The String Diaries

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  For now, he would run. He was unprepared for a confrontation. He needed time to plan. But he would return to Erna, and he would kill anyone that got in his way.

  In his pocket, he felt the weight of the gold ring he had bought her, pressing against his leg. It seemed to mock him.

  Jakab was sitting in a restaurant near the Festetics Palace when he next saw Erna Novák. It was spring, and he had been back in Keszthely two days. This was a different town to the one he had left baking under the hot eye of a summer sun. Now, cool air rolling down from the mountains slid across the warmer waters of Lake Balaton, rising into a mist that draped the entire area like a shroud.

  The mist brought a strange serenity to Keszthely. Sounds were muted, so that when a dog barked or a church bell rang – coming as if from the bottom of a well – Jakab found it impossible to pinpoint its direction.

  He had known that returning would feel like a homecoming, and the mist unfurled its own welcome, a protective anonymity that gathered him in its arms and cradled him with its peace.

  How he needed that peace. He could not be sure exactly how long he had been away, but his experiences in between leaving Keszthely and returning already seemed a troubled memory. How long had he run, moving from one town to the next, leaving in the depths of night, taking random train journeys, crossing rivers and mountains, doubling back?

  When he had fled the Lake Balaton region, he had not forged much of a plan. He told himself to get as far ahead of Jani as possible, and find somewhere he could prepare for his arrival. At the outset, the thought of harming his brother sickened him, but the further he travelled from Keszthely and Erna Novák, the less the prospect troubled him.

  Even so, on those occasions when he did get far enough ahead, finding himself in some insipid town or village, he was unable to decide what to do when Jani caught up. Summer arrived, and still Jakab was no closer to returning to Keszthely. As that season slipped away, and then as autumn leaves surrendered to winter snow, he began to acknowledge that the challenge of killing two hosszú életek, one of whom could track him however many miles he put between them, was tormenting him so much that he was inventing excuses for his inaction. Rather than fighting back, he was finding more and more reasons to flee. Disgusted by his lack of resolve, he vowed to take the next opportunity that came along.

  In Pozsony, he seized his chance. He reached the city knowing he had gained a few weeks on his pursuers. Renting an extravagantly large house in the Rusovce borough, Jakab played the role of an eccentric and introverted aristocrat. He paid for the services of a lawyer, who in turn paid for the services of a dubious yet reliable character called Alexej who spent all his time inside the house, watching each night for the approach of Jani and his accomplice.

  It must have been February, or possibly March, when they finally appeared. Alexej woke him in the early hours. Two men, he whispered, had scaled the gates at the front of the house.

  The first intruder approached the building’s main entrance. The second crept round to the rear, climbing a wisteria vine to the first-floor balcony that overlooked the garden. Waiting in the master bedroom, enveloped in shadow, Jakab watched him swing over the balustrade and pad to one of the tall sash windows. Finding it unlocked, the intruder, still a faceless silhouette, lifted it open. Jakab stepped out of the darkness, pressed a Colt revolver to the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  It was only in the flash from the gun’s muzzle that he recognised Jani’s startled eyes. His brother’s head broke apart in the same instant. The thunder of that shot echoed around the house and ricocheted through Jakab’s soul. He watched Jani’s lifeless body pitch backwards over the balcony, landing in the shrubbery below.

  Hours later, he would marvel at how easy – and how quick – that murderous act had been. But at the time, with the sharp stench of gunpowder in his nostrils, he found himself fascinated at the way the chips of Jani’s skull glittered on the moonlit leaves of the rhododendrons below.

  Staring down at his brother’s corpse, thinking of all the history they had shared, he tried to summon grief. It seemed appropriate somehow. Yet all he could feel as he stood at the balustrade was emptiness. No guilt, no remorse. Not even any satisfaction. He was an empty vessel, a vacuum, devoid of emotion.

  While Jakab knew there had never been any path back to his old life, he still understood that this was a watershed moment. The tanács would exhaust every means possible to find him now. What option, though, had they given him? Jakab had been content to walk away from the hosszú életek but they had insisted on following, had even resorted to the spectacular cruelty of setting one brother against another. He had felt no great love for Jani, had spent most of his life hating him, but the number of people in the world with whom he shared a history had just contracted and for that, if nothing else, he supposed he should feel sadness.

  Alexej walked out of the darkened bedroom and joined Jakab on the balcony. ‘The other one bolted when he heard the shot,’ he said, peering over the rail at Jani’s corpse. ‘Want me to get rid of that?’

  Jakab examined Alexej for a moment, considering whether to put a bullet in his head too. Instead, he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and nodded. Alexej had served him well, and he did not know when he might need his services again. Far better to keep acquaintances like that.

  Jakab packed his bags quickly, jumped the wall at the end of the garden and left Pozsony the same night. It was one hundred miles to Keszthely by train and carriage, a journey that took him two days to travel. He booked a room near the lake and spent the first day walking its shores, thinking about the best way to alert Erna of his return. He ached for her as much now as he had outside her father’s tavern when they had said their goodbyes. He still had the ring. Its weight in his pocket was a constant, insistent reminder.

