The Book of Fathers (35 page)

Sándor Csillag was lost in thought. Something pressed against his chest from inside. He was unable to put into words the confused feelings he felt. He could hardly believe that he … well, that he envied his brother-in-law. He had not been alone for years. His nights out, especially those in Budapest, now came back into his thoughts more and more. Wasn’t it high time to see if the ten historical statues paid for by the Apostolic King were up yet?

“Do you remember the piece we saw at the Opera?” he asked Antonia.

“Of course I do. Those were the happiest days of my life.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“We were together day and night …” and she lowered her eyes to the ground.

But their eyes soon met. They were talking in the salon, on the couch with the floral pattern. Sándor Csillag was drawn to Antonia by a force a thousand times more powerful than electricity. There was no stopping, no reasoning.

When they came to, Antonia’s tears were in full flow, streaming down her cheeks and shoulder and gathering in a darkish pool on the covering of the couch. Sándor Csillag tugged at his bits of clothing and urged Antonia to do the same—a servant could come in at any time. They had been trained to knock before entering, but they often forgot. A few minutes later they were both sitting, clothes properly adjusted, on the floral-pattern couch, one at each end.

“Oh my God, what have we done? What will become of us?”

Sándor Csillag was incapable of consoling her or calming her; his desperation was deeper than the woman’s. “What if my Ilonka finds out?”

“She must not find out. Ever. Let’s swear on it!”

It proved harder than they thought to keep their oath. They had not reckoned with Antonia’s blushes, which she found difficult to give reasons for in the presence of her sister. They could not have been prepared for how difficult they found it to keep their looks and gestures under control. Left alone in the house they would have fallen upon each other at once, but fortunately Antonia kept her head and loudly ordered the coachman to bring the carriage round at once: “A constitutional, along the bank of the Tettye!”

Arm in arm, enforcing stillness upon their limbs, they walked towards the thick of the forest. They ascertained that the coachman could no longer see them and then they tore off their clothes. In the course of an hour or so they managed to make each other reach the highest peaks many times. Sándor Csillag clutched Antonia’s neck in ecstasy, at which she by no means protested but uttered a thin, high-pitched squeal that sent the man into seventh heaven. For these honey-sweet little sounds he would have walked barefoot to Trieste or even Rome. They would scratch each other too, violently, until blood came.

They knew they were playing with fire. Sándor Csillag repeatedly hardened his heart and tried to avoid his sister-in-law. To achieve this, he spent more and more time in the shoe shop. Ilona was delighted. She told anyone who would listen: “It looks like Sándor’s drying up behind the ears at long last.”

Antonia understood and was resigned to her fate. She dared not hope that their relationship would flare up again and was always surprised when it did. She was long resigned to Imre Holatschek never returning to her. She strove to prepare her soul for the loneliness that she thought she would have to endure for the rest of her life, which was only assuaged for some moments by her brother-in-law. She tried to make herself useful around the house, especially with the children, and the nurse was quickly dispatched because Antonia was very pleased and happy to carry out her work. In her, little Nándor and Károly gained and adored a second mother. They called her Tonchi, which became the most frequent word they uttered. Ilona and her husband too started to call Antonia Tonchi.

This was the last year of the nineteenth century, with the next approaching apace. Sándor Csillag was enormously excited at this prospect, as if the turn of the millennium offered some hope of regeneration or rebirth. He decided
they would spend this special New Year’s Eve in Budapest, in the Queen of England. His wife was not thrilled at the idea. “I’ll be seven months gone.”

“Don’t worry, my dear. We shall take Professor Huszárik with us.”

“And Tonchi?”

“Tonchi too. And your parents. I have booked an entire floor.”

The shoe shop of Straub & Csillag was doing so well that money was truly no object. They had opened two branches, one in Jókai Street and another in Nepomuk Street. Sándor Csillag missed no opportunity to shower his beloved Ilonka with expensive gifts. At the Armenian jeweler in the lower town he opened a current account, so he could expect to be the first to be shown the latest
nouveautés
. He had the most fabulous clothes brought over from Paris, from the highly regarded house of Worth. He ordered Caron perfume by the bottle, and red Russian caviar, which his Ilonka could never resist, imported by the crate, and they drank with it the most exclusive champagnes of Moët et Chandon.

