Before it was completely dark, the cart encountered pilgrims heading for a saint’s feast. Quitt pulled off the highway, rested his horses, for although as a Jew he observed only the Day of Atonement (freely consuming smoked sausages the rest of the year), nonetheless he had the greatest respect for other people’s religious convictions. He believed that religiousness was a tremendous advantage in life. For this reason he took off his hat when the pilgrims, a group whom he considered fortunate individuals, approached his cart.
It was the Feast of Our Lady. Knapsack on back, the daughters of the soil marched barefoot and chanted tirelessly on their way to the chapel at Máriapócs. The Blessed Lady was already awaiting them at the church of the sandal-wearing friars, shedding her tears for her devotees, both hands laden with forgiveness and solace. So the women trudged on, like turkey hens with wings weighed down by the leaden rain of transgressions and tribulations. They had brought along one or two older men, in case men were more familiar with the way to the heavenly kingdom. These superannuated elders had regained their manhood for the occasion of the pilgrimage and marched at the head of the procession with an air of leadership, and recited their litanies as if the entire flock’s salvation depended on them. (“Too bad I won’t live to be a pilgrimage leader to the Pócs feast,” thought Pistoli, and all sorts of mischievous prayers crossed his mind.) The women kept chanting their responses, with the same unwearying persistence with which they kneaded the bread dough: “Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on us.”
The banners were held aloft by the supple arms of hefty young virgins. They would earn a special reward in heaven for this. Sunbrowned faces, white teeth, liquid eyes, lush eyebrows, these maidens of The Birches must have learned their gait from the geese, for their ancestresses had come all the way from Asia on carts drawn by buffaloes. Here came the childless ones, chanting loud enough for their voices to be heeded by the baby Moses who was no doubt floating somewhere about in the neighboring reeds. May the kindhearted Virgin Mary bless their wombs to bring joy to their husbands at last. Here came the invalids, who were losing the love of their men. They, too, were chanting, for they had placed great hopes in this pilgrimage. Those who had some clandestine goal marched with downcast eyes; those whose troubles were known by the whole village looked up to heaven. They would pass the night under God’s open sky: the women would wrap their skirts around their feet, tie their kerchiefs under their chins, light small candles in the field, and under the browsing moonbeam dream about the kingdom of heaven and angels clad in crimson. Among the sleepers an old man, the lead gander, keeps the watch, nodding and dozing. If a flock of wild geese should happen to pass overhead, they would surely honk out a greeting to such kinfolk.
By the crack of dawn, when little birds stir on the branch, these women will be on the road again. As they near the village of Pócs, the ragged beggars by the roadside will become more and more pushy, penitent life crying out from their dreadful limbs; the dust is deeper, the air hotter; the bells tolling from the friars’ steeple promise heavenly miracles, the whole world is steeped in a smell of gingerbread and wax candles, wandering Gypsies play their music at the barbecue stands, the organ’s boom resounds from the church…where their revived and quickened steps take them, where the miracle is to be found. Year after year these faces come, wide-eyed, for a glimpse of that flame-lit heaven.
Suddenly Pistoli sat up, as if the prevailing pious atmosphere had turned even him into one of the superstitious old women. At the end of the procession, following the booted, hatted, parasoled contingent of tradeswomen in brown, officials’ wives and small-town ladies, who all cast scornful glances as they passed the cart of the county’s greatest reprobate, there now appeared two figures, at the sight of whom Pistoli squiggled down to lie low on the straw-lined cart bed.
Kerchiefed, clad in a flowery skirt — borrowed from a servant girl — came the petite, cherry-lipped Eveline Nyirjes, sauntering along, her waist swaying. She was carrying her shoes in her hand, her bare feet treading on sand. Her companion, the wasp-waisted Miss Maszkerádi, cast a glance of queenly cruelty over Pistoli’s cart, as if her scornful eyes demanded: “How can this man still carry on, for shame…” Maszkerádi had not taken off her ankle boots of yellow leather, although Mr. Pistoli would have loved to catch sight of her feet, as well. Her peasant skirt allowed a glimpse of calf that revealed a pliant musculature, straight from the dreams of schoolboys. “After the pilgrims!” Pistoli shouted, beside himself, as soon as he regained his composure. “This is one pilgrimage that I must attend.”
But before Quitt had a chance to turn the cart about, Pistoli had lost his élan. His head drooped like a very old man’s.
“My time’s up. Let’s go home,” he growled, disgruntled, as if he noticed his heart skipping a beat every now and then.
But he kept staring after the pilgrim procession, until at last he saw in the far distance Miss Maszkerádi turn around, and send a fiery glance that ran down the shadowy highway like a burning carriage, as if a mirror’s shard had flashed on the horizon. Satisfied, Pistoli nodded toward the one who looked back. Just as he had thought.
All the way home he wondered whether the two ladies would confide to each other what they prayed for at the Máriapócs church…” Ah, women!” he sighed, and concluded that life was no longer worth living.
9. Pistoli’s Twilight
Now follow those events that complete the structure of life and death, the way a clock crowns a tower.
Stonemasons belong to the most ancient craft; they know well that building is indeed a thorough science. Much labor must go into the construction of the foundations, before the roof can be raised over the bare walls — or before one can erect a tombstone over the body of a restless man.
One man’s life may be paced like the tumbleweed’s passage over the wasteland, all day long chased by the wind from one end of the field to the other, to arrive in unexpected places and leave without any farewells after spending the night. Blowing unnoticed past hundreds of people, until suddenly, haphazardly, catching in someone’s hair: an existence that seems aimless, vanishing more rapidly than a shadow toward eveningtime. Yet such a life can cause so much trouble, howl so bitterly, crush so many hearts, create such havoc, evoke such anxieties. Yes, those with tumbleweed lives live life to the fullest, for they do not make any journeys for their own ends. Happenstance, rumors and humors, the vagaries of moods drive them hither and thither, toward good fortune or ill luck.
Yet others prepare the course of their lives as thoroughly as a fly picking its residence in amber. They build their house on a foundation of great fieldstones that will not easily be blown down by the wind. A few manage to live out their lives in a den of their own devising, to grow old, and die, all the while avoiding the serpent’s twisted and slippery path. Yes, there are men and women who indeed die innocent. (I wonder if they receive any special recognition for this in the world to come?) They never have to howl in pain, bitter remorse, guilty misery. But just as most of the guilty cannot help falling, the blameless ones have no call to be haughty on account of the purity of their body and soul. No, neither glorifying nor holding this world in contempt is quite justified. No one is responsible for their personal fate because it is unavoidable, like the misfortunes foretold in a fairy tale. And so it is best to leave people to their tumbleweed lives, or to their lonely isolation, as if in a humming seashell. The weather vane cannot help being placed on the peak of the roof. And even a hedgehog in a cellar may feel contentment. Let each live as he or she will, sad or gay. It is equally foolish to try to avoid an hour of bitterness or a moment of joy. The picnic in May, the funeral, the wedding night and the secret grief all have the same ending. Comes the stonemason to immure both the anxiety-ridden and the well- behaved.