Sunflower (9 page)

Eveline angrily knit her brows—then cast a sly glance from under those eyebrows as if weighing whether to believe the promise. Would he deceive her like a wandering organ-grinder, who plays sad songs under the window, making your heart ache and cry, waking the sad ghosts of the house, while laughing to himself as he licks the last drop of wine from his mustache?

Eveline was a bold and businesslike lady. She had never done anything that she later regretted. She was concerned that all this might be a trick.

“Word of honor?” she asked, mostly to stall for time, to better appraise the situation.

Mr. Álmos-Dreamer nodded without emotion, a most peculiar nod, like a one-legged man confronting his lost limb preserved in spirits.

“Swear on the cross,” murmured Eveline, having noted nothing suspicious in Mr. Álmos-Dreamer's behavior.

Ákos Álmos-Dreamer dropped to one knee. Eveline's hand reached for the heavy silver crucifix that had for centuries served to pacify and silence the dying curses of forebears. The crucifix could have passed for a weapon, at a pinch. Rightly swung, the hefty silver object indeed could have promoted one's passage to the other world.

Álmos-Dreamer took the crucifix in hand and softly swore a clearly audible oath in the vaulted room:

“I, Ákos Álmos-Dreamer, swear by the Almighty and by the seven wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ that after an hour's passage I shall no longer be among the living but will lie stretched out dead, never to return from the nether world.”

Eveline nodded her assent.

She took one glance at the glass-encased clockworks where at the stroke of midnight the twelve apostles would pass in single file.

It was a clock face worn out by all the expectant, desperate, fatal glances cast by eyes that had long ago turned into varicolored pebbles along the Upper Tisza. The Roman numerals had faded, the hands were bent like a drooping mustache, the circumambulant pilgrims' robes tattered. But the tireless mechanism labored on, it still had so much left to accomplish here on earth: such as marking the hour of someone's death.

“When the apostles appear, your time's up,” she murmured and blew out the candle.

And what happened to Eveline after she had taught the first Álmos-Dreamer how to die of joy and grief, for love of a woman? For, ever since then, curious little females have been asking Álmos-Dreamers, and with good cause: “Could you do something grand for me? Would you die for me?”

Nine months later Eveline gave birth to a wistful, moody little boychild, whom she would take many a time to his father's green sepulchral mound, located, in deference to the deceased's wishes, like Lensky's grave, in a small copse of white birches. On the bookshelf, to this day you may find
Onegin
(in French), with the page folded at the appropriate place.

At his christening the child was given the names Andor Zoltán, the latter fashionable at the time in Hungary, favored by widowed mothers who followed the example of the poet Peto´´fi's young widow, née Countess Szendrey. Widows who do not stay faithful to their husband's memory sense their kinship from afar, like nomadic Gypsies who leave behind intertwined straws or some other sign of their passage across the countryside; women, by donning a certain ball gown or particular chapot, let each other know that they don't mind bestowing their favors upon newcomers. This is a strange fact, but true. In bygone days village dames read through lists of guests at soirées, participants at masked balls, and were able to tell at a long distance whom their lady acquaintance meant to please with her carnival outfit. Via the pages of
Conversation Pieces
and
Ladies' Courier
, Eveline kept in close touch with events at the capital. Even from her rustic hermitage she could participate in the eventful life of Pest. The mail coach delivered lengthy epistles. From fashion magazines she could determine which ladies were the latest trendsetters, what hat and hair styles were the current vogue. For the same reason she wore her hair short like Peto´´fi's widow, mused about love by her escritoire, kept a romantic diary in which she lamented her unhappiness and never bothered to recall any of her former suitors, while she more than once invited to her country estate Kálmán Lisznyai, the fashionable poet of the day, and often looked out of the window to check whether the poet who affected the
szu´´r
(an ornamentally embroidered shepherd's cloak) had at last arrived. When she died at fifty of consumption, the
Capital Herald
carried an obituary citing her patriotism and her artistic, noble soul, ever true to the black veil and to her tragically deceased husband.

This was the parentage of the most recently expired Álmos-Dreamer, whom the living, touchable Eveline now visited on his island in the Tisza.

