They had seen a film at the Savoy, with subtitles which Fay soon found perfectly easy to read while continuing to watch the actors although she never would have expected it, and as it was the most heartbreaking story she had a job to prevent herself from crying which would have made her look an awful fool and moreover would have ruined her eye make-up; and now they were in a little restaurant at Kings Cross where the food was quite delicious and where Rudi seemed to know a lot of the other diners, waving and bowing to right and left as people came and went. The strangest thing of all was that Rudi was so terribly easy to talk to. There was no need to hide a thing.
“So you have never seen a French film before? My God, I see I have arrived here just in time. We will see them all, Les Enfants, Les Jeux, La Règle, Le Jour. Et cetera. It will take forever, we will have time for almost nothing else. Well, there is no opera here and virtually no theatre so the time we have. I will get the programme of the University Film Soc as soon as the academic year begins, they show them all the time, so they did anyway in Melbourne. Of course anyone may walk in there, why not? Taste some of this veal, it is very good here.
“Yes, I was a bureaucrat in Budapest—what a line! I should write a song!—a statistician. Shall I tell you what that is? Here, I intend to make money—what else? I did not escape into the capitalist west in order to work for a salary for the rest of my life. Oh, there is a fortune to be made here by anyone with a reasonable knowledge of economic statistics and a little imagination—several fortunes. My friends are doing it all the time and they have no knowledge even of statistics. You see, the country is underdeveloped and the population must also be increased as quickly as feasible. So I intend to become rich, myself; I will be doing a favour to everybody. Tell me, do you prefer Brahms to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky to both? You are not sure? Well. I will take care of that too if you will permit me. You have such musicality or you could not dance so well. No, I am quite serious. This is a serious matter. So you are reading Anna K, are you—ah, so Lisa lent it to you. Remarkable. Well, life is, fortunately, long, even though not as long as art, so you have plenty of time to finish it and go on to the rest. You are already extremely well-read for a dancer. But now I think it is time for me to shut up, as they say, because you are ready for the dessert and I have not yet finished this, so while I do so I think you had better tell me the story of your life. Begin at the beginning! Who was your father?”
And Fay began to tell, for the first time ever, the story of her life, and as it became quite a sad story quite soon—for her father had been killed in the war when Fay was eleven years old and her elder brother fifteen, and this misfortune had been extended in its consequences through a series of poor choices and contrivances on the part of Fay’s well-meaning but not very competent mother—Rudi brought it to a temporary halt at the point where Fay left school at the unwisely early moment of her sixteenth birthday, and called for the dessert menu.
“It is time for you now to eat something very sweet and tasty,” he said. “I can recommend the chocolate pudding here, it is formidable. Let me digest the story so far before you give me the next chapter. I had not imagined you to have such a tale to tell—you Australians are mysterious people, no one would guess that this is a place where people can also suffer. It is the constant sunshine, it hides everything but itself.”
Fay was glad to stop talking for the time being, for oddly enough she now found that her tale was affecting her too: she had almost been on the point of tears at one or two moments.
“Listen,” said Rudi, “let me tell you a Hungarian joke. Let me see, I must translate.”
She laughed so much that tears—now—came into her eyes. How sweet she is, thought Rudi. A nice healthy Australian girl, just as I commanded, but with a tragic tale withal. What a lucky bastard I am. Then he had, uncharacteristically, a twinge of doubt. Does she like me? he wondered. I’ll have to be careful. He did hope that she did for, if she did, he thought it quite possible that he might actually decide to marry her.
“What would you like to do tomorrow night?” he asked. “Shall we see if there is a concert programme which appeals? I’ll look at the Herald in the morning and telephone you in the afternoon. Well, your landlady will have to put up with it—I will smother her in Middle European charm, don’t worry, she will soon be looking forward to my telephone calls, she will not mind the disturbance at all.”
He’s so nice, thought Fay. I never knew men could be so nice. What on earth does he see in me? She wasn’t even trying anymore, she was simply swept along on the tide of Rudi’s energy and charm. It was the most entirely novel, and the most blissful, sensation.