Beware of Pity (20 page)

“At last he sat down in a café, thinking he was hungry, and ordered something. But every morsel nauseated him. I’ll sell Kekesfalva, he thought as he brooded, I’ll sell it again straight away. What would I do with a country estate? I’m no farmer. Do I want to live alone in a house with eighteen rooms, at odds with a rascal like Petrovic? It was a nonsensical idea. I should have bought it in the name of a mortgage bank, not in my own name … because suppose she does find out in the end that I was the buyer? And I don’t want to make money out of selling it! If she agrees I’ll give it back to her, taking twenty per cent or just ten per cent profit on the resale, she can have it back any time if she regrets the deal.

“This thought was a relief to his mind. I’ll write to her tomorrow—or wait, I can suggest it to her myself early tomorrow, before she leaves. Yes, that was the right thing to do—offer her the option of buying it back of his own accord. Now he thought he could sleep easily. But in spite of the two poor nights he had already spent, Kanitz slept badly and little for a third night running. He still had the intonation of her
very
, of that ‘Thank you very,
very
much!’ in his ears, spoken in a strange north German accent, but so vibrant with true feeling that the
excitement of it tingled in his nerves. No deal he had done in twenty-five years had given our friend so much cause for concern as this one—the greatest, most successful, most unscrupulous operation he had ever carried out.

“At seven-thirty in the morning Kanitz was already out and about. He knew that the express by way of Passau left at
nine-twenty,
and he wanted to buy something in a hurry—some chocolate, or a whole big gift box of chocolates. He needed to make some gesture of appreciation, and maybe he also secretly longed to hear that ‘Thank you very,
very
much!’—an expression so new to him—spoken again in her fascinatingly foreign way. He bought a big box of chocolates, the most expensive and exquisite he could find, and even that did not seem to him good enough as a farewell present. So he also bought flowers in the next shop, a large bouquet of deep red blooms. His right and left hands thus laden, he went back to the hotel and asked the clerk at reception to have both taken straight up to Fräulein Dietzenhof’s room. However, the clerk—ennobling him rather too soon, in the Viennese manner, replied, ‘I’m so sorry, Herr von Kanitz, but the lady is already in the breakfast room.’

“Kanitz thought about it for a moment. Yesterday’s parting had moved him so much that he was afraid another meeting might spoil that beautiful memory. But then he made up his mind to see her all the same, and with the box of chocolates in one hand and the flowers in the other he went into the breakfast room.

“She was sitting with her back to him. Even without seeing her face, he sensed something touching about the quiet,
unassuming
way this slender creature sat alone at her table, and against his will it affected him. Diffidently, he went up to the
table and quickly put down the box of chocolates and the flowers. ‘Something for your journey.’

“She gave a start, and blushed deeply. It was the first time that anyone had ever given her flowers—or almost the first time, because a member of the Princess’s fortune-hunting family had once sent her a few spindly roses, hoping to make an ally of her, but the furious old lady, in a towering rage, had ordered her to send them back at once. And here came someone bringing her beautiful flowers, and no one could forbid her to accept them this time.

“‘Oh no,’ she stammered, ‘how can they be for me? They are much … much too beautiful for me.’

“But she looked up with gratitude. Whether it was the reflection of the flowers, or the blood rising to her cheeks, a rosy glow spread over the embarrassment in her face. At that moment, old maid as she seemed likely to be, she was almost beautiful.

“‘Won’t you sit down?’ she asked in her confusion, and Kanitz awkwardly sat down opposite her.

“‘So you’re really going away?’ he asked, and there was an involuntary note of genuine regret in his voice.

“‘Yes,’ she said, bowing her head. There was no joy in her ‘Yes’, but no grief either. No hope and no disappointment. It was spoken quietly, with no particular tone of anything but resignation.

“In his embarrassment, and out of a wish to be useful to her in some way, Kanitz asked whether she had telegraphed ahead to announce her arrival. No, oh no, her family would only take fright—they hadn’t received a telegram for years. But he presumed they were close relations, Kanitz enquired further. Close relations? … No, not at all close. A kind of niece, her late stepsister’s daughter. She didn’t know the niece’s husband at all.
They had a little place in the country where they kept bees, and they had both written in a very friendly way, she said, telling her she could have a room there and stay as long as she liked.

