Skylark (18 page)

This was of no interest to Ákos and his wife.

They scrutinised the alighting passengers, as if the one they sought could possibly be among them.

Haughty Budapesters arrived wrapped in splendid shawls and carrying pigskin suitcases. A porter from the King of Hungary relieved them of their luggage with a bow, before escorting them to the restaurant's own bright, glass-encased berlin, in which they were transported to where a hot meal and a clean room awaited them.

Those who were continuing their journeys did not look out upon the insignificant station for long. At most they opened a tiny gap in the curtains, which they immediately shut again with a sneer. By one window a foreign-looking lady stood in the electric light, furnished with every imaginable European comfort and a scarf around her neck, gazing at the rusty pump well and the geraniums in the station manager's window. What a godforsaken hole, her expression seemed to suggest. In the kitchen of the dining car the red-faced chef briefly appeared before the window in a white cap, laughing heartily at some joke.

Now the Vajkays’ panic reached fever pitch.

In a state of excitement, things that normally pass unnoticed can seem pregnant with significance. At such times even inanimate objects–a lamppost, a gravel path, a bush–can take on a life of their own, primordial, reticent and hostile, stinging our hearts with their indifference and making us recoil with a start. And the very sight of people at such times, blindly pursuing their lonely, selfish ends, can suddenly remind us of our own irrevocable solitude, a single word or gesture petrifying in our souls into an eternal symbol of the utter arbitrariness of life.

Such was the effect of the laughing chef on the elderly couple.

As soon as they saw him, they not only suspected, but knew for certain that they were waiting in vain and that the night would pass without their ever seeing their daughter. They were now convinced she would never arrive.

And it wasn't only they who were waiting now. Everyone and everything around them became a personification of waiting itself.

Objects stood still. People came and went.

Towards the west, billowing, ink-black clouds engulfed the sky.

Among those who admired, from beginning to end, the arrival and departure of the Budapest express was Bálint Környey. He greeted Ákos with a roar of laughter.

“You gave us the slip,” he said reproachfully. “You wily old Panther, you left us in the lurch. What time did you get home?'

“Around three.”

“So you got a good night's sleep,” said Környey, yawning into his gloved hand. “We upped sticks about nine in the morning.”

He pointed at the milk.

“I see you've fallen back into depravity.”

“I have a headache,” said Ákos.

“Take my advice,” said the old sinner with a wink. “Waiter, a tankard of beer. Well, old boy, what do you say?'

“No, I daren't. Not a drop. Never again.”

No sooner had the tankard arrived than Környey gulped down the sparkling, cool beer into the bottomless pit of his stomach.

Naturally the Panthers followed on behind him, some ten of them who had come straight from the club, where, at six that afternoon, they'd had pork marrow and pickled cucumbers with a bottle or two of red wine. They joined Környey at the Vajkays’ table to drink beer. Priboczay and good old Máté Gaszner, Imre Zányi in his top hat and Szolyvay, who wore an old-fashioned cape against the cold. Feri Füzes was there too, with his sickly smile, along with Judge Doba, who sat smoking a Virginia and didn't say a word.

The most valiant among them was Szunyogh, who hadn't even been to bed at all. He had passed out for a couple of minutes at dawn, but, in accordance with ancient custom, they had stretched him out on the table with two candles at his head and sung the “
Circumdederunt
.” At this he had come to his senses. Since then he had marched from one inn to the next drinking nothing but schnapps.

Now, too, he dismissively pushed aside the tankard of beer that stood before him.

“
Etiam si omnes, ego non
.”

And he ordered schnapps instead.

“
Aquam vitae, aquam vitae
.”

By now he could speak only Latin, above all through quotations from the classics. At times like these he'd rattle off whole pages of Virgil and Horace. The alcohol set his sharp wits alight and he didn't appear drunk in the least. He sat erect, his blue eyes sparkling brightly, and seemed the most sober of them all. His thick, red nose, which had bled that afternoon, was stuffed with yellow cotton wool he had been given for this purpose by the chemist.

