Hungarian Rhapsody

by Wendy Teller

  And Mausi, so efficient and elegant. How was that possible?

  It seemed a contradiction, but Mausi seemed forbidding. She smiled and said everything would be all right, that Ella should make herself at home. But somehow Ella didn't believe it.

  Maybe it was her efficiency. She had things that needed to be done. Tell Ella the ways of the house, make sure she had a key, answer questions, and when those things were done, as if she had a checklist, then she left.

  She was efficient but less warm, less kind than her brother Mihály.

  And she wasn't curious. She didn't ask where Ella was from or why she had run away or what she would like to do. It was as if all those questions had already been answered or, if not, she wasn't interested.

  Mausi was just doing her job, for this particular runaway. She said that they had had guests before. Maybe this was part of her job, to handle the runaways. Maybe this was a job she didn't really like, but one that had to be done.

  And the comment about her mother: "Mutti isn't very practical." But it was Tante who said she could find Ella work and that was what she wanted more than anything else. Work. Mausi hadn't said anything about finding work.

  Ella yawned. It had been, as Mausi said, an extraordinary day. She wondered what Ede was doing. Did he know by now that she had left? Was he angry? Or sad? Would he turn into the tyrant Mother had described and come for her?

  Who was Ede?

  She had never thought of Ede as a tyrant. Or Father, for that matter. Father could be blunt with Mother, but that seemed necessary.

  Should she believe what Mother said about men?

  She couldn't picture Father hurting anyone, let alone his bride on their wedding night.

  Was this Mother's final revenge, to poison her marriage to Ede?

  That didn't seem possible.

  Mother was difficult, but not cunning. That was too subtle for Mother.

  No, not revenge.

  But mad? Was her mother crazy? Had she lost her mind when her Erzsébet died?

  That seemed more probable.

  What difference did it make? There was no going back. Anyway, she didn't want to go back. Ella sighed.

  By now all of Nagykanizsa would know that she took the train to Budapest. Mr. Kovacs probably told everyone who wandered into the station. She imagined one of his drinking buddies stopping by and Mr. Kovacs telling him. The buddy would go down to the tavern and tell everyone there. Then one of the waiters would tell everyone in the tavern kitchen, and one of the dishwashers would run to tell her sweetheart. It was all over town by now.

  And what about Mother?

  Ella wouldn't have been at the breakfast table and Mother would have gone to her room to find out why. She would have discovered the note and then what? She would show it to Father.

  Would they come after her? Or send Miklos? Or tell Ede and ask him to go after her? Or maybe Mother would have simply fainted, unable to cope with another disgrace.

  And what if Miklos came for her? Budapest was a big city. He would never find her here, would he?

  And what about Ede?

  A pang stung her heart. She had disgraced her family, and she didn't care about that. But she had disgraced Ede. Everyone knew they were to be married and she had run away.

  What would people think? She wished she had not left. She wished she had talked to him. They had always talked. But she wasn't sure she could tell him. She didn't trust him. But if she didn't trust him, who could she trust?

  Oh Ede!

  But she couldn't go back to Nagykanizsa. She could write to him. She would say... what could she say? I'm sorry! She was very, very sorry. But was that enough?

  It was not enough. She could never make it up to him.

  It would never be all right.

  This is what she had chosen. She hoped Tante would find her a job. She would make enough money to go to Vienna.

  She must forget about Ede. She had done horrible harm, but she couldn't undo it. She must look to the future and forget him.

  She remembered his kiss. She remembered the warmth of his body as he embraced her, his finger tracing the line of her cheek.

  "Ella?"

  She opened her eyes. It was Tante's hand on her cheek.

  "Come, it's time for supper." Tante offered her hand.

  Ella took her hand and stood.

  "I have wonderful news for you!" Tante said, putting her hand on Ella's shoulder. "Rózsa thinks she can find work for you as a bookkeeper's assistant." She was guiding Ella toward the dining room. "And she can help you study to take your exams."

  "Exams?"

  "Yes, yes." Tante said as she entered the dining room. "We will talk about that later. But now you must meet my sons and we must have supper.

  Tante rushed through the introductions. Adolf was the oldest son, maybe a few years older than Ella, Karl, the middle son was about her age, and finally Mihály.

  Tilly set a platter of cold cuts and cheeses on the table as soon as Tante and Ella sat down.

  "Where's Mausi?" Adolf said, as he broke a roll.

  "She's never home," Mihály said.

  Adolf buttered his roll and took a bite. "Ever since she graduated from university, she seems to have better things to do than be with us."

  Ella stared at Adolf.

  "Now, now," Tante set her cup down. "She's busy with her work. The bibliography is due out soon and now that Ervin isn't working on it, it's all on her shoulders."

  Karl sipped his coffee. "I think she has a new beau."

  Tante raised her eyebrows. "Who?"

  Karl grinned and shrugged.

  Rózsa and Suska

  Ella should be pleased. This world, this strange Budapest, with its educated women, women who had jobs and were allowed to find their own beaus, she knew this should be her paradise. But she had no time to contemplate such incredible possibilities. Tante Cecile was rushing her.

