They Were Divided

by Miklos Banffy

  She had been thinking about this for most of the journey home. First of all she had reviewed all that had happened to make her take that painful decision to send her daughter to a school that was so far away from her mother. She knew it had been for the best and that there had not really been any other choice.

  Until her husband had finally gone mad the child’s grandmother had brought her up. Adrienne had been allowed no say whatever in little Clemmie’s upbringing. She had even had to fight with her husband and mother-in-law to be allowed to nurse her when she had measles. The girl had been ill for an unusually long time and when some months had passed Adrienne had come to believe that in reality the little girl did love her mother but had been made to hide her affection because of the iron will of old Countess Clémence. She had been mistaken. When Pal Uzdy finally had had to be removed to the madhouse the emotional shock had completely broken the old lady who stayed in her own room, as motionless as a living statue, staring with unseeing eyes straight ahead of her and hardly ever speaking let alone taking any interest in whatever happened around her. She had withdrawn into herself and everyone else had been kept at a distance; not only Adrienne, whom she had always hated, but also her grandchild whom she was thought to have loved. When the child had been brought in to see her, she had just gestured for them to take her out again, and it had then been clear to Adrienne that Clemmie must be removed from Almasko as soon as possible. Two days later the French governess and English nanny had brought her to the Uzdy villa outside Kolozsvar.

  Soon afterwards Countess Clémence also left Almasko. With Maier and her elderly maid she took off for her villa at Meran and had been there ever since. She never wrote and any news that Adrienne had of her came from the servants when they wrote to thank her for the monthly cheque that Adrienne sent them.

  For the first time since her birth Adrienne’s daughter belonged solely to her mother.

  For a little while Clemmie had been her only joy, for their coming together coincided with Adrienne’s second separation from Balint, a separation that she then believed was for ever. And so Adrienne lavished on the child all the love of which she was capable, for she felt that now there was no one else. She spent all her time with her, and tried hard to win her love.

  She did not succeed.

  From the moment that it was clear that the grandmother was no longer there all signs of love for her mother also vanished. Those little shows of affection that had so heartened Adrienne while Clemmie was recovering from measles were seen no more, and it was not long before Adrienne had realized with a pang that what she had taken as a growing love for her mother had been nothing more than the child’s desire to vex her grandmother.

  Until Countess Clémence had left for Meran the little girl had always lived with her in the main house whenever the family had been in Kolozsvar. As soon as she had gone Adrienne moved her into Pal Uzdy’s rooms in the one-storey wing next to her own bedroom. They were large rooms filled with light and air, but though her mother soon fixed them up as a nursery suite filled with expensive dolls and other toys, Clemmie ignored them all and never played with them. The most beautiful, an engaging and tempting clown, had barely been glanced at as it sat under the Christmas tree and when finally it had been picked up and given to her, the child had solemnly offered her polite thanks – as she had with every other toy given to her – picked it up and placed it at once on the nursery shelves along with all the others: and there they had stayed, lined up in exact order. If they were picked up when the room was dusted and not replaced exactly in line as they had been Clemmie would at once pick them up and replace them carefully in their proper place. Otherwise she never touched them. They simply did not interest her.

  However she did show interest in reading and so was given all the best children’s books that Adrienne could lay her hands on – the volumes of the Bibliothèque Rose, Alice in Wonderland, and many others. These too she would accept coolly and always thanked her mother with formal politeness, though never with any sign of joy or pleasure. Once a box of coloured pencils had somehow inadvertently got among the other presents and, though she gave no sign of interest at the time, after a few days Adrienne noticed that whenever Clemmie had a spare moment she would get out the pencils and start making strange designs with them. She never made any attempt at figures – the sort of awkward men and animals that other children did – but instead would carefully and deliberately draw exaggerated coloured contour lines around the capital letters of her books, contours that were filled in with backgrounds of blue, red or green and which were sometimes three times as large as the original letters. Sometimes she would add meticulously drawn hatching to give solidity and depth, and here and there would add a huge eye or some horns. A little later she started doing similar drawings in her school copybooks, all just as precise and careful as if they had been part of her school work. However, if someone called her she would put it down at once, as if she had no real interest in it, and if her mother tried to make some light-hearted comment, or enquire why she was doing it and what it meant, the child would merely reply with cold indifference ‘I just do it’ or ‘It doesn’t mean anything’ or even, with studied politeness, ‘I don’t know why, I just do it!’

  Clemmie never said anything about herself or her feelings. She never confided in anyone and it seemed as if nothing ever stirred her heart. She was never anything but polite and well-mannered; but she was always reserved and distant. The expression on her pretty, slightly Tartar-like features never changed and she always kept her brown eyes half closed, as if she were being careful not to reveal anything of herself. Her hair was very black and straight, just like her father’s; and indeed she seemed to be completely Pal Uzdy’s daughter not only in physical resemblance but also in character. In her there was nothing of her mother and nothing of that robust joy of life that characterized her mother’s family.

