Csardas (48 page)

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Jacob... and Karoly. You married well, I hear, Amalia? Mr. Klein is a banker. Jewish. The very best bankers...”

It was said pleasantly, flatteringly. There was no reason why she should have felt annoyed, defensive even. He was disturbing, Stefan Tilsky; she wished he had never come.

“Your sister, the ravishing Eva. She married one of the Kaldy boys?”

“Adam.”

“Ah, yes.”

A noise behind her, a hand on her shoulder, a firm comforting hand that made the tension evaporate from her body. “This is my husband,” she said, leaning back into the hand. “David, this is Count Tilsky, an old friend from before the war.”

The usual noises of introduction, friendliness, polite inquiry. She noticed but did not comment when David reached down and took the letters from her lap. “I will take them to your bedroom,” he murmured. “And then we must arrange a little party for your friend, Amalia. He must meet all the old ones from the war. He must stay with us for a day or two.”

Polite negations, remonstrances, protests, and a reluctant acceptance. And then she was a wife again, organizing bedrooms, dinners, sending messages to the others to come and meet Stefan. The girl of several summers ago, the ghost who flitted by her side, was under control, still there but not too disturbing, a strange elusive creature who seemed just another part of the fantasy summer.

Stefan made the summer strange too. He was dazzled by Eva—dazzled, but in a different way from Felix. He stared at her a lot, he listened to her a great deal, and he smiled frequently, a smile directed at Eva and no one else. Eva teased and encouraged but it was no more than a game to her. Amalia wasn’t sure just how much of a game it was to Stefan.

At the Kaldy manor she watched the two men, Felix and Stefan Tilsky, playfully arguing about who should fetch Eva an ice, and it struck her that though the two men were much of an age, Felix was somehow unformed, innocuous, beside the handsome Pole. Even though the gentle feuding was in fun there was an undercurrent between them that had nothing to do with getting Eva a strawberry ice. Eva, stretched out on a wicker chair, laughed and applauded their antics, but there was a wildness about her, a near hysteria that lent unhappy tension to the hot afternoon.

Amalia looked across to Kati to see how the “game” was affecting her. Kati was seated beside Madame Kaldy, ready to take and pass the teacups as Madame Kaldy filled them. No one, not even Kati’s mother, thought it strange any more that Kati should not preside over her own teapot—or kitchen, or table, or household. Now, with quiet composure, she passed cups and honey cakes, smiling only at Malie. Kati had changed slightly since spending the early part of the year in Budapest. The change was so imperceptible that no one except Malie had noticed it. She was still quiet, obedient, inoffensive, but the quietness was no longer the result of nervousness. Kati had simply withdrawn into a world where she could not be hurt. When she had finished helping her mother-in-law she came over to Malie. “Come to the summer-house, Malie. I want to show you what I’ve been doing since I returned from Budapest.”

The two cousins set off up the long sloping lawn. They crossed a stone bridge set over a sunken shrubbery (Madame Kaldy always maintained that the shrubbery was the remains of a moat that had once surrounded the manor) and then followed a flag path through the herbaceous garden.

“No one ever comes to the summer-house unless it is a servant sent to fetch me.”

They came out to another grassy slope that led to a knoll where the summer-house, a hexagonal structure of wood and plaster, had been built.

“I hope you will like it,” said Kati softly. “No one else has seen it.”

She led the way to the little house and opened the door. She looked over her shoulder at Amalia and smiled. Her plain, lumpy face was placid and content. Malie had never seen her cousin look so sure of herself.

“Come in.”

The summer-house had two windows, gothic in shape, and a small circle of glass set into the roof. When Malie had called there on previous summers there had been a table on which rested Kati’s paints and sketch-books, and a small easel to take Kati’s little flower pictures.

The easel had gone. The table was still there but it was difficult to see because Kati had painted it—painted an intricate web of brilliant vines and leaves up and over the legs of the table and covered the top surface with vivid flowers and ferns and creepers. And the table was the least part of the summer-house’s transformation.

“Why, Kati!”