  "Rózsa will see you this morning, just as soon as we can get to her office. We must hurry."

  They walked into the June morning, already warm, Tante Cecile talking in streams.

  "Rózsa is moody, but don't let that put you off. You don't need to work with her forever, just make a good impression. Tell her you want to work."

  Tante hailed a coach. It stopped and they climbed in.

  "And tell her that you have English. She may be able to use that. Some businesses need someone who has English. And of course French and German, but English might be more important."

  Ella tried to get a sense of the direction they were going as they traveled away from the river and a little north.

  Tante's instructions continued.

  "Don't say much other than that. Rózsa likes to argue, but never mind. Just don't disagree."

  Tante looked out the window and pointed. "That's where Laura works."

  Ella tried to determine which building it was, but Tante's conversation turned back to Rózsa.

  "She will probably try your languages, so be prepared."

  Tante rubbed her chin, her forehead furrowed. "You might mention Latin too, since all the old laws were in Latin." She shrugged. "I mean, maybe that will help in getting you work, but maybe it will help in other ways."

  Tante was making Ella nervous. This Rózsa sounded formidable. But she reminded herself how kind, how thoughtful Tante was, trying to help her. How fortunate she had been to have found her.

  Perhaps fate was on her side, having placed her in the hands of this woman, a woman like no other she had ever met.

  The coach stopped, Tante paid the driver and they turned to the building, tall and squeezed on either side by equally tall buildings. They entered and climbed the stairs.

  Rózsa’s office was cramped. Books and papers were scattered on every horizontal surface. Two women sat at a table going over notes. The shorter, rounder one stood. "Ah, Cecile, I see you brought your new friend."

  "Yes, Rózsa, this is Ella." Tante looked at Ella, who stepped forward.

  Ró
zsa eyed Ella, from her head to her shoes, then glared. "And do you have a last name, Ella?"

  Ella remained resolved to just tell the truth. "Yes, ma'am, Ella Weisel"

  "No, no." Rózsa shook her head. "No formalities here. It's Rózsa."

  Ella added this to her list of Budapest's absurdities. No formal titles, just Rózsa. "Yes, Rózsa."

  "Of course, at work we must follow the old ways and use the titles. But among ourselves, that is different."

  Ella inhaled the musty book scent of the room, like her father's study, but missing the tobacco and mint. "Yes, M... Rózsa."

  "And you want to be a bookkeeper?"

  "Yes. Or anything else I might do. I have English, French, and Latin, as well as Hungarian and German, of course."

  "Really?" For the first time Rózsa's eyes shone. "Just speaking? Or can you also read and write them?"

  "Read and write."

  "How can that be?" The intense gray eyes held Ella's. "With only four years at a convent school?"

  "My parents had French tutors for us. For a while." Too short a while Ella remembered, "I had a governess from Chicago."

  Rózsa's eyes widened. "From Chicago?"

  Ella smiled, thinking of Alexa. "Yes, yes. Her English was perfect. American English, of course. But she went back to Chicago to get married."

  "I see." Rózsa's rubbed her fingers on her cheek. "And Latin?"

  "My friend. He taught me Latin."

  "He?"

  Ella felt her cheeks burn.

  "Yes." She forced a little smile. "He was, well, sort of a member of the family."

  She felt the weight of the pendant under her blouse. This strange woman didn't need to know more than this.

  Rózsa switched to English. "I see. Well, never mind. I can only get you an assistant position, for little pay. You will need to study for exams, but I have the books here. I assume that you can do that."

  Ella shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She responded in English. "Yes. Of course."

  In French Rózsa said. "I expect you to start studying immediately."

  "Oui. Immediately."

  And in Hungarian Rózsa said, "And, as a price for my finding you employment, I expect you to help us here."

  "Igen."

  Ella wasn't sure what kind of help would be expected of her, but right now this seemed her best opportunity.

  "I will be happy to help."

  Rózsa looked down at the other woman still sorting papers at the table.

  "Suska will give you some materials to study."

  Apparently this was as much of an introduction Suska was going to get. She stood. Her face was round, her eyes kind. She had a pleasant, if a little plump, figure. She was poised and older than Ella, but not by much. Ella felt immediately drawn to her, perhaps because she seemed reserved, not quite as assertive as the other women.

  "Give her the first-year text for bookkeeping," Rózsa said, "And give her some pamphlets. Let's try English first. And give her a notebook."

  Suska nodded at Rózsa and turned to Ella. "Come. Let's see what we can find."

  They went to the bookcase in the next room and Suska pulled a thick book from one shelf and several pamphlets from another. She gathered a blank notebook from the top of the cabinet.

  When they returned, Rózsa's voice was raised, and Cecile was smiling but shaking her head. Perhaps, Ella thought, Rózsa was not the only one who liked to argue.

  Rózsa focused on Ella. "I will see you day after tomorrow. I want one of those pamphlets translated."

  Ella's heart leaped, she wanted to dance. She could not imagine work she would rather do.

  "Yes. To German or Hungarian?"

