Csardas Read online

  “Because Amalia has a Jew for a father, and Kati does not!”

  It was said, regretted instantly but said. Sickness, disgust, shame welled up between them. Crippling things they had pretended never to think of were revealed instead of being left to fester unseen and unrecognized for the rest of their lives. Always it had been there, covered, held down with many layers of family ties, business discussions, shared transactions, and manly conviviality. Now it was said. The facade that had propped them up for so long was smashed. So much was understood and hated, so many nuances of resentment and rank. Alfred had married a Jewess, but his daughter was still a Racs-Rassay. Zsigmond Ferenc had married a Bogozy, and it was not enough. His daughters and his sons would always be the children of a Jewish banker. And even more: all the hate and resentment, so carefully concealed, neither admitting it even to themselves all these years, was now released, welling up in their hearts. Ferenc money: Jewish money that had saved the Racs-Rassays and the Bogozys, money that had built a new dynasty and repaired an old one, money that the effete, overbred nobility could not earn for themselves. And the cleverness, the brightness, the skill: Gizi with her sharp tongue and keen-edged brain doubling her dowry and building Alfred’s empire; Zsigmond, providing a fortune, buying land, proving that he could do what Alfred could never do. And beneath that something deeper still, something basic and primeval and more vital than any matters of race or wealth or family: two men, facing each other, two males, one with a feeble and inadequate daughter; the other, a Jew, a patriarch, with four fine, strong children.

  “Forgive me, good friend! It was unpardonable. I did not mean it. I am married to your sister; my wife, a good wife.... I try to defend my cousin, the young lieutenant, too vehemently and lose my temper. I ask you, Zsigmond, to forget my ill words and let our families continue in love together.”

  He was a Racs-Rassay; even now, flabby and weakened by years of dependence on Gizi, he could summon something of noble graciousness.

  “Not myself, you understand, not my attitude at all, Zsigmond. But the world—society, you understand—would not appreciate your objections to the young man, would think it strange. Not me, my friend. You know my feelings of appreciation, the work we have done together, the farms, the estates, most gratifying.”

  “Yes.” Silence.

  “I—er—”

  All pretence at conversation ceased. Alfred sat down and stared at the Turkish carpet set in the middle of the polished floor. They would have to go on, continue their lives the way they had done before, share things, pretend they were happy together, but it would never be the same. The silence ceased to be oppressive and became pervaded by a kind of misery. The sound of feet outside the door came as a welcome relief to both of them and their heads turned together as Malie, without knocking, burst into the room.

  “You cannot have the letters! You are going to make me fetch them here, but you can’t!” Her hands, balled into fists, were clenched into the sides of her skirt.

  “Fetch the letters, Amalia,” he answered tiredly.

  “No. I cannot.” Triumphant misery burst from her. “It is too late. I have torn them into pieces, and now they are flushed into the water closet!” Her mouth trembled. “All my letters, all I had of him, and they are gone. Because of you they are gone.”

  “Amalia, you will not write to this young man any more. You will not see him should he return from the front. There is no question of the association developing. I will not permit it, and this continual... defiance must now cease. Do you understand?”

  It was so strange. For the first time Papa was not in the insane, terrifying fury that disobedience usually induced. He was cold but dispassionate, as though discussing a business arrangement in which he had complete control but little emotional interest.

  “I must ask for your word on this, Amalia.”

  She had nothing of Karoly’s now, nothing to hold and read, to say, This was his; this came from him; his hand has touched these pages. The letters, drowned in the lavatory, had left her with no tangible evidence of his beloved presence. Perhaps he was already dead and she would have nothing to hold and say, My love was real; he lived.

  “I shall not give you my word, Papa.”

  He looked up at her then, but more in surprise than in rage.

  “You have no choice, Amalia.”

  “I do, Papa.” She was shaking.

  “While you live in this house, until you are married and have authority of your own, you have no choice, Amalia. You will do exactly as I tell you. Now go.”

