Csardas (53 page)

Felix. Felix was not a man, and he had nearly destroyed her. Why had he hurt her like that? Why had he been so cruel, to encourage her and then destroy her?

When the opera ended Stefan wrapped her cloak around her and his hands bore down on her shoulders. For a brief second his body was pressed against her back and she could feel every muscle straining to keep control. Her own hunger leapt up again and she had a wild impulse to turn her body and thrust back against him. They fought against lust, won, and left the opera with the two gentle, happy people who had brought them. The rest of the evening was a delicious, agonizing torment of desire for both of them.

A week later, oblivious of everything except Vienna, Stefan Tilsky, and Felix, she went to an apartment close to the Belvedere Gardens, a luxurious apartment with a marble bathroom and a bed covered in purple satin. Stefan had arranged everything with the smooth ease of an experienced philanderer, and this time she did not feel ashamed of her body.

Malie was delighted to see Eva getting back to normal again. Her sister was never easy to live with, and as she got older she became less easy, but the quiet, subdued Eva who had arrived in Budapest had distressed Malie immeasurably and she was almost relieved when Eva borrowed her squirrel wrap without asking and snapped at the children for making a noise in the morning. Eva’s restoration to health was, Malie was forced to admit, largely due to Stefan Tilsky. He paid court, flattered, and was attentive in the way Eva loved. After a while Malie began to grow a little afraid that perhaps he was too attentive. After all, she had written to Adam assuring him that she and David would look after Eva and now—well, there was something disturbing in the way they looked at each other, the way Stefan kissed Eva’s hand and brought her flowers whenever they were all going out for the evening.

She grew really alarmed when she saw Eva alighting from a cab that had come from the direction of Schwarzenbergplatz. Eva had said she was going to visit an old school friend who lived near Turkenschanz Park. How could she possibly have come from Turkenschanz via Schwarzenbergplatz? She was so uneasy that she was unable to bring herself to ask Eva. She sat and fretted all evening about it, watching the two lovers playing a game she didn’t understand but that she sensed was dangerous. Stefan Tilsky was a masculine and attractive animal. She herself had occasionally found his nearness disturbing, even though his arrogance annoyed her. He had the unquestionable charm that all Poles had, gaiety, sincerity, and an ability to make a woman, any woman, feel beautiful and desired. Her silly headstrong sister, who had spent her life rushing from one thoughtless deed to the next, was quite capable of falling out of love with Felix and in love with Stefan Tilsky in the space of one night.

So it was with infinite relief that she granted Eva’s surprising request one morning for the loan of enough money to take her home to Hungary and the Kaldy farm.

“Of course, my darling. You can have what you like. You would prefer to go now rather than return with us in November?”

“I want to go this morning.” Eva stared down at the tablecloth. She was quiet, but it wasn’t the quiet of her arrival in Vienna. That Eva had been crushed, listless. This Eva was controlled and tense.

“This morning! But we were all going to the theatre this evening! Surely you can wait for one day?”

“No. I must leave this morning. Adam—” She paused and swallowed. “Adam hasn’t written to me and I don’t know if he’s going to be cross because I ran away. Do you think he’ll be cross?”

“Possibly,” replied Malie dryly.

“I’ll go now, if you don’t mind.”

She was quiet, but Malie could sense the springs that were waiting to thrust her from the chair and precipitate her onto the Budapest train. Having spent the last few days worrying about Eva’s visit, she now began to worry about her erratic departure.

“Is something wrong, darling?” she asked gently.

“Nothing at all.” Eva was poised, wary. “Why? Does it seem as though something is wrong?”

“Well, no, but you were enjoying yourself so much here. It seems a little strange to leave so suddenly.”

“I just think it’s time to go home to my husband.”

Amalia asked no more. Whatever had prompted Eva’s arrival in Vienna had now been replaced by some equally urgent need to go home. She was a trifle concerned at the urgency and at the mystery, but overlying everything else was the relief of having peace descend once more on their household. She went into their bedroom and asked David for enough money to send her sister home. When she came out Eva was back in her room, already packing.