They had all accepted Kati’s one little talent, her small, tight gift for painting flowers: a single rose, a bunch of violets resting on a piece of silk—delicate colours, timid sizes, pretty but unremarkable.

“Oh, Kati!”

The six walls and the ceiling of the summer-house were smothered in creepers, birds, exotic flowers, flowers completely different from anything Kati had painted before. Hibiscus and sunflower, peony, poppy, orchid and morning glory rioted over the walls, curled up round the windows and to the edges of the glass room. A few tendrils of viae even curled onto the glass itself. Laws of nature, of colour and proportions, had been ignored. Velvet-skinned plums fell from the stems of hibiscus; apples grew from the same stalks as orchids. A gigantic poppy dropped petals onto a flight of minute brilliant blue birds. Everything was colour—green, red, yellow, purple; no part of the original wall showed through at all.

“Do you like it?”

She stood in the middle of her creation, her brilliant, breathtaking creation, and just for a second the old Kati was visible, unsure of herself, vulnerable to hurt.

Amalia felt as though the breath had been knocked from her lungs. Frightened of destroying Kati’s confidence, she said, “It—it’s incredible. I can hardly believe it!”

“But do you like it?”

“I don’t know, Kati. It’s beautiful. But it is so... different, so unlike you.”

“You think it beautiful, though?”

“Yes. Beautiful, and exotic, and... a little frightening.”

The answer seemed to please her.

“I worked with oils for this, Malie. I hate my water-colours now. I’m never going to use water-colour or pastel or crayon ever again. If I hadn’t come to Budapest I would never have done this. It was that man, the artist, he talked to me about painting—oh, not how to do it, the art master taught us that, but the
feeling
it should give you. And the fact that you should try to do
more
than you think you can. I showed him my flowers, Malie, and do you know what he did? He tore them up. Just ripped them out of my book and tore them in half.”

Amalia stared speechless at her cousin. Kati’s face was animated and flushed, her hitherto colourless eyes were bright, her small, shapeless body taut and alive.

“I was so upset. You remember the day I would not come to Margaret Island with you? It was the day after he tore them up, and I was so upset I didn’t want to go anywhere. And while you were out he came round again. Remember he was there when you came back? And he said that he had torn them up because anyone who
could
paint, even a little bit, should try to do better than that. And then he invited me to his studio—you remember we all went, David too—and he showed me his work. Some of it was bad, Malie, and I told him so. The first time in my life that I told someone what I thought of them. And he didn’t mind. He showed me how to
try.
Try to do something really hard, he said; some of it will be bad, but some of it will be wonderful. He made me promise to paint something different—not different but more
honest.
Oh, Malie, I do wish he could come and see this and tell me what he thinks. Will you speak to him when you go back to Budapest? Will you tell him what I’ve been doing?”

Malie stared at Kati, stunned and confused. She had no idea which, of the many artists who visited them, had been responsible for Kati’s metamorphosis. The flood of words, the assumption that Malie knew of her friendship with the artist, was all so out of character for her faded, nondescript little cousin. And anxious not to destroy this new Kati, this positive and involved Kati, she was frightened to say anything at all.

“I would really like your husband to see what I’ve painted.” Kati looked nervous again: shy, afraid, ashamed. “There’s only you and he who would be interested, who know about painting and who—who wouldn’t think of me as just Kati—who would look at my paintings and think about them instead of me.”

Kati’s loneliness suddenly overwhelmed Malie. In a community of friends and relatives there was no one at all to whom she could talk about the most important discovery of her life.

“Would he come, Malie?” she asked timidly. “If you asked him, would he come?”

“Darling, he would love to see them. I’ll fetch him now.”

“Don’t let the others know,” said Kati, alarmed. “I don’t want the others to see.”

There was no one she trusted enough to let them see her exposed, undressed, all her hidden nakedness on view before the disinterested and the disdainful.

“I’ll be careful.”

She left the summer-house and began to walk back towards the lawns, glad of a period alone. She was aware that she, Kati’s “dearest friend,” had failed her cousin too. Kati had stayed in her home for three months, and during that time she hadn’t been at all aware of Kati’s interest, or distress, or excitement. She didn’t even know the name of the artist who had made such an impression, even though he apparently visited their home quite frequently and had invited them to his studio. She hastily ran through the names of the artists in their circle. It could have been any of them.

