Skylark (17 page)

Ákos lay in silence.

It was left to the woman to speak again. As if she were talking to herself, summing up all that had gone before.

“We love her very much,” she insisted. “Both of us. And even if we loved her a thousand times more, we still...”

“Still what?” Ákos prompted, lifting the quilt from his mouth in genuine curiosity. “What could we still do?'

“We still–” Mother sighed. “Could we still do more?” she asked.

“That's just it,” replied Ákos dully, in a voice devoid of hope. “What more could we do? Nothing. We've done all we can.”

All we can, the woman thought. Everything humanly possible. We've endured everything.

And she looked about her. But Ákos was silent again.

Now she could see that she stood alone–alone in the room, alone in the world, alone with her pain. And her heart was wrung with such despair that she almost collapsed.

But then her gaze involuntarily wandered towards the ebony crucifix that hung on the wall above their conjugal bed.

From the black wooden base hung the dear, tortured body, modelled from cheap plaster. The bony ribcage, the chest which tumbled forward ravaged with pain, and the hair, thickly matted with deathly perspiration, all glittered in their coating of thin gold leaf.

On the boundary between life and death, this swooning Son of God had watched over them for decades. He, who heard their every word and observed their every gesture, who saw into the darkest corners of their hearts, must have surely seen that they weren't lying now.

He flung open His arms upon the cross, exalting human suffering in a single, heroic gesture that belonged to Him alone since the beginning of time. But His head dropped, anticipating the numb indifference into which it was about to fall, His face already petrified with pain. Even He could not extend the woman a helping hand.

But His presence was powerful all the same. Something real, something immense, in this provincial room, where everything was so tiny. He, who had come into the world to help the wretched, had died for those who suffer, radiated the glorious light of global historical tragedy, the brilliant, burning light of eternal love.

The woman took one step towards the crucifix. And now, for the first time, the tiniest of teardrops glistened in her eyes.

Again it was she who spoke.

“We must pray, Father,” she said, mainly to herself. “We must have faith in God, in Christ the Saviour. I pray all the time. Whenever I wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep, I always pray. And then my heart is unburdened and I can sleep again. We must pray, Father, pray and have faith. God will help her. And He'll help us too.”

To this Ákos said nothing. Not that he disagreed with his wife. He was a deeply religious man, especially since he had turned forty, a devout Catholic who went to confession every Easter and took the holy sacrament. But the men of Sárszeg hid their religious faith, as they hid their tears, behind a veil of pious modesty. Only the women displayed their piety, and were fully expected to do so.

Mother put out the light and got into bed. She too pulled the quilt up over her chin.

Nothing had been settled or resolved. But at least they had grown tired. And that was something.

For some minutes they were silent.

Then Ákos sat up in bed.

“You know what?” he said meaningfully. “I saw him again.”

The woman knew at once whom he meant.

“Did you?'

“Sitting in the Baross Café. He said hello.”

“And you?'

“Me too. So he wouldn't think anything. He'd been drinking.”

“So he drinks now, does he?” She pursed her lips.

“I always told you,” said Ákos, “that he'd end up rotten. He was in a bad way. He hasn't long to live.”

They'd been discussing Géza Cifra's lack of colour, haggardness and secret illnesses for years, always setting new dates for his imminent demise: come March, come October. But the little railway official still went on living, with his boorish friends, his eternal colds and incurable complaints. Ákos brooded.

“Though the mills of God grind slowly...” he added, and lay back down in bed.

Then he sat up again.

“There's a fire down below,” he said jovially.

His stomach burned, mercilessly, all the way up to his throat. He swallowed a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda, but so clumsily that it sprinkled over his nightshirt and dusted his chin. He chewed the white powder with his discoloured teeth.

They didn't light the nightlight. But even without it the room wasn't dark. Light filtered in through the chinks in the lowered shutters, casting bright, shimmering wavelets on the walls. From the street the rattle of peasant carts on their way to market could already be heard.

Dawn was breaking.