  He heard her gasp of indrawn breath; then she stepped forward.

  “I shall not do what you ask, Papa. I cannot. I shall not marry him, because there is no way for me to do this at present. But I will not stop writing. I will no longer involve poor Kati in this matter. I will ask for the letters to be sent here.”

  The fury finally began to generate. Amalia and Uncle Alfred saw the stiffening back, the transparent eyes darken. Amalia had a swift recollection of the beggar with a flapping sleeve, and Papa no longer seemed so omnipotent, so invincible. She was still afraid of him, but she was even more afraid that Karoly might soon be dead.

  “I can leave home, Papa. I have been reading the papers and talking to the Women’s Charity Association. It is all different now; ladies are working and it is respectable because of the war. I can work in a factory, or train to be a nurse, or—there are many, many things. The man who brings the meat. Did you ever notice that now it is his wife who does it? He is dead, her husband, and now she does his job. And at the station, too, a woman is acting as guard.” Her knees were trembling so hard she had to sit down. Never in her life had she defied him before. Only her love for Karoly kept the small thread of courage from snapping. “I do not care any more, Papa. I will not disobey you on anything else. I will be good always. But I want my letters from him. And I will go away and work for the war so that I can have my letters. I will live with Grandma Bogozy.” That was a pathetic and idle boast. The Bogozys, terrified that Zsigmond Ferenc’s money would cease to rescue them, would have packed her home at once. “Or I will go to Budapest and live in a room near a factory.”

  That was ridiculous too. They all knew it was ridiculous—beautiful, graceful Amalia, with her finishing-school manners and her three languages, her music and dancing, trying to work in a factory and earn her living. It was ludicrous.

  “Or if I am no good in a factory, I could work with children,” she continued in a shaking voice. “I look after Jozsef and Leo much more than Marie or the nursemaid. I could go into a private home and look after children, be a governess. There are lots of things I can do.”

  It was still ludicrous, but it wasn’t that ludicrous. The war was already beginning to rock the structure that had supported everyone for so long. Of course Amalia couldn’t go away from home and find work. She would never survive in a world of strong aggressive people. But a small pocket of disquiet began to stir in both Alfred and Papa.

  “You are nineteen, Amalia,” he said furiously. “You will do as I say.”

  “No, Papa.” They could see that her whole body was shaking. She sat in the chair, feet, head, hands, shoulders, all quivering in nervous paroxysm.

  “Leave the room at once!”

  She ran across the floor to the door. They heard her feet hurrying down the passage and sobs, released from tension, breaking from her throat.

  The two men stared at one another. The dreadful thing was still there between them, as it would always be, but now other things could be superimposed upon it.

  “I think she would do it,” said Alfred slowly. “It is bad, the war; things have changed. Look how it is in Budapest now. Women are driving cabs; I even saw a street sweeper, a woman, the last time I was there. In the offices too—my office, the one off Andrassy Avenue—women now, clerks and bookkeepers, all women.”

  Zsigmond was silent.

  “Why not ignore it, good friend? Letters can do no harm.”

  “S
he has disobeyed me,” he replied stonily.

  “Oh, yes, but look here; they are all naughty at that age. Remember how we—”

  He stopped suddenly as he realized that whatever youthful indulgences he had been employed in at nineteen, Zsigmond Ferenc, driven by ambition, would already have been involved in a programme of austerity and work. He felt a shaft of pity—unusual in Alfred—for this man who had never had time to play.

  “Leave it, old friend,” he said quietly. “The war has made everything different. We can only wait; things will change.”

  Zsigmond Ferenc did not answer. Too many things had happened in the space of the past hour. Alfred studied his brother-in-law’s controlled, silent form and wondered, with some fear, what turmoil of emotion seethed beneath the disciplined face. Suddenly he could take no more. He wanted to get out of the study as quickly as possible and return to the café in the square for another glass of brandy.