Walking back with David she tried to explain what had happened, to warn him not to say anything that would hurt Kati, and to try and remember the name of the artist David raised one dark, humorous eyebrow.

“I don’t have to remember. It was Dominic.”

She paused, then continued towards the summer-house. “How can you be so sure?”

Her husband shrugged. “They spent much time talking together, and your cousin ceased to be afraid when she was with him. And they were always showing each other books. He gave her a small canvas of his before she left.”

“She didn’t tell me any of this.”

“No. Well, I think she believed that you knew.”

He wasn’t surprised inside the summer-house either. He examined, nodded, examined again, stood back by the door, and stared at the ceiling. “Good, Kati,” he said finally. “Very good. You have avoided the pitfall of many new artists; you have not abandoned your technical knowledge to create a new medium. It has all the perfection and detail of your old work—see, Amalia, how finely the stamens are drawn?—and the courage of a new venture.”

Kati was unrecognizable. Her face was engrossed, intent, almost beautiful because for the first time in her life it was alive.

“Of course”—David held up a reproving finger—“you have been blessed with an excellent canvas: no limitations on size, and this interesting six-sided room. Now, my little Kati, what are you going to do when you have to work on board and canvas like your good friend Dominic?”

“I’m not sure
what
to do next,” said Kati happily. “I had an idea for painting on linen—making tapestries that would fold and hang, not oils, of course. I would have to experiment with dyes, I suppose....” Her voice and face faded back into the old Kati. “It might be difficult to do that here,” she whispered.

“Walk before you run, my Kati! I think you now try to discipline yourself. Do some canvases, not too small but not too big either. When you come up to Budapest next you can bring them with you and—well, we shall see.”

Malie watched them, listened to them talking of textures and colour and form. She had loved Kati and had tried to be kind to her, but she had never managed to bring her to the normal exchanges of human contact. She had never brought Kati to life the way David was doing now. I have never treated Kati as an adult, she thought suddenly. I have always treated her as a child, an unfortunate, under-privileged child. David—and Dominic too, I suppose—have accorded her the respect due another adult. They have praised, criticized, and been honest with her.

They finally went back, all three of them, to the lawns in front of the house. Felix and Stefan Tilsky were still paying court to Eva, who was squealing with laughter under the jaundiced eyes of her mother-in-law and her aunt. Kati retreated behind a blank face and a blank silence, and David went to flirt a little with Mama, who had been sitting rather disconsolately away from the others. Malie stared round, sensing tensions, knowing secrets, and wondered again why this particular summer was not the same as all the others.

In July Papa and the boys came up. Papa was taking a month’s vacation from the bank, and the boys had finished at school. Jozsef was preparing for his last year before going to Berlin University. He was seventeen, tall, and rather like Papa to look at, although he was softer and less energetic than Papa. He was supposed to be working for his
Abiturium
but had not received a very good report, and Papa was a little cross, believing that his elder son would have done better if only he had tried. There had been some considerable discussion about the choice of university. It was thought that the
numerus clausus
which restricted the number of Jewish students entering Hungarian universities would not apply to Jozsef (he was, after all, only Jewish in origin and not registered as a Jew), but nonetheless it was decided not to risk the possibility of refusal. Anti-Semitic organizations abounded, and one was never sure when they might decide to “make a case” of some obscure Jewish question. Jozsef should go to study economics in Berlin, where the
numerus clausus
did not apply.

Jozsef behaved reasonably well when Papa was about. Papa had made it quite plain that he disapproved of Jozsef’s idleness in the matter of examinations. There were a great many avowals that he was going to do better this last year before going to university and, when Papa was around, Jozsef was often to be seen sitting on the veranda frowning over a book. He was hoping for a generous allowance once he got to Berlin. When Papa was not around Jozsef spent a lot of time lying underneath David Klein’s car peering up, or standing over the engine peering down.