Csardas (52 page)

“Of course you can stay here, darling. It isn’t as big as the apartment in Pannonia Street, but I know David would love you to stay as long as you like.”

“I shan’t be in your way, Malie. I’ll keep to my room.”

“There’s no need for that, unless you want to.”

“That is, if you have a room you can spare for me?”

“You can have Hermin’s room and she can share with the children.”

“Thank you, Malie.”

She sat completely lifeless, with all the fight, all the old spirit gone from her. Even when Felix had left her to marry Kati she hadn’t been as broken as this.

“What’s happened? Do you want to tell me? Has Adam done something to you?”

Tears seeped from Eva. There was no other way to describe it. She didn’t cry; wetness just seemed to ooze out of her face. She began to talk, rambling and unintelligible words, about not being able to live with Adam because of Felix, and of hating Felix, and hating men, and hating herself.

“What did Adam say when you told him you were leaving him?”

“I don’t know. I left a note—in your Budapest apartment. I said I couldn’t bear to see him for a while and I was coming to stay with you.”

“But why can’t you bear to see him? You’ve been living with him for four years. Why can’t you live with him now?”

Eva’s tears flowed again, amidst a welter of self-reproach which culminated in the fact that she was ashamed of herself because Adam had been so kind and that she didn’t like men any more.

“I see.” Malie was alarmed. She had never known her sister to be ashamed or blame herself for anything. And she had never known Eva to lack fight. She decided to wait until David came home and discuss it with him. Poor David, once again his home invaded by his disturbing sister-in-law.

Eva stayed in her room all the afternoon. She wasn’t crying, just lying on her bed, curled on her side and alternately sleeping and picking at the sheet. She came out for supper, then went back to her room and said she would read in bed. Amalia asked David what she ought to do.

“Write to your brother-in-law, first of all. He must be concerned, poor fellow. Even though he is obviously used to Eva’s lack of discipline this is a new and bothersome venture of hers. And then—I am not sure. Perhaps wait a few days and then take her out and buy her some clothes.” He took his cheque book from the desk and scribbled a cheque. “Spend a little money on her. It will help.”

“Thank you, David. I am sorry... sorry she’s come. She is my sister but I’m sorry. She disturbs your life I think.”

“Mmm... Perhaps a little.” His dark brows raised in a mocking gesture. “And perhaps it is good for me. Certainly when your sister is here I appreciate anew the fact that I chose the more suitable of the Ferenc girls.”

She wrote to Adam, assuring him that after a little holiday Eva was sure to have recovered and they would bring her back to Hungary with them. Then, after two dreadful days had passed, days when Eva stayed in her room, lying on her bed, she persuaded her to come out for a walk with the children. The first person they saw was Stefan Tilsky.

“The ravishing Eva!” he exclaimed, staring perplexed but courteous. Eva smiled as though she didn’t believe a word of it. “You are ravishing, but I dislike your hat. Grey is not a colour you should wear.”

To Malie’s horror Eva began to ooze tears again. Stefan Tilsky, who was kind if supercilious, was immediately contrite.

“Eva! My darling girl. Forgive me. See, I crave your humble forgiveness.”

He knelt on the path, right in the middle of the Stadtpark. Two old ladies stared and nearly fell over as they walked backwards watching him.

“I shall remain here on my knees until you say I am forgiven.”

“Oh, do get up,” said Eva, looking tired and embarrassed.

“Say you forgive me.”

“All right.”

He stood, brushed dirt from his knees. Then he reached over and took Eva’s hat from her head. “You are much prettier without it,” he said, and threw the hat in the river. Eva was so surprised she forgot to be miserable.

“That’s my hat! Get it back.”

“You look better without it.”

He reached forward and fluffed her hair out a little. When his hand touched her cheek her face suddenly burned and she pulled away. Stefan took no notice. He put his hand up again and continued to arrange her hair.

“It was a perfectly horrible hat,” he said quietly. “And you are too beautiful to wear such a thing.”

Eva flushed again but ignored him. She took her nephew by the hand and walked away from Malie and the Pole.

“Something has happened to your little sister.”

“I think so.”

