Csardas

by Pearson, Diane

  “We should have waited until tomorrow,” Malie said sharply. “There is something wrong and we’ve left it too late. We should have waited and begun early in the morning.”

  No one answered. Mama and Eva, at first oblivious to the atmosphere about them, now seemed to be aware of the tension. Mama tapped her hand restlessly on the side of the coach. “Can’t Sandor drive any faster?” she said irritably.

  They were on the good road when they saw the men in front of them. It was the level road on the lower land, running between flat fields bordered with larch trees. The men were waiting in a silent, threatening line across the road.

  “Ugh!” growled Uncle Sandor, and brought the whip down on Sultan’s back. The old horse went a little faster.

  They had scythes and shovels, one or two rifles, clubs of wood. They were dressed mostly in old army uniforms, and one or two had red bands on their sleeves.

  “Stop! In the name of the People’s Republic!”

  Sandor took no notice. He whipped Sultan harder and growled again, louder.

  “Oh, God!” It was only a whisper and she wondered who had said it. The men had put their rifles and shovels and scythes in front of them, across their bodies, so that they formed a chain of weapons across the road. Sultan faltered.

  “Stop!”

  Uncle Sandor swore, a violent outpouring of epithets culminating in a stream of saliva that he ejected into the face of the nearest man. He whipped Sultan again, and the old horse screamed and plunged forward into the line of men.

  “Oh, God!” The whisper again. By her side Mama began to cry, not loudly, but the noise was frightening because it contributed to the lack of control and the hysteria that was thick about them. Sultan struggled and reared up, and the men closed in. Two fell to the ground, but there were several more to leap up and pull on the reins, to drag on the side of the coach.

  “Stop! You have been ordered in the name of the People’s Republic!”

  “Get away! Scum!” Uncle Sandor thrashed out with the whip, hitting several faces, shoulders, arms, but the whip was grasped and he was dragged down from the box.

  A thin, dirty hand pulled the door open and Eva was wrenched out of the coach. Sobbing, she fell onto the ground but the men didn’t touch her. They stood in a little circle round the coach, thin, ugly, sick-looking men.

  “We have orders to search your coach.”

  The apparent leader was even thinner than the rest. He had the high red cheeks and gaunt features of the consumptive, and half of his left hand was shot away.

  “Stop the old woman from screaming!” he shouted. They were dragging boxes and baskets out of the coach. Like starving dogs they rifled through the food, stuffing it into their mouths and passing it back to others on the outer edge of the circle. “Stop her from screaming!” he shouted again.

  “Mama! For God’s sake try and be quiet! You’re making them angry!”

  Mama screamed louder, and the consumptive suddenly thrust his body into the coach and clutched her shoulder, shaking her back and forth and shouting, “Shut up! Shut up!”

  There was a roar, a loud guttural bellowing roar, and Uncle Sandor was up from the road. His black eyes were nearly closed and blood was running from his mouth. His great bulk hurtled towards the consumptive, and the scarecrow leader was suddenly tossed from the coach and thrown to the surface of the road.

  “Filthy scum! Keep away from the Bogozy!”

  Shouting... Eva screaming from the roadway... Leo fighting to get out of the coach, calling to Uncle Sandor, someone holding him back—me, Malie: “You cannot help, Leo!”—Leo shouting... all the boxes emptied onto the road... Uncle Sandor still bellowing, rearing his mighty body up from a heap of thin dirty ones, like a bear being baited by dogs.

  There was a shot, and the noise—the noise of final violence—drowned everything else so that suddenly there was no other noise; everything was hushed, still.

  The screaming—oh, God, Mama, be quiet, do be quiet!—fell to a keening and sobbing. Someone had been killed.... Leo? Where are you, Leo?

  “Leo!”

  Another moment of unnatural, chilled silence, and then the men began to run. The leader, the thin consumptive with half a hand, shouted at them to come back but they were beggars, peasants who needed food, and now they were frightened because they had killed someone.

  “Come back!”

  “Leo! Leo!”

