by Magda Szabo
Susanna’s notion of “modest grace” was never likely to accord with the desperate attempts the class made, at least on Sundays, when their afternoon outing put them in full view of the citizens of Árkod. They did their best to make something aesthetically pleasing of their locks while ostensibly conforming to the bootlace-and-plaits-style favored by the regulations, and naturally the prefect made almost every one of them comb and tie their efforts afresh. Salm whispered that they looked as if they had dead mice strung up behind their ears and the shoelaces were tokens of mourning. Normally the prospect of having to venture outside the gate with their appearance rendered even more hideous than usual would have produced an outcry, but this was not now their main concern. What exercised them just then was the importance of the event and how that might affect the collection. If the sermon was to be given by such an eminent speaker, then, as had happened on previous occasions, it would not be the usual members of the parish council (all of them more or less senile and purblind) who would be standing there to receive their offerings but their teachers, and God help them if the box allocated to the fifth year fell to Gedeon Torma, or Éles of the piercing eyes that could see through brick walls! Mari Kis began to be seriously afraid; she whispered something to Murai and dashed out of the dormitory. Gina guessed where she had gone, and for what purpose.
They were now about to set off, and Mari still had not returned to her place in the line. Though she had no reason to wish her well or to be concerned on her behalf, Gina wondered what would happen if Susanna gave the order to go and she was still missing. But she appeared at the very last moment, took her usual place on Gina’s left, and whispered to Torma that “it hadn’t worked.” She had raced round all the other classes to ask if by chance any of their parents had given them some money on the recent visit that they hadn’t declared, and if so, could they borrow it? But no one anywhere had a brass farthing more than what had been doled out for the collection. Gina longed to say to her, “Don’t you worry, the full amount, every single fillér you so insultingly threw at me yesterday, is here in my bag. Everything will be fine. When the time comes I won’t let the teachers catch you putting those buttons in the collection box, the ones you stole from Kőnig and God knows who else.” But she said nothing, not because she wanted to prolong the girl’s anxiety but because she simply did not dare to speak to her. Ever since she had been accused of theft Mari Kis had been more implacably angry than ever.
Later, as an adult, Gina often thought of that particular Sunday service, during which she had heard not a single word of what was said and knew that none of the rest of her class had either. They had just sat there, every one of them, stealing occasional glances at their watches to avoid being caught by Susanna and wondering anxiously which of their teachers would be standing beside the box on the left-hand side of the church, near the door through which they would have to file out. The visiting speaker had no doubt composed a particularly fine sermon for the edification of their souls, but even the Lord’s Prayer passed them by, and not one of them could have said which hymn had been sung to the mighty rumblings of the organ as they moved towards the exit, though it was one they had practiced so many times down the years that they had begun to intone it as soon as the instrument started up. Normally too, they would have had to be reminded how unseemly it was to be in such haste to get out onto the street, but this time Susanna had to urge them in a loud whisper to move along more quickly. And there, at the door on the left-hand side, beside the collection box, stood a personage even more terrifying than Gedeon Torma: the Chaplain himself. Gina heard Mari Kis draw her breath in the moment she saw him. He stood there patiently, viewing them with the solemn air of benign and complacent pride that he reserved for girls who were always so immaculately turned out, who were meek and silent and so very well brought up—such fertile soil for the good seed he had sown. Torma uttered a faint squawk, which only Gina walking beside her heard, under a particularly loud blast of the organ. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered. “What’s going to happen when he sees the buttons?”
As usual they were now in single file: it was impossible to proceed otherwise down the narrow concrete strip between the pews. Alphabetically, Ari was supposed to lead them to the collection box, but as she stepped, ashen-faced, towards the Chaplain, Gina broke from the line and, acting as if under instruction, hurried forward and pushed in ahead of her. Susanna was supervising the procession from the rear and had no chance to send her back or ask what she was up to, and Gina arrived at the collection box unhindered. She opened her bag, reached inside and began to spill the coins out very slowly, while the fifth year stood waiting behind her like a row of geese, unable to move forward until she had finished. Everyone saw what she was doing, the Chaplain best of all. He nodded to show that he had taken note, and when Gina had finally crammed everything into the large wooden box he stepped back to allow the others to pass. They went out as fast as they could, in total silence, and began to line up again in the street. Gina said nothing, and no one asked her any questions. Susanna came up to her and told her that if ever again she wanted to speed up the departure by collecting the money in advance and handing it in for the others in this way, she should ask permission. She might have found a clever solution to the problem of how quickest to leave the church, but she should never again attempt any such thing without speaking to the prefect first.
Mari Kis maintained her silence, as did Torma, and, most unusually, none of the fifth year said a word until they had hung up their coats and bags and were back in the dormitory. Then of course they all began to talk at once. Gina went out into the corridor, not wanting to hear what they had to say. Eventually she began to worry that one of the deaconesses would find her loitering there (they were supposed to stay inside the day room until supper) and she decided to go back in. During her absence a decision had been made: unanimous rejection. She was not surprised, nor was she especially pained by it. Listening to Mari Kis she reflected that she hadn’t done what she had to win their approval but because she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing them get themselves into trouble for the second time, over those stupid buttons.
