Csardas (65 page)

She was so proud of her Uncle David she went across and kissed him. He had called Leo noble and her heart was swollen with pride and love. Grandpapa muttered again, but she had the feeling that secretly he too was fond of Leo and even admired him a little.

“I suppose a man cannot expect all his children to be as he wishes,” he grumbled. “Amalia... when she was young I had much trouble with her—defiance and disobedience—and now it is the same with Leo. And yet Jozsef and Eva have never troubled me. They have been such good children. Eva has always done her best to please me.”

“Hmm.” Uncle David’s eyes narrowed a little. “Eva and Jozsef are Bogozys, my friend. Amalia and Leo are Ferenc, pure Ferenc.”

“Am I a Ferenc or a Bogozy?” Terez asked, interested.

Uncle David pulled her black curls. “You are Terez, and no one else, and you are also disappointed because you are not going to Budapest for a little holiday, no?”

She smiled, happily, confidently. When Uncle David spoke like that, and Grandpapa absent-mindedly held his hand towards her, she knew that she was yet again going to have something nice happen to her.

“Zsigmond. Do you think I am a fit guardian for your granddaughter?”

“Hmm?”

“The next time I have to go to Budapest, shall I take this young lady?”

“Oh, Uncle David!” It wasn’t quite the same as going with Uncle Leo, but it was still very, very good. Uncle David was not as exciting as Leo but he was very nice and sometimes he could be adventurous. He wouldn’t make her spend all her time in museums and galleries. And he would make sure that she saw Uncle Leo.

Leo had a large, untidy room in Pest, in Kiraly Street. It was a glorious room and Terez knew that Malie and her mama would not have approved of it at all. For one thing there was nowhere to sit. When she and Uncle David walked in, Leo had to clear a space on the bed for them. There were books and newspapers all over the floor, and on Uncle Leo’s desk was a very old typewriter and a great stack of foreign journals. She knew her mother and aunt wouldn’t have liked the jar of apricot jam that stood on the floor beside a bottle of
barack.
Nor would they have liked the scuttling sounds in the corner of the room beneath the piles of paper. Uncle David didn’t seem to mind the room too much, and she thought it was beautiful!

Along the front of the shelves were rows and rows of apples, and a salami hung from the ceiling. On the walls were drawings and pictures, some of them signed by Uncle Leo’s friends, and a beautiful Chinese shawl that he said he had stolen when he was in Berlin. She gazed about her with envy and awe, realizing that this was exactly the kind of room she would like to have. In a tin bucket in the corner several hyacinths were growing and their sweet, heavy scent mixed deliriously with that of goulash and mice.

Uncle Leo stared round, puzzled, and finally said, “I’d meant to tidy things a little before you came but I’ve had so many translations to do. The Austrian business—everyone wants to know what the world is saying before they decide on their own editorials.”

“Ah, yes.”

“It is frightening—Austria. I cannot believe that we—anyone—will let the Germans walk in. Surely France and England will try to stop them!”

Uncle David sat on the bed, took a cigar from his case, and lit it. “I hope so, Leo, I hope so,” he said softly. They were both silent, and because at that moment Uncle David seemed sadder than Leo, she went to him and held his hand.

Leo grinned “Would you like an apple, Terez? Or would you rather wait until we go out to lunch?”

“Are we going out to lunch, Uncle Leo?”

“Anywhere you like. Your Uncle David and I have all the best places at our fingertips, have we not, David? There is the famous Gerbeaud, where your mother and aunt came when they were girls. There is the Berliner, close to where your uncle used to live. Or we can go over to Buda, to the really elegant cafés on the hill.”

“Can I pick anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere.”

“Then I should like to go to the Balasz.”

The two men looked at one another; then Uncle David laughed and said, “We are beaten, Leo. We promised the young lady we would accept her choice, so the Balasz it must be.”

She was very disappointed at first. It wasn’t a bit as she’d imagined, just a very ordinary café with rather ordinary people sitting there. They didn’t look like revolutionaries or Marxists. But then people began coming to their table, jolly people who slapped Leo on the back, drank a cup of coffee, and went on their way. They all seemed to like Leo and to know him well, and after a while she began to feel not only proud but also very affectionate to all these people who thought so highly of him.

