They Were Divided (53 page)

‘Seeing you three,’ smiled Aunt Ida, ‘anyone’d believe we’ll beat the Russians in no time!’

‘We three?’ replied Farkas. ‘We won’t only be three. We’ve just had news from Fiume that Akos has escaped from the Foreign Legion. He ran off the moment he heard about the war and gets here the day after tomorrow. Then there’ll be four of us!’

Balint and Countess Laczok were fascinated by the news and at once asked how it had happened and how they had heard. The brothers did not know very much. It seemed that Akos had arrived at Fiume on one of the Austria-Lloyd steamers. At Casablanca he had swum halfway across the harbour, discreetly boarded a ship and stowed away until after she had sailed. Then he had worked his passage as a stoker. At Fiume he had been arrested as he had no papers, but the Governor of Fiume, who had known Farkas Alvinczy when he had been in Parliament, had believed Akos’s story and wired to Farkas for confirmation. So all was well.

Standing at strict attention the brothers said their goodbyes and clattered off as if they had been soldiers all their lives.

Abady said goodbye to Aunt Ida when they reached a shop she wanted to visit.

He had just turned homewards when Aurel Timisan spoke to him: ‘Well, well, my Lord! And what do you think of this turn of events?’ There was a mocking tone in his voice and a smile lurked behind his thick white moustache.

Balint did not care for the undoubted irony in the question and so answered only with some mild generality. Then he asked: ‘Tell me, why did the Romanian minority, through your new parliamentary lobby, refuse Tisza’s overtures? As a first step to national co-operation it seemed to me a most remarkable move for the government to have made.’

‘A first step? We’re a long way from that now! We, my dear Count, are realists. Before the Balkan War, even before the peace, we might have considered it. But now? That is all history now,
and all around us the old Monarchy is breaking up!’ He waved two fingers lightly in the air, and went on: ‘Today the Heir to the throne, the only man who might have brought us together, is dead. Perhaps he …?’

‘I’ll never believe that. His ideas were crazy. A Triple Monarchy? Habsburg imperialism taking in all the southern Slavs as far as Salonika? Why, Franz-Ferdinand’s programme was sheer fantasy!’

‘Perhaps. I don’t deny it; but there was an idea there,’ replied the old Timisan pensively. Then, with a flash of sincerity, he said: ‘Fate has a macabre sense of humour, has she not? Our poor Archduke was murdered by the Slavs whom he loved and wanted to make great; and now the Hungarians, whom he hated, are making war to avenge him. It is amusing, is it not? Really very funny indeed!’

Balint found the old revolutionary’s mocking smile
insupportable
. They parted, and Balint went home.

B
ALINT ARRIVED
at Denestornya in the afternoon. Two of the stable-lads had already received their army papers, as had eight farm workers, a ‘
darabont
’ – man of all work – the
blacksmith
and three of the under-gardeners and, most serious of all, Miklos Ganyi, his right-hand man. There was a great deal to do for all these had somehow to be replaced, and all arrangements must be made before Balint himself left to rejoin his regiment at Varad on the following day.

On his desk was a registered letter from Vienna. The envelope bore the elegant gold circle emblem of the foreign ministry. It was from Slawata, now head of his department. It was dated August 4th and informed Abady that Slawata had arranged for him to be seconded to the General Staff as liaison officer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was asked to go at once to Vienna where his duties would be explained to him.

Balint was sure that Slawata had done this out of goodwill for an old friend thinking that he could thereby save him from service in the front line. It also showed that Slawata at least was happy about the way things were going, because he went on to take Balint into his confidence, telling him ‘
Berchtold hat
die
Sache
brilliant 
gemacht
–
Berchtold has managed everything brilliantly,’ and he went on to explain exactly where this brilliance lay. He had
purposely
, wrote Slawata, not shown the text of the ultimatum to Austria’s allies; neither to Berlin lest they should pass it on to Rome, nor to Rome since they would have shown it at once to London and Paris! Even if it had got no further than Vienna there would have been cabinet meetings and discussions and the wording would have been changed and toned down. They would have ruled out the demand for compensation which would ensure ‘
Die
endgültige
Abrechnung
–
the final reckoning…’ In this way Berchtold had so arranged it all that no one could stop him.

Italy, of course, went on Slawata, had already abandoned her former friends, but then Austria had not taken her into account for several years past; but the German foreign minister, Bethman-Hollweg, good fellow that he was, had swallowed it all without a word! ‘
Wir
haben
den
Kerl
überrumpelt!
–
we caught the fellow unawares!’

Balint was horrified by the casual tone of everything Slawata wrote. He supposed that it was possible that this was not exactly what he thought but that, as a career diplomat, he was merely applauding the adroitness with which Berchtold had out-
manoeuvred
his allies.

Later on another sentence struck him. ‘
Conrad
war
auch famos
– Conrad, too, was splendid!’ for it was he who had broken down the opposition of the Emperor himself. What had happened was that Conrad, as Chief of the Austrian general staff, had told Franz-Josef that the Serbs had already forced the crossing of the Sava river. It had not been true, but it had been the only way to get the monarch’s signature.

Balint read this letter sitting at his grandfather’s desk in Count Peter’s old manor.

He was overcome with anger and the deepest sorrow. So
between
them Berchtold and Conrad had forced the country into war! And they had chosen this moment to do so! Balint could not conceive how they could have shouldered such an awful
responsibility
, even if one admitted that sooner or later war would have been inevitable.

