“I can’t believe it! Not poor old Kati!”
“It’s true,” he said, slightly nettled. “And she is not poor old Kati any more. She’s a bright, interesting woman and Nicky is a bright and very handsome boy. You would be surprised.”
“I certainly would,” chortled Eva. “Where on earth did Kati get a handsome child from?”
“Oh, don’t be so vulgar, Eva,” cried Amalia, distressed. “Poor Kati. I should have found a way of going to see her before. If only I could have helped her!”
“She doesn’t need help.” He was beginning to grow angry. Somehow Kati’s life style was his life style and his sisters’ attitude towards Kati was a criticism of his own conduct. He resented not only Eva’s ribald jeering but Malie’s pity. “You don’t really understand, either of you. I’ve never seen her so happy. She has a large and pleasant apartment with a servant. She has plenty of interesting friends and work she likes doing. She adores her child and says nothing would ever make her marry again or give up her freedom. She is completely and utterly happy!”
“How can she be?” faltered Malie. “How can she be happy with a child and no husband to look after her?”
“She never had a husband to look after her,” Leo snapped. “And now she doesn’t want one. She is free to do as she pleases. She paints when she likes; she goes to parties or concerts when she wants to. She has friends of both sexes whom she can see whenever she likes. She is fulfilled and happy.”
They were both silent. Malie looked doubtful and Eva resentful. “Well, she has no right to be happy,” she said angrily. “It’s disgraceful, what she’s done. What about the family? Our name and reputation? What would poor Aunt Gizi have thought? And Mama and Papa, just think how distressed they will be when they know!”
“They won’t know,” said Malie quickly. “We’re not going to tell anyone else, do you understand, Eva?”
Eva didn’t answer.
“Eva! You are not to mention this to anyone! Papa has enough worries at the moment and this would be just another burden for him. And have you thought what might happen if Madame Kaldy learned of her daughter-in-law’s escapade? Don’t forget that Kati is our cousin. Madame Kaldy might well decide she wanted nothing more to do with such a family. And then where would you and your son be?”
Eva, since the birth of her son, had been accepted into the good graces of Madame Kaldy. There were battles, many battles, which Eva usually won, but nonetheless between the two women a truce had been declared. Eva was the mother of the Kaldy heir and they were both aware that they needed one another.
“I suppose you’re right,” Eva said slowly. “It wouldn’t be very kind to tell the old lady. But I still think it’s quite disgraceful of Kati. How could she behave in such an immoral way! Having a child with just anyone!”
Malie was staring at Eva, a curious expression on her face, and Eva slowly began to flush.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said, and then continued hurriedly. “Well, I won’t tell anyone. As you say, Malie, it would be worrying people unnecessarily.” A sharp tone entered her voice. “What a shock it would be for Felix, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. But he is not going to know.”
Leo was suddenly bored by his two sisters. He didn’t understand the undercurrents in their conversation, but he was aware of smallness, of petit-bourgeois bickering, and he felt a swift yearning to go back to Vienna, to settle there with Hanna in an atmosphere of freedom and friendship. How nice it would be to introduce Hanna to Cousin Kati and not have to worry about whether the family approved of her or not.
Malie came with him to the station and brought the boys, Karoly and Jacob, in order to ease what might be an awkward moment. They stood beside the track, small replicas of their dark, heavy-eyed father, clothed in clean white shirts and newly pressed grey trousers. Neither of Malie’s boys resembled her at all. They were quiet, studious children, the delight of their father and of their grandfather, who found them obedient and willing to listen. Leo, watching their solemn faces, wished that little Terez was present instead. She was merry, noisy and naughty, and would have provided much more diversion for this awkward occasion.
“Here comes the train, boys,” said Malie brightly. “Uncle Leo’s friend will be here any moment.”
“What are we to call her?” asked Jacob politely. Malie stared helplessly at her son. “Are we to call her Aunt Hanna?”