After the third glass of schnapps, Priboczay could not resist performing his ancient party trick. He lit a match and carefully held it in front of Szunyogh's lips.

“Look out,” said several of the Panthers at once. “He'll explode. He'll go up in flames.”

Completely unruffled, Szunyogh stared calmly into space.

“
Castigat ridendo mores
,” he muttered.

Those versed in Latin shouted back at him:

“
Vino Veritas
, old boy,
vino Veritas
.”

The prank delighted Feri Füzes in particular.

He was Szunyogh's former pupil and had often come a cropper with his appalling Latin. He always leaped at any opportunity to pique the old man, as if in repayment of a long-standing debt. For want of a better idea of his own–Feri Füzes could never count to two in his ideas, and the one idea he could count to was usually someone else's–he too lit a match and, in the hope that what had worked once would work twice, lifted it to Szunyogh's mouth.

Szunyogh, however, blew out the match with a single breath and knocked it from his hand.

Everyone applauded. Everyone except Feri Füzes.

“Excuse me,” he said sharply.

“
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses
.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Feri Füzes attempting to affect a certain gentlemanly sang-froid, but unable to disguise the embarrassment of a poor pupil.

He looked his former teacher contemptuously up and down, then drew closer towards him.

“
Silentium
,” Szunyogh cried, raising a trembling finger and staring straight through this small-time cavalier with unspeakable contempt. “
Silentium
,” he repeated, now only to himself as he sank enraptured into that deep and peaceful stillness which he would soon inhabit for good. “
Silentium
.”

Feri Füzes sat back down and debated whether or not to send his seconds to the old drunkard the following day.

The day had passed, for the Panthers, much like any other Friday. Most of the day they spent lying stretched out on their couches, fully clothed, recovering from the night before. The wives sat at home, nursing their patients. For lunch they prepared cabbage broth and caviar puree with lemon and onion. They opened bottle after bottle of mineral water and beer, the latter, as is well known, being the perfect antidote to alcohol poisoning.

Only at around eleven in the morning would the men pay a brief call on Priboczay, who, as a fellow reveller and time-honoured Panther, prepared expert cures for their various complaints in the St Mary Pharmacy. According to the individual taste and ailment of each patient, he mixed medicines from a whole range of ingredients. He took down the
Tinctura China, Tinctura Amara
and
Tinctura Gentiana
, and poured them into handsome cut-glass beakers, stirring in the odd drop of
Spiritus Mentha
and more volatile oils from smaller vials, before baptising the whole concoction with a final dash of ether. This final touch was never to be skimped.

Szunyogh received an extra dose of unadulterated ether, and much good it did him.

The others stood in a circle, chinked their glasses and knocked back the bitter potions. Screwing up their mouths and wrinkling their noses, they all emitted a single, simultaneous Brr. In an instant they were as right as rain.

Now Környey sonorously requested leave to speak.

He had much to report: who had collapsed and when; who had arrived home at what hour and in what manner–on foot, in a carriage, alone or aided by the Samaritan committee whose charge it was to transport the more paralytic Panthers to their beds like corpses; then who had been drinking wine, champagne or schnapps, and how much of each had been consumed by whom; and finally who had been sick and how many times. For in Sárszeg this served as the surest measure of a good time. Those who were sick twice had had a better time than those who were sick only once. Yesterday some had even been sick three times. These had enjoyed an exceptionally good night.

Towards dawn, when they had all soaked up as much of Aunt Panna's wines as they could take, Környey suddenly raised the alarm and called out the fire brigade, who, at his command, hosed down the whole company. From there they thundered off on a fire engine to the last station of their revelry, the Turkish bath, sounding the siren as they went.

