They Were Divided (50 page)

That morning the coffin had been brought there and set up on a bier, according to Dr Simay’s instructions. He had ordered it so because there would not have been enough room for the
mourners
to pay their last respects in Laszlo’s little cottage. The inside
of the barn had been decorated, again on Simay’s orders, with branches of pine cut from the woods that Mihaly Gyeroffy had planted but which now belonged to Azbej, as the little lawyer did not fail to point out so as to show everyone what a generous fellow he was.

When Abady arrived with Julie Ladossa, Azbej hurried
forward
on his short legs to greet them, bowing obsequiously, the image of grief-stricken sorrow, even though he had no idea who the lady was that Balint had brought with him. ‘Such a blow! Such a terrible blow!’ he whispered with his tiny mouth, holding his hat in one hand and with the other repeatedly wiping his eyes with a huge handkerchief. Backing before them with more bows and protestations of devotion to the deceased noble Count, he led them to the barn. They could see little more of him than the top of his round bristling pate of black hair.

At the door two gendarmes in full-dress uniform stood at
attention
. They were there not only for good form but because the
coffin
had not yet been closed. Its lid was leaning against the barn wall. The Chief Judge and the doctor stood together by the hedge smoking and nearby were the dark-clad employees of the funeral director.

Only Dr Simay was inside the barn. He had had the chairs from Laszlo’s house brought there and placed in a line in front of the open coffin. He was sitting on one of them.

When Balint and Julie Ladossa came in he stood up and went to greet them. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and with both hands touched his glasses as if he could not believe what he saw. Julie Ladossa stopped too. For a few moments they stared at each other, then Simay bowed coldly. She nodded in acknowledgement.

Now they stepped forward to the bier, Abady and the unknown lady to one side and Dr Simay to the other. He stood there for a moment at the head of the coffin and then, with a hard glance at Julie Ladossa, suddenly grabbed the shroud and disclosed the body.

There was something vengeful in the quick movement as if to say ‘See, this is your doing! This is what became of the son you abandoned!’

Julie Ladossa did not move. She looked for a long time at the prematurely aged man with the thin wasted face and
parchment-like
skin and grey hair at his temples. It was the face of an Egyptian mummy, but who was he? Could it be the same being
she had remembered through so many long self-accusing nights, only as a baby, as a three-year-old, a growing boy who still kept the round rosy features of babyhood? She had had to imagine him as a youth, counting the years so as to guess what the growing man had looked like … but this, this skeletal corpse, with a razor-sharp aquiline nose and long moustaches, dressed in a morning coat and starched collar and patent-leather shoes? There were no memories which tied him to her. In his petrified calm he was as strange to her as some unknown inanimate object.

She tried to force herself to kiss his face, but she couldn’t do it; so she made the sign of the cross with her finger on the dead man’s forehead and then stepped back beside Balint who had
previously
placed his wreath at the foot of the bier.

From outside came the sound of a powerful car. It was Dodo Gyalakuthy. She was followed by Mrs Bogdan Lazar from Dezsmer. Both of them brought wreaths which they placed beside Balint’s, and both of them said a short prayer beside the coffin. And to them too the dead man was a stranger, seeming to bear no resemblance to the Laszlo with whom they had both been in love. Then they took their seats beside Julie Ladossa and waited.

Someone came forward and covered up the body with the shroud which was made of silk with a wide border of lace.

The Provost of the county arrived, with two deacons, an altar-boy and six singers. The officiating priest wore a black and silver cope, and the others similar funeral vestments. The service began.

Dies
iræ,
dies
ilia
.
The traditional requiem hymn sounded as beautiful as ever. Then the Provost circled the coffin twice, sprinkling it with holy water, followed by the incense, wafted from a thurible of massive gilt metal.

‘How thoughtful of you to have arranged such a worthy
service
!’ whispered Julie Ladossa to Balint.

‘It wasn’t me,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps it was our good aunt Szent-Gyorgyi. I really don’t know who did it. Geza Simay took care of everything. He had his orders but he wouldn’t say who from.’

Hearing this Julie Ladossa sat up even straighter, and it seemed to Balint that something of a secret joy flashed briefly in her eyes … why, he wondered?

The wreaths were taken up and the coffin placed on a wooden
stretcher which was lifted onto the shoulders of eight men who then carried it outside, where the priest and the deacons were waiting, crosses held high, to lead the procession to the Gyeroffy vault.

Balint offered his arm to Laszlo’s mother, but she shrank back.

‘Up there? To the vault? No! No! I won’t go there …!’ she whispered. Balint could hardly catch what she said, but her face was set and there was terror in her eyes. Balint answered, also in a whisper, ‘Wait for me in Laszlo’s house then. I’ll be back soon.’

