‘The government was quite right to offer so many concessions in the Commercial Treaty with Serbia. The policy is the right one and must be upheld, especially now when it is so important to bind closely to us all the small states by which we are surrounded. Naturally,’ he said, ‘whether the Treaty will stand will ultimately depend on the attitude of the Serbs themselves. It is vital for us to maintain our existing policy towards the Balkan peoples, namely safeguarding the peace and doing all we can to secure their economic and cultural development. At the same time we must do all we can to hamstring any movement which might tend to limit their independence by welding them into a powerful aggressive conglomeration that would be part of an all-powerful hegemony in that part of Europe.’
At these last words Balint looked up suddenly and stared at Tisza.
What an interesting man he was, thought Balint. That last sentence! To think that Tisza not only understood so clearly the ambitions of Russia but had also anticipated the plot that Slawata had outlined a year before when he had tried to recruit Abady to the ranks of those whose aim was the aggrandisement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the creation of a chain of minor thrones for the Habsburg family.
The slow rhythm of the horses’ hoofs was like the beat of a funeral drum as Tisza went on explaining his innermost fears. As he spoke, his voice seemed to take on a deeper more anxious note. Then followed some prophetic phrases.
‘There are many people who hate us, and there are powerful forces in Europe today that may not find this the moment to provoke a general conflagration; but, mark my words, don’t ever forget that some day, when they think the time has come, there will be a war and it will be fatal to the Monarchy. Our enemies will see to that!’
Then followed some phrases that would have amazed Tisza’s enemies, those who saw him only as the arch-enemy of everything they held sacred. He said, ‘Our first military aim must be to create confidence at home and simultaneously to convince both our allies and our opponents of the reality of our power. It is now absolutely vital to find solutions to all the current disputes concerning the army. Both the ruler himself and the political parties must now put aside all partisan slogans and passions and concentrate, now that we are so surrounded by menace, on building up our forces and strengthening our national resolve. We should be ready for any sacrifice!’
Balint was astonished to hear these words from the very man who was publicly vilified as the arch-enemy of a unified Austro-Hungarian army and whose satanic influence was believed to be at the very root of Vienna’s distrust of the Hungarians. Tisza now fell silent and they rode without anyone speaking. Balint, deeply impressed by those last words, stared hard at the grim-faced rider beside him.
It was now almost dark. The road narrowed, so that Balint and Gazsi, riding on Tisza’s right and left, took a path just below the crest of the hill leaving the highest place to the prophetic politician, who was thus silhouetted black against the faint light still in the sky. His horse was dark too and so was his upright figure, rigid and unrelenting, from the dark saddle to the tall black riding hat. But darkest of all was his face.
He rode on alone, standing out against the darkening sky, always alone, always on the highest part of the hill, forever above the others and forever alone.
His horse carried him forward at a slow even rhythm.
And so they rode on into the gathering night.
PART FIVE
Chapter One
IN EARLY AUTUMN Balint Abady made a tour of the country co-operatives he had founded. He travelled in a small car that he had recently bought because it would have taken too long to cover the distances involved by train and horse-drawn carriage. His object was to obtain a clear picture of how all the different branches had developed and what they might need so that he could make a full report to the congress that was to be held in the capital at the end of November.
And, of course, Lelbanya was included in the tour.
Here, thanks to the discretion and persistence of the notary Daniel Kovacs, everything that Balint had planned from the time of his first election as Member for Lelbanya had been achieved. The Co-operative Society was flourishing, and the old manor-house of the Abady family, which Balint had offered as the local headquarters, had been asked for by the town itself, just as Kovacs had predicted. The farmers’ circle had been properly organized and this too had been set up in the same building. The experimental farm had been established on the land surrounding the house, though in a modified form from what Balint had originally suggested. Instead of making a market garden whose produce when sent to market would have seemed to the local people as unfair competition to their own wives’ efforts, the greater part of the land had been turned into a nursery for fruit trees where the farmers could obtain grafted apple, walnut and cherry trees. The small part remaining was used for raising vegetables for seed – but the produce was not sent to the local market. The spring that rose beside the house had been cleaned out and channels dug from it to make a proper irrigation system.
Abady was now sitting with Aron Kozma in the large room that ran the whole width of the house. Kozma was with him because he had been persuaded to accept the task of supervising of all the co-operatives between the Maros river and the valley of Sarmasag – all, that is, except those in Saxon villages which were run by the Saxons themselves. Lelbanya was one of those in his charge.
It was an agreeable spacious room, sunny and clean, quite different from the dirty squalid workshop it had been when inhabited by the untidy and ill-kempt carpenter who had been the Abadys’ former tenant. Now the smell of stale sawdust had disappeared and the walls had been freshly white-washed and covered by the reading-club’s bookshelves. In the middle there was a long table and it was here that meetings were held and where visiting agricultural experts were invited to give lectures.