“‘But what will you do in that remote little place?’ asked Kanitz.

“‘I don’t really know,’ she replied, with her eyes cast down.

“Our friend was beginning to feel much moved. There was something so lost and abandoned about this poor creature, and such indifference in her acceptance of whatever was going to happen to her, that it reminded him of himself, of his own
irregular,
footloose way of life. He felt his own aimlessness in hers.

“‘But there’s no sense in that,’ he said almost with vehemence. ‘Living with distant relations is never a good idea. And you don’t have to bury yourself in a little place like that any more.’

“She was looking at him with mingled gratitude and sadness. ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I’m a little afraid of it myself. But what else am I to do?’

“She spoke tonelessly, and then raised her blue eyes to him as if hoping for advice of some kind. (It would be good to have eyes like that, Kanitz had told himself yesterday.) And suddenly, just how it happened he didn’t know, he felt an idea, a wish make its way to his lips.

“‘Then why not stay here instead?’ he said. And still involuntarily, he added quietly, ‘Stay here with me.’

“She stared at him in alarm. Only now did he realise that he had spoken entirely on the spur of the moment. He had not, as usual, weighed up his words, calculated their effect and thought them over before they slipped out. He had suddenly voiced a wish that he had not even admitted to himself, a wish that he didn’t understand, but out it had come, vibrating with strong emotion. Only her violent blushing told him just what
he had said, and he was immediately afraid that she could have misunderstood him. She was probably thinking he meant—stay here as my lover. And he added hastily, to disabuse her of any such insulting idea, ‘I mean—as my wife.’

“She abruptly sat bolt upright. Her mouth was working, whether in a sob or to say something angry he didn’t know. Then she suddenly jumped up and ran out of the room.

“That was the worst moment in our friend’s life. Only now did he understand his own folly. He had belittled, insulted and humiliated a truly good person, the only person who trusted him, because how could he, already an ageing man, a Jew, shabby, not physically attractive, a fixer who spent his time going about doing deals, how could he offer himself to a woman whose nature was so fine and delicate? Instinctively, he told himself she had every reason to run away in horror. Well, he thought grimly, it serves me right. She’s seen me for what I am at last, she’s shown me the contempt I deserve. That’s better than to have her thank me for cheating her. Kanitz did not feel in the least offended by her sudden flight. At that moment, on the contrary—and he told me this himself—he was positively
glad
of it. He felt he had received due punishment, and it was only justice if from now on she thought of him with the same contempt that he felt for himself.

“But then she appeared in the doorway again; her eyes were moist, and she was in a state of great turmoil. Her shoulders were shaking. She came towards the table, and she had to clutch the back of the chair with both hands before she sat down again. Then she said softly, without looking up, ‘Forgive me … please forgive me for behaving so badly … for jumping up like that. But I was so startled … how could you ask such a question? You don’t even know me … you don’t know me at all.’

“Kanitz was in too much consternation to find a word. He just saw, to his astonishment, that she was not angry but simply afraid. She was as alarmed by his sudden, senseless proposal as he was himself. Neither had the courage to speak to the other, neither had the courage even to look at the other. But she did not leave Vienna that morning. They spent all day together, from morning to evening. Three days later he proposed again, and two months after that they were married.”

Dr Condor paused. “Well, let’s have a last glass of wine—I’ve nearly finished my story. But let me just say this—it’s rumoured in these parts that our friend cunningly wormed his way into the heiress’s affections and trapped her with a proposal of marriage to get hold of the estate. I repeat, however, that’s not true. As you now know, Kanitz already
had
the estate in his hands. There was no
need
for him to marry her, and not a trace of calculation in his courtship. Petty little agent that he was, he would never have found the courage to pay court to that refined, blue-eyed young woman out of cunning, Instead, he was overcome against his will by a feeling that was honourable and, wonderful to relate, remained honourable.

