Skylark (14 page)

Taroc is not one of those upstart, good-for-nothing games they dream up nowadays. Its roots reach way back into the past, and it boasts the noblest of ancestors. It stems from Asia, like our heroic forebears, and demands a meandering, eastern frame of mind, along with concentration, imagination and perpetual presence of spirit. It is like a wily tale with a crafty introduction, an intriguing exposition and a surprisingly sudden denouement. It demands much racking of brains, but is not intellectually dry. It is a thoroughly enjoyable game which took the work of several generations to chisel into its present, ingenious form.

Kárász drew a three from the pack.

“I call twenty,” he said.

Doba and Ladányi passed again.

Ákos twirled his moustache.

“Double,” he announced merrily.

The others ruminated.

Ákos and Ladányi, gradually warming to each other, played as a pair, while Doba assisted Kárász, who sat facing Ákos. They glared at one another.

Judge Doba was surprised at just how alert the old man was.

Ákos took a long, hard look at the judge. He sat in silence, just as he had sat at the theatre beside his flirtatious wife, who wore her hair like Olga Orosz and numbered even the penniless Szolyvay among her lovers–at least so Szolyvay said. Did the poor, likable judge know this? Did he at least suspect? He never spoke of it. Even now his face reflected nothing but a certain weary indifference.

He answered Ákos's double with:

“Redouble.
Tous les trois
.”

“Aha,” said Ákos to himself, “
tous les trois, tous les trois
.”

On this he pondered, which was, perhaps, his great mistake.

He, the seasoned matador, had not paid sufficient attention to the run of the cards, and by now there was nothing for it–the game had reached a fateful turn with Doba and Kárász gaining the upper hand.

Those who stood around them watching were amazed.

“Impossible!'

“This calls for a drink,” said Kárász.

Werner, the Austrian lieutenant rifleman, who had been sitting beside Ákos in total silence, poured the wine. He and his battalion had been based in Sárszeg now for some four years, but he still couldn't speak a word of Hungarian. And German he could speak only when he was sober. At times like these, however, when he'd been drinking, his German deserted him. Even his mother tongue, Moravian, refused to come to his aid. He was an excellent Panther, all the same, and was having a splendid time. He continually grinned and drank and poured.

“Not drinking?” said Ladányi to Ákos. “It's only a light Szilványi,” he added, emptying his glass.

The words “light Szilványi” sounded so delicious that Ákos couldn't resist.

Ladányi embraced him.

“That's my Ákos,” he said. “Only would you mind doing me one small favour? Get rid of those damned sunflowers from your garden.”

“Whatever for?'

“They're black and yellow, old man. Can't stand the sight of those Schwarzgelb colours, not even in flowers.”

To this they filled their glasses once more.

Ákos not only knocked back the light Szilványi, but also all the other wines they set before him, the light wines from grapes grown in sandy soil and the heavy mountain wines

He totted up the scores with his chalk.

“So, how do we stand? Double, redouble, four points;
tous les trois
, two; four kings, one. Seven points all in all. That's seven kreuzers. Here you are.”

He paid, and wiped his slate with the little yellow sponge provided.

He lit a new cigar and even removed his spectacles. This was always a sure sign of his good spirits.

By now he was no different from the others. He could no longer see the party from the outside as he had on first entering the room. He didn't even notice the suffocating smell of smoke. He seemed entirely at ease, as if he had merely slept throughout his long years of absence and was now carrying on where he had left off. A brittle crust seemed to crumble and flake from his person, the top of his head began to sweat and his snowy hair seemed to melt on top of it. In his eyes, too, happy tears glistened. His ears glowed red, as old friendships revived and blossomed.

But now it was back to business, to the new game, and revenge. Ákos braced himself as the cards were being dealt, unfastening his shirt cuffs and drawing together all his strength. Then he threw himself at his adversaries with all his old confidence.

“Out with the eighteen!” he cried at once.

Where could it be, the coveted, happy eighteen? Who on earth could have it? For the moment, however, Ákos continued playing his hand.

Winking cunningly at the other players, he threw his remaining trumps on the table before them: ace, twenty-one, nineteen, and finally, after a calculated pause, he produced the missing eighteen himself.

“Ha!” the others shouted. “He had it!'

