They Were Counted (30 page)

All along the bumpy country road to the railway station and in the train compartment itself, Laszlo felt himself to be riding on a soft billowing pink cloud. He felt no movement and saw nothing of the country, though it was bathed in a clear sober light and the fields and meadows stood out clearly in the bright winter
sunshine
. Everything around him had the unreality of a fairy tale and even when the carriage darkened as the train entered the
station
at Fehervar, it seemed the effect of magic and not because the carriage was in the shade of the station roof. Sitting looking out of the window as the train moved on, he saw nothing of the lake, bordered with ice, nothing of the reeds on the shore, nothing that passed before his eyes. Everything was a dream-land
invisible
to all but him.

Even the quite modest speed of the train was like a dizzying vortex. Laszlo felt as if he were borne on wings, being hastened to a blissful unknown paradise. Before his eyes there was the image of Klara looking at him with her mute, appealing gaze before she had lowered her lids over her ocean-coloured eyes in the ecstasy of their kiss.

He arrived at Budapest after what seemed like a journey of a few seconds only, still in the same disordered fever. By now it was night and the lights of the twin cities that were connected by the bridges over the great river were reflected a thousand-fold by the water beneath, a feast of glittering splendour placed there
expressly
to celebrate his joy.

When Laszlo arrived back at the house near the Museum, the porter’s assistant collected his bags from the fiacre while Laszlo himself ran ahead carrying only his gun-case. Once back in his
little
flat Laszlo hurriedly unpacked, putting his coats on their hangers and the other things in drawers, helter-skelter, not
noticing
what he was doing nor how crumpled everything was. And crumpled everything was, for when he had hurried to his room at Simonvasar he had thrown all his things into the suitcases, boots, jackets, evening clothes, shirts, pushing them down in no order, punching them and even stamping on the cases to close them with as much passion as if Montorio, the dead body of the vanquished Montorio, had been inside.

As soon as the cases had been emptied he went into the
living-room
, no longer minding the shabbiness of his humble little rented room. Now he gloried in it for it it seemed only right and suitable that it should be from here that he should start his road to fame, to dazzling success, to world-wide triumphs – and, above all, to Klara, that angel he would possess for ever and ever. Everything that he might obtain in life, the conquest of music, of society, the fame would only be an ornament, a wreath of gold and silver
treasure
to pile at her feet, to enhance her beauty, a diadem to crown her radiant head. Everything would be a tribute to Klara.

He paced up and down the little room, clasping his hands, flinging wide his arms, the fever which had mounted in him ever since the kiss in her room increasing in intensity until he could have climbed the walls to embrace the whole world.

He went over to the window and flung it open, the cold evening air rushing in as he gazed out over the darkness of the garden, past the huge block of the Museum to a dark shape in the
distance
: the Kollonich Palais. Ah! There he would at last be
accepted
, not as a childhood playmate, not as an amusing fellow who entertained the family and who, like a gramophone, could make music when people were bored, not as an elegant dancing partner or a useful shot; and, above all, not as a poor relation! No! He would be there by right as Klara’s fiancé, her bridegroom and finally, though he hardly dared formulate the thought, so
radiant
did it seem, as her husband!

Laszlo stood for a long time before the open window. Outside the lights shone on the boulevard; streetcars, brakes screeching and bells tinkling, approached and faded away; smoke hung over the houses, opalescent, shimmering. The roof-tops stretched away into an infinite distance and he felt himself floating above the city, a Power, a presence that lorded itself over all before him. Gone for ever was the feeling of inferiority that had subdued and
depressed
him for so many years. Klara’s kiss had absolved him from all previous misery.

And so, oblivious of the menace of the cold night air that swirled around him, Laszlo stood at the open window, arms flung wide in a gesture that embraced the whole universe.

B
ALINT DID NOT GO BACK
to Transylvania until the
middle
of December. Then he took the night train from Budapest, which was supposed to leave at eleven in the evening and, at six in the morning, arrive at Kolozsvar where he would find his rooms ready for him, with a hot bath, breakfast, and more sleep if he wanted it. However, the winter of 1904–5 was exceptionally severe and Balint’s train, which could not leave until the Vienna express had arrived, was late departing.

