Abigail

by Magda Szabo

  Mitsi Horn finished stirring her tea and then, as the others had already done, looked up at the mantelpiece. The photograph in the silver frame showed a young man in an open-necked shirt standing beside a horse, holding it by the reins and smiling out at them. The resemblance to his mother was striking. Gina could easily imagine what Abigail’s friend the eighteen-year-old Mitsi Horn must have looked like in the days when she could still laugh so loudly it could be heard, they said, at the porter’s lodge.

  “I should like to be there when they string him up,” Kalmár added.

  “Mr. Kalmár!” said Susanna. It was the tone of voice she used when upbraiding a pupil in the strongest possible terms, or standing on her dignity. Kalmár dropped his gaze, then raised it again and stared at her defiantly. This is not someone to be easily intimidated, thought Gina. He is a man, and he knows about these things. He teaches us about them in his lessons. He isn’t going to be lectured on them. And he certainly knows how to deal with our enemies.

  Mitsi Horn smiled a quick smile to change the subject and pressed the bell beside her. It was answered by an old lady bringing in a large platter of pastries. She was acting as a domestic servant, but Gina found her as formidable as a princess, even as she kicked herself for her stupidity in not realizing that a woman as well-to-do as Mitsi Horn would hardly be living alone in such a large house: of course there would be other people too. Never mind, she would still find somewhere in the basement to make her escape from, somewhere no one usually went.

  The old lady was now going from table to table setting down cakes and pastries on everyone’s plate. Mitsi Horn issued instructions from where she was sitting, and announced that she had prepared a tombola. When they had had enough tea and eaten their fill they should clear the tables and take the used crockery to the sideboard. The class monitor would then deal out the marked sheets in the box to the right of the fireplace; she would draw the numbers herself, so that their teacher and Sister Susanna could also take part. There were several prizes waiting, plenty for everyone; the winning numbers were in the hatbox on the piano stool.

  The girls cleared their tables at lightning speed and in total silence, and each was given a tombola card. Enjoy your bit of fun, Gina thought to herself. You might even win yourselves a few pen nibs or sheets of Bristol paper covered in biblical quotations printed in gold. I shall be playing for higher stakes, and for a rather more exciting prize.

  Soon Susanna was looking at her with an air of concern. She stood up, went over and leaned over to speak into Gina’s ear. “Is it your stomach? Oh dear. Would you like me to come with you?”

  “No,” was the reply. It was rather embarrassing, as Mitsi Horn and Kalmár had stopped their conversation and were listening.

  “Truly, it isn’t that bad.”

  “There are bathrooms upstairs and downstairs,” Susanna went on. “But you mustn’t use Auntie Mitsi’s, so go down to the basement.”

  She could rest assured about that! As she went out she heard Susanna telling Mari Kis to play two hands, one for herself and one for Gina until she came back. A wonderful idea, and all the better as Mari Kis would refuse to call out any lucky number she had, to stop her winning anything. But Mitsi Horn objected. She asked for Gina’s sheet and announced that she would play in her place. Mari should not have the double burden of having to worry about her classmate’s hand as well as her own. Whereupon Gina left the room.

  She looked around. As everywhere else, including the school, the windows were covered in the regulation blackout paper. But the hallway was well lit and there were lights at the side of the stairs, going both up and down, and she could see her way easily. She went quickly down to the basement. There was no sign of the old lady, but she could hear her moving around somewhere, perhaps cooking—there was a faint whiff of vanilla in the air. Gina peered into two rooms, then found what she was after in the third. Here too the blackout material blocked all light from outside. She felt around for the switch and turned it on. It was the washroom used by the domestic staff and the bath was set against the wall backing onto the street. If she stood on the rim she would be able to open the little window just above it, pull herself up onto the sill, and be out in less than a minute.

  She flushed the toilet to give the impression that she had used it and left immediately. Once she was back through the hallway she would have only to reach up and take her coat: no difficulty there. She wasn’t going to risk taking her hat as well. It was just too conspicuous, too unmistakably Matula.

