Satantango

VI. Irimiás Makes a Speech

My friends! I confess, I come to you at a difficult time. If my eyes do not deceive me I see that no-one has missed the chance to be present at this fateful meeting. . And many of you, trusting, no doubt, that I will be ready to supply you with an explanation for recent events, events that no sane person could describe as anything but an incomprehensible tragedy, seem to have arrived even before the time we arranged only yesterday. . But what can I say to you, ladies and gentlemen? What else can I say but that. . I am shaken, in other words, I am cast down. . Believe me, I too am utterly confused, so you must forgive me if, for now, I cannot find quite the right words, and that, instead of addressing you as I should, my throat, like yours, is still tight with the shock we all feel, so please don’t be surprised if, on this devastating morning for us all, I am, like you, left helpless and without words, because, I must admit, it does not help me speak when I recall how last night, as we were standing in horror by the lately discovered body of this child, and I suggested that we should try to grab some sleep, we are once again gathered together in the hope that, perhaps now, on the morrow of the event, we might be able to face life with a clearer head, though, believe me, I am as utterly at a loss as you are, and my confusion has only increased with the morning. . I know I should pull myself together, but am sure you will understand if just at this moment I am incapable of saying or doing anything except share, deeply share, the agony of an unfortunate mother, a mother’s constant, never-to-be-alleviated grief. . because I don’t think I need tell you twice that the grief of losing — just like that, from one minute to the next — those dearest to our hearts is, my friends, quite beyond measure. I doubt if anyone now gathered here could fail to understand any part of this. The tragedy involves each and every one of us, because, as we know full well, we are all responsible for what has happened. The hardest thing we must face in this situation, is the obligation, through clenched teeth, with lumps in our throats, to examine the case. . Because — and I really must emphasize this most intensely — there is nothing more important, before the officials arrive, before the police begin their own inquiries, than that we the witnesses, we in our positions of responsibility, should accurately reconstruct events and discover what brought about this horrifying tragedy resulting in the terrible death of an innocent child. It’s best we prepare ourselves, for we are the people the official local agencies will regard as primarily responsible for the catastrophe. Yes, my friends. Us! But surely we should not be surprised at this. Because, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that, with a little care, a touch more foresight and some proper circumspection, we could have prevented the tragedy, couldn’t we? Consider that this defenceless creature, she who we might rightly regard now as God’s little outcast, this little lamb, was liable to all kinds of danger, prey to any tramp or passerby — to anything and everything my friends, being out all night, soaked through to the bone in that heavy rain, out in the wild wind, easy prey to all the elements. . and, through our blind thoughtlessness, our unforgivable wicked thoughtlessness, she was left wandering about like a stray dog, here in our vicinity, practically in our midst, driven here and there by all kinds of forces while never straying too far from us. She might possibly have been looking through that very window, watching you, ladies and gentlemen, as you danced drunkenly through the night, and as, I cannot deny it, we ourselves passed, passed while she watched us from behind a tree or from the depths of a haystack, while we were stumbling, rain-beaten and exhausted past the well-known milestones, our destination Almássy Manor — indeed, her path lay near to us, so close to us we might have reached out and touched her and no one, you understand, no one hurried to help her or strained to catch her voice, because it’s certain that at the moment of death she must have cried out to us — to someone! — but the wind blew away the sound, and she was lost in the tumult you yourself were making, you, ladies and gentlemen! What brought about this terrible combination of chance factors, you will ask, what pitiless whim of fate?.. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not accusing any particular person here. . I am not accusing the mother who might never again enjoy a night of peaceful slumber because she cannot forgive herself for the fact that, on this one fateful day, she woke too late. Nor do I — like you, my friends — accuse the victim’s brother, this fine upstanding young man with a bright future, who was the last to see her alive, just two hundred yards from here, barely two hundred yards from you, ladies and gentlemen, you, who, suspecting nothing, were patiently waiting for us to appear, only to fall into a dull drunken sleep. . I am not accusing any particular person of anything and yet. . let me put this question to you: are we not all to blame? Would it not be more befitting if, instead of offering cheap excuses, we confessed that, yes, we are indeed guilty? Because — and in this respect Mrs. Halics is undoubtedly right — we should not kid ourselves, hoping to put our consciences at rest by pretending that all that has happened was merely a peculiar accident, a coming together of chance events we could do nothing about. . It wouldn’t take me a minute to prove you wrong about that! Let us take stock, piece by piece, each one of us in turn. . let us analyse the dreadful moment and examine its several parts, because the big question — and we should not forget this, ladies and gentlemen! — is what actually happened here yesterday morning. I went through the particulars of the night over and over again before I stumbled on the truth! Please don’t think it is just a matter of not knowing how the tragedy came about, since the fact is we don’t even know what it isthat has happened. . The details we are aware of, the various confessions we have heard, are so contradictory that it would take a genius, a man with sprouts for brains, as you put it round here, to see through the rather convenient fog and make out the truth. . All we know is that the child is dead. That’s not a lot, you must admit! That is why, I thought later, once I could lie down on the bed in the storeroom that this kind gentleman, the landlord, had selflessly offered up to me, that’s why there is no other way than to go through the events step by step — and I remain convinced that that is the only correct procedure open to us. . We must collate all the most seemingly insignificant details, so please don’t hesitate to recall what might appear to you to be unimportant. Think hard about what you might have missed telling me yesterday, because this is the only way we will find both an explanation and some kind of defense in the most demanding moments of the public examination to come. . Let us use the brief time available to us, since who can we trust but ourselves — no one else can lay bare the story of this momentous night and morning. .

The grave words rang mournfully through the bar: it was like the continuous tolling of furiously beaten bells, the sound of which served less to direct them to the source of their problems than simply to terrify them. The company — their faces reflecting the terrible dreams of the night before, choked up with memories of foreboding images between dreams and waking — surrounded Irimiás, anxious, silent, spellbound, as if they had only just woken, their clothes rumpled, their hair tangled, some with the pressure marks of pillows still on their faces, waiting benumbed for him to explain why the world had turned upside down while they were sleeping. . it was all a terrible mess. Irimiás was sitting in their midst, his legs crossed, leaning back majestically in his chair, trying to avoid looking into all those bloodshot, dark-ringed eyes, his own eyes staring boldly ahead, his high cheekbones, his broken hawk-like nose and his jutting, freshly shaven chin tilted above everyone’s head, his hair, having grown right down his neck, curled up on both sides, and, every now and then, when he came to a more significant passage, he would raise his thick, close, wild eyebrows as well as his finger to direct his listeners’ eyes to wherever he chose.

But before we set out on this dangerous road, I must tell you something. You, my friends, deluged us with questions when we arrived yesterday at dawn: you cut across each other, explaining, demanding, stating and withdrawing, begging and suggesting, enthusing and grumbling, and now, in response to this chaotic welcome, I want to address two issues, though I might already have broached them with you individually. . Someone asked me to “reveal the “secret’, as some of you called it, of our “disappearance” about eighteen months ago. . Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is no “secret’; let me nail this once and for all: there was no secret of any kind. Recently we have had to fulfill certain obligations — I might call these obligations a mission — of which it is enough, for now, to say, that it is deeply connected to our being here now. And having said that, I must rob you of another illusion because, to put it in your terms, our unexpected meeting is really pure chance. Our route — that is to say mine and that of my friend and highly valuable assistant — led us to Almásssy Manor, being obliged — for certain reasons — to make an emergency visit there in order to take what we might call a survey. When we set out, my friends, we did not expect to find you here: in fact we weren’t even sure whether this bar would still be open. . so, as you see, it was indeed a surprise for us to see you all again, to come upon you as if nothing had happened. I can’t deny it felt good to see old familiar faces, but, at the same time — and I won’t hide this from you — I was at the same time concerned to see that you, my friends, were still stuck here — do protest if you find “stuck” too strong a word — stuck here, at the back of beyond years after having often enough decided to move on, to leave this dead end and to seek your fortunes elsewhere. When we last saw each other, some eighteen months ago, you were standing in front of the bar, waving goodbye to us as we disappeared around the bend, and I remember very clearly how many great plans, how many wonderful ideas were ready just waiting to be put into action and how excited you were about them. Now I find you all still here, in precisely the same condition as before, in fact more ragged and, forgive the expression, ladies and gentlemen, duller than before! So, what happened? What became of your great plans and brilliant ideas?!.. Ah, but I see I am digressing somewhat. . To repeat, my friends, our appearance among you is a matter of pure chance. And while the extraordinarily pressing business that brooks no delay should have brought us here some time ago — we should have arrived in Almássy Manor by noon yesterday — in view of our long-standing friendship I have decided, ladies and gentlemen, not to leave you in the lurch, not just because this tragedy — though at some remove — touches me too since the fact is we ourselves were in the vicinity when it happened, not to mention that I do faintly remember the victim’s unforgettable presence among us and that my good relations with her family impose on me an unavoidable obligation, but also because I see this tragedy as a direct result of your condition here, and in the circumstances I simply can’t desert you. I have already answered your second question by telling you this, but let me repeat it, just so there should not be any later misunderstanding. Having heard that we were on our way you were too hasty in assuming that we were intending to see you because, as I have already mentioned, it hadn’t occurred to us that you would still be here. Nor can I deny that this delay is a little inconvenient, because we should have been in town by now, but if this is the way things have fallen out let’s get something over with as quickly as possible and draw a line under this tragedy. And if, perhaps, any time should remain after that I’ll try to do something for you, though, I must confess, at the moment I am utterly at a loss to think what that could be.

. . .

What has fate done to you, my unfortunate friends? I could be referring to our friend Futaki here, with his endless, depressing talk of flaking plaster, stripped roofs, crumbling walls and corroded bricks, the sour taste of defeat haunting everything he says. Why waste time on small material details? Why not talk, instead, of the failure of imagination, of the narrowing of perspective, of the ragged clothes you stand in? Should we not be discussing your utter inability to do anything at all? Please don’t be surprised if I use harsher terms than usual, but I am inclined to speak my mind now, to be honest with you. Because, believe me, pussy-footing and treading carefully around your sensitivities will only make things worse! And if you really think, as the headmaster told me yesterday, dropping his voice, that “the estate is cursed” then why don’t you gather your courage in both hands and do something about it?! This low, cowardly, shallow way of thinking can have serious consequences, friends, if you don’t mind me saying so! Your helplessness is culpable, your cowardice culpable, culpable, ladies and gentlemen! Because — and mark this well! — it is not only other people one can ruin, but oneself!. . And that is a graver fault, my friends, and indeed, if you think about it carefully, you will see that every sin we commit against ourselves is an act of self-humiliation.

The locals were huddled together in fear and now, after the last of these thundering sentences had died away, they had to close their eyes, not only because of his fiery words but because his very eyes seemed to be burning holes in them. . Mrs. Halics’s expression was pure sackcloth-and-ashes as she absorbed the ringing denunciation, and she stooped before him in almost sexual ecstasy. Mrs. Kráner hugged her husband so close that he had, from time to time, to ask her to loosen her grip. Mrs. Schmidt sat pale at the “staff table” occasionally drawing her hands across her brow as if trying to wipe away the red blotches that kept appearing there in faint waves of ungovernable pride. . Mrs. Horgos, unlike the men who — without precisely understanding these veiled indictments — were spellbound and feared the ever fiercer passion rising in them, observed events with a keen curiosity, occasionally peeking out from behind her crumpled handkerchief.

I know, I know, of course. . Nothing is so simple! But before you excuse yourselves — blaming the intolerable pressure of the situation or because you feel helpless when faced by the facts — consider little Esti for a moment, whose unexpected death caused you such consternation. . You say you are innocent, friends, that’s what you say for now. . But what would you say if I now asked you how we should refer to this unfortunate child?. . Should we call her an innocent victim? A martyr to chance? The sacrifical lamb of those without sin?!. . So, you see. Let’s just say that she herself was the innocent party? Right? But if she was the embodiment of innocence then you, ladies and gentlemen, are the embodiment of guilt, every one of you! Feel free to reject the charge if you think it is without foundation!. . Ah, but you are silent! So you agree with me. And you do well to agree with me because, as you see, we are on the threshold of a liberating confession. . Because by now you all know, know rather than just suspect, what has happened here. Am I right? I’d like to hear each and every one of you to say it now in chorus. . No? Nothing to say, my friends? Well of course, of course, I understand how hard it is, even now when it’s all perfectly obvious. After all, we’re hardly in a position to resurrect this child! But believe me, that’s exactly what we have to do now! Because you will be stronger for the confrontation. A clean confession is, as you know, as good as absolution. The soul is freed, the will is released, and we are once again capable of holding our heads high! Think of that, my friends! The landlord will quickly convey the coffin to town while we remain here with the weight of the tragedy dragging at our souls, but not enfeebled, not uncleansed, not cringing in cowardice, because, our hearts broken, we have confessed our sin and can stand unabashed in the searching beam of judgment. . Now let’s not waste any more time, since we understand that Esti’s death was a punishment and warning to us, and that her sacrifice serves, ladies and gentlemen, as a pointer to a better, fairer future.

Their sleepless, troubled eyes were veiled over with tears and, hearing these words, an uncertain, wary, yet unstoppable wave of relief washed over their faces, while, here and there, a brief, almost impersonal sigh escaped from them. It was like fierce sunlight curing a cold. After all, this was precisely what they’d been waiting for all these hours — these liberating words pointing to the lasting prospect of “a better, fairer future” and their disappointed looks now radiated hope and trust, belief and enthusiasm, decision and the sense of an ever more steely will as they faced Irimiás. .

And you know, when I think back over what I saw when we first arrived and crossed the threshold, the way you, my friends, were strewn across the room, dribbling, unconscious, slumped in chairs or over tables, your clothes in rags, covered in sweat, I must confess my heart aches and I become incapable of judging you, because that was a sight I shall never forget. I will recall it whenever anything threatens to deflect me from the mission with which God has entrusted me. Because that prospect made me see the full misery of people cut off for ever, deprived of everything: I saw the unlucky, the outcasts, the indigent and defenseless masses, and your snuffling, snoring and grunting made me hear the imperative of their cry for help, a call I must obey as long as I live, until I too am dust and ashes. . I see it as a sign, a special sign, for why else should I have set out once again but to take my place at the head of an ever more powerful, ever rising, fully justified fury, a fury that demands the heads of the truly guilty. . We know each other well, my friends. I am an open book to you. You know how I have moved about the world for years, for decades, and have bitter experience of the fact that, despite every promise, despite all pretence, despite the thick veil of lying words, nothing has really changed. . Poverty remains poverty and those two extra spoonfuls of food we receive are nothing but thin air. And in these last eighteen months I have discovered that all I have done so far also counts for nothing — I should not have been wasting my time on tiny details, I have to find a much more thoroughgoing solution if I am to help. . And that’s why I have finally decided to seize the opportunity: I want now to gather together a few people in order to establish a model economy that offers a secure existence and binds together a small band of the dispossessed, that is to say. . Do you begin to understand me?. . What I want is to establish a small island for a few people with nothing left to lose, a small island free of exploitation, where people work for, not against each other, where everyone has plenty and peace and security and can go to sleep at night like a proper human being. . Once news of such an island gets around I know the islands will multiply like mushrooms: there will be ever more of us and eventually everything that seemed merely an idle dream will suddenly become possible, possible for you, and you, and you, and you. I felt, in fact I knew, that now this plan had to be realized as soon as I got here. And since I myself have lived here and belong here, here must be the place to realize the plan. That, I now discover, is the real reason I set out for Almássy Manor with my friend and helper, and that, friends, is why we are meeting now. The main building is, as I recall, still in a reasonable state, and the other buildings can soon be put right. Getting the lease is child’s play. There remains only one problem, a big problem, but let’s not worry ourselves about that just now. .

An excited hubbub surrounded him: he lit a cigarette and stared straight ahead with a solemn expression, lost in thought, the furrows on his brow deepening as he bit his lips. Behind him by the stove Petrina was quite overcome with admiration and gazed at the back of “the genius”’s head. Then Futaki and Kráner spoke at once: “What’s the problem?”

I don’t think I need burden you with that just yet. I know you are thinking: Why shouldn’t we be those people?. . Indeed, my friends, it isn’t a wholly impossible idea. The kind of people I need are those with nothing to lose and — and this is the most important thing — they should not be afraid of taking a risk. Because my plan is undoubtedly risky. If anyone interested, you understand, anyone, gets cold feet then I’ll be gone — just like that! These are hard times. I can’t bring the plan to fruition straightaway. . I have to be prepared — and am in fact prepared in case I meet with an obstacle that I can’t immediately overcome — to withdraw temporarily. Though that would be merely a strategic withdrawal, and I would simply be waiting for the next opportune moment.

The same question was now being fired at him from every direction. “OK, tell us about the big problem? Couldn’t we. . Maybe despite that. . Somehow. . “

Look here, my friends. . It’s not such a great secret really and there is nothing to stop me telling you. I just wonder what use the knowledge will be to you?. . In any case, there’s nothing you can do to help me at the moment. For my part, I would be happy to help you once things here have improved, but for now this other business needs my entire attention. To tell you the truth, the estate looks a hopeless case to me right now. . the best I could do, maybe, would be to find one or other of you honest work, a decent living somewhere, but your whole siltuation is new to me so you will understand that for now it’s impossible. I’d have to give the matter some proper thought. . You’d like to remain together? I understand, of course I do, but what can I do in that case?. . Pardon? What was that? You mean the problem. What’s the problem? Well look, I’ve already told you that it makes no sense keeping anything from you. The problem is money, ladies and gentlemen, money, because without a penny, of course, there’s nothing to be done, the deal is dead. . the cost of the lease, the outlay on contracts, the rebuilding, the investment, the whole business of production, requires, as you know, a certain, what they call, capital investment. . but that’s a complex matter, my friends, and why go into that now? What’s that?. . Really?. . You’ve got the money?. . But how? Oh, I see. You mean the value of the cattle, the herd. Well, that’s fair enough. .

There was real fever in the company now; Futaki had already sprung to his feet, grabbed a table, put it down in front of Irimiás and reached into his pocket. He displayed his contribution to the others and threw it on the table. Within minutes he was followed, first by Kráner, then, one after the other, by the rest, all pledging their cash on top of Futaki’s contribution. The grey-faced landlord ran back and forth behind his counter, stopping dead every so often, and standing on tiptoe so he could see better. Irimiás rubbed his eyes in exhaustion; the cigarette in his hand went out. He looked on without expression as Futaki, Kráner, Halics, Schmidt, the headmaster and Mrs. Kráner tried to outdo each other in their enthusiasm to demonstrate their readiness and commitment. So the pile of money on the table rose ever higher. Finally Irimiás rose, went over to Petrina, stood beside him and moved his hand for silence. The room fell quiet.

My friends! I can’t deny your enthusiasm is deeply touching. . But you haven’t thought it over properly. No, you haven’t! No protests, please. You can’t be serious about this! Surely you can’t be capable of committing your hard earned small savings, won with such superhuman effort, suddenly, just like that to an on-the-spur-of-the-moment idea, sacrificing everything, risking all, on a venture that’s full of risks? Oh, my friends! I am extremely grateful for this moving demonstration, but no! I can’t take it from you. . not for, what seems likely to be, several months. . Really?. . the bitterly scrimped savings of a whole year?. . What can you be thinking?! My scheme is, after all, fraught with as yet unpredictable risks of all sorts! The forces I am up against could delay realization of the plan for months, even years! And you wish to sacrifice your hard-earned cash for that? And should I accept it — after having just confessed to being unable to help you in the immediate future? No, ladies and gentlemen! I can’t do it. Please take your money back and put it away safely! I’ll get the necessary resources one way or the other. I’m not willing to let you risk so much. Landlord, if you could just stand still for a moment, would you please be kind enough to bring me a spritzer. . Thank you. . Wait! Let no one refuse! I invite my dear friends to have a drink on me. . Go on, landlord, don’t even think about it. . Drink up, my friends. . and think. Think well. Calm yourselves and think it over once more. . Make no rash decisions. I have told you what this is about and what the risks are. You should only agree to it if you are utterly decided. Consider the possibility that you might lose this hard-earned sum and that then you might, just might, have to begin again from scratch. . No, no, friend Futaki, I do believe that’s something of an exaggeration. . That I am. . that you talk about salvation. . Please don’t embarrass me like that! Yes. . that’s a little closer to the mark, friend Kráner. . “Well-wisher” is a term I can more readily accept, “a well-wisher” is what I certainly am. . I see you are not to be convinced. OK, OK, fine. . Ladies! Gentlemen! Can I have a little quiet please! Let’s not forget why we are gathered here this morning! All right! Thank you!. . Please sit down in your places. . Yes. . Indeed. . Thank you, my friends. . Thank you!

Irimiás waited for everyone to return to their chairs, returned to his own, stood there, cleared his throat, threw out his arms in a gesture of emotion, then let them drop helplessly to his sides, raising his slightly tearful eyes to the ceiling. Behind the deeply moved company, the Horgos family — now quite isolated from the others — stared at each other, helplessly confused. The landlord was emotionally scrubbing the top of the counter with his drying-up cloth, polishing the cake tray and the glasses, then sat back on his stool but, however he tried, he could not tear his eyes away from the great pile of money in front of Irimiás.

Now, my most dear friends. . What can I say! Our paths have crossed by chance but fate demands that, from this hour on, we stick together, inseparably together. . Though I worry for you, ladies and gentlemen, on account of the chance you are taking. I must confess your trust moves me. . it feels good to be the subject of an affection of which I do not feel myself worthy. . But let’s not forget how we have arrived in this situation! Let’s not forget! Let us always remember, let us never forget, the cost! What a cost! Ladies and gentlemen! I hope you will agree with me when I suggest that a small part of this sum, this money in front of me, should cover the cost of the funeral, so that the unfortunate mother might be saved the burden — as a gesture to the child who went to her final sleep most certainly for us or because of us. . Because, in the end, it is impossible to decide whether it was for us, or because of us that she died. We cannot prove the case either way. But the question will remain in our hearts for ever, as will the child’s memory, a child whose life might have been lost for this precise purpose. . so that the star that governs our lives might rise at last. . Who knows, my friends. . But life is harsh, and it has dealt harshly with us in this matter.

