Sunflower

by Gyula Krudy

  “Sic transit...” he mumbled.

  One day a ragamuffin showed up, bringing a message.

  “My father couldn’t come,” the boy reported, pulling a letter from his straw hat.

  “And who may your father be?”

  “Old Kakuk. We sacked our old lady. She yelled at us once too often. So we sent her packing, as my Da’ would put it. The old man brought home a new woman. Now she’s moved in with us. That’s why my Da’ couldn’t come.”

  “May you grow up to be as wise as your father,” Pistoli said to Kakuk, Junior, and squeezed a penny into the boy’s palm.

  The letter was written on fine watermarked paper not commonly used in this region. Women in these parts write their correspondence on their children’s notebook pages, or else they use the backs of old promissory notes. The exclusive stationery carried the following note penned in lilac ink:

  “Someone implores you to hold your nasty mouth. Someone is coming to visit you, to make up. M.”

  Pistoli peered at the note with an acerbic smile. “Young miss, you should have come yesterday or the day before,” he muttered.

  Face propped on his elbows, Pistoli contemplated the letter. He was not as well-versed in graphology as most provincial young ladies, but he did have some experience with mysterious anonymous letters, having written dozens in his time: to women who had not received his advances too kindly, and to men who had rudely turned their backs on him. After most country club balls, when assault or dueling was out of the question, Pistoli’s hands reeked of sealing wax from all the anonymous letters he had penned; addressing women, he would fling in their faces even their mothers’ dirty underwear. (Poor Pistoli was, after all, just like any other man. He liked people to greet him in advance and with respect.)

  This is how Pistoli interpreted the letter:

  “Mademoiselle M. happens to be in the interesting condition that makes women want to eat chalk, possibly even crave the white stucco off the wall. In other words, a condition that brings great joy to a childless household. But does Miss M. necessarily rejoice over her condition? In the present case I am to be the bit of chalk the little miss craves. But I am too old to serve as chalk for anyone.”

  Such were Mr. Pistoli’s thoughts in his solitude and, since he was as vain as an aging actress, he resolved to avoid the meeting. There are in any human life a number of such inexplicable things, mysterious phenomena that have no apparent meaning, and yet deep down a solution certainly exists. Perhaps the noble Pistoli was merely acting out the offended, humiliated male rearing up to take his revenge on Miss M. for the beating she had given him. Whereas, had he been more of an ordinary soul, he would have elected the jolly path of reconciliation. But he was still smarting from that whiplash...And Pistoli was accustomed to women kissing his hands whenever he was kind, condescending, emotional and passionate toward them. Village women are not spoiled by an overabundance of amorous proposals. As a rule they will be astonished to hear any man’s declaration of love. The most worn-out compliment is a novelty for their ears. They cast their eyes down when they hear their hands or feet praised. And when they are alone again, they will stare at length into the mirror at the tresses some babbling man had praised with such strange extravagance. In this part of the country women are still naive, gullible, and well-meaning. The village primadonna never drives her beaux to suicide. Take Risoulette: she had gone out of her way to be nice to many a man who was barely better looking than the devil himself! (They say even the most pockmarked, puny man will find a lover.) Therefore Pistoli’s huffiness in holding out against the society miss’s summons is quite understandable. In fact, he remembered he still had to say good-bye to his deranged wives.

  He had already donned his cape, and pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, the hat that had made him unrecognizable at Nagykálló (where he had perpetrated so many pranks)—when something suddenly occurred to him.—What if the young lady who wanted to visit him in fact had not ingested chalk? What if this visit was merely a cunning stunt on Miss M.’s part, to oblige Mr. Pistoli never to betray her secret to Eveline, to hold his peace forever about matters glimpsed around the garden cottage during Kálmán Ossuary’s sojourn there? Girlfriends will grow sentimental at times, and will not shrink from the greatest sacrifice just to maintain their intimate bonds. Perhaps Miss M. had merely wanted to prevent his betraying those potentially painful and damaging escapades of hers, amorous escapades which would certainly stab Eveline to the core of her heart if she heard about them? “So, you would shove me underground, while you go on fornicating?” Pistoli muttered, gritting his teeth. “I’m going to queer this deal for you.”

