The Melancholy of Resistance (23 page)

Silently they shook their heads as if confused or ashamed, their eyes cast down, as if there were something secret about the fact that they knew him, and even when they did venture a word or two (‘ … Round here? … No …’), the deep silence remained whoever he asked and, as he stood before the haberdasher’s, the thought flashed through his mind: it is because they don’t want me to know, they don’t dare honestly to admit that they are lying to me, and an impotent fury seized him because they refused even to guess where he was, which was the most frustrating thing of all; this dumb omniscience, the rejection implied by that universal pact and the averted eyes, the odd undisguised look of resentment and accusation that revealed everything except what he really wanted. He interrogated them from door to door, from pillar to post, ranging down both sides of the main road, but however he asked they said nothing and he began to feel there was a wall between them which prevented him turning left or right. It was precisely their silence that suggested he was looking in the right place, but as the numbers of those who dared venture out of their houses grew, so it became clearer that they would all refuse to answer him; he’d never be able to discover what had happened, not from them. They were all looking towards the market square, and when he reached the fire-vehicle in front of the cinema and tried talking to the firemen, they impatiently shrugged him off with hoses in their hands, and the soldiers too motioned him onwards as if directing traffic, so he eventually stopped asking people altogether since it seemed quite certain now that the man he was looking for was there, and there in some peculiarly terrible way; thinking this he pulled his coat about him and sometimes walked, sometimes ran, whichever way he was blown, past the Komló Hotel, then over the little Körös Bridge, past double rows of frightened-looking faces, as far as he could go. He didn’t make it into Kossuth Square because a new and much more hostile troop of soldiers with their backs to him closed it off from the main road, pointing their machine-guns at the square, and when he tried to sneak between them, one of the front rank turned round to say something, then, seeing it hadn’t worked, suddenly turned right round, released the safety-catch and, pushing the barrel into his chest, barked, ‘Back, old man! There’s nothing to see here!’ Eszter took a fearful step back and was about to explain what he was doing, but the soldier, suspecting some danger in his insubordination, nervously sprang into combat pose and threatened him with the machine-gun again, growling even more menacingly (if that was possible): ‘Back! The square is closed! No one crosses it! Fuck off!’ The tone of the threat didn’t sound as though he would have a chance to say anything himself, and this display of high-alert readiness, almost at snapping point, convinced him that if he didn’t respond to the instruction and give the soldier space, one false move would result in him pulling the trigger; so he turned back towards the Körös Bridge, but having done so veered away again, since the military barricade hadn’t so much frightened him as equipped him with the kind of desperate resolve that regards an obstacle as no more than something to be essayed a second time from another direction, and then again and again until the attempt succeeds. Another direction—down the High Street, he thought agitatedly—and he began to run as fast as his legs and lungs allowed him, down by the side of the canal, skirting the square, gasping, his mind abuzz, thinking that if nothing else remained, he could break through the cordon because he now felt he had to get to the square and check for himself that his friend was not there, or perhaps discover that he was, which meant considering the worst, the most extreme, most terrifying possibility, something he couldn’t bear to think of just at that moment. He ran, or rather stumbled beside the canal and kept telling himself not to panic: discipline was the thing, the fear which clutched at his heart should not overcome him, and he knew that the way to achieve this was to do what he had done unconsciously so far, that is to say look neither left nor right but keep going straight ahead. It was true: since he had dashed from the house without either his hat or his stick and set out for town, he had been aware of the scale of vandalism outside but nothing would have persuaded him to turn and look at it, and it wasn’t so much the sight itself that frightened him—for he didn’t care about that, he was interested only in Valuska—but the thought that he might see something among the ruins that would allow him to piece together everything that had happened and therefore discover what had happened to him. He feared finding a peaked cap at the foot of some wall, a dark-blue piece of material from a postman’s cloak on the pavement, a single boot on the road or a