They Were Divided

by Miklos Banffy

  This, from the goodness of his heart, he would have been willing to do, but Margit vetoed the idea at once. They had a child to think about, she said, so Adam’s own small inheritance could not be squandered in this way. What would be the purpose of such a sacrifice, she asked? It would only be throwing money away, and in fact would not really help Akos, who would still have nothing and who could not live on thin air! He himself would not want to live for ever on his brothers’ charity, an eternal guest! It would be far more sensible, she went on, if he were to go away somewhere and start a new life. The family could, at some sacrifice, manage to raise just enough to pay for his ticket; but to cough up money just for gambling debts? No! Never!

  Margit was at once attacked by Farkas and Zoltan. They said that she was mercenary and without pity and, of course, as they too were deeply in debt, they felt that they could have been as magnanimous as they liked as any help for Akos would have to be paid for by Adam who, because of their insistence, was for once coming close to rebelling against his capable young wife. It was lucky for her that she was supported by Stanislo; and this settled the matter.

  So they started to discuss where Akos could go. First, as a matter of course, they spoke of America. Then it was the turn of Java and, following that, of South Africa. But at each suggestion the same problem arose: what would he do when he arrived? Work as a shoe-shine boy? Get a job hoeing the earth on some plantation? The trouble was that he had no qualifications for earning his own living. Of course he could become a soldier, and indeed had been quite good at it when doing his voluntary service in the army; but where would he be needed?

  It was this last suggestion that led to the decision that he should join the French Foreign Legion.

  Akos agreed at once, and almost seemed pleased at the idea; but though at last everyone was of one opinion, no one knew how one went about it. What did one do? How did one get there?

  Then someone thought of Tamas Laczok, he who had taken their father home after his attack at the ball. They had had a long talk with him after the old man had been found dead, and he had been the last of his acquaintance to see him alive. He had seemed full of good will and the Legion had been mentioned more than once when he had been telling them about his time in North Africa and how he had had to nurse sick soldiers in the desert. He would know what should be done, but who could find out for them without explaining why they wanted to know? The Alvinczy brothers refused at once. They would have nothing to do with making such embarrassing enquiries, not them! Neither would they lift a finger in such a matter; it would have to be someone else. Stanislo Gyeroffy also demurred, murmuring contemptuously, though in an elegant drawl: ‘I really hardly know the man.’

  The plan was on the point of being abandoned when Margit spoke up.

  ‘I’ll find out!’ she said. By what means she did not reveal and the others did not ask. It was unlikely that she would have told them if they had. At most she might just have answered ‘Somehow!’, for she was a person of few words who did not take kindly to being cross-questioned about anything.

  Margit had immediately thought of Balint Abady who was clever and discreet and who was on good terms with Tamas Laczok.

  That very afternoon Balint took a horse-cab and was driven out to Bretfu. The coachman, who knew the area well, drove him to the foot of the hill that led to the village and stopped there because the horse would not have been able to manage the steep road that was now covered with melting snow.

  ‘It’s the little house you can see up there, your Lordship, the one below the vineyard,’ said the coachman, pointing the way with his whip.

  It was hard work trudging up the hill through mud and slush, and it was nearly a quarter of an hour later before Balint found himself in front of the house. It was a modest little building which must have been either a small summerhouse or else a room for pressing the grapes, before being converted into a one-room dwelling with a kitchen. Lamplight glowed through the window. Balint knocked and from inside a voice cried, ‘Entrez!’

  Tamas Laczok was sitting on an upturned packing-case. He was in his shirtsleeves doing calculations beside a drawing board that was supported on two trestles. He welcomed Balint with a smile of pleasure saying, ‘Quelle charmante visite, cher ami – how kind of you to come to see me!’ and he got up, cleared the only chair of his jacket, necktie and collar, threw them on the floor, gestured to Abady to sit down and, having guessed that the visit must have some purpose, at once asked, ‘How can I be of service to you, my dear friend?’

  Balint saw no reason to beat about the bush.

