‘What’s the fellow’s name, Kurt?’
‘Valentine.’
‘Ah, yes. An auspicious name. Like the hero of a Stendhal novel.’
‘And the other one?’ asked Laurence. ‘The one on the boat?’
‘No one knows,’ said Kurt. ‘Disappeared into thin air.’
‘Poor man,’ said Laurence.
‘Isn’t it time, László,’ asked Karol playfully, ‘you wrote something with a happy ending?’
‘I would like to,’ answered László, ‘but it would have to be a fairytale. Something for children.’
‘László lacks the balls for a happy ending,’ said Franklin, helping himself to more Calvados. ‘It’s so much safer to have everyone end in the shit.’
Laurence began to scold her husband; László held up his hand. ‘No, my dear. He may be right. But at my age it’s difficult to change the way you see the world. We take on a certain view when we are young then spend the rest of our lives collecting the evidence.’
‘Telephone,’ said Kurt.
‘Let it ring,’ said László.
‘Tell me,’ asked Karol, resting his large hand on László’s bony shoulder, ‘your happiest memory.’
‘So you can steal it and use it in your next book?’
‘Well, I’ll tell you mine,’ drawled Franklin, leaning heavily on the table. ‘Korea, 24 December 1950. A bunch of us dogfaces sitting around a campfire on the beach at Hungnam waiting for the LCVP to take us off. The navy had loudspeakers up playing “White Christmas” and we were heating up cans of tomato soup. A week since any of us had bathed or shaved or changed our clothes. Ollie Warand from Mission Viejo. Dutch Biebal from Baltimore. Sergeant Stauffer, Walt Bateman. Three or four others from Third Infantry. We’d lost a lot of our friends in that shithole country, but we had plenty of smokes and we were going home. I remember just staring into the fire and smelling the soup – the greatest damn smell in the world when you’re hungry. And hearing Crosby crooning down the beach, and all the guys talking in slow voices about what they were going to do when they were back Stateside. The girls and the hooch and the ball games. It was such a cold, still day. Christmas Eve a thousand years ago. I was nineteen. Nineteen years old, for Chrissakes. It wasn’t until I was back in Sioux City and out of uniform, trying to make some kind of life for myself, that it hit me just how happy I’d been sitting there on the beach. So happy that for years afterwards I could open a can of Campbell’s and get a rush. I swear I used to go out and buy the stuff whenever I had the black dog. I guess I was a soup fiend.’
‘And did you ever paint it?’ asked Kurt. ‘The men on the beach?’
‘If I’d painted it I would have changed it, so I left it alone. Anyway,’ he said, grinning, ‘Warhol painted it.’
‘Who’s next?’ asked Laurence.
Karol span a knife on the table. It pointed to Kurt.
‘I like to think,’ said Kurt, his expression composed and serious, an expression László adored, ‘that I have not had my happiest memory. I mean, that my happiest moment is still ahead of me…’
‘The perfect definition of an optimist,’ said Karol.
‘But I do remember one particular day with my father on the Alte Donau outside Vienna. Papa used to work at the Semperit tyre factory. He wasn’t an educated man. He worked with his hands, his back. And he worked hard. But on Sunday mornings in summer he would wake me before sunrise, and we would drive out to the river with our rods and nets. I was not a good fisherman. Not gifted. But this particular day I cast my line and caught the most beautiful trout in all of Austria. I swear to you, it was almost the length of my arm, and when I reeled it in the water of the river was the colour of the sunrise, so that it appeared I was pulling the fish from a lake of molten fire! When we went home I presented it to my mother. You know how boys are. I gave it to her as though it was the head of a dragon I had slain in single combat. She kissed me, and for reasons I did not understand at all, she was crying. Crying and smiling. I suppose she was proud of me.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know why that day has stayed with me when I must have forgotten other, equally good days. Maybe it was the last completely innocent day of my life…’
‘No!’ protested Laurence, who hated the idea of any irreversible loss. ‘You’re still the same boy. Isn’t that so, László?’
‘Compared to dangerous old people like us,’ said László, ‘he’s as innocent as a choirboy. A Viennese choirboy!’
‘You’re next, Laurence,’ said Karol.
She smiled, wearily, and slowly twisted one of her rings. Three small sapphires.
‘I’m afraid my happiest day was my first date with Franklin.’
‘Oh, Lordy!’ said Franklin.
‘I was twenty-two and wore a cream satin dress with a pattern of roses on it. Franklin wore a suit he’d borrowed from…’
‘Ed Sullivan, who’s dead now.’
‘Let her tell the story,’ said László.
‘We went to La Coupole. Franklin was sure it would be full of famous writers and artists, but even then it was mostly just American tourists. We drank martinis with olives on cocktail sticks, just like in the movies. I was thinking how angry my father would be if he knew. He didn’t think women should drink anything stronger than wine. And then, my God, Franklin tells me he doesn’t have any money, not a sou, and that we have to run away when the waiter isn’t looking. That was why we had a table by the door! I didn’t know what to think. Was it American humour? Was I supposed to laugh? After all, I still went to mass at St Antoine’s every Sunday. But then he took hold of my hand and we ran like Bonnie and Clyde the whole way down the boulevard Montparnasse. I was so frightened I could hardly breathe. I was sure the waiters would chase us – you know how fierce they are at La Coupole – but by the time we reached Port Royal…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘I was already a little in love.’
‘How romantic,’ sighed Kurt.
‘I remember she was wearing red knickers,’ said Franklin. ‘Somewhere between carmine and maroon, to be exact. It was hard to tell with the light.’
‘Franklin!’ exclaimed Laurence. ‘You could only have seen them because you made me climb into the Luxembourg with you.’
‘She was very beautiful then,’ said Franklin.
‘She’s beautiful now,’ said Karol.
Franklin nodded. ‘László remembers.’
‘Now you’re maudlin,’ said Karol.
‘László?’ said Laurence. ‘I wonder if I could guess your happiest moment.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ said László, ‘for I must have told you more than once. A day in November 1953 when Hungary played England at soccer in London. Wembley Stadium. No one had beaten the English on their own ground. What hope did a country like Hungary have? The government, of course, wanted victory as a vindication of the system. Real Hungarians just longed to be noticed in the world so people would see that Stalin and Rákosi had not buried us entirely. But to win at Wembley. Impossible! Yet we wanted it so badly we thought we could will it to happen. Perhaps we did. Anyway, that afternoon a kind of miracle occurred. Hungary won six goals to three!’
‘Hurrah!’ sang Karol, who of all the others understood best what the victory had meant.
‘Everyone was listening to the radio, those big Oriens, and every time we scored you could hear the cheering coming from all the apartments, and from the street too. It was, in my humble opinion, the greatest moment in the history of Hungarian sport. I was fifteen. Everyone was so happy it could have been midsummer’s day. Ferenc Puskás was the hero of our team. I used to know the name of the English captain. Hight… Bight…’