Introduction
Prelude
and The Raft of Poverty
In the Circus
Ring
The Pedlar's
Prediction
Hail Caesar!
Jealousy
is Dead
A Steam Engine
for a Piano
Stalin
Organs
Hungarian
Rhapsody: a failure
White
Nights
All
or Nothing
WHITE NIGHTS
The
war had been over for more than a year
yet my demobilization order, supposedly
on its way, still had not arrived. So
I went on with my tasks, fully absorbed
in the ‘sideral sublimation of a ludic
concept, transcended by the visualization
of daily virtuality.’ This splendid
euphemism designating military service
fell from the lips of a witty colleague
whose dream it was to become a psychiatrist.
For
my part, not having attained such heights,
I resolved to convince my superiors
that I was not worthy of their paradise
and should be demobbed. Things were
not so simple. After all, does a soldier
not exist in order to be killed, as
Diderot said? I began half-heartedly
filling in an incredible number of forms,
which were returned several weeks later
duly stamped, signed and countersigned
by the whole hierarchy of a multitude
of boards responsible for administering
a country in utter political chaos,
with a new manifesto ready and waiting.
It
took three months of this little game
until I at last won the day. In September
1946 my dear Camp Commander, in the
presence of his entourage, solemnly
handed me the official document attesting
in Russian and Hungarian that I was
demobilized. "Your duties to your
fatherland are at an end," he boomed
pompously, "until such time as
we begin our crusade against the imperialist
vermin of capitalism alongside the invincible
Red Army."
I
trembled somewhat at the thought of
shortly being required for overtime
but, warming to his subject, he was
off again: "Thanks to the new proletarian
army, the holy cause of the people will
triumph in the firmament of equality."
"If there are any proletariats
left," I said to myself, thinking
of the siege of Leningrad and the Hiroshima
bomb. I wondered as I listened to his
farewell spiel with all the outward
signs of utter bliss whether his Sermon
on the Mount was the quintessence of
his new doctrine, destined for his underlings,
or whether it was provoked by the fear
of finding himself out of a job.
Before
handing me the precious document, he
tried one more time to convince me of
the enormity of my error in quitting
the army just as it had been restructured,
thus losing the chance of a fine future
with the almost certain promise of promotion.
I listened in respectful silence and
thanked him deeply for the board and
lodging, assuring him of the great sorrow
I felt at having to live henceforth
without his benevolent protection, whereupon
I was allowed to take my leave. I could
not afford any civilian gear and the
old trunk containing my things must
have gone astray somewhere between Russia
and Czechoslovakia. I decided to return
home in uniform.
I
daydreamed as the old train jolted along
the rickety track towards Budapest.
"Half-price for children and soldiers,"
mumbled a ticket-collector as venerable
as the rolling-stock, pocketing my last
banknote. "The only way of getting
a free train ride is to help yourself
to one," I thought, remembering
my escapade two years earlier. "It’s
half fare today but from now on it’ll
be full price everywhere. How am I going
to pay?"
We
arrived at the terminus. I went out
into the street and stood there leaning
against a lamppost. I watched in amazement
the flow of traffic, the excited crowd,
the mass of people flooding the tree-lined
avenues and boulevards. The dense, cheeky
foliage seemed to be mocking the warm
sun on that mild autumn day. The whole
city was coming alive again as its buildings
and monuments, mutilated by missiles,
were restored. Though still bandaging
its wounds, Budapest exhaled a gentle
welcome. The pavements were littered
as far as the eye could see with scattered
heaps of rubble so that the dense, motley
crowd wove its way along the roadways
among every type of vehicle imaginable,
from ox carts to trams. Cafés
and restaurants swarmed with customers,
despite their dilapidated state. Inflation
had been halted. There was no doubt
about it: despite the devastation left
behind by various armies, here the war
was no more than an unpleasant memory.
It
was lunchtime.
A
series of imprudent draughts wafted
down the station corridors the smell
of sausages being fried for hungry passengers
at stalls on the platforms. I was starving
after the six-hour journey and, my nostrils
a-quiver at the smell of black pudding
and chitterlings cooking, searched my
uniform pockets. I did not even have
the price of a bus ticket for the fifteen-mile
journey home.
Putting
a brave face on things, I started off
on my final march. My legs bore me along
faster and faster, as though drawn by
a strong magnet, like a boat pitching
and tossing on its way back to harbour.
I had written to tell my family of my
arrival some time before. Had they got
my letter? It was unlikely. How I would
have loved to be welcomed by the tender
touch of arms expressing their joy at
our reunion and to have felt the looks
of love and affection on my face. It
was not to be.
I
came down to earth when, to my disappointment,
a neighbour told me that my wife and
her mother (with whom she was lodging)
were employed in a steelworks loading
wagons with railway sleepers and roof
frame parts. They left home early each
morning and came home in the late evening,
leaving my son in the care of a distant
cousin – in exchange for payment. "That’s
how it is now. Everyone scrapes a living
as best he can," concluded the
neighbour. I would soon be learning
that to my cost.
I
did not know where my son was being
kept so in the meantime went off and
picked a huge bunch of wildflowers for
my wife in a meadow by the roadside
before coming back to our neglected
little garden, where I walked up and
down the paths. Time passed desperately
slowly. I was tired out and my stomach
complained more and more bitterly at
having been laid off for nearly two
days. I stretched out in the long grass,
watching the great clouds dozing up
above. Soon I was doing as much myself.
