“And what do you intend to live off of?” Sziklai was curious.
“I don’t know,” Köves declared, this time in a tone of grave concern: he appeared only now to have woken up to his hard and seemingly extreme decision, as if he had not taken it himself but rather had been impelled by some external force, and at that moment one had the impression that he himself was, perhaps, even less prepared for the implications of this than was Sziklai, who assessed these things from a practical standpoint and considered that Köves could make a living without having a job. In his opinion, they would just be happy that Köves did not “come forward with any claims against them,” in return for which they would clearly offer—Sziklai “would have a thing or two to say about that too”—to take him on as a special correspondent: if Köves was smart and industrious, he might be able to “place an article with them” every week.
“Besides which,” Sziklai smiled, “the Firefighters’ Platform is naturally waiting for you with open arms, old chap,” and he related to a happily dumbfounded Köves that while Köves had been away in the army, he, Sziklai, had not been “loafing about” either. It may have taken time, and it was not without its difficulties, but he had managed to get “the managers” to understand that rather than using their own amateur-dramatic society, the job of gaining the fire brigade mass appeal would be done much more effectively and successfully by well-known professional actors who were beloved by all, insofar as he could persuade them to place their talents in the service of the fire brigade, at least for one night. Now, one could not expect professional actors “to play any old role,” so that meant professional writers needed to be won over, like the actors, to the idea of placing their skills at the fire brigade’s disposal and each put together an evening of entertainment which, at a professional level, skilfully and effectively blending tragedy and comedy, was drawn from the subject matter of firefighting, or at least somehow touching on it. Consequently, since they were talking about professionals, it would not do to forget about the customary fees which would be owed them; indeed, it would do no harm—given that they had to be won over to a line of duties which was out of the ordinary, not to say special—to offer something a touch over the customary. That was how the Firefighters’ Platform had come into existence: a small touring company which played in towns and villages alike, and every other month presented a new programme, generally consisting of a compering role and “sketches.”
“The compere’s lines are always written by me,” Sziklai pointed out with an obdurate expression on his face, as though Köves might have some idea of denying him, “and I always write one of the sketches, as does my boss, the deputy commander … seeing as how he has lately discovered the inner writer in himself … you know how it is,” he winked at Köves, “… and from now on you will write one of them, and then we could even do yet another one as co-authors,
under a pen name, though we’ll actually write all three of them together, of course, old chap.” Provided he could make do with little, then, Köves would be able to make a living from sketches and newspaper articles—that is, until the light comedy was completed, of course, when they would be dealing with success and never again be tormented by financial concerns, Sziklai spurred him on before raising an arm to ask Alice over to their table, more than likely wishing to anoint their high hopes with a higher-class hooch, except that in Alice’s place a greasy-faced, flat-footed, paunchy waiter waddled over, for one fine day, to the great sorrow of all the South Seas’ regulars, Alice had vanished from the coffeehouse.
“Where to?…,” Köves was astonished, but he asked Sziklai, and later others too, in vain. She had handed in her notice one day and just vanished, and her post had not been filled since: obviously at the back of it was that dubious, disagreeable, and freakish character, likewise not seen since, on whom Alice had wrongheadedly squandered her time, her attractions, and, no doubt, her earnings as well—that was about all he managed to find out, though when he probed a bit more thoroughly it immediately became clear that this was all just speculation, the only certainty being that Alice was no longer in the South Seas.
