by Ann Bridge
But all such ideas faded when the priest entered that shabby familiar room, and stood beside the bed where the dying woman lay. Hope introduced Litka with a hasty—“Madame’s daughter”; he shook hands, and then began to speak to the old lady with an encouraging tenderness which even to Hope, who could not understand a word, was beautiful. Old Mme Moranska’s face lightened with a touching and inexpressible relief when she saw him; his voice and his words penetrated through the mists of those unimaginable distances into which her spirit was retreating, and even in that ultimate chill brought her comfort and peace. The two girls stood together by the window, out of earshot, while the low murmur of voices went on at the head of the bed: from the one contrition for the sins of a lifetime, from the other pardon, absolution and peace—and it was not only Litka who wept. For the second time that morning the priest fumbled in his soutane, and drew out a tiny metal case with a phial with the holy oils; the two girls came and knelt near the bed then, one on each side, while he administered Extreme Unction to that weary, small, fragile Christian body—to the closing eyes, the tired hands, the tired feet; to the ears which had heard so little evil, and the lips which had spoken so much kindness—giving to each sense and part help and blessing for the last journey.
When the rite was over Father Kowalski took Litka aside. “Alas, I could not give your Mother the Viaticum,” he said sadly. “I have not been able to say Mass this morning. I am distressed that it should happen so.”
Just then the old lady rallied a little—she murmured something, and both girls went and bent over her, Hope as instinctively as Litka. She smiled at them vaguely, and then began to talk quite clearly; but she was obviously wandering, and at first she spoke in and of the past. “Your Father will be back soon—he was going out to the River Field to see about the spring ploughing.” “I think I had better speak to Jadwiga—I don’t think she has put down quite enough of the red cabbage in salt.” “Has Wladek brought in some freesias for the drawing-room?” Then a look of anxiety came over her face, and she tried to raise herself in the bed.
“Mother dearest, what is it?” Litka asked in concern.
“The book! Are you sure it is safe? That man was here just now; he may be somewhere about still. You must put it among my underclothes—fold it right inside a nightdress, do you understand?” She spoke now with urgency and astonishing vigour. But while Litka was saying soothingly that Yes, she had already put the book away; it was quite safe, there was no need to worry, Mother darling, to Hope it was strange to the point of the miraculous that she, an American, and here in Budapest, knew of what it was that the old lady spoke: the forbidden Polish spelling-book out of which, in that past where the departing mind gently roamed, Stefan and Litka had learned illegally to read their native tongue. Last night’s visit from the police must have revived the chronic anxiety of twenty-odd years ago; and the new fear caused the troubled thoughts to run along the old familiar channels, rather than in contemporary ones.
But before the end Mme Moranska more or less came back into the present. She took the hands of both girls, one on each side of her, and, loving and courteous to the last, said what she felt that she ought, and wanted, to say. She was so near death by this time, though, that she no longer knew them apart: and it was to Litka that she turned her head to thank Hope for all that she had done for them, her wonderful goodness to strangers; and it was Hope whom she drew down to her in a weak gentle embrace, calling her “My dear, dear daughter.” Hope quite broke down, at that.
Then there was a last flicker of anxiety. “Stefan—where is he? I wish he would come. They came and asked for him, did they not?”
Litka took both her Mother’s hands, and spoke steadily and clearly, with complete authority.
“Mother, dearest, yes—you remember that Stefan and Jurek were in danger? But they have escaped—all is well.”
“They are safe?”
“Yes, they are quite safe.”
The old woman gave a soft sigh when she heard that; a sort of relaxation came over her whole frame. Hope, quite without experience of the onset of death, took this for sheer relief, but Litka, who had seen her Father die, glanced questioningly at the priest. Father Kowalski got up—he had been kneeling all the time, saying the prayers for the Departing Soul—and came over to the bed; he took the small hand which still clasped Hope’s, and felt for the pulse. Rapidly, he gave the “Last Blessing”; then he laid the hand gently down again on the shabby quilt, and made the sign of the cross—the two girls did the same. Litka took up the wooden rosary, the carved beads worn and shining with long use, which lay on the bed—it had been between Mme Moranska’s hands all the morning; now she folded those old hands together, with the rosary clasped between them, while, very gently, the priest closed the dead woman’s eyes. Then he knelt down again, and prayed aloud for the repose of the soul just departed: “Grant her eternal rest, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon her”—and the two girls prayed with him.
The first death that one actually witnesses always makes a strong impression, and Hope, who had come to have a deep feeling for the little old Polish lady, was very much moved and shaken. When the priest at length rose from his knees and she and Litka followed suit, she realized well enough that now life must go on again, that all those problems connected with the little package in her bag, which had filled her mind as she brought the priest from the Sörözö to the Penzio, must come up for immediate solution—with the two young men vanished, probably Litka was the best person to deal with it, if she could somehow be got out of the city. But her mind was still running on Mme Moranska, and as her eye lit on Tibor’s bouquet, which Litka had stood carefully in a jar of water, she said in a rather uncertain voice—“Could we not put some of those flowers round your Mother? I—I brought them for her.”