They got her to the station just in time to catch the Budapest train and then they returned to an apartment in the total disorder of a frenzied and unplanned departure. Eva, amongst other things, had inadvertently packed the garnet chain and the squirrel wrap. She had also omitted to send Stefan Tilsky a note, and that evening Malie had the somewhat uncomfortable task of telling a startled and angry Polish nobleman that her sister had fled back to the country.

It was almost impossible to reach the farm from Vienna in one day, but Eva knew she couldn’t bear to wait overnight, either in Budapest or with her parents up in the town. She just
had
to get back to Adam and the farm that night. She couldn’t stand the torment of going to sleep not knowing what her reception would be. She arrived in Budapest that afternoon and had to wait for two hours before she could catch a train out. She sat in the station restaurant, ignoring the interested and inviting glances of male passers-by and trying to look composed in spite of the turmoil raging in her head. What shall I do if he won’t forgive me? Supposing he turns me out. What shall I do? But he won’t turn me out, he loves me! But remember how stubborn he can be? Remember how he wouldn’t let you go away for longer than a week? He said you were irresponsible and undisciplined. Oh, what shall I do if he won’t forgive me!

In the train going up to the town she shed a few tears, tears of anxiety and strain but also rehearsal tears. She couldn’t eat anything when food was brought round and, after a few sips of coffee, she threw the rest out of the window. It was dark when she arrived and she was tired and dirty. It would have been sensible to have gone to Mama and Papa’s for the night and travelled up to the hills next day. But a self-induced panic was driving her on. She had to know. She had to know if Adam would forgive her.

After three quarters of an hour she found a cab driver who would take her along the country roads up to the hills. He insisted on payment in advance and she had to empty her purse before he was satisfied. She sat on the edge of the car seat, tense, feeling sick with anxiety and with the constant jolting over the bad roads. What could she say? What could she do that would put it all right? Should she say she was sorry? What explanation had Felix given of her flight from Budapest? She took her hat from her aching head and stuffed it into her bag. There were spasms of blinding light across her eyes and she pressed the fingers against the lids, trying to drive the pain and tiredness away.

“Can’t you hurry?” she snapped at the driver. “I’ve paid you enough. Surely you can drive faster than this!”

The driver didn’t answer, but he opened the window of his cabin and spat out into the night. He was already regretting the avarice that had made him agree to drive this madwoman out into the country at night. He steadfastly ignored the impatient noises she was making and began, ruefully, to estimate what time he would get home again.

The drive through the acacia woods was nightmarish. The lights on the car made a dark and eerie tunnel out of the trees, and several times they saw the red eyes of animals gleaming at them from the side of the road. The driver was swearing quite blatantly now but she was past hearing or caring. In her stomach was a huge hard ball of fear that pressed down on her bladder, making her feel sick and uncomfortable. She resolutely blotted out from her mind any other explanation for feeling so ill. Why hadn’t she waited overnight at Papa’s? Then she would have arrived looking clean and pretty. She would have been able to win him then. What would she do if he wouldn’t take her back? What would she do? Where could she go?

Screaming directions at the driver she got them at last to the long flat stretch that led to the farmhouse. A light was showing in the bedroom window. God! Supposing he was doing what he had once threatened to do! Supposing he had a girl from the village there with him! The car squealed to a halt and, ignoring the cries of the driver, she was out before the engine had stilled and was running up the steps into the house.

“Adam! Adam! It’s me! Eva!”

The bedroom door opened and he stood there, outlined against the light.

“Adam!” She began to cry, to sob piteously with fear and tiredness. Adam slowly reached his arm out and pressed a switch. The hall was flooded with light and she was able to see his face, stern, immobile except for a small muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s me,” she wept. “I’ve come home, Adam!” She flung herself forward and then felt his arms go round her, gripping her so tightly that for one terrible second she thought he was going to thrust her away. But then the tightness changed to a violent trembling and when she looked at his face she saw tears filling his eyes.

