by Ann Swinfen
They walked amongst the figures, which were carved from some dark grey wood like the old grave markers in the churchyard at Szentmargit – oak, perhaps. They were bold and simple, sometimes almost crude, but with a terrible vigour and power. Warriors stood proudly in their pleated tunics, staring out defiantly over the field towards their certain death. Horses, beautiful even as they fell, lay around them amongst the heedless gold of sunflowers.
‘This is Suleiman the Magnificent,’ said István, as they stood in front of a carved head wearing an elaborate turban. The face was both cruel and complacent, the face of an implacable enemy in his moment of victory. The lips curved above a beard which jutted forward aggressively. Thin metal ornamental chains dangled from his turban, and as the breeze stirred them they rang with that sweet bell-like note Kate had heard, an ironic counterpoint to the mad eyes and hawk-like nose. She shivered. And she understood why István had wanted to bring her here, in the quiet light of early morning, with a faint haze of dew on the grass and thrushes singing in the nearby hedgerow. This memorial at Mohács epitomised more than one gallant stand against a foreign invader. It seemed to hold the essence of all those desperate individual acts of heroism – Zsigmond amongst the partisans, Juliska and her friends defying the Russian tanks with their bare hands.
‘I think,’ she said humbly, slipping her arm through his, ‘I think I am just beginning to understand Hungary.’
He pressed her arm against his side. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘This place is beautiful but sad. We will leave it before it is spoiled for us by the tourists. We will go and find some breakfast.’
* * *
Kate did not, afterwards, remember a great deal about what she saw in the city of Mohács. There remained with her that powerful image of the battle conjured up by István, into which the wooden sculptures seemed to blend, taking on a life of their own. And she remembered conversation. All day long they seemed to be talking – over meals, sitting in a public park watching pairs of lovers and mothers with babies, and later strolling by the river. István told her about the festival of Busó, when strange figures dressed in straw robes and wearing fearful wooden masks with horns rode or drove their horses from Mohács Island into the city, making a terrible noise on drums and horns.
‘It takes place on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and some say that it is an ancient ceremony to drive away the winter, so that spring can come, but others claim it is a reminder of how the Turks were finally driven out of here – this place where they had won their great battle and destroyed the flower of Hungarian chivalry.’
‘Perhaps it is both,’ said Kate slowly. ‘Perhaps there was such a ceremony, an ancient one to rid the country of the blight of winter. Might that not have been taken over to mark the departure of the Turks? After all, the Turkish rule must have been like the dead hand of winter over the country, when so many were sold into slavery.’
They walked through a grove of trees beside the river, and Kate remembered the letter Sofia had showed her, written by Zsigmond to the young Eva, an impassioned love letter that spoke of walking under trees near another city – Pécs, wasn’t it?
And all I wanted to do was to walk with you in the woods of Mecsek, your hand in mine, your black hair – your glorious gypsy hair – caught back demurely in its little gold net, like a panther in a cage, or the waters of the Danube confined behind a dam, she quoted.
István looked at her curiously.
‘What is that?’
‘It was a letter Zsigmond wrote to Eva before they were married. Sofia translated it for me.’
Darling girl, I am in pain, just because I cannot walk with you under the trees. Will we ever win him over, this bear of a father?... I kiss your lips, my love, my Eva, my girl of the paradise from which I am banned. Your lips are as red as the paprika of Kalocsa, but as sweet as the summer apricots ripening on the trees of Kecskemét.
‘They were so young,’ said István. ‘I can hardly bear to think of it.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. Ah, Zsigmond, my father, he thought, and what would you do in my position? Probably you would not hesitate. But then in some ways certain things were simpler for you.
* * *
That night Kate slept profoundly and dreamlessly in her plain, cool room in the village csárda. The window faced north and only the faintest light penetrated from the oblique rays of the moon. When she woke she floated up from a deeper rest than she had known for weeks, and lay under the feather bed with its cover of tiny blue and white checks feeling contented and relaxed. She looked at her arm where it lay outside the bedclothes and turned it so that she could just make out the faint pink patches which marked her skin like flattened flower petals. It had never occurred to her to wonder about these marks on her arms and legs. As far as she knew, they had always been there. If she had thought about them at all, she had simply assumed that she had been born with skin of a slightly irregular texture.
But István said they were the scars of old burns. And if the nightmare of the fire sprang from some real event in her childhood, that made sense.
‘Sometimes,’ he had said the evening before, as they sat in the inn garden over their simple meal, ‘the mind will block out entirely an experience which is too painful to live with. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I have come across a few cases like this. It isn’t unknown amongst old soldiers. And here in Hungary, people have seen things, or experienced things, during the last fifty years, which their minds prefer to forget.’
‘You mean, I was burnt in a fire, and it was so frightening that I forced myself to forget?’
‘It isn’t always so easy to force yourself to forget. But sometimes an unconscious process can be triggered in the mind. You could call it a natural healing process, like the way the body repairs itself after an injury. And your mind may not simply have been protecting itself against fear and pain. You said you felt guilt. Even if the guilt was totally misplaced, your mind could try to heal over that, until something reopened the wound.’
