by Ann Swinfen
‘No, it wasn’t her fault. But this I understand. I feel guilty about my father’s death, although, as you reassured me there in the marshes, it was not literally my fault. It is the guilt of the survivor. You think – if they died, why was I spared? I am not worthy.’
They were both silent, not looking at each other.
‘Your English is incredibly fluent,’ said Kate abruptly. ‘Why is that?’
‘When I was a student in Budapest, it was forbidden to study English, unless you were a Party member in good standing, who had a valid reason for learning. This was not so many years after the ’56 rising, you understand. But of course that made us all the more keen to learn it! We had secret schools in people’s houses for learning English and French. You will find that many, many people in Hungary speak passable English. Probably more than would have spoken it if we had been encouraged to learn!’
They both laughed.
‘But your German,’ he said, ‘that is also very fluent. Magdolna and Sofia and I were brought up bilingual in Hungarian and German, but you...?’
‘I took my degree at university in French and German, and I used to teach both in a secondary school.’
‘Used to?’
‘Yes, I carried on after my first two children were born because we needed the money, but gave up when I was expecting my third. Then later I taught dyslexic children, till I had to give that up.’
‘And why did you have to give it up?’
‘My husband’s job took us north to Dunmouth. I don’t have a job at all now.’
There was a charged silence between them, and they picked at the sandwiches.
‘Now you know about me,’ she said. ‘What about you? Are you married?’
But I do not know about you, thought István. There is something in the way you speak of the job, but not the husband...
‘I used to be married,’ he said.
‘Divorced?’
‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘My wife was killed when we were very young.’
‘Oh, my God,’ she cried. ‘Not...?’
‘No, no. Nothing like that. She was killed in a road accident on an icy day in Budapest. It was no one’s fault. Luckily my son survived.’
‘You have a son?’
‘Yes. He’s grown-up, of course. László.’
It was odd, she thought, that he had never mentioned a son. But then she had not mentioned her children either. This place seemed so distant from Dunmouth and her family that she felt like a different person, an individual with no ties and no responsibilities.
‘I love your island,’ she said, lying back as he had done and looking up through the leaves of the willows at the scattered fragments of blue sky.
He sat looking down at her. Neat, brown-haired, not a woman you would notice in a crowd, yet there was something compelling in her personality, which had drawn him to her as soon as he had met her.
‘I had a dream when I was a child,’ he said. ‘I used to dream that one day I would get into a boat – perhaps this very boat, this blue boat in which we have been relaxing on the river, or perhaps some new, bigger, faster boat – and I would pull out into the main current of the Danube. And the river would take me, and the boat, and bear me away downriver. Past Budapest, past Pécs and Mohács, past Yugoslavia and the Iron Gates, through Romania, and so at last to the sea. And then I would be free. I would have escaped from this land-locked world in which I have lived all my life. Do you know, I have never seen the ocean?’
He laughed a little, ruefully.
‘And now that I am a grown man, and the borders of our country are open, I am not sure whether I would dare to go, in case the reality does not live up to the dream.’
‘But it never does, does it?’ She looked up at him, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘How strange,’ she said pensively, ‘that you have never seen the ocean. You look to me like a man who has the ocean in his eyes.’
She sat up and put her elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands.
‘I’m haunted by the sea. When I am away from the sea I suffer a sort of claustrophobia. When we lived in London I used to go down to the river whenever I could, but the Thames is a poor thing compared with the North Sea.’
She smiled at herself.
‘You’d think I would be feeling claustrophobic here, so far inland in this country of yours, but the Danube is such a mighty river it seems to compensate for the weight of all this middle Europe enclosing us and shutting us in. Didn’t the Greeks and Romans regard it as the river of life? A hugely potent symbol of some great life-force? We have a river at home – the Dun. It flows into the sea where I live, and to me that has always seemed symbolic. As if by throwing yourself with abandon, without question, into the sea, you can escape from all the imprisoning walls imposed by the land and attain freedom at last.’
‘And was this your dream, when you were a child?’
She lifted her head and turned to face him, looking at him steadily. ‘István, I have almost no memory of my childhood. Later, yes, I have plenty of memories. But before I was about ten – nothing. When I try to force myself to recall something from that period of my life, my mind seems to shy away. A few things... A teacher at school, a few of the children I played with – I felt safe at school. A book I enjoyed – I suppose I felt safe there as well. I can call these up, but anything more profound, no.’ She paused.
‘I wonder, sometimes, whether I have some mental problem, to have caused this dark curtain in my memory.’
They studied each other.
‘Something must have happened to you,’ he said, ‘when you were a child. Something which needed to be blocked out.’
‘Of course, I forgot. You’re a doctor.’
‘I think Sofia said you lived in Dunmouth when you were a child, and only recently came back?’
‘Yes.’
‘And hasn’t your return sparked anything from that time? Some fragment of memory?’
She looked down abruptly, blindly, at her hands.
‘There is something, then,’ he said gently.
‘Just terrifying fragments, like a nightmare. And an overwhelming sense of guilt.’
‘Guilt?’
‘Yes, guilt.’
