Beware of Pity (43 page)

His breath failed him. He sank back in the chair again, weak and defenceless. But my own strength was exhausted, too, and I dropped onto the other chair. So there we sat opposite each other exactly as we had sat before, exchanging neither words nor glances for I don’t know how long. I felt only, from time to time, the way the table shook slightly from the strong tremors running through him. Then—after what seemed an eternity—I heard a sound like something hard dropping on a hard surface. His bowed forehead had sunk to the tabletop. I could tell how the old man was suffering, and I felt a great need to comfort him.

“Herr von Kekesfalva,” I said, leaning over him. “Trust me … we’ll think all this over, think it over at our leisure … I repeat I’m entirely at your disposal … I’ll do everything in my power. But that … what you were suggesting just now … that’s … that’s
not
in my power, it’s entirely impossible.”

He shook faintly, like an animal already in a state of collapse receiving one last deadly blow. His lips, salivating slightly in his agitation, worked frantically, but I did not give him time to say anything.

“It’s not possible, Herr von Kekesfalva, so please let’s not discuss it any further. Think about it yourself! Who am I? Only a lieutenant living on his pay and a small monthly allowance—no one can build a life with such limited means, hardly enough for one person to live on, let alone two …”

He tried to interrupt me.

“Yes, I know what you’re going to say, Herr von Kekesfalva—money isn’t a consideration, you think, all that would be taken care of. And I know that you’re rich and … and that I could have all that from you … But it’s just because you’re rich, and I’m nothing, a nobody … that very thing is what makes it impossible. Everyone would think I did it for the money, they’d think I … and believe me, there’s Edith herself to think of, all her life she’d never shake off the suspicion that it was only because of the money that I married her in spite of … in spite of the special circumstances. Believe me, Herr von Kekesfalva, it’s impossible. I honestly, genuinely think highly of your daughter and … and I like her … but you must understand what I’m telling you.”

The old man did not move for some time. At first I thought he simply hadn’t taken in what I was saying. But gradually a movement did run through his exhausted body. He laboriously raised his head and stared into the empty air. Then he took
hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and I realised that he was trying to brace his weight on it, trying to stand up, but he couldn’t do it at once. Twice, three times he could not summon up the strength. At last he managed to get to his feet, and stood there, still swaying with the effort, a dark figure in the dim light, his pupils staring like black glass. Then he said in a new and shockingly indifferent tone of voice, as if his own human voice had failed him, “Then … then it’s all over.”

It was dreadful to hear that voice and the terrible note of
resignation
in it. Still staring straight ahead, not looking down, his hand groped its way over the tabletop to his glasses. However, he did not put them on over those stony eyes—why would he want to see now, why would he want to live now?—but stuffed them clumsily into his pocket. Once again those blue-tinged fingers (Condor had seen their colour as a sign of death) wandered around the table until they finally found his crumpled black hat as well. Only then did he turn to go, murmuring without looking at me, “Please forgive me for troubling you.”

He had jammed the hat on his head at a crooked angle; his feet would not obey him properly, and he was swaying and shuffling feebly. Like a sleepwalker, he staggered on towards the door. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he took off his hat, bowed, and repeated, “Please forgive me for troubling you.”

He actually bowed to me, poor defeated old man, and that gesture of courtesy in the midst of his distress was more than I could bear. Suddenly I could sense that warmth, the heat of the flowing current of sympathy rising in me and burning my eyes, and at the same time I felt myself weaken as I was overcome, yet again, by pity. I couldn’t let the old man go like this, when he had come to offer me his child, whom he loved more than
anything else on earth. I couldn’t let him go into despair, go to his death. I couldn’t tear the heart out of him. I must say something more, something comforting, reassuring, something to soften the blow. So I hurried after him.

“Herr von Kekesfalva, please don’t misunderstand me … you can’t go like this and then tell her … it would be terrible for her just now, and … and not entirely true.”

