Abigail

by Magda Szabo

  Ruppert and the director should by now have been either in Gedeon Torma’s office or over in his apartment. If she ran fast enough she might be able to avoid them—unless of course the director was escorting his visitor through the garden on his way to the gate and they spotted her climbing out of the window. But she made it to Susanna’s room without any problem. Inside, a fastidious orderliness reigned, and there was a slight hint of fragrance. The wardrobe key was still in the lock. Her fingers were stiff and numb with fear and she had difficulty controlling them, but she managed to tear off her jacket and dress, kick them under the bed, and take Susanna’s gown and pull it over her head. The dress went on easily, but the bonnet resisted her best efforts. Overcome by helplessness she burst into tears. She had never seen Susanna putting it on and could not work out how to tie it. In the end she found two hairclips attached to the stiff material and used those, but she had great difficulty squeezing her hair under the bonnet. The dress was too long for her, and too big; there was no mirror in the room and no opportunity to see how she looked.

  Now that she really had to be going fear drained what little was left of her strength; her legs started to shake, and she had to sit down. She collapsed on the chair beside Susanna’s bed and wept. She knew that by then she should already have been in the street, but she simply could not bring herself to step out into the corridor in Susanna’s clothes. What if anyone had turned round and noticed that she wasn’t there, and they were already looking for her? She tried to say the Lord’s Prayer, but she couldn’t remember how it went after “Blessed be thy name.” That shocked her so much that her hysteria began to subside. She got up and went to the door, determined to do everything Mitsi Horn had told her.

  There was no one in the corridor. Every door into the garden was of course locked: she would have to go out through the window again. It would be much harder this time, in Susanna’s bonnet and gown.

  For the third time she found herself running across the lawn, in the cold, violet-scented air of late evening, passing the statue of Abigail, and arriving for the third time at the gate behind which, two nights earlier, that voice had so entranced and deceived her. What would she do if the door were not unlocked, as Mitsi Horn had promised it would be? Or if someone had noticed that it was open and had locked it again, and she couldn’t get out? The bell in the white church tolled the hour of nine, in deep, masculine-sounding tones: bo-ng, bo-ng, bo-ng. She pushed carefully on the metal door. It moved instantly to her touch and opened without a sound. She went through . . . and froze.

  A man was standing next to the gate, on the street side, barring her way.

  She burst into tears and tried to turn back: better to let whatever might happen to her in there take its course, however implacable, than be caught by Feri Kuncz and his associates. But there was no escaping him. He grabbed her by the arm. The sense of failure, of yet another disaster, the feeling that once again it had all been futile, stemmed the flow of tears. Now it was all one. Nothing could matter anymore. She stood stock-still, incapable of speech, waiting to be taken off and put in a car, or marched off to the barracks, and to Feri.

  “You mustn’t go back, Sister,” the man whispered. She had never seen him before, or heard his voice. “Now why should a god-fearing deaconess be so very afraid? I’m only the guard. You’ll have to go by a different route to get to Mitsi Horn’s. The lieutenant’s people are patrolling around the school. They’ve just left Teleki Street, the way you will have to go. Carry straight on ahead. In the first side street on the right you’ll see a pub. My friend will be waiting for you, and he’ll direct you on from there. Good luck!”

  She went up the road to the side street, as instructed, not realizing that she was as unsteady on her feet as a chronic invalid. The man, Wallner from the wagon factory, watched her with a smile, then set off towards Teleki Street, singing loudly and bitterly, “Heigh-ho, the clock’s struck nine, and night has fallen.” Lieutenant Kuncz shrank back in disgust, thinking what a pity it was that ordinance couldn’t be produced entirely by machines, and how disgraceful it was that with a sacred war going on there should be drunk workmen racketing in the silent streets.

  ABIGAIL

  Gina was familiar with the way to Mitsi Horn’s that went past the monument to the Sorrows of Hungary, but this was a very different route. As far as her fear allowed her to think at all, she realized it involved a long detour. She had no difficulty finding the pub. A young man was leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette. Looking not at her but into the darkness beyond, and seeming to address the shadows rather than anyone in particular, he murmured, “Straight on to the pharmacy, and walk more slowly—much more slowly.” That was the hardest thing to do, to fight down her natural instinct, to reduce her pace and glide serenely along in Susanna’s costume so that no one seeing her would give her a second thought.

  The pharmacy shutters were closed; only a tiny illuminated plate indicated what was on sale inside. She approached with some trepidation; there seemed to be no one there. She was too frightened to stand and wait in front of the window for something to happen, but the problem resolved itself. Just as she arrived, someone, a figure undetectable in the dim lighting—a mere voice in the darkness—spoke from inside the doorway. It was not the ingratiating tone adopted by Feri Kuncz. “Turn left at the second crossroads and carry on to the end. The house facing you will be Mitsi Horn’s. And don’t run!”

  She did her best to walk even more slowly. The second road proved much longer than any of the others, but at last she reached the end and caught sight of her goal. Its gables and narrow windows glittered in the moonlight.

