“We came up a bit fast,” he mumbled. “I’ll be all right in minute.”
We started slowly up the stairs again. I reached out to take his arm.
“Leave it! I’m fine now.”
During the night, half asleep, I heard him wheezing, short of breath, as he slowly crossed my room; slowly, so as not to awaken me.
I woke at daybreak. The deathly silence was broken only by the puffing of a shunting engine in the distance.
“How’s the guv’nor? He thinks it’s down to the flu; actually, he’s got terminal heart disease. His doctor’s wasting his breath. He still has a wild old time chasing women. He’s incorrigible.” The lady cashier circled a finger next to her ear as she counted out my change.
I didn’t know then that I had seen him for the last time. The poor man would never know victory, or happy times after the war. His misbehaving heart just could not wait to carry him off.
My reception at Uncle Béla’s was ecstatic, as if their much-loved nephew had returned from the dead. He was swift as ever to embrace me, and I felt the brush of his puffy, faintly sweaty face from right and left. I was pulled firmly in to his broad, full chest with such intense love that it felt as if I had fallen into a pile of cushions.
His housekeeper, Annuczi, hobbled towards me—she suffered terribly from sore feet—greeting me with her thin, rasping voice and kissing me.
I passed my viva voce on the war relatively easily, although, despite my best efforts, I caused some disappointment by not being a sufficiently enthusiastic advocate for the unshakeable certainty of ultimate victory. These people at home were amazing.
I was reminded of the great aquarium in Naples. For hours on end, through plate glass walls three meters high, I had watched a huge turtle, which must have weighed fifty kilos, frolicking with a ray. The ray measured about two meters across. With a grace that would have put the most sinuous dancer to shame, it hovered and fluttered. The turtle scooped at the water and, where it could, took palm-size bites out of the edge of the ray’s wings, as one might break a morsel off the edge of a matzo. The ray presumably noticed this, since it dived swiftly down to the floor of the tank and, with wavelike movements of its wings, stirred up such a cloud of silt that nothing could be seen. When the silt had settled, covering the immobile ray, the turtle dawdled about aimlessly for a bit before sinking to the bottom to rest. As an observer, I looked on sardonically: Which of them would win?
Those who had stayed at home must have observed things the same way as I had at that aquarium. The possibility could not be ruled out that, had I remained at home, I would have observed the war in a similar way—through a glass wall.
I reflected on all this as I sank into a bed frothy with eiderdown. The room was large, with a vaulted ceiling and walls of stone half a meter thick. It exuded a sense of secure calm, and the silence worked on me like the deathly stillness of the crypt. I forgave them everything.
The only sound came from the door to Uncle Béla’s bedroom, but that was no louder than a mosquito’s hum.
I woke the next morning to the sound of clattering and rattling from the corridor outside. It was the stoker, laying a fire from outside in the big tiled stove in my room. I knew what would happen next: within half an hour the room would be so hot that I would have to escape. A peasant loves nothing more than an overheated room. The good stoker would make a special point of being friendly to me now. The hotter the room, the better the tip!
It wasn’t quite so early in the morning, after all. Only the wooden shutters were keeping the room in darkness. Before long, we could start looking forward to spring.
The days passed. It felt good to rest. Every hour I would hear Annuczi’s thin voice asking: “Aren’t you hungry, Béla?” She really stuffed me like a goose.
“No, I’m fine, Annuczi. You’ll fatten me up, then they’ll send me to the front again.”
“Oh, if only it would end!”
“It will, eventually. I’m just not sure it will do us much good when it does.”
I applied myself to looking through the contents of the fine triple-bayed Baroque bookcase that stood in the vaulted hallway. One by one, I took out the perfectly proportioned folios in their banded leather and vellum bindings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were mostly ecclesiastical texts, with engraved portraits of eminent churchmen. Superb, irreplaceable work. I doubt if anyone now could combine this degree of technical mastery, draftsmanship, mental discipline, and innate artistry. And these artists, for the most part, remained nameless throughout careers which were crammed with work of real worth.
