Csardas (29 page)

The only thing she was conscious of was that Aunt Gizi’s arms were round her, and that was very odd. She could never remember, even when she was tiny, having Aunt Gizi’s arms around her. She felt vaguely sorry for Kati. Aunt Gizi was Kati’s own mother and yet she never put her arms round Kati.

“Felix took the message at headquarters. It was forwarded to Karoly’s parents in Budapest, and then Felix came to tell us as we are—were—Karoly’s relatives. He—he was shot a week ago. Dear Karoly... dear Malie....” Aunt Gizi’s eyes were filling with tears, brimming over, running down her cheeks.

“Oh, no, Aunt Gizi,” said Malie sweetly. “Karoly couldn’t possibly have been shot in Galicia. The war is over in Russia. They signed the treaty. At Brest-Litovsk. Haven’t you heard of Brest-Litovsk, Aunt Gizi? It was in the papers. The war is over. It must be a mistake. Why would the Russians shoot Karoly when the war is over?”

“It wasn’t the Russians,” whispered Gizi. “It was our men: deserters, revolutionaries, Slavs, Croats, Czechs....”

“Oh, no! No, Aunt Gizi! Please, no!” She wrenched away from Gizi’s arms and clenched her hands by her sides. A long keening wail broke from her. “Oh, no! Not Karoly! Not my Karoly! Not to see him any more, my Karoly, my love, my love!”

Her hands tore at her hair; then she held her forehead as though trying to stop pain.

“He can’t be dead! I love him. I was going to marry him; I was, I was! Papa said we could—you did, Papa—I’m going to marry him.” She was quieter then, tears choking in her throat, coursing down her face. “The first time he went I was prepared, I thought he might die, but he came back and we made him well again. Didn’t we, Aunt Gizi?”

Gizi’s face was screwed into ugly lines of pain. Her mouth and chin were trembling. “Yes, child, we made him well again.”

“The army thought he would die, so they sent him home... and we made him well.” She began to sob. “We nursed him and loved him and we made him well.’”

“Yes, child.”

“Now—he’s dead—”

“Yes, Malie.”

She stared round the room, eyes wide and uncomprehending. “What am I doing to do? Mama, Eva, what am I going to do?”

Mama had closed her eyes and was quite white. So was Eva.

“Mama, help me. Karoly is dead....”

She felt someone’s arms round her. They weren’t Gizi’s, they were strong, warm, protective arms like Karoly’s had been. Like Karoly’s had been when they said good-bye at the station. Warm, strong arms that one could hide and die in.

“Little one,” said Papa, “come with me. Come and be quiet with Papa.”

He hugged her and she buried her face in the side of his coat. “Papa?”

“Come with me, little one. Come with Papa.”

“Karoly—”

“Yes, little one.” She cried very quietly across the room, clutched against Papa’s side, holding tightly, whimpering a little.

Gizi and Papa, how strange they should be the two who helped her....

Later that night, she sat in the chair by the window, gazing out at the night sky, at an owl drifting across the moon, at the minaret-shaped spire of the church, and remembering, remembering—

“‘Malie. Come to bed.”

“Soon.”

Remembering, because now she must learn everything by heart, every moment they had shared together. To remember was agony; each image evoked said, “No more, no more! That was the end!” But still she must go through them, step by step, train her mind to remember clearly so that later, years from now, when the sharpness had gone, when the sorrow did not corrode, she could be happy with the memories. “Lieutenant Karoly Vilaghy,” he had called out, running beside the coach, and later she had looked out of this same window at the young men and been disappointed because he was not there. The balcony was boarded off now. The iron balustrade had been taken away and planks had been nailed over the bottom of the window to prevent them from forgetting and carelessly walking out. Four years ago, and she had seen him so little: two summers. One summer of picnics at the meadow and another of Karoly spitting blood and lying exhausted in Aunt Gizi’s drawing-room. Two summers, two farewells at the station. The terror, remember the terror when you couldn’t find him in the crowds? And then he was there and he kissed you and rode away on the steps of the train with your white shawl held in his hand. Karoly, Karoly—

“Come to bed, Malie.” Eva’s voice was trembling, and Malie could hear she had been crying. She had known Karoly too; he was her sister’s sweetheart and now he was dead.

“Soon.”

