Abigail

by Magda Szabo

  This business of Feri (it was the only thing she never had the courage to tell her father about) was, most unusually, something that Marcelle did not approve of. Her aunt, from the moment she spotted what was developing between Gina and the lieutenant, had been altogether more understanding. It was she who explained to Gina that there is nothing more innocent and beautiful than the blooming of first love, the memory of which—even if it did not end in marriage—would always burn brighter than any other, and how happy she was to be the guardian of this pure, noble and entirely mutual attraction. Happy she certainly was. But Marcelle did not like Feri, and she liked this association with Feri even less. Not long before the General’s announcement that she would have to go back to France she had told Gina that she would have to tell him about it—about everything, the regular Thursday afternoon meetings and the whispered exchanges. Her father had repeatedly said that Marcelle, rather than his own flighty sister, should be the one to keep an eye on Gina. No one from the officers’ mess should be allowed to come anywhere near her: that was all it would take for one of them to start trying to court her. In the end Marcelle kept her counsel. She was too busy preparing for her departure and the actual moment of separation. As things turned out, she might just as well have told him. Along with the governess and Auntie Mimó, the lieutenant would also soon disappear from Gina’s life. If she were no longer in Budapest, how could she keep up the connection with him?

  So now there was no Marcelle, and by tomorrow there would be no Auntie Mimó either, or Feri Kuncz. And with them, plucked away as if by a bird, her life at the Sokoray Atala Academy would have gone too. That fact was no easier to bear. She had been a pupil there ever since she had been old enough to go to school. She knew every brick in the building, every nook and cranny. It was an old and prestigious Budapest school for girls, and the staff were highly qualified and conscientious. Whenever Auntie Mimó invited Gina to one of her tea dances, to celebrate the Feast of St. Barbara or St. Nicholas, the headmistress always granted her leave, and it seemed no less natural that she should be allowed regular visits to the theatre and the opera. Often (for they had a season ticket) the General would join them at the performance, sitting behind them in the box Gina shared with Marcelle and her aunt. The door would open, a cold draught would caress her back and neck and the crimson-carpeted floor would creak gently as her father took his seat. More often than not his arrival gave her more pleasure than the performance itself. When she turned to greet him, it was into her own face that she smiled: her own gray eyes gazed back at her from beneath eyebrows shaped almost exactly like her own. Even their hair, in its fineness of texture, was alike, though Gina’s was brown and his was now graying. Their facial features, their mouths, even the shape of their teeth, were the same: father and daughter. In all the fourteen years of Gina’s life, although neither of them had ever expressed it in such elementary terms, they loved each other with a passion and both felt the world complete only when they were together.

  And that was why it was so impossible to fathom his sudden decision to send her away to a boarding school in the provinces the moment Marcelle had gone. In the past she had been able to persuade him to do almost anything; now he seemed deaf to all her pleadings. He had decided on her fate without discussing a single detail and had merely informed her what would happen. If he had given any kind of explanation, anything she could understand and accept, it might have been easier for her to bear the thought of being torn from her familiar world. But her father had clearly not been telling the truth when he made his announcement. His reasons—that it was time for her to acquire greater self-discipline than she could learn from a governess within the walls of her own home; that the country air would be so much better for her; that he would henceforth have less time to spend with her and would feel happier if her upbringing were placed in the hands of only the very best teachers—were simply not worth thinking about. The villa on Gellért Hill stood high above the Danube and the city beyond. Where could the air have been healthier than here, in their large garden on the upper slopes? And what greater self-discipline be acquired than what Marcelle had instilled in her? More upstanding governesses? As if he had not personally chosen the best possible school for his daughter. No, for once he was not telling the truth. He simply did not want to have her in the house. And that could only mean that Auntie Mimó was almost right. For months she had been telling Gina that her brother had changed. He had grown more irritable, more reticent, and the amount of time he claimed to be spending on his military duties was quite implausible, in fact beyond belief. No, there must be a woman involved, she had said: one day Gina would see the truth, when he suddenly took the plunge and married. And perhaps the new wife wouldn’t want her around. Was it so impossible that her father should love some new woman more than his own child?