“No,” Leo replied quickly. “That won’t be necessary, boys. You can just call her Hanna.”
“Very well. Uncle Leo.”
He was incredibly nervous, and he hated himself for being so nervous. Two weeks ago he had held Hanna in his arms, slept with her, eaten with her, quarrelled with her, and now he felt as though he were meeting a stranger. He should have gone to meet her in Budapest. Just a few hours together on the train might have helped.
When the train stopped he couldn’t see her and for one wild second he thought she hadn’t come, and then at the far end of the track her neat little body appeared on the ground. She looked small and afraid, and a sudden wave of love for her drove everything else out of his mind. “There she is!” he cried and hurried to meet her.
She had a new suitcase and she looked fresh and clean, even though she had been travelling for over a day. Her tight, controlled face looked about her and then the large grey eyes flooded with relief when she saw him. “Darling Leo!”
They didn’t even kiss, they were both so tense. He just squeezed her hand and said, “It’s fine, Hanna. My sister has come to meet you and I know it’s going to be all right.”
“Have you told them about me?”
“I’ve told them you are my girl friend and that I want them to meet you.”
At Malie’s suggestion he hadn’t mentioned the shipyard worker lurking in the background. When asked what Hanna’s father did, he said he didn’t know. Let them meet her first; then all the other things would come right.
“That’s my sister. You’ll like her. She’s the good one of the family.” He put his arm around her shoulders and steered her up the track. Malie—oh, kind, blessed, wonderful Malie!—smiled and came forward and put her arms round the girl.
“Dear Hanna!” she said warmly. “I can’t tell you how much I have waited for this moment. Leo talks of nothing but his Hanna, and now you are here and I can see why.”
Hanna tried to smile back. It was a tight little smile and a muscle at the corner of her mouth twitched.
“These are my boys, Karoly and Jacob.”
The boys stared sombrely at her, then politely held up hands for her to shake. Hanna tried to unbend. “Twins?” she asked.
“No, though I suppose you could think that. Karoly is nine, Jacob eight,”
“Oh.”
“You will be staying in my apartment, Hanna, but you will not be far away from Leo. He and his parents and his brother live in the apartment below. But you already know Jozsef, don’t you? Surely you have met in Berlin?”
“Just once.”
They climbed into a cab and made desultory conversation all the way home. He was aware, as he had never been before, of the language difference between Hanna and himself. In Berlin they had spoken German together without his even being aware of it. But here he was conscious of having to speak in German, and he was also conscious of Malie and the boys trying to remember they mustn’t lapse into Hungarian.
It was all right when they arrived home. Eva and little Terez made a great deal of noise and there was bustle and confusion that masked any strain. Mama was having one of her good days, one of her gracious Bogozy days, and if there was any coolness in Papa’s manner it was not too noticeable. Hanna was whisked upstairs into Malie’s apartment to “lie down and rest.” He longed to ask them all if they liked her but was terrified in case they said no. So he followed Eva into the drawing-room and said tentatively, “Do you think it will be all right, Eva?”
“Will what be all right?”
“Well, her sta
ying here for the summer. Do you think she will fit in with everyone?”
Eva shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t see how anyone could be bothered by her. If she continues to be like she is today we won’t even know she’s here.”
“Oh, God!” he said, annoyed. “You’re always so spiteful, Eva.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are. You never used to be like this. You’re always cruel and sarcastic nowadays.”
Eva stared at him, open-mouthed. “Well, really!” she exclaimed. “I’ve trailed all the way down from the country, just to show that your German girl friend is welcome here, and that’s all you can say, that I’m spiteful and sarcastic!”
They began to bicker, childishly and noisily, degenerating into all kinds of complaints and arguments that had nothing to do with the present crisis, and their quarrelling didn’t stop until Malie came into the room.
“Why are you shouting?” she demanded. “Have you forgotten the windows are open? I can hear every word upstairs!”