Since they had told her, since that one terrible outburst when they told her, she hadn’t cried, but there was a pain in her body, a tight, unnatural pain and she felt she would never be able to walk, or talk, or eat, or be natural ever again. They told her—Mama, Aunt Gizi, Papa—that she would be happy again one day, that the sense of tearing away a part of herself would go and she would be left with a warm, sad memory. But some strange age-old part of her senses, something timeless and out of herself, made her aware that whatever happened to her she would never heal, never be once more self-sufficient or complete. She would be happy, yes, probably she would, but something had gone. Her youth? hope? energy? She knew she would always carry a pocket of melancholy in her heart.

Eva’s breathing had steadied to a slow gentle sound. Exhausted from crying she had fallen asleep and now, in blessed solitude, Malie could grieve quietly for him.

The sky was beginning to pale behind the church spire when she heard the door leading to the boys’ room open and close. Leo padded over and quietly climbed onto her lap, putting his arms up around her neck and placing his cheek against hers. His face was wet and soundlessly they wept together, her sorrow eased by the feel of his young body against hers.

Two days later Eva knocked on the bedroom door—she had knocked ever since the news had come—and entered bearing a huge basket of pink roses.

“For you, Malie. See how beautiful they are.”

She put her hand out and fingered the petals.

“They’re from Mr. Klein.”

“Mr. Klein? But how would he know?”

“Oh, no!” Eva flushed and hurriedly shook her head. “It’s nothing to do with... with Karoly. He sent roses for all of us, pink for you, yellow for me, red for Mama.”

“How kind.” They were beautiful and... unnatural. Roses in March, when men were being killed and people were starving in Vienna?

Eva stared at her anxiously. “I thought they might cheer you. I thought you would like them.”

“I like them.”

Eva’s shoulders slumped forward a little. “I wish you would not stay here in the bedroom so much, Malie. Just sitting in the chair and sewing. Why don’t you come out with me, come for a walk, sit in the drawing-room with the rest of us? Felix Kaldy came to see how you were. He was worried; he wanted to know if there was anything he could do.”

Malie put down her sewing. She had been repairing the Bogozy lace that had covered the table during Mr. Klein’s visit. It was intricate work that required maximum concentration and she wondered what she would do when the tear had been mended.

“I would like to stay here, Eva. It is quiet, and I can be alone.” Her voice raised a pitch. “They mean to be kind, but I cannot bear them: Mama, Aunt Gizi, Kati, Uncle Alfred, Marie, even Cook. They all talk and sit with me. They won’t leave me alone.”

“Do you want me to go?” Eva asked timidly, and Malie smiled and placed her hand over Eva’s.

“No, you stay if you wish. This is your room too.”

“You don’t want to see Felix either?”

Malie was silent. She didn’t want to see Felix, but there was something she wanted to know that only Felix could tell her.

“Will you do something for me, Eva?”

“Oh, Malie, anything you like. I’ll do anything. And—please forgive me, what I said that time. I cannot”—Eva began to cry, rubbing her knuckles into her eyes just like Leo did—“I cannot forgive myself.... That time, when I was rude about Karoly, said he wasn’t as good as Felix. I didn’t mean it, really I didn’t.”

Malie patted Eva on the shoulder and smiled. “No, of course you didn’t.”

“I’ll do anything you like, Malie.”

Malie pushed the cloth from her lap and let it fall to the floor. She stared out at the March sky, a pale, pale blue sky with wispy clouds coming down from the mountains. She took a deep breath and tried to control her voice. “I want to know... I want to know how he died.”

“But—”

“They told me he was shot... by his own soldiers. Why?” Her voice broke on a sudden sob and her forehead began to crease into lines. “Why did our soldiers shoot him? What was wrong? The war was over in Russia. They were all coming back. I want to know everything. I want to know exactly what happened, how and why and when. Please, Eva!” She sobbed again and twisted her hands together. “Promise me you will talk to Felix. He’ll know. Ask Felix.”

“Oh, Malie! You mustn’t think about it. You must try to forget.”

The days of kindly platitudes, the softened sympathy, the unreality of everything suddenly snapped in her head.

“But I can’t forget,” she screamed at Eva. “Don’t you understand? I can’t forget!”

She covered her face with her hands, not crying, trying to hold the pain behind her eyes from spreading.