  Strange, but he discovered he was nervous at the prospect of seeing her again. He could not work out why. Almost, it seemed as if his time away from Erna – and his confrontation with Jani – had been the price fate demanded for his redemption. Jakab had lifted his chin and accepted the challenge, and now his mistakes in Buda could be forgotten. With Jani dead, the tanács would find it impossible to locate him. He would not be able to stay in Keszthely, but he still had money, certainly enough to buy a house far from here and raise a family with Erna in peace.

  That evening he lay down on the rug in his hotel room and resurrected Márkus Thúry with a familiar flesh-searing agony that nearly split his teeth and set his heels drumming on the floor.

  Afterwards he gorged himself on food and wine, crawling on to the bed to recover. A few hours later, settled in his borrowed face, he walked into her father’s tavern. He sat at the bar all evening but Erna did not appear. Her father served him several times, sharing jokes and local news, but Jakab resisted the urge to enquire of her.

  Now, a day later, sitting in a restaurant overlooking the palace, gazing out at the mist that hung over the town and beaded the windows, he studied a woman walking along the street and felt a jolt of recognition.

  Jakab held his breath as she approached, placing his hands on the white tablecloth. The cutlery began to vibrate.

  Erna.

  There could be no doubt.

  She looked different. Older, somehow. Thicker around the hips, heavier breasts. Her expression was distant and he was ashamed to find himself hunting for signs of pain in her features, some evidence of heartache. As she passed the windows she glanced inside and for a moment their eyes met. Erna smiled as she walked by, a simple courtesy for a briefly glimpsed stranger. And then Jakab noticed she was carrying an infant on her hip.

  The sight confused him, stalling his thoughts. He glanced about the room, at the clock on the wall, at the silver teapot in front of him, trying to make sense of it. A startling thought occurred to him, but one he knew was impossible even as he considered it. They had been too care
ful, and the child too old, for it to be plausible.

  Realising he was in danger of losing her to the mist, Jakab jumped up, overturning a vase and sending water cascading across the white linen. Cursing, he threw down some coins and ran outside to the street.

  Erna had crossed the road towards the palace and was walking along an avenue of trees, their branches studded with green buds. He ran after her, shouting her name, laughing with jubilation.

  Erna turned, and when she saw him approaching she hesitated and looked around her, as if hoping to see passers-by.

  Panting, Jakab closed the last few yards.

  ‘Do I know you?’ she asked.

  In his haste, he had forgotten the obvious. Instead of her betrothed standing before her, she saw a tanned and sweating Márkus Thúry. Not, he supposed, an attractive proposition. ‘Erna, I’m sorry.’ He grinned. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘I’m afraid you have the advantage. Are you a friend of Hans’s?’

  ‘It’s Jakab, Erna. Your Jakab. I promised you I’d be back. Here I am.’

  Her eyes widened, and he was disconcerted to see a shadow of fear cross her face. She began to take a step backwards, noticed what she was doing, and stopped herself. Her chest rose and fell as she stared at him. ‘Jakab?’

  He opened his arms.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The question jolted him, the same way the look in her eyes jolted him. ‘What do I want? Erna, I’m back. It’s done. I know this must be a shock for you, but—’

  ‘A shock? How . . . Jakab. For a start, how do I know it’s you? How do I know you’re not one of those two hosszú életek that questioned my father that time?’

  ‘It’s me. Can’t you hear it in my voice? I can prove it if you need me to. Not here. But you shouldn’t need to see that. How many other men have taken you down to the shore to ask you to marry them?’ He reached for her arms and when he touched her flesh she stiffened.

  Erna gaped at him as if he had lifted away the top of a crypt and clambered out. ‘What are you doing here, Jakab?’

  Her reaction had transformed his elation into bemusement. ‘I’m here for you. For us.’

  On her hip, the young boy pointed a finger at him. ‘Mama, who—’

  Erna reached for his hand and hushed him.

  Jakab stared at the infant. What had he just called her? ‘Who’s the boy?’

  ‘Jakab, do you know how long you’ve been away?’

  ‘Who’s the boy, Erna?’

  ‘I thought you were dead!’

  He was shouting now. ‘Erna, WHO IS HE?’

  The boy started crying. She pressed his face to her breast, soothing him. ‘This is my son. This is Carl. I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, and I don’t know why you suddenly decided to come back. What we had . . . it was a long time ago.’

  ‘How can you say—’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what happened, where you went, what you’ve done, but you’re not thinking clearly. It’s been years. You can’t just come back like this, out of the blue. It’s cruel. I have a husband now, a family.’

  He did not understand what she was saying, did not know how her words could be true. A slow horror was descending on him. The child was at least two years old. He had left Keszthely when? A year ago at most? Surely? He tried to count the months, even the seasons, and found himself staring at her, open-mouthed. He could not work out how long it had been.

  Jakab felt something inside him threatening to rupture, and he braced himself against it. It felt like a dream was shattering, while he clutched at the broken shards.

  No.

  Furious, he turned his back on that thought.

  She was in shock, that was all.

  But she has a son!

