Abigail

by Magda Szabo

  They considered where to hide it. Torma decided she would first raise the hem properly by tying a bootlace around the waist, then she would wear it under her school nightgown for the rest of the night and keep it in the art storeroom thereafter. Gina had kept her own things in the washroom flower box? That would never have occurred to her, it was such a risky place! But of course, having just arrived and having so little time to act she would not have found anywhere better. In the art cupboard there were some geometrically shaped wooden boxes that had removable panels. Mitsi Horn had once used one of them to hide a silk scarf her fiancé had given her; they were an excellent place to keep anything that wasn’t too heavy. The nightgown weighed nothing at all, the material was so fine, and it would fit very nicely into the rhombus. Gina envied Torma in her happiness; she herself felt only a leaden, impotent grief.

  The next morning Susanna put a stop to her dusting round and her work in the kitchen. She was now sentenced to spend the rest of the holiday like a prisoner condemned to a life of enforced inactivity. She could read and play the piano for the whole day if she chose, but she would take no further part in the life of the fortress and its cares and concerns. She could go out into the courtyard but not into town. Erzsébet took Torma twice to the cinema and once to a concert, but she took Gina nowhere, and it was through Erzsébet that Torma learned that Kőnig had asked Susanna to forget that “unfortunate episode” when Vitay had broken yet another school rule. “So he obviously didn’t tell Erzsébet any more than that. He told her that I tried to use the telephone but probably not that I had overheard his conversation with Susanna. He greets me amiably enough, and he obviously bears me no grudge, even though I have never apologized to him. And he’s the one Susanna loves: he and not Kalmár!”

  Kalmár hardly ever showed himself, and when he did he never spoke to Susanna. Neither of them wore an engagement ring, which said all that was needed about their relationship. He seemed at long last to have accepted that he had nothing to hope for as far as the prefect was concerned. Gina generally held her tongue. She never complained about her situation, not even to Torma, went nowhere near the telephone, asked for nothing and passed no comments. On New Year’s Eve it was Erzsébet who took the invitees to Mitsi Horn’s. Gina spent the evening with Susanna, who sat beside her reading in total silence. Torma came back in a state of high elation, bearing a parcel for her from Mitsi Horn. The party had been amazing, and even the director had joined in the games. Gina gave her back the pastries she had brought, explaining that she hated Mitsi Horn so much she would never accept anything from the woman. Torma sat down beside her, her happiness destroyed, and did everything she could to cheer her friend up. She did not succeed. She kept trying whenever it was just the two of them together, but with no more success. Gina accepted her well-meaning efforts with good grace, but always with the detached calmness of a disillusioned adult. She did manage a smile from time to time, when Torma put on her nightgown and did an oriental dance for her, but her attitude was that of an older sibling towards her much younger sister.

  When the class returned at the end of the holiday they found her a lot more solemn and serious, and no longer the amusing companion she once had been. Bánki came back on the last train on the afternoon before lessons began. It was a very cold day, and her face was bright red. She fell on Gina’s neck and asked her if she had received the present. Gina told her she had no idea what she was talking about. Bánki’s face made it clear that she had made the surprise gift she had promised, and she was astonished that it had not arrived. It must have been lost in the post, Gina said to herself. Either that, or Susanna didn’t give it to me. Another failure. But why not? Everything else seems to be going wrong at the moment.

  The year was drawing to its close and there was still no news from the General. In his lessons Kőnig hardly ever questioned her, as if he were afraid of provoking another scene, but she had resolved to be far more guarded in her conduct and never again show how she felt about him. Her face became thinner and more watchful, as if she were always listening out for something—a far-distant voice perhaps? But there were no more Saturday afternoon telephone calls, and nothing came either by post or word of mouth. Susanna sent her off for an X-ray; the doctor examined her several times but could find nothing wrong and told her she was too thin. She prescribed iron tablets and more exercise, especially walking. Her classmates were always sympathetic when she failed to respond to their queries about how they could help her cheer up, and Bánki started making strange remarks about the shocking infidelity of men. Mitsi Horn had become a regular visitor to the school. One day in February she stayed for lunch, sitting at the high table with the teachers and the director, and the girl on duty had overheard the staff talking about the dissident of Árkod. Perhaps he could give her some news, Gina wondered, even if her father hadn’t? But no news came. There were occasional messages from Abigail, but never for her; she heard the others talking about who they had been sent to, but it was always someone else. By the end of February she was completely crushed. She was sure now that she would never see her father again.

