They Were Divided (48 page)

Since old Count Adam Alvinczy had died and his sons divided up their diminished inheritance, Farkas had hardly stirred from Magyarokerek.

Balint had last seen him at Kis-Kukullo when he had found himself dragged in to attend Pityu’s party to celebrate the trial and execution of Brandy. Even there Farkas’s presence had been exceptional; and since then he had not stirred from home.

Balint had to climb a steep path to reach the Alvinczy manor house. It was perhaps just as well that it was already evening and that night was falling, for the state of dilapidation of the
handsome
old house was not as obvious as it would have been by day. As it was one hardly noticed that the plaster was falling away in great patches and that one corner of the house was crumbling.

There were no servants to be seen but a light shone from one of the ground-floor windows. Balint stepped up onto the columned portico and opened the door.

Inside he saw Farkas Alvinczy, sitting at a large dining table on which was spread a huge map lit by a single lamp. Farkas was leaning over the table and was apparently so deep in a book that lay beside the map that he did not notice Abady until he was standing in front of him.

‘Why, Balint!’ he cried. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

It was obvious that he was delighted to see his visitor, though his greeting was elegantly moderate and free of effusiveness. Balint was at once offered some refreshment, and it was no
home-brewed
beverage, but a choice of the best liqueurs.

‘What would you prefer?’ asked Farkas. ‘Would you like Benedictine, Cointreau, Chartreuse, Maraschino di Zara? Or something else? I think I’ve got everything.’

Indeed all these elegant bottles stood nearby in a row on the sideboard.

‘You know it’s the only thing I spend money on now. Since I gave up the great world – and the high life of the capital – I just don’t have the means any more. This is my only indulgence. For a man like myself … used to only the best … well …’

They touched glasses and sat down at the table. Balint explained what brought him up to the forests and then they talked of some of their mutual friends, of economics and the
prospects
for the next harvest. These subjects were soon exhausted, for it was obvious to Balint that none of this really interested his friend any more for Farkas treated it all with haughty contempt. With a dismissive wave of his hand and a mocking smile he said, ‘None of this is very important; just little things for little people!’

After more somewhat desultory talk between them Farkas finally spoke of the map that covered the table and which had been carefully attached to it by metal clips. It represented the Indian Ocean, from Aden to the Malacca Straits. When Balint asked why he was studying this map Farkas for the first time became quite animated and eloquent.

‘That is where I’m travelling at present! You see? Today my ship arrived here!’

‘Your ship?’

‘Yes, my ship. This is it!’ and he pointed to a steel pen head which had been placed on the blue coloured sea, pointing to Ceylon at the foot of the pink-coloured sub-continent of India. ‘This pen here, that is my ship. Every day I push it forward the distance travelled in the previous twenty-four hours, according to this book. The day before yesterday we left Bombay, and
tomorrow
we shall arrive at Colombo.’

He told how he had travelled like this for the last two years. He had ordered accounts of voyages and the corresponding maps, and each day he read just as much as was covered by that day – no more, for that would be cheating. Like this it was just as if he were making the voyage himself. If the traveller wrote that he had spent five days at sea with nothing to relate, then Farkas waited five days before reading on or marking the map.

‘But isn’t that rather dull, making yourself wait five days?’

‘Not at all! Time goes by. Sometimes faster than you’d
imagine
. I think about the sea and about my travelling companions. I dress for dinner in the evenings – you always do on a luxury liner, you know.’

He told Balint he was now a much-travelled man. The previous year he had rounded Cape Horn, visited Terra del Fuego and indeed ‘done’ South America. He had also been to the South Pole and back. It had been beautiful and most interesting even though it had been a shorter trip than he really liked.

‘This one is very good. The weather’s lovely and so far the sea has been quite calm!’

Balint looked hard at Alvinczy wondering if he was making fun of him and was just saying all this for a joke, but it was clear he meant everything he said and took it all very seriously. On Farkas’s classical features, on that still beautiful if now slightly puffy face, there was an expression only of calm honesty. None of the young Alvinczys had ever shown any sign of a sense of humour and now it was obvious that the man was simply telling the truth. Looking at him Balint noticed how well-turned-out and soigné Farkas still was. He was freshly shaved, his hair had been brushed smooth; and he was wearing a well-cut
double-breasted
dark blue smoking jacket with gold buttons, just what an elegant man of fashion would wear while cruising the world’s oceans.

‘Where is your ship going?’ asked Balint, so as to make him talk on.

‘Tokyo. Then from Tokyo down to the Philippines and on the return trip we shall call at Java and Sumatra. I need another map for that part of the voyage, of course, but I’ve got it here all ready. Would you like to see it?’

He was about to get up to fetch it when Miklos Ganyi appeared at the door seemingly rather agitated.

‘This urgent telegram was brought up from Hunyad by a
special
messenger. He had to ride up. I’m sure it must be important or Zutor wouldn’t have sent it on after us.’