A
warm liquid flowing over my face awoke
me: my wife was kneeling beside me,
softly weeping for joy as she watched
me sleep. She had waited, prayed, hoped
for this moment for so long that she
gave free rein to her emotion for herself
alone before waking me gently from my
unending nightmare.
Our
first days at home were spent discovering
each other again. Even the dear old
upright piano, a reminder and eternal
companion of my childhood, seemed pleased
t being touched once more. I did not
recognize my boy: he was already a young
gentleman, getting on for four. The
first time he saw me, he ran and hid
behind his granny. He had a horror of
uniforms, not without reason. For at
least ten days, we did not leave each
other for a second. Our joy at being
together was inexpressible. Our admirable
granny spent days on end in the kitchen,
scraping the barrel in order to make
royal dishes imbued with her generosity
and affection. The peaceful, happy days
we had waited for so long flowed by.
After
a fortnight of this life of luxury,
I decided to go back on the warpath
and try to find some sort of job amongst
the many more or less attractive ones
available and ‘earn a living by pacifying
the sovereign people’. There was no
opening for me in classical music. I
did not know anyone who could help and
anyway the country was far from being
in a position to afford the luxury of
a regular, independent musical life.
This was the period when Stalin was
reported to have said in a committee
meeting that concerts of great music
were a way of passing the time while
the ink on newly signed treaties was
drying. While he was waiting to sign
the Warsaw pact the radio broadcast
popular music. Luckily, this so-called
light music was not sectarian. A good
musician, inventive and knowledgeable,
was a godsend to a night club. With
this in mind, and following in my father’s
footsteps, I walked across Budapest,
making for the notorious secret place
known as ‘Moonlighters’ Market’ which,
from time immemorial, had been a meeting
point for every kind of unemployed musician.
I knew the place well, having spent
some time there after leaving the Academy,
for reasons very similar to the present
ones. It was in a little square dotted
with clumps of stunted trees. Groups
of unemployed musicians stood about
chatting. Night and day there were enough
of them to form a whole symphony orchestra.
The owners of fashionable cafés,
procurers from bas of ill-repute and
strong-arm types from dens of various
kinds of vice came to bargain and pick
up in all possible haste a drummer,
double-bass player, violinist or even
on occasion a whole gypsy band. The
most sought after species was, naturally,
the pianist.
Thank
goodness I had not taken up the tuba!
I mingled with the groups standing in
a great circle, chatting and waiting
for some Prince Charming to turn up
and make a miraculous offer. I strolled
up and down, wondering if the luck which
had enabled me to overcome all sorts
of hazards during my childhood and had
prevented me from returning from the
Festival of Heroism with a missing arm,
a wooden leg or a glass eye would also
get me a job. Before I could finish
imploring my protector, I saw moving
in the middle of the circle a sort of
well-dressed Ahasuerus with a pock-marked
face. To my delight, he wanted a pianist.
Five of us raised our hands at his appeal.
Beginning at the other end of the circle,
he whispered something in my first colleague’s
ear. He apparently thought it over,
looked at his hands and shook his head.
"That’s bad luck," I thought,
annoyed. "Of the remaining three,
there’s bound to be one who’ll accept,
whatever the conditions. I was wrong:
the others raised their arms in a gesture
of helplessness. There was hope yet:
it would soon be my turn. I wondered
what hitch had made the others refuse.
There must have been one because it
was unusual for a musician to turn down
a job – indeed, they would normally
have acted like the one who said he
was quite prepared to sail across the
Danube on his double bass to find work.
When
he got to me, the strange fellow asked
me in a sot, slightly sceptical voice:
"Can you improvise on absolutely
anything?" I nodded. "Even
in the dark?" he went on, lowering
his voice. "What dark?" I
asked, astonished. "Pitch dark,
my dear fellow," he whispered mysteriously.
"A very intimate cabaret frequented
by regulars and important persons who
wish to remain anonymous. It has just
re-opened in the city centre."
As he observed my reactions, he started
using jargon: "We need a pianist
who can cope with anything. He must
do psychedelic improvisations to create
an…shall we say ‘aphrodisiac’ tension
to provoke passion in hypersensitive
people, not to speak of special types
of friendship."
The
odd creature recited his proposition
like a small ad. I shook my head as
I contemplated my worn shoes. So I would
have to sit in the dark because the
honourable customers wanted to redouble
their pleasure by picking a partner
of either sex in a darkness such as
would have made it difficult for Oedipus
to recognize his mum. In short, my colleagues
had not turned down the work, which
was almost certainly well-paid, for
moral reasons but because none of them
felt up to playing, much less improvising,
without the slightest visibility. In
such conditions, though the risk of
wrong notes, not to speak of real blunders,
was far greater, I felt I could overcome
the handicap. What was more, this was
not the moment for displays of temperament
or being difficult. Taking my silence
for indignation, the fellow imagined
I was examining my conscience, somewhat
shaken by talk of such morally reprehensible
debauchery. Sensing that here was a
rare bird ready to overlook his orgiastic
black mass in return for a few coins,
he said jokingly, "There’s no need
to stand on ceremony. After all, Absolon
slept with his father’s wives, Judah
with his daughter-in-law Ammon with
his sister and Lot with his daughters."
