Between the Woods and the Water Read online

  Many thanks to Stella Gordon for her patient Champollion-Ventris flair for decyphering an illegible hand.

  Lastly, devoted thanks for kindness and haven during restless literary displacements to Barbara and Niko Ghika (to whom the book is dedicated) for many weeks among the loggias and swallows of Corfu; to Janetta and Jaime Parladé for high-perched Andalusian asylum at Tramores; to the proprietors of the Stag Parlour near Bakewell for fevered sessions of revision and for the all-but-irresistible suggestion of Shank’s Europe as an overall title for these books; to Jock and Diana Murray for editorial patience and shelter during the last phase; and lastly, dear Xan, to you and Magouche for diligent spells of cloistered seclusion in the Serrania de Ronda.

  P.

  Kardamyli, 11 February 1986

  1. BRIDGE PASSAGE

  PERHAPS I had made too long a halt on the bridge. The shadows were assembling over the Slovak and Hungarian shores and the Danube, running fast and pale between them, washed the quays of the old town of Esztergom, where a steep hill lifted the basilica into the dusk. Resting on its ring of columns, the great dome and the two Palladian belfries, tolling now with a shorter clang, surveyed the darkening scene for many leagues. All at once the quay and the steep road past the Archbishop’s palace were deserted. The frontier post was at the end of the bridge, so I hastened into Hungary: the people that Easter Saturday had gathered at the river’s side had climbed to the Cathedral square, where I found them strolling under the trees, conversing in expectant groups. The roofs fell away underneath, then forest and river and fen ran dimly to the last of the sunset.

  A friend had written to the Mayor of Esztergom: ‘Please be kind to this young man who is going to Constantinople on foot.’ Planning to look him up next day, I asked someone about the Mayor’s office and before I knew what was happening, and to my confusion, he had led me up to the man himself. He was surrounded by the wonderfully-clad grandees I had been admiring beside the Danube. I tried to explain that I was the tramp he had been warned about and he was politely puzzled; then illumination came, and after a quick and obviously comic conversation with one of the magnificent figures, he committed me to his care and hastened across the square to more serious duties. The charge was accepted with an amused expression; my mentor must have been saddled with me because of his excellent English. His gala costume was dark and splendid; he carried his scimitar slung nonchalantly in the crook of his arm and a rimless monocle flashed in his left eye.

  At this very moment, all eyes turned downhill. The clatter of hoofs and a jingle of harness had summoned the Mayor to the Cathedral steps, where a scarlet carpet had been laid. Clergy and candle-bearers were ceremoniously gathered and when the carriage halted a flame-coloured figure uncoiled from within and the Cardinal, Monsignor Serédy, who was also Archbishop of Esztergom and Prince-Primate of Hungary, slowly alighted and offered his ringed hand to the assembly and everyone in turn fell on one knee. His retinue followed him into the great building, then a beadle led the Mayor’s party to the front pews which were draped in scarlet. I made as though to slink to a humbler place, but my mentor was firm: “You’ll see much better here.”

  Holy Saturday had filled half the vast cathedral and I could pick out many of the figures who had been on display by the river: the burghers in their best clothes, the booted and black-clad peasants, the intricately-coifed girls in their coloured skirts and their white pleated sleeves panelled with embroidery, the same ones who had been hastening over the bridge with nosegays of lilies and narcissi and kingcups. There were black and white Dominicans, several nuns and a sprinkling of uniforms, and near the great doors a flock of Gypsies in clashing hues leaned whispering and akimbo. It would scarcely have been a surprise to see one of their bears amble in and dip its paw in a baroque holy-water stoup shaped like a giant murex and genuflect.