‘Please excuse me!’ said Balint to Alvinczy as he opened the envelope. It had been sent that day at midday and read:

Balint jumped up. Laszlo! Laszlo, his Laszlo, was dying and was perhaps already dead. He would have to start for Kozard at once. Balint read out the message to Farkas and for a few moments they discussed the sad news. Then Balint and Ganyi set off.

Alvinczy came with them only as far as the door. He said the proper words of condolence: ‘What a pity – a real shame – he was such an old friend!’ but one could tell that the news had not really meant anything to him. As soon as the others had gone, he turned on his heel and hastened back to his book and his map.

Balint caught the night express to Kolozsvar. There another
telegram
was waiting for him. It came from Kozard and read:

Early the next morning Balint left by car for Kozard. Before
leaving
he remembered that La Pantera should have been in Budapest since the previous Saturday and so Julie Ladossa would be there too. So he sent a telegram to her at the Hotel Hungaria.

He reached Kozard just before eight o’clock.

Old Marton Balogh was sitting on the doorstep. He looked old and worn and he just sat there looking glumly ahead of him. He did not get up when Balint came up, nor did he touch his cap; and when Abady questioned him, he merely pointed with his thumb to the room behind him and muttered, ‘There, in the back-room. The young Jewess is with him,’ and then went on staring into space.

Regina sat by the window at a table she had pushed there so as to make more space in the room for the moment when they would bring in the coffin. She had been alone with Laszlo when he died. She had shut his eyes, tied up his chin, washed the body and shaved his previous day’s stubble. Now Laszlo was lying there covered with a sheet. His two pillows had been placed on the chest of drawers.

In front of the girl was some bedding – three towels and two blankets, some shirts, too, and handkerchiefs and socks. She was making a list so that everything could be accounted for, though to whom and why she had not thought. The important thing was that everything should be in order; and so there she was, stub of pencil in hand, making a list of the clothes in the pile in front of her.

Her red hair flamed in the light from the window.

She replied to all Balint’s questions calmly and intelligently. Her large doe-like eyes seemed even larger as a result of her long vigil, but despite all her hard work she did not seem tired. Calmly she told what had happened.

Laszlo, she said, had just wasted away. Sometimes he had taken just half a glass of milk, but latterly not even that. He had not been in pain and recently had hardly even coughed. He had slept more and more, and in the last few days had only been awake for a few minutes at a time. He had slept quietly until the moment when he had turned to the wall and died.

‘Why didn’t you let me know earlier, as you promised?’ asked Balint crossly.

Regina did not answer, but just looked at him with pouting lips. Then she said, ‘Would you like to see him?’

They stepped over to the bed and she folded back the sheet.

It looked as if Laszlo were asleep; even though it was the sleep of death. To Balint, looking at his fine aquiline nose and long moustaches, it was strange to see him so calm, which he never had been in life. His waxen face was barely more than skin and bone but about his mouth there still seemed to linger a faint
mocking smile, while those eyebrows which met in the middle were raised at the edges as if in contempt.

Abady somehow resented his unexpectedly strange expression and was relieved when Regina covered his face again.

‘In this cupboard there is a lovely suit. He told me to put it on him when he was dead.’

Balint was startled.

‘Did he know he was dying then?’

‘No, not now, anyhow. He said it a long time ago.’ She opened the cupboard and hanging there was an iron-grey morning-coat, a double-breasted cream-coloured waistcoat and a pair of striped trousers. Under the suit was a pair of black and beige buttoned boots. ‘He once said that though he’d sold everything else he ever possessed he would never sell this suit no matter how much he needed the money!’

Regina then took the suit out of the cupboard and laid it out neatly on the chair.

‘They said yesterday evening, the men from Szamos-Ujvar, that they’d bring in the coffin at midday. He ought to be ready by then.’

Balint offered to help her.

They slit each piece of clothing down the back so that it would be easier to put on. As Regina was cutting the waistcoat a small blue card fell from the pocket. It was a tote ticket from some long-forgotten race meeting. Abady picked it up and saw that on it was printed the letter nine. It must have been a losing ticket for if it had won then surely Laszlo would have handed it in, despite the fact that it was only for quite a small sum, just ten crowns, no more. Balint wondered what to do about it. His first thought was to throw it away, but then it occurred to him that it might have had some special memory for Laszlo and that that was why he had kept it.

It was true that that ticket had meant something special to Laszlo, though it was doubtful whether he ever realized he still had it in the pocket of the suit he had never worn again after that day at the King’s Cup race in Budapest when he had promised Klara Kollonich never again to gamble. In the grandstand he had said to her ‘I promise!’ and they had shaken hands on it. So as to mislead anyone who was standing near and might have heard these solemn words and seen the mysterious handshake and wondered what they signified, she had given him ten crowns and asked him to put them on a horse for her, just as if they had only
been discussing a bet. He had put the money on Number Nine.

The bet had been lost … and the girl too. Laszlo had broken his word to her and had gone on gambling. To him that ticket had been the symbol of the day the Fates had turned against him.

Abady knew nothing of this, but his instinct told him to put the blue ticket back in the pocket from which it had fallen.