Some time later the peasants from Kék strolled in. They congregated around the gossips’ bench on Széchenyi Square and, with squat clay pipes jutting from their fanglike teeth, they rambled on about rinderpest and rising taxes. Beside them, in a separate group, stood the local artisans and tradesmen, complaining about the shortage of cash, which couldn't be raised anywhere these days, because their lordships were playing it safe and kept their money in the Agricultural Bank at 5 per cent interest.
The market seethed in the sweltering heat, humming with noise and ablaze with every imaginable colour. Red peppers shone as brightly as the florid scarlet paint in the paint-shop window across the square. Cabbages displayed their pale-green, silken frills, violet grapes glistened, marrows whitened in the sun, and yellowing melons, already past their best, gave off a sickly choleroid stench. Farther off, towards Petőfi Street, stood the butchers’ stalls where truncated carcasses swung with raw, barbaric pomp from iron hooks, and barrel-chested butchers’ boys in skimpy vests shattered bones with heavy mallets. From Bólyai Street, where the potters gathered, came the clatter of the crockery stalls. Everywhere poultry pecked, maids gossiped and gentlewomen moaned about impossible prices. Above them all stretched a veil of silvery grey dust, Sárszeg's murderous dust which robbed so many local children of their lives and brought the adults to an early death.
Miklós Ijas, assistant editor of the Sárszeg Gazette at barely twenty-four, viewed this scene through the plate-glass windows of the Széchenyi Café. He wore a modish English suit, a turned-down collar and a slender lilac necktie.
He had woken at half past nine and immediately hurried to the Café to read the Budapest papers. Although he'd had no breakfast, he ordered rum with his black coffee and lit one cigarette after another. His lip curled with disgust.
He saw this same scene every day. The celebrities of Sárszeg swam past his plate-glass window as if in an aquarium.
First came Galló, the prosecutor, on his way to court, bareheaded, with a flat brown briefcase in his hand. With a furrowed brow and an affable smile he was rehearsing a stern indictment speech against some heinous Swabian highwayman. Fashionable townsfolk passed slowly by with ivory-knobbed canes. Priboczay was already standing in the doorway of the St Mary Pharmacy, performing his daily manicure with a penknife. Feri Füzes was hurrying towards the Gentlemen's Club.
Feri Füzes was to meet the opponent's seconds in the club dining room so that statements could be drawn up and the thorny affair, which had been dragging on for weeks, could finally be settled, for better or worse, according to the proper protocol. Provocation, duel, court of honour, sabres, plastrons, five paces forward, to the finish — these were the words that buzzed through Feri Füzes's head as his pointed patent-leather shoes creaked their way across the asphalt.
It was he who patched up Sárszeg's wounded prides and damaged honours; the perfect gentleman, a regular cavalier. He exuded eau de cologne and cavorted about with a foolish, sickly grin that never left his lips. He wore his smile just as he wore his chic boater in summer or his fancy spats in winter.
County carriages flew by. Liverymen sat up on the boxes in dapper blue and white-piped uniforms, their hat ribbons fluttering in the wind. Then the burly figure of a gentleman with a bushy, yellow moustache appeared on the pavement of Széchenyi Street. Bálint Környey.
By profession, Bálint Környey was commander in chief of the local fire brigade. But in reality he occupied a far more elevated position in Sárszeg society. He was everybody's friend or acquaintance and turned up absolutely everywhere. President of the Panthers’ Table, fabled drinker, fêted sportsman, he could break a silver forint coin in two with his bare hands. It was he who set the prizes for the Sárszeg Student Games, and he who organised the Grand Venetian Night with floodlights and fireworks on Tarliget Lake each summer. Even now the billboards were still plastered with tattered flyers announcing this splendid July event to the citizens of Sárszeg.
He greeted the young editor with a wave of his stick. Ijas returned the greeting coolly. To local people he was just an editor; they had no idea what a poet he was.
The clocks had struck eleven in Petőfi Street and still all was silent. Even Mr Veres sensed this silence from the depths of his dark, insalubrious workshop. The Vajkays usually rose on the dot of seven. Skylark would open all the windows, airing and cleaning the rooms inside.
Today the old couple had overslept. The nightlight still flickered beside the carriage clock.
When they first opened their eyes it was already twenty to twelve. They were surprised to find themselves alone. For a moment they pricked up their ears, but no sound came from their daughter's room next door. The anxieties of the previous day still hung heavy on their hearts, and as they woke they lived the whole day over again.
But another, no less painful sensation now presented itself besides. Their stomachs began to rumble: a loud, hollow sound, silencing all other complaints and demanding their undivided attention.
While they slept, dreams had provided illusory nourishment, smothering their hunger with thick and coloured veils. But no sooner had they dressed than they could feel their emptiness, and pressed their palms against their burning stomachs.
“I'm starving,” said father.
“Me too,” said Mother.
And they laughed at their own frailty.
No wonder they were famished. They had forgotten supper the evening before and had only pecked hurriedly at lunch. Such meals are never filling.
“Quickly, tea.”
“Yes, tea.”
Mother went into the kitchen to make tea.
The Vajkays didn't keep a maid. Skylark's nanny, Örzse, a liveryman's daughter, who had been with them since the age of twenty, had left them six years before. Since then they had taken on the odd girl here and there, but these never stayed more than a couple of weeks. Skylark was so strict, keeping everything locked away, especially the sugar, and so demanding that the maids all fled before their time was up. They didn't want a new girl in their home now; after all, they had to be careful with money, had to count every penny. Besides, the girls all stole and gossiped nowadays. And anyway, what could a maid do that they could not? Skylark and her mother did everything themselves, and better too. Cleaning was a joy, and as for cooking, they loved nothing more. They were always boiling or baking something.
Mother and Father drank their tea. But this did not stave off their hunger. It merely cleansed their stomachs, increasing the emptiness. Their thoughts turned at once to lunch.
Already some weeks earlier it had been agreed that, for these few days — it was only a week, after all — they wouldn't cook at home. Skylark, who presided in all culinary matters, recommended the King of Hungary, Sárszeg's largest restaurant, as the one place where the cuisine was still tolerable.
The three of them detested restaurants. And although they had hardly visited this one, they could talk about it for hours with sneering condescension. The dishwater soups, the tough and gristly meat, the carelessly concocted desserts they served up to poor, unsuspecting bachelors, who had never tasted good home cooking. Not to mention the disgusting state of the kitchens. Oh, for a home-made soup, a homemade stew, or a home-baked pastry! They had often expressed such sentiments to Géza Cifra.
Somehow they had to overcome the disgust they had artificially cultivated beyond all proportion. On the way to the restaurant they comforted each other, braving themselves for the dubious event. When they stepped inside the King of Hungary they immediately wrinkled their noses and screwed up their eyes. An enormous, clean and friendly dining hall stretched out before them, with a ceiling of frosted glass, lit, even by day, by four weighty chandeliers.