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

by Bánffy, Miklós

  PART FOUR

  Chapter One

  THE COUNCIL OF WAR was held in front of Balint’s tent. Balint himself sat on his shooting stick, ‘Honey’ Andras Zutor, the head forest guard, sat on the ground in front of him while Geza Winckler, the young and fully qualified forest superintendent who had been engaged by Balint to replace Nyiresy, sat close by on a tree trunk.

  Below them the meadow on the Prislop sloped gently down towards Feherviz – the White Water. With small groups of trees the meadow almost looked like a park consciously laid out by garden experts. To the right of the little group of men were the steep slopes of the Munchel Mare, planted with a mixture of beech and pine trees, while to the left and behind them the forest was formed solely by dense plantations of pine trees. In front the view was closed by the peaks of the Humpleu range, which at this time in the late afternoon, with the sun behind it, was in deep shadow. High above was the crater-shaped rocky summit of the Vurtop whose chalky whiteness gleamed softly behind the inky shadows of the tree-capped mountains in front.

  Balint loved this place and had always camped here since he had started coming to the mountains. Recently he had had a shelter for the horses built in the corner of the meadow, together with a long log cabin for the men who came with him. Nearby was a spring of fresh water; Balint’s own tent was always pitched some sixty yards away, a little higher up, partly because he liked to be alone and partly because he felt in some way mentally refreshed by contemplating that wild stretch of mountain and forest. From where he would sit, in front of his tent, Balint was conscious that the stream from the spring in the meadow below ran its course, unseen, through the great valley that was concealed from him by the trees until eventually it flowed into the main stream of the Szamos. Here all was peace and quiet, and the silence, in that landscape of sombre trees and jutting rocks, was that silence only to be found in the mountain forests.

  Now it was the end of July, when the grass and the leaves on the trees were at their most lush and at their greenest.

  At this moment the three men were listening to a report by a fourth, the forest guard Juanye Vomului, who stood before them at a respectful distance.

  The gornyik Juanye was a stocky man, powerfully built and broad in the shoulder. He held his eagle’s beak of a nose high and he stood there proudly as befitted a man who was no tied peasant bound to his master but a freeholder, well-to-do and independent, who served the Abady family of his own free will. Everything in his demeanour and dress drew attention to his pride and importance, and even the broad belt studded with copper nails was as imposing as any on the mountain. His cotton shirt and trousers were clean and new and his huge fur hat was large enough to make a waistcoat. This last he had politely placed on the ground beside him and he stood there bareheaded, his shoulder-length black hair so heavily greased that it was barely ruffled by the strong wind. During the previous year Vomului had taken over responsibility for guarding the parcel of land on the Intreapa where control of the felling needed a man with courage and authority.

  The gornyik explained his problem. Two hundred acres had been felled and by the end of spring all the wood had been carted away. In May the land had been replanted, at considerable cost and trouble. By the middle of June the grass had grown but as soon as it had been high enough the men of the nearby village had driven their cattle there to graze, eating the young trees along with the grass. He, Vomului, was powerless to stop the villagers not only because the 200-acre plot marched with the village common lands but also because each time he tried to confront them he was menaced by axes and, when he protested, threatened with being beaten to death. Not only that but alone he could hardly drive off so many animals and hold them hostage. Now the villagers brought in their cattle when they wished and the whole 200-acre parcel was likely to be destroyed.

  Vomului spoke well and in a well-mannered fashion. He stood erect, his weight on one leg, the other stretched out in front of him. When he was asked a question he would first change legs to show that he never spoke without prior thought and reflection. And when he wanted to emphasize a point he would spit sideways as if a gob of spittle would be the seal of his honesty.

  The council lasted for some considerable time until they unanimously decided what to do. Firstly all sixteen of the Abady forest guards would be mustered and together they would be strong enough to drive away the invading cattle. To achieve this the new superintendent would go down to the little town of Beles, round up the men and, making a wide detour, come through the Gyero-Monostor forests by night and be on the Intreapa by dawn. Balint himself, with four men and Honey Zutor, would start off early, and at daybreak rendezvous with the others on the boundaries of the village lands. In this way the villagers would not be forewarned of their arrival and would have no time to drive their cattle away from its illegal grazing.

  By five o’clock the sun, though still high in the sky, had begun to disappear behind the high mountains to the west. The valley in front was in deep shadow, while, to the north, the bare peaks of the Munchel Mare shone golden with the late afternoon light. A light breeze rose from the valley as invigorating as sparkling wine.

  Balint took his sporting rifle, though he had no intention of shooting anything, slung his bag over one shoulder and started off into the forest, intent only on watching whatever wild life he might encounter. At first he followed an old cart-track, now carefully seeded with grass since some order had been restored to the Abady forestlands. He did not have far to go before arriving at the hide he had had constructed high in the trunk of a giant fir. The tree stood at the edge of a precipitous drop, below which there was an immense clearing in the form of a semi-circular sea-shell, which reached as far as the slope up to the ridge opposite. Through the clearing ran countless little rivulets of water that united only by some rocks where they combined to form the start of a stream that would eventually find its way into the White Water far below. From Balint’s hide could just be heard the splash of the water as it fell into a cleft beyond the rocks.