The bygone Eveline's life-size portrait hung on the wall, and next to it the living Eveline now appeared, the very image of the painting come to life and stepped out of its frame. The resemblance was striking. As if that extraordinary woman—who had wreaked such havoc in the lives of gullible men, setting frozen hearts ablaze like a bonfire built by woodcutters shivering at the edge of a forest—it was as if this woman had come back to life. Being exceptional, she had been given a second life to live, for one life was not enough to accomplish all that was waiting for her to do here on earth. As if she had turned back at the gates of eternal repose, having noticed that her limbs were still youthful, her eyes still fiery, and the candle flame still unextinguished in her cold heart. She had returned for another round, to meet new men, to drain love's goblet anew...Only her rich, honey-blonde mane had been left behind, underground. At the time of her emergence from the soil, along with the cowslips and dragonflies, the fields bore a thick crop of rye. For a crown of hair she plaited herself a wreath of ripe rye, spiky russet and yellow grasses. Now her hair had red-brown streaks, like tiger spots. The first moonlit night taught her the arts of witchcraft and sorcery, when among the trees' sleeping boughs the souls of the dead glide like so many bats. Young birch trees ooze a sap that the pale-skinned women of the region lick up so that their legs stay forever limber, and even in old age they can ride the broomstick with bright gleaming knees. In The Birches there is no need to take lessons in giving men the evil eye. The women's voices are woven of the strange melodies of springtime birds; their hips radiate the comforting warmth of a brooding duck; their glances emulate the sun-worship in the eye of the lanky sunflower straining after the sun. Their hair, like the tender young crop in the fields, is raked by the capricious fingers of the wayward winds.

The touchable Eveline stood lingering under the portrait of the bygone Eveline and exchanged a look of sympathy with her predecessor. Her heartache was gone like a child's hurt blown away by a mother's kiss; she immediately felt her strange power in this house where all things owed her allegiance. She felt she had come home to claim the heritage of the former mistress of the house whose swaying skirts were almost still visible just around the doorposts. All she had to do was follow her trail. On the painter's primitive oil the elongate, white hand was pointing ahead, a magical sign, as it were, for women who enter this abode. Eveline followed the pointing finger. Andor Álmos-Dreamer, as his ancestors had done, had in life provided for his fragrant walnut coffin, and now lay in it with hands clasped in prayer, wearing a full evening outfit, with courtly black dancing shoes, a token of his esteem for the post-mortem visitor.

“Álmos-Dreamer, how could you leave me?” said Eveline. “How can I live in peace from now on, calling for you in vain?”

The deceased did not stir, even though Eveline crooned like a mourning dove.

“I know you're truly dead, you've taken your leave solemnly and ceremoniously, closed your eyes forever without any theatrics or falsehood, and you wouldn't protest if we laid you under ten tons of sod. Still I beg you, won't you come back, for I simply cannot go on without you...”

This is how Eveline addressed the deceased, who quietly sat up.

He looked at Eveline in wonder yet without surprise, as if the girl were simply the continuation of a pleasant dream.

“I think I've been through a grave illness,” he murmured and slowly emerged from his coffin.

There lived
in the Inner City of Pest a strange young man whose white spats, carefully ironed trousers and curled hair were visible mostly in the evening hours.

The outward appearance of this young man resembled one of those figures on antique amulets worn around the necks of pious elderly princesses or seduced daughters of the bourgeoisie. His auburn locks, combed in an old-fashioned style, his weary smile, his rather melancholy aspect and his way of dressing in imitation of fashion plates from the Romantic era of fifty years before, were all calculated to make women's hearts open up, to accept and forever remember this young man. His appearance was as refined and fragile as that of a morganatic prince. His cream-colored gloves and freshly shaven face implied he was heading toward the National Casino, although his usual attitude toward that neighborhood was to eye the young aristocrats with a distant and disdainful smile, which dismissed them as idiots.

At the time of our story Kálmán happened to be homeless.

The aging dame who, in part out of charity, in part out of undying love à la Ninon de Lenclos, had adopted the youth, on this day discovered that someone had tampered with her cache of gold coins. These were not ordinary shekels. Ninon, in her youth, had received them as presents from reigning sovereigns and cardinals, English peers, and pretenders to diverse thrones, all of whom had paid court to this amusing and charming woman. Heads of kings and queens from all parts of the globe adorned the ducats brought by her chevaliers in their vest pockets. Ninon, when alone in her diminutive palace in Képíró Street, liked to claim that she could never be bored as long as she spent her days in such illustrious company. Amidst her guldens, she could turn from the Prince of Monaco to Queen Victoria. It was these notables that had of late been preyed upon by Kálmán who, by the third month of his sojourn at her house, had contrived to pick the lock on her strongbox.