"Well done," I muttered. "You
seem to be well-informed about your
ancestors." "Splendid, then,"
said the learned sodomite, holding out
his hand, which I rather hesitantly
shook. "I’m counting on you."
Plunged
in thought, I started to walk back home
again since there was no public transport
in our isolated area. I was still in
uniform and wondered where I could borrow
a dark suit to look respectable for
the job. As I walked along with the
crowd, I smiled at my needless concern
about my apparel. After all, it was
not of the slightest importance since
the operative words were ‘total darkness’.
I could in fact have fulfilled my task
dressed in a monk’s habit or a kilt.
The thought of the job hardly filled
me with enthusiasm but I preferred that
to my wife having to carry heavy railway
sleepers. Suddenly, I felt a hand on
my shoulder. I hadn’t yet learnt to
control the reflexes of an underground
fighter constantly on the alert and
leapt to one side, spinning round ready
to pounce on a possible aggressor. The
distinguished pimp of a few minutes
earlier stared at my display in astonishment.
"How nice to be young," he
murmured admiringly. Why had he come
running after me?
"I
forgot to tell you. Evening dress is
obligatory." "What use is
that in the dark?" "Dark or
not," he insisted, "you must
be correctly dressed. If you’ve only
got a dinner jacket I’ll turn a blind
eye." "I’m very sorry. I’m
just back from a short military expedition
and have no change of clothes. Nor do
I know anyone to borrow so much as a
lounge suit from for this evening."
He gazed incredulously at my somewhat
worn uniform. "Do you mean, young
man, that those are your best clothes?"
my employer smirked like a gluttonous
she-cat. "Indeed they are,"
I said gloomily. "Come back to
my place. I’m sure we can reach an understanding
with a little give-and-take on your
part," the old beau cooed
in his syrupy voice.
I
took a step backwards to escape the
giddying scent of musk. "Listen
here, my dear man," I answered
sharply, "I don’t like charity
and especially not yours. I had a good
tailor once until the Germans turned
him into a lampshade. Naturally, if
they had chosen you instead I’d be better
dressed. Since you’re afraid my appearance
might disturb your seminarists in their
search for the Absolute, I suggest you
look for a more suitable fop to liven
up your saturnalia." I left him
standing rooted to the spot and went
off home. And that was the end of my
first attempt to return to the paramusical
world.
The
next day I wore out a bit more shoe
leather on the road into town. Rather
than return to ‘Moonlighters’ Market’,
I wandered about the seedy districts
where a bargain pianist’s apparel was
the last thing to worry an innkeeper
more mindful of the profits of his watering-trough
than his wife’s First Communion certificate.
After a week of constant refusals, I
was at last engaged in an establishment
known as ‘The Danaids’ Barrel’. Its
name was well merited for certain customers
were so assiduous that when they did
finally leave it was to return home
for their daily attack of delirium
tremens. The shrewder among them
made sure it coincided with the bar’s
closing day. The owner, less interested
in my uniform than in the smooth running
of his bar, took me on as a pianist
on the express condition that if need
be I would lend him a hand between tunes
in throwing out such trouble-makers
as were more mindful of their flick
knives than their beer mugs. Thus I
was enthroned as official bodyguard
and minstrel.
Within
a few days I knew most of the Balkan
drinking songs by heart. From nine at
night till five in the morning, the
drink flowed ceaselessly. Enveloped
in a cloud of smoke, cavernous voices
called for their favourite songs until
I joined in on the piano or outside,
as stipulated in my contract. The job
was pretty hard-going for they wanted
me to drink with them at least once
in the course of an evening. There were
at least fifty of them and I tried to
refuse but my employer did not see things
in the same light and summoned me to
put an end to my anti-drink campaign
as it was rather out of place in ‘The
Danaids’ Barrel’. The job was a good
one and if I wanted to keep it I would
have to drink, so I did. We all drank:
we toasted those who had died on the
Front, those who had got away alive,
the immortal genius of Berlioz and his
celebrated Hungarian March and
then drank simply to forget the days
were passing, each different from the
last.
I
had been working for about a month,
earning a living in that hellish vapour
and indifferent to what went on. This
worried me all the more as I was getting
accustomed to it. Things could not go
on like this. The proprietor, his body
shapeless with drinking, was the fortunate
knight of a splendid creature whose
company he much appreciated. He hardly
ever saw her as the charmer lived in
a flat nearby, locked in by her lover,
who was not prepared to share this prize
specimen with anyone else. Naturally,
not even such close surveillance could
stop the perfidious Messalina from having
a well-filled love life. The inevitable
occurred.
One
night on the stroke of eleven, a brigade
of police burst in, pushing aside the
good honest drunks lining the bar, hiccupping
contentedly as they savoured their umpteenth
drink. My employer had been irritable
and morose for some time. When he saw
the armed police making for him he panicked,
leapt over the bar, knocking over clusters
of unsteady customers, and made for
the rear exit. He was caught in a trice
and beaten and handcuffed before being
pushed into the police van. As he was
going out, the last policeman turned
to me where I was standing by the piano
and, noticing my uniform, spoke as if
to all and sundry: "Get yourself
another impresario to play for: that
one will soon be smoking his last cigarette!"
"?"
"He
turned the gas tap on to send his mistress
and her lover to sleep then hacked them
to pieces with an axe." I said
nothing. I silently shut the piano lid
and slipped away from the joyous, bewildered
dimwits. It had been no wish of mine
to find myself back on the streets.