“Darling Adam!” she cried, relief draining through her body.

She could handle all the rest, the questions and explanations, the sorrow and tears and pleadings. She could handle all that, providing he still wanted her. And he did. Oh, it was obvious he did!

“I’ve come all the way from Vienna in one day. The car driver was angry, I think he wants some more money, but I had to see you. I couldn’t wait another night. I missed you so much, Adam! I had to see you!”

He buried his face in her neck, and suddenly she realized he was sobbing. Not the way she was sobbing, frightened and tearful, but with deep, wrenching movements that shook his body. For the first time since leaving the apartment in Pannonia Street she felt shame for what she had done to Adam. The shame lasted for a brief moment, and then relief drowned it once more. I’ll make it up to him, I promise I’ll make it up to him. He doesn’t need much. It will be easy to make him happy.

The driver blew his horn and all the dogs began to bark. “I’ll go and see what he wants,” Adam said. He left her and when he came back he was calm again, the old, unruffled, stolid Adam.

“We won’t talk tonight, will we, Adam? I’m so tired! It was such a long journey and I was afraid you wouldn’t want me back. I was so worried! Can we just go to bed and talk in the morning?”

He nodded and drew her forward once more into his arms. He wiped her face gently with one hand as though she were a child. “Oh, Eva, why did you do this to me?”

“In the morning,” she said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

He went down and put fresh coal on the stove himself so that there would be hot water for her to bathe in. And later, tired but refreshed, she crawled into his arms prepared to do what she must do if her return and her future were to be safeguarded. She discovered, to her surprise, that Felix and Stefan Tilsky had made no difference to the way she was with her husband. The Eva who had offered herself to Felix and had subsequently been possessed by Stefan Tilsky seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the dutiful wife of Adam Kaldy.

Six weeks later, she was able to tell him that she thought she might be pregnant. He stared for a moment, his green eyes unfathomable, and then he kissed her and said that he was satisfied. Fear shot through her when he said that. Satisfied. Why should he choose a word like that? But his behaviour during the months that followed lulled and soothed her anxieties. And when her child was born the following July her relief was absolute, for little Terez resembled only her mother. The black curls and the tiny heart-shaped face were those of Eva and no one else.

When the day came for him to leave the farm and go away to school, he awoke with a scalding sensation in his bowels. He had to rush outside, and when he came back and lay down again he felt weak and afraid.

In their corner of the room his mother, grandmother, and three sisters stirred and made little grunting snores. There was a rustle, and then his mother slid from the bed and came over to him.

“All right, my son?”

He tried to speak and couldn’t. To his shame he found that his voice cracked, and he stopped trying to speak in case he cried. Eleven years old, nearly a man, and here he was about to cry. His mother sat down beside him on the straw mattress and hugged him close.

“Only a few months and you will be home again,” she said softly. “Home—and with what tales of learning! What stories of the town and the school, and of Uncle Lajos! We shall think of nothing else while you are gone but the tales you will have to tell us when you return.”

He put his arms round her waist and buried his head against her side, still not daring to speak. His mother smelt of wood ash, of cabbage soup, of sunflowers, of sweat. He didn’t even recognize it as a smell; it was his mother, warm and secure, his mother whom he was leaving.

“And what pride you have brought to the family,” she murmured. “Why, even Mrs. Boros spoke with great respect to me yesterday. My son is to go to the school to receive an education.”

“I shall come back the very moment I have finished the education,” he said, finding words at last. “The minute the school is finished I shall come home here back to you.”

She hugged him, stroked his hair (newly cut by Aunt Ilonka, ready for school), and said, “Of course, Janni! That is why we have tried so hard to find a place for you in the school. When the education is finished you will come back, and perhaps you will be the accountant or the man in charge of the engines. And then what lives we shall lead!”

“You will have a bed to yourself and as many pictures as you like, and you will have the best house on the farm!”

He felt his mother nod. It wasn’t light enough yet to see her, but he could feel her body move. “That’s right, Janni. And I shall be so proud of you!”