‘Well, well, my little Fanion,’ he said, using his old pet-name for her. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’
Fanny sat bolt upright, clutching hard with both hands to the elegant handbag which now held all the banknotes given to her by the jeweller. She hesitated for a while before answering: ‘Someone we know lost a lot of money at the Casino last night …’ she started.
‘We needn’t enquire who, need we?’ said Szelepcsenyi to help her. ‘Go on!’
‘I have here everything that is needed to settle the debt. But, of course, I can’t do it myself. Therefore I thought that, maybe, you would do it for me? Send someone round? I don’t even know what the procedure is … but it must be settled right away.’
The old man shook his head with faint mocking disapproval. He smiled: ‘Well! Well! Well! It’s gone as far as that, has it?’
Despite herself Fanny felt herself blushing, a rare occurrence for her.
‘He gave me this money himself, this morning.’ She lied only to maintain a fiction for the sake of good form, knowing full well that Carlo would not believe a word of it. Indeed, with a smile of knowing complicity, he deftly changed direction.
‘Do you know to whom the money is owed?’
‘Of course, I’ve got it all here,’ Getting up from her seat she moved over and sat on the arm of Szelepcsenyi’s chair. From her bag she took out the banknotes and the list she had copied from Laszlo’s. ‘Here is the list. Everything’s there: names, figures, everything.’ and she brushed against him, catlike, provocative. ‘You will do it for me, my dear, won’t you? Now! It would be so sweet of you, and it’s very important to me. Straight away?’
Szelepcsenyi looked sharply up at her. It was possible, indeed probable, that Fanny was doing this without Laszlo knowing anything about it. That would certainly explain why she seemed in so much of a hurry, for then she would be able to return to him and present him with a. fait accompli. He put his arms around her shoulder and pressed her gently to him.
‘It will be done at once!’ he said, going over to the big Italian refectory table that he used as a writing desk. He put on his glasses and carefully copied Fanny’s list onto another sheet of paper.
‘Just go into the bedroom for a moment will you, my dear,’ he said to Fanny. ‘It is not necessary that my man should see you!’
Countess Beredy went into the adjacent room, but she did not close the doors behind her. She therefore heard Szelepcsenyi giving orders that the money should be given to the Club Steward in Count Gyeroffy’s name and that a receipt and all the original IOUs should be put in an envelope and brought back immediately. The servant was told to take a hired carriage and be quick about it. When he had gone Szelepcsenyi called to Fanny: ‘Fanion! Come and look at my newest acquisition!’
They went on talking and looking at the old man’s treasures until the footman returned. As before, Fanny disappeared into the bedroom while the man was in the room. When Szelepcsenyi was assured that all had been done as he wished he called her back and together they checked that everything was in order. When this had been done Fanny put the envelope in her bag and, glancing in an antique mirror to be sure that before she could allow herself to be seen in the street the Countess Beredy looked her usual immaculate self, she went back through the bedroom to the landing beyond the tapestry-hung door. There she turned again to her old admirer, gave him a hug so tight that he could feel the swell of her breasts beneath the light silken dress. This was her gift to him.
‘Thank you! Thank you! I thank you more than I can say!’ She lifted up her head and planted a kiss right into the middle of his well-trimmed beard, for Szelepcsenyi did not bend down to her but remained standing erect, his head held high as ever. He patted her on the shoulder in a fatherly way and then stood, still motionless, at the head of the little stairway until Fanny had reached the door below.
‘At your service always, my Fanion!’ he said softly as she waved goodbye to him from the door.
Half an hour later, Fanny was back in the little flat near the royal palace, carrying, as well as her handbag, a large parcel in which were cold tongue, ham, a little pot of foie gras, two slices of coffee cake covered with whipped cream and a bottle of champagne — ‘to drown his sorrows in!’ she had thought when selecting these things on her way back from Szelepcsenyi’s.
Laszlo was still asleep, just as she had left him. Fanny’s first move was to put the champagne bottle under a cold tap and leave the water running so as to cool the wine. Then she undressed completely and slipped into a silk kimono which she selected from half a dozen others that she always kept there. Then she wound a green chiffon scarf round her blonde hair, glancing into the long looking-glass to be sure that she looked her best, and went back into the darkened room where Laszlo lay asleep. Without disturbing him she pulled forward a small table and arranged on it the food she had brought in, fetching china, cutlery, glasses and a white table-cloth from the minute kitchen which opened off one side of the room. Finally she rescued the champagne from the sink and put it in a bucket with some cold water. Only when all this had been done and Fanny had checked that no detail had been forgotten, did she sit down on the bed beside Laszlo and awaken him by kissing his closed eyelids.
Laszlo smiled with pleasure when he saw the woman bending over him, but in a moment, he remembered what had happened and his eyes widened in horror as the details all came back to him.
Fanny touched his mouth with her tapering fingers.
‘Don’t think about … about all that darling! Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see! Look! I’ve brought some food, all the things you like best, and a little wine too, champagne. Now we’ll have lunch together. Come along, I’m terribly hungry!’ So she encouraged him, coaxed him, consoled him with light caresses, stroking his cheeks until he got up and joined her at the table. They sat on stools, facing each other, and Fanny did all she could to charm him so that the sad memories of the disastrous evening before would be obliterated and forgotten. In the dark blue kimono with the pale green chiffon scarf wound round her head, Fanny looked even more like a great cat, dark-skinned and blonde-headed, her mouth smiling with mysterious pleasure and her long eyes only half visible through her thick black eyelashes. Her pleasure sprang from the fact that Laszlo ate with a good appetite, happily quaffing the champagne from an ordinary water tumbler as they had nothing else to drink from in the flat.