V. The Distance, As Seen

For years after, Mrs. Halics would insist that as Irimiás, Petrina and the “demon child” who had in the end attached himself to them, disappeared down the road leading to town in the pattering rain, leaving those that remained standing silently around in front of the bar because the figure of their savior had not quite vanished in the bend of the road, the air above their heads was suddenly filled with brightly colored butterflies. Where they came from no one knew but you could clearly hear the gentle angelic music from on high. And though she was perhaps alone in such an opinion, this much was certain: they had only just begun to believe in what had happened, and were only now capable of realizing that they weren’t the subject of some lulling but false vision with a bitter awakening to follow, but an enthusiastic, specially chosen band that had just passed through the painful process of liberation; and as long as they could still see Irimiás, recall his clear instructions, and be cheered by his words of encouragement, they could keep at bay the fear that something terrible might happen at any moment, something that might sweep away their fragile sense of victory and leave it utterly in tatters, for they also knew that, once he had gone, the glowing sparks of enthusiasm could quickly turn to ashes; and so, in order that the time should seem longer between striking the agreement and the farewells that would inevitably follow, they had tried to delay Irimiás and Petrina’s departure by a variety of artful distractions; by discussing the weather, or complaining about their rheumatism, or opening new bottles of wine, babbling all the while — as if their lives depended on it — about the general corruption of life. And so it was understandable that they could breathe freely only once Irmimiás had gone, for he embodied not only the promise of a bright future, but also the fear of disaster: no wonder that it was only after he had gone that they dared truly believe that from now on “everything would be right as rain’, and also only now that they could relax, let joy sweep over them, allaying their anxiety, and enjoy the sudden dizzying sense of liberation that could overcome even the usual “sense of apparently inevitable doom.” Their boundless good cheer only increased when waving farewell to the landlord (‘Serves you right, you old miser!” — shouted Kráner) who was leaning, exhausted, against the doorframe, his arms crossed, with rings under his eyes, watching the merry chattering band as they moved away, and capable — after having exhausted his self-consuming fury, long-simmering hatreds and the agony of his sheer helplessness — was capable of nothing more than shouting after them: “Drop dead, you miserable, ungrateful bunch of bastards!” He had spent the night awake plotting ways — all ineffective, all flawed — of getting rid of Irimiás who had had the nerve to take over even his bed, so while he was debating with bloodshot eyes whether to stab him, strangle him, poison him, or simply chop him into pieces with his axe, “the hook-nosed swine” was happily snoring at the back of the store, not taking the least bit of notice. Talking had proved useless too, utterly useless, though he had done everything possible, in anger, in fury, in warning, or simply by pleading, to dissuade “these ignorant bumpkins” from this guaranteed disaster of a plan, a disaster that would destroy them all, but it was like talking to a brick wall (‘Come to your senses, dammit! Can’t you see he’s leading you by the nose?!’), so there was nothing for it, but to curse the whole world and admit the humiliating truth that he was ruined once and for all. For “what’s the point of staying in business for one drunken pig and one old tramp” — what could he do except gather up his belongings and to do what everyone else was doing, to leave, to move back into his house in town, and hope to sell the bar, maybe even make some use of the spiders. “I could offer to sell them to someone for use in some scientific experiment; who knows, I might even get a bit of money for them,” he pondered. “But that would be just a drop in the ocean. . The fact is I have no idea how to start over again from scratch,” he sadly admitted. The intensity of his disappointment was only matched by the intensity of Mrs. Horgos’s delight at his despair. Having surveyed “this whole idiotic ritual” with a sour expression, she had returned to the bar, to mock the landlord behind his counter. “You see. Just look at you! The horse has bolted, all right!” The landlord controlled himself but he’d happily have kicked her. “That’s the way it goes,” she went on. “Now up, now down. You’d better get used to it and accept it. See where all your bright ideas have got you? A lovely house in town, a car, your lady wife — but that’s not enough for you. So now you can choke on it!” “Shut up with your cackling,” the landlord growled back. “Go home and do your cackling there!” Mrs. Horgos downed her beer and lit a cigarette. “My husband was just like you, never satisfied. Nothing was ever good enough for him, not no how. By the time he realized his mistake it was too late. There was nothing left but to hang himself in the attic.” “Why don’t you just shut up!” the landlord snapped back. “Stop hassling me! Go home and look after your daughters before they run off too!” “Them?” Mrs. Horgos grinned. “Forget it. You think I’m simple or something? I’ve locked them up at home till this bunch on the estate are safely away. Why not? They’d leave me in my old age to look after myself. This way they can carry on looking after the farm — they’ve done enough whoring, after all. They might not like it, but they’ll get used to it. It’s only the kid, Sanyi. I’m cutting him loose. He can go where he likes. I can’t see any use for him at home anyway. He eats like a pig. I can’t support him. Let him go — wherever he wants. One less thing to worry about.” “You and Kerekes can do what you like,” growled the landlord. “But it’s all over for me. That rat-faced bastard has ruined me for good.” He knew that by evening, when he had finished packing — because until then nothing else could go in the van apart from the coffin, not next to it, not behind it, not on the seats, anywhere — once he had carefully locked all the doors and windows and was driving to town in his battered old Warszawa, cursing all the while, he wouldn’t be looking back, wouldn’t turn round once, but would vanish as fast as he could and try to wipe all trace of this miserable building from his memory, hoping it would sink from sight, and be entirely covered up, so that not even stray dogs would stop to piss on it; that he would vanish precisely the way the mob from estate had vanished, vanish without a last look at those moss-covered tiles, the crooked chimney, and the barred windows because, having turned the bend and passed beneath the old sign indicating the name of the estate, feeling elated by their “brilliant future prospects’, they trusted the new would not only replace the old but utterly erase it. They had decided to meet by the old engine house in two hours at the latest, because they wanted to get to Almássy Manor while it was still light, and in any case that seemed ample enough time to pack their most important belongings, for what was the point of dragging stupid bits of bric-a-brac with you for ten or so miles, particularly when they knew they wouldn’t lack for anything once they got there. Mrs. Halics had suggested they start straightaway, not bothering with anything, leaving it all behind to start in the spirit of Christian poverty, since “we are already blessed and well-provided for with the Bible!” but the others — chiefly Halics — eventually convinced her that it was desirable to take at least a few basic personal necessities. They parted excitedly and feverishly set to packing, the three women going through their wardrobes first then emptying kitchens and pantries, while Schmidt, Kráner and Halics’s first thoughts were for their tool cupboards sorting out essentials, then checking everything else with eagle eyes in case the women in their carelessness had left “anything valuable behind.” The two bachelors had the easiest job of it: all their possessions fit into two large suitcases: unlike the headmaster who packed fast but very selectively, constantly bearing in mind the idea of making “the best use of whatever the new place offers.” Futaki quickly threw his belongings into the old suitcases left to him by his father and, quick as lightning, snapped the locks shut — it was like locking a genie back in its bottle — then put them in a pile and sat on them, lighting a cigarette with his trembling hand. Now that there was nothing left to remind him of his personal presence; now that, cleared of his clutter, the place that enclosed him was bare and cold; having packed, he felt he had left no sign that he had ever been part of this world, no shred of evidence that might have proved he once existed here. But however many days, weeks, months, perhaps years of hope lay before him — since he was quite sure his lot was finally cast for the better — squatting on his baggage now, in this drafty, foul-smelling place (of which he could no longer say, “I live here” though he was in no position to answer the question, “If not here, where?’), he found it ever harder to resist an increasingly suffocating sense of sadness. His bad leg was aching so he got off the suitcases and carefully lay down on his wire bed. For a few minutes he was overcome by sleep, then, having suddenly awoken with a fright, he clumsily tried to leap off the bed and his bad leg got caught on a gap between the wires so he almost fell flat on his face. He cursed and lay down again, putting his feet up on the bedstead and examined the cracked ceiling for a while with a melancholy expression, before propping himself up on his elbows and making a survey of the bleak room. Doing so, he understood why he had, time and time again, put off the idea of making the decision to leave: he had rid himself of the one single security in his life and now he had nothing left; and, as before he hadn’t had the guts to stay, so now he lacked the guts to leave, because having packed up for good, it was as if he had denied himself even greater possibilities, and had simply exchanged one trap for another. If, up until now, he had been a prisoner of the engine house and the estate, now he was subject to — in fact being exploited by — mere chance; and if he had until now dreaded the day when he wouldn’t know how to open the door anymore and the window would allow no more light in, now he had sentenced himself to be the prisoner of some eternal momentum, a momentum he might equally well lose. “Another minute and I’ll be on my way.” He allowed himself some slight delay, and felt for the cigarette pack by the bed. He bitterly recalled the words spoken by Irimiás by the door of the bar (‘From today, my friends, you are free!’) because right now he was feeling anything but free and though time was pressing he was quite incapable of making up his mind to leave. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his “needless” worries by imagining his future life, but instead of being calmed he was seized by anxiety to such an extent that he had to mop drops of sweat from his brow. Because however he willed his imagination to move on it was the same image that kept recurring time after time: he saw himself on the road in his ragged old coat and a torn carrier bag, trampling exhausted through the rain, then stopping and indecisively turning back home again. “Stop it!” he growled at himself in desperation. “Enough of this, Futaki!” He got up from bed, tucked his shirt back into his trousers, threw on his heavily worn overcoat and strapped the handles of his baggage together. He carried them outside under the eaves then — not seeing anyone else — set off to hurry the others. He was about to knock on the door of the Kráners, his nearest neighbors, when he heard a great clattering inside, as if several heavy objects had collapsed. He retreated a few steps because at first he thought there was a problem. But when he was about to try knocking again he could clearly hear Mrs. Kráner’s gurgling laugh, then the sound, first of a plate, then of a mug being broken on stones. “What the hell are they up to?” He looked through the kitchen window, shading his eyes with his hand. He couldn’t believe what he saw: Kráner, just raising a heavy-duty cauldron above his head, threw it with all his might against the door. In the meantime Mrs. Kráner was tearing the curtains from the back windows facing the yard before motioning the out-of-control Kráner to get out of the way and then dragging the empty sideboard away from the wall and effortfully pushing it over. The sideboard hit the stone flagging of the kitchen floor with a mighty crash. One side of it came away and Kráner kicked the rest to pieces. Then Mrs. Kráner climbed on top of the already broken pile in the center of the kitchen and, with one great yank, tore the tin light fixture from the ceiling, swung it above her head and Futaki had only just enough time to dive before it was flying towards him, crashing through the window, rolling a few yards and landing under a bush. “Hey! What are you doing?” Kráner shouted at him when he finally managed to inch the window open. “Good God!” screamed Mrs. Kráner behind him, watching pale faced as Futaki cursed, got up, leaned on his stick and carefully shook the splinters of glass off his clothes. “You’re not cut, are you?” “I came to get you,” muttered Futaki, frowning: “But if I’d known this would be my reception I’d have stayed at home.” Mrs. Kráner was dripping with sweat and however she tried she couldn’t get rid of the look on her face, clearly intent on havoc. “Well, serves you right for peeping!” she retorted with a malicious grin. “Never mind. Come in, if you can, and we’ll have a drink to make up!” Futaki nodded, beat the mud from his boots, and by the time he had succeeded in scrambling over parts of an enormous broken mirror, a dented oil-stove and a shattered wardrobe in the hall, Mrs. Kráner had filled three glasses. “So what do you think?” Kráner asked with great satisfaction. “Nice work, eh?” “You should leave your things in one piece,” Futaki replied, clinking glasses with Mrs. Kráner. “I’m not going to leave them for a bunch of gypsies to take away, am I? I’d sooner smash it all!” Kráner explained. “I see,” Futaki cautiously answered, thanked them for the pálinka, and quickly left. He cut across the ridge dividing two rows of houses but took better care at the Schmidts’ house, taking a sly look in at the kitchen window first. But there was nothing threatening here, only the wreckage, with Schmidt and his wife sitting exhausted on top of an overturned cupboard. “Has everyone lost their minds! What the hell has got into these people?” He tapped at the glass and gave the confused, round-eyed Mrs. Schmidt a wave to say they should hurry up because it was time to go; then started towards the gate but stopped after a few steps because he spotted the headmaster carefully creeping over the ridge, entering the Kráners’ yard and peeping through their broken window, then — still thinking he wasn’t seen by anyone (Futaki was hidden by the Schmidts’ gate) he set off back to his own house, uncertainly at first, but then on his arrival, slamming the entrance door over and over again, ever more forcefully. “What’s got into him? Have they all gone crazy?” Futaki wondered in astonishment, leaving the Schmidts’s yard, walking slowly towards the headmaster’s house. The headmaster was slamming his door ever more furiously, as if trying to work himself into a hysterical state, then, seeing he was having no success, lifted the door off its hinges, stepped back two paces then, using all his strength, smashed it against the wall. But this was still not enough to break the door so he jumped on it and kept kicking it until only a single plank of wood remained. If he hadn’t happened to glance back and see the grimacing figure of Futaki he might have started smashing whatever furniture was still in one piece inside the house; but, having seen him, he was deeply embarrassed, straightened his heavy grey coat and gave Futaki an uncertain smile. “Ah, you see. .” But Futaki made absolutely no reply. “You know how it is. And besides. .” Futaki shrugged. “Obviously. All I want to know is when will you be ready. The others have finished packing.” The headmaster cleared his throat. “Me? Well, I’m ready now. I just have to stack my baggage on the Kráners’ cart.” “Good. You can sort that out with them.” “It’s already settled. It cost me two bottles of pálinka. If things were different I’d make more fuss about it, but sine we have, I suppose, a long journey before us. .” “Obviously. It’s worth it,” Futaki assured him then said goodbye and set off back to the engine house. The headmaster meanwhile — it was just as if he had been waiting for Futaki to turn his back — spat through the open doorway, picked up a brick and took aim at the kitchen window, and when Futaki, hearing the glass break, suddenly turned round, the headmaster dusted off his coat, and pretending not to have heard anything, he tried to look as though he were busying himself with the broken bits of wood that lay about him. Half an hour later they were all at the engine house ready to go, with the exception of Schmidt (he having drawn Futaki aside in attempt to explain whatever had happened, saying, “You know, friend, it would never have occurred to me to do that. It was just that a saucepan fell off the table and the rest just sort of followed.’) it was only the flushed faces and the eyes sparkling with satisfaction that betrayed the fact that, for the others, “the leave-taking had gone pretty well.” On top of the headmaster’s two suitcases, most of the Halicses possessions fitted easily on the Kráners’ small two-wheeled handcart and the Schmidts had their own cart, so there was no need to worry that the journey would be slowed down by the weight of luggage. So there they were, all ready to go, and they would have started, had there been anyone to give the word. Everyone was waiting for someone else, so they just stood about in silence, staring at the estate in increasing confusion, because now, on the point of departure, they all felt some proper “words of farewell” to be appropriate, a matter in which they were most likely to trust Futaki but he, having witnessed all those incomprehensible acts of destruction, struggled for words, and by the time he found some that might do for an “in some way ceremonial” address, Halics had got fed up of waiting, grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and grunted, “Right!” Kráner was in front pulling the cart behind him, leading the parade, Mrs. Kráner and Mrs. Halics supported the luggage on either side to prevent a suitcase or shopping bag being shaken off and close behind them followed Halics, pushing his wheelbarrow, the rear being brought up by the Schmidts. They passed through the old main gate of the estate and for a good while only the creaking of the wheelbarrow and cart’s wheels could be heard, because, apart from Mrs. Kráner — who really couldn’t hold her tongue for long and made frequent remarks about whatever happened to be the state of the luggage piled on their cart — not one of them was up to breaking the silence, if only because it was hard getting used to the peculiar blend of excitement, enthusiasm, and tension about their unknown future, a blend that only deepened the anxiety about their ability, after two long sleepless nights, to withstand the hardships of a long journey. But none of this lasted very long because they were all reassured by the fact that the rain had been light for hours and that they didn’t expect the weather to take a turn for the worse, and because it became progressively more difficult not to give vent to their sense of relief and pride at their own heroic decision in words that anyone setting out on an adventure finds hard to contain. Kráner would happily have given a great whoop as soon as they hit the metalled road and set out in the direction away from town, leading to Almássy Manor, for the moment that the march got under way, the frustration of decades — only half an hour ago still oppressing him — utterly vanished and though the contemplative mood of his companions restrained him right until they reached the entrance to the Hochmeiss estate, his high spirits eventually got the better of him and he cried out in joy: “Damn those years of misery! We’ve done it! We’ve done it friends! My dear friends! We’ve finally done it!” He stopped his cart, turned round to face the others and slapping his hand against his thigh, cried out again: “See here, friends! The misery is over! Can you believe it?! Do you get it, woman?!” He leapt over to Mrs. Kráner, picked her up as he would a child and spun her round as fast as he could, as long as he had the breath, then let her down, fell into her arms, and kept saying over and over: “I told you! I told you!” But by that time “the tide of feeling” had burst in the others too: Halics was first, fluently cursing heaven and earth, before turning to face the estate to shake a threatening fist at it, then Futaki went up to the still grinning Schmidt and, in a voice trembling with emotion, simply said, “My dear friend. .!’; meanwhile the headmaster was enthusiastically explaining things to Mrs. Schmidt (‘Didn’t I tell you we should never give up hope! We have to believe, I say, believe unto death! Where would doubt have brought us? Tell me where?’) while she, being just about capable of containing the tide of undiluted happiness welling up inside her but unwilling to draw attention to herself, forced an uncertain smile; and Mrs. Halics, tipped her head back, cast her eyes up to heaven and, in a hoarse, tremulous voice, kept repeating “Blessed be Thy name” at least until the rain falling on her face prevented her, and in any case she’d noticed by then that she couldn’t out-shout this “Godless crew.” “Hey people!” Mrs. Kráner bellowed “let’s drink to this!” and produced a bottle from one of her shopping bags. “God damn it! Well, you really have prepared for a new life!” Halics rejoiced and was quick to stand behind Kráner so that he might be first in the line, but the bottle followed a completely arbitrary path from mouth to mouth and, before he realized it, there was just a mouthful left at the bottom. “Don’t look so mournful, Lajos!” Mrs. Kráner whispered to him, even giving him a wink. “There’ll be more, you’ll see.” After this there was no coping with Halics: it was as if he’d grown immeasurably lighter, and he started wildly dashing back and forth with his wheelbarrow, only calming down a little once he caught the eye of Mrs. Kráner a few yards away, and she gave him back a look as if to say, “Not yet. .” His great cheer naturally egged on the others and so, though they continually had to be adjusting now this bag, now that, piled on one or other of the carts, they made pretty good progress and soon they had left the little bridge of the old irrigation canal behind them and could see in the distance the great pylons carrying high-tension cables with the wires sagging and undulating between then. Futaki occasionally joined in the general chatter though it was he who found the march the most trying, since he had strapped his heavy suitcases — suitcases that, despite Kráner and Schidt’s best efforts, proved impossible to fit on any of the carts — to his shoulders which made it extra hard for him to keep up with the others, not to mention the trouble of his lame leg which cost him even more effort. “I wonder how they’ll cope,” he pondered. “Who?” Schmidt asked. “Well, Kerekes, for example.” “Kerekes!” Kráner shouted as he turned back. “Don’t go bothering your head on his account. Yesterday he went home, threw himself on his bed and, provided the bed hasn’t collapsed under him, I don’t suppose he’ll wake until tomorrow. He’ll grunt and grumble at the bar for a while then he’ll head off to Mrs. Horgos’s for a good time. They’re as like as two peas in a pod, those two.” “No doubt of that!” Halics interrupted. “They’ll get thoroughly smashed! You think they care about anything else? Mrs. Horgos had the mourning gear off the next day. .” “I’ve just thought!” Mrs. Kráner butted in. “What happened to the great Kelemen? He vanished on the sly — I never saw him.” “Kelemen? My bosom buddy?” Kráner grinned back. “He skipped it yesterday, after lunch. He’s had a bad time, he-he-he! I got the better of him first, then he took on Irimiás, the idiot. Well, he took on a bit too much there because Irimiás didn’t stand for any of his nonsense, and told him to fuck off as soon as started moaning on about this, that and the other, telling Irimiás what should be done, that the whole bunch of us should be in the clink, and that he himself deserved something a little better than the rest, that kind of stuff! Then he grabbed his things and fucked off without another word. What really finished him off, I think, was when he waved his volunteer police armband at Irimiás, and Irimiás told him to, pardon me, go wipe his ass with it.” “I wouldn’t say I missed the bastard much,” Schmidt noted.. “But I could certainly do with his cart.” “I can well believe that. But how would we cope with him? That man would pick a quarrel with a shark!” Mrs. Kráner made a sudden stop. “Wait!” Kráner stopped the cart in fright. “Listen everyone! What are we thinking of?!” “Go on, tell us,” Kráner agitated: “What’s the problem?” “The doctor.” “What’s with the doctor!?” They fell quiet. “Well,” the woman began hesitantly, “well. . I never said as much as a word to him! Surely!. .” “Come on, woman!” Kráner turned on her: “I thought there was something really wrong? Why are you bothered about the doctor?” “I’m sure he would have come. He’ll starve to death by himself. I know him — how could I fail to know him after all these years? I know he’s just like a child — if I didn’t put food in front of him, he’d starve. Then there’s the pálinka. And the cigarettes. The dirty clothes. Give it a week or two and the rats will have eaten him.” “Don’t play the Good Samaritan with us,” Schmidt angrily retorted. “If you’re so keen on him, go back! I don’t miss him! Not a bit! I think he’ll be happy as hell not to be seeing us. .” Then Mrs. Halics joined in: “Quite right! We should praise the Lord that that particular slave of Satan has not come with us! He’s definitely one of Satan’s, I’ve known that a long time!” Everyone having stopped, Futaki lit a cigarette, and offered them round. “All the same, it’s strange,” he said. “Didn’t he notice anything?” Mrs. Schmidt, who hadn’t said a word till then, now came up and spoke. “That man is like a mole. No, worse than that! At least a mole puts his head up above ground now and then. But it’s like the doctor wanted to be buried alive. It’s weeks since I’ve seen him. .” “For heaven’s sake!” Kráner exclaimed in delight. “He’s perfectly all right! Every day he gets nicely drunk and has a good snore because there’s nothing else for him to do. We needn’t feel sorry for him! I wouldn’t mind having his maternal inheritance in my pocket right now! And in any case, we’ve been standing round here long enough. Let’s get going or we’ll never get there!” But Futaki was still not satisfied. “He sits the whole day by the window. How couldn’t he have noticed?” he thought uneasily, and leaning on his stick, set off after Kráner. “He couldn’t have failed to hear that racket! And everyone milling about, all the carts, all the shouting. . Well, I suppose it’s possible he might have slept through it all. It was Mrs. Kráner who spoke to him last, the day before yesterday, and there was certainly no problem then. In any case, Kráner is right, everyone should mind their own business. If he wants to meet his maker there, that’s fine by me. But I’ll lay a bet on it that — in a day or two, when he hears what’s happened, and thinks it over — he’ll just pull himself together and follow the rest of us. He couldn’t exist without us there.” After half a mile or so the rain started to come down more heavily and they went on their way grumbling as the bare acacias on either side of the road thinned out: it was as if their life-supply was slowly vanishing. Further on there were still fewer trees remaining on the rain-sodden earth; then not a tree, not even a crow. The moon had risen in the sky, its pale disc just about visible as it filtered through a solemn mass of unmoving cloud. Another hour, they realized, and it would be dusk, then night would suddenly fall. But they couldn’t walk any faster, and when exhaustion hit them, it hit them hard. Passing the storm-ravaged tin figure of Christ at Csüd, Mrs. Halics suggested a brief rest (as well as a quick Our Father. .) and they angrily rejected the thought, convinced that, if they stopped now, they’d hardly have the strength to start again. It was in vain for Kráner to try to cheer them up with a few memorable incidents (‘You remember when the landlord’s wife broke her wooden spoon on her husband’s ass?” or “You remember how Petrina once salted that ginger cat’s, begging your pardon, asshole?’): rather than cheering up, they started cursing Kráner because he wouldn’t stop talking. “Anyway!” Schmidt fumed, “who told him he’s in charge around here? What’s he doing bossing me about? I’ll have a word with Irimiás and tell him to feed his balls to the sharks, he’s been so full of himself recently. . ” And when Kráner wouldn’t give it up, and had another go at lightening their spirits (‘Let’s rest for a minute and have a drink. Every drop is pure gold and we didn’t get it from the landlord either!’), they grabbed at the bottle so impatiently it was as if Kráner had been trying to hide it from them. Futaki couldn’t resist joining in. “You’re full of cheer all right. I wonder if you’d be so damn cheerful if you were lame and had to drag these two suitcases around. .?” “You think this lousy cart is easy work?” Kráner threw back at him: “I’ve no idea what to do when it falls to pieces on the damn road!” Insulted, he fell silent and from that time on spoke to no one but dragged the cart along, keeping his eyes on the road at his feet. Mrs. Halics was silently cursing Mrs. Kráner because she was as sure as could be that she wasn’t doing anything useful on the other side of the cart; Halics cursed Kráner and Schmidt every time he thought of his aching hands because “Of course it’s easy for them to be chatting away. .” But it was Mrs. Schmidt who was the particular bugbear for everyone because now — if not before — it seemed obvious to them that she had been strangely silent ever since they set out, and what’s more — “Hang on! when I think back,” the same thought flashed through both Mrs. Kráner and Schmidt, “she has hardly said a word since Irimiás arrived. .” and then, “There’s something shady going on,” thought Mrs. Kráner. “Is something bothering her? Is she ill? Surely not! Ah, no — she knows what she’s doing. Irimiás must have said something to her when he called her into the storeroom last night. . But what would he have wanted from her? After all, everyone knows what went on between them last time. . But that was ages ago! How many years back?” “She thinks of nothing but Irimiás,” Schmidt uneasily continued: “The look she gave me when Mrs. Halics brought the news!.. Her look went straight through me! There can’t have been a way. . ah, no. She’s not going to lose her head at this age. Yes, but. . what if? She must know I’d wring her neck, just like that! No, she wouldn’t do it. In any case, she can’t possibly imagine that Irimiás fancies her now, her of all people! You’ve got to laugh. However much cologne she splashes on during the day she still smells like a pig. Oh yes, she’s just Irimiás’s type! He has more women than he can shake a stick at, each more gorgeous than the last, he’s not going to be lusting after a country goose like her. Ah, no. . But then why are her eyes sparkling like that? Those two great cow’s eyes of her?. . And how the hell does she have the gall to be making up to Irimiás, God blast her?! Well, of course, she makes up to anyone, it doesn’t matter who, as long he’s wearing trousers. . Well, I’ll beat that out of her! If she didn’t learn last time, I don’t mind giving her another lesson. I’ll make her come to her senses, don’t you worry about that! May her tits dry up, the whore, and all the whores on this shithouse of a planet!” Futaki found the pace ever harder, the straps of his cases had rubbed his shoulders so raw they were bleeding. His bones seemed to be made of fire and when his bad leg got painful again he fell a long way behind the others though they didn’t even notice until Schmidt turned round and shouted at him (‘What’s up with you? We’re going slow enough as it is without you dragging us down’) because he was growing increasingly furious with Kráner for “playing the big chief’, and so he grunted at Mrs. Schmidt to keep up, while he himself began to scurry ahead on his tiny legs. He quickly caught up with Kráner’s cart and stood at the head of the procession. “Go on then, rush ahead!” Kráner silently raged: “We’ll soon see who can last!” “For heaven’s sake, friends. . Don’t be in such a hurry! These blasted boots are playing havoc with my heels, every step is agony!” “Don’t go sniveling,” Mrs. Halics hissed at him, What’s there to blub about? Why don’t you show them what a real man you are, right here instead of just in the pub!” Hearing this, Halics clenched his teeth, and tried to keep step with Kráner who was now in a private race with Schmidt, the two bitterly competing, first one then the other leading the procession. And so Futaki got ever more left behind and once the distance had increased to two hundred yards or so he simply stopped trying to keep up. He tried more and more ways of carrying the load of his ever-heavier cases, but however he adjusted the straps the pain wouldn’t go away. So he decided not to torture himself any further and when he spotted an acacia with a broader trunk he turned off the road and, just as he was, baggage and all, he collapsed in the mud. He leaned against the trunk and spent the next few minutes painfully gasping for air before removing the straps and stretching his legs. He reached into his pocket for a light but suddenly sleep overcame him. He woke needing to piss, so he struggled to his feet but his legs were numb and he immediately collapsed again, and was only successful on the second attempt of rising and staying on his feet. “What idiots we are. .” he grumbled aloud, and having relieved himself, sat back down on one of the suitcases. “We should have listened to Irimiás. He told us to wait, and what did we do? We had to move right away! That very evening! Now here I am sitting in the mud, dog tired. . As if it made any difference whether we started today, tomorrow or in a week’s time. . Irimiás might have got hold of a truck by then! But no, that’s not what we do, oh no! Do it right now!. . Right away!. . Its chiefly Kráner’s fault!. . But never mind. . it’s too late to be sorry. We’re not that far away now.” He pulled out a cigarette and took a first deep lungful. He was already feeling better though still a little dizzy and had a dull constant headache. He stretched his stiff limbs again, rubbed his numb legs, then started scratching the ground in front of him with his stick. It was growing towards dusk. The road was barely visible now but Futaki felt calm: you couldn’t lose your way since the road went precisely as far as Almássy Manor and in any case over the years he had often made this journey because he had acted as a kind of funeral director for redundant machine parts, it being his task, among others, to remove ruined, no longer usable components and deposit them in the building that even then was in poor condition. “And when you think about it,” he suddenly thought, “there is something else very strange about all this. I mean take this manor for a start. No doubt back in the count’s time, it must have looked pretty good. But now? The last time I saw it the rooms were covered in weeds, the wind had blown the tiles off the tower, there wasn’t a window or door intact, and even the floor was missing in places so you could see through to the cellar. . Best not to interfere, of course. . Irimiás is the boss, and he’ll know why he picked the manor! Perhaps it’s the very fact that it’s so isolated that makes it the best place. . because, after all, there isn’t even a farm nearby, nothing. . Who knows? It might be because of that.” He didn’t want to risk using a match since it would be hard to light in the damp weather so he lit the new cigarette using the still glowing end of the old one but he didn’t throw the stub away yet, holding it between cramped fingers for a while because the slight warmth it gave out felt good. And then this whole thing. . that business yesterday. . “However I try, I still don’t understand it. . Because he’d be confident that we knew him well enough. So why all the clowning? Talking like an evangelist preacher. . You could see he was suffering as much as we were. . I don’t understand. He would have known what we wanted! And he’d have known the only reason we went along with all that nonsense about the idiot child was because we wanted him to say, “OK, enough of all this! Here I am, boys and girls. What’s all this moaning and groaning about? Let’s pick ourselves up and do something clever for once. Any good ideas out there?. .” But no. It was all “ladies and gentlemen” this and “ladies and gentlemen” that, and you are all miserable sinners. . I mean, it’s beyond belief! And who knows whether he’s doing this in earnest or just messing around? There was no way of telling him to stop either. . And all that stuff about the retard. . So she ate a lot of rat poison, so what? It was probably the best thing for the sad creature, at least she’s spared more suffering. But what’s all that to do with me!? There’s her mother: it was her job to care for her! And then. . all that frantic searching through bog and brake, the whole day in awful weather, combing every inch of the place till we find the miserable little thing!. . It should have been that old witch, her mother, doing the searching. But that’s how it is. Who can understand Irimiás? No one! It’s just that. . he wouldn’t have done this back then. . I mean I didn’t know where to look, I was so surprised. . He has certainly changed a lot, that’s for sure. Of course we don’t know what he’s been through in the last few years. But his hooknose, his checkered jacket and his red tie — that’s exactly the same! Everything’s OK.” He gave a relieved sigh, got up, picked up his bags, adjusted the straps on his shoulders then, leaning on his stick, set off down the road again. So that time might pass more quickly and to distract himself from the pain of the straps biting into his flesh, and lastly, because he was a little scared to be all alone here at the end of the world on a desolate road, he started singing, “How lovely thou art, our dear Hungary” but he had forgotten everything after the second line and so, because nothing else occurred to him he sang the national anthem. But the singing only left him feeling more lonely so he quickly stopped and held his breath. He seemed to hear a noise to his right. . He began to walk more quickly, as far as that was possible given his bad leg. But then there was the sound of something cracking on the other side. . ’What the hell is it. .?” He thought he’d better resume his singing after all. There wasn’t such a long way to go. And it would fill the time. .

