by Magda Szabo
“Here nothing is that simple,” said Torma. “You’ll see. People have so many dreams that never come to anything. We live in fear because of all the horrible things that can happen. Abigail has been here for hundreds of years. I don’t know why she’s called Abigail. She’s been called that since the Matula was the Matula. Someone must have given her the name at some point.”
(Very good: so here we have a statue, a rather fine neoclassical sculpture from the end of the eighteenth century, dressed in the style of Mme. Récamier and holding a Greek pitcher—a true daughter of the Empire.)
“It was Mitsi Horn who discovered that she wasn’t just a statue, she was also a miracle worker. Mitsi Horn was sobbing and howling because the director had taken her engagement ring away and her young man had gone off to fight in the First World War. When she was forbidden to wear his ring she went to the statue, weeping and complaining how wretched she was, and when she went back a few days later she saw something sticking up out of the pitcher, and she pulled it out. It was a letter from her fiancé. She almost went mad because just then the bell rang for her math lesson and there was no time to read it, not until the next break. She wrote back the same day and put the envelope in the pitcher, but it wasn’t there long. And for the rest of her time in the school these letters came to her from her boy and she was always able to write back to him.”
“How very exciting,” said Gina. She knew that her tone would be hurtful. It made clear that she did not believe a word of it and was becoming bored by everything they were telling her—bored by the statue, which wasn’t even medieval, and bored with these two girls. Her anxiety returned: how on earth was she going to be able to put up with the childishness of her companions on top of the black-and-white rules of the fortress?
“It was an awfully long time ago,” Mari Kis explained. “In 1914. Ever since then Abigail has always been there to help us. But only on one condition: we must never talk about her to strangers. She even wrote as much to Dorka, when she spilled some ink on the school Bible. She told her that she could help us only if we had really serious problems, and ever since then we have kept her secret. I don’t know how she does it, but one way or another she always manages to sort things out.”
(What an imagination these people have! This Abigail, who always comes to your aid! And all this inside the fortress, where we live like soldiers in a barracks and with nothing but biblical quotations on the walls. They are so superstitious they might just as well worship idols!)
“Of course, she doesn’t help people who don’t believe in her,” Torma said, and she changed the subject. As they walked back to the school Gina did not look back, but the kindly eyes of the Empire girl Abigail followed them, as if to tell them that she would always be there if they were ever in serious trouble, for life in the fortress was hard and one couldn’t pester the good Lord about every tiny thing.
The garden was filled with both color and fragrance, a relief after all the black and white. Somewhere a bell rang, a correct, formal little chime, instructing them to wash their hands, as Mari Kis explained. It was lunchtime. Torma added a word of warning: once she had been shown to her place in the refectory she was not to sit down straight away, and certainly not reach for her spoon. First, someone would read from the Bible, then there would be hymns, followed by prayers; only after that were you allowed to start on your food. It was the same at the end of the meal, and you were not allowed to leave the table until given leave to do so. Conversation was forbidden while eating; the food was good and the servings large, but you should never ask for seconds unless invited to, and you always had to wait in submissive silence, because all through the meal a girl on duty read aloud from a book by some ghastly Swiss priest. It was supposed to show you how to live, and how to be a good Christian girl, and you really had to pay attention, because they had been known to question people about it after evening prayers.
“Today we’ll be free from lunch until supper, and after tomorrow you’ll have a chance to learn about the housekeeping arrangements—actually, that’s from the day after tomorrow, because tomorrow is the start-of-term service instead, and that’s a very special occasion. You’ll also meet your teachers and be given your timetable and textbooks, and your first set of instructions. The teachers live in the same building as we do, over in the wing, and you’ll be seeing them around rather more often than you want, because although it’s supposed to be the Deaconess who supervises our studies, other members of staff are always popping in on the pretext of helping her.”
They had now arrived back at the building, at a different door from the one that led up to the dormitory, a low doorway studded around the edges with cast-iron stars. Beyond it the entrance to the refectory stood open to receive them. Gina felt that never in her life had she been in such a spotlessly clean place. Susanna was standing outside the ablutions to make sure that they washed their hands properly and shared out the paper towels fairly between them.
THE AQUARIUM, AND A BETRAYAL
They were free for the rest of the day, until suppertime.
The Librarian, another deaconess, was already at her post, and other sisters had been busy in the kitchen and the sewing room, but nothing had yet been arranged for the pupils. Nor could it have been. They came from all over the country, as did several members of the teaching staff, and they arrived by train at widely different times, which precluded any organized activity. But by evening everyone was present and at dinner there was not a single empty chair. Gina finally met one of her teachers, after evening prayers—the Chaplain who led services in the school and would be taking her for religious studies.
