The Women in Black

by Madeleine St John

  ‘My opinion has yet to be formed,’ said Rudi. ‘I have read not one word.’

  ‘Ah, a philistine,’ said Stefan. ‘I have always wanted to meet one.’

  ‘No, the truth is,’ said Rudi, ‘I am rather infatuated with Charles Dickens. Such horror! Such humour! You see, he is so much better in English than in Hungarian, so I am reading all over again what I read before so long ago. It is very amusing.’

  ‘Dickens in Serbo-Croat I never read,’ said Magda. ‘I suppose there is such a thing. In English, however, his books remain at any rate stupendously long. I have not the time.’

  ‘Magda prefers Vogue,’ said Stefan.

  ‘And Agatha Christie too,’ Magda added. ‘Tell us, Rudi, whether you have found a flat, or not?’

  ‘I have looked at several, but the chief problem is to decide between this side of the Harbour or the other. It is difficult when I don’t know where my girlfriend lives.’

  ‘Which girlfriend is this?’ asked Magda.

  ‘Well, as you see I have not yet met her,’ said Rudi, ‘but I very soon shall, and I would rather not live on the opposite side of the Harbour. That would be stupid, a waste of time. So you see the difficulty.’

  ‘In that case the sooner you meet her the better,’ said Stefan. ‘You cannot stay chez Benedek indefinitely.’

  ‘Perhaps we should have a party,’ said Magda. ‘New Year’s Eve. I have toyed with the idea. What do you think, Stefan?’

  ‘Oh certainly,’ said Stefan, ‘anything to accommodate Rudi with a girlfriend, therefore a flat—let us have a party.’

  ‘Not that we know so many girls,’ said Magda. ‘I will have to rack my brains. Lisa here is of course not only too young but too clever and too nice for you. But I hope she will come to the party nevertheless, if she is permitted.’

  Lisa looked eager.

  ‘Oh, I’d love to,’ she said.

  ‘Do you like parties?’ asked Rudi. ‘I hope you will dance once at least with me, even if I am too old, too stupid and not nice enough.’

  Lisa laughed and agreed. Oh, she thought, this was real life!

  ‘We have forgotten the cake!’ cried Magda. ‘Let us eat it, now.’

  ‘Give me your opinion of the cake, anyway,’ said Rudi to Lisa. ‘I must say that in Melbourne, where I have been living so miserably, there are at least many better cakeshops than here.’

  ‘In Melbourne they have more need of cake,’ said Stefan, ‘having more or less nothing else.’

  ‘This is true,’ said Rudi. ‘It is a sad town, not by the way a city as they choose to pretend, not that they can know the difference.

  Sydney at any rate is undoubtedly a city, whereas Melbourne— well, there are of course some serious paintings in the Gallery, but nothing whatsoever more which pertains to a city; except of course for the cake.’

  ‘Meanwhile here not only is the cake inferior,’ said Stefan, ‘but the Art Gallery is a joke.’

  ‘Yes, but a joke in the most exquisite taste,’ said Rudi. ‘Do you not agree, Lisa?’

  ‘I’ve never been there,’ she replied.

  ‘You see my point,’ said Rudi to Stefan. ‘You might come there with me one day,’ said Rudi, ‘if you will do me the honour. It is certainly worth at least one visit.’

  Magda now decided that Lisa’s head had been sufficiently turned by Rudi’s facile gallantries and jumped to her feet.

  ‘Come Lisa,’ she said, ‘let us leave these two to talk Hungarian together, poor things, and we will go for a walk which is advisable after all this cake, and then I must not keep you so long from your mother. We will first tidy ourselves a little. Come.’

  And she led the way into the bedroom.

  She sat down at a large old-fashioned looking dressing table with a triple mirror, and Lisa stood uncertainly behind her.

  ‘Sit here,’ said Magda, making room on the wide low stool,

  ‘there is plenty of room for us both. Use this comb, it is quite clean.’

  Lisa began to comb her hair.

  ‘You know,’ said Magda, ‘I wonder how it would look to have the parting here,’ and she took the comb.

  ‘But take off your glasses, they are a little in my way.’

  Lisa sat submissively, her glasses in her hand, while Magda drew a parting much farther to the side of her narrow forehead and combed out her hair.