A dying art. Only a handful of copper engravers survive, their skill displayed on the occasional banknote or postage stamp. They, too, will probably be swept away by the tidal wave of ever more rapidly developing mechanical processes. There ought to be a museum of graphic art to ensure that treasures like these are not lost.
One evening, Uncle Béla and I were invited by one of the local farmers to dinner to celebrate the slaughtering of a pig.
Uncle Béla—whose love of food was his undoing—was delighted. He listed all the dishes we could expect: fresh sausage, blood pudding, backbone soup, boiled ribs with horseradish, stuffed cabbage rolls with pork belly, loin of pork fried in breadcrumbs, noodles with curd cheese, etcetera.
Even without the etcetera, this would have been enough for me, and beyond my capabilities. How was I going to escape? Courtesy would require second helpings of each course. And then the insistent, deadly offers of more. And an endless succession of wines.
“Do I really have to go as well?”
Uncle Béla sprang to his feet. The settee creaked and groaned in protest.
“Please. You’re asking the impossible. The man is one of the most upright and prosperous farmers in the village, and a faithful member of my congregation. He would be mortified if you didn’t show up.”
“God forbid! I wouldn’t want that.”
Forsake me not, O Lord.
We set off at seven down the muddy street, a good fifty meters wide, in pitch darkness. I thought with regret of my poor shoes—bought from Weisfeld—and slithered about stoically through the slippery mire. Every dog was quiet; Uncle Béla evidently commanded respect there as well.
Ahead of us, lit candles in the windows identified the home of our host and his fine family. He stood waiting for us, bareheaded, by the gate. The clatter of dishes could be heard from within.
As he led us in, three local gypsies struck up with a flourish, and the womenfolk of the house lined up in front of Uncle Béla to kiss his hand.
In its honest, artless way, the whole reception was rather touching.
The room was crowded with people. The aromas wafting from the corners and lively exclamations suggested that a good number of them had already sampled the delights to come, especially the liquid instruments of hospitality.
I took off my sword, thinking that the restriction of the strap might limit my capacity to cope with whatever portions might assail me. The host’s brother-in-law promptly took possession of it. His face beamed and his eyes lit up as he held the thing between his knees and put his hand round the grip. The glittering gold tassel lay on his thigh, and now and then he reached down and stroked it rapturously. This was no small thing. He had done his military service years ago, and he was past his prime, but—especially in the old days—no officer’s sword would ever have been entrusted to him. This was not just a steel weapon. It was a symbol. A gentleman was entitled to bear one and derived his authority from it. An officer in debt was “down to the tassels of his sword.” An officer’s oath sworn “by the tassels of his sword” was weightier than his mere word.
“His Majesty wears one just like this. It’s what makes a man fit for court.” And now he was free to fiddle with this sacred piece of regalia.
Uncle Béla sat at the head of the table, the center of much noisy attention. Animated, lively voices called out this way and that, one on top of the other. Prominent a
mong them was the rasp of the host’s stentorian oration in praise of the qualities of the defunct porker.
“She was a magnificent beast! Nine piglets she had in that litter. Slimmed down a bit after that, but she still made two hundred and fifty kilos. Her fatback’s as wide as my hand”—he spread his fingers to demonstrate—“with twenty kilos of it each side.”
Uncle Béla had numerous helpings of each dish. How could he manage it? A voice congested with cold began to drone from beside the bread oven. The womenfolk came round again, offering more. What should I do? I didn’t even like the food much, especially their sausages, which tasted of lemons. Shrieking with laughter, they loaded up my plate with fresh heaps and gay abandon. The stale air swam thickly with the smell of freshly fried cubes of pork fat, a huge dishful of which was now brought in. Lord help me! The brother-in-law hovered at my elbow—the sword had created a certain bond between us—and kept refilling my glass.
