Csardas Read online

  There was much visiting between Aunt Gizi’s house and the farm. Nearly every morning or afternoon or evening one family would ride to the house of the other family. A great deal of coffee and lemonade was drunk, innumerable card games were played, and Karoly became more and more strained, more and more impatient with everyone.

  As the time drew near for the arrival of Papa a slight air of hysteria seemed to take possession of the farmhouse. The atmosphere in Roza’s kitchen became tense, the little boys constantly being scolded while Roza, usually serene and placid, involved herself in vat after vat of cherry jam. Uncle Zoltan began to shout at the labourers, threatening to turn them off the land and replace them with migrant harvesters if they didn’t hurry up and do all the tasks that should have been done several months ago. A pig was killed, and Roza prepared salami and hurka and the sweet pieces of cured bacon that would later be served at parties and suppers.

  Mama had many more headaches and Amalia became very quiet. Leo and Jozsef were noisy and disobedient and usually went to bed in tears. The long spell without Papa had spoilt them, they had relaxed too much, and now, with his arrival imminent, they were unable to control themselves. The only person who seemed unaffected by Papa’s approaching presence was Eva. She was just as happy and vivacious as she had been ever since they had arrived. A large part of her time was spent in her room, gazing into the mirror, curling her hair with tongs, trimming summer hats with new bows, experimenting with sashes and collars. Eva didn’t seem to care at all that Papa was coming.

  Three days before his expected arrival the boys asked at breakfast if they could go to the Meadow for one more time. Malie looked at Mama.

  “I don’t want to go today,” Mama said fretfully. “Gizi and Alfred are coming this evening, and the Kaldys. I shall rest this afternoon.” An expression of pained irritation crossed her face. “You know how these evenings with Gizi exhaust me!”

  Amalia looked guilty. “Yes, Mama, I know.” She played with a piece of bread, crumpling it into a series of small pellets. “Karoly will be coming to call this morning,” she said timorously. “Could he not take Eva and me and the boys on a picnic, just for the last time? It would be all right if Eva was there, wouldn’t it?”

  Eva fidgeted on her chair. “Oh, Malie, I don’t want to go to that wretched place again. I’m tired of picnics. And you know how badly the midges bit me last time. You can’t ask me to go today. I don’t want blotches on my face when Felix comes this evening.”

  The boys were disappointed. So was Malie. Mama took refuge in a complaint, endeavoring to drown the feeling that she was spoiling the day for Malie and the boys.

  “There’s no reason for you to sulk, Amalia,” she said unfairly. “We have all spent more time than any of us like having picnics in that uncomfortable place. Really! When I think of the times Eva and I have trailed up that terible mountain just to be accommodating—”

  “I didn’t notice Eva’s reluctance when Felix Kaldy was there,” said Malie with unaccustomed sharpness. “She never once mentioned the midges when he was there.”

  Eva flushed angrily. “Malie! How could you be so mean! Well, I’m not coming. If you want to go you can go on your own!”

  There was a bad-tempered silence. Jozsef broke it in a noisy whisper. “Couldn’t you take us on your own, Malie? Just you and me and Leo?”

  “Couldn’t you, Malie?” echoed Leo. She looked miserable, undecided, then said reluctantly, “Oh, I suppose so.Yes, all right, we’ll go, just the three of us. But we must wait to tell Karoly. We cannot go until he has arrived.”

  The boys raced off to the kitchen. Mama and Eva seemed a little abashed. Eva finished her coffee and then hurried out, murmuring that she wanted to change the sash on her dress for this evening. Mama stood indecisively in the doorway for a moment, then followed Eva from the room.

  When Karoly arrived the three of them were waiting on the porch with the picnic box, the boys impatient to be gone, Malie looking wistful.

  “I cannot see you today,” she said tragically—what did a moment now and a whole evening later count for when the day must be spent apart? “I’m taking the boys to the Meadow and neither Mama nor Eva will come.”

  “Can I not join you?”

  “Oh, Karoly, you know what we decided. Mama says we must only meet when others are present.”

  “There will be others,” he said impatiently, gazing into her eyes. “There will be Uncle Sandor and Jozsef and Leo.”