I was getting increasingly upset, because I could see that the old man wasn’t even listening to me. His despair made him into a pillar of salt as he stood rigid, a shadow in the shadows, the image of living death. My need to reassure him became more and more impassioned.

“It really wouldn’t be quite true, Herr von Kekesfalva, I swear … and nothing would be worse for me than to think I had offended your daughter, I’d hurt Edith’s feelings … or … or made her feel I didn’t really like her. No one has warmer feelings for her, I assure you, no one can like her better than I do … it’s really just her imagination that … that I’m indifferent to her … on the contrary, on the contrary … I only mean there’d be no sense if just now I were to … if I said anything today. What’s most important is for her to spare herself … so that she really will get better!”

“But then … once she’s cured? …”

He had suddenly turned to me. The pupils of his eyes, still dead and stony just now, seemed to flash in the darkness.

I took fright. I instinctively sensed the danger. If I promised anything now, then I was pledged to keep my promise. But at that moment it struck me that everything she hoped for was a delusion. She was not going to get better, or not at once, in any case. It could take years and years. We mustn’t think too far ahead, Condor had said, as I reminded myself, we must
comfort her and keep her calm now! So why not leave her a little hope, why not make her happy, at least for a short time?

And so I said, “Well, yes, when she is cured, then of course … then I would … then I would come to see you of my own accord.”

He stared at me. A tremor ran though him as if some power inside him were imperceptibly giving him new strength.

“May I … may I tell her that?”

I sensed danger again. But I could not withstand his pleading look any longer. I replied firmly, “Yes, tell her that,” and offered him my hand.

His eyes were sparkling as they filled with tears and brimmed over. Lazarus must have looked like that when he rose from the grave, bemused, to see the sky and the blessed light of day again. I felt his hand tremble more and more strongly in mine. Then he began lowering his head further and further. Just in time I remembered how he had bent before to kiss my hand, and this time I hastily snatched it back, repeating, “Yes, please do tell her. We don’t want her feeling anxious. The most important thing of all is for her to get better soon, for her own sake, for us all!”

“Oh yes,” he ecstatically repeated, “she must get better, get better soon. She’ll be happy to go away now, oh, I’m sure of that. She’ll be happy to go away at once and get better, because of you, for you … from the first I knew God had sent you to me … no, no, I can’t thank you enough, may God reward you! I’ll go now … no, stay where you are, don’t go to any trouble, I’m leaving.”

And with a very different bearing, with a light, springy step I had never seen in him before, he strode to the door, his black coat-tails flying. The door closed with a clear, almost cheerful click after him. I was left standing alone in the dark room, in
some dismay, which is only natural when you have come to a decision without thinking it out properly in advance.

But only an hour later I was to become fully aware of what I had really promised in my weak-minded mood of pity. I was to understand the responsibility I had taken on myself when my batman, knocking timidly at the door, brought me a letter on blue notepaper, in the now familiar format.

Forever—I felt a sudden shudder at the word that binds a man irrevocably, for all eternity. But there was no going back now. Once again my pity had got the better of my willpower. I had given myself away. I was not my own man any more.

Get a grip on yourself, I thought. That was the last thing they would extract from me, a half-promise that I would never have to keep. One more day, I told myself, two more days when you must put up with this senseless love of hers, and then they’ll be going away and you can be yourself again. But the closer the afternoon came the more uncomfortable I felt, and the more the idea of meeting her confidently loving eyes with a lie in my heart troubled me. It was no use making myself talk easily to
my comrades. I felt only too clearly the hammering in my skull. My nerves were on edge, my gums were suddenly dry as if a stifled fire were smoking and smouldering inside me. On pure impulse I ordered a cognac and tossed it back. It was no help; my throat was still tight and dry. So I ordered another, and only when I asked for the third did I realise what I was doing—this was Dutch courage to keep me from being cowardly or sentimental when I went out to Kekesfalva. There was something in me that I wanted to anaesthetise first, perhaps fear, perhaps shame, perhaps a very good feeling and perhaps a very bad one. Yes, that was it—that’s why soldiers get a double ration of brandy before they attack. I wanted to dull my wits and my understanding of the dubious, perhaps dangerous situation into which I was walking. However, the only effect of those three cognacs was to make my feet feel leaden and set off a buzzing sound inside my head, like the high-pitched noise of a dentist’s drill before it hits the truly painful spot. It was not a confident, not a clear-headed and least of all a cheerful man who went down the long avenue—or did it seem to me so endless only today?—and then, hesitantly, up to the house with his heart hammering.