The millennial trip was scheduled to begin on December 28. But the day before this Ilona fell ill with dreadful spasms, and she reported to her husband with a deathly pale face that she was bleeding a little. Dr. Huszárik came post-haste and ordered her to bed and to be rubbed with a special unguent he brought. “Obviously, travel is out of the question!”

“We are not going,” said Sándor Csillag.

“Don’t …” said Ilona. “Don’t worry about me; you go.”

“How could you imagine such a thing!”

“I’m absolutely sure you should go. There’s no need for so many people to suffer because of me. Everything will be fine; the professor will take care of me.”

“Always at your service, Madame,” said Dr. Huszárik.

Sándor Csillag resisted until almost the moment of departure, but his wife was adamant. An entire little caravan of carriages swung onto the winding road, with Manfred and Helene Goldbaum in the first, Sándor Csillag and Tonchi in the second, and the servants in the third. Little Nándor and Károly stayed at home, looked after by a nun hurriedly recruited from the Sisters of Mercy. Before stepping into the carriage, Sándor Csillag looked back once more and saw Ilona through the window. She sat up in bed and waved with a tired smile.

Budapest received its visitors with quiet, cloudy weather. The Queen of England was covered in flags and its windows were decorated with pine branches, ready for the celebrations. Sándor Csillag took over the suite that on his own he found rather too big. The children’s canopied beds and the double bed reminded him of the loved ones he had been obliged to leave in Pécs. As he was constantly cold, his manservant kept the fire in the stove red-hot. Whenever possible he would sit on Antonia’s skirt, though at a suitable distance, as here they were even less secure from the eyes and ears of the hotel staff. In the depths of night, however, she always stole over to his bed and they gave each other a few hours bathed in gold. Their only care was that their cries of joy were muffled by the pillows.

The sound of church bells, ringing out seemingly interminably the arrival of the year 1900, found them in bed. They had no appetite for the monumental pork cuts, the sturgeon, the house specialty of cabbage broth with lemon; they managed to keep each other fed on fruit, everything that was forbidden fruit to them. Sándor Csillag lay back on the sheets and kept his thoughts to himself. Why hurt Antonia’s heart? Sentences that begin “If only …” are harmful. Only one such was heard, and that from her mouth. At four in the morning, as she slipped out of the
room, she whispered: “This was the most wonderful night of my life. Will every
fin de siècle
be like this?”

Twentieth century, what do you hold in store for me? Is there something of which I know not that is still to come for me? My life has settled into a trough and will surely dribble down into the ocean that disappears into the dark fog generally called death. I shan’t ask it to happen, though!
—
it will come of its own accord
.

On January 2, 1900
—
how difficult it is to write this date
—
my third son was unexpectedly born and received the name Andor. I could not be at the birth, as I was on my way home from Budapest. This little creature, like the other two, asked to be admitted into this world much earlier than planned, so it appeared somewhat scrawny and little viable. This, however, no longer startles us. Indeed, little Andor caught up in a matter of weeks
.

May the heavens give me the peace to resign myself to what cannot be changed and the strength to carry out that which depends on me
.

His new resolution he was able to keep for nine months. He could not overcome his desire for Antonia for a moment longer than this. His sister-in-law received him with unaltered joy, never reproached him for the time in between; she understood perfectly and herself prayed for this agonizing attraction to turn to ashes.

Sándor Csillag devoted ever more time to the shoe shop and as much to the careful care of the three boys. He loved to see them growing up: he imagined Andor as a judge, Károly as a doctor, while the eldest, Nándor, would take over the family business. They were good brothers to each other, always helpful, forming a close-knit sixsome with their wives and in due course presenting him with nine healthy grandchildren.

