Sweet Bitter Cane

by G S Johnston

  What was your favourite quote/passage?

  How did Amelia change through the story?

  If the book were being adapted into a movie, who would you want to see play what parts?

  PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS – AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON:

  Consumption: A Novel (2011)

  The Skin of Water (2012)

  The Cast of a Hand (2015)

  If you’ve enjoyed Sweet Bitter Cane, you may also like The Skin of Water.

  Also available from GS Johnston

  the SKIN

  of WATER

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  CHAPTER ONE

  At the height of the Hungarian summer of 1943, Zeno Czibula saw a woman in the forest.

  She strode along a trail edging the sheltered verge of Lake Balaton. Even at this distance, her white diaphanous dress stood out against the deep forest. Diamond light bounced from the silver lake, picked out the dress flowing behind her slight frame, a dress not built for walking in forests. Zeno guessed she was staying at The Hotel Hungary.

  She stopped. He held his breath. She looked right, left, over her shoulder. She may have seen him, sensed a set of eyes piercing her solitude. He moved behind a tree. He felt a small stick beneath his left foot and feared it would snap, echoing in the forest’s damp quiet. So he stood, one foot raised, peering out from behind the tree. Then he did what he always did: lifted his Cine Kodak Eight Model 20 to his eye, released the wound mechanism, and began to film.

  A nervous gazelle, she tilted her head this way and that. She looked down at her shoes and scuffed them off, kicking them clear. She stood facing the path towards the hotel. Her brown hair, straight and strong, bounced about her shoulders. She’d return to the hotel. He moved his lens in that direction and she slipped from his view. She’d hesitated.

  The camera’s mechanism clanged in the quiet forest. He should reveal his vantage. If she caught him spying he’d be fired and despite being only seventeen he needed this job. As he stepped from the tree’s cover, the camera still to his eye, the stick snapped under his left foot. Nearby turtle doves took fright and flight, fluttering across the camera’s field of vision. Through the lens, he saw her begin to run—away from the hotel, a sprinter from the blocks, barefoot now.

  He switched off his camera and left it at the base of the tree. Once his legs began to race, following the narrow trail, the heat and humidity took hold. Sweat gathered on his upper lip and under his arm pits. He picked up pace anyway, his foot sure but silent. He found her abandoned shoes at the side of the path and scooped them up. The leather was soft, the slender heels not made for running.

  The path led to a small bluff at the lake’s edge. If he left the path and cut through the forest, he’d beat her there but alert her to his presence. He decided to follow her unnoticed, staying on the path. Her bare feet made no sound. He followed blind.

  As the path rose, he stopped. He could hear nothing save the lake’s low lapping and the drone of a distant powered boat. His senses sharpened. Was she now in hiding, watching him? He scanned the dappled forest but saw no trace of her. Perhaps he’d lost her. Or she him. No birds called. He breathed deeply, as if the air were robbed of oxygen. He shouldn’t have followed a guest this deep into the forest.

  He heard a sound, thin at first, then stronger, insistent with a timpani finish. A body hit water. He scampered up the remains of the path. Her dress lay discarded on the earth. On the western side of the lake, the afternoon sun glistened back at him, scorching his sight. No ripple, nothing broke the surface. He counted. One. Two. Three. Four. His heart pumped harder. Why had she not surfaced? His eyes darted about. She wasn’t there.

  He dropped her shoes, threw off his own along with his shirt and shorts, leaving only his underwear. He scanned the surface. Nothing. He dived, a grace-filled arc. As he descended those five metres, arms outstretched for balance, he glimpsed something breaking the surface. He hit the water, blessedly cool. His downward momentum dissipated and he pushed his arms up towards the light.

  Once at the surface, he ran his hands over his face to clear the water and that flop of dark golden hair that hung down over his forehead. She was swimming, freestyle, away from him, her stroke firm and regular.

  “Hey! Are you all right?”