Werner was with them too, the tongue-tied Austrian lieutenant rifleman, who when the least bit tipsy couldn't even speak Moravian but was a charming fellow all the same. In the Turkish bath he flatly refused to get undressed, yet insisted on bathing nevertheless. In his yellow-buttoned military greatcoat and cap, his sword by his side and gold stars on his lapels, he waded into the steaming hot water. To the cheers of his admirers, who greeted him like a real hero, he ardently drew his sword, saluted, and with stiff, ceremonious parade steps marched out of the pool just as he had marched in, proceeding through the entrance hall and out into the street. The water streamed from his greatcoat and, as he receded through the earlymorning air, he disappeared inside an enormous cloud of steam. The whole scene was so indescribably humorous and ingenious that it deserved to be commemorated in the Panthers’ records, which were kept by Feri Füzes.

Környey spared no detail in his elaborate account of events, which he delivered with all the precision of a conscientious historian preserving crucial data for posterity. At times his audience roared and shook with laughter, but even this could not conceal their pallor.

Meanwhile others joined them too, complete strangers who made themselves quite at home at the table. A birdlike ham actor, no doubt some member of the chorus, who looked rather like a starling, extended his hand to Ákos.

“Hello, old chap.”

“Hello, old chap,” Ákos replied, shaking hands.

“Who was that?” his wife inquired.

“I don't know,” said Ákos.

There were plenty of such characters, with whom Ákos had been on first-name terms during the feverish festivities of the previous evening. Now, however, he had no idea of who they were.

The whole table seemed a haze before him. The longer he observed the wilting heads and faded faces, above all those of Szunyogh and Doba, the more he felt he must be dreaming the whole thing, sitting among deathly shadows like a ghost.

It was Környey, who had already downed two tankards of beer, who kept the conversation going, throwing one cigarette end after the other on the stone floor, never running out of things to say. His voice sounded like a droning wasp in the Vajkays’ ears. Neither the old man nor his wife could bear to listen.

Ákos repeatedly glanced at his pocket watch.

“Are you waiting for someone?” asked Környey suddenly.

“My daughter.”

“She's been away?'

“For a week now.”

“I had no idea. Where?'

“To Béla's, on the plain.”

“And she's back today?'

“Yes, today.”

The Panthers made ready to leave.

The woman explained to Feri Füzes:

“She went for a break, you see.”

“A change of air,” said Feri Füzes, the perfect conversationalist. “And very healthy too.”

“But the train's so terribly late. My husband and I are frightfully worried. It was supposed to arrive at eight twenty-five, but there's still no sign of it.”

“Good Lord,” said Feri Füzes, “it's already half past eleven.”

“I hope nothing's wrong,” Mrs Vajkay went on nervously.

“That I can't say, my dear lady,” replied Feri Füzes correctly, whom no circumstance could sway from uttering the truth, not even the pleas of a gentlewoman. “I've really no idea.”

He wasn't even particularly interested. Having never concerned himself directly with the Vajkays’ specific affairs of honour, there was really no further information he could supply. All he added was:

“We must hope for the best. I kiss your hand.”

With that, he took up his hat, withdrew with a sickly smile, and followed the other Panthers, who, with Környey at the fore, were already making their way out of the station. And now, after so many noble adventures and entertainments–or, as Szunyogh put it,
post tot discrimina rerum
–the Panthers finally headed home to bed.

XII
in which the author describes the joys of arrival and reunion

Ákos was
once again left alone with his wife.

His disquiet had reached the point where the anxiety born of self-reproach subsides, and speculation is replaced by a dumb stupor which can only mumble broken, meaningless words. He no longer thought of anything, no longer imagined what had happened and what still might happen. He only breathed the odd sigh to keep his fears alive.

“If only she were here!'

“She'll be here soon.”

“If only the Good Lord will help us one more time.”

“He will. He will.”

Mother, who was no less anxious, smiled reassuringly at her husband and gave him a hand to squeeze. Both their hands were ice cold. Everything seemed so hopeless.

