Beware of Pity (24 page)

But either she didn’t notice how evasive I was being, or her impatience was ready to sweep away all obstacles. “I always knew it—I knew we’d get nowhere going on as we were. I know myself better than anyone … remember how I told you what nonsense it all is, the massaging and the hydroelectric
treatment and the devices to stretch my legs? It all takes far too much time, how can anyone wait so long? … There, look, I took those things off my legs this morning without asking him … you can’t imagine what a relief it was. I could move much more easily at once … I think it was only those horrible heavy weights that handicapped me. No, it has to be attacked quite differently, I’ve felt that for a long time. But … but now quick, tell me, tell me about this French professor’s methods! Will I have to go to him there in France? Can’t it be done here? I do so hate being in a sanatorium, I really can’t stand it! And I don’t like being with sick people! I have enough of that for myself … so what about it? Come on, do tell! Most important of all, how long will it take? Does it really work so fast? Four months, Papa says, the professor cured his patient within four months, and now the man can climb up and down stairs, and move and everything … that’s … that would be amazing! Oh, don’t sit there saying nothing like that, tell us about it again! When is he going to begin, and how long will the whole thing take?”

Slow this down, I told myself, don’t let this wild delusion run away with her as if it were all sure and certain. I very cautiously tried to damp down her exhilaration.

“A definite period of time … well, of course no doctor can give assurances about that from the start. I don’t think anyone can say for certain … and of course Dr Condor was speaking about the method only in general terms. He did say it seems to produce excellent results, but whether it’s really reliable … I mean, one can only judge these things from case to case. At least, we’ll have to wait until he—”

But her passionate enthusiasm had already outrun my
tentative
resistance. “Oh, come along, you don’t know Dr Condor!
No one ever gets anything out of him for certain. He’s so terribly over-cautious. But once he promises something, even if he sounds half-hearted about it, it’s bound to happen. He can be relied on, and you don’t know how much I need all this to be over, or at least to be certain that it
will
be over … patience, people are always telling me to have patience! But I need to know how long I must be patient. If someone said it will take another six months, it will take a year—very well, I’d say, I accept that, and I’d do anything I was told to do … but thank God the end’s in sight! You’ve no idea how happy I’ve felt since yesterday. I feel as if I’d only just begun to live. First thing this morning we drove into the town—that surprises you, doesn’t it?—but now I know that I’m over the worst I don’t mind what people say and think, or whether they look at me and pity me … I want to go driving every day now, just to prove to myself that there’s going to be an end to all this patient waiting at last. And tomorrow, Sunday—you do have Sunday off, don’t you?—we have a wonderful plan. Papa has promised me we’ll go out to the stud farm. I haven’t been there for ages, not for four or five years … I didn’t like to go out on the road. But tomorrow we’re going to drive there, and of course you must come too. You’ll be amazed when you find out the surprise Ilona and I have planned. Or … ”—and she turned to Ilona, laughing—“or shall I give away the great secret now?”

“Yes, go along,” laughed Ilona. “No more secrets!”

“Then listen, dear friend—Papa wanted us to go in the car. But it goes too fast, and it’s so boring. I remembered Josef talking about the silly old Princess—you know, the one the castle used to belong to, she was a terrible old dragon—well, she always drove out in a coach and four, the big, brightly painted travelling carriage still standing in the coach house. She always
had the four horses harnessed up, even if she was only going to the railway station, to make sure everyone would know that she was the Princess. No one else for miles around ever drove in a coach like that! So think what fun to drive in state like the old Princess for once! The old coachman is still here … oh, you won’t know the old man, he retired when we bought the car. But you should have seen him when we said we’d like to drive out in the coach and four—he stalked around on his shaky legs and practically wept for joy because he was going to drive the coach again … so it’s all arranged, and we’re leaving at eight in the morning. We’ll have to get up early, and of course you must stay the night here. We’ll give you a nice guest room down at the house, and Pista the chauffeur will fetch anything you need from the barracks—he’s coming tomorrow, too, dressed like a footman, exactly the way it was in the old Princess’s time! No, no protests, you
must
give us the pleasure of your company, you must, there’s no getting out of it …”