Another face that, although once so familiar, had been missing even longer now, rather like Köves, turned up again out of the blue. This face had changed, everyone agreed on that: it had become longer and yet somehow wizened, a bit decrepit, but it was still the same face that, even so, looked down on the others from a towering height from over a bow tie of uncertain colour: it was Tiny, the pianist, and his appearance, as Köves was able to observe with wonderment, was by no means greeted with joy on all sides, more with a certain amount of embarrassment. There was a rumbling in the South Seas, rather like the rumble of a wave suddenly dashing on a rocky channel, and that was how backs and heads moved, rising and falling in alternation on the wave, though only a few people—at
the musicians’ table, for example—stood up to welcome him, and rather hesitantly at that, with a cautious, somehow crooked smile on their faces, whereas others carried on their momentarily interrupted conversations as if nothing had happened, particularly a large male group, all in black tails underneath which each wore a red silk cummerbund: the members of the Tango String Band, until all at once there was a scraping of a chair being pushed back, though with a noise more befitting a throne than a mere chair, and from it, with the assistance of nimble hands placed under the elbow, the Uncrowned staggered to his feet, threw his stubby arms apart, and with much puffing and blowing, sweating profusely, embraced the stupefied musician (or to be more precise, leapt at his neck), and however strange the spectacle offered by the embrace of these two portly men—the smaller one and the giant—the South Seas regulars were nonetheless able to regard the Uncrowned’s act as constituting some sort of solemn proclamation, so to speak, an authorisation, indeed invitation, because, as if waiting for a signal, all at once now almost everyone jumped up, so that they too might hug the pianist or shake his hand, or at least touch the hem of his jacket, pass him from hand to hand, to celebrate and ask him about his sufferings.
Later on, though, he became the centre of endless, heated debates: Köves could only wonder at how much excitement, emotion, and passion which, lacking a specific object, must have been seething hitherto in the South Seas, nebulously like cigarette smoke, for it now all to condense suddenly around, as it were, the magnetic personality of Tiny, the pianist, and coil around, bubble like a maelstrom in the form of sharp reproofs, embittered outbursts, indeed veiled accusations and barely concealed mutual threats. There were cases where, with arguments running low, or when people tired of reasoned argument, they simply hurled short slogans tersely from table to table (by then the musicians had split between two tables, with Tiny’s supporters at one and their opponents, the Tango String
Band to the fore of course, at the other, though there were some who sat today at one and next day at the other, indeed, even some who did not take a seat at all, but scampered between the two tables, perhaps unable to make up their minds, perhaps mediating conciliatorily or, on the contrary, further fuelling the antagonisms, who could tell)—battle cries like, for instance, “Tiny to the piano!” which would elicit the response, “You can’t blackmail us!,” even though Tiny had no wish to sit down at the piano, so there could be no question of any blackmail either, as gradually became evident to Köves at any rate. The hefty disputes, the most serious arguments, of course, were aired at the Uncrowned’s table, and Köves, who caught only snatches of what was said, gathered it was about whether Tiny, who as a result of the changes everyone knew about—or, to be more correct, that no one at all knew about precisely, and yet were still obvious to everyone—had, from one day to the next, been released from the agricultural labour to which he had been carted off, and whose carting-off moreover was judged as “lacking any legal foundation,” notwithstanding which he had not been given back his job (“the piano he was hauled away from”); so, whether Tiny should be satisfied with whatever work he could get, and resign himself to possibly having to play in some out-of-the-way dive or not compromise and hold out—through the courts if need be”—to regain his original position, currently being usurped by the Tango String Band.
