The Angel Makers

by Jessica Gregson

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, I was wondering if maybe you could … teach me things. I’ve never been able to speak to someone who’s not from around here,’ she goes on swiftly, trying to get the words out before embarrassment takes hold and she changes her mind, ‘and I want to – to know more about the world, not just about the things that you taught at the university, but about where you’re from, and the language you speak, and – things like that.’ She trails off.

  ‘So, you want to become a learned woman?’ The irony in his voice is unmistakeable. She flushes, suddenly hot, and jumps to her feet.

  ‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter.’

  Marco curses inwardly. He wishes he knew where the mocking streak inside him comes from, why he finds it so difficult to respond to a simple request without sarcasm.

  ‘No, please – sit back down.’

  Sari looks sceptical, and he sighs. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. Please.’ He gestures for her to sit down, and she sinks to her knees, still looking somewhat mistrustful, legs tucked under her in case she needs to spring to her feet again.

  ‘Look,’ Marco says, and beckons her closer. He pushes up his hair on the left hand side of his skull, exposing his scalp, and she leans forward, intrigued, despite herself, by the ornate-looking scar that scrawls its way across his head.

  ‘I was hit there,’ he explains, ‘by some metal. I was ill for a long time.’

  ‘And now you get headaches?’

  He nods. ‘Yes, and—’ God, why should he feel humiliated divulging this to an uneducated sixteen-year-old? Yet he does, as humiliated as he would feel telling one of his former colleagues. ‘And now I forget things, sometimes. Not everything; I – I think I remember most things, but there are spaces. There are things missing.’ He spreads his hands apologetically, and says, for once without a trace of mockery, ‘I don’t think I would make a good teacher, these days.’

  She’s silent for a moment, her eyes still on his face, and then she shrugs. ‘Is there anyone else here better educated than you?’

  He shakes his head, smiling slightly. ‘A couple of the men are qualified engineers, but for the sort of thing you’re looking for …’

  She shrugs again. ‘Well, then. Looks like you’re still the best option that I’ve got.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You wanted me to come back, didn’t you?’ She decides to risk it. ‘You wanted me to come back, and not just for this.’ She picks up the little bottle cradled in the grass and shakes it illustratively. ‘You asked me all those questions yesterday – you want to learn, too, don’t you? About all of this.’ She waves an expansive arm, looking intently into his face.

  For the past day, Marco has been refusing to think about how much he was hoping that Sari would come back to the camp, and in a few short sentences she’s laid him bare. He’s intrigued by her sharp, swift mind, her directness, her stern, proud face, all of which seems so different to the other women in the village, so out of place.

  ‘You interest me,’ he says. It’s the best he can come up with, hamstrung as he is by language, and he’s never been much good with sweet words even in his native tongue.

  ‘And you interest me,’ she says calmly.

  ‘You aren’t like the others.’

  ‘Neither are you. So we have something in common.’

  Silence settles between them. Sari’s still not much good at talking to people, she knows – something in the way her words come out makes them spiky, liable to disconcert or offend – but remembering Marco’s reflexive sarcasm, she feels an unexpected kinship, and a bright thread of relief runs through her. Two people less likely to fall in love, she thinks, would be hard to find: both awkward and rough-edged and far too little concerned with propriety and the way things should be done.

  Marco gets to his feet.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ he says, ‘You can tell me the sorts of things you want to know.’

  The camp becomes part of Sari’s routine. She starts getting up earlier than usual, to get her chores and duties out of the way, and she walks to the camp at mid-morning. Each visit is longer than the one before. A grateful Umberto spread the word of her medical abilities, and gradually other men have started to approach her with maladies of their own that the camp doctor and his morphia cannot fix.

  Marco acts as her translator and they approach her like supplicants; she doesn’t know what they think of her, whether they believe she’s curing them with some sort of pagan magic, and sometimes, when she’s feeling boisterous, she plays up to this image, adopting a set of inexplicable mannerisms, or chanting ominously while preparing a potion. She likes the way that this amuses Marco, the way that he has to choke back laughter when she performs ever more outlandish routines. Sari has never been much good at making people laugh – not intentionally, at least – and she finds this new power is fun to wield, even as she’s a little ashamed to be making fun of the work that she and Judit do; she’s always careful that her joking chants are as different as possible from the incantations she makes in private, and she knows she would be obscurely embarrassed if Marco ever guessed that there is more to her work than just crushing up a few leaves and flowers.

  Every afternoon, she walks with Marco. She is transforming his perception of the plain through her acute awareness of every plant, every weed, grass and flower, and he has tried to persuade her to show him the forest where, he knows, even more interesting plants grow, but she always refuses. She insists that they only walk in places that are in broad view of the village and the camp, to avoid arousing suspicion – something that Sari feels she is doing admirably. Her friends tease, of course, now that she’s going down to the camp, but an affair with a prisoner has now become so acceptable that nobody needs to lie about it any more, and so Sari’s simple denial of any improper activity tends to be accepted at face value. Besides, her reputation as a nurse and healer is spreading and she is gaining more respect in the village: it is one thing to treat local people for the familiar round of ailments to which they succumb, and another entirely to manage to cure foreigners – for all anyone knows, their bodies may be constituted completely differently, and prone to a different variety of illnesses.