As for Russia, she had been preparing for war for a long time and so, even if hostilities did not start at once, they were inevitable in the next year or so. The great show-down could not be postponed more than three years at most; but to provoke it now, when the Dual Monarchy was at a severe disadvantage, seemed to Balint to
be sheer folly. Surely it would have been better to wait, for the situation was so fluid that things might well have improved. It was always possible that Russian and English interests in Asia might conflict; while, in Africa, English, French and Italian aims could well be so opposed that any alliance between those nations would be gravely threatened. There were sinister stirrings in Ireland that might pre-occupy the British. Given time anything could occur to diminish the encircling threat to Germany and Austria.

But they had chosen this moment when everyone was their enemy!

Balint sat for a long time before the window. Then he sat up and shook himself. He had not come there to waste time in gloomy thoughts but to put his affairs in order before he had to leave.

He picked up a telegram-form, addressed it to Slawata, and wrote:

He had joined the Vilos hussars and was expected at regimental headquarters for posting to the front. Of course he could save his skin by accepting some important job on the general staff, but why should he worry about his own life? After all it wasn’t worth anything any more – a bullet would be better …

This thought was uppermost in his mind as he started to work with Ganyi. Together they went over all the files and arranged matters so that the Co-operatives could carry on despite their absence. He decided to burn all his private papers, and sent word up to the castle to light a fire in the tower room for this purpose.

Ganyi took his leave, and Balint was about to follow him out when he again started thinking about what the war might bring. Unlike everyone else he was convinced that it would last for a long time and that it was bound to be lost. He had not said this to anyone because he did not want to undermine their warlike enthusiasm, but he had thought this from the very beginning. It was possible that the Russians might well get as far as Denestornya, and, if they did, then everything would be destroyed and he would be far away if he were not already dead.

His eyes now fell on his grandfather’s desk, and he thought that he really should open it and know what was in it before an
invading enemy hacked it to pieces. What sacrilege, thought Balint, that this simple old piece of furniture which held so many memories of his childhood might be thoughtlessly destroyed. He felt for the key and fitted it into the lock. Then the unexpected happened. The key turned easily and the lock clicked. This had never happened when he had tried it before, but perhaps now he had unknowingly been more adroit. He pulled the drawer out and looked inside. A strange old scent assailed him, a scent made up of tobacco in an old wooden box, and sealing-wax long turned to resin.

Then he took up the other keys and opened the side drawers. There he found all sorts of little mementos – a golden amber mouthpiece for a pipe, a fine whetstone that Peter Abady must have brought from England, a green leather case with six
handsome
razors, one for each day of the week; and a little wreath carved from lime-wood which Balint remembered his father showing him and explaining that it was the work of Ferenc Deak himself who had given it to him many years before. Its history was engraved on the base.

There were so many things, now of no possible use.

In the left-hand drawer he found the pair of satin slippers that he also recalled having seen when he was a boy. They were
heelless
and the soles were paper-thin. Narrow ribbons were attached to them and they were so small that their owner must have had feet as delicate as wafers. Now, as Balint picked them up, he
fancied
he saw his grandfather turning them over, showing him the wear on the soles, smiling, and saying ‘Look! See how much that little charmer danced!’

Under the shoes was a thick envelope, quite small, only about three inches wide, wrapped in yellowing paper, tied with string and sealed at every flap with black wax. On it was written ‘
To
be
burned
after
my
death
,’
Above the words was a cross and the date: 1837. The writing was Count Peter’s.

They must be letters, a woman’s letters, for their edges could be felt through the paper covering. Inside could be felt something else, which seemed to be a little oval frame with a glass front. Balint felt sure it must be the miniature of the letter-writer. Now he recalled what his grandfather’s old school-friend, the actor Minya Gal, had told him. Though it had been ten years before, he remembered it well. In guarded terms the old man had told the story of Peter Abady’s first love, of a tragic passion that had been shattered by an enforced parting, and how after it his
grandfather went off on his travels and no one had heard from him for nearly three years.

It had been an ancient romance whose relics were imprisoned in that carefully fastened envelope, and one that had no doubt ended in a death, which was perhaps what the cross had signified.

It was lucky that he had managed at last to open the drawer for now Balint would be able to ensure that the old count’s
long-kept
secret could be kept from the prying eyes of strangers. He would see to it that his grandfather’s wish was respected. Putting the slippers in his pocket he gathered up the packet of letters and the few documents of his own that he wanted to destroy and made his way up to the castle.

He decided to wait until the evening when the fire would be burning well.

The windows were open and outside it was dark. Balint’s lamp was set down far from the draught and where he sat all light seemed to come from the fire.

First Balint threw all his own writings into the flames and, when these were blazing up, he threw on top the slippers and his grandfather’s envelope, which did not seem to want to catch fire but only just smouldered at the edges. Taking up the poker he tried to push a hole in the envelope so that air would get in. The flames caught, ran along the string and the envelope opened of itself. A tiny coloured miniature slipped out and fell into the embers below. The glass shattered, the metal frame curled up in the heat and in the few seconds before it was consumed by fire he could see the face of a charming young woman who seemed to be smiling up at him.

Balint sat by the fireplace for a long time. He waited until everything had been reduced to ashes, until there was no trace left of the throbbing of two young hearts almost a century before nor of their secret love and hidden tragedy. The likeness of his grandfather still hung on the wall of the small sitting-room – an early Barabas in an Empire frame – but that of the other had just been burnt and it had smiled at him before crumbling to ashes.

The next morning he woke early; it was the last morning he would spend in his ancestral home for a long time, perhaps for ever.

He went to say goodbye to his favourite animals, firstly to the horses out at grass in the hillside pastures, then to the young stallions and then to the mares in their separate paddocks in the
park. To each he gave some sugar as a token of his farewell and became very moved by the affection of his old hunters, and
especially
when Honeydew, Gazsi Kadacsay’s thoroughbred, came up and rubbed his face with her soft velvety muzzle.