Bless the Magyar, Lord we pray,

Nor in bounty fail him

Shield him in the bloody fray

When his foes assail him. .

And now it was as if. . there was a shout or something. . Or not quite a shout. . no, it was someone crying. “No, it’s some animal. . an animal whimpering. It must have broken its leg.” But however he looked this way and that it was total darkness either side of him now. It was impossible to see anything.

He whom ill luck long has cursed

This year grant him pleasure. .

‘We thought you’d changed your mind!” Kráner teased him once they spotted Futaki. “I recognized him by his walk,” Mrs. Kráner added. You can’t mistake it. He hobbles along like a lame cat.” Futaki put his suitcases down, slung off the straps and gave a sigh of relief. “You didn’t hear anything on the way?” he asked. “No, what was there to hear?” Schmidt wondered. “Just a strange noise.” Mrs. Halics sat down on a stone and rubbed her legs. “The only strange noise we heard was you coming up the road. We didn’t know who it was.” “Why, who would it be? Is there anyone else around here besides us? Thieves and robbers?. . There’s not a bird to be seen, let alone a man.” The path they were standing on led to the main building and boxwood had been growing wild on either side for decades, surrounding the odd wide-trunked beech or fir, climbing above them with the same persistence as the wild ivy on the thick walls of the hall, so the whole “manor” (as they called it in these parts) had a silent, desperate feel to it, because though the higher reaches of the building were still uncovered, it was clear that within a few years it would surrender to the ruthless advance of the vegetation. The wide steps that once led to the enormous doorway used to have two female nude statues, one on either side; statues that had made a deep impression on Futaki when he first saw them years ago, and his first impulse was to search for them nearby but in vain — it was as if the earth had swallowed them. The company trod the steps awkwardly, speechless and wide-eyed, because the silent hulk towering barely visibly in the darkness above them — despite the stucco having almost completely fallen away from the walls, and the old tower now so unstable it was clear it wouldn’t withstand another major storm, not to mention the holes where the windows had been — still had a certain grandeur about it as well as an air of timeless vigilance, vigilance having been part of its original purpose. When they reached the top, Schmidt, without any hesitation, immediately stepped through the collapsed arch of the main door and reverentially, but without any fear, explored the house that rang with emptiness. His eyes quickly got used to the darkness and so, when he reached a small hall on the left-hand side, he could cleverly avoid the shattered ceramic tiles strewn on the floor as well as the rusty mechanisms and machine parts on the treacherously rotted floorboards and could stop in time before falling through the various gaps so clearly remembered by Futaki. The rest followed him some eight or nine steps behind and in this way they made a tour of the cold, deserted, and defunct “manor” with its chill drafts, stopping occasionally at a window space to look down on the dangerously overgrown park, then, ignoring their tiredness, to stare at the still undamaged though rotting, fancifully carved windowcases and the oddly stiff plaster figure on the ceilings above them, surveying all this with the help of flickering matches; but the thing that made the deepest impression on them was a beaten copper fireplace that had toppled onto its side, on which the now highly-animated Mrs. Halics counted precisely thirteen dragons’ heads. But they were roused from their silent admiration by the harsh voice of Mrs. Kráner in the middle of the hall standing on her firmly planted powerful legs and raising her arms to cry out in sheer wonder: “How could anyone afford to heat all this?!” And because the question implied an answer they could only grunt to signify their own astonishment before returning to the entrance hall, where after some argument (Schmidt was particularly opposed to Kráner’s suggestion, saying, “Right here? Here in this terrible draft? Yes, boss, brilliant idea, absolutely. . ’) they agreed with Kráner that “it would be best to camp here for the night. True, it’s drafty like every other place here, but what happens if Irimiás arrives before first light? How the hell does he find us in this labyrinth?” They went out to their carts, in case the rain got really heavy during the night and the wind grew into a gale, to secure their luggage, and to take whatever they had brought with them — a sack, a blanket, an eiderdown — as a temporary bed. But once they settled down as best they could and their breathing had warmed them a little under their blankets they found they were too tired to sleep. “You know, I don’t really understand Irimiás,” sounded Kráner’s voice in the darkness: “Can anyone explain it to me. . He used to be a simple man at heart, just like we are. He spoke like us too: it was just that his brain was sharper. And now? He’s like a lord, like a real big shot!. . Am I wrong?” There was a long silence before Schmidt added, “To be honest, it was rather odd. Why stir the shit like that? I could see he was very much after something but how could anyone know how it would turn out. .? If I’d known from the start what he wanted I could have told him not to bother with all the heavy stuff. .” The headmaster turned in his makeshift bed and stared uneasily into the darkness. “It really was a bit much, all that sinner stuff, I mean, and Esti this and Esti that! As if I had anything to do with that degenerate? I mean my blood boiled every time I heard her name. What’s this about “poor little Esti”? It’s pure farce, I tell you. The girl had a proper name, Erzsi, but she was spoiled. Her father was far too soft with her and ruined her! But me? What was I supposed to do? After all I did everything I could to help that girl stand on her own two feet!. . I even told the old witch when she brought her home from special needs, that, as a matter of mutual business, I’d keep her in order if she sent her over to me every morning. But no, that wouldn’t do. That well-off hag wouldn’t spend a penny on the poor miserable thing! So I’m to blame! Pure farce, if you ask me!” “Pipe down a bit,” Mrs. Halics hissed at them. “My husband’s asleep. He’s used to silence.” Futaki ignored her. “What will be, will be. We’ll find out what Irimiás meant soon enough. It will all be clear tomorrow. Or even before then. Can you imagine?” “I can,” the headmaster answered. “Have you seen the outbuildings? There are at least five of them, I’m prepared to bet they’ll be turned into workshops.” “Workshops?” Kráner asked. “What kind of workshops?” “How should I know. . I suppose they’re just workshops one way or another. What’s all the fuss about?” Mrs. Halics raised her voice again. “Can’t you both shut up? How’s a person supposed to get any rest!” “Aw, shut up yourself!” snapped Schmidt. “What’s wrong with people talking?” “No, I figure it’ll be the other way around,” Futaki continued: “Those workshops will become our houses and it’s this place that will be turned into workshops.” “You keep going on about workshops. . ” Kráner objected. “What’s the matter with you lot? Do you all want to be engineers? I understand about Futaki, but you? What will you do? Are you going to be the works manager?” “Enough chatter,” the headmaster added coolly. “I don’t think this is the best time for stupid jokes! In any case what gives you the right to go offending people! I ask you!” “Ah, for God’s sake get some sleep!” Halics grunted. “I can’t sleep with you lot going on!” There was quiet for a few minutes but it didn’t last because one of them accidentally let off a fart. “Who was that?” Kráner laughed and dug his neighbor Schmidt in the ribs. “Leave me alone,” the other fumed as he turned over: “It wasn’t me!” But Kráner wouldn’t let it go. “Come on now, will no one own up to it!?” Halics was practically gasping with nerves, as he sat up. “Look, it was me,” he pleaded: “I confess it all. Now will you please shut up. .” After this it finally did fall quiet and a few minutes later they were all fast asleep. Halics was being pursued by a hunchback with glass eyes and after a desperate chase he finally leapt into a river, but his position became even more hopeless because every time he came up for air the little hunchback hit him on the head with an enormously long stick, crying in a hoarse voice: “Now you’ll pay!” Mrs. Kráner heard a noise outside but couldn’t work out what it was. She slipped on her coat and started off in the direction of the engine room. She was almost at the metalled road when she suddenly had a really bad feeling. She turned round and saw the roof of their house licked by flames. “The kindling! I’ve left the kindling out! Merciful heavens!” she cried in terror. She rushed back because it was hopeless calling for help, everyone else seemed to have vanished into thin air, and dashed into the house to save what could be saved. Her first thought was the room and, quick as lightning, she grabbed the ready cash they kept hidden under the bed linen, then leapt over the flaming threshold into the kitchen where Kráner was sitting at the table calmly eating as if nothing had happened. “Jóska! Are you out of your mind? The house is on fire!” But Kráner never even flinched. Mrs. Kráner saw that the curtains were alight: “Escape, you fool! Can’t you see the whole place is about to collapse?!” She rushed out of the house and sat outside, her fear and trembling suddenly gone, almost enjoying the sight of the her possessions being reduced to ashes. She even pointed it out to Mrs. Halics who had appeared beside her. “Look, how lovely! I’ve never seen a more beautiful shade of red!” The earth was moving under Schmidt’s feet. It was as if he were walking across a swamp He reached a tree, climbed it, but felt it too was sinking. . He was lying on the bed and was trying to pull the nightshirt off his wife but she started screaming as he leapt after her and the nightshirt got torn. Mrs. Schmidt turned to face him, cackled, and the nipples on her enormous breasts bloomed like two wonderful roses. It was horribly hot inside, the sweat was dripping off them He looked out the window: it was raining outside, Kráner was running home with a cardboard box in his hands but then the bottom of it flew open and the contents were strewn everywhere. Mrs. Kráner was shouting for him to hurry so he couldn’t pick up the half of the stuff that had rolled away and he decided to come back for it the next day Suddenly a dog darted at him and he cried out in fright kicking the creature in the face and it yelped once and collapsed, remaining there on the ground. He couldn’t help himself: he kicked it again The dog’s belly was soft The headmaster, deeply embarrassed, was trying with some difficulty, to persuade a little man in a patched suit to accompany him to a little frequented place. The man seemed incapable of saying no and the headmaster could barely contain himself, and as soon as they reached the deserted park he even gave the man a push so that they might reach a stone bench that was densely overgrown with bushes where he laid the little man down and threw himself on him, kissing his neck, but at that moment some white-gowned doctors appeared on the path that was strewn with white shingle and he waved ashamedly to them to indicate that he too was just passing by though he went on to explain to the doctors that they really had nowhere else to go so really they should understand and that they should certainly take this into account and he began to abuse the embarrassed little man because by now he felt nothing but a deep disgust for him but whichever way he looked it made no difference the doctors stared at him with contempt then made a tired gesture as though there was nothing he could do about it Mrs. Halics was washing Mrs. Schmidt’s back the rosary beads hung on the edge of the bath slid into the water a young scoundrel’s face appeared glaring at the window Mrs. Schmidt said she’d had enough her skin was beginning to burn with all the scrubbing but Mrs. Halics pushed her back in the bath and carried on scrubbing because she was ever more fearful that Mrs. Schmidt was annoyed with her then she cried out angrily I hope the viper bites you and sat down at the edge of the bath and the young scoundrel was still glaring at the window Mrs. Schmidt was a bird happily flying through the milk of theclouds seeing someonedownthere wavingather soshedes cendeda littleand could hear Mrs.Schmidtbawling whyisntshecooking youscoundrelcomedownim mediatelybutshe flewoverher andshechir ruppedyou won’tdieof hun gerbeforetommorrow shefeltthe warmsunonher backsudden lySchmidtwas therebesideherStopit immediatelybutshe paid noattention anddescendedfurther shedhavelikedtocatchaninsect theywerebeatingfutakisback withanironrod Hecouldntmove hehadbeenboundwithropestoatree tenselyshefelthow theropewasstraining alongopenwoundacrosshisback shelookedawayshesouldntbearit shewassittingonanexcavator thatwasdigginganenormousditch amancameover andsaidhurry becauseyourenotgetting anymorefuel howevermuchyoubegmeforit shedugtheditcheverdeeper itkeptcollapsing she tri tr triedagain butinvainandshecried asshewassittingattheengineroomwindow andhadnoideawhatwashappening itwasdawnandgettinglighter oreveningandgrowingdarker andshedidntwantitall evertocometoanend shejustsatandhadnoideawhatwashappening nothingchangedoutside itwasneithermorningnoreveningitjust carriedondawnortwilightwhichever. .

