Journey by Moonlight

by Antal Szerb

  He arrived just in time. She was climbing into a splendidly old-world open carriage, where the shape of a second woman was already seated, and the coach moved off briskly. The other woman he recognised instantly. It was Éva.

  XVII

  THE BANKERS’ DISCUSSION was becoming interminable. The matter could in fact have been resolved quite simply if all those round the table had been equally intelligent. But in this life that is rarely given. The lawyers dazzled one another with their skill in sliding down the very steepest sentences without falling off, while the powerful financiers said little, listening suspiciously, their silence saying more eloquently than any words: “Count me out.”

  “No deal will come of this,” thought Zoltán Pataki, Erzsi’s first husband, with resignation.

  He grew steadily more restless and impatient. He had noted several times of late that his mind would wander during discussions, and ever since he had noticed that fact he had become even more restless and impatient.

  The protracted blast of a car-horn sounded beneath the window. Previously, Erzsi would often wait in the car down below if the discussion went on at length.

  “Erzsi … try not to think of her. It’s still painful, but time will cure that. Just keep going. Just keep going. Emptily, like an abandoned car. But just keep going.”

  His hand made a gesture of resignation, he pursed his lips oddly, and he felt very very tired. In recent days these four connected acts kept recurring in automatic sequence, like a sort of nervous tic. Thirty times a day he thought of Erzsi, made the resigned gesture, pulled the wry face, and felt a wave of exhaustion. “Perhaps I should see the doctor about this tiredness after all? Oh, come off it. We’re getting on, old chap, getting on in years.”

  His concentration returned. They were saying that someone should go to Paris to negotiate with a certain finance group. Someone else was arguing that this was quite unnecessary, it could all be settled by letter.

  “Erzsi’s in Paris now … Mihály in Italy … Erzsi doesn’t write a single line, but she must be horribly lonely. Does she have enough money? Perhaps the poor thing has to travel by Metro. If she leaves before nine and goes back after two she can get a return ticket. It’s so much cheaper—poor thing, that’s surely what she’s doing. But perhaps she isn’t alone. In Paris it’s difficult for a woman to remain on her own, and Erzsi is so attractive … ”

  This time what followed was not the gesture of resignation, but a rush of blood to the head and: “Death, death, there’s nothing else for it … ”

  Meanwhile the meeting was moving towards the consensus that they really would have to send someone. Pataki asked to speak. He threw all his energy behind the view that it was absolutely essential to pursue the matter with the French interest on a personal basis. When he began to speak he was not entirely clear what the issue was, but as he spoke it came back to him, and he produced unassailable arguments. He carried the meeting with him. Then the exhaustion once again overwhelmed him.

  “Of course someone’s got to go to Paris. But I can’t go. I can’t leave the bank just now. And anyway, what would I be going for? Erzsi hasn’t invited me. For me to run after her, to run the risk of a highly probable rejection, that’s quite impossible … After all, a man has his pride.”

  He brought his words to an abrupt close. Persuaded, the meeting agreed to send a young director, the son-in-law of one of the big financiers, who spoke exceptionally good French. “It’ll be an education for him,” the older men thought to themselves with fatherly benevolence.

  After the meeting came the most difficult part of the day, the evening. Pataki had once read that the most important difference between a married man and a bachelor was that the married man always knew who he would dine with that evening. And indeed, since Erzsi had left him, this had been the greatest problem in Pataki’s life: who would he dine with? He had never got on with men, had never known the institution of male friendship. Women? This was the oddest thing. While he was married to Erzsi he had needed endless women, one after the other. Every one seemed to please him, one because she was so thin, another because so plump, a third because she was so exactly in between. All his free time, and much that was not free, was filled with women. There had been a maîtresse de titre obscurely connected with the theatre, who had cost him a great deal of money (though she had brought with her a degree of publicity for the bank), then various gentlemanly diversions, the wives of one or two colleagues, but chiefly the typists, with the occasional maid-servant for the sake of variety: an inglorious collection. Erzsi had a real grievance in law, and Pataki in his more optimistic moments reckoned that this was why she had left him. In his more pessimistic mode he had to acknowledge that there was another reason, certain needs which he had been unable to meet, and that consciousness was particularly humiliating. When Erzsi left he had discharged the maîtresse de titre with a handsome redundancy payment, that is to say, made her directly over to an older colleague who had long aspired to the honour, he had ‘reorganised’ his secretarial staff, surrounded himself with one of the ugliest workforces in the bank, and lived a life of self-denial.