“If you expect us to be swooning with gratitude, then you are very mistaken,” Mari Kis told her. “We aren’t swooning with anything. We don’t want or expect anything from you, and you needn’t fancy yourself as the person who came to our rescue.”
Gina looked at her, said nothing, but did not lower her gaze.
“Nacák’s aunt is coming next week, and she’s asked her for the money. She’ll give it to her in private and we’ll be returning your crummy fillér. Try to get it into your head, Vitay, that you aren’t going to ingratiate yourself with us either with your pastries or your self-sacrificial deeds, so there’s no point in trying.”
“That’s fine,” Gina said. “That isn’t why I did it. You can give me back the money if you like, and I’ll put it into the Christmas collection box for the soldiers. I don’t want any handouts from you. I don’t want or expect anything from you. But setting that aside, I am truly sorry for what I said yesterday, that you had taken my letter. That was another stupid thing I did.”
Mari Kis turned her back on Gina, as if to say that she didn’t need anything from her either, and certainly not her apologies. But once again she noticed Torma looking at her pensively, and Salm too, no less steadily or thoughtfully . . . as was Csató, and even Murai. But nothing further was said, and soon the class were chattering away again. Gina picked up a book and sat reading it until supper. Susanna came hurrying down the corridor, looked into the day room and told her that she could have the rest of the day to relax, but it would be back to work for her on Monday because she had missed a full week’s lessons.
Supper was a rather more somber occasion than usual, and it ended on an unexpected note.
Gedeon Torma, who led the after-supper prayers, made an announcement to the whole school: Georgina Vitay, knowing that the Sunday service called for an especially high standard of
conduct from the pupils, and wanting to speed up the process of leaving the building, had taken the trouble to gather the collection money from all the girls in her class beforehand, and, acting on their behalf and wanting to express the depth of their sisterly solidarity, had put the thirty fillér each of them had raised into the box. That allowed the fifth year to be the first out of the church, and in a much more orderly way than on previous occasions. Although she acted without first securing permission, the governors considered that she had found a practical and elegant solution to the problem, and they urged all the other classes to choose a different member of the form every week to do the same for them, following Vitay’s fine example.
“Sisterly solidarity . . .” But Torma had turned her eyes away. Once again, as so many times before, Gina had a sense of being trapped in the chilly, suffocating air inside a bell-jar. And this time it really did hurt, because she could do nothing about it. How could she have known that the action she had taken to help them would end up this way? Susanna beamed at her, and Erzsébet too. Susanna seemed delighted beyond words that for once Gina’s name was being linked to something other than acts of dire delinquency.
She spent the afternoon before the usual walk sitting in the day room. Without telling her, the fifth year had asked for and been given permission to put on their gym clothes and were enjoying ball games in the sports hall. When Susanna next saw her, as they were lining up to go out, she asked her with an air of concern if she had a sore hand, and had that stopped her joining in with the others? And she gently reproached her: the next time she fell in the corridor and hurt her wrist she should tell either her or the doctor, one never knew whether it was something simple or a bad sprain. Could she move it more easily now? She should be sensible and take better care of herself. (Oh, these girls: what liars they were!)
Gina was no longer interested in where the walk took them. Now that she no longer planned to run away there was no point in getting to know the city better. The previous day had vanished into the remote past: it was as if she had not seen her father for years. The Hajda patisserie—they were now passing in front of it—was the site of a long-vanished paradise, the last place where she had been happy and buoyed up by hope, where she had still believed that she might one day escape from this place where there was such unrelenting hostility towards her, and where, even when she tried to do something good, it turned out badly, and every step she took left her in an even deeper mess. If all she could do was wait to be released, then it was going to be difficult to go on living there. But wait she would. She had given her word.
The latter part of the afternoon passed as usual. The lucky ones who had friends sat in the day room while one of their number belted out psalms so that the others could chatter to their hearts’ content. Gina decided to go into the garden: she wanted to visit the statue of Abigail. She picked some bright yellow Michaelmas daisies, thinking she might put them in the basket to tell her that she had received her gifts and they were her way of thanking her for what she had done. But she never got there. She was still some way short of the statue when Kalmár found her and asked her, rather brusquely, what she was doing in the garden at that time. She had not been given permission to be there on her own, so would she please go inside? As she made her way back, with the now pointless flowers in her hand, the bizarre thought struck her that perhaps Kalmár was the person she was looking for. She had always seen him as a kind of St. George, a knight in shining armor. If it was true, as she now thought, that there was an ongoing succession of Abigails, with a stream of new people taking on the role, why should it not be Kalmár, who was so brave, so quick, so competent, and so young? She was still toying with this idea when she reached the foyer. She was trying to think where outside the staff living quarters he was free to pass without attracting attention, and the answer was: everywhere. The school was as open to him as it was to any of the boarders.
