by Ann Swinfen
‘She’s also a gypsy,’ says Ágoston authoritatively. ‘She’ll do.’
He gets up and takes Sofia firmly by the upper arms. She looks up at him steadily and tries not to show how frightened she is.
‘Will you be our Paparuda?’ he asks, not unkindly, ‘and save the crop for us?’
She nods, speechless. Then, thinking that this perhaps is not enough, she says (and to her shame her voice squeaks nervously), ‘I will be the Paparuda.’
The men and the boys strip off her clothes and shoes, there, standing in the square under the walnut tree before the church. The women lift the woven grass mats and lower them carefully over her head. They are a bit scratchy but quite pleasant, smelling of warm hay, and she feels cool, with the air stroking her naked skin and the bare earth under her feet. Some of the older girls weave poppies into her hair, and then they all lead her out into the sun and turn her round and round, inspecting her, until she is almost dizzy with the blazing heat on her head and the strange sick feeling of expectancy which wells up inside her.
‘Fetch the water,’ says Ágoston, ‘and then we can begin.’
Most of the villagers hurry off down the street to the river’s edge to fill their jugs from the Danube. Béla Szebani, the carpenter, fetches his old wooden flute, dark and polished with age. Sofia has never heard him play it, except for the Paparuda.
They form themselves into a procession around her, with the flute leading, playing its strange ancient melody. The first child approaches with her jug of water, a dark-haired girl of about six. Sofia is taller than she is so she kneels down in the dust and bows her head.
Paparuda, ruda, ruda
The girl lifts the jug and pours the water over Sofia’s head. Blinking the water out of her eyes, Sofia gets to her feet. Her eyes meet those of the other girl, and they smile at each other, for the moment aware of no one else. Sofia licks the drops of Danube water from her lips and stands patiently as others pour their jugs over her head, and urge her on down the village street.
Paparuda, ruda, ruda
Come, give us water!
Make the rain fall,
Oh, bring us rain in torrents:
To make the corn grow
High as the hedgerow.
She feels herself borne along by them, a crowd of strangers now, and she is alone but no longer afraid. The water has drenched her, and she feels exalted. The water runs down from the top of her head, making a river along her backbone, flooding over her ribs, forking at her crotch, like the Danube splitting into many rivers around the islands, and pouring down over her bare legs, carrying the petals of the poppies with it till her skin is sprinkled all over with scarlet stars. When she stops and lowers her head for another jugful of water, the river which embraces her runs down between her bare toes and is lost in the dust, so that Sofia and the river and the grasses and the poppies and the earth are all one.
Paparuda, ruda, ruda
Come, give us water!
Make the rain fall,
Oh, bring us rain in torrents:
To make the wheat sweet with milk,
To fill the barn for winter.
They have reached the last house in the village now, the potter’s rose-red cottage down on the very edge of the Danube. The potter’s little girl stoops and fills her jug from the river for the last anointing and Sofia kneels down again in front of her. The jug is fat-bellied, plain earthenware except for two dolphins glowing in white shiny glaze against its dull terracotta sides. As the sun glistens on them, and Sofia blinks through the drops of water on her eyelashes, the dolphins seem to leap and splash on the side of the jug. Juliska, daughter of the village potter, lifts the last jug of water and pours it over Sofia’s head.
* * *
Sofia caressed the plump side of the jug, and the glistening dolphins slid smooth under her fingers, standing out proud from the rough terracotta. She set the jug back again on the table with trembling hands and turned from the river to Magdolna. Her eyes were wide and distant.
‘Your mother, what was your mother’s name?’
István looked at her, puzzled. ‘Rudnay. Our parents... they were not married, so we took our mother’s name.’
Sofia continued to look steadily at Magdolna.
‘No. Your mother’s first name.’
‘It was Juliska,’ said Magdolna, caressing one of the dolphins with the tip of her finger.
