Love in a Bottle (3 page)

Ajándok wiped away her tears and set off for the attic at the top of the mill. She had never liked going up there, not even by day: but this was St John's Night, after all. It was a fearful place. Here, it was said, the mad young mill-worker Gergely had hanged himself. The winding staircase seemed to go on for ever in the darkness, twisting and turning all the way. At every landing it was as if someone had been sitting there just a moment before and then fled noisily up another flight. After countless turnings and twistings she reached the round window, the huge Cyclops eye of the mill. She thought of those evenings in her childhood, all those times when on her way home from the fields she had seen some creature stick its terrifying head out of the window, then draw it back… perhaps someone was lurking there now? But she gathered up her strength and peered out through it. Down below lay the empty fields. Between the clusters of pitch-black trees, and as far as the most distant seas, the world was utterly deserted. As she sat there, on the staircase that went on for ever, the little girl's heart beat in total isolation.

Then, just a few steps higher, stumbling and very close to tears, she felt a wave of dizziness. She snapped her mouth shut, and suddenly—she nearly screamed—she bumped into something. It was the attic door. After an awkward scraping it gave way to the pressure of her hands. As she entered her nose was assaulted by the smell of musty old jumble. She was surrounded by unfamiliar objects, each demanding its due, its toll of pure terror.

“Courage, Ajándok. The heroines of fairy stories have faced far more terrifying ordeals on the path to the
diamond-studded
gates.” It was an altogether different Ajándok, now defiant and sinister to behold, who ran unsteadily over the creaking floorboards in the blue light shed by the thin, fruitless ploughings of the moon that added to her fear. An unseen joist blocked her way, almost jumping up at her, and she had to step over it as over a dead animal. It was followed by what looked like another. Seeing it, she leapt back and sat down hard on the joist. Something was hanging from this second beam, a black, lumpish mass. Her heart fluttered like the wings of a lost bird, as her tearful eyes slowly made out that this object, the source of so much alarm, was nothing more than a haunch of ham hung up to be smoked.

Without knowing how she managed it, she eventually found herself at last in the centre of the boarded space where the great chest stood. She rummaged through the pile of old clothes, calendars and household jumble, gathered up the herbs in her trembling hands, stuffed them into her bag, gave a deep sigh and started on her way back. Fear gripped her once again, even though the situation was now
a little less desperate. At what seemed an immense distance down below she could now make out the light from the fireplace, signalling that there would at some point be an end to her frightful journey. But she was still a good few paces from the door when her feet froze in terror, rooting her to the spot.

She had heard a whirring, rustling sort of noise, and it made her flesh creep the way it does when someone stares at us from behind. But she dared not turn round. She was incapable of movement. The moon held her body trapped between its narrow spikes, and she stood there like a person bewitched. Very slowly, as in a nightmare, she managed to force herself round, and immediately clapped her hand to her eyes. This was no dream. Beneath the cloth sail of the windmill stood the pitch-black figure of a man, with something held tight under his arm. Ajándok screamed. The mysterious figure gave a sudden start, flitted away between the sails, and vanished.

Still clutching her bundle, Ajándok ran back down to her room. People begged, demanded, to know what had happened. But she had no words to describe her terror.

Now they were all seated around the table. The vapour from the warm wine had lifted everyone's spirits, and the sight of the two keys, one for the bride's old home and one for the new, had driven away all thoughts of night. Kindliness shone in everyone's eyes, and their laughter wore festive garments.

There was a knocking at the door. Silence fell, and people were still trying to decide who this very late visitor might be
when he finally entered. The unexpected caller was a figure clad in black, his boots covered in dust, with a large book bound in pigskin clutched under his arm. His cloak—which looked wide enough to drive clouds along with—hung down all round him, like the folded wings of a raven. Indeed his whole aspect was that of a great wind-blown bird, and his voice, when he spoke, was low and hoarse with the dust of the highways of seven counties.

