Skylark (13 page)

Ákos reeled with hatred, staring at the couples with an open mouth. He was startled by a light touch on his hand.

“So here you are.”

His wife had been looking for him. They had arranged to meet in the park before going to dinner.

“What happened?” she asked after Ákos had risen to his feet and they had walked about ten paces.

“Nothing,” said the man. “That is, Skylark's written.”

“Where's the letter?'

“Here,” said Ákos, reaching into his pocket.

But he couldn't find the letter. Neither in one pocket, nor in the other.

They hurried back to the bench.

But it wasn't there either.

The letter had disappeared somewhere, fallen to the ground, perhaps, and been whisked away by the wind, along with all the torn newspaper sheets and other rubbish.

Ákos tried to suppress his irritation.

“What did she say?” asked his wife.

“She's fine. Having a wonderful time.”

“And her health?'

“She's perfectly well. Only a slight toothache.”

“Poor thing.”

“But she rubbed rum on it,” said Ákos. “Good, strong rum, and it went away.”

This comforted the woman.

They dined with Környey, and not in the worst of spirits. They stayed until eleven o'clock. Because the roast pork and red cabbage were rather greasy, Ákos took the exceptional liberty of allowing himself half a bottle of wine.

And as
for Thursday...Well, Thursday was simply Thursday.

A Thursday was no ordinary day. It was not marked with red letters in the calendar, but in Sárszeg it was no less notable than a Sunday. For Thursday was the day of the shindig.

The Panthers held their shindig in the clubhouse. It was the one day of the week when they could be truly alone, free of any trace of influence of womankind. The women of Sárszeg looked forward to these Thursdays with trepidation. Their husbands would stumble home at dawn, or later still, and all day long they'd be surly, red-eyed and thoroughly sick.

Ákos recalled these Thursday evenings with disgust, and when, the day before, Környey had ceremoniously invited him to join the Panthers at the club, he had racked his brains for excuses. Poppycock, insisted Környey, unmoved. Ákos explained that, unfortunately, he and his wife were already expected somewhere else. Not good enough, came the reply. And thus it went on until Ákos had finally promised to make an appearance early in the afternoon. Just for a few minutes, mind, a quarter of an hour at the most. A quarter of an hour and no more. He'd shake on it? Ákos extended his hand, out of weakness, rather than resolution, and gave his word of honour. Now there could be no turning back.

In the afternoon he allowed himself a prudent hour's sleep and woke refreshed. Wearing dove-grey gloves and carrying a silver-pommelled cane, he stepped into the foyer of the clubhouse, opened the huge glass door and climbed the steps to the first floor.

In the hall he met an old acquaintance, Básta, the liveried attendant, on his way to the library with two large china bowls in whose vinegary water sprigs of lettuce swam, and slices of hard-boiled egg. He set them down on an empty bookshelf–where the food always stood on Thursday evenings–and, clicking his heels before the honourable gentleman, relieved Ákos of his cane and led him inside.

The courtesy was superfluous, for Ákos knew his way around. Nothing had changed at all since his last visit.

In the reading room–as of old–sat the solitary figure of Sárcsevits, a rich, laconic bachelor of independent means, who now, as ever, was reading
Le Figaro
. He always read
Le Figaro
, and thus was generally held to be a cultivated European.

To the left stood the more spacious drawing room, furnished with leather couches.

The Panthers could already be heard deep in conversation.

Ákos made his way towards them.

When he first opened the drawing-room door he couldn't see a thing. Clouds of smoke billowed up before him, which even the gas lamps burning on the walls and ceiling were unable to disperse. These clouds forewarned of the approaching storm.

Some thirty or forty figures slowly emerged from the general haze. For a moment Ákos stood bewildered.

Then they spotted him, and he was greeted with cheers of jubilation. The Panthers, those moustachioed wild beasts of revelry, leaped from their seats, sprang towards him and spun him to and fro among them.

“Ákos,” they cried from all corners. “Good old Ákos! Come in, come in and join us.”

Total strangers introduced themselves, younger men who immediately addressed him in the familiar form.

