He paused, and then went on, ‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have … I know I should have behaved differently, quite differently … but I didn’t know how. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. My own mistake, of course, but then I didn’t know …’
Adrienne was again racked by sobs, so much so that she pressed her fists into her temples and put her head between her knees. Now she was crying silently, her blouse quivering as her back shook with her sobs. When she was at last able to look up she saw that he was looking intently at her, probably waiting to say something more. When he did speak it was very quietly, like a voice from another world, ‘No matter what happened, no matter why, or how … I must tell you I loved you very much!’ he said, and closed his eyes as if infinitely weary.
He did not open them again, not even when daylight flooded the room and the clock chimed the hour of eight, nor when the door opened and Maier came in. His eyes were still closed and he seemed to be asleep when Adrienne rose and brushed her husband’s locks with her long, cool fingers.
In the corridor outside, behind the Saxon doctor, two dark figures moved forward carrying an iron stretcher.
Adrienne slipped quietly to the stairs, thinking she would flee to her own room so as not to see anything of the terrible scene that would be enacted below when those fateful figures bore down upon poor Uzdy. Try as she would she could not go more than a few steps. Her legs seemed as if made of lead and she found herself forced to remain, leaning against the wooden walls of the stairway. From downstairs she could hear the sound of a door opening and footsteps. Then her husband’s voice, full of surprise, called out, ‘No! No! No!’ quite strongly. And then nothing. Nothing!
The silence frightened her. Then there were more steps, and this time they had something of a military ring. The glazed door leading to the garden opened and she could just hear some sort of command. They must have gone out, thought Adrienne, and rushed down the stairs. In the bright sunlight before her she saw a little group of men carrying a stretcher and on it lay Pal Uzdy, his body covered by a white sheet like a shroud. She supposed they must have given him some quick-acting injection. His face looked as pale as if sculpted in wax.
Adrienne’s knees buckled and she tried to support herself on the bars of the window by which she stood. And once again she wept, but this time it was not for herself. They were the tears of pity.
Chapter Six
ADRIENNE WROTE TO BALINT, not from Almasko but from Kolozsvar where she had gone the day after they took Uzdy away. There were so many things that had to be done.
On the first three pages she related the bare facts, as drily as possible, recounting what had happened day by day, like a historical chronicle. She wrote in short sentences, each like the hammer-blows of Fate, and the last one read: ‘… and the day before yesterday they brought the poor man to Kolozsvar.’ After that her writing became more confused, with broken sentences and words scratched out and replaced by others.
With this everything is over! I can never get a divorce and so you can’t marry me, never, do you understand? Never! Not whilehe’s alive … and he may live for years. He could even outlive me. We can’t count on Uzdy’s dying, even though that would give us our freedom. We can’t! And even less on his getting better. So you see everything we’ve planned is impossible.
All sorts of other things must be over between us too. The life we used to lead is impossible now. Don’t deny it, you’ve said it yourself many times. I’veall your letters here infront of me. Remember when you wrote ‘What sort of a life do we lead,always pretending, lying, hiding like thieves — and that of courseis what we are because we steal our meagre ration of happiness, sometimes for a few hours, rarely for a whole night together, always taking precautions, watching to see we are not discovered, like convicts on the run’? Every word you wrote is true, utterly, absolutely true. In another letter you said ‘…so don’t you see howdegrading, how humiliating our life is now? We are forced to treat as a shameful secret what we should blazon to the whole wide world.’ You then went on to say ‘This can’t go on!’
I never answered those words before, or I would have said you were right. Perhaps I thought it wasn’t necessary, but I’ve always known it — I sensed it in Venice, remember? That’s why I wanted everything to end, to die rather than come back to this slavery. It’s just as true for me as for you. We can’t go on …I couldn’t stand it again!
There’s a lot more too, things you didn’t write about, but which I felt all the more, perhaps. Our child? To be afraid of having a child when it’s what I long for above everything. Always to be afraid, knowing the disasterit would be if we weren’t ready, when it should be our greatest joy. That has always been with us, but think what it would be like now! Is this what we’ve got to look forward to, for ever and ever? Even if I wanted to I couldn’t do it, not now. Supposing it happened? Could we destroy it before it was bornor bring it into the world and then hideit …our son? Even if I could accept that, for his sake how could we burden him with the shame? Once again I have to quote your own words, words you have written to me in your letters: ‘I want a successor who bears my name. Not a day passes when I don’t long for it more than ever. I am now 32 years old and I suppose this yearning is true for all men at that age. It is at the root of all religions, in ancient days as much as in our own. It has been true for Christians, Jews and Chinese, all these have wanted descendants who will remember and revere their forebears. The curse of Jehovah lay on those who had no sons: and I am the last of my line. Without an heir my family dieswith me. I amnow the last linkinthe chain …and if that chain is broken?’ All this you wrote to me yourself.You also said ‘I want to pass on to him our traditions so that, with faith and decency, he will accept the responsibilities so gladly shouldered by my father and grandfather’. And then you went on ‘It is the only hope of immortality in this world, and I cannot renounce it!’
Why do I write all this? It is because I want you to marry. I command you to do so in the name of our love. Don’t argue with me. This is what you must do. If we ourselves do not erect barriers between us, we will never be ableto keep away from each other — and then we’ll just be inthe same intolerable situation as before. Do this now, at once! When I finally made the decision to leave Uzdy and get a divorce I knew that I was taking the awful risk that it would send him mad and that I would be responsible. That’s why I hesitated so long. You can have no idea how hard I tried to decide before; and when I did decide it was with full knowledge of what I was doing. Alsoall of this that I amnow saying to you today — and that I now expect of you.
Who should you marry? I have thought of that too. Lili Illesvary. She is inlove with you,and youlike her. The family desires it or they wouldn’t have invited you so often. She is pretty and healthy and worthy to bear the son I cannot give you.
It would also be some slight consolation to me. It has been bad enough to shoulder the responsibility for Uzdy, but I could not live knowing that it was I who had denied you an heir. If that were so there would be only one course for me, the one I had intended in Venice. That would set you free, of course,but I don’t think you’d want it, youcouldn’t! Neither can we go on …as we have tillnow. Ohno! We came tooclose to Paradise. We stood on the threshold and caught a glimpse through the door …it was a dream, radiant and full of promise. But the door was slammed in our faces. Now we can never go back to that misery, stripped of everything like beggars. No! Not that! Never ever that!