In an attempt to outwit their fears, they busied themselves with trivial questions and disputes. Where had they put the pantry key, had they locked the study door?

Then the signal bell rang.

They shuddered at the sound. They stood alone on the platform, for after the departure of the Panthers the station had completely cleared. The waiters had taken up the tablecloths.

Behind them, chugging along at a leisurely pace on the outer track, a long mixed freight and passenger train pulled in, with endless wagonloads of canvas-covered boxes, petrol drums and livestock. They heard a dull, repeated whistle in the darkness from where the passengers soon began to emerge from the third-class carriages; simple folk, peasants with bundles, market women with fruit baskets balanced on their heads, rummaging awkwardly in their bosoms for their tickets by the exit gate.

Géza Gifra informed the couple that this was still not the Tarkő train, which was, however, only one station down the line, and would be in any minute now.

He was right.

Just when they least expected it, the little coffee grinder appeared on the horizon, the same engine they had seen off one week before.

Like a pair of bloodshot eyes, its two red lamps strained at the track through the darkness. It approached with caution, feeling its way, so as not to step on anyone's feet. The engine grew larger by the minute. It had been washed a bright black by the rain, and kept coughing and sneezing as if it had caught cold. The brakes whined, the carriages moaned. It was hardly the most uplifting of sights.

Jolting over the points, it seemed to hobble along until suddenly, quite unexpectedly, it veered to the right and swung towards them on the inner track. It seemed unwilling to come to a halt and dragged its load towards the engine house until the very last carriage finally came to a standstill before their noses.

The Vajkays rushed towards the carriage.

Ákos couldn't see too clearly and automatically reached for his pocket, only to remember that his spectacles had gone missing the night before and he'd have to buy a new pair.

Only one arc lamp now burned above them, rendering the darkness still more uncertain.

In addition to this, there was an almighty din. The quarrelsome cries of passengers calling for porters became entangled with the twilight.

The eyes and ears of the elderly couple were equally confused. Unable to focus their flagging attention on the dizzying scene, they locked their gazes on to the one carriage that stood immediately before them. From this a horse dealer alighted, followed by a tall woman with her husband, whom they didn't recognise. After them came two elderly gentlemen and finally a young couple, carrying their little son together in their arms as he slept sweetly in a cheap, straw hat with green tassels. The carriage was now completely empty.

There was no longer any movement at the front end of the train either. Most of the passengers were already handing their tickets to the inspector at the gate, who kept repeating:

“Tickets, please. Tickets.”

Luggage was being wheeled away on trolleys.

“I can't see her,” said Ákos.

The woman made no reply.

If only to steady herself, she then said in an undertone:

“Perhaps she missed it and will come tomorrow.”

Had these doubts lasted a second longer, it would have been the end of them both.

But far away in the darkness, with a wavering, almost ducklike waddle, a woman was approaching. She wore a black oilskin hat, not unlike a swimming cap, and a long, almost ankle-length, transparent, waterproof cape. In her hand she held a cage.

They stared at her blankly. Terrified of another disappointment, they didn't dare believe it was she. They didn't recognise the oilskin hat, nor the waterproof cape. As for the cage which the woman, who had no other luggage, swung in her right hand, and at times raised up to her chest, this they simply couldn't understand.

The woman was hardly four or five paces from them when Mother glimpsed the outline of a porter behind her, carrying the brown canvas suitcase, bulging at both sides. Then she saw the wicker travel basket too, bound with packing twine, and the flask, the water flask, and, on the porter's shoulder, the white striped woollen blanket. Yes, yes, yes!

She cried out frantically:

“Skylark!” and, almost beside herself, rushed to embrace her daughter.

Father let out the same cry:

“Skylark!” And he too held the girl in his arms.

But while they were thus united, abandoning themselves entirely to their delight, a third voice called out too, farther off in the darkness, a derisive, nasal echo, rather like a cat's miaow.