Or rather, an elderly, leather-jacketed marketeer raised his index finger—among the Uncrowned’s dyers, marketeers, photographers, and all sorts of other employees, as it now turned out there were also some advocates and barristers, though nowadays, of course, they were not pursuing their original occupations—or rather, the leather-jacketed marketeer corrected them with a pedantic smile:
“Gentlemen, let’s not throw hasty expressions around: instead of “usurpers” we would do better to accept … let’s say the formulation “those currently having legal title,” because that objectively reflects the facts,” which met with prompt agreement from the
leader of the Tango String Band, a man with burning eyes, whose oily black hair was plastered sleekly to his brow. The Tango String Band, he explained with his burning eyes, and with his bony, yellow hands scything the air, the fingers spatula-shaped through constantly gripping his string instrument, nails clipped to the quick—and he could safely assert that all the members of the band shared this view, could only be delighted that the unmerited vilification of a “fellow musician,” and what was more “a fellow musician of such great attainments,” had been ended, but might he be permitted to ask why “an innocent band was now being mucked about as live scapegoats” when their only “sin” was that, certainly, “they were tied by a legal contractual relationship to the nightclub,” and, certainly, did not intend to break that contract until it had “legally” expired. To which one comment was that, if the Tango String Band really were so delighted about an artist, “without exaggeration, a great artist,” regaining his freedom, then instead of continually protesting about a “legal contractual relationship,” they should consider it “their moral duty” to give up their position to the person to whom it “rightfully belongs.” Out of the general tumult unleashed by these words the index finger rose up once more, and its owner, the elderly marketeer, made the observation that although he would not like to be looked on by anybody as the sort of person who was “indifferent in respect of moral questions,” nevertheless he did not think it appropriate to shift discussion onto “a solely moral plane” because:
“Don’t forget, gentlemen, that a ‘moral duty’ may be a moral duty, but that doesn’t make it a legal concept,” he reminded the rest of the table with a subtle, clever smile.
It seemed his words had little effect, however, as the discussion had irretrievably shifted solely to the moral plane and carried on that way, with references to “Tiny’s sufferings,” and in response with great insistence initially, to the “innocent band” and the “legal contractual relationship” but later on with the counter-accusation of “blackmail,” and in the midst of the ensuing general uproar Köves’s
ear also picked out the word “revenge”—to his uneasy surprise, most likely out of the mouth of the baggy-eyed saxophone player, who, together with the blue-chinned musician (who still reeked of hair oil), as Köves was somewhat bewildered to notice, was most vocal in springing to the pianist’s defence. Köves would hardly have ventured (nor of course did he wish to) to remind them of that long-bygone, rather unfortunate conversation that he’d had with them when he had been enquiring about Tiny.
Yet the fact that the pianist had an opinion of his own about his own affair, and moreover one that differed from everyone else’s, Köves only got to learn at last late one evening, with the coffeehouse almost empty except for some musicians on their day off, a few incorrigible regulars, along with Köves himself, of course, who were still loitering around the place (Sziklai was not in the South Seas that day as the Firefighters’ Platform happened to be presenting their new show out of town), when the musician, grasping a half-emptied small glass of cognac to which the Uncrowned had treated him quite a while earlier, strolled over to Köves’s table and asked:
“May I?” at which Köves of course was delighted to invite him to take a seat, having not seen him in the coffeehouse, it now occurred to him, in point of fact for days on end, although it was precisely during these days that the passions raging around his figure had been at their most ferocious pitch, as if the absence of the subject of the disputes not only did not disturb the disputants but was considered to be practically a condition for the disputes to proceed undisturbed.
“What do they know?!” the pianist said to Köves with an indulgently disdainful smile, gesturing vaguely with his head at the virtually empty tables around the place, and went on to tell him that they had made him carry out farm work—digging potatoes, feeding pigs. “I had to get up at the same time as I used to go to bed … I could tell you stories, but what’s the point?” he continued. “I have a sound
constitution, I stuck it out.” In time, they got to know at HQ that he was a professional musician, and the officers had ordered him to play something. They had procured a violin for him to start with—that being the commander’s favourite instrument: he wanted to hear his much-loved songs on the violin, and had become truly furious at him for not knowing how to play that instrument, even doubting whether he could be a musician at all if he couldn’t. In the end, they had procured a piano (in reality, an out-of-tune upright pianino), and he had to play on that. By way of a reward he would be given a helping of special rations and exemptions from some tasks, as well as having poured into him the sour local vino, on which the officers used to get smashed. Later on, he was also allowed to play at village dances, then there was an occasion when he had to accompany a third-rate scratch Gypsy band, sawing away on their beat-up fiddles and wheezing through their clarinets—one could just imagine how that sounded. He had cursed the day when he admitted to being a musician a hundred times over; even feeding the pigs was more respectable work than that.