Sunflower (30 page)

Pistoli, having looked around in vain to find a suitable personage to notarize his documents, went up to the county seat at Nagykálló, where he used to run loose as often as he could, back in his days as a madman.

He found his three deranged wives together in the asylum garden, for they always kept each other's company and never fought; Mishlik was digging a pit and the other two watched attentively.

For a while Pistoli observed his mad wives from the cover of the garden shrubbery, nodding repeatedly.

“Ah, so the poor things are already digging my grave. Alas, they will not be able to come to my funeral.”

The poor creatures were not the least bit surprised to see Pistoli suddenly in their midst. Since they usually talked mostly about him, the appearance of the man they so often mentioned seemed natural. The two older women merely nodded in greeting, but Mishlik, who had not yet abandoned all hope, vehemently grasped Pistoli's arm:

“Ah, good to see you here, marquis. Perhaps you could intercede on our behalf. They won't let us bury our petticoats here. But what use could we still have for a chemise, don't you agree?”

“I'll make sure to talk to the director,” said Pistoli, glad to comply.

“Why, only those women need petticoats who still have a husband or lover,” continued Mishlik, producing a lively variety of facial expressions. “But our lord and husband has vanished like smoke...like smoke...Is it possible to bury smoke? When it's gone, it's gone...”

Alarmed, they stared at Pistoli, but he kept his calm. He caressed their faces one after the other.

“Still, you had it pretty good, for each of you received one third of your husband's affections. Other women get only a quarter share. For a man's love is like moonlight: it has four quarters. The woman who gets the last quarter is happiest, for that's the longest lasting. But Pistoli's moon was divided into only three parts. One-two-three. There was no fourth. And there never will be one. So why should you bury your petticoats?”

After this, Pistoli soon had to make his escape from the garden, for the three women crowded about very close to him. Their careworn, grieving, cemetery-flower faces surrounded the moribund man. The first carried her worries like cobwebs from a cellar. The second one displayed images of woe seen on antique funeral monuments...The third one presented a frost-bitten autumnal pallor, acrid as sumac blossoms. In the autumn of life the eyes withdraw into their orbits like a shepherd into his hut when the nights are getting cooler. Above the thinning crop of hair the moon passes on, as over a field, where once upon a time it was impossible not to linger among the lush, wild growth of young curls. The fields grow rusty red, and so does the aging woman's hair, like outdated furs.

“Alas, no matter how smart I am, I won't have the good fortune of dying in the lap of a fifteen-year-old girl,” thought Pistoli, ambling in the direction of a roadside tavern to review his adventures for the final time.

It was as if he were sobering up after a twenty-year drunk. He sat high up on the ramparts of a fort, with a long-distance view over life's meandering gray and empty highways. He had danced with wild mercenaries and pink-flashing girls of easy virtue till daybreak, hitting the very rafters, trampling on top of the coffin and the cradle. But at sunrise he sobered. Now he could see how futile all that sweaty running, tramping, and hastening toward distant, beckoning towers had been. He saw only life's monotonous span, here and there a hump of land that rose for no particular reason; and valleys where only the solitary frog croaked. Along the empty highways he saw the capsized carts that would never reach their unknown destination. The wind whistled over the horizon like an invisible player's fingers over a silent piano. Yes, Mr. Pistoli was sober at last—having believed for a quarter century that drunkenness lay always in wine and women, and not in his freakish head. How much imbecility he had witnessed while loitering around life's fairgrounds, nosing about barbecue stands and white-footed females! Where were they now, those ebony and russet female pelts he had once been ready to die for? Where were they now, women thirsting for revenge, the savor of kisses, the fragrance of their bodies, soft touch of their palms, flash of their eyes, carillon of their voices, their honeyed whispers, the stupefying fume of their sighs, their high-strung legs, the thrill of their groans and precious moans, virgins' frenzied, abandoned oaths, and the wine-tasting apples of untouched maidens? The roads are empty everywhere, no matter how wide his eyes scan, shaded by his palm; all is laid to rest, like a bird fallen on dry leaves; the arrow no longer quivers in the deep wound it had struck; the inflated balloon pops under the clown's tailcoat, and life, daubed with pancake makeup, stands gaping at the source of the sound. No, it had not been all that wonderful...Nor very surprising...Not even all that interesting. It was merely like a dog panting under a hawthorn bush. At times the flag flew from life's pinnacle. Then the rain drenched the flag and the parade was over...Only the insane and the imbecilic imagine that life has not raced past them.

