Journey by Moonlight

“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.”

“Do you really think so?”

Erzsi lowered her head.

“You’re right. I don’t really think so.”

“Why was I so frank?” The question gnawed at her. “Why did I give myself away, as I have to no-one else? It seems there’s still something between me and Zoltán. Some sort of intimacy, that can’t be wished away. You can’t undo four years of marriage. There’s no other person in the world I would have discussed Mihály with.”

“My time hasn’t yet come,” thought Zoltán. “She’s still in love with that oaf. With a bit of luck Mihály will mess it up in the fullness of time.”

“What news have you had of him?” he asked.

“Nothing. I only guess he’s in Italy. One of his friends is here, someone I also know, by the name of János Szepetneki. He tells me he’s tracking him closely and will soon know where he is, and what he’s doing.”

“How will he find out?”

“I don’t know. Szepetneki is a very unusual man.”

“Truly?” Zoltán raised his head and gazed at her steadily. Erzsi withstood the gaze defiantly.

“Truly. A very unusual man. The most unusual man I ever met. And then there’s a Persian here too … ”

Pataki dropped his head, and took a large mouthful of tea. “Which of the two was it? Or was it both? My God, my God, better to be dead … ”

The tête-à-tête did not last very much longer. Erzsi had some business, she didn’t say what.

“Where are you staying?” she asked absent-mindedly.

“At the Edward VII.”

“Well, goodbye, Zoltán. Really, it was very nice seeing you again. And … don’t worry, and don’t think about me,” she said quietly, with a sad smile.

That night Pataki took a little Parisienne back to the hotel. “After all, when you’re in Paris,” he thought, and was filled with unspeakable revulsion against the smelly little stranger snoring in the bed beside him.

In the morning, after she had gone and Pataki was up and beginning to shave, there was a knock at the door.

“Entrez!”

A tall, too-elegantly dressed, sharp-featured man made his entrance.

“I’m looking for Mr Pataki, the Director. It’s important. A matter of great importance to him.”

“That’s me. With whom do I have the pleasure?”

“My name is János Szepetneki.”

PART FOUR AT HELL’S GATE

V A porta inferi R erue, Domine,

animam eius.

OFFICIUM DEFUNCTORUM

XVIII

NIGHT WAS FALLING. Slowly, with a slight dragging of the feet, Mihály trudged over the Tiber.

For some time now he had been living on the Gianicolo Hill, in a shabby little room Waldheim had discovered, where a scruffy crone cooked most of his meals, simple pasta asciutta, which Mihály supplemented with a bit of cheese and sometimes an orange. Despite its creaking antiquity it was much more the real thing than any hotel room. The furniture was ancient — real furniture, large and nobly proportioned, not the pseudo-furniture one finds in large hotels. Mihály would have been very fond of his room had its state of cleanliness and hygiene not constantly provoked the painful sense of having come down in the world. He even complained to Waldheim, who simply laughed and delivered lengthy and not very appetising lectures on his experiences in Greece and Albania.

Thus he came face to face with poverty. Now he really did have to ponder every centesimo before parting with it. He gave up drinking black coffee, and smoked cigarettes so foul he could take only a few at a time. His throat was permanently inflamed. And the thought was seldom from his mind that what money he had would soon run out. Waldheim was always assuring him that he would find a job. There were so many stupid old American women running about in Rome that one of them was sure to hire him as a secretary or tutor for her grand-children, or perhaps as a caretaker, a really cosy position that. But at present these American women existed entirely in Waldheim’s imagination, and besides, Mihály had a dread of any occupation he might equally find in Budapest.