  ‘I think that is extremely nice!’ said Magda. ‘Look!’ and Lisa stared into the mirror. ‘Can you see without your glasses?’ asked Magda.

  ‘Oh yes, I only need them really for reading,’ said Lisa.

  ‘Then why wear them always?’ asked Magda.

  ‘I suppose because I am always reading,’ said Lisa.

  ‘Well, we must find something else for you to do,’ said Magda.

  ‘In the meantime leave them off, it is a novelty for you. Look now and see how you like yourself.’

  Lisa looked.

  It was a strange but interesting sight; she smiled with embarrassment. ‘A little lipstick I think,’ said Magda, opening a drawer and rummaging, ‘your own has all worn off and you may like a different colour.’

  For your own is not a good one, she thought to herself.

  ‘Here now,’ she said, ‘try this. A nice pink, suitable for a jeune fille. I cannot think what it is doing here, it is not the colour for me.’

  Lisa applied the lipstick.

  ‘Blot it,’ commanded Magda, giving her a tissue.

  She threw the tissue into a waste-basket and looked at Lisa’s refl ection.

  ‘We will experiment with the eye make-up another time perhaps,’ she said. ‘Your eyes are nice, an interesting colour.’

  Lisa’s eyes could now easily be seen, their irises a greyish shade of blue, the whites nice and clear.

  ‘Stand back there,’ said Magda, waving her hand towards the bed, ‘and let me see the whole effect. Hmmm.’

  Lisa was wearing one of her gathered skirts and a white lawn blouse. Her face certainly now looked both more alert and better defined.

  ‘You have so slim a figure,’ said Magda. ‘I envy you this so much. You might as well make the most of it and wear always a belt. I have so many—fat as I am—I may have something there you could wear. Have a look inside the door of that wardrobe. Go on, open it, there is no skeleton inside.’

  Lisa opened the door and saw hanging from a rail a dozen or so belts. Magda watched her.

  ‘Try that tan leather,’ she said, ‘it will match your sandals.’

  Lisa took the belt and put it on.

  ‘Tighter,’ said Magda, ‘use the last hole.’

  ‘I have,’ said Lisa.

  ‘We will make another then,’ said Magda. ‘Come here.’

  She fished around and found a pair of nail scissors, and made another hole.

  ‘Now then,’ she said.

  The belt, which was of course of superior quality, made the whole difference to Lisa’s appearance.

  ‘Ça va,’ said Magda, ‘très bien. I do not wear this belt often—you might as well keep it. It looks much better on you in any case. How wonderful, to have a twenty-two inch waist. And keep the lipstick also: it is the right colour for you. Throw away the other, nothing is more demoralising than a wrong colour. You look charming, with a bit more experience you will look enchanting; one needs all the weapons at one’s command to deal with the Rudis of this world, I can assure you, and you will have them thick and fast in the coming years.’

  Lisa, delighted as she secretly felt at the alteration in her appearance, was in an agony of self-consciousness; she searched wildly in her mind for a new topic of conversation to deflect Magda’s attention from herself.

  ‘I thought,’ she said diffidently, ‘that you were Hungarian, but you speak about Hungarians as if you were not.’

  ‘I!’ exclaimed Magda. ‘I am Slovene.

  ’ She enunciated this word with dramatic emphasis, opening her eyes very wide the while. ‘But I suppose you do not know what is Slovene.�
� She began to comb her hair.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Lisa, ‘I do. Slovenia is part of Yugoslavia.’

  ‘My God!’ cried Magda, ‘you are indeed a genius, to know this. I have not before met an Australian who has heard of the place.’

  ‘Oh, but we did the Balkans at school,’ said Lisa; ‘in the causes of the First World War, you know, in Modern History. Lots of us know about Slovenia, lots. There was a question in the exam paper, I did it.’

  ‘You amaze me utterly,’ said Magda. ‘I was right to give you my belt. So you know of Slovenia. Well, some time I may tell you more of it, but not now. We must have our walk, it is pretty around here, it will please you. We will just show ourselves to the Hungarians as we leave.’