I had been able to save enough money
in a month to get myself some evening
attire and so set off job hunting once
more, as soon as I had my new outfit.
After
ten days I finally came across a small
tearoom which was ready to take me on
trial. The place was undoubtedly more
civilized and my duties were as light
as the little cakes served there. The
proprietress, a charming little old
lady with a doll-like face topped by
a bun entwined with silver threads,
trotted back and forth with armfuls
of cream cakes and cafés liégeois.
In her long dress, of an indefinable
colour which shimmered like watered
silk, she resembled a fairy straight
out of Hans Christian Andersen. She
brought down from the attic a pile of
ancient melodies tied together with
blue and pink silk ribbon. These I sight-read,
sipping the China tea which was my reward.
My
transcendental improvisations made my
name among the gourmets who came virtually
every day to feast on chocolate éclairs
or rum babas. They lingered delightedly
over them to the accompaniment of a
drop of Mozart, a spot of Chopin and
a good dose of Cziffra-style Viennese
music played, as was my habit, without
the least preparation on my part.
One
day as I left the tearoom (where I only
had to put in an appearance from three
to seven p.m.) I decided to do a little
prospecting before going back home as
a means of hearing the sort of music
being played in the big cabaret dance
halls where orchestras of up to forty
foreign musicians were all the rage
in Budapest High Society. There was
a real vogue for American jazz at that
time, in Hungary as elsewhere, and the
great stars in this field reigned over
the nightclubs where they performed.
I tiptoed in and found the orchestra
rehearsing a real hell-for-leather arrangement
full of sudden surprises and silences,
filled in by a dazzling drummer and
a double bass player, who had just the
right flair to set off the solos which
other groups of black instrumentalists
of even more astounding virtuosity played.
It was a truly top-level group which
could, or so it seemed to me, rival
the bands of Paul Whiteman or Duke Ellington,
reputed even in Budapest. Standing a
little back from the platform, on a
level with the podium of the conductor
(who was probably the composer of the
stunning piece he was rehearsing) a
superb grand piano stood shining in
the shadows. Greatly intrigued, I crept
up to it and sat down to listen and
watch the players at work, which was
quite as fascinating. They were blinded
by spotlights so did not know I was
there. I was thinking I would soon have
to be leaving as discreetly as possible
when the conductor suddenly stopped
and a glaring light filled the room,
illuminating the tiniest nook. I braced
myself to be thrown out with all the
honours due to a gatecrasher, instead
of which the conductor turned to me
smiling broadly and said in English,
"Do you like this music?"
I nodded.
"Are
you a jazzman?" "Perhaps a
little," I replied, desperately
trying to remember the fragments of
English I had picked up from the Tarzan
films I had seen as a child in their
original versions, without subtitles,
in suburban cinemas. "Do you want
to join in a little jam session with
my orchestra?" "I hope so.
With pleasure," I replied, my eyes
shining with delight. "But if you
want, before I play you something alone
for you and your friends." "Please
do," he said invitingly.
Although
he was perfectly agreeable, there was
something slightly condescending about
his manner, which made me want to show
him that the Yankees did not necessarily
have the monopoly of good jazz. I wanted
to show him a little of what I was capable
of so that he would know that we descendants
of Attila knew more than how to tenderize
steaks by putting them under our saddles.
In fifteen minutes I whizzed through
all the latest hits such as Tiger
Rag, immortalized by Louis Armstrong,
or the moving Summertime from
Porgy and Bess, adapting them
all to the spicy rhythms then in vogue
– ragtime, bebop, boogie-woogie – all
at the gallop and with foxtrots besides.
Just as I was coming to the end of my
display, the percussionist, who must
have had a metronome for a heart, caught
me in full flight and then the whole
orchestra came in with a bang, like
a firecracker going off, replaying the
arrangement just rehearsed then giving
way to let me do my improvisations as
in a game of ping-pong. We had a great
time for at least half an hour. Then
we finished our schoolboy escapade once
and for all, ending in a wild stretto.
One by one the musicians stopped rather
like in Haydn’s Farewell Symphony
and, on my own again, I ended our improvised
divertissement, after a few pyrotechnics,
on a querying tritone.
The
conductor came up to me, his arms open
wide in a gesture of friendship and
admiration, followed by his beaming
musicians. He spoke to me in American
as he was not sure whether we spoke
German or Russian in Hungary. As he
covered the last few yards separating
us, he made a sign to an ebony-black
soloist, who understood me remarkably
well since he had lived with a Hungarian
family in Texas when he was a boy. He
acted as interpreter and we were able
to chat in a more relaxed manner. "It’s
only the second time in twenty-five
years as a musician that I’ve heard
anything so fantastic," he said.
"I know of only one pianist in
the States who can improvise like you:
Art Tatum. And if his playing is prodigious,
yours is miraculous. Wherever did you
learn to play like that?"
I
did not want to tell the same old story
about my studies so just answered vaguely,
"Oh, self-made man…" "How
do you make out with those?" he
said, looking at my hands with a trace
of compassion, like someone who has
just found the Golden Calf in a field
in Outer Mongolia. "The best of
a bad job," I answered with a bitter
laugh. "OK," he said, obviously
used to making rapid decisions. "We’re
in Budapest for another two months.
