Vigilance! sign among the disturbing riot of normally ordered flavors. Death, he felt, was only a kind of warning rather than a desperate and permanent end. “It’s not as if I’m asking for a gift,” Schmidt continued, growing tired: “It’s a loan. You understand? A loan. I’ll return every last cent of it in precisely a year.” They sat at the table, both of them worn out. Schmidt’s eyes were burning from exhaustion, Futaki was furiously studying the mysterious patterns of the stone tiling. He mustn’t show he is afraid, he thought, though he would have found it hard to explain what it was he was afraid of. “Just tell me this. How many times did I go out to Szikes, all by myself, in that intolerable heat where a man is scared to breathe the air in case it sets fire to his insides?! Who got hold of the wood? Who built that sheepfold?! I have contributed just as much as you, or Kráner, or Halics! And now you have the nerve to touch me for a loan. Oh yes, and it’ll all be returned next time I see you, eh?!” “In other words,” Schmidt replied, affronted, “you don’t trust me.” “Damn right!” Futaki snapped back. “You and Kráner meet up before dawn, planning to make off with all the money and then you expect me to trust you?! Do you take me for an idiot?” They sat silently together. The woman was clattering dishes by the stove. Schmidt looked defeated. Futaki’s hands trembled as he rolled a cigarette and got up from the table, limped over to the window, leaned on his stick with his left hand and watched rain billowing over the rooftops. The trees were leaning with the wind, their bare branches describing threatening arcs in the air. He thought of their roots, the life-giving sap, of the soaked earth and of the silence, of the unspoken feeling of completion he so dreaded. “In that case tell me. .!” he asked in a hesitant manner, “Why you came back, once. .” “Why? why?!” Schmidt grumbled. “Because that’s what occurred to us — and before we could think better of it we were on the way home, and back. . And then there was the woman. . Would I have left her here?. .” Futaki nodded understandingly. “What about the Kráners?” he asked after a while. “What’s your arrangement with them?” “They’re stuck here, like us. They want to head north. Mrs. Kráner heard there was an old neglected orchard or something there. We are to meet by the crossroads after dark. That’s what we arranged.” Futaki gave a sigh: “A long day ahead. What about the others? Like Halics?. .” Schmidt rubbed his fingers together despondently: “How should I know? Halics will probably sleep the whole day. There was a big party yesterday at the Horgoses. His highness, the manager, can go to hell on the first bus! If there’s any trouble on his account, I’ll drown the sonofabitch in the next ditch, so relax, pal, relax.” They decided to wait in the kitchen till night fell. Futaki drew up a chair by the window so he could keep an eye on the houses opposite while Schmidt was overcome by sleep, slumped over the table, and began to snore. The woman brought the big iron-strapped military trunk out from behind the cupboards, wiped away the dust, inside and out, then wordlessly began packing their things. “It’s raining,” said Futaki. “I can hear,” replied the woman. The weak sunlight only just succeeded in penetrating a jumbled mass of clouds that was slowly proceeding eastwards: the light in the kitchen dimmed as if it were dusk and it was hard to know whether the gently vibrating patches on the wall were merely shadows or the symptoms of the despair underlying their faintly hopeful thoughts. “I’ll go south,” Futaki declared, gazing at the rain. “At least the winters are shorter there. I’ll rent a little land near some town that’s growing and spend the day dangling my feet in a bowl of hot water. .” Raindrops were gently trickling down both sides of the window because of the finger-wide crack that ran all the way from the wooden beam to the window frame, slowly filling it up then pushing their way along the beam where they divided once more into drops that began to drip into Futaki’s lap, while he, being so absorbed in his visions of far away places that he couldn’t get back to reality, failed to notice that he was actually wet. “Or I might go and take a job as a night watchman in a chocolate factory. . or perhaps as janitor in a girls’ boarding school. . and I’ll try to forget everything, I’ll do nothing but soak my feet in a bowl of hot water each night, while this filthy life passes. .” The rain that had been gently pouring till now suddenly turned into a veritable deluge, like a river breaking over a dam, drowning the already choking fields, the lowest lying of which were riddled with serpentine channels, and though it was impossible to see anything through the glass he did not turn away but stared at the worm-eaten wooden frame from which the putty had dropped out, when suddenly a vague form appeared at the window, one that eventually could be made out to be a human face, though he couldn’t tell at first whose it was, until he succeeded in picking out a pair of startled eyes, at which point he saw “his own careworn features” and recognized them with a shock like a stab of pain since he felt that what the rain was doing to his face was exactly what time would do. It would wash it away. There was in that reflection something enormous and alien, a kind of emptiness radiating from it, moving towards him, compounded of layers of shame, pride and fear. Suddenly he felt the sour taste in his mouth again and he remembered the bells tolling at dawn, the glass of water, the bed, the acacia bough, the cold flagstones in the kitchen and, thinking of it all, he made a bitter face. “A bowl of hot water!. . Devil take it!. . Don’t I bathe my feet every day. .?” he pouted. Somewhere behind him there was the sound of choked-off sobbing. “And what’s bugging you then?” Mrs. Schmidt did not answer him but turned away, her shoulders shaking with the sobs. “You hear me? What’s the matter with you?” The woman looked up at him then simply sat down on the nearby stool and blew her nose like someone for whom speech was pointless. “Why don’t you say something?” Futaki insisted: “What the hell is wrong with you?” “Where on earth can we go!” erupted Mrs. Schmidt: “The first town we come to some policeman is bound to stop us! Don’t you understand? They won’t even ask our names!” “What are you blathering about?” Futaki angrily retorted: “We will be loaded with money, and as for you. .” “That’s exactly what I mean!” the woman interrupted him: “The money! You at least might have some sense! To go away with this rotten old trunk. . like a band of beggars!” Futaki was furious. “That’s enough, now! Keep out of this. It has nothing to do with you. Your job is to shut up.” Mrs. Schmidt would not let it rest. “What?” she snapped: “What’s my job?” “Forget it,” Futaki answered quietly. “Keep it down or you’ll wake him up.” Time was passing very slowly and, luckily for them, the alarm clock had long ago stopped working so there wasn’t even the sound of ticking to remind them of time, yet nevertheless the woman gazed at the still hands as she gave the paprika stew the occasional stir while the two men sat wearily by the steaming plates in front of them, not touching their spoons despite Mrs. Schmidt’s constant badgering for them to get on with it (“What are you waiting for? Do you want to eat at night, soaked to the bone in the mud?”). They did not turn the light on although objects washed into each other during the agonizing wait, the pans by the wall coming to life along with the icons and it even seemed there was someone in the bed. They hoped to escape these hallucinatory visions by stealing glances at one another but all three faces radiated helplessness, and while they knew they couldn’t get started till nightfall (because they were sure that Mrs. Halics or the manager would be sitting at their windows watching the path to Szikes with even greater anxiety now that Schmidt and Kráner were almost half a day late), every so often Schmidt or the woman made a move as if to say, screw caution, let’s make a start. “They’re off to see a movie,” Futaki quietly declared. “Mrs. Halics, Mrs. Kráner and the manager, Halics.” “Mrs. Kráner?” Schmidt snapped: “Where?” And he rushed to the window. “He’s right. He’s damn right,” Mrs. Schmidt nodded. “Hush!” Schmidt turned on her: “Don’t be in such a hurry, sweetheart!” F