  When I get there I’ll wait a few minutes, she thought, to make sure there’s no one about. Then I’ll do what Mitsi said. I’ll open the gate, take a few steps up the covered walkway to the front entrance and let myself in . . .

  She froze in horror. She felt so weak she thought she was going to collapse. The key! Mitsi Horn’s key, with the laughing jester’s head on the end! She had left it behind. It was still in the pocket of her school uniform, under Susanna’s bed.

  The bell in the distant white church rang again. It was now 9:30 p.m. She leaned against a wall and gazed up at the sky, at the wisps of cloud playing hide-and-seek with the moon. The only thing that surprised her now was that she felt so much less sorry for herself than she did for Mitsi Horn and for everyone who had tried to save her; despair had given way to a kind of clear-eyed bitterness. All certainty of rescue was slipping away, everything was at risk again, with no clear prospect of a way out. If only she had kept her head, had been more sensible, had paid attention, she would not have forgotten the key and would now be safe with Abigail. What could she do?

  Walking around the streets at this hour in Susanna’s formal gown and bonnet she would be as conspicuous as if she were dressed for a ball: deaconesses did not loiter outside on their own at 9:30 at night. But where could she go to wait? The older Aradi had told her that soldiers were now regularly on the streets after dark; according to the porter they were looking for the people who hung placards on statues and they took an interest in everyone who came their way. If one of them found her and flashed his light in her face it would be obvious that she wasn’t a grown-up but a girl in someone else’s clothes. She had no papers and she would be unable to give convincing answers to their questions. What would become of her then? In this town only staff from the Matula would be seen in deaconesses’ robes. In fifteen minutes she would be standing in front of the director again.

  She stood stock-still, unable to move. The windows of the house behind her were blacked out according to the regulations and she had no way of knowing if there was anyone inside. Taking a risk, she slipped in through the gate. There was still no one in the street, and no traffic; she could hear the roar of a motor somewhere in the distance, and from time to time the blast of an engine issuing steam in the nearby station. She thought of going and standing on the platform to pretend she was waiting for a train,
then remembered that it was now under military control and one of Feri Kuncz’ agents might be looking for her there. It was far too risky. She remained where she was, still barely able to move.

  Footsteps sounded in the direction that she had come from. Someone, a single person, was approaching; from the heavy tread it sounded like a man. She flattened herself against the gate. He drew level with her and stopped, went back a short way, stopped again and looked around. He can’t have heard me breathing, she thought. It would be impossible at that distance. She found herself torn by contradictory longings: for him either to vanish and never be seen again, or to come back, find her, and just kill her. The fear and the hope were both now more than she could bear.

  The man bent down and picked something up from the ground. In the fleeting light of the moon she saw what it was, and she almost fainted. She raised a trembling hand to her forehead, then lowered it again: she now knew what the stranger had found and why he was studying it with so much interest. Susanna’s badly tied bonnet was no longer on her head. It had fallen off in the street, a little way back.

  He was now coming towards the gate again. She knew he was looking for her, that he would be there in just a few minutes, but meanwhile he was stopping to peer carefully and systematically behind each of the others. At last he stood before her. She neither called out nor tried to run away; she simply allowed him to take her by the arm and lead her out into the street.

  “Are you out of your mind, Vitay?” he asked. The voice was one she had heard before, but she could not remember whose it was. “Did you drop your bonnet so that it would be found in the morning and taken as a present to Gedeon Torma? Why on earth didn’t you go into Mitsi’s house?”

  He was now leading her by the hand and she caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight. She still could not think who he was, but she knew from what he had said that she was in safe hands once again; the stranger was a friend, not an enemy. But she was still too terrified to speak or ask him who he was. At the crossroads he made sure that no one was approaching from either side, then led her down the street to the house with the gables and opened the door. So he too has a key, she thought. How many keys are there to Mitsi Horn’s house?

  They went inside. He insisted on knowing why she had not gone in earlier. She did not dare tell him the truth, she just said that she had been too frightened. “You were afraid to come in but not to wait outside in the street?” He shook his head. “That was pretty stupid, let me tell you. So when would you have done us the honor? When Mitsi had come back and fainted with the shock of finding that you weren’t here? Anyway, these are your new papers. Have a look and see who you are.”

  He thrust them into her hand and she studied her new birth certificate. She was now Anna Makó. Her birth year was unchanged, but the day and the month were new. Her father was Antal Makó, her mother Rozáli Tirpák; father’s occupation, locksmith; mother, none. Both were Roman Catholics, born in Bolita, Csongrád County.

  He opened Mitsi Horn’s drinks cabinet, took out a bottle of cognac and poured himself a glass. Later, many years later, when he was an old man with a bent back and she still an attractive young woman, Mráz the glazier’s assistant told her that nothing had ever moved him so much as seeing her sitting there hunched over in Mitsi Horn’s drawing room, her eyes brimming with tears and her dark-brown tresses tumbling onto the severe shoulders of the Deaconess’s formal gown.