“Please, Eva! If you ever loved me, do this thing for me. Ask Felix how it happened, and why, and where. Everything.”

Eva was frightened. Malie had always been the calm one, the capable one, and now she was shrieking just like—like she herself did on occasion.

“If that’s what you want—”

“I do. Ask him. And you must promise me—promise me—that you will tell me
exactly
what you learn. I will know if you are hiding anything. I always know when you are hiding things from me.”

“Yes, Malie.”

“Ask him, Eva.”

“Yes, Malie.” Eva sniffed and wiped her handkerchief across her swollen nose. She would have to bathe her face in cold water before she could talk to Felix Kaldy.

In fact she had to wait a few weeks for the difficult conversation with Felix. He had been recalled to Budapest; there were so many rumours and counter-rumours circulating that it could be for any number of reasons. It was said that the Czechs had demanded independence, that the King and Emperor was suing for peace, that there were strikes again in Budapest, that cholera had broken out in Vienna. But whatever of the now-taken-for-granted disasters it was, it kept Felix away some time. When he came again he called immediately to inquire after Malie.

“I don’t want to see him, Eva. You talk to him. You ask him... about Karoly... the things I want to know.”

Eva, now that the moment was imminent, became nervous. Felix had been different ever since he had returned from the Serbian front, and she wasn’t sure how to talk seriously to him.

“You come too, Malie,” she pleaded. “Hear for yourself the things about... the things you want to know.”

But Malie shuddered. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Please, Malie.”

“No.”

And so she had to go into the drawing-room alone, and when Mama had finally left them she had to broach the difficult subject herself. Felix was restless. He kept bounding up from his chair and pacing to and fro.

“I haven’t seen Amalia since that... the day I brought the news.”

“No,” she said timidly.

He stared at her, eyes piercing and the muscles in his cheek tensed. “Is she ill?”

“No, it’s just... she’s not like Malie at the moment. She doesn’t talk very much, and she doesn’t seem to want to see any of her family and friends, even though we all love her.”

“Does she think about it much? About Karoly being shot?” She didn’t like the way he asked that question. He didn’t say it with any concern for Malie; it was said with curiosity, an unhealthy kind of curiosity, as though he wanted to share Malie’s emotions for all the wrong reasons.

“She thinks about Karoly all the time—I believe she does although she never mentions him.” Then she remembered what she was supposed to be finding out from Felix. “That is, she doesn’t mention him very much.” She cleared her throat. “That day, when you came, you said he had been shot by his own soldiers?”

“That’s right.”

“She—Malie—she wants to know why, how it happened. I think”—and now Eva tried to put into words what fears she thought Malie had—“I think she is afraid that something terrible happened to him, that he was tortured or was ill or something. She said you would know.”

Felix’s eyes were brilliant. The pupils had retracted into pinpoints and they stared straight ahead into the air.

“No, he wasn’t tortured—although he could have been, Eva! He could have been! You don’t know, none of you, what it’s like out there! It isn’t like a world of people; it’s a wilderness that goes on forever: killing everywhere, death everywhere....”

Eva tried to look away but couldn’t. She was fascinated by the sight of his tall, slim figure striding up and down, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides.

“Everything’s broken up on the eastern front. There’s no discipline any more, just a great wilderness of soldiers trying to go home, trying to find food, trying to find women. Russian soldiers, our soldiers, prisoners, Poles, Slavs, Czechs. It’s the revolution. All the troops know what it means and some of them, the revolutionaries, those who hate us even though they have been fighting for us, they just want to kill. They want to kill everyone who made the war.”

“But Karoly didn’t make the war!”

A thin stream of saliva was beginning to trickle from the corner of his mouth and with just a trace of the old Felix, the gay pre-war Felix, he flicked his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his lips. His hand was trembling. “He was an officer. That was enough.”

“How do you know he wasn’t hurt... tortured?”

“Tilsky—you remember Stefan Tilsky—they tried to shoot him too but he got away. Karoly and Stefan were trying to requisition transport, trying to get back home, here to Hungary. And a group of soldiers on horses—Russian horses—came up and he ordered them off the horses. And they just surrounded him and Tilsky and shouted ‘Death to the tyrants!’ and they shot him. Tilsky killed one of them with his sabre and then jumped on the man’s horse and rode away.”