Balint’s carriage drove slowly through the country villages, which were now silent and seemingly deserted in the growing darkness with only the occasional gleam of light from behind shuttered windows. Now everyone was safe at home and mostly fast asleep. No doubt they would all wake up again when some great man was to be cheered on his way home, perhaps even the famous Barra?
Half dozing as he lay back against the cushions of the carriage certain images floated into Balint’s mind. They were fleeting impressions of incidents only half taken in on his way to the congress. For instance, at Balazsfalva there had been the Romanian theology student, his glance full of hatred for the travelling Hungarian delegates, who had clearly been waiting on the platform for the arrival of the carriage full of Romanian priests. He had obviously known that they would be on that train; and it was equally obvious that they had known too that they would receive some sort of message, for as the young man handed up his little paper a hand had reached out and taken it without a word even of greeting being passed from carriage to platform. The popas had travelled discreetly in their third-class carriage, grey, modest and unobtrusive as they went on their way to Brasso where only a little mountain ridge separated them from Romania. To cross the frontier was a matter only of a few hours’ trudge across deserted rocky tracks. After that a few more hours’ walk through gently sloping woods led to Sinaia … just a few hours’ walk, that was all. Balint was wondering if he was just imagining things, that it was all nonsense. After all, had not old Timisan said, ‘We have a little meeting there on parish matters!’
On reaching Udvarhely Balint dined early, as it was still some way to Segesvar, but when he had finished his meal he found that the last train had already left and that he would have to find another hired carriage. This was not easy as the best were still at Homorod but eventually the innkeeper rounded up a rickety old fiacre with two tired-looking nags in the traces. Despite Balint’s misgivings the young driver confidently swore that he would soon get the gentleman to wherever he wished to go.
The carriage passed through country quite unknown to Abady, for he had come to Udvarhely by train and what one could see from the train windows seemed quite different when looked at from a slow carriage.
They had been travelling for about an hour and a half, and it was already quite dark, when one of the horses which had been limping for some time now became too lame to go on. By a lucky chance they appeared to be close to a village so Balint walked ahead until he found a post to which was nailed a rough signpost with the village name. After lighting several matches he found it was Kis-Keresztur, where, he recalled there lived his distant cousin, old Sandor Kendy, known to everyone as Crookface, and whose white-columned manor-house he had glimpsed through the now leafless lime trees as he had passed by in the train. The house must be at the other end of the village, he thought, so he went back to the coachman who was vainly prodding the lame horse’s hoof and shaking his head hopelessly.
‘Well,’ said Balint. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘The Devil knows,’ said the young Szekler driver.
Abady took a look himself; the whole underside of the hoof was inflamed, the frog untrimmed and badly overgrown. ‘We won’t get anywhere with this one,’ he said, and when the driver continued to shake his head, he went on, ‘You’ll have to get the shoe removed at the nearest smithy and put a compress on it as soon as possible.’ Balint knew about such matters as he had been well taught by his mother and the grooms at Denestornya.
‘I have nowhere to tie him up,’ said the youth sulkily. Balint had quickly to make up his mind. The obvious thing was somehow to reach the Kendy house, yet for some reason he was reluctant to try this. It was well-known that the gruff old man was not inclined to be hospitable and never asked anyone to come to his house in the country. Also to arrive at this late hour would be awkward, especially as Balint had never met Crookface’s wife.
Some ten years before, when Sandor Kendy was already well advanced in age, he had suddenly and unexpectedly found a wife in Sepsis-Szentgyorgy. She had been a stenographer, or something of the sort, the daughter of an employee in the tax office and was called Alice Folbert. Crookface had never taken her anywhere with him, never introduced her even to his closest relations, but had brought her home at once to Kis-Keresztur and kept her there ever since. All this was strange enough, especially as rumour had it that Alice Folbert had been quite deaf when Crookface had married her. Apart from this the gossips had been unable to find out anything more about her and soon, as no one ever saw her since she never left her husband’s country house and as he led the life of a bachelor in town, she was soon as forgotten as if she had never existed.
The coachman walked the carriage slowly through the village and then down a road on one side of which was a wooden paling set between stone pillars. Eventually they reached an open gate — open because in those days life in the country was so secure that a closed gate signified either unfriendliness or else that the owners were away from home. A short avenue of lime trees led to the stone-columned portico of the house.
Balint got down and stepped into the dimly-lit entrance hall. From above he could hear the sound of a piano. Someone was playing a nocturne by Chopin, accentuated perhaps with rather too much emotion but brilliantly executed all the same. How amazing, thought Balint, that the deaf lady should be a musician. It did not occur to him that anyone else in the house could be playing.
A footman appeared now from somewhere. Abady explained who he was and was at once led through the large entrance-hall that divided the house in two halves and up a wide staircase at the far end.
At the top of the stairs he found himself in a corridor that was closed on the hall side by a glass partition that had been constructed so that people could go from one side of the house to the other without entering the hall. This corridor was in darkness, but from where he stood the brightly-lit drawing-room could clearly be seen through double glass doors. The walls were white and on them was hung just one large portrait. The furniture was of stiff dark ebony upholstered in blue and white striped chintz, of a style much favoured in Transylvania at the beginning of the nineteenth century. On a large round table in the centre of the room stood a lamp and by its light the young Countess Kendy was busy working at her tapestry-frame. Close to the tall dark windows, seated before a giant grand piano, was old Crookface. It was he who was playing.