The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (4 page)

Light footsteps on the path’s gravel. Ervin Voit
[5]
sat down beside me. A pause; then his fine, quiet voice. “I’ve been looking all over for you. We wondered what had become of you.”

I gave him a sideways look and spread my hands. We sat silently a good while, watching the glittering sky and listening to the demented rasping of the cicadas. Everything as it was yesterday. The death of one man, of a hundred, of a million, is nothing to nature’s hurdy-gurdy. Everything goes on as before. Perhaps it is only man that makes such a fuss about dying.

“We were expecting you at lunch. That’s why I came to find you.”

We set off.

“Have you been called up as well?”

“I’m going home tomorrow, and then on from there.”

The dining room had changed. All the usual convivial noise, larking about, and tittering had ceased. The guests had gathered at separate tables according to their nationalities. Groups which had previously spread themselves around now clustered together. Sereghy and his wife had come over to join us. Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Germans—all sat apart. People leaned in together over the tables and discussed events with animated gestures and low voices.

As we entered, I was met with searching looks from the members of our group. Ervin responded with quiet nods. Kriegl broke the silence.

“Oh well, it’s obvious who the best-dressed young man among us is.” His forced joviality was meant to relieve the strained atmosphere. I put on a smile and sat down.

“This isn’t going to be too serious. A little punitive operation in Serbia, and we’ll be done in a jiffy.”

“Shh!” whispered Sereghy, raising his forefinger and turning his eyes meaningfully towards the Serbs’ table.

Kriegl blushed, hunching his shoulders and putting a finger across his lips.

The “Czech Uncle”—a Czech university teacher from whom Ervin and I had taken a few lessons in Czech, which had made him treat us with great friendliness—was now stiffly formal and sat solemnly at the Czechs’ table.

Everyone spoke in their mother tongue, as if encyphering what they had to say.

I said that I would be leaving for home tomorrow.

“What’s the hurry? You don’t have to report until the fourth.”

“Stay another couple of days.”

“I can’t.” I shook my head. “There are things I’ve got to sort out, and I need to write a will.” I was unsure whether I was joking.

“I hope you leave one of your pictures to me.”

“No one’s going to inherit my pictures. I’m having them burnt.”

Nobody laughed.

Lunch went on dispiritedly, amid naïve speculation about how the war would go, expressions of confidence, and feigned cheerfulness. The division into separate nationalities and races became absolute. A Hungarian schoolmistress joined our table. She had not spoken to us before.

“What’s going to happen now? I’m not staying any longer. I can’t wait to get home.”

Mrs. Kriegl turned to her husband. “Shouldn’t we be going as well?” Kriegl argued in favor of staying, but more out of affected bravery than conviction.

Everyone felt that this was no longer the Novi
[6]
in which we could feel as much at home, and as safe, as if we were in Hungary itself. It had already become a foreign Novi. The hills, the villages, the houses, the sea, the people—everything was foreign. We parted in oppressive silence.

During the afternoon, I sought solitude and walked the familiar paths, the cliffs along the shore, and the little sandy inlets where, in a rough sea, the waves can be eight or ten meters high. I sent a telegram home and another to the Franklin.

We met again at dinner. There was something almost ostentatious now about the separation of nationalities. The Slavs huddled together. The Germans looked the least concerned: a huge country with a fearsome army.

The subject of my departure came up.

“Are you really going? It seems a shame to rush, when you could spend another four days here.”

“I know you’re being sincere. We’ve had such lovely times together; and it would feel better now if more of us stayed. But I must go, if only because of my parents. I’m their only child, and they’ll be worried about me. Besides, there’s so much I need to sort out. So I’m going to say thank you to everyone now for their kindness and friendship. These will be unforgettable memories that I take with me.”

I stood, bowed, and went up to my room.