The procession formed up and started on its way, the people from the village crowding round behind. Julie Ladossa waited until they had all gone, and then turned and walked away.

At Laszlo’s little house the door at the left of the porch was half open, so she went straight in. In the corner by the stove, hunched up like some wounded animal and crouching on the floor, a young girl was sobbing. It was Regina.

She had collapsed there in the morning when they had carried out the coffin. Until then she had been sad but had remained calm. She had busied herself by seeing that everything was in its proper place, by seeing that Laszlo’s bedding in the coffin was neatly folded as it should be, by putting a cushion beneath his head so that he should lie as comfortably as possible, and then she had smoothed his clothes and adjusted his tie. All this time she felt he still belonged to her. Through the night she had watched by the coffin, sitting next to him on the floor and he was still hers, just as he had been when wasting away before her eyes. For her he remained forever her Fairy Prince, that noble, resplendent Prince of her dreams in whom she had always believed and whom she worshipped. Until that morning.

But when the funeral director’s men had come in and started to carry out the coffin she realized for the first time that they were going to take him away from her, take away for ever the man she loved, whom she had loved ever since her childhood, whom she had served and nursed and worshipped with every fibre in her being, heedless of misery and humiliation, heedless of all the obstacles put in her way, for he had always been hers, only hers. Until this last awful moment. It was terrible for her that now these strangers should come in and tear from her every joy and dream for which Laszlo had stood, even deprive her of that pain she had always felt in loving him. She grasped the coffin firmly, defying them to take it from her, fighting so that they shouldn’t rob her of what was rightfully hers, only hers.

The men pushed her roughly away and she fell in the corner by the stove. It was as if she had been broken in two. Her head was between her knees and her arms folded tightly above it. All that could be seen of her was her thin body in its torn cotton dress and the flaming red hair that tumbled over her shoulders.

Julie Ladossa was taken by surprise to find this adolescent girl crouched there alone in the almost empty room.

She went over to her, lifted her carefully up and sat her on the bed beside her despite the girl’s resistance. Now this resistance stopped and Regina collapsed into Julie’s lap, once again
overcome
by a frenzied weeping. Soon the hot rebellious sobbing faded into a more peaceful released sorrow.

Then Laszlo’s mother’s tears also began to flow.

They sat there together for a long time, the older woman rigidly upright, the young girl lying softly in her lap. Julie Ladossa’s hand gently stroked Regina’s hair, smoothly, gently, continuously stroking, stroking … eternally stroking …

At last the woman spoke, just one phrase, in a low voice: ‘Did you love him?’

‘Desperately,’ whispered the girl. ‘Desperately, desperately!’ Then she got up and put her arms round the sad unknown lady who sat beside her, and kissed her. And so they remained, kissing each other’s cheeks with their arms enlaced, the lady in the silken dress and the forlorn girl in her rags.

Together they mourned Laszlo, the mother who had forsaken him and the little girl who had remained faithful unto death.

The bells had just chimed midday when Balint came to find Julie Ladossa and take her back to Kolozsvar.

Her eyes were opened wide as if she were seeing visions. The wrinkles round her mouth seemed even deeper than before.

They had barely passed the Hubertus clubhouse when Julie Ladossa was already asking, ‘What times do the trains leave?’

‘There are three. One leaves soon, at half-past one; the next at six o’clock, and at eleven there is the night express. You can get a sleeper on that.’

‘I’d like to catch the first if it’s possible.’

They got to the station in time.

‘Thank you … for everything! Thank you very much …!’  she said as she stopped at a second-class carriage. Then she shook hands quickly and got in hurriedly as if pursued.

Balint was walking up and down in his room, thinking about Laszlo and of all those past memories that his death had brought back and which had now been buried with him, when his valet came in. It was about five o’clock.

‘Someone has come from the Central Hotel with something for your Lordship. Shall I ask him to come in?’

‘Of course.’

A messenger entered with a long package wrapped in tissue paper.

‘This was brought from one of the flower-shops for Countess Ladossa, my Lord; but she left no address and so the manager told me to bring it round here to your Lordship.’

‘Thank you,’ said Balint. ‘Put it down over there, will you?’ and handed the man a tip.

Flowers? Someone had sent flowers to Julie Ladossa?

He opened the parcel to see if there was any card enclosed so that he could return the gift to the sender.

There was nothing; only five beautiful old-fashioned roses, pale golden-yellow Maréchal Niel. There was no name, no card. Balint had no idea what to do with them. It would have been
useless
to send them on to Budapest for they would be dead long before they arrived, indeed they were already fully open and starting to wilt.

He carried them over to a table in the corner, meaning to find a vase for them. As he did so a few petals fell to the ground.

It was hardly worthwhile putting them in water.