She sat, turning her wine glass in her hand and thinking about guilt.
‘It’s one of the most destructive emotions, isn’t it – guilt? Sofia has felt guilty all these years about what might have become of her father. I’m sure that contributed to the way she chose to live, shut away from everyone in her cottage. Even after the things that happened in the war – I think if she had been at ease with herself, she might have mixed more with people in Dunmouth.’
‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘you may be right. You said that until you became friends, she seemed not to know anyone in your village. But perhaps it was also that she wanted tranquillity for her writing? I think she has changed, even while she has been here. Now she knows what our father achieved, she no longer feels guilt.’
‘And you,’ she said, looking at him penetratingly. ‘You’ve also been carrying a burden of guilt about your father’s capture. Has that crippled you? And perhaps...’ She hesitated, wondering how far she dared go. ‘Perhaps also guilt at the death of your wife? What you were saying before – the guilt of the survivor? “Why have I been spared?” ’
A sigh rose up in István and escaped.
‘Yes. You are probably right. I might have married again. Perhaps it would have been better for László to have had a stepmother – and brothers and sisters – rather than no mother at all. I sometimes think now...’
‘What?’
‘I tried too hard to be both father and mother to him. Was I over-protective? Probably. Certainly I am always counselling my patients to use firmness with difficult children – advice I didn’t take myself.’
‘Is László difficult?’
He shifted abruptly in his chair.
‘Tomorrow you will be able to judge for yourself.’
She smiled at him affectionately. ‘Remember, I have three teenagers. I know all about difficult children just at present.’
* * *
István had asked Kate if she would accompany him to mass in the little church in Kis
híd on Sunday morning.
‘I know you are not a Catholic, and I am not a practising one, not really. But I have a particular reason for asking.’
‘Of course I will come,’ said Kate, wondering when on Sunday the elusive László would be ‘available’, as István had put it, to meet his father. István had told her virtually nothing about his son, except that he was twenty-four, worked in this village, and had left home six years ago after being brought up in Sopron by his widowed father. It seemed to Kate that László was being more than difficult, to keep his father at arm’s length like this. She had discovered that they had not seen each other for more than a year.
This is a poor village, she thought, looking around the church as they waited for the service to begin. The inn is much more modest than the Blue Heron, and the church is as bare as a monk’s cell. Then she recalled the new, large houses she had seen, houses belonging to the commuters from Mohács, with their expensive German cars in the drives. There was money here now, but the village did not seem to have the rich cultural heritage of Szentmargit, and the new inhabitants spent their money on themselves and not on the village.
The congregation was sparse, almost entirely women. This too was different from Szentmargit, although she had only attended a service there on St István’s Day, which might not have been typical. She watched the preparations for the service idly, letting her mind drift, knowing that she would be unable to understand a word of either the Hungarian or the Latin. A young priest in an austere surplice was making ready the altar, lighting candles and laying out chalice and paten, assisted by two altar boys. Kate was reminded briefly of a holiday she had once spent with a friend in Ireland, during her college days. There was a similar atmosphere here: the male ritual, the kneeling humble women – some very old, some very young – with scarves pulled forward, half concealing their faces, the smoky smell as one of the candles failed to light properly and sent a wavering plume of smoke up from the altar to hang suspended in front of the crudely painted glass window. Despite the heat of the day outside, the air in the church felt chilly and damp.
The preparations complete, the young priest and the boys genuflected and came down the aisle towards the west door. The priest walked quickly, impatiently, and the boys scuttled to keep pace with him. His face was cool, inward-looking, ascetic. He looked neither to right nor left as he passed them. István touched Kate’s arm and leaned over to murmur in her ear, his lips brushing her hair.
‘That is my son László.’
For a moment she was confused, thinking that he meant one of the altar boys. Then she understood, and several things clicked into place. László was a Catholic priest.
After the service they lingered until the rest of the congregation had left. László stood by the door of the church, speaking to some people, shaking others by the hand. István and Kate continued to sit in their pew, and Kate was pondering how to address this young man. ‘László’? ‘Father’?
When they stepped out into the sunlight again she watched incredulously as László gave his father – his father, whom he had not seen for over a year – the same cold handshake he had given his parishioners. Remembering the warm hugs, the touching, the kisses that were a natural part of the interchange between other members of the family, it seemed like a calculated insult. When László was introduced to her, in German, he was perfectly polite, but distant – glancing beyond her shoulder as if something more interesting was taking place behind her. Kate, who had always felt this trick showed unpardonable rudeness, experienced a stab of real anger.
Somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to Kate, László took them back to the priests’ house for coffee, made by his housekeeper, a creeping mouse of a woman who looked at István and herself fearfully, and at László with something between awe and terror.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have much time,’ said László abruptly. ‘I have another service in an hour, and Father Pál is away in Budapest at the moment.’
It was disconcerting. His voice had something of the quality of István’s about it, but it was so cold.
