A World to Win

by Mary Lancaster

  “I thought you liked these,” Mattias said suddenly, and I realized I was still toying with a very appetizing cake.

  “I do,” I said at once, eating a piece with difficulty, for in truth I had never really recovered my appetite after the migraine. With relief, I turned back to my coffee, and looked casually around me.

  A group of three young working men were standing awkwardly by the door, obviously arguing with a waiter. One actually raised his voice, and I heard him say aggressively, “No! We’ve come to see Pál Vasvári!”

  At the sound of his name, Vasvári looked up. Seeing the three men, he looked surprised, but signalled the waiter to bring them over. Significantly, though, he did not stand up to meet them, merely made space for them to sit down beside him. I heard him say that he was Vasvári, and ask politely what he could do for them.

  “I know who you are,” one of the working men said, a little too loudly. “I recognize you. We know you to be a man who believes in equality, who is unafraid of taking practical action.”

  Vasvári bowed, a little ironically. The man took a breath, and at a nudge from one of his companions, continued in a lower voice which I had to strain shamelessly to catch. I was not alone. Mattias too was blatantly curious.

  “We represent four thousand journeymen who are opposed to the tyrannical guild laws. The laws hold us back, stop us becoming independent craftsmen because we can’t afford the ruinous entrance fees to the guilds. So we are stuck here as we are, on pitiful wages, with no hope of improvement until we are old!”

  Vasvári nodded sympathetically. My eyes flickered to Lajos, who lay back casually in his chair, his fingers playing idly with the handle of his cup; but his eyes were fixed on the artisans — men of about his own age — and there was no doubt that he was paying attention.

  “Your case is hard,” Vasvári agreed. “But I don’t see how I can help you.”

  The spokesman leaned forward. “Lead us,” he said intensely. “Lead us in a march to capture the guilds’ chests by force, and burn the unjust laws which are kept there.”

  Mattias’s mouth formed a silent whistle. I was impressed too, both by the workmen’s seriousness and by this proof of the reputation which the young radicals obviously now enjoyed with the people. Here was a new cause for them — perhaps it lacked the highly political idealism of their previous struggles, but it was still an injustice which was clearly strongly felt.

  But into the amazed pause which followed the workman’s plea, Vasvári said, “Oh I don’t think we could do that.” To my surprise, he even sounded amused. “It smacks of looting.”

  The journeyman frowned, but he still nodded eagerly. “Very well. We’re uneducated men; we don’t know the best way to go about things — but you do. You showed that on March the fifteenth. How should we get rid of the guild laws?”

  “I don’t think you quite understand,” Vasvári said gently. “I cannot help you.”

  There was silence. I saw consternation on the artisans’ faces. Lajos was not looking at them now but at Vasvári.

  “Why not?” asked the spokesman at last. He was astounded, bewildered. “We’re only asking for the equality in the Twelve Demands.”

  Vasvári shrugged. “I sympathise, and I truly admire your spirit. But this is not a cause in which I can interfere — it’s for your guilds to sort out, and failing them, the government.”

  Stark disbelief now crossed the journeymen’s faces. I felt something of it myself.

  “The government?” said the spokesman bitterly. “The government will not listen to the likes of us! If we are to have any hope, you must help us!”

  “I’ve told you,” Vasvári said with a touch of impatience, “I cannot help you. Now, you must excuse me — my friends and I are busy.”

  The spokesman rose to his feet so abruptly that his chair fell with a clatter. His companions joined him. Their plain, thin faces wore an almost frightening expression of anger mixed with disbelief, and extraordinary bitterness.

  “So this is the equality you say you believe in!” one of them burst out. “This is what all your talk of the people is worth! Nothing!”

  “Leave it, Dániel,” said the spokesman tiredly. “The gentlemen obviously have more important things to think about.” And with a last contemptuous look, he turned on his heel and stalked out, the others following with their heads held high. Looking from them back to Vasvári, I saw that his eyes were locked now with Lajos’s.

  Lajos said quietly, “That was not very well done, was it?”

