They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: the Transylvanian Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Balint looked up at the right-hand wing of the house. Lamps burned behind the long french windows, etching long strips of yellow light between the grey vertical lines of the columns. Looking further round, past the seemingly ethereal little tower at the corner of the walls, Balint’s gaze came to rest on the steps under the ramparts, where he could just make out a sitting figure. In spite of the darkness he recognized him at once. It was Andras Jopal, the tutor. He had changed his evening coat for a pale linen jacket.

  The young mathematician was seated, almost crouched, on one of the bottom steps, his legs pulled up under him. He seemed to be gazing fixedly at the moon oblivious of the beauty of the night, lonelier now and even more solitary than he had seemed at dinner when, of all those present, he had been the least affected by the general high spirits. Balint decided to seek him out later. Now he turned back to Adrienne wondering when she would decide to speak again.

  She was still leaning on the balustrade. The silk wrapper that had been round her shoulders had slipped down, showing that she had become even thinner, almost gaunt, with hollows under her collar-bones. Her long neck was as firm as ever, but her early leanness was more pronounced with her chin joined to her neck in the stylized angle of an old Greek statue. She was still the girl he had known before, but marriage had not given her the soft roundness that often comes with motherhood. The bud was still a bud, unopened; the flower was still a promise, and Balint was surprised for he knew that her little daughter was already two. The unresolved conflict between her girlish appearance and the experience of motherhood was perhaps the reason for the faintly bitter note he thought he detected when she spoke.

  Adrienne pulled the silk wrap up around her shoulders, perhaps sensing Balint’s eyes upon her bare skin. It was a shy, almost girlish movement and, after wrapping herself still more firmly she turned, leaning back against the parapet, and said: ‘I love to hear you talk, AB. You’re so confident about life. It’s good for me, perhaps even necessary. Please go on. Tell me more.’

  So Balint went on, with renewed confidence, in a low dreamlike voice, as if someone else were speaking through him. He spoke long and intensely, and Adrienne listened, only occasionally interposing a word or a question. And when she spoke, ‘Oh, Yes! Yes! It’s possible. Perhaps, but you really believe then …?’ she no longer looked into the night but gazed deeply into his eyes. Her eyes were the colour and depth of yellow onyx.

  Balint could have continued for ever, but all at once the door of the ballroom burst open and a stream of dancers flowed out onto the terrace, the rushing melody of a popular galop filling the air with its gaiety and rhythm.

  Farkas Alvinczy, who had been leading the dancing all evening, was the first. Bent almost double in his haste and dragging his partner after him, he ran, followed by the others, all holding hands, stumbling, tumbling and whirling round the terrace in giddy speed, the men in their black tail-suits, the girls in silks and satins of every colour, down the paths, round the stone balusters, rushing with careless abandon until they all vanished once more into the house.

  The last in the chain was young Kamuthy, his feet scarcely touching the ground as if he were a child’s top at the mercy of a whip. He bumped into the columns and into the stone balusters and stretched out his hand to Adrienne as he swept by. She stepped back, and on he flew, in a tremendous arc of movement, crashing into anything and anybody in his way, twice into the stone balustrade and finally into the door-post. Then he too was swallowed up once more into the vortex of the ballroom.

  It only lasted a few moments, and then Balint and Adrienne were suddenly alone again. From inside they could hear the music change from the madness of the galop to a slow waltz and, through the great doors they could see the chain of dancers break up and dissolve and divide once more into pairs, each couple swaying gently to the music, turning and gliding in each other’s arms.

  The magic that had made Balint and Adrienne forget time and place, everything but their own existence and thoughts, was broken. Without speaking they moved slowly back to the castle. As she went in someone asked Adrienne to dance; and she turned and disappeared into the crowd with all the others.

  Balint did not dance. He stood near the wall for a few moments, needing time to come back to reality after the dream-world created by his talk with Adrienne. He thought of Jopal sitting alone beneath the tower and he decided to go and seek him out and talk. It would be better than returning to the ball for which he was no longer in the mood.