  Back in the drawing room she found that Mitsi Horn had won two wafer biscuits for her. She was pleased by that, and popped them immediately into her school bag: they would be good for the journey. Someone said, “Hark at the thunder!” and the old lady, who had just come in with yet more pastries, confirmed that it was pouring down out there like the start of another Great Flood.

  Twenty minutes later Gina made her second request. This time Susanna felt her brow to see if she had a fever and Mitsi Horn asked if she could give her something for it. Kalmár looked away: these female things embarrassed him as a man. Susanna told her not to eat anything more and took away her plate. Mari Kis and the others looked at her with malicious glee on their faces. They were all clearly delighted that she should have been taken ill just when such a magnificent supper was before them. As Gina went out Mitsi Horn took over her tombola sheet once again, but this time she won nothing.

  The third time she went out Gina did not ask permission. As she got to her feet she heard the prefect saying that perhaps it would be better if she took the poor sick child back to the school, and Mr. Kalmár could bring the others later. Mitsi Horn said no, she couldn’t possibly let them go in this rain. They should at least stay a bit longer: the girl would be just as sick at the school as she was there. Now Gina knew that she really had to make her move: if the ever-conscientious Susanna was to follow her to the washroom or drag her off back to the Matula she would utterly ruin the plan.

  So this was the moment. The final one. The real goodbye. She gazed round at the others for the last time. How strange it was that this should be the last image of them that she would take with her, so untypical of life in the Matula—the girls sitting on silk-upholstered chairs and tucking into wonderful cakes and pastries, surrounded by nothing black-and-white or squat and four-square, with the fire blazing in the hearth and the glitter of silver everywhere. Susanna was looking more than usually beautiful at that moment, and Kalmár, after calling for the unknown dissident’s head, more manly than ever. Farewell, Mari Kis, pitiless and loathsome as you are, and goodbye to you too, Torma, and all you others! At that moment Feri seemed once again real and Budapest closer than ever. She even thought of the aquarium, but it no longer made her angry.

  The old lady passed close to her in the hallway, this time carrying a large porcelain dish piled high with baked apples. Gina waited until she had disappeared into the drawing room, then took her coat from the rack and raced down to the washroom. This time she did not turn the light on: that would have been a serious mistake. The only safe thing now was to feel her way with her fingers: this is the bath, this is where to stand on it, that’s where the window must be . . . just hold on here . . . and success! It took some effort to get the window open, and pulling herself up onto the sill had been even harder, but thanks to Gertrúd Truth her limbs were in good condition and she managed. She pushed her head out and looked around. There was no one in the street, only the endless, pouring rain. Once outside, she pushed the window back into its frame as best she could, and ran off down the unfamiliar, dimly lit road in which she had smelled smoke when they first arrived.

  She was free! She wanted to shout for joy, but she restrained herself. Emerging from the side street she found herself, from what she could see in the dull haze of the wartime lighting, in a large square. She knew she must be very close to the station: she could dimly make out the words “Railway Restaurant” in the gloom, and a low, wide building with a portico over the entrance,
which stood open. Every minute was now vital, but she needed to walk slowly to avoid drawing attention to herself. Why would a solitary girl be running at breathless speed towards the station, with neither an umbrella nor a hat, in the driving rain? Only when she was almost there did she quicken her pace. She had realized that if someone did accost her she could say she was afraid of missing a train that was about to leave. She entered the main hallway. A light was on in the ticket office, but, worryingly, there were no passengers about. Oh my God, she thought, why aren’t there more people here? Perhaps there are no trains due for some time?

  She pulled out her hundred-pengő note and placed it on the counter.

  “I would like to go to Budapest,” she told the sleepy official. “When is the next train?”

  “In another hour and a half,” the man yawned. “If it isn’t delayed.”

  “Nothing before then?”