“For that ridiculous courtship was the prelude to a remarkably happy marriage. If opposites complement each other, the outcome is perfect harmony, and what may seem extremely surprising often turns out to be perfectly natural. It is true that the first reaction of this couple, when they so suddenly came together, was for each to be afraid of the other. Kanitz suspected that someone would tell her stories about discreditable deals he had done, and then she would turn away from him with scorn
at the last moment. He put extraordinary energy into covering up his past. He gave up all his shady practices, got rid of the promissory notes he held at a loss, and kept his distance from all his old associates. He found an influential man to stand sponsor when he had himself baptised, and spent a good sum of money on permission to have the aristocratic-sounding title ‘von Kekesfalva’ added to the name of Kanitz. After that, as usual in such cases, the original surname soon disappeared from his visiting cards without trace. But until the wedding day he lived in fear that today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow she would withdraw her trust from him again in horror.

“In her turn, used as she was to twelve years of being accused by that dragon her old mistress of uselessness, stupidity, ill will and lack of intelligence, her spirit utterly broken by the woman’s infernal tyranny, she expected her new master to shout at her all the time, mock her, abuse her shortcomings and neglect her. She was resigned to all that in advance, and was
awaiting
enslavement as her inevitable fate. But lo and behold, she could do no wrong; the man to whom she had entrusted her life thanked her for it every day, and always treated her with the utmost respect. The young woman was astonished, and could hardly understand so much affection. She had already begun fading away, but now she gradually blossomed. She looked pretty and developed soft curves, but it was still a year or two before she ventured to believe that she, always previously ignored, downtrodden and oppressed, could be loved like any other woman. However, the greatest joy for them both came with the birth of their child.

“In those years Kekesfalva returned to his business activities with new energy. He was no longer just an agent, he worked with purpose. He modernised the sugar factory, held shares
in the rolling mill in the new suburb of Vienna Neustadt, and brought off a brilliant transaction in the liquor cartel that had everyone talking at the time. The fact that he grew rich, really rich this time, did not alter the couple’s quiet, thrifty way of life. As if they did not want to remind people of themselves too much, they seldom invited guests, and the house that you now know was much simpler and more rustic at the time—and indeed it was so much happier, too, than it is today!

“Then his first time of trial began. His wife had been
suffering
internal pains for some time, she lost her appetite and grew thin, and she felt constantly tired and exhausted, but for fear of causing her busily occupied husband anxiety about her insignificant self she gritted her teeth when an attack came on, and said nothing about her pain. By the time it was impossible to conceal it any longer, it was too late. She was taken to Vienna by ambulance for an operation on her supposed stomach ulcer, which in fact was cancer. This was when I came to know Kekesfalva, and I have never seen a man suffer more savage and cruel despair. He could not, absolutely would not grasp the fact that medical science could not save his wife now, and he thought that we doctors did not do more—could not do more—out of mere apathy, indifference, and lack of skill on our part. He offered the Professor at the University Hospital fifty thousand, a hundred thousand crowns to cure her. On the day of the operation he was still summoning the leading authorities from Budapest, Munich and Berlin by telegraph, just to find one who would say that she might not have to go under the knife. And I shall never forget the madness in his eyes when she died during the operation—as was only to be expected, for there was no hope of saving her—and he screamed at us that we were all murderers.

“That was his road to Damascus. From that day on something had changed in the ascetic businessman. A god whom he had worshipped from childhood—money—had let him down. Now only one being on earth really mattered to him—his child. He engaged governesses and servants, had the house converted, no luxury was enough for him, a man who had once been so thrifty. He took his daughter at the age of nine, the age of ten, to Nice, to Paris, to Vienna, spoilt her and made much of her in the most ludicrous way, and whereas he used to put his whole mind to making money he now threw it around lavishly. Perhaps you weren’t so wrong when you described him as aristocratic and distinguished, because for years now an unusual indifference to profit and loss has had him in its grip. He learnt to despise money when all his millions couldn’t buy his wife back.