Sandor Marai - Esther's Inheritance

“Sign what?” I asked him in the same conspiratorial tone, like someone who has agreed and volunteered for a task and is merely inquiring after details.

“This piece of paper,” he said. “This contract that authorizes us to arrange everything and to have you come and live with us.”

“With you?” I asked.

“With us,” he said uncomfortably. “With us…Near us.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Before you call Endre…before I sign…Just clear up one matter for me. You want me to leave everything and go with you. I understand that much. But what happens after that? Where, near you, will I be living?”

“What we were thinking,” he said slowly, turning the matter over in his mind as if it were perfectly normal, “was that it would be somewhere near us. Our apartment, unfortunately, is not suitable…But there is a home there where lonely ladies of a certain standing…It’s quite close. And we could see each other often,” he added generously, as if to encourage me.

“A sort of workhouse, I imagine?” I asked, perfectly calm.

“A workhouse?” he replied, wounded. “What an idea! A home, I said, with ladies of good upbringing. People like you and Nunu.”

“Like me and Nunu,” I said.

He waited a while longer. Then he went over to the table, found a match, and lit the table lamp with clumsy, unpracticed movements.

“Think it over,” he said. “Think, Esther. I’ll send Endre in. Think hard. And read the contract before signing it. Read it very carefully.”

He produced a sheet of paper folded into four from his pocket and placed it modestly on the table. He looked me over one more time with a friendly encouraging smile, gave a little bow, and, sprightly as a young man, turned and left the room.

B y the time Endre entered a few minutes later I had signed the contract that empowered Lajos to sell the house and garden. It was a proper contract, full of the proper terms, the text entirely composed of professional-sounding phrases, exactly like wills and marriages. Lajos had titled it “A two-party contract.” I was one of the parties, Lajos the other, who in return for the rights to the estate comprising both house and garden contracted himself to look after Nunu and me. The details of the “looking after” were not indicated.

“Lajos has told me everything,” said Endre once we had sat down, face-to-face, at the round table. “It is my duty to warn you, Esther, that Lajos is a scoundrel.”

“Yes,” I said.

“It is my duty to warn you that the terms and intentions of the contract he has sprung on you are dangerous and would be so even if Lajos followed those terms to the letter. You two, dear Esther, thanks to Nunu and the garden, have enjoyed a modest but stable existence here, and Lajos’s plans sound, to a stranger’s ear at least, a little sentimental…But I have no faith in Lajos’s sentiments. I have known him, and known him well, for twenty-five years. Lajos is the sort of man, the sort of character, who does not change.”

“No,” I said. “He himself says he does not change.”

“He says it too?” asked Endre. He took off his glasses and looked at me with his myopic eyes, blinking rapidly and clearly confused. “It doesn’t matter what he says. He was sincere just now? Deeply sincere? It means nothing. I have had many sincere meetings with Lajos. Twenty years ago, if you recollect, Esther…for twenty years I have kept this quiet. But now is the time to tell you — twenty years ago when old Gábor, your father, dear Esther…forgive me, he was a good friend, a really close friend…in other words, twenty years ago when your father died and it fell to me, as his friend and the local notary, to conduct the bitter task of sorting out your estate, it turned out that Lajos had faked certain bills in the old man’s name. Did you know about this?”

“Vaguely,” I said. “There was some talk. But nothing was proved.”

“But the point is that it could have been proved,” he said and wiped his glasses. I had never seen him so confused. “There was documentary evidence to prove that Lajos had faked the bills. If we hadn’t looked to it properly this house and this garden would not have remained yours, dear Esther. Now I can tell you. It was no easy matter…Enough to say I endured a ‘sincere’ interview with Lajos. I remember it very clearly, since it wasn’t the kind of scene one is ever likely to forget. I repeat: Lajos is a scoundrel. I was the only one among you who did not fall under his spell. He knows that, he knows it very well…He is afraid of me. Now, when he breaks in on you and, to all intents and purposes, seems determined to rob you of everything that remains, to rob this modest little island with its crew of shipwrecked castaways of their peace and tranquility, it is my duty to warn you that that is the case. It is true that Lajos works more carefully now. He does not use bills. He seems to have been cornered somehow and can think of no other way of getting out but to come here to say good-bye and rob you of everything you have left…If you do sign over the house and garden to him there will be nothing I can officially do for you. Nobody can anyway. I alone could…that is, if you wanted me to.”

“What can you do, Endre?” I asked, astonished.

He bent his head and gazed at his clumsy button-up shoes.

“Well, I…” he began, clearly embarrassed and reluctant. “You must know that at that time I was foolish and saved Lajos. I saved him from prison. How? It doesn’t matter anymore. The bills had to be paid so you could remain in the house…It wasn’t Lajos I wanted to save. Suffice to say the bills were paid. And you stayed here in peace without having to worry. I let Lajos run free. But the bills, all the evidence of the crime, I put away and kept. As far as the law is concerned the evidence is no longer valid. But Lajos knows that though he has escaped the clutches of the law he is still in my power. I beg you, dear Esther,” he said almost ceremonially, and stood up, “empower me to talk to Lajos, to give him back this…this sheet of paper…and to send his people on their way. They would go if I insisted. Believe me,” he said with satisfaction.

“I believe you,” I said.

“In that case…” he said decisively and made to move.

“I believe you,” I said quickly, with a catch in my throat. I knew that this was beyond Endre’s understanding, that he could never resign himself to it, never really grasp it. “And I am most grateful…It is only now that I understand, and I am in no position to thank you. But that means that everything, everything that remained after Father’s death, is ours thanks to you, dear Endre? If not for you, twenty years ago…then there would be no house, no garden, nothing. And everything would have been different, including my life…I would have had to live elsewhere, in some unknown place…Is that so?”

“Not entirely,” he said, embarrassed. “It was not just me alone…Perhaps I can really tell you now. Tibor forbade me mentioning it before. He helped too. As an old friend of Gábor’s he was only too happy and keen to help. We were all part of this…” he said, clearly in agonies, very quietly, his face red.

“Oh, Tibor,” I said, and gave a nervous laugh. “So that’s how it is. One lives in ignorance, not knowing that something bad, nor that something very good, has happened to one. It is impossible to render proper thanks for this. But it is even more difficult…”

“To send Lajos away?” he asked, looking serious.

“To send Lajos away,” I mechanically repeated. “Yes, it will be very difficult now. He, of course, will leave immediately with his children and those strangers. They will soon set off, since they want to leave while it’s light. Lajos will go. But the house and the garden…well, yes, I have given it all to him. I have signed this piece of paper…and I ask you, Endre, to talk to him and persuade him to look after Nunu. That is the one thing he must promise to do. You are right, of course, his promise is not worth anything, so this must be arranged in a proper legal manner, through some official contract, but a contract that will hold…He must reserve a proportion of the sale price for Nunu. She will not need very much now, poor thing. Can that be done?”