“Yes—but indeed. What a good idea! She would have loved them so, if she had been able to see them,” Litka said, her eyes filling with tears again. “She liked carnations.”
Hope began to un-wire and break off the white blooms, and arrange them on the bed; their rich intense sheeny whiteness made the dingy quilt look dingier than ever. Litka helped her at first, but presently said—“Could you not put some of the red too? Red-and-white are our Polish colours, the colours of the flag.” Hope, who hadn’t known this, of course agreed, and began laying red carnations on the bed too. But Litka now remembered something else, and went and took from the press a candle and a rather chipped china candlestick. The priest, who had sat down, looked at the candle enquiringly, and made a movement as if to rise—“No, Father; it is blessed,” Litka said. (The Poles, like the Irish, habitually keep a blessed candle in the house against a sudden death.) The weary little man sat back again, and looked on tranquilly while the two young girls completed their pious tasks, Litka fixing the candle in the candlestick, lighting it, and setting it on the floor by the bed, which Hope meanwhile had almost smothered in flowers.
“That looks lovely,” Litka said at last, standing back and surveying their joint handiwork. “Dear Hope, you even brought her her last flowers! What more will you think to do for us?” And the Polish girl gave the American a quick impulsive kiss.
Hope returned it with warmth.
“Oh, Litka, I’m so glad you said that to her about the boys, even if it wasn’t true,” she exclaimed. “It made her so happy, so—so at peace.”
“But it is true,” Litka said, her face radiant. “Listen—now I must tell you, and please listen carefully. A moment after you went out just now the telephone rang, and the landlady came for me; I had to leave Maman and go in case it should be a message—and it was: it was Stefan. He could not say much on the telephone, of course, but he told me that he and Jurek had got out through the cordon, on bicycles, along with the workmen going to work—”
“Oh, how wonderful! But where are they?” Hope interrupted.
“Ah, that you shall tell me! When I asked him—of course—he said—’I will try to explain, though names are dange
rous. Oh, if only Miss Hope were here!—she would know’.”
“The Kis-Kocsma!” Hope exclaimed; she remembered the flood of bicycles pouring across the bridge at Csepel Island.
“What do you say? No, but please listen. So I said that by some miracle you were here, you were coming back in a few minutes—and at that he said very loudly, almost shouting: ‘Oh excellent! Hope will explain everything to you, exactly. Just say this to her: Where we are now it has all been newly plastered, like a palace, and fit for a Princess. Say that to her’.”
“I said so!” Hope murmured, half to herself.
“But do you know what he means? What is all this about palaces and Princesses?” said Litka, rather bewildered, as she well might be.
“Oh, I can explain all that. Did you tell him about Maman?” The intimate name slipped out involuntarily.
“No. I thought it would only distress him, and there was nothing that he could do. At least she has now had a blessed end—for which, again, we have you to thank,” said Litka. “Oh, how can we ever repay what you have done for us?”
Hope brushed that aside. “You know I’ve loved doing it. Did he say anything else?”
“Yes. He asked if it had by any chance come, and of course I said yes.” And now for the first time she looked half-enquiringly at Father Kowalski.
He nodded. “Yes. It is here.”
“You have it? Oh, at last!”
“This young lady has it,” said the priest, glancing at Hope.
“Mademoiselle Hope has it? But how?”
“He gave it to me at the Sörözö—to be safer, because of getting through the police,” said Hope. “But look—what are we going to do? I can tell you exactly where they are, but how are they going to get on?—from there, I mean? They mean to get clear away now, don’t they?—did Stefan say anything about that?”
“Yes. He asked if I could possibly get hold of a Hungarian car and take it to them, or send it to them at this place, wherever it is—because no trains are safe any more. He said they would wait there till 10 o’clock, and if I couldn’t get a car to them by then, they would just have to hitch-hike. Only he said that would be difficult, because all the cars are so packed out with Jews—the poor souls!” said Litka.
“Well, that’s all perfect. You can take them my car; it’s right round the corner—I got it out from the garage this morning, as soon as I came in, and had it filled up,” said Hope. “I had a hunch that it might be wanted, and at a quarter to six there were no guards on the pumps, and the sentry was asleep!” she added gaily—and then checked her smile, with a glance at the flower-strewn bed. She looked then at the priest, now serious. “Father, couldn’t Miss Lydia take it to them? If she has the car?” She glanced at her wrist-watch. “Goodness, it’s a quarter to nine already! But all the same she’ll have lots of time. It’s only about fifteen minutes’ run, if that, out to where they are.” She opened her bag.
“Wait!” said the priest. “I am not sure that what you propose is possible. How can Miss Moranska pass through the cordon? They are checking all cars and papers, remember.”
“Don’t I know it!” said Hope. “But mine’s an American car, with American number-plates, and the triptyque and all that is all in order, endorsed for the whole of Europe.” More than ever, after the events of the morning, Hope had a blithe confidence in everything American; even in this fantastic world of military cordons, police raids, and guards at one’s door, being an American seemed to have a magic power to cut all knots, slice through all obstacles. And whereas as recently as last night she had been almost ashamed of this un-European security, now she rejoiced in it, because of what it could do for people she cared about so much.
