Csardas (64 page)

“What an extremely fat child she is, Eva,” he had said with distaste.

She didn’t mind being fat, but she did mind that Mama was so upset. She couldn’t see what was wrong with being fat but obviously it
was
wrong, otherwise Mama wouldn’t have been so angry with Uncle Felix.

Another time at Grandmama Kaldy’s, sitting at the window, bored and wishing she could go out and play, she had been fiddling with the tassels of the curtain. Uncle Felix had rushed over and slapped her quite hard.

“Don’t do that, little girl! They are very expensive curtains and you will spoil them.” The slap had hurt and she’d begun to cry. Mama had shouted at Uncle Felix, and even Grandmama Kaldy had rebuked him and had pulled Terez onto her lap and given her a bonbon.

She had noted, with a child’s keenness but at the same time with disinterest, that when her little brother George was there, Uncle Felix disliked him too, but not as much as he disliked her. And as she grew older she became aware that the reason Uncle Felix disliked her so much was that she resembled her mama—and he hated Mama.

It didn’t worry her too much. Uncle Felix never came down to their farmhouse, and often when they went to pay their weekly visit to Grandmama he would be out. The rest of her childhood was so happy that Felix slid away into the hole reserved for things like water snakes, dead rats, and heavy rain that stopped her from going out to play.

Until she was six she had a nurse, a German
Fräulein
who looked after her and at the same time taught her to be as fluent in German as the rest of the family were. When she was six there had been a long family consultation between Mama, Papa, and Grandmama Kaldy. Grandmama wanted her to go and live at the manor house with a governess who later would also teach George. Grandmama Kaldy had been very insistent and had banged her stick several times on the floor. Mama had screamed a little and Terez was beginning to feel quite alarmed, worrying about how she would survive in the huge, stuffy, formal house with a governess whom she didn’t know, with Grandmama Kaldy who was so old she hardly ever moved from her chair, and with Uncle Felix who disliked her. But finally Papa, who was usually so silent they sometimes forgot he was there, said very loudly, “Under no circumstances at all will Terez come to live here, Mama. And neither will George when he is old enough. We shall have another
Fräulein
at the farm until Terez is old enough to be sent away to school.”

Going home in the car she had stolen a glance at her father and then snuggled up close to him. “I didn’t want to live there,” she confided. “It isn’t like home, is it?” He had chuckled, kissed her, and made some comment to Mama that she didn’t quite understand. “I don’t think I ever want to leave our farm,” she continued anxiously, “not even to go to school. Will I have to go away to school, Papa?”

His hands on the wheel of the car were very positive and controlled, even though he only had two fingers on his left one. Whenever she looked at her father’s hands she felt secure. Those hands had carried her, tended her childhood wounds, opened gates for her, lifted, fed, held gifts, and on one occasion chastised her. Her papa did not talk very much, unlike Mama, who talked all the time, but he was the solid basis on which her life was built. “Yes, Terez, you will have to go to school, but I expect we will arrange something with the family. Most probably you will stay with your Aunt Malie and Uncle David and go to school in the town.”

That didn’t sound too bad, and when the time came (once the shock of leaving the farm had been survived) she had been very happy living with Aunt Malie. In fact she had enjoyed the feeling of having the whole family all about her. Uncle David
seemed
to be solemn, but when you really looked at him he was secretly laughing much of the time and there were always little presents hidden—or not quite hidden—in his pockets. Her cousins were solemn too, really solemn, and they provided her with endless opportunities for amusement: frogs in Karoly’s bed and Jacob’s bootlaces tied together. She teased them unmercifully, and whenever they were roused to wrath her Uncle David would rebuke his sons, telling them it was unchivalrous to fight back against a little girl. They were good to her, though, and even when she had been particularly irritating Jacob would still help her with her homework in the evening.

Downstairs lived Grandpapa Ferenc, who was very strict and cross with everyone else but never with her; Grandmama Ferenc, who would chatter for hours about balls and dresses and other people’s business; and Uncle Jozsef, who was a bit pompous but very generous with presents, especially at the end of the month when her allowance was running out.

At weekends she went back home unless the weather was very bad. Home was the most wonderful place in the world. She could
smell
home when the car was still some way away, smell the river and the hills and the fields all planted with peppers and wheat, smell the oxen and horses, and, just vaguely in the distance, smell the misty tops of the great hills.