  It was all right. Leo was alive. She could hear him. And she could see him. He was crouching by the torn body of Uncle Sandor. There was a small hole in the side of Uncle Sandor’s head and a trickle of blood ran onto the road. Jozsef was out of the coach before her. He ran over to Uncle Sandor and she followed, trying to prevent Jozsef from seeing what Leo had already seen.

  Leo was crying, sobbing piteously, desperately. One of Uncle Sandor’s huge great hands was held in the boy’s tiny palms.

  “Oh, don’t die, Uncle Sandor! Please don’t die!”

  Jozsef turned white features towards her. “Malie! Don’t let Uncle Sandor die!”

  Oh, dear God! Is this how Karoly had looked? Clothes torn from his body, his face bruised and smashed, a hole through his head?

  Leo was nearly hysterical. He pulled Uncle Sandor’s great thick hand up to his face and rubbed it against his cheek. “Don’t leave us, Uncle Sandor! Don’t leave us!”

  “He’s dead, Leo. Uncle Sandor is dead.”

  “No!”

  “He’s dead, Leo. I can’t do anything. He’s dead.”

  Leo fell forward over Uncle Sandor’s body. Rich, adult pain assaulted his boy’s senses. “I won’t let him be dead! I won’t let him!”

  “Jozsef, find something to cover Uncle Sandor with.”

  Jozsef stared at her, tears running down his face; then he stumbled about the road, looking for something among the garments that were strewn there.

  “Malie! We can’t leave him here! We must take him back with us! We can’t leave him! We can’t, we can’t!”

  She began to feel sick. She couldn’t cope any more. There was no one to help her and she didn’t know how to manage.

  “We can’t lift him, Leo. He’s too heavy.”

  “Don’t leave him here, Malie! Please don’t leave him!”

  Her hands began to tense and tremble. She looked back at the coach. It was slewed halfway across the road and Sultan was whinnying and trying to pull free from the harness. Eva, sobbing, had managed to pull herself forward and was holding the reins. She was talking to Sultan, trying to calm him and sobbing at the same time.

  “Can you help me, Eva?”

  Eva tied the reins to a larch tree and came over. It was done slowly, and all the time she was sobbing. When she saw Uncle Sandor she just went on sobbing.

  “We can’t get him up into the coach, Eva.”

  “No.”

  “Will you help me bury him?”

  Eva nodded.

  There were shovels and scythes, wooden bars and pieces of iron scattered over the road. They took up spades and went to the side of the road. The soil of the field was fairly soft and it wasn’t too difficult to dig.

  “Cover him, Jozsef.”

  Jozsef had found a petticoat of Mama’s. He pulled it over Uncle Sandor’s head.

  “Jozsef, take Leo into the fields on the far side of the road, right across the fields—there—to the woods. You are to—to find something to put on the grave. Tell Leo to look for violets and primroses, a very big bunch, and then you are both to make a cross with branches. Don’t come back for a long, long time.”

  They were both crying, but Jozsef took Leo’s hand and they stumbled away. She could hear them from a long way off.

  She had never seen a dead man before, neither had the boys, but already the battered hulk of Uncle Sandor was no longer strange to them. And she was suddenly able to understand that when they dragged that great torso to the shallow hole, when they tipped him in and began to throw earth on top of him, it would be a final desecration, a hi
deous violation of identity.

  As though two other people were doing it and they were watching, Malie and Eva dragged, pulled, pushed, and finally thrust the old man into the grave. Neither of them could bring themselves to throw soil on top of him and so they collected all the stray clothes, the shawls and undergarments and nightdresses (all the warm things had been taken), and covered his body many times with layers of cloth. Then they were able to put soil on him and bang it hard with the shovel.

  When the boys came back with flowers and a cross, Uncle Sandor was already in his grave.

  Eva took the reins for the first part of the journey. It was dark and they gave Sultan his head, but the horse knew his master was absent and it was hours before they reached the outskirts of the town.

  Mama, crying quietly and moaning, sat in a corner. Malie left her alone. She was too tired to comfort Mama. There was nothing to hope for, nothing to rebuild. Was it always going to be like this? A year since Karoly had died, a year of pretending to be brave and cheerful, of seeking comfort in small things, and now this. Oh, Uncle Sandor, forgive us! Foolish Bogozy women who should have waited until tomorrow, who should have stopped screaming when they were told; so many things the foolish Bogozy women should have done. And now the old man was dead, packed into a shallow trench at the side of a field. Wet soil... worms... oh, God!