It was eleven o’clock and the two men had just finished checking the cash-books from the treasurer’s little room next door and going through the heavy registers which had been placed on the long table for them. Now the books had been sent back and Balint and Aron stayed on a few minutes to talk things over.
Balint was just about to get up and return to the local inn, which was proudly called the Grand Hotel and where he was sure to find a queue of petitioners waiting to see him, when a youngish woman came swiftly in through the main door. She seemed to be scared of something and glanced nervously behind her before she closed the door. Then she almost ran to them, gabbling, ‘I am Victor Olajos’s widow. Mr Kovacs is my uncle but he mustn’t know I’ve come to see you. He told me not to, but I thought … I thought there’d be so many people at the inn waiting for your Lordship and if I went there someone would tell him.’
She sat down, rather out of breath, and then, somewhat confusedly, told her tale. She was the second wife of Olajos who had had a son from his first wife. The boy had been two years old when they had married three years before. Now the husband had died leaving nothing to her and no provision for the child. It just wasn’t possible that he had had no money at all. There had been something, dollars from America she thought, but now there was no sign of it and it just wasn’t fair. If it hadn’t been for her uncle taking them in both she and the boy would now be on the streets. But Daniel Kovacs couldn’t really afford it. He had always been poor himself and now he had a growing family to feed and clothe and send to school. She was ashamed to live on his charity so she thought, maybe, that the Chancery Court, the one that looked after orphans … or someone…? This was what she had come to say. She needed help … so perhaps, perhaps his Lordship?
‘Help me! Please help me!’ she said.
Balint was going to ask her for more details but Aron gave him a look to tell him he would explain later and the widow Olajos left quickly, nervously looking around as she went in case anyone had seen her.
‘I know about this business,’ he said. ‘It all happened in our neighbourhood and it’s quite hopeless. Victor Olajos was a tricky customer, shrewd and restl
ess, always up to something and probably none too honest. He may once have had some money but you never know with those people what goes on or where the truth really lies. The first wife’s brother lived in America and when his sister died in childbirth this brother sent 10,000 dollars to be held by the Orphans’ Court and invested for the child’s benefit. He must have sensed that Olajos was pretty unreliable and he wanted to be sure of the boy’s future. I remember it well because it was such a huge sum and so caused a great stir. Then we learned that Olajos had bought a big piece of land at Kortekapu. It was not good land and there was nothing on it but a run-down sawmill. I know it well as it’s quite near our own place. We were all surprised when Olajos died and it came to light that he had somehow induced the Court to pay over to him, as his son’s official guardian, the boy’s whole capital, which had been worth about 50,000 crowns, and had then somehow persuaded the officials of the Court that it had all been invested in a piece of land worth no more, at best, than 20,000 crowns.
‘To make matters worse, Olajos had never kept up payments on the mortgage with which the property had been encumbered when he bought it and so, when he died, the company had foreclosed and the property been sold by auction for a mere song. The widow and child were now penniless, because it seemed that Olajos had nothing of his own. There can be no doubt that the Orphans’ Court acted irresponsibly and it was certainly very odd that Olajos, who had a very bad reputation, had been able to persuade it to hand the money over to him at all. I fancy he must have had some crony in the office who had influence with the chairman of the Court, old Bartokfay, who was honest but naïve, a real “Hail, fellow, well-met!” sort of type.’
‘So you think there’s nothing we can do?’
‘Nothing! And we can’t even ask old Bartokfay, who’s not been at all himself since his stroke in the Spring.’
Balint found himself strangely affected by this story, which impressed him all the more since he had such a high regard for the notary Daniel Kovacs. And so it was the memory of the widow Olajos’s sad predicament which influenced him when he came to make his speech at the provincial assembly held at Maros-Torda at the end of November.
One of the principal items on the agenda was the resignation of Bartokfay, the acceptance of his dictated letter of resignation and the choice of a successor. The old chairman of the court had been very popular, especially with all the junior officials who mostly belonged to the radical 1848 Party, as opposed to the senior men who, led by Miklos Absolon, were aggressive supporters of the 1867 Compromise. Here, therefore, was one more example of a confrontation between the two basic political opponents in Hungarian politics – those who wanted complete independence and those who supported the union with Austria.
For some reason Absolon did not appear and so it was left to Beno Peter Balogh, the former Provincial Notary who had lost his job when the Coalition government came to power, to lead the party at the meeting. Though the Independence Party were now in the majority enough of the unionists were present to show that they were still a power to be reckoned with. Successive speakers praised the virtues of the retiring chairman, and even of his uncle who, many years before, had been the local Member of Parliament. Someone proposed a motion to perpetuate the memory of Bartokfay, who, it was said in a sly reference to the upheavals of 1848, had lived through ‘stirring times’ and whose sterling virtues should never be forgotten. The text barely mentioned his official activities but was principally composed of grandiloquent phrases more suited to heartening troops before a battle than to commemorating an aged politician.
