They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [88]
Could he have caught the one-thirty express to Budapest? He hadn’t said anything about it; and anyhow if that had been his plan he would probably have ridden over himself instead of asking Balint to come to him. Perhaps he had had some mishap on the road and gone straight to the station.
None of this seemed likely. Gazsi would never have written like that if he were just setting off on some everyday little trip. It had to be something else, something infinitely more serious. Balint thought back to their last conversation at the banquet and it occurred to him now that Gazsi had seemed unusually disillusioned and depressed, that most of his talk about his future plans could have been interpreted in more than one sense, and that everything he had said might perhaps have referred to his imminent death rather than to some imaginary voyage. After all, Balint reflected, had it not been he himself, rather than Gazsi, who had talked about going on his travels and who had even proposed it? Brushing away such morbid thoughts Balint once more convinced himself that obviously Gazsi had wanted to consult him further about possible travel plans. And yet this did not seem like his friend. No! It was far more likely that before going away he wanted to entrust something to Balint, to make some arrangement about the management of his horses or the administration of his property … that would be it! That was why he had asked for him; and Balint believed in this happy solution because he was so happy himself that this was what he wanted to believe. All the same a little pin-prick of anxiety remained.
Whatever the reason it was obvious that he must answer the summons at once, and ten minutes later his car was speeding along the highway that led up the valley of the Felek.
It was a day of radiant sunshine even though Spring had not yet come. The snows had recently melted on the hillsides and now all the south-facing meadows and slopes looked as if they had just been washed. There was not a speck of dust anywhere and it was too early for the weeds to have started springing up. Everything had been sluiced clean by the melting snow, as if the countryside had just been prepared for some joyous feast. On the north-facing slopes the snow still lay, gleaming white in the sun and, as it too was now slowly melting away, everything that might have soiled its surfaces had sunk to the earth and from its edges tiny rivulets of water were now beginning the seasonal change that the sun had already achieved on the other side of the valley.
Balint fancied that he could already smell the first scents of Spring.
The car purred effortlessly up the last incline in the road. Balint knew he would be at St Marton in another fifteen minutes and that very shortly afterwards he would be at Gazsi’s place.
Once again he wondered what on earth it was that Gazsi could have wanted so urgently as to send for him like that. As he drew nearer and nearer to his destination all Balint’s suppressed anxieties rose up and assailed him once more; and no matter how much he tried to reassure himself that he was being stupid and unreasonable he was unable to banish them entirely. Again and again he found himself thinking of those words in the letter ‘I do not expect to be back for a long time … Sorry to inconvenience you. It will be the last time, I promise!’ Had he not also written: ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be back.’ What strange words they were! In themselves they may have seemed banal and without great significance, but knowing Kadacsay’s bitter indictment of himself, Balint felt they must have some other meaning, ominous even if not obvious. He remembered too that Gazsi had once said to him that in the life of a man troubles and joys are usually equally balanced, but when something occurred to so upset the balance that nothing was left but trouble and misery then the only answer was to kill oneself. Of course when