  Balint climbed the rough ladder and sat down on the floor of the hide. Taking out his binoculars he carefully inspected the landscape in front of him, pausing at every clump of trees or shrubs for the tell-tale signs of the presence of deer, usually only just the tops of their heads for that was all that there was to be seen when they were resting in the tall grass. They were always hard to see, however carefully one looked. Balint could see no sign at present and realized that he had arrived in time.

  In the crystal-clear air a solitary eagle floated high above his head, describing wide circles with outspread wings seemingly motionless. Nothing else moved. It was a moment of Nature’s infinite calm. Alone in his eyrie Balint felt happy and for once at ease with the world.

  The last few months had been quiet and devoid of incident. When Margit had announced her engagement Adrienne had decided that she must wait until after her sister’s marriage in the autumn before mentioning the subject of divorce to her husband. She felt that for the moment she must do all she could to replace their dead mother, supervising the preparation of Margit’s trousseau and her bridal chest of linen and doing all the work that normally fell to the bride’s mother. She felt, too, that she would never be able to do this properly if she was harassed by thoughts of the confusion in her own life, and indeed confusion amounting to havoc was sure to be the result of the awful disputes that would inevitably follow her telling Pal Uzdy that she wanted a divorce. As it was these summer months passed tranquilly enough. Adrienne and Margit went together to Budapest to go shopping and order everything that was necessary – and there it was easy for Balint and Adrienne to meet, and to make love, just as it was at Kolozsvar and when Balint went to stay at Mezo-Varjas. During those months life for them seemed perfect. They could meet often and be together with no fear of disturbance and, while they went about their daily lives, each occupied with their own duties and responsibilities, they would both weave dreams of their future life together when their union would be p
erfect and indissoluble. And during this time they managed somehow to put on one side all thoughts of the problems and resistance they would be bound to meet later.

  Political life in the capital was also going through an unusually calm period. The agricultural minister, almost unnoticed, put through some essential reforms concerning the husbandry of livestock; Parliament passed the budget, held long debates on modernizing the House Rules; and the government, though not aided by a revolt of their own party members, succeeded in raising army officers’ pay. There was still unrest in Croatia where insurgents had insulted the Ban – the appointed Governor – but everywhere it was common knowledge that talks had begun between the Croatians and the Hungarian government which seemed likely to end in agreement.

  The ‘little war’ that Slawata had hinted at the previous autumn never materialized and relations with Italy remained as amicable as ever. All the same, King Edward of England went ahead with his plans to visit the Tsar at Reval and did so in such a flamboyant manner that no one could have mistaken the visit for anything but a public flaunting of the Anglo-Russian alliance. The only real cloud on the political horizon had been the revolutionary movements in Turkey, which had begun with army revolts in Monastir and Salonika and ended with the Sultan Abdul Hamid granting a constitution, lifting the censorship and declaring a general amnesty. It was obvious to everyone that he had not done this of his own free will and so people began to speak of a new historical movement in Istanbul that could well come to preoccupy both Russian and England, whose interests in the Bosphorus were diametrically opposed. All sorts of modifications might be made here and there to the map of Europe without much disturbing the balance of power, but he who could wield the most influence over the dying Ottoman Empire held a trump card in the councils of the great powers of the West. Maybe, thought Balint, it will all be to our advantage. Perhaps, as it was in England’s prime interest to keep the Russian fleet bottled up in the Black Sea, King Edward might look with a more kindly eye upon Austria-Hungary?

  It was thoughts of this kind which preoccupied Balint as he sat in his hide half-way up the great tree and scanned the scene in front of him for any signs of life. Now the late afternoon shade softened all the outlines so that changes of scale or vegetation were marked only by their colours, the bright shining green of the young beech shoots, the blue of the pines, the angry green of the grass on the edge of the little streams and its fading yellow by the clay banks. Two fallen tree-trunks gleamed white against the soft grass, cutting a hard line as if etched with a sharp knife, and everywhere there was slight movement as a soft almost imperceptible breeze kept the grass in shimmering motion which concealed the solid earth beneath.

  From somewhere near the river could be heard the cry of a kingfisher. No other sound was to be heard until suddenly there was a very soft crackling, so soft that it would never have been noticed if everywhere around there had not been such total silence. It came from the edge of the forest to the right, and Balint swiftly looked in that direction.

  A doe raced out of the undergrowth, ran in a wide curve to the bottom of the valley and then turned and ran back to a little hillock where she stood waiting. In an instant she was followed by a buck. The chase must already have lasted some time since the buck showed flecks of foam round his mouth. The buck stopped almost as soon as he saw the doe some fifty feet away on her little hillock. As if totally unconcerned she made as if to graze for a moment. Then she raised her head, looked straight at the buck and gave the mating call, a low whistle. At once he ran towards her. She, ever coquettish, waited motionless until he was less than two paces away and then made a great jump and ran off.

