They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [175]
Early the next morning Balint left by car for Kozard. Before leaving he remembered that La Pantera should have been in Budapest since the previous Saturday and so Julie Ladossa would be there too. So he sent a telegram to her at the Hotel Hungaria.
He reached Kozard just before eight o’clock.
Old Marton Balogh was sitting on the doorstep. He looked old and worn and he just sat there looking glumly ahead of him. He did not get up when Balint came up, nor did he touch his cap; and when Abady questioned him, he merely pointed with his thumb to the room behind him and muttered, ‘There, in the back-room. The young Jewess is with him,’ and then went on staring into space.
Regina sat by the window at a table she had pushed there so as to make more space in the room for the moment when they would bring in the coffin. She had been alone with Laszlo when he died. She had shut his eyes, tied up his chin, washed the body and shaved his previous day’s stubble. Now Laszlo was lying there covered with a sheet. His two pillows had been placed on the chest of drawers.
In front of the girl was some bedding – three towels and two blankets, some shirts, too, and handkerchiefs and socks. She was making a list so that everything could be accounted for, though to whom and why she had not thought. The important thing was that everything should be in order; and so there she was, stub of pencil in hand, making a list of the clothes in the pile in front of her.
Her red hair flamed in the light from the window.
She replied to all Balint’s questions calmly and intelligently. Her large doe-like eyes seemed even larger as a result of her long vigil, but despite all her hard work she did not seem tired. Calmly she told what had happened.
Laszlo, she said, had just wasted away. Sometimes he had taken just half a glass of milk, but latterly not even that. He had not been in pain and recently had hardly even coughed. He had slept more and more, and in the last few days had only been awake for a few minutes at a time. He had slept quietly until the moment when he had turned to the wall and died.
‘Why didn’t you let me know earlier, as you promised?’ asked Balint crossly.
Regina did not answer, but just looked at him with pouting lips. Then she said, ‘Would you like to see him?’
They stepped over to the bed and she folded back the sheet.
It looked as if Laszlo were asleep; even though it was the sleep of death. To Balint, looking at his fine aquiline nose and long moustaches, it was strange to see him so calm, which he never had been in life. His waxen face was barely more than skin and bone but about his mouth there still seemed to linger a faint mocking smile, while those eyebrows which met in the middle were raised at the edges as if in contempt.
Abady somehow resented his unexpectedly strange expression and was relieved when Regina covered his face again.
‘In this cupboard there is a lovely suit. He told me to put it on him when he was dead.’
Balint was startled.
‘Did he know he was dying then?’
‘No, not now, anyhow. He said it a long time ago.’ She opened the cupboard and hanging there was an iron-grey morning-coat, a double-breasted cream-coloured waistcoat and a pair of striped trousers. Under the suit was a pair of black and beige buttoned boots. ‘He once said that though he’d sold everything else he ever possessed he would never sell this suit no matter how much he needed the money!’
Regina then took the suit out of the cupboard and laid it out neatly on the chair.
‘They said yesterday evening, the men from Szamos-Ujvar, that they’d bring in the coffin at midday. He ought to be ready by then.’
Balint offered to help her.
They slit each piece of clothing down the back so that it would be easier to put on. As Regina was cutting the waistcoat a small blue card fell from the pocket. It was