Skylark

by Dezso Kosztolányi

  An old peasant stood swaying on the edge of the pavement. He attempted a few feeble steps, then fell flat on his face like a soldier struck by a bullet from behind. Toppled by the power of alcohol. And there, spread out on the battlefield, he remained.

  Ákos was still sober enough to know that he was drunk. He ambled on stiffly, without swaying.

  A few gas lamps glowed weakly through the gloomy night. The dry heat had finally broken. A vaporous humidity covered everything, heralding the approaching rainstorm. Shadows flitted across Széchenyi Square in the eerie light which fanned out from the arc lamp of the Baross Café, lending an uncertain, fantastical aspect to the Sárszeg night. Above, the illuminated yellow clock of the Town Hall glowed like a ripe melon.

  On the terrace of the Baross Café young people were still eating ice cream. Ákos made his way towards them. He suddenly stopped in his tracks.

  There on the terrace, beside a lavender bush, he spotted a young man in a fashionable new panama hat and a white summer suit leaning over a glass. Géza Cifra, on finishing his evening shift, had dropped in to listen to the Gypsy band.

  He looked drearier than ever. His cold had now broken out in full force. Not only his left nostril was blocked, but the right one too, for his nose was even more sensitive than a tree frog to changes in the weather, and at times like these he could hardly draw any air at all. He breathed noisily through his mouth. Before him stood a glass of raspberry cordial and a straw.

  Ákos observed him for some time. The youth appeared perfectly happy, with a look of self-satisfaction spread across his face that seemed to suggest complete disdain for the world. To Ákos even the innocent raspberry cordial, which he began to suck up through his straw, seemed like a pool of venomously strong, red schnapps.

  So his little lordship is having fun, Ákos grumbled to himself with inexpressible hatred. If only he could knock that foppish panama from his head, with its fancy, dangling ribbon.

  He turned red with rage, tensing the muscles in his puny arms.

  He drew closer. Yes, he had the strength to do it now, to floor the boy with a single blow, to trample him underfoot, to strike him wherever he could, to tear his hair, gouge out his eyes, to kill him, kill him.

  But what should he kill him with? He had only his pocket knife. He could make a scene at the very least. He walked over to Géza Cifra's table.

  Ákos planted himself before the youth provocatively and offered no greeting.

  Géza Cifra greeted him.

  He removed his panama hat and sprang to his feet.

  Ákos did not move. Then he plunged both hands into his trouser pockets to avoid shaking hands, and stretched his fingers out against the cloth. After a while he nodded meaningfully, then once again, a still deeper, more pronounced nod of the head.

  “Do take a seat.”

  Ákos took one more step forward. They were now so close their faces almost touched. Géza Cifra, who never drank at all, could smell the pungent schnapps on Ákos's breath.

  “I won't take anything,” said Ákos sardonically. “And I don't want anything either. I just wanted to see you.” And he lunged his whole torso derisively towards the youth.

  “I'm most honoured. But please sit down.”

  “I won't sit down,” said Ákos stubbornly. “You just go on amusing yourself,” he added, meaning something altogether different. “Good night.”

  “Well, good night then...” Géza Cifra stammered, relieved that the conversation had come to an end and he no longer had to think of what to say and how to get away. “A very good night to you, and my kindest regards to your dear wife, good night.”

  Ákos turned away without so much as a tip of his hat. But on the pavement he stalled again and took one more long, hard look at Géza Cifra, nodding as before. The young man felt this, but didn't understand what it meant. No longer daring to look back, he turned his head, picked up the copy of the newspaper Agreement, which lay in a wicker frame on the chair beside him, and buried his whole body inside it.

  Beside the spire of St Stephen's, the moon appeared between the clouds as suddenly as if someone had pressed a secret button. Its strong but dejected light fluttered across the sleeping town. Ákos made his way towards Bólyai Street.