discarded bag, its buckles undone, from which a few stray ragged magazines spilled out, like the guts of a cat that had been run over. The rest didn’t interest him, or, more accurately, he was incapable of comprehending his circumstances, if only because at a certain point Mrs Harrer’s account had ceased to hold him, and he had room in his head only for the obvious question of cause not effect, not of what in particular had been destroyed or who had done the destroying, for any attempt to know, or even guess, what had happened in the course of the night lay beyond his already overstretched powers of concentration. He admitted that his own mental state was as nothing compared to the state of the town; he conceded that when the harm inflicted was of such a cataclysmic nature, his own siren song - the question of Valuska, where he was and what had become of him—could be of no interest to anyone else; to him though, unforgivably underprepared as he was, it was the only issue that mattered and it wholly consumed him everywhere he went: it seemed to chain him to the canal bank, it obliged him to rush along, it imprisoned him in his situation, and even if there were chinks in the bars of his prison he had no strength to look out through them. There was in fact a deeper issue at stake here, a question within the question, the burden of which he had had to drag about with him, which was what would happen if Mrs Harrer had misled him, or if her husband had made a mistake in the terrible chaos, if his herald of the dawn, through no fault of her own, was mistaken about his lodger’s fate? This was something he had to come to terms with while, at the same time, continually dismissing the woman’s account as practically an impossibility, for to be present at such acts of barbarity, to bear witness to such a brutal assault, actually to take part in this inhuman farce as a living spectator and still to be wandering the streets somewhere, unharmed, would be, he felt, tantamount to a miracle, or at least as unlikely as its opposite was unbearable, for it never ceased to bother him that having ‘woken late’ he was unable to defend his friend and might therefore have lost him for ever, and if this was the case then he, who a few hours ago had all to gain, would be left with ‘absolutely nothing’. Because after a night that was as decisive in its effect on others as on him, on this morning which was to see the last act of his ‘complete retirement’ he really was left with nothing but Valuska, nor did he desire anything else but to have him back, though he understood that in order to achieve this he would have to behave in a more considered manner, by, for example, he thought as he clambered up to the High Street from the canal bank, overcoming his ‘terrible urge to smash and break everything’, regaining his self-control and not ‘breaking through the cordon’ by ‘any act of violence’. No, he decided, he would behave quite differently henceforth; he would not demand but enquire, he would describe Valuska first, they’d identify him, then he’d ask to speak to the officer in charge, explaining to him who Valuska was and how his whole life was proof of his innocence so they shouldn’t regard him as anyone who might have been ‘complicit’ in anything but rather as someone who had been swallowed up by things and couldn’t get out again; that they should regard him as a victim and immediately absolve him, for in his case the substantial element of any charge would either reflect a misunderstanding or indicate a falsehood; that, in short, they should give Valuska to him as a kind of ‘lost property’ since no one else would want to claim him—and here he’d point to himself—no one but Eszter himself. Having got so far in selecting an appropriate strategy and in his choice of words, it did not occur to him again that he would not find his friend there, so it came as a great shock when, having made contact with the group of soldiers guarding this part of Kossuth Square, and given a careful description to one of the artillerymen, the man shook his head. ‘No chance, sir! There’s no one answering to that description among them. This lot of rogues are all wearing fur caps. A postman’s cloak? A peaked cap? No,’ he waved his gun at Eszter to signal that he should go, ‘there’s no one of that sort here, that’s for sure.’ ‘May I ask just one more question?’ Eszter raised his hand to show that he was quite prepared to obey immediately. ‘Is this the only collection point for them or … are there others?’ ‘All the filthy rabble are here,’ growled the soldier with contempt. ‘I’m pretty sure the rest have escaped or we’ve shot them already and they’re dead.’ ‘Dead?’ Eszter repeated dizzily, and, ignoring the command to go, set off, swaying a little, behind the line of artillery, but the men being tall as well as closely ordered, he could not see either through them or over them; so he became obsessed with the thought of finding some vantage point, and, turning off down towards the further end of the market square, he stopped in front of the smashed entrance to the ‘Golden Flask’ chemist’s shop, where he noticed—still somewhat in sleepwalker mode—that the statue had been knocked off a nearby pedestal. The top of the base reached roughly to his stomach but at his age, and especially now that all his strength seemed to have deserted him, climbing it was a far from easy proposition; on the other hand there seemed to be no alternative if he wanted to prove to himself, as he had to, that the soldier had made a mistake and that Valuska was clearly there (‘He has to be there, where else could he be?’), so he leaned against the pedestal and, after a few unsuccessful attempts, managed to get his right knee on top of it, at which point he rested, then, using his left foot, he pushed hard against the pavement and clutched at the rim on the other side and so, having twice slid back, managed eventually and with great difficulty, to attain the top. He still felt very dizzy and naturally, because of his efforts, everything, not only the square, seemed to be covered in a kind of pulsing darkness, and it became highly doubtful whether he would succeed in staying on his feet; but then, slowly, things started to clear up … he saw the double cordon of soldiers arranged in a semicircle, and behind them, to one side, on the left, between János Karácsony Street and the burned-out church, a few Jeeps, some four or five covered trucks, and lastly, gathered in the circle, with their hands locked behind their necks, a crowd of entirely silent and immobile figures. Of course it was impossible to pick out at this distance a single figure from that dense mass of furcaps and peasant headgear but Eszter did not doubt for a second that if he was there he would find him: he would have found a needle in a haystack if that needle were Valuska … but not in this particular stack, for as soon as he started to comb through the mass of bodies he felt that his ‘lost property’ really wasn’t there, and though the soldier’s answer had been enough to disorient him, it was the last word that was the last straw; he was rooted to the spot and could do nothing but stand and stare at the crowd, knowing full well it was all a pointless exercise. He wanted to move, he wanted to climb down, but he was frightened to actually do it because the thought of going away and facing a truth he could not bear to confront was actually worse than remaining there, brooding over people whose identity was of no account to him, even when Valuska was not to be found among them. For whole minutes he stood there vacillating between staying and going, and whenever he made the slightest move to go a voice whispered, ‘Don’t!’ but as soon as he obeyed it another one whispered, ‘Do!’ and he became conscious of having made a decision in the matter only once he found himself some twenty yards on from the base of the fallen statue. He had not the slightest notion, nor indeed a smidgen of control over where he was going, moreover he was quite certain that had he chosen another route, that was just as likely to lead him to Valuska; all he could do, he felt, was to do as he had done before, in other words look neither to the left nor the right but keep his eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. But what was the point? He raised his head, if only because he knew that he was bound eventually to discover that this kind of walking-as-if-blind wouldn’t save him from anything; he had to prepare himself, he exhorted himself, this continual procrastination in the face of certainty did more harm than good, and worst of all, it was ridiculous; but all his resolve came to nothing when, cutting through the crowd of Jeeps and trucks, he gave what was intended to be merely a passing glance down János Karácsony Street and saw the chaos. At the near end of the street a great pile of jackets, coats and trousers lay strewn across both pavement and road by the wrecked frontage of Wallner’s tailor’s shop, while a few houses on, some thirty or forty people who must have emerged from the various doorways stood in a group, encircling something he could not see; but whatever it was he immediately forgot to behave in the intended circumspect manner and he ran through the obstacle of abandoned coats, jackets and trousers, slipping and sliding, headlong, unconscious, heartbroken, as if every brake in his body had suddenly given up the ghost, not realizing that whatever he was screaming in his head could not be heard by anyone else, his despair growing when they seemed unwilling as he approached, to part, if only a little, and let him through. And, as if this were not enough, just before he reached the point when he might have been able to break through the improvised cordon, a man with a
doctor’s bag suddenly emerged from the crowd, a short fat man, caught Eszter’s arm, stopped him and started pulling him away from the gaggle, nodding his head towards the far side as if to indicate that he had something to say to him.