“He called his own hand!” they chuckled, unable to believe their eyes.

“He's impossible. The old Ákos, the one and only.” They embraced him one after the other. “You've got the devil in you, old boy,” they roared. “This calls for a drink.” And the thunder of their laughter shook the window panes.

One game spilled into another, with Ákos shrewdly holding his own, uncovering every plot and scheme, averting every ambush. It was a long, long game.

But not for Ákos or the other players. What did they know of time, since falling captive to the magic of the cards? For all card players enjoy the intoxication of complete forgetting, and enter a separate universe whose very contours are defined by the cards.

“Vole, bull, juggler.” Ákos's words flew through the smoky air. “Juggler, joker, final trick.” His opponents hissed and gasped in disbelief.

Ákos gave them all a thorough thrashing. Only then did he glance at the clock ticking away on the wall before him. It was already after half past nine. He was suddenly seized by an inexplicable melancholy.

For a moment he hung his head, crestfallen after his unaccustomed frivolity. He stared straight through his companions as if they were not there at all.

The waiters announced that dinner would be served.

They made their way into the library, where dinner was taken on Thursday evenings.

Sárcsevits had still not finished
Le Figaro
. He sat to one side, beneath an electric light by the wall, and went on studying every word. The others planted themselves down at the table, which was decorated with flowers.

It was a doughty Hungarian dinner: chicken stew, pasta with curd and bacon, noodles with ground poppy seed and walnut, and mouldy, smelly cheeses to follow, which went superbly with the mildly tart and musty wine.

The table was crammed full. They must have been fifty in all, for new guests had arrived for dinner. Máté Gaszner, assessor to the orphan's court, a lame and rather objectionable little man, who was popular all the same and was addressed as “my dear Mátéka” by everyone present. Kostyál, a retired teacher from the neighbouring town who was, as they said, a “regular trencherman.” Vereczkey, the Lord Lieutenant's private secretary, who had served in the Tyrol and knew a string of fine Italian songs. And of course Feri Füzes also put in an appearance, showing off his stupid smile, which he seemed to have polished specially for the occasion. Throughout dinner he kept repeating:

“I do adore society. I really am the most jolly of fellows.”

And Olivér Hartyányi came too, the “atheist.”

Poor Olivér had been suffering from degenerative syphilis for years. And that, by and large, was why poor Olivér was an atheist. Towards evening he'd have himself wheeled to the club, where two attendants carried him upstairs in the large cushioned chair in which he sat in his courtyard at home. His legs were covered with a thick, woollen blanket.

He appeared particularly lively this evening, having taken a larger than usual injection of morphine before setting out. His eyes gleamed and his dilated pupils sparkled, lending a certain sharpness to his haggard, olive-green face. His eyebrows curled like caterpillars as he spoke.

He ended up beside Feri Füzes. The two men loathed each other, but loved to argue all the same, and did so endlessly.

Feri Füzes insisted on the existence of God. Olivér Hartyányi disagreed. The debate had rambled on for years, without either participant surrendering an inch of ground. Now they once more rehearsed their familiar arguments in the name of idealism and materialism. Feri Füzes curled his lips sarcastically at the mention of Darwin, not because he didn't consider the fellow a gentleman, but because he held the same opinion of Darwin as of Lajos Kossuth. Darwin had his good and bad points like anyone else. Then it was time for Olivér to play his trump card. With bitter, derisive words he painted a picture of ubiquitous ruin and decay, the only things he believed in, complete and utter destruction, the rotting human body, teeming with grubs and maggots. He spoke out loud, the more to outrage his companions at table. But they paid not the slightest notice either to him or to Feri Füzes. They were equally weary of them both.

Besides, the Gypsies had already struck up. The famous János Csinos Band stood in position by the tall folding doors and the leader, an old friend of all present, was scraping and flourishing with all his soul. He never played more sweetly than on Thursday evenings. He turned devotedly–although still keeping a respectful distance–towards István Kárász, looking up at him now and then with a dreamy smile in which many shared memories seemed to slumber. He had played at Kárász's wedding and had fiddled many a thousand-forint banknote from the landowner's pocket. Kárász would invite him to his estate once a year. The previous year he had strung a whole ham around each Gypsy's neck and made them play on thus equipped till dawn.

