Sandor Marai - The Rebels

Still here? he asked sadly and solemnly. What’s keeping you, boy?

He stood stock still, his broad back covering the window. Ábel waited a moment, then anxiously made for the door and quickly closed it behind him. He stopped in the stairwell and looked back. He wasn’t being followed.

The voice of the actor stayed with him that night and made its way into his dreams.

THEY HAD TO DISCOVER WHAT THE ACTOR WASdoing in their midst. Their delicate ears could tell that the actor’s voice was sincere. He, who going by all outward signs must have belonged in the enemy camp, had played it perfectly, never once striking a false chord. He hadn’t been patronizing, nor too careful to be impartial, nor indeed too intimate. As far as they could tell it did not tire him to make this infinitely long journey from the shores of his world to theirs; he would undertake it in order to meet them on their own ground. Their sharp ears detected not a single false note. Too much sincerity, confidentiality, and amiability would have seemed as suspicious to them as false intimacy. Had the actor not been sincere, he would have had to juggle halftones and quartertones in their company, and observing such fine distinctions for such a time would have been too exhausting for him. They knew that adults were neither sincere nor trusting with each other. The actor spent his days among adults at rehearsals or at cafés with various local gentlemen of leisure. His regular companions included the short but extremely elegantly dressed editor of the local newspaper who greeted everyone in the most formal manner, the stage prompter of the company whom he had, as he casually declared, “first met abroad,” and the man who was his secretary, mailman, and financial consultant, fat Havas, the pawnbroker.

“Havas has money,” he indicated with a nervous movement when Ábel asked him something. “Not just money, but articles, possessions. You might not be aware of it yet but it is always advisable to keep on good terms with pawnbrokers. Whenever I arrive at a new town I make it my first business to befriend the editor and the pawnbroker. The two between them can help me achieve that which, alone, I would be incapable of achieving: immortality and sustenance. For a man to attain immortality it is necessary that he first survive.”

It was difficult to disagree with him. He had to walk some way to join them, or alternatively, they called over to his place on the afternoons they stayed in town. They kept the secrets of The Peculiar from him until the last possible moment. They weighed every slight shift of his voice on the most delicate of apothecary’s balances.

But the actor knew something the others didn’t. Was this his true nature or just some instinctive capacity for simulating? He could talk to them as no adult had ever done. Adults made the mistake of trying to talk to them as though they were adults. The actor committed no such crude faux pas. He tried to build no artificial bridges, and neither did he try to pretend he was one of them.

He talked like someone who had come home after a long day, put on his dressing gown, and felt comfortable in his own skin. He used the words they used, feeling no particular need to learn their own thieves’ argot. He sat down among them with a nervous dreamy look, his eyes flicking now up, now down, and said:

“How much younger you all are. Strange but you are younger than I thought you were. I was much older than you when I was eighteen. The years dropped off me later.”

He was not a giant who squatted down in order to look smaller so the dwarves should not be scared of playing with him; he was an outsize dwarf with a giant’s body and a wig whom adults hired for amusement and who, tired and disappointed after a day’s work, would go to join his dwarf companions.

Occasionally he smuggled them into the second-tier actors’ box at the theater. They sat anxiously at the back of the box while Amadé played to them. He made gestures only they would understand, conveying, with a glance here and phrase there, a complicity whose closeness only they would recognize. The actor performed with pretty much the same imperative as they did, distorting truth by means of a persona, adopting the painful rictus of a mask. To play was as obligatory for him as it was for them. It might be that the actor only ever truly comprehended the shape of his own life when he was acting, much as they sensed the reality of life behind every apparent reality.

IT WAS TIBOR’S COMPANY THAT MATTERED MOSTto Ábel now. Tibor, master of the revels, accepted such intimacy with a mild, tolerant indifference, a decent forbearance. He found Ábel tiring but could see no way of avoiding contact.

Ábel would wait for him in front of his house, give the familiar whistle, and they would walk to school together along the river. Tibor had to dine once a week at Ábel’s. Ábel’s aunt was all in favor of the friendship. The companionship of this gentle, secretive boy seemed to her appropriate to what she imagined and hoped Ábel would be.

Of all Ábel’s friends Tibor was the only one of whom she was not jealous. She received the rest of the gang with a certain coolness, catering to them nervously, keeping a close eye on them, trying to translate their incomprehensible conversations into a language she could understand. She followed Ábel around helplessly as if somebody had stolen him from her, no longer daring to enter his room at night to kiss the sleeping boy as she had been used to doing just a year ago. She crept on tiptoe to his door, listening for his breathing as he slept, and her eyes filled with tears. Someone had stolen the contents of her life from her but she didn’t know the thief and had no idea just when the crime had taken place, so she slipped back into her room and spent the night sleepless, her heart beating, her thoughts anxious and confused.

Ábel was happy to make an exception of his aunt and hid his indifference and rebellion behind shows of affection. His aunt however sensed that behind this show Ábel was only forgiving her as a favor.

“I’m not taken by that Ernõ either,” she suddenly announced. “He’s after something, my child, I’m sure of it. His father is quite crazy too. Someone must have hammered one of his own hobnails through his head. And I don’t like the way Lajos laughs. One should forgive him because he has suffered much, but whenever he grins at me for no reason I feel cold shivers run up my spine. Be careful, my sweet one and only. Think of your father. Your father could get to the bottom of anything and knew the reason for everything. He’d be able to look into the eyes of your friend Zakarka and quickly discover what he was up to. He’d know why young Prockauer has taken to flashing smiles at people. I wouldn’t trust Béla either. His face is lined as if he spent his nights up to God knows what, it’s as yellow as parchment and full of spots. They’re whited sepulchers, all of them, darling. Mark my words. And by the way, where is your father’s violin? I’ve been looking for it for days. When he returns it’s the first thing he’ll want to find.”

Ábel didn’t know. He couldn’t tell his aunt that the violin had for weeks been resting in their bolt-hole at The Peculiar and that Béla, who knew not a note of music but could imitate the virtuosos he had never seen to perfection, would entertain them with silent performances on it. He had to pay a forfeit every time he dared touch the strings with the bow.

Now there’s your friend, Tibor, his aunt continued. Do you know what I like about him? I like the way he looks at me. Have you noticed how he blushes sometimes? When I address him he raises his eyes and blushes. And it’s a good sign when a boy blushes. And he has manners too. His father gave him a strict upbringing.