And on and on she went, like a whirring, tightly wound spring. I listened, numb and still bemused by this extraordinary transformation. Her voice was entirely different, the usually nervous inflection of her speech was light and fluent, and her familiar face might have been exchanged for another. Her sickly, sallow complexion had a fresher, healthier glow, and all her fidgety, staccato gestures were gone. I was facing a girl whose sparkling eyes and laughing, mobile mouth made her look slightly intoxicated. The warmth of her elation transferred itself to me, relaxing me, as any state of intoxication does. Perhaps it’s true after all, I tried to persuade myself, or perhaps it
will
be true. Perhaps I haven’t misled her, perhaps she will really get better quickly. After all, I told myself, I haven’t told outright lies, or not too many of them—Condor really did read
something about an amazing new treatment, why shouldn’t it work for this glowing, touchingly confident child, this sensitive creature who is so delighted and inspired by the mere breath of health? Why cast doubt on her high spirits when they light her up like this, why torment her with timid fears? Poor girl, she’s tormented herself long enough. And as the enthusiasm aroused by an orator merely by his words also affects himself, giving him real power, so the confidence that my sympathetic exaggeration had brought into being in the first place increasingly took hold of me. When her father finally appeared he found us all in the most carefree mood; we were talking and making plans as if Edith were already better and perfectly healthy. When would she be able to learn to ride again, she asked, and would some of us in the regiment supervise her lessons and help her? And wasn’t it time for her father to give the priest the money for the new church roof that he had promised? She laughed and amused herself with all these bold new projects, as if a certain cure was only to be expected, laughing and joking in such a carefree way that the last of my reservations were silenced. Only that evening, when I was alone in my room again, did a suppressed memory begin nagging at my mind—wasn’t she going too far, promising herself all this? Oughtn’t I to be sobering her dangerous confidence down? But I wouldn’t let such thoughts trouble me. Why worry whether I had said too much or too little? Even if I had promised far more than in all honesty I should have done—well, that compassionate lie had made her happy, and to make someone happy can never be wrong or a crime.

The planned expedition began early in the morning with a little fanfare of merriment. When I woke up in my neat, clean guest room, with bright sunlight streaming in, the first thing I heard was the sound of laughing voices. I went over to the window, and saw all the household servants gathering in amazement around the old Princess’s large travelling carriage, which must have been brought out of the coach house overnight. It was a magnificent antique, a real museum piece, built a hundred or perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago by the Viennese court coach-builder in Seilerstätte for an ancestor of the Orosvár family. The body of the coach, protected from the jolting of the massive wheels by elaborate springing, was painted in a rather naive style emulating old wall hangings, with pastoral scenes and allegories from classical mythology, and perhaps the once bright colours had faded. The interior of the carriage with its silk upholstery—we had a chance to appreciate it in detail during the drive—offered all kinds of ingenious comforts, like folding tables, little mirrors, and flasks of perfume. Not surprisingly, this gigantic toy from a past century had something unreal about it at first, like a fancy-dress party, but the pleasing result was that the household servants and other staff willingly exerted themselves to get the heavy vehicle launched down the country road. The mechanic from the sugar factory busily greased the wheels and tapped the metalwork to test that it was sound, while the four horses, adorned with bunches of flowers as if they were taking the carriage to a wedding, were put between the shafts, giving Jonak the old coachman a chance of proudly telling everyone what to do. Wearing his faded princely livery, and surprisingly spry on his gouty legs, he explained the tricks of his trade to the younger folk, who might be able to ride bicycles and drive a car if necessary, but not a coach and four. It was also Jonak who
had told the cook last night how, when there were paper chases or similar amusements in the old days, the honour of the house required a lavish repast to be served in the most remote places, in woods and meadows, as neatly as if it were being eaten in the castle dining room. Under his supervision, the servants packed up damask tablecloths, napkins and cutlery in cases adorned with a crest to show that they contained the princely silverware. Only then did the cook, a white linen chef’s toque above his beaming face, bring out the picnic food itself: roast chickens, ham and pies, freshly baked white bread, and whole batteries of bottles, each resting individually in a bed of straw so as to survive the jolts as the carriage went along the country road. A young fellow representing the cook went along with us to serve the picnic, and was given the place behind the carriage where, in the old days, the princely courier stood beside the footman on duty in his feathered hat.

