Sandor Marai - The Rebels

He put his head back, raised the bottle to his lips, and took a few gulps. He looked round with red eyes.

“I believe,” he said uncertainly, “that with the gentlemen’s kind permission, I might finish now. Please allow me to put the food away.”

He stood up with difficulty, picked up several dishes at once, put his thumb through the handle of a bowl, opened the doors of an old shelved cupboard in the corner, and put the food back there in precise order, one dish at a time, throwing the chewed ham bone into a box by the stove. Once he had put everything away he carefully turned the key in the cupboard.

“I am a lonely widower with family troubles,” he complained, “and I cannot allow myself the luxury of servants. My habitation is cluttered with objects whose care I cannot leave to strangers. In any case I like being at home by myself.”

He dropped the key into his trouser pocket and stood at the window so the room suddenly darkened for a moment. He searched for a cigar, lit it ceremonially, then sat back in his chair, and made himself comfortable, skillfully adjusting his stomach. With elbows on the table he blew the smoke in the general direction of the lamp and focusing on a spot above their heads asked:

“What can I do for the young gentlemen?”

The smell of decaying rancid fat was so intense Ábel felt as though he were choking in the room. They sat for several long minutes, silent and unmoving. Havas’s manner of eating, his sheer being, had overwhelmed them: it had the power of some inflated natural phenomenon. They could not have been more surprised if he had dragged a live kid into the room, dismembered it in front of them, and proceeded enthusiastically to consume it. The room was full of blackflies. The smell of the food had attracted them through the half-open window and they fell furiously to stinging legs and faces.

“There’ll be a storm,” said Havas, scratching the back of his hand. “The blackflies are acting up.”

He smoked his cigar patiently, prepared to wait. The room was full of curious objects. Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling but not one had a light in it. A huge camera was propped on a tripod by the wall. A crowd of tin tankards jostled dustily on top of a cupboard. There was a row of seven-branched candelabra ranged on a table as for an exhibition and various musical clocks were fixed to the wall, not one of them with moving hands.

“A first-class piece of machinery,” said Havas, who had followed their glance to the camera. “Nothing I could do. It was never redeemed: I was stuck with it. There are so many articles on my hands. Are the gentlemen acquainted with Vizi the photographer? He specialized in baby portraits. Now he’s abroad. His wife brought it in. She was left without a penny. She knew nothing about photography. I’m looking after it for the time being. Should Vizi return he can have it back. Its estimated value is two hundred crowns. He can go back to photographing new babies and their firstborn siblings. Do you remember him? He took your pictures too, gentlemen. He stood behind the box, wiggled his hand for your amusement, and said: watch the birdie! A ridiculous profession. Once I had a picture of that sort taken too. I lay naked on a bearskin, my strong little legs kicking in the air. Who would ever think that was me? Imagine me lying naked on a bearskin now like a well-behaved infant, kicking my legs…But Vizi can have his camera back. Havas has a heart.”

“It’s a fine collection you have here, Mr. Havas,” said Tibor, quietly clearing his throat.

They ran their eyes politely and admiringly round the room as if that had been the sole object of their visit, as if they wanted no more than to inspect the private collection of a genuine aesthete. There was a decided orderliness in the room, though not one you could detect at first glance. A casual visitor might have thought he had strayed into the chaos of an overcrowded junk shop, but once his eyes had gotten used to the half-light and had adjusted to the mess before him, he would have noticed how everything was in its proper place. A stuffed fox stood on top of an American traveling trunk. An empty birdcage hung on the wall. Ábel’s attention was caught by the birdcage. It seemed such an unlikely object for Havas to possess that he couldn’t help asking if Mr. Havas was fond of birds.

The pawnbroker was busy with his bottle of kontusovka, sniffing the top of it.

“Dear God,” he muttered with distaste. “They’re making cheap imitations of this now. It comes from Poland, so the fakes must be made there too. Genuine kontusovka burns your throat…Birds?” He turned to face Tibor. “We get what we get. It was pawned like the rest if you please. It was offered to me though I cannot think why I accepted it. I’m not a pet shop. But it was such a tiny singing sort of bird…a siskin, if you know the species, gentlemen. A person gets lonely. It sang when I woke in the morning. You wouldn’t believe, gentlemen, how quickly a lonely person such as I can get used to a singing bird. Trouble was, he couldn’t get used to meat. He only sang for two days.”

He looked straight ahead, seemingly lost in a sad memory.

“Why should I buy him seeds and millet, I thought, when I have so much meat? Swallows eat flies. Why shouldn’t a siskin eat meat too? The cupboard is always full of meat. I gave him tiny snippets of the finest veal. He couldn’t get used to it.”

He waved the matter away.

“I couldn’t keep him long. I am not, I repeat, a pet shop. This was a piece of speculative business, you understand, gentlemen? I never take animals as surety. But Havas has a heart and one day a lady comes in, a lady of mature years who has seen some troubles in her time, and pushes this cage over the counter. What is your ladyship thinking of? I ask her. What is the value of a siskin? Now I really have seen everything. Tears and words. It was this thing and that thing. She desperately needed four crowns. She was expecting some money in three days’ time and she swore by all she loved that she would bring it in because this bird was everything in the world to her. Call this business! I said to myself. But she wouldn’t go away and the bird started singing. Three days, I said, fine, because I was in a good mood and I have a heart. The young gentlemen cannot begin to imagine what people bring in. People of the utmost refinement…the entire town. Naturally, I don’t say anything. But the bird kept singing. It’s hungry, I thought. But it didn’t eat the meat and then it stopped singing. I knew it would remain on my hands. What would a lonely widower want with a caged bird?”

He propped his heavy brow on his hands and stuffed the cigar into a cigar-holder.

“Now imagine, gentlemen. On the third day the lady returns. She stands at the counter. Here are the four crowns, my dear sweet Mr. Havas, may God reward you for your kindness. May I please have my bird back? What bird? I say. She begins to tremble and stands there, her mouth wide open. The bird, Mr. Havas, she says, my bird, the siskin you kindly agreed to take for a couple of days, my darling little siskin? And she grips the bars on my counter. I look at her and think, yes indeed you should return that bird. The problem was that it was no longer singing.”

He indicated the litter basket full of bones and leftover food in front of the stove.

“Fortunately the cleaner only comes in last thing in the evening. So I let down the shutters, go up to the apartment, search through the litter basket, and find the little creature. It was already rather stiff. Lucky I still had it, I thought, now Havas, go out and show the client that you don’t lose anything through carelessness in this business. I picked the little bird up, and placed it in a box, properly packaged as the contract regarding all returned articles requires. It was no bigger than a pocket watch. I tie the box round with string, as is proper, and seal it precisely as required by the contract. I pass it back over the counter to her and wait for her to say something. What is this, Mr. Havas? she asks and turns the box round in her hand. For God’s sake, what is it? You should have seen the lady, gentlemen. She was wearing a pair of knitted gloves that only half covered her hands. She had a little black straw hat on her head, worn high like this. One siskin, I answer. I wait. She breaks the seals, tears the string, and there’s the siskin. She lifts it out, holds it in her palm, and gazes at it. I thought she was going to make a scene. But just imagine. There was no shouting, all she said was: oh, oh.”