IV. Heavenly Vision? Hallucination?

As soon as they rounded the bend and lost sight of the people waving and hanging around by the bar, his heavy-as-lead sense of exhaustion vanished and he no longer felt any of the agonizing sleepiness that had practically glued him to the chair by the oil stove, because ever since Irimiás had told him something he had never even dared to dream of (‘All right, go and talk it over with your mother. You can come with me if you like. . ’) he couldn’t bear to close his eyes, and spent the whole night turning over and over in his bed with his clothes on so as not to miss the arranged dawn meeting; and now, when, through mist and half-light, he saw the road ahead arrowing into infinity his strength was redoubled and at last he felt “the whole world opening up before him’, and he knew that whatever happened he would stay the course. And however great the desire in him to give voice somehow to his enthusiasm he controlled it and unconsciously measured his steps in a more disciplined fashion, following his master even while burning with the fever of his election, since he knew he could only carry out the mission granted him if he responded not as a snotty-nosed kid but as a man — not to mention the fact that if he did speak without thinking the constantly irritable Petrina was bound to come out with some new mocking remark and he couldn’t bear to be humiliated before Irimiás, not even once. It was perfectly clear to him that his own best option was faithfully to copy Irimiás in every small detail because this way he was sure not to get a nasty surprise; first he watched his characteristic movements, his long easy stride, his proud bearing and raised head, the now challenging, now threatening movements of his raised right forefinger the moment before he made a significant remark and, most difficult, the falling cadence of his voice and the heavy silence between the distinct elements of his speech, noting the control of his resonant proclamations, and trying to capture something of the undoubted confidence that so generously permitted Irimiás to articulate his thoughts with such precision. Not for a moment did his eyes leave his master’s slightly stooped back and narrow brimmed hat pulled firmly down so as to prevent the rain beating against his face; and seeing that his master paid no attention whatsoever to him because his mind was clearly intent on something else, he too walked on in silence with an earnestly wrinkled brow, because by concentrating his attention like this he liked to think that he was helping Irimiás’s own thoughts reach their goal more quickly. Petrina scratched his ear in agony because, seeing the tense expression on his companion’s face, he himself did not dare break the silence, so, however he tried to give the kid a look to indicate that he should keep mum (‘Not a peep out of you! He’s thinking!’) he too felt constrained and was so desperate to ask questions he could only breathe with difficulty, making first whistling, then dry hoarse sounds as he did so, until eventually it became plain even to Irimiás that the heroic figure holding his tongue beside him was practically choking, so he made a face and took pity on him. “Go on, out with it! What do you want?” Petrina gave a great sigh, licked his cracked lips and started blinking rapidly. “Master! I am shitting myself here! How are we going to get out of this?!” “I must say I’d be pretty surprised if you weren’t shitting yourself,” Irimiás replied, annoyed.‘Would you like some paper to wipe yourself with?” Petrina shook his head. “It’s no joke. I’d be lying if I told you my sides were splitting with laughter. .” “In that case shut your mouth.” Irimiás gazed haughtily down the road fading in the distance up ahead. He stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and lit it without breaking step. “If I were to tell you that this was precisely the opportunity we had been waiting for,” he confidently declared, looking deep into Petrina’s eyes, “would that reassure you?” His companion flinched a little under his gaze then bent his head, stopped and thought a little, and by the time he had caught up with Irimiás again he was so nervous he could hardly get the words out. “Wha. . wha. . what are you thinking?” Irimiás made no reply but continued gazing mysteriously down the road. Petrina was so tortured by anxieties that he tried to seek some explanation for the profoundly meaningful silence and so — despite knowing the effort to be vain — tried to delay the inevitable disaster. “Listen to me! I have stood by you all this time, through good times and bad times. I swear, if I do nothing else with my miserable life, that I will flatten anyone who dares to be disrespectful to you! But. . don’t do anything crazy! Listen to me just this once! Listen to good old Petrina! Let’s forget it, forget it now, immediately! Let’s hop on the first train and get out! These people will lynch us the moment they discover the dirty trick we’ve pulled on them!” “No chance,” Irimiás mocked him. “We are taking up the demanding, indeed hopeless, cause of human dignity. . ” He raised his famous forefinger and warned Petrina, “Listen, jackass! This is our moment!” “God help us then,” groaned Petrina, seeing his worst nightmares realized. “I’ve always known it! I trusted. . I believed. . I hoped. . and here we are! This is how it ends!” “You must be joking!” the “kid” behind them butted in: “Can’t you take things seriously for once?” “Me?!” squealed Petrina, “me, I’m happy as a pig in shit, you can practically see me drooling. . ” Grinding his teeth he looked up to the heavens and shook his head in despair. “Be honest with me! What have I done to deserve this? Have I ever hurt anyone? Have I spoken out of turn? I beg you boss, have some regard, if for nothing else, for these old bones! Take pity on these gray hairs!” But Irimiás was not to be swayed: his partner’s words went in one ear and out of the other. He just smiled mysteriously and said, “The network, jackass. . ” Hearing the word, Petrina immediately perked up. “Do you understand now?” They stopped and faced each other, Irimiás slightly leaning forward. “It’s the network, that enormous spiderweb, as woven and patented by me, Irimiás. . Am I getting this through your thick head? Has a light come on there? Anywhere?” Life began to seep back into Petrina, first as the faint shadow of a smile flickering across his face, then as a distinct sparkle in his beady eyes, his ears reddening with excitement until his whole being was visibly moved. “Somewhere. . wait. . Something rings a bell. . I think I’m getting it now. .” he whispered hoarsely. “It would be fantastic if. . how shall I put it. .” “You see,” Irimiás gave a cool nod. “Think first, whine later.” The “kid” was following at a respectful distance behind them but his keen ears helped him pick up their conversation: he hadn’t missed a word and because he had not the slightest idea of what they were talking about he quickly repeated it all to himself so he shouldn’t forget it. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it and, like Irimiás, slowly and deliberately pursed his lips and blew out the smoke in a faint straight line. He did not try to catch up but followed, as he had done, some eight or ten steps behind because he felt ever more hurt that his master had not chosen to “let him into the secret’, though he should have known that he — unlike the constantly complaining Petrina — would have given his soul to be part of the plan: he had, after all, promised to be unconditionally faithful to the end. The tortures of jealousy seemed infinite, the bitterness in his soul growing ever more bitter since he was obliged to see that Irimiás thought him unworthy of a single remark, not one! His master ignored him altogether, as if “he simply wasn’t there’, as if the idea, “Sándor Horgos, who is not after all a nobody, has offered his services” meant absolutely nothing to him. . He was so upset he accidentally scratched an ugly acne spot on his face and once they reached the fork at Póstelel he could bear it no longer but rushed to catch up with them, looked Irimiás in the eyes and, trembling with fury, cried: “I’m not going on with you like this!” Irimiás regarded him with incomprehension. “What was that?” “If you have any problems with me tell now, please! Tell me you don’t trust me and I’ll get lost right now!” “What’s up with you?” Petrina snapped. “Nothing in the world is wrong with me! Just tell me whether you want me with you or no! You haven’t said a single word to me ever since we set out, it was always just Petrina, Petrina, Petrina! If you’re so fond of him, why invite me along?!” “Now hold on a second,” Irimiás calmly stopped him. “I think I understand now. Listen hard to what I tell you because there won’t be time for this later. . I invited you because I need a capable young man like you. But only if you can do the following: One, you only speak when I address you. Two, if I entrust you with anything you’ll do your best to get it done. Three, get used to the idea of not giving me lip. For the time being it is up to me to decide what I tell you and what I don’t. Is that clear?. .” The “kid” lowered his eyes in embarrassment. “Yes, I just. .” “No “I just”. Act like a man. In any case, I know what you’re capable of, my boy and I don’t think you’ll let me down. . But enough now. Let’s get going!” Petrina gave the “kid” a friendly slap on the back but then forgot to remove his hand and propelled him along. “See here, you little piece of shit, when I was your age, I didn’t dare open my mouth when there were adults present! I fell silent, silent as the grave, if an adult was anywhere near! Because in those days there was no back talk. Not like today! What would you know about. .” He suddenly stopped. “What was that?” “What was what?” “That. . that noise. .” “I don’t hear anything,” the “kid” said, puzzled. “What you mean you don’t hear anything! Not even now?” They listened, holding their breath: a few steps ahead of them Irimiás stood stock-still too, listening. They were at the Póstelek fork, the rain gently pattering, not a soul to be seen anywhere, only a few crows circling in the distance. It seemed to Petrina that the noise was coming from somewhere above him, and he silently pointed to the sky but Irimiás shook his head. “From there, rather. .” he pointed towards the town. “A car?. .” “Maybe,” his master answered, clearly troubled. They did not move. The humming neither strengthened nor weakened. “Some kind of plane, perhaps. .,” the “kid” tentatively suggested. “No, not likely. .,” said Irimiás. “But in any case we’ll take the shorter route. We’ll go down the Póstelek road as far as Wenkheim Manor, then we’ll take the older road. We may even gain for or five hours that way. .” “Have you any idea how muddy that road is?!” Petrina protested in fury. “I know. But I don’t like this sound. It would be better for us to choose the other road. There were are sure not to meet anyone.” “Meet who?” “What do I know? Let’s get going.” They left the metalled road, and set off toward Póstelek. Petrina was continually looking back over his shoulder, nervously scanning the landscape, but didn’t see anything. By now he could have sworn that the noise was coming from somewhere above them. “But it’s not a plane. . It’s more like a church organ. . ah, that’s crazy!” He stopped, went down on hands and knees and put an ear to the ground. “No. Definitely not. It’s crazy!” The low hum continued, no nearer, no further away. However he searched his memory the humming wasn’t like anything he had ever heard before. It wasn’t the roar of a car or a plane or of distant thunder. . He had a bad feeling about it. He swiveled his head left and right, sensing danger in every bush, in every scraggy tree, even in the narrow wayside ditch covered in frogspawn. The most terrifying thing was that he couldn’t even decide whether the menace, whatever it was, was close at hand or at a distance. He turned a suspicious eye on the “kid.” “Look here! Have you eaten today? It’s not your stomach rumbling?” “Don’t be an idiot, Petrina,” Irimiás remarked over his shoulder. “And get a move on!”. . They were some quarter of a mile from the fork now, when they noticed something else beside the worryingly continuous humming. It was Petrina who first became aware of it: incapable even of saying a word, it was only through his eyes he could register the shock. His dull eyes started from their sockets, gazing at the sky, indicating the source. To the right of them above the marshy lifeless ground, a white transparent veil was billowing in a particularly dignified fashion. They hardly had the time to take it in before they were startled to see the veil vanish as soon as it touched the ground. “Pinch me!” groaned Petrina shaking his head in disbelief. The “kid” stood there open mouthed with wonder, then, seeing that neither Irimiás nor Petrina were incapable of speech, firmly remarked. “What’s up? Never seen fog before?” “You call this fog?!” Petrina snapped nervously back. “Jackass! I swear it was a kind of. . a wedding veil. . Boss, I have a bad feeling about this. .” Irimiás was staring puzzled at the place the veil had disappeared. “It’s a joke. Pull yourself together Petrina and say something sensible.” “Over there!” cried “the kid. And not far from the last sighting of the veil, there was a new veil slowly drifting in the air. They stared mesmerized as it too touched down and then, as if it really were fog, disappeared. . “Let’s get out of here, boss!” Petrina urged, his voice shaking. “The way I see it, it’ll be raining frogs next. .” “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for this,” Irimiás firmly declared. “I just wish I knew what the devil it was!. . We can’t all three have gone mad at once!” “If only Mrs. Halics was here,” remarked the “kid” grimacing. “She’d soon tell us!” Irimiás suddenly raised his head. “What’s that?” Suddenly it was quiet. The “kid” closed his eyes in confusion. “I’m just saying. .” “Do you know something?!” Petrina demanded in fright. “Me?’, grimaced the “kid.” “Course I don’t. I was just saying it as a joke. .” They walked on in silence and it occurred, not only to Petrina but to Irimiás too, that it might be wiser for them to turn back immediately, but neither of them was up to making the decision if only because they couldn’t be sure that retracing their steps would be any less dangerous. They started to hurry and this time not even Petrina complained, quite the opposite in fact: if it was up to him they’d have broken into a run, and so, when they saw the ruins of Weinkheim ahead and Irimiás suggested a brief rest (‘My legs have completely gone to sleep. . We’ll build a fire, eat something, dry out, then go on. . ’) Petrina cried out in despair, “No, I couldn’t bear it! You don’t imagine I want to stay in this place a moment longer than I need to? After what’s just happened?” “No need to panic,” Irimiás reassured him. “We’re exhausted. We have hardly slept in two days. We need a rest. We have a long way to go.” “OK, but you go ahead!” Petrina demanded, and gathering up what courage he had left followed some ten paces behind the other two, his heart in his mouth, not even prepared to respond to the teasing of the “kid” who, seeing Irimiás calm, relaxed a little and aspired to be regarded as “one of the brave”. . Petrina waited till the first two turned down the path leading to the manor then, carefully, anxiously glancing left and right, scurried after them, but as he came face to face with the main entrance of the ruined building all his strength left him — and he saw in vain how Irimiás and the “kid” had quickly ducked behind a bush — he himself was incapable of moving. “I’m going to go mad. I can feel it.” He was so frightened his brow was covered in sweat. “Hell and damnation! What have we got ourselves into?” He held his breath and, with muscles tense to the point of snapping, he finally succeeded in sidling — literally sideways — behind another bush. The sound of something like sniggering grew louder again: it was like a cheerful bunch of people having a lark nearby, it being perfectly natural for such a jolly crew to seek out this particular deserted spot, and to spend their time carousing here in the wind, rain and cold. . And that sniggering — such a strange noise. Cold shivers ran down his back. He peeped out to the path, then, when he judged the moment to be opportune, set off like a lunatic and bolted over to Irimiás the way a soldier might leap, under enemy fire and at risk of his life, from trench to trench during battle. “Here pal. .,” he whispered in a choking voice as he settled by the squatting figure of Irimiás. “What’s going on here?” “I can’t see anything at the moment,” the other answered, his voice quiet and steady, in full control of himself, never taking his eyes off what used to be the manor gardens, “but I expect we’ll find out soon.” “No,” grunted Petrina: “I don’t want to find out!” “It’s like they’re having a proper party. .,” said the “kid’, excited, breathlessly impatient for his master to entrust him with something. “Here!” squealed Petrina: “In the rain?. . In the middle of nowhere?. . Boss, let’s run now before it’s too late!” “Shut your mouth, I can’t hear anything!” “I can hear! I can hear! That’s why I say we — ” “Quiet!” Irimiás thundered at him. There was no sign of movement in the park where the oaks, the walnuts, the boxwood and flowerbeds were all densely overgrown with weed so Irimiás decided, since he could only see a small part of it, that they should carefully creep forward. He grabbed Petrina’s wildy waving arm and dragging him behind him they slowly made their way to the main entrance, then tiptoed along the wall to the right, Irimiás at the head, but when he reached the corner of the building and warily looked towards the back of the park, he stopped dead in his tracks for a moment then quickly drew back his head. “What’s there?!” Petrina whispered: “Shall we run?” “You see that little shack?” Irimiás asked, his voice tense. “We’ll make for it. One by one. I go first, then you, Petrina, and you last, kid. Is that clear?” No sooner had he said it than he was off in the direction of the old summerhouse, running, keeping low. “I’m not going!” muttered Petrina, clearly confused: “That’s at least twenty yards. We’ll be shot full of holes by the time we reach it!” The “kid” pushed him roughly forward — “Get going!” — and Petrina, not expecting to be pushed, lost his balance after a few steps and lay sprawled in the mud. He immediately got up but then within a few yards threw himself face down again and only reached the summerhouse by crawling on his belly like a snake. He was so scared he didn’t even dare to look up for a while, covering his eyes with his hands, lying perfectly still on the ground, then, once he had realized that “thanks to God’s mercy” he was still alive, he plucked up his courage, sat up and peeked at the park through a gap. His already wrecked nerves were not up to the sight. “Down!” he screamed, and once again threw himself flat on the ground. “Don’t scream, you idiot!” Irimiás snapped at him. “If I hear another peep out of you I’ll wring your neck!” At the back of the park, in front of three enormous naked oaks, in a clearing, wrapped in a series of transparent veils, lay a small body. They might have been no more that thirty yards from it, so they could even make out the face, at least the part not covered by a veil; and if all three of them hadn’t thought it impossible, or if they hadn’t all helped place the body in the crude coffin Kráner had constructed, they could have sworn it was the kid’s sister lying there, her face ashen white, her hair in ginger ringlets, in peaceful slumber. From time to time the wind lifted the ends of the veil, the rain quietly washing the corpse, and the three ancient oaks creaked and groaned as if about to fall. . But there was not a soul anywhere near the body, just that sweet, bell-like laughter everywhere, a kind of carefree, cheerful music. The “kid” stared at the clearing, mesmerized, not knowing what he should most fear, the sight of his sister, dripping, stiff, clad in white as pure as snow, or the thought of her suddenly getting up and walking toward him; his legs trembled, everything went dark, the trees, the manor, the park, the sky, leaving only her, glowing painfully bright, ever more distinct, in the middle of the clearing. And in that sudden silence, in the total lack of any sound, when even the raindrops broke silently as they fell, and they could well have thought they’d gone deaf, since they could feel the wind but couldn’t hear it humming, and were impervious to the strange breeze lightly playing about them, he nevertheless thought he heard that continuous hum and tinkling laughter suddenly give way to frightening yelps and grunts, and as he looked up he saw them moving towards him. He covered his face with his arms and started sobbing. “You see that?” Irimiás whispered, frozen, squeezing Petrina’s arm so hard his knuckles turned white. A wind had sprung up around the body and in complete silence the blindingly white corpse began uncertainly to rise. . then, having reached the top of the oaks, it suddenly rocked and, bobbling slightly, started its descent to the ground again, to the precise spot it had occupied before. At that moment the disembodied voices set to a fury of complaint like a dissatisfied chorus that had had to resign itself to failure once again. Petrina was gasping. “Can you believe that?” “I am trying to believe it,” replied Irimiás, now deathly pale. “I wonder how long they have been trying? The child has been dead almost two days now. Petrina, perhaps for the first time in my life I am really frightened.” “My friend. . can I ask you something?” “Go ahead.” “What do you think. .?” “Think?” “Do you think. . um. . that Hell exists?” Irimiás gave a great gulp. “Who knows. It might.” Suddenly all was quiet again. There was only the humming, a little louder perhaps. The corpse started to rise again, and then some six feet above the clearing it trembled, then with incredible speed it rose and flew off, soon to be lost among the still, solemn clouds. Wind swept the park, the oaks shook as did the ruined old summer house, then the tinkling-chiming voices reached a triumphant crescendo above their heads before slowly fading away, leaving nothing behind except a few scraps of veil drifting down, the sound of rattling tiles on the fallen-in roof of the manor, and the frightening knockings of the broken tin gutters against the wall. For minutes on end they stood frozen staring at the clearing, then because nothing else happened they slowly came to their senses. “I think it’s over,” whispered Irimiás, then gave a deep hiccup. “I really hope so,” whispered Petrina. “Let’s rouse the kid.” They took the still trembling child under the arms and helped stand him up. “Now come on, pull yourself together,” Petrina encouraged him while just about managing to stand himself. “Leave me alone,” the “kid” sobbed. “Let go of me! “It’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared of now!” “Leave me here! I’m not going anywhere!” “Of course you’re coming! Enough of this pitiful blubbing! In any case there’s nothing there anymore.” The “kid” went over to the gap and looked over to the clearing. “Where. . where has it gone?” “It vanished like the fog,” Petrina answered, hanging on to a projecting brick. “Like the. . fog?” “Like the fog.” “Then I was right,” the “kid” remarked uncertainly. “Absolutely,” said Irimiás once he finally managed to stop his hiccupping. “I have to admit you were right.” “But you. . what. . what did you see?” “Me? I only saw the fog,” Petrina said, staring straight ahead and bitterly shaking his head. “Nothing but fog, fog all over the place.” The “kid” gave Irimiás an uneasy glance. “But then. . what was it?” “’A hallucination,” Irimiás answered, his face chalk-white, his voice so faint that the “kid” instinctively leaned towards him. “We’re exhausted. Chiefly you. And that’s hardly surprising.” “Not in the least,” Petrina agreed. “People are likely to see all kinds of things in that condition. When I was serving at the front there’d be nights when a thousand witches would pursue me on broomsticks. Seriously.” They walked the length of the path, then for a long time down the road to Postelek without speaking, avoiding the ankle-deep puddles, and the closer they approached the old road that led straight as a die to the southeastern corner of town, the more Petrina worried about Irimiás’s condition. The master was all but snapping with tension, his knee buckling now and then, and often it seemed that one more step and he’d collapse. His face was pale, his features had dropped, his eyes were staring glassily at nothing in particular. Fortunately the “kid” spotted nothing of this partly because he had been calmed by the exchange between Irimiás and Petrina. (‘Of course! What else could it be? A hallucination. I must pull myself together if I don’t want them to laugh at me!. . ’), and partly because he was quite excited by the idea that Petrina had acknowledged his role in the discovery of the vision so he could now march along at the head of the procession. Suddenly Irimiás stopped. Petrina leapt to his side in terror, to help if he could. But Irimiás shoved his arm away, turned to him and bellowed, “You creep!!! Why don’t you just fuck off?! I’ve had enough of you! Understand!!?” Petrina quickly lowered his eyes. Seeing that, Irimiás grabbed him by the collar, tried to lift him, and failing gave him a great push so Petrina lost his balance and, having scrambled a few steps, finished on his face in the mud. “My friend. .” he pitifully pleaded, “Don’t lose your — ” “You still talking back?!” Irimiás bawled at him, then sprang over, and with all his strength, punched him in the face. They stood facing each other, Petrina desolate and in despair, but suddenly sober again, utterly exhausted and quite empty, feeling only the mortal pressure of despair like a trapped animal that discovers there is no escape. “Master. .” Petrina stuttered: “I. . I am not angry. .” Irimiás hung his head. “Don’t be angry, you idiot. .” They set off again, Petrina turning to the “kid” who seemed to have been turned to stone and waving him on as to say, “Come on, no problem, that’s done with now,” sighing from time to time and scratching his ear. “Listen, I’m an evangelist. .” “Don’t you mean an Evangelical?” Irimiás corrected him. “Yeh, yeh, that’s right! That’s what I meant to say. .” Petrina quickly answered and gave a relieved sigh on seeing his partner was over the worst.” “And you?” “Me? They never even christened me. I expect they knew it wouldn’t change anything. .” “Hush!” Petrina waved his arms in panic, pointing to the sky. “Not so loud!” “Come on, you big dope. .” Irimiás growled. “What does it matter now. .” “It may not matter to you, but it does for me! Whenever I think of that blazing comet thing I can hardly breathe!” “Don’t think of it like that,” Irimiás replied after a long silence. “It doesn’t matter what we saw just now, it still means nothing. Heaven? Hell? The afterlife? All nonsense. Just a waste of time. The imagination never stops working but we’re not one jot nearer the truth.” Petrina finally relaxed. He knew now that “everything was all right” and also what he should say so his companion might be his old self again. “OK, just don’t shout so loud!” he whispered: “Haven’t we enough troubles as it is?” “God is not made manifest in language, you dope. He’s not manifest in anything. He doesn’t exist.” “Well, I believe in God!” Petrina cut in outraged. “Have some consideration for me at least, you damn atheist!” “God was a mistake. I’ve long understood there is zero difference between me and a bug, or a bug and a river, or a river and voice shouting above it. There’s no sense or meaning in anything. It’s nothing but a network of dependency under enormous fluctuating pressure. It’s only our imaginations, not our senses, that continually confront us with failure and the false belief that we can raise ourselves by our own bootstraps from the miserable pulp of decay. There’s no escaping that, stupid.” “But how can you say this now, after what we’ve just seen?” Petrina protested. Irimiás made a wry face. “That’s precisely why I say we are trapped forever. We’re properly doomed. It’s best not to try either, best not believe your eyes. It’s a trap, Petrina. And we fall into it every time. We think we’re breaking free but all we’re doing is readjusting the locks. We’re trapped, end of story.” Petrina had worked his own way up to fury now. “I don’t understand a word of that! Don’t spout poetry at me, goddamit! Speak plain!” “Let’s hang ourselves, you fool,” Irimiás sadly advised him: “At least it’s over quicker. It’s the same either way, whether we hang ourselves or not. So OK, let’s not hang ourselves.” “Look friend, I just can’t understand you! Stop it now before I burst into tears. .” They walked on quietly for a while, but Petrina couldn’t let it rest. “You know what’s the matter with you, boss? You haven’t been christened. “That’s as may be.” They were on the old road by now, the “kid” eager for adventure scanning the terrain, but there were only the deep tracks left by cartwheels in the summer, nothing looked dangerous; overhead, an occasional flock of crows, then the rain coming down harder and the wind too seeming to pick up as they neared the town. “Well, and now?” asked Petrina. “What?” “What happens now?” “What do you mean what happens now?” Irimiás answered through gritted teeth. “From here on things get better. Till now other people have told you what to do, now you will tell them. It’s exactly the same thing. Word for word.” They lit cigarettes and gloomily blew out the smoke. It was getting dark by the time they reached southeastern part of town, marching down deserted streets where lights burned in windows and people sat silently in front of steaming plates of food. “Here,” Irimiás stopped when they reached The Scales. “We’ll stop here for a while.” They entered the smoky, airless bar that was already packed and, pushing their way past loudly guffawing or arguing groups of drivers, tax officials, workers and students, Irimiás made his way to the bar to join a long line. The barman, who recognized Irimiás as soon as he stepped through the door, skipped nimbly over to their end of the counter, remarking, “Well, well! Who do I see here! Greetings! Welcome, Lord of Misrule!” He leaned across the bar, extending his hand and quietly asked, “What can we do for you, gentlemen?” Irimiás ignored the proferred hand and answered coolly: “Two blended and a small spritzer.” “Right away gentlemen,” the barman answered a little taken aback, yanking his hand back. “Two measures of blended and a small spritzer. Coming right up.” He skipped back to his position at the center of the bar, poured the drinks and quickly served them. “You are my guests, gentlemen.” “Thank you,” replied Irimiás. “What’s new, Weisz?” The barman wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his shirt, glanced left and right and leant close to Irimiás. “The horses have escaped from the slaughter house. .” he whispered excitedly. “Or so they say.” “The horses?” “Yes, the horses — I just heard that they still haven’t been able to catch them. A whole stable of horses, if you please, running amok in town, if you please. So they say.” Irimiás nodded, then, raising the glasses above his head, cut his way back through the crowd and, with some difficulty, reached Petrina and the “kid” who had made a small place for themselves. “Spritzer for you, kid.” “Thanks, I saw, he knows.” “Not hard to guess. So. To our health.” They threw back the drink, Petrina offered cigarettes round, and they lit up. “Ah, the famous prankster! Good evening! Is it you? How the devil did you get here! So pleased to see you!” A short, bald man with a beetroot-colored face came up and extended his hand, friendly fashion. “Greetings!” he said and turned to Petrina. “So how are things, Tóth?” Petrina asked. “Pretty well. OK as things go nowadays! And yourselves? Seriously, it must be at least two, no, three years since I last laid eyes on you. Was it something big?” Petrina nodded. “Possibly.” “Ah, that’s different. .” the bald man acknowledged, embarrassed, and turned to Irimiás. “Have you heard? Szabó is done for.” “Uh uhm” grunted Irimiás and threw back what remained in his glass. “What’s new, Tóth?” The bald man leaned closer. “I got an apartment.” “You don’t say? Congratulations. Anything else?” “Well, life goes on, Tóth answered dully. “We’ve just had the local election. Any idea how many went to vote? Hm. You can guess. I can count them all, from one to one. They’re all here,” he said pointing to his own head. “Well that was big of you, Tóth,” Irimiás answered in a tired voice. “I see you don’t waste your time.” “Obvious isn’t it?” the bald man spread his hands. “There are things a man has to do. Am I right?” Petrina leaned forward. “Indeed you are, now will you join the line to bring us something?” The bald man was keen: “What would you like, gentlemen? Be my guests.” “Blended.” “Coming up. Back in a minute.” He was at the bar in a matter of moments, waved the barman over and was immediately back with a handful of glasses. “To our meeting!” “Cheers,” said Irimiás. “Till the cows come home,” added Petrina. “So tell me what’s new? What news over there?’” asked Tóth, his eyes wide with anticipation. “Where?” Petrina wondered. “Just, you know, “there”. . speaking generally.” “Ah. We have just witnessed a resurrection.” “The bald man flashed his yellow teeth. “You haven’t changed a bit, Petrina! Ha-ha-ha! We’ve just witnessed a resurrection! Very good! That’s you, all right!” “You don’t believe me?” Petrina sourly remarked. “You’ll see, you’ll come to a bad end. Don’t wear anything too warm once you’re at death’s door. It’s hot enough there, they say.” Tóth was shaking with laughter. “Wonderful, gentlemen!” he panted. “I’ll rejoin my associates. Will we meet again?” “That,” said Petrina with a sad smile, “is unavoidable.” They left The Scales and started down the poplar-lined avenue that led to the center of town. The wind blew in their faces, the rain drove into their eyes, and because they had warmed up inside they were hunched and shivering now. They met not a single soul until they got to the church square, Petrina even remarking on it: “What is this? A curfew?” “No, it’s just autumn, the time of year,” Irimiás noted sadly: “People sit by their stoves and don’t get up till spring. They spend hours by the window until it grows dark. They eat, they drink, they cling to each other in bed under the eiderdown. There are moments when they feel everything is going wrong for them, so they give their kids a good beating or kick the cat, and in this way they get by a while longer. That’s how it goes, you idiot.” In the main square they were stopped by a crowd of people. “Have you seen anything?” asked a gangling man. “Nothing at all,” answered Irimiás. “If you do, tell us immediately. We’ll wait here for news. You’ll find us here.” “Fine. Ciao.” A few yards on Petrina asked, “I might be an idiot, but so what if they’re there? They were perfectly normal to look at. What were we supposed to have seen?” “Horses,” Irimiás replied. “Horses? What horses?” “The ones that escaped from the slaughterhouse.” They passed down the empty high street and took a turn towards the old Romanian quarter, Nagyrománváros. At the crossing of Eminescu Street and The Avenue they spotted them. There they were in the middle of Eminescu Street, some eight or ten horses, grazing. Their backs reflected the faint streetlights and they carried on peacefully chomping the grass until they noticed the group staring at them, then suddenly, it seemed in unison, they raised their heads, one neighed, and within a minute they had disappeared down the far end of the street. “Who are you cheering for?” asked the “kid’, grinning. “For myself,” Petrina nervously replied. There was hardly anyone in Steigerwald’s bar when they looked in and those who were there quickly left. Steigerwald himself was fiddling with the TV set in the corner. “Damn you, you useless bastard!” he cursed at the TV not having noticed the newcomers. “Good evening,” boomed Irimiás. Steigerwald quickly turned round. “Good Lord! It’s you!.” “No problem,” Petrina reassured him. No problem at all.” “That’s good. I thought. .” the landlord muttered. “That rotten bastard there,” he pointed to the television in fury: “I’ve been trying for an hour to get a picture out of it but it’s gone and doesn’t want to come back.” “In that case, take a break. Get us two blended, and a spritzer for the young gentleman.” They sat down at a table, unbuttoned their coats and lit more cigarettes. “Listen kid,” said Irimiás. “Drink it up then go down to Páyer’s. You know where he lives? Good. You tell him I’m waiting for him here.” “OK,” answered the “kid” and buttoned his coat again. He took the glass from the landlord’s hand, threw back the contents, and was quickly out of the door. “Steigerwald,” Irimiás stopped the landlord who, having put their glasses down in front of them, was on his way back to the bar. “Ah, so there is trouble after all,” he groaned and planted his behemoth of a body on a chair beside them. “There’s no trouble,” Irimiás assured him. “We need a truck by tomorrow.” “When will you bring it back?” “Tomorrow night. And we sleep here tonight.” “All right,” nodded the relieved Steigerwald then struggled to his feet. “When are you paying?” “Right now.” “Pardon?” “You misheard,” the master corrected him: “Tomorrow.” The door opened and the “kid” rushed in. “He’ll be right here,” he announced and sat back in his chair. “Well done, sonny. Get yourself another spritzer. And tell the man to make us some bean soup.” “With pork trotters,” Petrina added with a grin. A few minutes later a heavily-built, fat, grey-haired man entered, umbrella in hand. He must have been ready for bed because he hadn’t even dressed properly but simply thrown a coat over his pajamas and put a pair of fake-fur slippers on his feet. “I hear you’re back in town, squire,” he said sleepily and gently let himself down into the chair next to Irimiás. “I wouldn’t resist if you tried to shake my hand.” Irimiás was gazing mournfully into space but at Páyer’s words, snapped to attention and gave a smile of satisfaction. “My deepest respects. I hope I have not awoken you from your slumbers.” The smile did not wither on Irimiás’s lips. He crossed his legs, leaned back and slowly blew out smoke. “Let’s get down to business.” “Don’t go scaring me at the outset,” the newcomer held up his hand, but he spoke with confidence. “Go on, ask me for something now that you’ve dragged me from my bed.” “What will you have to drink?” “No, don’t ask me what I want to drink. They don’t have it here. I’ll have a plum pálinka.” He listened to Irimiás with his eyes closed as if asleep, and only raised his hand again to ask a question when the landlord arrived with the pálinka and he had thrown it all back at once. “Wait a minute! What’s the hurry? I haven’t been introduced to your esteemed colleagues. .” Petrina leapt to his feet. “Petrina, at your command. I’m Petrina.” The “kid” did not move. “Horgos.” Páyer raised his lowered eyelids. “A well mannered young man,” he said and gave Irimiás a knowing look. “He has a bright future.” “I’m pleased my assistants are slowly gaining your sympathy, Mister Bang-bang.” Páyer raised his head as if by way of defense. “Spare me the nicknames. I’m not a gun obsessive as I believe you know. I just deal in guns. Let’s stick with Páyer.” “Fine,” smiled Irimiás and stubbed out his cigarette under the table. “The situation is this. I would be most grateful for certain. . raw materials. The more kinds the better.” Páyer closed his eyes. “Is this a purely hypothetical inquiry or are you ready to back it up with a certain figure that might help me bear the indignity of simply being alive?” “Backed up, naturally.” The guest nodded in acknowledgment. “I can only repeat that, as a business associate, you are a gentleman through and through. It’s a pity that there are ever fewer well-mannered men of your profession to deal with.” “Will you join us for supper?” Irimiás inquired with the same unwearying smile when Steigerwald appeared at the table with plates of bean soup.” “What have you got to offer?” “Nothing,” the landlord grunted. “Do you mean that whatever you bring us is inedible?” asked Páyer in a tired voice. “Right.” “In that case I won’t have anything.” He got up, gave a slight bow and gave the “kid” a special nod. “Gentlemen, at your service. We’ll deal with the details later if I understand you correctly.” Irimiás too stood up and extended his hand. “Indeed. I’ll look you up at the weekend. Sleep well.” “Look, it is precisely twenty-six years since I last slept five and a half hours without waking: ever since then I’ve been tossing and turning, half asleep, half awake. But I thank you anyway.” He bowed again, then with slow steps and a sleepy look he left the bar. Once supper was over, Steigerwald prepared beds for them in a corner, grumbling all the while, and gave the non-functioning TV set a frustrated nudge with his elbow as he was about to leave them to it. “You don’t have a Bible by any chance?” Petrina called to him. Steigerwald slowed, stopped and turned round to face him. “A Bible? What do you need one of those for?” “I thought I’d read a little before I sleep. It always has a settling effect on me, you know.” “How can you even say that without blushing!” muttered Irimiás: “You were a child the last time you read a book, and even then you just looked at the pictures. .” “Don’t listen to him!” Petrina protested, making an offended face: “He’s just jealous, that’s all.” Steigerwald scratched his head. “All I’ve got here are some decent detective stories. Do you want me to bring you one?” “Heaven forbid!” cried Petrina. “That won’t do at all!” Steigerwald looked sourly at him then vanished through a door to the yard. “That Steigerwald, what a miserable bastard. .,” Petrina mumbled. “I swear the starving bears I meet in my worst nightmares are friendlier than he is.” Irimiás had lain down in the place prepared for him and covered himself with the blanket. “Maybe. But he’ll survive us all.” The “kid” turned off the light and they fell quiet. The only thing to be heard for a while was the sound of Petrina mumbling as he tried to remember the words of a prayer he’d heard his grandmother say.