  The two women made their adieux and Lisa was gratified by Rudi’s reiterated invitation to her: ‘I will see you at the party which Magda and Stefan have so wisely decided to give in my honour,’ said he, ‘and we shall arrange our visit to the Art Gallery then, shall we not? I look forward to it. It is never too soon to begin to cultivate one’s sense of humour. If I can introduce you to the Art Gallery of New South Wales as it properly deserves, I shall not have lived in vain.’

  23

  Patty had not taken note of Lisa’s extraordinary conference with Magda, although this was the sort of incident which normally elicited a sarcasm, and Fay couldn’t help noticing that generally speaking Patty wasn’t quite her usual self this Saturday morning. She had nothing whatever to say about Frank or about what they might mean to do this weekend, and that was all right, because Fay had after all had no reciprocal information to divulge about her own weekend plans, and the two women went about their work in an atmosphere of abnormal self-containment, Patty never caring what Fay might be concealing, and Fay never wondering what might be occupying the silent thoughts of Patty.

  The morning had been mercifully a little cooler; there was a fresh breeze, and even now as she left to go home Patty felt the sunshine to be more pleasant than oppressive. She jumped onto her tram with a light heart: not even a Saturday morning in Ladies’ Cocktail had quite obliterated the strange sensations which had possessed her body and her mind since the events of the night before. But mingled with this pleasant and even mysterious feeling of disorientation, of translation into another element, was a shiver of fear and even of foreboding.

  Frank had never before behaved quite as he had done last night; not even on their honeymoon had he so behaved; never before had Patty experienced the sensations she now so strangely experienced; never before had she sat on a bench in the tram feeling that she had just been allowed to learn a secret—but a secret so rare that there were no words for it, so rare that it was never mentioned or even alluded to, so rare that it might be the sole property of her and Frank. And the thought that it might be their sole property was one of its fearsome aspects, for they had never shared a secret before: this secret placed them in a different relationship with each other.

  Patty did not articulate all this to herself as fully as it has been articulated here, but it was nonetheless articulated at some level of apprehension effectively enough for her now to be able to feel, and with justification, that it would be fearful, as well as exciting, to see Frank again—Frank alert and conscious, Frank awakened once more from the deep sleep in which she had left him this morning to come in to work. What would he do, what would he say? This would be their first fresh encounter in this new secret-sharing world.

  Patty walked home from the tram stop in a dizzy state of mingled desire and apprehension, and as she opened her front door she felt her heart beating loudly.

  The house was possessed by a silence which seemed in the circumstances awesome, and for a terrible moment Patty expected Frank suddenly to spring at her like a monster from behind a piece of furniture. But where, at this time of all times, was he? Could he really have gone out now, could he really at this time of all times have left her to return to an empty house, to his entire absence, have left her to experience by herself this strangeness, this solitary possession of their shared secret? It could hardly be possible. She glanced into the bedroom: it too was empty; the bed was unmade.

  She went slowly, still astounded and marvelling, into the kitchen; then she proceeded by ever slower steps to make a complete tour of the house. It shunned her with its silence; she and it were quite alone. She returned to the kitchen and sat, dully wondering, as the sensation of strange pleasure drained away from her, leaving only the sensation of fear, and when by the dinner hour Frank had not appeared, the sensation of fear began to take on vivid and dreadful life, and to create vivid and dreadful shapes in her imagination. By the time she went to bed she felt stunned, except that, busily in her mind, these vivid and dreadful shapes sported and played.

  24

  The water in the Harbour had turned dark blue by the time Magda returned to the fl at: the afternoon was dying, sweetly, gently, as it does at that latitude. Stefan offered to make some tea.

  ‘Did you have a nice walk?’ asked Rudi, who appeared to have settled in for the evening. ‘Shall we go to a concert? There is a chamber music recital at the Con.’

  ‘You and your culture,’ said Magda. ‘I feel like a film. Let us not decide now. I must telephone Lisa’s mother to tell her that her daughter is safely en route, our walk took us further than was planned, she may be anxious.’

  She went into the bedroom to telephone and returned a few minutes later.

  ‘How strange,’ she said. ‘She does not seem to know the name of her own child; “Lesley” she pronounces it. This Australian speech is very bizarre.’

  ‘Yes, not the English I should care to hear my own children speak I must say,’ said Rudi.