“Hmm. She was such a pretty woman—ravishing indeed.” He smiled at Malie, a charming, warm, open smile. “We must all do what we can to cheer her, must we not?”

For days she couldn’t think about anything else but the nightmare scene in the Pannonia apartment. She tried to push it away but it leapt into her head with the clarity of a photograph at repeated moments—at meals, in bed, in the middle of conversation—and each time the humiliation grew, the shame, the degrading spectacle of herself, naked, and the disgust on his face. And when the sharpness of that memory had blunted itself slightly, she began to see the longer and wider humiliation, the years of adoration, of faithfulness, of believing he was a man like other men. Eleven years worshipping a hero who did not exist. Was she a mad, mindless creature? Had she no instincts as other women? Did they all know? Had they been watching her throwing herself at Felix all these years, knowing that the affair was moribund before it even started? His mother didn’t know, she was sure of that. Otherwise why the continual hints about a grandchild? But Adam? Is that why Adam had never minded them flirting, playing together? Her head ached as, hour after hour, every permutation and alternative presented itself. It was with her all the time; whatever she was doing she was conscious all the time of the terrible mistake she had made.

Malie was there, that was nice. She and David (did they know?) were kind, and little Karoly and Jacob were useful to take on walks. And Stefan Tilsky (oh, God, did he know? had he known all last summer when they were making such exhibitions of themselves?) seemed to be there a lot, hovering around on the walks and coming with them to make up a fourth at the opera. She didn’t like him. He was handsome enough, but he was too like Felix with his flattering jokes and charming interest in female matters.

She began, as she became a little calmer, to spend the mornings wandering about Vienna on her own. It wasn’t at all like the old Vienna; it was poor and scruffy and all the children seemed to have rickets or sores. Once she passed a charity kitchen where lines of sour-smelling women and small children waited for bread and a mug of some steaming liquid. It was dispensed by women who were apparently ladies, and she watched for a long, long time, then walked away, wondering if something like that could be her panacea for disappointment and humiliation. But the poor—oh, dear, one was sorry, of course, but since the war there were so many of them, so many children suffering from malnutrition and tuberculosis, so many men wandering about the streets with arms or legs or eyes missing, so many people lacking money and health and food and warmth—that it didn’t seem worthwhile to even try. And she was so miserable anyway that the first unhappy child she had to serve would be sure to make her start crying again.

She walked up Mariahilferstrasse, smelling the rather nasty coffee they were still serving in some of the cafés. She came to Mariahilfer Kirche by Haydn’s statue and, moved by a sudden impulse, she went in.

Mass was in progress, and she sat enjoying the peace and music. Her religious upbringing had been spasmodic. Papa had taken no hand at all in their spiritual tuition and had been content to let any necessary instructions in the Christian faith take place when they were on visits to their Bogozy grandparents. She had taken her first communion at the Bogozys’, but since then she had bothered only on rare occasions. But it was pleasant to listen and gaze up at the painted ceiling of the old church. The stillness, the formal movements of priests and acolytes, slowly cast a sense of peace over her, a temporary lulling of the pain that she felt would always be with her.

Someone was staring at her and the peace was jarred a little. She did not turn to see who it was but, as the consciousness of eyes fixed upon her grew stronger, so the tranquillity vanished completely. She picked up her gloves and bag and turned to leave. Stefan Tilsky was standing at the end of the pew, his face turned towards her, smiling, brown eyes looking in admiration. The eyes, once they had observed that her attention was drawn, changed direction. With a flattery that verged on insolence, Stefan Tilsky studied the entire length of her body, slowly and with lustful concentration. Even she, lost and unsure of herself where men were concerned, could not fail to interpret the desire in his face. She slid quickly from her seat and left from the end of the pew farthest away from him, but when she got to the church door he was waiting for her.

“Come and drink a glass of wine with me?”

“No thank you.”

“Or coffee?”

She shook her head and began to walk across the cobbles back to Mariahilferstrasse.

“Continue in that direction and you will come to the station, unless you are contemplating walking all the way to the Schönbrunn.”

She was suddenly tired, not physically but spiritually weary. She wondered if she would ever be able to enjoy the company of a man again.

“Please—” he said softly.

She felt his hand beneath her elbow. Her body was being gently drawn towards the narrow street that ran down the side of the church.

