Sandor Marai - The Rebels

The actor certainly knew his trade. It was a fat, drunk sailor that sat at the edge of the stage singing into the dark auditorium. The rest of them wandered up and down behind him, humming along with the hypnotic rhythm while the storm continued unabated outside and the vessel with all its passengers lurched towards an unknown harbor. The heady smell of brandy floated through the cabin as the sense of danger and a mood of mutual reliance took hold of them. In any case, there was going to be no escaping each other’s company until the ship was safely docked. Tibor was feeling better and fell to eating with an appetite that belied his seeming sex. Béla was sitting at the actor’s feet, his chin propped on his palms, observing him. They waltzed round each other, the actor setting the rhythm for the dance, his voice overflowing with melancholy.

It was the first time any of them had set foot on stage. The strange thing was that they felt perfectly at home there. They took possession of this world composed of three walls and a few boards as if nature had intended them for it. Ábel stood by the footlights and quietly recited something for the benefit of the invisible audience. As for the actor, he was absorbed in his acting and was growing ever more remote, ever less like the figure they had known, already recalling Le Havre, relating tales of amorous nights in various harbors, gazing around him as if they were all strangers. His vast half-naked body shook with every gesture. He was no longer sucking in his stomach and his flesh bulged through his vest, and as he passed before the spotlights Ábel spotted tattoos that served as tickets, some on his arms, some on his chest.

“Beware! A man with a tattoo! Take care, I say!” the one-armed one cried out.

Ernõ was wearing his top hat. His hump weighed heavily on his back, pressing down his upper body.

“My intentions are honorable,” he said frostily. The one-armed one threw himself on Ernõ and Tibor leapt between the combatants, giving a faint shriek. Ábel had the impression that there were too many of them, too many strangers and newcomers, and miscounted their numbers. The actor was dancing in a corner, stubbornly, insistently alone, his accordion constantly moving, not to be forgotten for a second, while his heel stamped out a stiff, nervous rhythm. The gang sat down around the table and Ábel took out his pack of cards.

“I refuse to play with cheats,” the one-armed one mumbled, clearly drunk.

But the sight of the pack enticed the actor over too. He examined each card carefully, slowly appraising it, drinking, rattling his change, then getting into arguments, using strange offensive-sounding phrases. They smacked their cards down, propped themselves on their elbows, pulled a lamp closer, Béla once again offering himself to be searched. There was silence for a while. The ship was clearly in calmer waters now, the wind abated. While they were dealing the cards again the actor left the cabin to return with a fresh bottle of brandy and declared with satisfaction:

“It’s a starry night. Wind southeasterly. By morning we shall be in Piraeus.”

Ábel wanted to know how long they had been here. Even experienced sailors tend to lose track of time. But what does it matter, he thought with dizzy delight. It’s a fine ship and we’re making good progress somewhere between sky and water. We will have arrived somewhere by morning. He clambered down into the prompter’s box and watched the proceedings from there. Béla had one arm round the actor’s neck, his legs crossed, the smoldering remains of a cigarette in his mouth, his body slightly bowed as he stood, slender and boyish, with a gentle, somewhat decadent smile on his yellow face, an unconscious picture of lecherous, bovine self-satisfaction. Tibor threw off his long wig with its bunches, and Ábel was pained and surprised to note that he remained as effeminate, as girlish, and as much the ingénue without it as he had been with, his beauty spot still fixed above his upper lip, his arms still white, and his bosom still in place. He was sitting between Ernõ and the one-armed one, chin propped on two fingers, holding his cards with a feminine, grande-dame-ish, almost woman-of-the-world air. Ernõ cut him a fan from a cardboard box and Tibor employed it, fanning himself slowly and easily.

Ábel leaned on his elbows in the prompter’s box. It was more interesting watching than taking part, he thought. He felt dizzy. Only the actor seemed to behave as naturally as you might expect of someone who had spent his whole life on this very ship, wearing a striped vest, with a pipe in his mouth, never stepping out of his role, not one voice, not one glance out of place. He was scanning the company, looking for something, and when he discovered Ábel in the prompter’s box he began to protest.

“You cheat!” he bellowed in a tremendous voice. “You scoundrel! Have you no manners? You spend your time on shore observing where the tide is sweeping us! Fancy spying on others, eh? Get back to your place among the rest. Push his head under the water!”

They rushed Ábel, grabbed his arms, and dragged him from his nook. Ábel put up no resistance. He lay flat on the boards, his arms spread wide. The actor took a contemptuous tour of him, as if he regarded him as no more than a corpse. He poked at him with his toes, then turned away.

“There are people who are utterly corrupt,” he declared with plain disgust. “People addicted to the most depraved passions. But the worst of them are the voyeurs who derive their satisfaction from observing other people indulge their passions. I have always loathed them. There was a time in Rio when I smashed in the teeth of one. These are the kind of people who drill holes in walls. They are pimps, purveyors of pomade. Beware of such. People in the act itself are inevitably innocent. Sin begins the moment you leave the circle and watch from outside.”

He circled the cabin and put a bottle down next to Ábel.

“Drink!” he ordered, then slumped down at Ábel’s side as if exhausted. “Over here, Madonna!” He laid Tibor’s head in his lap with gentle paternal solicitude. The boy lay down compliantly beside him. He filled his pipe and puffed at it in the manner of an old salt or an ancient gold-miner about to tell far-fetched yarns.

“You must be very careful on board ship,” he said, nodding. “Nowhere else do people live in conditions of such ruthless servitude. And I know what I’m talking about when I say that. There was a time…what I mean to say is that you need strict discipline on board. Just imagine: year after year, locked up together like prisoners in one small cell. A sailor quickly loses his sense of all that is fine and lovely in the natural world. He is constantly under surveillance, never alone. It’s the most terrible thing that can happen to a man. Mutinies, when they occur on a ship, burst on you with a sudden fury: the men go about their ordinary jobs for years without a word of complaint, without a voice raised in anger. Should one of them express a contrary opinion he is simply booted off at the next port of call, and you can’t expect the ship’s judge and jury to see the joke. Then something happens, something utterly insignificant, and a line is crossed. This sort of thing happens with exceptional suddenness and later you can’t determine what really caused it, because it seems so very stupid: a row over a cake of soap or a drop of grog, it’s all beyond understanding.”

Béla stood at the edge of the stage laughing.

“That was the box we used to reserve!” he cried. He stretched his arms out towards the dark auditorium. “Box three on the left!” he shouted with boundless delight. “That’s where we had to sit every Sunday afternoon, our hair neatly combed, forbidden to lean on the balustrade. We wouldn’t get any sweets either because Father said people would laugh if they saw the grocer’s children sucking sweets.” He leaned forward and bellowed into the auditorium.