  ‘How does one enlist in the Foreign Legion?’ he asked.

  His eyebrows slanting up even more dramatically than usual, Tamas winked at his visitor. Though he said nothing to show that he had guessed at once that Abady was enquiring on behalf of one of the Alvinczy boys, he answered in a matter-of-fact way as if it had been the most natural question in the world.

  ‘The Foreign Legion? Oh, that’s very simple!’ And he at once gave Abady all the most important facts, namely that the candidate just presented himself at the recruiting office. No documents were necessary and no questions were asked. It was just like becoming a Carthusian friar. One could use any name one liked; the Legion did not care and indeed nearly all the men serving in it went under false names. There was a medical examination and once that was passed the candidate was offered a five-year contract. Promotion to corporal was fairly swift providing a man behaved himself, and it was by no means unknown for officers to be promoted from the ranks. After five years a man could leave the Legion or sign on for a further period.

  ‘I know of several men who have quit after their years of service, bought a small farm out there in Algeria and now live happily at their ease. Of course the discipline is hard, very hard; but it has to be as the men are a pretty wild bunch, tough fellows, and rough too, though reliable comrades when the fighting gets grim and the patrols are ambushed. There is an iron tradition that no one lets down a comrade, ever. The climate’s not too bad: it’s healthy, even if it does get hot in the summer.’

  As always Laczok spoke in French, and he went on to relate many things from his own experience when he had been building the railway in the high Atlas and when he and his men had been protected by the Legion’s vigilance. Laczok had been an exceptionally perceptive observer. Suddenly he stopped reminiscing and said, ‘But I haven’t offered you anything! Wouldn’t you like some coffee? I’m always ready for a cup!’ and without waiting for a reply he leaned back his strong, pillar-like torso, and called out in Hungarian, ‘Rara! Rara! Where the Devil are you, you little beast?’ and, turning back to Abady, he explained, ‘Her real name is Esmeralda, but I call her Rara for short. Perhaps it’s a bit sugary, but you’ll see it suits her!’

  The door opened quietly behind him and a very young, very slim and very beautiful gypsy girl came into the room. She wore a red dress as bright as a fireman’s tunic, which set off her coal-black hair. Her brown skin seemed almost to have a greenish glow and it was with pouting lips and a languorous glance filled with sensual invitation that, in a throaty voice that suggested that she was in fact offering herself, she asked, ‘You wanted me?’

  ‘Coffee! For both of us!’

  ‘It’s on the stove; I’ll bring some straight away!’

  She went noiselessly from the room and a few moments later returned just as silently. Her bare feet did not make the smallest sound on the floor, for she walked on tiptoe like a young deer; and she moved slowly just as if she were performing some ancient ritual dance to a melody only she could hear. As she put down the tray she looked again at Tamas’s guest and, in her long eyes and in the smile on her now widely parted lips, the invitation was unmistakable.

  If Count Tamas had noticed this he showed no sign but went on with his tales of the Legion. ‘I should think it’s probably a good moment to join, for they’ll be wanting recruits just now; more and more of them from what my old friends write to me from time to time. I
see from the Paris papers – though they always write in such guarded terms – that France has got great plans for Morocco too these days. You can always tell what the French mean when they start complaining about this and that and talking about the security of their borders and the necessity to safeguard their economic interests. It just means that one of these days they’ll march in; and once there everyone else will be squeezed out! You mark my words!’

  ‘But at the Algeciras Conference, and when the Franco-German agreement was signed two years ago, the French again confirmed their open-door policy as regards Morocco, just as they guaranteed the independence and authority of the Sultan. France’s influence is surely limited to political matters.’

  ‘Pouf! The French don’t bother about little things like that! I’ll bet you anything you like that something is about to break there; and all the more so since they’ve sent in Lyautey from Algeria. I knew him when he was a mere captain, and I can tell you he’s a tough one!’

  Old Tamas then went on to talk about North Africa and all its problems. He talked well because he knew his subject. No matter how complicated the issue Laczok understood it and knew the real facts. Abady listened fascinated as his host unravelled the involved politics of Algeria and Morocco with the same clarity as a few days earlier he had talked about Albania.