Uncle Leo was very different here from when he was at home. He was more... grown up. He talked and argued, laughed, and bought glasses of wine for his friends. When he spoke about Austria and the plebiscite, everyone listened more attentively to him, as though he knew more than anyone else about it.

Because it was her first visit to Budapest, she was allowed a very small glass of wine. The flavour was curious, but it was warming, and people began to look more interesting. There was a very small but very round little man with a bald head and a huge nose whom Leo pointed out as a Member of Parliament. When the little man had finished his lunch he rose very solemnly from his seat, paid his bill, and walked out of the restaurant past their table. When he was level with them he bowed slightly to them, said “Ferenc” in acknowledgment, and then left.

“He spoke to you, Uncle Leo! That Member of Parliament spoke to you! You cannot be a renegade like Grandpapa says if a Member of Parliament spoke to you!”

“Ah, but perhaps he is a renegade too.”

“I think everyone here is very nice, very nice indeed,” she said warmly, and then lowered her voice and continued. “I cannot think why Communists have to be put in prison. I think they are lovely people!”

Uncle Leo was suddenly very serious. “These are not Communists, Terez. These are people who have come to eat lunch. Some of them talk about things they do not like in Hungary, but you must not go home and say they are Communists, not until you are older and have found out for yourself.”

“I think, my dear Leo, it is time we left before this young woman absorbs any more heresies or any more wine.”

“I don’t want to go.”

Her uncles rose and each of them grasped one of her hands.

“I don’t want to go. I like it here!”

She was outside on the pavement before she could properly rebel. She felt bad-tempered and scratchy and yet was ashamed of herself for feeling that way. One part of her wanted to apologize and hug them both, thank them for giving her such a lovely time, but the other part was angry and wanted to shout at them. She allowed herself to be dragged along the pavement, scowling and kicking any obstacles that lay in her way. Then suddenly she felt her hands released. She tugged them back to her sides and glared up at them, chagrined to realize they hadn’t noticed her, indeed appeared to have even forgotten she was there. They were standing quite still, staring at an old woman at a newspaper kiosk. In a rough, cracked voice she was shouting, “Austrian plebiscite cancelled! Schuschnigg surrenders to Nazis!”

“Uncle Leo?”

He was lost in some private world, staring at the newspaper kiosk, his eyes impenetrable and black.

“Uncle Leo, I’m sorry I behaved so badly.”

He took a step forward and stared again at the old woman; then he faced Uncle David and said quietly, “We are finished, David. This will be the end for Hungary.”

Uncle David didn’t answer. He just looked terribly old and tired. His face and body seemed to sag and all the grey in his hair was suddenly more noticeable.

“What’s the matter, Uncle David?” she asked timidly. “Is something wrong?”

They neither of them spoke. They both groped for her hands and then continued their walk along the street, slowly and in silence.

When Leo arrived back at his apartment building the caretaker’s door was open and the old man was waiting just inside.

“A woman—lady—came while you were away, Mr. Ferenc. She said she knew you well and that you would want her to wait. She had luggage. She has come from Vienna—and a boy with her.”

“Kati! It is Kati! Where is she?”

“In your room, Mr. Ferenc, sir.” He half extended his hand but Leo was too disturbed to proffer the customary gratuity. He ran up the stairs and unlocked his door. In the midst of his chaotic room Kati, exhausted and white, was sitting on the corner of the bed that he had cleared for Terez and David. The boy, Nicky, was curled up asleep on the floor.

“Hello, Leo,” she said wearily.

“Kati! Dear Kati!”

“I got out as soon as I realized what was going to happen. The trains were being stopped all the way to the frontier. I don’t think many will get through at all now.”

“My God, Kati! What’s happening in Austria?”

She shook her head. Her face and hands were smudged with dirt from the journey. “Austria is finished,” she said tiredly. “The Germans have taken over completely. The plebiscite was to have been on Sunday, but the Nazis didn’t wait for that. Schuschnigg surrendered rather than have the German army attack. They’re moving in anyway.” She placed a hand up to her eyes and pressed, as though the pain in her head was too much to bear. She was as he remembered, thin, small, ugly, and yet interesting and, even at this time, with a gentle composure which was attractive.