“Skylark!'

It was one of those mischievous urchins who, for a couple of pennies, would carry people's bags into town. He had witnessed the theatrical outburst from a freight wagon and, finding the scene thoroughly amusing, had imitated the poor couple's voices, before quickly ducking out of view.

All three of them woke with a start from the spontaneous joys of reunion. The smiles froze on their faces.

Skylark strained her eyes towards the station building, but saw no one either on the platform or on the track. She thought she must have been mistaken and acted as if she hadn't heard. She walked on with her mother, who slipped her arm into hers.

Ákos trudged along behind with the porter. But more than once he glanced towards the wagon, his eyes piercing the darkness. He recognised that voice. It sounded like all the others, only more brazen and blunt. At one point he even stopped and took a few steps into the night towards it. But he soon turned back. Instead he swiped the air with his umbrella, dealing it one almighty blow, clearly meant for the insolent youth. Then he caught up with the two women.

Skylark was in fine spirits, witty and jovial.

“My dear parents aren't even pleased to see me. Well, well, they don't even recognise their own daughter.”

“Of course we do,” said Mother. “It's just that hat.”

“Doesn't it suit me?'

“Yes. Only it's so unfamiliar.”

“It's a bit on the tight side. It flattens my hair,” she said, straightening her hair with her free hand. “It's from Aunt Etelka. The cape too. So that I shouldn't get drenched.”

“It's a lovely cape.”

“Isn't it just?'

“Yes. Only it makes you different. So interesting. So independent.”

“Aunt Etelka said so, too.”

“And this?'

“Oh, yes. The cage.”

“What is it?'

“A pigeon.”

They reached the exit. Skylark again raised the cage to her heart and, while Ákos handed her ticket to the inspector, who was more than ready to go home, she coddled and cossetted her darling bird.

“Tubi. He's called Tubica. I won't let anyone take my Tubica. I'm taking my Tubica home myself.”

Outside the station, Father wanted to flag down a hackney carriage. But Skylark caught his arm and wouldn't let him. The unnecessary expense. Besides, the walk would do them good after so much sitting. The porter could carry the luggage.

Ákos gave the man the umbrella. From beneath his heavy load, the porter kept peering back to see how far they had fallen behind.

It was no longer raining and the wind had died down. Only occasional drops shuddered down from the branches of the acacias by the side of the road.

They ambled slowly on between rows of poplars.

Skylark walked in the middle, Mother and Father on either side. Father carried the flask, in which water still slopped to and fro, and the white striped woollen blanket. He gazed at the ground, lost in thought, and didn't hear a word his wife and daughter said. Again he tugged nervously at his left shoulder, carrying his invisible burden, of which he had spoken for the first time the day before. His face was affable, all the same, and he was visibly pleased by the reunion.

“So, what news?” Skylark asked her mother.

“Oh, nothing really. We were waiting for you, that's all. We missed you very much.”

They arrived at Széchenyi Square, whose usually dusty air had been swept clean by the rain. The houses stood side by side in speechless rows, curtains drawn, shutters and windows closed, looking more dwarfish than ever in the dwarfish night.

By now everyone was fast asleep. Bálint Környey slept, Priboczay slept, along with his plump wife and four exuberant rosebud daughters; Szunyogh slept, as did Mályvády, Zányi and Szolyvay; Judge Doba slept, in silence beside his lean, dark, wicked wife; Feri Füzes slept, still the perfect gentleman, smiling sweetly in his dreams, and all the other Panthers and good citizens of Sárszeg slept, including Mr Weisz, in a comfortable brass bed, and perhaps his partner too, albeit in a rather less comfortable brass bed, to be sure.

The Gentlemen's Club, whose first-floor windows would otherwise glow like banners of fire throughout the Sárszeg night, stood in mourning after the exploits of a Thursday night. Only from one window came a pale glimmer of light.