  “How could there be? You’re lucky there’s one at all. Don’t you know that since the start of the war there’s been only one train a day?”

  She hadn’t known. They had always travelled around by car. Stunned, she gazed into his indifferent face. In much less than an hour and a half they would have found her and taken her back. The man rubbed his eyes; obviously all he cared about was his lack of sleep. As if mimicking his yawn, a loud hissing noise came from outside. She looked out through the door that opened onto the track. Alongside platform one a train was pumping out steam.

  “Where’s that one going to?” she asked. She was so excited she could barely speak.

  “To Dömölk. It’s leaving in two minutes. It goes in the opposite direction.”

  “Never mind. A ticket, please. To Dömölk. Quickly!”

  She got her ticket, but not before he had tapped his brow, first on one side and then the other, wondered how it was that some people were able to travel wherever the fancy took them—if not Budapest then why not Dömölk?—and said how nice it was to be young. But why was she in such a panic? She had almost torn from his hand the ten-pengő notes given in change. If she was in such a hurry, why hand over a hundred note? And then fly off like that to the platform? Oh, to hell with her.

  Just let me get out of here, she was thinking as she ran. Anywhere will do. I’ll be safe in Dömölk, or at least until the next Budapest train gets there. I can telephone home in the morning. There are army units everywhere. I’ll introduce myself to the senior officer and ask if I can wait with them until my father comes. But I must get away from Árkod. As long as I’m still here they can catch me and lock me up again.

  The stone paving in the hallway was covered in water, shed no doubt by passengers arriving on earlier trains. In her hurry she slipped and almost fell to her knees—but the exit was straight ahead, and there was the train. Just a couple of seconds now, or less, and she would be there, on board.

  As she went out onto the platform she bumped into someone coming at full tilt into the foyer. If he hadn’t caught her she would most certainly have fallen. She wanted to apologize, but the words stuck in her throat. The stranger got there first.

  “Please excuse me,” said Kőnig. “I do beg your pardon. Have I hurt you? I am so sorry. But where on earth are you going, and in such a hurry?”

  His eyes blinked at her. He seemed completely unperturbed. His hat and coat were dripping with rain. She could not even cry. She stood and watched as the train on platform one set off for Dömölk.

  DISASTER. THE GENERAL

  Gina’s father had never liked hunting. He took no pleasure in it at all. But Feri did, and Gina had on many occasions listened in raptures when, at one of Auntie Mimó’s afternoon teas, the conversation turned to his exploits in the field. Now, to her surprise, she found herself thinking of them again. She had remembered something very strange that Feri had once told her. It was really absurd, the lieutenant had said, but it often happened on a hunt that the quarry would fall to a Sunday sportsman who barely knew how to handle a rifle. As they danced together she agreed with him, adding that the poor deer or stag would care very little about who it was that had taken its life. But now, at this most dreadful and distressing moment, with the train for Dömölk pulling out of the station, she thought she had been wrong. Perhaps it did make a difference: it was far less shameful to be taken down by some world-famous hunter than by some insignificant nobody. She herself would much rather have been caught by Hajdú, or Gertrúd Truth—there was no hope of outrunning her, everyone knew she could still see off champion athletes—or any one of Kalmár, Éles, anyone who actually counted. But Kőnig? Why did it have to be Kőnig?

  She trembled in the grip of his enormous hands. They held her drenched shoulders with a firmness that astonished her. The man had unexpected strength, and now he was intent on steering her back inside. She did not resist: there would have been no point. Once there, he took her left hand in his and, holding it as if it were that of a tiny child learning to walk and needing help, began to talk to her in a low, gentle voice: what a surprise it was to see her there, and how lucky that they had bumped into one another. The poor girl had lost her way, had she not? She had obviously become separated from her group—the fifth year were being entertained at Mitsi Horn’s. It must have been because of the blackout; you could hardly see where to put your feet. But what a happy coincidence that he should have been at the station at just that moment to inquire about the current travel situation and to check if it was still possible and safe to organize a full-day autumn outing! And he would now see her on her way so that she wouldn’t get lost again.

