Beware of Pity (10 page)

At seven-thirty we leave together. Ferencz plans to stroll on the promenade. But as soon as I have followed my two friends out of the café, I catch a glance from someone I know in
passing
. Wasn’t that Ilona? Of course—even if I hadn’t admired her dark red dress and broad-brimmed panama hat with the ribbon around it only the day before yesterday, I’d have
recognised
her from behind by the graceful way she sways from the waist as she walks. But where is she going in such haste? She’s not strolling along like a girl out to join the others on the promenade, she is in a hurry—I must go after the pretty bird, however fast she flutters!

“Excuse me,” I say, leaving my surprised comrades rather abruptly and hurrying after the red dress on its way down the street. For I really am delighted by the coincidence of seeing Kekesfalva’s niece in my military world for once.

“Ilona, Ilona, stop, stop!” I call after her. She is walking remarkably fast, but finally she does stop, without seeming in the least surprised. Of course she noticed me before when she passed me.

“How splendid to meet you here for once, Ilona. I’ve been wishing for some time that I could walk around this town where we’re stationed with you. Or would you rather go into the cake shop we both know so well?”

“No, no,” she murmurs, rather awkwardly. “I’m in a hurry, they expect me at home.”

“Well then, they’ll have to wait five minutes more. If the worst comes to the worst and you risk being made to stand in the corner, I’ll give you a note to excuse you. Come along, don’t look at me so sternly.”

I would like to take her arm, for I am genuinely glad to meet Ilona, the more striking of the two girls, in this other world of mine, and if my comrades see me with such a pretty girl all the better! But Ilona herself seems ill at ease.

“No, I really must go home,” she says hastily. “The car’s already waiting over there.” And sure enough, the chauffeur salutes me respectfully from where he is waiting in the square outside the town hall.

“Well, at least let me escort you to the car.”

“Of course,” she murmurs in curious agitation. “Of course … and by the way … why didn’t you come to see us this afternoon?”

“This afternoon?” I ask, deliberately slowly, as if I have to search my memory. “This afternoon? Oh yes, such a silly thing happened this afternoon. The Colonel was buying himself a new horse, and we all had to go with him to inspect the animal and try its paces.” (In fact this incident had happened a month ago. I’m a very bad liar.)

She hesitates, about to say something in reply. But why is she tugging at her glove, why is she tapping her foot so nervously? Then she suddenly, hastily says, “Won’t you at least come back with me now, and have dinner with us?”

Stick to your decision, I quickly tell myself, don’t give way. Hold out at least for a single day! So I sigh regretfully. “What a pity, I’d be delighted to come. But today’s no good, the regiment has a social gathering this evening and I must be there.”

She looks at me sharply—curiously, she now has exactly the same impatient line between her brows as Edith—and says nothing, whether out of deliberate incivility or embarrassment I don’t know. The chauffeur opens the car door for her, she slams it and then asks me, looking out of the window, “But will you come to see us tomorrow?”

“Yes, certainly.” And the car is driving away.

I am not very pleased with myself. Why this curious haste on Ilona’s part, that awkwardness, as if she were afraid of being seen with me, and why her swift departure? What’s more, out of mere courtesy I ought to have asked her to give my regards to Edith’s father, I should have sent a kind message to Edith, what have they done to harm me? On the other hand I am quite pleased to have shown some reserve. I did hold out. Now at least they can’t think that I am trying to force my company on them.

Although I have told Ilona that I will visit at the usual time next afternoon, to be on the safe side I telephone beforehand to say I’m coming. Better to observe the forms of etiquette—you’re safe with them. I want to make it clear that I am not descending on anyone as an unwanted guest, from now on I will always ask whether my visit is expected, and whether I will be welcome. Not that I really need to doubt it this time, because the front door is already open, the manservant is waiting there, and as
soon as I am inside the house he eagerly lets me know that “The young lady has gone up to the roof terrace on top of the tower and would like you to join her there, sir.” And he adds, “I don’t think you have ever been up to the terrace, sir. The beautiful view will amaze you.”