She raised her eyes to him, and they were filled with tears.
‘And somehow it seems to be associated with Sofia.’
This time it was he who reached out to comfort her.
Chapter 11
Sofia, coming outside in the early evening to feed the hens for Magdolna, saw Kate and István tie up the blue boat at the landing-stage and walk up towards the house. There was, she thought, some subtle difference about them. Something had happened between them on the long boat trip, which had lasted most of the day.
‘Magdolna has reminded me that tomorrow is St István’s Day,’ she said as they came into the kitchen together. ‘And there is to be a fête in the village.’
‘You won’t get much sleep tonight,’ István warned. ‘They’ll be putting up the stalls as soon as the men come in from the fields – they’ll be working until midnight at least, and start again very early in the morning.’
‘Does it take place in the square?’ asked Kate.
Magdolna nodded. ‘There are stalls all round the edge, and a platform for folk dancing and singing. People come in from the smaller villages round about, and from the farms – it’s a great occasion!’
‘Is it a harvest festival?’ asked Kate. ‘I suppose it is a bit early for that.’
‘It is the festival of St István, our first Christian king,’ said István. ‘The twentieth of August is his day.’
‘We saw his statue near the Mátyás Church in Budapest – with a crown and a halo.’
‘That’s him. But it’s the Day of New Bread too. You will see – there will be stalls heaped high with every kind of new-baked bread for you to sample, as well as stalls for the farmers to display their produce, and perhaps one or two rides for the children, if the gypsies co
me.’
‘They’re here already,’ said Magdolna. ‘I saw them this morning when I went to the shop for milk.’
‘Do you bake bread for the fair?’ Sofia asked.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Of course you will,’ said István.
‘If I can get up early enough in the morning! We have worked very hard today, Sofia and I, while my lazy brother idled away on the river.’
‘I am here on holiday,’ he protested. ‘I work very hard the rest of the year.’
‘It was my fault,’ said Kate. ‘He was showing me the marsh and then the islands. It was so beautiful. I’m in love with your country.’
Magdolna smiled at her. ‘Well, I hope you will still feel that way tomorrow, after a night of hammering and sawing.’
‘Could I come and watch you bake bread tomorrow morning? I’ve never done it myself, and I’d love to learn.’
‘Can you get up at four o’clock?’
‘I can try!’
When Kate and Sofia walked up to the village square, everything was transformed. The front of the Blue Heron was festooned with bunting in the red, white and green of the Hungarian flag, and streamers had been looped through the branches of the walnut tree. Tractors were clattering down the road from the manor house and in from the minor lanes which radiated out from the village towards surrounding farms and hamlets. Some were towing trailers piled high with planks for stalls. Near the church a jaunty miniature roundabout had been set up, on which traditional gilded carousel horses were interspersed with hideous pink rabbits and a crude approximation to Mickey Mouse. Here and there amongst the people working in the square there were olive-skinned strangers – the men hawk-nosed, moustached, with hats of soft felt, the women imperious, wearing bold earrings and clashing bracelets. The gypsies had arrived. In amongst the piles of timber and crates and plastic drums, gypsy children with large dark eyes exchanged wary glances with the local children.
István was right about the noise. For the first time since arriving, Kate and Sofia ate their dinner in the dining room amongst the dark old furniture and heavy lace cloths, instead of outside under the tree, where the dust was stirred up by the unaccustomed traffic. Afterwards they sat for a time in the bar, which was lively with men coming in to drink a quick beer in the intervals of erecting the stalls and platform. When they retired to their rooms the banging continued, accompanied by cheerful shouts and the intermittent barking of the village dogs. There was no owl to be heard tonight, Kate thought, as she set her alarm clock for 4 a.m. and buried her head under the feather bed.
* * *
As Kate walked down through the sleeping village at a quarter past four the next morning, it was not yet dawn, but there was a dawn light in the sky over to her right. No one had yet arrived to disturb the peace in the square, but she noticed lights in several houses, where the women were already busy about their bread-making. She wondered whether the competition for excellence was as fierce amongst the women of Szentmargit as it would be at a village fête in England. A sleepy cockerel crowed somewhere, and the birds in their morning chorus were singing more loudly than she had noticed since arriving in Hungary. In the oppressive heat of the day they were subdued.
When she reached Magdolna’s kitchen, the first batch of dough was just being kneaded. József and András were eating their breakfast at one end of the kitchen table, but there was no sign of István.
‘What a wonderful smell!’ said Kate, accepting a steaming mug of coffee gratefully from József.
‘It’s the yeast,’ said Magdolna, knocking down the dough with her strong potter’s hands.
‘You could get drunk on it.’
‘You can get drunk on the real thing later,’ József grinned, pulling on his boots. ‘Good Hungarian beer. It will help you dance all the better.’
‘Dance? I though that was just for the experts, on the platform.’
‘Later, everyone will dance in the square,’ András explained. ‘There’s a good gypsy band this year – we had the same one last year. I’ll teach you the csárdás.’
‘I don’t think I’d be any good at it.’
He laughed. ‘You can’t come to the Day of New Bread and not dance the csárdás. You’ll see, when everyone is doing it, you won’t be able to stop yourself.’
