They Were Counted (86 page)

‘It will be done at once!’ he said, going over to the big Italian refectory table that he used as a writing desk. He put on his glasses and carefully copied Fanny’s list onto another sheet of paper.

‘Just go into the bedroom for a moment will you, my dear,’ he said to Fanny. ‘It is not necessary that my man should see you!’

Countess Beredy went into the adjacent room, but she did not close the doors behind her. She therefore heard Szelepcsenyi
giving
orders that the money should be given to the Club Steward in Count Gyeroffy’s name and that a receipt and all the original IOUs should be put in an envelope and brought back
immediately
. The servant was told to take a hired carriage and be quick about it. When he had gone Szelepcsenyi called to Fanny: ‘Fanion! Come and look at my newest acquisition!’

They went on talking and looking at the old man’s treasures until the footman returned. As before, Fanny disappeared into the bedroom while the man was in the room. When Szelepcsenyi was assured that all had been done as he wished he called her back and together they checked that everything was in order. When this had been done Fanny put the envelope in her bag and, glancing in an antique mirror to be sure that before she could
allow
herself to be seen in the street the Countess Beredy looked her usual immaculate self, she went back through the bedroom to the landing beyond the tapestry-hung door. There she turned again to her old admirer, gave him a hug so tight that he could feel the swell of her breasts beneath the light silken dress. This was her gift to him.

‘Thank you! Thank you! I thank you more than I can say!’ She lifted up her head and planted a kiss right into the middle of his well-trimmed beard, for Szelepcsenyi did not bend down to her but remained standing erect, his head held high as ever. He patted her on the shoulder in a fatherly way and then stood, still motionless, at the head of the little stairway until Fanny had reached the door below.

‘At your service always, my Fanion!’ he said softly as she waved goodbye to him from the door.

 

Half an hour later, Fanny was back in the little flat near the royal palace, carrying, as well as her handbag, a large parcel in which were cold tongue, ham, a little pot of
foie
gras,
two slices of coffee cake covered with whipped cream and a bottle of champagne – ‘to drown his sorrows in!’ she had thought when selecting these things on her way back from Szelepcsenyi’s.

Laszlo was still asleep, just as she had left him. Fanny’s first move was to put the champagne bottle under a cold tap and leave the water running so as to cool the wine. Then she undressed
completely
and slipped into a silk kimono which she selected from half a dozen others that she always kept there. Then she wound a green chiffon scarf round her blonde hair, glancing into the long looking-glass to be sure that she looked her best, and went back into the darkened room where Laszlo lay asleep. Without
disturbing
him she pulled forward a small table and arranged on it the food she had brought in, fetching china, cutlery, glasses and a white table-cloth from the minute kitchen which opened off one side of the room. Finally she rescued the champagne from the sink and put it in a bucket with some cold water. Only when all this had been done and Fanny had checked that no detail had been forgotten, did she sit down on the bed beside Laszlo and awaken him by kissing his closed eyelids.

Laszlo smiled with pleasure when he saw the woman bending over him, but in a moment, he remembered what had happened and his eyes widened in horror as the details all came back to him.

Fanny touched his mouth with her tapering fingers.

‘Don’t think about … about all that darling! Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see! Look! I’ve brought some food, all the things you like best, and a little wine too, champagne. Now we’ll have lunch together. Come along, I’m terribly hungry!’ So she encouraged him, coaxed him, consoled him with light
caresses
, stroking his cheeks until he got up and joined her at the
table
. They sat on stools, facing each other, and Fanny did all she could to charm him so that the sad memories of the disastrous evening before would be obliterated and forgotten. In the dark blue kimono with the pale green chiffon scarf wound round her head, Fanny looked even more like a great cat, dark-skinned and blonde-headed, her mouth smiling with mysterious pleasure and her long eyes only half visible through her thick black eyelashes. Her pleasure sprang from the fact that Laszlo ate with a good
appetite
, happily quaffing the champagne from an ordinary water tumbler as they had nothing else to drink from in the flat.

When their lunch was over Fanny went back to the couch. ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Come close to me, and I’ll tell you what I’ve done about that problem of yours.’ She spoke proudly,
thinking
how adroitly she had managed everything. Laszlo lay down beside her.

‘Look!’ said Fanny, taking the Casino’s envelope out of her bag. ‘Everything has been settled. Here are your IOUs – two for five and one for three thousand. See, they’ve been torn across and countersigned by the club cashier! And here is something else …’ and she handed him a slip on which was written:
‘I
hereby 
certify
that
I
have
this
day
received
from
Count
Laszlo
Gyeroffy
the
sum
of
73,000
crowns
(that
is
seventy-three
thousand
crowns)
for
Mr
Gedeon
Pray.’

Laszlo raised himself on his elbow, taking the little slips of
paper
from her and studied them carefully. He could hardly believe what he saw. It was true; the IOUs and the cashier’s receipts were all there, just as she had said. Laszlo was flooded with an immense sense of relief, but then he suddenly straightened up and stared at her with wide eyes.

‘This is not possible!’ he said. ‘How did you do it? Where did you get all this money? You? You? I can’t accept this! No! Never!’

‘Why not? It’s only a loan … a loan, I tell you. I found
someone
ready to lend it to you.’

‘A loan?’

‘Yes, just for a few months, to give you time to raise the money. A few months should be enough.’