She had been watching the behavior of the girls Mari Kis and Torma introduced her to and had been doing her best to copy them. In fact she found it hard to stop herself doing so, which rather distressed her. But when it came to religious worship there was a problem. There had been nothing very intense about her religious life at home. Her father and Auntie Mimó were Catholic, but Gina had been raised in her mother’s Protestantism. At the Sokoray Atala the girls had been encouraged to follow their own faith, but there had been no supervision or compulsion and religious studies lessons had all been purely academic. Gina went to church infrequently, though Auntie Mimó had sometimes taken her to Mass, which was rather more interesting because Feri would go with them, and afterwards they went for walks in the center of town, stopping for a rest in one of the famous patisseries. But she was shocked to find that the hymns, which the other girls knew by heart, were all new to her, ones she had never been taught.
At the end of the service Susanna took her to meet the Chaplain.
She felt rather self-conscious standing before him, not because she felt especially diffident just then but because she knew what he was going to ask her.
“Did they not teach you any hymns in Budapest?” he inquired.
“Not many,” she whispered.
“That’s a pity,” said Susanna. “Here everyone knows the hymns and psalms by heart. But we’ll help you catch up. Gardening is too important for your health to miss, but we can excuse you from needlework lessons for a while. When the rest of the class are in the sewing room you must go to the music room, and you’ll get to know the tunes as well. Are you learning the piano?”
Of course she was. At the Sokoray Atala they did not teach handicrafts and she did not feel the need to start on needlework now, though it might be rather more pleasant than memorizing hymns. Susanna turned away and Gina went back to join the other girls. The little bell rang again. She was getting used to hearing it whenever anything began or ended.
She was afraid that at bedtime there might be another arcane rule preventing her from washing herself the way she was used to at home or from taking a bath every day, although in the end no one tried to stop her. But you were not allowed to lock yourself in the bathroom; instead you had to hang a placard on the door handle, with a picture on it of a bath and a running shower to say that someone was inside, and not to open the doo
r and disturb them. She was enjoying a nice long drenching when suddenly there was a knock on the door and she heard Susanna telling her that her time was up. Enraged, she dried herself down with the coarse linen towel she had been given and pulled on the shapeless white nightgown. The slippers might have been made for a chimney sweep. Her classmates were already in bed by the time she got back to the dormitory and all the lights were out, except for a tiny one near the door, next to her bed.
The darkness made it impossible to read, or even listen to the radio: in fact there was nothing to do at all. The girls were busy whispering to one another, but they were all some way away from her and she felt very isolated. It would have been so good if someone, even Susanna, had asked: “Are you alright, Gina? How do you like your bed? Sleep well!” But no one came, and when at long last Torma asked her softly if she was still awake she made no reply, although she was; and she stayed that way until the last of them was deep in slumber. She listened for noises from the corridor outside, or from the unknown city that lay beyond, but there was not a sound. Someone might have been walking in the corridor, but she heard nothing. She never knew at what point she did at last fall asleep: she had forgotten to wind her watch and it had stopped at ten.
When it was time to rise the next morning she struggled to get out of bed. But she did not complain. Instead she forced herself on as she had never done in her life before. The bell rang almost non-stop, always to announce some new task: time to go and wash, time to get dressed, time for prayers, time for breakfast. Soon it would ring again to summon them to the day room, and finally to get themselves in line. That morning they were to wear their dark-blue going-out uniform and the impossible blue hat: it was like something worn by traditional horsemen on the Puszta, with the same wide brim but without the frond of maidenhair fern, emblazoned instead with the coat of arms she had seen outside the director’s office. There was no time or opportunity for her to check in the mirror to see whether this creation suited her, and in truth she had no wish to know what she looked like in such a disguise. Better not to see.
They were now lined up in the corridor. At another command from the bell the column moved off towards the main entrance and out through the iron-barred portal at the front of the building. They were marching three abreast. This suited Gina, as she found herself next to Torma and Mari Kis. It was only when they were out in the street that she realized quite how many they were: the blue uniforms filled the entire length of the pavement. They were lined up in order of height, with the smallest of the first years at the front. Ahead of them were the Chaplain, in all his regalia, the director and the male and female teachers, while in front of everyone went the school flag, carried by one of the older girls. The form tutors and the class prefects marched alongside their own pupils. Seeing who was next to her class, beside Susanna, she was so surprised she missed a step and had to adjust her pace to catch up. “So?” Torma asked in a loud whisper. “Well, then?” There was no chance to reply because Susanna would have heard, but in fact there was no need. Torma had read her face perfectly well: she was no less thrilled and astonished than they had been when they first set eyes on Péter Kalmár. They had told her the day before that their class tutor was the most handsome man in all the world, and they had not hidden their own feelings about him either. Everyone was in love with him. They all stole the pieces of chalk he left on his chair and collected bits of thread from his clothing. Varga, the girl who had been sent down from their class the previous year and whose place Gina had taken, had cut the letter “K” from the hat of Kőnig, the Latin teacher, and sewn it onto her blouse. It was tucked away under her arm, but of course it was noticed—everything was noticed here—and when she was reprimanded for having the letter “K” sewn onto her dress she replied that she wore it in memory of Johannes Kalvin, whereupon the director launched into a tirade about how the founder of the Puritan religion would have been appalled to be remembered in such an idiotic way and would she kindly remove it at once. This scene had taken place in the refectory after dinner, and the girls, knowing who the “K” really stood for, were almost choking with suppressed hilarity. Varga kept her eyes fixed all the while on Kalmár, who for his part maintained a small sliver of a smile. He knew exactly what was going on. Only Kőnig seemed not to notice, but that hardly mattered. Even if he had, he never complained about anything.