  She gazed into his innocent face. Everyone knew about Kőnig’s credulity. It was legendary. Perhaps she could find a way to take advantage of it, if not just then, then sometime in the future. She would have to keep very, very quiet on the way back, to avoid betraying her true intentions, and think carefully about what to tell Susanna, who was certainly no Kőnig.

  They had crossed the foyer and were already outside in the rain when the door of the ticket office opened and the sleepy official emerged. He stared at them in surprise, and smiled a sour little smile, as if even to move his lips was an effort.

  “So you didn’t take the train to Dömölk? How was that? When I sold you your ticket it was still at the platform.”

  Gina thought that her heart would stop. Without intending to, the wretched man had betrayed her.

  Kőnig studied the official and his uniform with a look that combined surprise and genial curiosity. It was as if he had never seen a railway employee before.

  “I think there has been some mistake,” he said amiably. “You have confused little Vitay with someone else. Little Vitay is not going anywhere.”

  “Not going anywhere? I sold her the ticket myself. She was in such a hurry I thought she was possessed. The money is right there in her hand, see—the money I gave her in change; and so is her ticket. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  It was all over. All over for good. In her panic she had completely forgotten to hide the change in her pocket, and there it was indeed, in her right hand, next to the ticket.

  “Not at all,” said Kőnig. He took Gina’s hand, snaffled up the ten-pengő notes and the ticket in his ice-cold fingers and stuffed them into his pocket. “It must have been some other girl, a girl who looked like her. Where would this one be wanting to travel to? The poor thing had lost her way. She isn’t from these parts; she doesn’t know the town. Luckily, we happened to bump into each other.”

  The clerk stared at them, first at one and then the other, turned on his heel, went back into his office and slammed the door. The hand that was holding hers was now pulling her forward with an irresistible might. She allowed him to lead her away, keeping her face completely blank. She had certainly been wrong about Kőnig. He wasn’t as dim as she had thought. He had taken the money and the ticket so that he would not have to reveal her crime at the Matula: he would play it as if nothing had happened. He didn’t have the courage, and he didn’t like her enough, to help her escape, but he was t
oo sentimental to give her away: let’s just carry on the way things are; little Vitay never intended to abscond or break any rules; little Vitay is such a nice girl, she shouldn’t have to be put through a tribunal, good Lord no! And certainly not asked to leave . . .

  Asked to leave? Expelled?

  She was dumbstruck. How could she have been so dull, so incredibly stupid, not to have thought of that before? If you did something really terrible you were hauled before a disciplinary council, your parents were summoned, and if you couldn’t give a satisfactory account of your behavior they kicked you out. If the offence was serious enough you could be denied a place at every other school in the country, but if it was less dreadful the punishment was just that you had to go to a different one. As she was General Vitay’s daughter they would probably not go so far as to destroy her chances of an education completely; he would simply be asked to send her somewhere else. It was another example of Columbus’s egg: nothing would have been lost, and everything could start again from scratch.

  They were now out in the square. Kőnig was still holding inexorably on to her hand, almost running, and she was doing her best to keep up with him. By now she was near-ecstatic. Her legs were splattered up to the knees in mud from wading through slush, but she did not mind in the least. She was reveling in it: she was now a scruffy, neglected-looking waif, a true runaway. The square was as empty as it had been before, but as they neared the street that led down to Mitsi Horn’s she spotted Susanna standing at the corner in the dull haze of the wartime lighting. She had no coat on, there was no umbrella in her hand, and her face and clothes were every bit as drenched as their own.

  “Gina,” she said—it was the first time she had used the intimate form of her name—“where on earth have you been? I thought you must have been taken ill in one of the bathrooms. I looked for you everywhere. When I realized you weren’t in the house I came out without telling anyone. I didn’t stop to bring an umbrella or anything, but never mind, here you are at last. Where have you been?”