  "Hungarian." She looked around the room. "When you come again, you will spend the day here. Can you type?"

  Ella shook her head.

  Rózsa nodded towards a table in the corner, just big enough to hold the typewriter that sat on it, with a little space left for papers.

  "If we don't have work for you by then, you will start to learn to type."

  Ella knew that Ede had paid to get his thesis typed. She eyed the typewriter, unsure how she felt about typing. Would she be as clumsy at it as she had been at tatting? Never mind. Right now she had few options.

  "Yes, Rózsa."

  "Now, Suska and I have some things to do," Rózsa said.

  Without further ceremony, Rózsa sat at the table and looked expectantly at Suska, who smiled at Ella.

  "Good to meet you, Ella." Her gaze turned to Tante Cecile. "Nice to see you, Cecile. Have a nice afternoon."

  They descended the stairs from the office and walked into the noon heat.

  "We need to get home for dinner." Tante said. She hailed a coach and they settled in the compartment.

  "So, my Ella, I think you impressed Rózsa."

  Ella gulped. "I hope so."

  "You passed the first language tests."

  Ella exhaled, trying to release the tension in her jaw.

  "Now, do a good job on the translation!"

  Ella closed her eyes. She had never doubted her abilities before, but now? Translating a whole pamphlet? She had never done that before.

  "Tante, do you have an English-Hungarian dictionary?"

  "Possibly. Ask Mausi."

  Mausi was not at dinner, so she asked Karl, who produced a small one from his room. Ella longed for the one Ede had, much larger, but she would have to do with what she had.

  She flipped through the pamphlets as she lay on her bed. She chose one called "Fruits of Philosophy" because it seemed to be shorter and the font was large and clear. She read the subtitle, "A Treatise on the Population Question."

  Fruits of Philosophy

  After breakfast the next morning, Ella settled at the writing table in the salon. She opened the blank notebook and laid a pen and an ink bottle beside it. Opening the pamphlet "Fruits of Philosophy," she leaned back in the chair. She had skimmed through the booklet yesterday. Today she would read it more carefully and then translate.

  The first heading read "Philosophical Proem." She had never heard or seen the word "proem" and it was not in Karl's little dictionary. She rubbed her hands together, clammy despite the warmth of the June morning. She looked over the two pages, skimming, words skittering here and there. "Senses," "appetites," "happiness," "sin."

  What did all this have to do with bookkeeping? Why would Rózsa be interested in this essay? Then her eye rested on the words "productive instinct." Was this the desire to work? That could not be, because the entire sentence was:

  "Man by nature is endowed with the talent of devising means to remedy or prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying our appetites; and it is as much the duty of the physician to inform mankind of the means to prevent the evils that are liable to arise from gratifying the productive instinct as it is to inform them how to keep clear of the gout or dyspepsia."

  Ella could not imagine the "evils that are liable to arise" from the desire to work. "Gratifying the productive instinct" had to be... Ella saw the mare's outstretched neck. This essay must be about the means to prevent the evils from satisfying sexual desire.

  Her eyes scanned down to the next heading "Chapter 1: To Limit at Will the Number of Their Offspring."

  "Showing how desirable it is, both in a political and a social point of view, for mankind to be able to limit at WILL THE NUMBER OF THEIR OFFSPRING, WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE PLEASURE THAT ATTENDS THE GRATIFICATION OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT."

  Ella swallowed. The next section was about politics. She skipped it. The next section discussed the social aspects of the problem:

  Is it not notorious that the families of the married often increase beyond which a regard for the young beings coming into the world, and the happiness of those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slave throughout their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labor, toiling to liv
e, and living to toil; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence?

  This pamphlet might have, at least in part, a solution to the dilemma her mother complained of: being sick with child. Having one child after another.

  She read further. It reminded her of Ede's essay on the sorrows of sex.

  The next section was labeled "On Generation." It was a detailed description of the female reproductive organs. Ella was not sure she understood and wondered whether she wanted to translate it, it seeming somehow sinful.

  No.

  Of course she could.

  The author had said that knowledge should not be kept from people, and she would not keep this knowledge secret just because... she gulped... it seemed prurient, something that ought not to be talked about.

  She felt restless as she read about the anatomical details and her eyes slid over the words to the next chapter: "On Promoting and Checking Conception."

  Checking conception.

  That was what she had asked Ede about and he had assured her that there were methods of making sure she did not become pregnant, even though they had... well, they were man and wife.

  She skimmed the paragraphs on promoting conception, trying to find the information about checking it.

  There it was.

  She read quickly, feeling her heart beating. She did not understand the words: semen, vagina, baudruche. She didn't understand what was being said. The author was recommending some methods, noting that others were probably not so good.

  Ella closed her eyes.

  Should she believe these things?

  The author seemed to be a doctor.

  She went back to the beginning of the document. There it was. It was written by Charles Knowlton, M. D., medical doctor.

  So Ede was right. There were ways to prevent pregnancies.

  How could she have doubted him?

  Oh Ede!

  She felt so sorry. She longed to see him. To fall into his arms. To inhale his scent and feel his embrace.