They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy)

by Bánffy, Miklós

  Balint laughed.

  ‘So was I, when he issued his summons. I was sure we were in for a showdown and that, as soon as we got to his room, or shortly afterwards, he’d pull his Browning on me. But it wasn’t for that or anything like it. I don’t think it even entered his head!’

  Adrienne wanted to know what they had talked about.

  ‘He wanted to explain some abstruse mathematical theory that he had invented and was working on. I can’t really explain it – it’s very peculiar, brilliant in its way but quite pointless. He wants to change our way of counting and proposes that ten should not contain ten units but twelve.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No more do I, not now when I have to explain it! But when Uzdy talked about it I seemed more or less to follow him, even though it all seemed completely crazy. It was really very interesting; he’s got the most extraordinary range of knowledge – but to spend so much time and energy on such a pointless idea – it’s just not normal!’

  ‘When was he ever normal?’ cried Adrienne. ‘Never! Never! Never!’

  Now they emerged from the trees and found themselves on a bare ridge. The view from where they stood was beautiful and in the valleys the morning mist was bathed in sunshine until it looked almost liquid, vibrating and surging like a vast sea which submerged even the farthest mountains.

  Back among the trees they continued along the forest path and, as they did so, the feeling of liberation in Adrienne grew stronger and stronger. When, after the traumatic afternoon of waiting on the previous day, she had finally seen Balint emerge unscathed from the lions’ den and in quiet conversation with her husband, the release from those two hours of terrified waiting had come as more than mere escape from a dreaded threat. It was as if she were now released from all obligations to her husband. Now, at long last, she had found the strength to resist him and when, the previous evening, she had at last shut her door on him it had left her with a sense of triumph, of long-awaited freedom. She was still engulfed in the shade of the prison-house, but now, for the first time, Adrienne felt that the doors to freedom were opening before her.

  Beneath their feet the dust of the forest floor rose as they walked, and to Adrienne it was as if they floated weightless over clouds of heavenly vapour, returning unharmed from the gates of Hell, ready now to defy the whole wide world. Balint had braved Uzdy in his lair and walked away free. She had at last denied herself to him and also walked freely away, and it was as if the fetters were melting away. Drunk with a sense of victory she walked on light and she knew where she was going. Putting aside all their previous caution Adrienne did not stop when they reached the boundary of her husband’s properties but strode on confidently at Balint’s side, heedless of the fact that when they reached the giant beech tree from which led the track to Balint’s hut she could be seen and recognized by the peasants using the same road on their way to market.

  As soon as they arrived she flung herself into his arms, hungrily accepting his love … and only much later did she tell him what had happened the previous night.

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  DODO GYALAKUTHY’S MOTHER bought her an automobile. It was a handsome open car with a canvas hood of American design and it was capable of cruising at the then amazing speed of seventy kilometres an hour. At the same time she engaged a sensible and trustworthy chauffeur, old enough not to be too irresponsible, and gave her daughter permission to use the car as she liked, even for going alone to visit friends in the country. This last had not been easily granted but Dodo was a determined girl, strong-willed and sure of herself, who would have done whatever she wished regardless of any parental ban; and so Countess Gyalakuthy, the kind-hearted chubby Adelma, who realized this, had yielded to her daughter’s pleas all the more as she knew her daughter to be a sensible and clever girl who could be trusted not to do anything foolish.

  Naturally this caused a great deal of talk when the older ladies got together for a gossip. ‘A young gel like that traipsing about alone God knows where! Did you ever hear anything so dreadful!’ cried the wizened old Countess Sarmasaghy, everyone’s Aunt Lizinka, when she first heard about it, and immediately ordered up her ancient pair of big-bellied carriage horses and drove over to Radnotfalva saying to herself that she’d put such a scare into that foolish Adelma that that would be an end to the matter. What she really wanted, of course, was to be the first to know all the details which she would then circulate, adorned and embellished, to her little clan of scandalmongering old ladies.