Dear Lord. If only I could feel hunger once more in this life! Every eye was upon me. A hero had to be able to stand his ground here as well. What kind of hero lets himself be beaten by a boiled sausage? A soldier must eat to get himself good and strong, so that he can give those weedy troublemakers a good drubbing.
I felt myself turning pale. I was unpleasantly hot. My heart raced, and the sweat broke out on my brow. I asked the brother-in-law to open a window.
The fresh air reached my legs first, then my chest. I breathed it in thirstily and felt better.
“What are you letting all the warm out for?” shrieked the woman with the cold from beside the bread oven. She must have been expressing the majority view, since about five people sprang up to shut the window. That was that.
Uncle Béla now hauled his entire bulk to his feet. He was a quite an imposing presence, in his canonical sash and his cassock with its row of red buttons, like wild strawberries. An attentive hush fell, and then he spoke. There was a somewhat ecclesiastical flavor to his speech; he saluted the host and his family in terms that were larded with references to the Bible and its stupendous feasts, and the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, thanks to which all could eat their fill. There was something about the family being upright, God-fearing folk, and about the divine benevolence that made it possible for all these decent people present here today to share in the bounty of His blessings (courtesy of the pig), and so on, and so forth.
The polished tones of his mighty organ rang out. A couple of old women dressed in black sat, like crows, hunched on the bench beside the bread oven. One or other of them even gave a little sniff.
When the speech was over, the suppressed high spirits broke out again with elemental force. Everyone spoke to everyone else, and everyone spoke about something different. In all the hubbub, I seized my chance to lean across to Uncle Béla.
“I think I’ve eaten too much. I don’t feel well. Can we go home now?”
He looked at me in surprise and wonderment.
“Let’s at least wait for the host’s reply. Why don’t you go outside for a little fresh air?”
How to go out without drawing attention to myself? If they noticed me, a whole band of them would attach itself to me purely out of courtesy. I couldn’t even relieve myself without being observed.
I didn’t care. I had to do something, or it would kill me. My stomach heaved threateningly. Any moment now, I would disgrace myself.
I managed to shake off my retinue. One of them shouted out after me: “Use the dung heap, that’s the closest.”
I followed the example of the Roman, though I lacked a peacock feather. O blessed relief!
Luckily, when I returned, the host was in full flow. Not wishing to be outdone by his lordship, his style tended towards the hyperbolic. He alluded rather deftly to Uncle Béla’s speech, and the blessings of the Almighty. Then he turned to an appreciation of the late pig. It was quite miraculous how its distinguishing qualities gradually expanded. At this rate, by breakfast time it would boast slabs of back-bacon half a meter long.
It was a fine eulogy. People have an inextinguishable impulse to say something complimentary about those who have been sacrificed for their benefit. How much more dignified, how much more worthy of respect is the behavior of the lion, calmly licking his chops, as if to say: lucky antelope. Now, instead of jumping about uselessly, his flesh and bones will turn into lion.
As we plodded homeward, Uncle Béla recounted the incidents of the evening, chief among them the menu, which surpassed any criticism. I was only half listening, as I inwardly acknowledged and paid my respects to those highly cultured Romans, thanks to whom I had escaped the day’s gastronomic adventure in one piece, and, with luck, would now pass an undisturbed night.
I woke the next day with a dull head, but the cool air streaming down from the green, wooded hills soon cleared out the cobwebs.
Otherwise, the days passed, one much like the other. A stroll round the yard and the gardens; making friends with the horses and cows; walks to Királd and in the woods. The dear woman’s reedy voice—“Béla, aren’t you hungry?”—as she hobbled about. Poor thing, she was always chasing around, to the extent that her frail body allowed, after the maids, who idled about aimlessly. There were six of them now, wasting time and stealing firewood and wheat.
“I had to hire another one, to lighten poor Anna’s load.”
As far as I could see, this just made the confusion worse, with each one trying to push the work onto the next, while Annuczi rose at five in the morning; she could still be heard at midnight, opening and shutting doors, going from room to room and looking into cupboards and under beds, or outside, searching for her favorite cat and calling its name.
