They Were Counted (76 page)

All at once he got up and suggested they go out
pigeon-shooting
.

‘That’s a real sport!’ he said. ‘I have an excellent field for it; just like in Monte Carlo. Does everyone agree? Yes? Well then, let’s go!’

Countess Clémence withdrew to her own rooms, but Addy walked down with them.

‘I assume you breed them yourself?’ said Adam Alvinczy as they started off.

‘Pigeons? Certainly not, not one! We shoot only at clay
pigeons
. I wouldn’t slaughter a living animal. Why should I? They don’t harm anyone. People, yes. That would be different; but
animals
, never!’ and, turning back towards the rest of them he seemed to be weighing them up, measuring their capacities and perhaps their characters, with his wide-set, slanting Tartar eyes. Then, tossing back his head and straightening his narrow shoulders, he turned and led the way down the hillside to a small valley. Targets had been set up in front of a patch of bare clay where part of the steep hillside had slipped. Some way away in the meadow, in front of the landslide, throwing machines had been placed in a fan-shaped formation, with wooden planks for the guns to stand on, and, where the path came to an end, there were tables with ammunition boxes, pistol-holders, a selection of rifles, two benches to sit on, and a small telescope on a stand.

‘Here we are! This is it!’ cried the host. ‘It’s splendid, isn’t it? I practise here every afternoon. Well, my friends, choose your guns, please! They’re all here!’

The visitors went over to the tables at the stands and were
surprised
to see only sporting rifles, no shotguns. ‘It’s more fun with these,’ said Uzdy from behind them. ‘I never shoot with anything else. You’ll see! This is the real sport, I assure you. Now go on, take your pick, choose what you like. If you want to you can try them out at the fifty-and hundred-metre targets.’

Adrienne sat down silently on one of the benches. The guests took a few shots at the targets and they shot well, for in those days in Transylvania target-shooting was a popular sport.

‘Well done! You’ll do! Let’s start!’ shouted Uzdy excitedly as he checked the results through his telescope. A young peasant lad, who had been waiting for a sign from his master, now slipped down into the trench behind the clay-pigeon machines, so that all they could see of him was the top of his head and his hands when he inserted the discs into the throwing machine.

Uzdy himself was the first.

‘Ready!’ he called, and a disc flew up. Uzdy fired and the clay pigeon was shattered before their eyes. The others followed, but with little success. Out of five throws Adam achieved only one hit: the others did not even do as well as this. Only Uzdy never missed. One by one the others gave up, but there was no stopping Adrienne’s husband, who became more and more animated, jumping up and down on the wooden platform and finally
discarding
his hat and jacket. Moving his body frenetically and
waving
his long arms in their shirt-sleeves he looked like some giant long-legged spider, over-excited, almost out of control. All Uzdy’s normal restraint disappeared, as if the shooting had
liberated
something in his soul which was normally hidden only by the man’s delicately balanced self-control. The sun started to set and still he did not stop. He shouted new orders, sometimes
having
two discs shot up at the same time – and when he did this he invariably managed to hit both. He was an exceptional shot who took aim as if by instinct rather than by conscious skill. His
appearance
was frightening, with his elongated figure and satanic head etched black against that yellow hillside whose sulphurous hue was now emphasized by the rays of the setting sun.

Adrienne and the three guests watched in silence, only
occasionally
interjecting a ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Well shot!’ out of mere
politeness
. They wondered if Uzdy would ever stop and, indeed he did not do so until Maier appeared from somewhere and touched his master on the shoulder, and said quietly: ‘It’s time to dress, my Lord. Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes.’

After dinner Balint saw that the french windows onto the
terrace
had been opened for the first time since he had arrived at Almasko. The previous evening, of course, had been a windy night, but today all was still and the full moon shone with a clear milky radiance.

Adrienne led Balint and Adam Alvinczy outside to some chairs beside the stone balustrade. They talked quietly and slowly, using few words, and now it was Adam who spoke while Balint, who sat a little farther away from Adrienne, merely listened without taking in much of what the other was saying. Inside the house it was the elder Alvinczy’s turn to exchange platitudes with their host and his mother, while Count Uzdy himself sat hunched up in a large wing armchair and seemed to do nothing but gaze directly at one of the table-lamps. One might have thought that perhaps he was overtired after his exertions that afternoon at the pigeon shoot, but close inspection of his eyes showed that he was
possessed
by some strange and secret agitation, and that he might have been seeking the solution to his problems in the flame behind its glass shade. Occasionally his facial muscles would give a twitch, sometimes the corners of his mouth were pulled back as if he were about to laugh or take a bite at something; then he would blink and slowly lean his head back against the upholstery of the chair, remaining motionless for a long time. Balint could see him well from where he sat outside the room.

Adrienne was also silent, though not with the tranquillity of mutual repose as when she and Balint would sit together in silence for hours at a time. Now her silence was hostile, like that of
someone
alone in an alien world. Her manner was unpropitiatory and antagonistic to those around her and the few words she spoke were hard and dismissive; and though she sometimes made a joke of what was being said, teasing Adam Adamovich and laughing at his attempts to entertain her, she was not natural and her laughter seemed artificial and forced.

