inside where Rusz Pantyilimon lay dead upon the floor of his room. Here everything had been smashed into small pieces, and everything that could burn had been set alight. Obviously petrol had been poured everywhere and there remained intact only one corner of the letter tray among the ashes of burnt papers and the icon on the wall in front of which the little oil lamp still glowed, protected, no doubt, by the gusts of snow that had blown in through the broken windows. All this was quickly ascertained by the notary’s inspection, along with the fact that the dogs – two of whom still had pieces of wire in their mouths – had been
poisoned
by strychnine. That was all: nothing else. The pretty little servant boy, Rusz’s slave, who had run down the hill to the
village
and hidden in the mill as soon as the men had entered the house could tell them nothing. He had heard a noise. He had looked out and seen some men. It was dark and the men were dark too. He saw that there were some more outside the gate so he had climbed the wall and fled. His hands had been badly cut by the glass and he had run bleeding profusely, as fast as he could and as far as he could.

That was all he knew.

‘Whom did you see?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Didn’t you recognize anyone?’

‘Nobody!’

‘How were they dressed?’

‘I don’t know!’

No matter how hard they tried or how much they threatened the lad they could get nothing else out of him. Of course it was true that he was still shaking with fright and it was always
possible
that even if he knew more he would never dare admit it.

‘What time did all this happen?’

‘I don’t know. It was night.’

‘All right. Early at night, or late at night?’

‘I don’t know. It was night.
La
noptye!
’

Later at the inquest nothing more was discovered. Many
people
were summoned and questioned, for many people had been heard to utter threats against the hated money-lender. Every man who owed money to Rusz was a suspect and naturally this included all the men of Pejkoja. But no one knew anything, no one confessed or admitted even hearing anything. That night everyone had been at home, everyone had been asleep. The story was always the same. They were morose and sullen, shrugging their shoulders. They knew nothing; they had all been at home in their beds, asleep. No one even tried telling lies or making up complicated alibis by which they might have been trapped into discovery. ‘It was snowing. I was at home, asleep.’

Nothing was ever discovered.

 

It wasn’t until a month later that Abady heard the news in a
letter
from Honey Zutor. Honey had been summoned for
questioning
. They wanted to know where he had hung the meat that was to poison the wolves. He told them in exact detail. It is true that no poisoned meat was found near Pejkoja, but then it wasn’t found anywhere. It could have fallen into the snow and been long covered or it could have been dragged away and eaten
somewhere
else. One or two dead wolves were found; the corpses of others were no doubt deep under the snow. The only person who had been with Honey and who also knew where the meat had been placed was the forest guard Todor Paven. He was also
questioned
but he had returned with Honey afterwards and had spent the rest of the night with him in Scrind. Neither of them had moved from there until the next day when Rusz was already dead. Honey vouched for Todor and Todor vouched for Honey, who wrote all this to his master knowing that he would be
interested
in everything that affected the people in the mountains.

Balint read Honey’s letter on the terrace of the hotel in
Portofino
. Here, sitting before the calm radiance of the blue sea below, surrounded by fruit-covered groves of orange and lemon trees, it was hard to believe in the bitter winter up in the mountains, the all-enveloping snow, silent men striding forth in a blizzard, in cruel murder and mysterious comings and goings in the
all-embracing
darkness. Where Balint sat everything spoke of life and joy and the resurgence of spring. He could not have chosen a place better fitted for his work. He was surrounded by everything that was beautiful. The olive trees were covered in silver-grey
foliage
, the gnarled trunks glowed in the sunlight, the golden fruit of the orange and lemon trees hung everywhere among shining green leaves, the fronds of great palms moved gently in the breeze, and in the bay below small sailing boats flitted to and fro under triangular lateen sails. In the distance the rocky cliffs on the other side of the bay could just be seen through a haze of heat. Here Balint need only think of what was serene and beautiful and here he could shrug off all the worries of life and work quietly in a world that was free of troubles.

 

Balint worked calmly with nothing to disturb him. Even at home there was a lull in the otherwise turbulent political life in
Budapest
. Kristoffy, the Minister of the Interior, had managed to break down the organized civil disobedience of the
municipalities
, and those noisy undisciplined meetings that had so disturbed town halls all over the country had become rarer and finally ceased altogether. The counties and districts were now ruled by government-appointed commissioners and somehow the daily work of administration was done, though no one was quite sure how. As Parliament had not met to pass the budget no taxes had been put to the vote and so little money was coming in. Men who had completed their period of military service could not be demobilized and so the next age-group was not being called up. The recall of Parliament had been indefinitely postponed. In this situation the opposition sat quietly waiting with clenched fists, praying for the day when a total collapse of law and order would call them to power. It was their only hope. Even they had now come to realize that their economic and political programme was hopelessly inadequate and would never work, no matter how much they brandished their well-worn slogans. The party leaders went on repeating themselves, and they were echoed by the
newspapers
they controlled; but the general public, after all the
excitements
of the previous summer, was content to resume normal life.

Apart from what he was able to glean from the Hungarian newspapers, which took an unconscionable time to reach him, Balint had little news from home. One day he met an old friend in Genoa who told him that Gyeroffy was still gambling heavily and also that he had again been named as
elotancos
for the autumn season. He heard a little society gossip, how the King of Bulgaria had passed through Budapest and how a grand ball had been given by the archduke in his honour. This, apparently, had been a magnificent occasion; but it was of no interest to Abady.

Apart from his work Balint wrote only to Adrienne, short, non-committal letters every two or three weeks; and she in turn sent him news of what she was doing. He knew therefore that Addy had made her usual move to Kolozsvar for the winter and that there she was chaperoning her two sisters; that Wickwitz was not there as he had been unable to get leave of absence from his regiment. Judith was apparently much calmer, and Adrienne even wrote that maybe her sister had got over all that nonsense. Later Adrienne reported that the doctors had ordered an urgent cure for her mother, who had gone into a nursing home in
Vienna
. As a result the Miloth girls had also moved to the Uzdy villa where they were living in the rooms of Adrienne’s daughter who had gone to Meran with her grandmother. Adrienne now spent all her days with her sisters, for the old countess had closed the main reception rooms of the villa leaving Adrienne the use only of her own drawing-room in the wing that led off the courtyard. It was tiresome for Adrienne no longer to be sure of the privacy of her own rooms, but at least it meant that they passed most of each day in each other’s company. In consequence things were going much better between her and Judith.
‘
It
was
rather
awkward
at
first
‚’ wrote Adrienne,
‘
especially
for
Judith,
but
maybe
she’ll
stop
thinking
of
me
as
her
enemy!
In
the
evening
when
we
don’t
go
out
to
a
ball
they
both
come
in
and
talk
to
me
while
I
go
to
bed.
We
talk
for
ages
…
and that’s
very
good.
I
hope
that
I
may
be
able
to
help
heal
her
wounds.
Maybe
I’ll
succeed
…’