  It was dark when Abady finally took his leave. Tamas accompanied him to the door, saying, ‘Wait a moment! There’s a little path round the side of the house. It’ll get you down dry-shod,’ and he called through to the kitchen, ‘Lajko! Lajko! Come out here!’

  A slender gypsy boy, about seventeen years old, came running out. His beard had hardly sprouted and he wore an assortment of discarded gentleman’s clothes – a shabby smoking-jacket and a patched pair of striped trousers – and his feet were thrust into an old pair of tennis shoes. Under the jacket his chest was bare. And on his finely carved Egyptian features was a sly smile of mock humility.

  ‘At your service?’ It was a question.

  ‘You can show this gentleman down the side path.’

  The youth started off but, noticing that Balint was not following him, stopped a few paces away.

  Laczok, seeing the surprise in Balint’s face, gave a roar of cynical laughter.

  ‘Elle affirme que c’est son frère, mais je ne le crois pas – she says he is her brother, but I don’t believe it!’

  He gave a hefty slap to Abady’s shoulder, and then bade him goodbye.

  Abady and the gypsy descended the hill, the lad leading the way. He had all the litheness and grace of a panther and the quick, neat movements of his nomadic forebears. After swiftly taking five or six paces he stopped and looked back and waited for Abady to catch up. For a moment his white eyeballs gleamed in the smooth dark face and then he turned and went on down as if barely able to curb his youthful impatience.

  Abady descended the path at his own pace. The city’s myriad lights glowed down in the valley and for a moment Abady found himself almost blinded by the arc-lights of the station at the foot of the hill. For a moment or two he paused to gaze at the beauty of the great spread of tiny lights in the dark night; and, as he stopped, he was thinking what a strange man Tamas Laczok was. He knew so much, he was filled with esoteric knowledge, he had gazed at wide horizons and not been dazzled, and he was also a man of culture and refinement. But he had used none of it: he had just let it go to waste, burying himself here in a ramshackle cottage with a little gypsy whore, and yet he showed all the signs of being a happy man.

  Balint thought of poor Gazsi Kadacsay, who had killed himself in despair because he could not acquire what Count Tamas had carelessly tossed away. He wondered if Gazsi’s fate would have been different if he had managed to learn all that Tamas had learned; and would Laczok be so carefree and merry if, with all his knowledge, he had not abandoned his origins and turned his back on power and worldly success? Was it some inborn wisdom that had given him the strength to throw all that away, or would he have been just as happy if fate had not made him leave his own country and go away to learn about the world elsewhere? Would he have been as jovial and contented if he had merely stayed at home, living in idleness and easy ignorance?

  Was a man formed by his experience or by his natural talents? Can a man only give up calmly what he is already sure of possessing, and never what he has vainly longed to acquire?

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of March 7th, 1912, there was an exceptionally large crowd of people milling about in the spacious reception rooms of the National Casino Club in Budapest. As well as the familiar group of card-players and all those so-called ‘szkupcsina’ – the disgruntled old armchair politicians who were forever complaining – on this day there was an almost complete gathering of the ruling party’s political leaders. They were all waiting for the return from Vienna of the Minister-President, Khuen-Hedervary, who had let it be known that he was bringing important news and wished everyone to be present so that he could discuss it with them in confidence.

  In those days the Casino Club was always being used for such meetings because anyone who was a member could go in and out without anyone else wondering what they were doing there and, furthermore, since those who were not members were permitted to use one of the restaurant rooms on the ground floor, anyone could be seen coming in without the press guessing that something was up and broadcasting the news to the general public.

  Everyone realized the news must be exceptionally important; it was known that Count Berchtold, Austria’s foreign minister since the death of Aehrenthal a few months before, was also coming from Vienna and would see Khuen-Hedervary that night.

