They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [48]
He took out the gun and put it together. It was so perfectly made, as neat as any chronometer, that it opened noiselessly and the stock and barrel fitted together with a barely perceptible click. Slight though this was the sound made Laszlo shudder, for it reminded him of the countless times he had heard the same sound, without then even noticing it, at the great annual shoots at the Szent-Gyorgyis’ or the Kollonichs’; and now it was like a great chime of bells from some infinite distance, from a past which was no more. Quickly Laszlo took the gun apart again and put it hurriedly back in its case. He knew he had to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
Grabbing his hat and jacket he ran out of the house like a man pursued.
For a little while Laszlo followed the road through the village, and then he turned off down a track that led to the old fuller’s mill on the banks of the Szamos where there lived a man called Fabian. He was known only by his first name for being of Czech or Moravian origin his family name was Szprnad and no one at Kozard could pronounce it properly. He was obviously rich and so had been known as ‘The Millionaire’ ever since he had arrived in the village a year before. As well as the mill he had bought up a wool-combing business and had also built himself an oil-press. He seemed to be half peasant and half townsman and had come from Borgo where, people said, his father had kept an inn. It was soon obvious that he was an astute businessman: he was also a great drinker and sometimes would carouse so long with his friends that the entire supply of beer in the village was consumed and more had to be sent for in a hurry.
Laszlo had first met him in Bischitz’s shop and the newcomer had at once bought him so many tots of brandy that Laszlo had passed out and had to be carried home. Fabian had knocked back just as much, but it had not seemed to have any effect on him and indeed he hardly blinked even after more than a dozen gills of the strongest brand. Since that day the two men had formed a sort of drinking friendship – it had no other basis – and from time to time Fabian would carry Laszlo off to Szamos-Ujvar for an orgy of drink and gypsy music and sex with the town whores which would last well into the next day. The local tarts were what one might expect in such a small provincial backwater and as for the gypsies they came mostly from the poorest of their kind whose families scratched a living digging clay. This is what Fabian enjoyed for he could only relax in the sort of company where the music was unbelievably noisy, where he could tear off all his clothes and where the women were fat.
Laszlo went down the little path that had been trodden in the snow until he could see a faint glimmer of light from the fuller’s window. The throb of the oil press was like a giant’s heartbeat, and Laszlo, knowing that Fabian was often away travelling, prayed that this time he would find him at home.
He was just in time, for round the corner came Fabian driving his sturdy little cart. The fuller was of medium height and broad of shoulder. A white sheepskin hat covered his shaven head and he wore a beard that was trimmed round the corners of his mouth as far back as the ears so as to show off his wide black moustaches of which he was very proud. His thick fleshy exceptionally red lips were full of life and vigour and all the hair on his face seemed to be brushed horizontally sideways. He stopped the cart and greeted Laszlo boisterously.
‘What’s this, Count? Coming to pay a visit? That’s wonderful!’ he shouted in a voice of thunder and, although he spoke Hungarian fluently, one could tell from the long-drawn-out vowels that it was not his mother tongue. ‘I’ll drive you home,’ he went on, ‘but I can’t stop as I’ve been asked to supper at Iklod.’ And he shoved out a giant fist and pulled Gyeroffy up beside him as if he had weighed no more than a feather. They drove on slowly for the road was all soft snow and mud.
Laszlo said he wanted to sell his gun, a valuable one, made in England.
‘How much?’
‘Whatever you say,