  She stroked on. He started strong freestyle strokes, his body a plane on the water. He could hear her limbs beat ahead of him, see her ruffle the water. He swam alongside her, slowed to her rhythm. And then she stopped, abruptly, as if she refused competition. He stopped, his legs caving in below him.

  She brushed her hair from her face. Her pink nipples and small breasts blinked in the water. He couldn’t look lower. Aware of his gaze, she glared at him, her hyacinth-blue eyes cold and penetrating.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  She was older than he expected, perhaps even in her mid 30s. Like her shoes, her accent was foreign and soft and expensive. Working at the hotel, he’d taught himself to mimic these accents of wealth.

  “I was worried about you.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “But you were swimming out into the lake.”

  “I didn’t know this too was forbidden.”

  She was French, her accent light but noticeable.

  “Well…” He was out of his depth. “I’ll leave you, then.”

  He lingered a moment but she said nothing. He turned towards the shore, poised to swim.

  “Young man, are you a guest at the hotel?”

  Shit! A bellboy on his day off was forbidden in this part of the forest, reserved for paying guest. She could report him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then I’d appreciate you don’t mention any of this.” He nodded. “To anyone.”

  “Of course.” He trod water. He should be away from her. “Enjoy your swim.”

  “And you yours.”

  He reached his arm again towards the shore.

  “Your shoes…” he said, immediately regretting it.

  “What of them?”

  “I left them by your dress.”

  She raised her right eyebrow and nodded.

  Slowly he turned away. He dug his hands hard into the water but as he began to plane, the turbulence caused his underwear, tied to his hips by string, to slip, then slide into the dark, dark water. He panicked, caught between escape and exposure. He couldn’t stop. He continued his strokes towards the shore, slipping easier, his round buttocks white and glistening in the late afternoon sun.

  With no difficulty at all, he hauled himself up on to the rocks and looked back at her over his shoulder. He hoped she’d resumed her swim but she was stationary, about seventy-five metres from the shore, treading water and staring in his direction. For a moment, neither of them could turn away. He was sure she continued looking as he climbed back up the side of the bluff to his clothes, abandoned near hers, but he couldn’t look while she was looking at his bare ass.

  After he’d dressed, he made his way back to the hotel, slowed by the heat and the lack of underwear. How embarrassing. It could’ve been worse if he’d chosen to keep an eye on her and backstroked away. And what else could he have done except keep swimming? Stop? Duck-dive around her looking for his smalls? What a grand sight that would’ve been.

  And he’d lied. He’d have to avoid her. The hotel was large, over five hundred guests. He could just avoid her room. But in order to do this, he’d need to know her name.

  As he reached the end of the path, the Hotel Hungary rose seven stories out of the surrounding gardens. At this time of day, that breathless afternoon hollow, even the main building looked sleepy, the window box plants drooping, the eaves seeming to sag, quiet, no laughter, no signs of the activity soon to erupt as the hotel guests lurched towards cocktails, dinner, and dancing. Indeed, no hint of the war raging across Europe to which, through part good management and part good luck, Hungary had remained immune. German troops had marched through Hungary’s streets and roads to the north and the sout
h but no bombs had fallen, nothing had torn open its jewel, Budapest.

  Something twinkling at the side of the path caught Zeno’s eye. It was an ornate golden chain, fine weave, caught in the twigs of a low shrub. He knelt down and carefully pulled. As if he’d caught a fish, a weight resisted at the end of the chain, small but heavy. A sturdy gold crucifix. With great care he unraveled the chain and held it in his palm. Not really beautiful, plain flat surfaces, no Art Nouveaux curves. What should he do with it? He was no judge but thought it was gold and worth a fortune. Turn it in to the concierge? He heard voices. Two women, guests of the hotel, were coming. He clutched the crucifix in his palm and stood aside.

  “Lord only knows where she’s got to,” one of them said.

  They were looking for the woman. Should he go back and warn her? How stupid! He wrapped the chain around the cross and placed it in the button-down pocket of his shorts, the metal through the fabric cold against his skin.

