I would have liked to reply, but in my humbled state, the most I could do was to acknowledge the joke with a modest, appreciative smile.
“Heightened reflex; traumatic neurosis,”[3] he said, adding a few Latin terms. Falus wrote it all down dutifully.
After that, the days passed slowly. A new patient came in, accompanied by his family: a well-built, good-looking young ensign, an engineer by profession. His very pretty younger sister had also come along, much to the delight of the “crazies.” He and I later became good friends. We would go out at dusk to stroll around the building under the bare trees. Leaning on a stick, he shuffled along slowly and cautiously. At first I thought he had something wrong with his legs. But he held out his wrist and I could feel, to my amazement, that his pulse skipped every fifth or sixth beat. This was why he took such care over every movement.
Later, the trainee doctor waved it away. “That’s nothing! He can live with it. His heart can still be all right.”
One evening, during our walk, the bells in the city began to ring. You could even hear the old bell in the Basilica. A festive clamor spread out like a wave over Budapest. As we later learned, the Germans had won a great victory over the Russians at the Masurian (or, as the squaddies say, “Ramasurian”) Lakes,[4] and Kaiser Wilhelm had, apparently, announced to his troops: “By the time the autumn leaves have fallen, you will all be home.”
All very fine, and a faint ray of hope. But according to the British, “the war has only just started.”
Amid the clanging of bells, I could clearly make out those of the Carmelite church in Huba Street. My first year at the Academy and the masses there. Angéla. From a distance of ten years, a memory from student days to raise a smile.
The trainee doctor said the Polish lad had had his skull patched up with a silver plate, and would recover. He had regained consciousness a couple of days before, and now, holding him up on either side, they put him on his feet. He was a head taller than either of the orderlies. We were all genuinely glad.
These two weeks passed slowly, with their continual examinations, amidst endless moaning and cursing. But the one constant subject among men in their twenties is women!
Unexpectedly, I had a visit from Ducika and Klára D——. Silence, as attention was focused on them; all of a sudden, the crew became well behaved. Even the cheeky pharmacist controlled himself.
After they had left, a voice broke the silence.
“Yer eyes are out on stalks, mate!”
It was sweet of them to visit. They even brought me flowers, and their kindness bolstered my vanity a little.
Over the next few days, the Pole started to babble. He was trying hard to communicate something and stared fixedly at me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand even the Polish of the Academy, let alone someone babbling in the vernacular. However, it eventually turned out (as someone could follow Slovak) that he wanted to hear some classical Hungarian. I recited for him what they say is the finest line in Hungarian poetry:
Field of mourning, reddened with heroic blood; with my sighs I greet thee . . .[5]
I emphasized the meter and the rich modulation of vowel sounds. He listened raptly and apparently declared: “Beautiful!”
I had little appetite and was smoking cigarettes one after the other. I had lost a lot of weight: down from sixty-eight kilos to fifty-six. One night, sleepless with anxiety, I suddenly felt so ill that I thought I was done for. It was the same thing that I had experienced after the battle at Magierov. My cries brought the trainee doctor, who stuffed tablets into me and made me drink a glass of water.
“Why won’t they give us any medicine here?”
“You dunce! You’re not here to be cured, you know. You’re here so that they can keep an eye on you, and see if you’re well enough to get yourself wounded again. Or killed.”
“Give it a rest,” several of the men growled. “Some of us wanna sleep.” Not much show of sympathy.
A few days later Frey gave me another thorough examination, from head to foot. Diagnosis: traumatic neurosis. “Six months’ leave,” whispered Falus out of the corner of his mouth. No such luck. Based on the garrison hospital’s investigation and “recommendation” (whatever that meant), I was to report to the notorious Szepesi, commanding officer of the hospital of the Hungarian National Army, as that was where I belonged.
A well-nourished and strapping figure of a man, he received me with a piercing look.
“Get rid of that stick, and stop playing it up!” he barked.
Obediently, I put down the walking stick. Summoning all my strength, I snapped to attention, and marched the length of the hall.
He promptly turned his back on me, and scrawled something at his desk.
“Dismissed!”
I withdrew, not exactly filled with benevolence towards him or his forebears.
To my surprise, I was nevertheless certified “unfit for service of any kind” for a period of three months.
A quick farewell to my fellow patients, none of whom I ever saw again—apart from the Pole, whom I saw sitting in a carriage, gazing with interest at the mansions along Andrássy Avenue. I was heartily glad at the brave lad’s recovery.
10. LEAVE
WHEN I got home, I could barely climb the stairs, even with the assistance of the wings of joy at my release. How could I have got into such a poor state? My unexpected shouts brought the Wattai children, and then my mother, running down the stairs in surprise and delight.
“Three months!” The stairway rang with my shouts.
“Thank God you’re home again. Your father will be so happy!”
