The Melancholy of Resistance (13 page)

He lost him from view, yet did not lose him, because even though the houses came between them he could still see Eszter, his beloved master, whose one-hour-long excursion had, under Valuska’s intense protection, left such a strong mark on the town that no mass of mere buildings could obscure him. Everything pointed to the fact that he had passed that way, and wherever Valuska looked, the knowledge that he was still near conjured the other’s presence—so much so that after the actual parting he spent a few minutes in a kind of reverie as the effect of this extraordinary event began to fade, slowing the process down and enabling him mentally to escort his master back to the house in Wenckheim Avenue, when he could breathe again and be assured that the walk, Mr Eszter’s unexpected and wonderful foray into the world, ‘though not without its element of sadness’, had nevertheless been conducted to good effect. To have stood beside him as he left the room, to have been present as he took his first few steps in the hall, to have followed him like a shadow knowing what a tremendous advance this was in the much-desired and long-hoped-for healing process, to have watched him proceed from lounge to outside gate was cause for joy and conferred great honour on him as the proud witness of all this activity; on the other hand, simply to regard the excursion as something ‘not without its element of sadness’ now was to fail to convey the full quality of the experience, since his belated recognition of the fact that his elderly friend found every step an ordeal had, even during the walk, rather clouded the delight of being a ‘proud witness’, leaving only a suffocating air of sadness. He had believed that the moment the invalid had risen for the first time and finally left his curtained room heralded a recovery, a resurrection of his appetite for life, but within a few steps he had had to confront the possibility that the afternoon would bring no amelioration but only reveal the true seriousness of his condition, and the frightening likelihood that his public reappearance in the cause of social renewal was not the way back into the world but, more probably, a last farewell and resignation from it, an act of ultimate rejection, and this—for the first time in all their acquaintance—filled Valuska with the deepest anxiety. Feeling ill at the first breath of fresh air was a bad sign, though, since Eszter had hardly ventured from the house for as long as he could remember and certainly not in the last two months, it was not altogether unexpected, but nothing had prepared him to accept the extent of Eszter’s physical deterioration or the sad condition of the town itself, its nervous tension and exhaustion, and his own lack of vigilance left him with a terrible sense of guilt. Guilt for his lack of awareness, for having blinded himself to the truth and vainly hoped-for improvement in the short term; guilt because if any harm had come to his companion on this most trying walk he would have felt entirely to blame; and more than guilt, shame, confusion and the keenest mental torture, that instead of exhibiting a dignified and brilliant intellect to the town he could produce only a feeble old man whose best option, that of going straight back home, had been made unavailable by virtue of the promise he had made to Mrs Eszter. So they had had to go, and, unable to disguise his dependency, Mr Eszter had, without a word, taken him by the arm, and since this was a sign that his dependency was a form of delegation, Valuska had felt that if this was how things stood there was nothing for him to do but to try and divert his friend’s attention, and so he had begun to talk about the news he had been so happy to bring to his attention at two o’clock. He spoke about sunrise, he spoke about the town, about how each and every part of it had woken to a distinct and separate life as the light touched it at dawn, he had talked and kept talking but the words lacked conviction because he himself was hardly paying attention to them. He was forced to look on the world through his friend’s eyes, constantly to follow Eszter’s gaze and realize, ever more helplessly, that whatever his eyes lit on bore witness not to his own liberating convictions but to the latter’s sombre outlook. In the first moments he had believed that, freed from the close confines of his room, it would be the most natural thing for his friend to recover his strength and desire for life, that he might be persuaded to direct his attention ‘to the totality of things, not to specific details’, but by the time they reached the Komló it had become obvious that, once Eszter had laid eyes on them, these details could not be subsumed under ever more hollow-sounding words, so he had decided to keep quiet, his most valuable contribution to the trials and tribulations of their journey being to give support