They Were Divided (21 page)

When almost everyone was there and the Garazda Boy was standing by the Patronesses, looking at his watch and wondering if he ought to get the first csardas started, there was a stir at the head of the stairs and Adrienne swept into the room.

There was such a mob of people round the entrance that until she arrived in the central aisle she could hardly be seen. Then the dense phalanx of men in their black evening dress parted in the centre and Adrienne stood in full view. For a moment she stood there without moving and then slowly with long strides started to walk down the hall.

Adrienne’s dress was black and very long. It was made of some smooth material covered with tiny shiny metallic paillettes
which shimmered and rustled with every movement she made. It was as if she were covered from neck to floor with some magic snake’s armour. Her head was held high and on it she wore a wide oriental golden crown as seen in pictures of the Manchu empresses. It was made up of branches of golden flowers bent upwards in wide arcs the tips of which had been decorated with hanging fringes of tiny gem stones. The hearts of all the flowers were sewn with rubies which might have been drops of blood upon the shining golden petals.

Her eyebrows and lashes had been darkened and made longer as Chinese women did and indeed Adrienne, with her black hair, ivory skin and pale face which held no trace of colour apart from her vivid red lips, seemed a true evocation of the Far East. She was like the statue of some legendary goddess who had for once stepped out of her pagoda, and her head and shoulders rose triumphantly from the lowest possible décolletage.

Adrienne’s skin glowed with a myriad tiny reflections from the bright lighting of the hall, so that her shoulders, neck and breasts gleamed like highly polished marble. In the proud fullness of her beauty there was no sign of the unformed, skinny schoolgirl she had still resembled long after the birth of her child; and no sign either of the prudish virginal air which for so many years she had adopted whenever some man looked at her with desire in his eyes. All this had vanished some six months before when she had become reunited with her lover and in his arms had been able freely to live the life of a truly fulfilled woman. Her beauty was so sublime that when she entered the room she was greeted by a sudden hush of awe which continued as she started to walk down the hall proudly conscious of the effect she was making.

Balint had been waiting for her not far from the top of the stairs and when she appeared he took an unconscious step towards her, but Adrienne checked him with an almost invisible smile behind which he sensed the unspoken words: ‘Now you can see what it is that I brought from Vienna and which, despite your demands, I would not tell you about. I kept it secret even from you, so that you should see me like this, suddenly, unexpectedly, my tribute to you’, and she continued her progress between the double line of guests, many of them clad in all the colours of the rainbow. And as she continued her queenly progress down the hall a soft murmur of admiration rose around her which mounted to a crescendo as the spectators caught sight of the cascade of thin golden threads which fell from the back of her imperial
crown, some almost to the ground, and all of them ending in a golden flower with a ruby at its heart. As she walked these flowed behind her, each flower reflecting the red-hot desire that could be seen in the eyes of the men who watched her progress.

Finally she arrived at the platform on which the Patronesses of the ball were seated. Then she sank into the deep curtsy of one being presented at Court, her supple body sinking and rising with all the calm and assurance of a panther; and her bearing was so regal that there was a burst of spontaneous applause.

Adrienne’s sweet-natured aunt, Countess Laczok, cried out enthusiastically, ‘Oh, how beautiful you are, my darling!’ and for once even the spiteful old Countess Sarmasaghy, Aunt Lizinka, suppressed her natural malice and found herself saying: ‘I must say I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful!’ Uncle Ambrus, dazzled, roared out: ‘Damned fine wench!’ and in a few moments she was surrounded by a crowd of men, young and old, who would not budge from her side even though the music had just started. Many of them at once asked her to dance. Some she did not seem to hear, but to others she just gently shook her head, for she was waiting for Abady and when he reached her side she took his arm and the others started to melt away.

Recently it had always been like this. Since Uzdy had been taken away hopelessly insane Balint and Adrienne had made no attempt to pretend or hide their love for each other. They made no secret of it and everyone knew; though whether they really were lovers or not remained uncertain. It did not matter for they both held their heads high and everyone knew that they belonged to each other; and so society accepted the situation. Men no
longer
chased after Adrienne, even though she was now so much more beautiful than before, for they realized that she would never look at anyone but Balint, and to pursue her would be in vain.

Everyone knew that divorce was impossible for her and so her feelings for Balint, which neither of them made any attempt to conceal while at the same time conducting themselves with so much dignity and discretion, always together at every function but never arriving or leaving together, became an accepted fact. Even Aunt Lizinka stopped spreading her evil tales about Adrienne for there were no men chasing after her and no
flirtations
to gossip about. Uncle Ambrus stopped yearning after her and hinting that they were having an affair. Now everyone knew the truth, even if not all of it; and as the basis for gossip is conjecture
and concealment, here there was neither and so nothing to gossip about.

Boldly and together Balint and Adrienne faced the world openly.

Deprived of her favourite object of malice Aunt Lizinka had had to look around to find another target. She soon found it in the person of Count Jeno Laczok’s elder brother Tamas. After a
riotous
youth and several years of adventure abroad, Tamas had qualified as a railway engineer and had found employment with the Hungarian State Railways. His work had brought him back to Kolozsvar, and his predilection for very young gypsy girls soon became well-known. Aunt Lizinka at once pounced on this juicy scandal and decided to become ‘worried’ about him. Now, sitting on the Patronesses’ elevated dais, she plunged into the matter with glee, explaining with zest and false concern, that she was
terrified
that her nephew Tamas would land in gaol. ‘You know, my dear, that little gypsy girl he keeps isn’t even thirteen! Think of the scandal! How dreadful this would be for the family! I know for a fact that the police are after him even now.’

