Journey by Moonlight

“At that point their father decided that things really couldn’t carry on as they were. Something would have to be done about his children. He wanted to marry Éva off as a matter of urgency. He bundled her off to a rich old aunt in the country, who took a large house where she could go to county balls and Lord knows what else. Éva of course returned after a week, with some marvellous stories, and submitted phlegmatically to her father’s chastisement. Tamás did not share his sister’s easy nature. His father put him in an office. It’s horrible to think … even now it brings tears to my eyes when I think how he suffered in that office. He worked in the city hall, with conventional petty-bourgeois types who regarded him as mentally unsound. They gave him the most stupid, most dully routine work possible, because they reckoned he wouldn’t be able to cope with anything requiring a little thought or initiative. And perhaps they were right. The worst of the many humiliations he received at their hands amounted to this: not that they insulted him, but that they pitied and cosseted him. Tamás never complained to us, just occasionally to Éva. That’s how I know. He just went pale and became very withdrawn whenever the office was mentioned.

“Then came his second suicide attempt.”

“The second?”

“The second. I should have mentioned the first one earlier. That was actually much more serious and horrific. It happened when we were sixteen, just at the start of our friendship. I called there one day as usual and found Éva alone, doing some drawing with rather unusual concentration. She said Tamás had gone up to the attic, and I should wait, he would soon be down. Around that time he often went up to the attic to explore. He turned up countless treasures in the old trunks, which fed his antiquarian fantasies and were used in our plays. In an old house like that the attic is a specially romantic sort of place, so I wasn’t really surprised, and I waited patiently. Éva, as I said, was unusually quiet.

“Suddenly she turned pale, leapt to her feet, and screamed at me that we should go up to the attic to see what was wrong with Tamás. I had no idea what this was all about, but her fear ran through me. In the attic it was as black as could be. I tell you, it was a vast ancient place, full of nooks and crannies, with the doors of mysterious bureaux open everywhere, and trunks and desks blocking the main passage at intervals. I bumped my head on low-hanging beams. There were unexpected steps to go up and down. But Éva ran through the darkness without hesitation, as if she already knew where he might be. At the far end of the corridor there was a low and very long niche, and at the end of that the light of a small round window could be seen. Éva came to a sudden stop, and with a scream grabbed hold of me. My teeth were also chattering, but even at that age I was the sort of person who finds unexpected courage in moments of greatest fear. I went into the darkness of the niche, dragging Éva along, still clinging to me.

“Tamás was dangling beside the little round window, about a metre off the floor. He had hanged himself. Éva shrieked, ‘He’s still alive, he’s still alive,’ and pressed a knife into my hand. It seems she had known perfectly well what he intended. There was a trunk next to him. He’d obviously stood on it to attach the noose to the strength of the joist. I jumped up on the trunk, cut the cord, supported Tamás with the other hand and slowly lowered him down to Éva, who untied the noose from his neck.

“Tamás quickly regained consciousness. He must have been hanging only a minute or two, and no damage was done.

“‘Why did you give me away?’ he asked Éva. She was covered in shame and didn’t reply.

“In due course I asked, rather guardedly, why he had done it.

“‘I just wanted to see …’ he replied, with indifference.

“‘And what was it like?’ asked Éva, wide-eyed with curiosity.

“‘It was wonderful.’

“‘Are you sorry I cut you down?’ I asked. Now I too felt a little guilty.

“‘Not really. I’ve plenty of time. Some other time will do.’

“Tamás wasn’t able at the time to explain what it was really all about. But he didn’t have to. I knew all the same. I knew from our games. In the tragedies we played we were always killing and dying. That’s all they were ever about. Tamás was always preoccupied with dying. But try to understand, if it’s at all possible: not death, annihilation, oblivion, but the act of dying. There are people who commit murder again and again from an ‘irresistible urge’, to savour the heady excitement of killing. The same irresistible urge drew Tamás towards the supreme ecstasy of his own final passing away. Probably I can’t ever explain this to you, Erzsi. Things like this just can’t be explained, just as you can’t describe music to someone who is tone-deaf. I understood him completely. For years we never said another word about what happened. We just knew that each understood the other.