Csardas

by Pearson, Diane

  “You understand why we are going to see this boy, don’t you, Kati? I explained on the telephone.”

  “Yes. I understand. Leo tried to tell me once the way he felt about Janos Marton. He was always convinced that Marton hated him.”

  Malie felt a slight twist of jealousy. Leo had always been so much her brother, and yet he had talked to Kati about things he had never discussed with her. “I thought it a foolish notion,” she continued, pushing the envy away from her, “but David—David says someone is making things difficult for us. He would be angry if he knew what I was doing, visiting the young man, but I’m so afraid! And I feel I must try to do everything I can. I feel as though I am living all the time in a bad dream. You know the dreams you have, Kati, where nothing horrible actually happens, and yet you are walking through something that is ominous. That’s what it’s like now. Every day is like that.”

  “I know.”

  “But you just said you were happy.”

  “I’m happy now. But that’s what it was like when I lived with Felix and his mother. Every day was like that.” She gave a quick, small shudder. “Everything is good now. I have Nicholas, and I have you and the family. But I remember what it was like. That’s why I’m coming to Janos Marton with you.”

  The fear lifted a little from her heart and she felt comforted, not quite alone. There were things—vague, intangible things—that she could not share with David because she loved him in a very special way. But Kati was a woman; she was not ashamed to tell Kati about her fear. Always in the past Kati had been the one needing protection and assurance, but now Kati seemed older and more experienced than any of them, more experienced and more honest, more sincere. She looked down at the funny little figure clinging to her side and a wave of affection brought the never-far-away tears to her eyes. “Oh, Kati! What would I do without you! What would any of us do without you?” She fought the tears away, ashamed. Always crying. What was the matter with her? Was it her age? She must try and keep control.

  On the tram Nicholas got the letter out, read it again with an expression of smug pride on his face, then stared out of the window at the darkening streets.

  “How’s school, Nicholas?”

  “All right.” The pride vanished from his face and she wished she hadn’t asked. She knew from Jacob, who was in his final year at the school, that Nicholas’s position was not particularly happy. He had been registered as Nicholas Rassay, but inevitably someone had found out just who he was and who his mother was. She never saw him walking to and from school with friends, and he never played with his fellow pupils. His friends were his cousins, and his family were his aunts and uncles. He never spoke to any of them about what happened to him at school.

  She looked from him to Kati and wondered if the time would ever come when he was ashamed of his mother—not of what she had done but of her curious appearance and her increasingly odd manners. They were such a devoted pair, but inevitably Nicholas would grow, like her own sons—Karoly, next week, to a labour camp!—away from her. Tears, fight them back, swallow them, remember who you are, Mrs. Klein, Amalia Ferenc.

  When they alighted from the tram it was Kati who with assurance led the way through the bleak industrial streets at the southern end of the town.

  “We come here walking sometimes,” she said explanatorily. “It’s interesting. We often have ideas when we walk here, don’t we, Nicky?”

  They found the house, a tall brown-brick building with a flight of stairs leading up to a succession of landings. Mr. Marton was out, said the caretaker. He was out but would be back very shortly. The two women and the boy waited while the slush rained down on them, partly from the sky and partly from the leaking gutters along the front of the building. The caretaker stared at Kati. The stain from the poppies had smudged onto her face, giving her a curious raddled look, like an old whore who had only put rouge on one side of her face. He looked from her to Malie, every inch a lady. Quality.

  “I could let you into Mr. Marton’s room and you could wait there,” he said. He didn’t like Janos Marton. He wasn’t friendly and he never gave him presents like the other tenants did. Furthermore he was a peasant. You could always tell; the accent came through however hard they tried. He was a jumped-up peasant and he had cold blue eyes and cold manners to go with them. If he was annoyed when he found two ladies and a boy waiting in his room, so much the better. All the rooms were in the caretaker’s charge and he could do as he thought fit.

