The Reluctant Trophy Wife

by Judith Petres Balogh

  The night finally passed. Soon after the breakfast dishes were cleared away the pilot informed the passengers that he is ready for landing, the time in Vienna is 9:50, the weather is balmy at 72 degrees, he hopes the passengers had a pleasant flight and would again fly with this airline. He wished a pleasant stay and asked them to remain seated and buckled until the plane comes to a full stop. He repeated his farewell in German, and then despite his warning words, the cabin echoed with the unsnapping of seatbelt clasps.

  When finally the plane came to a full stop Lena too gathered her belongings, but before leaving her seat she glanced toward the front of the plane where the strange passenger was deposited during the night. There was no movement around him. The stewardesses acted as if he were not even there. He died, Lena thought, just as I suspected.

  The formality at customs passed uneventfully and just as Clyde planned, a limousine was waiting for her with a very polite chauffeur, who introduced himself as János Kardos. He spoke fluent English, but mercifully was not the talkative kind. She could barely keep her eyes open most of the way while motoring toward the house that Clyde selected for her.

  The big silent car’s gentle rocking swept her to the edge of sleep, and she soon forgot the dead man on the airplane. At one point after they passed Vienna, she became alert again as she noticed a field of innumerable wind turbines, all of them slowly turning as if performing a ballet. These giants were smooth and elegant, lacking the utilitarian, cold ugliness she usually associated with machines. The powerful steel bodies had the grace of human dancers and they seemed to speak of a world yet to come. She found delight in the streamlined design; it suggested lightness as if the earth had no hold on the machines, as if they were made of nothing more substantial than clouds and rainbows. The radio of the car was turned on and the choreography of the windmills smoothly matched Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits”. Just like the birds, they too were at home in the sky. She wanted to stop then and just watch this unbelievable performance, but of course, this world is not made for such extravagant wishes. One does not pull aside on a six-lane highway to admire a miraculous piece of technology.

  Mesmerized she watched the dance of the turbines and was reassured. Perhaps machines and the robots of the future would not be ugly or scary after all, she reflected. Although not feeling anything themselves, it is possible for them to convey emotions and delights of a higher order. They cannot dream robot dreams, but are able to create pleasurable visions and people dreams.

  The road curved, ducked under an overpass and behind the bend more wind turbines appeared, turning their wings slowly, dreamily, ever repeating their elegant movements. She watched them enthralled. As the last giant was left behind she was quite emotional. After the long trip and the inevitable jetlag she was fatigued and more receptive to impressions and unorganized thoughts, random emotions. She was grateful for the cavernous back seat. Huddled there in protective solitude nobody could observe her as overwhelmed by a flood of extraordinary sadness she said farewell to the dancing windmills.

  At some point, they crossed the border from Austria into Hungary, and the landscape changed. She was too sleepy to discover the difference, but the change was somehow tangible. The landscape was mild and not particularly spectacular; gentle hills and sprawling fields dominated. She was not sure what gave her the feeling of otherness. A highway is much the same everywhere. No matter where it stretches, what countries it crosses, it does not change its gray and impersonal essence. She leaned back and repeated to herself, it is different. I am at a different place. I am an outsider. It eluded her why she felt this way.

  After the car left the well-engineered lanes and headed south on picturesque country roads and passed through small villages, she could have seen more of the country and perhaps could have understood why she experienced it as different, but by that time she was far too tired to see or to care. The transatlantic flight did not agree with her and she was sound asleep during the last eighty miles of the trip. It was already afternoon when they arrived at their destination.

  She laughed when she saw the house. The chauffeur opened the car door for her and then busied himself taking care of her luggage, leaving her alone to absorb the strange beauty of the building. The house looked like something out of a storybook. It was turreted, balconied, enchanted; it even had a tower. Shrubs and greenery had already burst into leaves and blooms, and the newly fresh green of the ivy softened the lines of the façade, half covered the mullioned windows, lent gentle grace to the columns and stone ornamentations. Masses of tulips and daffodils gave explosions of color to the garden.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Nobody in his right mind built anything like it nowadays, and certainly not in that part of Europe. The builder of the house must have been living in some sort of a quixotic dream; the Arab-Norman style was wildly exotic and hilariously incongruous in the midst of that benign landscape. She imagined that it had a face that tried hard to look severe, but could not successfully hide its merriment. It was probably greatly amused by an absurd secret, or perhaps by the follies of the world. The two tall upstairs windows were twinkling eyes set apart, giving a perplexed and inquisitive expression to the face. The narrow balconies in front of the windows were merely decorations, not serving any utilitarian purpose, but they underlined the eyes with an aged, wise look. The hair of untamed ivy hung all over the face, and hid a noble forehead, no doubt the seat of exalted thoughts and lovingly kept memories and the somewhat exaggerated tower appeared to her as a jolly peaked cap. The heavy, iron-ornamented door was a mouth that could not make up its mind whether to laugh or to yawn. The house fit Lena perfectly. It was just possible that Clyde knew her better than she imagined when he selected this for her from a catalogue. He knew that she would love it and felt lucky.

