Oliver VII
ANTAL SZERB
OLIVER VII
Translated from the Hungarian by
Len Rix
PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON
Contents
Title Page
OLIVER VII
TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD
Copyright
OLIVER VII
SANDOVAL THE PAINTER had tactfully left the young couple to themselves—the word ‘young’ being used here in a rather specialised sense. The dancer certainly was young. Officially seventeen, she could not in truth have been much older. Count Antas, however, was more like sixty, at the very least.
The Chateau Madrid coffee house, on whose terrace they were sitting, was the supremely fashionable place to be seen in in early spring, with its pavilion under the celebrated hundred-year-old plane trees beside the little lake in the park that began where the city ended. Given the small number of these open air coffee houses in the state of Alturia during those years before the war, you might have expected to have to fight for a seat. However, at the Chateau Madrid the breeze was included in the bill. With a cup of coffee costing three Alturian taller, the clientele consisted solely of the social elite and the demi-monde. On this particular day, with the steadily worsening financial crisis, it was less than full.
In front of the Count rose a tall stack of side plates, one for every drink he had imbibed. The Count drank himself into a stupor most evenings, but, not being a man of narrow principles, he had no objection to drinking in the afternoon as well. In fact, he had probably been at it that morning too—it was hard to say quite when he had begun: normally he would have known better than to appear before so large a gathering in the company of a little dancing girl of such dubious reputation. (In those years before the war women still had such things.) Luckily the trellised bower they were in offered a shield from prying eyes.
“My gazelle!” he murmured amorously. The little dancer acknowledged this compliment with a guarded smile.
“My antelope!” he continued, developing his theme. He sensed the need for yet another animal, but could think of nothing better than a pelican.
At that precise moment Sandoval burst in, with an anxious face.
“Your Excellency! … ”
“My boy,” the Count began, in a voice that verged on a hiss. He did not welcome intrusion. But Sandoval cut him short.
“Count,” he insisted, “Her Ladyship is here, with her companion.”
Antas clapped the monocle to his eye and stared around. It was beyond question. Slowly, terrifyingly, like a fully rigged old-style frigate, his wife was negotiating the entrance.
“I’m done for!” he stammered, his eyes darting hither and thither, as if some unexpected source of assistance might come sailing through the air.
“We can still get away,” whispered Sandoval. “We can nip out through the kitchen and straight into the car. Come on, Count, be quick … and try to look like someone completely different.”
“And the bill?” demanded the grandee, a gentleman through and through.
Sandoval tossed a fifty taller note onto the table.
“We must go. Quickly!”
They dashed out of the bower, Antas with averted face. Almost immediately he collided with a waiter balancing a tray in his hand. The crash of broken crockery brought all eyes to bear upon them. Antas began to apologise, but Sandoval seized him and led him, at a speed scarcely to be credited, through the kitchen, out onto the street and into the car, losing the girl somewhere along the way.
“You don’t think she saw me?” the Count asked, slamming the door shut behind them.
“I’m afraid it’s quite certain she did. When Your Excellency knocked the waiter over everyone—including the Countess—turned to look. So far as I could make out, in my state of agitation, she was shaking her parasol at you.”
Antas slumped back into the seat.
“That’s it. I’m dead,” he whimpered.
Sandoval meanwhile had started the engine and swerved out onto the main road leading to the city. There had been no time to send for the driver, and they left him to his fate.
“If I might make a suggestion … ” said Sandoval, breaking the horrified silence.
“I’m listening,” the Count whispered, in the tones of a man whose life was about to expire.
“The fact that Your Excellency met Her Ladyship is not something we can do anything about. But time is always a great healer.”
“What do you mean?”
“For example, if Your Excellency were to disappear for a few days—a week, shall we say? During that time her rage would subside, and she would start to worry, not being able to imagine where you might be … and it would give me time to think up some story or other to put a plausible front on what happened … ”
“How could I disappear, my boy? Me, the Royal Chief Steward? How could you think that? Such a prominent public figure!”
“True, true. Just let me think for a moment … I have it! I’ll take Your Excellency to the country mansion of a friend of mine, up in the Lidarini Mountains. It’s utterly remote.
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