  The boys were silent. They sat on each side, holding her hand.

  “Malie.”

  “Yes, Leo?”

  “Malie. I saw him, the man who killed Uncle Sandor. He was thin and dirty and he had a red armband. I saw him.”

  “Oh, Leo. They all had red armbands. And they all looked alike. They were all thin and dirty.”

  “I’m sure I’d know him, Malie. I’m sure!”

  But his shrill boy’s voice faltered. He wanted to avenge the old soldier who had been his friend, he wanted to swear an oath that he would find the man who had shot Uncle Sandor and kill him too, but the face in his mind, the face of the killer, was already blurring.

  “Malie.”

  “Yes, Leo.”

  “Malie, I don’t think I can live without Uncle Sandor. He was the most important person in the world. How are we going to live without him?”

  How indeed?

  They lived carefully and quietly in the town. Papa came back from Budapest, a tired, despondent Papa. The banks, the insurance companies, the large industrial works had all been taken over by the state. Papa was still working in his bank, but it wasn’t his any more. He went there every day, and every day he waited to be told not to come again.

  They had closed off most of the house. Marie was still there, but they couldn’t afford any of the other servants. They couldn’t afford new clothes, or black-market coal. Food was expensive, and there was no Uncle Sandor to send up to the farm for provisions. Indeed, it might only be a little while before the farm was officially taken away from them.

  Everything seemed transitional. There was no more violence, but they were all uncertain of what was going to happen next. There was still a war, but now it wasn’t clear who was supposed to win. The Czechs in the north, the Romanians in the east, were battering once more against them, but this time perhaps it would be better if they won and brought back the old government. In the south it was rumoured that some of the old Imperial officers had formed yet another army and were fighting against the Romanians and against the regime of Bela Kun. Who was fighting whom? And for what? Would the troubled times ever cease?

  The only one who was happy was Eva; the news, the shortage of food, the depressing outlook for the future seemed to leave her spirits untouched. Felix was pottering happily in his office. He had to work now, something he had never done before, but there was still time to call, to take Eva for walks, to sit with her on the terrace of the Franz-Josef drinking coffee or, as the warm weather progressed, diluted ersatz cordial. So Eva was happy, not the wild ecstatic happiness of her first adoration of Felix, but a contented pride that lent her dignity and quietness.

  One afternoon Papa came home early from the bank. Malie watched him walking from the square and realized, shocked, that Papa was turning into an old man. He wasn’t as big or as dark as he had always seemed. His shoulders were stooped and his coat hung loosely from them. And his hair was quite grey at the sides. He walked slowly, with a plodding motion, as though every step were an effort. They were all in the drawing-room when he came in.

  “Good afternoon, Papa.”

  “Papa.”

  “Zsigmond.”

  Papa nodded and walked over to his favourite chair. He sat down, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “What will become of us all?” he asked despairingly. “How can I provide for my family when all I have worked for is lost?”

  Never, never had they heard Papa speak like this. He had been angry, proud, sad, puzzled, but never hopeless.

  “My wife, my children, all the land I bought, everything I built—nothing.” He placed one gaunt hand over his face and bent his head forward, a tired old man. Papa, old?

  “I have been trying to think of something to save us,” he said. “We could try and get to Vienna, but Vienna is crowded and conditions there are worse than in Budapest.”

  “Papa....” Malie spoke diffidently. The years of habit, of not interrupting, were deeply ingrained and she was nervous of making any kind of comment. “Papa, could we not wait a little longer, wait and see what happens? All the armies... if they defeat Bela Kun everything will be just the way it was before the war.”

  “No, Amalia. Things will never be like that again.”

  He was so sad, so slow, so... kind. He had been kind once before, when Karoly died. The hatred she had felt for Papa had begun to fade then. She could never love him—he was not a man who needed love—but she was aware of a strange sensation in her breast. Pity? Affection?

