They Were Divided

by Miklos Banffy

  He was so deep in these dismal thoughts that for a moment, when Timbus was announced, he had forgotten that he was expecting a visitor.

  The door opened and a very thin, narrow-chested young man came in. A few sparse tufts of beard grew on his emaciated face and his long black hair stood up untamed and rebellious. Two red spots glowed on his cheekbones.

  He came forwards very slowly to where Abady was standing by his desk, and when he stood before him he bowed stiffly but ignored Balint’s outstretched hand. Then he sat down in one of the chairs placed beside the desk.

  Abady followed his example and then asked, ‘What can I do for you?’

  The young man cleared his throat twice, hesitated, and then in a rush of words like a sudden flood, he croaked out, ‘I … I … came about tomorrow, about tomorrow’s case… about the trial of Kula …’

  ‘About the case?’

  ‘Yes, the case. I’ve thought about it for a long time because what will happen all depends on me. Do you understand? On me, only on me!’

  ‘I must confess I don’t understand.’

  ‘Yes. On me, only on me!’

  Timbus’s burning eyes were full of hatred, but they never left Balint’s face and it was obvious that he was having a battle with himself and had to make up his mind about something before he could go on. Then suddenly it all came out in a torrent of words that seemingly tumbled over one another.

  ‘Yes, on me, for I have the old man’s disclaimer, written by that scoundrel Simo, and Simo’s letter, the one he sent to my father. He wrote it to my father and my father tore it up and threw it away, but that was afterwards, after he came back from Pejkoja, from seeing Juon aluj Maftye. Then he threw it away, but I found it. I read it. I read them both and I wish I hadn’t. Understand? And since then I can’t sleep, because it is a dreadful thing. Do you understand? A dreadful evil thing.’

  He stared at Abady with a look that might have been taken for menace. For a moment he paused and then he went on, ‘Yes, a dreadful, evil thing. Do you understand me? My father on one side and on the other young Kula, a poor simple Romanian. And the truth? Either I betray my own father … or I suppress the truth … and you are on the side of the truth and so I have to save you, even you, of all people!’

  He looked aggressively again at Abady and then added, almost to himself, ‘I thought about it all night long, until dawn, but I can’t do anything else. So I came.’

  He reached in his inside pocket, took out a folded wad of paper and threw it on the desk.

  ‘Here it is!’

  By now Timbus was very short of breath and after panting out the last words he leaned back in his chair, exhausted.

  Balint had listened carefully to what the young man had to say. Now he was filled with pity for him, for the internal battle which still raged within him sounded in every word he uttered with such passion and effort that Balint barely noticed his rude manner and obvious hostility.

  ‘Well then? Read it! Why don’t you read it, that’s what I brought it for?’ he shouted and, leaning forwards, pushed the papers towards Balint with thin dry fingers as if they were garbage he was reluctant to touch.

  Balint opened the packet.

  Inside were two papers, one a long double sheet, the other a short private letter.

  Both had been torn and screwed up and one of them was held together only by a centimetre or two that had remained untorn. At the top corner of the larger sheet were printed the name and professional address of Dr Todor Farkas and below were some hand-written words which started ‘I, Juon Lung aluj Maftye, declare…’ It was the draft text of the declaration said to have been dictated by the old man to the priest in Pejkoja and was written in precise legal terms.

  The smaller sheet was in Gaszton Simo’s writing, and read:

  ‘… since you told me last week that old Juon has now been persuaded to do what we want I am sending you a draft which I have had drawn up and which you must make the old man sign. Take this up to him in Pejkoja. Take with you also pen and paper and two witnesses we can trust. Leave these two outside and go in to see the old man alone. There you must write it down as if he had dictated it to you. Then put this draft in your pocket and call in the witnesses so that they can see that it was indeed there that you have written the paper. Then the old man must put his mark on it in their presence. You do not have to explain what this is all about (this sentence was underlined twice). We must be quick about this. I’ve had that good-for-nothing wretch of a grandson, Kula, called in for questioning about his army service. He’ll be retained at the recruiting office for two days so you must hurry over to Pejkoja at dawn tomorrow and do exactly what I’ve told you. You won’t regret it, I assure you. When you get home be sure to destroy the draft and this letter. I would have come myself and not written but my lumbago has come on again and I can’t get out of bed. It doesn’t matter much, but take care to burn these papers when you get home …’

  As he read these words Balint was filled with joy and relief. Salvation at the last moment, salvation from the mess he had got himself into. More, it meant that Kula and Zutor would be freed of all blame. All the worries of the past weeks fell away like a heavy weight taken from him. He looked up at Timbus and, filled with gratitude, he held out his hand, saying, ‘I don’t know how to thank you!’

  The young man’s reaction was the same as before: he just looked back as if he had never seen Balint’s proffered hand. Then, venomously, he said, ‘You needn’t bother. I’ll take no thanks from you, not from you!’

  ‘And why not?’ replied Balint smiling. ‘The mere fact that you’ve done this today shows that good intentions will come together somehow and will always prove stronger than hatred … even that hatred you so obviously feel for me.’