These fine plans seemed already vain hopes when the lads went to primary school. All three proved to be rascals of the first order, taking leading roles in all the pranks, and no roles at all in their studies. They were always the ones kept in after school; it was always their blotchy, dog-eared exercise books that were displayed on the notice “shame” boards by way of warning; they were the ones constantly berated loudly and threatened with expulsion. Nothing helped: neither the cane nor being forced to kneel on maize cobs, though both were plentifully employed by their father and the schoolteacher. They avoided having to repeat the year always and only thanks to bespoke packages for the head teacher and his staff being supplied from the quality stock of Straub & Csillag.

“All the teachers are walking on our soles!”—Sándor Csillag’s despondent declaration went the rounds in the
Wild Man
, the intellectuals’ watering hole. The quality of its cuisine and wine often brought it Sándor Csillag’s custom, and on occasion this was the scene of trysts with Antonia, too, and although they behaved with decorum here, their rendezvous were not something they burdened Ilona’s business-oriented brain with. The windows of the
Wild Man
were set so low that one could go in and out of the building through them. On one occasion, Antonia’s parents turned up. As soon as Manfred and Helene Goldbaum hove into sight Sándor Csillag unchivalrously abandoned Antonia, fleeing through the windows. A flushed Antonia welcomed her parents, who could not imagine what their daughter was doing in a public place unaccompanied. Antonia managed to stutter something embarrassedly about a music teacher she was to take lessons from, whom she was supposed to meet here and discuss the matter with.

“Well, where is the teacher then?” Manfred Goldbaum inquired, his eyebrows arching to ever more interrogative heights.

“Well … he’s late.”

In the autumn of 1908 there was again a long period of self-restraint mutually imposed on and by Sándor Csillag and Antonia. For weeks on end they barely exchanged a word. The family was preparing for Sándor Csillag’s fortieth birthday. In the forenoon the children were—hopefully—at school, and the staff were putting the final touches to their spring cleaning. Sándor Csillag and Antonia were watering and arranging the indoor plants. They enjoyed the harmony of their movements. The house was filled with pure winter sunshine and in the contented silence only the two Hungarian vizsla dogs’ claws made little noises as they scratched the veranda door; they would gladly have come indoors, but Ilona forbade this, though in her absence Sándor Csillag and Antonia would sometimes allow them in nonetheless.

They had been standing on two sides of the palm for several long minutes; the round wooden pot had been painted dark brown by Sándor Csillag himself. They wiped the leaves down with a soft cloth and sprayed them with water, refreshing the soil with little wedges of compost. They found nothing more to do. Time passed, Antonia’s breath felt hot on Sándor Csillag’s neck. They chanced to glance at the Venetian wall mirror at the same time. Time had plowed streaks of gray in his hair; the keen cheekbones seemed less able to tolerate flesh upon them. The difference of eight years between them had never before seemed to matter; now it showed clearly, and they both saw this and thought this and with the identical movements of the head acknowledged it.

It was then they realized that Ilona was watching them from the veranda, as she stroked the two dogs. They both thought she had long ago left for the shoe shop and looked at themselves and at each other in some embarrassment. But we have only been standing here. She could not have
seen anything, they thought. Antonia blushed, Sándor Csillag too.

Ilona was gone. They were not even certain that they had seen her and that it was not their guilt that had played a trick on them. Antonia hurried into the kitchen, while Sándor Csillag set off for the shoe shop. He found Ilona bent over bills. She asked him, as usual: “Have you come to work?”

Whereupon he clicked his heels and replied: “Reporting for service, ma’am!”

This little routine they performed nearly every day.

For his birthday, he received a short, perfumed letter, with two seals upon it. He found it on the rococo table in the room they somewhat grandly called the music room, since it was host to a white upright piano.

Dear Sándor,

On the occasion of your fortieth birthday I urge you bravely to cast out from the boat of your life all falseness and pretense. Believe me, it is a waste to squander your energies. Do not be concerned about following the path whither your instincts direct you. Life is short. You can always count on me, as long as I feel the need I will absolve you of your sins and forgive everything that you have done in the past, that you are doing now, and that you will do in the future. Accept this as my birthday gift to you.