Leaning on the sill of an open window, I gazed out at the darkly glinting sea and the sparkle of the stars in their billions. The deep stillness was broken by the occasional distant sound or song. From the dining room down below, there usually rose up a continuous buzz of commotion, brightened now and then by women’s laughter; now that, too, was quiet, with only the occasional sound or fragment of conversation filtering out at the opening of a door. The silence was broken by approaching sounds of loud singing and raucous shouts. Drunken sailors. Sharp knocks echoed off the walls in the street outside. The most drunken among them launched into a fresh rendition of “Magyarszki Reporting.”
[7]
Laughter as the others tried to quieten him down. Then more yelling, but now from the next street.

There we are. Fraternal affection between the nations of the Monarchy.

I closed the window and lay down on the bed in my clothes. It would be good to read something. I found Sebők’s and Elek Benedek’s
[8]
notes on the topics for illustration in the weekly issues. Before coming, I had done two weeks’ worth of drawings, and since then I received instructions every Monday by express post and sent the drawings back, also express, on Wednesdays. Sometimes, with everything going on here, I forgot the details of a particular character from one issue to the next. On one occasion, Benedek had written, rather crossly, that I kept altering his hero: “Karcsi gets shorter by the issue, looks different and changes his hairstyle. He can now barely see over the top of the table.” Deeply embarrassed, I sent him an apologetic letter and started to make Karcsi grow by stages. It was all right in the end. Dear, kind old Elek Benedek, with his lovely stories. Would I ever see him again? And Zsigmond Sebők, always calm and softly spoken, always a gentleman. He lived in Damjanich Street, where he liked best of all to decamp to the bathroom to write his
Dörmögő Dömötör
bear stories for the magazine. I would never forget how good he had been to me.

I picked up an illustrated brochure and leafed through it as I lay on my back. Cherso, Veglia, Arbe, Lussino
[9]
. . . so many beautiful places, such romance . . . I should get undressed and into bed. Just a little longer among these memories . . .

I was startled awake by a soft knocking on the door. I had fallen asleep in my clothes. Ervin opened the door quietly.

“You’re dressed already?” I could barely see him through my swollen eyelids.

“I seem to have nodded off. What time is it?”

“I think you need to be going soon. It’s morning. I came to see you off.”

I undressed quickly, and a cold-water wash to the waist sorted me out. I must have been a comical sight as I dried myself off: I looked as if I were wearing a white vest, those portions of me which had not been covered by my bathing costume having been tanned to a chestnut brown. This would be my souvenir. The sight of this color would recall my memories.

I grabbed my things together and we set off at a brisk pace on what was quite a long walk. We could already see, in the distance, the black Ungaro-Croata line steamer as it approached the jetty.

“Look, I had a chance to think things over last night. Don’t misunderstand me. Forget my work, and my parents’ anxiety. Not everyone has to die in a war, I know that. The stupid bullet, on the other hand, doesn’t know; but never mind that now. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just can’t describe—I can’t even name—the shapeless, ungraspable, amorphous mass that I have to carry. Sometimes it weighs so heavily on me that I’m ready to collapse under it. Out of this formless mass, now and then, certain signs flash out: How long will this last? Or: Once it’s over, what happens then? Or: How on earth is Hungary going to get out of this? And so on, and on. Each question branches out into more and more questions, and once you start, you get nowhere. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the more narrow-minded a person is, the more easily he finds a way through this maze. He’ll declare confidently, for instance: We’ll soon teach the Serbs their lesson, and that’ll be that. Afterwards, a victorious Hungary will prosper, increasing its influence over the Balkans. Hungary will win because it has to: it’s obvious. Lucky people. It doesn’t matter to them if events prove them wrong, because they immediately find another, equally certain, solution.

“This war may just be the first act of a global tragedy. It’s as if someone were struggling against an angry sea, while behind his back towers an immense wall of ice, ready to collapse onto him at any moment. This is the socialist revolution which will, one day, fall with full force on nations weakened by war. The war could be the least of our problems. Socialism has been agitating and organizing for the past hundred years. It’s just waiting for the opportunity to take power. Maybe it would be better if it did: one of its basic principles is to put an end to wars of conquest. Maybe it’ll be they who stop this war, if political theory and practice coincide for once.

