Abigail

by Magda Szabo

  What was the secret that so troubled this superstitious older girl? She went over to the pitcher, slipped her hand in and found the note. It read:

  Dear Abigail,

  I know that we should turn to you only when we are in serious difficulties, but that is my situation now, believe me. I forgot to remove the photo of Jani, the one taken before he left for the front, in my math exercise book. It’s the one where we are standing arm in arm. What will happen to me when they find it? How will I be allowed to take my school leaving exams? I’m on a scholarship, we can’t afford the school fees, and it looks like the end of me. Please help me, Abigail!

  And this was the girl who had carried the school flag! How could she not feel ashamed of herself? Much as she felt like crumpling it up, Gina put it back where she had found it. So now Abigail would step down from her pedestal, nip over to the staff room, open the cupboard where the exercise books were kept, take out the photograph from Aradi’s homework book and return it to its owner; then she would titivate her hair, and, since she was now out and about, would stroll out through the gate and off to the cinema. Gina was so aggrieved that for the entire time it took her to collect her afternoon snack and eat the croissant and the apple she had been given she found herself thinking of the senior girl as a mere baby.

  After the walk Sister Erzsébet came on duty. It was Susanna’s afternoon off, and the fifth year had gathered in the day room: Gina learned later that it was a Matula tradition that before Mitsi Horn’s monthly tea party the invited class would devote their Saturday afternoon rest period to revising their knowledge of the Bible, as a way of showing gratitude and self-abnegation. They were testing each other on the text and Bánki was asking the questions. Gina had long admired the assurance with which Bánki identified quotations, knew in which gospel a passage was found, who had written it and who the speaker was. But she also knew that no one would ask her anything. They had never done so before, so why would they now? Moreover, Sister Erzsébet would be so delighted by their pious afternoon activity that this would be just the moment for her to do what she had to. Susanna would be back by the evening, and she was much more alert: she took regular walks up and down the corridor and even went into the washroom.

  After one particularly difficult question had been posed, Gina got up behind Sister Erzsébet’s back and crept out of the room and down the corridor. Much as she wanted to run she took care not to hurry. She slipped into the washroom and, as quickly as she could, with beating heart and in frantic haste to get the job done, lifted the boxes of geraniums down from behind their protective metal shield and recovered the objects she had hidden. They were all a bit damp, no doubt from the flower-watering, but there was no serious damage. She returned the boxes one by one, and then, back in the dormitory, slipped her possessions under her mattress—everything except the hundred pengő note. But she was not going to leave without a word of farewell. She tore a sheet of paper out of her diary and, in her very best hand, wrote: I despise the lot of you. Carry on with your stupid little games in this prison. I’m leaving. Vitay. It would be found when the bed was stripped.

  She tucked the hundred pengő note into her shoe: it would go into her stockings when she went to bed. Her father would write to the governors to say that he was sending her to another school and to ask Susanna to return the personal items she had been keeping under her mattress, along with her other possessions that the Sister Housekeeper had taken.

  She managed to slip back into the day room without her absence being noted: Sister Erzsébet still had her back to the door and did not turn around.

  That evening they were shown a geography film, one that succeeded in holding even her attention. For the first time ever in the school, she felt calm and serene. Kalmár had to explain some of the details as there was no soundtrack, because the projector lacked the necessary equipment. Following that, she was the first into bed, but she soon rolled onto her side. She needed time to think, and to review the steps she would have to take. She knew the others were talking about her—she could hear her name being whispered from time to time—but she no longer had any interest in what they might be saying. Aradi’s was another name that regularly surfaced, like the flash of a fish above the general susurration, but she was no longer interested in her either: Aradi had fallen too low in her estimation.

  Having been the first into bed she was the first up the next morning. After washing and dressing she went and stood in the corridor where they lined up. The hundred pengő note had been taken out of her shoe when she undressed for bed and was now inside her stocking. During the service in the chapel she was surprised to find herself murmuring a rather different prayer from the one led by the Chaplain. It asked for only one thing, success in the enterprise that lay ahead. After prayers the fifth year did not go back to the dormitory wing with the other classes: they had been granted an unscheduled walk to make up for the one they would lose to the afternoon tea party. Gina’s face was now so radiant with harmony and good humor that Susanna noticed, and remarked how glad she was to see this, though it was of course understandable and no doubt a lot to do with the forthcoming tea. You can forget about that, thought Gina. These Mitsi Horn traditions are a lot of nonsense. But for once I don’t hold them against her. She doesn’t know it, but she’s going to help me get out of here.

  That afternoon Kalmár led the procession, with Susanna bringing up the rear. In her black formal dress and the little white cap perched on her luxuriant hair, she too had a kind of festive beauty. Although she had a great deal else on her mind just then, Gina could not help thinking for the first time how very well suited the two of them were. Salm had arranged the bunch of flowers they were to present to Mitsi Horn and had given it to Kalmár to admire, but he handed it straight to Gina: Vitay had never set eyes on this remarkable lady and she should have the pleasure of giving it to her at their first meeting. In later life Gina often recalled the look of pure venom on Salm’s face—that the bouquet she had put together with so much love and care should be presented to their benefactor by the ostracized Vitay!