through honest acceptance and dumb assent. But this resolution had come to nothing, and when he left the hotel the words seemed to rush from his lips with, if such a thing were possible, even greater desperation, for standing in the food line he had heard some terrifying news that had thrown him into utter confusion. To be precise, it was not so much the terrifying news conveyed by people in the kitchen to the effect that ‘the crowd in the market square was in fact a criminal gang of vandals’ which, shortly after twelve o’clock, had robbed and would, like hooligans, have wrecked the entire drinks-dispensing facility of the Komló, for this he simply didn’t believe, discounting it as ‘fears produced by the imagination’, one of the depressingly common signs of ‘infectious terrors and anxieties’; what did, however, surprise him as he was carrying the filled lunch-box back to the waiting Eszter was something he had so far entirely failed to notice: the fact that the corridor and the forecourt and the pavement in front of the hotel were indeed covered in shards of broken flasks and bottles which people were forced to negotiate. He had felt confused and answered his companion’s perfectly understandable questions with a momentary show of hesitancy, quickly going on to talk about the whale, and later—the business with Mr Mádai having been successfully concluded—attempting to allay fears associated with the whale, fears that, to tell the truth, he himself now was prey to, for while he was certain that one sober gesture towards the heavens would ensure a rational return to life as he knew it, he was unable to forget what he had heard in the kitchen (particularly the head cook’s remark that, ‘Anyone wandering about the streets at night is risking his life!’). It was clearly a mistake to think that the ‘friendly obliging people’ with whom he had spent hours waiting in front of the circus vehicle that morning were vandals or bandits, but it was the kind of mistake, Valuska reflected, which, if only because the frightening rumours had spread so far, might leave even a man like Mr Nadabán shaking in his boots; it was therefore up to him to clear up this matter immediately, once and for all, and so, as in his imagination he was escorting Mr Eszter home, and had progressed from Városház Street to the market square, his first instinct on arriving in the midst of the still immobile waiting crowd was to pick out an individual and discuss the matter with him, the memory of the head cook’s irresponsible claim mingling and conflicting with his own more optimistic conviction (… one sober gesture … one cool intervention …). He informed the man what was being said about them, that people in town were wont to jump to conclusions; he told him about Mr Eszter’s condition, and stated his conviction that everyone should be acquainted with that great scholar; he confessed his own fears for him, proclaimed that he knew perfectly well where his duty lay, and finally begged to be excused his slight inarticulacy, but, he quickly added, he was already certain, even after these few minutes, that he was talking to a friendly spirit and that he was absolutely sure that his new friend understood him perfectly. The man he addressed made no reply to any of this but simply gave him a long hard stare from head to toe, then, perhaps noticing Valuska’s startled expression, smiled, slapped him on the back, pulled a bottle of cheap spirits from his pocket and offered it to him in amiable fashion. Relieved to see the relaxed smile on the man’s face after the stern silence of the preliminary inspection, Valuska felt he couldn’t properly refuse the offer as a token of goodwill and, striving to put the seal on his new friendship, took the bottle in his stiff fingers, unscrewed the cap, and, in order to win the other man’s confidence and convince him of ‘the spirit of mutual sympathy’ that existed between them, did not merely take a formal sip of the contents but indulged in one great gulp. He immediately paid for his lack of caution, for the poisonously potent liquid sent him into such a terrible fit of coughing he thought he would choke, and a full half-minute later, having recovered and trying with an apologetic smile to beg pardon for his weakness, he found his words drowned out time and again by yet another fit. He was deeply embarrassed and feared that he had ruined his chances of establishing friendly relations with his new acquaintance; indeed, so real and acute was his suffering that, at the height of his agony, he unconsciously gripped the man he was talking to, and this provided a source of mild amusement not only to the latter, but to those standing in the near vicinity. Recovering his breath in the somewhat more relaxed atmosphere, he explained how Mr Eszter, for all his denials, was busy with a great work, and how, if for no other reason than this, he felt it was incumbent on all of them