They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [125]
The birds now came to life, swarms of them, crested hoopoes on the tree-branches, blackbirds pecking on the floor of the meadow, and woodpeckers running up and down the tree-trunks. Below them a kingfisher darted from the depths of the valley and settled in a tree nearby. Somewhere a squirrel started its morning chatter.
For a long time they stood there, still motionless, alone as if they had been Adam and Eve, the first couple on earth, surrounded by the joyful chorus of the birds’ morning song.
Entranced they stood there, gazing into the radiance that surrounded them and engulfed their world with transcendental beauty, a beauty so strong and intoxicating that they felt that at any moment it would, like a magnet, draw them ever upwards, soaring into the infinite.
Adrienne took a step forwards and in ecstasy spread her arms out towards the rising sun …
PART FOUR
Chapter One
SHORTLY AFTERWARDS A MEETING WAS HELD at the local headquarters of the Denestornya branch of the National Agricultural Association. The association’s affairs were discussed first, and afterwards, as was the custom, the local officials of the Co-operative held their own meeting. They did so because both organizations’ committees were made up of much the same people – the Protestant pastor, the chemist and ten or more local farmers. The meetings were held every other Sunday, after church. Arpad Pelikan was there in his dual capacity as manager of the Agricultural Association’s storehouse and also as treasurer of the Co-operative. Two others were there, Abady’s secretary Miklos Ganyi, who always attended if he was not away on some business of his employer; and young Aron Kozma, who represented the head offices in Budapest of both organizations. It was his responsibility to oversee all business transactions.
Kozma had been Abady’s confidential adviser for some years and his right-hand man ever since Balint had started to interest himself in the formation of rural Co-operative societies in Transylvania. He was the perfect foil to Balint, for his practical knowledge and common sense complemented Abady’s enthusiasm, which was all too apt to lead him into impractical adventures. As a result Balint had learned to entrust complete control to him, and so, whenever he turned up at Denestornya, the Co-operative meeting was hastily convened so that Kozma could be present when important decisions had to be made. On such occasions it was better that Balint should be absent because his impetuosity had already led him into some unfortunate scrapes.
One of these had recently occurred at Denestornya itself. An eighty-acre farm had come up for sale in the district and Balint had insisted on being bought by the Co-operative to be split up and resold to the people of the village. There was nothing wrong with the idea and it would probably have worked well if the farmland had gone to those who could pay for it. This had been the intention of the local committee, but Balint, through the goodness of his own heart and blind trust in the goodness of everyone else’s, had supported the claims of the poorest of those offering to buy the land. The result had been that some of the poorest farmers, though getting their little parcels of land and at once occupying them, either did not repay the purchase price at all or did so only in part. Had Balint not offered to pay for them, the Co-operative’s committee would have been in trouble.
Similar things had happened elsewhere: there had been a foolhardy purchase of a harvesting machine at Haromszek and an ill-considered construction of a building for the Co-operative in a village in the district of Csik. These too had proved expensive adventures destructive