By now they were counting the days before leaving the capital. ‘And think of all those ugly people who envy us our happiness,’ added Mrs Bánatvári. All those little objects she so superstitiously collected, those portraits of pale-faced, frock-coated, wavy-haired gentlemen painted on ivory, whom Mrs Bánatvári would have fallen in love with had she lived at the time the pictures were painted, all those books on the bedside table, all were transferred into her travelling bag; Petőfi’s* poems together with those of Aladár Benedek* (since she read no poetry after Benedek), the heavy Egyptian Book of Dreams, a volume of Carthusian Meditations,* the Book of Card Games which was required reading in the country where the local intelligentsia slap the table when play grows exciting and lastly, a human skull. All these would accompany them on their journey.
‘Oh, and I mustn’t forget my pistol,’ muttered Mrs Bánatvári in that voice so frequently adopted by faint, expensive, dreamy women. ‘You are my last love, Sindbad, and life won’t be worth living if you leave me.’
Sindbad, who watched these preparations with his hands tucked deep into his pockets as if these great yawning suitcases with their pink labels bearing the names of hotels in foreign capitals were nothing to do with him, was thinking that he would appropriate Mrs Bánatvári’s little pistol and not go to the country house after all. There was a golden box he noticed before it went into the suitcase. It contained a letter torn into tiny shreds.
‘That was written in farewell by the man who loved me most of all,’ Mrs Bánatvári whispered and crossed herself.
‘We’ll read it once we’re in the country,’ Sindbad muttered.
Here were strange little mirrors which must once have shown the lady in the full bloom of her beauty, shreds of lace, plumes from hats, the sewing needles that accompany women wherever they go, various rings a superstitious creature might collect in the course of her life, rings to guard her against disease, cataracts, drowning, all kinds of misfortune, rings to ward off hopeless love and sleepless nights, all strung on a silk thread. There was a range of buttons suitable for coats and dresses and a collection of little scissors each of which might have been christened with a name of its own, and an altar-cloth she had begun to embroider some twenty years ago and which she still took out every summer. There was the history of the Count of Monte Cristo and a silver flask intended to store tea or water for boiling. Into the case with them all. Mrs Bánatvári had a kind word for each of them, each conjured some pleasant memory. But she did not forget about Sindbad either.
‘Some time in the summer we’ll have to pay a visit to that little Polish spa where a sick gentleman once carved a statuette of the Virgin for me … We’ll go simply everywhere, just as we did with my first husband who was an inveterate traveller. Switzerland, Italy — everywhere he called the hotel porters by name. He knew the best inns in every town, local fashions, local idioms … Sindbad, you will escape to the good life with me, into life as it should be lived.’
Sindbad smiled and nodded, wondering whether F knew he was leaving the capital for ever.
‘We’ll spend two of the summer months in the village. I’ll talk to the lime trees, the horses and the cows, for I’m a sentimental sort of woman,’ she continued dreamily. ‘There’s a chimney there that will mumble, indeed practically talk, only when I spend a night under the roof. We have a feral cat that runs about in the forest with others of its kind but it senses my presence and returns to the house when I am at home. My grandfather’s old horse, a forlorn-looking creature, tosses his head restlessly when the train carrying me blows its whistle at the station, and as for the servants and old women, they dream long convoluted dreams in my honour, and it is my task to explain these to them. Rooms long shut up are bathed in sunlight and dusty old mirrors used only by ghosts in my absence grow young again. I cure the diseased trees and the swallow in the eaves recognises me. Do you like the sound of it, Sindbad?’
Sindbad nodded enthusiastically. ‘It all sounds very fine,’ he sighed, completely surrendering himself to the idea, as if he could already see himself swimming in the river, staring into the sun with sightless eyes while the fish engaged him in conversation, enquiring about the latest fashions. Was it truly the end of that marvellous life he had lived at F’s side? From this day on he would be an elegant country gentleman, companion to a sweet, dreamy, superstitious woman with a voice like old sheet music, who, none the less, could not screw her eyes up half so charmingly as that other one whose voice had a more animal quality, whose laughter bubbled, who did not call Sindbad to the enjoyments of a quiet life, but rather to death, decay and annihilation, to the dance to exhaustion at the ball of life where the masked guests are encouraged to lie, cheat and steal, to push old people aside, to mislead the inexperienced young, and always to lie and weep alone …
‘We have a little church whose foundation I have decided to endow in my will, the church where everyone has learned to pray. Do not forget this foundation, Sindbad, for since I have met you I have changed my will. Everything is yours, and it is a pretty sum.’
Sindbad turned his head away and thought how nice it would be to present that pretty sum to the other, to deposit the whole amount in an envelope and slip it into her hand then run away.
‘Together we will visit the grave of my poor uncle,’ said Mrs Bánatvári as she sat on the trunk. ‘You are fond of the old gentleman, aren’t you? He has such a kind and gentle face in those old pictures. And how fond he was of me! He forgave me everything and never pulled my hair but stroked it instead.’
‘I am very fond of the old gentleman,’ trembled Sindbad and felt as though he was choking. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
He quietly slid from the room. At the door he cast a timid glance back. Mrs Bánatvári stood in the middle of the room in her travelling coat and little veiled hat, her eyes wide with an expression of terror, her arm half raised as if seeking the hand of an angel above her. Her nose had reddened like a tearful child’s and a strange sobbing welled from deep in her breast.
Sindbad ran down the stairs. Once in the street he broke into a crazy laugh. He escaped people’s attention by sheltering in a dark doorway. He leaned his head against the wall and repeated loudly and often, ‘Fanny!’
Escape from Death
One night he found Fanny under a lamp-post in a square in Buda. She was wandering aimlessly, her head bowed, a heavy veil drawn over her face. She was wearing an expensive dress and carrying an aristocratic parasol in her hand. A mild-faced policeman with a blond moustache was treading warily beside her, speaking quietly and respectfully to her.