  “That would be agreeable,” said Malie, fumbling in her purse for the right amount of money. The caretaker led them up three flights and unlocked the door, He bowed, pocketed the money, and left them.

  They were in a small bare room that was more like a prison cell than someone’s home. An iron bed, a desk and chair, a wardrobe, a sink—everything was scrupulously clean, immaculately tidy. There were no curtains, just blinds drawn up to the ceiling. The only signs of human habitation were a row of books on the desk and a yellowed, torn picture pinned onto the wall opposite the bed. It was a picture of a stag drinking from a stream.

  “Why, look!” said Kati from the desk. “You didn’t tell me he was a poet!” She didn’t touch the book, just pointed to it in the row. Malie bent down and saw a thin blue-bound volume. Poems. Janos Marton. “He’s been published,” said Kati, surprised. “How strange we never knew. Adam has always been so interested in his progress. We must read them, Malie. Not here; we’ll buy the book in the town and read them.”

  Strangely the poems didn’t make her feel any easier. If he was clever enough to write poems, he was clever enough to be a dangerous enemy. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think what she should say. What could she say? What proof did she have that he was giving their names to someone in authority? And if she said the wrong thing she might make it worse. Her hands began to tremble and she was overwhelmed with a sense of inadequacy.

  They heard feet on the stairs, quick, angry feet, and then the door burst open and a thin young man, vaguely familiar to both of them, came in. Malie could tell he was angry. There were two bright spots of colour on his cheeks, and immediately he was inside the room he darted a quick glance toward the torn picture of the stag, as though assuring himself that they hadn’t stolen it.

  “Mr. Marton,” she said, trying to rise on trembling legs. “I am sorry if we have intruded, but the caretaker said we could come in out of the rain.”

  “He had no right!” He turned away suddenly and his body tightened and then went limp. He walked to the window and let down the blind, then returned to the door and switched on the light.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said coolly. “I was perturbed. Please sit down. Mrs. Klein, perhaps you would take the chair. Mrs. Kaldy, the bed.”

  “You remember us?”

  “Of course.” He bent his head forward into the merest suggestion of a bow.

  “This is my son,” said Kati, timidly.

  “I know.”

  Nicholas smiled, and stretched out his hand; then faced with a blast from the blue eyes, his smile faded and he went and sat close to his mother on the bed. Kati put her arm round him. They formed a little island of security together, leaving Malie feeling curiously alone on her chair.

  “Why have you come?”

  “My brother—that is, my husband and I, we thought—I thought I would like to talk to you, to clear up any misunderstandings over the past. In these terrible times we must try to understand one another, help one another.”

  The words dried in her mouth. What would happen if she suddenly screamed at him, accused him of seeking revenge, betraying them?

  “My brother Leo is concerned because he feels he has wronged you in some way, that we have all wronged you. We are at war and it is not a happy condition... to feel a sense of wrong, of injustice.” There, that was better. That sounded logical, the beginning on a sensible discussion when they could talk things out between them. She moistened her lips and tried to continue. “If my brother is right, if you d
o feel that we have harmed you in some way, I—we—would like to know how we could put it right....” Her voice trailed away, swallowed into the realization that he wasn’t even listening to her. She was useless, stupid. He had hardly noticed she was there. He was staring at the couple sitting on the bed, staring at Kati with her red smudged face and the sodden poppies hanging over one ear, staring at Nicky curled up by Kati’s side, holding his mother’s hand, resting his head against the sleeve of the old sealskin coat.

  “It has not been easy to come here.”

  “Why have you come?” he asked without interest, not even looking at her because his whole body seemed to be absorbed with watching Kati and Nicholas.

  The sense of inadequacy swamped her again, making her slow and inarticulate. Why had she come? What had possessed her to humiliate herself to a clever peasant child? She was a Ferenc, her mother a Bogozy! Temper flashed through her because the Marton child wasn’t well trained enough to listen to her. Careful. Next week Karoly goes to a labour camp. Leo is already there. In July your other son will be old enough to go too. She closed her eyes and fought against rising panic.