Our father. . um, our father

which art there, art, art in the sky, er,

in heaven, let us praise, er..hallowed be

our lord Jesus Christ,

no. . let them praise. . no, let us praise

rather, let them praise Your name,

and give us this. . what I mean is,

let everything be according to, er,

whatever you want.. in earth as

it is on earth. . in heaven. .

or in hell, amen..

III. The Distance, as Approached from the Other Side

Quietly, continually, the rain fell and the inconsolable wind that died then was forever resurrected ruffled the still surfaces of puddles so lightly it failed to disturb the delicate dead skin that had covered them during the night so that instead of recovering the previous day’s tired glitter they increasingly and remorselessly absorbed the light that swam slowly out of the east. The trunks of the trees, the occasionally creaking branches, the sticky festering weeds, and even the “manor” — everything was sheathed in a refined but slimy gauze as though the elusive agents of darkness had marked them all out so that they might continue their work of corrosive, continual destruction the next night. When, far above the unbroken layers of cloud, the moon rolled unobserved down the western horizon and they peered blinking into the gaping hole that had once been the main entrance or through the high window cavities into the frozen light they slowly understood that something had changed, that something was not quite where it had been before dawn, and having understood this, they quickly realized that the thing they had secretly most feared had actually happened: that the dreams that had driven them forward the previous day were over, and it was time for the bitter awakening. . Their first feelings of confusion gave way to a frightened acknowledgment of how stupid they had been to rush into “thing’; their departure having been the result not of sober calculation but of an evil impulse, and that because they had, in effect, burnt their bridges, there was no chance now of taking the sensible course and returning home. It was dawn, the most miserable of hours: their stiff limbs were still sore and there they were, shivering in the cold, their lips almost blue, foul smelling and hungry, struggling to their feet among the scraps of their possessions, forced to face the fact that the “manor” that only yesterday had seemed the fulfillment of their dreams, was today — in this pitiless light — simply a cold, relentless prison. Grumbling and ever more embittered, they roamed through the deserted halls of the moribund building, exploring in somber chaotic fashion the dismantled parts of rusted machinery and in the funereal silence the suspicion grew in them that they had been lured into a trap, that they were, all of them, naïve victims of a low plot to dump them there, homeless, deceived, robbed and humiliated. Mrs. Schmidt was the first that dawn to return to the miserable prospect of their makeshift beds; she sat down shivering on the crude bundles of their belongings and stared in disappointment at the light as it grew brighter. The eye make-up she had received from “him” as a present had smeared across her puffy face, her mouth was turned down in bitterness, her throat was dry, her stomach ached and she felt too weak even to attend to her tousled hair and crumpled clothes. Because it was all in vain: the memory of the few magical hours spent with “him” was not enough to allay her fear — especially now that it was plain that Irimiás had simply reneged on his promise — that all was lost now. . It wasn’t easy, but what else could she do: she tried to resign herself to the fact that Irimiás (“. . until this matter is finally closed. . ’) would not be taking her away, and that her dream of disentangling herself from Schmidt’s “filthy paws” and taking her leave of this “stinking hole of a place” would have to be postponed for months, perhaps years (‘Good heavens, years! More years!’) but the terrible thought that even that might be a lie, that he was now over the fields and far away in search of new conquests, made her clench her fists. True, if she thought back to the previous night when she gave herself to Irimiás at the back of the storeroom, she had to admit that even now, at this most dreadful hour, it was no disappointment: those magnificent moments, those moments of extraordinary blissful satisfaction had to compensate for everything else; it was only the “betrayed love” and the crushing and besmirching of her “pure burning passion” that could never be forgiven! For after all, what could one expect when, despite the words whispered in secret at the moment of parting (‘Before dawn, for certain!. . ’) it finally became clear that everything was “a filthy lie’!.. Without hope but still stubbornly longing, she gazed at the rain through the enormous gap where the main entrance had been, and her heart contracted, her entire body doubled up, and her tangled hair fell forward to cover her tortured face. But however she tried to concentrate on the thirst for revenge rather than on the agonizing sadness of resignation, it was the tender murmuring of Irimiás she kept hearing; it was his tall, broad, respect-demanding, solid body she kept seeing; the strong self-confident curve of his nose, the narrowing of his soft lips, the irresistible glow of his eyes, and time and again she felt his delicate fingers half-consciously playing with her hair, the warmth of his palms against her breasts and thighs, and every time she heard the slightest noise she imagined it might be him, so — when the others had returned and she saw the same bitter funereal expression on their faces as she felt on her own — the last weak barriers of her proud resistance were swept away by despair. “What will happen to me without him?!. . For the love of God, . leave me if you must, but. . but not now! Not yet!. . Not just at this time!. . An hour more!. . A minute!. . What do I care what he does to them, but. . Me! Not to me!. . If nothing else make him allow me to be his lover! His handmaid!. . His servant! What do I care! Let him kick me, beat me like a dog, just. . this one time, let him come back just this one time!. .” They sat by the wall, depressed, with humble packed meals in their laps, chewing away in the cold draft of ever brighter dawn. Outside, the shaggy pile that had once formed the bell tower of the chapel to the right of the “manor” — that’s when it still had a bell — gave a great creak and from within it came a suppressed rumbling sound, as if yet another floor had collapsed. . There was no doubt about it now, they had to admit it was pointless to hang about any longer since Irimiás had promised to come “before daylight” and dawn was practically over. But not one of them dared break the silence or pronounce the appropriately grave words “We’ve been properly screwed over” because it was extraordinarily difficult to regard “our savior Irimiás” as “a filthy liar” and “a low thief’, not to mention the fact that what had happened was still something of a mystery. . What if something unexpected had delayed him?. . Maybe he was late because of the bad roads, because of the rain, or because. . Kráner got up, went over to the gate, leaned against the damp wall, lit a cigarette and nervously scanned the path leading down from the metalled road, before furiously standing up and swiping at the air. He sat back in his place and spoke in an unexpectedly trembling voice. “Listen. . I have a feeling. . that. . we’ve been conned!. .” Hearing this, even those who had been staring vacantly into space lowered their eyes. “I tell you, we’ve been conned!” Kráner repeated, raising his voice. Still nobody moved and his harsh words echoed menacingly in the frightened silence. “What’s the matter with you, are you all deaf?” screamed Kráner, quite beside himself, and leapt to his feet. “Nothing to say? Not a word?!” “I told you,” Schmidt cried out with a dark expression. “I told you right from the start!” His lips were trembling and he pointed an accusing finger at Futaki. “He promised,” Kráner ranted on, “he promised to build a new Eden! There! Have a good look! There’s our Eden! That’s what we’ve come to, damn the miserable scoundrel! He enticed us here, here to this waste land, while we. .! Fucking sheep!. .” “While he,” Schmidt picked up the thread, “gleefully scuttles off in the opposite direction! Who knows where he is now? We could be looking for him the rest of our lives!. .” “And who knows in which bar he’s gambling away our money?!” “A whole year’s work!” Schmidt continued, his voice shaking. “A whole year of miserable scrimping and saving! I’m back where I was, without a penny again!” Kráner started stalking up and down like an animal in a cage, his fists clenched, giving more occasional swipes in the air. “But he’ll regret it! He’ll be damn sorry, the bastard! Kráner is not the sort of man to let such things go! I’ll find him if I have to look in every nook and cranny! And I swear I’ll strangle him with my bare hands. With these!” He held his hands up. Futaki raised a nervous hand. “Not so fast! Not so fast with that threat! What if he appears in a couple of minutes! Where’s all this ranting going to get you then? Eh?!!” Schmidt sprang to his feet. “You dare to open your mouth?! You dare to say a word?! Where’s that going to get us?! It’s you I have to thank for being robbed! Who else but you?!” Kráner went up to Futaki and looked deep into his eyes. “Wait!” said Futaki and took a deep breath. “All right! We’ll wait two minutes! Two entire minutes! And then we’ll see. . what will be will be!” Kráner pulled Schmidt along with him and they stood together at the threshold of the main entrance, Kráner spreading his feet and swaying back and forth. “Well! So now we’re ready! And there he is, just coming,” Schmidt mocked, turning to Futaki. “You hear?! Here comes your savior! You poor bastard!” “Shut up!” Kráner interrupted him and squeezed Schmidt’s arm. “Let’s wait the full two minutes! Then we’ll see what he has to say, him and his big mouth!” Futaki rested his head on his knees. There was absolute silence. Mrs. Schmidt sat huddled in the corner, terrified. Halics gave a great gulp then, because he had some vague idea of what might happen, almost inaudibly said, “It’s really awful. . that even at a time. . like this. . I mean, each other. .!” The headmaster rose. “Gentlemen,” he addressed Kráner, trying to calm him: “What’s all this?! This is no solution! Think it over and — ” “Shut up, you ass!” Kráner hissed at him and seeing his threatening look the headmaster quickly sat down again. “So, friend?” Schmidt asked dully with his back to Futaki, gazing down the path. “Is the two minutes up yet?” Futaki raised his head and hugged his knees. “Tell me, what’s the point of this performance. Do you really think I can do anything about it?” Schmidt grew beetroot red. “So who convinced me in the bar? Huh?” and he slowly moved towards Futaki: “Who kept telling me I should take it easy because this and that and the other will be all right, eh?” “Are you out of your mind, buddy?” Futaki replied raising his own voice, beginning to twitch nervously. “Have you gone mad?” But Schmidt was in front of him by then so he couldn’t get up. “Give me my money back,” Schmidt snarled, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “You heard what I said!? Give me back my money!” Futaki pressed his back against the wall. “There’s no point in asking me for your money! Come to your senses!” Schmidt closed his eyes. “I’m asking you for the last time, give me my money!” “Listen everyone,” Futaki cried. “Get him away from me, he’s really gone —!” but he couldn’t finish what he was saying because Schmidt, with all his strength, kicked him in the face. Futaki’s head snapped back and for a second he sat absolutely still, the blood starting to gush from his nose, then slowly slipped to one side. By that time the women, Halics, and the headmaster had leapt over, twisted Schmidt’s arm behind his back, and then with great difficulty, not without a violent struggle, dragged him away. Kráner grinned nervously in the entrance, his arms crossed, then started moving towards Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt, Mrs. Kráner and Mrs. Halics were screaming and fussing in terror around the unconscious Futaki, until Mrs. Schmidt pulled herself together, took a rag, ran out to the terrace, dipped it in a puddle and ran back with it. She knelt down by Futaki and started wiping his face, then turned on the weeping Mrs. Halics, shouting, “Instead of blubbering you could do something useful like fetching another rag, a bigger one, to soak up the blood!”. . Futaki was slowly regaining consciousness and opened his eyes to stare blankly first at the sky, then at Mrs. Schmidt’s anxious face as she leaned over him. Feeling a sharp pain, he tried to sit up. “For heaven’s sake, don’t do anything, just lie still!” Mrs. Kráner shouted at him. “You’re still bleeding!” They laid him down again on the blanket and Mrs. Kráner tried to wash the blood off his clothes while Mrs. Halics knelt beside Futaki, quietly praying. “Get that witch away from me!” groaned Futaki. “I’m still alive. .” Schmidt was gasping for breath in another corner, clearly confused, pressing his fists into his groin as if that were the only way he could keep himself from moving. “Really!” the headmaster shook his head as he stood together with Halics with his back to Schmidt to block his way in case he tried to attack Futaki again. “Really, I can’t believe what I’m seeing! You’re a grown man! What are you thinking of? You just go and assault someone? You know what I call it? I call it bullying, that’s what I call it!” “Leave me alone,” Schmidt answered through gritted teeth. “That’s right!” Kráner said, stepping closer: “This has nothing to do with you! Why are you so determined to poke your nose in everywhere? In any case the clown deserved it!. .” “You shut up, you low life!” the headmaster snapped back: “You. . you were the one who encouraged him to do it! You think I can’t hear? You’d better keep quiet!” “What I suggest, pal. .,” hissed Kráner with a dark look, seizing the headmaster, “What I suggest is that you get out of here while the going is good!. . I don’t advise you to pick a quarrel with — ” At that moment a resonant, severe, self-confident voice cut across them: “What’s going on here?!” Everyone turned around to the threshold. Mrs. Halics gave a fearful cry, Schmidt leapt to his feet and Kráner took an involuntary step back. Irimiás stood there. His seal-gray raincoat was buttoned up to the chin, his hat drawn far down his brow. He stuck his hands deep into his pockets and surveyed the scene with piercing eyes. A cigarette dangled from his lips. There was stony silence. Even Futaki sat up, then tried to stand, swaying a little, but hid the rag behind his back, the blood still dribbling from his nose. Mrs. Halics crossed herself in astonishment then quickly lowered her hands because Halics was signaling to her to stop it immediately. “I asked what’s going on?” Irimiás repeated threateningly. He spat out the cigarette and stuck a new one in the corner of his mouth. The estate stood before him, their heads hung low. “We thought you weren’t coming. .” Mrs. Kráner wavered and gave a forced smile. Irimiás looked at his watch and angrily tapped the glass. “It says six-forty-three. The watch is accurate.” Barely audible Mrs. Kráner replied, “Yes, but. . but you said you’d come at night. .” Irimiás furrowed his brow. “What do you think I am, a taxi driver? I work my fingers to the bone for you, I don’t sleep for three days, I walk for hours in the rain, I rush from one meeting to another to overcome various obstacles, while you. .?!” He took a step toward them, cast an eye at their makeshift beds then stopped in front of Futaki. “What happened to you?” Futaki hung his head in shame. “I got a nosebleed.” “I can see that. But how?” Futaki made no answer. “See here, . ” Irimiás gave a sigh, “this isn’t what I expected of you, friends. From any of you!” he continued, turning to the others. “If this is how you start what do you think you are going to do next? Stabbing each other? Shut up. .,” he waved away Kráner who wanted to say something, “I’m not interested in the details! I’ve seen quite enough. It’s sad, I can tell you, pretty damn sad!” He walked up and down in front of them with a grave face then, when he had returned to his original spot at the entrance, he turned around to face them again. “Look, I have no idea what exactly happened here. Nor do I want to know because time is too precious to spend it dealing with such piddling matters. But I won’t forget. Least of all you, Futaki, my friend, I’ll not forget you. But I will overlook it this time, on one condition, that it never happens again! Is that clear?!” He waited a moment, ran his hand across his brow and with a careworn expression continued: “All right, let’s get down to business!” he drew deeply on the tiny remnant of his cigarette then threw it down and stamped on it. I have some important news.” It was as if they were just now emerging from some evil spell. They were sober at a stroke but they simply couldn’t understand what had happened to them in the last few hours: What demonic power had taken possession of them, stifling every sane and rational impulse? What was it that had driven them to lose their heads and attack each other “like filthy pigs when the swill is late’? What made it possible for people like them — people who had finally managed to emerge from years of apparently terminal hopelessness to breathe the dizzying air of freedom — to rush around in senseless despair, like prisoners in a cage so that even their vision had clouded over? What explanation could there be for them to “have eyes” only for the ruinous, stinking, desolate aspect of their future home, and completely lose track of the promise that “what had fallen should rise again’! It was like waking from a nightmare. They formed a humble circle around Irimiás, more ashamed than relieved, because, in their unforgivable impatience, they had all doubted the one man who could save them, a man who, even if he had been delayed a few brief hours, had after all kept his promise, and to whom they had every reason to be grateful; and the agonizing sense of shame was only increased by the knowledge that he had not the least idea how far they had doubted him and taken his name in vain, accusing him of all kinds of crimes, he who had “risked his life” for them and who now was standing among them as living proof of the falseness of their allegations. And so, with this extra load on their conscience, they listened to him with a greater and still more unshakable confidence, and were enthusiastically nodding even before they knew what he was talking about, especially Kráner and Schmidt who were particularly aware of the gravity of their sins, although the “changed, less favorable circumstances” Irimiás now referred to might well have soured their mood, since it turned out that “our plans for Almássy Manor have to be suspended for an indefinite period” because certain groups “wouldn’t take” to a project with an “as yet unclear purpose” being established here, and had objected particularly, as they learned from Irimiás, to the considerable distance between the manor and the town that made getting to the “manor” all but impractical for them, which in turn reduced the prospect of regular inspections to less than the required bare minimum. . “Given this situation,” Irimiás continued, sweating a little but still resonant, “the only possibility of bringing our plans to a successful conclusion, the only possible way forward, is for us to disperse into various parts of the country until these gentlemen entirely lose track of us, at which point we can return here and set about realizing our original objectives.”