  Nothing she could say could remove the smile from Countess Gyalakuthy’s good-natured face.

  ‘My daughter is no longer a child,’ she said calmly. ‘She is of age and there is no need for me to watch over her all the time. Dodo is quite capable of looking after herself.’

  And so Dodo proved herself. Nothing she did provided any food for the ladies’ scandal teas. There was nothing very dreadful to be inferred from the fact that she drove over to Var-Siklod or Mezo-Varjas to play tennis – and as it was well-known that none of the young men was paying court to her the harvest of sly innuendo was meagre indeed. Aunt Lizinka soon dropped the matter when she found that there was nothing scandalous there for her to get her teeth into.

  So Dodo went where she wanted and no one thought any the worse of her for it. Sometimes she made quite long trips simply for her own pleasure, driving up the Maros valley or up to the mountains of Torocko. She loved speed and when at the wheel herself would drive as fast as she could.

  One cloudy morning in late September, her cobalt-blue sports-car could be seen rushing down the slope of the Felek. There was hardly any sound on the mile-long stretch for Dodo had turned off the engine. Occasionally there was a slight whine as she braked at the corners. Then she slowed down only to speed up again when she reached the straight road ahead. Dodo drove calmly and with great concentration, touching the horn only if it were necessary to warn others on the road of her approach. She had learned well how to assess the space between the carts she might want to pass and she drove as if she were thinking of nothing else. In fact, the car and the road occupied only one part of her mind, the practical, active part. The other was far away as she went over in her mind some of the things that had recently happened to her and what she had now decided to do.

  Since they had moved back to their country place in May she had only occasionally been able to see Laszlo Gyeroffy. With much cunning she had lured him over to Radnotfalva, having organized a tennis tournament with the sole purpose of having an excuse to invite him. Then she had kept him there for several days talking to him about music and getting him to play for her. It filled her with joy that she could get this normally withdrawn and shy young man to talk freely to her, his reticence melting away as she encouraged his confidences. She knew he did not love her, but she also knew that he found her sweet and sympathetic.

  After he had gone home they had exchanged letters. Dodo wrote asking questions about music, sending him scores and asking for his opinions. And Laszlo always answered her letters, though not always at once, and when he did so Dodo seemed to sense something behind his words, something deeper that suggested some emotion other than mere polite interest. A week before he had sent her a little song, somewhat roughly put down on the page, a sad little melody that could hardly be thought a song of love. He had written that it was quite old but she wondered if he had said that only because he had not dared to admit that, maybe, it was new and that he had written it for her.

  The thought of this filled her with hope and joy.

  The blue car speeded across the valley, crossing the river at Apahida and turning off at Tarcsa. As Dodo got nearer to Kozard she began to feel a little scared at her own temerity, wondering how Laszlo would respond to what she was going to propose.

  Very carefully Dodo had gone over in her mind everything that she knew about him and every word that he had spoken to her. She knew that he had loved Klara Kollonich, his cousin, but that she had t
hrown him over a year and a half before and married someone else. Now, thought Dodo, surely there had been time enough for the hurt to wear off. The last time Laszlo had been to stay there had been no sign that he still gave any thought at all to his old love. Then, for once, he had seemed light-hearted, even jovial, and had said things that could only encourage her in her hopes, phrases like, ‘You’re the only person I can talk to like this. Only you understand these things’. That sort of remark must mean something, even if they were only talking about music. Dodo was sure that he meant more than he said, that he was trying to hint at his feelings; and she believed this because she wanted to.

  The village of Kozard consisted only of a few small peasants’ houses and one larger old building in which was a grocery store. When Dodo’s elegant car drew up in front of the store the owner, Mor Bischitz, looked out with joy in his heart. Anyone who owned such a wonderful vehicle must surely be great and important and noble indeed! Quickly he stepped out, respectfully doffing his wide-brimmed hat and revealing the little skullcap on the crown of his head from which no practising orthodox Jew would ever be parted.