  He worked himself into a coarse, cruel, malevolent mood, as he sat down with a sheet of Diósgyo´´r foolscap to write down all about Miss Maszkerádi and Ossuary: everything he knew, and things he did not know...For the moment he did not consider that his treachery would also be a fatal blow for his beloved Eveline, whose consecrated love for Ossuary he had witnessed with his own eyes. He persisted in scraping away with his goose quill, as if he were a liverish judge writing out a death sentence. When he was finished with his business, he sealed the letter and placed it in a double envelope. On the inner one he wrote: “To be opened after my death.” The outer one he addressed to Her Ladyship, Miss Eveline Nyírjes. Pocketing the letter, he cheerfully set out for Kálló, to visit the madwomen.

  The letter hiding in Mr. Pistoli’s cape went as follows:

  Pistoli Residence, May 18–—

  My Queen!

  When for the final time I confess to you all those tender respects, my heart’s wild roses, floating moods, my bygone life’s aerial smoke rings, song-filled reveries, the butterflies hovering around my head; bellowing woes, deathwatch beetle–like, gnawing torments and ethereal fluttery humors that rose and fell during my days like two lovers on a swing—I wish to report to you something that may very well be a matter of indifference to you: that I take your memory with me to the other world as a hunter takes the cherished edelweiss in his hatband. You were the Fairy Queen in the apple tree of my life, singing invisibly, seated in a blossom’s calyx. You were my sunrise—the virginal veil over my world; and you were the sunset as well, an old man’s singsong humming prompted by memories of bygone happy loves. For your love I would have turned comedian or gendarme, a Hail-Mary friar or night watchman in your village, although you, alas, never desired that I assume any role in your life.

  The tiny grains of sand are inescapably tumbling in my hourglass. A futile, blind and molelike lifetime’s ashes are heaping up on the bottom of the glass. Perhaps I could have been master of ceremonies at your May-time picnics, or else your estate’s undertaker, sheriff, or overseer; but the hell with it, I had no ambition to become anything. If you honor my memory by listening to my glee club’s songs at my graveside, I shall have accomplished all that I aimed for in life.

  Staff in hand, I am ready to depart, and so I must not make the otherworldy carriage wait, nor can I let my sinful eyes caress one last time your figure’s lilylike lines, your chignon, that solace of my lifetime, your heartening visage, your precious glance. My eyes have seen much that was never seen by other men. Love, separated from murder by the narrowest of margins, I have always beheld as a miracle. I was always astonished when love appeared on my life’s way. I know love backwards and forwards, as I do my local road master; I recognize love’s footfall in the night, under my window, and do not mistake it for anyone else, such as the watchman. Yes, I have seen love seated up in a tree, carefree, swinging her legs. And I have met her in the roadside ditch, in back of gardens, along the fence, where pictures cut out of old magazines decorated the planks.

  I have always known more than others, for women and men told me everything, as to a father confessor. I have heard of the loves of serving girls and the passion of brother for sister, fathers’ infatuation with their daughters...Secrets, voices from the cellars of the soul, in the unsteady light of the confessional’s guttering oil
lamp. I was a wise man, for I always listened and never told tales, no matter what women had confided to me at a weak moment, in an unguarded mood. I shall never forget seeing men in their solemn Sunday best, coming and going like earnest churchwardens, when only a little while earlier their wives had testified to me about their hidden passions, the strange histories of bedtime. In the same way, men had trusted me with everything about their wives over a cup of wine, disciplining the soul, absorbed in conversation that delved into the most labyrinthine tunnels of life. Oh, these gingerbread hussars!—But I heard them out, and only when I got home, alone with my glass of wine, did I smile to myself, for I have always despised tattletales, backstabbers, malicious gossips. Pistoli had always been a chivalrous gentleman; in fact, an honorable man. I shall have it inscribed on my tombstone: Here lies an honest man who had exposed only one woman, to another one whom he loved as he loved life itself in his youth, when life was worth living.

