Antal Szerb: Love in a Bottle

In her terror she could not reply.

“His name will be Never Was, because we never shall have children. Get up. Clear off out of here. We shall never see each other again!”

Then he collapsed in misery against the fence. Ajándok just stood there, wringing her hands. She felt everything slipping away through her fingers.

The scholar looked up at her. “Are you still here, Ajándok? It’s no use. It’s written here. I can’t help it. And even if I tried, it would be no use. There are even more terrible things in this book, and even worse things inside me. Off you go, Ajándok, and pray for my soul. Pray for the damned.”

Ajándok stood shivering in the chilly dawn, then buried herself in his arms: “I shall never leave you, I shall never ever leave you!”

And though her blood froze in her veins when she saw what would have to be, she did not move from his side. But he never spared her a glance. Pulling his cloak around him, he stepped quietly up to the window of the house. Inside lay the child, sleeping open-mouthed in its cot. The scholar pressed his deathly pale face against the window and stared boldly into the room: his glance was so terrible and so fierce that Ajándok steeled herself to place her hand in front of his eyes to protect the child, before she realised that that terrible look would have bored right through her bloodless fingers. Dreadful minutes passed while he continued to stare; then the child woke and gazed at the window in wide-eyed astonishment. Suddenly its two eyes darkened, and it burst into a faltering, abandoned cry. The cry produced sounds of movement inside the house, the scholar seized Ajándok and hauled her after him as he ran. They ran like murderers being driven off with pitchforks.

The rim of the sky was already pale, and a great cloud was passing solemnly overhead, like a dragon emerging from a swamp, as they do at the approach of sunrise. The air was heavy, as before a storm, when the trees dare not move but huddle with hunched shoulders, awaiting judgement. They finally stopped a little way beyond the village, where the marshland began. The scholar sat down on a boundary stone and spoke:

“See, I pass back and forth over the land like a hailstorm. I am a thing of ill omen, the secret horror of whispered prayers. Ajándok, many times in the past you have been terrified by the mere sound of my name, but to set eyes on me is a truly fearful thing. People cross themselves when they see me. So you should know: I am a garabonciás , a wandering scholar with occult powers. People drive me away with long whips. I do not want to do what I do, and perhaps it would be better if I didn’t, in truth, because, my God! sometimes my lungs are left gasping for breath. So, poor little Ajándok, do you still love me?”

She answered: “You are my betrothed!”

Filled with sadness, he continued: “Look, Ajándok, it is already dawn. The wind is rising. There will be a storm, and I am awaited. No mortal girl has ever loved me. Ajándok, let us exchange a kiss, just once, so that I know how it tastes, and through it I shall hold you in my memory for ever. For who knows whether we shall ever see each other again.”

“We cannot exchange kisses before we have exchanged tokens. Give me your book. I shall lock it well away, and look after it carefully, in a safe, safe place. Tell me you will never wander more; that we will make our home in the tower-house, as you promised, and be the pride and joy of the village.”

“Dear little Ajándok, ask whatever you want — the golden lamb of the imperial princess, the diamond ring from the ear of the shaman’s horse, Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted bed — I shall set any one of these down before you for the sake of a single kiss. But I cannot give you the book. I know that now, and everything else is a lie. The book must always be mine. I can no more be free of it than I can be free of what I am.”

“You must give me either the book, or nothing!”

“Well, then… yes… I see, that’s how it must be — I shall never know what it is to be kissed by a mortal girl. But the tower-house, and the idea of living in it… how could I ever have believed that? The sun is coming up — gentle St John’s Night is over. Thank you for coming with me on this one journey, Ajándok.”

She burst into tears. So far her tears had been those of a child, without real meaning. Now the child Ajándok wept every one of her grown woman’s tears.

“Ajándok, don’t cry,” he said. “You see, I am the one who should be crying. It is far better for you this way. I cannot share my life with anyone. I might blind you by looking you too fiercely in the eye; your frail skeleton would shatter in my embrace; our children would have been changelings, born with beards. It was cruel misfortune that we ever met, and there is nothing we can do about it. For sure, the wanderer will never find a home, or the orphan a mate.”

Then the wind started up again. Something — a mass of something crouched low, a ball with a foot in the shape of a thorn bush — came scuttling down the highway, whipped along by the wind.

“See, the Devil’s chariot!” he shouted. “My faithful companion, my one true friend, here you come again, sent as a messenger by the storm! The open road, the joys of the full gallop, await me! I feel my wings growing back; by evening I shall have reached the city. I shall sleep at the top of the church tower and at midnight I shall ring the bells and make my escape on the back of a bull I have made mad, then I shall plunge into the swamp and tomorrow I shall be in Mauritania, under a blazing sun.”

The wild windstorm gave its answer, throwing the dust from the nearby road in his eyes. But every speck of dust that flew into them struck a spark as from flint. His body expanded with every gust of air, straining to leave the earth behind, like the flames that hover flickering over the bonfire of someone possessed by the devil. And, like an organ freed into sound by a master, his voice boomed out, edged with sardonic laughter, terrible to hear.

“See, Ajándok, see! They’re turning! The sails of the windmill are turning, driven by the wind! Let it drive me away, too, for I am a wandering scholar possessed by the devil, the son of a witch, raised by dragons, and this is my home, under stormy skies.”

A mighty cloud of dust enveloped the huge black figure, as he ran off whooping down the highway, pursuing the battle that raged, howling, in the heavens.

Ajándok rose, wiped away her tears, and set off homewards. Her face was calm, serious — the face of one whose heart has been pierced by seven daggers. The storm tore at her frail body but could not break the flower of love in her, a flower that would never wilt.

That day, and for many years after, there was much talk in the village of the wandering scholar who put the wind in the windmill’s sails, who went through the village on St John’s Night and bewitched the heart of the poor little outlawed girl. Miraculous things were told of him even after he had left. There were those who met him on the highway, galloping along in his horseless chariot; others caught sight of him sitting on his long black cloak as he flew above the fields; and one old grandmother swore blind that the garabonciás had charmed the dragon out of the swamp, saddled it and flown off to Mauritania, where it was so hot that the natives died if they didn’t slip a piece of dragon’s meat under their tongues to keep them cool, and when he got there the wandering scholar intended to slay the dragon, weigh out the meat, and return home one day, heaped with treasure.

The mill was seldom still. The work continued apace, and the wealth of the old miller and the young one alike grew steadily. But Ajándok never again left its confines. She hardly ever spoke. She died within a year, from some mysterious internal disease. Over her grave grows the ever-faithful forget-me-not.