Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [29]
“The Geisha,” said Szolyvay, who played the part of Wun-Hi to rapturous applause.
“A splendid piece,” Kornyey roared. “Superb music. Haven't you seen it?'
“No.”
“Much better than The Blue Lady or that fashionable new operetta, Shulamit.”
“The Jewish operetta?” asked Feri Füzes with a sneer.
“That's the one,” said Környey with a nod of the head. “I'll be there myself.”
“Surely you won't turn me down?” said the director, blinking affectedly at the woman and turning out his palms in ham despair.
“Let's go, Father.”
“I'm yours to command,” Ákos said with a jocularity that did not suit him and was thoroughly alien to his nature. The others were amused. With a theatrical sweep of the hand he snatched up the ticket and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Devil take it, we'll go. Thank you kindly.”
In the street, they did not discuss the day's events. Not the lunch, nor the beer, nor the cigar. Their thoughts were preoccupied with the theatrical performance they were to witness the following evening.
At one corner they came across a playbill in a wooden frame, hanging from the wall on a length of rusty wire. Here they came to a halt.
They studied the playbill carefully:
THE GEISHA
or the tale of a Japanese tearoom
Musical Comedy in Three Acts
Libretto: Owen Hall. Music: Sidney Jones
Translated by Béla Fáy and Emil Makkai
Commences: 7.30 p.m. Ends: after 10.
Zányi wasn't among the cast, which disappointed them. Only Szolyvay. The other actors they did not know.
VI
in which the Vajkays attend the Sárszeg performance of The Geisha
ON MONDAY afternoon they were talking.
“But you really must have a haircut, Father.”
“Why?'
“You can't go to the theatre like that. Look how matted it is–at the back and at the sides.”
Ákos's hair was thinning only on top. At the sides his hoary curls sprang thick and wild. He had last visited the barber in the spring. Since then his hair had grown tousled and unkempt. Dandruff dusted the lapels of his jacket.
“Come into town with me,” said the woman. “I have to call on Weisz and Partner anyway. I want to buy a handbag. I've nowhere to put my opera glasses.”
Ákos accompanied his wife to the leather-goods store. Mr Weisz served them in person.
Before them on the counter he lined up his splendid wares, recently arrived from England. They inspected the brand-new suitcases, marvelling at how easily they opened and closed. They could certainly do with new suitcases themselves, but for now they had only come about the crocodile handbag in the window.
Mr Weisz gestured to a sickly, sorry figure who sat buried among trade catalogues in a glass cage lit by butterfly lamps. He emerged, scurried over to the window display, fetched the handbag, and then, after climbing a ladder to lift down more new bags, made some inaudible comment in his plaintive, nasal voice. He was the Partner, the unsung, neglected talent whose name nobody knew. The signs of some incurable gastric disorder were written all over his sour face. Clearly he didn't eat the same goulash as Mr Weisz.
They spent a long time haggling over the leather handbag. It was expensive, nine forints, and they only managed to reduce it to 8.50. But it was worth the money. The woman hurried it home at once.
Ákos turned into Gombkötő Street, to the barber's.
The barber gave Ákos the full treatment. He wrapped him in a towel and lathered his face with tepid foam. With the bib around his chest, Ákos looked like a little boy treated to cakes at a patisserie, his face smeared thick with whipped cream.
When his assistant had finished the shaving, the barber set about the old man's hair, shaping it on top with electric clippers, scraping away any leftover stubble behind the ears with an open blade, then trimming, raking, combing and smoothing the sides. He carefully snipped the grey tufts of hair from Ákos's ears and spread his moustache with fine twirling wax. This had just arrived from Tiszaújlak and, at seven kreuzers a tub, possessed the singular property of bonding even the most stubborn of Magyar moustaches. Finally, when he had