Csardas

by Pearson, Diane

  “Then let one of those women marry him!” she cried nervously, feeling that, for all his assurances, Papa was going to try and coerce her. “Eva, for instance. Oh, yes, now she is miserable because of Felix, but in time Eva would adore to be the wife of someone like Mr. Klein. She likes him and he flatters her; she would love to be rich and travel and live in Budapest. Why doesn’t he wait and then ask Eva?”

  “Because he has chosen you, Amalia. If he had wanted Eva, he would have said so.”

  “He only chose me because he thought Eva was going to marry Felix,” she cried. “He would have preferred Eva at the beginning. Oh, Papa, she is so much more suited to him than I—she likes to flirt and laugh and tease—why doesn’t he wait and then ask Eva!”

  She had lost control. At the beginning of the discussion she had been determined to remain calm, to answer Papa’s comments with cool reason, but now the fear of being forced to marry Mr. Klein made her panic and say foolish, ill-advised things.

  “No, Amalia,” said Papa slowly. “Mr. Klein spoke to me a long, long time ago about his feelings—the first time he came to stay with us, in fact. I was not certain then just how serious he was. And in any case Karoly was alive—or we thought he was alive—at that time, and I told him of your commitment to that young man.”

  She was shocked. She supposed she ought to feel flattered, but she was only aware of shock. All those visits, when he had flirted with Mama and Eva, when he had indulged in sharp witticisms and sophistications with the two exquisite little Bogozy women, all that time he had been watching her, considering, comparing. But it made no difference. She didn’t like Mr. Klein and she couldn’t marry him. Papa had said he wouldn’t try and force her again, and so she must remain firm, like she had before when Karoly had been the crisis in her life.

  “I would rather not marry him, Papa,” she said quietly. Papa sank down into a chair and rested his hands on the desk. His shoulders were slumped and under his eyes deep folds of skin made haggard stains on his cheeks. He was old again, thin and old and worried.

  “Amalia,” he said, almost choking, “I have no right to ask this of my daughter, but please, consider it carefully. Do not reject Mr. Klein without thinking a little, without giving him some time. If I did not know he would be a good husband, I would not beg you to think again. But I do ask you. For all our sakes I ask you.”

  “I don’t understand, Papa.” A cold sensation in the pit of her stomach warned her that she was being steadily cornered. Papa looked terrible. With every passing moment he looked infinitely worse. And there was something degrading about seeing Papa, who was stern and cruel and could be hateful, broken and begging his daughter to reconsider a matrimonial decision.

  “It was the war,” he mumbled, and then he turned red-rimmed eyes up to hers. “The war, and the revolutions after the war. I did everything I could. If only I had possessed a little more capital I could have invested the way Gizi did—I might have saved us—but it just got worse. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Klein I would have had to close the bank... our bank.”

  “But we’re all right now, Papa, aren’t we?” she asked, fighting away a sense of dread. “We all knew it was bad just after the war, but we’re all right now, surely?”

  “We are all right because Mr. Klein has not pressed for his money or demanded his securities,” Papa replied heavily. His hands were trembling and she had to look away, it was so dreadful to see—hear—Papa making such a humiliating confession. “Mr. Klein owns virtually everything we have, Amalia. The bank, all my securities, our house, this farm—”

  “No, Papa! Not the farm!” The one place they were inviolate, the place where so much had happened, where they had all been so happy. And it belonged to Mr. Klein! It wasn’t theirs. They were all living there, enjoying the summer, giving parties for the harvesters, and none of them had any right to be there! The house belonged to Mr. Klein; the land, the harvest, the food they ate, all was his. She felt humiliated, and then she felt lost and homeless.

  “Not the farm, Papa! Oh, no, not the farm!”

  Papa looked down at the top of his desk, an unhealthy flush staining his face. All his life he had set incredible standards for his wife, his daughters, his sons, his employees. He had applied those standards cruelly and rigidly and had felt justified in doing so because he set standards for himself that were equally severe. And he had proved unequal to the task he had set himself. He had failed to provide for his family.