to restore calm in the house in Wenckheim Avenue—then, turning to his new friend, he confessed that this talk had done him considerable good, thanked the man once more for the goodwill that had been extended to his own person and apologized for the fact that he had to go, promising that next time he would explain his reasons (which were ‘interesting, believe me!’). He had to go, and attempted to take his leave, shaking the man’s hand, but the other would not release it (‘Tell me the reason now, I’d like to hear it’), so Valuska was forced to repeat what he had just said. He had to go—he tried to free his hand from the unexpected grip—but he trusted they would meet again soon, and if this was not the case he could be sought at the Peafeffer, at Mr Hagelmayer’s, or—he stared about him uncomprehendingly, not a little frightened—ask anyone at all, since the name János Valuska was known to everybody. He couldn’t imagine what the other man wanted from him or what this tug of war signified, nor why it suddenly ended when his friend abruptly let go of his hand and the assembled hundreds in the square all turned to face the truck with looks of great anxiety. Seizing the opportunity, still shocked by the strange manner of his detaining, he quickly said goodbye and walked into the thick of the crowd, and only once that crowd had swallowed him after a few steps did he look back, when he was struck by the dreadful thought that he had been mistaken, quite stupid, that he had immediately and shamefully to admit to himself that the powerful force employed against him in such a harmless fashion was no cause for suspicion, that even to suspect such was an act of rudeness on his part. What bothered him most was that by unforgivably misinterpreting the well-meant gesture he had left it unreciprocated, the shame he felt on account of his boorish behaviour being mitigated to some degree only by the knowledge that he was capable of responding to it in more sober fashion very soon after. He really didn’t understand what he had just done (the other man’s patience and sympathy merited gratitude not an irrational panic) and so—his mission to Mrs Eszter not allowing him the time to clear the matter up immediately by seeking out the man in the crowd again—he firmly determined, though he took some time to arrive at a clear explanation for the universal attentiveness, that he would most certainly make amends for his error the next time they met. It was quite dark by this time, only the streetlamps were flickering and some light was filtering through the circus back door, and since the director was not there but at the front of the wagon, only his bare faint silhouette could be picked out. ‘It’s him!’ Valuska stopped dead in his tracks; it was undoubtedly him, even in shadow form his unmistakable great girth gave him away, the often remarked extraordinary extent of him, and indeed the fact of him corresponded in every detail to the rumour. Forgetting his urgent mission for a moment, forgetting all that had just happened, Valuska wormed his way through the crowd, which had clearly grown more agitated since the director’s appearance, in order to get a better look at him, then, once he was close enough, stood on tiptoe in his curiosity and held his breath so as not to miss a single word. The director was holding a cigar between his fingers and was wearing a full-length fur coat, and this, taken together with his gigantic belly, the unusually wide brim of his hat and the vast row of chins collapsing over his carefully tied silk scarf, immediately earned Valuska’s deepest respect. At the same time it was obvious that the awe in which he was held in every part of the square was not due simply to his imposing size, but also to the fact—a fact that no one could forget, not even for a minute—that he was the proprietor of the centre of attention. The otherworldly character of his exhibit lent a peculiar weight to his person, and Valuska gazed at him as if he himself were an extraordinary sight, a man who exercised calm control over that which others looked on in fear and wonder. With the cigar that he was now holding stiffly at some distance he was clearly in absolute command of all he surveyed, and, strange as it may sound, it was impossible to watch anything but that fat cigar in Kossuth Square, for it seemed to belong to someone who, wherever he went, would stand in the shadow of a whale that was the wonder of the world. He looked tired, exhausted even, but it was as if this were the specific thing that had exhausted him, not ordinary everyday matters but one single all-consuming care; it was obviously a fatigue born out of decades of vigilance, exhaustion owing to the knowledge that any moment he might be killed by that immeasurable weight of fat. He said nothing for some time, probably waiting for perfect silence, then, once you could have heard a pin drop, he glanced round him and relit the dead cigar. As he screwed up his face against the rising