  The two deer ran almost together towards the foot of the cliff below Balint’s hide. Here the buck nearly caught up with his quarry but she found a new way to tease him, racing round and round a little grove of hazel bushes with him in hot pursuit until the buck abruptly stopped, so out of breath that Balint could hear him panting. For a few instants they remained still and if Balint had dropped something it would have fallen between them. Suddenly the doe whistled again and was off, the buck close behind her, zigzagging across the valley, leaping over the fallen trees and bushes, stopping and starting as the doe seemed to order, and then finally disappearing over the ridge and out of sight. Balint wondered how many more clearings they would find for the chase before the female finally decided to end the game. He had been enthralled by this glimpse of love-making in the wild.

  Now dusk began to fall and the golden light faded from the peaks of the Munchel. Lilac shadows spread over the valley and the scent of wildflowers and fallen leaves became overpoweringly strong.

  Abady was just getting ready to go back to his camp when another movement at the base of the clearing caught his eye. Something brown was moving at the edge of the fir tree plantation.

  A giant mother bear, followed by two cubs, ambled slowly out into the clearing with that strange swaying walk, the head apparently wobbling from side to side almost as if the animal were shaking its head in puzzled consideration of a new idea. After a moment the mother bear paused to allow her two cubs, tiny beside the huge bulk of their mother, to join her. Then all three moved slowly and deliberately towards that part of the meadow which was the most boggy and where the wild clover grew and all the fresh buds were at their most succulent. Seen through the binoculars it seemed to Balint as if the trio were as close as if they were at his feet. He could even see the sparkle in the cubs’ eyes as they nibbled at the feast to which they had been brought. The mother, on the other hand, grabbed at whole clumps of grass, gnawing them to the root and leaving round bare patches where she had eaten. When one of the cubs strayed too far the mother would bark out a gruff command and the cub, for all the world like any well-brought-up youngster, would return at once to his place to be greeted with a light cuff over the ear, for family discipline was not the prerogative of humans.

  After feeding for some considerable time the family moved slowly away in the direction of the waterfall. Balint started to climb down, taking care that his gun did not clatter against the rungs of the ladder. As quietly as possible he started to walk back to the camp along the grass-covered path. It was not yet completely dark and as he came to a turn in the path he heard a very faint little tap-tap-tap on the ground coming from the young trees that bordered the pathway. Standing quite still, Balint looked in the direction of the noise which continued, though hesitantly, as if whatever creature was making it did not know his way.

  Then Balint heard the plaintive call of a young roe-deer – a much higher and softer note than the mating call of the adult female – and all at once a very young roe-deer jumped onto the path and nearly bumped into Abady himself. Hardly noticing the presence of a human the little animal looked this way and that, uttering repeated little pipings and flapping its large ears in one direction after another. It was clearly in distress, its ears turning in every direction in the most comical manner until Balint imagined that the little animal was saying to itself that suddenly it understood nothing, that its mother, always until then so protective and so omnipresent, had run away and left her all alone in the dark frightening forest, and that nothing like that had ever happened in the world before! There was no way, reflected Balint, that the young fawn could have understood what happened in the forest when the mating season began, and that later, when her mother had played out the game of flight and refusal and eventual surrender, she would come back and look after her offspring. In the meantime the fawn stood there, its tiny patent-leather-like snout sniffing in all directions trying to pick up its mother’s scent. Balint held his breath and for several minutes the man and the little deer stood there within a few yards of each other. Finally it was the animal that moved. It lifted its head, piped twice, turned its ears in the direction of the clearing below and trotted off.

  Balint was so diverted that he broke into silent laughter, happy that the forest had now returned to its former calm and primeval silence.

  He t
hought of the villagers and their invasion of the new plantations and was at once strengthened in his determination to put a stop to the illegal grazing.

  The next day Balint was already in the valley of the Szamos by noon. He was on horseback, the gornyiks on foot. They all carried guns and some of the men also had hatchets. Although one pack-horse would have been quite enough for their needs they had brought a second with them, telling the three casually employed extra men, who had been told nothing of the real purpose of the expedition, that they were going right up the valley as far as the Puspokseg district where the country markets held untold riches! This plan had been concocted in the greatest detail for the benefit of the men of the mountains who were curious, clever and shrewd, as otherwise Balint’s plan to surprise the Gyurkuca peasants would soon have been discovered and at once known to the whole district. And, if this happened, of course not a trace of the villagers’ cattle would be found on the forbidden land and everyone would have had a good laugh at the noble lord’s expense.

  It took some time for the little party to traverse the village for the houses were strung some two kilometres along the bank of the river. Fortunately it was a Sunday and so none of the villagers were working away from the village. No one, therefore, saw the little band turn away from the river left towards Ponor and suddenly disappear swiftly into the darkness of the pine forest.

  They travelled in silence, led by Juanye Vomului as they had now reached that part of the Abady forestlands which was his responsibility. Just as night was falling they reached a small meadow where the horses were watered and fed and from which a steep path would lead them at dawn to the mountain ridge which formed the near side of the newly planted clearing.