  Vasvári shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Perhaps I was tactless, but I had the sudden idea, listening to their talk of force, that we can keep them in reserve for the next phase...”

  “Do you imagine that they — or their friends — would lift one finger in any cause of yours now?” Lajos interrupted, and Vasvári flushed under the contempt in his voice.

  “Don’t preach at me! You said yourself we can’t provoke mass action again now!”

  “It didn’t need to be mass, Vasvári, and you know it.”

  Uncomfortably, Jókai stepped into the breach. “Perhaps he was insensitive, Lajos, but what has he — what have we? — to do with the guilds?”

  Lajos pushed his cup away from him, standing up and looking around his friends. I had never seen such scorn on his face before; it was startling, almost frightening.

  “I think,” he said shortly, “that you’ve forgotten who it is we’re fighting for.” Then, without waiting for a reply, he strode out of the café without a backward glance. I dropped my gaze from the disconcerted revolutionaries to my half-eaten cake. I didn’t want to recognize the nobility of his gesture.

  “Phew!” said Mattias, impressed. “Strife in the radical camp! The trouble with Lajos is, he doesn’t recognize his own limitations — or anyone else’s!”

  “He’s just seeking greater glory,” I said contemptuously, “through criticizing the others.”

  Mattias’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Do you think so? I thought you quite approved of old Lajos.”

  “No,” I said simply. I pushed another piece of cake into my mouth. The whole scene had left a nasty taste and a jumble of feelings I wanted to squash rather than sort out. I finished my coffee. “Shall we go?” I suggested.

  Mattias was willing enough, since none of his particular friends were there. I felt only relief as we departed, but then, outside the door, we ran unexpectedly into Lajos and my stomach gave one of its more unpleasant lurches.

  He was with the journeymen who had sought Vasvári’s help, and as I came out he was passing a scrap of paper to them. Their spokesman was nodding, a slightly more hopeful glint in his eyes.

  “Any time tomorrow,” Lajos said, moving aside to let us pass. The men thanked him a little doubtfully and went on their way, exchanging low-voiced arguments as they went. Lajos glanced at us a little impatiently, as if wondering why we didn’t go past — I couldn’t, for Mattias now stood in my way — but when he saw us, his face cleared. At once, I looked beyond him, as if searching for a fiacre.

  “Hallo,” Mattias said in surprise. “Are you going to help them then?”

  Lajos shrugged. “If I can.”

  “I must say you don’t look very revolutionary!” Mattias complained. “Where’s your sword?”

  “I think Petöfi’s guillotine is big enough for both of us, don’t you?” Lajos said drily, and I risked a glance at him while Mattias laughed. Unfortunately, his eyes were on me, and he wasn’t smiling. Forcing myself to meet that steady gaze, I wished the nerves in my stomach would settle before I felt sick.

  “How are you?” he asked quietly. I almost believed he was interested.

  “Very well, thank you,” I replied, woodenly polite, and then, after a pause, because it sounded better, I added, “And you?”

  His mouth curled into a smile of unexpected bitterness. “Oh, I couldn’t be better!”

  “You shouldn’t quarrel with your friends,” Mattias said severely. “I
think you offended Vasvári.”

  “I meant to,” Lajos said briefly. “Go and find a fiacre, Mattias.”

  Mattias took this rejection of his wisdom in good part, shrugging philosophically. He moved to the front of the pavement, looking up and down the road. In panic, I tried to follow him, but Lajos suddenly laid his hand on my arm.

  “Wait. Are you really well?” he said urgently.

  “Perfectly,” I said with commendable calm, looking significantly at his detaining hand.

  He ignored that, saying steadily, “Katie, I need to know if there are consequences after Erzsébet Island.”

  “Consequences?” I repeated stupidly.

  “We made love, Katie,” he said deliberately. “I presume you understand the possible consequences of that?”

  I jerked my arm free, blushing a fiery red under his bluntness. Anger and embarrassment and sheer outrage flooded through me with a strength of feeling I had not known in a month. Of course, it was not my good which concerned him, it was his own reputation!