At this moment Mr. Pistoli had the strangest vision, as he sat in that roadside tavern by his glass of red wine, contemplating his boots, rummaging among his thoughts.

Up on one mountaintop in the far distance sat Eveline. Her benevolent face was distorted, her curls hung in grizzled knots, her dear eyes were veiled by cataracts, night had descended over her lips, like a madwoman's...And this hag had been her, once: the kind, noble, lamblike, dove-hearted one...This ancient, deranged crone had once been Eveline Nyirjes...Pistoli covered his eyes and sobbed. But even through his tears he could see the other mountaintop on the horizon, where Miss Maszkerádi bobbed like a crazed belly dancer. Her tresses undone, her voice screeching, her talons curving, her eyes spitting flames and knives, her legs like a wolf's, her neck ringed like a serpent's.

“Ah, what kind of wine is this?” cried Pistoli, and shivering, pulled the cape about himself, as he departed from the road-side inn.

It was around midnight when he got home.

The moon, like a peacock feather's eye, stood waking over the lifeless world.

Pistoli, to find some solace amidst his gloomy thoughts, consoled himself by recalling that, after all, nothing base had ever really happened to him, and so he had no cause to complain, when a dark shadow like a bandit's glided past his porch. It had to be a man, for it wore pants. Pistoli howled out:

“Is that you, Death?”

His alien, hoarse roar gave him courage. Like a wild boar he charged the shadowy figure and his heavy fists pummeled the intruder. The shadow did not respond to the blows. It did not defend itself, nor did it strike back, but merely emitted a sound, something like a horrendous scream behind gritted teeth. At last Pistoli knocked off the nocturnal visitor's hat, and his hands felt soft, warm, fragrantly feminine hair. His arm froze as if in a spasm; the midnight fisticuffs came to a halt. He fumbled for a matchstick in his waistband, and while the uncertain bluish flame flickered up, Pistoli's whole being was pierced to the core by a tremulous thought, like a fit of ague.

When the match flared up, Pistoli's mouth gaped wide, although he could not be said to be disappointed in what he saw. On his porch he found the one he had been waiting for. At arm's length stood Miss Maszkerádi, her nose bloodied. She wore a strange getup, formal evening wear: tailcoat and trousers, and a blazing white starched shirt. It gave her the mannish and eccentric look of a circus artiste.

The match burned out, having singed Pistoli's fingertip.

“Why have you done this, gracious Miss?”

The lady still did not reply. There was something frightening in her mute immobility. Pistoli began to think he was hallucinating. The shadow was perhaps after all not Miss Maszkerádi but some assassin, who would stab him with a stiletto as soon as he turned his back. He stood, aware that he was quaking in his boots. He would have given everything to have someone light a candle in this terrifying dark. But no relief was forthcoming. Far off in the village a hound sent up a nasty howl, in premonition of an impending death.

At last Pistoli heard a peculiar noise, as if the shadow were blowing her nose. With many a soft sniffle, like all beaten and humiliated women, Miss Maszkerádi kept persistently blowing her bloodied nose. Her steps subdued and wavering, she descended the flagstones of the porch. (A far cry from her once capering, bouncy stride!) Pistoli watched her cross the yard with her head bent and could feel the drops of blood falling at each step. The shadow headed for the well, where a full bucket of water stood ready for a nocturnal fire. The water quietly plashed in the distance. Pistoli did not dare to move closer to the well. He made his way into the house and thanked God when he at last managed to light an oil lamp. He installed himself at the table and knitted his brows, drumming on the tabletop in anticipation. In the lamplight he regained his customary composure. What could possibly happen? The remorse, shame and gnawing pain he felt at first for so brutally beating up Maszkerádi had faded, and a cold, stubborn egotism now manned the gates of his soul. “At least we're even now,” he thought. And Lady Maszkerádi, having scratched on the door, to timidly open it and stand abashed on the threshold, was received by the cheerful wisecrack often heard in carousing company:

“We're even-Steven, Miss.”