‘Juliska,’ Sofia repeated softly. ‘I knew her. The potter’s little girl. It was Juliska who poured the first and last jugs of Danube water at the Paparuda.’
There was a silence. Sofia sat down again. Kate looked puzzled, and Magdolna and István exchanged a glance.
‘Forgive me,’ said Sofia.
Magdolna silently filled their glasses with the cold lemonade in which slices of lemon and sprigs of mint floated. Kate sipped hers, watching Sofia and wondering why Magdolna and István looked as though they could only just hold back the words springing to their lips.
‘Forgive me,’ said Sofia again, setting down her own glass and reaching out to touch Magdolna’s hand where it rested still on the handle of the jug. ‘I had no right to be so secret, not here in Szentmargit. I am Sofia Niklai. Zsigmond Niklai was my father.’
* * *
They had been invited to stay to dinner with the family. József had come back from the fields, hot and tired from struggling with the sprinkler system, and had gone inside to take a shower. András returned soon after, as the boys were called home by their mothers for the evening meal. Sofia said firmly that she would like to help Magdolna prepare the meal.
‘We can talk gardening together. Go away, the rest of you, and come back in...?’ She looked enquiringly at Magdolna.
‘Half an hour. Take Kate along the river path, István. It’s so cool and pleasant in the evening. You go along with them, András.’
Obediently, Kate and István rose from the table and turned towards the river.
‘First,’ said István, ‘I want to show you something. You will understand why it was not quite a coincidence that we met in the gallery in Váci Utca.’
He led the way across to the barn, András trailing behind. Inside it was dim, but István pulled open the double doors until the sunlight filled the wide inner space. Kate saw barrels and shelves, and what looked like two big catering ovens. István beckoned her further in. On a wide table against the wall stood three clay figures, about three feet tall, waiting for firing.
‘But they’re...’ said Kate. ‘But I thought... Didn’t it say “M. Buvari”?’ She peered at the bases of the figures.
‘Buvari is Magdolna’s married name.’
‘I see.’
‘Whenever I am in Budapest I go into the gallery. Just to check that everything is being displayed properly. And to complain about how little they pay Magdolna!’
András was kicking a ball around the grass when they came out of the barn and closed the doors behind them.
‘So you see,’ said István, smiling at her, ‘Sofia is not the only one who has been keeping secrets.’ He led the way to the river and turned on to a path which led upstream along the river’s edge. There were trees here, and a pleasant dappled shade.
‘When I saw you first by the summer-house, I was afraid that you were someone trying to hunt Magdolna out in her home. We try to protect her from that, because her privacy is very important to her work. Once a journalist from a German magazine found us out, and it disturbed her work for weeks.’
‘I’m sorry you thought that.’
‘I soon realised I was wrong. You seem to me like a person who values privacy yourself.’
She looked at him, stopping in surprise. ‘I suppose I am. I’ve never really thought about it.’ She turned away to watch the waters of the Danube lapping the bank just beyond their feet. ‘I do go for long walks alone – the dog gives me the excuse for that. I find myself constantly drawn to the empty spaces of the sea. That was where I met Sofia.’
‘For me,
it has always been the river. When I was a child I would come this way, to escape and be on my own.’
This is the way my father would have come, he thought, if he had managed to escape. Up the river and away towards the Austrian border or downriver into the secret marshes.
They walked on a little in silence, and crossed a rickety wooden bridge where the trout stream flowed into the river. The boards were loose and Kate stumbled. István put out a hand to steady her, but she shook her head.
‘I’m all right,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Just clumsy.’
‘Uncle István,’ said András, ‘can we go up the stream and see if the fish are rising?’
‘You go. We’ll walk along here a little further and turn back in a few minutes. Mind you’re not late or your mother will be cross.’
András laughed and ran off up the bank. His mother was never cross.
‘When I first saw you by the summer-house,’ said Kate, as they ducked under the low branches of a great willow leaning over the path towards the river, ‘I thought you were Sofia’s father, Zsigmond.’
