A Place to Stand

by Ann Bridge

  He turned to her then, looking into her eyes in a sort of astonishment.

  “Hope! Must we think of dredgers now? Do you know that I love you?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, speaking as if the words were dragged out of her.

  “But it is no good,” he said, now in tones cold with distress.

  “I know it isn’t—and anyhow I’m engaged to Sam,” she said, with the same deathly frankness as he.

  He was startled. “So! You are Sam’s fiancée? You said he was a friend, and I know American girls have men friends.” He paused—she could not guess what his expression meant; it was at once concentrated and far away. Then he startled her—“I wonder that you did not tell me this on the Hármashatár-hegy,” he said.

  The tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered that day, so full of magic.

  “Would it have made any difference if I had?” she asked, uncertainly, wondering if this was a reproach.

  He nearly laughed, in spite of his tragic eyes.

  “Well no!—by then, it wouldn’t,” he said candidly. “I am afraid nothing would have made much difference for me, at any time!—certainly not after I learned that you had gone off on your own account and beguiled this Kraljic for us! Ah, Hope—lovely, darling, brave Hope, the guileless little intriguer! I do love you so very much.” And he took her in his arms and kissed her young yielding face.

  It seemed a long time afterwards—and to Hope it felt as if she were coming round after an anaesthetic—when Stefan said, his arm still gently, reassuringly round her—“Dearest Hope, Sam will understand about this, you know.”

  She was quite shocked. During those moments in Stefan’s arms she had forgotten Sam completely.

  “Have I got to tell him?” she asked.

  “Of course not, unless you wish to. But with Sam, I should have thought you might wish to; because he is a person who does understand. And you see, for you and me there is nothing but our love. We do truly love, do we not?—but there is nothing that we can do about it; no future, no home and children, nor a stable old age. Europe is not like that any more. But here and now, we love one another—and that has its own value.”

  She burst into tears. She was filled with an enormous sense of loss—not only her own loss, when in a few minutes she would say goodbye for ever to this true love of hers, but of Stefan’s loss, Europe’s loss. Europe must be full of young men like Stefan who were losing—what had he said?—“a home, and children, and a stable old age.” Not only the beloved home of childhood, but the homes they had hoped and planned to make, the quiet familiar useful lives they had expected to lead in a world they knew and understood. And not only young men; young women like Litka, too—what did the future hold for her? Courage in exile; that was about all; with luck, with her lover beside her. And at that thought she wept afresh.

  He held her more closely, and stroked her head. “Oh, do not cry, my love,” he said. “Please do not cry, my dear dear love.”

  When he said that, for a moment she nestled more closely against him—oh, what a haven of bliss this was, the tenderness of his hands, the tenderness of his voice! But if he wanted her to stop crying, she would. After a minute or two she sat up, wiped her eyes, and looked around her in a sort of bewilderment. Was this the same world that she had been in before Stefan kissed her? Yes it was. There was the river, the bridge, the old dredger, the little gnomes that ran about it; close beside them in the pale grass were a paltry half-dozen of coltsfoot, the dull little yellow flower with silver fur on its bare stems, which blooms in early spring all the way from Surrey to Siberia; familiar to her throughout her European childhood, and likely though she could not know it then, to seem vaguely unfamiliar ever afterwards—in later years the flower which in its spring hardihood should be a symbol of courage, which for the future evoke only a dark feeling of bleak misery, and that desolating sense of loss—which have little to do with the spring. Yes, it was the old world all right, and she knew instinctively that their moment, hers and Stefan’s was over, like their long kiss. And, my goodness!—she glanced at her watch—the afternoon was half over too! She must race back! What on earth would Mother be thinking? And how in the world would they get a taxi, up here on the Gellért-hegy?