  “I must go. If Gizi and I can do anything.... You know how close our families are. Great unity. Good-bye, Zsigmond.” He grasped his gloves and hat, waved in an affable, casual way, and moved towards the door. Zsigmond Ferenc nodded but did not speak and, thankfully, Alfred left the room, rushed down the stairs to the courtyard, and was out in the damp, cold air.

  When the letter came from Malie telling him that henceforth he was to write directly to her, it seemed unimportant. Everything connected with Zsigmond Ferenc—the humiliation of their first meeting, the terror and secrecy with which his courtship had been pursued—all seemed trivial, as though it had happened long ago to a young boy. His need for Malie was still strong, stronger than ever. But it had changed. The remembrance of the bright shining girl was the only illusion he had left, the only escape in a landscape of horror.

  In spite of repeated efforts to suppress bad news from drifting down through the armies, a trickle of depressing items—rumours, counter-rumours, atrocity stories—filtered through to the troops. Przemysl, besieged for so long, had fallen to the Russians. Horrifying tales were told of its surrender, of men so starved that as the victors moved in their horses had been torn to pieces and eaten raw. The Russians were at the foot of the Carpathian passes, then over the passes—it could not be true! Soon they would swarm over the great Hungarian plain, and the granary of the Empire would be lost. The 28th Prague regiment had deserted, run away during the battle of the Dukla Pass, and the King and Emperor had dissolved them in a manifesto to their disgrace. The Serbs were winning in the south—surely not! And so it went on, fear piled on fear, hopelessness upon hopelessness.

  When the spring campaign began, everything should have been better. Led by the Germans, the shattered, humiliated Austro-Hungarian armies began to advance, forward across Galicia, across the ground they had lost in the autumn. Fighting forward, winning against the enemy, it should have been better. At least now there was hope, but the hope was accompanied by bitter, savage fighting.

  Karoly’s regiment had been transferred down to the southern, more hilly stretches of Galicia. It should have looked different, but in some strange way it was the same, only worse. Small, cannon-bleached stumps of trees stood unbudding in the new spring. Round one or two of the burnt-out villages a few trees still survived and, almost invariably, from their branches hung the bodies of Ruthenian peasants. Karoly thought the Russians had done it until he came upon his own men stringing up a farmer who refused to tell them where his grain was hidden. He had ordered the man to be cut down, but he knew that the next time, when they came to another village and needed food, his men would do it again.

  He was deaf for four days—from the German guns, not the Russians—and when the time came for him and Stefan Tilsky to lead a charge onto a Russian machine-gun post he was thankful he could not hear the screams of his men being mowed down. They took the post, but his hatred for the enemy was now so intense that he ignored the ragged surrender and began to cut at them with his sabre. After, when he looked at Stefan, he found his friend’s hand, face, and clothes were covered in Russian blood, the same as his own.

  Night was when he needed Malie. From his memory he took her—quiet, serene, smiling—a girl who made the world about her composed and tranquil, a girl who could still the battle if only she chose, who would hold him and soothe him and wash the blood from his hands. When he had a chance to sleep he managed to do it only by imagining Malie wrapping her arms around him and soothing death from his head.

  Forward, forward to Lemberg. The fighting was harder and he killed more. He wondered why he was not killed himself, because the cavalry—as he had told the old general that night in Cousin Alfred’s house—was outdated and archaic. Often he found himself on foot, fighting with sabre and rifle alongside a platoon of infantrymen. In a dispassionate way he pondered on the incongruity of himself and the war. When the hatred was upon him he could kill and slash and smash, faces, arms, legs, torsos, cut them all to pieces. But once he came upon a near-mad emaciated dog gnawing at the rotting skull of a child and he had to turn away and vomit onto the earth.

  Everything looked the same: shell craters, trenches, burnt-out villages, pieces of bodies, broken carts bearing the remains of homes as the refugees fled, either one way or the other. In most cases whichever way they ran they were killed for being traitors to one side or the other.

