Csardas (34 page)

“Men came and sat in the schoolhouse,” Jozsef said. His face was very red and flustered. Leo was silent. “They said they were from the revolutionary tribunal. What is the revolutionary tribunal, Malie?”

“I’m not sure, dear. It’s something to do with the government.” She was uneasy but not really afraid. This was their farm and all their peasants knew them, and everyone in the village knew them too. They could hardly come to any harm.

“Everyone in the village was going to the square to listen to them. And the schoolmaster said it wasn’t safe for us and we must come back here and stay here.”

“I see.” Of course it was safe. Their own peasants would hardly let them come to any harm. And anyway, everyone in the village was too cold and tired and hungry to be fired with revolutionary ideas. They would do what peasants always did, listen and neither agree nor disagree.

But nonetheless they all stayed close to the house for several days. No one was really afraid, but perhaps it was wise to be careful. Roza walked into the village to see her sister. When she came back she reported that something called a committee was being formed and that the village was full of strange men, most of them in ex-military uniforms. And then Uncle Alfred came over and what had been no more than uneasiness began to grow into fear.

“The land has been nationalized!” he shouted. “We’ve lost! All of us—your papa, that foolish Kaldy woman, Gizi and myself—we’ve lost everything we have. All gone, all taken away by the Bolshevik rabble!”

“But Uncle Alfred, we’re still here! What have they done if we are still here?”

“For the moment you’re still here. At present it is the big estates that are being divided; soon it will be ours. The Kaldy woman... she fooled me, trapped me.” His face was red, his words incoherent, and none of them really knew what he was talking of. But the fear he generated spread to them all.

“What shall we do, Alfred?” asked Mama shrilly. “What
can
we do? Oh! Zsigmond was so cruel to leave us here! We have no man to protect us and now we shall be murdered, murdered like they were in Russia!” She began to cry and Malie had an overpowering desire to smack her. If only Mama would
help
sometimes instead of being so very feminine and helpless.

“Do?” shouted Alfred. “What we must do is go back to town, all of us. We have homes there and we have friends. We can group together for protection. And Zsigmond must come back from Budapest and guard our interests. Yes, we must go back to town at once, all of us.”

Malie felt someone touching the back of her skirt. She didn’t turn round because she knew it was Leo. He was too big now to look for reassurance from her openly, but she was familiar with his slight touch, seeking the comfort that contact with her brought.

“Yes!” Mama’s tears ceased. “Yes, we shall go home! Everyone is in the town. Only we remain here—stupid creatures that we are—to be murdered in our beds!”

“Mama, don’t you think we are safer here? Papa said—”

But Mama was already halfway towards the door. “Papa!” She waved her hand in the air. “Papa said we must stay here until things are settled. Well, they are not settling, they are growing worse. And Alfred has said we must go, so we shall.”

“Tomorrow!” bellowed Alfred. “Be ready in your coach when we come by and we will travel together!”

“Is that wise, Uncle Alfred? Surely a procession—two coaches—would be more likely to attract attention than single travellers?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Mama. “We will go alone. Too many together—I’m sure it is dangerous... and we have Sandor.”

“Mama, I still think we are safer here. We should remain here. No one would attack us. Everyone knows us!”

“What about the strange men? The men—the councils or whatever they are called? They do not know us. And they are the ones who will turn us from our land!”

Amalia gave in. They packed their clothes and took all the food that was available, and finally, because Mama would not wait, they agreed to start at once, that day, instead of waiting for Alfred and the Racs-Rassay coach to be somewhere on the road with them.

Roza was crying, standing at the door rocking to and fro, not understanding but not wanting to be left alone. Finally her weeping penetrated through to Mama, who patted her shoulder as she passed her with an armful of petticoats. “Don’t weep, Roza dear. Nothing can happen to
you.
You are safe. You are one of them. They wouldn’t dream of hurting their own people.”

“But madame—”

“Roza, dear,” interrupted Malie quietly, “go to your sister’s. It will be better for you there. And if—when—your sons come home and you are not here, where else would they go but to your sister in the village?”

She was persuaded, and weeping, screaming farewells, she set off through the trees, a basket of sausage and bread on her arm, a black shawl wound tightly over her head. The farm without Roza was frightening.