  He walked in the moonlight, his tilted bowler casting a thick shadow over his forehead. The greenish haze reminded him of his last visit to Budapest, when the doctors had instructed him to give up alchohol and cigars, life's last pleasures, and he, on such a night, had ambled back to his hotel room. And now, at this daybreak hour, he fancied that he finally saw himself as he really was, both now and in times gone by. He saw the old bones which had served him for fifty-nine years, and God only knew for how much longer. He looked thoroughly, mortally sad.

  Everywhere dogs were barking. Behind every fence, shaken from sleep by the restless moonlight. A moonlight chorus of yapping animals, howling with primal rage, throwing their weight back on their crooked, narrow hind legs, blinking up at the moon with short-sighted eyes, squinting at that mottled, porous, golden cheese they had been longing, for millennia, to wolf down from the sky.

  At the corner of Bólyai Street, Ákos again heard the strains of Gypsy music. He thought the band must be following him. But no, they were bowing and scraping some way on ahead, at the house where Olga Orosz lived.

  The Gypsies were performing a dawn serenade, lifted to the tips of their toes by their zeal.

  Beneath the window, in which a light had just come on, stood Dani Kárász, István Kárász's son. A tear rolled down his cheek, as one had rolled down his father's cheek some hours before.

  They had just struck up Mimosa's song, in honour of the prima donna.

  Ákos, as he turned into Petőfi Street, attempted to whistle the tune, but couldn't. Instead he hummed Wun-Hi's song, the jovial, oriental ditty that began:

  “Chin, Chin Chinaman...”

  X

  in which, after several years in the making, the great day of reckoning finally arrives, and our heroes receive from life the solace and just deserts that come to each and every one of us

  A drunkard never walks where he can fly.

  Only the sober believe that the inebriate stagger to and fro. In reality they float on invisible wings and arrive everywhere much earlier than expected.

  That time passes in between is of no consequence. For them time does not exist, and those who trouble themselves with such trifles are entirely deceived.

  Nor shall the inebriate come to any harm, for the blessed Virgin carries them in her apron.

  But opening the gate was another matter. Ákos spent ages fumbling with the key, turning it this way and that in the lock. But it still refused to budge. He wrestled still longer with the front door, before finally realising that it hadn't been locked at all.

  He went inside, grumbling and cursing. Nothing in his house was as it should be. Why, they could be robbed blind without even knowing, could lose everything they had.

  Such disorder was, of course, exceptional.

  What had happened was that, when the clock struck nine, his wife had started to worry. For as long as she could remember, her husband had always been home by this late hour. She went out into the street and squinted into the darkness to see if he was coming. On her way back inside she had forgotten to lock the door behind her.

  Mrs Vajkay grew increasingly anxious. She couldn't imagine what might have happened.

  She had been at home all day. After Ákos had gone to call in at the club for a quarter of an hour that afternoon, she had received two visitors. One was the washerwoman who had come to discuss the arrangements for washing day. The other was Biri Szilkuthy, Skylark's one and only close friend, a pretty young woman whose husband, a forester of sorts, had left her for a till girl at the Széchenyi Café. They were now suing for a divorce.

  Biri Szilkuthy inquired after Skylark, with whom she had only recently grown friendly. The two of them would sit whispering for hours on the bench beneath the old horse
chestnut tree.

  Mother offered her a chocolate from the box Ákos had bought her at the theatre. They chatted and laughed, and by eight the box was empty.

  When she had gone, the woman went into her daughter's room to do some sewing, spreading shirts and blouses over Skylark's unmade bed. She nervously popped a cube of sugar into her mouth, and sucked on it slowly. She looked at the pictures on the walls which she had seen so many times before. Dobozy and his betrothed, Batthyány, and the first Hungarian cabinet. Then she turned to the bronze-clasped photograph albums and leafed through three generations of Vajkays and Bozsós, ending with images of Skylark herself, at ten, at fourteen, with a doll, with a balloon, or sitting dreamily on a rock. But nothing could put her mind at rest.

  She got up and went into the dining room, crossing the zigzag pattern of the machine-woven carpet, then hurried out into the hall and paced the full length of the coarse floor runner, which stretched all the way to the front door.