Kálmán did not think the expulsion tragic. Ninon would forgive him any time he felt like it, once she had installed new locks on her safe. In all likelihood she was already on her way, scouring the city for him, possibly disguised as a market vendor à la
Mrs. Baradlay in Jókai's novel
.

As was his wont, he turned his steps toward the Josephstadt, toward a dreamy townhouse complete with donjon, whose gray-curtained windows had witnessed his daily strolling past, to confirm that the bird had not yet returned to her cage.

Around the Museum lounged palazzos as changeless as the Papacy. Here life is never rushed, for it never ends. The families' bloodlines run in endless streams: it seems the same individuals who die return rejuvenated to carry on the line. The selfsame figures inhabit the selfsame palaces, daughters get married the same as ever, countesses' hair turns gray just as their ancestresses' did. In the portals, the same old bearded, bald, gloved grooms loom, handling well-trained, highly bred steeds, while the same guests as ever take their places in the same carriages. The days pass without desires of an unattainable nature. Perhaps the medicinal-smelling doctor on a house call prescribes an occasional remedy. The books contain the same old romances. The christenings are unlikely to produce a name that has not yet occurred in the family.

Kálmán thought fondly of this genteel world. He would have given anything for a peek at a countess's boudoir or bedroom! How did these heavenly angels spend their earthly days? Is it true they paid their feet the same painstaking attention as dancers? Did they ever harbor loving thoughts toward an etching or a sprightly verse? Their aloof, nonchalant and splendid faces, the distinctive style of their curls, their swan necks and little earlobes burnished vivid memories into Kálmán's brain after a scrutinizing stare through a carriage window...He would have gratefully welcomed even one of their chambermaids, who in all likelihood wore stockings and shoes handed down by her mistress. But he had to make do with their serving men, whose conversations he overheard at Ivkov's little tavern on the ground floor of the Üchtritz House.

As the bird had not yet returned to her cage, Kálmán sank into a reverie, forehead pressed against the bars of the cast-iron gate, then with hesitant steps waded through the dry leaves that littered the small round garden—it resembled a filigreed reliquary that contains the cheerful dreams of youth. This diminutive French garden with its white belvedere, green-skirted pines, and walls overrun by wild grape vines served to remind Eveline at spring and autumntime of the calendar's turning leaves. Kálmán at times thought he was totally, maybe fatally, in love with Eveline, and could die for her, as a knight would. On this basis he considered the small French garden his natural kin and ally—a piece of the city's most precious real estate that dedicated its flora solely to amuse a lovely girl.

Here he stood each night, facing the iron grillwork of the gate, like a penitent whose thoughts forever rehearse the same scenes of the past. Joy's fleeting clouds, the trembling play of sunlight on a carpet, visions waving farewell. This was his moment of piety. Had religion been on Kálmán's mind, the twilight hour would have found him entering the Franciscans' Church in the wake of mallow-scented Inner City girls, along with the stately, distinguished gentlemen who came to pray there daily. If only once he could have won at dice in the gambling den where he spent his nights, at dawn he would have stopped in at St. Roch's Chapel where the poor nuns, like white seagulls by the ocean's dark shore, sat in the pews, row after row, saying prayers as adventitious as birdsong. But Kálmán was an unlucky son of a gun and—although not yet twenty-five—had lost all faith in both man and God. This deserted garden, strewn with dead leaves, had come to mean both redemption and purification for him. It reminded him that he had been young and innocent once, when spring mornings had impelled him to kiss the sumac blossoms, and when he had absorbed those distant, profound, serene autumn afternoons, as one does the teachings of a gentle sage who preaches only charity. Like fading sepia tints in photographs he had lost long ago, his mother's and father's faces floated above the path he trod in the sentimental worship of Eveline. The distant, innocent past loomed up before his eyes, sad and unaccusing. Oh, if only once he could hear a chiding voice from the past! But the past was silent, like a beloved mindlessly and irrevocably killed in a fit of passion.