The proprietor certainly wouldn’t hire
you because we’re already costing him
more than he can afford. I’d rather
employ you myself as co-star during
our stay at, say, twenty-five dollars
an evening as a start. If you can manage
to get across the Demarkation Line,"
he went on, lowering his voice, "you’ll
get more wherever you go. Will that
suit you?"
Would
it suit me? I would be earning as much
in a week as I had in a month up till
then, thanks to this unhoped-for opportunity.
Only the true jazz aficionado knows
what it means to stretch himself to
the limit, and thanks to this chance
meeting I would be drinking at the same
spring as my new friends at the people’s
university. The transcendental association
of imagination and constrained reflexes
would enrich my technique. From then
on it would be possible for my fingers
and inspiration to enter into communion
at the drop of a hat. Such first-class
training would stretch me to the full
and broaden my horizons.
Those
two months went by like a dream. Then
the band had to leave for other engagements
in Vienna, Paris and Milan. As a way
of thanking them for admitting me to
their group, we stayed together after
their final concert and at their request
I played classical works interspersed
with paraphrases, reminiscences and
improvisations until dawn. They were
so enthralled that, like the German
officers on the Front, they forgot to
drink. They gave me an armful of cartons
of American cigarettes and bars of chocolate,
then the leader shook hands and said
by way of a farewell: "Dear George,
you’re the leading pianist now and if
you ever manage to escape to the West,
others will say the same. You’ve nothing
to fear from Horowitz or the likes of
him. Good luck, old boy!"
The
challenge was flattering but an impossible
one to take up. The only and certainly
greatest Hungarian pianist to become
a legend in his own lifetime was Franz
Liszt. To achieve that, he had given
recitals till he was thirty-five and
only then was he universally acclaimed
in all the European capitals from London
to Moscow via the Balkans. I knew my
place was up there with the greatest
of my generation but they were travelling
freely all over the world, striving
to attain the fame of my great compatriot,
which has remained unequalled. Everything
was in their favour: talent, influential
contacts, social graces and the freedom
to go where they wished. I had nothing
apart from my reputation as a circus
performer and the meagre consolation
that I might, with luck, have been born
in Paris. True, for both my music hall
and classical colleagues, who found
the grapes a little sour, my playing
had more to do with my social origins
than with artistry. Only the rich can
borrow. Even so, such nonsense worked
in my favour in more ways than One.
Everyone in Budapest knew of my staggering
improvisations, which went from jazz,
the fandango and the czardas to the
passodoble. Small violin ensembles wanted
me because the way I filled out a Strauss
waltz gave the impression there were
ten of them rather than two. So did
jazz bands because my playing had such
swing and punch, gypsy bands because
of my uniquely exciting way with Hungarian
dances and the most unlikely establishments
because I only had to sit at the piano
for the place to fill to overflowing.
Audiences were ecstatic: they had a
versatile jukebox to dance to, an acrobat
and conjuror to mystify it and a soloist
who was a whole band in himself. My
keyboard mastery was the result of constant
use of a whole range of techniques and
systematic improvising increased this
mastery tenfold. With time, the unorthodox
schooling Fate had imposed on me radically
affected my playing until it became
unique. Professionals and amateurs spent
whole evenings watching me, unable to
fathom how I achieved such results as
it was not possible to class me with
such leading virtuosi as Busoni and
Rachmaninov since I used three-quarters
of the keyboard much of the time. The
richness of the sound I produced reflected
my inner vitality. Muscle and feeling
worked in harmony without getting trapped
in the minutiae of a highly developed
technique.
I
thus became the most sought-after pianist
in the city: bars, nightclubs and cabarets
all wanted me. People formed queues
before the places where I was to play.
Sometimes I began the day with some
‘cold meat’ – a term used by hastily
recruited moonlighting musicians for
important funerals – then between midday
and three o’clock I would do a high-class
wedding or a restaurant of standing.
I ended up dividing the nights between
several lucrative places, spending two
hours or so at each – running with the
hare and hunting with the hounds, so
to speak. One such, called ‘The Quaver’,
was as its name implies just opposite
the Liszt Academy, whose main entrance
gave access to the large adjoining concert
hall. A large proportion of the audience,
with only the street to cross, slipped
in for a quick drink and more than once
forgot to go back for the rest of the
concert. Most of them were budding pianists
or on the point of finishing their studies.
They began to wonder as they listened
whether I did not have supernatural
dealings with the founder of the establishment
opposite. As always, music lovers of
every kind were carried away by my transcriptions
which, in their structure as much as
in their style, gave the impression
of several pianos in action at once.
The proprietor, who had every reason
to be pleased, put up a poster on the
door which read (approximately) as follows:
"Why be swindled elsewhere? Come
to my place: the pianists over the road
have only ten fingers like Cziffra,
but he plays for three."
Because
of the nightly tournaments I fought
against myself, I was able to perfect
my tricks constantly and they were far
from arousing "respectful piety
with no scholastic solecisms or mystic
jargon", as Renan put it. Undoubtedly,
I still had plenty to learn about the
timeless, sacrosanct traditions governing
the ideal interpretation of the great
piano works. I often rushed through
them blindly, feeling hampered by them.