‘Did you really?’ He looked at her curiously. ‘Why did you think that?’
‘Just a momentary impression. I’ve seen a photograph she has, of Zsigmond standing on the steps, where you were standing. Coming suddenly into the light in the clearing, I had this strange sense of stepping into the photograph, into the past. And you do look like him.’
‘Do I?’
‘And then you moved, and my mind snapped back into focus, and I realised where and when I was, and who you were. Or who I thought you were. From the gallery.’
They paused beside the big willow and looked across the water to the scattered islands, flat and reedy. Beyond them a large black working barge was making its way upriver against the current.
‘I suppose we ought to turn back now,’ said Kate reluctantly.
István looked at his watch.
‘Yes, we must.’
Slowly they resumed their walk, retracing their steps along the path.
‘While you are here on holiday...’ said István tentatively.
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder if you would allow me to show you some of the countryside? I know you have a car, but if you are driving in an unfamiliar area, you miss a lot of what there is to see. And if you have only seen Budapest and Györ...’
‘And Szentmargit!’
He laughed. ‘Yes, of course, and Szentmargit. But Sopron and Pannonhalma are not far. And I would like to show you Mohács. I think you would be interested in Mohács.’
‘What is at Mohács?’
‘Come with me and you will see.’
‘Do you mean...’ Kate hesitated, ‘both of us? I couldn’t go off and leave Sofia behind.’
‘Certainly,’ said István courteously, ‘I meant both of you.’
* * *
They dined outside, where moths came and bumped against the oil lamp in the centre of the table. Kate tried, stumblingly, to tell Magdolna how much she loved the figures and plaques she had seen in Budapest.
József patted his wife’s hand as she blushed with shyness and pleasure.
‘You see, it is not so terrible to be admired.’
‘Your crops also,’ said Kate, smiling at him, ‘are to be admired.’
She had liked József at once. He said little, but what he said was shrewd and to the point. He looked at her now with sharp eyes under his bushy, greying eyebrows.
‘You are interested in agriculture?’
‘I am afraid I am very ignorant. I’m not even a very knowledgeable gardener. But anyone can see that your crops are sleek and healthy. I was telling...István.’ She used the name awkwardly. ‘Driving over from Budapest and Györ I thought the wheat and the maize looked so thin and poor, and the sunflowers could barely lift their heads.’
‘We have here the central European climate, you understand,’ József said. ‘Very hot in the summer, very cold in the winter. Not like your England, where it rains all the time, winter and summer.’
Kate gave a protesting snort, though she saw he was teasing her.
‘This year has been exceptionally hot and dry, even for Hungary, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed. It is causing a lot of problems. Though at least we were able to get in an excellent hay harvest. We’re beginning on the rest of the harvest now, and if the weather holds like this we won’t have to worry about the harvest being rained out.’
Sofia looked across at him.
‘Do you still have the Paparuda?’
They glanced at each other and shook their heads.
‘I remember Grandmama talking about it,’ said Magdolna slowly. ‘But I think many such things died out under the communists.’
‘What is a Paparuda?’ asked Kate.
‘An old superstition,’ said István. ‘A ceremony to bring the rain for the crops. It would not have been approved of on the collective,’ he added dryly.
As twilight slipped into darkness András was sent, protesting, to bed, and the adults sat on over their glasses of wine and a bowl of fruit Magdolna had placed in the middle of the table. Their faces, illuminated from below by the wavering light, took on dramatic highlights and shadows. Kate thought the others looked like characters in a play, and wondered whether she seemed as mysterious to them.
István was turning and turning his glass in his hand, and she watched the play of the red reflection on his fingers. They were good hands. She could imagine him as a doctor, a man his patients could confide in. A man to whom you could unburden yourself, laying your worries on his shoulders and walking away cleansed and free.
He looked up now and caught her watching him, but he simply smiled with his eyes, and then turned to Sofia.