  In that moment I hated him quite as fiercely as I had ever loved him. With contemptuous loathing, I said, “You may rest easy. There are no consequences of that night. None whatsoever!”

  * * * *

  Two days later, the first blood of the revolution was spilled on the streets of Pest.

  Having selfishly deserted Katalin and the children outside the Museum, where we had spent a rare morning with Captain Zarescu, I made my own way to my favourite bookshop, a tiny store run by a learned, elderly Jew called Aaron Klein, whose chief charm lay in not only recognizing his regular customers but remembering the last conversation he had had with each.

  Almost the only sign of homesickness which I had found in myself was the desire to read novels in English — there is a special sort of relaxation in escaping into a fantasy world described in one’s own language. Now, more than ever, I needed that escape, but as I sped a little desperately along the streets to Klein’s shop, I found it difficult to banish Alexandru’s face from my mind. I was shocked by the change in him. His huge dark eyes were sadder than ever; there was a sick, almost hunted look about his face, but I knew from Katalin that his illness was not physical. Quite simply, he was in agony over the conflicting loyalties pulling him in three directions.

  On one side, he was a conscientious officer who had sworn allegiance to the King-Emperor; but his friends as well as his spiritual inclinations were on the side of the revolution, and he lived in constant dread of being ordered to arrest, or even kill, his closest acquaintances. For some reason, this had not bothered him in the intoxicating days of March, but now that he had time to think, to brood on the consequences of Hungary’s defiance, he was deeply disturbed. And then there was his loyalty to his race, the downtrodden Romanians who no one, even the revolutionaries, seemed very keen to help.

  According to Katalin, he hardly ever went to the Pilvax now; he found it too painful, and he had, besides, quarrelled with several of the radicals over the rights of minority races. Katalin, though more relieved than anything else by his break with the radicals, was still anxious about the strain on his nerves. She had almost resigned herself to his being sent to Italy, where, I think, she imagined he would distinguish himself by such conspicuous gallantry that even her proud father would be glad to welcome him as a son-in-law. And, in truth, I think it would have been something of a relief to Alex himself to leave Hungary just now. In many ways it would have been better for him if he had...

  I recall being aware, as I walked down the narrow street to the bookshop, of the sound of shouting in the distance. But since rowdy demonstrations had become a common occurrence in Buda-Pest in the last weeks, I paid no special attention to it. Instead, I went into the bookshop and smiled brightly at Mr Klein.

  “Miss Kettles!” he beamed. “How delighted I am to see you — and how desolate.” He spread his arms deprecatingly. “I have no new books for you!”

  “None at all?” I was disappointed.

  “Not in English. Some German, some French — George Sand perhaps?”

  “I’ll look around,” I said, and squeezed past the shop’s only other patron to the French novels. I scrutinized them all, but was satisfied with none. Discontented, I moved towards the Hungarian literature.

  It was then I realized that the noise outside had grown louder and nearer — and what was more worrying, I could hear breaking glass and unfamiliar crashing noises too. Alarmed, I looked at my fellow patron, a middle-aged professional man with a nervous tick at the corner of his mouth and a positively frightened gleam in his eye. I asked him politely if he knew what was happening outside.

  “No, I don’t,” he said quickly. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t go out again until it stops!”

  Aaron Klein had opened the door and was looking up the street in the direction of the noise. There was another crash of breaking glass and a clear, definitely human, scream of pain which did more than anything else to frighten me. Someone ran past the door, calling urgently to the bookseller in a language I did not know. Slowly, Aaron Klein came back inside, and his black eyes were no longer twinkling.

  “What is it?” I demanded. “What’s happening?”

  He smiled with an obvious effort. “Nothing that you need worry about. I think, though, that perhaps you should go home now. And if you, sir, would be so good as to report the trouble in the proper quarters...”

  The customer looked outraged. “You do not expect us to go outside with a mob rampaging at the end of the street?”

  “If you’re outside, they won’t touch you,” the bookseller said simply, and something in the inflexion of his tone made my breath catch.