  Here she was suddenly seized with fear. She flung open the doors of all the rooms, so that they all flowed into one. Then she switched on all the lights, even in the hall. A strong current of light flooded through the deserted house.

  But in this light the silence seemed greater than ever. Nothing stirred. She waited to hear the rattle of a key in the lock. Silence. She listened for noises in the street. All was quiet. Only the creaking of floorboards as she paced to and fro. Then she stopped still.

  She headed towards the bedroom. From the drawer of her husband's bedside table she took a key and hurried back through the gleaming house to the last room, the unused drawing room they kept for guests. It was there that the dusty, black piano stood. The old Bösendorfer had been a wedding present from her parents, a faithful piece of family furniture that had already served two generations, and had weathered many storms and charming soirees.

  She sat down on the piano stool, rested her hands in her lap and meditated.

  How long had it been since she last played? A long, long time. She had loved the piano once. She had even tried teaching Skylark, but, poor thing, she never got very far, simply didn't have the feel for it. When she was eighteen they had shut the lid, locking it with a little key to keep the room nice and tidy. And it had remained shut ever since. Even she had hardly touched it after that.

  To while away the time she lifted the lid, which opened with a crack, and ran her stiff fingers down the keyboard. The keys were covered with a layer of cracked bone, not that much older than her own.

  She knew only one tune by heart, a song from her girlhood, “Upon the wavy Balaton...” And this she played now, somewhat feebly and desultorily, stopping every now and then. All the same it was soon over.

  Then she sifted through the music books until she came across some Beethoven sonatas. She had a go at the first, whose daring, leaping shifts of tempo brought pangs of remembrance from the distant past. She had often played it in her twenties, on fine summer mornings. Now at first it didn't go too well. She put on her glasses to see the notes more clearly and repeated the piece until her fingers began to spin and the steely, untuned piano resounded in melodic melancholy. She made a proper practice session of it, a veritable campaign. Over and over again, getting better and better each time. On her face, which she held up close to the music between two brightly burning lamps, beamed an expression of strenuous concentration and wonder.

  It must have been about three o'clock when she finally felt exhausted. Without shutting the piano or tidying away the music, she went straight to the bedroom. She didn't even put out the lights. Deciding to wait no longer for her husband, she got into bed.

  She had just pulled the quilt up over her shoulders when she heard Gypsy music in the street nearby, followed by the barking of dogs. Soon she was sure she could hear the clatter of the gate, a sound she had already imagined so many times that evening. This time, however, she was not deceived. She sat up in the electric lamplight.

  Ákos came into the bedroom.

  “Father,” she said quizzically, in a voice that mixed astonishment with reproach.

  Her husband stood in the middle of the room. He didn't even remove his hat, which sat crooked and impertinent on his head. He no longer wore his glasses. He had lost them somewhere along the way.

  “What is it?” his wife asked faintly.

  Ákos said nothing. He glared at the woman, the smelly stump of a cigar still smouldering between his teeth. No matter how he chewed at it, he couldn't draw any smoke. He wore a surly scowl.

  He's drunk, thought the woman suddenly. She was no less horrified by the thought, and by the apparition of the rigid, mysterious figure who stood before her, than if a complete stranger had broken into her bedroom in the dead of night.

  She leaped out of bed. Without even reaching for her slippers, she ran over to prop her husband up.

  “Sit down.”

  “I'm not sitting down.”

  “Then lie down.”

  “I'm not lying down either.”

  “What then?'

  “I'm staying where I am,” Ákos stammered, leaning against the doorpost.

  But then he did move.

  He went as far as the table and slammed it hard with his palms.

  “I'm staying where I am,” he growled menacingly. “Just for that,” he repeated, “I'm staying where I am.”

  He was stubborn, like a child. His wife let him be.

  “Fine, you stay where you are.”

  “Matches!” he commanded.

  The woman fetched the matches from the bedside table. Ákos lit up, sucking the flame into his crumbling cigar, which suddenly caught fire and singed his moustache. He spat left and right, ejecting the cigar from his mouth with his tongue and spitting once more after it on the floor.

