“The Great War,” Eva corrected. “You know, the war twenty years ago in which a Serbian prince was murdered, which was then blamed on the Germans, which then eventually led to the mess we’re in now. That war.” She looked at Isabel for a nod of understanding, but Isabel’s expression was deadpan. She only wanted to hear about the groom.
“Well, he’s… wonderful,” Eva said finally, because in fact, there was no other way to describe Eduard. Instantly, a thread of anxiety tugged at her. For nearly a week it had been there, simmering in the depths of her stomach. She didn’t allow herself to pay it any attention, although she knew well enough why it was there. That fiddler, with his black eyes, which seemed to pierce through every layer of her. Perhaps, after all, it was good that Isabel had arrived to provide a distraction, for Eva could no longer return to the town square in the afternoons. Not if she had any sense.
“But this calls for a party!” Isabel exploded, making her flinch. “We must celebrate! I know he’s not here, I know, but we can still celebrate! I can help you plan it!” She squeezed Eva’s hand and squealed as if she were to help out in the preparation of the royal wedding. “How else are we going to spend the next two weeks till I go back to Vienna? At least it will pass the time! It will give us something to do!”
“No,” Eva said, shaking her head. “No, no, no. No more parties. I had enough of that before leaving Budapest to last me ten years. And besides, there is plenty to do. I can show you how to garden. There is a lovely vegetable garden that I helped Dora plant two years ago, and you should see it already! Or I can show you some incredible things in my medical books. Did you know, for instance, that if our blood vessels were laid out end to end, they would go around the world four times?”
Isabel was gone from the bed, dashing through the door, her heels clattering through the hallway.
“Papa!” Eva heard her shout. “Papa! Uncle Vladimir! I’ve just had a brilliant idea! Brilliant!”
* * *
It was to be a quiet affair. Just the eight of them, eight, yet as Eva watched from her bedroom window all the cars queuing up in the driveway, she knew it wouldn’t be anything of the sort. All day long, Dora had been running around wringing her hands on her apron, fretting that the lawn was still to be mowed, that the chairs had not been placed in the garden in a way that would invite a late-night chat, or a drink, or a smoke, that the oven wasn’t heating to optimal temperature, that the butcher was yet to deliver the ground meat for her stuffed peppers. Behind her agitation, there was a flare of satisfaction to be in charge of a proper affair, to prove that she wasn’t just a cook or a nursemaid, after all. The cake, which had arrived in a huge pink box, was hauled from the delivery car by two men and carried into the house as gingerly as a newly concocted model of the Tour Eiffel. Then her dress was delivered as well, not the wedding dress, but a long, floral lamé number that Isabel had taken upon herself to order.
In her room, where Eva was finishing getting ready, she could hear the voices of arriving guests through the open window, the pop of champagne bottles going off in near tandem and then being propped in ice buckets on the terrace to keep them cold. She finished rouging her mouth in a deep crimson, examined her own image in the mirror, wiped off some of the lipstick with a tissue, blew out a bubble of air through her smeared lips. One more week and the house would be hers again. All she had to do was be patient. Isabel, after this evening, would sleep all day. That thought alone gave her enough motivation to walk downstairs and into the hubbub of activity already in full swing in the foyer.
No more than ten minutes into the dinner, however, Eva lost her patience. She sat staring at the lemon wedges garnishing the roasted fish on her plate, taking small sips of water, waiting for the inevitable. Next to her, her father was frowning into his glass and helping himself to the wine carafe again. Seated on his left, Uncle Janos was addressing him in his usual mild tone though waving his fork around as if directing a small symphony. She was only mildly surprised when her father slammed his fist on the table.
“Vladimir, please, calm down,” Janos said, touching his sleeve at the elbow. Her father pulled away, then refilled his glass again.