  “There should have been a child,” he thought, and was filled with the sudden sense of how much he would have loved his child had there been one, Erzsi’s child. With rapid decisiveness he telephoned a cousin who had two positively golden children, and went there to dinner. En route he purchased a horrifying quantity of sweets. The two golden children probably never knew what they had to thank for three days of stomach-ache.

  After dinner he sat on in a coffee-house, read the newspapers, vacillated over the question of whether to go yet again and play cards for a bit in the club, could not finally make up his mind, and went home.

  Without Erzsi, the flat was now unspeakably oppressive. He really would have to do something with her furniture. Her room couldn’t just stand there as if she might return at any moment, although … “I’ll have to get them to take it all up to the attic, or have it stored. I’ll have it fitted out like a club-room, with huge armchairs.”

  Again the gesture of resignation, the grimace, the wave of exhaustion. Decidedly he couldn’t bear it in the flat. He would have to move. To live in a hotel, like an artist. And change the hotel constantly. Or perhaps move into a sanatorium. Pataki adored sanatoria, with their bleached tranquillity and doctorly reassurance. “Yes, I’ll move out to Svábhegy. My nerves could really do with it. Any more of this runaway-wife business and I’ll go mad.”

  He lay down, then got up again because he felt he couldn’t possibly sleep. He dressed, but had absolutely no idea where to go. Instead, although he knew perfectly well it would be of no use, he took a Szevenal, and once again undressed.

  As soon as he was in bed the alternative again stood before him in all its misery. Erzsi in Paris: either she was alone, horribly alone, perhaps not eating properly (who knows what ghastly little prix-fixe places she was going to); or indeed she was not alone. That thought was not to be borne. Mihály he had somehow got used to. For some odd reason he was unable to take Mihály seriously, even though he had actually run off with her. Mihály didn’t count. Mihály wasn’t human. Deep in his consciousness lurked the conviction that one day, somehow, it would transpire that no such person existed … his affair with Erzsi had been a chance thing, they had lived in a marriage but had never had a real relationship, man and woman. That was something he could not imagine of Mihály. But now, in Paris … the unknown man … the unknown man was a hundred times more disturbing than any familiar seducer. No, the thought could not be endured.

  He must go to Paris. He must see for himself what Erzsi was doing. Perhaps she was hungry. But what of his pride? Erzsi didn’t care a hoot for him. He didn’t need Erzsi. Erzsi had no wish to see him …

  “And then? Isn’t it enough that I want to see her? The rest will sort itself out.

  “Pride! Since when did you have all this pride, Mr Pataki? If you’d always been so proud in your business life, where would you be
now, pray? In a flourishing greengrocer’s in Szabadka, like your dear old dad’s. And why exactly all this pride with regard to Erzsi? A man’s pride should come out where there is some risk involved: in dealing with presidents, or, say, secretaries of state, with the Krychlovaces of this world. (Well, no, that’s going a bit far.) But proud towards women? That’s not chivalrous, not gentlemanly. Just daft.”

  The next day he produced a storm of activity. He persuaded the bank and all others concerned that the son-in-law was not the ideal person: someone with more experience was needed after all, to negotiate with the French.

  The interested parties came gradually to understand that this person of more experience would be Pataki himself.

  “But, Mr Director, do you speak French?”

  “Not a great deal, but for that very reason they won’t sell me anything. And in any case the people we’re dealing with will surely speak German, just like you or me. Did you ever meet a businessman who didn’t speak German? Deutsch ist eine Weltsprache.’”