  Gina was very much her father’s daughter. After hours of fruitless pleading she abruptly fell silent. There were no more questions, no more complaints. The General, who knew her every bit as well as if he were her mother, understood what depths of hurt and hopeless misery lay behind her restrained silence. When she gathered her things together the night before she left there was not the slightest hint of tears and no great emotional scene. Even without Marcelle’s help the packing did not take long, so few were the possessions she was allowed to have with her in the new school. Her father, it now became clear, had already visited the provincial town in question and had told her that the pupils were issued with their own clothing and equipment. All she would need to take was her underwear and her dressing gown; everything else would be supplied when she arrived. Before she finally shut the lid on her suitcase she ran her eyes slowly around the room, then stuffed her favorite toy, the spotted velvet dog, deep down between the nightdresses. Then she had second thoughts and put it back. It too would have to stay. Her adaptation to this unfamiliar new world would have to be total. The textbooks, the exercise books, everything would be completely new. So far she had been at a state school, now she was being sent to a religious one, where the books, and even the blotting paper, would be different.

  That day they went on a round of farewells, first to her aunt and then to the cemetery.

  When she learned the reason for their coming Auntie Mimó’s fit of hysterics was a model of its kind. She was outraged, of course, by the fact that Gina was to be taken from her side, but also because it was only now that she was being told. The girl was leaving the very next day, and no one had said a word! Listening to the endless torrent of reproaches Gina felt utterly wretched, though there was nothing that she herself could have done differently. The moment she had learned from her father what was in store for her she had wanted to fly to her aunt for comfort and consolation, perhaps even help. But it had been impossible. She had run to the hallway to telephone her but had not finished dialing the full six numbers when her father was standing behind her and lifting the receiver from her hand. “You must tell absolutely no one,” he said, addressing her not in his usual tones but as to a soldier receiving orders. “I will take you to visit Mimó, but there will be goodbyes to no one else—not your girlfriends, not your acquaintances, not even the domestic staff. You will never mention the fact that you are leaving Budapest. We’ll shake hands on that.” Gina gave him her hand, but she could not bear to look him in the face, so upset was she that this too was being denied her, the chance to vent her grievances, the precious moments of parting, the fond words of farewell that she would have exchanged with Feri.

  It was the first time Auntie Mimó had ever really fallen out with her brother. When it became clear that he was unwilling even to let her know where he was taking the girl (“You’ll be writing to her every five minutes, or sending her parcels, and you’ll be calling on her every other week. I’m not telling you, Mimó!”), she rose to her feet, thanked them for their visit and expressed the desire not to see her brother again for a good long while. Then she burst into tears, covered Gina with kisses and rushed out of the room, weeping ever
more angrily. They left the house in such haste that Gina did not even have time to whisper a message for her to pass on to Feri. This was especially worrying. On the previous Thursday afternoon she had known nothing of her father’s plans and had parted from the lieutenant with a promise to see him there next week. He would look for her in vain.

  From her aunt’s her father took her to the cemetery, where they stood in silence before her mother’s grave. Gina imagined that this valediction might be rather different from those previous occasions when they had gone there, as they always did before going away for any length of time. Was he perhaps bidding farewell to her dear departed mother, saying a last goodbye to her before embarking on a new life altogether?