  Amalia gazed back. “You know very well they don’t count, Karoly. We must do what Mama says. You don’t understand about Papa; he would be so angry if he even suspected. We must do what Mama says.”

  Jozsef and Leo thought Karoly was going to lose his temper again, but just then Mama appeared on the porch. She was wearing a lavender dress with flounces round the hem, and with her dark hair piled high on the crown of her head the resemblance to Eva was even more pronounced than usual.

  “Oh, dear!” She sighed. “How complicated it all is. But I cannot think of Karoly fretting here all day while you are playing with the boys.” She fluttered her hands in the air, and then she smiled, one of Mama’s lovely, gay-hearted smiles that made one forget the carelessness and the selfishness. “Dear Karoly!” she said. “How handsome you look in your uniform! Now you will all go on a lovely picnic and we shall say nothing about it to anyone. The last picnic, for my husband will be here in three days’ time. But today you will spend together, a gift from Amalia’s mother—a present from Marta Bogozy.”

  She clasped her hands together under her chin, then flung her arms wide and embraced them both.

  “Dear, dear children,” she murmured. “How happy you are. How wonderful it is to be young and happy, to have such faith in each other, to believe so strongly in the future....” Her face was suddenly old and unhappy, and Leo, the emotional barometer of the family, left the picnic box and came over to hug her lavender skirts.

  “You’ll be happy too, Mama,” he said, a tremor in his voice. “When I am grown up I shall take you on picnics and make you happy. Every day that you don’t have a headache I shall take you for a picnic!”

  She stared unseeing at her son for a moment, and then she smiled and clasped her hands once more. “Now you must go!” she cried. “Not to be late back. Remember, Gizi and Alfred are coming this evening.”

  “What will you do, Mama? What will you do all day?” Everything had changed for Malie. Golden hours with Karoly stretched ahead of her, but even now her pleasure was marred a little. Loving Karoly had made everything keener, her sight and sound and senses more acute. The trees stood out brighter against the sky, the noises of the farm were clearer, louder—and her mother’s loneliness, only dimly sensed until now, was painfully apparent to her.

  Mama shrugged her shoulders. “Today I am feeling very virtuous and noble. Today I shall behave as a real mama—like Gizi or Madame Kaldy. Oh, no, do not be alarmed; I mean only that I shall not stay at home and think of my headache. Today I will think of my children and do things for them. You, Malie, shall go on a picnic with your young man. Eva—” Mama reflected a moment. “I shall go and call on Madame Kaldy. I shall drink lemonade with her. I will talk about her sons and her farm. I will try to remember mutual events in the past that the Bogozys and the Kaldys have enjoyed together. I will try to impress her with our soberness and respectability.”

  Even in the midst of her happiness Malie could see that her mama would never be able to carry through such a worthy and organized visit.

  “And if she is rude to me, as she often is,” continued Mama, warming to the impending visit as other aspects of it occurred to her, “I shall remind her of the time that her husband kissed me at a ball in Vienna. It was in the garden of the Pulszky villa and she had to come and fetch him from me! Ah! Here is Uncle Sandor. Go into the mountains and have a beautiful picnic!”

  It was a stolen day. Tinged with the magic was the knowledge that it was their last time together and that it must be kept
a secret from Papa and Aunt Gizi. The conspiracy made them comrades, made everything more exciting. They giggled—all four—like naughty children, and when the boys, as usual, fell in the stream and Malie and Karoly got wet pulling them out, no one scolded because it was all part of their last adventure. Malie and Karoly walked a little and came back ruffled and flushed. The little boys just got dirtier and wetter and happier, and by the time they all climbed back into the coach, barefoot because their shoes were wet, they looked and felt like a band of gypsies.

  About them was an air of complete invincibility. Nothing could happen to them, nothing could go wrong. They were made strong by the summer day and by their happiness. The differences of age and sex broke down and they shared a communion of rightness, a knowledge that if only they kept this happiness and love alive between them they would always be safe. Sunshine poured down through the trees and formed patches of white on the rutted earth. Even Uncle Sandor had removed his coat and was dozing on the box, letting the horses amble their own way home.