“Horthy!” he spat. “Do not speak to me, Janos, about what a nationalistic hero he is! A patriot, ha! He should follow the examples of Mussolini, Kemal—men who are molding their countries, not driving them into ruin by refuting the Reich’s wishes. Those are great men! Those are men to admire for their commitment to a new Europe! Not this excuse for a leader, this utter imbecile.”
Janos stared glumly at his hands. “I was only suggesting, Vladimir, and please hear me out, that his job can’t be an easy one. To balance our national sovereignty with Hitler’s wishes, it can’t be accomplished easily.”
“Don’t you see, my dear Janos,” Vladimir retorted in a somewhat calmer tone, which seemed to suggest that dear meant dim, “our national interest, our Magyar interest, cannot be unaligned with that of Germany. We all want the same things. We all want a world order of racial purity, of—”
“That’s enough,” Eva found herself saying. “Please, Papa. That’s enough. You promised me that you wouldn’t talk like this anymore.” She closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose. “I’m leaving.”
She was halfway up from her chair when his hand descended on her forearm, squeezed it. She didn’t expect it. Not that he wasn’t rough with her once in a while—she’d been accustomed to his terrible moods since she was a child, but never in public. Never at a party where they were the center of attention. She looked at his hand, glared, but he only tightened his grip and forced her back down in her chair. Her face pounded with shame. Everyone had seen it. Even Isabel, suspended as she was in the middle of a sentence, her face still partially turned to the woman with a huge diamond necklace and a beehive of hair seated next to her. Vladimir, too, noticed the looks, the trailing voices, and withdrew his hand.
“Oh, but I nearly forgot! Dora!” he shouted across the room in the direction of the door. “Dora, where’s the entertainment?”
Dora rushed to his side, head bowed, no doubt beet red under her bonnet. “You said after dinner, sir, that they should wait until the dessert was served—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Vladimir snapped. “Bring them in at once! What do they need, a written invitation?”
“Right, of course,” Dora said and made herself swiftly invisible.
* * *
They came in through the door behind Eva, several figures in dark jackets with an array of instruments. If Eva didn’t turn in greeting or pay them any attention, it was because she was somewhere else altogether. She had never been less in the mood for entertainment, for having to continue to smile, for having to be anywhere near her father. Her father, who’d disrespected her, humiliated her, treated her like an errant child.
“Ah, here they are—at last, they’ve appeared!” she heard him say to someone across the table louder than was necessary. “Such an honor! I’m assured they are the best damn band in all of Sopron. You wouldn’t know it from the look of them, right? Surely they could do with a few tips, ladies and gents! Those coats, dear God, were they resurrected from the labor service?”
It was only when she heard that voice—“We are ready when you are, sir”—that she turned in her chair and a swell of heat rolled through her body. She felt self-conscious all of a sudden, of her hair, which had been done up in an exaggerated coil and fastened on one side with a diamanté comb, of the terrible light gold dress, which made her look like an overgrown goldfish. She wished she’d worn something brighter, less makeup. She wished that she’d left her hair loose.
Hello, Eva thought she mouthed. He tipped his head to her, made that same sweeping gesture from the square, smaller, less conspicuous—something only she would understand, which made her laugh. She laughed a little too loudly. She wanted to say something back, but was too stunned to see him, and so she only smiled, too long. It was only when her father stood from his chair that sh
e was forced to redirect her gaze to the length of the table, to the glint of crystal and silver, which seemed too bright in her line of vision.
“Ladies and gentlemen, before we get on with the music,” her father said, tapping his wineglass with his signet ring as he swayed a little at the edge of the table, “I would like to make a toast! To my daughter, Eva, whose happy engagement we have all gathered here to celebrate. As you are all aware, our esteemed groom could not be here with us this evening, busy as he is attending to our brave soldiers and whatnot, but I know I speak on his behalf when I say this is a most joyous occasion. Most joyous! May the two of them live a very long and happy life. To Eduard and Eva! Egészségedre!”
“To Eduard and Eva!” repeated all twenty guests in unison, clinking their glasses and raising them in Eva’s direction. “Egészségedre!”
