Sandor Marai - The Rebels

Someone has cheated, he announced calmly.

He took out the cards and spread them out on the table. He had never felt so calm before.

I don’t want to take ages over this, he said, and noted with astonishment his own perfectly level voice.—I had no idea what I was going to do about it on my way here, what I was going to do or say, or if indeed I was going to say anything at all. But there we are: now I have said it. I don’t know if he has been cheating for long or whether this was the first time. He brought two aces with him, one heart and one acorn, and two tens, a leaf and a bell. While we were weighing things up he dropped a ten instead of an ace, or picked up three cards including a ten and didn’t ask for more, but secretly added an ace. Have a look at the cards: their backs resemble those of the ones we are using. It is impossible to tell the difference between our cards and the cheat’s.

Ernõ raised his head to take a deep breath, removed his pince-nez, and frowned furiously. Béla pressed the monocle he was wearing in public for the first time into his pale, puffy, acne-covered face. Tibor opened his mouth a little way and ground his teeth.

Let’s just go back to my place right now, said Béla. Right now. Go through my drawers, my cupboards, my books, try every pocket of all my suits, and why not cut the linings open while you’re at it? Do it all. Search the entire apartment. If you want to frisk my person you can do that immediately, right here.

You’re an idiot, said Tibor. Sit down.

Tibor’s face was not so red now. In fact he looked extremely pale. Under his blond hair his brow looked as white as a lime-washed wall. His lips were trembling.

He’s right, you’re an idiot, Ábel continued.—It’s not about frisking you. Not you, not me, not Ernõ, not Tibor. None of us is to be frisked. Lajos was only messing about. Look, here’s the proof. Two aces, two tens. Someone brought cards with him, either in his pocket or up his sleeve. One of us must therefore be cheating.

Keep your voice down, said the one-armed man.

They drew closer together.—What’s terrible about this, he continued in a low voice, is that we will never know who it was. Understand? Never. We could search everyone individually but we are, each of us, equally innocent and equally under suspicion. It’s not a matter of money. In any case, who came out as winners this afternoon?

They counted back. Béla and Ernõ seemed to have won roughly an equal number of times, Béla playing a high-risk game, Ernõ more cautiously. Ábel and Tibor both lost.

The loser might just as likely have cheated, said Ábel. Perhaps he cheated because he was losing. Everyone is equally under suspicion. You can treat me as a suspect too if you want. It is true that I was the one who discovered the cheating but it might be that I get a kick out of flirting with danger. I might have cheated then made a deliberate point of launching the accusation and taking pleasure in seeing all of you torturing yourselves. That’s why I say we would be idiots to frisk each other. We are all equally under suspicion.

Everyone is suspect, the one-armed one declared happily, grinning.

They weren’t listening to him. Ábel looked up with a pained expression on his face.

But maybe I wasn’t the cheat, he said slowly and speculatively. The strange thing is that we could imagine any one of us cheating so the cap fits all. It seems everyone that may be suspected might be guilty.

That’s an exaggeration, said the one-armed one.

The actor ordered ham with pickled cucumber, a softboiled egg, and tea with lemon. They didn’t look at each other. The actor hadn’t yet said anything; instead he thoughtfully adjusted his wig, and apart from a little chomping, began to eat in the most delicate and refined manner. He held the dessert spoon lightly with two fingers, cracked the shell of the egg with a demure, slightly amused tap, used the ends of two fingers to break off a pinch of bread and dip it into the yolk, cut the fatty edge off the ham with infinite care, and conducted a tricky surgical operation to excavate a sliver of muscle from it. He raised the knife with one hand like a conductor with his baton.

“That’s an exaggeration,” he pronounced with a mild but firm voice that brooked no contradiction.—“Lajos is right again! Have you noticed how Lajos has always been right recently? You exaggerate, my friend”—he turned forty-five degrees to address Ábel.—“We are all aware of your tender, sensitive soul.”

He stuffed a slice of ham into his mouth.

“Don’t take this amiss, but only very young people can say that kind of thing. My general experience of the world, or so I have observed on my travels, is that people get over everything. That is providing they survive of course.”

He bent over the egg and sniffed it.

“You are of a philosophical bent, that is all. Naturally, it is an unpleasant episode. We have every reason to believe what our friend Ábel says. One of you has cheated. It’s not such a bad thing.”

He clicked his tongue.

“What does it mean? Perhaps it wasn’t the money that he cheated for. People never know what they are going to do next. It’s a puzzle, a real puzzle. He came prepared of course, for he brought the cards. Maybe he just flirted with the thought. Life is just a big game, my friends.”

He touched the cards carelessly, put down his knife and fork, and leaned back. He looked around him in a dreamy fashion, surprised by the rapt attention he noted on their faces. He had got used to the fact that people never took serious note of what he said, that they heard him with mocking or indifferent expressions. In this company each word of his hit home. He gave a smirk of satisfaction.

“I am not thinking of the unmasking of our friend, Ábel,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “What are cards? What is money? It’s something else I have in mind. When through my friend Lajos’s kind attentions, I was invited to join your circle…my young friends, my very young friends…the first question I asked myself, having acknowledged the charming impression you immediately made on me, was what holds them together? Because something does hold you together. I have considerable experience in gauging human relationships. I said to myself: something joins them together but they do not speak of it. Yet each of them thinks about it. And one of them is cheating.”

He ate with great gusto. The ham slice became a ham sliver, the egg a hollow shell. Everything he picked up, even the salt cellar, seemed to be on familiar terms with him.

He spoke quietly, ceremoniously, with feeling. He even closed his eyes for a moment as if communing with himself. Havas’s voice could be heard from the next cubicle, and the slapping down of cards. A woman was moving through the café with a bucket and mop in her hand. The waiter sat by the billiard tables in the half-light, like a monk by the window of his cell at twilight. Lajos ran his eyes around the company with lively, friendly interest.

“It is probably unimportant that the person in question has now extended his cheating activities to a card game,” the actor continued. “He is your Judas, and we don’t really know him. He is someone I dare not even begin to suspect since the four of you are equally dear to me, and yet he must have been cheating you for a long time, cheating in his every word, his every look. The only reason he cheated at cards was because he wanted to round off his triumph in that way. He wanted to experience the full physical delight of having cheated you.

“There’s a nice expression: to sweep something under the carpet. It is an excellent expression. Don’t rack your brains, my friends. We are together. It’s been a wonderful day. You are no longer responsible to your masters. I thought we could celebrate the event tonight.”