  ‘That’s just it! Try as I may I have to admit that for years you’ve tried to help my people. I’ve seen it for a long time. But why do you do it? What is behind it? What are you up to? It’s all just some trick, I know.’

  ‘Oh, come! You don’t really believe that, do you?’

  Timbus’s face darkened. Speaking almost as if to himself, he said, ‘N-no, but I wish I did!’ Then he went on angrily, ‘It is absurd, ridiculous. For a Hungarian lord to help our people, why it’s the very opposite of all I’ve been taught to believe. It contradicts everything I’ve ever learned and what I want to believe, everything I’ve worked for, everything I believe to be true. It’s absurd … just absurd!’

  ‘Not at all. Why, old Juon himself, Kula’s grandfather, told me that there was a time when all the mountain people had the greatest faith and trust in my grandfather. You must have been told of this too. I myself remember, though I was only a child then, how often so many of your people came to him with their problems asking for his advice or getting him to settle their disputes. He acted as a sort of judge for them, and they always had faith in his judgement.’

  ‘That’s just what the old people say: but they’re stupid, credulous. They understand nothing and they’ve forgotten that they were nothing but serfs, slaves who were forced to work and flogged if they didn’t. And who exploited them? You did, you powerful Hungarian lords!’

  ‘They were never slaves! All right, let’s talk about the serfs. They themselves were all equal whether they were Romanian or Hungarian. They hung together, like everyone of the same station in life. It was the same all over Europe and no one then thought of it in racial or nationalistic terms. And it’s pure legend that any landowner would exploit his own serfs. It would have been dead against his own best interests. What a landowner wanted was to have contented people working for him. In times of war the lords would fight with other lords and then they destroyed each others’ lands, and your opponents’ serfs would suffer too. But not your own, never!’

  Timbus tried to answer Balint’s words in a flood of exasperated argument, going over the whole hotly debated question of the ancient Dacians and their descendants, the Romanians, who had occupied that land since the times of the Romans
. He quoted Sinka, Anonymus, Hasdeu and Xenophon. In broken phrases which poured out in confusion, new ones starting before the last was finished, he tried to evoke all those multifarious tomes of ancient political theory which had been written to prove what he had so eagerly absorbed, namely that a Latin civilization had flourished in Transylvania long before the arrival of the conquering Hungarian hordes. He spoke with such passion that he was soon shouting at his host.

  He was stopped by a fit of coughing, a dreadful racking cough which seemed to break him in two, as he crouched in his chair with a handkerchief pressed to his mouth. It was a dry gasping fit which seemed to tear his lungs apart. When, at long last, it abated and he was able to straighten up again, he leaned back in his chair in total exhaustion.

  Balint would have liked to reply that, long before the Hungarians arrived in the ancient province of Dacia, Transylvania had repeatedly been overrun by Goths, Vandals, Gepids, Avars and other barbarian tribes and a full six hundred years had passed between the time when the Emperor Aurelian withdrew his legions and the arrival of the Hungarians. And during these six hundred years the history of Transylvania had only been that of a highway whose path was trodden by countless nomads who came that way and then passed on. He would have liked to add that there existed no records and no traces of any indigenous culture, but he stopped himself because when Timbus dropped his handkerchief in his lap Balint saw that it was stained with blood, not just a drop or so but large spreading stains. Blood! The poor man was coughing blood, and Balint was stopped in his tracks by pity for the unhappy young fanatic.

  ‘This is all very ancient history,’ he said in a soothing voice. ‘These things happened over a thousand years ago, so what good does it do to argue about it now? The truth is that only two peoples who are not Slav or Germanic live in the Danube basin now and those are the Romanians and the Hungarians; and they would do well to learn to live with each other. It is in the interest of both nations and we should never forget that. Of course mistakes have been made and are still being made, but it is surely the duty of every man of good faith to work for reconciliation. It will never be easy, because crimes have been committed and there are many wrongs to be righted. But all this hatred, this hatred that has built up over the centuries, must somehow be washed away. It must be!’

  In the heat of his own conviction Balint managed to find many arguments he felt to be convincing. It was the first time he had tried to express in an organized way what he had long felt.

  He ended by saying, ‘I am sure that the time will come when all these past wrongs are forgotten and your people and mine will no longer be kept apart by hatred and resentment, but will live side by side together like brothers.’

  Timbus, who had been listening in silence, now jumped up and shouted, ‘Never! Never that! Never! Never!’ He stood there trembling, with burning eyes.

  ‘Why not?’ answered Balint gently. ‘To me it is a historic necessity. Our two peoples – and I ignore the Slavs and Germans –have no other true relations in this part of Europe. We must come together and trust each other if we don’t both want to find ourselves the slaves of our neighbours. It must happen if we are to survive.’

  ‘Maybe it’s so … maybe!’ muttered Timbus. ‘Maybe … some day…’ Then he raised his thin arms in the air, gesturing with those emaciated talons, his hands, and a high scream, full of hatred, broke from him, ‘But first … first we’ll pay you back tenfold … a hundredfold, and after that … No! Not even then … Never! Never!’

  Reeling, he turned about, ran to the door, wrenched it open and disappeared slamming the door behind him.