Waiting for the train to start Balint thought about the events of the previous days and found it impossible to sleep. While all around him trains shunted and clanked in monotonous
repetition
of the same noises, he felt like a fugitive, as if he were
running
away, fleeing from the need to decide which side he should take.

After the momentous debate on 18 November, it was some time before the House met again. From the day that Tisza announced the strengthening of the Rules of Order, rumours, many of them mere malicious gossip, began to circulate freely. Every day there was something new, and the following day it would be
contradicted
. Today the Speaker had resigned, tomorrow he had hired special bodyguards to eject trouble-makers from the House; the day after he had had a stroke, and the day after that he was taking fencing lessons preparing for the inevitable duels that the next
session
would bring. There were rumours, too, about the
government
. Tisza had gone to Vienna to resign. Tisza had come back from Vienna more belligerent than ever.

Never before had the newspapers attacked a Hungarian Minister-President with such open venom and personal insult. The cruelest, most outspoken articles were written by Miklos Bartha with such a masterly control of logic that Balint had
almost
been convinced by him, despite the violence of his views.

The editorials in the conservative newspapers were more
moderate
, but their verdicts were just the same: Tisza must go, and when his head had fallen a new cabinet would legalize new Rules of Order which in themselves were, of course, both necessary and useful. This two-faced argument, formulated with one eye on the opposition and the other on the Emperor in Vienna, deceived no one.

The views expressed by the newspapers set the tone for
discussions
in the National Casino Club which was still the capital’s
political
storm centre. Here members of all the parties would collect in groups, in the billiard-room and in the Deak Room, everywhere. The loudest talkers were always the youngest and above the uproar made by patriotic members or party candidates was always to be heard, shouting louder than anyone, the voice of the Austrian-born Fredi Wuelffenstein, who declared that his Hungarian blood boiled at such contempt of the Constitution and that he would fight anyone who contradicted him.

Balint had been to the Casino every night during the previous two weeks, but though he had tried to remain impartial he had not been entirely unaffected by the revolutionary atmosphere. Ever since Slawata had spoken to him and given him a glimpse of the secrets of the Heir’s political workshop, he had begun to see these party antics in Budapest in a new light. Now he had become more sympathetic to those who attached such importance to maintaining forms and rules that helped to preserve, in whatever way, the integrity and independence of the country.

Parliament was recalled and 13 December was announced as the date of the next session. On the preceding day a small
paragraph
appeared in the official gazette:

The
Parliamentary
Guards
have
been
instructed
that
in
no
circumstances
,
even
if
bodily
assaulted
,
are
they
to
restrain
Members
by
force.

 

Needless to say this decree had not been inspired by respect for the members, but rather was the Government’s reply to the
rumours
of violence that had been put about by the opposition, and which had done so much to alarm the public.

On 13 December Balint had arrived somewhat late and, seeing the quantity of hats and coats in the cloakroom, realized that most of the other members had got there before him. It only
occurred
to him later how worried all the doorkeepers and porters had seemed.

No one was to be seen in the corridors leading to the Chamber. All was silence; he could not even hear his own footsteps on the heavily carpeted floor. And any noise from inside was effectively cut off by the heavy curtains that draped all the entrances.

Balint stepped inside totally unprepared for what he would find there.

Only about thirty members were present, all ‘Zoltans’ – the nickname for those on the extreme left. They were standing on the Speaker’s platform, throwing down chairs, ripping out the balustrades, throwing the recording secretaries’ equipment about and, in the middle of the floor of the House, where the Table of the Law had already been overturned, they were making piles of the desks and chairs of the ministerial benches.

At one side, surrounded by six or seven of his colleagues, stood Samuel Barra, their leader. When they saw Abady enter the room they swarmed round him, happy to boast of their antics to a newcomer.