  In May, through a haze of blood and killing, they heard that the Empire had another enemy. Italy had declared war and was now preparing to wage a battle, different from theirs, an alpine battle but similar in that it was really just a matter of killing.

  Przemysl was relieved, but the fortress had been obliterated by German guns and there was nothing worth having or fighting for any more. Lemberg was taken. Karoly’s troop, two days behind the advance force, entered the city and for the first time in ten months found themselves in a city of buildings, trees, cafés, hospitals, and homes. Everything was a little battered, a little frayed and sordid, but it was a city still, a city with gardens and flowers, with leaves on the trees. There were civilians, not many but some, who looked normal and walked about instead of hanging from the branches of trees. There was filthy ersatz coffee to be drunk in the cafés, and girls to be bought, if one had any money, and beds to be slept in, if there was time to commandeer billeting quarters.

  The collision with civilization turned him once more into a human being, a tired, horrified, disillusioned human being who hated himself, the Russians, the Germans. Malie... Malie. Can I be the same again? Can I enjoy a summer in the mountains ever again?

  They were finally riding out of the town, still advancing, when a colonel from military headquarters shouted at them to stop.

  “You! And you!” He pointed to Karoly and Stefan. “You are to leave your troop here and follow me. I am requisitioning you for urgent and secret military duty. Officers only.”

  He turned. Karoly shouted emergency orders to his men and spurred his horse after the colonel, who led them out of the town, through narrow thoroughfares, to an area of warehouses and stockyards on the outskirts of the city.

  “May I ask our duty, sir?”

  The colonel didn’t answer. In spite of the sordid part of town they were in, quite a few people were walking, hurrying, in one particular direction. Horse-drawn ambulances pushed past them, all of them tightly closed and driven by men with frightened faces.

  “Is it an ambulance train, sir?”

  “You will not speak of what you see, do you understand?”

  “Sir.” A sick depression settled in his stomach. He began to suspect what duty awaited him, something to do with Russian prisoners or possibly deserters from their own army. He hoped, desperately, that he was not being ordered to assist in a mass execution.

  They came to a high brick wall set at intervals with gates, some of which were blown off their hinges by recent shellfire. They rode along the side of the wall until they came to a pair of solid metal doors. One or two civilians were drifting through into the yard beyond and were being pushed back by a harassed lieutenant
with a rifle. But, strangely, most of the people whom Karoly had seen hurrying in this direction were just standing silent by the wall. They were waiting in the aimless manner of people who sense something is wrong and are drawn to find out what it is: curious, afraid, unable to move away.

  “Get back, scum!” The colonel scowled, hitting out with his reins. “Get away, back to your homes! You’ll see nothing here!”

  Like a large dumb animal the crowd moved back a few feet and then, as the colonel rode through the gates, they closed in again, going no farther than before.

  In the yard was a smell. Karoly, used to the smell of battle, blood, and rotting corpses, found himself gagging. It was vile and abominable, more than the smell of death. It was the smell of corruption and sewers and pus. His chest and stomach heaved, writhed, his throat choked and closed. The colonel glared at him.

  “If you have no stomach for this, get out. We can’t afford women or weaklings in the army.”

  “Sorry, sir. It was the smell.”

  The colonel’s face was disdainful. “You’ll get used to the smell. And please note, this is a tannery. Any questions from the rabble outside, and that is what is causing the smell—the rotting leather and uncured hides. You understand?”

  “Sir!”

  “The railway line is at the back.”

  They rode across the yard and then round the factory building. Karoly glanced at Stefan. His friend’s face was wrinkled into a grimace of disgust but there seemed to be no fear, no dread of what they were about to do.

  They came round the end of the leather factory, and he saw it—he saw, but he didn’t believe. It was so horrible that control slipped away from him and, startled, he found he was laughing, a meaningless, uncontrollable, futile laugh. He forced himself to stop and look away, down at the ground, at the line of ambulances, at the soldiers—no, not soldiers—they were all officers who were standing at the openings along the factory walls, trying to block the exits and entrances caused by shell damage.