  The next morning he was already on his way.

  The business side of his trip he dispatched in half-an-hour. His French counterpart, whose name was Loew, did in fact speak German, and also happened to be intelligent. The matter was soon settled because Pataki, in contrast to less skilled or experienced men, did not take business and financial matters too seriously. He regarded them the way a doctor regards his patients. He knew that here too it is just like anywhere else: the talentless often do much better than the able, the inexpert come good more often than the expert. A bunch of pseudo-financiers sit in the highest places directing the world economy, while the real ones meditate in the Schwartzer or the Markó. The quest is for a myth, a groundless fiction, just as it is in the world of learning, where men pursue a non-existent and seductive Truth. In business it is Wealth on a scale that defies comprehension, in pursuit of which they sacrifice the wealth that can be understood. And in the last analysis the whole rat-race is as frivolous as everything else in this world.

  He was very proud of the fact that he knew this and that Mihály, for example, did not. Mihály was an intellectual, and for precisely that reason believed in money while at the same time calling everything else into doubt. He would say such things as, for instance: “Psychology in its present state is a thoroughly primitive, unscientific discipline … ” or, “Modern lyric poetry is utterly meaningless,” or “Humanism? there’s no point in making speeches against war: it comes upon us wordlessly … ” But, on the other hand: “The Váraljai Hemp and Flax Company, that’s real. You can’t say a word against that. That’s about money. Money’s no joking matter.” Pataki chuckled to himself. “Váraljai Hemp and Flax, my God … If Mihály and his friends only knew … Even lyric poetry is more serious.”

  “And now we must proceed calmly to the second item on our little agenda.” Pataki had obtained Erzsi’s Paris address from Mihály’s family. For Pataki, as he did with everyone, had maintained good relations with them (after all they could hardly be held responsible) and he had even brought a present for Erzsi from Mihály’s married sister. He was very pleased to establish that she no longer lodged on the left bank, the dubious Parisian Buda, full of bohemians and immigrants, but on the respectable right bank, close to the Étoile.

  It was twelve o’clock. With a café waiter he telephoned Erzsi’s hotel, not sufficiently trusting his own command of French to negotiate the complexities of the Paris exchange. Madame was not in. Pataki went on reconnaissance.

  He entered the little hotel and asked for a room. His French was so bad it was not difficult to play the stupid foreigner. He indicated through gestures that the room he had seen was too expensive, and left. He had however established that it was a regular, genteel sort of place, probably full of English, though a hint of seediness was just perceptible, especially in the faces of the room-girls. No doubt there were certain rooms which elderly Frenchmen would hire as a pied-à-terre, paying for a whole month but actually using for only a couple of hours a week. Why had Erzsi moved here from the other side of the river? Did she wish to live more elegantly, or had she found a more elegant lover?

  At four that afternoon he telephoned again. This time Madame was in.

  “Hello, Erzsi? Zoltán here.”

  “Oh, Zoltán … ”

  Pataki thought he could hear suppressed agitation in her voice. Was this a good sign?

  “How are you, Erzsi? Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, Zoltán.”

  “I’m here in Paris. You know, the Váraljai Hemp and Flax contract was a real tangle, I had to come. Endless running around. I’ll be on my feet for three days. I’m getting really bored with this town … ”

  “Yes, Zoltán.”

  “And I thought, well, here I am, and today I’ve got a little spare time to catch a breath or two, I might enquire how you are.”

  “Yes … Very kind of you.”

  “Are you well?”

  “Very well.”

  “Tell me … Hello … Could I possibly see you?”

  “What for?” asked Erzsi, from an immense distance. Pataki experienced a brief dizziness, and leant against the wall. To conceal this he continued jovially:

  “What’s this ‘what for’? Of course I should see you, since I’m here in Paris, don’t you think?”

  “True.”

  “Can I come over?”