  In the acacia trees, just before the farmhouse came into view, Leo saw a flash of yellow darting through the trees. “A bird!” he cried, but the bird turned into a section of a yellow dress fleetingly seen through trunks and leaves.

  Eva was racing towards them, darting through the wood, out of breath and holding her skirts up with both hands.

  A tiny darting fear, a first unease, made Amalia sit up. Something wrong? No, nothing could be wrong on this most wonderful of days; hold fast to the happiness, the strength, the love; there was nothing Eva could do or say that would destroy the happiness. So why did the darting yellow dress make them all fall silent, make them view with dread the signs of Eva’s distress—her hair coming down, her scarlet face, the clumsiness of her running? Uncle Sandor began to put on his coat.

  “Stop! Uncle Sandor, stop the horses!”

  Eva grasped the bridle of the near-side horse and then stumbled forward to the carriage door.

  “Oh, Malie! Papa. He’s arrived early!”

  A plummeting of the heart, a sense of cold fear, a moment when the news was not believed, could not possibly be true.

  “He came... in a hired coach. Something happened and Papa thought Uncle Alfred should know, because of the bank. The Crown Prince has been killed... in Bosnia. He came to tell him. Oh, Malie!” She was nearly sobbing, holding to the side of the coach for support and drawing breath into her lungs in long searing gasps. “We tried, Mama and I. He wanted to know where you were and when we told him he was cross. He said you shouldn’t be out alone in the mountains with only Leo and Jozsef. And then—Karoly’s horse was there. He saw it and we had to tell him.... Oh, Malie! Why did the Crown Prince have to get killed now? Why couldn’t he have waited for three days....” Her words ran out, petered away in an agony of drawing breath.

  Malie’s face was white but she tried to smile. “I’m sure it will be all right,” she said bravely. “Karoly is related to Uncle Alfred. It is all quite respectable. I’m sure it will be all right....”

  Her voice faded away and Eva turned to follow her gaze. Coming along the track, quietly, smoothly, at a speed not slow, not fast, walked Papa. He was dressed for summer, the way he always was at the farm, an alpaca jacket and a straw hat, but the holiday clothes only made everything worse, emphasizing his icy face and controlled movements. He stopped a short distance away and, ignoring the occupants of the coach, addressed himself to Eva.

  “I believe I directed you to stay in your room, Eva. Return there at once.”

  “Papa, I was going with them! I was going too. I always go on the picnics, Papa, and so does Aunt Gizi, and Mama, and Cousin Kati—”

  “You heard what I said. Return to the house at once.”

  “Papa!”

  “Eva!” It was almost a shout. There was anger in Papa’s face; she was afraid he was about to strike her. She turned quickly and, still panting, sobbing, began to trot back along the path. Papa kept his eyes averted from the coach. Looking down at the ground, he said, “You will oblige me, Amalia, by alighting from the coach.”

  She was shaking. She tried to smile but even her lips were shaking.

  “Papa,” she said in a high-pitched, strained voice, “Papa, this officer is Lieutenant Karoly Vilaghy. He is related to Uncle Alfred. He has been so kind. He offered to take us on a drive today, as Mama and Eva could not come....” Her voice trailed away as Papa slowly raised his eyes to her face, then to her dishevelled hair, and from her hair to the wet skirts bunched up on the seat beside her. Karoly opened the door, jumped down, and went to lift her from the steps.

  “Please stand away from my daughter.” The voice was flat, expressionless. As Malie stepped down she swayed a little, lost her balance, and Karoly put his arm out to help her.

  “I have told you once, sir. Please stand away from my daughter.” A spasm of disgust twisted his face as he stared at Karoly’s bare feet and shirt sleeves.

  Karoly, fumbling, reached inside the coach for his boots and coat. He had to stand on one leg to pull the boots on and, under Papa’s cold stare, he became awkward and clumsy, skipping from one leg to the other and losing his balance.

  “Your horse is tethered in my stable. I would be obliged if you would remove it.”

  Karoly, his boots restoring some of his dignity, stood to attention. He was taller than Papa, but it made no difference because Papa did not afford him the satisfaction of looking up. “I would like to request an opportunity of talking with you, sir. I have asked Malie and Madame Ferenc several times for permission to call and discuss matters with you. Now you are here I can do so. If convenient I would like to call tomorrow.”