“
Servus humillimus
, pleased to meet you, where have you been hiding all these years?'

There were also those who scolded him:

“You've a lot to answer for, old man. But you'll make up for it tonight.”

The voice of Környey, however, rang out above all others:

“Forgive ye the repentant sinner!'

Roars of laughter pealed throughout the Panthers’ den.

Környey stood two heads taller than his comrades in a gold-piped, cornflower-blue military tunic.

He crushed the brittle bones of Ákos's narrow hand in his iron clasp, famed for twisting silver forint coins, and, as head Panther, welcomed him with a certain stiff and formal conviviality. There was something austere, almost frightening about him.

He did not tarry long with Ákos. For on Thursdays Környey had to dash to and fro, welcoming new arrivals and discussing urgent culinary matters with the staff. Even now he was called away to the library to inspect the salad. He had more to do on such occasions than at the time of the great steam-mill fire.

All in all, Ákos's appearance had created quite a stir.

Priboczay embraced him, pressing the old man's face to his own and refusing to let go. Finally he planted a tender, masculine kiss on Ákos's cheek.

The chemist was in tears. His eyes were as weak as his heart, and whenever he met an old friend they melted, like hair in a fire, from the sheer warmth that coursed through his whole being.

He rummaged for his handkerchief.

When he had dried his tears, he took Ákos by both hands and held him beneath the chandelier to examine him more thoroughly.

“My dear old fellow,” he said in astonishment, “you look so much younger.”

“Nonsense.”

“So help me, it's true,” he insisted. “You're in excellent colour.”

All who stood around them mumbled in agreement.

Ákos's face had indeed filled out from his afternoon nap, the skin exuding a rosy, priestly glow. His forehead also wore a tint of red, as did the two loose bags of skin beneath his eyes.

“By Jove,” said Priboczay, “you've turned into a proper cavalier.” And he looked down at Ákos's dove-grey gloves.

These Ákos removed at once.

“And how tall you stand,” Priboczay continued. “None of that stooping any more.
Canis Mater!
What have you been taking? What have you done?'

“I've been to the barber's,” stuttered Ákos. “Maybe that's it.”

“No, no, you've grown younger. Ten years younger. Five at the very least. The quiet life, eh?'

A thin, sly smile hid in Ákos's moustache, where the Tiszaújlak wax still held firm. He didn't know where to look.

“I'm old, my friend,” he said at last, “an old fossil just like you, like all of you.” And he hung his head in mock self-pity.

Priboczay took him by the arm and led him round the room, introducing him to those smaller groups of Panthers who already sat sipping their drinks in the background or gossiping in the window bays.

And yes, they had indeed grown old. Some of the Panthers had gold teeth; most wore dentures or gum plates. Gone were the thick black curls he used to see on Thursday evenings; and what was left of them was covered with rime. Only the moustaches were haunted here and there by the odd, spectral brown hair. Some of them had grown completely bald, their bare skulls round and shiny like ivory billiard balls, or pointed like eggs.

The tables, however, remained unchanged: the black marble tables crowded with battalions of slender wine bottles and mouldy water carafes. And the green baize card tables with their inlaid copper ashtrays.

And the large painting on the wall. Count István Széchenyi.

He had not grown old.

Left hand on his hip, near his sword belt, pushing open his short, fur-lined coat, he stood as of old, his domed forehead surrounded by tousled, floating curls, his restless eyes burning with character, vigour and intelligence as they looked down upon what had become of his noble ideas, the debating circles and clubs he had founded to promote the refinement of polite society and social intercourse. But in the thick smoke, which one could have cut with a knife, even Count István Széchenyi cannot have seen too well.

Básta, the attendant, stopped in front of Ákos, wearing a blue and white ceremonial uniform and a waxed moustache whose ends narrowed into an almost invisibly thin thread way out beyond his cheeks. He was holding a large wine tray and had a napkin over his arm. Standing to attention, he poured the gentlemen some wine.

Priboczay raised his glass.

“Welcome!'

He downed his wine in one, as was right and proper on such occasions.