  For nearly a year Adrienne fought hard to find the way to her daughter’s heart. She fought with love and tenderness and she sacrificed every minute of every day to gain her daughter’s love and confidence. Eventually Adrienne realized that all these months of emotional struggle and effort had produced no result at all except perhaps to make matters worse between them. Everything she had done had been in vain and it seemed as if in some way it was those same efforts, that constant care and constant attention, that had somehow provoked even more withdrawal on her daughter’s part. Adrienne could not put her finger on whatever it was that was wrong: she could sense it but she could find no reason.

  It was then that she had made the painful decision to separate herself from little Clemmie and send her to school in Lausanne.

  Now, coming back from her first visit to her daughter, she knew that it had been a wise decision, and not only because for the first time Clemmie had seemed pleased to see her mother; she had also shown signs of real affection. It had clearly done her good to be among girls of her own age who enjoyed life and played boisterously all around her.

  What the head-mistress had reported to her had been reassuring, even if not completely so.

  Clemmie, she had been told, was an excellent pupil, obedient and industrious. At first, the head-mistress said, she had been worried that, although always polite, Clemmie had been exceptionally unfriendly towards the other girls, but this had gradually begun to disappear, especially after she had begun to take part in the school sports. The girl had been taught tennis, rowing and a number of other ball-games and, so as to put her more at her ease, she had been given five companions of her own age and it had been with the same five that all the games were played. These other girls had been specially picked because they were quiet and well-behaved and even-tempered. Clemmie played tennis with them, rowed with them and indeed spent most of her leisure time with the same little band. And, if this companionship had not actually ripened into real friendship, it was still companionship and the girl certainly seemed to get on well with her new little circle. In this she was helped by the fact that she was mor
e intelligent than the others and this, together with her reserved manner, made the others – all naturally affectionate girls – look up to her as their leader and try to win her affection.

  ‘Normally,’ said the head-mistress, ‘I do all I can to prevent the formation of little clans among my pupils, but here, for once, I encouraged it. There seemed to be no other way if your daughter Clémence was not to start shutting herself off completely from the others … and that would have been really bad for her … most harmful.’

  Madame Laurent was silent for a moment or two. Then she added, ‘Car naturellement c’est une enfant assez difficile – of course she is naturally rather a difficult child.’

  It was just this sentence that had worried Adrienne, for it had seemed to point to the possibility of an innate, inherited, danger. Then Madame Laurent went on: ‘I firmly believe,’ she had said with quiet confidence, ‘that with constant attention and a lot of patience we will be able to bring her to a state of mind in which she will be able to cope properly with adult life. I am glad that you brought her to us so young.’

  For Adrienne these last words had been a real encouragement and even more so because before she had brought Clemmie to Lausanne she had written fully to Madame Laurent telling her the whole story of the Uzdy family, of Pal Uzdy’s madness, of Countess Clémence’s decline into silence and melancholia and every detail that could in any way be of use to her.

  Adrienne had not come straight home. On the way she had changed trains at Innsbruck and gone to Meran.

  She had gone with a heavy heart, but she had gone because she considered it her duty to take care of old Countess Uzdy. It did not matter to her that the old woman had hated her from the day she had married her son, nor that she herself had detested her mother-in-law just as heartily during all those years that they had been forced to live in the same house as undeclared but nonetheless implacable enemies. Now that Adrienne was the only stable element left in the wreck of that sad family she knew she must put all her personal feelings and resentments aside and see to it that the old lady was properly looked after and lacked for nothing. Before leaving Transylvania she had written to the Uzdys’ old retainer Maier, who had gone with Countess Clémence to Meran, to say that she would be coming, and she had also sent a telegram when she left Lausanne. So, when she arrived at noon, the old man was on the platform to meet her.

  Maier had not changed since those traumatic days when she had last seen him. It was as if neither time nor tragedy could touch him. He was still the same powerfully-built, stocky man with a clear complexion, calm expression and intelligent eyes that she had always known. Now he must be over seventy, for his service with the Uzdy family had started when, as a fully qualified nurse, he had come to Almasko to look after Pal Uzdy’s poor mad father. After his death he had stayed on until Pal Uzdy himself had been taken away hopelessly insane and now, for the last year and a half, he had looked after the old countess. She was the third member of that unhappy family to be served by him with a devotion and discretion that was almost saintly.

  ‘And how is my mother-in-law?’ asked Adrienne, as she shook hands with the powerful old man. ‘Can she see people? When would be the best time?’

  His answer was slow and ponderous, ‘As your Ladyship will see there has been no visible change, but then that is only to be expected in cases of mental illness. I think …’ He hesitated before going on to say, ‘… perhaps it would be best to do it as soon as your Ladyship arrives at the house.’