“My name is Máté the Scholar. I am one of the paupers of the famous order of St Lazarus. I am a wanderer, good people, and exhausted from a long journey. I must ask you for a place to sleep this fine night, and a little milk, and a loaf of bread, since I cannot pay you for them.”

The miller was a hospitable and jovial man, and he made the pauper of St Lazarus take his seat at the table, though he did not particularly relish this sort of visitor. And indeed, although the scholar filled his place at a corner of the table quietly enough, there was little about him of the cheerfulness that filled his neighbours. It was as if his black cloak cast its shadow over the entire table, like some
huge-winged
buzzard hovering over the courtyard killing the joy of the merry chickens, and after his arrival the conversation became rather subdued. The talk was all of plans for the wedding, finding a best man who would also be a skilful rhymester, and calculating just how much wine would have to be ordered. They tried to draw the wandering scholar in, but to no avail. He heard them out, but in a manner that suggested he had never known what the words ‘wedding', ‘bride' or ‘happiness' might mean.

For all that, the old lady took good care of him. She set down a fresh, uncut loaf of bread before him, and a full mug of milk. It was St John's Night, and she knew what she was doing. He fell to, but ate very strangely, not as a Hungarian would. He scrutinised the loaf from one side and then the other, and sniffed the milk cautiously before every sip, as if afraid that they were about to poison him. Meanwhile he spoke not a word, and looked to neither left nor right.

Nor did he notice that there was someone who never stopped staring at him. It was his immediate neighbour, Ajándok. From the very first glance the little girl's heart had taken pity on the wandering scholar—this poor, uncouth, abandoned vagrant with thorns clinging to his clothes from his wanderings in distant forests. Finding a creature beside her who seemed even more of an orphan than she felt herself to be, sad little Ajándok's sorrow began to dissolve, and her kindly heart longed to comfort him.

The scholar finally noticed her when she leant over to him to put some sugar in his milk. His first response was to cover the mug with his hand in terror; but then he acquiesced, and even thanked her.

“No one ever puts sugar in my milk,” he observed
plaintively
. “I always have it without. But sugar is very good, if you can get it.”

“But if you want it, why don't you ask?”

“Me, ask for sugar? I'm afraid that wouldn't go down well with the master.”

“But when you find a good master, who looks kindly on you?”

“I've met very few of those. I know I look like a
scarecrow
. But I don't ask for much. All I want is a bite to eat and somewhere to lay my head. When people oblige I never thank them, and if they don't they live to regret it. I just keep moving on—there are plenty of other villages and my legs are long. I never sit anywhere long enough to warm my seat.”

Sensing the miller's gaze fully upon him, he stopped.

“So where are you from, master scholar?” was the
question
. The scholar behaved as if he hadn't heard.

Soon enough, people lost interest in him, their thoughts full of their own happy plans.

But Ajándok fussed around him even more
devotedly
, finding a cushion for him to sit on, as if he were a specially honoured guest, cutting his bread for him and pouring his milk into her own ornately decorated mug. He even managed to thank her, in his scarcely audible voice. She blushed at this display of magnanimity, and gazed at him with such a loving look that he reddened slightly in return—the faint glowing of embers beneath a layer of ash.

“Have you come very far?” she suddenly asked, timidly.

“I certainly have,” he replied. “Through seven forests, from the land of seven cities. In Transylvania I studied up to the thirteenth grade… I lived in a cave with twelve companions… a dark cave, with bears and owls… we were barely human ourselves… and the nights were
bitter cold… Then we moved on… crossing over flimsy footbridges… carrying torches… up into the heart of the mountain.”

His speech came in fragments, as if he wanted to drop the subject at every turn but was unable to withstand Ajándok's loving gaze. “In the heart of the mountain we came upon a threshing wheel… we stopped before it, all thirteen of us… we knew one of us would have to die… either myself or one of the others… so we all climbed up and stood on it… and it started to turn… then suddenly, ‘Jaj!'—my best friend fell… he screamed at us as he lay there among the whirling blades… it was all up for him… But we survived… twelve of us now… and now we could go… anywhere in the world we wanted… for whatever foolish reason. But this is not a fit story for you, my little sister. It'll give you bad dreams.”

