On Saturday a letter came from Baroness Geramb. There would be no more
dancing classes.
All the light seemed to go from Christopher’s eyes.
“But why?” said he, and hung his head sadly.
“Dancing is unbecoming when there is a war on.”
“So it is true? The war has come,” thought Anne, but still it seemed to
her unreal, distant. Just as if one had read about it in a book. A book
whose one-page chapters were stuck up every morning on the walls of the
houses.
It was after Christmas. The Danube was invisible. A dense, sticky fog
moved on the window panes. Christopher ran out shivering into the dark
morning. As usual, he was late; he had to leave his breakfast and eat
his bread and butter in the street. He had no idea of his lesson.
Behind him Florian carried a lantern. On winter mornings he always lit
the boy’s way till he reached the paved streets.
On the pavement of the inner town a bandy-legged old man got in front
of Christopher. On one arm he had a large bundle of grimy papers while
a pot of glue dangled from the other. People in silent crowds waited
at the corners of the streets for him; when they had read the fresh
posters they walked away silent, dejected.
“What is happening? What do they want with us?” they asked.
People began to understand the grim realities of war; what was
happening now roused their understanding. They thronged in front of
the money-changers’ shops. Soldiers’ swords rattled on the pavement.
Everybody hurried as if he had some urgent business to settle before
nightfall.
Anne was at her music lesson when a huge black and yellow flag was
hoisted on a flagstaff on the bastions of Buda. In those times, flags
changed frequently.
“Freedom is dead,” said Sztaviarsky and cursed in Polish.
“Freedom!” Anne thought of the two feverish eyes. So it was for
freedom’s sake that there was a war? She now looked angrily on the
Croatian soldiers whom the Imperial officers had quartered on them.
The red-faced sergeant was eating a raw onion in the middle of the
courtyard. The soldiers, like clumsy big children, were throwing
snowballs. They trod on the shrubs, made havoc of everything. They
made a snow-man in front of the pump and covered the head with a red
cap like the one worn by Hungarian soldiers; then they riddled it with
bullets....
The snow-man had melted away. Slowly the lilac bushes in the garden
began to sprout. The Croatians were washing their dirty linen near the
pump. They stood half-naked near the troughs. The wind blew soapsuds
against their hairy chests.
All of a sudden an unusual bugle call was heard; it sounded like a cry
of distress. Anne ran to the window. Soldiers were running in front of
the house. In the courtyard the Croatians were snatching their shirts
from the trough and putting them on, all soaking. They rode off after
the rest and did not come back again.
A few days later, Anne dreamed at night that there was a thunderstorm.
Towards morning there was a sound in the room as if peas by the handful
were being thrown against the window panes--many, many peas. Later,
as if some invisible bodies were precipitated through the air, every
window of the house was set a-rattling.
“Put up the wooden shutters!” shouted the builder from the porch.
Christopher came breathlessly up the stairs. “School is closed!” His
pocket bulged with barley sugar and he was stuffing it into his mouth,
two pieces at a time.
John Hubert, who had run to school for Christopher, arrived behind
him. His lovely, well-groomed hair was hanging over his forehead and
the correct necktie had slipped to one side of his collar. Gasping he
called Florian and had the big gate locked behind him.
A candle was burning in the master builder’s room, deprived of daylight
by the shutters. Contrary to his habit, John Hubert, without waiting
this time to have a seat offered to him, sank limply into an armchair.
“Thank goodness you are all here,” he said, making a caressing movement
with his hand in the air. “I came along the shores of the Danube,” he
continued hoarsely. “There were crowds of people and they said that
the shells could not reach across the river. People from the shore sat
about on stones. One was eating bacon. He ate quite calmly and suddenly
he was without a head. For a time the corpse remained seated, and
everything was covered with blood....” Horrified, he covered his eyes
with his hand.
“So it was a shell that fell into the confectioner’s shop in Little
Bridge Street?” said Christopher, stuffing barley sugar into his mouth.
“The pavement was all covered with sweets as if the shop had been
turned inside out. The whole school filled its pockets for nothing.”
The builder smiled. Behind the barred gates life continued. John Hubert
put his necktie straight and sometimes in the course of the day forgot
completely what he had seen. When he sat down to meals, however, he
became pale. He pushed his plate aside.
From time to time, the window panes rattled. Woeful distant shrieks
flew over the roofs. They were followed by the anguish of numb
expectancy. People counted. The silence became crystalline and quivered
in the air.
“The shell has not burst!” They counted again, in helpless animal fear.
Whose turn would it be next? On the banks of the Danube a stricken
house howled out. Clouds of dust burst high up into the air. The sky
became red, the colour of bleeding flesh.
The wind blew a wave of hot air, heralding disaster, into the courtyard
of Ulwing the builder. Behind the locked gate nobody knew which
neighbouring house was expiring in a last hot breath.
The Fügers hid in the cellar. John Hubert and the children had moved
into the office, situated in the inner courtyard. The first floor
became empty, except for Christopher Ulwing who remained in his
bedroom, the single window of which opened into the deserted timber
yard.
“The house is strong,” said the builder to Mrs. Füger through the
cellar window. “I built the walls well.”
A furious crack came from the gate as if it had been flicked by a wet
towel of gigantic dimensions. The windows broke in a clatter. The house
shook to its foundations.
With frightened lamentations, people rushed out of the cellar. Little
Christopher’s snow-white lips became distorted. The builder frowned as
he used to do when contradicted by some fool. He went with long steps
to the gate.
“No, no,” shrieked Christopher, and began to sob spasmodically. But
old Ulwing listened to no one. He kicked the side door open. One of
the caryatids was without an arm. Under him lay a heap of débris of
crumbled whitewash and a huge hole gaped from the wall. The shell had
not exploded; it had stuck in the brickwork. The builder buttoned his
coat up so as to be less of a target and went to the front of the
house. He cast his eyes upwards. He contemplated the wrecked windows.
Foreign enemies had hurt his house in the name of their Emperor. He
turned quickly towards the Danube. The bridge of boats was aflame.
His bridge! He glanced at poor little Buda, from the heart of which
the sister town, defenceless Pest, was shot to death. The town and
Christopher Ulwing had been small and poor together; they had risen
together, they had become rich, and now they were wounded together.
He began to curse as he used to do when he was a journeyman carpenter.
Around him, there was no sign of life. Nothing moved in the streets.
Closed shops. Bolted doors. The town was a great execution ground. Like
men under sentence of death, the houses held their breath and were as
much abandoned in their misfortunes as human destinies. Now every
house lived only for itself, died only for itself. The glare of the
burning roofs was reflected in different windows. Sticky smoke crawled
along the walls. The bells of a church near the river tolled.
Rage and pain brought tears to Christopher Ulwing’s eyes while he
glanced over the grimy, falling houses. How many were his work! He
loved them all. He pitied them, pitied himself....
But this lasted only for a second. He clenched his fist as if to
restrain his over-flowing energy. He would be in need of it! The
muscles of his arm became convulsed and he felt these convulsions
reflected in his brain. If necessary, he would start afresh from the
very beginning. There was still time. There was still a long life
before him.