  “No? I notice you’re not going out!”

  “Please; I believe you will be safer away from here...”

  “Why the devil should I be?”

  “Because,” I said sharply, “You are not a Jew.” In the sudden silence, I faced Aaron Klein. “That is it, isn’t it? This is against your people?”

  He nodded slowly. “It’s been coming for some time. In Pressburg, it already has. Even in revolution, people look askance if we begin to have the same rights as everyone else.”

  I had paid so little attention recently to public events. With an effort, I vaguely remembered debates on the rights of Jews; the Diet forbidding Jews to join the National Guard, and the Committee of Public Safety in reply merely organizing special Jewish units of Guards. But that was some time ago. Here, it seemed, was the violence we had escaped, even at the height of revolutionary fervour. Now it was erupting in an anti-Jewish pogrom, as ancient and as reactionary as the Old Testament itself.

  “What can we do?” I asked quickly.

  “Go.”

  “Will you come with us?”

  “They will destroy my shop.”

  “Won’t they do that anyway?” I asked brutally. “Sir, you must come.”

  “I won’t run away this time,” he said wearily. “I’m tired of running.”

  I swallowed, touched both by pity and admiration. “I won’t go if you don’t,” I threatened at last.

  Aaron Klein smiled again, genuinely this time. “You are a sweet child, but I don’t expect to come to much harm. Sir, will you take her away before they come any nearer?”

  The man with the tick looked undecided, but at that moment the decision was taken out of his hands. A group of men ran past the door, yelling. One of them was laughing. I heard the chant of, “Kill the Jews! Death to the parasites!”

  “Lock the door,” I said urgently, but Mr Klein only shrugged philosophically.

  “They’ll only break it down.”

  The chant had come nearer. Now it ended in a roar, and the door of the shop burst open to reveal a large, burly labourer who stood, hand on hips, surveying the premises. Pushed from behind, he moved further forward and four other men piled in after him. The burly man grinned ferociously at the bookseller, stupidity and blood lust shining out of his little eyes in almost equal measure.r />
  “Kill the Jews!” he shouted. “Death to the parasites!”

  His companions took up the awful chant until I felt like covering my ears. Aaron Klein waited placidly before them, while the man with the tick and I stood, ignored, at the back of the shop. Appalled, I watched one of the men pick up a weighty volume, swinging it in his hand until it caught the Jew’s attention. Then he hurled it quite deliberately through the window; but at least the crash of the breaking glass had the effect of ending the unbearable chant.

  The burly man laughed and took another step towards Mr Klein, almost casually pushing over a case of books as he went. The others, mob-like, crushed after him — at which the man with the tick took his chance and bolted, scuttling out of the shop so fast that the invaders actually looked startled, and for the first time noticed me.

  “Who was that? Another God-forsaken Jew?” said the thin, ugly one at the back. “What about you, Jew? Want to run away too?”

  Aaron Klein shook his head slowly. “I ask you to leave,” he said quietly. Undecided, I stood poised for flight. If I could find help...

  “Well, that’s a pity,” said the burly man, “because we’re telling you to leave! Leave the city! Leave Hungary, you filthy parasite!”

  He ended on a thunderous roar as another bookcase went crashing down, knocking against Aaron Klein’s shoulder and sending the old man sprawling. Instinctively, I pushed past his laughing tormentors, abandoning my half-formed plan to flee.

  “Stand aside!” I said sharply, falling to my knees beside the bookseller’s prone body. “Sir, are you hurt?” I asked anxiously.

  He stirred. “Only winded.”

  I took his arm to help him to rise, ignoring the burly man’s stare as he said in a voice of mock amazement, “Now what have we here? A Jewess, or a Jew-lover?”

  “A Magyar lady,” said Aaron Klein quickly, “so you had better leave her alone!”

  But I was angry at the stupid, pointless brutality now, and refused to shelter behind the tiniest untruth.

  “I am neither Magyar nor Jew,” I raged, “but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here right now!”