  ‘Which is an imminent problem,’ said Stefan to Magda. ‘Rudi here has been telling me that he wishes to marry.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Magda, ‘why not? But all in good time. At the moment you are still looking for a girlfriend, not to mention a fl at.’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ said Rudi, ‘I am looking for a girlfriend suitable for elevation to the position of wife. I wish to marry soon. I am tired of the junket of girlfriends: I want to settle down.’

  ‘I can’t think of a single one of our friends who is the right age, or who has a daughter of the right age either,’ said Magda. ‘You may have to arrange this matter yourself, God knows how.’

  ‘I am not fussy,’ said Rudi.

  ‘No, you will only want a beauty, less than thirty years old, cultivated, if not also rich; it should be quite easy,’ said Stefan.

  ‘Certainly I want a beauty,’ said Rudi, ‘the age is less important. Cultivated—well—I have heard that there is such a thing—’ ‘What do you take us for?’ said Stefan. ‘Naturally we are cultivated, we reffos, we are famous for it, or rather notorious, it is one of our most despicable qualities.’

  ‘Oh, you have misunderstood me!’ said Rudi. ‘I am not looking for a reffo; I have decided to marry an Australian.’

  ‘You must be mad!’ cried Magda. ‘What do you imagine she will want with you? An Australian. The cultivated ones are anyway all either married, or else they have gone away.’

  ‘Gone away?’ asked Rudi. ‘Where have they gone?’

  ‘They go away to London, sometimes Paris or even Rome,’ said Stefan. ‘You will hardly ever find one here; if you do she is saving her fare to London, I can guarantee it.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Rudi, ‘I will take an uncultivated one and cultivate her myself. I should enjoy that.’

  ‘Psssht,’ said Magda. ‘Leave the poor girl alone. She is happy as she is.’

  ‘Do you really think so Magda?’ asked Rudi. ‘Be honest. Did you ever see such—’ ‘As a matter of fact, no,’ said Magda. ‘I am afraid you are quite right. Very well, you wish to meet an Australian, uncultivated, you will make her happy, or happier, perhaps cultivated too. It is all quite simple.’

  ‘A nice, strong, healthy Australian girl. Some of them are very beautiful,’ said Rudi
. ‘Haven’t you noticed? That is what I would like.’

  Stefan laughed.

  ‘Oddly enough,’ he said, ‘we know no one of this description, no one at all.’

  ‘This is true,’ agreed Magda.

  And then she was struck by a thought.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘this is not true. I do know such a one. She is about thirty or less, she is not quite beautiful, but not bad, her maquillage is terrible of course and she has no style, but she is strong and healthy as far as one can see, and now I think about it I must say she has by no means the air of a woman in love.’

  ‘I am very desirous of meeting her,’ said Rudi. ‘Do please arrange it.’

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Magda. ‘I do not know whether you deserve her. I’ll see. Now, shall we go to see a film, or not? Let us decide.’

  And they began to argue the pros and cons of the available films, and the chamber music programme, as the darkness swiftly fell.

  25

  It was almost six o’clock when Lisa at last reached home. She burst through the back door, still glittering with the elation of the afternoon, to find her mother standing at the sink peeling potatoes.

  ‘Hello Mum!’ she cried. ‘Look!’ and she smiled like a film star and whirled around on the spot.

  Her mother regarded her with a face like a hot-cross bun.

  ‘I should think I would just look!’ she said. ‘I should think I would. Now perhaps you’ll tell me what on earth you’ve been up to. I’ve had a telephone call from that Magda you’ve been with, Mrs Zombie-something, who rang to say you were on your way home, and she doesn’t even seem to know your name! Maybe it’s her funny accent, but she tried to tell me—me!—your name is Lisa. Imagine!

  And here you are so late home, and where are your glasses? Did you leave them behind? And why are you so late? You told me you’d be home at four o’clock. I don’t know what to think!’

  Lisa’s elation vanished in the moment and she sat down suddenly on a nearby chair. She took her glasses from her bag and put them on the kitchen table, and sat hunched over, thinking. Then she took the lipstick from her bag, and opened the case. It was an expensive kind, in a heavy gold metal container; the colour was called ‘Angel’s Kiss’. She painted her lips, and then she held out the lipstick.