All shouting at once they bragged about their behaviour and their misdeeds, roaring and stamping. Balint listened in growing horror and disgust as they shouted:

‘We beat the hell out of them.’

‘Did you see how I hit him with an inkpot?’

‘The coward bent double … did you see?’

‘We’ve had a real battle here, my friend.’

‘But the guards couldn’t hit back. The Decree forbade it!’ shouted Balint when he had a chance to speak.

‘Be damned to that! They would have if we’d given them a chance, but we didn’t!’ cried Barra and he launched into one of his usual rabble-rousing speeches full of slogans like ‘Girded with the Nation’s Right’, ‘The Power of the People’, ‘Irresistible Force’, and ‘Spurred by the Sacred Flames of Hungary’s Freedom’ until
finally
halted by one of his henchmen who, interrupting this flow of self-praising oratory, came up and said: ‘Chief! Did you see how I beat them off the platform with this?’ He brandished a weapon made from a long piece of oak torn from the platform railings, from which nails protruded unevenly. ‘I harpooned the dogs!’

Still bragging, they hardly noticed one of their band who had been sitting at the side and who now moved down to the centre of the floor where they had made a pile of the chairs and desks. He was a tall, skinny, unshaven and swarthy man dressed in a dirty priest’s frock. He climbed to the top of the pile of broken furniture and sat down, smiling viciously, his hands on his hips in the stance of a stage conqueror.

‘Bravo, Jancsi! Bravo!’ they cried.

At this moment a side door opened. Tisza walked in. He stood quite still and just looked at them. There was a sudden silence as everyone present saw who was there. Tisza spoke quietly and coldly.

‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’ With a gesture of utter contempt, he turned on his heel and left.

 

To Balint, lying sleepless in the train, the rumble and clatter
beneath
his carriage –
Choo-choo-choo
…
Choo-choo-choo
– recalled the mindless uproar in the Chamber and seemed to mock his own indecision.

How could he ally himself to a crowd who could beat up
defenceless
public servants? Yet if he remained aloof he would be helping the secret plans of the Belvedere Palais, where the Heir was only waiting to pounce and destroy Hungarian independence once and for all.

It was this dilemma that now chased Balint away from the
capital
. A sort of nausea overcame him as he lay there seeking, and yet fleeing from a decision. And all the time the monotonous, heartless
Choo-choo-choo
beneath him chased both sleep and a
decision
from him.

 

It was late when Balint finally slept and it was late, too, when he awoke the following morning to find the sun glinting through the window blinds. At first he thought that the attendant had
forgotten
to wake him and that he had passed Kolozsvar in his sleep, but he was soon reassured: his train was now several hours late.

He dressed quickly and went out into the corridor. The weather outside was superb. The snow glistened in the bright sunshine, and ice floated on the Koros river which ran beside the railway track. Everything was blindingly white; even the steep
mushroom-like
roofs of the peasants’ houses were thickly covered by snow. Here and there a dray-cart pulled by a buffalo could be seen on the road, its shivering owner walking alongside.

Both far and near the thick carpet of snow had the fine texture of powdered icing sugar. Without stopping the train sped through Banffy-Hunyad and started the steep climb to the Sztana Tunnel.

Balint moved back into his sleeping compartment to look out the other side of the train. He remembered that surely it was somewhere here that Adrienne’s home was to be found, a white house opposite an old ruin that could be seen as the train came out of the tunnel; and when, brakes screaming on the curve, the train did emerge from the darkness, the first thing Balint saw in the distance were the ruins of an old castle and in among a stand of now leafless beech trees, two vertical white shapes which were probably the corner towers of a country house. He wondered if Adrienne were there, perhaps even at this very moment gazing, as he was, at the castle ruins. And if she were, would the knowledge that Balint was doing the same upset her as much as had the touch of his hand the last time they had met? It was many weeks since he had allowed himself to think about Adrienne, for after the scene in the garden he had chased away all thought of her even when his memories had brought her involuntarily to his mind.