  ‘How can I be of service to your Ladyship?’ he asked in a rich plummy voice.

  ‘I am looking for Count Gyeroffy’s house. Can you direct me?’

  As Bischitz was explaining that Dodo would have to drive on past a little vacant plot, turn off by an abandoned labourer’s cottage and follow the road until, on a small hill … he was interrupted by a little Jewish girl, barefooted, stole shyly up to the car. She was about nine or ten years old, very dirty and unkempt, but she had a most lovely face. Her uncombed hair was thick and lustrous and Titian-red in colour and her eyes were large and black.

  ‘I’ll show you! I know the way!’ she said eagerly.

  Her father turned on her and shouted rudely at her, ‘Regina! Get away with you! You stay where you are. Back to the kitchen!’ and he menaced her with his fist.

  By now the car was surrounded by a group of urchins all offering their help. When Dodo put her foot on the accelerator and speeded away they all ran after the car until it was out of sight.

  The little lane wound itself up the hill and finally led to a handsome building in the French style. Above substantial foundations the raised ground floor had a long row of tall French windows fitted with square window-panes, most of which were missing or broken. It was clear that no one lived in those rooms. The windows of the first floor projected from a mansard roof.

  It was obvious that the house had been the whim of a most individual man. It had been built by Laszlo’s father at the time of his marriage to the artistically-minded Julia Ladossa who greatly admired the French taste. It was truly beautiful, pure in style and so elegant that it would have seemed entirely at home standing somewhere on the banks of the Loire. But for this very reason it looked out of place in Transylvania. ‘Long windows in this climate!’ people had said mockingly. But it had been Julia’s wish, and to Laszlo’s father that was all that mattered.

  As it turned out they had never moved into the grand rooms on the ground floor. Beautiful French marble chimneypieces had been fitted but the walls had only been whitewashed because, long before the silken wall-coverings had arrived from Lyon, the lady for whom all this was being prepared got into her carriage and drove away. She had escaped. A week later Mihaly Gyeroffy was found dead in the woods shot by his own gun.

  Since then no one, except a sort of guardian, had lived in the house.

  Everything had been kept locked and untouched until the day came that Laszlo returned home, ruined by his losses at cards and, as he thought, a social outcast.

  ‘Would you take a look at the spark plugs? They don’t seem to be working quite right. Oh, yes, and better check the carburettor too, please,’ said Dodo to her chauffeur, who had been sitting beside her. This was her pretended reason for stopping at Kozard.

  The man looked a little surprised but Dodo took no notice and went up the steps to where the front door stood open and straight on into the house.

  She found herself in a large and beautiful entrance-hall, the unpainted walls stuccoed in the style of Louis XVI. In front of her was a pair of large doors which presumably led to a drawing-room. She was wondering what to do when an untidy elderly man shuffled slowly forwards coming from an unnoticed service door. It was the guardian, Laszlo’s only servant.

  ‘Where can I find Count Gyeroffy?’ she asked.

  ‘Upstairs in his room, my Lady, that’s where! You go up there!’ said the man roughly, pointing to a stairway at the end of the hall.

  Dodo hesitated for a moment not knowing if she should go up or tell the man to ask Laszlo to come down. But the man shuffled off and disappeared and so Dodo started upstairs herself.

  The stairway had no banisters or rails, for the ornate wrought-iron work still lay rusting in heaps beneath the curve of the stair. It had never been installed.

  Upstairs there was a long corridor and Dodo would not have known where to go if she had not seen a pair of shabby riding boots near a doorway in front of her. Quickly making up her mind Dodo knocked and went in.

  Her guess had been right. Laszlo was indeed there, sitting in an armchair near one of the windows, dressed in a soft open shirt and trousers: he was busy filing his nails. When he saw her he jumped up, saying, ‘You! You here! What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing much‚’ said Dodo. ‘I was passing on my way to the Kamuthys near Des and there seemed to be something wrong with the car. So I thought I’d drop in on you while they fix it.’

