They Were Found Wanting (20 page)

When all these discussions came to an end the Minister’s
proposals
were unanimously accepted. Everyone was delighted even those who had argued the most fiercely – for it was
recognized
that if Daranyi had initiated the programme then he would see it through; and also because it was well-known that the
congress
had been convened only for one purpose, which was that the public should know what was being done for the Szeklers. And, of course, there would always be those ready to declare that it was their personal participation at the congress that had had a decisive effect on what would have been done anyhow.

At the end of the morning session the meeting was adjourned for lunch. Abady waited until Jopal should come forward with his companions. Then he went up to him and said how glad he was to meet him again, though it was a surprise to see him with the charcoal-burners.

Jopal stopped. A faint smile lit up his smoke-grimed face. ‘But I am one of them,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived with them now for two years. I work with them. They are very nice people.’

‘Don’t you think it is a waste for a man like you, with your knowledge and skill, to bury yourself like this? Even if the basic problem of flying has been solved and others have got the credit, it’s still very primitive and there are many more problems to be solved. And flying isn’t the only field for a mathematician like yourself.’

‘It’s all foolishness,’ replied Jopal. ‘Vanity and foolishness. And to what purpose? There’s more satisfaction in hard physical work among good and simple people. Only that is really
worthwhile
. To live out of doors, in the forest, chop wood, cut trees, build the ovens … to learn how long the charcoal must smoulder inside, and when more air must be let in and when the fire
extinguished
. To watch over it, guard it, care for it … it needs a lot of care, and knowledge and strength. And it’s beautiful, too, to live naturally, to be free …’

How different Jopal had become, thought Balint, from the time they had last met on the crest of the Ludas hills a month or so after Santos-Dumont had flown for the first time. Then he had been so bitter, while today he radiated peace and serenity.

‘Come and have some food with me,’ suggested Balint. ‘I don’t at all mind missing the official feast.’

The inventor-turned-charcoal-burner shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I can’t leave my friends. I belong with them now.’ And he said goodbye and went off with the others who had been
waiting
for him a few yards away.

As Abady walked over to the restaurant he was thinking over what had happened to Jopal. How strange it was, the destiny of Hungarians! How many there were like Jopal, as full of talent as their greatest rivals in the world but who, once they had reached their goal, would give it all up as easily as it had been obtained. Such people would never fight for the recognition they deserved; it was as if they would soon lose all interest if everything didn’t go their way from the beginning, and that they had striven so far only to prove to themselves that they could do it if they wanted to, and not for worldly success. Several names at once occurred to him. There was Janos Bolyai, one of the outstanding men of his generation, who gave up everything at the age of twenty-one; Samu Teleki, who had explored so many hitherto unknown parts of Africa and discovered Lake Rudolf, but who never bothered himself to write about his travels; Miklos Absolon, who had been to Lhasa but who never spoke of his travels except obliquely and as humorous anecdotes. Then there was Pal Szinyei-Merse, the forerunner of the Impressionists, who gave up painting and did not touch his brushes for more than fifteen years; and, of course, Tamas Laczok, who earned fame in Algeria where he could have made history but who abandoned it all to return to Hungary and work on the railways as a simple engineer.

There seemed to be a sort of oriental yearning for Nirvana, a passivity as regards worldly success which led his compatriots to throw away their chances of achievement, abandon everything for which they had striven for years, sometimes justifying
themselves
with some transparent excuse of offence offered or
treachery
on the part of so-called friends, but more often offering no explanation at all. Perhaps it was the other side of the coin of national pride which led them to throw everything away as soon as they had proved to themselves that they could do it if they wished, as if the ability alone sufficed and the achievement counted for nothing. It was like an inherited weakness
transmitted
from generation to generation and, of course, it had been epitomized in Janos Aranyi’s epic poem about Miklos Toldi, who under appalling difficulties conquered all his country’s enemies in a few months and then retired to till his fields and was never seen again until extreme old age.

The government’s plan for bringing back the emigrants and
repopulating
the deserted areas was announced at the afternoon session. Only the general idea was put forward because there were so many legal and economic aspects of the plan still to be worked out that no detailed discussion would have been possible at a public meeting.

All the same the announcement gave Abady the opportunity to put forward his suggestion for modifying the inheritance laws.

He started by saying that if the re-colonization of the land was to be successful it would have to be carried out on a massive scale. There were too many Szeklers for the land available to them and traditionally theirs. He quoted statistics, birth-rates,
emigration
figures, and laid special emphasis on the ever-diminishing size of the Szekler small-holdings, showing how it was impossible for most of these holdings to support a family. The only legal
solution
was to establish a system of entail by which properties could be handed on intact from generation to generation. He cited the example of similar situations in foreign countries – Canada and the United States, among others – where a single heir could inherit everything. He followed this with more statistics and explanations, quoting from books such as those of Lorenz von Stein; and added that such a system as he suggested was by no means unknown in Hungarian law which for centuries had
established
a minimum size for serfs’ holdings which could not further be divided. The Szeklers, he said, should be enabled to preserve their existing land by entail to the oldest son, the other children’s future being secured by the state providing them with
recolonized
land.