  And so, the woman I am about to expose, my Queen, happens to be your bosom friend Miss Maszkerádi. You two still face the long vista of your young lives; mine has declined like a wilting rosebush. Why should you be bitterly, irremediably disappointed in your best friend, the one who knows all your secrets? This lady has abused your confidence by carrying on a clandestine affair with your fiancé, who was my guest. Leave it to old Pistoli, he knows what went on. There is no possibility of a mistake here, nor any uncertainty. They have had an affair, and will continue—those two were made for each other. You, my Queen, are an innocent lamb next to this pair of bloodthirsty wolves. They are audacious and ready for anything; you are not—probably not even ready to give credence to everything in this final letter of mine. But I am confident that I will rest in peace under the poplar that I have designated for this purpose.

  Queen of my heart, one who secretly loved you the most sends his farewell, his greetings toward your window, and reminds you that there is only one decent man in the whole county, and his name is Andor Álmos-Dreamer.

  Please accept all that a dying man can give: his blessing.

  Your humble servant,

  Pistoli

  Pistoli, having looked around in vain to find a suitable personage to notarize his documents, went up to the county seat at Nagykálló, where he used to run loose as often as he could, back in his days as a madman.

  He found his three deranged wives together in the asylum garden, for they always kept each other’s company and never fought; Mishlik was digging a pit and the other two watched attentively.

  For a while Pistoli observed his mad wives from the cover of the garden shrubbery, nodding repeatedly.

  “Ah, so the poor things are already digging my grave. Alas, they will not be able to come to my funeral.”

  The poor creatures were not the least bit surprised to see Pistoli suddenly in their midst. Since they usually talked mostly about him, the appearance of the man they so often mentioned seemed natural. The two older women merely nodded in greeting, but Mishlik, who had not yet abandoned all hope, vehemently grasped Pistoli’s arm:

  “Ah, good to see you here, marquis. Perhaps you could intercede on our behalf. They won’t let us bury our petticoats here. But what use could we still have for a chemise, don’t you agree?”

  “I’ll make sure to talk to the director,” said Pistoli, glad to comply.

  “Why, only those women need petticoats who still have a husband or lover,” continued Mishlik, producing a lively variety of facial expressions. “But our lord and husband has vanished like smoke...like smoke...Is it possible to bury smoke? When it’s gone, it’s gone...”

  Alarmed, they stared at Pistoli, but he kept his calm. He caressed their faces one after the other.

  “Still, you had it pretty good, for each of you received one third of your husband’s affections. Other women get only a quarter share. For a man’s love is like moonlight: it has four quarters. The woman who gets the last quarter is happiest, for that’s the longest lasting. But Pistoli’s moon was divided into only three parts. One-two-three. There was no fourth. And there never will be one. So why should you bury your petticoats?”

  After this, Pistoli soon had to make his escape from the garden, for the three women crowded about very close to him. Their careworn, grieving, cemetery-flower faces surrounded the moribund man. The first carried her worries like cobwebs from a cellar. The second one displayed images of woe seen on antique funeral monuments...The third one presented a frost-bitten autumnal pallor, acrid as sumac blossoms. In the autumn of life the eyes withdraw into their orbits like a shepherd into his hut when the nights are getting cooler. Above the thinning crop of hair the moon passes on, as over a field, where once upon a time it was impossible not to linger among the lush, wild growth of young curls. The fields grow rusty red, and so does the aging woman’s hair, like outdated furs.

  “Alas, no matter how smart I am, I won’t have the good fortune of dying in the lap of a fifteen-year-old girl,” thought Pistoli, ambling in the direction of a roadside tavern to review his adventures for the final time.