  He left the ballroom and went slowly down the great staircase into the entrance hall where the bar had been placed, out through the entrance doors and down the few steps to the moonlit garden, and on towards the corner tower; but there was no longer anyone there. He paused and listened in case he should hear the sound of footsteps. Maybe Andras Jopal would come into sight; but no one moved.

  Towards the east a faint strip of light heralded the dawn. Balint walked slowly along the path in front of the castle wing where lamplight steamed out from the library windows.

  Inside the long narrow room two card tables had been set, one at each end, and at the smaller of these, Crookface, gruff as ever, was playing tarot with his host, the prefect and Tihamer Abonyi. Their table was lit by four candles and they played in a silence which was only occasionally interrupted by Abonyi who as always liked to show off his superior knowledge, and so remarked from time to time that things were done differently at the National Casino Club in Budapest and in Vienna. As no one paid any attention, he was soon forced to give up and play on in silence.

  The other table was much noisier. Uncle Ambrus had got a poker game together. He had gone round the ballroom slapping the young men on the back and crying heartily, ‘Come and have a shifty at the Hungarian Bible, sonny’ or, ‘You can’t hide behind skirts all the evening,’ or even ‘A man needs some good Hungarian games, my boy, not German waltzes,’ adding, for good measure, ‘They serve some damned good wine downstairs!’ He had gathered together quite a number of the brighter, more dashing young sparks, to whom he was still a hero and who looked to him as their leader, even if he always did prefer a poker game to a ball.

  Not that they guessed the whole truth, which was that the older man was no longer spry enough for dancing and preferred to rest his feet under the card-table. This was also profitable, as he usually took quite a lot of money from younger players less experienced than himself.

  At Uncle Ambrus’ table, next to which trays of tall glasses and delicate Bohemian crystal decanters had been placed on a side-table, sat the two middle young Alvinczys, Adam and Zoltan, together with Pityu Kendy and Gazsi Kadacsay. This was a family party, since Ambrus’s mother had been an Alvinczy, while Pityu was his second cousin and Kadacsay was Uncle Ambrus’s brother-in-law’s son. But Ambrus never let kinship stand in the way of his winning a little money and, sometimes, more than a little. No one was a better player than Ambrus. He was a great gambler and the younger players could never guess what he was up to. Sometimes he would bet high on a single ace or throw in a winning hand. Sometimes he would act coy and complaisant, as if he were holding good cards, and then egg the others on with loud-mouthed hints that he held nothing – but no one ever knew whether he really had a good hand or not. He would complain to the heavens of his bad luck and swear obscenely and then tease them, saying: ‘Don’t go on, son, I’ll have the pants off you!’ And his resounding laugh and avuncular good humour made the young almost glad to lose to him.

  As Balint stepped into the library Uncle Ambrus was in full flood.

  ‘Oh, my God! What shall I do? I’ll bet one of you has a pair of these! Jesus! And the other’ll have these. You Alvinczys’ll skin me, I know it!’ and he leaned back, banged the table, struck his head and turned in mute appeal to Daniel Kendy who was sitting behind him already far gone in drink, and then, as if risking his all in mad despair, he pushed a pile of coins into the centre of the table, and cried: ‘Devil take it! Might as well lose the lot! Here, I’ll stake four hundred
more and don’t you dare give it back!’

  One of the Alvinczys threw his hand in at once. The others followed suit … and the game was over.

  ‘Don’t you want your revenge? I would! I’m terrified of you all Well, don’t you want to see what beat you?’ and, dealing out his hand, card by card, he showed a straight flush, better than anything the others could possibly have held. And he still pretend to be astonished that he’d won, though he’d known it ever since the cards had been dealt.

  ‘What luck! What fucking luck! Lucky at cards, unlucky in love! The girls don’t love me any more, poor old man that I am!’ And he reached out with his great hairy hands and scooped up all the money with a gesture of pure grief.