XI
in which there is mention of getting up late, of rain, and in which the Panthers reappear

Those
rakish metropolitans, who live by night and sleep by day in carefree capitals, are used to waking in the dark and meeting once again the selfsame night from which they parted company the day before.

This is their black dawn. It doesn't frighten them or take them by surprise. They greet it with a stretch and a yawn, lighting the lamp with sleepy hands, hurrying into the bathroom to wash and shave, then dressing quickly in front of the wardrobe, before stepping out refreshed into the dimly lit street. The people who pass before them here are weary from their daily round. Many long hours are already behind them, endless discussions and disputes, a hastily snatched breakfast and a guzzled lunch. Now only dinner stands between them and their beds. They move more slowly, speak more softly, visibly disillusioned with the day now drawing to a close. A hackney carriage jolts past, pulled by an exhausted horse, which had still been able to gallop that morning. A baleful lethargy hovers in the air. But this does not dishearten the new arrivals, fresh from sleep. It makes them all the more conscious of their own high spirits and hopes. They pass among their fellow men with a spring in their step, leaving them way behind in unfair competition. They laugh at the electric light, remembering the bright sunshine on which they had turned their backs, they swagger with vitality, and effortlessly, blithely, almost maliciously turn into the marble-laden foyer of some garishly lit bar where, summoned either by passion or profession, they take up where they left off the day before.

But for those who have never lived like this, and have always risen early, somewhere in the country, such late awakenings bring nothing but anxiety, sadness and remorse.

As they look up at the still dark window, they think it is not yet dawn and want to go on sleeping into this second night, as if it were still the first.

Their bodies are not fully rested from their daytime sleep. Then suddenly they remember everything. All the extraordinary events of the night before: the spinning of cards, glasses, words, the new direction their lives had suddenly seemed to be taking, before they felt compelled to flee, without fully understanding what had happened, driven by the spectre of time ill spent and a sense of obligation to make amends for their transgressions, to return to their duties and settle back into the old routine. They rise giddily, unable at first to recognise their rooms, their most intimate possessions, the street in which they live. It is as if everything were coated with a thin layer of soot. They haven't seen the sun, which has, in the meantime, burned to a cinder. They haven't greeted the day, which, without their knowing, has completely blackened, leaving only the odd flying ashes and clinkers behind as a disquieting surprise. They don't know whether they are hungry or full, hot or cold. Thus they flounder until they find their proper place in space and time, and only then do they notice that their heads are spinning and sore.

The woman, who first opened her eyes late in the afternoon, towards five, was tortured by such feelings. She was the first to wake. Her husband went on sleeping.

She slipped carefully out of bed, put on her thick flannel dress and wrapped her head in a scarf. She got on with the cleaning like some elderly servant. Dustpan and brush in her hands, she shuffled from room to room.

The lamps still burned by the piano, having kept their vigil night and day. The woman reproached herself for the senseless waste of electricity.

She had much to do. During the week they had often moved the furniture from one room to another. Now she had to sort it all out again and put each piece back where it had stood for decades. She spent a long time searching for Skylark's needlework, the tablecloth under which she had left the pantry key. When it finally turned up she spread it over the marble plinth of the mirror and pressed it flat with the two bronze-clasped photograph albums. She looked around for any more incriminating evidence. Now she only had to tidy up the piano, clear away the music and lock the lid. She took the key into the bedroom and gave it to her husband, who had just woken up.

Here she went down on her knees and scrubbed the dirty, spittle-flecked parquet, sweeping away the cigar ash and gathering up the coins and banknotes which lay strewn all over the floor. She rattled and clattered as she cleaned. The noise drove Ákos out of bed. He dressed briskly. He spoke of indifferent matters.

“What time is it?'

“Half past six.”

Looking in the mirror he saw the traces of bicarbonate of soda still clinging to his chin. He looked away. This morning's scene struck him as childish and tasteless. He didn't mention it at all. Nor did his wife.

“Dark, isn't it?'

“Yes, it's already late. The train will soon be in.”