But Father Kowalski was not convinced.
“Yes, the car is American, that is true. But alas, Miss Lydia herself has not, like you, got American papers. I take it you have only a Polish passport?” he said to Litka.
“Yes.”
“Oh! Well then, what are we to do?” Hope asked. She was full of the desire to get on with the job that is characteristic of her countrymen. “Do you mean I’d better take it to them?”
“It must be taken to them safely; no risks must be run,” said the priest—the mild little man now spoke quite sternly. “There is too much at stake. You have the proper papers; very well—therefore it is best that you should take it.”
Hope was rather taken aback by this. “But then—what about Litka?” she asked. “I think she ought to go. 1 mean, there’s no point now”—involuntarily she glanced again at the bed—“in her staying here, alone.”
“I shall be all right,” said Litka.
And “She has no papers,” repeated Father Kowalski, inexorably.
There was a little silence. Then it came to Hope, quite suddenly. She and Litka were standing together in the middle of the room, where they could see themselves in the cloudy mirror over the mantelpiece—looking around her, as one does automatically when one is uncertain, at a loss, she happened to see their two faces reflected in those blurred depths.
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t have American papers,” she said, very quietly.
The priest, surprised, sat looking from one to the other, half doubtfully—a new idea seemed to dawn, visibly, in his mind, only to be weighed and rejected as too utterly improbable, impossible. Litka was quicker—she understood at once.
“No, no, Hope—you can’t do that!”
“Yes, I can. And what’s more I will!—and you shall!” Having seen the thing, she felt something of the joy of a swimmer who strips for the plunge. “Quick—you must have my coat and cap; that will be enough,” she exclaimed, pulling them off as she spoke. “We mustn’t waste too much time—they might get impatient, and not wait. Where’s your bag?” she asked, opening her own.
Slowly, half reluctantly, Litka went to the press and took out a large shabby old handbag.
“That will do,” said Hope—“Fine! Now look—here’s my passport; here’s the triptyque for the car; this is the car-key.” As she spoke she put the objects in Litka’s bag, one by one. “The tank’s full up, as I told you, and I had six cans filled and put in the back—that will take you over the frontier easily, even if you go straight South, instead of West.” She was thinking it all out, rapidly. “Tell Stefan I think you had better go due South; in that car you ought just about to get across the frontier ahead of the Panzer columns—they aren’t going all that fast. And you don’t want to get blocked over in the West—for all we know the Germans may have sent columns into Yugoslavia that way, too, already.” (In fact they had, though Hope didn’t know it; she was just using her wits.) “The maps are in the big pocket by the driving-seat,” she went on; “they cover everything right down to Sofia. Once you’re there, though, you ought to be out of trouble.”
As she spoke, as these words of quite practical advice left her lips, a strange thought flashed into her mind—in sending Stefan and his party due South, for safety’s sake, she was really directing him to Istanbul! She hadn’t done that intentionally—she was simply telling Litka what, in the circumstances, seemed to her the wisest course to take: and it was the wisest course. Oh, to Hell with all these unwished-for ideas, and any possible consequences! They had got to get out, and to get it out, safe and sound. She went on considering practical details.
“Speak as little as possible,” she advised the Polish girl—“You and Stefan, and Jurek. For goodness’ sake make Jurek keep quiet! You should do the talking, as you’re the American; pretend you don’t understand any language—most Americans don’t, anyway! If you must speak, talk French; you’re not likely to run into anyone who will realize how good your accent is.” She looked at Litka, smiling. Then another thought struck her.
“Oh goodness, money! I almost forgot.” She opened her bag again. “Here are masses of dollars, and some dinars too—those will do for Yugoslavia; and in Bulgaria you can change dollars for leva.” She pushed the wadge of notes into Litka’s bag.
“Dollars are something one can always exchange,” Father Kowalski put in; he spoke for the first time during all this planning, beaming benignly.
Hope looked at him. It occurred to her suddenly that he too might have difficulty in getting out of the city, and be in considerable danger if he remained there.
“What about you. Father?” she asked. “Shall you go with them? I’m certain you’d get by, between the American car, and Litka’s passport!—they won’t bother any of you much, I’m sure.”
He gave her a smile of great beauty.
“My child, I thank you. You have a very wonderful gift of charity. But I shall not go with them. The young folk can do their work alone—as God, through you, enables them to do. But I must go back to my people.” He paused. “However, if the new Miss Kirkland can spare some of that large quantity of dollars I would accept a few,” he said, almost merrily. “They might help others who ought to get away to do useful work.”
Litka took the package of notes out of her bag at once; three hundred dollars was all he would take. “That suffices.” he said. “Ah, what wealth! But those who dispense the Mammon of Unrighteousness in such a fashion will undoubtedly be received into everlasting habitations.” And again he gave Hope that extraordinarily beautiful smile. “And now, give it to Miss Lydia,” he said. “Do not, please, forget the most important thing!”
“Good Lord, no!” Hope opened her bag and handed the chemist’s parcel to Litka. The girl gaped as she took it, and clasped it in a curiously loving fashion. “How small it is!” she exclaimed. “To think that one can hold so much of the future in one’s hand!”