I wanted to hug and kiss my familiar things, each one of them an old friend. My bed, with the tiny carved scrolls I knew so well. When I turned to face the wall, it made a little squeak. Even this was dear to me. I should have investigated what was causing it ages ago. But let it squeak: it would not be the same without it. The bedside cabinet, its drawer crammed full of useful and useless bits and pieces. The chaise longue, with its little ornaments that always rattled . . . and so on. This was my home. I loved it even more than when I had got back from the front.
“You can forget about the war now,” my father said. “You’ve finished with it. You did your bit with honor. Three months! It’s a long time. The killing will all be over soon. The Germans are giving the Russians a drubbing. Kaiser Wilhelm says everyone will be home for Christmas.”
Such soaring optimism had an opposite effect on me, though. Did my father really see the cataclysm in such simple terms, or was this just for my sake? I didn’t want to hear this kind of thing. It only got me brooding again over the hopelessness of the situation. The Entente were saying that the war had just begun. I didn’t want to hear anything about victory or defeat. Let me live for three months. Let me paint.
The first thing I would do tomorrow would be to go and see my studio in Dohány Street. I would shut myself in, run my fingers over everything, and then pick up where I had left off, tying up as many of the torn threads as I could.
One by one, I would find the things that belonged to my former life: friends, the Fészek, the Kunsthalle, the school, the girls I knew . . .
And I would get my strength back. Maybe not too successfully: that might be dangerous, although the word going around was that the high command had come to their senses, and were no longer wasting personnel with quite the same conscienceless indifference.
I stretched out along my dear bed. True, I had not done my usual bedtime exercises—a dozen push-ups with my hands on the backs of two upright chairs—but I didn’t dare to try. I doubt if I could have managed even one. I just gloried in the fact that I had the world’s finest bed.
Next day, I set off for the studio. The usual route, along Dohány Street. I still had the walking stick that Szepesi had forbidden me to use. My sense of liberation practically gave me wings, and I had to hold myself back. Easy does it! What if I were to bump into Szepesi? I wouldn’t put it past him to revoke my leave on
the spot.
I was out of practice with stairs, and reached the third floor somewhat out of breath. It felt like only yesterday that I had last been here. My tools, unfinished pictures, the drawing table on which I done so many Dörmögő drawings, the armchair. It looked as if Teréz had tidied up a bit. I must let her know I’m back. I leaned back in the armchair and listened to the sounds of the big courtyard outside.
A little girl was practicing the piano on the first floor. She always used to stumble in the second movement and have to start the bar again. Just . . . there! I was relieved to hear that, out of consideration for my nerves, she went wrong precisely on cue. As if it were yesterday. Nothing had changed.
I had the same feeling about the people who came and went in the street. Life went on here. They were starting to find the wounded men about the place an annoyance; they just reminded them of the war.
The ruddy-cheeked exempted men especially.
“So, old chap, you still here?” you might ask one of them.
He pulls a face, his right hand patting the left side of his barrel chest.
“Easy for you, chum! It’s my heart!” And lots of Latin terminology.
“Of course, of course.” You look a little skeptical. The economy needs to be kept going, and that requires the exemption of men in essential occupations from service. But this many?
A new joke.
Cohen meets Weiss. “So how are you?” “Exemptionally well!”
Enough of politics. I set off to wander about the streets, with no particular goal. I just wanted, like a humble little brook, to join in the great swelling flow of life.
Next day: “Make sure you’re home for lunch! We’re having a lovely veal stew with soured cream and nokkedli. And pancakes stuffed with curd cheese.”
Within a few days, though, the placid pleasures of leave began to pall. A sense of somehow being cut off; a feeling, to a certain extent, of alienation, began to grow within me. Things could not just go on from where they had left off. I had been an atom in the great throng of Budapest; now, that tie was starting to loosen.
Wounded men and amputees hung about everywhere in the streets; and those on leave, who also carried sticks. The wounded received the most attention, especially if they still had a little blood on them; showing some interest in what had happened to them could elicit much useful information. The amputees didn’t count for much any more. Even speaking to them was risky: in their bitterness, they would blame and curse everyone and everything—Almighty God, Franz Joe, and Pista Tisza.[1] There was little to be gained from listening to all this; besides, there was always the danger that they might fix you with their glittering eyes and ask: “Fine young fellow like you, how come you’re still skiving off, then? Instead of pretending to feel sorry for me, why don’t you go and give your poor pals a hand?”
The men on leave limped like martyrs and told the worst horror-stories.
I went into the art school today.[2] My colleagues rushed up to me in the corridor in delight and sympathy; the last few days hadn’t been enough to stop me being an object of pity. Ervin was the first to hug me; then Ventróczi and his wife Rózsi Kész,[3] an actress in the Comedy Theater. Ventróczi gripped me by the shoulders.
“It’s all right! I can see in your eyes, it’s the old you!”
“So, was it worth it? For who? The king?” asked his wife.
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, as if to say: Well, even if it wasn’t worth it, I can’t exactly say that, dressed as I am.
Then a blizzard of the familiar questions. I really didn’t want them to make too much of a fuss. A little way off, a growing group of the female students stared at me. I had been a hero to them only a little while ago.