  But the taxi had waited, although the man had been paid off. Budapest taxis always did wait in such circumstances; sooner or later either the lady, or the gentleman, would want to go home. Stefan said he would walk—“Let it be here that I see you last,” he said. And again, with his unconquerable Polish sense of elegance, it was just her hand that he kissed before he helped her in, and gave her address to the driver. As she spun down the blue-grey tarmac again Hope managed to say the one word “Fast” to the driver, and went home in tears. Her last sight of Stefan was as he stood at the end of the sandy track, the bulky parcel from the Herend shop in one hand, his hat in the other.

  It was probably really a good thing for poor Hope that her Mother had asked all those people in for cocktails, though at the time she felt it to be the last straw. She had to be busy and occupied throughout what was left of the afternoon and evening, completing her packing, doing final jobs for her Mother, and forever answering the telephone; eventually making conversation to the crowd of guests which came surging in about 9 o’clock, after the Kirklands had had a quick light meal. There was no time to think, at least not to give oneself up to thinking: though in the strangest way throughout all those long distracting hours Stefan was somehow present to her—standing as he stood on the pavement, so distinguished in his shabby raincoat, on his dark fine face that moved expression of comprehension, pity, tenderness—and something more as well.

  The big pretty rooms in the flat were soon as full of people, cigarette-smoke, the fumes of cocktails and the high roar of voices as at a hundred other Budapest cocktail parties—and yet there was a difference. Men might shout platitudes over their drinks, women might shriek to make themselves heard; but it was a farewell, the emotional tone was not the same—and over the whole gathering hung the shadow of Count Teleki’s death, affecting the Hungarians more than the foreigners, but in some sort affecting everyone. Tibor Zichy sought out Hope almost at once. She saw him working his way skilfully and purposefully towards her with a touch of dismay; she felt that she could not put up with his affectionate gallantries very well just then—not just today!

  But Tibor was subdued as she had never seen him. “I am sorry that you go,” he said, quite simply and sadly. “Your Father and Mother also—you will all be greatly missed. You have been such good friends to us.”

  “Tibor, we’re terribly sorry, too; we’ve been so happy here, and everyone has been so good to us. Mother will be perfectly wretched, I know, away from Budapest.”

  “I think everyone who has once really known Budapest must be wretched to leave it,” he said thoughtfully. “It is—it is a special city, in some way.”

  “Oh, I know!

  Dann giebt’s nur eine Stadt

  Die hat was keine hat”

  Hope quoted. “I hardly know Vienna; but whether it’s true of that city or not, it’s certainly true of this place—it’s the one town!”

  He was pleased.

  “I am glad that you feel so! But you leave us in a sad hour.”

  “Tibor, I know. It’s a frightful thing. Tell me, how is Countess Hanna? Does she know?”

  “Oh yes, she was told very soon. They say she took it very calmly—she just said ‘So it had to be’.”

  “But Tibor, she can’t have expected it?”

  “Hardly that—no. But there is a story going round, which could be true, that while he was visiting her at the Szanatorium that evening a telephone-call came through for him—she had the telephone by her bed—and that he listened, and seemed very angry, and crashed down the receiver with such force that he broke the instrument, saying very loudly—‘So after all!—after all!’“

  “Good Heavens! Have you told Father that?” Hope asked, thinking of what John Kirkland had said only t
he day before about a “sell-out”.

  “No. Why?”

  “Only it fits in with something he said yesterday, about there having been some sort of treachery—or at least that the Germans must have been let through behind his back; Father said he’d never have stood for that.”

  “Nor would he. Your Father is very shrewd, and he has always understood us. If there had been any resistance!” the young man said bitterly.

  Hope was thinking back.

  “Of course that was even before we knew for certain that it was suicide—at least I think so. So much seems to be happening all at once!—I get quite muddled,” the girl said. “Oh Tibor—how awful that is! He was such a good Catholic.”

  He looked at her, surprised and moved.

  “But you are not one? Ah, but of course you were at the Sacré Coeur, with Erzse—so you understand. Listen, Hope—I have a piece of such good news, that you will feel about as we do; I heard it at the Ministry just before I came round here. The Vatican has agreed that he is to have a Christian burial: a proper Requiem Mass, and to be laid in consecrated ground. How it was arranged I do not know—I expect Apor made the right representations; he is Minister there, you know, and he is so devout himself, and such a patriot. But is that not wonderful?”