smoke, taking the whole crowd in through those narrow rodent eyes of his, his expression completely threw Valuska, for this face, that look, though there can have been no more than three or four yards between them, appeared to be situated at some enormous distance from him. ‘Well then,’ he pronounced at long last, but in a manner that suggested that he had already finished speaking, or that he was preparing them for the fact that he was not about to make a great speech. ‘The show is over for the day,’ his deep voice rang out. ‘Until the ticket office reopens tomorrow we wish everyone well and are sincerely grateful for your attention. Allow me to commend our company to you once again. You have been a marvellous audience, but we must now take our leave.’ Holding his cigar away from him as before, slowly, and with some difficulty, he retreated into the crowd that obediently made way for him, climbed up on to the wagon and disappeared from view. He had said only a few words but Valuska felt they were ample proof of the director’s rare eloquence and the uniqueness of the circus (… ‘that a director should take such a fond farewell from his audience … !’), furthermore, from the crescendo of murmuring that immediately followed he concluded—a little frightened perhaps—that he was not alone in appreciating such a marvel. Immediately, that is to say, because the rumble grew louder as it passed across the square, and as it did so he wished the director would return to offer a few commonplace explicatory remarks on the fantastic monster or about the company itself so as to lighten the air of mystery that had gathered about them. He stood there in the dark, not comprehending what people around him were saying, nervously adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, waiting for the commotion, because that was what it had become, to stop. He suddenly remembered the head cook’s words and the conversation in front of the White Collar Club, and since the sounds of dissatisfaction had still not abated, he had a momentary intimation that the apparently needless fears of the local population might not be so needless after all. He couldn’t, however, afford to wait until the rumblings of disappointment died away, nor for the reasons for it to become apparent; unfortunately he had to leave without properly understanding it. Even after having pushed his way through the crowd to the opening of Honvéd Square he couldn’t quite understand it. And in any case … along the pavement on the way to Mrs Eszter’s dwelling … walking down those empty streets … his mind grew a little confused, one or other of the day’s events flashing before him, and he couldn’t see the meaning of any of them. On the one hand, memories of the day’s excursion with Mr Eszter filled him with sadness; thoughts of the town and the square, on the other, caused him to suffer acute pangs of guilt for having wasted his time: he alternated so rapidly between these two states of mind, both conditions so remote from his usual experience (being cast into other people’s lives, as it were, rather than marooned in his own), that he was utterly disorientated by the dizzying succession of images to the extent that nothing remained in his mind except indecision and incomprehension and an ever more desperate desire to ignore both indecision and incomprehension. On top of that, opening the garden gate he felt an all-surpassing terror sweep over him as he realized that it was long past four o’clock and that Mrs Eszter, with her implacable nature, would certainly not forgive him. But forgive him she did—not only that but it looked as if the presence of guests had diminished the importance of his mission, since she seemed hardly to be listening to his account, simply nodding irritably, leaving Valuska standing at the threshold, preparing to give details of the successful commencement of their campaign then forestalling him by announcing that ‘in view of the current serious circumstances, the whole matter had, for the moment, lost its importance’, then pointing to a stool and indicating strictly that he should remain silent. It was only then that Valuska realized he had mistimed his arrival and that there was some possibly vital conference in progress, and as he didn’t understand his role in all this, nor why the woman—her business with him being over—did not simply send him away, he sat down and clutched his knees tightly, fearful of making the slightest sound. If this was really the case and he had in fact blundered into an important meeting the committee certainly presented a strange spectacle. The mayor was dashing about the room, shaking his head in the most grief-stricken manner, then, having taken two or three such turns about the room, cried out (‘To have come to this, that a leading official should have to lurk in the bushes in people’s gardens …!!’) and, purple with rage, first tightened then loosened the knot of his tie. There was not much you could say about the chief of police since he was lying, red-faced, a damp handkerchief spread across his forehead, wearing his uniform overcoat, perfectly immobile and staring stiffly at the ceiling, on the bed, which exuded a strong stench of alcohol. But it was Mrs Ezter herself who was behaving the most strangely for she wasn’t saying anything but was obviously lost in deep thought (she kept biting her lips), now glancing at her watch, now looking significantly in the direction of the door. Valuska was overawed and sat in his place, and though, if for no other reason than his obligation to Mr Eszter, he should certainly have gone, he did not dare move a muscle in case he disturbed the tense proceedings. However, nothing happened for a long time and the mayor must have covered a good furlong walking up and down, when Mrs Eszter stood up, cleared her throat and announced that, since there was no point in waiting any longer, she had a valuable suggestion to make. ‘We should send him,’ she said, pointing to Valuska, ‘so that, while we are waiting for Harrer to arrive, we should have a clear view of the situation.’ ‘The difficult situation! The difficult situation, if you please!’ the mayor cut in, stopping dead in his tracks, with a most bitter expression, then, shaking his head again, he said he doubted that ‘this otherwise commendable young man’ was up to the task. She, however (‘I, however … !’), did not and gave him a brief, superior smile that did not invite dissent, then, turning to Valuska with the utmost solemnity, Mrs Eszter explained to him that all that was required of him was that he should go to Kossuth Square and, ‘in the interest of us all’, should carefully observe what was happening there and bring report of it back to ‘this crisis committee, in the simplest possible terms’. ‘Delighted to oblige!’ Valuska rose from his stool, having immediately understood that ‘the interest of us all’ concerned his friend, and that was why the committee had met, then, uncertainly, not knowing whether he was doing the right thing, stood to attention and announced that he was all the more prepared to offer his services since Kossuth Square was where he had just come from, and he felt obliged to clarify a point or two, specifically relating to the strange mood of the crowd. ‘Strange mood?!’ The chief of police sat up for a moment on hearing this, then collapsed back on to the bed. In a faint voice he asked Mrs Eszter to dampen the handkerchief on his brow again and to bring him paper and pencil so that he should be able to make proper notes, since he could see that this was a matter that bore heavily on his official duties as a policeman and that he should ‘assume command of the situation’. The woman looked at the mayor and he looked back at her in quiet agreement that—the invalid being supplied with another damp handkerchief in the meantime—it would be ‘best to preserve calm’, so they beckoned Valuska over and Mrs Eszter sat down beside the bed, paper and pencil in her hand. ‘So little time!’ the chief sighed in anguish, and when the woman retorted, ‘There’s enough,’ a wave of anger ran over him and, in a condescending manner, like a professional among amateurs, he asked methodically, ‘More-of-what?’ ‘Enough time, enough place. I’ve written it all down,’ Mrs Eszter responded, irritated. ‘I was asking him,’ the chief nodded bitterly in the direction of Valuska, ‘What time? What place? Where? When? Note down his answer, not mine.’ The woman turned her head away in fury, clearly in a state of extraordinary tension, unwilling to say a word for the moment, then, recovering a little, she gave the perpetually moving mayor a meaningful look then glanced over to Valuska and gestured that he should ‘simply get on with it’. Valuska shifted from foot to foot, not understanding what precisely he was being expected to do, and, afraid that the invalid’s anger might at any moment be turned against him, attempted to inform the company ‘in the simplest possible terms’ of what he had seen in the square, but after a few sentences, when he reached the part about his new acquaintance, he felt he had made a mistake, and indeed the others stopped him there. ‘Don’t go rattling on about about your impressions, what you thought or heard or imagined,’ the chief cast his melancholy red-eyes at him, ‘stick to objective facts! The colour of his eyes … ? How old he was … ? How tall … ? Outstanding characteristics … ? I won’t even bother,’ he waved in resignation, ‘to ask you for his mother’s name.’ Valuska was forced to confess that he was indeed rather uncertain about precise data of that kind, excusing himself with the plea that it was getting dark just at that time, and though he announced that he would gather all his wits and concentrate harder in case he should remember anything else, however he tried even his friend’s image seemed to consist of nothing but a hat and a grey overcoat. To general relief, but particularly his, the invalid was at that point overtaken by the healing powers of sleep, so the volley of ever more dissatisfied and ever more difficult questions came to a sudden end, and since the pedantic and impersonal level of enquiry to which he felt unequal was clearly no longer to be enforced, despite his anxiety he succeeded in concluding his account and clearing things up a little. He described the appearance of the director from the cigar through to the elegant fur coat and repeated his memorable words of farewell; he described the circumstances of the man’s departure and how this was received by the crowd; and, since he was convinced that the committee before him would interpret the foregoing events in this light, he admitted that, owing to the conditions in the market square and the town generally, he was quite at a loss what to do as far as Mr Eszter was concerned. If this outstanding scholar were to recover his health and retain his powers of creation, he needed, above all, conditions of absolute calm, calm, repeated Valuska, and not that ever more intense, and to him wholly incomprehensible, sense of agitation he had unavoidably (‘though I did everything I could to avoid it … !’) encountered this afternoon on finally leaving his house. Everyone knew that for a man blessed with such a high degree of sensitivity even the most insignificant signs of disorder were likely to be harmful and depressing, and because of this, Valuska confessed, especially because he had seen how the universal anxiety had communicated itself to the crowd in the market square, his every thought was for Mr Eszter. He understood perfectly that his own role and significance in the business in hand, compared to that of Mrs Eszter and the committee, amounted to little short of nothing, nevertheless he begged them to place their trust in him, to be assured that they could rely on him to do whatever they demanded of him. He would have liked to add that for him personally Mr Eszter’s good was of paramount importance, and, having got so far, to state how greatly he himself was reassured by the fact that the fate of the town (and therefore of his master) was in the hands of something as impressive as the committee he saw before him, but unfortunately he was unable to express either sentiment, for the woman silenced him with a single stern gesture, saying, ‘Very good, indeed you are perfectly right, we can’t sit round chattering, we must do something.’ They made him repeat what he was to do, and he, excitedly, like a child reciting his tables, went through all the salient points—which were to note ‘the size of the crowd … the atmosphere … and the appearance, should it appear, of a certain monster’; then, once they had given up the idea of explaining this last admonition and made him solemnly promise to be both thorough and quick, he promised to return in a matter of minutes and left the committee room on tiptoe lest he should wake the occupant of the bed, who, just at that moment, groaned in his sleep. Wholly immersing himself in the dignity of having been trusted by the committee, or rather in the sense of relief that an entire ‘crisis committee’ was supporting Mr Eszter through his trials and tribulations, he carried on tiptoeing through the courtyard and only remembered to assume his normal gait once he had reached the street and closed the rickety old gate behind him. He couldn’t positively state that the visit to Mrs Eszter was exactly reassuring but at least the woman’s decisiveness had exercised a healing power which drove away anxiety and uncertainty, and though he hadn’t received an answer to any of his questions, he felt that here, at last, was someone to whom he could safely entrust his affairs. Unlike the earlier situation, where he—the unworldly innocent—had to understand and decide things by himself, he was now entrusted with a single unambiguous task, to accomplish that which he had been asked to do, and this wouldn’t, after all, be so terribly difficult, he thought. He mentally ran through the various elements of that task—ten times at least—and, before long, felt lighter in his mind concerning the matter of the unspecified ‘monster’ (having worked out that he was supposed to be looking at the whale again); he felt lighter, and, remembering the calm gaze of the woman, felt the once-disturbing fog of confusion concerning his entire mission lifting at the same time, and so, when he practically collided with Mr Harrer at the entrance to the square, the latter having addressed him in passing (‘Everything will be all right now, but it would be much better if a young man like you were not hanging about in the street … !’), he simply smiled back and vanished into the multitude though he would have been all too happy to explain his