Abady sat on a bench at the side. The proceedings irritated and annoyed him and so he refrained from speaking himself. As delegate after delegate rose and added their praises for the truly exceptional qualities of the departing chairman, so Abady found himself thinking more and more of the story told by the widow Olajos. He was all the more upset because, after hearing of that case at Lelbanya, several others had been brought to his attention, all concerning the property of orphans and all seeming to point, at the best, to culpable negligence.
It was really monstrous, he thought, that today so many people should go out of their way to heap praise on a man who had clearly been so slipshod in carrying out his responsibilities and who probably deserved censure and possibly even disciplinary action rather than these hymns of praise. And, as no one present seemed inclined to tell the truth, he decided that he himself must say something so that at least there would be some record in the minutes. The best moment, he thought, would not be now during all these farewell eulogies but later when it came to the election of Bartokfay’s successor. Then he would get up and mention, in general terms, that there had been several shortcomings in the past administration of the Orphans’ Court and that knowledge of these would be the best lesson for the future. After all, few matters deserved closer scrutiny than the well-being of orphans who could not look after themselves.
At long last, amid prolonged cheers, the prefect Ordung rose, added his own sycophantic words of praise, and obtained a unanimous vote in favour of the motion beatifying old Bartokfay.
Then he asked the meeting to nominate a new chairman for the Chancery Court.
Now Abady rose and asked if he might say a few words. Speaking calmly and in measured tones, he said that he had no intention of denigrating the departing chairman and certainly not of impugning his honesty or personal integrity. However it should not be allowed to be passed over that recently the administration of the Orphans’ Court had left much to be desired.
Murmurs of consternation ran through the hall. Bartokfay’s nephew, an emotional man who had succeeded his father as local member and who had been reduced to tears during the sustained eulogies to his uncle, now rose and thundered, ‘I won’t listen to a word of such rubbish!’
As if it had been a signal other people now leapt to their feet and shouted, ‘How do you know that? How can you say such things? Proof? Where’s the proof?’ while others called out, ‘The noble Lord’s a Unionist, that’s why he talks like that!’ These last remarks at once brought supporters of the last government to Abady’s side and they too jumped up, calling, ‘Hear! Hear!’ And so the delegates split into two opposing factions; not, of course, that they thought for a moment about the truth of the matter for now there was a party line to follow.
The angriest faction was composed of those belonging to the party in power, the strident supporters of separation from Vienna. They it was who called out, ‘This is libel! Calumny! Trumped-up charges! Let’s have some proof or shut up and apologize!’ And these last remarks were like a battle-cry for Abady’s supporters who now hoped to hear something to discredit their enemies and so joined in the cries of ‘All right! Proof! Let’s have the proof! Out with it!’
When the noise had subsided a little, Balint raised his hand. Everyone fell silent, eager to hear the worst.
‘If you want proof, I can supply it,’ said Abady; and without mentioning the widow’s name he told her story hoping that that would be enough to satisfy them. Not at all. Although the ranks of the Independents at first seemed disconcerted they soon rallied when Abady’s own supporters reacted with peals of artificial laughter, and then Bela Varju, one of the most fervent of the 1848 Party, let out a roar like a bull bison and scornfully shouted, ‘Out with it! Tell us the names! We need real proof; without the names it’s obviously pure invention. Calumny, no less!’
And so what had so often happened to Abady before now happened again. He was forced to go much further than had been his original intention. When he had risen to speak he had only wanted to make the point that new rules should be adopted by the Orphans’ Court so as to ensure strict surveillance of the Court’s administration of the children’s assets. Now he had been so deflected from his original purpose that he could not even declare it. His intervention had been taken as a piece of party political aggression and his disinterested proposition turned into a basis for party dissension. Without mentioning a single name he found hi
mself branded as a slanderer.
Abady had no choice but to tell the full tale, leaving nothing out and mentioning all the names. Happily he made no mistakes as, in matter-of-fact tones, he related names, dates, sums of money – the whole sad little tale. This dispassionate approach had a remarkably cooling effect on the Independence Party members, not a few of whom remembered some of the circumstances. But on Abady’s own supporters the effect was the opposite. Instead of the artificial laughter with which they had greeted such an insignificant tale they now took it up as a real scandal and, with equallly insincere indignation, called out, ‘There you are! Didn’t we tell you? Monstrous! Outrageous!’
Ordung rang his bell for order. In his powerful voice he called for silence, threatening, if he were not obeyed, to take disciplinary action against those who disturbed the dignity of the meeting. With hatred in his eyes he turned to Abady and asked, ‘I would like to ask the speaker if he has anything further to say?’
‘I have,’ said Abady; and in a few words he outlined his original proposition. Then he sat down.
‘As this proposal does not figure on the agenda,’ ruled the Prefect, ‘it cannot now be discussed. It shall be passed to the committee of the Orphans’ Court.’
They Were Found Wanting (Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy) Page 43