  Balint did not attend the court. After Simo’s lawyer, Dr Todor Farkas, had thundered out his accusations against Kula and Zutor, Abady’s lawyer got to his feet; but instead of addressing the court he merely went up to the presiding judge and, without comment, handed up Gaszton Simo’s letter and the draft of old Juon’s recantation. This brought the case to an end with shame to the accusers and complete vindication and acquittal for Kula and Zutor. When the judge read out his findings he addressed scathing words to Dr Farkas, reprimanding him for unforgivably unprofessional conduct in writing the draft at all, and then for his audacity in declaring to the court that it was dictated by old Juon with no help from anyone else. The intimidation of the old man was so obvious that little more had to be said. It was the end of Dr That-is-to-say’s career. He managed somehow to avoid disciplinary action from the lawyers’ association, but he never again appeared in any but unimportant and insignificant cases.

  Simo was dismissed from his post at once. To save him from prison some influential relations somehow found the money to repay not only what he had embezzled from old Juon but also many other sums which came to light as soon as his dealings were investigated. He was then sent far away to Borod where he earned a meagre living as a humble scribe paid by the day. That was the end of his self-created little kingdom in the mountains.

  An honest notary was now sent to Gyurkuca. He had been recommended by Balint, and his appointment was made so as to honour Count Abady and thus show the world that the past was now forgotten.

  This was the work of the Chief Judge, who was a clever man.

  Chapter Five

  FROM THE DAY THAT ROZA ABADY HAD HER STROKE Balint hardly moved from Denestornya. If he had to go to Kolozsvar for an evening he would spend the night there but always returned early the following morning so as not to be too long away from his mother’s bedside. The longest time he ever stayed away was the day and a half that he had to spend in town dealing with the affair of Gaszton Simo.

  At this time he was completely preoccupied with his mother’s illness.

  Every day Countess Abady spent more and more time asleep. Even when she was awake she could rarely pay attention for more than half an hour to anything Balint came in to tell her. He would recount news of the horses, or the fallow deer, or, in early February, of the newly born lambs and litters of piglets – every day something different and always something cheerful and amusing, something funny or unexpected, a little joke at which his mother might smile and even occasionally give a little laugh. It always had to be good news or some minor success, but even so she tired fast, and then her attention faded and soon she would again close her eyes.

  Balint went to see her just two or three times a day; at midday before luncheon, again in the afternoon when they would have tea together on the glazed-in upper veranda, and sometimes in the early evening when she had been lifted from her wheelchair and put to bed. A young doctor was kept in permanent attendance because had there been any emergency or change in her condition it would have taken too long to get the country physician to drive over from Gyeres. Since the beginning of January there were also two trained nurses, one for the day and the other to watch at night. The two housekeepers, Mrs Tothy and Mrs Baczo, hardly ever left their mistress’s side, for only they could understand her occasional mumbled words. Besides, they knew her habits.

  There was little for Balint to do. Indeed his mother seemed not always to notice when he came and went. She never sent for him or spoke about him and often it seemed that she would not notice if he had been absent for several days. All the same he did not dare go away as he was convinced that if he did something dreadful would happen, as when he had gone to the Szekler country in December.

  During these long months he cut himself off from the world. All the Co-operative business was done by letter, and the Simo affair, serious and ominous as it had been, was the only thing to have dragged his thoughts away from his mother’s condition.

  Everything seemed unreal and remote. He even read the daily papers with the same indifference, only glancing superficially at what was reported each day, which at any other time would have interested him deeply.

  The political situation in Budapest grew ever more fraught and potentially dangerous. Party hatred exploded into personal feuds and even Tisza found himself obliged to fight several duels with political opponents who had insul
ted him. It was always they who were wounded and retired, for Tisza was a better swordsman than most and always emerged unscathed.

  Laszlo Lukacs was attacked even more frequently than Tisza. Zoltan Desy in a speech at a public banquet again unloosed the epithet ‘the world’s greatest Panamist’, which everyone now knew to mean ‘scoundrel’ or ‘unscrupulous crook’, at which Lukacs, as Minister-President, took him to court. Whereupon Desy told the world that Lukacs, when Minister of Finance in 1910, had renewed a bank’s salt-shipping contract in return for a donation of several million crowns to Lukacs’s party funds, that he, Desy, knew all the gruesome details, and that this payment had financed Lukacs’s election campaign. In turn Lukacs replied that the renewal of the bank’s contract had in no way added to its profits, that the contribution to party funds had been from simple goodwill and political conviction and that furthermore he, Lukacs, never had, nor ever would have, profited by a single penny.

  The publicity did no one any good, even though Lukacs’s personal integrity had been confirmed when Desy lost the case.

  But that was not the end of the affair.

  The very day the verdict against Desy was proclaimed, Andrassy, Apponyi and Aladar Zichy endorsed everything Desy had said; and the scandal thus reached monumental proportions. Even the foreign press reported the matter in full, though no one at home seemed to pause for a moment to consider how Hungary’s reputation abroad was being damaged. All these patriotic politicians seemed to think of was getting even with their opponents who had forced Parliament to accept the army estimates. Party passions obscured everything else.