“It's cold.”

“Yes, it's raining outside.”

The woman opened the shutters and aired the room. A cold, unfriendly stream of air swept the stuffy room, fluttering the curtains.

It was raining.

They could hear the whistle of the wind and the creaking of signboards. The rain spluttered through the glass bulbs of the gas lamps. Damp, round umbrellas swelled. People squelched through puddles in mud-spattered trousers, grimacing as they locked their umbrellas in battle with the storm. The tin mouths of the drains spewed foamy water which gushed in streams into the overgrown ditches of Petőfi Street. A paraffin lamp already smouldered in Mihály Veres's dark, unhealthy workshop.

They both observed this scene for some moments.

“It's autumn,” said Ákos.

“Yes,” said the woman. “It really is autumn.”

They shut the windows.

“You'll have to take your autumn coat,” she said then. “Otherwise you'll catch your death. And an umbrella too.”

“Do hurry up,” Ákos urged.

“I am hurrying.”

It was no small task to make everything as it should be, the five rooms, the hall, after a week of disorder.

They stumbled to and fro and the harder they worked the longer it seemed to take them.

It was nearly half past seven. Ákos picked up the umbrella and opened it out in the room to make sure the framework hadn't rusted. He pulled on his old, nut-brown overcoat which dangled loosely front and back and made him look rather thin.

They were just about to leave when he suddenly crouched to the floor. By the back leg of the wardrobe he had caught sight of a gold coin. He picked it up and gave it to his wife.

“Put this away.”

Then, when they reached the street, it was the woman's turn to stop short.

“Wait,” she said. “I'll take this back inside,” and she pointed to her new crocodile handbag. “I don't really want it now. Not with this.”

Ákos nodded.

The wind howled. It crashed into the old man, spun him round and tried to wrench the umbrella from his hand. It blew impertinently into his face and completely took his breath away. It lifted the woman too, as she came hurrying after her husband. They climbed into a carriage.

The station stood deserted. There was not a soul in sight.

The rain quickened, streaming down the sides of the dirty carriages which were thick with summer dust. In the distance a few green flames flickered above the empty track. Coal smoke drifted everywhere and the satanic smell of sulphur filled the air.

It was after half past eight, but not a single handbell had sounded. Darkness descended over the warehouses.

Only from the window of the telegraph office came the glow of lamplight. Here in happy seclusion, protected from the droning wind and rain, sat the telegraphists in idyllic calm, bent over their desks like fantastic silkworm breeders, winding into spools the long, white threads that bound the whole world tightly into one. In the freight sheds porters leaned back on rough, wooden boxes daubed with all kinds of figures and letters scribbled gloomily in tar.

The Vajkays sat down at a neatly laid table in the glass-roofed station portico.

After nine, Géza Cifra came in from the station manager's office, whose door creaked noisily on rusty hinges as he entered. He must have been standing in for someone as he was doing the evening shift again.

He wore a heavy autumn coat and hurriedly rolled the red armband with the winged wheel insignia over his sleeve. He held a handkerchief to his mouth, so as not to inhale the musty air, and wiped his nose.

He was very pale. No doubt he too had gone to bed at dawn.

In the steamy air his profile seemed almost demonic. Mrs Vajkay felt he'd be capable of anything: deception, corruption, maybe even murder. And he looked so ill. She could hardly recognise him at all. The old couple exchanged glances, diagnosed the worst and, with a silent nod, buried the boy once more. By March, at the latest, it would all be over.

He hurried over to them, if only to clear the air after yesterday's misunderstanding, or simply to know its cause and see how the land now lay. With a croupy voice he inquired:

“Is she coming today?'

“Yes.”

“Then there's plenty of time,” and he took out his pocket watch as was his wont. “The Tarkő train is two and a half hours late.”

He offered this information quite indifferently and then withdrew. For the Vajkays, however, the news was anything but indifferent.

“I hope nothing's wrong,” said Ákos, almost inaudibly.

“I shouldn't think so,” his wife replied in the same whisper.