  He had left the door into the hallway open, and every now and then he cocked an ear in that direction; suddenly he made a sign with his hand, and she heard someone moving about at the front entrance. He closed the drawing-room door and gestured again, this time for her to be silent. Voices sounded in the hallway. Mitsi Horn and the old lady had returned.

  “That’s everything for today,” they heard. “You must get to bed straight away, Auntie Róza. I don’t need anything more tonight. Thank you for all your help. It was a nice evening, wasn’t it?”

  “It certainly was,” said the old lady. “We always have a good time at the Matula. But the girls aren’t what they were in your day. Now where could that naughty little thing from Budapest have hidden herself?”

  “Oh, in the attic, or perhaps the cellar. She’ll show her face once she’s had a good cry. You know, life isn’t so easy here for these girls from the capital. It takes nerves of steel to adapt to the Matula. Good night, Auntie Róza.”

  “Good night, Mitsi dear.”

  They heard the old lady going down the stairs to the cellar. Mitsi Horn stayed in the hallway for a few minutes longer, then came into the drawing room. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining.

  “Good evening, Mráz,” she said, and at that moment everything came together—the fish on the floor, the smashed aquarium, the forged papers for Bánki, Kun, Zelemér and Krieger, and the glazier’s assistant stepping into the room as she dabbed her towel at the wet carpet. “And which of you got here first? Was it you, Sister? Good evening, my dear.”

  “We arrived together,” said Mráz. “The sister was scared as a rabbit. I had to open the door for her. She was standing shivering behind a gate at the end of Árpad Street, and she had lost her bonnet.”

  “Not everyone is a wily old conspirator like you and me. Now come this way, dear.”

  Gina had struggled many times to resist the attraction she felt towards her; she had even persuaded herself that she hated the woman. Now she ran to her and buried herself in her arms. Mitsi felt her trembling and held her tight, while Gina silently mouthed the words she did not have the strength to utter: “Abigail, my thread of gold in the maze of all that we can and cannot do; Abigail, preserver of my childhood treasures, Abigail, brave dissident and colleague of my father, dear, wonderful Abigail, thank you!”

  “When will you take her, Mráz?” Mitsi Horn asked.

  “Probably tomorrow evening, once everyone knows that she’s run away, including the police and the lieutenant. Wallner’s daughter should be at the station by now. She’ll be leaving shortly for Budapest. I told her to make such a show of panic at the ticket office that the cashier wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. She promises she’ll try to cry. It’ll be quite an effort for her, she’s only too happy to be using your money to go and see her godmother, and Budapest, for the first time in her life. But she has the same gray eyes and dark hair, and she’s now over fourteen, so I’m sure Kuncz will go flying back to the capital after her. I’d love to see his face when he finds she isn’t in the family home. As soon as I’m told that he’s left Árkod I’ll set off myself with Anna Makó.”

  “Now I must get her to bed,” Mitsi Horn said. She took Gina up to a floor she had never been on, where the bedrooms were. She was put in what was clearly a boy’s room. There was a row of fencing gloves on the mantelpiece, a large glass case with colorful stones and minerals such as you might see in a museum, and an enormous globe of the world held up by a copper band like a goblet on a table, surrounded on all sides by chairs with clawed wooden legs.

  “You have your own bathroom,” Mitsi told her. “If you move around no one will hear you down below. We never heard my son.”

  There was even a dressing gown on the bed, and a nightdress. It was rather like the one she had given Torma.

  “Take those robes off and have a good rest. I’ll call for you in the morning. Don’t go downstairs before I come for you. I’m sending Auntie Róza to the vineyard early and she’ll be there all day. Once she’s gone you can move around freely. Good night.”

  Gina stood and looked at her. Mitsi said softly, “Don’t say anything. I know.” And she was gone.

  Gina collapsed into one of the chairs beside the map of the world and sat staring at it. Her thoughts were muddled and disordered. The only thing she realized with any certainty was that it was going to be very difficult being on her own. It was not enough just to feel safe: she was now missing Abigail horribly. And there was something else too. She had eaten only half her lunch, the mere thought of opening her snack box h
ad revolted her, and she had barely touched her supper. Now that she felt herself out of danger she was ravenous. She smiled to think that the kind people who had helped her escape had given thought to every smallest detail but had not given her so much as an apple. “In any work of literature the most interesting bits are in the detail,” Kőnig had often said in his lessons. “Be sure to attend to them closely.” Kőnig the coward, the bumbling incompetent: if only he knew the woman he loved, and how little chance he had with Mitsi Horn! Abigail could marry only a hero, never a clownish sentimental schoolteacher. But he had been right about the details: she saw exactly what he meant. Her hunger was a mere detail, simply nothing in terms of what had happened and all she had been through, but it was enough to make her tiptoe down the stairs and tap sheepishly on the drawing-room door, which was once again open. The conversation inside came to a stop. Mitsi Horn came to see who it was, and Gina stammered out, in extreme embarrassment, that she had had almost nothing to eat and could she please have a bit of bread? Mitsi pealed with laughter and took her into the drawing room. A table had been set out before Mráz for him to have his supper, and Mitsi laid a second place for Gina.