  “We could also try and get through the frontiers to Switzerland. If we could get to Berne I think Mr. Klein would help us. Mr. Klein has many business houses in Switzerland and, possibly, he would help us.”

  “Leave Hungary, Papa?” asked Eva. “Leave our friends and our family—Uncle Alfred, Aunt Gizi, our Bogozy relatives?” And Felix Kaldy was in everyone’s mind as they looked at her. She had worked so hard for so many years to win Felix. And now Papa was threatening to take her away. “We have to live, children. We have to live.” It was all speculation, suggestion, but the seed had been planted and Eva was afraid. Later that night she waited until Mama had gone to bed and then she joined her father in the drawing-room.

  “Papa, if... if we—you—go to Switzerland, or even Vienna, I—”

  “Yes, Eva? What is it you are trying to say?”

  “Papa, Felix has a post. Even in the new government he would probably have a post.”

  “I expect so. As much as anyone can tell—and who can tell anything in these times?”

  “Papa, if Felix were to ask me to marry him—if he were to ask you—would you let me stay here as his wife?”

  Papa looked at her, his face so sad she had to turn away.

  “To lose you, Eva? To lose my little Eva?”

  “Oh, Papa! It would only be until things were better.”

  “Of course.” He slumped in his chair and nodded. “Felix Kaldy. A fine young man, a fine family. But they have nothing now, even as we have nothing.”

  “He has his post, Papa! It pays only a little but we could manage.”

  “Has Felix suggested this?”

  She flushed and shook her head. “No, Papa, but how could he? You have just said that he has nothing. But I know he wants to marry me. He is waiting for something to happen before he asks me.”

  Papa bowed his head. “Then we shall wait, either until he comes to speak to me or until we decide to go to Switzerland.”

  “But, Papa!”

  She crossed over to him and knelt by his chair, the way she had done so many times in the past. She had always managed to get her own way with Pap
a, and now, with this new, softer, tired Papa she didn’t see any difficulties. She put her small, soft hand into his palm and pressed her cheek against his hand.

  “I promise you, Eva, that I will come to no decisions without first discussing it with you and Felix.”

  “You like him, don’t you, Papa?”

  He smiled at her. “A fine young man,” he repeated. “In other times—but there, we cannot dwell on what might have been.” But he was dwelling on it, thinking how magnificent it would have been: his younger daughter married to the head of the Kaldy estate, all that land linked with his—and Alfred’s on the other side of the river—and the name, the Kaldy name, putting yet another seal of respectability on the dynasty he was building.

  “If Felix comes to see me,” he promised, “I shall be happy to speak to him. And together we will see what can be done.”

  She was satisfied. At least she was satisfied with Papa. Now all she had to do was convey, tactfully, to Felix that if he wanted to ask her to marry him it was quite all right.

  They were defeated. The Hungarian Red Army was defeated by the Romanians, pushed steadily north until there was nowhere for them to go except into the mountains where they could disperse and vanish.

  Leo and Jozsef were returning from school when they heard the distant rumble, the thud-thud of an army marching in orderly retreat, and just as they turned into the square they saw them, line after line of soldiers, the same ones who had been fighting for the last five years. Even the uniforms were the same old Imperial uniforms, except that now they had red stars or armbands instead of the insignia of the King and Emperor.

  Tired men, disillusioned men, they had believed in an ideal and the ideal had turned sour. The dream of an Eldorado state had died.

  Leo stared hard at every face, looking for the one that haunted his dreams, the one he wanted to denounce and destroy. Two nights ago Uncle Sandor had appeared in one of his dreams. He had lifted him up onto his horse and had said to Leo, “Now we must go and kill the King of Prussia!” They had whooped and galloped, and Uncle Sandor had been popping bread and onions into his mouth as they rode. Then, in the middle of an acacia wood, they had come to a bench and there was the King of Prussia. “Shoot him,” said Uncle Sandor, and Leo threw the onion at the King, who rolled over and died. The King was thin and hungry and he had a uniform with a red armband. Then he and Uncle Sandor rode away and Uncle Sandor was singing, bellowing out a folk song in his great bass voice.