  That evening was, to all appearances, like every other since Marcelle’s departure. They dined, the General sat by the fireplace to read, Gina pulled her stool under the standard lamp and took out her book. She stared at the lines but made nothing of the text; she did not even turn the page, she was merely pretending to be reading. Soon she became aware that there was no susurration of turning pages coming from behind her either; no reading was in progress in the depths of the great armchair. She caught her father’s gaze. Talk to me, was the message written on her face. Tell me what you intend to do, and what all this means. Whoever it is you want to bring here, I will love her. Your taste and your choice can never be wrong. How could anyone you love be a stranger to me, or someone I would choose to hate? Tell me what you have in mind. Don’t shut me out of your life. Don’t force us to live apart just because there is someone else. I won’t get in the way or make difficulties. I’ve always loved you too much for that. It’s still not too late. Don’t send me away! Make that woman understand that I will be a friend, not an enemy. Speak to me, father!

  “You are going into a very different world,” he said. “It’s strange to think how often you’ve been to Switzerland and Paris and Italy with Marcelle, and with me to Vienna, and yet you’ve never lived in the provinces. Please try to bear with it.”

  She made no reply. What could she possibly have said? The book slid from her lap onto the carpet. Up there on the hill the evenings were cool, even in summer. Now, though it was only the first of September, they already had the heating on. The electric fire with its imitation logs glowed a bright red.

  “There is no other way,” he continued. “Please understand that, Gina. There really isn’t. If Marcelle had been able to stay the situation would have been different. Marcelle was sensible and responsible. But nowadays I am hardly ever at home. Mimó is superficial and frivolous. You cannot depend on her for anything. I have to send you away for a reason I simply don’t wish to talk about. I am no happier about it than you are, believe me.”

  The girl looked at the fire, then held out her hands towards it, to warm her fingers. In her mind she had already decided what that reason was, the one he refused to discuss. But if he wasn’t going to mention it, then she too would say nothing. The unexplained reason would console her father well enough in her absence, and everything would work out very nicely. If you were sent away to a boarding school in the fifth year of your secondary education you would almost certainly stay there till your leaving exams and come home only for the holidays, so why would you change again after that? “You’ve never lived in the provinces. Please try to bear with it.” What kind of place could he be taking her to, if he had to give her such a warning in advance?

  “Tomorrow we have to be up early, so do get to bed,” the General said. “I will take you there myself, in the car.”

  They both stood up. Her father drew her into an embrace and held her face against his. How sad he is too, Gina thought. How much it hurts him that I am leaving. That woman is pitiless. For the first time in his life my father is being weak.

  She ran up the stairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms were. In every window the shutters were closed, as required in wartime. With the view of the city and her own garden blocked, her room now felt quite alien, as if it were no longer hers, as if she had not lived and slept there since the day she had been born. Feeling like a guest in her own bedroom she sat down uncertainly on the edge of the bed and stared at the pattern on the quilt: red cups of poppy flowers on grass-green silk, as on a lawn. Feri’s words, “Ginny, little Ginny, little fairy girl,” flitted to and fro in the silence, like butterflies over the poppy-covered material. The temptation to creep back to the telephone in the hallway and try to call the lieutenant assailed her once again. Soon it was irresistible. The General was still sitting by the fireplace in the drawing room and the staff were having supper in the basement: no one would hear her making the call. She got as far as the door, then turned back, feeling utterly helpless. It reduced her to something like despair that she was incapable of breaking her word even when what she had promised had been so incomprehensible, so inhuman and so totally unacceptable. She went back to the bed and tried to imagine where she would lay her head the following night, and what her new bed and surroundings would be like. But it was impossible.

  THE BISHOP MATULA ACADEMY

  They set off early the next morning, without telling anyone where they were going, or why, or even how long they would be away.

  János, the General’s batman, who had got the car ready, was clearly under the same impression as both Auntie Róza, the family housekeeper ever since Gina had been born, and Ili the maid: they were presumably going on a last excursion before the start of term. The three of them were still in the hall when the telephone rang. Before anyone could pick it up the General called over his shoulder to say that, whoever it was, they were no longer in Pest. Gina heard Ili telling the person, “I’m very sorry, but they’ve already left.” Auntie Mimó, she reckoned. One last try. Poor thing, after what it must have cost her to get up so early!

