Sandor Marai - The Rebels

“Maybe he will apologize,” ventured Ábel.

“Or else shoot me,” Tibor repeated obstinately.

THE CRISIS CAME TO A HEAD AT THE BEGINNINGof October. Béla’s father conducted an audit and discovered the missing sums. They were small amounts at first and nobody thought to suspect Béla.

The first consequence of the discovery was that a sixteen-year-old apprentice boy was hauled before the court and sentenced to two years in juvenile detention.

The giant buildings of the house of correction rose beside the road that led to The Peculiar and whenever they retired to their hidden empire they were forced to pass by its outer perimeter. The lights of the windows of the correctional institution shone directly at them as they made their way back at night. The enormous red-brick hulks were visible behind high railings where a guard stood sentry at the entrance.

The hearings were concluded and Béla’s father sighed with relief that his staff and family members were found to be honest. Only they knew that the avalanche had started. The petty infringements discovered by the father, for which the boy rather than Béla was sent to be institution-alized—the apprentice having, to everyone’s surprise, admitted his guilt and spent little time denying anything—were insignificant compared to the “real” crime, Béla’s great break-in. These true facts were liable to be discovered any day. Should they be discovered, they would all be lost.

This possibility did not appeal to the actor either, he having been accepted into the gang so recently. Nevertheless he took the news of Béla’s crime with equanimity and did not blame any of them since he too had enjoyed a fair share of the money. If it were up to him, he said, he would settle the difference from his own pocket. Unfortunately it wasn’t up to him.

Béla had stolen six hundred crowns in one go, six one-hundred-crown bills. His father had sent him down to the post office with the money to post an order to one of his business acquaintances. Béla kept the money and simply told his father that he had sent it but could not find the receipt. The intended recipient, a rice merchant, was bound to claim the money a few days later and then they would all be lost.

What was strange was that Béla had not mentioned this vast sum to the gang. They had long got used to the fact that he always carried smaller amounts with him. Those hundreds seemed to have melted away in Béla’s pocket. When they interrogated him about it, it turned out that the actor who had complained of certain minor inconveniences had received a sum of two hundred crowns in three installments from Béla. The tailor’s bill was also rather more substantial than they had thought. Béla had kept the final invoice from the others, and when the tailor turned awkward, threatening to send it to his father, he paid what was owing.

The money had vanished, as Béla calmly declared, every last cent of it. With the last thirty crowns he had purchased, perfectly calmly, a revolver that they took from him by force and entrusted to Ernõ’s safe keeping. Béla’s behavior during all this was perfectly apathetic: he lost weight and his face seemed to collapse. He was preparing to die.

The gang held long extraordinary discussions that went on day and night. They had to produce the money in twenty-four hours and send it by telegram to Béla’s father’s business partner before irreparable harm was caused. Ábel performed miracles with his aunt, charming and bewitching her, but he could conjure no more than forty crowns from her.

It was at this time that they inducted the actor into the secrets of The Peculiar too. The actor accompanied them with a puzzled yet faintly bored smile, never denying that he had received money from Béla, shrugging his shoulders, for how should he have known where the money was from. I thought you were all rich, he said and gazed straight ahead as if in a dream.

They were not rich but their “warehouse,” as Ernõ referred to the store at The Peculiar, might possibly offer a few solutions. That was how the actor came to be there at the moment of mortal danger. All hands on deck, said the actor, and pretended to be the captain of a sinking ship giving his last orders. There was a time, somewhere between Naples and Marseille…, he said. He was made to swear to keep the secrets of The Peculiar on pain of death.

The actor was happy enough to swear, his only condition being that he should be able to wear a frock coat and that the table should be prepared with four burning candles. He entered the secret room nervously, his face showing no interest, without removing his gloves, his hat still on his head, and stood in the middle of the room, sniffing the air like a connoisseur and declaring in a frostily polite voice and with a stiff, unsmiling expression: Charming! He brightened when he spotted the store of clothes. They had to dress up there and then. He gave tiny cries of delight as he knotted neckties, forgetting the frosty politeness and show of indifference with which he had entered, took a step or two backward, and produced the most exquisite effects with a movement of his eyebrow. They were not going to make any progress with the problem of Béla that afternoon. They were all infected by the actor’s enthusiasm. Béla dressed and undressed with a desperate concentration, throwing on one item after another, while the actor delved drunkenly into the store of neckties, silk shirts, and cosmetics that Béla had so thoughtfully and skillfully accumulated. Once they were all strutting around in costumes the actor spread his arms like the conductor of an orchestra, took a step backwards, and with a serious, concerned expression examined each of them in turn, then, his head set back, under half-closed lids, summed up his general impression: “You should all be on stage,” he said. And after a short meditative pause: “In an amateur sense, I mean.”

They too felt they should be on stage. The utter impossibility of their ambition depressed them. “With an invited audience…,” suggested the actor. “Without written parts, of course. Everyone would be free to say whatever came into his head.” With the actor to encourage them in their strange costumes they suddenly marveled at their wealth. The problem was that the treasure trove of inestimable value that they had amassed was worth very little in ready cash. They sneaked back into town that evening feeling they were doomed. As they were preparing to part, Lajos waved Tibor over and put his hand on his shoulder.

“The silver,” he said.

“The silver?” asked the actor, pricking up his ears. “What silver? If you have silver everything can be fixed.”

He pronounced this with such authority that they fell silent, quite awestruck. They knew what silver. The silver that lay in a leather trunk under the bed of the colonel’s wife! Only the actor had been ignorant of the silver, and now the solution was perfectly clear to him.

“As long as the silver is really there,” he repeated anxiously. “I’ll have a word with Havas. He is a friend of mine and knows all about silver.”

“What did you think would happen?” Tibor slowly turned to Béla, speaking with childishly clear enunciation, breaking the words up into syllables. His voice was full of infinite wonder. “What did you think you would do? You must have known they would discover the loss.”

They stood on the street corner in the light of a gas lamp, forming a tight dark group. It was at this moment that Béla’s self-control deserted him.

“Think? Me?!” he declared with great indignation. “I didn’t think anything. How could I have thought at all? No. And you?” he hesitated as if he were deeply astounded by something. “Did any of you think at all, at any time?”