They Were Counted (103 page)

Margit and Adrienne read this together. So this was the
explanation
! Poor Judith. What had happened that morning was
obviously
no accident, no unlucky accident due to recklessness.

Judith had wanted to die, and this well-meaning letter was the last death-thrust to her already wounded and grieving heart. Before she had learned what had happened to her letters she had believed firmly that everything that had taken place was the
result
of bad luck and the malice of other people. In her eyes her lover, that handsome young officer, had committed only one fault, and that was that he had not told her about his need to run away and that he had left her alone in Kolozsvar instead of taking her with him.

All had been a terrible shock and it had been enough to kill her confidence in the man and his declarations of love for her. But now this, this was sheer ignominy – and the knowledge that he had actually shown those letters, in which she had bared her heart, to another woman and had allowed that other woman to keep them, that was enough, her sisters realized at once, to make her try to kill herself that morning …

 

Later in the afternoon, when Judith woke up, they saw that she was not quite normal, that her manner was strange,
disconnected
, uninterested. Dutifully she drank the beef broth they gave her to drink. She even sipped a little brandy, but when the doctor came to examine her, she merely mouthed an odd sort of dumb laughter, as if she did not know where she was nor what was
required
of her.

Adrienne started to tell all this to Balint when, a little later, they met at the foot of the bridge where Lobetti always brought their gondola. As they floated away from their trysting place she told him every detail and, when she had come to the end of her tale, she slid down into his arms, seeking consolation and forgetfulness.

 

In the days that followed Judith recovered physically. Already on the morning after the ‘accident’ she was up and about in their suite, eating her food with appetite, but there was no
improvement
mentally. She had lost that hard, determined reserve that had been so marked in Transylvania and in the first weeks in Venice. Then, though somewhat stiff with the others and always distrustful of Adrienne, she had been full of strength, will-power and resolution. Now she was like a sick child, weak and needing constant guidance. She laughed without reason, and when she spoke there was something peculiar about her speech, for her words came out unnaturally slowly and she talked in a slovenly and drooling manner, little drops of saliva falling from the
corners
of her mouth.

The day of the accident Adrienne wrote to her father to tell him what had occurred, describing everything as if it really had all just been an unfortunate accident which had ended well.
However
, a few days later she found herself obliged to write again,
admitting
that Judith’s state was giving them cause for alarm, and that the mental specialist they had consulted had ordered them to take her somewhere quiet, either to the country or to a
sanatorium
. Something had to be done at once, and so Adrienne wrote to ask what she should do.

As she wrote this second letter to her father Adrienne knew that this meant the end of her stay, the end of those enchanted weeks of unexpected bliss and happiness, the end of everything …

After a few days a letter came from her mother, but it contained nothing but complaints. Then old Rattle wrote to say that he was too busy to come himself and so had asked his son-in-law, Pali Uzdy, to send out the old butler, Maier, who used to be a male nurse and who could speak German. No doubt if Uzdy could spare him, his presence would be a great help to Adrienne.

 

One evening while they were waiting for an answer from home, Riccardo rowed Balint and Adrienne farther than they had ever been before, southwards towards the salt-swept fishing town of Chioggia. It was already dusk when they started, for Adrienne now felt she had to stay on much later at the Lido.

In silence they floated over the calm waters, leaning closely against each other and holding each other tight, both too
overwhelmed
by their approaching separation to speak.

For once the weather was cloudy, and when they went far out, so far out that they could hardly see any sign of the shore they told Riccardo to stop rowing and just let them glide as the current took them. They stayed like this for a long time. Here the lagoon was at its widest and loneliest. There were no other boats to be seen and, as dusk slowly fell, the faint lines of the distant shores disappeared until they could no longer distinguish the horizon from the darkening sky above. Now all was a uniform greyness, empty, cold and lifeless.

Both of them felt that they were surrounded by a void, an empty space that had nothing above and nothing below, no sound, no colour, no past and no future, and that they glided
disembodied
over a nothingness that had no beginning and no end.

That night they returned very late having hardly exchanged a word the whole time they were together.

The next afternoon Adrienne arrived at their meeting exactly at the hour they had arranged. Without a word she handed Balint a telegram which read: ‘
ARRIVING TOMORROW AT MIDDAY – UZDY
’. That was all. He gave it back looking at her
enquiringly
. Without a trace of emotion Adrienne, in a cold voice, said: ‘You must leave here tomorrow!’

They sat in the gondola slightly apart from each other, but as soon as they emerged from the narrow dark canal and were well away from the city they fell hungrily into each other’s arms.