  Kalmár, a now more reserved and serious-minded Kalmár, became a real help to her. He had obviously given up on Susanna and seemed to be paying special attention to Gina because of the repeated scenes involving Kőnig. His hostility to his colleague was undiminished, but there was no contact between the Latin teacher and Susanna beyond what was strictly unavoidable, and Kalmár could not bring himself to see him as a victorious rival. He was constantly giving Gina missions to carry out, including some tasks that were really more suitable for a colleague. She was immensely grateful. He became the one she tried to befriend, rather than Susanna, whose behavior towards her was now one of cold formality. Her urge to love someone, and her need to feel that she mattered to at least one of the grown-ups around her, were very strong.

  Spring arrived early that year. On March 15 they put on their summer coats and went to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and on Petőfi’s statue. In the military cemetery the violets were already out. Mari Kis pointed out to Gina that the place was surrounded by police. “Look at them standing there. They’re in mourning clothes but they look so out of place you can easily tell who they are.” The older Aradi girl had had it from Suba that the dissident had found a new source of amusement, hanging collars around the necks of statues. The day before he had hung a truly horrifying report from the battlefront around the mane of one of the lions in the cemetery for war heroes. Gina looked long and hard at the bronze statues, thought of her father and did not cry.

  On March 19, a Sunday, they attended the usual service. In the morning of the twentieth there was a new development. The director had summoned the teaching staff during break and in the fourth lesson of the day Kalmár came into the room with a look on his face that told everyone that he brought important news. He had not been so buoyant since Susanna had rebuffed him.

  “From today our German allies will be based inside our borders.” He beamed. “This way it will be easier for us to defend ourselves. It is most reassuring. We are entering a new phase in the war!”

  If that is the case, Gina thought, then something really important must have happened. The Germans wouldn’t be here without their reasons. Surely now there would be some news from her father. Something was about to happen, or had already started, and for the first time in months she could hope with more certainty. There would be an end to all the silence and lack of movement.

  She was right. On March 26, a week after the German occupation, the Chaplain gave one of his finest and most inspiring Sunday sermons. Gina sat listening with only half an ear, opening and closing her fingers in boredom, when she suddenly had the feeling that someone was looking at her. There was no obvious reason for it: in her Matula uniform she was not so very alluring that some unfamiliar guest should be unable to keep his eyes off her. She had the feeling that someone was staring at her from the raised gallery in front of her. She glanced up, and her whole body started t
o tremble. Sitting next to the hymn number board, with his eyes trained on her, was Lieutenant Kuncz.

  MIDNIGHT RENDEZVOUS

  The face whose contours she had conjured up so many times in her mind’s eye was now before her in reality. She had talked about him so often that the thought flashed through her mind that any member of the class who saw him would surely know who he was. She had told them everything about him, the exact color of his hair, his eyes and his figure, and there was not one of them who did not know that Lieutenant Ferenc Kuncz of the Royal Hungarian Army was twenty years old and lived in Budapest, not far from Gina’s Auntie Mimó, at 44 Zápor Street.

  How wonderful it would have been to let out a great shout, run across the chapel and up the stairs to the balcony and, as she could never do with her absent father, fling herself into his arms. Be careful! her racing heartbeat warned her. Don’t take any risks. The whole of the Matula will be watching you, even if they don’t make it obvious. She knew that she should not, by so much as a flicker of an eyelid, show that she had recognized him. She would have to leave it to him to arrange a meeting: there could be no doubt that he was there in the white church only because of her. How he had got there, and whether he was now permanently based in the town or had come there simply to speak to her was of no consequence. If he was in the church then he knew that she was at the Matula, and that was something he could have known only through her father. He’s bringing me news of him, she decided. The line-of-sight connection that had been broken after her father’s last visit had been restored, and life could begin afresh, charged with hope.

