They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [93]
So they started to discuss where Akos could go. First, as a matter of course, they spoke of America. Then it was the turn of Java and, following that, of South Africa. But at each suggestion the same problem arose: what would he do when he arrived? Work as a shoe-shine boy? Get a job hoeing the earth on some plantation? The trouble was that he had no qualifications for earning his own living. Of course he could become a soldier, and indeed had been quite good at it when doing his voluntary service in the army; but where would he be needed?
It was this last suggestion that led to the decision that he should join the French Foreign Legion.
Akos agreed at once, and almost seemed pleased at the idea; but though at last everyone was of one opinion, no one knew how one went about it. What did one do? How did one get there?
Then someone thought of Tamas Laczok, he who had taken their father home after his attack at the ball. They had had a long talk with him after the old man had been found dead, and he had been the last of his acquaintance to see him alive. He had seemed full of good will and the Legion had been mentioned more than once when he had been telling them about his time in North Africa and how he had had to nurse sick soldiers in the desert. He would know what should be done, but who could find out for them without explaining why they wanted to know? The Alvinczy brothers refused at once. They would have nothing to do with making such embarrassing enquiries, not them! Neither would they lift a finger in such a matter; it would have to be someone else. Stanislo Gyeroffy also demurred, murmuring contemptuously, though in an elegant drawl: ‘I really hardly know the man.’
The plan was on the point of being abandoned when Margit spoke up.
‘I’ll find out!’ she said. By what means she did not reveal and the others did not ask. It was unlikely that she would have told them if they had. At most she might just have answered ‘Somehow!’, for she was a person of few words who did not take kindly to being cross-questioned about anything.
Margit had immediately thought of Balint Abady who was clever and discreet and who was on good terms with Tamas Laczok.
That very afternoon Balint took a horse-cab and was driven out to Bretfu. The coachman, who knew the area well, drove him to the foot of the hill that led to the village and stopped there because the horse would not have been able to manage the steep road that was now covered with melting snow.
‘It’s the little house you can see up there, your Lordship, the one below the vineyard,’ said the coachman, pointing the way with his whip.
It was hard work trudging up the hill through mud and slush, and it was nearly a quarter of an hour later before Balint found himself in front of the house. It was a modest little building which must have been either a small summerhouse or else a room for pressing the grapes, before being converted into a one-room dwelling with a kitchen. Lamplight glowed through the window. Balint knocked and from inside a voice cried, ‘Entrez!’
Tamas Laczok was sitting on an upturned packing-case. He was in his shirtsleeves doing calculations beside a drawing board that was supported on two trestles. He welcomed Balint with a smile of pleasure saying, ‘Quelle charmante visite, cher ami – how kind of you to come to see me!’ and he got up, cleared the only chair of his jacket, necktie and collar, threw them on the floor, gestured to Abady to sit down and, having guessed that the visit must have some purpose, at once asked, ‘How can I be of service to you, my dear friend?’
Balint saw no reason to beat about the bush.
‘How does one enlist in the Foreign Legion?’ he asked.
His eyebrows slanting up even more dramatically than usual, Tamas winked at his visitor. Though he said nothing to show that he