. . They acknowledged their “particular importance in the scheme of things” with a growing sense of pride, especially prizing their privilege in being considered “the chosen few” while appreciating the recognition of their qualities of steadfastness, industry and increasing vigilance that were considered, apparently, quite indispensable. And if some aspects of the scheme lay beyond them (especially phrases like “our goal points to something beyond itself’) it was immediately clear to them that their dispersal was just “a strategic ploy” and that even if they were to have no contact with each other for a while they would continue to be in lively, continual communication with Irimiás. . “Not that anyone should think,” the master raised his voice, “that we can just sit and wait for things to improve by themselves during this time!” They registered, with an astonishment that quickly passed, that their task was to be the unceasing, vigilant observation of their immediate surroundings, meaning that they should rigorously note down all opinions, rumors and events which “from the perspective of our agreement might be of the utmost importance” and that they should all develop the indispensable skill of distinguishing between favorable and unfavorable signs, or, to put it in plain language, “knowing the good from the bad”, because he — Irimiás — sincerely hoped that no one would seriously think it possible to take a single step forward down the path he had revealed to them in such painstaking detail without it. . So when Schmidt asked “And what will we live on in the meanwhile?” and Irimiás assured them, “Relax, everyone, relax: it’s all planned, all thought through, you will all have jobs, and to begin with you will be able to draw on basic survival funds out of mutual, accumulated funds,” the last traces of their early morning panic vanished at a stroke and all that remained for them was to pack up their belongings and take them down to the end of the path where an idling truck was waiting for them on the metalled road. . So they did pack up again in a feverish hurry and, after a little awkwardness, started chatting to each other as if nothing had happened, Halics setting the best example who, with a bag or suitcase in his hand would follow now the bear-like Kráner, now the striding, manly figure of his wife, sneaking behind them like a monkey, imitating them, and who, once he had finished his own packing, carried the luggage of the uncertainly swaying Futaki over to the road, remarking only that “a friend in need is a friend indeed. .” By the time they had succeeding in bringing everything down to the side of the road, the “kid” had managed to turn the truck around (Irimiás had, after long pleadings, relented and allowed him a go at the wheel), so there was nothing left after that than to take a brief silent look of farewell at the “manor” that was to be their future, and to take their places on the open truck. “So, my dear companions,” Petrina stuck his head through the passenger’s window. “Please arrange yourselves so that this dizzyingly fast miracle of transport might get us to our destination in at least two hours! Button your coats, on with your hoods and hats, hold on tight, and feel free to turn your back on the great hope of your future because if you don’t you’ll get the full force of this filthy rain in your faces. .” The baggage took up a good half of the open truck so the only way they could all fit in was by huddling close to each other in two rows, and it was no surprise that, when Irimiás revved the engine and the truck juddered and started back towards the town, they felt the just the same enthusiasm for the warmth of “the unbreakable bond between them” as had sweetened their memorable journey the day before. Kráner and Schmidt were particularly loud in their determination never again to give vent to idiotic rages and to declare that, if there should be any future disagreement, they would be the first to put an immediate stop to it. Schmidt — who had tried in the midst of all this merry badinage, to signal to Futaki to indicate that “he deeply regretted what he had done” (partly because he had somehow failed to “bump into him” along the path, but partly because he lacked the necessary courage) — had only now decided to offer him “at least a cigarette” but found himself jammed in between Halics and Mrs. Kráner, both of whom were immovable. “Never mind,” he reassured himself, “I’ll get around to it when we get off this damn wreck. . we can’t part in anger like this!” Mrs. Schmidt’s face was flushed, her eyes sparkling, as she watched the rapidly receding manor, that enormous building covered in weeds and rampant ivy, its four miserable towers extending at the corners, while the metalled road, billowing with ridges behind them, vanished into infinity, and her relief at the return of her “darling” so excited her that she didn’t notice the wind and rain beating her face, though she had no protection against any of it however she pulled the hood over her head, because in the great confusing mêlée she found herself at the end of the rear row. There could be no doubt, nor did she feel any; nothing now could shake her faith in Irimiás. It was not like before because here, on the back of the speeding truck, she understood her future: that she would follow him like a strange dreamlike shadow, now as his lover, now as his maid, in absolute poverty if necessary, and in this way she would be reborn time after time; she would learn his every movement, the secret meaning of each distinct modulation of his voice, would interpret his dreams and should — God forbid! — any harm befall him, hers would be the lap in which he would lay his head. . And she would learn to be patient and wait, to prepare herself for any ordeal, and if fate decreed that Irimiás left her for good one day — for what else could he do? — she would spend her remaining days quietly, knit her shroud and go to her grave with pride knowing that it had once been given her to have “a great man, a real man” as her lover. . Not were there any bounds to the good cheer of Halics, who was squashed up beside her: not rain, not wind, not the bumpy ride, no discomfort of any kind could deflate him: his corn-hardened feet were flat and frozen in his boots, the water on top of the driver’s cabin occasionally slopped down the back of his neck and powerful gusts of wind from the side of the truck brought out tears, but he was cheered, not only by the return of Irimiás, but by the sheer delight of traveling for, as he had said often enough in the past, “he could never resist the intoxicating pleasure of speed’, and here was his big chance to enjoy it, now, while Irimiás, ignoring all the dangerous potholes and ditches along the road, had his foot on the gas right down to the floor, so whenever he was able to open his eyes, even if ever so slightly, he was thrilled to see the landscape rushing by at dizzying speed, and he quickly formed a plan, because it wasn’t too late, in fact it was a very good time, to make one of his long-cherished dreams come true, and already he was seeking the right words to convince Irimiás to help him realize it, when suddenly it occurred to him that the driver was obliged to reject opportunities that he — alas! — “granted his old age” found irresistible. . So he decided simply to enjoy the pleasures of the journey as far as he could so that later, over a friendly glass, he could conjure every detail to his prospective new friends, because simply imagining it as he had so far was “as nothing to the real experience. .” Mrs. Halics was the only one who found nothing to enjoy in “this insane rush” since, unlike her husband, she was firmly set against any kind of new foolishness, and because she was pretty sure that if they carried on this way they would all break their necks, and so she closed her hands, praying fearfully to the Good Lord to protect them all and not to desert them at this hour of danger, but however hard she tried to convince the others to do the same (‘In the name of Our Savior, Jesus Christ please tell this lunatic to slow down just a little!’) they didn’t “give a hoot” either about the wild speed or her terrified mutterings, on the contrary, they “seemed to find pleasure in the danger!.”. The Kráners, and even the headmaster, were childishly exhilarated, proudly braced against the back of the truck squinting like lords at the barren landscape flying past them. It was exactly as they had imagined the journey, as fast as the wind, at mind numbing speed, passing every obstacle — utterly invincible! They were proud to see the landscape vanish in a haze, proud that they could leave it behind, not like miserable beggars but — behold! — with heads held high, full of confidence, on a triumphant note. . Their only regret, as they rumbled past the old estate and reached the road-mender’s house on the long bend, was that in their hurry they didn’t get a glimpse of the Horgos familu, or of blind Kerekes or of the landlord, his face purple with jealousy. . Futaki carefully tapped his swollen nose and considered himself lucky to have “got away” with nothing worse, not having dared to touch it at all until the sharp pain had completely gone, so he couldn’t know whether it was broken or not. He was still not quite in control of his senses, and felt dizzy and faintly nauseous. His mind confused images of Schmidt’s twisted scarlet face and Kráner behind him, ready to leap, with the stern gaze of Irimiás, a gaze that seemed to be burning him up. As the pain in his nose faded he slowly became aware of other injuries: he had lost part of an incisor, the skin on his lower lip was broken. He could hardly hear the consoling words of the headmaster crushed up next to him — “You shouldn’t take it too much to heart. As you see, it has all turned out for the best. .” — because his ears were ringing and the pain made him turn his head this way and that, not knowing where to spit the salty blood still left in his mouth, and he only started feeling a little better when he caught a flash of the deserted mill and the sagging roof of Halics’s house, but however he twisted and turned he still couldn’t see the engine house because by the time he had got into position the truck was passing the bar. He cast a sly look at the squatting figure of Schmidt then confessed to himself that, however strange it sounded, he felt absolutely no anger towards him; he knew the man well and had always known how quick his temper was, and so — before any thought of revenge could occur to him — having full heartedly forgiven him, he decided to reassure him at the earliest opportunity because he could guess his state of mind. He watched the trees rushing past him on either side of the road with a certain sadness, feeling that whatever had happened in the “manor” simply had had to happen. The noise, the whistling wind and the rain that from time to time hit them from the side eventually drew his attention away from Schmidt and from Irimiás too for a while. With great difficulty he dragged out a cigarette and, by leaning forward and covering the match with his palm, eventually succeeded in lighting it. They had left the estate and bar a long way behind now and he judged that they could be only a few hundred yards from the electric generator, and therefore only some half hour from town. He noted how proudly and enthusiastically the headmaster and Kráner, who was sitting immediately next to him, were turning their heads this way and that as if nothing had happened, as if all that had happened at the manor was hardly worth remembering and could rapidly be forgotten. He, on the other hand, was by no means sure that the arrival of Irimiás had solved all their problems. And while the sight of him standing in the doorway had changed everything for them while they were in despair, the whole mad scramble after it, and now this strange dash along a deserted highway, was not for Futaki any kind of proof that the rush was to some specific place; it seemed to him more like a kind of stampede, a “blind and uncertain rush into the unknown” that was somehow pointless: they had not the least idea what was waiting for them, that’s if they ever stopped. There was something ominous about having no clue what Irimiás was planning: he could not guess why they were in such a panic to leave the manor. For a brief moment he recalled a terrifying image he hadn’t been able to forget, not in all these years: once again he saw himself in his old tattered coat, leaning on his stick, hungry and infinitely disappointed, trudging down the metalled road, the estate fading into the dusk behind him, the horizon in front of him still far from clear. . And now, numbed by the rattling truck, his premonition seemed to be coming true: penniless, hungry, and broken in body, here he was, sitting in the back of a truck that had turned up out of the blue, on a road that led God knows where, heading into the unknown, and should they come to a fork in that road, he couldn’t begin to decide which road to take because he was helpless, resigned to the fact that his fate was being decided elsewhere, by a noisy, rattling, ancient wreck of a truck over which he had absolutely no control. “It seems there’s no escape,” he reflected in apathy. “This way or that, I’m lost either way. Tomorrow I’ll wake in an unfamiliar room where I won’t know what’s waiting for me, and it will be as if I had set out on my own. . I’ll put my minimal possessions out on the table by the bed, if there is one, and there I am, staring out of the window at dusk watching the light fade all over again. .” It shocked him to realize that his faith in Irimiás had been shaken the moment he saw him at the “manor” entrance. . “Maybe, if he hadn’t come back, there might still have been some hope. . But now?” Right back at the manor he had sensed the well-concealed disappointment behind the words, and saw, even as Irimiás was standing by the truck watching them loading up, how he was hanging his head, and that something was lost, lost forever!. . Now suddenly everything was clear. Irimiás lacked the strength and energy he once had; he had finally lost “his old fire’; he too was just filling in time, driven along by habit; and, realizing this, Futaki now understood that the speech at the bar with its clumsy rhetorical tricks was simply a way of concealing from those who still believed in Irimiás the truth that he was as helpless as they were, that he no longer hoped to lend meaning to the power that was strangling him as much as it was them, that even he, Irimiás, could not free himself from it. His nose was pulsing with pain, his nausea refused to pass and even a cigarette did not help, so he threw it away without finishing it. They crossed the bridge over “the Stinker’, a water stagnant with weed and frogspawn, lying perfectly still, the roadside ever denser with acacia, and there were even one or two abandoned farm buildings in the distance, surrounded by trees. The rain had stopped but the wind was buffeting them ever more violently and they were worried in case baggage was blown off the top of the pile. For the time being there was neither sight nor sound of humanity and to their astonishment they met no one at all, not even when turning off at the Elek fork on the road leading into town. “What’s with this place?” yelled Kráner. “They got rabies?” It reassured them to see two figures in raincoats swaying with their arms around each other by the entrance of The Scales, then they turned down the road leading to the main square, their eyes thirstily drinking in the low level houses, the drawn blinds, the fancy drains and the carved wooden entrances: it was like leaving prison. By now, of course, time was simply rushing by and before they could take it all in the truck braked right in the middle of the wide square in front of the station. “OK, folks!” Petrina stuck his head out of the cabin window and shouted. “End of the sightseeing tour!” “Wait!” Irimiás stopped them as they were preparing to get off, and left the driver’s seat. “Just the Schmidts. Then the Kráners and the Halicses. Get your things together! You, Futaki, and you, Mr Headmaster, wait here!” He led them with firm decisive steps, the herd after him struggling with their baggage. They entered the waiting room, piled the baggage in a corner and stood round Irimiás. “There’s time enough to talk things over calmly. Are you very frozen?” “We’ll be snoring tonight like nobody’s business,” sniggered Mrs. Kráner. “Is there a pub round here? I could do with a drink!” “Sure there is,” Irimiás answered and looked at his watch. “Come with me.” The waiting room was practically empty except for a railwayman leaning on a rickety counter. “Schmidt!” Irimiás spoke up once they’d downed a glass of pálinka. “You and your wife are going to Elek.” He brought out his wallet and found a piece of paper that he pressed into Schmidt’s hand. “It’s all written down there, who you look for, what street, what number and so on. Tell them I sent you. Is that clear?” “It’s clear,” nodded Schmidt. “Tell them I’ll be along in a few days to check up. In the meanwhile they are to give you work, food and rooms. Understand?” “I understand. But who is this person? What’s the deal?” “The man’s a butcher,” said Irimiás pointing to the paper. “There’s plenty of work there. You, Mrs. Schmidt, you’ll be on the counter, serving. And you Schmidt, you’re there to help generally. I trust you can manage this.” “You bet your life we can,” Schmidt enthused. “Fine. The train comes in at, let’s see. .” and he looked at his watch again, “yes, in about twenty minutes.” He turned to the Kráners. “You’ll find work at Keresztúr. I haven’t written it all down so make sure it’s engraved on your memory. The man you want is called Kálmár, István Kálmár. I don’t know the name of the street but go to the Catholic church — there’s only one so you can’t miss it — and to the right of the church there is a street. . are you remembering all this? You go down that street until you see a sign on your right saying Women’s Tailoring. That’s Kálmár’s place. Tell them Dönci sent you, and make sure you remember that because they might not remember my usual name. Tell them you need work, accommodation and food. Immediately. There is a laundry room at the back where you are to sleep. Got that?” “Got it,” clucked Mrs. Kráner brightly. “Church, road on right, look for sign. No problem.” “I like that,” smiled Irimiás and turned to the Halicses. “You two will get on the bus to Postelek: the stop is in front of the station in the square. Once in Postelek you find the Evangelical rectory and look for Dean Gyivicsan. You won’t forget?” “Gyivicsan,” Mrs. Halics enthusiastically repeated. “Correct. You tell him I sent you. He’s been after me for years to get him two people, and I can’t think of anyone better than you. There’s plenty of room there, you can take your pick, and there’s consecrated wine as well, Halics. As for you, Mrs. Halics, you will clean the church, cook for three and look after the housekeeping.” The Halicses were quite overcome with joy. “How can we possibly thank you?” Mrs. Halics declared, her eyes filling with tears. “You’ve done everything for us!” “Come, come,” Irimiás waved her away. “There’ll be time enough to be grateful. Now all of you, listen to me. To start with, before things settle down, you’ll get a thousand forints each from the communal chest. Look after it well, don’t waste it! Don’t forget what it is that binds us! Never forget, not for one minute, what it is you’re there to do. You must observe everything carefully in Elek, in Postelek and in Keresztur, because without that we won’t get anywhere! In a few days I will visit all three places and look you up. Then we’ll go into proper detail. Any questions?” Kráner cleared his throat: “I think we understand everything. But might I formally. . I mean. . in other words. . we’d like to thank you for. . everything you’ve done. . for us, since. .” Irimiás raised his hand. “No, friends. No gratitude. It’s my duty. And now,” he stood up, “it’s time for us to part. I have a thousand things to do. . Important negotiations. .” Halics, deeply moved, leapt over and shook his hand. “Look after yourself,” he muttered: “You know we care about you! We want you hale and hearty!” “Don’t worry about me,” smiled Irimiás, moving toward the exit: “You look after yourselves, and don’t forget: constant vigilance!” He stepped through the station doors, went over to the truck and gestured to the headmaster, “Listen! We’ll drop you at Streber Street. Go and sit in The Ipar and I’ll come back for you in about an hour. We’ll talk more then. Where’s Futaki?” Here I am,” Futaki replied, stepping out from the other side of the vehicle. “You. .” Futaki raised a hand. “Don’t bother with me.” Irimiás looked shocked. “What’s wrong with you?” “With me? Nothing at all. But I know where to go. Someone is bound to offer me a job as a night watchman.” Irimiás was irritated. “You’re always so stubborn. There are better places for you, but fine, do what you want. Go to Nagyrománváros, the old Romanian quarter, and there next to The Golden Triangle — you know where that is? — there’s a building. They’re looking for a night watchman there — they’ll give you a room too. Here is a thousand forints to be getting on with. Get yourself some dinner. I suggest the Steigerwald, it’s within spitting distance. They have food there.” “Thank you. You like the idea of spitting?” Irimiás made a face: “It’s impossible to talk to you at the moment. Get your stuff. Be at the Steigerwald tonight. All right?” He extended his hand. Futaki accepted it uncertainly, gripped the money with his other hand, took his stick and set off towards Csokos Street, leaving Irimiás standing by the truck without a word. “Your baggage!” Petrina shouted after him from the driver’s cab, then leapt out and helped Futaki get his lugage on his back. “Isn’t that heavy?” the headmaster asked, feeling awkward, then quickly put out his hand. “Not too bad,” Futaki quietly answered: “See you.” He set off again with Irimiás, Petrina, the headmaster and “the kid” staring puzzled after him, but then they got back in the truck, the headmaster in the back and started back into the town center. Futaki was making halting progress, feeling close to collapse under the weight of his cases, and when he reached the first crossroad he dropped them, loosened the straps and, after a little thought, threw one of them into the ditch and went on with the other. He wandered aimlessly down street after street, from time to time putting his suitcase down so as to get his wind back, then off he went again with a bitter feeling. . If he met anyone he would hang his head because he felt that if he looked into the stranger’s eyes his own misfortune would seem even worse. He was after all a lost cause. . “And how stupid! How steadfast, how full of hope I was yesterday! And now look at me! Here I am stumbling down the street with a broken nose, cracked teeth, a cut on my lip, muddied and bloody as if this was the price I had to pay for my stupidity. . But then. . there’s no justice in anything. . no justice. .” he kept repeating in a perpetual melancholy that remained with him that evening when he turned on the light in one of the sheds of the building next to The Golden Triangle, and noted his distorted image in the glass of a dirty window. He had a vacant look. “That Futaki is the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” Petrina noted as they drove up the street leading to the town center. “What’s got into him? Did he think this was the Promised Land? What the devil does he think he’s doing?! Did you see the face he made? With that swollen nose?!” “Shut up, Petrina,” grumbled Irimiás. “You keep talking like that you’ll get a swollen nose too.” The “kid” behind them whooped with laughter, “What’s up Petrina, has the cat got your tongue?” “Me?!’, Petrina snarled back. “You think I’m scared of anyone?!” “Shut up, Petrina,” Irimiás repeated in irritation: “Don’t mumble at me. If you have anything to say spit it out.” Petrina grinned and scratched his head. “Well boss, if you’re asking. .,” he started cautiously. “It’s not that I have any doubts, believe me, but why do we need Páyer?” Irimiás bit his lip, slowed down, allowed an old woman to cross the road then stepped on the gas. “Stay out of grown-up business,” he grunted. “I’d just like to know. Why do we need him?. .” Furious, Irimiás looked straight ahead. “We just do!” “I know boss, but guns and explosives. . really?!. .” “We just do!” Irimiás shouted at him. “You really want to blow up the world and us with it. .?” Petrina spluttered with a terrified look: “You just want rid of things, don’t you?” Irimiás didn’t answer. He braked. They had stopped in Streber Street, The headmaster jumped off the back of the truck, waved goodbye to the driver’s cab, then, with firm steps, crossed the road and opened the doors of The Ipar. “It’s after eight-thirty. What will they say?” the “kid” wondered. Petrina waved him away. “The damn Captain can go to hell! What does it mean to be late? “Late” means nothing to me! He should be pleased we are seeing him at all! It’s an honour when Petrina comes to call! Understand, kid? Remember that because I won’t say it again!” “Ha ha!” the “kid” mocked him and blew smoke in Petrina’s fac:. “What a joke!” “Get it into your thick head that jokes are just like life,” Petrina grandly declared: “Things that begin badly, end badly. Everything’s fine in the middle, it’s the end you need to worry about.” Irimiás was looking up the road, not saying anything. He felt no pride now that it was all settled. His eyes stared dully ahead, his face was gray. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, a vein was pounding in his temple. He saw the neat houses on either side of the street. The gardens. The crooked gates. The chimneys belching smoke. He felt neither hate nor disgust. His head was clear.