  As they were leaving the skies had darkened and the rain set in, so they had brought their raincoats. That doubly pleased Gina. On this day of days a leaden sky would be the perfect ally, and she would certainly need a coat for her planned overnight journey: she had no wish to spend the entire trip back to Budapest in a black cardigan, with her teeth chattering with cold—it was all the warm clothing they were allowed to wear on the afternoon walk, even in November.

  They had taken a route that Gina had never seen before. With every minute that passed, every step that brought them closer to Mitsi Horn’s house and the station, she grew more excited and nervous. They turned down a side street and began to cross a square, in the middle of which stood a statue. It was the mutilated torso of a woman. She had no arms, or legs, and her expression was one of absolute grief. So, thought Gina, even in Árkod there is a monument to the Sorrows of Hungary. Kalmár called out to her to take some of the roses from Mitsi Horn’s bouquet, run over to the statue and lay them at the base.

  Normally she would have welcomed this order, if only as a brief distraction, but not now. She was too preoccupied with her problems for that, though she was more than happy to do something to please Kalmár. She stepped out of the line, went across and examined the monument, looking for somewhere to put the roses where they would best be seen. Her glance fell on a small white placard, presumably bearing the name of the sculptor. How odd, she thought. It would normally be carved into the stone. She leaned down to place the roses next to the statue, and as she did so her eyes fell level with the notice. In fact it was not a notice at all. It was a sheet of paper that had been attached to the monument, inscribed, rather like the plates one saw at the front of books, in a florid, elegant hand:

  STOP THIS POINTLESS SHEDDING OF HUNGARIAN BLOOD! WE HAVE LOST THE WAR. SAVE THE LIVES OF YOUR CHILDREN FOR A BETTER FUTURE.

  Scarcely able to believe her eyes, she stood stock-s
till. Kalmár called out to ask her what she was waiting for, and she turned round with such a look of astonishment on her face that the teacher left the class and went over to join her. He leaned down to study the inscription, called Susanna over and sent Gina back to the line. His face was as scarlet as if someone had struck him a blow.

  This was a special moment for Gina. She alone knew what was happening and no one else in the class did. None of them were allowed to leave the group to go and see what was so very interesting about the statue. She smiled into the faces of Mari Kis and Torma, but said nothing. The procession remained at a standstill but none of them asked her what was happening and she felt a chill air closing around her: it was like coming into a room left unheated for the whole winter. Never mind, she thought. Two hours at the most, and I shall never see you again.

  In his lessons on national defense Kalmár had explained that in times of war hostile elements would always seek to undermine public morale, but Gina had never been able to imagine how that might apply in reality. Now she could see for herself. It wasn’t exactly a propaganda leaflet as he had described them in the lessons but what he had termed an act of provocation. What would the General have to say about that when she told him?

  Susanna was standing with her back to the class and it was impossible to see her reaction to what Kalmár was telling her. They spoke very quietly for a while, then Susanna went back to the group and announced that the form tutor had some special business to attend to and would join them later; they would carry on slowly, and he would catch up with them outside Mitsi Horn’s house. They set off at the funereal pace she dictated. Szabó turned her head to look, but the prefect called out, “Face forward, everyone!”

  He must be peeling it off, or tearing it down, Gina thought. Then he’ll go and find a policeman and show him what we found. He’ll have to, because it’s what he told us to do in class. He looks a real St. George standing there, the Knight of the Sorrows of Hungary. The rain started to fall again, very gently, and the few passers-by that she had noticed in the distance retreated into their homes and disappeared. That’s good, Gina thought. The fewer people there are on the streets, the better for me.

  Mitsi Horn’s house was proving to be further away than she had thought, or perhaps it only seemed that way because they were walking at such an unimaginably slow pace. Kalmár soon caught up with them and resumed his place at the front as if nothing had happened. No one pointed out to Gina which house was Mitsi Horn’s, but she spotted it at once. Only one former pupil, with her extraordinary notions, could be the owner of the tall, narrow, angular, eccentric, fairy-tale building with windows in an attic that leaned out over the street as if to peer down on what was going on below. The other windows were tall and set deep into the walls. There was no porch as such; a short run of covered steps led up to a cheerful red-brown door with a large brass ball for a knocker. No garden was to be seen—it must have been round the back of the house; but she then spotted something that gave her more pleasure than any garden might have: a cellar with windows, all of them unbarred and almost on a level with the pavement. And the station was close by—she could smell the smoke from the engines. She wouldn’t even have to ask her way, she would need only to follow her nose. What extraordinary luck that Mitsi Horn should live just there, right beside the tracks! Well, that was how they were all referring to her, but it was absurd to think that the name she had heard so often could refer to this actual person. She must be nearly a thousand years old! If she had been in her final year and become engaged in 1914, at the start of the First World War, she must now be forty-seven or forty-eight—an old lady!