Although Aunt Lizinka’s high-pitched screech could be heard in most parts of the hall, Balint and Adrienne, who were strolling past, heard nothing of it. Other people’s affairs were no concern of theirs and so they did not bother to listen. They walked together as in a dream, completely wrapped up in each other and in their own happiness. Soon they sat down together on a bench beside the wall and then Adrienne turned smiling to her lover and said, ‘Do you like it?’

‘Very, very much!’

‘Really and truly?’

‘Even more than very, very much!’ he repeated warmly and then, very softly, in a low whisper that no one could possibly
overhear
, he muttered into her ear a few words in English, words whose meaning was their own secret symbol of their love.

For a moment Adrienne lowered her eyelids over her big topaz-coloured eyes. She did not speak, for the little movement was her accepted answer; but her full lips opened slightly to show the gleam of her white teeth …

Then with joy in her heart she told him how she had devised her imperial head-dress, how she had pored over illustrated books, and how, when she went to Vienna, she had somehow managed to have it made in the workshop of the opera house. Then she told too how she had secretly brought it home and how,
because the hanging flowers at the back had tickled her neck, she had lengthened them herself to make that jewelled cascade that everyone had admired so much.

The ball soon got under way, and the opening csardas was
followed
by a series of waltzes. Just as Laci Pongracz, the popular band-leader, swung his musicians into the new favourite, the ‘Luxembourg Waltz’, there was a new arrival. A powerfully built man with a black beard entered the room. It was Tamas Laczok, and his appearance was to cause almost as much stir as had that of Isti Kamuthy an hour before, especially among the Lady Patronesses and the other matrons on the platform. This reaction was not entirely unexpected, even by the subject of it himself, for he, as well as all the others, had been fully aware of all the tales that had been circulating about him. As an engineer of the State Railways he had been sent to take charge of some repair works on the line between Kolozsvar and Apahida and had taken up residence some three weeks before in a small peasant’s house in the district of Bretfu.

Though he was not far from the centre of Kolozsvar he had not often come into the town, for his was a solitary nature and he liked his privacy.

Even so the news of the ball had somehow come his way, and though this would not normally have attracted him, he had also heard that old Countess Sarmasaghy was to be one of the patrons together with his younger brother Jeno. To cap it all he had been at the station that morning and had seen the arrival of the banker, Baron Weissfeld, and his family, who had come to attend the ball. The presence of these three had made him decide to put in an appearance himself.

In this he was prompted only by the dislike, amounting to hate, which he felt for all three of them. He was convinced that his brother had plotted with the banker to deprive him of his rightful share of the Laczok forestry holdings and further, that it had been Aunt Lizinka who had played a major part in seeing that he had been disowned by his family at the time he had been sowing his wild oats. The result had been years of exile. It was, of course, true that this experience had made a new man of him, for it was this that had led him first to study in Paris and obtain his engineering degrees and then to find a position with an
international
firm that had first sent him to Durazzo on a construction job and later to work on the building of a railway across the
Atlas mountains. He had remained in Algeria for many years and he could have stayed there with a position of great
responsibility
. But he had decided that he would rather hold some
secondary
post at home with the Hungarian State Railways, partly because he had come to realize that he only felt really at home back in Transylvania and also because if he were to return he would be able to haunt his much hated brother and perhaps also find the means of revenging himself upon his old enemies.

If this was the main reason why he had decided to attend the ball, he had also got wind of the scandalous tales that his aunt was now spreading about him. He had arrived late because he had not at once been able to find his evening clothes, and when he had found them his gypsy servant had had to iron them and then he had had to come into town, locate a shop that would
supply
him with a stiff shirt and white tie, and then go back to Bretfu to dress.

All this conspired to make him late. Now that he had finally arrived he looked around, peering above the heads of the dancing throng, until he saw his aunt and sister-in-law on the official dais and he realized that if Ida Laczok was there her husband could not be far away. Then he saw Baroness Weissfeld fanning herself on a chair near the others. Screened by the multitude of dancing couples he threaded his way, stooping slightly like a big game hunter stalking a pride of lions, towards his much disliked relations, carefully keeping out of their sight until he could
suddenly
burst before them from among the throng of dancers.

The surprise he caused them was as successful as he had hoped.

A little while before most of the older men had vanished from the official platform and taken refuge in the hotel’s smoking room. It was one of the rooms put at the disposal of the Comte d’Eu during his recent visit. The Patronesses, however, had not moved from their place of honour. There, right at the front, were Countess Kamuthy, Baroness Weissfeld, and Tamas’s sister-
in-law
, Ida Laczok. They were listening open-mouthed to Aunt Lizinka who, since she had successfully fought, and won, a battle in the courts to regain her husband’s properties during the repressive régime of Count von Bach after the 1848 uprising sixty years before, had prided herself on her knowledge of the law. Aunt Lizinka was now in full flood describing the criminal proceedings which, according to her, now threatened her nephew Tamas.