  “Can’t Aunt Gizi and Uncle Alfred help us? Uncle Alfred is part of the bank. Surely he could help us!”

  “Gizi and Alfred backed the bank right at the beginning, and it was not enough. We were all... in danger. And then Mr. Klein took over the affairs, and since that time I have preferred to do business with him rather than with Gizi and Alfred.”

  Through her own distress she was vaguely aware of his, sensing a little of his humiliation at not being able to save Gizi’s investments as well as his own. No, not Gizi’s; he wouldn’t have minded so much if it had only been Gizi. It was Uncle Alfred—a Racs-Rassay—whom he could no longer bear to ask for help.

  “Gizi has recouped her losses,” he continued hoarsely. “Mr. Klein helped her too, and she invested wisely and suffered little loss overall. I have not been so fortunate—no, I must not say fortunate, as though luck were part of it. I have failed through my own lack of foresight. I have no excuse, no excuse at all.”

  “Oh, Papa.” She wanted to comfort him suddenly, to reassure him that it didn’t matter. But it did matter, it mattered very much that Mr. Klein owned the very chairs they were sitting on.

  “In time,” he said, “and with Mr. Klein’s patience, I shall be able to redeem the securities, rebuild as Gizi has done... but it will take time.”

  The cold clutch of fear in her breast again. “But Papa, surely Mr. Klein wouldn’t demand his securities just because I refused to marry him.”

  “No, of course not, Amalia.” He tried to smile at her, then reached across and patted her hand. “Of course not, and in time I shall repair the crisis myself. I am not asking you to marry Mr. Klein in order to save the family fortune. No father has any right to expect another man, even a son-in-law, to do what he cannot do himself. But Mr. Klein would be so happy if you could bring yourself to even think of his proposition. I only ask you to consider it, Amalia. Just consider it.”

  She could no longer bear Papa’s pleading, his humiliation and lack of authority. She wanted to get away and try to sort out the implications of what she had learned. She wasn’t even sure of her own reactions to the news. Certainly she was no longer prepared to state with final authority that she would never marry Mr. Klein. She could think of many situations in which she would be prepared to marry him; the war had taught her that lesson, that it did not do to set high and rigid rules for oneself. But... Mr. Klein... as a husband?

  “I will not say no at this moment then, Papa. I will think about it.”

  He nodded, but that was all. His shame prevented him from smiling or speaking on the subject further. As she walked away from him she caught sight of his reflection in the mirror set into the back of the server. He too resembled the old man she had seen so many years ago.

  In September, Kati—small, afraid, wearing a white silk dress that became her as little as anything else—was married to Felix Kaldy. Bride and groom spoke to each other hardly at all, and if Kati seemed frightened, Felix failed to notice it, his attitude throughout being one of boredom with Kati and delight with all the guests who thronged to the Racs-Rassay villa.

  Gizi had excelled herself, providing not only a magnificent repast for the county inside the house but unlimited food, wine, and a gypsy player outside for the estate workers.

  A succession of carriages and a sprinkling of motorcars brought relatives and influential friends of the Kaldy and Racs-Rassay families from halfway across the county. The farm servants and their wives walked to the villa, and by the end of the evening the numbers in the yard had grown, swollen
by people from the village who had wandered up and by farm workers from other estates who had somehow heard of the party and found means of joining it.

  Inside, during a gargantuan wedding feast that took no cognizance of the fact that food was in short supply throughout the land, they toasted the incongruous couple in champagne and congratulated them on the uniting of two sound old families. Outside, Kati and Felix were toasted in rough wine straight from the barrel, and the good wishes ranged from the merely lewd to the downright obscene. Kati appeared not to hear or understand any of the greetings, and as Felix never once stepped out of the house, he heard only the elegant comments of his friends.

  Everything was bright, everyone—except the bride—vivacious. Eva drank, flirted, teased Felix unmercifully—which Felix adored—and danced every dance, a great number with Mr. Klein, an even greater number with Adam.