“There is a charming café nearby, very discreet and sheltered, and picturesque too.”

Listlessly she let herself be led down the street. They turned right through a wooden doorway, and she found she was in a stone courtyard set with tables. In the middle of the grey cobbles a huge chestnut tree formed an umbrella of gold and crimson leaves.

“It is warm enough to sit here, yes? And much pleasanter than inside.”

He ordered wine and coffee and she sipped both. An old woman selling flowers came in and he beckoned her over and took a rose from the basket.

“For you,” he said, smiling his warm and devastating smile.

“Thank you.”

“May I fasten it to your coat?” Without waiting for an answer, he reached across and slid the flower into the top buttonhole of her jacket. His hand lingered, then his fingers touched her throat, ran up her cheek and down again. “You are very beautiful, Eva Kaldy. I remember you as a girl. You were pretty then, but now—”

She smiled and tried not to remember Felix’s face as he looked at her naked body.

“What is so fascinating about married women?” Stefan mused softly. “So much nonsense talked about young girls, virgins, about their appeal and sexuality when they really have no sexuality at all. Virgins are for very old men or for youths, similarly virgin, who are obsessed with a romantic image. I think I was in love with a virgin once, many years ago:” He twinkled at her, mocking himself. “Married women fascinate me. I cannot help it. It is their... mystery. One never knows, does one, with a married woman. Obviously she understands about men, but how much? And how many?”

“Really, Stefan!” she protested, faintly shocked and also faintly embarrassed because she wondered if he knew of her own recent willingness to take a lover.

“Now you, Eva, grow more beguiling every time we meet. In the summer—oh!” He drew his breath in suddenly and across his face spread an expression of greed. “In the summer you were tempting—oh, so tempting. Every time you moved or spoke or even looked at me I wanted you. I cursed your family and friends, all clustered around you like fat cats around a cheetah. And I came away, annoyed but resigned. And now I meet you again, and this time you are even better. This time the crispness has gone. Now you are a little sad, quieter, because you are thinking. Now it is possible to approach you and say, ‘Eva Kaldy, I want to make love to you. I desire you in every possible way a man can desire a woman.’”

It was like a poultice, a soothing, healing balm on the agonized wound that Felix had left. Blatant, vulgar, impertinent—all those things too—but because of that very vulgarity it healed where a subtler, more sensitive flattery would not have done.

“You have no right to speak like that,” she said unconvincingly, and Stefan reached over the table and took her hand in his.

Felix had beautiful hands. She shuddered and then looked down at Stefan’s. Well-shaped but square. They were bigger than Felix’s. They were also very warm.

“May I see you again?”

“Of course. We are meeting this evening I believe.”

“Aach!” He shrugged irritably. “You know very well what I mean. I want to see you alone, without your sister and her husband in attendance. Will you meet me here tomorrow? Tell your sister you are going out for lunch and eat here with me.”

“I can’t,” she said feebly and he made the “aach” noise again and then swore softly in Polish.

“Of course you can, and you will. I’m asking you to eat a meal with me. That is all I am asking, for the moment.”

“Perhaps.... I’ll try.”

“Good.” He stood up, held her chair back for her, and, as she rose, he pressed his hands, one each side of her waist “God!” she heard him say, and she turned round to see a film of sweat on his upper lip. The pressure of his hands, the sweat, triggered the hunger of the summer once more in her body. It was gone as swiftly as it had come but for the first time since the scene in the Pannonia bedroom she felt like a woman again. Outside the restaurant they separated, already acknowledging guilt although they had done nothing to be guilty of. She climbed into a cab and went down into the city, to Kärntnerstrasse, and there she spent the rest of the day buying a new dress to wear to the opera that evening.

All through the performance she could feel him watching her. His eyes rested on the slashed silk of her neckline and on the places where the silk clung. She dropped her programme once and as he leaned forward to pick it up his hand brushed against her thigh. The game they were playing seemed sordid and coarse, but nonetheless it was exciting and for the first time she began to look at Stefan Tilsky, seeing what a magnificent body he had, huge-shouldered, strong-thighed, flat-bellied. He was big, very big. A pulse in her throat began to throb as she realized how very big he was.