  She calls them lessons, but they are more open discussions with Marco. He tells her stories from which she gleans a cluttered comprehension of Italian history, geography, politics and society; he, in turn, learns about the more pragmatic aspects of the art of healing (‘I can tell you this,’ she says, ‘because you’ll never have the chance to use it and put me out of business’), about the patterns of the plain, invisible to anyone who has not lived with it their entire life, about superstitions and about her way of life. The discussions are far from orthodox, punctuated as they are by Marco pounding the ground in frustration when he reaches a dead end in his memory, or one or the other of them sketching something in the dirt with a stick when language fails them.

  Marco’s German is not good, and Sari’s is far from perfect (a fact that she would never willingly admit), and so it is not long before they decide that they need another language in which to communicate. Sari tries to teach Marco Magyar, but he finds himself defeated by the knotted vowels and the tussles of consonants. Instead, Sari starts to learn Italian, which sounds to her like smooth, round pebbles dropping into still water. She is intoxicated by it, by the new shapes her mouth learns to make, and the liquidity of the words, and often in the evenings, after a day spent with Marco, she finds herself speaking to herself – nothing sensible, it is too early for anything like that, but noun after noun, repeated like a prayer, like an incantation.

  Sari often repeats Marco’s stories to Judit in the evening. It’s mainly to help her remember them better, but Judit is fascinated.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she says, ‘It’s like a gift, to learn something new,’ and it occurs to Sari, almost for the first time, that while she may be bored in the village sometimes, that is nothing compared to how Judit must feel, surrounde
d by the same houses, the same families, and the same miserable pieces of earth for years upon years upon years.

  ‘Tell me about your wife,’ Sari says to Marco one afternoon, her tone lazy but her eyes watchful.

  ‘How do you know I’m married?’ Marco counters.

  ‘I don’t. But a man of your age’ – Marco is thirty-two – ‘and you’re not a professional soldier, so I would expect you to have a wife.’

  ‘You’re right, for once.’ Marco pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to Sari. ‘That’s Benigna.’

  The woman in the picture takes Sari a little by surprise; she is smiling, head tilted slightly, looking half-shy. Fair hair floods over her shoulders in springy curls and waves; her face is heart-shaped and kind-looking, and what Sari can see of her body is smooth and rounded. She is about as different from Sari as she could possibly be.

  Just a few weeks ago, the realisation that she and Marco were totally incompatible made her shiver slightly with relief. Now, she feels a small, but traitorous pang of disappointment. She bites it back viciously, and resolves not to think about it. ‘What’s she like?’ she asks, hoping her voice won’t give her away.

  ‘She’s very quiet. Gentle, and kind. She likes to read, and to play piano, which she does very well. She is the sister of one of my colleagues at the University: that’s how we met.’

  ‘She’s a good mother?’ Sari hazards, her heart thumping.

  Marco is silent for a moment. ‘No,’ he says shortly, ‘We don’t have children. We would like to, but it hasn’t happened yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Is she? She isn’t sure.

  They walk on in silence for a moment, and then Marco says, ‘I used to worry that we had children, or a child, but I’d forgotten them. I don’t think that’s possible, though, is it? To fail to remember something like that?’

  His voice has a slight pleading edge; Sari has spent enough time with Marco lately to learn how much of a constant torment his memory gaps cause him.

  ‘No,’ she says carefully. ‘You would remember, I’m sure. You remember marrying Benigna, don’t you?’ He nods. ‘Well, then, that shows that you remember major events. You would remember a child.’

  He nods again, seeming to take comfort from her certainty. ‘You know, you’ve never told me about your fiancé, either,’ he says, his tone light. They are still speaking German, but she knows enough Italian by now that, when he slips in an Italian word because he doesn’t know the German one, more often than not she will understand.

  Of course, she thinks, she’s avoided mentioning Ferenc to him, but she realises now that this in itself could be seen as suspicious. Surely it is reasonable for two friends – for they are friends now, despite the often combative nature of their friendship – to discuss their spouses and fiancés; surely it is odder if they don’t.

  ‘Well, you may know a little about him yourself,’ she says. ‘You’re living in his house, you see.’

  Marco cannot hide his start of surprise that she is engaged to someone who is from by far the wealthiest family in the village. He tries to cover his shock, but she is already looking at him, half-smiling, eyebrows raised.

  ‘I can tell you, it was just as much of a shock to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect—’

  Sari gives a short laugh. ‘Neither did I. It was my father who arranged it, really. He was respected enough to be able to do so. I think he knew that he was – that he was dying, and he wanted to be sure about what would happen to me afterwards. I doubt Ferenc’s family were too happy about it, but—’ She shrugs. ‘They couldn’t really do anything. It’s one thing to stop a daughter from marrying someone inappropriate, and another thing entirely to stop a son. Our mothers were sisters, so it wasn’t really a problem of blood. More a problem of me being – well, me.’

  ‘And that wasn’t a problem for Ferenc?’

  She looks up at him sharply, but he is smiling.