  “I placed your suitcases in the upstairs bedroom, ma’am,” János interrupted her silent inspection. “Is the house to your liking?” he inquired politely.

  “From the outside yes, absolutely. If the interior is half as good, I’ll be more than happy here. It is made for a story book princess in exile,” she said and added a rueful smile to cover up the foolishly effusive remark.

  “Or for a witch having a well-deserved sabbatical,” he responded and then added hastily, “Forgive me, I did not mean to be disrespectful, but you must know that the villagers nickname this place the ‘haunt of witches’, or more simply ‘that witch house’.”

  “How delightful! Is it haunted?”

  “I have to disappoint you. The villagers like to think so, but then of course simple people usually fear everything that is different from their limited experiences and therefore believe all sorts of hair-raising stories connected with the unfamiliar. This house is definitely different, but I am afraid it only offers comfort. No ghostly noises or sightings. There is a car in the garage and the keys and papers for it are on the desk in the study. The refrigerator is filled. There is a television, also a telephone and Internet connection for your comfort.”

  “I appreciate the care given to my stay here.”

  “Your comfort is of importance to your husband, who arranged it, and we too would like to make your stay pleasant. A woman, named Juli néni, will come each morning to clean and to cook and she will take care of supplies as needed. She has a key to the house so you need not get up in the morning to let her in. As you might guess, Juli néni does not speak English, but she is a reliable housekeeper and a gifted cook. If there is anything you need, you may send a note to me through Juli néni, or you can call me during the evening hours. You will find my phone number on your desk.”

  He handed her the keys and as he walked toward the car added: “About 150 years ago Metternich, the Austrian chancellor declared that Asia begins at Pozsony, which at that time was the westernmost point of Hungary bordering on Austria. He did not offer this opinion as a compliment. I hope your accommodations will prove him quite wrong.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully.

  “Yo
u are not a professional chauffeur, are you?”

  “No, I am not. But in these times one welcomes every opportunity to earn extra income above the regular salary.” Apparently, he was not going to divulge more than this. “I wish you a pleasant stay, good rest and many lovely memories, and no spooking ghosts or witches to disturb your sleep,” he added with a halfsmile. She thanked and tipped him, although somewhat reluctantly. Who knows, he might be a college professor or a scientist in his other life, and the tip might insult him. However, he accepted it politely and then was gone and she was alone. She climbed the steps to the study and with a thrill of joy took in the view of the lake.

  After weeks packed with excitement and anxiety, she relished the bliss of silence and solitude. So many fear it, she reflected, yet solitude gives birth to peace and to those thoughts, which otherwise do not surface. Jesus went into the desert to commune with the Highest Power and ever after, saints and thinkers sought the tranquility of hermitages. When the noise of the world is silenced, trivia has no choice but to flee. In the hushed stillness, the spirit can find its balance again, and face the questions, which are mostly repressed during the usual noise of life.

  A sailboat glided lazily across the mirror surface of the lake in the vespertine stillness. On the gentle incline to the right, midway between the lake and her house was the village with its simple little church. Her house was somewhat isolated from the settlement by well-groomed orchards and vineyards. A pale green blanket of new leaves all but concealed the aged brown of the vinestocks. Over to the left, just under the vineyards a great wheat field shimmered in fresh green; the ripening grain swayed in the wind like emerald waves on a sea. Wine and bread, she thought, the gifts that fed and sustained mankind for so long. Both were blessed at the conclusion of a memorable meal and so became forever symbols for survival, love and ultimately for immortality.

  In her busy life she only paid marginal attention to the fauna and the flora around her, but during this quiet solitary sun-drenched afternoon, so close to grapes, wheat, rambling ivy, to the water and to the sky, she fully responded to Nature. It was, as Adrienne would say, a truly religious experience.

  Rooted at the window, she felt that she could not leave the spot, so fascinated was she by what she saw, what it said to her. She felt light and happy. The complications and the memory of mindless commitments of the last years fell away, and it was good. Never again could she live within the confinements of a city, she thought, because too much of life is lost there. She missed something essential during the last years, but in the tranquility of the moment she felt that it would be possible to find it here.

  Eventually the travel’s fatigue and the jetlag overpowered her and after a quick shower she moved across the hall into the bedroom.

  Some ancestral architect had the right idea when he designed the house, because the bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling window also faced the lake. She opened the glass panels, stepped out into the narrow balcony and felt pure bliss. The first and the last image of the day would always be the lake. The murder, the scandal, Adrienne’s grave injury, her own involvement in something that was made extraordinarily sordid by implications, faded, receded and no longer tortured her as it did in the beginning. She had to admit that Clyde was right. Much as she objected to this trip, after all it was a good solution for all, who were involved in the tragedy.