“I’ll make you coffee. And food—I’ll send the caretaker out for food.” He raced to take coffee from the cupboard, then left it and ran downstairs to the caretaker’s apartment. The old man’s face cleared when he saw Leo taking money from his pocket.

“My cousin is hungry and exhausted. She has just escaped from Austria. Could you very kindly fetch a meal from the restaurant? And something for the child too.”

“I don’t—”

Leo pressed some extra coins into his hand and, grumbling, the old man reached back for his coat and hat. Leo didn’t wait for him to go; he ran back upstairs to Kati. She was in exactly the same position he had left her, hands pressed tightly against her eyes.

“Forgive me for coming here, Leo,” she said wearily. “I can go to a hotel, and I will. I have plenty of money once I make arrangements with the bank. But it has been so bad, the last few weeks. When I arrived here I was suddenly afraid, lonely. I wanted to see you, any of the family, but especially you, Leo.”

“I understand.”

Even in the midst of the fear and depression he was aware of pleasure, gratification, that Kati had sought him out for comfort. Their friendship, a curious one, had grown in the six years since he had visited her in Vienna. He had begun to write to her during the period of emotional despair after Hanna’s desertion. He had been able to confide in no one else. His family, even Malie, were too curious, too tactful and determined to help him get over it. He couldn’t bring himself to refer to the matter at all in case his carefully guarded composure collapsed into unhappy anger. He had written to Kati then, telling her everything that had happened, every tiny detail that he could remember from his life with Hanna. She had answered, a warm dignified letter that sympathized but did not pity, and the letter had served to soothe one thousandth part of his pain.

During the first few months in Budapest, jobless, with his money running out and the family constantly rebuking him for foolishness and irresponsibility, he had written to her many times. And always the answers had been affectionate, confident, and yet practical and lacking in patronage. When he finally found employment, as an underpaid clerk and translator for an agency, she had been the only one who was not ashamed of his inferior position. She appreciated his independence and the difficulty of getting work, any kind of work, and she appreciated, too, the minor advancements that he made in the following years: the transfer from the agency to the newspaper, the acceptance of occasional articles to journals and magazines. Kati was the only one who really knew how hard and difficult his endeavours had been.

“What was it like in Vienna, Kati?”

She shrugged dispiritedly. “I don’t have to tell you, Leo. You were in Berlin in ’32. You know it all: fighting, broken windows and shops, swastikas, suicides. Exactly the same.”

He went over to the spirit stove and began to make coffee. The smell and the noise woke Nicky. He stared about him, frightened, then saw Kati and smiled. “Where are we, Mama?” he asked in German. “Are we in Hungary at last?”

Leo came forward with the coffee. “Yes, young man,” he answered in Hungarian. “Now you are in Budapest, and here you must speak Hungarian.”

The little boy stared, round-eyed. At eight he was still an incredibly handsome child. Something of him resembled Terez—the eyes—yes, he had very warm, glowing dark eyes, like Terez’s.

The caretaker knocked on the door and came in with food. Nicky ate hungrily, but Kati picked listlessly at first. Eventually, however, as the warmth and the coffee seeped into her blood, she began to revive a little, colour flowed back into her face, and she ate her food with some enjoyment.

He found a bottle of wine and opened it. It began to grow dark outside and they covered Nicky up on the bed and lit the fire. It was warm and deceptively safe, an oasis of peace and friendship that it seemed impossible to disrupt. He tried to remember what was happening over the frontier, a country being smashed into political subservience by the Reichswehr, but for the moment he was able to delude himself that the gentle cocoon of this room was reality, not the world outside.

“What do you think will happen to us... to Hungary?” Kati said quietly.

“God knows.”

“Where do you think Hitler will strike next?”

“Poland, perhaps, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland—no, I don’t think Switzerland, not yet.”

“Not the western countries, France, Belgium?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And here. Hungary. Will Horthy be able to keep a permanent alliance with Hitler? Enough to keep the German army out of the country?”

“Maybe, for a little while.” The safety had gone from the room and the flavour from the wine. He took her hand and held it, both seeking comfort and giving it. “What will you do, Kati? Will you stay here, in Budapest?”