Maszkerádi stood with downcast eyes and hands crossed in front of her lap, as if she were ashamed of her silken-trousered and -hosed legs.

“My clothes are all bloody. I can't go back like this. I need a dry set of clothes.”

Thus spoke Maszkerádi, without raising her eyes. Her reddened nose quivered in mute misery. Humiliated, she stood like a schoolgirl before the severe headmaster.

Pistoli extended his arm.

“In that ancient wardrobe over there, you'll find some ratty old skirts that belonged to my former wives. If you wish, I'll turn away while you change.”

Maszkerádi advanced toward the wardrobe and Pistoli sluggishly turned his chair about. Leaning on the table, he watched in the mirror as Maszkerádi, all catlike caution, rummaged among the junky clothes in the wardrobe. Then she stopped and noiselessly began to undress. The scene had all the strangeness of some fantastic story taking place at a border guardpost where a refugee, a lady of quality traveling incognito, had happened to stop for the night. Maszkerádi dared not raise her eyes while slowly taking off her jacket and the hard shirtfront. Then, pianissimo, she took off her little knickers. She took care that her blouse never hitched up during this maneuver. This blouse of hers was snow-white. It exuded feminine cleanliness, the most exquisite perfume in the world. And when the lady stood in her chemise, there by the wardrobe, she raised her long eyelashes, and her eyes flashed like a pair of green lamps. She stared so insistently at Pistoli that he was compelled to turn around and face her.

“Swear that you will never ever reveal any of my secrets!” she said, articulating each word as clearly as if she were reading a text.

Pistoli's face flamed up, as if a pistol had been fired under his nose. But the gorgeous lady in dishabille made him lose his head only for a split second. The next moment he squinted one eye like a horse trader, and began in an insidious, bartering voice:

“Before I promise anything, may I know what's the meaning of this midnight comedy?”

“I wanted to scare you,” she replied calmly. “I'd wanted to raise the ghosts in your cruel heart, set the mute midnight hounds on you. I was curious to see if you would be afraid. Have you a conscience? Do you shudder with grief? Perhaps I just wanted to give you a fright...”

“So that I'd have a heart attack?” Pistoli asked, bantering.

“Yes,” was her solemn reply.

Pistoli leaned forward, fascinated, as if he were trying to peer into the water under the bridge.

“Perhaps you've heard that my ticker's as weak as a junky old alarm clock? It skips, and beats unevenly, has choking fits, pants, and at times I must take enormous breaths just to keep going...Were you aware of that?”

“I know all about you, for I have loved you from the word go,” came her reply, as solemn as a deposition before a judge.

“Well, you did a real good job of hiding your love...” answered Pistoli sarcastically, thrilled and fluttery, making sure to hide his shaking hands under the table.

Miss Maszkerádi crossed her bare arms over her chest, like some martyr upon the stake.

“Please recall that night at Hideaway when you with your scary stories had so upset me: what did I do then? Didn't I invite you into the silent, sleeping garden?”

“In order to strangle me.”

“But I would have kissed you first.”

Pistoli, red in the face, slammed his fist on the table:

“God, I've had enough of crazy women! Has everyone gone mad around here?”

Maszkerádi made a weary, melancholy gesture:

“At times I'm convinced I am not in my right mind.”

“Get out of here!” bawled Pistoli.

The young woman kept her determined eyes on his:

“Not tonight. Tonight, I'm staying. You can beat me up again, if you want to. After all, I deserve it for coming here. But it's because of you. Why did you cross my path? Why couldn't you leave me alone? Why did you persecute me? Why did you show up in all my dreams? Why did you entice me? Well, here I am. You can throw my corpse out into the highway.”

“Why, you rabid wildcat!” howled Pistoli. “I can sense that you want to go for my throat. But I won't let you. Go on, you devil's brood. I'm going to rouse the servants, wake the whole village, scourge you and send you packing without a stitch on! Get out before I do something we'd both regret!”

Maszkerádi remained calm.

“You have no servants, and therefore you'll do nothing unworthy of a gentleman.”