  In obedience to responses drilled into her since the autumn, she stood up and sat down as the order of service dictated, and she sang, as Susanna and the Chaplain insisted, keeping her eyes on the text. But she heard not a single word of the sermon, and while she mouthed the words along with the rest of the congregation, the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer passed her by completely. Her eyes were fixed on Lieutenant Kuncz, who gazed back at her in turn, so short was the distance between them.

  It was the first time she had seen him in civilian clothes. She spent some time wondering why he was not in uniform and decided that it must be to avoid attracting attention to himself as a non-local person with an unfamiliar face. She had come to know, at least by sight, all the regular outside attendees at the Matula services, and there were some other people present whom she had never seen before who were also paying her close attention. Feri’s face gave nothing away. He too was taking care not to let anyone notice that he was gazing steadily down at her. His eyes never left her, but they held no message. Still staring at him as if awakening from a long superstitious dream, she gave a deep sigh and sat back in her pew.

  She was careful not to look at him all the time. Every so often she lowered her eyes and studied her hymn book, happy in the knowledge that she would be seeing him again a few moments later. But how hoarse the poor Chaplain’s voice was! All that speaking must have worn it out. She had no idea what he was talking about, and she sat there half-listening to phrases that had no meaning and registering only what a dreadful state the man was in. The director sitting there, with his large round face—why on Earth was he so afraid of this man, this bustling, officious pedant, this offensive, thick-set, dark-haired little person? There too were those lesser mortals, the form tutors, and hark at Susanna trilling away! Poor, simple-minded Susanna, poor humiliated Susanna, who had such weak judgment that she was still running after Kőnig even though he had made it clear that his interests lay elsewhere. Compared with Feri even Péter Kalmár was no more than an elegantly dressed provincial, a rather less than imposing young man. And Hajdú, with his bombastic eloquence, cynical Éles, and Kerekes, the fanatical guardian of the school paintings . . . were they people to be feared? Had she really disliked them so much when she first arrived? She did something she had not done for a very long time: she took a close look at Kőnig, as he sat there following the sermon with furrowed brow. You doddering old coward, she thought, you buffoon, grabbing the telephone from a young girl’s hands and dreaming of marrying Mitsi Horn who wants nothing to do with you, you utter, you total, nonentity! She moved on to the rest of the teachers and deaconesses, those observers of and companions in her life, and she began to pity them. Sooner or later she would be gone but they would remain. There they would grow old, hemmed in by the black-and-white rules of the fortress, without hope of change or escape, while for her the one fact she could be sure of was that Feri was there, looking at her. If he had known where to find her, then the General must have entrusted her fate to other hands than his own, and she would soon know the reason why.

  The closing canticle had been sung. Gina’s voice had never rung out so pure and untrammeled in all her life. Feri too had a hymn book in his hands, though he obviously had not been following it, and the moment the final blessing ended he stood up and left. Gina was not concerned: she knew she would see him outside.

  The crocodile found itself temporarily stranded outside the entrance as the form tutors and deaconesses lined the girls up with their backs to the raised traffic islands, on one of which Feri was now standing. Gina heard Torma say something to her, but she was too busy watching Feri and did not answer. He made no attempt to greet her. No doubt he had his reasons for that, as he must have had too for what he did next. He suddenly raised his hymn book and waved it at her. The message was unclear. Perhaps he meant to tell her that they would meet again in the church the following Sunday? If nothing happened before that the week would seem a very long one, and she wondered how she could ever wait all that time. “Have you gone deaf?” Torma hissed at her. “I’ve asked you three times if you’ve noticed that young man who’s been staring at Mari Kis.” Mari Kis! What a joke! She was dying to say that it wasn’t Mari Kis he had been looking at, it was her, standing next to Mari Kis. But she knew she should say nothing if she wanted to avoid putting her hopes in jeopardy.