“Come. We must leave very soon. Otherwise we shall be travelling in the dark.”

They climbed into the coach and Uncle Sandor flicked the horse. Malie looked back through the acacia trees that were covered in tight green buds. The dogs were staring after them, sad and not understanding. The farmhouse had never looked so bleak.

“Malie, we can’t leave the dogs. What will happen to the dogs?”

“They’ll be all right, Leo. There’s water in the stream and the weather is warmer now. We can’t take them with us.”

“But what will they eat?”

“Roza will send someone to feed them, and they will forage for themselves.”

Roza wouldn’t feed them. There wasn’t enough food to go round among the people for anyone to worry about the dogs. But she was tired, oh, so tired of having to find answers to all the problems and questions. Eva and Mama seemed already to have forgotten why they were leaving; they were just pleased to be going home, Mama because she was bored with country life, Eva because she would be closer to Felix.

The spring countryside was quiet, uncannily quiet. There was hardly anyone working in the fields, and they didn’t pass another person or cart or coach anywhere on the track. There was no sound—not even that of the birds—except for the clopping of Sultan’s hoofs and the noise of the wheels. They passed the boundary of their land—only it wasn’t to be theirs for very much longer—and then the Kaldy land. Everything was the same: quiet, deserted, and somehow... ominous.

“We should have waited until tomorrow,” Malie said sharply. “There is something wrong and we’ve left it too late. We should have waited and begun early in the morning.”

No one answered. Mama and Eva, at first oblivious to the atmosphere about them, now seemed to be aware of the tension. Mama tapped her hand restlessly on the side of the coach. “Can’t Sandor drive any faster?” she said irritably.

They were on the good road when they saw the men in front of them. It was the level road on the lower land, running between flat fields bordered with larch trees. The men were waiting in a silent, threatening line across the road.

“Ugh!” growled Uncle Sandor, and brought the whip down on Sultan’s back. The old horse went a little faster.

They had scythes and shovels, one or two rifles, clubs of wood. They were dressed mostly in old army uniforms, and one or two had red bands on their sleeves.

“Stop! In the name of the People’s Republic!”

Sandor took no notice. He whipped Sultan harder and growled again, louder.

“Oh, God!” It was only a whisper and she wondered who had said it. The men had put their rifles and shovels and scythes in front of them, across their bodies, so that they formed a chain of weapons across the road. Sultan faltered.

“Stop!”

Uncle Sandor swore, a violent outpouring of epithets culminating in a stream of saliva that he ejected into the face of the nearest man. He whipped Sultan again, and the old horse screamed and plunged forward into the line of men.

“Oh, God!” The whisper again. By her side Mama began to cry, not loudly, but the noise was frightening because it contributed to the lack of control and the hysteria that was thick about them. Sultan struggled and reared up, and the men closed in. Two fell to the ground, but there were several more to leap up and pull on the reins, to drag on the side of the coach.

“Stop! You have been ordered in the name of the People’s Republic!”

“Get away! Scum!” Uncle Sandor thrashed out with the whip, hitting several faces, shoulders, arms, but the whip was grasped and he was dragged down from the box.

A thin, dirty hand pulled the door open and Eva was wrenched out of the coach. Sobbing, she fell onto the ground but the men didn’t touch her. They stood in a little circle round the coach, thin, ugly, sick-looking men.

“We have orders to search your coach.”

The apparent leader was even thinner than the rest. He had the high red cheeks and gaunt features of the consumptive, and half of his left hand was shot away.

“Stop the old woman from screaming!” he shouted. They were dragging boxes and baskets out of the coach. Like starving dogs they rifled through the food, stuffing it into their mouths and passing it back to others on the outer edge of the circle. “Stop her from screaming!” he shouted again.

“Mama! For God’s sake try and be quiet! You’re making them angry!”

Mama screamed louder, and the consumptive suddenly thrust his body into the coach and clutched her shoulder, shaking her back and forth and shouting, “Shut up! Shut up!”

There was a roar, a loud guttural bellowing roar, and Uncle Sandor was up from the road. His black eyes were nearly closed and blood was running from his mouth. His great bulk hurtled towards the consumptive, and the scarecrow leader was suddenly tossed from the coach and thrown to the surface of the road.

