Journey by Moonlight

“In time we got back to the play-acting, but the plays were now much more crafted, enriched by János’s escapades and Ervin’s poetical fantasy. János naturally proved a great actor. His declamation and sobbing were always over the top (because what he really wanted to play was unrequited passion). We had to stop in mid-scene for him to calm down. Ervin’s favourite role was a wild animal. He did a wonderful bison, slain by Ursus (me), and an extremely accomplished unicorn. With his single mighty horn he shredded every obstacle — curtains, sheets, and the rest of us put together.

“During that period our horizons gradually opened out. We began to go for long walks among the Buda hills. We even went bathing. And then we took up drinking. The idea came from János. For years he’d told us stories about his exploits in bars. Apart from him, the best drinker among us was Éva — it was so hard to tell whether she was drunk or just her normal self. Ervin took to drinking with the same passion as with his smoking. I don’t like to confirm a prejudice, but you know how strange it is when a Jew hits the bottle. Ervin’s drinking was every bit as odd as his Catholicism. A sort of embittered plunging headlong into it, as if he wasn’t simply getting drunk on Hungarian wine but on some vicious substance like hashish or cocaine. And with it, it was always as if he was saying goodbye, as if he was about to drink for the very last time, and generally doing everything as if for the last time in this world. I soon got used to the wine. I came to depend on the feeling of dissolution and the shedding of inhibition it produced in me. But at home the next day I would feel horribly ashamed of my hangovers, and always swore I’d never drink again. And then when I did drink again, the knowledge of my own weakness grew, as did the sense of death, which was my overwhelming feeling during these years of the second phase at the Ulpius house. I felt I was ‘rushing headlong towards ruin’, especially at those times when I was drinking. I felt I was irretrievably falling outside the regular life of respectable people, and everything my father expected of me. This feeling, despite the horrible agonies of remorse, I really enjoyed. By this stage I was virtually in hiding from my father.

“Tamás drank very little, and grew steadily more taciturn.

“Then Ervin’s religiosity began to affect us. We had by now started to look at the world, at the reality we’d always shied away from, and it terrified us. We believed that man was degraded by his material needs, and we listened reverently to Ervin who told us we must never follow that path. We too began to pass judgement on the whole modern world with the same severity and dogmatism as Ervin himself, and for a while he became the dominant influence in the group. We deferred to him in everything. János and I strove to outdo each other in pious deeds. Every day we searched out new poor unfortunates in need of assistance, and even newer immortally great Catholic authors requiring to be rescued by us from undeserved obscurity. St Thomas and Jacques Maritain, Chesterton and St Anselm of Canterbury buzzed in our conversation like flies. We went to mass, and János of course had visions. Once St Dominic appeared at the window before dawn, with the gesture of the raised finger, and pronounced: ‘We watch over you individually and completely.’ I guess János and I in this pose must have been irresistibly comic. Tamás and Éva took little part in this Catholicism of ours.

“This period lasted for perhaps a year. Then things began to disintegrate. I couldn’t say exactly what began the process, but somehow common reality began to flow back. And with it, it brought decay. The Ulpius grandfather died. He suffered for weeks. He struggled for air, his throat rattled. Éva nursed him with surprising patience, staying up whole nights at his bedside. I remarked to her later how good it was of her. She smiled absent-mindedly and said how interesting it was to watch someone die.