Antal Szerb - Journey by Moonlight

“And now we must proceed calmly to the second item on our little agenda.” Pataki had obtained Erzsi’s Paris address from Mihály’s family. For Pataki, as he did with everyone, had maintained good relations with them (after all they could hardly be held responsible) and he had even brought a present for Erzsi from Mihály’s married sister. He was very pleased to establish that she no longer lodged on the left bank, the dubious Parisian Buda, full of bohemians and immigrants, but on the respectable right bank, close to the Étoile.

It was twelve o’clock. With a café waiter he telephoned Erzsi’s hotel, not sufficiently trusting his own command of French to negotiate the complexities of the Paris exchange. Madame was not in. Pataki went on reconnaissance.

He entered the little hotel and asked for a room. His French was so bad it was not difficult to play the stupid foreigner. He indicated through gestures that the room he had seen was too expensive, and left. He had however established that it was a regular, genteel sort of place, probably full of English, though a hint of seediness was just perceptible, especially in the faces of the room-girls. No doubt there were certain rooms which elderly Frenchmen would hire as a pied-à-terre , paying for a whole month but actually using for only a couple of hours a week. Why had Erzsi moved here from the other side of the river? Did she wish to live more elegantly, or had she found a more elegant lover?

At four that afternoon he telephoned again. This time Madame was in.

“Hello, Erzsi? Zoltán here.”

“Oh, Zoltán … ”

Pataki thought he could hear suppressed agitation in her voice. Was this a good sign?

“How are you, Erzsi? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Zoltán.”

“I’m here in Paris. You know, the Váraljai Hemp and Flax contract was a real tangle, I had to come. Endless running around. I’ll be on my feet for three days. I’m getting really bored with this town … ”

“Yes, Zoltán.”

“And I thought, well, here I am, and today I’ve got a little spare time to catch a breath or two, I might enquire how you are.”

“Yes … Very kind of you.”

“Are you well?”

“Very well.”

“Tell me … Hello … Could I possibly see you?”

“What for?” asked Erzsi, from an immense distance. Pataki experienced a brief dizziness, and leant against the wall. To conceal this he continued jovially:

“What’s this ‘what for’? Of course I should see you, since I’m here in Paris, don’t you think?”

“True.”

“Can I come over?”

“All right, Zoltán. No, don’t come here. We’ll meet somewhere.”

“Splendid. I know a very nice teashop. Do you know where Smith’s is, the English bookshop in the rue de Rivoli?”

“I think so.”

“Well I never! On the first floor there’s an English teashop. You go up from inside the bookshop. Do come. I’ll wait for you there.”

“Fine.”

He had in fact selected this venue because, where Erzsi was concerned, he had a morbid suspicion of everything French. In his imagination Paris and the French symbolised for Erzsi everything lacking in him, everything he could not give her. In the French cafés (which he particularly loathed, because the waiters were insufficiently respectful, and never brought water with his coffee) the entire French nation would aid Erzsi in her resistance to him, and she would have the advantage. In the interests of fair play he had chosen the cool, neutral extra-territoriality of the English teashop.

Erzsi appeared. They ordered, and Pataki strove to behave as if nothing had happened between them: no marriage, no divorce. Two clever Budapesti, a man and a woman, happening to meet in Paris. He treated her to the latest gossip from home, full and fully spiced, concerning their close acquaintances. Erzsi listened attentively.

Meanwhile he was thinking:

“Here’s Erzsi. Essentially she hasn’t changed, not even after all that’s happened and all the time that’s passed since she was my wife. She’s wearing one or two bits and pieces of Paris clothing, chic enough, but, I fear, not of the best quality. She’s a bit down. In her voice there’s a certain, very slight, veiled quality that breaks my heart. Poor little thing! That bastard Mihály! What did she need him for? It seems she hasn’t yet got over him … or perhaps she’s suffered new disappointments in Paris? The unknown man … Oh my God, my God, here am I chattering on about Péter Bodrogi when I’d rather die.

“Here is Erzsi. As large as life. Here is the one woman I cannot live without. Why, why, why? Why should she be the only woman I find desirable, at a time when my general desire for women is nonexistent? So many of the others were so much ‘better women’, Gizi for example, not to mention Maria … Just to look at them made my blood well up. And above all, they were so much younger. Erzsi’s no longer exactly … Why, despite all this, here and now, in sober mind and free from the heat of passion, would I give up half my fortune to lie with her?”

Erzsi rarely looked at Zoltán, but listened to his gossip with a smile, and thought:

“How much he knows about everyone! People are so much at home with him. (Mihály never knew anything about anyone. He was incapable of noticing who was whose brother-in-law or girlfriend.) I don’t understand what I was afraid of, why I got so anxious. That old cliché of the ‘deserted husband’, how much truth is there in it? I really might have known that Zoltán could never get into the way of being the tiniest bit tragic. He finds a smile in everything. He abhors everything that’s on a grand scale. If his fate led him to a martyr’s death he’d no doubt make a joke and a bit of gossip even at the stake, to take the edge off the tragic situation. And yet he surely has suffered a lot. He’s older than he was. But at the same time he’s played down the suffering. And occasionally he’s felt wonderful. You can’t feel too sorry for him.”

“Well, what’s the matter?” Zoltán asked suddenly.

“With me? What should there be? I’m sure you know all about why I came to Paris … ”

“Yes, I’m aware of the broad outline, but I don’t know why everything turned out as it did. You wouldn’t care to tell me?”

“No, Zoltán. Don’t be offended. I really can’t think why I should discuss with you what happened between me and Mihály. I never talked to him about you. It’s only natural.”

“That’s Erzsi,” thought Zoltán. “A fine lady, real breeding. Nothing, however catastrophic, could make her indiscreet. Self-control on two legs. And how she looks at me, with such cool, withering politeness! She’s still got the knack — she’s only to look at me to make me feel like a grocer’s assistant. But I can’t let myself be so easily intimidated.”

“All the same, you can perhaps at least tell me what your plans are,” he said.

“For the time being I really don’t have any. I’m staying on in Paris.”

“Are you happy here?”

“Happy enough.”

“Have you filed for divorce yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Zoltán, you ask so many questions! I haven’t, because it isn’t yet time for that.”

“But do you really think he’ll still … do excuse me … that he’ll still come back to you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. I don’t know whether I would want him if he did. Perhaps I’d have nothing to say to him. We aren’t really suited. But … Mihály isn’t like other people. First I would have to know what his intentions were. For all I know he could wake up one fine morning and look around for me. And remember in a panic that he left me on the train. And look for me high and low all over Italy.”