II. Nothing But Work and Worries

The document, having been corrected at eight-fifteen, was handed over to the clerks for the preparation of the draft a few minutes later, and the problem seemed all but insoluble. But they showed neither surprise nor anger, nor did they complain, not in the least: they simply looked at each other in silence as if to say — you see! the latest, undoubtedly convincing evidence of the tragically rapid general decline. It was enough to glance at the sloping lines and scratchy hand to see that the work before them was quite clearly an essay in the impossible because, once again, they had to bring some clarity, some fitting intelligible order to some “depressingly crude scrawl.” The incomprehensibly short time at their disposal combined with the distant prospect of producing a usable document made them feel tense and yet urged them on to some heroic effort. Only “the experience and maturity of long years; the years of practice that demand respect” explained how they were able to detach themselves in a moment from the maddening racket of their colleagues dashing around and chattering — so that in a matter of moments they could focus their entire attention on the document. They soon got through the opening sentences where they only had to clear up a few common ambiguities, those clumsy attempts at subtlety that clearly betrayed a layman’s touch, so the first part of the text might be said to have passed fairly smoothly into a “final draft.” Though only yesterday I stressed, several times, that I regard the writing down of such information as unfortunate, in order that he should see my willingness — and, naturally, as proof of my faultless devotion to the matter in hand — I am prepared to carry out his commission. In my report I take particular note of the fact that you have encouraged me to be strictly honest. At this point I should remark that there can be no doubt about the suitability of my workforce, and I hope to convince you of that tomorrow. I consider it important to repeat this only because because it is possible for you to read the following improvised draft in ways other than intended. I particularly draw your attention to the condition that in order for my work to continue and to have a functioning basis it is vital that I alone should be in contact with my workforce, and that any other approach will lead to failure.. etc etc. . But as soon as the clerks got to the part relating to Mrs. Schmidt, they immediately found themselves in the deepest difficulty, because they didn’t know how to formulate such vulgar expressions as stupid, big-mouth and cow — how to retain the import of these crude concepts so that the document should be true to itself while at the same time retaining the language of their profession. After some discussion they settled on “intellectually weak female person primarily concerned with her sexuality” but they hardly had time to draw breath because next they immediately came across the expression cheap whore in all its awful attendant crudity. For lack of precision they had to abandon the idea of “a female person of dubious reputation’, of “a woman of the demi-monde” and “a painted woman” and a mass of other euphemisms that seemed alluringly attractive at first glance; they drummed impatient fingers on the writing desk across which they faced each other, painfully avoiding each other’s eyes, finally settling on the formula, “a woman who offers her body freely” which was not perfect but would have to do. The first part of the next sentence was no easier but with a handy flash of insight they took the dreadfully colloquial she hopped into bed with any Tom, Dick or Harry, and it was a matter of pure chance if she didn’t and turned it into the relatively useful “she was the epitome of infidelity in marriage.” To their genuine surprise they found three sentences one after the other that they could type up as the official version without any change, but after that they immediately hit another difficulty. However they racked their brains, however they lobbed potentially useful phrases back and forth, they couldn’t find anything suitable for the haunting compost smell that rose from her like a blend of cheap cologne and something rotting and were on the point of giving up and passing the job back to the Captain on the excuse that there was something urgent waiting at the office when a shyly smiling old typist lady brought them cups of steaming black coffee and the pleasant scent calmed them a little. They started thinking again, considering new variants when — avoiding another stab of terror — they agreed not to torture themselves any longer but settle on “she tried unconventional means of covering up the unpleasant smell of her body.” “It’s dreadful the way time flies,” said one to the other when they finally managed to finish the part referring to Mrs. Schmidt, the other man glancing with concern at his watch: too true, too true, there was only a little over an hour left before lunch. So they decided to try and deal with what remained at a slightly quicker pace, which in fact meant nothing more than that they tended to agree on less satisfactory solutions more readily than they had before, “though it is only fair to say that the results were at the same time, far from hopeless.” They were delighted to observe that using this new method they got through the Mrs. Kráner parts much quicker. That foul old bag of poisonous gossip became the more reassuring “a transmitter of unreliable information” and the phrases seriously, someone should think about sewing her lips together and fat slut were solved without undue difficulty. It was a special joy to them that there were sentences they could simply lift and use in the official version and they started to breathe more easily when they reached the end of the text about Mrs. Halics because the person here — charged with religious fanaticism and certain peculiar traits — was characterized by certain old slang expressions that were child’s play to translate. But on seeing the parts relating to her husband, Halics, a passage full of horrifying obscenities, they realized that the greatest difficulties still lay ahead for whenever they thought they could see through the dense texture of the witness testimony they had to admit that, having finally reached the limits of their combined talent for re-invention, they were utterly stumped once again. Because while they could just about manage turning wrinkled drink-sodden dwarf into the simple “elderly alcoholic of small stature” they had — shame or no shame — no idea where to start with stuttering buffoon, or utterly leaden, or indeed blindly bumbling; and so after long agonized discussion they silently decided to leave the terms out, chiefly because they suspected the Captain wouldn’t have the patience to read right through the whole document and that it would therefore find its way — in a properly regular way — into the files anyway. They leaned back in their chairs, exhausted, rubbing their eyes, annoyed to see their colleagues chattering and preparing for lunch, making some minimal order in their files, slipping into carefree conversation with each other, carrying on, washing their hands and a few minutes later leaving in twos and threes through the door leading into the entrance hall. They gave a sad sigh and, admitting that lunch would be “something of a luxury now’, took out buttered rolls and dry cookies and started munching them while getting on with the job. But as luck would have it even this minimal pleasure was denied to them — the food lost its flavor and chewing became a form of torture — because when they encountered the file on Schmidt it was clear they had arrived at a new level of difficulty; the obscurity, incomprehensibility, and carelessness, the conscious or unconscious attempt to blur everything they had to sort out, amounted to what they agreed was “a slap in the face to their professionalism, industry and struggle”. . Because what did it mean to say that something represented “a cross between primitive insensitivity and chillingly inane emptiness in a bottomless pit of unbridled dark’?! What sort of crime against language was this foul nest of mixed metaphors?! Where was even the faintest trace of striving for intellectual clarity and precision so natural — allegedly! — to the human spirit?! To their greatest horror the whole passage about Schmidt consisted of sentences like this and, what was more, from now on the witness’s handwriting, for some inexplicable reason, became simply illegible, as if the writer had grown progressively more drunk. . Again they were on the point of giving up and resigning because “it’s really dreadful the way, day after day, people put such impossible stuff in front of them, and what thanks do we get?!” when — as once already that day, the delicious smell of coffee, delivered with a smile, persuaded them to reconsider. So they set about excising phrases such as incurable stupidity, inarticulate complaint, irreconcilable anxiety petrified in the dense darkness of a reduced inconsolable existence, and other such monstrosities, until, having reached the end of the character testimony but still wincing with pain, they discovered that all that remained untouched were a few conjunctions and two predicates. And because it was clearly hopeless trying to resolve the actual contents of what the witness had intended to say they took the cavalier course of reducing the whole febrile mish-mash to a single, sane sentence: “His limited intellectual capacity and his tendency to cower before any display of strength makes him peculiarly suitable for the carrying out, at the highest level, of the act in question.” The passage relating to the unnamed personage known simply as the headmaster was no clearer, in fact it seemed even more obscure, if that was possible: the confusion worse, the infuriating attempts at subtlety still more infuriating. “It seems,” one of the clerks noted with a pale face, shaking his head and pointing to a dirty scrap of paper for the benfit of his tired colleague slumped behind the typewriter, “it looks as though the half-wit has completely gone off his head here. Listen to this!” And he read the first sentence. Should anyone contemplating the advisability of leaping off a high bridge be in any doubt or prone to any hesitation, I advise him to consider the headmaster: once he has considered this ridiculous figure he will immediately know that there is simply no alternative but to jump! Incredulous and exhausted, they stared at each other, their faces reflecting their utter exasperation. What is this! Do they want to ridicule us out of a job?! The clerk slumped at the typewriter gestured silently to his colleague as if to say, leave it, it’s not worth it, there’s nothing anyone can do, just carry on. And as concerns his appearance he looks like a scrawny, dry cucumber left too long in the sun, his intellectual capacity below even that of Schmidt, which is truly saying something. . “Let’s write,” the one by the typewriter suggested, “of worn appearance, lacking ability. .” His colleague clicked his tongue annoyed. “How do the two statements relate to each other?” “How should I know? What can I do about it?” the other snapped back. “It’s what he wrote and we have to convey the content. .” “Oh, all right,” his colleague replied. I’ll go on.”. . he deals with his cowardice through self-flattery, hollow pride, and enough stupidity to give you a heart attack. Like all self-respecting jerk-offs, he tends to sentimentality, and clumsy pathos, etc etc. Given all this it was plain that there was no point in seeking compromise, they had to make do with half-solutions, and, occasionally worse, with work unbefitting their calling, and so, after another long discussion they agreed on: “Cowardly. Of sensitive disposition. Sexually immature.” Having dealt so brutally with the headmaster, they couldn’t deny that their troubled consciences were slowly turning into fiery pits of guilt, so they approached the Kráner section with their hearts in their mouths, both of them growing ever more irritable as they saw how quickly the time was passing. One pointed furiously at his watch and indicated the rest of the office: the other just made a helpless gesture because he too had noticed the general sense of movement that suggested there were only a few minutes of official work time left. “Could it be possible?” he wagged his head. “A man is just getting down to a job when the bell rings. I don’t understand. The days fly by in a constant whirl. .” And by the time they had converted the annoying phrase a chump who puts one in mind of nothing so much as a slovenly ox to “a powerfully built ex-blacksmith” and found an acceptable equivalent for a dusky slob with an idiotic expression, a danger to the public, all their colleagues had gone home and they had to accept various mocking farewells, and signs of mock appreciation without a word because they knew that if they stopped working for just one moment they would be tempted to give vent to their anger and declare to hell with it! — with all the serious consequences that entailed. Around about half past five, as they painfully finished the final draft of the Kráner section, they allowed themselves a minute’s cigarette break. They stretched their numbed limbs, grunting, they rubbed their sore shoulders and smoked the cigarettes through without a word, “All right, let’s get on with it,” said one. “Listen. I’ll read.” The only one who presents any danger is Futaki, the text began. Nothing serious though. His tendency to rebel only means that he is all the more likely to shit himself eventually He could add up to something but can’t free himself of his stubbornly held beliefs. He amuses me and I’m sure we can count on him more than anyone. . etc etc. “OK, write this,” the first clerk dictated. “He is dangerous but useful. More intelligent than the others. Disabled.” “Is that it?” the other sighed. “Put his name down there. At the bottom. What does it say?. . mmm, Irimiás.” “What was that?” “I’ll say it slowly: I-ri-mi-ás. Are you hard of hearing?” “Shall I write it just like tha —?” “Yes, like that! How else would you write it!” They put the file away in the folder, then slipped all the dossiers into the appropriate drawers, carefully locked them, then hung the keys on the board by the exit. They put their coats on without speaking and closed the door behind them. Downstairs by the gate, they shook hands. “How are you getting home?” By bus.” “OK. See you,” said the first clerk. “Pretty good day’s work, eh?” the other remarked. “That? To hell with it.” “If only once they’d notice how much work we put into it,” the first grumbled. “But nothing.” “Never a word of appreciation,” the other shook his head. They shook hands again and parted and when they eventually got home both were asked the same things on their arrival. “Did you have a good day at the office, darling?” To which they responded, tired — for what else could they have said shivering in the warm room — “Nothing special. Just the usual, sweetheart. . “