“Never mind that—tell me more. Where did you go after that?”

“Where did I go? I couldn't tell you the number of
countries
—you would be an old maid, my dear little sister, by the time you'd heard it all. As King Solomon said: ‘To grow in wisdom is to grow in suffering.' The fact is, since I first held this book under my arm I've not had a moment's rest. The breeze starts to rise just before dawn, and I think, perhaps on the slopes of some faraway hill there'll be a fountain of wine to quench my thirst; or in some snowy cave of ice, who knows? perhaps I might at last have my wish and get some sleep, and find what I need—a longboat waiting for me on the shore of the Óperencián sea to take me to my
rest on the eternal waves. So long as there are country roads under my feet, I shall never find rest.”

Ajándok asked, rather petulantly, why he had come there if the world was so much wider elsewhere.

“Everyone who goes wandering, my little sister, does so because there's somewhere he wants to get to. The end of the world is just that, the end of the world, and they say that once you get there you will be able to find rest. When I finally reached this wide plain I saw this mill standing in the distance and I felt happier than I had for years. My dear little sister, you are a miller's daughter, you can never have known how wonderful it is to be no longer pursued by the wind, when you have lost the power of your wings and are sleeping under the open sky… and suddenly there stands the mill, with its sails.”

It had grown very late. Wishing one another a peaceful good night, people rose from the table. Lidi's cheeks burnt in anticipation of the promised kisses that the autumn would bring, and everyone knew that her dream of Bálint would be one of roses. All that awaited Ajándok was the cold bed of a child.

The old lady led the scholar Máté to his sleeping place, a bench covered with sheepskin. He stretched himself out along it, pulled his cloak over him, and in that manner fell instantly and soundly asleep.

Silence pervaded the entire mill. The chairs and long table could now stretch out and rest too. Soft, rustling sounds were heard. The happy dreams of warm bodies came to life. Down the cracked and crannied chimney, over
the hearth, in and out of the mountains of grey ash, those dreams, the miracles and nightmares of flowery St John's Eve, glided silently.

Then the great bell tolled. It seemed determined to flood the whole plain with its outpouring. Twelve o'clock.

Ajándok rose, pulled on her dress, took out the bundle, and tiptoed out of the mill.

The moon was so bright it was like a second day, in a whiter, more silent world where the flowers were less lush. But she did not look behind her, and as she stepped out she no longer felt afraid, and her grief melted away. She felt sure that on just such a moonlit night, in a landscape sent down from another world, the person she was expecting would be sure to appear.

And there stood the well. Inside its crumbling rim the frogs croaked their ancient watery songs. It was said that the well was as ancient as the mill, and the mill was so old that even to think how old it was would take for ever.

She said the three Hail Marys, put the bundle down beside the well, rested her head on it and savoured the smell of the dried herbs. And there she lay for a long, long time, in great peace, as if on her own bed. On her white brow the nimble fingers of tiny dreams spun a bridal wreath… until, after who knows how long, or when she became aware of it… there was a man standing next to the well, a tall, pitch-black figure, his eye raised heavenwards in rapture. The moon stroked his face with its soft hands,
and made him as handsome as the prince of some far-off Western land.

She stood up. She knew. This man was her bridegroom.

It was the scholar.

She went up to him, and without knowing what she was doing—she was still in a dream—took his hand. With unhurried deliberation, like someone taking a vow, she declared: “You are my betrothed.”

He gave a start, then stared at her as if she were a miraculous being risen from the well. “Is that what you want, Ajándok?”

“It's not I who want it. I don't want anything. It was the magic that brought me to you, by night, on flowery St John's Night. You are the man I was told I would see. My husband-to-be.”

“As you say, Ajándok. It is true. It was no chance wind that brought me to this place. But all the same—do you know who I am?”