  It was as if he were sobering up after a twenty-year drunk. He sat high up on the ramparts of a fort, with a long-distance view over life’s meandering gray and empty highways. He had danced with wild mercenaries and pink-flashing girls of easy virtue till daybreak, hitting the very rafters, trampling on top of the coffin and the cradle. But at sunrise he sobered. Now he could see how futile all that sweaty running, tramping, and hastening toward distant, beckoning towers had been. He saw only life’s monotonous span, here and there a hump of land that rose for no particular reason; and valleys where only the solitary frog croaked. Along the empty highways he saw the capsized carts that would never reach their unknown destination. The wind whistled over the horizon like an invisible player’s fingers over a silent piano. Yes, Mr. Pistoli was sober at last—having believed for a quarter century that drunkenness lay always in wine and women, and not in his freakish head. How much imbecility he had witnessed while loitering around life’s fairgrounds, nosing about barbecue stands and white-footed females! Where were they now, those ebony and russet female pelts he had once been ready to die for? Where were they now, women thirsting for revenge, the savor of kisses, the fragrance of their bodies, soft touch of their palms, flash of their eyes, carillon of their voices, their honeyed whispers, the stupefying fume of their sighs, their high-strung legs, the thrill of their groans and precious moans, virgins’ frenzied, abandoned oaths, and the wine-tasting apples of untouched maidens? The roads are empty everywhere, no matter how wide his eyes scan, shaded by his palm; all is laid to rest, like a bird fallen on dry leaves; the arrow no longer quivers in the deep wound it had struck; the inflated balloon pops under the clown’s tailcoat, and life, daubed with pancake makeup, stands gaping at the source of the sound. No, it had not been all that wonderful...Nor very surprising...Not even all that interesting. It was merely like a dog panting under a hawthorn bush. At times the flag flew from life’s pinnacle. Then the rain drenched the flag and the parade was over...Only the insane and the imbecilic imagine that life has not raced past them.

  At this moment Mr. Pistoli had the strangest vision, as he sat in that roadside tavern by his glass of red wine, contemplating his boots, rummaging among his thoughts.

  Up on one mountaintop in the far distance sat Eveline. Her benevolent face was distorted, her curls hung in grizzled knots, her dear eyes were veiled by cataracts, night had descended over her lips, like a madwoman’s...And this hag had been her, once: the kind, noble, lamblike, dove-hearted one...This ancient, deranged crone had once been Eveline Nyirjes...Pistoli covered his eyes and sobbed. But even through his tears he could see the other mountaintop on the horizon, where Miss Maszkerádi bobbed like a crazed belly dancer. Her tresses undone, her voice screeching, her talons curving, her eyes spitting flames and knives, her legs like a wolf’s, her neck ringed like a serpent’s.

  “Ah, what kind of wine is this?” cried Pistoli, and shivering, pulled the cape about himsel
f, as he departed from the road-side inn.

  It was around midnight when he got home.

  The moon, like a peacock feather’s eye, stood waking over the lifeless world.

  Pistoli, to find some solace amidst his gloomy thoughts, consoled himself by recalling that, after all, nothing base had ever really happened to him, and so he had no cause to complain, when a dark shadow like a bandit’s glided past his porch. It had to be a man, for it wore pants. Pistoli howled out:

  “Is that you, Death?”

  His alien, hoarse roar gave him courage. Like a wild boar he charged the shadowy figure and his heavy fists pummeled the intruder. The shadow did not respond to the blows. It did not defend itself, nor did it strike back, but merely emitted a sound, something like a horrendous scream behind gritted teeth. At last Pistoli knocked off the nocturnal visitor’s hat, and his hands felt soft, warm, fragrantly feminine hair. His arm froze as if in a spasm; the midnight fisticuffs came to a halt. He fumbled for a matchstick in his waistband, and while the uncertain bluish flame flickered up, Pistoli’s whole being was pierced to the core by a tremulous thought, like a fit of ague.

  When the match flared up, Pistoli’s mouth gaped wide, although he could not be said to be disappointed in what he saw. On his porch he found the one he had been waiting for. At arm’s length stood Miss Maszkerádi, her nose bloodied. She wore a strange getup, formal evening wear: tailcoat and trousers, and a blazing white starched shirt. It gave her the mannish and eccentric look of a circus artiste.

  The match burned out, having singed Pistoli’s fingertip.

  “Why have you done this, gracious Miss?”

  The lady still did not reply. There was something frightening in her mute immobility. Pistoli began to think he was hallucinating. The shadow was perhaps after all not Miss Maszkerádi but some assassin, who would stab him with a stiletto as soon as he turned his back. He stood, aware that he was quaking in his boots. He would have given everything to have someone light a candle in this terrifying dark. But no relief was forthcoming. Far off in the village a hound sent up a nasty howl, in premonition of an impending death.