“Isn’t the farm the most wonderful place, Papa?” she would sing happily. “Isn’t our farm the very best there is in the whole county?”

Papa always smiled and said, “The best in the county, Terez? Why it’s the best in the whole of the Danube valley!” It was a joke between them because when you looked at the map and saw how huge the Danube valley was you couldn’t imagine how many farms must lie along it. But theirs was the best.

When Uncle Leo came home from Budapest she was torn between missing a weekend at home or missing Uncle Leo. Whatever decision she made always seemed the wrong one. Uncle Leo was the most exciting, the most understanding man she knew and she found it difficult to understand why no one quite approved of him. She asked him one day and he had chuckled and said, “Because I have different ideas from everyone else in the family, Terez. Indeed I have different ideas from nearly everyone in this town.”

“Does everyone in Budapest have different ideas?”

“Quite a few of us.”

“Aunt Malie says I am not to talk to other people about your ideas. She says, if people know, you could be put into prison. I wouldn’t like that, Uncle Leo.”

“I don’t think I’d like it much either.”

“Could you be put into prison, Uncle Leo?”

“Perhaps.” He grinned and hugged her. “But I am very careful, Terez. I don’t suppose anything will happen to me.”

She sighed a little to herself. She was eleven years old and in love for the very first time—with Uncle Leo. At night she lay in bed and made up a story where it was discovered that she was a foundling and not really related to Uncle Leo. Then she could declare her love and marry him.

“I wish I could come to Budapest with you, Uncle Leo.” She sighed. He remained silent, staring reflectively at her. “I’ve never been to Budapest and I think it’s disgraceful. My own capital city and I’ve never seen it! I’m the only girl in my class who hasn’t been there.” That wasn’t true, no more than six or seven of her classmates had visited the city, but it
felt
as though everyone else had been there except her.

Leo frowned a little. “I wonder if your papa would allow you to come with me, just for two days. Your birthday present. How would you like that, Terez? A trip to Budapest for your birthday.”

“Uncle Leo!”

“Now don’t get too excited,” he said hastily. “It may not be possible, not just for you but for me too. I may be too busy.”

“No, you won’t be!”

She couldn’t think of anything else, and she was so excited that in spite of trying to keep silent about it she finally blurted her hopes out that night at family supper. Grandpapa and Grandmama Ferenc were there, so was Uncle Jozsef, and they all turned and stared, horror-struck, at Uncle Leo.

“What insanity is this, Leo!” demanded Grandpapa Ferenc.

“Terez says she wishes to visit her capital city. I have offered to take her.”

“You think that I—any of us—would allow you to take our granddaughter to that hornet’s nest of Marxists in Budapest? Do you think we are deaf and blind, Leo? Do you think we don’t know what you’re doing up there, hanging around with Paloczi-Horvath, Balint, Kelemen, all that tribe who write for
Gondolat?”

“It happens, Papa, that I too have had the honour to write for
Gondolat!”

She could tell that Uncle Leo was growing annoyed. Uncle Leo was the one person who never seemed to be intimidated by Grandpapa’s tempers and she was struck afresh with love and admiration for his courage.

“Indeed? Then I may point out that you will have no one but yourself to blame when you are arrested. Terez, however, is innocent of these political machinations, and neither I nor her father have any intention of exposing her to them!”

“Really, Papa!” said Leo in irritated tones. “What kind of man do you think I am? Do you really believe I am going to take Terez to the Balasz to discuss the future of our country? I was thinking of the Fine Arts Museum and possibly a river trip.”

The Fine Arts Museum sounded very dull. She thought the Balasz much more promising, and in her mind the idea of a jolly underground restaurant took shape, a warm place lit with candles and draped with red velvet, packed with Uncle Leo’s exciting friends all waiting for the police to come and arrest them.

“You are dangerous, Leo. It matters not where you take Terez or where you take yourself. You have chosen to associate with dangerous people and I cannot let Terez—or any of the family—be exposed to the risks that your company might bring.”

“Good God, Papa!” shouted Leo. “Do you think I spend all my time plotting in cafés? I am a hard-working journalist and translator. I work for a respectable newspaper—a right-wing newspaper, I might add. If occasionally I submit an article to some other journal, or mix with people who dislike our clerical state as much as I do, does this make me a criminal?”

