The Rebels (15 page)

“Worse than that,” said Ernõ solemnly.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Tibor, turning to Ernõ with eyes full of wonder, and continuing in that same even singsong voice. “I too think it was far worse. The boy unhurriedly tied up both shoelaces, pulled the cap down over his eyes, and went on his way, whistling blithely. It was early morning and there wasn’t anyone else in the street. I could hear the
tap tap
of his shoes as he walked away into the distance. I was still leaning against the wall. What could he have done? What could he have done? He was with a girl, they were both naked…without even a shirt perhaps…I was all twisted up inside…but the shoes, the shoes. Why did he have to take them off? It must be a terrible form of nakedness, I thought, where one person has to take off his shoes in front of someone, and then lie down with her in a bed, shoeless.”

The actor kept blinking and was pursing his lips as he waited.

“Well, that tops it all,” he said and nodded.

“Indeed it does. The whole of that morning I couldn’t help thinking about it. I didn’t dare ask anyone. But as always happens, you know, something inevitably comes along to raise the pitch of one’s terror…That lunchtime when I got home I put my books down still nauseated and disgusted, sick with excitement, and went into the dining room where I found my father sitting on the divan, cursing. I kissed his hand and waited. Father had just returned from the stables. He was wearing a summer jerkin, breeches, and riding boots. He was cursing because he had been calling for the servant. The servant having gone off somewhere, he ordered me to pull off his boots and bring him his slippers. There can’t have been anything unusual about this but I don’t recall him ever asking us boys to do this kind of thing and it hasn’t happened since. And it had to be just that day…I stared at my father’s dusty boots in despair and I couldn’t bring myself to extend my hands towards them. But Father leaned back in the divan and read the paper, paying no attention to me, simply extending his leg towards me. I put out my hand to touch the boots and fainted.”

“You started vomiting,” the one-armed one recalled without emotion. He was sitting calmly in the corner, his knees drawn up high, his chin propped on his remaining hand, crouched and expectant.

“Yes, I started to throw up. The trouble with that was that once I had come to, my father started beating me with the horsewhip because in his indignation he couldn’t imagine any reason for my sickness other than that I found the sight of his feet repulsive. The truth is I had never felt any disgust regarding his feet because I never even considered the possibility that my father had feet.”

“And that’s why you remained a virgin,” the actor declared as if establishing the fact.

“That’s why I remained a virgin,” Tibor repeated in the same flat singing voice. He opened his eyes wide and gazed calmly around the room.

“There, that wasn’t so hard,” said Ábel, his voice cracking. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly strange about the fact that we…we haven’t been with women. Don’t you think there’s a reason for that? Perhaps we’re together, the four of us, because…because not one of us has been with a woman. I don’t know. But I don’t think there’s anything impossible about it.”

The one-armed one let go his knees and leapt from his chair.

“But I…,” he gabbled, “…ever since it was cut off…I haven’t dared show it to a woman.”

The actor stepped over to him and put his arm round his shoulder to console him. But the one-armed one pushed him away, snatched the empty sleeve of his jerkin from his pocket with two fingers, and held it high with a look of contempt. They immediately surrounded him, talking to him. Béla stroked the stump where his arm should have been. Lajos was speaking, leaving words unfinished, his bloodless lips trembling, his whole body shaking. They laid him down on the actor’s bed and sat silently at his side. The one-armed one eventually stopped shivering and closed his eyes. They said nothing. Tibor held the one-armed one’s hand. A single teardrop ran from under the closed eyelids all the way down his face onto his jerkin. The one-armed one bit his lip. Quietly Tibor stood up and with elegant, light steps went over to Ábel, beckoning him to follow him to the window recess.

“You won’t be in a position to know this,” he whispered, “but Lajos has never cried before. I beg you to believe me. Not once in his life.”