  Balint remained standing near Ambrus’ table. He felt faintly disgusted by this shameless display of feigned disingenuousness and ashamed too of his own generation who drank too much and fawned on the old vulture with servile admiration.

  Lost in these thoughts he did not notice that the dawn was breaking. The candles and lamps began to lose their brilliance and the library, which had been like a huge cavern lit only by pools of light, was now revealed in its true size. The carved pillars between the bookshelves and the golden-green columns of light cherry-wood, began to define themselves, and between them one could again make out the thousands of beautifully bound books that were arranged in no order but placed on the shelves regardless of size. They all had ribbed and gold-embossed spines. Some had been collected by the Vice-Chancellor Laczok when he had first transformed the medieval castle into a nobleman’s mansion. His were the thick volumes of Compilatums and Tripartitums, law-books bound in ivory-coloured vellum, and the volumes of the French Encyclopédie and the works of Voltaire. Most, however, had been collected by his grandson who had added the wings and the library. When Balint looked up at the shelves he saw there many rare architectural works of the late eighteenth century, huge volumes which included the whole of Palladio, whose reissue had so influenced the neo-classical movement, the Ornamentisme of Percier and Fontaine, and a complete collection of the Ecole de Rome competitions dating from the first decade of the nineteenth century.

  How cultivated Transylvania had been in those days, reflected Balint, as he saw what had been collected on those shelves. He was just passing the next pair of columns when he found his way was blocked. Old Daniel Kendy was swaying from side to side, clutching at one of the pillars for support. He had an unfamiliar look in his watery old eyes, a look of nostalgic sorrow quite different from his usual air of cynical mockery.

  ‘Mon p-p-prince! Though he stuttered his pronunciation was excellent: ‘… diese sind w-wunderbare w-Werke!’ and going on in English, ‘Quite w-wonderful!’ He stroked the backs of those magnificent books, shining with golden blazons and embossed lettering. Perhaps he was reminded of his own golden youth when everyone thought him to be a young man who would go far, before he began to drink and had run through all his money, when he had travelled all over Europe and moved always in the highest circles. He reached out again to caress these magic symbols, as if reminded, by this treasure-house of learning, of lost memories and the great career he had himself destroyed. It was his last gesture, for as he put out his hand he collapsed and slid to the ground like a puppet without strings and half-sat, half-lay on the floor, with his legs stretched out in front of him, and immediately started to be sick. Wine and vomit poured from him without effort or retching, in jets, as from a water pistol, and spread in a pool over the parquet in front of him.

  Everyone jumped up from the card-tables, and gathered round him, everyone except old Crookface, who said ‘Filthy old swine!’ several times before throwing down down his cards and stalking out of the room.

  The poker players looked at the old man on the floor and just laughed. This was nothing unusual. Pityu and Gazsi edged behind him – as no one could go near in front – put their arms under his shoulders and dragged him like some huge wooden doll on to one of the sofas; and there they left him. No one could have remained in that dreadful sour-smelling room.

  In the growing light of day many carriages had gathered in front of the castle entrance. Cocks were crowing in the village and the ball was drawing to a close. Already some of the mothers, tired and thankful, were coming down the steps with their dancing daughters in tow, huddled into silken wraps to hide their sweating faces from the daylight. Quickly they mounted the folding steps and disappeared into the dark interiors of the carriages. A few young men had come out to wave to the girls they had flirted with, and perhaps even to snatch a hasty hand-kiss.

  Kadar the butler, alone this time, bustled about calling for one carriage after another and opening the doors with his left hand. His right hand was held in such a way that tips he seemed to find their way there as if by chance.

  Balint found Laszlo Gyeroffy waiting in the hall. They arranged to go back to their hotel in Vasarhely together and so went into the guests’ cloakroom to find their bags and coats. The hall was filled with departing guests, but Balint could not see Adrienne among them. For a moment he thought of going back upstairs to say goodbye, but then thought better of it. What was the use of a few commonplace words in the sober light of day? He and Laszlo followed the stream of guests out into the courtyard, where several ladies stood shivering in the cold air, and started to search for their hired fiacre. Passed a waiting group they sensed that something unusual was happening. A wave of excitement flowed through the crowd and a booming stammer could be heard:

  ‘M-m-mesdames, m-m-messieurs! Il v-v-vostro umilissimo s-s-servitore! g-g-gehorsamster D-D-Diener!’