Here Sárcsevits, Sárszeg's guardian spirit, kept vigil beside an electric light, reading
Le Figaro
and advancing with the cultivated West, the enlightened peoples of Europe, on the relentless road to progress.

And someone else was still awake, too: Miklós Ijas, assistant editor of the
Sárszeg Gazette
.

After the theatre he had accompanied Margit Lator to her door, the actress to whom he was bound by such ephemeral ties as may properly bind a young, provincial poet to his muse. Sometimes he'd rest his head in her lap as she showered his chestnut mane with kisses before turning to his brow and lips. Now they had just had tea in the “mystical half-light” cast by the little blue lamp in the soubrette's single room, which she rented for five forints a month. Both of them dreamed endlessly of Budapest, and this drew them together. On such evenings as these, Ijas would rehearse the material of his reviews, praising Margit Lator's outstanding vocal range and maligning Olga Orosz. The woman–who, incidentally, was Papa Fehér's mistress, or rather the mistress of the Sárszeg Agricultural Bank–for her part listened patiently to Ijas's unpublished poems, which would remain in manuscript for many years to come. In a word, she appreciated him.

After this session, Ijas called in at the Széchenyi Café, where, since there was no music tonight, they were already putting out the lamps. He sat down at one of the dimly lit marble tables near the counter. As usual he ordered rum with his black coffee and smoked one cigarette after another. From the waiter's hand he snatched the latest number of József Kiss's fashionable literary journal,
The Week
, and thumbed it from cover to cover in search of the poem he had sent in months before, but always sought in vain. In his mind he dramatised this minor literary disappointment into a more general and deeply rooted
fin-de-siècle
melancholy, and, with an expression that said as much, he gazed out on the street. It was then he saw the Vajkays strolling past in a threesome, the station porter struggling on ahead.

He rose slowly and, carefully avoiding being seen, watched them with a knitted, darkening brow from behind the liqueur bottles on the counter. He even stooped a little to follow them with his gaze until they finally disappeared from view. At once he took out his notebook. Without returning to his seat, he scribbled something down, something important that he should never allow himself to forget.

“Poor Skylark with her parents walking after midnight. Széchenyi Street. Porter.”

He put the notebook back into his pocket. But then he took it out again and stared long and hard at what he'd written, deep in thought.

Snatching up his pencil again, he added three thick exclamation marks.

The Vajkays were already passing the King of Hungary, from which the pungent smell of roast meat wafted. Skylark grimaced.

“Ugh, that awful restaurant smell!'

“We had our share of that,” said Mother with tactful contempt.

“Poor things.”

A horse and cart stood before the St Mary Pharmacy, a peasant with a large leather satchel sitting up on the box. He had driven in from his farm that afternoon to order some medication for his horse, and was waiting for the assistant pharmacist, who worked by candlelight, to finish mixing the three or four pounds of ointment in a marble mortar. Further on, the Baross Café tried in vain to attract the citizens of Sárszeg with its waterlogged, abandoned patio garden. János Csinos gave a first-rate rendition of the latest songs from
The Geisha
and
Shulamit
to empty tables and chairs.

“Did you have rain too?” asked Mother.

“Only this afternoon. The morning was lovely. We walked over to the church in Tarkő. For Mass.”

“Is today a high day?'

“Yes,” said Skylark, “the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.”

On the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin the swallows gather and fly to warmer climes, to Africa. All that follows then is an indian summer.

They had reached the park. Their steps echoed on the asphalt. They looked through the fence.

In the middle of the lawn, dying roses with burnt-out pistils collapsed against whitewashed posts decorated with glass balls. A light breeze scurried down the dark pathways, rattling the odd dry leaf as it passed. The benches, among them the one on which Ákos had sunned himself that Tuesday afternoon, now dripped with moisture. The lawn was turning bald. The park was deserted. Only a policeman paced up and down before the fence, greeting Ákos with a stiff salute. It was the dead of night.