T
HE ACTOR WAITED UNTIL THEY HAD GONE.
Then he ambled out of the apartment, sucking a perfumed mint. The girl with the rickets was playing in the doorway. The actor selected a mint from his pocket and asked the girl to dance a little dance on point for him. He joined her in the dance, and they twirled round in the entrance for a few moments, the actor’s arms raised high above his head, the white sweet in his hand glittering temptingly while the rapt child gazed at it like a puppy, her crooked little body finding it hard to twirl and remain on point at the same time. The actor took a few turns with her, then shook his head sadly like a talent scout who had lost faith in his latest discovery, and with a tired gesture popped the sweet in the child’s mouth. A thin woman in a headscarf had stopped to watch the man and child dancing. She weighed them up with grave, close attention. The actor greeted her amiably and drifted away under the boughs of the wayside trees. He was thinking that he should ask for an advance at the theater where they hated him. He smiled, thinking of that, and looked haughtily in front of him. He was thinking he should send his light green spring outfit to the cleaners. He was thinking it had become impossible trying to buy a decent American Gillette blade in the monarchy, that German razors were nowhere near as good as American ones. He was thinking he should start dieting next week. He remembered the name of a masseur who once worked on him for a week and who later hanged himself. He might have gone mad while shaving my throat, he thought and wagged his head disapprovingly. He gazed at the light green boughs of the trees and quietly whistled an aria from the new operetta. There were two steps back to make here, and one thing to duck, so…He looked around; no, not here, it wouldn’t do. He thought he might leave town soon. Once the war was over he would have the hernia operation. He was just passing the pastry shop and he thought of his younger brother who once, for no discernible reason, purchased a box of honey-loaf cakes and brought it over to his place in town where he was working as apprentice to a photographer, as a gift, then, next day, having finished his business, went home. Later he worked as a machinist. He disappeared somewhere in France. He thought he should keep an eye on Ernõ. These quiet hang-dog types could be dangerous. There was that incident with the one-eyed beggar: he had woken one night to find the man standing over him with a knife in his hand, grinding his teeth. You had to watch everyone, even the one-armed one, but Ernõ more than most. He was whistling. He passed the drugstore and spent some time examining the display, being strongly tempted to go in and buy some balls of camphor, not so much as a defense against moths as a fragrance. The strong, sour smell of camphor flooded his senses. He walked on in a bad mood. After all, anyone can afford to buy camphor, even the poorest people. He only had to saunter through the door in an indifferent manner and casually ask for a pinch of camphor. No one would suspect that he wanted the camphor not as moth repellent but to sniff. He didn’t have a penny on him. He had to have a word with Havas before he got to the theater. He felt uncomfortable about this. Never, not once in his life, not for a second had he felt certain that he would not have to pack and move on at a moment’s notice, in the middle of the night. He felt tense: the air he sniffed was full of menace. It was as if everything in the world were perishing. He wrinkled his nose. He wanted to speak to Havas to tell him that he should take care of his fingers. Nothing more than that he should take care of his fingers. He took a deep breath. The air was dense with the fresh, heavy smell of loam.

The pawnbroker sat behind the barred window. He was alone. The actor entered, whistling and swinging his cane, his hat pushed back to the crown of his head but carefully lest it disturb his wig. The pawnbroker stood up, came out from behind the counter, and propped his elbow against the grille. The actor looked about him dreamily as if it were his first visit, taking in the board that said “Receipt of Goods” and its partner, “Issue of Goods.” He leaned against the bars without a word of greeting and stared in front of him.

“Just imagine!” he remarked casually, swiveling his Kentucky minstrel eyes. “They’re all virgins.”

3

T
HE PERFORMANCE WAS OVER.
T
HE REVOLVING
doors were in full swing and the night regulars were arriving, in dribs and drabs, including members of the company. The bon vivant who had not removed all traces of theatrical makeup passed the booth, stopped, flashed his gold teeth, and dropped some quiet remark to the comic. Both laughed. The actor ignored them. He had delivered his major sketch about the effects of vodka on the human sensitivity to color. Now he was sitting, panting slightly, recovering.

The prima donna took her place among the usual crowd at the bohemian table. The actor fixed his curious eye on the door. The director hadn’t yet arrived and the seat on the prima donna’s right was unoccupied. The director was like the captain of a sinking ship: he was the last to leave the theater, the night’s takings in his pocket. He wouldn’t go until the cleaners had swept the auditorium clean.

Let’s wait until my assistant reports back, said the actor cautiously, his hand before his mouth. It would be wiser to wait till then.