  Susanna rang the bell. The door opened immediately: their hostess must have been looking out for them through the window. The diminutive, smiling person who stood there was not in the least like the Mitsi Horn Gina had imagined. In her elegant afternoon gown she looked slim and graceful; not a gray hair was to be seen among her carefully brushed locks, and she had large, beautiful eyes of emerald green. Kalmár kissed her hand, and Gina became so busy wondering what it would be like if one of her former teachers did that to her after she had left, having attacked her year after year with, “Go and get some chalk,” or “Where is the register?” or “Why has the blackboard wiper not been washed properly?” that she instantly forgot what she was supposed to do. It was also dawning on her that this Mitsi Horn might be a rather more agreeable person than she had allowed. To have so many of them to afternoon tea was no small thing, let alone to do the same month after month . . . And what was more, you really could not describe her as unattractive: extraordinary as the fact was, she was much, much prettier than Auntie Mimó.

  The fifth year were being unbelievably restrained and well behaved. They deposited their raincoats in the entrance hall in total silence and queued up outside the drawing room without the slightest show of haste, as Susanna noted with an approving nod of the head. Then it was Gina’s turn to go in. The moment she set eyes on the décor she knew at once what it was that, even more than her personal problems, had so oppressed her inside the walls of the fortress. The beauty and the harmony to which she had been accustomed at home were totally lacking in that austere and charmless place, where everything was functional and utilitarian. Mitsi Horn’s salon, on the other hand, was just like theirs at home and Auntie Mimó’s.

  Kalmár introduced her. She handed over the flowers, and Mitsi Horn asked her if she was new to the school. She said she was, and stood expecting a comment along the lines of, “How lucky you are to be there. If you need to go to a boarding school then the Matula is the only one. It’s the center of the world, and it stands in for both your father and your mother.” But Mitsi Horn said nothing. Instead she put her hand gently on Gina’s arm, as if to convey, “My poor girl, how very hard it must be for you,” and Gina felt the woman’s strange charm acting on her, as it did on everyone in her presence. But she had no wish to like her, and she struggled against the warm response that rose up inside her.

  Merriment and laughter began to fill the room. Six tables had been laid with the most exquisite silver and porcelain dishes, and Mitsi Horn said they should start at once to allow more time for games. Susanna told them where to sit (in the same order as in the refectory) and Gina found herself once again with Torma on her right, Mari Kis on her left and Ari facing her. They were well placed, next to the main table, which their hostess shared with Kalmár and Susanna. They collected their tea from a silver samovar that hummed and bubbled non-stop; it was poured into their cups by the hostess herself—real, fragrant tea, not the noxious brew served up at the Matula. Gina sipped hers in near-ecstasy and, knowing that she would have nothing more to eat before she reached Budapest, consumed an unseemly number of the sandwiches that were piled high on every table, at the same time reflecting that some other people might also not have much to eat that night, especially the two in charge, Kalmár and Susanna, who would be out searching for her once her absence had been noticed.

  From what Mari Kis was saying Gina gathered that the silver-framed photograph on the shelf above the fireplace was of Mitsi Horn’s son, who had fallen in battle the year before at the Don; and, Mari went on, it was really interesting why she had never remarried after the First World War, when her husband died from some disease contracted at the front: it was because she didn’t want her son to be brought up by a stepfather. But she was still so attractive she could easily marry again if she wanted, now that he was no longer alive.

  Gina listened with only half an ear, trying to decide on the precise moment to ask Susanna where the toilets were. She would pretend to have a stomach ache so that she could go out and explore the house, and when she had found a suitable window to escape through she would climb out from the basement into the street. She would leave the drawing room three times, each time for a little longer than before, and the fourth time she would not come back. For the moment she was trapped where she was: she would have to bide her time.

  Ari, Torma and Mari Kis wer
e now working through the list of suitors Mitsi Horn had rejected, so she turned her attention to the conversation taking place at the main table. It was so close she could hear everything that was said.

  “Another one?” Mitsi Horn was asking. “Where was it this time?”

  “On the monument to the Sorrows of Hungary,” Kalmár replied.

  “It’s incredible that they still can’t find the person who is doing this,” said Mitsi Horn.

  “They will,” said Susanna.

  “The other day, in church, I found a typewritten leaflet lying on the pew. I picked it up, thinking it must be an invitation to tea with some women’s group, or some matter of church business, but it was a summary of a propaganda broadcast by Radio Moscow. I thought I was going to faint. There were piles of them on every pew.”

  “Let’s hope they catch him soon,” said Kalmár. “The scoundrel deserves to be hanged. I spoke to a policeman and there’s now someone watching the statue in case he comes back. Our boys are pouring out their blood at the front and here he is, undermining morale and upsetting their mothers.”