Uzdy suddenly rose and left the salon, returning in a few
moments
with a silken shawl which he brought out to Adrienne.

‘This is so that you wouldn’t catch cold!’ he said.

‘Thank you, but it isn’t cold tonight. I don’t need it,’ she said, protesting, as he tried to put it round her shoulders. But despite her protests her husband still wrapped the shawl round her before turning and making his way back to the drawing-room. Did Balint imagine it, or had Uzdy given him a mocking glance as he passed?

It was such a little thing that Balint was not sure he had not been mistaken, and nothing else out of the ordinary was to
happen
before they all went to bed a little later. When the old lady got up from her accustomed place on the sofa the others all rose too, and those on the balcony came back into the room to say goodnight. They all left the drawing-room together and while the two Alvinczys were escorted by the butler to their rooms on the lower floor, Countess Clémence went directly to her apartments on the left of the oval entrance hall.

Adrienne, Uzdy and Balint went to the doors on the right, where Balint’s room was to be found at the beginning of the
corridor
leading to the Uzdy’s private wing. They stopped outside Balint’s door for a moment and said goodnight. Then Uzdy put his arm round his wife and led her away. Balint watched them
until
they had disappeared round the corner.

 

Balint turned down the light as soon as he got into bed, but he couldn’t sleep. It was hot in the room so he got up, went over to the windows and threw open the shutters.

Before him there was a beautiful view; or rather half a beautiful view, for everything to the left was cut off by the protruding wing and the wooden tower with its staircase at the far end. The
windows
were all dark, with no sign of light apart from that of the moon shining outside. Not a sound was to be heard.

The young man leaned out of the window thinking that though the view before him was exceptionally beautiful, it was in some mysterious way gloomy; though perhaps this was due the cold brightness of the moonlight. Round the house were low irregular hills covered with the black outlines of oak trees; closer to Balint the lawns and flowerless gardens were black too and only in the distance, seemingly just an inch away from the vertical line of the projecting tower, could be seen the twin ghostly outlines of the ruined fortress across the valley, shining now not with the
brilliance
of sunlight that had illuminated them as he looked from the train, but with a vapoury, ghostly iridescence that seemed fraught with forebodings of a tragic destiny.

Balint remained there for a long time, gazing out into the night and trying not to allow his memory of how Adrienne looked that evening to haunt his memory. Her face had been set in cold,
hostile
lines, not only for everyone else but also, and this he did not understand, for him as well. Since the Alvinczys had arrived she had made a point of devoting herself to Adam Adamovich rather than to him whom she had treated with a coquetry that was both cold and contrived. It had hurt; it was humiliating and, after those kisses in the forest that morning, utterly incomprehensible. Balint became filled with doubts and began to wonder if it were possible that in reality Adrienne was one of those calculating
women
who planned their conquests with cunning but with ultimate frigidity. Could she be one of those who carried on with several men at the same time, taking pleasure from making them suffer and only happy when she could laugh at their enslavement?
Women
like that can never really love, reflected Balint as he leaned on the cold window-sill, all they can do is rejoice when they know they are causing torment.

As he was thinking about the enigma of Adrienne the silence was interrupted by the sound of wooden boards creaking. The sound came from the staircase in the tower and from where he stood Balint could see the faint light of a candle held by someone slowly ascending the stairway within. For a moment there would be a glow at one dark barred aperture, then nothing, then again it would appear at a window farther up. At the topmost window it disappeared altogether.

Balint’s heart constricted. Uzdy was going to his wife.

Everything that had previously mystified him was now made clear. Clear, why Adrienne’s mirth had been so false and hard; clear, why she had made that flight to the covered balcony after dinner, and why she had tried to reject the wrap brought by her husband; clear, her terrified face when she said goodnight in the corridor. And, just as distinctly, Balint had seen in Adrienne’s face that evening the same agonized expression as when he
himself
had nearly raped her at Kolozsvar. How had he not
recognized
it earlier? Balint now realized that all evening she had felt nothing but loathing for everyone and everything around her
because
she knew, in advance, what was in store for her later.

Balint struck the window-sill with his clenched fist.

On his lips there was a little trickle of blood as he bit hard not to cry his own agony aloud to the lonely night.

 

The following morning it had been arranged that he should again go shooting in the woods. He did not want to go and would
willingly
have cancelled it had he not planned with Adrienne that they should meet in the forest as if by chance, so that he would be able to give her Judith’s letter when no one else could see him do it.

This morning Balint also wanted to see his mother’s oak forests, so what had been planned as a morning’s deer stalk was
transformed
into an early walk through the woods. He asked the Almasko forest guard to guide him to the ridge he had spoken of the previous day whence he could, it seemed, have a good view of his family’s property. Walking briskly it took them about three hours, and any deer that they sighted on the way were allowed to go free. The strenuous exercise and the radiant morning
combined
to restore his composure, so that although his face clouded when, as they neared home, he saw Adrienne approaching, he was quickly able to get himself under control. It was important to him that she should notice nothing when they met. When the guard had left them and they were once again alone in the shade of the great trees, he tried to kiss her, but Addy stepped back and put her fingertips to his lips.