‘We won’t take up much of your time,’ said István. ‘Thank you,’ he added to the housekeeper as she handed him a cup of coffee. He explained why they had come, giving a brief account of Sofia’s story and the news they had exchanged about the family. László nodded, as though he was not much interested. Kate wanted to kick him. Although István was good at hiding his feelings, she could see he was hurt – hurt at his son’s indifference to the reunion of the brother and sisters, and hurt at his almost palpable rudeness to Kate. It was with relief that she got up to leave, when they had barely finished their coffee.
They walked down from the priests’ house to the stream beyond the village, which wound eastwards and eventually joined the Danube. With difficulty, Kate held her tongue.
‘I am sorry,’ said István, ‘to have put you through that, but I wanted you to know everything about me, the good and the bad. You see that I failed with my son.’ His voice was bleak.
Kate slipped her arm through his, defiantly hoping that they were still within sight of Father László’s windows. She had read a clear message of distaste in his eyes when he heard that they had travelled together from Szentmargit and were staying at the inn.
‘Why is he like that?’
István sighed. ‘I don’t know. As a small boy he was full of fun and charm. But after about a year at the gymnasium he seemed to change. He became very...thick with – is that what you say? – very thick with a boy who came from a devout Catholic family. The mother was almost obsessive, and she had vowed that her eldest son would become a priest. The boy seemed to be just as obsessed, and László fell under his influence. The more I tried to persuade him to wait till he was older, to think things through, the worse I seemed to make it and the more he turned away from me towards these people. The two boys went away to the seminary together when they were eighteen.’
He pulled her down on to a bench under the cave made by a weeping willow, which provided some shade from the intense midday sun.
‘The irony of it is that after six months the other boy decided the priesthood was not for him. He had been caught misbehaving with a girl from the town and was very severely dealt with. He left the seminary at once, saying he was glad he had found out he didn’t have a vocation before it was too late. In a way I think the whole episode made László even more obsessed – he felt he had to make up for his friend’s backsliding. And I suspect that he found he was not altogether immune to the temptations of the flesh himself. Did you notice how he can barely touch people, even to shake hands? As a child he hugged and cuddled with such warmth and affection. Now he shuts himself inside a glass cage. So you see why I think I have failed.’
Kate leaned her head back against his shoulder.
‘We can’t take responsibility for our children for ever. Not when they’re grown up. He has made his choice, and he’ll have to work out his own destiny. But it is very hard on you. To have lost your wife, and now to have lost the normal relationship with your son.’
She fingered the fabric of his jacket.
‘I’m sure it isn’t too late to repair that. It’s up to you, I think, to reach a hand out to him – humble yourself, even. The young are so proud and so stubborn. But we have lived long enough to know that we don’t lose face by showing our love. Of course,’ she said, suddenly struck, for it had not occurred to her before, ‘it will mean no grandchildren, no descendants.’
‘A sterile withering of the line,’ he said with an ironic laugh.
‘At least you have Magdolna’s children. And you are still young enough to marry again.’
‘I wonder. I expect I am too set in my ways.’
‘Not you,’ she laughed. ‘You are constantly full of surprises.’
* * *
And now it was the last morning of their visit to the south of the country. They had breakfast early and went for a walk out into the surrounding countryside, wanting to make
the most of the time they had left together before they had to start on the long drive back to Szentmargit. There was a strange light hovering over the day, as if after the weeks of unremitting heat the sun had melted at the edges and flowed into the sky, blurring gold and blue together in a hot palette of primary colours. There was a breathless hush in the air, the leaves hung exhausted on the trees, and the dust of the lane spurted up from their feet in irritable peppery clouds.
‘It will be more pleasant in the fields,’ said István, pointing to a gate in the hedge ahead on their left.
They opened it and slipped through, swinging it behind them with a dull clunk of dry wood and metal. The field contained wheat, still not ready for the harvest. In fact they had seen little harvesting going on yet in this area. István pinched some grains from a head of wheat and rubbed them in his palm, then bit one. He shook his head.
‘Hard as a pebble. See, it should be a little milky.’
He held out the poor dry grains for her to see.
‘They need Imre’s sprinkler system,’ said Kate, rolling the grains with her finger in his palm, where they gritted together like gravel.
‘Yes, or a Paparuda.’
At the end of the wheat field there was another hedge at right angles to the one skirting the lane, and beyond it a vast field of sunflowers which rose to the horizon, blocking out any view beyond. They managed to push through the hedge – hazels and blackthorn and brambles – and found themselves amongst the sunflowers, which were taller than Kate. She reached up and stroked the brown centre of one of the bowed heads.
‘They look as though they are in mourning. Shouldn’t they be turned towards the sun? “Tournesol”, isn’t it, in French?’
‘They’re exhausted, poor things,’ said István. ‘Too much sun even for the sunflowers.’
Amongst the sunflowers, and along the base of the trees shielding them from the lane, dozens of red poppies had seeded themselves. They, at least, seemed to enjoy the sun. They were huge and scarlet, a wonderful, flamboyant, joyous colour. István began to pick them and weave them together.