“Filthy scum! Keep away from the Bogozy!”

Shouting... Eva screaming from the roadway... Leo fighting to get out of the coach, calling to Uncle Sandor, someone holding him back—me, Malie: “You cannot help, Leo!”—Leo shouting... all the boxes emptied onto the road... Uncle Sandor still bellowing, rearing his mighty body up from a heap of thin dirty ones, like a bear being baited by dogs.

There was a shot, and the noise—the noise of final violence—drowned everything else so that suddenly there was no other noise; everything was hushed, still.

The screaming—oh, God, Mama, be quiet, do be quiet!—fell to a keening and sobbing. Someone had been killed.... Leo? Where are you, Leo?

“Leo!”

Another moment of unnatural, chilled silence, and then the men began to run. The leader, the thin consumptive with half a hand, shouted at them to come back but they were beggars, peasants who needed food, and now they were frightened because they had killed someone.

“Come back!”

“Leo! Leo!”

It was all right. Leo was alive. She could hear him. And she could see him. He was crouching by the torn body of Uncle Sandor. There was a small hole in the side of Uncle Sandor’s head and a trickle of blood ran onto the road. Jozsef was out of the coach before her. He ran over to Uncle Sandor and she followed, trying to prevent Jozsef from seeing what Leo had already seen.

Leo was crying, sobbing piteously, desperately. One of Uncle Sandor’s huge great hands was held in the boy’s tiny palms.

“Oh, don’t die, Uncle Sandor! Please don’t die!”

Jozsef turned white features towards her. “Malie! Don’t let Uncle Sandor die!”

Oh, dear God! Is this how Karoly had looked? Clothes torn from his body, his face bruised and smashed, a hole through his head?

Leo was nearly hysterical. He pulled Uncle Sandor’s great thick hand up to his face and rubbed it against his cheek. “Don’t leave us, Uncle Sandor! Don’t leave us!”

“He’s dead, Leo. Uncle Sandor is dead.”

“No!”

“He’s dead, Leo. I can’t do anything. He’s dead.”

Leo fell forward over Uncle Sandor’s body. Rich, adult pain assaulted his boy’s senses. “I won’t let him be dead! I won’t let him!”

“Jozsef, find something to cover Uncle Sandor with.”

Jozsef stared at her, tears running down his face; then he stumbled about the road, looking for something among the garments that were strewn there.

“Malie! We can’t leave him here! We must take him back with us! We can’t leave him! We can’t, we can’t!”

She began to feel sick. She couldn’t cope any more. There was no one to help her and she didn’t know how to manage.

“We can’t lift him, Leo. He’s too heavy.”

“Don’t leave him here, Malie! Please don’t leave him!”

Her hands began to tense and tremble. She looked back at the coach. It was slewed halfway across the road and Sultan was whinnying and trying to pull free from the harness. Eva, sobbing, had managed to pull herself forward and was holding the reins. She was talking to Sultan, trying to calm him and sobbing at the same time.

“Can you help me, Eva?”

Eva tied the reins to a larch tree and came over. It was done slowly, and all the time she was sobbing. When she saw Uncle Sandor she just went on sobbing.

“We can’t get him up into the coach, Eva.”

“No.”

“Will you help me bury him?”

Eva nodded.

There were shovels and scythes, wooden bars and pieces of iron scattered over the road. They took up spades and went to the side of the road. The soil of the field was fairly soft and it wasn’t too difficult to dig.

“Cover him, Jozsef.”

Jozsef had found a petticoat of Mama’s. He pulled it over Uncle Sandor’s head.

“Jozsef, take Leo into the fields on the far side of the road, right across the fields—there—to the woods. You are to—to find something to put on the grave. Tell Leo to look for violets and primroses, a very big bunch, and then you are both to make a cross with branches. Don’t come back for a long, long time.”

They were both crying, but Jozsef took Leo’s hand and they stumbled away. She could hear them from a long way off.

She had never seen a dead man before, neither had the boys, but already the battered hulk of Uncle Sandor was no longer strange to them. And she was suddenly able to understand that when they dragged that great torso to the shallow hole, when they tipped him in and began to throw earth on top of him, it would be a final desecration, a hideous violation of identity.