“Then why's it so late?'

“You heard him. He didn't say.”

“You should have asked him.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I should send a wire.”

“Where to?'

“That's true. The train's already on its way.”

But Ákos rose to his feet all the same. Leaving his umbrella behind, he staggered out among the tracks, tottering over the wet gravel to find someone who could provide a reassuring answer to his questions. He splashed about in the pouring rain. But the porters were already snoring on their wooden benches, fast asleep. Beside the engine room he came across a grumpy, dirty workman carrying an iron bar and pincers. Ákos asked him why the train was delayed.

“It'll turn up,” the workman replied. “Give it time.”

“There hasn't been an accident, has there?'

“That I can't say.”

Ákos stared at the decrepit workman, thinking of the heartless agitators he had read about in the paper.

“Go down to the end and turn right,” the man suggested.

Ákos went down to the end and turned right. Then he turned left. Then right again. But still he found no one. Even Géza Cifra had disappeared somewhere inside.

It was the first day of autumn. Everyone had stayed at home.

Only Mrs Vajkay waited on the platform.

Ákos returned to her, soaked to the skin.

“Did you find out anything?'

“Nothing.”

He sat back down at the table. Nausea climbed his throat, all the way up to his mouth. He swallowed repeatedly, his head thumping. He thought he was going to faint, fall reeling from his seat and die, then and there, on the spot. He was overcome by a hideous sense of disgust. He felt like collapsing against the iron pillars which supported the portico, then throwing himself to the ground. But he held back. He had to wait until she arrived.

“Are you unwell?'

“A little.”

“Perhaps you should order something.”

They rang for the waiter.

The waiter replied effusively to their questions, entertaining them with a most detailed account of a railway accident that had occurred some years before. He prattled on relentlessly like the rain.

They ordered cold milk.

Ákos removed his hat to clear his head in the cool air. The tight leather gusset had left a narrow streak of violet on his forehead. Only now could one see what had become of him. His skin had crumpled like paper, and his face was as white as chalk. The extra weight he had put on at the King of Hungary over the last few days had vanished, together with the genial, ruddy glow on his face. Once again he was gaunt, sickly and pale, just as he had been when his daughter had departed.

“Take a sip. It's nice and cool.”

As Ákos drank he thought:

“Railway accident.”

The woman, for her part, thought:

“The train isn't late. Something else has happened.”

The old man imagined–and a number of suspicious signs confirmed his presentiment–that the train had crashed somewhere, only they didn't dare say so and were keeping it quiet. He could see the heap of carriages before him, and the bleeding, choking bodies beneath the ruins. Later he became more inclined to believe that the train had merely been derailed and stood stranded in some open field, where, in the dark and rainy night, it was raided by all kinds of wicked highwaymen. He vacillated between these speculations, giving credence first to one, then to the other. His wife, on the other hand, stuck to her initial conviction: the train had already arrived, hours ago, perhaps before they had reached the station, or later, and they simply hadn't noticed it. Their daughter had looked for them and then gone on without them. Perhaps she had gone straight home, or perhaps she had travelled on somewhere, to some entirely unknown place where they'd never find her again.

She could not explain these thoughts, nor understand how she could possibly have missed her daughter. But her doubts, though less horrific than her husband's, tormented her all the more, precisely because they were so mysterious and obscure.

In the meantime, however, they went on talking.

“Feeling better?'

“A little.”

“What's the time?'

“Past ten.”

By now the station had at last begun to come to life. The rain subsided, and by a quarter past ten quite a crowd had gathered to meet the Budapest express.

Meeting this train was a favourite pastime of the Sárszeg intelligentsia, whether they were expecting anyone or not. They simply came to observe the passengers and, for a few short moments, to immerse themselves in the alluring glamour of metropolitan life.

The Budapest express rolled in on time, and, to the delight of its devoted Sárszeg audience, the enormous engine let out a shriek and a whistle, accompanied by a fountain of sparks, as if extemporising a festive firework display.