Old Josef was right about that. I really never had been on the roof terrace of the tower before, although that curious and puzzling building had often interested me. Probably, as I mentioned before, it was originally the corner tower of a castle that had long ago been demolished or fallen into ruin (even the girls didn’t know its previous history). This solid, square structure had stood empty for years and was used as a storehouse. In her childhood, and to her parents’ terror, Edith had often climbed the rather decrepit ladder to the loft at the top, where bats fluttered drowsily among old junk, and thick clouds of dust and decay rose with every step taken over the rotten old floorboards. But the child, with her liking for fantasy, had chosen this useless place, with an unimpeded view from the dirty windows into the distance, as her own hideout, her play world, for the very reason that it
was
mysteriously useless. After the accident, when she could not hope ever to climb up to that high romantic lumber room again with her paralysed legs, she felt numb. Her father often watched as she looked up bitterly at the beloved paradise of her childhood, now a paradise lost.

To give her a surprise, while Edith was away for three months at a sanatorium in Germany, Kekesfalva
commissioned
a Viennese architect to convert the old tower, and lay out a pleasant terrace with a good view at the top. When Edith was brought back in the autumn, with hardly any
improvement
at all in her condition, the rebuilt tower already had a lift fitted, as broad as those installed in the sanatorium, and so
the sick girl was able to ride up to her beloved lookout post in her wheelchair at any time. The world of her childhood was unexpectedly restored to her.

It is true that the architect, working in some haste, had thought less of observing consistency of style than of technical convenience. With its geometrically straight lines, the
uncompromising
form that he had imposed on the precipitous old four-square tower was better suited to a dockyard or a power station than the pleasingly elaborate baroque structure of the rest of the little castle, which probably dated from the reign of Maria Theresia. However, it turned out to fulfil Herr von Kekesfalva’s expectations; Edith was delighted by the terrace, which so unexpectedly freed her from the narrow, monotonous confinement of her sickroom. It was her own lookout post, and up there she could see, through a pair of binoculars, the wide, flat landscape and everything that went on around the house: seed time and hay-making, business and social
occasions.
Back in the world again after being shut away from it so long, she could spend hours on this vantage point, looking at the railway down below where trains merrily chugged across the landscape like toys, puffing out little curls of smoke. No vehicle coming up the avenue escaped her notice, and I learnt later that she had watched many of our regimental exercises on horseback and parades through a telescope. But out of a strange kind of jealousy she kept this remote terrace to herself, a private world where guests in the house were not allowed, and only the faithful Josef’s spontaneous enthusiasm told me what a special distinction it was to be invited to this usually inaccessible stronghold.

He wanted to take me up in the lift that had been installed; you could see how proud he was that working this expensive means
of transport was solely his own prerogative. But I declined the offer as soon as he told me that a little spiral staircase wound its way up to the roof terrace, with daylight falling through openings in the walls on each floor. I immediately thought how pleasant it would be to see the landscape dropping further and further below as I went up from landing to landing, and indeed, each of those narrow, unglazed windows offered a new enchanting view. A hot, clear, windless day lay over the summer countryside like a golden web. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the scattered houses and farms, standing almost motionless in the air. You could see thatched cottages with the inevitable storks’ nests on their rooftops, every outline showing against the background of the steel-blue sky as if it had been cut out with a sharp knife; you could see duck ponds glittering like polished metal outside barns. And among them, in the pale fields of ripening crops, you saw tiny, Lilliputian figures, dappled cows grazing, women pulling out weeds and washing clothes, heavy wagons drawn by oxen, little carts moving quickly among the neat patchwork of the arable land. When I had climbed about ninety steps, the view embraced the Hungarian plain all around as far as the slightly hazy horizon, where a blue strip might perhaps be the Carpathians, and on the left was our little garrison town, with its buildings huddled close together and the onion dome of its church. I could easily make out our barracks, the town hall, the school, the parade ground, and for the first time since being transferred to the garrison here I was really aware of the quiet charm of this remote part of the country.

