Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [53]
And he was lucky at pontoon, too.
“Nine,” he kept calling.
The crumpled banknotes lay in heaps before him, beside great piles of coppers and columns of nickel and silver coins. Soon the steel-blue one-thousand notes began appearing from leather wallets. Ákos simply couldn't get rid of his money.
“Eight,” his partners called.
“Nine,” Ákos replied.
Ákos both fretted and laughed at the same time. Out of superstition he even had the whole deck changed. But his luck refused to part with him. He ordered champagne all round. They drank and dashed their glasses at the wall.
At a quarter to three the battle finally came to an end. The players rose to their feet.
Környey cried out:
“The benediction of St John!'
They filled their glasses with whatever remained–wine, schnapps, champagne. Ákos was busy cramming his winnings into his trouser pockets, jacket pockets, upper and lower waistcoat pockets, when he suddenly felt a stubbly chin on his cheek and a mouth pressing his lips with a long, slobbering kiss.
“My dear, dear old fellow!'
It was Ladányi, Sárszeg's 1848 delegate, who was now sobbing on Ákos's chest.
Ákos embraced him.
“You're a grand old forty-eighter, Laci, I know.”
“So are you, my dear old man,” said Ladányi, “a good old Hungarian.”
And they wept.
Ákos suddenly picked up the tumbler full of schnapps they had set before him and downed it in one. The alcohol warmed its way through his body and lifted him to his feet. There was an enormous knocking in his old brain and he felt such delight that he really wouldn't have minded in the least if there and then, in this moment of giddy ecstasy, when he felt his whole being, his whole life, was in his grasp, he were to fall down and die on the spot.
His face was pale. He was a touch cross-eyed.
Noticing this, Környey turned to him and inquired:
“What is it, my dear Ákos?'
Ákos made no reply.
The schnapps he had just poured into himself gave him tremendous strength. He knew that he must leave at once, or he was done for. When he got out into the street outside the clubhouse, he felt all the independence of his youth returning to him. He swung left into Széchenyi Street and slipped away among the shadows of the walls.
He could hear them calling after him:
“Ákos!'
Then again, peremptorily, entirely without affection:
“Ákos!'
With ceremonious reproachfulness, they demanded his immediate return. The Panthers roared into the night.
What he had done was no joking matter. To sneak away without farewell was no less serious a crime than deserting one's post, leaving the flag in the mud. It was an act of betrayal, of insubordination, which the Panthers could not in any circumstances forgive, not even in the name of friendship.
Ignoring their cries, Ákos lengthened his stride and hurried resolutely homewards.
Suddenly he heard an explosion behind him. First one, then two, then three. They were firing their revolvers.
Then came another three shots, this time in quicker succession.
Ákos did not take fright. He knew this too belonged to the fun and games of a Thursday night, and that, in high spirits, Környey would always fire his revolver into the air. On one occasion he had shot the ceiling and mirrors of the Széchenyi to pieces. Completely without malice. Out of sheer abandon.
The citizens of Sárszeg knew this too. Whenever they awoke to such commotion on a Thursday night, they'd calmly roll over on their sides and murmur in their sleep:
“The Panthers are at it again.”
The Panthers gave Ákos a few minutes to respond to their alarm signals. Then, grumbling and cursing, they split into two groups. The first climbed back knock-kneed into the Széchenyi, while the second scurried off to seek out old Aunt Panna, whose little inn stayed open until dawn, serving wines that were celebrated throughout the county.
Ákos finally managed to disappear beneath the dark arches of the Town Hall. From here the cries of the Panthers sounded distant and muted. Only the odd loiterer staggered by, heavy with drink. Everyone drank in Sárszeg.