“Please don’t shout or blaspheme in front of your mother and sister!”

Leo threw down his knife with a clatter and stood up. Terez stared in wonder. He looked so tall and his dark eyes were flashing with temper. Surely they could all see how magnificent and handsome he was. She darted a swift glance round the table. Most of them were staring down at their plates. Grandmama, her hand trembling a little, was crumbling her bread into pellets.

“Leo, my darling,” she whispered. “You mustn’t be angry with us because we are old-fashioned and don’t understand the new ways. Your papa is quite right. You are not the person to take a little girl to Budapest for the first time. What if she were ill?”

Uncle Leo pursed his mouth and closed his eyes for a split second. Then he sat down again at the table. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said tersely.

“Later, perhaps, Eva can take her. You know how Eva loves little holidays away from the farm. Or possibly Malie could manage it, and then you can meet them in Budapest and go to some galleries together. That would be much better, would it not?”

“I suppose so, Mama.”

Terez didn’t think it would be better at all, and she was bitterly disappointed. She debated with herself as to whether she should try and coax Grandpapa into letting her go with Leo, but somehow she knew it would provoke a family dispute and would end without a visit to Budapest at all.

“I suppose I have no choice,” he continued bitterly. “It seems I am not considered responsible enough to take my own niece for a little trip on her birthday.”

“It isn’t that.” Malie interrupted quickly before Papa could lose his temper again. “We know you would look after Terez, but—oh, Leo, if you only knew how we all worry about you! It is so dangerous to be a Communist these days, and you seem to make no secret of the fact. Sometimes I wonder how you have escaped imprisonment.”

“Disgraceful!” muttered Grandpapa to himself. Terez thought he looked exactly like the old bloodhound at home on the farm when he said it. She giggled, turned the giggle into a cough, and smiled at everyone.

“And we cannot spare her!” cried Grandmama gaily. “We cannot spare her even for two days; otherwise we shall grow old and morose, just like Luiza Kaldy in her great mausoleum up in the hills.”

Grandpapa’s attention was diverted from Leo and directed towards Grandmama, who was reprimanded for speaking thus of Madame Kaldy when “the child” was present. No more was said to Leo about his views. She could tell he was angry though, and later, when no one was looking, she put her hand under the table and squeezed his leg. He jumped, looked up, and smiled when he saw it was her.

“Never mind, dear Leo,” she breathed. “I shall come to you later. As soon as I have left school I will come to Budapest whether they let me or not.”

Uncle Leo smiled again, but in a way that showed he wasn’t really listening, a way that hurt her because it showed that he still considered her a child and she wanted to be his dearest and closest friend.

When he went back to Budapest, Grandpapa spent a lot of time grumbling about him. He called him a wastrel and a disgrace to the family. He said he was irresponsible, immature, and lazy. Uncle David, who was usually silent on these occasions, stirred himself and, to her infinite delight, came to Leo’s defence.

“No, no, my dear Zsigmond,” he drawled in his deep, soft voice. “No, we cannot permit you to call him a wastrel or think of him as lazy. He may be a disgrace to the family and possibly immature, but lazy—no.”

“What else is he? Sitting in cafés drinking coffee with a bunch of idle, head-in-the-cloud dreamers who can only bring ruin on themselves and those about them.”

“But he works very hard, my good friend. In these times would he keep a post if he did not work hard?”

Grandpapa muttered and grumbled something about the work not being respectable, and Uncle David laughed very gently.

“Come, Zsigmond,” he chided. “You know he has done very well indeed to find a job on a newspaper, and secretly you are proud of him, no? What other young man do you know who has gone to Budapest with a pocket of press cuttings and a little money and found himself a job? And not altogether an easy one. No, my friend. He is the same as we were when we were young. Remember how we went our own way, regardless of our families? Remember how we were determined to do the things we most cared about?” He was suddenly silent, and then he said reflectively, “Sometimes I think that Leo’s ambitions are more worthwhile, more noble than ours. We were driven by ambition, determined to be accepted by a society that had never accepted us. I do not think Leo’s ambition is for himself. I think he believes that what he is doing is right, even though we know it is not right.”