  “All right, Zoltán. No, don’t come here. We’ll meet somewhere.”

  “Splendid. I know a very nice teashop. Do you know where Smith’s is, the English bookshop in the rue de Rivoli?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well I never! On the first floor there’s an English teashop. You go up from inside the bookshop. Do come. I’ll wait for you there.”

  “Fine.”

  He had in fact selected this venue because, where Erzsi was concerned, he had a morbid suspicion of everything French. In his imagination Paris and the French symbolised for Erzsi everything lacking in him, everything he could not give her. In the French cafés (which he particularly loathed, because the waiters were insufficiently respectful, and never brought water with his coffee) the entire French nation would aid Erzsi in her resistance to him, and she would have the advantage. In the interests of fair play he had chosen the cool, neutral extra-territoriality of the English teashop.

  Erzsi appeared. They ordered, and Pataki strove to behave as if nothing had happened between them: no marriage, no divorce. Two clever Budapesti, a man and a woman, happening to meet in Paris. He treated her to the latest gossip from home, full and fully spiced, concerning their close acquaintances. Erzsi listened attentively.

  Meanwhile he was thinking:

  “Here’s Erzsi. Essentially she hasn’t changed, not even after all that’s happened and all the time that’s passed since she was my wife. She’s wearing one or two bits and pieces of Paris clothing, chic enough, but, I fear, not of the best quality. She’s a bit down. In her voice there’s a certain, very slight, veiled quality that breaks my heart. Poor little thing! That bastard Mihály! What did she need him for? It seems she hasn’t yet got over him … or perhaps she’s suffered new disappointments in Paris? The unknown man … Oh my God, my God, here am I chattering on about Péter Bodrogi when I’d rather die.

  “Here is Erzsi. As large as life. Here is the one woman I cannot live without. Why, why, why? Why should she be the only woman I find desirable, at a time when my general desire for women is nonexistent? So many of the others were so much ‘better women’, Gizi for example, not to mention Maria … Just to look at them made my blood well up. And above all, they were so much younger. Erzsi’s no longer exactly … Why, despite all this, here and now, in sober mind and free from the heat of passion, would I give up half my fortune to lie with her?”

  Erzsi rarely looked at Zoltán, but listened to his gossip with a smile, and thought:

  “How much he knows about everyone! People are so much at home with him. (Mihály never knew anything about anyon
e. He was incapable of noticing who was whose brother-in-law or girlfriend.) I don’t understand what I was afraid of, why I got so anxious. That old cliché of the ‘deserted husband’, how much truth is there in it? I really might have known that Zoltán could never get into the way of being the tiniest bit tragic. He finds a smile in everything. He abhors everything that’s on a grand scale. If his fate led him to a martyr’s death he’d no doubt make a joke and a bit of gossip even at the stake, to take the edge off the tragic situation. And yet he surely has suffered a lot. He’s older than he was. But at the same time he’s played down the suffering. And occasionally he’s felt wonderful. You can’t feel too sorry for him.”

  “Well, what’s the matter?” Zoltán asked suddenly.

  “With me? What should there be? I’m sure you know all about why I came to Paris … ”

  “Yes, I’m aware of the broad outline, but I don’t know why everything turned out as it did. You wouldn’t care to tell me?”

  “No, Zoltán. Don’t be offended. I really can’t think why I should discuss with you what happened between me and Mihály. I never talked to him about you. It’s only natural.”

  “That’s Erzsi,” thought Zoltán. “A fine lady, real breeding. Nothing, however catastrophic, could make her indiscreet. Self-control on two legs. And how she looks at me, with such cool, withering politeness! She’s still got the knack—she’s only to look at me to make me feel like a grocer’s assistant. But I can’t let myself be so easily intimidated.”

  “All the same, you can perhaps at least tell me what your plans are,” he said.

  “For the time being I really don’t have any. I’m staying on in Paris.”

  “Are you happy here?”

  “Happy enough.”

  “Have you filed for divorce yet?”

  “No.”