Journey by Moonlight

“Why do they all try to sell me? Mihály sold me to Zoltán — even his letter made it clear that there had been a deal — and now János sells me to the Persian, and, God knows, in time the Persian will sell me to some Greek or Armenian; and after that I’ll be sold again and again by men who don’t even view me as their own property.” She racked her brains to discover what there might be in her that made men do this. Or perhaps the fault lay not in her, but in the men she fell in with, Mihály and János, and the fact that both of them had loved Éva, a woman who was for sale, and were therefore unable to see her as any different?

A few minutes more and the Persian would come, and, in the most natural way in the world, would wish to complete the transaction. What nonsense! She must do something. Go to the lady of the house, and make a great scene, call for her protection? It would be ridiculous, since the people of the house were the Persian’s hired lackeys (Who could they be? They had played their parts very well. Perhaps they were actors, since he was now a film entrepreneur.) She walked up and down, at her wits’ end.

“Perhaps you’re quite mistaken. Perhaps the thought never entered his brain.”

It struck her that if the Persian didn’t come, that would be every bit as insulting as if he did.

If he came … Perhaps it wouldn’t be so insulting and humiliating. He knew perfectly well that Erzsi admired him. She herself had issued the invitation to come. He was not coming as to a slave-girl in his harem, but to a woman who loved him, and whom he loved, after carefully removing every obstacle in the way. Had she been sold? Indeed, she had. But properly speaking, the fact that men laid out vast sums for her need not really be so humiliating. On the contrary, it was very flattering, for people spend money only on the things they value … She began suddenly to undress.

She stood in front of the mirror, and for a few moments studied her shoulders and arms with satisfaction, as a sample of the whole item “for which men laid out vast sums of money”. The thought was now decidedly pleasurable. Well, was she worth it? If she was worth it to them …

Before this, under the lamp downstairs, she had longed for the Persian’s embraces. Not perhaps with the most single-minded passion: there was more curiosity in it, a yearning for the exotic. For she had not thought at the time that it might become reality. But now, such a short while later, she was going to feel, with her whole body, the volcanic glow she sensed in the Persian. How strange and fearful was the preparation and the waiting!

She was filled with trembling excitement. This would be the supreme night of her life. The goal, the great fulfilment, towards which her road had always led. Now, now at last she was putting behind her every petty-bourgeois convention, everything that was still Budapest in her, and somewhere in the depths of France, that night, in an ancient château, she would give herself to a man who had purchased her, would give herself to an exotic wild animal and lose forever her genteel character, like some Eastern whore in the Bible or the Thousand and One Nights. Always this same wish-image had lurked at the base of her fantasies, not least when she was deceiving Zoltán with Mihály … And her instinct had chosen correctly, for the road taken with Mihály had really led all along to this.

And now here was the man who would perhaps prove final. The real tiger. The exotic one. The man of passion. A few minutes, and she would know. A shiver went through her. Of cold? No, a shiver of fear.

Quickly she pulled her blouse back on. She stood at the door that opened on to the corridor, and pressed her hand against her heart, with the naïve, artless gesture she had so often seen in the cinema.

In her imagination she was confronting the great secret: formless, headless, terrifying, the secret of the East, the secret of men, the secret of love. With what appalling, tormenting, lacerating movements and actions would he approach her, this stranger, this man with the tiger-strangeness. And might he not annihilate her, as the gods once annihilated mortal women in their arms? What unspoken, mysterious horrors? …

Suddenly it all enfolded her once again: her good upbringing, her character as genteel lady, as model pupil, her thrift, everything she had once fled. No, no, she did not dare … Fear lent her strength and cunning. Within seconds she had piled up every bit of furniture against the unlocked door. She even seized hold of the massive bed and, sobbing, gulping down her tears, dragged that too up to the door. Then she collapsed on to it, exhausted.

Just in time. From the neighbouring room she could hear the soft steps of the Persian. He was standing outside the door. He listened, then turned the handle.

The door, with every piece of furniture in the room leaning against it, stood firm. The Persian did not try to force it.

“Elizabeth,” he said quietly.