Thanks to all this ceremony, there was something cheerfully theatrical about the arrangements, and as news of our strange expedition had spread quickly in the local countryside there was no lack of spectators. The farmers and their families from the neighbouring villages had come out in their colourful rustic Sunday best, while wrinkled old women and grey old men with their inevitable clay pipes came from the nearby almshouse. But most of all it was the bare-legged children from near and far who stared, amazed and enchanted, from the horses decked with flowers to the coachman holding the mysteriously intricate straps of the harness in his wrinkled but still sure hand. They were equally delighted with Pista, whom they usually knew in his blue chauffeur’s uniform, but today he wore the old princely livery and held a shiny silver hunting horn in his hand, ready to give the signal for us to drive away. First, however, we had
to eat breakfast, and when we finally approached the festive carriage we could not help noticing, with satisfaction, that we ourselves presented a considerably less stately sight than the grand coach and the neatly turned-out footmen. Kekesfalva looked slightly comical when, in his usual coat and stiff-legged as a black stork, he climbed into the carriage with its outdated noble emblems. It would have been appropriate to see the girls in rococo costume, their hair dusted with white power, black beauty spots on their cheeks, holding coloured fans, and I myself would probably have looked better in the white uniform of a cavalry officer of Maria Theresia’s time than in my modern blue lancer’s uniform. But even without historic costumes, it made a fine show for the good people watching as at last we settled into the large, heavy coach. Pista raised the hunting horn, a clear note rang out as the assembled household staff waved and cheered, the coachman skilfully cracked his whip in the air with a sound like a shot. As the coach began to move away, a violent jolt sent us tumbling against one another, laughing, but then the coachman guided his four horses very ably through the wrought-iron gate—it suddenly seemed to us alarmingly narrow for the width of our coach—and we arrived safely on the road.

It was hardly surprising that we attracted a great deal of attention as we bowled along, but the attention was remarkably respectful. No one in the locality had seen the princely coach and four for decades, and its unexpected reappearance seemed to the farming families to portend some almost supernatural event. Perhaps they thought we were going to court, or the Emperor had come to visit these parts, or something else unimaginable had happened, for hats were swept off everywhere we went as if mown from their wearers’ heads, and the barefoot children ran
along after us and wouldn’t stop. If a vehicle coming the other way met us, a heavily laden hay wain or a country horse and trap, the driver would jump quickly down, take off his hat and hold his horses to let us by. We were the autocrats, the road was ours, the whole beautiful, luxuriant countryside with its fields of crops rippling in the wind was ours, the people and the animals were ours. It was like the old feudal times. Admittedly we didn’t make fast progress in that massive vehicle, but that gave us plenty of opportunity to see and laugh at everything, and the two girls seized that opportunity. Novelty always enchants the young, and all these unusual features of the outing, our strange vehicle, the respect shown by the people at the unexpected sight we presented, and a hundred other little things heightened the girls’ good humour until they were almost intoxicated by the fresh air and sunlight. Edith in particular, who hadn’t really been out of the house for months, looked at the wonderful summer day with sparkling eyes, and seemed to be in a mood of boundless high spirits.

Our first stop was in a small village where the church bells were just ringing for Sunday service. The last latecomers could be seen making their way to the village along the narrow paths between the arable fields, but only the men’s flat black silk hats and the women’s brightly embroidered caps were visible above the tall sheaves. Coming from all points of the compass, this line of people moved like a dark caterpillar through the rippling gold of the corn still standing, and just as we turned into the main street (which was not particularly clean), greatly alarming a flock of cackling geese as they waddled away, the resonant echo of the bell stopped. Sunday matins was about to begin. Unexpectedly, it was Edith who insisted that we must all get out of the coach and join the congregation.