  The procession set off, and Feri with it. When they reached the main road and turned into János Matula Street he was still there beside them. He never once glanced in their direction, he just maintained a steady pace beside the row that included Torma, Mari Kis and Gina. Susanna, walking just behind them, had noticed him but had not given him a second glance—he was clearly just an innocent passer-by carrying a hymn book, no doubt on his way home, and not bothering the girls with importunate glances. He seemed suddenly to decide that he needed to cut through the line and stepped, rather rudely, straight into its path, as if on his way through towards the next side street, trod, in his apparent haste, on Torma’s foot and knocked Gina’s hymn book out of her hand. Torma let out a scream, Susanna glared at him, Gina came to a halt, blushing crimson, and Mari Kis put on a face of transcendental dignity. Feri raised his hat, picked up Gina’s hymn book, excused himself (not to Gina but to Susanna) for his thoughtless haste, said that he was late for an important meeting, returned the hymn book to her, apologized a second time for his boorish absentmindedness, put his hat on again and hurried off down the street without looking back.

  Gina’s eyes followed him in amazement, until Susanna called out to her: “Don’t stare at men you don’t know! Keep moving, and keep your eyes to the front.” Gina was in a complete daze. None of it made sense. He hadn’t tried to approach her, he hadn’t said a single word to her, even to greet her or show that he recognized her. So what did he want? And how were they supposed to meet? She was quite sure he had deliberately bumped into her and knocked the hymn book out of her hand. It had looked perfectly accidental, but he must have had something in mind, though she could not for a moment think what it might be.

  Of course, the hymn book! All this time she had been engrossed in her thoughts of Feri, but she had not entirely forgotten the rules of the Matula. If her hymn book was dirty she would be in trouble. She held it up for a closer look, then immediately lowered it again and pressed it against her coat, as firmly as if it were Feri’s hand itself, the hand that would be taking her to h
er father. It wasn’t hers, it was a different one, and there was a sheet of paper inside the back cover. He had swapped the two, and the piece of paper with the corner turned down contained not a list of hymn numbers and pages but a message. Mari and the others around her were whispering away, she had no idea what about. The moment they were back in the school she dashed into the washroom without waiting to hang up her coat and opened the hymn book.

  Gini, she read (no one had called her that since Marcelle had left),

  The General is very ill, and I have come to take you to him, but it won’t be straightforward. For some days I have been trying to get to see you in this accursed Lutheran nunnery, but they won’t let me in. I shall try again this afternoon, but if they don’t let me speak to you, then you must come at midnight to the garden gate, the one that has no key. I shall be waiting for you in the street outside. I kiss your hand,

  Feri

  She tore the note into tiny shreds. It broke her heart to do so, but she knew enough about the ways of the Matula not to take any risks. What schemers they were, and how they loved to keep you in the dark! No one had said a word about the fact that he had been trying to see her for days. And her father? What was happening to him? If he were seriously ill, then it was not his dangerous project that prevented his coming to see her but some simpler and more somber circumstance. If he had asked Feri to take Gina to see him, then clearly his old injunction to stay where she was no longer applied. But how could she make these pig-headed saints understand that she absolutely had to leave, and leave at once, to be with a man undergoing Lord knows what suffering without his only child at his side?

  So, how to get to him?

  Feri did not know the Matula. These people weren’t human, they had no souls: they had precepts and books and a collection of school rules instead. The lieutenant had promised that he would try to reach her again that afternoon, but she had little hope of their meeting. She told Susanna that she was feeling dizzy and asked if she could miss the usual walk. The prefect sent her off to the doctor, who diagnosed nothing beyond the usual problems of puberty, and Susanna reluctantly allowed her to stay behind. The afternoon walk was always an eagerly anticipated event in the girls’ week and it did not occur to Susanna that she might not have been telling the truth.