Supper was a quiet affair, extremely dull, and the story of the pious Swiss maiden seemed to her more tedious and oppressive than ever. After evening prayers she made no attempt to join in the activities of the rest of the class. She was the first to have her bath and get into bed: all she wanted to do was to lie down and surrender to oblivion. Perhaps a nice long dream would refresh her. She had fallen asleep late the previous night, and the morning had brought her nothing but stress. Soon she was deep in slumber, and shortly afterwards so too were the rest of the class. Silence and peace reigned throughout the Matula.
At one in the morning the sirens went off.
They knew at once what it meant. Kalmár was the school’s air-raid warden and he had taught even the littlest ones what to do in the situation. They had practiced enough over the past month to know that they should all have their air-raid packs at the ready and form a line, and the older girls all knew exactly which part of the site to run to and present themselves for duty. They also knew that the Civil Defense people would regularly sound these alarms during the night, both for practice and to prevent panic in the event of a real attack.
The girls were familiar with that wail, but what was so frightening now was that the whole school had been roused from sleep, and they milled about in the dormitory in a state of confusion and dismay. They would have been even more restless had Susanna not appeared and helped dress those whose hands were trembling too violently to do it for themselves, and as a result of her efforts they were all lined up in the corridor well within the allotted time and ready to leave for the cellars. The two senior years had been assigned to first aid, stretcher duty and fire watch, and the sixths were to run messages, but the fifths had no responsibilities and had only to make their way down to the refuge area inside the cellars. There they found the blue lamps already lit and the entire teaching staff present. Some of the smallest girls were crying and whimpering, but fear could also be seen in the faces of the older ones. To them it did not feel like a rehearsal, a mere exercise: what they registered was the terrifying strangeness of it all—having to leave their beds and run down to the cellars, to this special underground place, because one day real bombs would come raining down on them. Susanna took up a position next to the entrance so that when the imaginary blast occurred she could take the force of it herself and spare the pupils; the fifth year sat on benches brought down from the gymnasium, with their backs to the wall. Mari Kis reached out her hand, and Murai took it; Murai held out hers, and Szabó took it; Szabó offered her other hand to Bánki, and so on down the line, until nineteen girls sat with tightly interlocked fingers, as if trying to measure their collective strength by the warmth of their neighbors’ hands. There was just one gap in the chain, between Mari Kis and Torma, where Gina was sitting. Neither of her neighbors reached out to her, and she looked to neither right nor left.
There was the sound of running in the corridor outside and Aradi in year eight came dashing in to announce that incendiary flares had been spotted from the watch tower and the fire brigade were on their way. At one point Kalmár strode in, with his gas mask-helmet on his shoulder: he made a splendid sight, looking more St. George-like than ever. Next, though of course there was nothing to be seen, they heard the boom of a distant explosion, and Susanna explained that the townspeople had earlier prepared a special building for the demolition squad and the rescue services to practice on.
It was all a simulation, but no one experienced it as such. Gina was thinking, Please God, don’t let us all die! Once again there was the sound of running in the corridor, followed by slower and heavier steps. Susanna, peering out calmly, reported that the eighth years were carrying the supposedly wounded to the doctor on stretchers. And Gina was now thinking, I really should have thanked them for inviting me to join in their game. It was only a bit of fun, something that had nothing to do with the war and the bombing, and all this danger and death. And I should have thanked them for inviting me to marry the aquarium, but I was stupid—stupid and proud. And Mari Kis was thinking, What would happen if a real bomb fell tomorrow? My father is at
the front, and my brother, and we were too mean spirited to accept Vitay’s pastries. And Torma was thinking, I have no parents. I don’t even know what it’s like to have parents. My uncle bullies me all the time, but if the Matula really was hit and he was killed, I would have no one, and if the building burned down, I wouldn’t even have a home.
Susanna clapped her hand to her head. Vitay had leaped to her feet and turned to face the rest of the class. “Please forgive me, I beg of you,” she pleaded. “You would if you knew how very ashamed I am. And may I please have the aquarium as my husband?”
The prefect could only watch as the girl from Budapest burst into tears; and she could only sit and listen as Mari Kis began to sob, and then Torma, and Szabó, who was now weeping as if she were about to drown in tears.
“And you must forgive us too, Gina,” Mari Kis sobbed, “for what we did with the pastries and the buttons.” Again the prefect could only look on as she fell on Vitay’s neck and began to kiss her again and again. There came a shout from outside, Kalmár’s voice, telling the seventh year to get a move on because they still had to put the fire out in the east wing. Susanna had to clamp her lips to avoid rebuking the class, who had now, contrary to all instructions, stood up, and were crowding around Vitay, taking turns to kiss her, and then, with her head pressed against plump little Szabó’s shoulder and her eyes closed, Vitay went not to her own place in the row but to one further along, and sat there holding tight onto Mari Kis’s dress until the sirens sounded the all clear.