  How unlike the ghostly mood of Tenebrae two nights before! As each taper was plucked from its spike the shadows had advanced a pace until darkness subdued the little Slovak church. Here, light filled the great building, new constellations of wicks floated in all the chapels, the Paschal Candle was alight in the choir and unwinking stars tipped the candles that stood as tall as lances along the high altar. Except for the red front pews, the Cathedral, the clergy, the celebrating priest and his deacons and all their myrmidons were in white. The Archbishop, white and gold now and utterly transformed from his scarlet manifestation as Cardinal, was enthroned under an emblazoned canopy and the members of his little court were perched in tiers up the steps. The one on the lowest was guardian of the heavy crosier and behind him another stood ready to lift the tall white mitre and replace it when the ritual prompted, arranging the lappets each time on the pallium-decked shoulders. In the front of the aisle, meanwhile, the quasi-martial bravery of the serried magnates—the coloured doublets of silk and brocade and fur, the gold and silver chains, the Hessian boots of blue and crimson and turquoise, the gilt spurs, the kalpaks of bearskin with their diamond clasps, and the high plumes of egrets’ and eagles’ and cranes’ feathers—accorded with the ecclesiastical splendour as aptly as the accoutrements in the Burial of Count Orgaz: and it was the black attire—like my new friend’s, and the armour of the painted knights in Toledo—that was the most impressive. Those scimitars leaning in the pews, with their gilt and ivory cross-hilts and stagily gemmed scabbards—surely they were heirlooms from the Turkish wars? When their owners rose jingling for the Creed, one of the swords fell on the marble with a clatter. In old battles across the puszta, blades like these sent the Turks’ heads spinning at full gallop; the Hungarians’ heads too, of course...

  Soon, after an interval of silence, sheaves of organ-pipes were thundering and fluting their message of risen Divinity. Scores of voices soared from the choir, Alleluiahs were on the wing, the cumulus of incense billowing round the carved acanthus leaves was winding aloft and losing itself in the shadows of the dome and new motions were afoot. Led by a cross, a vanguard of clergy and acolytes bristling with candles was already half-way down the aisle. Next came a canopy with the Sacrament borne in a monstrance; then the Archbishop; the Mayor; the white-bearded and eldest of the magnates, limping and leaning heavily on a malacca cane; then the rest. Urged by a friendly prod, I joined the slow slipstream and soon, as though smoke and sound had wafted us through the doors, we were all outside.

  As the enormous moon was only one night after the full, it was almost as bright as day. The procession was down the steps and slowly setting off; but when the waiting band moved in behind us and struck up the opening bars of a slow march, the notes were instantaneously drowned. Wheels creaked overhead, timbers groaned and a many-tongued and nearly delirious clangour of bells came tumbling into the night; and then, between these bronze impacts, another sound, like insistent clapping, made us all look up. An hour or so before, two storks, tired by their journey from Africa, had alighted on a dishevelled nest under one of the belfries and everyone had watched them settle in. Now, alarmed by the din, desperately flapping their wings and with necks outstretched, they were taking off again, scarlet legs trailing. Black feathers opened along the fringes of their enormous white pinions and then steady and unhastening wing-beats lifted them beyond the chestnut leaves and into the sky as we gazed after them. “A fine night they chose for moving in,” my neighbour said, as we fell in step.

  Not a light showed in the town except for the flames of thousands of candles stuck along the window-sills and twinkling in the hands of the waiting throng. The men were bareheaded, the women in kerchiefs, and the glow from their cupped palms reversed the daytime chiaroscuro, rimming the lines of jaw and nostril, scooping lit crescents under their brows and leaving everything beyond these bright masks drowned in shadow. Silently forested with flames, street followed street and as the front of the procession drew level everyone kneeled, only to rise to their feet again a few seconds after it had moved on. Then we were among glimmering ranks of poplars and every now and then the solemn music broke off. When the chan
ting paused, the ring of the censer-chains and the sound of the butt of the Archbishop’s pastoral staff on the cobbles were joined by the croaking of millions of frogs. Woken by the bells and the music, the storks in the town were floating and crossing overhead and looking down on our little string of lights as it turned uphill into the basilica again. The intensity of the moment, the singing and candle flames and incense, the feeling of spring, the circling birds, the smell of fields, the bells, the chorus from the rushes, thin shadows and the unreality of the moon over the woods and the silver flood—all these things hallowed the night with a spell of great beneficence and power.