An hour and a half later, when the noise from the square could be heard even in the Buvaris’ house, István appeared, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Magdolna and Kate were sitting at the table, admiring the row of loaves, round and rectangular, plain and plaited, some scattered with poppy seeds, others glazed with egg so that they shone like polished wood. The smell of the new bread was intoxicating, exciting – almost primaeval, Kate thought.
‘Hmm,’ said István, peering at the loaves like a critical judge. ‘What is this ugly, lop-sided object?’
Kate thought he was going to pick up one of her loaves, but instead he poked a finger at the one Magdolna had made with left-over scraps of dough. She had modelled it into a plaque of a woman in a long skirt and headscarf, holding up a loaf of bread. It was a comic parody of her own work.
Magdolna laughed. ‘Do not listen to him. He does not have the soul of an artist. He is a grumpy bear in the morning.’
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, touched Kate lightly on the shoulder.
‘Please! It is only six o’clock in the morning! Can’t a man get a cup of coffee in this terrible house?’
‘A man might refill the coffee pot himself,’ Magdolna suggested, ‘and make coffee for the women who have been doing all the work.’
Together, the three of them sat down to breakfast while the bread cooled, then they packed the loaves into four large, flat baskets trimmed with red, white and green ribbons, and carried them up to the square. Kate noticed that István placed the bread lady on top of one basket with particular care, and that the women behind the stall set it up in the centre of the display against a brown and white checked cloth, and surrounded it with sprigs of parsley. Clearly it was not the first time Magdolna had made a bread figure for the fête.
Villagers were heading towards the church in answer to the ringing of a single bell. István, Magdolna and Kate joined them, and found Sofia already sitting near the back of the church. Kate could not understand a word of the service, but she enjoyed the chiming of the little bell, the swinging of the aspergillum, and the scent of the incense. She stood and sat and knelt, taking her cue from the rest of the congregation, and felt, as they came out of church, that she had at least paid some tribute to the great saint-king István.
‘There was a large congregation,’ she said to Magdolna. ‘I thought perhaps, after so many years of communism...?’
‘Under the communist regime,’ said Magdolna, ‘Christianity was tolerated, and the churches were maintained. But if you were known as a churchgoer, you would never get a good job. Mostly it was the old people who went to church. Of course, that was in the towns. It was a bit different here in the country. It was difficult enough to persuade people to stay and labour on the land. Now that we are free to worship, even the young people go to church.’
‘I thought you said the other night that you didn’t believe in God.’
Magdolna laughed. ‘But I also said that doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist. Anyway, I went to the service for the sake of our good St István.’
After that, they were all caught up in the spirit of the fair and the eager, pushing crowd. Sofia joined them and they walked around admiring the stalls. Kate was intrigued by the display of apples set up by several of the local farmers. The round baskets of carefully polished fruit were placed on top of sawn-off lengths of tree-trunk, varying in height, and framed with trailing ivy. What caught her attention was the fact that all the labels were in English, or an English of sorts: Elstar, Early Glod, James Grives, Jirsey Mac.
‘Why English?’ she asked Magdolna.
‘I suppose because we are hoping to become a member of the EU. The farmers are learning to use the
European terminology. Anyway, many of the best apple varieties come from England, don’t they?’
‘I suppose they do. But I pity you if you become embroiled in the Common Agricultural Policy! It’s a nightmare.’
‘Better than having no market for our produce,’ said József seriously.
The dancing displays went on intermittently all day. Groups from the various villages mounted the platform with their musicians and performed to scattered applause from the crowds strolling about the square. Kate could not appreciate the niceties of the performances, but the whirling figures of the women and the spectacular stamping and leaps of the men were full of a joyous exuberance. They wore a variety of costumes – from different regions, Sofia explained. Mostly the men wore tight black trousers, white shirts, and black waistcoats encrusted with braid and embroidery. A few, however, had high black boots with the voluminous white trousers which looked like skirts until they began to dance. The women were dressed in white blouses, skirts of red and green and blue, and long white aprons. Both their blouses and their aprons were covered in fine embroidery.
‘Many of the aprons,’ said Magdolna, ‘are heirlooms. Probably made by their grandmothers, or their great-grandmothers. Like my linen you admired this morning. I’m afraid I am no needlewoman myself.’
In one group the women had white skirts of tiny accordion pleats, and as their partners threw them into the air the skirts opened like flowers. All through the day the dancing and the music on violin and double-bass formed a background to the fair. József was helping to man a stall displaying agricultural machinery, and Sofia and Kate were introduced to his brother Imre, a big impressive man with a flourishing moustache. Kate complimented him on the success of his irrigation system, which had made such a difference to the crops of the village.
In the afternoon, samples of the bread were free for tasting. Kate was praised for her bread, and felt she had not acquitted herself too badly. The dancing displays came to an end, and the carousel started up, instantly mobbed by the village children, who tugged at their mothers’ skirts and begged for forints from their fathers. The gypsy children jumped on to the moving carousel with casual contempt, collecting fares and leaping off again gracefully as it reached full speed.