“It was a frightful scandal,” said the comedian, picking up where he had left off. “Last night we began Act Three of The Cardinal half an hour late. The audience didn't know what had happened, but it was that madman Zányi. After the second act, he'd set off into town just as he was, in a purple robe and golden chain, and burst into Olga Orosz's flat in Bólyai Street. Seized by a sudden fit of jealousy, he smashed one of her windows, made an almighty racket and came back with a bloody fist. They saw him from the window of the Széchenyi too, pulling his purple cardinal's robe up round his knees as he ran back to the theatre. It was quite a scene, I can tell you. It'll cost him a month's pay.” The others were dumbstruck and pressed for further details.
“Olga will have nothing more to do with him,” Szolyvay continued. “She's getting married. They say Dani Kárász has asked for her hand.”
So Dani Kárász, the son of the wealthy landowner István Kárász, was going to marry an actress. This excited them. They were hungry for more, but the comedian threw down his cigarette when he saw Miklós Ijas coming towards them from Margit Lator's dresser. They hadn't spoken since the appearance of his review. With all the dignity of a mandarin, Szolyvay withdrew.
Környey caught Ijas by the arm and introduced him to Ákos.
“I don't believe you've met,” he said. “Ákos Vajkay; Editor Ijas.”
Ijas pouted. He objected to being addressed in this fashion.
He bowed and raised his hat to Ákos.
“How do you do,” said Ákos.
“How do you do,” said Ijas.
They walked as far as the patisserie together, sizing each other up, but without uttering a word. There they parted.
Ákos bought a box of chocolates wrapped in gold ribbon and took it up to his wife's box.
His head was swimming from all he had seen and heard. He hadn't really understood it all, there was simply too much to take in. He gazed bemused into thin air, and was relieved when the curtain rose and he could sink back into the artificial, but at least more transparent, spectacle of the play.
The geishas, now dressed as bridesmaids, celebrated with song and dance Marquis Imari's wedding day, among them the girl whom Papa Fehér had been holding in his arms. All the little misses, fair and dark, fat and thin, turned their pretty snouts towards the gorgeous spectacle.
Among them, commanding centre stage, stood Olga Orosz, soaring from triumph to triumph. All the action on stage seemed to revolve about her. She was the focus of every word and every gaze. And what a beautiful creature she was, too, what a wicked, godless little kitten! She wasn't even young any more. Past thirty, for sure, perhaps even over thirty-five. But her flesh was powdery and voluptuously weary, as if ten-derised by all the different beds and arms in which it had lain. Her face was as soft as the pulpy flesh of an overripe banana, her breasts like two tiny bunches of grapes. She exuded a certain seedy charm, a poetry of premature corruption and decay. She breathed the air as if it burned her palate, baking her small, hot, whorish mouth. It was as if she were sucking a sweet or slurping champagne.
She hardly sang at all, only trilled and screeched the notes of some haphazard scale. But the audience were riveted. They would have thrown their very souls at her feet.
Is there no justice? Upon the head of this abomination, this lecherous, almost biblical fornicator, surely sulphurous rains should fall? Instead she was swamped with flowers. Everyone knew all the details of her immoral existence and that her very soul was up for sale. They knew she belonged to the dregs of society, a filthy rag not even fit to wipe one's boots on. But what did they care? They worshipped her, idolised her, prized her above gentleness and kindness, she who was worthy neither of love nor respect, who scoffed at all things beautiful and sublime. No justice, no justice!
Pressing his opera glasses to his eyes, Ákos wondered what he would do if he ever met her. Turn away perhaps, or measure her with a scathing stare, or simply spit on the ground in front of her?
From these dark thoughts it was once again Wun-Hi who distracted him, dancing out on to the centre of the stage and this time really surpassing himself. Fanning his face with his long pigtail, he launched into the famous vaudeville song:
Chin Chin Chinaman
Muchee muchee sad!
He afraid allo trade
Wellee wellee bad!
Noee joke, brokee broke
Makee shutee shop!
Chin Chin Chinaman,
Chop, chop, chop!
The effect was so great that the show was held up for several minutes as the applause refused to abate.
It came from everywhere, from the boxes, the stalls and the gods. Leaning right out of his box and completely forgetting himself, Ákos was clapping too, melting, utterly bewitched, into this rapture of approval, and hammering out the rhythm of the ditty on the sill of his box. He no longer cared whose glasses were focused upon him. He was swept along by the fever of the crowd, as was his wife. They laughed so much that tears streamed down their faces.
“Chin Chin Chinaman…” the woman chortled.
“Chop, chop, chop,” Ákos echoed playfully, pointing back at her, slicing the air with his finger.
But there was more to come. Now it was time for the topical stanzas of the song, clumsily adapted to reflect the local political issues of the day. Sárszeg was also “wellee, wellee bad,” because it was a sea of mud, had no sewage system and its theatre ran without electricity. The audience roared.
The Lord Lieutenant, himself implicated by the joke, none the less tried to set an appropriate example by graciously condescending to beat his palms together to show that he appreciated the severe, but not unjust, criticism of the general state of affairs.
He only sprang to his feet — and then like a jack-in-the-box — when it was suggested that the Hentzi statue was also for the “chop, chop, chop.” At this he withdrew to the depths of his box. As the representative of the Hungarian government of the day there was, after all, little else he could do.
In this highly charged atmosphere the show came to a close. Ákos registered to his surprise that the curtain had fallen for the last time and the audience was already thronging towards the cloakroom.
For a few moments he remained in his seat studying the programme and rubbing the sweat from his palms. He took his neatly folded handkerchief from his frock-coat pocket and wiped his burning face. The woman searched under the box seats for her handbag.
By the time they reached the foyer, the crowd had thinned.
Arácsy, standing before the box office, gave Ákos a thoroughly unctuous greeting and squeezed his hand. Ákos expressed his enthusiasm for the performance and promised they would come again. But then the stage door opened and the prima donna came running over to the director.
Without even removing her make-up, she had merely slipped on a light silk gown and was ready to hurry off somewhere.
The old man looked at her hesitantly.
Arácsy introduced her.
Ákos bowed before the prima donna no less courteously than he had bowed before the Lord Lieutenant at the beginning of the evening.
The woman offered her hand and Ákos took it.
“Congratulations,” he stuttered, “You were magnificent.”
“Oh, I hardly think so,” replied the prima donna, feigning modesty.
“Truly, madam, truly you were. And I am not one for flattery. You were quite magnificent.”
“Really?” lisped Olga Orosz, letting out a husky chuckle.