‘Who lent it? Who? I want to know!’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s enough that I know. You’ll give it to me and I’ll pay it back.’

‘I insist on knowing who it is!’ cried Laszlo, furiously. ‘There’s something very tricky about all this. That … through you … I can’t possibly accept it … and I don’t believe a word of what you’ve said unless you tell me who! Tell me at one, who is it? Who?’

Fanny tried to lie: ‘It’s an old lawyer of my father’s. You don’t know him; he worked for my father. He’s very rich!’

‘His name! Tell me his name at once!’ Laszlo grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and then flung her back brutally on to the bed. As he did so the kimono fell open revealing Fanny’s white body against the dark blue satin. Laszlo stared at her, fascinated – the pearls! There was no sign of the pearls, either round her neck, nor over her breasts, nor wound round her waist or thighs. The pearls had gone, vanished!

It was only slowly as he looked at her with amazement that the connection came to him. Then, in stunned disbelief, he said dully: ‘You sold your pearls!’

Fanny sat up. She pressed herself to him and clung to him tightly. ‘No! I didn’t sell them, really I didn’t!’ And she told quickly how she had gone to the jewellers and pawned them as she often had in the past when she needed money. That it really didn’t signify – everyone did it, there was nothing to it, it was the most natural thing in the world. One could get them back any time, at a moment’s notice, a few days, a few months, it was all the same. It really didn’t matter at all and it meant nothing. That’s all she had done. It was no sacrifice, nothing he couldn’t or shouldn’t accept from her. Why, it cost her nothing; wearing the things concealed by her blouse or leaving them there for a
little
while, it was all the same to her. And she clung to him even more fiercely.

Laszlo did not respond, either to her words or to her embrace. He stood there, quite still, his arms hanging down loosely, his whole body slack as if he were infinitely weary. He only moved his head, shaking it continuously from side to side and muttering over and over again:

‘No! No! No! No!’

Fanny went on trying to cajole him. She became more eloquent in her love for him which, perhaps even now, though she did not realize it was a real love, inspired her to find the right words, the most persuasive arguments. What was done could not be
undone
. The debts had been settled, the money paid over and
accepted
. Nothing could be recalled. The only thing for him to do was to accept the fact and to forgive her – and he must get it into his head that he was not humiliated or dishonoured by what she had done – it wasn’t even a favour, it was really nothing. And he would do her a favour if he would forgive her. Possibly she had been thoughtlessly impulsive but she was only a woman who didn’t understand these things and who meant well. She had done it because she loved him as she had never loved anyone else and she had suddenly realized that if she lost him she would lose everything … everything. As she said these things she was seized with the fear that she might still lose him and the panic that
possessed
her then gave an even more convincing ring to her
arguments
and a warm softness to her voice. With renewed passion, now completely real and not, as when she had first started,
carefully
calculated to impress and persuade him, she clung to him tightly as if she feared ever to let him go, and for the first time in her life broke into deep wracking uncontrollable sobs, her tears running down his chest as she continued to murmur incoherently, kissing his neck, his ear, his hair, hurriedly, hurriedly, as if she feared that if one word were lost she would lose him be for ever. So she talked and talked and kissed and sobbed and held him tightly to her, her warm limbs naked under the kimono enlaced with his until, involuntarily, almost unconsciously, he began to respond, stroking her body automatically and then out of habit, returning her kisses, face to face, all possibility of argument or
reproach
submerged in their mutual desire. Fanny sank back on to the bed, drawing him down upon her until they were both lost to the world as they came together in the deep sensuous depths of their passion.

For a short time they slept, entwined in each other’s arms.

When Fanny awoke she thought at first that Laszlo was still sleeping but when she propped herself up on one elbow and looked at his face, she saw that his eyes were open. She slid one leg over his above the knee and held him as in a vice. Now at last he was really hers, her very own property who could no longer resist her and their love-making had been a pact, almost a contract by which he had accepted her sacrifice and help and admitted that what she had done for him was right. Now there was no way that he could demur or protest. She looked at him for a long time as he lay there motionless beside her, silent, his eyes still open as if he were a hundred miles away. No matter how much you fought me, she thought, you are now entirely mine, you can no longer
resist
or take refuge in those silly men’s prejudices against which it was normally impossible to make any headway. How
meaningless
such things were, how stupid and full of humbug, and how
irrelevant
to everything that really mattered in life.

She smiled to herself at the thought of what a mad world it was – why, even now he had not thanked her for what she had done for him; he wasn’t grateful. Far from it, indeed, for had he not been angry and struck her and flung her roughly on to the bed? It was not as if she had minded being manhandled, even beaten, for she had been flooded with pleasure when he had grabbled her shoulders with his two strong hands and so flung her so roughly from him. Still, it puzzled her, and she asked herself why she had done so much, and taken such risks, for a boy who did not love her and who had shown all too clearly that he only tolerated her presence and her devotion. Why, he barely even
accepted
what she had to offer, for did he not still love someone else, that girl who had turned from him and rejected him? It was clear that he did not, never had and never would love Fanny. Always it was that other … no one else …

Finally, when all these melancholy thoughts had become clear in her mind, she raised herself even higher on the pillows, still
gazing
down at the young man beside her, and involuntarily put her thoughts into words: ‘And you don’t even love me!’