Sindbad put the little flute he had been prepared to play for her back into its satchel. He addressed Francesca in a cold interrogatory manner. ‘Did you never feel sick of life? Have you been happy or unhappy?’
‘I have been both. Anyone who tries to arrange his life in one mode only is simply an ass. I have been in love, have loved and been loved, have given and received. I have done my crying. I woke to find it was morning, and was delighted to find cold fresh water in my bowl. The dew dripping from leaves helped me forget I had spent the night in the muck and sweat of a ball, that trembling hands had touched my waist and lustful kisses fluttered on the nape of my neck and that, like a fool, I had believed I had the finest head of hair in all Hungary. I have always loved cold water and cleanliness. I made my own soap as I made my own bed. That may be why I did not succumb to either melancholy or to happiness. I have all my own teeth, Sindbad. In fact, a new tooth appeared not so long ago. But you, you look as scruffy as a scarecrow in the snow,’ said Francesca and stroked Sindbad’s cheek. ‘But I was never really angry … Only in a gentle, old womanish sort of way, when I couldn’t remember what you looked like, however hard I tried.’
Sindbad nodded. ‘If you had loved me I would have appeared. It doesn’t matter now. Is there anything I can do for you? I have many good friends among the dead. Your house hasn’t been troubled by unhappy wandering spirits?’
‘The dead don’t scare me, neither do the living. I am forty years old and for years now my greatest delight has been to see my pet animals frisking in the spring.’
‘You used to like dancing and were moved by music. Tell me, don’t you ever hear wind chimes in abandoned gardens?’
Francesca laughed softly. ‘I enjoy a good stew with foaming light ale to accompany it. I like the strong red of crushed paprika, and wayside innkeepers tell me their troubles because I have a friendly face. Let’s go out for dinner. It’ll soon be evening and I’d like to be home in the village before dark.’
‘Life,’ thought Sindbad. ‘Frivolous, holy, holy and wearisome life! How nice it would be to start again!’
Marabou
In the course of his long life Sindbad had spent many summers and winters in the company of that sad and noble gentlewoman, Irén Váraljai, and he tended to retreat to her friendly home in the village whenever he suffered some injury or disappointment, thinking in his bitterness to take farewell of Irén before committing suicide, for he had respected and honoured her for a decade and a half, so much so that he felt almost ridiculous that he should, after all that had happened, hold any woman in such high regard.
In her youth, Irén had danced in the first foursome of the Wiener Waltz at the opera. Her father — a retired Captain of Horse like an eccentric character from an English novel — would wait for her at the stage entrance and had credit with all the butchers along the usual route from home, even in the Krisztina district of Buda where they lived in a house with a sumach tree in the yard that was the first to hear the noonday peal of the nearby tower.
It was pure luck that Váraljai, who owned some village plots, a few provincial shares and a lot of old family pictures, found himself at the Pest opera one day and through the opera glasses he had inherited from his mother (the glass was missing from one tube) spotted Irén. Váraljai, the country landowner, might have been anything in the whirl of that strange Balkan capital — a horse-dealer, a cardsharp, a city slicker, or a terminally bankrupt petty nobleman from the sticks, spending his days watching old tradesmen playing cards in a café in one of the outer suburbs. But he was born under a lucky star — Sindbad adopted him as a friend as soon as he saw his passion for Irén. ‘Why not make this ignorant and provincial young man happy, not to mention the sweet young lady whose ankles have been so appreciated by elders old enough to have spied on Susanna in the Bible?’
Soon enough an opportunity was found to introduce Váraljai to the Captain of Horse, and after performances the three of them would escort Irén home to her house in the sleepy Krisztina district, and returning at night Sindbad would invariably stop his friend from the country on Chain Bridge above the faintly murmuring river. Here, while the wandering scholar of heaven drew his yellow cloak across the waves, he would educate him in the arts of dreaming, chivalry and sensibility.
‘Women are the only thing worth living for,’ said Sindbad shortly before the churches of Buda tolled for midnight. ‘A pity I am too old to begin my life anew.’
The retired Captain of Horse did not have to be taught to redouble his vigilance at the stage door and the innocent tulle skirt of the ballerina spun ever faster, ever more entrancingly. From behind the mysterious wings miraculous blinding lights flooded the auditorium and the loud orchestra cast nets of golden melody over the audience. Sindbad persuaded Váraljai to replace the missing lens in his opera glasses. One day, when wild chestnuts were blossoming in the Buda gardens, Váraljai felt an irresistible urge to confess his feelings.
The Captain’s blond moustache bristled. ‘Minor nobility from the sticks. Of course, I couldn’t wish anything better for my daughter.’
Sindbad nodded in response and tried to pacify the old gentleman. ‘The main thing, sir, is that your daughter should be happy. In marriage it is of no account whether a man hails from the country or the town. In any case we are all provincials.’
Soon enough two apparently happy people passed through the customs house of the capital after their marriage ceremonies were over. The retired Captain of Horse was apprehensive as he questioned Sindbad. ‘What is there left for me to do? I have no one now. I am an orphan.’
‘We shall sit and play dominoes in the coffee-house like all the other aged gentlemen,’ answered the traveller and the Captain never saw him again.
A year had passed and Mr and Mrs Váraljai invited Sindbad to visit them. The traveller discovered warm friends and a splendid welcoming home in their village house. The dancer of the first foursome turned out to be an outstanding housewife; often it was she who went to milk the temperamental cow and she had already learned the language village women spoke to their domestic animals.
‘I haven’t even used your wedding present, Sindbad,’ said Irén politely.
‘I hope you will never have occasion to use it,’ the traveller answered.
Sindbad had given Irén a marabou fan he had bought with an old countess’s legacy. It was an enormous ceremonial-looking thing, the marabou feathers stately holding their position with a firm grace as if permanently expecting compliments of that rare and refined sort admirers might whisper into the ear of the fortunate lady wielding them, the proud feathers anticipating the excitement of a snatched kiss in the shadowy recesses of a private box at the opera and the pretence of wrestling with one’s conscience before acquiescing, ‘Tomorrow, five o’clock …’ If an old marabou fan could speak it would have many confidences to betray, many ladies and gentlemen of days gone by to unmask. After all, it isn’t so long since ladies of discretion employed the language of fans, a language now fallen out of use.
In this house by the river, among gently sloping hills of the village, where the evening clouds still moved to the rhetorical cadences of Kisfaludy’s verse, Sindbad invariably found his corner room with its private entrance and its floor freshly scrubbed. A man might dream away a summer afternoon in the company of his sisters and mother here. Having narrowly escaped being ground under the heels of some heartless woman or avoiding some ill-fated meeting, he would pack his heart in his travelling bag and be on his way, while scheming women attempted to console him by recounting their own woes. ‘Oh, my dear friend, I myself often weep when I’m alone,’ they assured him. This house in the village was like a friend, selflessly waiting for Sindbad to appear. It was as if its affectionate atmosphere and quiet happiness represented his one worthy act, for the sake of which Sindbad’s other, less worthy acts, might yet be overlooked.