  When it was all over, everyone emerged once more on the Cathedral steps. The carriage was waiting; and the Archbishop, back in cardinal’s robes and the wide ermine mantle that showed he was a temporal as well as an ecclesiastical Prince, climbed slowly in. His gentleman-at-arms, helped by a chaplain with a prominent Adam’s apple and pincenez and a postillion in hussar’s uniform, were gathering in his train, yard upon yard, like fishermen with a net, until it filled the carriage with geranium-coloured watered-silk. The chaplain climbed in and sat opposite, then the gentleman-at-arms, sitting upright with black-gloved hands on the hilt of his scimitar. The postillion folded the steps, a small busbied tiger slammed a door painted with arms under a tasselled hat and when both of them had leapt up behind, the similarly fur-hatted coachman gave a twitch to the reins, the ostrich feathers nodded and the four greys moved off. As the equipage swayed down the hill, applause rippled through the gathered crowd, all hats came off and a hand at the window, pastorally ringed over its red glove, fluttered in blessing.

  On the moonlit steps everyone was embracing, exchanging East-er greetings and kissing hands and cheeks. The men put on their fur hats and readjusted the slant of their dolmans and, after the hours of Latin, Magyar was bursting out in a cheerful dactylic rush.

  “Let’s see how those birds are getting on,” my mentor said, polishing his monocle with a silk bandana. He sauntered to the edge of the steps, leant on his sword as though it were a shooting-stick and peered up into the night. The two beaks were sticking out of the twigs side by side and we could just make out the re-settled birds fast asleep in the shadows. “Good!” he said. “They’re having a nice snooze.”

  We rejoined the others and he offered his cigarette case round, chose one himself with care and tapped it on the gnarled gold. Three plumes tilted round his lighter flame in a brief pyramid and fell apart. He drew in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds and then, with a long sigh, let the smoke escape slowly in the moonlight. “I’ve been looking forward to that,” he said. “It’s my first since Shrove Tuesday.”

  The evening ended in a dinner party at the Mayor’s with barack to begin with and floods of wine all through, and then Tokay, and in the end a haze surrounded those gorgeously-clad figures. Afterwards the Mayor apologetically told me that as the house was crowded out, a room had been found for me at a neighbour’s. No question of my stumping up! Next morning, soberly dressed in tweed and a polo-necked jersey, my stork-loving friend picked me up in a fierce Bugatti and only the scimitar among his bags on the back seat hinted at last night’s splendours. We went to see the pictures in the Archbishop’s palace; then he said, why not come in his car? We would be in Budapest in no time; but I stuck reluctantly to my rule—no lifts except in vile weather—and we made plans to meet in the capital. He scorched off with a wave and after farewells at the Mayor’s I collected my things and set off too. I kept wondering if all Hungary could be like this.

  * * *

  From the path that climbed along the edge of the forest, backward glances revealed swamps and trees and a waste of tall rushes and the great river loosely dividing and joining again round a chain of islands. I could see the waterfowl rocketing up and circling like showers of motes and stippling the lagoon with innumerable splashes when they settled again. Then high ground put them out of sight. Foothills rose steeply on the other side, lesser hills overlapped each other downstream and the fleece of the treetops gave way to cliffs of limestone and porphyry, and where they converged, the green river ran fast and deep.

  A village would appear below and storks stood on one leg among the twigs of old nests on thatch and chimney. There were flurried claps as they took to the air, and when they dropped level with the treetops and crossed the river into Slovakia, sun-light caught the upper sides of their wings; then they tilted and wheeled back into Hungary with hardly a feather moving. Landing with sticks in their beaks, they picked their way along the roofs with black flight-feathers spread like tight-rope-walkers’ fingers fumbling for balance. Being mute birds, they improvise an odd courting-song by leaning back and opening and shutting their scarlet bills with a high-speed clatter like flat sticks banging together: a dozen courtships in one of these riverside hamlets sounded like massed castanets. Carried away by sudden transports, they would leap a few yards in the air and land in disarray, sliding precariously on the thatch. Their wonderful procession had stretched across the sky for miles the night before; now they were everywhere, and all the following weeks I could never get used to them; their queerly stirring rattle was the prevalent theme of the journey, and the charm they cast over the ensuing regions lasted until August in the Bulgarian mountains, when I finally watched a host of them dwindling in the distance, heading for Africa.

