Antal Szerb - Journey by Moonlight

“Yes, Ervin, if you say so.”

“Then go immediately. Today you don’t have that hunted look on your face that you had yesterday. Use this auspicious day for your setting forth. Go. God be with you.”

Without waiting for a reply he embraced Mihály, offered the priestly left cheek and right cheek, and hurried away. Mihály stood for a while in astonishment, then gathered up his pilgrim’s bundle and set off down the mountain.

WHEN ERZSI received the telegram Mihály had sent via the little fascista she did not linger in Rome. She had no wish to return home, not knowing how to explain the story of her marriage to people in Budapest. Following a certain geographical pull, she travelled to Paris, as people often do when they have no hopes or plans but wish to start a new life.

In Paris she looked up her childhood friend Sári Tolnai. Even as a young girl Sári had been notorious for her somewhat unfeminine character and practical capability. She had never married, not having the time for it. It always happened that there was some burning need for her services in the company, the business or the newspaper where she was working. Her love life was conducted on the move, as it were, like a commercial traveller’s. In due course, having become bored with everything, she emigrated to Paris to begin a new life, and continued in just the same way, but in French companies, businesses and newspapers. At the time when Erzsi arrived in Paris, she was working as the secretary of a large commercial film studio. She was the statuary sole unattractive woman in the house, the pillar of stone who remained untouched by the general erotic ambience of the profession, whose common-sense and impartiality could always be relied upon, who worked so much harder, and expected so much less, than everyone else. Meanwhile, her hair had turned grey. Cut very short, it gave the head on her delicate girlish body the distinction of a military bishop. People would turn to stare at her, of which she was very proud.

“What will you live on?” she asked, after Erzsi had briefly outlined the history of her marriage, softening the tale with a few Budapest witticisms. “How will you live? You’ve always had so much money.”

“Well you know, this business of my money is all rather tricky. When we broke up Zoltán gave back my dowry, and my father’s legacy, which by the way was a great deal less than people think. I put most of it into Mihály’s family firm, and the rest into the bank in case I should ever need it. That’s what I should be living on, only it’s very hard to get at. The bank money can’t be sent here through legal channels. So I have to depend on what my ex-father-in-law sends me. And that’s not a simple matter either. When it comes to paying out money from his own pocket my father-in-law is usually a very difficult person. And we have no proper arrangement about it.”

“Hm. You’re going to have to get your money out of their business, that’s the first thing.”

“Yes, but to do that I should have to divorce Mihály.”

“Well of course you must divorce Mihály.”

“It’s not quite so ‘of course’.”

“What, after all he’s done?”

“Yes. But Mihály isn’t like other people. That’s why I chose him.”

“And that was a fine move. I really dislike the sort of people who aren’t like other people. It’s true other people are so boring. But so are the ones who aren’t like them.”

“Very good, Sári. Can we just leave this? Really I can’t do Mihály the favour of divorcing him just for this.”

“But why the devil don’t you go back to Budapest, where your money is?”

“I don’t want to go back until all this is cleared up. What would people say at home? Can you imagine what my cousin Julie would say?”

“They’ll talk anyway, you can be sure of that.”

“But at least here I don’t have to listen. And then … no, no, I can’t go back, because of Zoltán.”

“Because of your ex-husband?”

“Because of him. He’d be waiting at the station with bunches of flowers.”

“You don’t say. He isn’t angry with you, after the callous way you walked out on him?”

“He’s not the least bit angry. I believe what he says. He’s waiting in all humility for me to go back to him some day. And as a penance he’s definitely broken off with the entire typing pool and living a celibate life. If I went back he’d be round my neck all the time. I couldn’t bear that. I can put up with anything, but not goodness and forgivingness. Especially not from Zoltán.”

“You know what, for once you’re dead right. I hate it when men are all good and forgiving.”

Erzsi took a room in the same hotel as Sári: a modern hotel, free from smells and aromas, behind the Jardin des Plantes. From it you could see the great cedar of Lebanon, with foreign, oriental dignity stretching out its many-handed branches to the unruly Parisian spring. The cedar was not very good for Erzsi. Its foreignness always made her think of some exotic and wonderful life whose advent she longed for in vain.

Initially she had her own room, then they moved in together because it was cheaper. In defiance of hotel regulations they took things up to their room and made supper together. It became apparent that Sári was as skilled at preparing dinners as she was at everything else. They had to lunch separately because Sári ate in town, coffee and sandwiches, taken standing up before hurrying straight back to the office. Erzsi at first tried various of the better restaurants, but became aware that these places mercilessly overcharged foreigners, so she took instead to visiting little crémeries , where “you can buy the identical thing, but so much cheaper.” Likewise, at first she would always drink black coffee after lunch because she adored the fine Parisian café noir , but then she came to realise that it was not absolutely essential for survival and gave it up, except that once a week, every Monday, she went to the Maison de Café on the Grand Boulevard to regale herself with a cup of the famous beverage.

The day after her arrival she had bought herself a splendid reticule in a very genteel shop near the Madeleine, but this was her sole luxury purchase. She discovered that goods identical to those retailed to foreigners at such high prices in the more fashionable areas could be found in simple shops and flea-markets in the side streets, the rue de Rivoli or the rue de Rennes, and very much cheaper. But her final insight was that not to buy was in fact cheapest of all, and from then on she took a special pleasure in objects she thought she would have liked to purchase, but did not. Following this, she discovered a hotel two streets further along which, while not quite so modern as the one they were living in, did have hot and cold running water in the rooms, and after all they might just as well live there as where they were, only it was so much less expensive, nearly a third. She persuaded Sári, and they moved.

By degrees the saving of money became her chief preoccupation. She realised she had always had a strong inclination to save. As a child, chocolate bonbons given to her as presents would usually be stored away until they went mouldy. She hid her best clothes, any length of silk, pair of fine stockings or expensive gloves, and the maids would find them in the most surprising places, grubby and ruined. Her later life did not permit any expression of this economising passion. As a young girl she had to be on show beside her father, and conspicuous extravagance was required if she was to do him credit. And as Zoltán’s wife she could not possibly have dreamed of saving money. If she declined an expensive pair of shoes, Zoltán would surprise her the following day with three even more expensive pairs. Zoltán was a ‘generous’ man. He patronised art and artists (female), and made an absolute point of showering largesse on their husbands, partly to ease his sense of guilt. And in all this Erzsi’s ruling passion, the saving of money, remained unexpressed.