  “Please remove your horse from my stable as quickly as possible,” said Papa tonelessly.

  “May I call tomorrow, sir?”

  “You may not call, neither tomorrow nor at any other time.”

  Karoly’s quick temper began to ignite. “You are extremely uncivil, sir. It would be courteous at least to wait until you have spoken with my cousin before you bar me from your house.”

  Papa suddenly raised his head and looked into Karoly’s eyes. The younger man’s temper evaporated immediately and was replaced by a cold sensation at the back of his neck. Zsigmond Ferenc’s eyes were a curious colour, a grey that was almost transparent. There was such venom, such hatred in them that Karoly knew a physical revulsion. The cold at the back of his neck turned into a prickling and he felt his hair rise.

  “Please go, Karoly!”

  She was so small and helpless in her bedraggled wet dress.

  He tried to ignore the terrible man standing between them and imbue her with strength and confidence.

  “I will ask Cousin Alfred to explain, Malie. It will be all right, I promise you. It will be all right.”

  “Please go! Please, Karoly!”

  He looked from her to the man with the colourless eyes.

  “Please!” she sobbed. He sensed that as well as fear she felt shame and humiliation. Her father had turned her into a dirty, abject little girl and she hated Karoly to see her like that.

  Helplessly, turning back once, he walked slowly down the track. He had no idea what to do, how to put things right. Surely, in these enlightened times, no father in the world would intimidate his family to this extent, merely because one of his daughters had been on a picnic with a young soldier? Perhaps it had been a little improper—he was aware of guilty unease because he had suggested it—but to strike such fear, to crush even the high-spirited Eva the way he had—no, it was not possible. He looked back. Malie was lifting the boys out of the coach and her father was looking, just looking.

  “Leo and Jozsef, they have been party to this... Roman picnic? They have taken part in these deceits throughout the summer?”

  “It was only today, Papa! Usually we all go, but today Eva and Mama did not want to come, and—”

  “You cannot tell me, Amalia, that this was the first time you have been alone with the soldier. You have been alo
ne with him several times.” He was not asking a question. He was making a flat statement of fact that forbade further discussion.

  “The boys have nothing to do with it, Papa. There was nothing wrong. They are only little; they just wanted to play in the forest.”

  Leo began to sob. The day had been wonderful, and now the terrible fear of Papa was with them again. Noisy gulps shook his body.

  Papa’s forehead wrinkled in irritation. “Very well. I will speak to the boys later. Sandor! Take my sons for a drive and bring them back in an hour.”

  Uncle Sandor bowed his head. Malie lifted them back into the coach with trembling hands and almost at once it moved off, down the track towards the farm. Leo and Jozsef wanted to look back to see what Malie and Papa were doing, but they were too frightened. When they got to the farmhouse Uncle Sandor didn’t stop; he drove straight on down towards the river, jolting and rattling quite fast on the bad track and making the little boys, who had no Malie to hold them up, lurch and fall over on their seats.

  Leo, with tears coursing down his cheeks, was unaware of what was happening. His first realization came when Jozsef silently tugged on the sleeve of his shirt. Leo looked at his brother, and Jozsef, round-eyed, pointed in the direction of Uncle Sandor’s back. Leo froze. The fear—the familiar known-punishment fear of Papa—was suddenly replaced by another kind, a supernatural, wailing, ogre-ish kind. They were alone with Uncle Sandor!

  Gripping each other’s hands they kept their eyes on his back. Perhaps if they were quiet he would forget they were there and just drive on, gloating over his evil thoughts. Leo tried to think of other things, of honey cakes and Malie. Two kinds of fear wrestled with each other, the misery of Malie and the terror of Uncle Sandor, and in his heart he knew that the misery of Malie and Papa was worse.

  They came to the bank of the river and Uncle Sandor stopped the coach. He sat there for a moment, his back to them, staring out over to the opposite bank. Then, ponderously, he clambered down from the box and came towards them. They shrank back against the seat, gripping tightly to each other, knowing that the moment had finally come.