“Your health!'

“Your health!'

They shook hands and sat down on a sofa.

A quarter of an hour later Ákos made ready to leave.

“Now I really should be getting along.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort, dear boy.”

Környey, the perfect host, possessed an innate ability to appear at the slightest hint of danger, whenever someone was contemplating escape.

“Out of the question,” he thundered. “You're staying right where you are.” And he clasped the old man in his steely arms.

He led Ákos away to the smokiest corner of the room, where, beneath a hanging lamp, four men sat playing taroc.

“I've brought you a fifth hand,” said Környey to the players.

Taroc was Ákos's great weakness, but also his great strength.

No one played with greater skill, ingenuity and passion. So profound was his knowledge of the game that he was considered something of an authority and had often been asked to adjudicate in controversial situations, as the final court of appeal.

“
A la russe
?” asked Ákos casually.

“That's right,” came the answer from the table as Galló, the amenable lawyer, himself a renowned master of the game, raised his wise head from the smoke of his own cigar.

He rose to his feet.

“I'm just about to deal.”

Two other players had risen with him, Doba and a squat man in a raw silk suit. This was István Kárász, father of Dani Kárász and owner of a thousand acres, whose shaven head was burnt jet black from the sun. Only the fourth player remained seated: László Ladányi, parliamentary delegate for the Royal Town of Sárszeg during the 1848 revolution. With his grizzled, tight-clipped beard and bushy eyebrows he reminded one of the poet Miklós Zrinyi.

Relations between Ladányi and Ákos had been strained for many years.

The delegate–known to all and sundry as “the old ranter'–was one of those passionate exaggerators of the extreme left who, in confidential conversation, made no secret of their undying commitment to the resolutions of the Debrecen Parliament of 1849, and of their perpetual readiness to contribute to the downfall of the House of Habsburg in payment for the crimes it had committed against the Hungarian nation. In 1849 his grandfather had been hanged from a pear tree by imperial soldiers. He would often mention this when canvassers appeared at his door with flags and torches, and he blasted them with a voice broken for good from swallowing all the nation's bitterness. He knew Ákos well, as a timid fellow who always voted for the government candidate, even though, deep down, he may himself have leaned towards the stalwart forty-eighters. But he lacked the stomach for a fight, and sought instead to remain at peace with himself, his family and friends, and therefore favoured compromise, all forms of compromise, including the Compromise of 1867.

Ladányi had been known, on occasion, to speak harshly of the man.

But now, with Ákos standing directly above him, and the others urging him to join them on their feet, he finally stood up. Hungarians fight by the sword and make peace by the glass. He offered Ákos his hand.

“Join us,” he said in his grating voice.

It was an opportunity not to be missed. The taroc players fêted Ákos like some celebrity from distant climes. The large, special, grey-backed taroc cards tempted him too. It was all too much to resist. Ákos finally surrendered.

“To hell with it!'

Reassured, Környey withdrew.

Ákos settled down at the table, on whose marble top the odd drop of wine sparkled, spilled from the bottle at pouring. Also on the table lay neat black slates with the names of the players written with sticks of carefully sharpened chalk.

Galló dealt.

Ákos took the nine cards in his hands, his practised fingers ordering them with lightning speed, greeting the images which spoke of ancient worlds and happy times: the juggler with his human-headed lyre and sword, the hoop-skirted Spanish lady with her castanets, the top trump in gaudy clown's garb and a two-headed hat, the giant twenty-one, the squatting Turk with his long-stemmed pipe, the honours who beat all other cards, hence their name. A delightful, familiar crew. Lovers embracing by a wall, an ancient soldier bidding his sweetheart farewell, a ship setting out across the seas. A splendid hand indeed.

The players inspected their cards, then looked at each other no less intently. They blinked cunningly, for their faces were as important as their cards. What were they scheming, what tricks had they in store, what traps and machinations were being prepared?

“Pass,” said Ákos.

“Pass,” said Kárász, who sat beside him.

Ákos took great pleasure in his meditations. He even lit a cigar to oil the machinery of his mind.