They Were Divided (14 page)

During the previous winter old Marton had occasionally fed his master on roast hare. He never spoke about how he had obtained it, indeed he never spoke about it at all but merely put it on the table. Laszlo was too listless and filled with his own sad thoughts to notice and at that time merely ate automatically whatever was put before him. But when the first snows of Laszlo’s second autumn in the cottage began to fall and old Marton served up roast hare again, his master looked up and said, ‘Hare? Where did you get that?’

He was not particularly interested, and had asked the question only for the sake of something to say.

‘It came.’

‘What do you mean, it came? Did somebody send it?’

Marton did not reply but gathered up the dishes and, with much clattering of plates and knives and forks, put everything on a tray and carried it out of the room.

Laszlo had often been irritated by the old man’s taciturn
manner
and called after him angrily, ‘Will you answer me! Where did that hare come from?’

Marton paused on the threshold of the kitchen and looked back at his master. For an instant a light seemed to glitter in the old man’s eyes. Then he muttered, ‘It came!’ and went out
slamming
the door behind him.

For years Marton had been a persistent and adroit poacher, and it had been the passion of his life. He had been a widower for many years and he had no friends. Throughout Laszlo’s long minority he had lived alone in the unfinished manor house and there had been little change when Laszlo came of age, for he was hardly ever there. The old man was a tied servant who received a living wage from the estate manager and who was able to fatten a couple of yearling pigs annually for himself. He did not need to poach for his dinner but he was drawn to it by some inner yearning for adventure and so that he could feel himself superior to the other folk in the village; for he knew only too well that many of them despised him and thought him mentally deficient. He did not mind, but whenever he trapped a hare he would skin it at once and roast it – and as he ate it he would smile to himself not only because he was enjoying a good meal but also because he felt that somehow he had scored over all those who despised him, the villagers, the gamekeepers, and even the estate manager himself.

Old Marton never tired of telling himself that one had to be a pretty clever fellow to be a good poacher. One had to know what wire or thread was right for each kind of trap or snare and he even knew that the best, though hard to come by, were violin strings. While he still lived in the manor house he had found a packet in one of the drawers and, as Laszlo had long before sold his violin, old Marton quickly slipped it into his own pocket. Of course one had to know, too, exactly how to set the snare so that no passer-by should see it and steal it before the game had been caught. Neither was it an easy matter to go round checking the snares, either at dawn or any other time, without being seen by some curious eye. Furthermore one had to have the Devil’s own cunning, and a lot of knowledge and experience, before one could succeed in getting one’s prey home undetected.

He had been at it for years, but he had only occasionally been able to bring something home for the pot as in those years small game was scarce in that part of Transylvania, especially on such a run-down estate as Kozard.

While he had been lodged in the servants’ quarters of the manor house he would set his snares near the boundary of the park. This had been comparatively easy and it had not been necessary to take many precautions against being seen for no one lived nearby; but since he had moved down into the house in the village things had become more complicated. Azbej had the park fences repaired and so old Marton had no excuse if he were discovered wandering about inside. The only hunting ground left was the forest, down by the riverbed and up the hillside beyond. It was more difficult, but also more exciting.

The old poacher laid his plans carefully and, so as not to make himself conspicuous, went out only occasionally, and when it seemed most likely he would catch something, for example when it looked as if it would snow the following day. He knew that hares were particularly sensitive to the weather and at such times always made for the thickest parts of the woods. At such times old Marton would go off to gather kindling: at least that was what he would tell one of the estate game-keepers if they
happened
to meet and if, and only if, the other man was bold enough to ask what he was doing. This hardly ever occurred for he was known to be surly, a man of few words who usually gave a rude answer if spoken to. The following day at dawn he would visit his traps and snares, and if anything had been caught in the night he would bring it home concealed under his jacket, while he
carried
a heavy bunch of dry twigs so that anyone could see why he had been in the forest. At such times he would walk with his back bent as if tired out from his heavy labours and heaving great sighs as he staggered past the outlying cottages. And all the time he would exult inwardly, his soul pouring out a paean of triumph and joy, for he knew that he was cleverer than them all, for was he not carrying home the fruits of his illegal poaching under their very noses while they knew nothing, nothing at all?

Of course the whole village knew and had always known, but they would never have told it either to Azbej, whom they hated as a quarrelsome martinet – and a stranger to boot – or to old Marton himself, for if they had let the old man know that
everyone
knew what he was up to, there would have been no more fun to be got out of it. As it was they watched everything he did. They saw when he sauntered out to the forest pretending to search for kindling, and how he staggered back under huge loads in the morning before stealing off to the next village to sell the skins. They watched the whole comedy and laughed their heads
off when he was out of earshot. Even the children would enter into the spirit of the game, sometimes calling out: ‘What are you carrying, Uncle Marton?’ and when the old man merely growled back ‘Can’t you see? Wood, of course!’ or ‘Mind your own business, you little bugger!’ they would pull faces behind his back and laugh about it all the following week.

Laszlo knew nothing of all this.

But on that one day it happened that he was stone cold sober and in a foul mood because his weekly allowance had all been spent and at the shop they wouldn’t give him any more to drink. Little Regina would have given him something, but it was Friday afternoon and because of the Sabbath Bischitz would not be leaving the shop and so Laszlo would have no opportunity of getting the girl on her own. He got more and more desperate. Money had to be found somehow or he felt he would go mad. At that moment he happened to glance at the worn chest-of-drawers – a worthless piece of furniture from one of the old servants’ rooms that Azbej had generously allowed him to take from the manor house. On its top lay a long smooth leather case with
triangular
little canvas covers on the corners to prevent it from scuffing and a tiny elegant snap-lock. It was an English-made case for a pair of guns, though now it held only one. It had been sent after him from Desmer when Sara Bogdan Lazar had sent back
everything
that had belonged to him. The feeble lamp cast only a faint glow and yet the smooth hard leather and the brass of the lock and clasps on its leather straps still shone brightly. Laszlo gazed at the case as if hypnotized.