But it all turned out to be easier than I expected. Another and better kind of bemusement awaited me, a finer and purer intoxication than I had sought in strong liquor. Vanity can be beguiling, gratitude can go to your head, affection can inspire delight. At the door good old Josef exclaimed happily, “Oh, Lieutenant Hofmiller, sir!” as he swallowed, stepped from foot to foot in his emotion, and now and then glanced surreptitiously at me as you might look up at the picture of a saint in church. “Please go straight into the salon! Fräulein Edith has been waiting for you, sir,” he whispered in the excited tones of a man ashamed of his enthusiasm.

I wondered, in astonishment, why does this stranger, this old manservant, look at me so ecstatically? Why does he seem so fond of me? Does it really make someone kind and happy to see kindness and sympathy in others? If so then Condor was right—if you help only one other human being you have made sense of your life, and it was truly rewarding to sacrifice yourself for others, to the full extent of your powers and even beyond. Then any sacrifice was worthwhile, even a lie if it made others happy was more important than the truth. Suddenly I felt my tread was sure and steady. A man who knows he brings joy with him walks in a new way.

But here was Ilona already coming to meet me, also radiant, her dark eyes embracing me as if with soft arms. She had never been so warm to me or pressed my hand so cordially before. “Thank you!” she said, with a note in her voice as if she were speaking through a warm, moist summer shower of rain. “I’m sure you have no idea yourself what you’ve done for the child. You have saved her, God knows you have saved her life. Come along, quick, I can’t tell you how anxiously she is waiting for you.”

Meanwhile the other door moved slightly. I had a feeling that someone had been standing on the other side of it, listening. The old man came in, his eyes no longer full of death and horror as they had been yesterday, but of a tender radiance. “How good of you to come. You’ll be amazed to see the change in her. In all these years since her accident I’ve never seen her so happy and cheerful. It’s a miracle, a genuine miracle! Oh, my God, to think what you’ve done for us, to think what you’ve done for us!”

He was overcome even as he spoke. He swallowed, and sobbed, and was ashamed of his emotion, which was gradually
infecting me. For who could be cold in the face of such gratitude? I hope I have never been a vain man, one of those who admire or overestimate themselves, and to this day I do not consider myself either good or strong. But a warm surge of confidence, created by the wildly enthusiastic gratitude of the others, was irresistibly streaming into me. All my fear was carried away as if on a golden wind. Why shouldn’t I let myself be loved with an easy mind, when it made others so happy? I was positively impatient to go into the room that I had left in such desperation the day before yesterday.

And there in her easy chair sat a girl whom I hardly recognised, she looked so bright and happy. She was wearing a pale-blue silk dress that made her seem even more girlish, more childlike, there were white flowers in her pale-red hair—were they myrtle?—and around her chair stood a colourful array of baskets of flowers (I wondered who had given them to her). She must have known for some time that I was in the house; no doubt, as she waited, she had heard the cheerful greetings and my approaching footsteps. But today there was none of that nervously probing, watchful expression in her eyes, the look that had recently been turned distrustfully on me from under her lowered lids when I came in. She was sitting relaxed and erect in her chair, and today I quite forgot that the rug on her lap concealed an infirmity, and the easy chair was really her dungeon, for I was so amazed by this new girlish creature. She seemed more childlike in her joy, but more womanly in her beauty. She noticed my surprise, and took it as a gift. The old tone of our carefree friendly conversations was struck as soon as she invited me in.