  The employees’ quarters were at the rear of the hotel buildings, a group of small chalets scattered at a discrete distance. Zeno’s roommate lay on his single bed, enervated and naked as usual.

  “Hey,” Zeno said. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

  “They want me to work again tonight.”

  Tibi was a deal older that Zeno, already twenty-five, blond hair with a film star’s looks: a strong lantern jaw, full lips, fine blue eyes. His body, like Zeno’s, was all chest and lung and broad shoulders. Listless by nature, he lived in Budapest but each summer came down to the lake to work.

  Zeno pulled off his soaked shirt.

  “Do you know a woman–”

  “I know many women.”

  “Listen. She has dark hair. Slim. In her thirties? A hotel guest.”

  Tibi face soured. “It could be any of the women staying here. Why this one?”

  “I saw her in the forest, near the lake.”

  Tibi sat up on the edge of his bed. He pulled a towel over his groin, took up a box of cigarettes, and lit one.

  “But why would this old woman attract you?”

  “Attract?”

  “She’s stirred something up in you.”

  “She seemed…”

  Why had he started this? He didn’t want to tell Tibi, the joker, how he’d embarrassed himself.

  “I might have known you’d go for someone older,” Tibi said. “You’re such a sly, silent type…”

  “Just because I don’t paint my conquests across the sky.”

  “Exactly.”

  “She just seemed unhappy.”

  “And Zeno, the swashbuckling hero, must swoop in and rescue her.” Tibi laughed, then said, “Does she have a foreign accent?”

  “French, I think.”

  “And wearing a white dress with a faint leaf pattern?”

  “Yes. Yes, she was.”

  “Steiner. It’s Catherine Steiner. Very rich. What time did you see her?”

  Zeno sat on the room’s other single bed and faced Tibi.

  “An hour ago...”

  “This afternoon I took drinks to a table of women on the terrace. She left abruptly and said nothing.”

  “What’d happened?”

  “That’s it — nothing. She just stood and left.”

  “What had they been talking about?”

  “Same as usual.” Tibi stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and lay back down on the bed, arranging the towel and placing his hands together behind his head. “What was in fashion, what wasn’t. Nothing. After she left, the women talked about her. That something had upset her.”

  A sharp knock at the door heralded Kovács, the head waiter of the hotel’s restaurant.

  “Zeno,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be here. We need you to work tonight in the restaurant.”

  Zeno sighed. He was only a bellboy but twice before in emergencies he’d been pressed to help wait tables. The war stayed out of Hungary but it had robbed the hotel of staff, especially of the itinerant workers on which it was so dependent for the busy summer period. Zeno hadn’t really enjoyed waiting tables, embarrassed by his inexperience. But the money was better and the tips could be good.

  “Tibi can partner you,” Kovács said.

  Still Zeno hesitated.

  “It’s Thursday night,” Tibi said. “The men are all in Budapest working. It won’t be so busy.”

  Both Tibi and Kovács looked at him. Zeno wanted to move to Budapest and he needed extra money. He nodded.

  “Good,” Kovács said. “Both of you, get ready. I’ll send up a uniform for you.”

  Kovács nodded in his military manner and left the room, closing the chalet door behind him.

  “You’ll do fine,” Tibi said. “Don’t worry.”

  “This war will kill me.”

  “Better to die as a waiter at the Hotel Hungary than on the Russian front.”

  Perhaps he’d be okay as a waiter. But first he needed to wash off the day’s sweat. He walked over to his dresser and removed his shorts.

  “Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”

  Zeno blushed, covering himself with his shorts.

  “Long story.”

  Tibi raised an eyebrow and lay back on his bed.

  Zeno and Tibi walked from the kitchens into the restaurant, smooth in their white dinner-suit uniforms complete with white gloves. The restaurant was empty of guests. In the hotel’s bars, the sculpted guests took bitter aperitifs to stimulate their appetites. Kovács, already busy, merely inclined his head towards the pair.

  “Just don’t be seen for a while,” Tibi told Zeno. “Stand over there and wait.”