For a long moment, she couldn’t look at the fiddler, then she did again, and saw the understanding seep into his gaze. It grazed past her, to the terrace door, to the grandfather clock, then to the violin at his side, which he lifted heavily. He placed it under his chin, positioned his bow, still as a statue, his hair slicked back with brilliantine, the hollows in his cheeks like shallow spoons. Serious now, the jaw stern as he motioned toward the others to begin.
“Ready? On three.”
And begin they did, slowly at first, each of the three violins joining the notà in intervals, working around each other in a dance of sound, building their rhythm. She saw him close his eyes, flying with the music, no longer there in the room, no longer in any place where he could be reached. The other violins slowed, dropped off at the next break. Then it was only him, taking it higher, faster still, his face twisting with the sound, with what she imagined was joy, and the love of it.
“My God,” the woman with the diamond choker gasped. “They’re spectacular.” But as she said this, Eva saw that her eyes were only on one fiddler. Her bejeweled, plump fingers came up to the hollow of her neck, where the matching diamonds sparkled, then traveled a little farther down, to the top of her cleavage, where they pressed slightly against the powdered skin, as if to steady the pulse there.
The maestro nudged Aleandro, pointed with his chin in an almost imperceptible way in her general direction. For a moment nothing happened, nothing changed, but then the maestro circled back around and nudged him again, this time with his elbow, whispered something in his ear.
A look was exchanged—sternness on the maestro’s part, protest on Aleandro’s—then he broke from the trio and made his way slowly across the room, working the bow faster, faster still. The woman reached into her purse, extracted something, flashed it in a nondescript way—either for the spectators or perhaps for the fiddler—and he moved closer, so close that she could now touch him. The woman leaned back in her chair so as to enjoy the full performance, her chest rising and falling.
There was a sound, a terrible scrape, which Eva realized with horror was her chair. The music tapered off, and all the eyes in the room fell on her. The room spun. She was trembling, so she stood and stepped away from her chair, nearly tripping on the edge of the rug.
She laughed, something that to her sounded more like a shriek. “Please excuse me, I’m not really in the mood for music tonight. I’ve really got a terrible headache. Please don’t mind me. Enjoy your night.”
Then she walked from the room, fighting the urge to run. On the other side of the door, she leaned on a wall, pressed her fingertips into the hollows of her eyes.
5
NO MORE THAN TWENTY MINUTES later, the band was asked to pack up and shown out by an impersonal valet who walked them through the bowels of the house and a long kitchen lined with polished cabinets and marble counters. Leading the way, with the maestro lamenting behind him, Aleandro was thinking about the girl, feeling as though a new window had been slammed shut on his heart. He didn’t think he’d see her again that night. Then the door opened to reveal her standing there on the lawn under a light post, smoking a cigarette. Her back was turned, and she was no longer in her sequined dress but a drab pair of pants, an oversize shirt untucked, something silk, shimmering in the light. He wanted to continue on, to keep walking down the path along with the others, but she startled and turned, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t see her. Instead, he told the others he would catch up, that they should go on without him, which they did, grumbling under their breath.
“Hello, Eva. It’s Eva, right?” he said when they were alone, and she turned her face away a little, and her hand holding the cigarette rose up, stayed suspended as if she was deciding whether to take a drag or stomp it out in the grass. Her expression, though, was not impassive; it was as if she was asking something of him, and when she began walking into the depths of the lawn, he followed her. On a bench abutting the gates at the far end of the estate, they sat under a pergola with an overflowing trumpet vine that obscured them from view.
“I find myself at a loss for how to explain my behavior around you,” she said with an honesty that took him aback. “I don’t know why I left that way, but I do know that the evening was cut short on my account. And I feel terrible about it, Aleandro. I do. Because you play beautifully.”
“It’s really quite all right. It was your party, after all.”