‘I was saying to Kate earlier that you were not the only one who had been keeping secrets. I did not tell her at first about Magdolna. And there is something else we need to tell you.’
Kate’s eyes met Sofia’s, and she knew with a sudden lurch of the heart that this was something much more significant than the identity of the artist among them.
‘Our parents met during the war,’ said István. ‘No, that is not quite true. They had always been acquainted, because they both came from Szentmargit, but it was only when they joined the resistance that they truly came to know each other. Our mother was much younger than our father – she would have been eighteen then, in 1942, and he was in his mid-forties. They lived rough in the woods and operated throughout this area, over as far as Györ. Mama was the only woman in the group, and it can’t have been easy – the danger, living always with death, the men away from their women. Our father – his code name was Lancelot – started by protecting her from the others. He still thought of her, I suppose, as the child he had known in the village. It ended by their falling in love and sleeping together.’ He paused. ‘I was the result.’
He stopped and poured himself more wine. Holding up the bottle he looked enquiringly round at them. Only József held out his glass.
‘It wasn’t a casual affair. I believe they loved each other deeply. That was certainly what our grandparents felt. After the war, they moved back here to live in this house, and Magdolna was born here. My father continued his fight for Hungary’s independence, publishing an underground newspaper called Freedom! and carrying out occasional acts of sabotage against the Russian troops stationed nearby, and against the Ávó, the Hungarian communist secret police. In 1948 he was betrayed by one of the former partisans, a communist, and he was taken away to the gulags. We never saw him again. We know that he must have been tortured. We think that he probably died quite soon after he was taken.’
He stopped. The hand resting on the table was shaking. Magdolna laid her hand on top of it, and picked up the story.
‘Our mother, Juliska, took over his work. She continued to publish the newspaper, and in 1956, when the uprising came and Hungary so nearly gained her freedom, she was in Budapest, in the midst of it all. When the Russian tanks mov
ed in, mowing down civilians, killing and maiming, she was amongst a small group which managed to get away to Györ, where they carried on the struggle for some time after Budapest had fallen. In the end, of course, they were defeated. Mama was executed by firing squad in January 1957.’
They sat in silence. What can you respond to this? thought Kate. There is nothing one can possibly say.
István patted Magdolna’s hand, and laid it aside. He leaned forward towards Sofia.
‘There is just one thing more which must be said. Our parents did not marry because they could not. Our father was already married. He had sent his wife out of the country when the Arrow Cross became powerful just before the war. He had loved her very much – this is well known. But you must understand, he loved Juliska too.’
‘Who was your father?’ Sofia asked.
‘He was Zsigmond Niklai. Your father. We are your brother and sister.’
‘I think I already knew,’ said Sofia.
Chapter 10
Kate could not sleep that night.
The sky was clear and the moon bright. The thin cotton curtains in her room were no defence against its penetrating light, so in the end she got out of bed and padded across the smooth old boards, first to one window and then to the other, drawing back the curtains and letting the moon flood in. Looking down into the square she could see the inn cat, and another one she did not recognise, slipping away together behind the church.
The ancient wooden grave markers reared up in the churchyard like the carved prows of Viking ships, inclined a little forward, and from this distance by moonlight might be taken for a casual group of cloaked figures leaning into the wind. She thought about the private histories she had heard that evening. The horrors experienced by the family in the quiet cottage by the river leapt to life before her eyes, reminding her that the public history of this country was made up of thousands of individual histories, and the grief of the people, of thousands of individual griefs.
She did not have, had never had, a particularly close relationship with her own parents. Her father was a silent, reserved man. It had not prevented him from being a good teacher, since teaching did not entail close personal involvement, but he shied away from emotions within the family. And her mother had always kept Kate at arm’s length. As a child she believed this was her own fault, and constantly searched her conscience for what sin she might have committed, to make her undeserving of her mother’s love.