  Uncle Alfred, who along with one or two Racs-Rassay relatives and several distant Kaldy kinsmen wore the velvet tunic and dolman of the Hungarian gentry, quickly became very drunk and remained in a condition of loud, semi-boisterous gaiety for the remainder of the evening. Since the war he had grown much heavier and more florid. When young he had looked handsome and romantic in his lavish costume, but now, drunk, his tight trousers and boots looked uncomfortably strained and his complexion had turned to a dull red that was both unattractive and alarming.

  Aunt Gizi, brilliant in a fashionable new gown of pink crepe trimmed with osprey at the hem, was outshone by only one figure, that of the triumphant Madame Kaldy.

  Amalia, gazing round the huge drawing-room, her eyes drawn repeatedly back to the central figures of Aunt Gizi and Madame Kaldy, realized that it was as though it were their marriage, two dominating women who had accomplished their hearts’ desires. They had both submerged their entire lives and personalities to the fulfillment of those desires, and on this day their success and happiness was assured.

  Madame Kaldy, more restrained than Gizi, nonetheless overpowered the room. Tall, fine-boned, her dark eyes glowing and feverish and her farm-stained hands covered in lace gloves, she moved from group to group of old friends, people she had deliberately avoided for years, families who had witnessed her humiliating downfall and who now were there to see her triumph. She bowed graciously to Mama, remembering but no longer caring about her husband’s long-past flirtation with the Bogozy woman. She bowed more coolly to Papa; he was an upstart, but nonetheless the brother of Gizi, and it was Gizi’s money that had finally rebuilt the Kaldy estates. She smiled, slightly, at Eva, then ignored her. And strangely enough she also appeared to ignore Kati—no, not ignore her; it was as though Kati, having performed her function, wasn’t there any more.

  Amalia watched Kati move farther and farther back into a corner. Once the right things had been said to her, everyone preferred talking to all the old friends and acquaintances they had not seen for a long time. There was so much to discuss: the war, the losses, the decline of their properties. The little bride was really too dull to waste a good party on. Amalia weaved through the guests towards Kati.

  “Are you all right, Kati?’”

  “I’ve spilt champagne on my dress.”

  Amalia looked down at the pale stain on the white silk, then up into Kati’s bewildered face. “It doesn’t matter,” she answered gently. “You are a married woman now. You can spill anything you like.”

  Kati smiled half-heartedly. “I hate parties, Malie. I wish I could go away. I mean, away from all these people.”

  “You will be going soon, Kati. In a little while you’ll be going to your new house.”

  “Madame Kaldy’s house, you mean,” answered Kati with a rare flash of irony. “And there’ll be even more parties there, parties and dinners and lunches and ladies coming in the morning and afternoon—oh, Malie!”

  Amalia sought consoling words and found none. Kati’s lot was completely unenviable.

  “It will be... nice to have a husband, won’t it, Kati?” she asked feebly.

  “I don’t know.” Kati flushed suddenly and Malie felt even more sorry for her. Any number of girls—Eva, for one—would have envied Kati’s happy lot and the fact that tonight she had to climb into bed with Felix. Kati, who was innocent but not so innocent she didn’t know, vaguely, what was supposed to happen, could only view the ordeal with awkward embarrassment. There was a moment’s silence in which Malie desperately wanted to say something to the effect that it wouldn’t be too bad. But what right or experience had she to try and reassure Kati? Whenever she thought of loving a man, she thought of Karoly, the long hot kisses and embraces, furtively stolen and always interrupted by Mama or Eva or Aunt Gizi, embraces that, she imagined, would have progressed naturally to a shocking and ecstatic fusion of bodies. But how would it be with someone like Felix? How would it be with someone like Mr. Klein? She pushed the thought quickly away and transferred her thoughts from Mr. Klein himself to Mr. Klein’s motorcar.

  “We’ll come and see you very, very soon. We’ll ask Mr. Klein to bring us in his motor, the day after tomorrow. There, that’s not too far away, is it?”

  “Oh, Malie, you will come? It will give me something to look forward to if you say you’ll come. Eva too?”

  They looked across the room at Eva. She was enchanting—pale pink voile in soft drapes and frills—twinkling, sparkling up at Adam Kaldy, who appeared to be completely absorbed in her.