Such was Balint’s intervention; and though it might have had some effect at a legal conference it fell extremely flat at the Szekler congress, few of whose delegates were sure where Canada was and even fewer of whom had ever heard of Lorenz von Stein. As he was speaking Balint knew that he was boring his audience – and this knowledge robbed most of what he had to say of any conviction. The audience stopped listening.

Only one man paid attention. This was Samuel Barra who jumped up almost before Abady had finished. His powerful voice booming across the hall, he cried, ‘It is absolutely scandalous that anyone should dare to put forward such an idea, especially here in the very temple of the people’s liberties! Suggesting that the Szeklers should love and favour one of their children over the others, to keep one and throw away the rest. It’s a monstrous idea!’ And he waxed emotional over the sacredness of a father’s love for his children, over solidarity between brothers, and over the fate of widows and orphans. Grabbing hold of Abady’s
reference
to division of serfs’ properties, he shouted that the noble member for Lelbanya apparently wanted to push the Szeklers back to serfdom and that it was obvious to him at least that Abady’s real purpose was to abandon the liberal achievements of the twentieth century, and return to the Middle Ages, to forced labour and public floggings! ‘Never!’ he cried. ‘And anyhow the Szeklers were free men even in medieval days. Why, even all the armies of Hell could not defeat them, neither the Bashi-Bazouk Turks nor the satanic Caraffa.’

Though Caraffa had had nothing to do with Transylvania and by the Bashi-Bazouks he presumably meant the Turkish
gendarmerie
, the words sounded good and, as Barra hurled them at the delegates, general cheering broke out. People clapped wildly and many ran forward to shake his hand and praise his patriotic outburst.

Balint, shocked and bitter, sat down. He knew he should rise again and explain, but then, he reflected, it would be to no
purpose
for there was nobody present who would understand and to whom it was worth defending himself. Even the Minister’s
representative
hardly opened his mouth, while Bethlen, who after all had initiated the whole idea of saving the Szeklers, did not speak at all. While he hesitated another speaker rose to his feet.

It was Jopal. He had a good voice and he spoke well, in short easily-understood sentences. Calmly and with great precision he described the miserable situation of the charcoal-burners. He spoke with conviction that lent weight to his words but he remained matter-of-fact. He asked that they should be able to sell their own produce rather than be forced to do so through middlemen who made all the profit. Though they were an
established
union neither the state nor private enterprises recognized their existence or had any direct dealings with them. In this way they were being reduced to misery.

Balint listened carefully. It was extraordinary how nothing in Jopal’s words or manner revealed his educated scientific past. If one knew nothing about him one would take him for a simple workman who had grown up in the forests and who knew all about charcoal-burning but nothing else.

When Jopal had finished he descended slowly to the centre of the hall, laid his memorandum on the presidential table and went back to join his companions.

Later, when Jopal once again got to his feet to answer some questions put to him by the Minister’s representative, Balint was wondering what would have happened to him if he had not refused to allow himself to be helped. Would he now be in London, Paris or New York, the chairman of some great
international
company, a leader of industry and a power to be reckoned with in the world of science and big business? And just as Balint was thinking of these things Jopal sat down once again in the
centre
of the little band of stern dignified smoke-grimed men and immediately became just one among sixteen other men,
indistinguishable
and unremarkable.

A banquet was held in the evening with much wine and drinking of toasts, gypsy music and speeches praising the great patriotic civic virtues of everyone present. No one was left out, no one left without a word of praise or some flattering adjective. The
government
emissary and the man who wanted the Baris pig above all others were awarded the same laurel leaves of praise.

Only the charcoal-burners and Balint Abady were absent. While the forest men had rumbled off to the Hargita on their small carts, Balint had hired a vehicle and drove away, hoping to get as far as Segesvar where he knew there was a good inn. He minded bitterly that he had made all that effort for nothing. He realized that his speech had been inept and ill-thought-out, and it had perhaps been naïve of him to imagine that his unfamiliar ideas could have been understood by such an audience who had not the faintest notion what he had been talking about. He would have been better advised, he thought, to have written a pamphlet several months in advance and seen that it was properly
distributed
; and then followed it up by some articles in the newspapers rather than jumping in and throwing such a revolutionary
proposal
at people totally unprepared for such things. Perhaps if he had given the matter more thought someone would have
appreciated
what he was trying to achieve – but would they? As it was he could only blame himself for the fiasco of his speech. How
stupid
it had been of him to recite all those boring figures, to quote at random from abstruse legal precedents. Of course it served him right. But he was still very hurt, especially by the cheap mockery of Barra, to whose effrontery he had been too ashamed even to attempt a reply. To think that in Hungary such people passed for honest men!