The first body-blow hit me as I was going through the Oroszlán courtyard crossing. A pretty female model of mine stopped in front of me, her hand clapped to her mouth.
“Where did you go? What’s become of you?”
I received the second body-blow from the school principal, Ágotai.[4]
I knew, as soon as I entered his office, that I had been too hasty. I should have waited another week or so, while I got myself together somehow.
He greeted me with cool courtesy and sat me down beside his desk. He examined me piercingly through hypnotic pale eyes while I spoke. I began to feel unwell. I could feel the blood draining from my face and I had to grip the arm of the chair.
“It’s clear that you need to report to the chief medical officer. I can see for myself that you are not fit, at present, for work. The question is: Will you be fit to perform your duties at some point in the future?”
I had counted on everything but this.
I had expected, at least, some sort of encouragement and reassurance. I had not expected him to hit me right between the eyes with what a useless piece of junk I was.
I stood up and said nothing. I clicked my heels in military fashion, turned, and left, passing colleagues as they stared at me and attempting a smile for the students as they opened a way for me. I returned home with a bitter heart.
“My wages, the sun on my breast; my clothes, the ragged cloud.”[5]
The chief medical officer walked nervously up and down his spacious receiving room, which was filled with hothouse plants.
“Look here, this isn’t a matter that can be decided straight away. I’ve never come across this situation before, where someone found unfit for military service as a result of having been wounded in action has his pay stopped in consequence; then the individual concerned says to the civilian authority that, as he is unfit for military service, he should also be excused from service in his civilian employment, on full pay.”
“I didn’t say it was an everyday situation. Neither is war. This is extremely unfair. Having put my life on the line so others can go on living theirs in uninterrupted peace and quiet, I feel that I deserve better. They’ve stopped my army pay; and now, as I can’t work, they want to stop my salary as well. Am I expected to go on the streets and beg?”
He stood rigidly before me. “If it wasn’t out of consideration for your injury, and the fact that it was received in the service of your country, you’d get a reprimand for that.”
“A reprimand? Well, that was worth fighting and suffering for!”
I saw that my boldness had taken him aback. He put a hand on my shoulder, and his voice became quiet and soothing.
“Please, calm yourself. You have to understand that yours is not the only case in which this question will arise. I’m going to have to discuss it with the senior legal officer, and instructions will need to be issued to the city council to regulate such cases. The department responsible for your school will shortly be notified of arrangements as far as you are concerned.”
He gave a nod of the head to indicate that our interview was at an end.
Inwardly shaking, consumed by bitterness, I wandered aimlessly. It was a long time before I was able to consider the matter calmly. I realized that if he, an official, had no option but to speak as he did, then there must be, somewhere, a great injustice—at any rate, inhumanity. Sometimes, the letter of the law can kill.
Anyway, this was the third body-blow. Unfortunately, it was not to be my last.
A few days later, I received notification from the mayor’s office that it had been noted that I had reported for work, but that—having regard to the fact that I had been wounded in action and, in particular, the severity of my injuries—I would be placed on unpaid leave.
One evening Géza Gl——’s wife, Inczi, turned up. She was a beautiful little thing with sparkling eyes and a perfectly formed row of teeth. I walked her home and she invited me to tea. I went the next day. Géza was at the front with the field postal service. She was charming, and cheered me up. I felt good.
Then she sat down at the piano and played several really lovely atmospheric recent songs of wartime.
Now the swallows all have flown
Over dales and hills
May the world, when
they return,
Be freed from all these ills.
May men’s blood and tears no more
Flow into the burn
When the springtime comes again
And swallows all return.
One of the loveliest was “The Map.” Though a little sentimental, their melodies and words caught the romance of war. In another, a private finds himself among the beau monde in Váczi Street and propositions a beautiful “ladyship.” “Let me be happy just this once, yerladyship; tomorrow morning, I’m marching off to war.” Her ladyship is outraged and tells him to get lost. Social injustice!
I took a turn at the piano and sang one of the most beautiful of the soldiers’ songs:
A mulberry tree stands in my yard
And a brown maid gathers its leaves
Gather them, maid, to rest my head
For I know that I die for my home.
Then another:
I wander full of sadness
Among these hills so dark
Nothing, nothing can assuage
This ache that fills my heart.
Then:
To my dear old father,
To my darling mother,
To my pretty sweetheart,
I write this letter
I write this letter.
I was sitting next to her and suddenly I kissed her hand. Then her arm. Perhaps I should not have done that. She bent her head forward, and I could feel the glow of her face . . .
Géza was at the front, where everything is forgiven.
Over the next few days I decided to continue gallivanting about the city. I wanted to live with the possibility that I could free myself from all ties and lead a completely independent existence.
I went up to the studio less and less. I paid a visit to my neighbor there, Baroness Splényi. She received me warmly and kindly, and asked after everything. I told her the whole story, as I had done a hundred times by now. No one saw much of Adrienne; she was working as a volunteer nurse now. And a casual mention of someone new: Márton Lovászi. I was a little surprised; but there were other fish in the sea . . .
The Burning of the World Page 11