He had plans that he had been mysteriously hinting at all evening. They weren’t feeling too good. They leaned on the table in desultory fashion, drank their beer, and gazed at the stream of new arrivals. It was the first time in their lives they could sit in the café legally, without anxiety, without fear of being spotted. They had occupied this booth before but for only a half an hour at a time, shivering slightly with the curtains drawn. Tonight was the first occasion on which they could take their place without sneaking in, without embarrassment.

They couldn’t help but notice in the first half hour they spent in the adult camp as equals that it was not all gaiety here. Or if gaiety there was, there was less of it than they had imagined the day before. The edgy excitement of the entertainment had quite vanished. A few weeks ago, when such excursions were still counted as a dangerous enterprise, they hadn’t noticed the insultingly patronizing manner of the waiter or the servile to-ing and fro-ing of the café manager who had condescended to conceal and shelter them. This confidentiality seemed humiliating to them now and lent a certain tension to the evening. They sat in low spirits, noticing for the first time the dinginess of the décor, breathing in the stale and bitter air.

“What is it?” asked Tibor.

Ábel gave a wry laugh.

“Do you remember how we used to look through the window whenever we came by here?”

Boredom gave way to anxious lassitude. What if everything they had only known from the outside turned out like this? If everything that had been alien and other were now becoming familiar, so that they could relax and take command of the world along with all those secrets that adults fought tooth and nail over—money, freedom, women—and they discovered that it was all quite different and much duller than they had thought?

“I’m bored,” said Béla, wrinkling his nose.

He raised his monocle to his eye and glared about him. Other tables smiled back at them. At about eleven their history master appeared in the café. Ernõ spoke a quiet word of command and the gang immediately leapt to their feet, made deep bows, and in singsong unison greeted the teacher.

“Your humble servant, sir!”

The chorus rang like music in the room. The elderly man in the pince-nez returned the school greeting, gave a clumsy bow, and muttered in confusion: “Your humble servant.” The master hurried away to escape the embarrassing scene. Ábel was of the opinion that he had blushed. Slowly they began to recover their confidence.

“That’s the way it has to be,” said Ernõ. “One has to be careful. Even tomorrow we shall have to hide our cigarettes when anyone approaches us. And we will have to bow deep in greeting, much deeper than we have ever done before. The waiter will have to draw the curtains, and the manager will have to watch that we’re not spotted.”

They hatched a plan for the following week to confront all their teachers in the afternoon, singly and together, before the staff disappeared on vacation, and ask them to fill in the blanks in their knowledge regarding certain as yet unclear details. They should enter with the utmost humility, stuttering, twisting their hats in their hands, and put their question red-faced, humming and hawing, exactly as they used to do.

Ernõ stood up.

“For instance, you go into Gurka and say: ‘Your humble servant, sir, I beg your pardon, I do not mean to be a nuisance, forgive me for disturbing you, sir.’ He is sitting at his desk, he pushes his glasses up to his forehead, gives a croak, and screws up his eyes. ‘Who is that?’ he asks in that nasal voice of his. ‘A student? What does the student want?’ You move closer, you twist your hat in your hands, you can hardly speak for respect, you are so deeply honored. Gurka slowly rises. ‘Really,’ he says. ‘Do my eyes not deceive me? Can it really be Ruzsák? It really is you, Ruzsák.’ Then he comes up to you and extends his hand in the greatest embarrassment because he is the master who could have failed you, twice, and has only permitted you to pass now because the army needs you and the commissioner insisted on it. And he is the one who has beaten you time and again right up until fourth grade. He is the one who stood guard on every street corner where girls were to be found and frequently caught the flu because he had been lurking in gateways for hours on end, keeping a sneaky watch on us. He was the one who had his suits made so that the collar covered half his face up to the earlobes, only so that he could creep up on groups of students unnoticed. Gurka. That’s your man. He is frowning suspiciously. He doesn’t know whether to sit you down or not, so you just stand there, listening, staring at him. He is already regretting offering his hand for you to shake. What can the student be wanting? Whatever it is he can’t be up to any good. Perhaps he has brass knuckles in his pocket, or a dagger. ‘Now, now, Ruzsák,’ he says, gasping for air. ‘What brings you here?’ You, in the meantime, just stand there, trembling, flushed.”