Laszlo had entirely forgotten that he still had it. He got up and looked at it more closely. There, stamped in the leather top, was his name, engraved with a slight spelling mistake – Count Ladislas Gieroffy – just as it had always been from the time, so long ago, when the pair of guns had been a Christmas present from his two aunts in Western Hungary. He stroked the letters lightly, thinking back to that Christmas in the Kollonichs’ great country house when he had been just eighteen. Christmas at Simonvasar! In the library there had been a Christmas tree that reached to the ceiling. The room had been lit by thousands and thousands of candles. Everything had been so bright and Klara had been there … in a white dress … still very slim and girlish … and he could remember her eyes, ocean-grey, and wide open with joy and happiness …

For an instant he stood still, lost in his memories. Then he
shook himself and pressed back the catch almost with loathing and lifted the lid of the case until it rested against the wall. There lay the gun, its stock and barrel in separate compartments, and there lay too the place for its pair which had been sold long before. He wondered why he had kept this one, he who had no money for brandy, let alone for cartridges.

Of course he must sell it at once, and he wondered why it had not previously occurred to him to do so.

He took out the gun and put it together. It was so perfectly made, as neat as any chronometer, that it opened noiselessly and the stock and barrel fitted together with a barely perceptible click. Slight though this was the sound made Laszlo shudder, for it reminded him of the countless times he had heard the same sound, without then even noticing it, at the great annual shoots at the Szent-Gyorgyis’ or the Kollonichs’; and now it was like a great chime of bells from some infinite distance, from a past which was no more. Quickly Laszlo took the gun apart again and put it hurriedly back in its case. He knew he had to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Grabbing his hat and jacket he ran out of the house like a man pursued.

For a little while Laszlo followed the road through the village, and then he turned off down a track that led to the old fuller’s mill on the banks of the Szamos where there lived a man called Fabian. He was known only by his first name for being of Czech or Moravian origin his family name was Szprnad and no one at Kozard could pronounce it properly. He was obviously rich and so had been known as ‘The Millionaire’ ever since he had arrived in the village a year before. As well as the mill he had bought up a wool-combing business and had also built himself an oil-press. He seemed to be half peasant and half townsman and had come from Borgo where, people said, his father had kept an inn. It was soon obvious that he was an astute businessman: he was also a great drinker and sometimes would carouse so long with his friends that the entire supply of beer in the village was consumed and more had to be sent for in a hurry.

Laszlo had first met him in Bischitz’s shop and the newcomer had at once bought him so many tots of brandy that Laszlo had passed out and had to be carried home. Fabian had knocked back just as much, but it had not seemed to have any effect on him and indeed he hardly blinked even after more than a dozen gills of the strongest brand. Since that day the two men had formed a
sort of drinking friendship – it had no other basis – and from time to time Fabian would carry Laszlo off to Szamos-Ujvar for an orgy of drink and gypsy music and sex with the town whores which would last well into the next day. The local tarts were what one might expect in such a small provincial backwater and as for the gypsies they came mostly from the poorest of their kind whose families scratched a living digging clay. This is what Fabian enjoyed for he could only relax in the sort of company where the music was unbelievably noisy, where he could tear off all his clothes and where the women were fat.

Laszlo went down the little path that had been trodden in the snow until he could see a faint glimmer of light from the fuller’s window. The throb of the oil press was like a giant’s heartbeat, and Laszlo, knowing that Fabian was often away travelling, prayed that this time he would find him at home.

He was just in time, for round the corner came Fabian driving his sturdy little cart. The fuller was of medium height and broad of shoulder. A white sheepskin hat covered his shaven head and he wore a beard that was trimmed round the corners of his mouth as far back as the ears so as to show off his wide black moustaches of which he was very proud. His thick fleshy exceptionally red lips were full of life and vigour and all the hair on his face seemed to be brushed horizontally sideways. He stopped the cart and greeted Laszlo boisterously.

‘What’s this, Count? Coming to pay a visit? That’s wonderful!’ he shouted in a voice of thunder and, although he spoke Hungarian fluently, one could tell from the long-drawn-out vowels that it was not his mother tongue. ‘I’ll drive you home,’ he went on, ‘but I can’t stop as I’ve been asked to supper at Iklod.’ And he shoved out a giant fist and pulled Gyeroffy up beside him as if he had weighed no more than a feather. They drove on slowly for the road was all soft snow and mud.

Laszlo said he wanted to sell his gun, a valuable one, made in England.

‘How much?’

‘Whatever you say,’ answered Laszlo.

‘Count, you’re mad!’ said the fuller laughing, and he gave the young man a playful push with his massive shoulder. Then he added, ‘I can give you some money if you’re short.’

‘Certainly not! If you want the gun then buy it … but no hand-outs. That I won’t accept!’

‘Let’s have a look at it then.’

They got down at Laszlo’s little house and went in. Fabian bought the weapon at once but refused to take the case even though Laszlo pressed it on him. What did he need with the case, said Fabian. It would only get in the way and anyhow it had Laszlo’s name on it. He went out, threw the gun under the seat in the cart and paid for it at once, two hundred crowns in cash, which was an absurdly low price for such a splendid double-
barrelled
Purdey. Of course Fabian had no idea what a treasure he was getting and even fancied he was being over-generous. Then he drove off.