  Her answer surprised him.

  “Oh, so it’s really true?”

  “Who told you of it?” Count Zichy asked, looking surprised and faintly annoyed.

  “Well, actually it was our garage-man,” she said, with a tiny grin.

  “When?”

  “Before lunch.” (Before she had met Stefan in the Radolny utca, and they had gone together to Herend’s; before he had given her the little bracelet that was even now on her wrist, and kissed her hand for the last time; before he had stood on the pavement looking at her with that expression that she had not yet had time to dwell on, as she drove off in her taxi. But it was no good thinking about all that—there still wasn’t time; she must talk properly to Tibor now.) “He wasn’t sure,” she went on placatorily; “he just said ‘they say’.”

  But Tibor was no longer annoyed.

  “They are astonishing, our people,” he said. “What they hope, they believe—and often their belief comes true. St. Paul would have approved of this! You remember his definition of faith?”

  “Yes, of course: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for’,” Hope quoted promptly.

  He laughed. “Protestants are tremendous on the Bible—you always have it by heart! But another astonishing thing, don’t you think, is this ‘grape-vine’, as you Americans call it, here in Budapest? What happens in the Ministries at ten is known in the garages at half-past!”

  “This time the garages seem to have had it well before the Ministries,” said Hope gaily.

  “No—I think that was really only ‘the substance of things hoped for’,” said the Hungarian, with a sudden gravity which made Hope like him more than she had ever done. “It was the faith that moves mountains—and the Vatican is a very considerable mountain!”

  At this point Mr. Kirkland came up.

  “Well, Tibor, how are you? This is a miserable time. Tell me, is it true that Bádossy is to be the new Prime Minister?”

  “Yes, Mr. Kirkland.”

  “Ah, well—I don’t know him. I hope it’s a good choice. But no one can replace Teleki Paul. I’m so glad he’s to have a proper funeral—I hear the Prince-Primate is to conduct the service for him in the Parliament Building. Wish I could be there—but we have to leave.” Glass in hand, the American wandered sadly away to say something percipient and sympathetic to someone else, at the last party he would give in Budapest.

  10

  Hope had often seen people off, or been seen off herself at the Keleti Station at midnight. If friends or departing diplomats were going on the Belgrade Express it was common form to leave the dancing at the Park Club or the Arizona for half-an-hour, hop into someone’s car, and go down to the station to say good-bye just as one was: the bit of platform outside the sleeping-cars would be crowded with dress suits and evening frocks—a feature of railway travel almost unique to Budapest.

  Tonight it was all very different. Owing to the national mourning for the Prime Minister, and the general sense of crisis, there was no evening dress, and the long platform was much more crowded than usual. A good many Americans were going, like the Kirklands, to Istanbul; others had left the West Station earlier in the day en route for Italy. But besides the well-dressed crowd outside the Wagons-Lits cars who were seeing off their American friends, the whole length of the platform was thronged: tonight the train was immense, and to right and left, behind and in front of the sleeping-car coaches there was a press of agitated people laden with luggage and bundles of every description: struggling on to the train, getting off again, taking farewells—everywhere there were anxious faces and weeping groups. Many, one could see, were Jews; others Hope suspected of being Poles—she wished frantically that she could leave the haughty blankness of the shuttered sleeping-cars and go right down the train, to the brightly-lit second and third class coaches, to see if Stefan and Jurek were among that milling crowd. But she couldn’t possibly do that; fresh parties of friends were coming up all the time to where she stood with her parents, bringing last presents: books, boxes of Gerbeaud chocolates and—most fatuous of all farewell gifts to travellers—bunches of flowers. But people always “said it with flowers” in Budapest, even if what they were saying was goodbye. The contrast between the rich, safe group of departing Americans and the harassed and unhappy crowds on either side of them smote sharply on the girl’s consciousness; once more, as she had so often done in the last few weeks, she felt the chasm that gaped between her life and the life of these Europeans. We are Americans; we shall never know what Europeans know, or suffer as they suffer, she thought almost angrily; we have passports and dollars, we can go anywhere! Then she remembered what Mme Moranska had said, only that morning: “You have so made yourself one of us.” But that was just the old lady’s courtesy and kindness, Hope thought, darting up the steps into the train for the fourth or fifth time to deposit yet more bunches of flowers and boxes of sweets in her sleeper and her Mother’s. As she threw down a huge beribboned parcel on her berth she thought, involuntarily, of the mammoth box of chocolates that Sam had given her in Belgrade—the box with the passports, that had started it all! And now she was setting out for Istanbul, where Sam was, and of course she would see him again—and what could she say to him, and how would it all be? She began to find the prolonged leave-taking and the crowd of people getting on her nerves, and simply wished that the train would start, so that at least she could be quiet, and think.