  With a happy sigh, she stretched out on the bed inhaling the fragrance of the sun-dried, wind-whipped fresh linen, and meant to take but a short afternoon nap. As it turned out, she awoke next morning to the discreet sounds Juli néni made downstairs.

  SEVEN

  Lena, in contrast to Clyde, was usually an early riser. She loved the mornings. The different moods of the changing seasons, best observed in the early hours, delighted her. Spring was a time of renewed energies. It was the time when she felt capable to rearrange the world and in the magnificent solitude made daring plans for it. Summer mornings were different, less passionate, more sedate. The morning air slipped through the open windows carrying the fragrance of cut grass and undefined flowers and this always caused extravagant joy, but also a desire to slow down, to enjoy the moment as long as she could stretch it. Still in her nightgown she liked to step barefoot into the terrace and have the first cup of coffee in the sun. During the early autumn when the pungent fragrance of burning leaves wafted discreetly into the shelter of the terrace, she bundled up in a warm robe, but still preferred to breakfast outdoors. In winter, when the wind was bending the trees and in the heavily falling snow the garden lights were just hazy, uneasy points, she felt sheltered in the cozy corner of her warm kitchen and felt extremely lucky. Regardless which season it was, during these early hours while the house was still asleep she liked to sit and just enjoy a period of reflection and peace.

  For her first meal she never had anything but juice, coffee and toast with honey. Her mornings were scented by the brewing coffee and the toasting bread; the mixture of the two was the special and holy incense that transformed a common house into a sacred home. Her coffee, the precious gift of Africa, paired with the bread, was not just physical nourishment, but acquired special meanings and enchantments. She drank slowly, enjoying the aroma of the coffee and let the taste of bread linger on her tongue, perhaps in an effort to become one with it, or at least one with the peace and contentment it offered.

  Although nothing more than just a mixture of flour and water, salt and leavening, the bread possesses some divine significance no other food has. For so many on this struggling planet it is the difference between life and death, for others an added daily enjoyment. What other food has such a miraculous, almost sacred quality and significance? No other food can be a daily meal, or part of a meal, and never become boring or monotonous. It is the only food that is included in a prayer.

  She did not tolerate plastic-wrapped substitutes on her table and although nobody could accuse her of being a kitchen queen, bread baking was a special art she practiced weekly. She never passed the job to her cook and would not even consider a bread-baking machine; it had to be handmade all the way. Clyde, not quite understanding her motives, was amused by her insistence, but admitted that her loaves were very special.

  She was quite young when she learned the ancient art of women from Mrs. Kowalchick. This elderly neighbor performed the work with the piety and devotion of a high priestess; the old lady considered it a sacred ritual, as old as mankind’s domesticated life on Earth. From the dawn of history bread meant survival for the family, she explained. Men might or might not bring home the meat, but women kept on baking the reliable bread.

  This kind neighbor not only showed the exact proportion of ingredients, the correct wrist movements and the perfect length of time to rest the dough, but also talked about the meaning of leavening. Lena never forgot the magic of it. “In our family the leavening is a priced family treasure, and we guard it as carefully as is proper for a much valued possession. At every baking day we save a small mound of the dough and then use it as leavening in the new bread a week later. The bread we eat contains a part from the last dough we prepared. The leavening is fresh, yet ancient, as it is continuously passed down from generation to generation and so it brings the past to the present and becomes part of us,” Mrs. Kowalchick said as she worked the dough.

  “How is that possible?” Lena, then not quite sixteen, has just recently outgrown her fascination with fairy tales and mythology and was entering a phase that demanded logical clarity; she was no longer receptive to invented explanations and fantasy. Precariously balanced between childhood and adulthood she feared that any acceptance of an imaginary interpretation would pull her back into childhood, if not straight into the nursery.

  “Simple enough,” Mrs. Kowalchick continued. “We share the same space with that little mound of dough which we save for the next baking day. It absorbs the fungi and the microbes living around us through the very air we exhale. This air carries our breaths, our fragrances, our dreams, anxieties and joys, t
he chemicals of our tears, the atoms of sweat from our labors, our fears and from our love-making. The microscopic organisms in the resting dough use and convert this air in their simple life processes. In turn these microbes also produce gases, part of which will make the new bread rise, but of course we also inhale some of these gases. Thus as the hours between the baking days pass, there is an ongoing and mysterious, yet basically very simple exchange between the products of the living organisms in the dough and our bodies. Our life and history, our chemistry and our hopes intermingle and we pass it on, week after week in that handful of dough, which will be the leavening for the next loaves.”

  “Yeast could make the dough rise,” objected Lena.

  “Of course, but that little cake of yeast you buy in the store is alien to your life and to the uniqueness of your family. It has nothing to do with you, with your past or your future. Perhaps the bread baked with it is just as good, but it has no soul and no love.”