  And very important it was – sudden, unexpected, serious and astonishing. It was also alarming and seemed fraught with danger. It was simply that at the previous day’s audience, Franz-Josef had instructed Khuen-Hedervary to inform the political leaders of Hungary that after more than half a century on the throne he was seriously considering abdication. He had informed the Minister-President that ever since 1867 he had faithfully and honestly respected the agreement drawn up in that year between the governments of Austria and Hungary, that he had done everything he could to humour the leaders of Hungary, always promoting Hungarian interests and honouring that country’s great families and now, or so it seemed to him, it was the descendants of those very people who had turned away from him and left it to him alone to preserve the terms of that agreement.

  ‘In these circumstances,’ the monarch had continued, ‘we authorize you to explain confidentially to your colleagues that if the Party of 1867 now in power decides to ally themselves with those who wish to erode our most important governing powers, then we are ready to abdicate at once and hand the throne over to our successor!’ He had then added, with conscious irony: ‘Then they’ll see what they are in for!’

  The King’s words were a direct reference to the proposal put forward by Ferenc Kossuth which, if accepted, would have put an end to the Commander-in-Chief’s right to mobilize the reserves should the politicians’ obstructive tactics prevent the annual recruiting law being passed in Parliament. This proposal, after much debate, had been accepted not only by Andrassy, but also, and most unexpectedly, by Tisza and by Khuen-Hedervary himself – in other words by the majority of the 1867 Party. The reason was that the opposition’s obstruction of the passing of the defence estimates had already kept going since the previous July, and Kossuth had made it clear that acceptance of his terms was the price that had to be paid if the obstruction was to come to an end.

  Tisza and Khuen-Hedervary had been almost alone in realizing that, in the present deteriorating situation in Europe, the primary consideration must be the building up of the armed forces. Tisza also did not think the diminution of the Commander-in-Chief’s prerogatives – which in any case he had planned to bring about in due course – anything like as important as bringing to an end the stalemate in Parliament. For them both the over-riding priority was to modernize
the army.

  Since the previous July the European situation had grown worse and worse.

  The revolt in Albania had spread alarmingly. The rebels had been joined by several more tribes and even by officers from the Sultan’s army. Everywhere Turks were being assassinated and the government in Istanbul had ordered up reinforcements to control the borders with Montenegro. Nikita had at once replied by mobilizing the Montenegrin reserves while at the same time cynically offering peace negotiations – this from the man who had aided the Albanian rebels with sanctuary and supplies of arms! In this he had not been alone, for it was known that aid also came, if clandestinely, from Italy, for many resident Albanians had re-crossed the Adriatic and joined their compatriots in fighting the Turks. No one believed that this was done without the connivance and active help of the government in Rome and indeed it was the first tangible sign of Italy’s going her own way regardless of the official policy of her allies in the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary and Germany, whose Balkan policy was firmly based on maintaining the status quo of the Turkish empire.

  All these developments were but a foretaste of what was to come, a curtain-raiser, as it were, to events elsewhere.

  At Agadir in Morocco a few German citizens were subjected to some insignificant barbarity, whereupon Berlin despatched a destroyer, the ‘Panther’, to demand satisfaction and, if necessary, to exact retribution. Making a show of force with no preliminary negotiations was in itself sufficiently provocative, but matters were made worse when the Kaiser Wilhelm, who was given to such over-hasty actions, sent a telegram to the German commanding officer: ‘Panther! Fass! – Panther! Catch ’em!’

  The European powers, who had between them settled Morocco’s fate at the Algeciras Conference in 1906, protested loudly at this arrogance on Germany’s part, especially when Berlin declared it a matter which concerned France and Germany alone. At once the French and English standpoints were made clear to the world; France protested strongly and London declared it stood firmly behind Paris. In a few days, tension mounted so high that war seemed inevitable and, even though Reuters announced that Great Britain had no wish to be involved, the Atlantic Fleet was put in readiness and a flotilla of torpedo-boats left Portland with sealed orders. Some saw all this as a God-given opportunity to destroy the German fleet whose recent build-up had been worrying England for some time. Had this been allowed to happen a general European war would have been inevitable.