“But I do owe you an apology,” she said. “Not just for tonight but for the time in the square. You see, that satchel, it has a very special meaning to me, and… well, what you did was perhaps one of the kindest, most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me. And so yes, an apology is quite necessary. Can you forgive me?”
What could he say? His words fled him entirely. She was engaged (God, she was engaged!), and she owed him no explanations, but he was so touched by this that he couldn’t help reaching for her hand, feeling his heart slide into a happiness that rose inside him like a crashing wave.
To his utter surprise, she didn’t pull away but kept her gaze pinned on the span of the garden, blowing ringlets of smoke into the darkness, and he knew he had to say something to make her smile. The whole thing seemed far too serious. As if they’d reached the end of something, and he didn’t want it to end.
“It was really nothing. As I said in town, I was very happy to help. As for tonight, well, if I had known it was you that we were hired to play for, I would have worn a better suit. My English wool tux, or something a little less assuming. Perhaps just a Hungarian number I had custom made. I have quite a closetful.”
She not only smiled but laughed. She laughed, and to him it was like jumping into a clear blue stream in the height of summer.
“Well, perhaps you might return for a repeat performance someday.”
“Sure. You can always give me a ring for one of your galas in Budapest.”
She pretended to ponder. “No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“No?” he said, now quite seriously. “And why not?”
“You in Budapest? I fear you’d cause quite a stir at the society parties.”
Was he mistaken, or was there a trace of jealousy in her voice? It emboldened him enough that without thinking, he blurted, “You know, back there… that woman. I didn’t know that the maestro would insist… that…” God, he had to shut up before he spoiled everything.
“Well, you play that violin with such heart,” she went on to his utter relief, which turned into disappointment as she extracted her hand. “How nice it must be to make a living doing something you truly love.”
“The violin?” said Aleandro, trying not to lose his focus. “Oh, yes, thank you. When I play it’s like… like falling into a different world. Same as when I draw. I suppose I am lucky in that regard, even though I fear being a fiddler isn’t the most lucrative of vocations.”
“You draw?” He hadn’t meant to bring it up; it had merely slipped out, yet now he could sense in the darkness that she was looking at him in a new way. “Well, how wonderful. I’ve been coming here since I was a child, and the beauty of this place never fails to astound me. I wish
I could sketch or paint it myself, but I haven’t the talent for it.”
“Oh, it’s just something I do on occasion, a silly hobby, really…” He was about to tell her that it was in fact people that he enjoyed drawing more than landscapes, when they were interrupted by a sudden noise from the villa—voices, something that sounded like the shatter of glass. A wash of light spilled onto the lawn.
“You should go,” Eva said. “They’ve come out to the terrace.”
“Yes. I’m sorry that I won’t be able to walk you back.”
“No, no need to walk me back. I’ll stay here a little while longer.”
“Are you sure? You’ll stay here alone, in the dark?”
“Alone?” She seemed faraway repeating it. “I come out here at night all the time. Precisely to be alone. This is the only spot on the entire grounds that belongs to me. It’s my own secret corner.” She smiled, somewhat wistfully, lovely in the shimmering ribbon of light. “Well, good night, Aleandro.”
Reluctantly Aleandro stood, lifting his violin case from the foot of the bench. On a sudden impulse, he reached for her hand again and this time brought it up to his lips. “Sweet dreams, Miss Eva.”
Then he walked through the grass along the length of the gates, willing his legs to carry him, thankful to intersect the graveled driveway at a point where he couldn’t be seen.
* * *
All the way back to the shanty town, Aleandro was so consumed with the encounter in the garden that he’d forgotten entirely about his little brother whose fever had not abated for the better part of the week. Then, coming up the road, he spotted Lukas in the grass, curled up in a ball near the wall of their hut, and dashed toward him, stumbling along the way on some invisible stones.
“Lukas! You shouldn’t be out here!” He scooped him up in his arms and tried to find his eyes, shook him, crushed him to his chest. “You promised me that you would try to rest. You promised that you would stay inside.”
When the Summer Was Ours Page 3