Eva looked angry and flounced towards the door. “I only hope she can hear every word. Then she’ll know exactly what she’s getting if she marries our delightful little brother.” She slammed the door and they heard the heels of her expensive shoes tapping along the passage. Leo stared glumly at the carpet.
“I’m sorry, Malie,” he said finally.
His sister sighed. “When I was very young I used to long for us all to grow up,” she said tiredly. “I grew so weary of Eva’s temper and I thought that when she grew up it would all go away. Alas, it is worse.” She smiled a little wryly. “I hope you have not inherited that temper, Leo.”
“No.” He paced moodily across to the window, then came back and flung himself onto the couch. “No. It was my fault as much as Eva’s. But she does seem sharper than she used to be. I don’t remember Eva always being so... so sour.”
“It has something to do with Felix, I think. Remember what great friends they used to be, how funny and gay they were together? And then Eva became pregnant and for some curious reason Felix changed towards her. I suppose he was jealous and resentful, anxious in case his mother diverted some of her attention to her grandchildren. Have you never noticed how he and Eva still joke and talk but how spiteful it all is?”
“I do hope she’s going to be nice to Hanna. She’s not going to be sharp with Hanna, is she?”
Malie chuckled. “What an old mother hen you are, Leo. One would think that no one ever brought a girl home to meet his family before. Now just relax.”
He tried. He tried his very best in the days that followed to behave naturally, both with his family and with Hanna. He realized how much Berlin had changed him. He was two people, the boy who had grown up in this comfortable middle-class home and the man who had lived with Hanna in Berlin. He found it difficult to fuse the two. It was made more difficult because of the charade that he and Hanna had to enact. Each evening she went upstairs to her virginal room in David and Malie’s apartment and the separation drove a gap between them. She grew prim and even more silent, and as Hanna withdrew into herself the family became more positively gracious, as though they were saying, Look how hard we are trying to like your young woman. Even though she is not responding, just look how charming we all are.
Even Papa was checking his disapproval. David Klein had obviously spoken to him, asking him to control his resentment and remember the changing times. But with all that, with Papa’s control and Malie’s warmth, with Jozsef’s genial acceptance and Eva’s heavy attempts at friendship, it was obvious that the visit wasn’t working. And it was obvious, even to Leo, that the barrier, the stiffness, was mostly Hanna’s.
Strangely, the only person she seemed to relax with was Mama. Silly garrulous Mama and carefully controlled Hanna—it was an incongruous relationship, but the only time Hanna smiled was when Mama was prattling on about clothes and about her girlhood in Vienna.
At the end of two weeks Hanna said she thought she would return to Berlin. He was stunned.
“I know it’s difficult for you, Hanna, but couldn’t you try a little longer? I’m sorry about Papa, but he really is trying hard to be pleasant and it is very difficult for him. He is old-fashioned and—”
“I think it’s better I return to Berlin,” she said, not looking at him. “If I go now I shall be able to return to the office. I will get a smaller room and wait for you to send for me.”
“Hanna, you don’t have to spend the whole summer here. We hadn’t planned it that way. We could go to Eva’s farm in the mountains. It’s beautiful up there and you’d love it. We could ride and walk and lie out in the sun—lie out on our own somewhere.” He tried to pull her close to him, but she was stiff and unyielding.
“It’s no good, Leo. I’ll go back to Berlin.”
Her face was pinched, her mouth seemed even smaller than usual. Beneath her cream cotton dress her neat little body was taut. He realized that for several days the strain between them had been so great he hadn’t even wanted to make love to her.
“You know I don’t care what they think. You know that, don’t you, Hanna?”
“Your family are very important to you. Otherwise why are we doing all this?”
“They’re important, yes. But I am not prepared to risk losing you, and if you are not happy with them, if you think you can never be happy with them, then you need never meet them again. We shall live in Budapest or wherever I can find employment—and we will begin together, two people without families.”