So as not to let my newly acquired mastery
slip – and even my detractors called
it panoramic – I was virtually obliged
to make up arrangements to lubricate
the mechanism properly, a mechanism
of which it could be said that my brain
was the engineer and my hands the test
pilots. This extra power was only required
for my own tailor-made improvisations
and was based on my particular form
of dexterity. For a long time, it was
the surest means of making a living.
Whereas the majority of other pianists
wore their fingers to the bone on exercises,
hoping to overcome the problems which
prevented them playing the thornier
pieces in the repertory, my problem
was that I had to oblige myself to play
the very passages they were unable to.
By playing the great virtuoso pieces
of the Romantic repertory in my own
manner, I divided the profession. I
became its Antichrist due to my improvisations,
which multiplied the difficulties ten
times over.
At
the same time, news of my outstanding
skill had spread to all the nightspots
in the capital, to such an extent that
I could play whatever I wanted. My evenings
became vast non-stop marathons, beginning
with the classical-romantic repertory
in a programme of Chopin’s Etudes
and Liszt’s Transcendental Studies,
while in the early hours of the morning
I played my own improvisations. The
places where I performed were packed
out and those who knew my itinerary
followed me form nightclub to bar not
caring where they drank so long as they
could sit dreamily round the piano,
sighing to the surge of a Wagner paraphrase
or the evocation of the flight of a
bumble bee.
This
strange life continued for weeks, then
months, then years. My reputation for
being everywhere at once confounded
the experts. Famous musicians on tour
in Budapest spent the night drinking
champagne in the cabaret where I was
playing, encouraging me to have a drink
in the hope of squeezing a few secrets
out of me. They left well and truly
drunk, convinced the piano had been
tampered with. Once these birds of passage
had gone, I continued like a nightingale
to encourage insomniac moths to enjoy
their wine, women and song.
On
the way to catch the early morning train
back home, I sometimes stopped before
a Morris column where the programmes
of subscription concerts were displayed,
appearances by rising foreign pianists,
for instance. As I tried in the half
light to make out the names of the soloists,
now famous for the most part, I would
just for a second shut my eyes, smarting
from lack of sleep, and imagine my own
name on the list. I had not yet given
up all hope of playing on a concert
platform some day. ‘The sun shines on
everyone’, as the saying goes. There
were at this time frequent exchanges
of artists between the Soviet Union
and Hungary in the name of their new
friendship and they appeared in the
concert halls of various Socialist countries.
Such artistic comings and goings were,
needless to say, duly regulated and
supervised by central government bureaucracy.
It was better than sitting at home twiddling
one’s thumbs or having to resort to
such expedients as I did. The carrot
dangling on the end of the string was,
of course, the same for all state-employed
musicians: a concert in a Western capital
one day – perhaps. Back home, I sat
sipping my large bowl of strong coffee
to clear my mind of the night’s vapours,
thinking of the remote possibility of
my name appearing on the list of the
chosen few if ever someone in high office
should chance to remember it.
I
always did four hours’ practice before
going to bed, learning new works and
making plans in case some member of
the State Council Bureau in a state
of grace should phone to ask me to give
a recital, even in the provinces. I
really was so fed up with living like
an outsider swimming against the tide
that I would have been grateful for
an engagement in a ‘kolkhoz’ village
hall. Alas, I had every reason to believe
I was not on that list which, for an
artist living under the iron rule of
the new regime, boiled down to being
purely and simply banned. It was most
unlikely that the new academic high-ups
had heard of me. Aside from financiers
and foreigners, no-one else could have
afforded the sort of places I played
in ‘to sooth the savage breast’. It
neither surprised nor made me jealous
to learn that Soviet pianists had monopolized
the major concert halls of Hungary.
They were superior in numbers and often
in quality. They could travel from Berlin
to Moscow, whereas I could have been
content with far less. Sad to say, I
knew of only two instruments in those
countries: the whip and the knout.
Obediently,
I went back on night shift as my only
hope of salvation and continued my wanderings
from bar to nightclubs. I returned with
great reluctance to liven up ‘The Quaver’.
Sometimes a celebrated artist from one
of the Socialist countries would come
along with some friends at the end of
his concert to down a bottle of vodka
in homage to music. One evening, at
the request of one of their number,
I improvised a sort of symphonic poem
based on the most popular themes of
the Russian ‘Mighty Handful’. He, like
the others, was too staggered to drink.
When it was over, he came over to me
and said in very basic Hungarian: "Whatever
are you doing in this out-of-the-way
bazaar? Now, if you were in our country…"
"Don’t
worry," I replied, raising my glass
to him. "To tell the truth, a Nazi
general and an American capitalist have
already asked the same rather awkward
question and I must say I didn’t know
how to answer. It’s no use looking under
the piano: it hasn’t been tampered with,
though my horoscope probably has."
That
encounter came as something of a shock
and as I returned home somewhat the
worse for drink I walked through the
narrow streets in the old part of the
town, their time-worn cobblestones shining
in the dawn. It had taken my colleague
less than two minutes to get from the
concert hall to ‘The Quaver’, with only
the street to cross, while I in twenty
years had not once managed to make the
journey in the opposite direction. What
was the reason behind it all? As I searched
among the confused mass of memories
filling my mind, I wondered what law
I had transgressed to be thus condemned
to mark time. I remember that before
leaving to face the disaster dear Adolf
had been preparing for us, I had been
to see my teacher who was lying in bed
seriously ill. On his bedside table,
next to a signed portrait of Franz Liszt,
the radio happened to be playing an
extract from Les Préludes,
chosen by German HQ as its signature
tune before each victory was announced.