  “Eva’s so beautiful,” Kati said wistfully. “I thought at first she would be angry with me for taking Felix from her, but she doesn’t seem to mind, does she? And she looks so happy....” Her voice trailed away. Amalia was struck afresh with the foolishness of it all. Kati, longing to be Eva who was pretty and free, and Eva, raging with hurt frustration and anger because she was not going to live with Felix in Madame Kaldy’s old house.

  “Eva will come too. Of course she will.” Eva looked across at them, laughed, and waved her hand. “You see, Kati, Eva’s not a bit angry with you. She wants you to be happy.” And Kati, deeply touched at the thought that anyone might care about her happiness, gave a tremulous and uncertain smile.

  Eva, like everyone else in the room, had hardly noticed Kati. Just once, when Kati was being greeted by a distant relative—standing stiffly while being kissed on both cheeks—she had thought, Oh, why is it her? Why not me? I would have done it all so beautifully! I would have been so charming to everyone! I would have looked and behaved so well! Why is it terrible old Kati and not me!

  But the thought had not been directed with any resentment towards Kati. Felix didn’t like his new wife. That was obvious. She didn’t even think he would talk to her very much. She wasn’t jealous of Kati, so why was she still so hurting inside, why the pain, the jealousy, the humiliation? After all these months when she had tried so hard to convince herself she didn’t care, why did she want to scream and cry and pound her fists on the body of the hateful old Kaldy witch?

  A fresh wave of anguish smote her, and she smiled even more brightly at Adam, who hadn’t taken his eyes from her for the whole day.

  “Adam! How strange it is that your eyes should be green when Felix’s are brown. I wonder what happened!” She glanced naughtily at him. “You are not alike at all, are you? I don’t think I ever met two brothers so unlike before.”

  “Felix is tall and slim and elegant. I am short and square and clumsy,” Adam answered briskly, without taking his eyes from her face. “Nonetheless, Eva Ferenc, I feel flattered that after several years you have looked at me long enough to notice the colour of my eyes.” She hardly heard him. There was a pain in her stomach, a twisting, bitter agony of misery. She fought the pain, straightened her body, and held out her glass. Adam filled it and pressed the glass back into her hand.

  “And so now you must live all alone in your little farmhouse. How sad. Whatever will you do there, all alone without your incredible mama to arrange your life?” That was better, much better. She was still teasing, still flirting, but she was able to do it better when she cou
ld speak scathingly about his mama.

  “I shall do all kind of things,” Adam replied coolly. “I shall get drunk a lot, of course, and I shall not bother to wash or change my clothes, and I shall have girls from the village to come and sleep with me every night.”

  She was shocked. Even through her misery she was shocked. Felix would never have spoken that way, not even when they were in their most suggestive and flirtatious moods. Adam had never spoken like that before. He had spoken very little at all, and when he did he was always stilted and boring. How could he be so crude and vulgar?

  “It would be nice to have someone to get drunk with when I am all alone,” Adam continued blandly. “Have some more champagne, Eva.” He handed her his own glass, scarcely touched, took the empty one from her and refilled it. She drank, feeling that she was somehow being mocked but unable to work it out properly. There was a fuzzy feeling in her head but it helped to blur the pain and anger of Felix and Madame Kaldy.

  “You are very coarse!” she rebuked, forgetting to flirt with him.

  “Yes. I feel it incumbent on me to be coarse. I have a family reputation to maintain. My father—you must have heard—was a roue who spent all our money at the gaming tables and in bed. I believe he gained little return at the tables. I can only hope his mistresses proved more rewarding.”

  She was so astonished she couldn’t answer. He had always been dull but he had behaved like a gentleman, his manners at least a poor imitation of Felix’s.

  “And then there was my grandfather. His tastes were not so expensive. He slept with peasant girls who were pleased to do as they were told. You may have noticed several stolid faces on the land that bear a strong resemblance to mine?”

  He was insulting her. Just because she had been discarded by Felix, humiliated by his horrible old mother, he thought he could insult her, speak to her like a factory girl. How dare he! Tears of rage choked in her throat and she hiccoughed.