Antal Szerb: Journey by Moonlight

“You know very well why. If you didn’t know you wouldn’t be in such a temper now. But you know I was in the right.”

“Speak plainly, will you?”

“You’re just as clever at not understanding people as you are at not finding, and not looking for, people who have gone out of your life. That’s why I was angry with you.”

Mihály was silent for a while.

“Well, if you wanted to meet me … we did meet in London.”

“Yes, but by chance. That doesn’t count. Especially as you know perfectly well we’re not talking about me.”

“If we’re talking about someone else … it would have been no use looking for them.”

“So you didn’t try, right? Even though perhaps all you had to do was stretch out your hand. But now you’ve another chance. Listen to this. I think I’ve traced Ervin.”

Mihály’s face changed instantly. Rage and shock gave way to delighted curiosity.

“You don’t say! Where is he?”

“Exactly where, I’m not sure. But he is in Italy, in Tuscany or Umbria, in some monastery. I saw him in Rome, with a lot of monks in a procession. I couldn’t get to him — couldn’t interrupt the ceremony. But there was a priest there I knew who told me the monks were from some Umbrian or Tuscan order. This is what I wanted to tell you. Now that you’re in Italy you could help me look for him.”

“Yes, well, thanks very much. But I’m not sure I will. I’m not even sure that I should. I mean, I am on my honeymoon. I can’t scour the collected monasteries of Umbria and Tuscany. And I don’t even know that Ervin would want to see me. If he had wanted to see me he could have let me know his whereabouts long ago. So now you can clear off, János Szepetneki. I hope I don’t set eyes on you again for a good few years.”

“I’m going. Your wife, by the way, is a thoroughly repulsive woman.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

János Szepetneki climbed onto his bike.

“Pay for my lemonade,” he shouted back, and vanished into the darkness that had meanwhile fallen.

The married couple remained where they were, and for a long time did not speak. Erzsi was furious, and at the same time found the situation rather ridiculous. “When old classmates meet,” she thought … “It seems Mihály was deeply affected by these old schoolboy doings. I suppose for once I’d better ask who this Ervin and this Tamás were, however ghastly they might be.” She had little patience with the young and immature.

But in truth something quite different bothered her. Naturally she was upset that she had made so little impression on János Szepetneki. Not that it would have had the slightest significance what such a … such a dubious creature might think about her. All the same there is nothing more critical, from a woman’s point of view, than the opinion held of her by her husband’s friends. In the matter of women men are influenced with incredible ease. True, this Szepetneki was not Mihály’s friend. That is to say, not his friend in the conventional sense of the word. But there was apparently a powerful bond between them. And of course the most foul-minded of men can be especially influential in these matters.

“Damn him. Why didn’t he like me?”

Basically, Erzsi was not used to this sort of situation. She was a rich, pretty, well-dressed, attractive woman. Men found her charming, or at the very least sympathetic. She knew it played a large part in Mihály’s continuing devotion that men always spoke appreciatively of her. Indeed she often suspected that he looked at her not with his own eyes but those of others, as if he said to himself, “How I would love this Erzsi, if I were like other men.” And now along comes this pimp, and he finds me unattractive. She simply had to say something.

“Tell me, why didn’t your friend the pickpocket like me?”

Mihály broke into a smile.

“Come on, it wasn’t you he didn’t like. What upset him was the fact that you’re my wife.”

“Why?”

“He thinks it’s because of you that I’ve betrayed my youth, our common youth. That I’ve forgotten all those who … and built my life on new relationships. And well … And now you’ll tell me that I’ve obviously got some fine friends. To which I could reply that Szepetneki isn’t my friend, which is of course only avoiding the question. But … how can I put this? … people like that do exist. This watch-stealing was just a youthful rehearsal. Szepetneki later became a successful con-man. There was a time when he had a great deal of money and forced various sums onto me which I couldn’t pay back because I didn’t know where he was hanging out — he was in prison — and then he wrote to me from Baja to send him cash. And every now and then he turns up and always manages to say something really unpleasant. But as I say, people like him do exist. If you didn’t know that, at least now you’ve seen it. I say, could we buy a bottle of wine somewhere round here, to drink in our room? I’m tired of this public life we’re leading here in the piazza.”

“You can get one in the hotel. There’s a restaurant.”

“And won’t there be an awful fuss if we drink it in the room? Is it allowed?”

“Mihály, you’ll be the death of me. You’re so scared of waiters and hotel people.”

“I’ve already explained that. I told you, they’re the most grown-up people in the whole world. And, especially when I’m abroad, I do hate stepping out of line.”

“Fine. But why do you have to start drinking again?”

“I need a drink. Because I have to tell you who Tamás Ulpius was, and how he died.”

“I HAVE TO TELL YOU about these things from the past, because they are so important. The really important things usually lie in the distant past. And until you know about them, if you’ll forgive my saying so, you will always be to some extent a mere newcomer in my life.

“When I was at High School my favourite pastime was walking. Or rather, loitering. If we are talking about my adolescence, it’s the more accurate word. Systematically, one by one, I explored all the districts of Pest. I relished the special atmosphere of every quarter and every street. Even now I can still find the same delight in houses that I did then. In this respect I’ve never grown up. Houses have so much to say to me. For me, they are what Nature used to be to the poets — or rather, what the poets thought of as Nature.

“But best of all I loved the Castle Hill district of Buda. I never tired of its ancient streets. Even in those days old things attracted me more than new ones. For me the deepest truth was found only in things suffused with the lives of many generations, which hold the past as permanently as mason Kelemen’s wife buried in the high tower of Deva.

“I’m putting this rather well, don’t you think? Perhaps it’s this excellent bottle of Sangiovese …

“I often saw Tamás Ulpius on Castle Hill, because he lived up there. This in itself made him a highly romantic figure. But what really charmed me was his pale face, his princely, delicate melancholy, and so much else about him. He was extravagantly polite, dressed soberly, and kept aloof from his classmates. And from me.

“But to get back to me. You’ve always known me as a thickset, well-built, mature young man, with a smooth calm face, what they call a ‘po-face’ in Budapest. And as you know I’ve always been rather dreamy. Let me tell you, when I was at school I was very different. I’ve shown you my picture from those days. You saw how thin and hungry, how restless my face was, ablaze with ecstasy. I suppose I must have been really ugly, but I still much prefer the way I looked then. And imagine, with all that, an adolescent body to match — a skinny, angular boy with a back rounded by growing too fast. And a corresponding lean and hungry character.