  She blushed a little at her lie but went on lightly, ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, bursting in like this?’ and then laughed to cover her confusion.

  ‘Not a bit! It was very nice of you. But this room is awful! I’m ashamed you should find me in such disorder,’ said Laszlo, looking around him in distress. Then, suddenly noticing how casually he was dressed, he slipped on a jacket that had been thrown on the floor.

  It was true that the room was in a mess. Laszlo’s bed, which was in one corner, was unmade, the covers in a heap on the floor and the pillows none too clean. Next to it on a bedside table was a half-empty bottle of brandy and a dirty glass. Quantities of cigarette ends littered the floor and there were innumerable burn marks on the parquet. The remains of the previous day’s evening meal had been left on a commode which stood between two of the windows, the dishes stacked one on the other and coated with congealed grease.

  ‘Oh dear‚’ said Dodo laughing. ‘I suppose this is how bachelors always live!’ and she looked round the room indulgently.

  It was a large room with three windows on one side. Laszlo’s parents had used it as a sitting room while they were waiting for the main rooms below to be finished and some of their best furniture had been put there. Since Laszlo had moved in the carefully contrived harmony of the room had been spoilt. His father’s ormolu-mounted desk had been pushed aside to make room for the piano that Laszlo had brought from Budapest, and an Empire sofa had been shifted so that a bed could be brought in. An elegant vitrine that had held a valuable collection of porcelain now half covered one window and its place had been taken by a plain white-painted wardrobe. Only the family portraits remained in their places. Alas, not all of them, thought Dodo as she looked round because, right in the middle of the room there was a space where one was missing, a slight rectangular mark on the wall showing where it must have hung. The long shape of the frame was indicated by a cobweb or two which had presumably once attached themselves to the picture and had not been brushed off the tattered wall-paper behind. Everything looked old and dusty. Below where the missing portrait had hung Laszlo had placed the coloured photograph of his father in Hungarian court dress, which he had brought with him from Budapest and now returned to its original place.

  For something to say‚ Dodo‚ somewhat rashly‚ asked‚ ‘What used to hang there‚ in the middle?’

  Laszlo frowned.

  ‘They tell me it was the portrait of my mother, allegedly
by Cabanel who was well-known in Paris in the eighties. I don’t remember, of course, for I believe my father threw it out of the window when, when my mother left … when …’ and he broke off.

  ‘Poor Laszlo! Do forgive me for evoking such a sad memory!’ and she put her hand comfortingly on the young man’s arm.

  ‘I don’t mind, really I don’t! When I was still a child, perhaps, but it doesn’t mean anything to me now.’

  ‘I know what you mean. You see I understand it very well. My father died when I was very young, so I’m half an orphan too. It’s horrid when you’re young, but when you grow up it’s still sad but it doesn’t hurt any more. We’ve got our lives before us … and life is beautiful!’

  ‘Not for everybody‚’ said Gyeroffy with a bitter smile.

  ‘Oh, yes! For everybody! It’s only a matter of will power. You have to want it,’ said Dodo and sat down on the window sill. ‘Look how beautiful the view is from here! Isn’t it a joy to see something so lovely?’ and she pointed to the gently sloping garden down below.

  Laszlo sat down next to her, and Dodo went on chattering away, asking questions, listening to the young man’s answers; asking more questions, interested, charming. ‘It was gardeners from Schloss Laxenburg who planned the park! How cunning they were, it seems twice as big as it really is! You’d never know we’ve only got twenty acres!’ he said, and Dodo replied, ‘I’d never have believed it! And what sort of tree is that? I’ve never seen one like it before. And that one over there? What is that? It’s very exotic.’ She went on to ask how far they were from the Szamos river and commented on the hills in front of them and the three peaks of the Cibles shining in the distance. As they talked they were sitting very close to each other and her soft arm brushed Laszlo’s face each time she leaned forward to gaze from the window, and her chubby little hand grasped his shoulder for support.