  It was the first of April 1934, and Easter Day: two days after full moon, eleven from the equinox, forty-seven since my nineteenth birthday and a hundred and eleven after I had set out, but less than twenty-four hours since crossing the frontier. The far bank was Slovakia still, but in a mile or two a tributary twisted through the northern hills, and the tiled roofs and belfries of the little tearful-sounding town of Szob marked the meeting place of the two rivers. The frontier wandered northwards up this valley and for the first time both sides of the Danube were Hungary.

  For most of this journey the landscape had been under snow; icicle-hung and often veiled in falling flakes, but the last three weeks had changed all this. The snow had shrunk to a few discoloured patches and the ice on the Danube had broken up. When this is solid, the thaw sunders the ice with reports like a succession of thunderclaps. I had been out of earshot downstream when the giant slabs had broken loose, but all at once the water, halted by occasional jams, was crowded with racing fragments. It was no good trying to keep pace: jostling triangles and polygons rushed past, cloudier at the edges each day and colliding with a softer impact until they were as flimsy as wafers; and at last, one morning, they were gone. These were mild portents, it seemed. When the sun reaches full strength, the eternal snows, the glaciers of the Alps and the banked peaks of the Carpathians look unchanged from a distance; but close to, the whole icy heart of Europe might be dissolving. Thousands of rivulets pour downhill, all brooks overflow and the river itself breaks loose and floods the meadows, drowns cattle and flocks, uproots the ricks and the trees and whirls them along until all but the tallest and stoutest bridges are either choked with flotsam or carried away.

  Spring had begun as at a starter’s pistol. Bird song had broken out in a frenzy, a fever of building had set in, and, overnight, swallows and swifts were skimming everywhere. Martins were setting their old quarters to rights, lizards flickered on the stones, nests multiplied in the reeds, shoals teemed and the frogs, diving underwater at a stranger’s approach, soon surfaced again, sounding as though they were reinforced every hour by a thousand new voices; they kept the heronries empty as long as daylight lasted. The herons themselves glided low and waded through the flag-leaves with a jerky and purposeful gait, or, vigilantly on one leg like the storks, posed with cunning as plants. Flags crowded the backwaters and thick stems lifted enormous kingcups among the leaves of pink and white water-lilies that folded at sunset.

  Between the shore and the reddish-mauve cliffs, aspens and poplars tapered and expanded in a twinkling haze and the willows, sinking watery roots, drooped over fast currents. Tight-lacing forced the yellow
flood into a rush of creases and whorls and, after my earlier weeks beside the Danube, I could spot those ruffled hoops turning slowly round and round, telling of drowned commotion amidstream.

  The path climbed, and as the hot afternoon passed, it was hard to believe that the nearly mythical country of Hungary lay all around me at last; not that this part of it, the Pilis hills, tallied in the remotest degree with anything I had expected. When the climb had let the Danube drop out of sight, hills and woods swallowed the track and sunbeams slanted through young oak-branches. Everything smelt of bracken and moss, sprays of hazel and beech were opening, and the path, soft with rotten leaves, wound through great lichen-crusted trees with dog-violets and primroses among their roots. When the woods opened for a mile or two, steep meadows ran up on either hand to crests that were dark with hangers, and streams fledged with watercress ran fast and clear in the valleys. I was crossing one of them on stepping-stones when bleating and a jangle of bells sounded; then barking broke out, and the three demons that rushed down with bared fangs were called to heel by their shepherd. His sheep were up to their bellies in a drift of daisies; the ewes must have lambed about Christmas and some of them were already shorn. I had been in shirt-sleeves for several days, but a heel-length sheepskin cloak was thrown over the shepherd’s shoulders; peasants are slow to cast clouts. I shouted, “Jó estét kivánok!”—a quarter of my stock of Hungarian—and the same evening-greeting came back, accompanied by the ceremonious lift of a narrow-brimmed black hat. (Ever since I had come across the Hungarian population in southern Slovakia I had longed for some head-gear for answering these stately salutes.) His flock was a blur of white specks and faraway tinklings by the time I caught sight of a different herd. A troop of still unantlered fallow deer were grazing by the edge of the forest across the valley. The sun setting on the other side of them cast their shadows across the slope to enormous lengths: a footfall across the still acres of air lifted all their heads at the same moment and held them at gaze until I was out of sight.