"They’ve even managed to defile
that," he said, by way of a greeting.
"I know you’ve stayed behind to
be with your family but you shouldn’t
have. You shouldn’t be playing in bars
in this country," he added, quietly
closing the volume of Corneille he kept
beside him.
This
was the first time anyone had actually
advised me to leave the country. Others
had done well to get out while the going
was good. The second time was when an
SS general said much the same thing
somewhere out in the wilds of Russia.
Then it was an imperialist businessman
and finally, one great man driving out
another, a high-up Russian statesman,
who told me I had been born in the wrong
place. It was as if word had got round
to the four men, entangled in their
convictions and separated by the barriers
of opposing ideologies, that they were
to appear in my life with the regularity
of railway signals just to remind me
of this. They were right. All I got
out of leaving ‘Angel Court’ for the
Academy was a diploma for ‘Moonlighters’
Market’, a qualification which, besides
according me the right to be killed
driving a tank and to receive a posthumous
Military Cross, prepared me for strumming
in the country’s taverns to help the
sovereign people forget it was the eve
of New Socialism. That was the sum total
of my artistic past. I was overcome
with an immense, irrepressible feeling
of lassitude. Lost on thought, I suddenly
realized it was daylight and all that
I was doing was marinating in a so-called
temporary situation which had lasted
from birth, aside from a few short-lived
moments of hope.
Like
a good-natured plough horse plodding
blindly back to its stable, I had covered
three quarters of the fifteen-odd miles
between my place of work and home on
foot. Faceless people were hurrying
out of shabby dilapidated little houses
decorated with patches of plaster. Most
of them worked like my wife at the steelworks
an hour’s walk away. As I reached the
alley leading to our house, I thought
I recognized her light, almost dancing
walk fading away in the distance. I
ran after the silhouette and it was
indeed her. With a bundle under one
arm containing her meagre lunch and
dressed in an old raincoat, she was
off to load the wagons. As I drew level,
I took her by the hand and we went part
of the way together. Suddenly, she stopped
and we stood looking at one another,
reading each other’s thoughts like a
book. My throat tightened with emotion:
there was so much I wanted to say I
did not know where to begin. There was
no need to: she had already understood.
Taking my hand in hers, she simply said,
"There’s nothing for you here.
Why don’t we go there?"
At
the beginning of 1950, we decided to
flee the ceaseless flow of setbacks.
As everyone knows, after the war the
frontiers of numerous countries were
altered by the vanquishers, especially
in the East. Hungary had been part of
the Socialist block for nearly five
years and was surrounded by friendly
new People’s Democracies, thanks to
the USSR. In conformity with orders
received, the frontier with Austria
was closed since it had had the cheek
to choose to remain independent. Though
freed from Nazi tyranny by the Soviet
forces, they had left soon after the
Yalta conference, thus becoming the
first bastion of the West in our part
of Europe.
Regrettably,
differences between Uncle Sam’s view
of life and the Father of the People’s
had by then reached stalemate. The builders
of the New Socialism had to be protected
from the mirages of Capitalism otherwise
a great many might have been tempted
to put into practice their newly acquired
knowledge of Das Kapital. There
was no question of trying to obtain
a passport to leave the country legally.
At that time, the simple fact of stating
that one wished to visit one of those
detested countries revealed the ordinary
mortal as an enemy of the regime and
the ever-vigilant authorities made it
a point of honour to set such persons’
brains back on the straight and narrow.
Well
aware of this, we resolved to try and
cross the frontier in the most anonymous
manner possible. Our plans were utopian.
The frontier had been closed long ago
and control of the demarcation line
was even tighter and more sophisticated.
The
fact was that our chances of getting
to the other side of no-man’s-land alive
were virtually nil. Apart from zombies
and flying saucers, few could boast
of having found their way through this
labyrinth. The chosen one who had by
some miracle managed to avoid the high
tension wires hidden under the dead
leaves could, at best, step on a sunken
alarm plate, setting off sirens and
bells, which were the signal for a horde
of guard dogs to charge on their prey,
which they had been specially trained
to do without barking. He might also
fall into a trap concealed by moss with
some fifty steel spikes at the bottom
or step on one of the mines skilfully
set at random especially for any diehards.
Most of no-man’s-land had been cleared
of trees so the guards, perched in towers
hidden by such trees as remained, could
shoot with maximum efficiency. From
dusk till dawn, powerful spotlights
surmounted by machine guns swept the
terrain ceaselessly even to the depths
of the rabbit burrows, whose inhabitants,
along with the birds, had fled long
ago.
The
demarcation line was our aim. We avoided
being torn apart by one or other of
the booby traps thanks to the sly neighbour
of the peasants with whom we stayed
the night before the three of us were
to take the great plunge. He suddenly
remembered after spotting us that the
police paid a god price for denouncing
a runaway. This was something we had
not reckoned on.
The
gentlemen were waiting for us as soon
as we got up the next morning. It was
useless trying to explain that we had
come to place a wreath on the tomb of
a distant cousin: we were caught like
rats in a trap. We were not dealing
with the city police but with the faithful
servants of State Security. We were
straightway accused of being spies in
the pay of the Imperialists. Not even
my son, not yet eight, was spared. We
were separated and taken in handcuffs
to and old building which with its numerous
cellars and basements must have been
used by the Gestapo, judging by the
Gothic script of the still visible notices.