“Fritzi, my darling! Fritzi, my darling!”
He was the nastiest and most amorous tomcat of the lot. He and his beloved yowled away at their love-tryst’s hymn with such abandon that, finally, a carter took his revenge by driving a pitchfork right thought him, puncturing him in three places. Annuczi nursed him for a week, to no avail; though he held out long enough for general peace to be restored.
In the evenings, by the warm, orange-ish light of the petroleum lamp, Uncle Béla and I would discuss world politics and how the war was going. Not much was changing, or looked likely to change. Everything seemed to have come to a standstill. It was “all quiet on the Western front.” This was even more horrible; everyone waited impatiently for something to break the deadlock.
The fighting that ensued involved no movement on either side. The armies were dug in within a few meters of each other. On occasion, troops fraternized with the enemy, especially on the eastern front, and opposing forces even made local truces. The commanders, naturally enough, took a dim view of this, as it undermined the fighting spirit. At any rate, apart from some skirmishing, the fronts had frozen, the lines had become ever more effectively fortified and impregnable, and nuisance fire was wasted into thin air. In general, the fronts had lost much of their initial horror.
True, the Entente’s announcements were not encouraging: “Time is on our side”; “The war will be won by the side that has the stronger nerves”; “The war has just begun.” The West has yet to mobilize fully. The airplane is the weapon of the future. A lot of reassuring pointers and slogans. The Germans, for their part, held out the prospect of chemical warfare. They had already created a gun that surpassed anything that had gone before: the “thirty-five.” Then the forty-two centimeter; whereupon the enemy moved into underground concrete bunkers.
A race had begun between offensive weapons and defenses. The powers had, for the time being, reached equilibrium. But the West’s resources, unlike ours, were inexhaustible.
As we debated these things, our positions became increasingly polarized between Uncle Béla’s optimism and my pessimism.
“I accept that my position is not based on personal experience. For that very reason, I maintain that I am able to judge the facts more objectively. For you, everything is overshadowed by the traumatic experience that almost ended yo
ur life. The deductions you draw can’t be objective.”
I shrugged my shoulders and held out my arms.
“All right, I can see how that could be argued. But, for the life of me, there’s nothing I can do about it; nor can the hundreds of thousands of men like me, who can’t escape from the influence of their subjective experience. Armies are made up of young men whose instinct for life makes them fight for survival; reasoning plays no part. Wars used to be decided by individual battles that lasted a day or two. The momentary fervor of youth, fanaticism, or enthusiasm could survive that long.
“I think the West have got it right when they count on nervous exhaustion. Their geographical situation, their wealth and their greater populations will enable them to hold out longer than we can. As I see it, if we haven’t won this war within a year, we’ve lost.
“I see the force in much of what people are saying. But don’t forget that, as well as material readiness, you need psychological readiness. I’m not sure that the latter isn’t the more important.”
We both fell silent. Uncle Béla fiddled with a pellet of bread and gazed off into nothing. I would be sorry to upset him. Oh well. The argument would continue tomorrow, though for my own part I was finding it pointless, and was bored by it.
“Well, I’ll say goodnight, Uncle. It’s time I went to bed.”
“’Night, Bélus. Sleep well.”
Sweet dreams.
A door separated his room from mine—an old-fashioned low door with a brass handle and, in the center, a little disc-shaped polished brass knob. I used to hear him still moving about late into the night, or reading by candlelight. The candle often burned out, as he would fall asleep.
Tomorrow would be the first of March. I had to report at the end of the month for a medical examination. Now, as I attempted to weigh up the results of my time here, I concluded that I had imagined it differently. I had thought that I might be able to create some kind of extraterritorial existence for myself, where I could reconnect with my past life, take up the works I had begun but left unfinished, assess the compositions so far just sketched out with a few strokes, shut my eyes and stop my ears.
The Burning of the World Page 13