When they parted later at the quay she turned to him and said: ‘Come to me later … just once more … to say goodbye.’ And she hastened away in the dark.

In Adrienne’s dimly-lit room they made love as they never had before.

In the last weeks, since they had first come together and all Adrienne’s latent femininity had been awakened, an
ever-increasing
frenzy of passion had seized her every time she lay in Balint’s arms. That wild joy of life that Balint had so often sensed in her but never before aroused, now so overwhelmed her that Adrienne had given herself without reserve and, in realizing to the full the satisfaction of her own nature so she had been able to make it the same for her lover. When, exhausted and spent, they had fallen asleep, it had been as if they were but one person. And if, from time to time in the course of those delirious nights, the Angel of Death was beating his wings above them, they had turned away consciously refusing to think of the future …

On this last night they did not sleep. Without uttering a word, they clung to each other desperately, kissing, biting each other’s flesh, tearing at each other trying to suffocate in their
overwhelming
search for oblivion. It seemed that all that was left to them was to seek death from exhaustion, as if now the only fulfilment was to be found in killing the other with the urgency of their love.

When dawn broke Balint lifted himself up onto his elbow. Now, for the first time he spoke:

‘What is going to happen, when …?’

They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time, seriously, not very close, almost at arm’s length apart. He did not have to say more, for Adrienne knew at once what he had meant. The look in his eyes was enough. It said, as clearly as if he had pronounced the words out loud: If you decide to die, I shall too. I must know and I demand an answer, straight, clear, unequivocal …

As she looked up at him, into those wide, questioning eyes, she thought for a moment of all those plans she had made when they had not been together. Her original plan was now
unthinkable
. As soon as Balint had left she had decided to swim out to sea, carefully keeping out of the sight of the lifeguard in his boat, until she was wafted away for ever by those currents whose force no one could ever overcome. It would seem like bad luck and
unlucky
chance. But that was now impossible, for Judith had thought of the same thing, got there first as it were, and so spoiled her carefully thought-out plan. No one could do that now, for they had posted a double guard; besides which the memory of Judith lying there naked on the sand being looked at pruriently by all those people filled her with horror. No! That way was no longer open to her. Of course, she reflected, she still had the little Browning; but she could not use that either, not here in Venice. Everyone would know at once that she had killed herself on
purpose
and Uzdy would soon find out how she had acquired the weapon and then as sure as anything on this earth he would search out Balint and kill him.

Abady’s eyes were still on her, demanding an answer.

Adrienne looked back at him, and then, very slowly, she sald: ‘I will try to go on living. Maybe I’ll succeed, even if we never see each other again …’

Now it was nearly daylight.

Adrienne sat on the side of the bed, still in her torn, thin
nightdress
. She did not move, but leant back on her elbows, her head thrown back and her eyes tightly closed.

Balint was already dressed. He was standing face to the wall. Then he turned back towards her and fell at her feet, burying his face in her lap and sobbing as if his heart would break. His whole body was so racked with sobs that his back heaved and shook as he pressed his face ever deeper into her lap, into the smooth curves of her half-naked thighs. Deep groans broke from him and he cried ever harder as if he would never stop. He was like a child in the grip of an unknown horror, a nightmare that could never be told in words, clinging to his mother’s knees and clasping her as strongly as if he would never let go. His hands clutched at her body, at her bare flesh, not in desire but as a drowning man clutches at anything that comes his way. Through these racking sobs which so tore his throat that she could hardly distinguish what he was trying to say, through the waves of pain that both were feeling, came only one word, repeated over and over again: ‘Addy … Addy … Addy …’

Adrienne gently stroked his head, not caring that her
nightdress
was torn, not noticing the ever-brightening light of the morning sun, regardless of her bare breasts, feeling no shame at the revelation of her torn and bruised and naked flesh. She felt nothing but sorrow, a dreadful, suffocating sorrow and pity.

Somehow she managed to find the strength to try and calm him, hushing him as one would a frightened child, vainly trying to lift his head, caressing his tousled hair as if he were her son, and all the while her hands, gentle and motherly, softly stroked his head as she tried to utter some words of comfort:

‘My darling … my own darling. You mustn’t … no, you mustn’t … My very own … my darling … no, you mustn’t …’

As Balint reeled out of Adrienne’s room the hotel was coming to life. He staggered out, not looking back, banging into the
doorpost
as he went, like a man mortally wounded and unconscious of his surroundings.