Gina was not in a particularly good mood; she was still sleepy after spending the night lying awake tossing and turning in her bed; but she felt suddenly cheered by the fact that one of the teachers walking near her had the air of someone from her old world, the world of Auntie Mimó. To think that a mere schoolteacher, in a place like this, should be so much a man, a real man! The flag bearer had now turned into the street, with the whole school following, a long dark-blue serpent moving steadily away from the Matula towards the white, four-square church. Gina’s eyes never once left Kalmár, and Mari Kis had to pinch her arm whenever she fell out of step. Susanna noticed this too, but she simply wagged her head and said nothing. Her eyes were certainly not on Kalmár. They were on the girls in her class.
The actual service turned her mind in other directions, and she found it rather soothing. The priest talked about how they should all work diligently because there was a war on. The enemies they faced were ignorance and laziness, and as they went about their lessons they should also pray for the soldiers at the front. Gina thought of her father, and of Feri, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at the branches outside the window, tossing in the breeze, and she thought how strange it was that the priest should say, “We should fight against our sins, our negligence and laziness, just as the soldiers are fighting against the enemy until the final victory is won.” How interesting that she should hear this phrase from a priest, this mention of a final victory. Her father, who was in the army, had never used the words, and had never promised her, or Auntie Mimó, that “we will win the war.” No doubt he considered it so self-evident he didn’t think it worth mentioning.
Everyone sang the psalms without even glancing at the words; Gina was the only one who needed them—she and the first years—and she felt ashamed. Worse, she did not even know the tunes, and she stared dumbly at her hymn book: “Hallelujah, hallelujah, our gates stand open to the daughters of the people . . .” She gave up the struggle and studied the faces around her instead. Susanna and Kalmár were sitting next to each other, and the prefect’s fine soprano rose clear of all the others. Kalmár too was singing at the top of his voice, which rather surprised Gina; his eyes were lowered and focused on no one and nothing in particular. The girls are wasting their time ogling this man, she thought. He couldn’t care less if they sewed his monogram onto their dresses or not. Something does seem to interest him, and it isn’t the admiration of his pupils.
During the sermon she tried to imagine herself, dressed in her proper clothes and wearing her hair the way she usually did, meeting Péter Kalmár not inside the fortress but in a purely social setting, and she wondered what they would say to one another. At her aunt’s afternoon teas she had danced with officers older than he was. What bright blond hair he had, and what a noble profile! It was the face of a soldier—so brave-looking, so decided. Gina had always loved paintings. With Marcelle she had often been into grand salons and museums, both at home and abroad, and they always visited the great collections. Kalmár’s face was that of a particularly handsome St. George, and seeing the connection made her almost laugh with delight. How lucky it was that our faces didn’t betray what we were thinking, and that no one knew that she, or anyone else in this great squat building, was thinking of him as St. George, the greatest knight-errant of all . . . But of course these Calvinists didn’t recognize saints.
The dragon slayer had the bluest of eyes, quite unlike any other blue, a pure essence of blue, and his eyelashes were as black as in a painting. And how long they were! It didn’t seem right that a man should have such beautiful eyes. At that moment she would have loved to reassure herse
lf in a mirror that her own eyelashes were even longer than his, but of course that was impossible, even if she hadn’t been sitting in a church. All she had with her was the bag with the school handkerchiefs in it. Her powder box and its mirror were lying where she had hidden them, under the row of geraniums.
She allowed her gaze to wander along the pews, trying to see where Kőnig was sitting—the man who had failed to complain when a girl stole the monogram from his hat. For Gina, beauty and bravery went hand in hand, as did a lackluster appearance and a dull mind. She searched along the teachers’ pew for the dullest-looking man and told herself that that must be him. As it turned out, she had hit on the right person. The man with graying hair and glasses, sitting directly in front of the sacramental table in a badly cut jacket, was indeed Kőnig. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but held himself badly, almost like a hunchback.
“Oh Lord our Comforter . . .” Which one is it now? Hymn number 63 . . . She had to scramble back and forth through the book . . . “Send us thy salvation, that we might not stray from the path of righteousness, or lose our courage in the battle to come . . .” The war, yet again! she thought, as everyone stood up for the closing prayer. She recited the Lord’s Prayer and received the blessing with her head bowed, not daring to look up. As soon as the Amen was over she raised a foot in preparation to move off, and instantly put it down again, pretending that it had slipped: everyone else had remained standing, with their hands clasped together. Even the first years had known what she hadn’t, that at the end of the service it was the practice to say a short private prayer for all mankind.