I. The Circle Closes

The doctor put on his glasses and stubbed out the cigarette that had burned practically down to his nails on an arm of his armchair, then, checking that the estate was all right by looking through the gap between the curtains and the window frame (‘Everything normal,” he noted, meaning nothing had changed) he measured out his permitted quantity of pálinka and added some water to it. The question of the level, a question that needed to be resolved to maximum satisfaction, had required careful consideration ever since his arrival back home: the balance between water and pálinka, however tricky the problem, had to be referred to the advice of the hospital chief who, rather tiresomely, tended to repeat his clearly exaggerated warnings (as in, “If you don’t stay away from alcohol and if you don’t radically reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke you’d better prepare right now yourself for the worst and call a priest. . ’) so, after an agonizing internal struggle, he abandoned the “two-parts-liquor, one-part-water” formula and resigned himself to “one-part-liquor-to-three-parts-water.” He drank slowly, drop by tiny drop and, now that he was over the undoubtedly agonizing “transitional readjustment period’, he decided that he could get used to even this “infernal slop’, and considering how he had spat the first taste of it straight out in disgust, he could swallow the stuff now without any major shock to the system and, he thought, might even master the art of distinguishing between such varieties of this “dishwater” that were beyond redemption and others that were tolerable. He put the glass back in its place, quickly adjusted the match that had slipped off the cigarettes pack, then ran his eye over the “battle order” of demijohns behind the armchair with a certain satisfaction and decided that he was now ready to face the approach of winter. That had not been “such a simple matter’, of course, two days before when they released him from hospital at “his own risk” and the ambulance finally entered the gates of the estate, when his ever keener anxiety had turned to what could simply be described as outright fear, because he was almost sure that he’d have to start everything afresh: that he’d find his room in a mess, his possessions all over the place, and, what was more, at that moment he did not think it impossible that the “thoroughly disreputable” Mrs. Kráner might have made use of his absence to go through the whole house in the name of cleaning “with her filthy brooms and stinking wet rags’, thereby destroying everything that had taken long years of enormous care, not to mention exhausting work, to assemble. His fears proved groundless however: the room was exactly as he had left it three weeks earlier, his notebooks, pencil, glass, matches and cigarettes precisely where they had to be, and, better still, he was mightily relieved to note that when the ambulance drew up outside the house, there was not one inquisitive face at the neighbors’ windows, nor did any of them disturb him when the ambulance crew — thinking to get a handsome tip — carried his bags full of food and the demijohns he had replenished at Mopsz, into the house. Nor indeed had anyone had the courage to disturb his peace after that. He couldn’t console himself with the thought that anything of consequence had actually happened to “these moronic nincompoops” in his absence, of course, and indeed he was forced to admit that there had been some very minor improvement: the estate looked deserted, there was none of the usual ridiculous scurrying around, and the constant seasonal rain that had set in, as it unavoidably had to, seemed to have kept them huddled in their hovels, so it was no surprise that no one stuck their heads out of doors, except Kerekes, who he spotted from the ambulance window two days ago as the man ambled along the path from the Horgos residence towards the metalled road, but even that was only for a brief second because he quickly turned his head away. “I hope to see neither hide nor hair of them till spring,” he noted in his journal then carefully raised his pencil so as not to rip the paper which — and this was something else he noted after his long absence — had grown so damp that it took only one clumsy movement for it to tear. There was no particular reason to be uneasy then, since “a higher power” had kept his observation post intact, and nothing could be done about dust or the damp for he knew that there was “no point in getting worked up” about the inevitable process of decay. He reassured himself of this because he had felt a certain shock on seeing everything in the place covered with a fine layer of weeks-old dust on his return, noticing how the delicate strands of the cobwebs that hung off the picture rails had more or less met in the middle of the ceiling, but he had quickly regained his composure, considering such things as unimportant trifles, and hastily dismissed the ambulanceman who was waxing sentimental in expectation of an “honorarium” for which he was clearly preparing to thank him. Once the man had gone, he had taken a turn about the room, and though in a rather preoccupied state of mind, he started to note the “degree and nature of neglect.” He immediately dismissed the thought of cleaning as “ridiculously excessive’, then, moreover, as “pointless’, since, it was perfectly clear, that would be to wreck the very thing that might lead him to more precise observation; so he simply wiped the table and what was on it, gave some of the blankets a shake, then set straight to work, observing the state of things as compared to weeks ago, examining each individual object — the bare bulb in the ceiling lamp, the light switch, the floor, the walls, the collapsing wardrobe, the pile of trash by the door — and, as far as possible, tried to give an exact account of the changes. He spent the whole of that night and most of the next day hard at work and, apart from a few brief moments of snoozing, allowed himself no more than seven hours of sleep and that only once he thought he’d done an accurate job of stocktaking. When he finished he was delighted to observe that, considering his enforced break, his strength and stamina seemed not only undiminished but even a little increased; though, at the same time, it was no doubt true that his capacity to resist the effects of “anything out of the usual” had noticeably weakened, so while the blanket that kept slipping off his shoulder as it always did, and the glasses that kept sliding down his nose did not in the least disturb him, the tiniest variance in his actual surroundings now demanded all his attention, and he could only recover his train of thought once he had dealt with various “annoying trifles” and restored “the original conditions.” It was this neglect that made him, after two days struggle, get rid of the alarm clock he had bought, albeit only after a thorough examination and a lot bargaining, at the “second-hand” store in the hospital, with a view to strictly regulating the order in which he took his prescribed pills. He was simply unable to get used to its earsplitting tick-tock, chiefly because his hands and feet naturally adapted to the clock’s infernal rhythm, so that one day, when the contraption had delivered its terrifying alarm call precisely on time, and he found his head nodding along to the satanic thing, he took it and, trembling with fury, cast it into the yard. His calm was immediately restored and, having enjoyed a few hours of his all-but-lost silence, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t decided on the deed earlier — yesterday or the day before. He lit a cigarette, blew out a long line of smoke, adjusted the blanket slipping off his shoulders, then leaned over his journal again and wrote. “Thank God, it’s raining without interruption. It’s the perfect defense. I feel tolerably well though still a little dull after all that sleep. No movement anywhere. The headmaster’s door and window are broken: I can’t begin to guess why, what has happened and why he doesn’t repair them.” He jerked his head up and listened intently to the silence, then the matchbox caught his attention because, just for a moment, he had a decided feeling that it was about to slip off the cigarette pack. He watched it and held his breath. But nothing happened. He mixed another drink, pressed the cork back into the demijohn, and topped up his glass from the jug of water on the table — he had bought the jug at Mopsz for thirty forints. Having done so, he pushed the jug into place and threw back the pálinka. It made him feel pleasantly woozy: his corpulent body relaxed under the blanket, his head tipped to one side, and his eyes slowly began to close, but his doze did not last long because he couldn’t bear the awful dream he immediately entered for longer than a minute: a horse with bulging eyes was rushing at him and he was clutching a steel rod with which, terrified, he hit the horse’s head with all his power, but having done so, however hard he tried, he couldn’t stop hitting it until he glimpsed within the cracked skull the slopping mass of the brain. . He woke up and took, from the orderly column next to the table, a notebook headed FUTAKI, and continued his observations there, noting “He’s too scared to come out of the engine house. Probably collapsed on his bed, snoring, or staring at the ceiling. Or tapping the bed-head with his crooked stick like a woodpecker, looking for deathwatch beetles. He has no idea that his actions will produce precisely what he most fears. See you at your funeral, you half-wit.” He mixed another drink, threw it dourly back, then took his morning medicine with a gulp of water. In the remaining part of the day he twice — at noon and at dusk — took note of the “light conditions” outside, and made various sketches of the continually changing flow of the field’s drainage, then, when he had just finished — having done the Schmidts and the Halicses — a description of the likely state of the Kráners’ kitchen (‘stuffy’), he suddenly heard a distant bell. He was sure he remembered, just before he went to hospital, in fact the day before he was taken in, hearing similar sounds, and was as sure now as he had been then that his sharp ears were not deceiving him. By the time he had leafed through to the diary notes he had made that day (though he found nothing there referring to it, so it must have slipped his mind or he didn’t think it particularly important) it had all stopped. . This time he immediately recorded the extraordinary incident and carefully considered the various possible explanations for it: there was no church nearby, that much was certain, unless one regarded the long disused, ruined chapel on the Hochmeiss estate as a church, but the distance meant he had to exclude the possibility that the wind might have carried the sound. For a moment it occurred to him that Futaki, or maybe Halics, or Kráner might be playing some kind of joke but he rejected the idea because he couldn’t imagine any of them being able to imitate the sound of a church bell. . But surely, his educated ears couldn’t be wrong! Or could they?. . Was it possible that his highly developed faculties had become so sensitive that he really could hear a distant, slightly muffled ringing behind certain other faint but close sounds?. . He sat puzzled in the silence, lit another cigarette and, nothing having happened in a long time, decided to forget the matter for now until some new sign appeared to point him to the right solution. He opened a can of baked beans, spooned out half of it, then pushed it away because his stomach was incapable of taking more than a few mouthfuls. He decided that he must stay awake because he couldn’t know when the “bells” would start ringing again, and if they were audible for so brief a time as they’d just been, it would be enough to fall asleep for a few moments and he’d miss them. . He made another drink, took his evening medicine, then pushed the suitcase from under the table with his feet and took a long time picking a magazine from among the rest. He filled the time till dawn by leafing through and reading a little here and there but it was a pointless vigil, a hollow triumph over the desire to sleep, because the “bells” refused to ring again. He rose from the armchair and relaxed his stiff limbs by walking about a bit, then sat back again, and by the time the blue light of dawn surged through the window he had fallen fast asleep. He woke at noon, drenched in sweat and angry, as he always after a long sleep, cursing, turning his head this way and that, furious at the wasted time. He quickly put on his glasses, reread the last sentence in his journal then leaned back in the chair and looked through the chink in the curtain at the fields beyond. There was only a faint drip of rain but the sky was the usual dark gray as it glowered over the estate, the bare acacia in front of the Schmidt’s place obediently bending before the strong wind. “They’re dead, the lot of them,” the doctor wrote. “Or they’re sitting at the kitchen table leaning on their elbows. Not even a broken door and window can rouse the headmaster. Come winter he’ll freeze his ass off.” Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair as a new thought dawned on him. He raised his head and stared at the ceiling, gasping for breath, then gripped his pencil. . “Now he is standing up,” he wrote in a deepening reverie, pressing the pencil lightly in case he tore the paper. “He scratches his groin and stretches. He walks round the room and sits down again. He goes out for a piss and returns. Sits down. Stands up.” He scribbled feverishly and was practically seeing everything that was happening over there, and he knew, was deadly certain, that from then on this was how it would be. He realized that all those years of arduous, painstaking work had finally borne fruit: he had finally become the master of a singular art that enabled him not only to describe a world whose eternal unremitting progress in one direction required such mastery but also — to a certain extent — he could even intervene in the mechanism behind an apparently chaotic swirl of events!. . He rose from his observation post and, eyes burning, started to walk up and down from one corner of the narrow room to the other. He tried to keep control of himself but without success: the realization had come so unexpectedly, he was so unprepared for it, so much so that in those first few moments he even wondered if he had lost his mind. . “Could it be? Am I going mad?” It took him a long time to calm down: his throat was dry, his heart was beating wildly and he was pouring with sweat. There was a moment he thought he’d simply burst, that he couldn’t bear the weight of this responsibility; his enormous, obese body seemed to be running away with him. Out of breath, panting hard, he slumped back in his chair. There was so much to consider all at once all he could do was sit in the cold sharp light, his brain positively hurting with the confusion inside him. . He carefully grasped the pencil, pulled out the SCHMIDT file from among the rest, opened it on the appropriate page, and uncertainly, like a man with good reason to fear the serious consequences of his actions, wrote the following sentence: “He is sitting with his back to the window, his body casting a pale shadow on the floor.” He gave a great gulp, put down the pencil and, with trembling hands, mixed himself another pálinka, spilled half of it and downed the rest. “He has a red saucepan in his lap, containing spuds in paprika. He isn’t eating. He isn’t hungry. He needs a piss so stands up, skirts the kitchen table, goes out to the yard and through the back door. He comes back. Sits down. Mrs. Schmidt asks him something? He doesn’t answer. Using his feet, he pushes away the saucepan he had put down on the floor. He’s not hungry.” The doctor’s hands were still trembling as he lit a cigarette. He wiped his perspiring brow then made airplane motions with his arms to let his armpits breathe. He adjusts the blankets across his shoulders and leaned over the journal again. “Either I’ve gone mad or, by God’s mercy, this morning I have discovered that I am the wielder of mesmerizing power. I find I can control the flow of events around me using nothing more than words. Not that I have the least idea yet what to do. Or I have gone mad. .” He lost confidence at this point. “It’s all in my imagination,” he grumbled to himself, then tried another experiment. He pulled out the notebook headed KRÁNER. He found the last entry and feverishly began to write again. “He is lying on his bed, fully clothed. His boots hang off the end of the bed because he doesn’t want to muddy the bedding. It’s stifling hot in the room. Out in the kitchen Mrs. Kráner is clattering dishes. Kráner calls her through the open door. Mrs. Kráner says something. Kráner angrily turns his back to the door and buries his head in the pillow. He is trying to sleep and closes his eyes. He is asleep.” The doctor gave a nervous sigh, mixed another drink, and anxiously looked round the room. Scared, touched by an occasional doubt, he once again resolved: “There can be no doubt about the fact that by focused conceptualizing I can, to some degree, decide what should happen on the estate. Because only that which has been conceptualized can happen. It’s just that, at this stage, of course, it is an utter mystery to me what I should make happen, because. .” At that moment the “bells” began to ring again. He only had time enough to decide he had not misheard last evening, he really did hear “sounds’, but he had no opportunity to consider where the clanging noises were coming from because no sooner had they reached him they were were absorbed in the permanent hum of silence and once the last bell died away he felt such emptiness in his soul he felt he had lost something of deep value. What he thought he heard in these curious distant sounds was “the lost melody of hope’, a kind of objectless encouragement, the perfectly incomprehensible words of a vital message, of which the only part he understood was that “it means something good, and offers some direction to my, as yet unresolved, power.”. . He put an end to his feverish jottings, quickly put his coat on and stuffed cigarettes and matches into his pocket because he now felt it more important than ever to seek out, or at least try to seek out, the source of that distant ringing. The fresh air dizzied him at first: he rubbed his burning eyes, then — not to rouse the least attention of the neighbors at their windows — left by the gate leading to the back garden and, as far as possible, tried to hurry. Reaching the mill, he stopped dead for a moment because he had no idea whether he was heading in the right direction. He stepped through the enormous gates of the mill and heard yelping sounds from one of the upper stories. “The Horgos girls.” He turned and left. He looked round not knowing where to go and what to do. Should he skirt the estate and set out toward the Szikes?. . Or should he go by the metalled road that led to the bar. Or maybe it was worth trying the road to Almássy Manor? Maybe he should just stay here in front of the mill in case “the bells” started again He lit a cigarette, cleared his throat, and because he really couldn’t make up his mind one way or the other he nervously stamped his feet. He looked at the enormous acacias that surrounded the mill, shivered in the sharp wind, and wondered if it wasn’t a stupid idea going out just like that, on the spur of the moment, whether he hadn’t acted too precipitately, since, after all, a whole night had separated the two peals of bells. So why should expect another so soon. . He was about to turn around and go home where there were warm blankets waiting for him until the next time, when, just at that moment, “the bells” started ringing again. He hurried over to the open space in front of the mill and by doing so managed to solve one mystery: “the bell sounds” seemed to be coming from the other side of the metalled road (‘It could be the Hochmeiss estate!. . ’) and it wasn’t simply that he could now work out the direction but that he was now convinced the bells represented a call to action, or at least an encouragement, a promise; that they were not merely the products of a sick imagination, or a delusion produced by a sudden rush of emotion. . Enthusiastically, he set out for the metalled road, crossed it and, taking no notice of mud or puddles, made his way toward the Hochmeiss estate, his heart “buzzing with hope, expectation and confidence. . He felt “the bells” were compensation for the miseries of his entire life, for all fate had inflicted on him, that they were a fitting reward for stubborn survival. . Once he succeeded in fully understanding the bells, everything would go well: with this power in his hands he would be able to lend a new, as yet unknown momentum “to human affairs.” And so he felt an almost childish joy when, at the far end of the Hochmeiss estate, he glimpsed the little ruined chapel, and while he didn’t know whether the chapel — it had been destroyed in the last war and had never shown the least sign of life since then — contained a “bell’, or indeed anything else, he didn’t think it beyond imagination that it might. . After all no one had been down this way for years, except perhaps some simple-minded tramp needing shelter for the night. . He stopped by the main door of the chapel and tried to open it but however he wrenched and struggled, using his whole body weight, it wouldn’t budge, so he skirted the building, found a small rotted side door in the crumbling wall, gave it a little push and it creaked open. He ducked and stepped in: cobwebs, dust, dirt, stench and darkness. There wasn’t much left of the pews, only a few broken pieces, which was more than could be said of the altar which lay shattered everywhere. Weeds were growing over the gaps in the brickwork. Thinking he heard a hoarse gasping from the corner by the front door, he twisted around, moved closer and found himself confronting a huddled figure, an infinitely aged, tiny, wrinkled creature lying on the ground, his knees to his chin, shaking with fear. Even in the dark he could see the light of his terrified eyes. Once the creature saw he’d been discovered he moaned in despair and scrambled over to the far corner to escape. “Who are you?” the doctor asked in a firm voice, having overcome his momentary fright. The shrunken figure didn’t answer, but drew further back into his corner, ready to spring. “Do you understand what I’m asking?!” the doctor demanded, a little louder. “Who the hell are you?!” The creature muttered something incomprehensible, raised his hands in front of him by way of defense, then burst into tears. The doctor grew angry. “What are you doing here? Are you a tramp?” When the homunculus failed to answer and just continued whimpering, the doctor lost his temper. “Is there a bell here?” he shouted. The tiny old man leapt to his feet in fright, instantly stopped crying, and waved his arms about. “El!. . el!” he piped and waved to the doctor to follow him. He opened a tiny door in a niche beside the main portal and pointed upward. “El!. . el!” “Good God,” muttered the doctor. “A lunatic! Where have you escaped from, you halfwit!” The creature went on up the stairs leaving the doctor a few steps further back, trying to climb up by the wall in case the rotted, dangerously creaking stairs collapsed beneath him. When they reached the small belltower of which only one brick wall remained, the rest having been brought down ages ago either by the wind or a bomb, the doctor immediately woke as if from “hours of a sickly, nonsensical trance.” A quite small bell was hanging in the middle of the exposed, improvised structure, suspended from a beam, one end of which was propped on top of the brick wall, the other on top of the newel post. “How did you manage to raise the beam?” the doctor asked. The old man stared hard at him a moment than stepped over to the bell. “Uh — ur — ah — co-i! Uh — ur — ah — co-i!” he screeched, grabbed an iron bar and started ringing the bell in terror. The doctor had gone pale and was leaning against the wall of the stairs for support. He shouted at the man who was still feverishly striking the bells “Stop it! Stop it at once!” But this only made things worse. “Uh — urk — ah — co-i! Uh — urk — ah — co-i! Uh — urk — ah — o-i!” he kept screaming, hitting the bell ever harder. “The Turks are coming?! Coming up your mother’s ass, you fool!” the doctor yelled back, then gathering up his strength, climbed down the tower, hurried from the chapel, and tried to put as much distance between himself and the madman — anything not to hear the terrifying screech that seemed to follow him like a cracked trumpet all the way back to the metalled road. It was growing towards dusk by the time he got home and he assumed his position by the window again. It took some time, several minutes in fact, to regain his composure, for his hands to stop trembling enough for him to be able to lift the demijohn, mix himself a drink and light a cigarette. He downed the pálinka then picked up his journal and tried to capture in words all he had just suffered. He stared at the paper then wrote: “An unforgivable error. I took a common bell for the Great Bells of Heaven. A filthy tramp! A madman on the run from the asylum. I’m an idiot!” He covered himself with his blankets, leaned back in the chair, and looked out over the field. The rain was quietly pattering. His composure was back now. He went over the events of the erly afternoon, over his “moment of enlightenment” then pulled out the notebook headed MRS. HALICS. He opened it on the page where the notes ended and started writing. “She is sitting in the kitchen. The Bible is in front of her and she is quietly muttering some text. She looks up. She is hugry. She goes to the pantry and returns with bacon, sausage and bread. She starts to chomp her way through the meat and takes a bite of the bread. Occasionally she turns the pages of the Bible.” Writing this down had a calming effect, but, when he leafed back to what he had written earlier about SCHMIDT, KRÁNER and MRS. HALICS, he was disappointed to note that it was all wrong. He stood up and started walking about his room, stopping now and then to think, then moving again. He looked round the narrow limits of his home and his attention was caught by the door. “Damn it!” he groaned. He took a box of nails from under the wardrobe and, with a few nails in one hand and the hammer in the other, went over to the door and started beating in the nails with increasing fury. Having finished, he calmly returned to his chair, covered his back with the blankets, and mixed another drink, this time, after some consideration, in half-half proportion. He gazed and thought, then suddenly his eyes brightened and he took out a new notebook. “It was raining when. .,” he wrote, then shook his head and crossed it out. “It was raining when Futaki awoke, and. .,” he tried again, but decided this too was “poor stuff.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, adjusted his glasses then propped his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. He saw before him, as clear as if by magic, the path prepared for him, the way the fog swam up from either side of it and, in the middle of the narrow path, the luminous face of his future, its lineaments bearing the infernal marks of drowning. He reached for the pencil again and felt he was back on track now: there were enough notebooks, enough pálinka, his medication would last till spring at least and, unless the nails rotted in the door, no one would disturb him. Careful not to damage the paper, he started writing. “One morning near the end of October not long before the first drops of the mercilessly long autumn rains began to fall on the cracked and saline soil on the western side of the estate (later the stinking yellow sea of mud would render footpaths impassable and put the town too beyond reach) Futaki woke to hear bells. The closest possible source was a lonely chapel about four kilometers southwest on the old Hochmeiss estate but not only did that have no bell but the tower had collapsed during the war and it was too far to hear anything at that distance. And in any case they did not sound distant to him, these ringing-booming bells; their triumphal clangor was swept along by the wind and seemed to come from somewhere close by (‘It’s as if they were coming from the mill. . ’). He propped himself on his elbows on the pillow so as to look out of the mouse-hole-sized kitchen window that was partly misted up, and directed his gaze to the faint blue dawn sky but the field was still and silent, bathed only in the, now ever fainter, bell sound, and the only light to be seen was the one glimmering in the doctor’s window whose house was set well apart from the others on the far side, and that was only because its occupant had for years been unable to sleep in the dark. Futaki held his breath because he wanted to know where the noise came from: he couldn’t afford to lose a single stray note of the rapidly fading clangor, however remote (‘You must be asleep, Futaki. . ’). Despite his lameness he was well known for his light tread and he hobbled across the ice-cold stone floor of the kitchen, soundless as a cat, opened the widows and leaned out (‘Is no one awake? Can’t people hear it? Is nobody else around?’). A sharp damp gust hit him straight in the face so he had to close his eyes for a moment and, apart from the cockcrow, a distant bark, and the fierce howling of the wind that had sprung up just a few minutes earlier there was nothing to hear however hard he listened but the dull beating of his own heart, as if the whole thing had been merely a kind of game or ghostly half-dream (“. . It’s as if somebody out there wants to scare me’). He gazed sadly at the threatening sky, at the burned-out remnants of a locust-plagued summer, and suddenly saw on the twig of an acacia, as in a vision, the progress of spring, summer, fall and winter, as if the whole of time were a frivolous interlude in the much greater spaces of eternity, a brilliant conjuring trick to produce something apparently orderly out of chaos, to establish a vantage point from which chance might begin to look like necessity. . and he saw himself nailed to the cross of his own cradle and coffin, painfully trying to tear his body from it, only, eventually, to deliver himself — utterly naked, without identifying mark, stripped down to essentials — into the care of the people whose duty it was to wash the corpses, people obeying a order snapped out in the dry air against a background loud with torturers and flayers of skin, where he was obliged to regard the human condition without a trace of pity, without a single possibility of any way back to life, because by then he would know for certain that all his life he had been playing with cheaters who had had marked the cards and who would, in the end, strip him even of his last means of defense, of that hope of some day finding his way back home. He turned his head towards the east, once the home of a thriving industry, now nothing but a set of dilapidated and deserted buildings, watching while the first rays of a swollen red sun broke through the topmost beams of a derelict farmhouse from which the roof tiles had been stripped. “I really should come to a decision. I can’t stay here any longer.” He drew the warm duvet over him again and rested his head on his arm, but could not close his eyes; at first it had been the ghostly bells that had frightened him but now it was the threatening silence that followed: anything might happen now, he felt. But he did not move a muscle, not until the objects around him, that had so far been merely listening, started up a nervous conversation (the sideboard gave a creak, a saucepan rattled, a china plate slid back into the rack) at which point. .”