István Kárász, who sat between Ákos and Ladányi, stopped eating. As soon as he heard the strains of the violin he sat back in his chair, hung his arms by his sides and, with a vein beginning to bulge on his forehead, listened with mooning eyes. He appeared to remain indifferent, but gave his heart entirely to the Gypsy: to nurse it, caress it and mine its very depths. He surrendered his soul with a certain leisurely, gentlemanly nonchalance, as others might offer their feet to the pedicurist. He had more faith in the Gypsy than in his doctor, Dr Gál.

The leader, for his part, left no heartstring unplucked. He stabbed and stung, tweaked and tormented, faithful servant that he was. Soon a fat teardrop swelled in the landowner's eye and rolled its way down his sunburnt cheek. Why did Kárász cry? All of Sárszeg belonged to him. He could no longer even count his stud horses, his herds of pigs and cattle. His children and grandchildren all prospered. Who could tell what ancient memories of wedding feasts and long-abandoned reveries the music stirred within him?

Galló glared stonily into space, as if still squinting at the accused in court, refusing to be moved, repelling every last appeal to sentiment. Doba was undoubtedly thinking of his wife, wandering, God knows where, in the night. He had sunk so deep into sorrow and self-torment that he himself seemed to take fright and, as if coming up from the depths for air, drew a deep breath. Ladányi was looking directly towards Vienna, on his face the patriotic grief of four hundred years of servility to the House of Habsburg. Priboczay melted, his eyes becoming two melancholy pools of tears. Feri Füzes crooned, Olivér Hartyányi growled, Szunyogh hung his heavy, drunken head, swinging it slowly to and fro like an elephant. Környey waxed bellicose; Mályvády, Sárszeg's great patron of the natural sciences, grew facetious; Kostyál became cantankerous; while Máté Gaszner seemed to have completely lost his mind.

Even Básta, the attendant, had finally forgotten all decorum and, no longer standing to attention–he was, after all, himself a genuine Szekler Magyar–mingled like a brother with the other gentlemen. The waiters passed on tiptoe. They could sense that something extraordinary was happening here which it would be ungodly to disturb.

Sárcsevits had finished reading
Le Figaro
, right down to the last letter of the smallest classified advertisement. He gazed at the revellers and shook his head. He felt nothing at all. Only that it seemed a shame to waste so much time and energy. What improvidence, what nabobish profligacy, to squander all our experiences, to spill them carelessly, along with all the wine, on to the floor! Somewhere on the banks of the Seine, from so many good intentions, from so many colours and emotions, whole buildings could be erected, whole books could be penned. If the good gentlemen would only say what was going on in their minds at such times, more books could be written than the entire collection of the Sárszeg clubhouse library, which no one read anyway, apart from him and prosecutor Galló, and perhaps poor Olivér too, who desired, before finally climbing into his grave, to know a thing or two about this pitiful world.

But the others had no time for such things.

The leader of the Gypsy band began to play “May Beetle.” Ákos raised his hand and stopped him. This was Ákos's song.

He called the Gypsy over and made him place a mute on the bridge of his violin. When the leader struck up again, Ákos launched into the song. At first his voice wavered a little, but soon it grew more confident, distinguished, almost arrogant. A restrained but pleasant tenor voice. Ákos drew a languid arch with his forefinger as he raised it slowly to his temple.

May beetle, may beetle, softly you hum,

I shall not ask you when summer will come...

Sárcsevits stood up. With a smile he turned to Feri Füzes who stood beside him.

“Is that old Vajkay?'

“The very same.”

“I'd heard he was a surly old troglodyte.”

“Not at all,” replied Feri Füzes stiffly. “He's a most jolly and sociable fellow.”

While the gentlemen were at dinner, the drawing room was swept and aired. By the time they returned, a neat and tidy room awaited them. The warm atmosphere had disappeared with the smoke and a cold severity could be felt in the air.

In such conditions it was no longer possible simply to pick up where they had left off that afternoon. Wine was replaced by schnapps; taroc and trumps by poker and pontoon. The fun and games were over. Now came the time of the serious drinkers who stood for no frivolity, and the serious card players who no longer merely toyed with fortune, but played to raze the opposition to the ground.