He led Ákos away to the smokiest corner of the room, where, beneath a hanging lamp, four men sat playing taroc.
“I've brought you a fifth hand,” said Környey to the players.
Taroc was Ákos's great weakness, but also his great strength.
No one played with greater skill, ingenuity and passion. So profound was his knowledge of the game that he was considered something of an authority and had often been asked to adjudicate in controversial situations, as the final court of appeal.
“A la russe?” asked Ákos casually.
“That's right,” came the answer from the table as Galló, the amenable lawyer, himself a renowned master of the game, raised his wise head from the smoke of his own cigar.
He rose to his feet.
“I'm just about to deal.”
Two other players had risen with him, Doba and a squat man in a raw silk suit. This was István Kárász, father of Dani Kárász and owner of a thousand acres, whose shaven head was burnt jet black from the sun. Only the fourth player remained seated: László Ladányi, parliamentary delegate for the Royal Town of Sárszeg during the 1848 revolution. With his grizzled, tight-clipped beard and bushy eyebrows he reminded one of the poet Miklós Zrinyi.
Relations between Ladányi and Ákos had been strained for many years.
The delegate — known to all and sundry as “the old ranter'—was one of those passionate exaggerators of the extreme left who, in confidential conversation, made no secret of their undying commitment to the resolutions of the Debrecen Parliament of 1849, and of their perpetual readiness to contribute to the downfall of the House of Habsburg in payment for the crimes it had committed against the Hungarian nation. In 1849 his grandfather had been hanged from a pear tree by imperial soldiers. He would often mention this when canvassers appeared at his door with flags and torches, and he blasted them with a voice broken for good from swallowing all the nation's bitterness. He knew Ákos well, as a timid fellow who always voted for the government candidate, even though, deep down, he may himself have leaned towards the stalwart forty-eighters. But he lacked the stomach for a fight, and sought instead to remain at peace with himself, his family and friends, and therefore favoured compromise, all forms of compromise, including the Compromise of 1867.
Ladányi had been known, on occasion, to speak harshly of the man.
But now, with Ákos standing directly above him, and the others urging him to join them on their feet, he finally stood up. Hungarians fight by the sword and make peace by the glass. He offered Ákos his hand.
“Join us,” he said in his grating voice.
It was an opportunity not to be missed. The taroc players fêted Ákos like some celebrity from distant climes. The large, special, grey-backed taroc cards tempted him too. It was all too much to resist. Ákos finally surrendered.
“To hell with it!'
Reassured, Környey withdrew.
Ákos settled down at the table, on whose marble top the odd drop of wine sparkled, spilled from the bottle at pouring. Also on the table lay neat black slates with the names of the players written with sticks of carefully sharpened chalk.
Galló dealt.
Ákos took the nine cards in his hands, his practised fingers ordering them with lightning speed, greeting the images which spoke of ancient worlds and happy times: the juggler with his human-headed lyre and sword, the hoop-skirted Spanish lady with her castanets, the top trump in gaudy clown's garb and a two-headed hat, the giant twenty-one, the squatting Turk with his long-stemmed pipe, the honours who beat all other cards, hence their name. A delightful, familiar crew. Lovers embracing by a wall, an ancient soldier bidding his sweetheart farewell, a ship setting out across the seas. A splendid hand indeed.
The players inspected their cards, then looked at each other no less intently. They blinked cunningly, for their faces were as important as their cards. What were they scheming, what tricks had they in store, what traps and machinations were being prepared?
“Pass,” said Ákos.
“Pass,” said Kárász, who sat beside him.
Ákos took great pleasure in his meditations. He even lit a cigar to oil the machinery of his mind.
Taroc is not one of those upstart, good-for-nothing games they dream up nowadays. Its roots reach way back into the past, and it boasts the noblest of ancestors. It stems from Asia, like our heroic forebears, and demands a meandering, eastern frame of mind, along with concentration, imagination and perpetual presence of spirit. It is like a wily tale with a crafty introduction, an intriguing exposition and a surprisingly sudden denouement. It demands much racking of brains, but is not intellectually dry. It is a thoroughly enjoyable game which took the work of several generations to chisel into its present, ingenious form.
Kárász drew a three from the pack.
“I call twenty,” he said.
Doba and Ladányi passed again.
Ákos twirled his moustache.
“Double,” he announced merrily.
The others ruminated.
Ákos and Ladányi, gradually warming to each other, played as a pair, while Doba assisted Kárász, who sat facing Ákos. They glared at one another.
Judge Doba was surprised at just how alert the old man was.
Ákos took a long, hard look at the judge. He sat in silence, just as he had sat at the theatre beside his flirtatious wife, who wore her hair like Olga Orosz and numbered even the penniless Szolyvay among her lovers — at least so Szolyvay said. Did the poor, likable judge know this? Did he at least suspect? He never spoke of it. Even now his face reflected nothing but a certain weary indifference.
He answered Ákos's double with:
“Redouble. Tous les trois.”
“Aha,” said Ákos to himself, “tous les trois, tous les trois.”
On this he pondered, which was, perhaps, his great mistake.
He, the seasoned matador, had not paid sufficient attention to the run of the cards, and by now there was nothing for it — the game had reached a fateful turn with Doba and Kárász gaining the upper hand.
Those who stood around them watching were amazed.
“Impossible!'
“This calls for a drink,” said Kárász.
Werner, the Austrian lieutenant rifleman, who had been sitting beside Ákos in total silence, poured the wine. He and his battalion had been based in Sárszeg now for some four years, but he still couldn't speak a word of Hungarian. And German he could speak only when he was sober. At times like these, however, when he'd been drinking, his German deserted him. Even his mother tongue, Moravian, refused to come to his aid. He was an excellent Panther, all the same, and was having a splendid time. He continually grinned and drank and poured.
“Not drinking?” said Ladányi to Ákos. “It's only a light Szilványi,” he added, emptying his glass.
The words “light Szilványi” sounded so delicious that Ákos couldn't resist.
Ladányi embraced him.
“That's my Ákos,” he said. “Only would you mind doing me one small favour? Get rid of those damned sunflowers from your garden.”
“Whatever for?'
“They're black and yellow, old man. Can't stand the sight of those Schwarzgelb colours, not even in flowers.”
To this they filled their glasses once more.
Ákos not only knocked back the light Szilványi, but also all the other wines they set before him, the light wines from grapes grown in sandy soil and the heavy mountain wines
He totted up the scores with his chalk.
“So, how do we stand? Double, redouble, four points; tous les trois, two; four kings, one. Seven points all in all. That's seven kreuzers. Here you are.”