“Oh, Leo!” For a moment he thought she was going to capitulate, but then she drew a deep breath and stiffened her body against him. “I’m sorry. I’m confused and disturbed. It was all so simple in Berlin and I think if I go back there I shall be able to sort everything out... about your family.”
“It will be simple when we are married,” he insisted. “All right, go back if you must. But don’t go back to worry about my family. Just remember that once we are married there will be only the two of us, no one else, and then it will be just the way it was in Berlin.”
He tried once more to persuade her; then, when he could see the tension and constraint in her, he ceased to plead. He tried not to notice how relieved the family were, and then he took her to the station to bid her a miserable farewell. Just before the train pulled out he had a brief glimpse of the old Hanna. Her eyes filled with tears and, standing on the step of the train, she said suddenly, “We were so happy, weren’t we, Leo? In Berlin we were so happy.”
“We will be again! I promise you, we will be again.” And then the train began to move and she stepped up and vanished into the corridor, appearing once more, just briefly, at a carriage window before the train pulled away. He walked back home feeling more despondent than he had for a long time, but also determined to find work as quickly as possible so that he could send for Hanna and be happy again.
The slump began to hit him for the first time. Until now it had been a vague threat lying somewhere in the future; now it was the barrier that kept him apart from Hanna. He wrote to every publisher, every newspaper, every press agency in Budapest, sending clippings of his work for Mr. Heinlein and references from a variety of sources in Berlin. Most of them didn’t even bother to answer. He applied for a post as teacher at any number of grammar schools and was told that there were experienced teachers who were looking for work. He realized how useless a qualification in literature was, although he took comfort from the fact that students of science and economics and mathematics were having just as difficult a time as he was. In desperation he even put his name forward for a position in government administration—although he didn’t know how he was going to bear working in a government office—and was told that his name would be added to the list of other waiting applicants.
He earned a little money that summer and autumn. He wrote a few miscellaneous pieces for the local press—nothing controversial, just critiques of plays and books. And while the summer lasted he earned a little more at coaching schoolbo
ys in tennis. He wrote long encouraging letters to Hanna, assuring her that soon he would find a job and then she could join him and they would marry. Hanna’s letters were short and there were longer and longer intervals between them. They ceased to be intimate, and panic grew within him because his lack of work was driving her away; he knew he was going to lose her if he didn’t find something soon. In December, although he wrote several times, she didn’t answer him. He looked for a letter every day, but December slid into January and there was still no news from her. He began to wonder if she was all right, if the hideous year of elections and street fighting had somehow claimed Hanna as a victim; the figures were growing increasingly frightening in the papers. Finally, in February, he swallowed his pride and asked Papa if he could borrow a little money for his fare to Berlin. His anxiety was now so acute he knew he had to go and see her and find out exactly what was wrong. He had a little cash saved from the coaching and from a recent article on a visiting violinist. Grudgingly Papa gave him the balance of the money.
On the morning that he was about to depart, he received two letters with Berlin postmarks. One was typewritten; the other was addressed in Hanna’s neat script and he tore her envelope open first, his hands shaking a little.
Dear Leo,
This is the most horrible letter I have ever had to write. It is horrible because I know it is going to hurt you, and it is also horrible because I have to confess to something in my character which is shameful, I don’t think you will ever understand—or perhaps, remembering those years in Berlin, you will understand a little and just be shocked that the girl you thought so highly of could be like everyone else.
Leo, I know you thought I shared all your beliefs, all your ideals. I thought I did too and I was so proud when you fought the fascists and defended Mr. Heinlein outside the agency. I was proud, not only of you, but of myself because through you I was part of everything you were fighting for. I used to lie beside you at night unable to believe how lucky I was, that I, Hanna Weiss, the daughter of a shipyard labourer, should be loved by a man of your background who was also an idealist. I knew you came from a wealthy family, but it really didn’t matter to you. You didn’t care about it at all and it made no difference to you that I was who I was.
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