  She had said her farewells the previous night, both to the staff and to everyone she loved, and she did not look back, either at her old home or at Auntie Róza, who stood loyally waving to them as her father started the car and drove off. What was the point in craning round when everything and everyone was receding into the distance and becoming harder to see? She stared straight ahead, trying to work out where she was being taken. The road she knew best was the one to Lake Balaton. They had often gone that way to the Adriatic coast. But instead of skirting Buda Hill they turned right and crossed the bridge. So it’s somewhere else—not towards the lake, she mused. Ah, but the trains to the west leave from the Eastern Station, so we could still be on our way to that side of the country. What large towns are there on the road to Vienna? Győr? Sopron?

  Passing through Kalvin Square she thought of her two best friends, Edith and Alice. They lived close by, Edith beside the Hotel Astoria, Alice a little further on, behind the University Church. It seemed unthinkable to be leaving them like this, without a goodbye or a word of explanation, and then writing to them later to tell them that they would no longer be at the same school. Even at this early hour the traffic was heavy, and while he sat waiting for a light to turn green the General took his hands off the wheel and looked, lingeringly and earnestly, into her face. Right now he must be thinking about Edith and Alice, and how he wouldn’t let me say goodbye to them, she thought. And he can see my response: totally impassive. Why should I care where he’s taking me?

  They were now leaving the outer suburbs. They talked very little. Gina felt that there was nothing to say and her father was concentrating on the road. Out of his uniform he seemed almost a stranger, and somehow older. She noted the names of the villages they passed through. She knew the geography of Hungary well enough to feel sure that they were now travelling eastwards, and when, at 8 a.m., they reached the Tisza, she knew she had been right. They took breakfast in a large town on the banks of the river, where they ate without appetite, making polite conversation. The General said that his legs were stiff from sitting so long, suggested they go for a short walk and took her arm. Gina was rather tall for her age, and when she stood up straight she was barely a head s
horter than he was. They wandered about the streets, looking into shop windows. Every now and then he would stop to point out a scarf, a pair of gloves or a handkerchief, and ask her if she needed them, or perhaps would just like to have them, because he really did want to buy her something. Gina surprised herself by the crisp tone with which she declined. It wouldn’t be quite that easy to make things right again between them. Once, when she was very little and had been refusing to take some medicine, her father had come and stood beside her bed and suddenly produced a toy from behind Marcelle’s back, whereupon, though still pulling faces, she immediately swallowed the liquid just to get her hands on the present. But those things were now in the past, along with measles and other ailments of childhood, that age of total unselfconsciousness. These days she took her medicines without flinching. There was no need for either persuasion or bribery.

  In one of the side streets they came across a jewelry shop. There was of course no gold in the window—it had all disappeared at the outbreak of war—but there were some silver chains and medallions glittering on velvet cushions.

  “I would like to buy you something all the same,” the General said. “And I shall do that here. So no more of this play-acting, please. You’ve always enjoyed shopping. Shall we go in?”

  Inside it was astonishingly bright, especially beside the table where the jeweler was repairing a watch in the blaze of a powerful lamp. He was a polite little man and did his best to that would please them. Gina proved a difficult client. The modest selection of goods on display was all very pretty and exquisitely made, but she seemed reluctant to settle on anything. If the aim was simply to dispel her feelings of sadness and disappointment, then she had no desire to be fobbed off with a present, whatever it might be, or however trifling. In the end the General chose for her—a beautiful moon pendant on an obviously valuable chain. Despite herself, the moment it was hung around her neck she fell in love with it. It was such a chaste little moon, with its mouth shut tight, secretive and rather mysterious, not a moon in an operetta. There was nothing showy about it, just an air of calm seriousness. Once it was around her neck there was no giving it back, and she had her present. But she still needed to make her father feel that having been given it changed nothing; that she both accepted it and didn’t.