“I remember one of our walks with Jaschik, beyond the city park, towards the Rákosi marshaling yards, where we waited to see the Vienna fast train, the new Class In engine chattering and thundering as it charged on towards Pest. It was gigantic, an awe-inspiring sight that seized the imagination. On the way back, we talked about political questions, and the endless demonstrations. One thing was certain: the twentieth century would be the century of the Jews, and of revolutions.

“It’s a curious phenomenon that Jews, who are born capitalists, are the ones rousing the workers against capital. Or is it this: they invented artistic revolution, and they proclaim it from the rooftops. They put no value on tradition in the ceaseless pursuit of the new. The twentieth century opened with the
Sezession
and the pace keeps quickening. We’re at ‘The Eight’
[10]
now. We’re living in times that feel as if we were hopping about on top of an overheating boiler, waiting for the explosion.

“Maybe all this is just in my imagination. Maybe the optimists are going to be proved right. But I really can’t see a way out of this. This war seems to me to be like first shudder of cold down a man’s spine. The real sickness is yet to come.

“Well, the boat’s here. I need to get on board. There’s no point in all this talk and speculation. Even if I do get back, we’ll all be living different lives. It’s goodbye to the good old days.”

We embraced in silence.

“Heaven bless you all.”

Lips trembling, Ervin tried to speak; but only a tear rolled down his cheek.

I practically ran up the gangplank. I did not look back.

The antiquated black steamer was crammed; even the mast and cranes were festooned with drafted men, half of them drunk. Waves were hitting the vessel’s side, and as it left the harbor and reached the open sea, it began to pitch about quite seriously. I squirmed myself into a tiny space on the landward side, from where, propped on my suitcase, I watched the hazy shore.

I felt a little easier. I had said goodbye to my friends and to my former life at the same time. I had broken with the past, and now I occupied myself with the future. I had to consider even the smallest detail. It ought to be possible to anticipate whatever circumstances lay ahead. I had no experience to fall back on. Anything I had heard of war had fallen on deaf ears; an anachronism, it had held no meaning for me. No one in my family since my grandfather had been in a war. They knew even less about it than I did, and had no experience on which I might draw. Until it confronted us, everyone had regarded war as an absurdity. Now it was a reality. If it was any consolation, the enemy must be having the same problem. Except that they had learned to handle firearms up there in the mountains of Serbia. We might pay a price for the blithe and vacuous existence we had led here.

As we came to the lesser stops on the route, instead of the ship docking, smaller boats came out to meet us. It was a wonder that the drunks on them all managed to stay aboard. Sometimes these boats smacked into the ship’s side; sometimes they danced on the tops of waves above the gunwale. Shrieking, swearing, laughing, the passengers just kept on coming. Where would they all go? The situation was starting to look alarming. The drunks couldn’t care less: they just roared away at the tops of their cracked voices. I tried to judge how far we were from shore, and wondered if I would be able to swim it. Next stop, Crikvenica. More passengers. The captain was shouting. By the time we got to Porto Re,
[11]
he allowed no one else to board. I knew these places well and had spent happy days in all of them; perhaps it was fortunate that, in the circumstances, I had no time for reminiscence. I will never know how we made it all the way to Fiume
[12]
and managed to dock. As for disembarkation: a crazed mob. I stood back to let the crowd surge past me.

A train was waiting to depart at the railway station, puffing impatiently. A great mass of people here as well, fed by the crowds from other boats. I had to struggle to get a place. At last, the huge engine got under way, its four cylinders driving twelve wheels. A glimpse of the glorious panoramic view down to Buccari; then the majestic cliffs and bare landscapes of the Karst and the massive walls of stone facing the Bora.
[13]
From the pass at Lič, more than a thousand meters up, a farewell glimpse of the distant view disappearing behind the opal mist—and the sea was gone.

From here, we raced downhill all the way to Zagreb. I managed to get a seat by an open window. The reverberations of the train as it thundered and clattered among cliffs, though forests and tunnels, drowned out the racket from the passengers behind me. None of them was interested in the landscapes we were passing through. They shouted each other down as they argued over events.