  It did start at last, with the Kirklands waving from the top step of the coach to their friends who waved from the platform; but Hope did not wait for the last glance, she slipped away to her sleeper, and stood for a moment staring really almost in disgust at the litter of flowers and sweets which covered the berth, and despairingly at the rack overhead, already crammed with luggage. Eventually she piled the chocolate-boxes in a heap on the floor under the window, got down her little dressing-case, tossed the unwanted flowers up on top of the luggage anyhow, and began to pull out her night things.

  Trains running south from Budapest always stopped for three or four minutes at Kelenföld, a station on the outskirts of the city where several lines meet—really a sort of Hungarian Clapham Junction; the Kirklands’ train did so. Hope, familiar with this arrangement, paid no attention at first; she was brushing her hair and cleaning her teeth, and generally preparing to get to bed. But it struck her at last that they seemed to be stopping for a very long while. She glanced at her watch; if the train had started to time they must have been standing still for nearly a quarter of an hour! This was most unusual. She began to cream her face, wondering what was causing the delay; there seemed to be rather a lot of noise going on outside, too. When she had finished her face she looked at her watch again—another six minutes had
gone by. What could be wrong? Half-undressed as she was, she pushed up the shutter and peered out of the window—and saw the platform outside full of German officers and N.C.O.s!

  At that sight Hope threw up the window itself, and put her head right out; up in front, down behind, she saw that people were being pulled off the train and jerked down on to the platform, with violence—there were shouts and cries. Oh God, what was going on? She went over to the door and thumbed the bell for the attendant, threw on her wrapper, and ran back to the window—at that moment the train began to pull out and, horrified, she was borne helplessly past struggling groups, men in uniform hitting and kicking other men out of uniform.

  “Come in!” she called, as the attendant tapped on her door; neat and suave in his brown livery, he stood awaiting her orders.

  “What is happening at Kelenföld? Why was there this delay?” she asked.

  “It is the Gestapo, Madame. They are rounding up Poles, and they were searching the train and taking them off—there are lots of Poles in Hungary! They have put a cordon right round the city, with guards to watch the roads and at all the stations, to make sure that none escape. And after tonight they won’t even have a chance to be pulled off this train,” the man said chattily, “for it is the last train to Belgrade. The Germans will soon be there, so we are not running any more. This is the last train to Belgrade,” he repeated, obviously enjoying the drama of the situation. “And can I fetch Madame anything?”

  “No—yes, bring me a bottle of Vichy water,” Hope said at random; better ask for something. When the man had gone she sat back, in an agony. If Stefan and Jurek had really been on this train, would they have got past the Gestapo with Sam’s Yugoslav passports? Should she try to go along to the third class to see? No, that would only arouse suspicion; there might even be German agents on the train, for aught she knew, and anyhow the third-class coaches were always locked off from the sleeping and restaurant cars on these big expresses. But if “it” hadn’t come today, and they had not got away tonight, how could they possibly get out of Budapest tomorrow?