But I cannot give myself up to contemplation of this pleasant scene just now, for I have reached the terrace on the flat roof, and I must prepare to greet the lame girl. At first I can’t see Edith at all; the broad back of the comfortable wicker chair in
which she is sitting is turned to me and, like the colourful curve of a seashell, hides her thin body entirely. I guess where she is only from the table beside the chair, which is laden with books and the gramophone with its lid up. I hesitate to approach too suddenly; I might perhaps disturb her if she is resting or dreaming. I walk around the square of the terrace so that I can approach her from in front. However, on moving carefully forward, I realise that she is asleep. Her slender form has been comfortably settled with a soft rug over her feet, and her oval childlike face, framed in pale-red hair, rests on a white pillow, turned slightly sideways. The sun, already sinking, lends her complexion a look of golden, glowing health.

Instinctively I stop and make use of this hesitant, waiting moment to examine the sleeping girl as if she were a picture. At our frequent meetings I have never really had a chance to look at her properly, because like all who are sensitive, or indeed over-sensitive, she unconsciously resists such a gaze. Even if you happen to look her in the face during a conversation, that little line of annoyance instantly appears between her brows, her eyes dart quickly back and forth, her lips twitch nervously; she never for a moment shows you her profile at rest. Only now that she lies there with her eyes closed, motionless and unresisting, can I really contemplate that face (and doing so feels improper, like theft). Her features are rather angular, as if still unfinished; it is a face where child, woman and invalid mingle in a very attractive way. She is breathing gently through her lips, which are slightly open as if she were thirsty, but even this tiny effort makes her childishly small breasts rise and fall, and it has exhausted her, her pale face in its frame of red hair is laid back on her pillows. I move cautiously closer. The shadows under her eyes, the blue veins at her temples, the rosy translucence of her nostrils show
what a thin, colourless protection her alabaster skin offers from the outside world. How sensitive she must be, I think, when the nerves throb so close to the surface, unprotected, how infinitely she must suffer with such an elfin body, light as thistledown, a body that seems made for swift running, for dancing, hovering in the air, and yet is cruelly chained to the hard, heavy earth! Poor, captive creature—once again I feel the hot springs of pity welling up from inside me. It is a painfully tiring and at the same time wildly exciting sensation that overcomes me every time I think of her unhappiness; my hand trembles with longing to caress her arm gently, bend over her and, as it were, pluck the smile from her lips if she wakes up and recognises me. A need for tenderness, mingling with my pity whenever I think of her or look at her, makes me go closer. But I do not want to disturb the sleep in which she escapes from herself and her physical reality. It is wonderful to be close to the sick when they are asleep, when all anxieties lie at rest inside them, when they have forgotten their frailty so entirely that a smile sometimes settles on their half-open lips like a butterfly settling on a leaf—a strange smile that does not really seem to be their own, and will be banished as soon as they wake up. What divine mercy, I think, that at least in sleep the crippled and mutilated know nothing about the form or perhaps the formlessness of their bodies, that in a gently deceptive dream at least their bodies appear to them beautiful and regular, that at least in the world of sleep, surrounded by the dark, suffering invalids can elude the curse to which they are physically chained. What strikes me most are her hands, lying crossed on the rug, long hands with shadowy veins, fragile joints and pointed, bluish nails—delicate, bloodless, helpless hands, perhaps strong enough to stroke small animals, pigeons and rabbits, but too weak to hold and grasp anything firmly.
Much moved, I wonder how she can defend herself against real suffering with such helpless hands. How can she fight for anything, hold and keep it? And I am almost repelled by the thought of my own hands, firm, heavy, strong and muscular hands that can control the most intractable horse with a pull on the reins. Against my will, my eyes are now drawn to the rug, a shaggy, heavy rug, much too heavy for this bird-like creature, weighing down on her bony knees. Under that impervious covering lie her helpless legs—I don’t know whether they are crushed, crippled or simply deprived of strength, I have never had the courage to ask—but they are strapped into those steel and leather devices. At every movement, I remember, those cruel contraptions hang heavy as a ball and chain round her feeble joints; delicate and weak as she is, she always has to carry their horrible clinking and grinding about with her. You feel that to her, of all people, running, hovering, swinging through the air would be more natural than walking!