Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi [66]
“It'll turn up,” the workman replied. “Give it time.”
“There hasn't been an accident, has there?'
“That I can't say.”
Ákos stared at the decrepit workman, thinking of the heartless agitators he had read about in the paper.
“Go down to the end and turn right,” the man suggested.
Ákos went down to the end and turned right. Then he turned left. Then right again. But still he found no one. Even Géza Cifra had disappeared somewhere inside.
It was the first day of autumn. Everyone had stayed at home.
Only Mrs Vajkay waited on the platform.
Ákos returned to her, soaked to the skin.
“Did you find out anything?'
“Nothing.”
He sat back down at the table. Nausea climbed his throat, all the way up to his mouth. He swallowed repeatedly, his head thumping. He thought he was going to faint, fall reeling from his seat and die, then and there, on the spot. He was overcome by a hideous sense of disgust. He felt like collapsing against the iron pillars which supported the portico, then throwing himself to the ground. But he held back. He had to wait until she arrived.
“Are you unwell?'
“A little.”
“Perhaps you should order something.”
They rang for the waiter.
The waiter replied effusively to their questions, entertaining them with a most detailed account of a railway accident that had occurred some years before. He prattled on relentlessly like the rain.
They ordered cold milk.
Ákos removed his hat to clear his head in the cool air. The tight leather gusset had left a narrow streak of violet on his forehead. Only now could one see what had become of him. His skin had crumpled like paper, and his face was as white as chalk. The extra weight he had put on at the King of Hungary over the last few days had vanished, together with the genial, ruddy glow on his face. Once again he was gaunt, sickly and pale, just as he had been when his daughter had departed.
“Take a sip. It's nice and cool.”
As Ákos drank he thought:
“Railway accident.”
The woman, for her part, thought:
“The train isn't late. Something else has happened.”
The old man imagined–and a number of suspicious signs confirmed his presentiment–that the train had crashed somewhere, only they didn't dare say so and were keeping it quiet. He could see the heap of carriages before him, and the bleeding, choking bodies beneath the ruins. Later he became more inclined to believe that the train had merely been derailed and stood stranded in some open field, where, in the dark and rainy night, it was raided by all kinds of wicked highwaymen. He vacillated between these speculations, giving credence first to one, then to the other. His wife, on the other hand, stuck to her initial conviction: the train had already arrived, hours ago, perhaps before they had reached the station, or later, and they simply hadn't noticed it. Their daughter had looked for them and then gone on without them. Perhaps she had gone straight home, or perhaps she had travelled on somewhere, to some entirely unknown place where they'd never find her again.
She could not explain these thoughts, nor understand how she could possibly have missed her daughter. But her doubts, though less horrific than her husband's, tormented her all the more, precisely because they were so mysterious and obscure.
In the meantime, however, they went on talking.
“Feeling better?'
“A little.”
“What's the time?'
“Past ten.”
By now the station had at last begun to come to life. The rain subsided, and by a quarter past ten quite a crowd had gathered to meet the Budapest express.
Meeting this train was a favourite pastime of the Sárszeg intelligentsia, whether they were expecting anyone or not. They simply came to observe the passengers and, for a few short moments, to immerse themselves in the alluring glamour of metropolitan life.
The Budapest express rolled in on time, and, to the delight of its devoted Sárszeg audience, the enormous engine let out a shriek and a whistle, accompanied by a fountain of sparks, as if extemporising a festive