  Zeno stood alone near the kitchen servery window while those more qualified buzzed about. The restaurant curtains were drawn apart. The open higher case windows above the line of French doors that looked onto a large terrace allowed something of the evening’s cool to enter the room. But the humidity persisted. He felt it on his skin. The very last of the day’s sunlight glistened on the darkening lake. One by one, the room’s two dozen electric chandeliers ignited, but the room still felt dark, a side effect of the dark wood-paneled walls. A violin player drew a bow across strings that were quickly tuned. The trio sprang to life for a few bars, then rested.

  “All this fuss,” Tibi said, as he passed by Zeno. “These pigs will never even notice.”

  Zeno followed Tibi. He thought it was fine no trouble or fuss was spared. Did it matter no one noticed? The dinner guests began to file in. His stomach gurgled with first-night nerves. The whole staff breathed in together, became individual cogs in one machine. Quite quickly, the restaurant swarmed with the hum of conversation and peals of mirth. The trio played Schubert’s String Trio in B Flat but the heat zapped all the brightness from the piece. Over two hundred people to be fed.

  Kovács came towards them.

  “The entrees are ready for table ten.”

  Tibi and Zeno and four other waiters took up six plates from the servery window. As they approached the table, Zeno’s nerves jangled—three men and three women, one of the men a German SS Officer who’d stayed at the hotel before, a lieutenant colonel Müller whose round face looked generous until he curled the edges of his mouth in something of a snarl as he spoke.

  The officer was seated next to László Fehér, a man Zeno also knew only by sight. He was a local member of the Arrow Cross Party, the Hungarian fascists, a rotund little man, always at the hotel for dinner and always with guests who seemed to outstrip his rank. Next to him were György Földes and his wife. Zeno had taken their luggage to their room and received a hefty tip. Földes was an industrialist from Budapest, a neat, quiet man.

  Two women, both weekday widows, completed the party, seated together like maiden aunts, their backs turned towards Zeno, facing the magnificent view of the lake. The taller, Ilona Rákóczy, the wife of a big industrialist, sat on the left. The other was Catherine Steiner, her dark hair now dry and shiny and straight. Zeno, panic-stricken, moved as if he were an automoton.

>   “And where’s your husband tonight?” the officer Müller asked her.

  “He’s in Budapest,” she said. “He’s working.”

  She drew out the second sentence. The officer smirked. The waiters moved to their places around the table.

  “Such a large factory must never sleep,” the officer said. “You’re not Hungarian.”

  Zeno was close enough behind to hear her breath.

  “At what point,” she said, “does one cease to be something and become something else?”

  “Mrs. Steiner is French,” Földes said, bowing his head towards the officer.

  “I was born in France,” Mrs. Steiner said, “but I’ve lived here for over twenty years.”

  Zeno carried her soup. He positioned himself at her left side. He took a moment, to survey the setting, anticipate any sudden change.

  “Steiner…” the officer said suddenly.

  Zeno began to lower the plate, slowly at first.

  “They’re an old Hungarian family,” Földes said, his tone firm. “They converted to Christianity in the late days of the empire.”

  “I think Herr Müller has me wrong. I am a French Catholic.” Swiftly, Catherine lifted her left hand to her chest, fumbling in the folds of fabric. Gripped by a kind of seizure, Zeno shook, just enough to cause a little soup to spill to the side of the under plate. The other waiters perceived this tremor and halted their advance. Like a magician, Tibi produced a cloth and removed the droplet. Zeno breathed out.

  “That was a liberal time for such things,” Müller said.

  “One has to wonder,” Fehér said, “how much conversion was sincere or forced or simply pragmatic.”

  “What rot are you talking?” Földes said. “The Steiners are a model Christian family. They maintain The Lady of Charity Orphanage in Budapest. They’ve received the Pope’s benediction.”

  Without shaking, which required strenuous effort, Zeno lowered the plate to the table. The other waiters lowered theirs. Catherine Steiner made no acknowledgement. Zeno stepped back.