  Old Dani had somehow roused himself and stumbled out on to the terrace. He stood there, embracing one of the pillars, his shirt hanging out and covered in vomit-stains, his beard matted with wine. He bowed right and left, waving his free arm in a sort of semaphore. Some of the younger men jumped up and dragged him away; and the waiting ladies, pretending that they had noticed nothing, piled into their carriages.

  Once old Kadar had shut a carriage’s doors, the coachman would whip the horses up into a brisk canter. They turned towards the inner door and swept through the outer courtyard which was lined with the stable-boys and peasant girls and other servants who had danced all night under the balcony. Now they stood in line to speed the parting guests and every now and again, without any apparent reason, a small girl or two would dash out and run screaming across the court in front of the cantering horses, and then burst into fits of laughter because they hadn’t been run over.

  As the long line of carriages bowled down the drive the sun was already shining brightly. It was morning.

  Chapter Four

  BACK IN THE HOTEL BALINT and Laszlo were only able to catch a couple of hours of sleep. The sun was shining through the slits in the torn curtains when they woke at eleven. They rang for the maid, but when she realized that all they wanted from her was hot water she went away sulking and kept them waiting so long that it was nearly midday before they were ready.

  Balint was anxious to find out if his grandfather’s friend, the old actor Minya Gal, was still alive, so Laszlo and he went to look for him and discovered that although he was known to be still living in his old home no one seemed to know exactly where that was. Then they saw a notice on an old and dilapidated peasant’s dwelling. It read ‘IZAK SCHWARTZ: Fine Tailoring for Ladies and Gentlemen’ in big lettering. Underneath, in small letters, were the words, ‘Mending Done’.

  ‘Let’s ask here,’ said Laszlo, ‘these little Jewish shopkeepers know everyone.’

  The man who did fine tailoring for ladies and gentlemen came to the door. He was a tiny dwarf of a fellow with a long grey beard and trousers so worn and tattered that they were no advertisement for his skills.

  ‘Yes, masters, if it is Mr Gal you vant, I know him vell. Ze third house it is, if it pleases my masters, down zere …’ and he came out and showed them the way. They thanked him and entered the little garden by the gate that he had pointed out.

  The
house was in the old Transylvanian style, broad and whitewashed, with a shingle roof and a portico in front. Three windows overlooked the street across a small flower garden. On the left were a cowshed and pigsties. Behind the house beyond a heap of manure were apple trees laden with ripening fruit. In the yard a barefoot young girl was cutting up vegetables for the pig swill.

  ‘Is Mr Mihaly Gal at home?’ asked Balint.

  The girl looked at him suspiciously. ‘What do you want him for?’

  ‘We just came call.’

  The girl still looked uncertain. ‘Are you selling something?’ she asked, her hostility unconcealed.

  ‘No!’ Balint smiled. ‘We’ve just come to see him.’ To dispel her suspicions, he gave their full names and titles. The girl did not seem at all impressed. She went on with her work, crouched over the pig pail and just indicated the direction of the apple trees with her chin. ‘Over there!’ she said without ceasing to chop at the giant marrows with her knife, the slices falling messily into the swill.

  Behind the little orchard and a kitchen garden, an acre and a half of vineyard climbed the hillside behind. They found the old man digging in the deep loam at the foot of the hill, shovelling and scattering the loose earth. He still had the same tall straight figure that Balint recalled from the day of his grandfather’s funeral ten years before. Though now well over ninety his bristling moustaches were still pepper and salt, darkened with wax. He was working in his shirtsleeves, boots and well-worn trousers. Balint went up and waited until the old man saw him.