  He thought about her lying with another man and wanted to scream. ‘Erna, I should have thought more about this before I came to you. I know that. This was a clumsy way to return. Let’s start again. At the beginning, I mean. I—’

  ‘Jakab, I have to go.’

  ‘Wait, no. Don’t say that. Don’t just dismiss me like that. You said to me you’d wait.’

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘You said to me you’d wait!’ He was shouting again, and she was backing away. He wanted nothing more than to reach for her and kiss her face. He resisted, clasping his hands together. This was the most precarious conversation of his life. ‘Please. You have to talk to me. I . . . I’ve been away a long time. I hadn’t realised how long, and I don’t know why. Erna, I love you. You know that. I’ve been carrying that with me, undiminished, the entire time I’ve been gone. I know you love me too. Things may have happened since, life may have happened in between, but—’

  ‘Jakab, I’m sorry, I can’t listen to this now. I really do have to go. I have to feed Carl. I have to cook dinner for my husband.’

  That word – husband – wounded him more than anything she had said so far – a pair of forge-heated tongs clamping on to his heart. ‘Then meet me later. Tonight.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Erna, I insist—’

  Her face darkened. ‘Careful with your tongue, Jakab. You lost the right to insist on anything a long time ago.’

  He stumbled backwards, holding out his hands, feeling tears welling in his eyes. He looked up at the sky, shaking his head, then back at her. ‘Please, I didn’t come here to make you angry. I’m making a mess of this. I know it. But I’m half mad from seeing you again. Please, Erna, I beg you, meet me later. Let me explain.’

  ‘Jakab, I can’t, don’t you see? I can’t just walk out of the house at night to go and meet someone. I told you, I have a family, responsibilities, a man I love.’

  ‘You loved me.’

  She paused, and he sensed that his tears had softened her. She looked on him more gently, although her expression was so close to pity it wrenched him. ‘Give me a few days,’ she said. ‘To arrange something. Then we’ll talk.’

  ‘That’s all I want.’

  She nodded. ‘And Jakab – that’s all you’ll get. I’ve made a promise to someone. I’ve made vows, and neither you nor I can break them. Our time passed. I’m sorry it did. I waited for you for two years. Two years, Jakab. No clue that you were still alive, not a letter nor a message. Do you know how deeply I mourned you? No. You never will. To the northeast, a mile along the shore, there’s an old boat shed with a wooden jetty; you can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there in three days. At dawn.’

  ‘I understand.’

  It was a lie. He did not understand at all.

  Erna rearranged her son on her hip and walked away. He watched her until she was consumed by the mist.

  Back in the town, he bought a newspaper and studied the date on it: 24th April, 1879.

  He sat down on a wall and started working back.

  Five years.

  He had been away five years.

  Jakab dropped the newspaper and moaned, holding his head in his hands. How had he let this happen? How could he have let five whole years go by without even realising, without even considering the consequences for his life back in Keszthely? She had said she waited two years for him. If she had met someone shortly after, and wed within the year, it explained the age of her boy.

  Erna had a son. A husband. A life without him.

  Despite all of that, despite everything she had said, he refused to believe it was too late. A love as intense as theirs came along only once. He would stake everything upon it. He had killed his own brother so that they could be together. When she discovered that, when she understood the extent of the commitment he had made to her, she would see sense.

  It had been a shock, that was all. He could forgive her the harsh words she had spoken. He had handled their reunion badly. Once she
accepted his reappearance into her life, she would see how hastily she had rejected him. She would regret her words. It would work itself out.

  Jakab arrived, just as she requested, shortly before sunrise. So thick was the mist at this time of day he found it impossible to judge from which direction the sun would appear. He sat on a tree stump next to the wreckage of a rowing boat and waited, stomach tossing in anticipation.

  The boat shed loomed, a single-storey wooden shell with a sagging roof and two wide doors at its front, one of which had collapsed into the weeds that surrounded it. Paint had peeled from the shed walls, and the suns of countless summers had warped and baked the silvered timbers beneath. Moss and lichen spotted the building’s shaded side like a spreading cancer. The side facing the lake stood open to the elements. Long ago someone had removed the single door that had once slid forth on oiled metal runners. Its opening led to a concrete launch ramp. Next to it, a jetty thrust out into the water.

  Erna emerged from the mist, hurrying down the grassy track from the main road. He jumped up as she approached, opening his mouth to greet her, but she shook her head vigorously and held up her hands. ‘No, Jakab, there is no time. You have to go. Now. They’re coming for you.’

  He frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There’s no time to explain. You have to get out of here right now. Please, Jakab. I’m so sorry, I never meant for this to happen. Your people. They know you are here. They’re coming.’

  He was finding it difficult to keep up with her. ‘Is this a trick?’

  ‘A trick? Jakab, do you think I would trick you about something like this?’

  He stared, watching her eyes carefully. ‘You seemed keen enough to get rid of me three days ago.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, what kind of woman do you think I am?’ She grabbed him by his coat sleeve. ‘Come on. Don’t go back to the main road. Follow the shoreline northeast to Gyenesdiás. You’ll find passage from there. Don’t come back to Keszthely. Promise me, Jakab. Do you have money? Look, I brought you this. It’s not much, but it might help.’