  ‘I mean – was he in love with you?’

  Sari feels herself going red. She finds this sort of thing terribly embarrassing to talk about, but knows that to admit so would be childish.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. He certainly – he wanted to please me very much, and sometimes he would act strangely around me. From what I have heard, that’s what people do when they’re in love. Isn’t that right?’

  Marco gives a bark of laughter. ‘Maybe. People are all different when it comes to these sorts of things. And were you – are you – in love with him?’

  Oh God. This is a question that Sari has asked herself over and over again, and has never been able to come to any sort of conclusion – not one that she’s happy with, in any case.

  ‘He is a good man. He risked a great deal – his reputation, and his parents’ opinions – for me. I am very fond of him.’

  ‘Come on, Sari. Being grateful to someone isn’t the same as being in love with them. Young as you are, I would have thought that you were smart enough to know the difference.’

  They’ve stopped walking now, Sari staring at Marco balefully: what right does he have to pry into her feelings in this way? Seeing that he’s upset her, he holds out his hands, palms upwards, and frowns slightly.

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, all right? I doubt that most people are in love with the people that they marry, but that doesn’t make the marriage any worse. I was just wondering whether you felt the same way for Ferenc as the way he seems to feel for you.’

  A breath. A beat. The implacable rush of the river.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I think I love him – or I think I can love him, over time. I think he will be kind to me. That’s enough.’

  Marco nods. ‘You’re right, you know. That is enough.’

  She’s silent for a moment, amazed and horrified at what she’s just said. ‘And you?’ she asks, attack being the best form of defence. ‘Are you in love with your wife?’

  He is irritatingly unruffled by her question, though she supposes that he must have realised that a counterattack was inevitable, given his military background.

  ‘I love my wife. We live very well together. She gives me what I need – calm, and stability – though I don’t know what I give to her. But no, I’m not in love with her.’

  They look at each other for a moment, still, appraising.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sari says.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Marco agrees.

  Sari thinks, these days, that she’s probably happier than she’s ever been. It’s not very fair either to Ferenc or her father for her to be so happy without them, she thinks guiltily, but she has friends, and she’s learning so many new things, and she can’t help revelling in the luxury of it all.

  Judit is always one for spoiling a good mood, though, and the third time she comes across Sari humming cheerfully in the kitchen, she draws a laboured sigh. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, Sari,’ she says. ‘You should never get too comfortable.’

  Sari grins and scoffs and the words are out of her head within moments, but then one afternoon in August, Anna has nothing much to do and asks to accompany Sari on one of her walks into the forest to look for burdock leaves.

  As they go, Sari talks quietly about the latest things that Marco has been telling her – he’s been scraping his memory for Roman myths, and they’ve captured her imagination like nothing before. The shade of the forest is like balm to their skins, and before long they give up the search for burdock – ‘It wasn’t urgent, anyway,’ Sari says – and settle together under a tree and talk about Giovanni. He and Anna have made great strides in communication, thanks in part to Marco’s Italian lessons which Sari has been passing on, but it’s mainly down to the fact that when two people want nothing more than to speak to one another, they will find reserves of time and patience that they never would have thought they possessed.

  Giovanni, it turns out, is a country boy from the south of Italy. ‘He has a farm,’ Anna confides, ‘With sheep and cattle.’ Sari can tell tha
t already in her mind’s eye Anna is seeing herself there, in some Italian farmhouse in the country, cooking for a brace of children and a smiling Giovanni, but of course there is another part of her mind that can’t help imagining the end of the war, Giovanni leaving for the west, and Károly returning. Anna is determined to fight the return of her old life every step of the way.

  ‘Is there news of Károly?’ Sari asks after a while.

  Anna shrugs bitterly. ‘I had a letter from Lajos a few weeks ago. Says Károly’s fine, as usual. He – I—’ she stumbles into silence again.

  ‘Sari?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sari is puzzled. Anna is direct, and normally she comes straight out with what she wants to say; even when asking for something to stop her from getting pregnant she didn’t hesitate and prevaricate like this.

  ‘I was wondering,’ Anna says haltingly, ‘whether there is anything you can do to – to stop Károly coming back from the war.’

  There is a silence as loud as the clashing of cymbals. Sari, used to having nothing to say, has never found herself literally speechless before. It’s as if she’s dropped back two years into the past, hearing the whispers of witch from illmeaning villagers.

  ‘What do you think I am, Anna?’ she asks quietly.

  ‘I—’ Anna refuses to look at her; she’s digging the earth violently with her fingertips.

  Sari’s heart is racing, and she can’t seem to pull enough breath in to her lungs to speak. Finally, she says, ‘Never say anything like this to me again.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Anna’s voice is shaking now, and Sari sighs.

  ‘I know that you wouldn’t have said it if you hadn’t been desperate. It’s all right. But I am serious: never say anything like this to me again.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Anna whispers.

  A bird calls, its cry harsh and too-loud within the suddenly smothering forest; Sari will not look at Anna afraid that she will see some sort of fear or awe in Anna’s eyes. Judit’s right, she thinks. You should never get too comfortable. Things don’t change; people just get better at hiding them, that’s all.