  It was a wonderful day, and the autumn sun was as hot as if it were already spring. The snow-covered mountain-tops seemed far closer than the row after row of foothills from which they sprang. It was as if they had somehow floated free of the ravines and pine forests below, and the great peaks of the Ortler range hung weightlessly like vaporous clouds in the azure purity of the Italian sky. Adrienne walked slowly up the hill behind the town’s old fortress and all around her were orchards and vineyards and groups of dark evergreens like laurels and cedars that were interspersed with jasmine and camellia. Below her path the valley spread out, rich and fertile, and was dotted with small castles, churches and convents crowning each hilltop. A river threaded its leisurely way through velvet meadows. The whole landscape seemed to smile with peace and happiness.

  Countess Uzdy’s villa stood a little to the right of the road. Its entrance was on the north side but the main façade looked over the valley to the south west. Like so many Italian houses built on a hillside it had been set in the centre of a large square stone terrace like an iced cake upon a tray, and from it steps led downwards to other terraces and gardens below but from the entrance all the visitor could see of this was the tops of the trees planted at a lower level.

  It was only as Adrienne passed through the entrance gates that she realized how apprehensive she was. On her way to the house all she had thought was that this was a routine call and that it was her duty. It was her first visit to Meran and as she strolled up from the station she had been thinking only of how beautiful everything was. Now, as she stood on the threshold of her mother-in-law’s house, she was suddenly aware how much she dreaded meeting the old woman again. It was not simply that in a few moments she would once again be face to face with the person with whom, despite Countess Uzdy’s never concealed hatred of her, she had had to spend so many years in the same house; it was also that this confrontation would entail explaining why she had come and giving her news of Pal Uzdy and of her little grand-daughter. She would once again have to put up with the old woman’s icy stare and her probably offensive and unwelcoming remarks. Of course Maier had told her in several letters that nowadays the old woman sometimes did not utter a word for days on end, that she was usually listless and would sit quite still for hours without apparently noticing anything that went on around her; and that they even had to remind her to get up to go and wash, or take her meals, or go to bed. She had become, it seemed, little more than an automaton and had to be urged and encouraged to go through the ordinary motions of everyday life. Though Adrienne did not for a moment disbelieve any of this, she still wondered if it would be the same when they actually met or whether, at the sight of her, the old woman’s venomous nature would overcome her depression and bring her back to life.

  And this was not the only thing that made Adrienne suddenly afraid: she wondered too if she herself could muster enough self-control to appear natural and friendly and to talk as lightly and calmly as if that old hatred had never existed. She was desperately worried lest all those years of resentment would rise up and betray her into anger.

  As these troubling thoughts flashed through her mind, she turned to Maier and said, ‘I think it would be best to prepare her, and so, my good Maier, I should be grateful if you would go ahead and see her first. I will just stay here quietly for about a quarter of an hour. Then you can come and take me in. I’ll be sitting on that stone bench.’

  The old man said nothing, either in agreement or contradiction, but just looked at Adrienne with understanding. Then he nodded and disappeared into the house. The door closed noiselessly behind him.

  When Adrienne found herself alone she sat down in the shade on the stone bench by the door and waited deep in thought. However she only stayed there for a moment or two. Perhaps because it was cool in the shade she began to shiver slightly and so got up and walked round to the front of the house which was in full sun. She went very slowly, assailed by old and disturbing memories, memories that went right back to the first days of her engagement to Pal Uzdy when she had met his mother for the first time. She thought, too, of more recent times at Almasko when, after that dreadful moment when Uzdy had rounded on his mother and attacked her viciously, she had, out of pity for Countess Clémence, gone to be with her in her room only to be screamed at and greeted with the awful and wholly unjustified accusation ‘It is you that turned my son against me! You poisoned him! You!’

  Adrienne was thinking of this as she turned the angle of the house. Then, still very slowl
y, she started to walk along the broad terrace that stretched the full length of the south front of the house. On this side there were five long windows overlooking the town. The shutters of four of them were closed and the bright sunlight painted lilac blue shadows below each of the louvred wooden slats. One window was open and when Adrienne reached it she found herself face to face with her mother-in-law who was sitting, barely five paces away, just inside the room. The low window-sill barely reached the level of her knees and she sat there, bolt upright, dressed entirely in black, like a statue of mourning. One shrivelled mummy-like hand lay in her lap. That, and the narrow lace collar at her throat, were the only touches of light to relieve the darkness of her figure. Even her thin face seemed almost as dark as her dress despite the sunlight which lit up her uplifted chin and prominent cheekbones. It was like light on dull bronze, and in some frightening way she had an ancient Egyptian look, calm, mysterious and menacing. She could have been an icon carved from granite so black that it absorbed any light that fell on it.

  Adrienne stood in front of her as if petrified; but the old woman’s Tartar-like eyes never moved and never showed any glint or sign that she even noticed that anyone was there.

  Adrienne did not know how long she stood there, but it felt like an eternity during every minute of which she expected to hear a sharp reprimand, evil malignant words that would be followed by the old woman’s leaping to her feet uttering a curse. But Countess Uzdy remained as mute and motionless as if carved from stone.