  Flecks of spittle sparkled white on the polished wooden floor.

  “Cigar!” commanded Father.

  His wife rummaged for his wallet in the breast pocket of his mouse-grey jacket and took out a cigar. Ákos bit off the end and lit up again.

  Only now did she manage to coax the hat from his head and the cane from his hand. But still the man didn't move.

  “You've had too much to drink,” said his wife with a conciliatory smile, as she tried to bring him to his senses. When she noticed that her husband had taken offence, she added softly, “You've had a bit of a tipple, haven't you?” and she gazed at the man who stood before her, dead drunk.

  The old man plunged his hands into his trouser pockets and rummaged. Suddenly he turned out both pockets.

  Gold, silver and copper coins tumbled out, clattering and jangling across the floor, hiding themselves away under the furniture.

  “Here you are,” Ákos shouted. “Money!” He dug out another handful of coins. “For the two of you,” and he dashed the money to the floor.

  The coins screeched as they hit the ground.

  Mrs Vajkay almost shrieked herself.

  There was something deeply sinister about this confusion in her own orderly home, although she could not say why. They both detested gambling and had nothing but contempt for “serious” card games.

  The woman searched for the fallen coins which had rolled into dark corners and come to rest. All she asked was:

  “Have you been playing cards?'

  Ákos stared at her, then took a few deliberate and defiant steps forward to demonstrate how far he was from being drunk. He staggered all the way over to the bedside table. Here, however, he could keep his balance no longer and came to a complete standstill. With the cigar still burning in his mouth, he keeled over like a tree, landing face down on the bed.

  “You'll burn the bedclothes,” Mother wailed. “You'll set the whole house on fire.”

  “What if I do?” Ákos growled. “At least it would burn down. And we'd be rid of that too. Who cares?” he said sadly. “Who cares?'

  “Really, Ákos,” his wife interrupted, brushing the glowing ash from the quilt and pillows.

  Somehow she managed to li
ft her husband to his feet. Again he had the cigar in his mouth and puffed vigorously as she hauled him over to the table. She slipped a chair beneath him and he sank into it.

  “Honestly,” said the woman as she sat him down. “What on earth's the matter?'

  “With me?” asked Ákos with a shrug. “What's the matter with me?'

  “Yes, with you.”

  “The matter with me,” he began, wiping away the ash that had fallen into his moustache, “the matter with me,” he repeated in a deep and resolute voice, “is that I'm a swine.”

  “You?'

  “Yes, me.” He nodded.

  “What are you talking about?” the woman whined. “You of all people, the sweetest–'

  “Shut up!” the old man shouted. “Hold your tongue. I'm a swine. A useless, miserable swine. That's what I am.”

  The woman took pity on her husband and went over to embrace him. Ákos pushed her away.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Nonsense,” said the woman, deep in thought. “You a swine? Why on earth should you be a swine?'

  “Because,” said Ákos, spitting out his second cigar, which had pinched his tongue with its caustic poison, “because I am,” he repeated wearily.

  Only now did his head really begin to spin. In this closed room, where yesterday's stagnant heat stood trapped, his drunkenness hit him with full force. His head fell to one side and he seemed to be nodding off. But his face grew increasingly pale. It made a picture of such frailty that his wife asked uneasily:

  “Shall I make some tea?'

  Ákos nodded.

  The woman snatched up her crocheted shawl and ran as she was, barefoot, in her nightdress, into the kitchen, where, after clattering with pots and pans, she lit the stove. She boiled the kettle for tea.

  Ákos sat in the armchair, almost motionless. He clasped the velvet armrests with both hands, for he felt the chair was rising slightly into the air. Only a couple of inches at first, but then higher, floating, foot by foot, all the way up to the ceiling and back, gaining speed as it went. Then it began to spin. It wasn't actually unpleasant, this spinning. Ákos found it quite amusing. He stared at the objects that hurtled past, the dancing mirror, the bow-legged doors, reeling all together in a tipsy waltz. He continually lost and regained consciousness.