  “My cousin, Mrs. Klein, thinks you hate us so much you have been giving our names to the authorities, drawing their attention to our family background,” she heard Kati say coolly. Kati! How could you be so stupid, so blunt and offensive? What will he do to us if you talk like that? She opened her eyes. Janos Marton had turned back to her now, but his face told her nothing—hard, thin, expressionless, the blue eyes carefully veiled.

  “What reasons have you for thinking that, Mrs. Klein?”

  “No reason, except my brother says you hate him, have always hated him.”

  “Did he say... anything more?” Watchful blue eyes, guarded, wary.

  “About when you were young, your father—”

  “Ah, yes. Nothing more? No details of anything I am supposed to have done because I hate him?”

  “Nothing more.”

  The taut body loosened a little, so little she hardly saw it, just sensed it because her own body seemed to be symbolically tuned with his.

  “I think you overestimate my influence, Mrs. Klein, Mrs. Kaldy—”

  “Don’t call me Mrs. Kaldy,” said Kati softly. Like her flowers, she had wilted a little. She was smaller, crumpled and old-looking as she sat on the bed.

  Nicholas put both his arms round her waist and hugged her. “We’ll go and have tea in a moment, Mama,” he whispered loudly. “We’ll go from here in a moment.” Janos Marton stared at them. Stared? No, devoured the couple on the bed with his eyes.

  She couldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t—wouldn’t understand. He was keeping something back, hiding knowledge. She would do anything if only he would talk honestly, tell her he hated them all. Why wouldn’t he be honest and then ask for something? He could have whatever he wanted if only he would forget about them.

  “My brother says you hate him. We don’t want anyone to hate us,” she babbled. “My brother has been sent to a labour camp and next week my son, my first son, and soon my younger son. I want no enemies. You understand, I am sorry about whatever we have done, but what did we do? I don’t understand. Marie fed you and we gave you our old clothes and books and Adam spoke to the directors of the schools and colleges and—”

  “I have nothing but gratitude for you all,” he said tonelessly.

  “Then why—?” Something huge and warm inside her began to swell, out from her ribs, down into legs, arms, breast, head. “Leave us alone,” she wept, as the huge warm thing completely enveloped her. “Leave us alone!”

  Kati and Nicholas were miraculously one on each side of her, leading her out through the door as she wept. A last semblance of dignity made her turn at the door. Must say good-bye courteously. Thank him for receiving us. But the sight of his cold blue eyes disintegrated her brain and she wept again, all the way down the stairs she wept, past the startled caretaker and out into the street.

  They took her back to Kati’s house, and she drank thin wartime herb tea and barack. After a couple of hours the warm thing in her breast shrank and she was able to control it enough to go home and be with her husband.

  Kati and Nicholas watched her walking along the street. When she looked back to wave they had their arms round each other. Nothing had really worried them, the way it had worried her. What could she do? What could she do to stop the world from crumbling all round her? What could she do to save her family from Armageddon?

  33

  Rumours of a collapse on the Don began to circulate. They were wild and spasmodic at first; then the feeling that something serious had occurred became more prevalent. The newspapers and the broadcast bulletins reported “difficulties” and “heavy fighting,” but the whispers said it was worse than that: the army was destroyed and left to forage for itself, abandoned by the Germans who had left them without arms or transport or warm clothes. There had been no letters from the front for a long time, no letters from Jozsef, serving as a lieutenant in the hussars, and no letters from Karoly, serving in a Labour Corps in Russia. Silence. Silence and a gnawing anxiety.

  There were letters from Leo, and finally a visit. He arrived in town toward the end of February, thin, a little drawn, but otherwise unhurt.

  “Demobilized,” he explained. “Our unit disbanded. They said they were overdrawn and we would be recalled when necessary. The truth is that there’s no need for the airfields we were building in the north, now the Russian front has collapsed.”