To encourage us to speak freely under
interrogation, we were all beaten up
by several brutes while, in a nearby
cell, a down-at-heel clerk typed out
a full confession which it only remained
for us to sign and add ‘read and freely
approved’.
They
lost no time over our case. It is incredible
how a few kicks and well-aimed rifle
butt blows can tame even the most rebellious.
The arrogant club-swingers were puffed
up with a sense of impunity. There was
nothing surprising about that: just
like their predecessors within the same
walls, they were invested with supreme
power, the symbol of a state within
the State. At the time, not even the
first generation Communists were spared
by this clique, despite their unswerving
loyalty.
Still
half-stunned, I did not realize that
my wife and son had been taken away,
each to a separate, unknown destination.
After the torturers had gone I tried
to stand up. Despite the pain I was
in, I managed it by holding onto the
edge of a desk by the wall at the other
end of the room. Standing up at last,
handcuffed, my face swollen and covered
in spit, I waited for events to take
their course. Full of shame and remorse
that my loved ones should have got caught
up in all this, I knew my defiance of
the guards would cost me dear so that
I was ready for anything except the
encounter which was to lead to my downfall.
The
door opposite opened and an incredibly
gaunt officer approached, devouring
me with his squinting eyes as if trying
to hypnotize me. He was accompanied
by a sentinel, armed from head to foot,
who took up position by the door, vaguely
pointing his machine gun at me in case
it should take my fancy to play at being
Spartacus. The officer, very self-assured,
came closer and, almost pressing his
body against mine, stared hard at me,
examining my features. After a short
silence he said, smiling slyly, "You
remember me, don’t you? It looks as
though I’m going to have to refresh
your feeble memory a little," he
went on, with a grimace that revealed
the yellow fangs at the back of his
almost lipless mouth, hissing out the
final syllables. Still fixing his eyes
on me, he gestured to his guardian angel.
His flippancy increased as did his mocking
questions. "Are you sure you haven’t
seen me somewhere before, little György?"
he insisted, delighting in his banter.
Suddenly,
wearying of his game, he sat down casually
on a corner of the desk and without
warning began to whistle softly between
his teeth – a strange, piercing tune
which was vaguely familiar. Perhaps
I had already seen that oddly sunken
face somewhere before. All at once,
to my astonishment, I recognized the
wretched pedlar who had haunted my dreams
at ‘Angel Court’ – the notorious deacon
reeking of sulphur – the man who had
brought about my admission to the Liszt
Academy in such odd circumstances and
who had predicted an extraordinary career
for me. And now here I was standing
hand=cuffed before my judge, overcome
with shame and fatigue. He saw from
my crestfallen look that I recognized
him. He stopped whistling and stood
up: "Do you recognize me now, ‘maître’
?" he asked again, this tie without
the least trace of sarcasm. "I
told you we’d meet again. Do you remember
how I helped you because of your priceless
gift? And now, look at you! You came
from the lowest depths, got everything
you wanted and yet you preferred to
betray and abandon our country. You
wanted to desert and join the enemy
so that others could profit from what
is ours by right. You’re no more than
a deserter, a traitor, a turncoat."
His
tone changed without warning and he
became delirious, foaming at the mouth
with rage. He yelled in my face: "You’ll
see! We’ll break you till you crawl
in the dust!" He was quite out
of breath and pressed the bell button
beside him on the desk. The guard was
back in the doorway in a flash. The
oracle of ill-omen blinked and with
a small downward gesture of his thumb
signalled to him to take me away.
I
was led down an endless succession of
spiral staircases to a huge cellar at
least twenty yards below ground level,
where water trickled down the walls.
There in the dim light were pallid people
of all ages hunched on a cracked concrete
slab through which seeped water from
an underground stream. They were all
there for the same reason and in the
same state. Bleeding, all hope gone,
they stared vacantly ahead, brooding
on the consequences of their rashness.
* * * * * * * * * *
After
a year in jail, my wife went to slave
in a saw mill – as a special favour
since no-one else would employ her,
knowing as they did the reason for her
imprisonment. After two years of medical
treatment, my son, who had been at death’s
door, was returned to his family. He
needed every drop of their devotion
to recover.
I
was set free a year and a half after
my wife. Probably it was considered
I had had enough time to make amends.
In my last year of detention I was admitted
to a disciplinary camp where I worked
transporting blocks of stone. For ten
hours, day after day, I lugged ready-prepared
sixty-kilo blocks between the ground
floor and the sixth floor of a university
under construction, of which those blocks
were to become the staircase. This new
task so strained the muscles of my wrists
that I had to wear leather wristbands
to prevent my overworked joints from
swelling. Despite these problems, I
became such a worthy worker that on
my release I was handed a certificate
attesting to my qualities as a transporter
of stone blocks and as a first-class
builder. The building firm immediately
offered to re-employ me as foreman with,
as a bonus, a brand-new bicycle for
Christmas and the opportunity to spend
forty-eight hours at home each month
– the ultimate reward. I turned it down.
As
soon as I was freed I went back home.
A new diploma and an eight-stone walking
skeleton were all I took with me as
an apology for our escapade.
1953
was drawing to a close. We had not seen
each other for about three years and
I had not so much as touched a piano
for even longer.
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