  They sat round the table in the downstairs apartment, Mama and Papa’s apartment, and it was as though a hero had returned instead of the Communist renegade, Leo, who had always brought disgrace on the family. Mama sat beside him, stroking his shoulder, laughing and crying, plying him with food that Marie kept producing from the kitchen as a sign of her own particular love and welcome. Even Papa hung on his words, respectful and attentive, thanking God that at least one son was temporarily safe.

  “We built a radio in the camp that picked up foreign broadcasts; we heard the Russians and the British. The Germans are drawing back in Russia. They’ve been caught by the winter and the Russian counter-offensive.”

  “What about our soldiers?” faltered Mama. “What about Jozsef and Karoly?”

  Leo put his arm round her frail shoulders. She still had the figure of a girl, a slight and delicately boned girl, but her face was old. No amount of cosmetics and visits to the hairdresser could keep her young. “We must wait, Mama darling. We must try to be brave and wait.”

  “Is it bad, the Labour Corps?” Malie was staring down at her plate. She was trying not to let him see how afraid she was, how worried for her son.

  “It is just like the army, Malie,” he said gently. “We had to work very hard and there wasn’t too much to eat, but that was all.”

  “Not like prison?”

  “Not like prison at all.” He glanced round at the silent heavy faces and tried to make a joke. “And I should know, because I’m the only one of the family who has ever been in prison.”

  How loudly they laughed, even Papa, who hated to be reminded of Leo’s flagrant past. He was shocked at the change in them all, especially Malie. She had lost her tranquillity, the peaceful calm that had spread serenely over the whole family for so many years, soothing and helping and putting things right. She was nervous and her left hand trembled nearly all the time. He had expected to see Mama and Papa aged, but it distressed him to see Malie in the throes of some apparent illness. He stayed with them for a week, then said he must go to Budapest and try to pick up some kind of work. Their pleas only made him more determined to go; he had to get away before he was drawn into the miasma of hopeless gloom that surrounded them. He was also aware of his duty to the Group. In many ways the labour camp had been the best thing that could have happened to him, for they had formed the Group and now he had contacts in Budapest. They said they could use him; a translator was particularly useful in times of war and especially useful if he knew
how to operate a wireless transmitter. He wanted to get away and start fighting again. Perhaps they were all going to die; certainly if the Germans came in there seemed little doubt what their fate would be. But until that happened he was going to fight. He left them, promising to come back whenever he could but secretly feeling nothing but relief that he was returning to his beloved Budapest.

  He was, of course, unemployable. The restrictions had tightened since he had joined the army, and the combination of Jewish blood and Communist record barred him from any of his old contacts. Undaunted, he sold a few articles under a different name to one or two of his old papers and put up an advertisement in the café downstairs announcing that he would give tuition in languages at specially reduced prices. He survived.

  A few remnants of the Second Army began to trickle back from Russia. But there was no sign of Jozsef and no sign of Karoly. Every other month he went home, afraid to look at the pale questioning faces. He began to feel that his presence was a reproach because he was alive and they were... where?

  News came at last, in the early spring of 1944, exactly a year after his own return from the labour camp. When he went home at the beginning of March he knew, as soon as Marie opened the door, that it was bad news.

  “Jozsef or Karoly?”

  “Jozsef, Mr. Leo.” She didn’t cry, but her face was swollen and filled with despair. How little they ever thought about Marie. She had always been there, looking after them when they were small. They had never paid her much attention and yet she loved them enough to weep when a son was lost.

  The two old people were broken. For the first time in his life Leo saw Mama and Papa united. They sat side by side on the couch, two sad, bewildered parents, not understanding, staring out at the world, trying to absorb the fact that their son was dead.

  “The Maryk boy came and told us,” Malie said later, when they were alone. “He has only just returned. He was a prisoner; then he caught pneumonia and the Russians left him in a field to die. Somehow he was one of the lucky ones. He just got back; he walked most of the way.”