Although this was immediately plain to her, it was some minutes before she could dismiss from her mind that woman in mauve whom she had mentally appointed, accommodated, filled Katica’s bed with and put to clean each room; that woman whom she already considered her own and who now had to surrender all those imaginary virtues with which she had been invested: now she had to strip this woman of her decorations and hand them on to the rightful claimant, a total stranger, this ungainly girl who stood before her obviously struck with stage-fright.
The disappointment and amazement slowly faded from her face and gave way to a pleasant sense of expectation. Once again she cast her eye over her. She didn’t even look like a peasant. She wasn’t as thick-set or ruddy-complexioned as Örzsi Varga had been, but rather lithe and somehow delicate, her face oval, her bone-structure fine and well proportioned. She wore a neat checked gingham frock under which her small childish breasts swelled out: there was something unselfconscious and toylike about them, like two little rubber balls. The girl had some inexplicable quality which attracted and repulsed her at the same time; in any case she found her fascinating.
Mrs Vizy removed her lorgnette. Even when she was no longer looking at her but simply allowed her presence to enter her consciousness, she felt that this was the girl she had sought all these years in vain. She was aware of an inner voice that had guided her at all the turning points of her life, that encouraged and commanded her to forestall argument and act, to take this girl now and hang on to her. A powerful desire to seize and possess swept through her: she extended her hand as if to take hold of her and never let her go.
‘You want her employment book, ma’am?’ asked Ficsor.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Vizy answered, controlling herself, as she skilfully turned her misunderstood gesture into something more prosaic. ‘Yes, let me see the book.’
She raised her brow.
‘Your name is Édes?’ she asked. ‘Édes as in “sweet”?’
‘That’s her name all right, Anna Édes.’
Mrs Vizy read the information half to herself, under her breath.
Anna Édes was born in the village of Balatőnfokajár, in the district of Enying, in the county of Veszprém in Hungary.
Personal description
Year of birth: 1900 (nineteen hundred)
Religion: RC
Height: average
Face: round
Eyes: blue
Eyebrows: blonde
Nose: normal
Mouth: normal
Hair: blonde
Teeth: healthy
Beard: none
Inoculation: yes
Distinguishing features: none
Signature: Anna Édes
‘Yes,’ she said, and gave a secret smile, perhaps because of the name or because she couldn’t picture Anna with a beard. She glanced at the book, then back at Anna, and checked through the curt details which hardly gave an accurate description of the girl. Her hair, for example, which was by no means thick and which was pulled back from her rounded brow and smoothed back over her head, was not blonde but somewhere between chestnut and blonde, almost auburn. Her nose was not merely ‘normal’ but of a decidedly interesting shape with wide nostrils: there was something piquant about it. She was slightly taller than average, but frailly built, a shade underdeveloped, even a touch boyish. Her lips were pale and chapped. Her hands were as rough as you might expect in a servant, her nails short and square.
‘How old are you?’ asked Mrs Vizy.
‘Nineteen, ma’am,’ Ficsor answered for her. ‘Isn’t that right, Anna?’
‘Can’t you speak for yourself, girl?’ Mrs Vizy turned to Anna.
‘She’s bashful. Very bashful.’
Mrs Vizy had not yet seen Anna’s eyes. ‘Why doesn’t she look at me?’ she asked.
‘She’s frightened.’
‘Of whom? Of me? There’s really no need to be frightened of me.’
The girl briefly raised her long lashes but closed them quickly before Mrs Vizy could really see her eyes.
Mrs Vizy studied the spiky spidery letters of the signature the girl had taken such care over at the desk in the police station, and noted the comments of previous employers. There were only two of these to date: the first, in 1916 (the year of her arrival in Budapest), Wild the warehouse manager, then Bartos the revenue inspector. She had spent close on a year and a half with each.
‘What was her post?’
‘Children’s nurse’
‘You mean nursery maid,’ she corrected him.
The references seemed quite satisfactory. She was considered ‘a faithful employee’, her moral conduct was ‘unexceptionable’ and it was duly noted that in both cases she was ‘healthy at the time of leaving service’. Mrs Wild conscientiously warned other potential employers that her work was ‘not always of the top quality’ and that she had ‘not yet developed all the necessary skills’.
‘Not yet developed all the necessary skills,’ quoted Mrs Vizy. ‘Natural I suppose . . .’
‘She’ll quickly pick things up,’ Ficsor assured her.
‘Of course, it’s not the main thing. The important thing is that she should work at them.’
‘If it comes to that, she is most industrious.’
‘Can she cook?’
‘A little,’ added Ficsor modestly on the girl’s behalf.
‘A little? I would have preferred if you had said not at all. I know the situation. They all say this when they apply for the job, but once they stand before the cooker it turns out they have no idea. Do you remember Margit Mennyei, Ficsor? She said she could cook. So did Lidi.’
Ficsor remembered them both and nodded sagely.
‘Never mind, I’ll train her. But can she keep things in order? Can she wash? Can she scrub the floor?’
‘Certainly.’ The caretaker waved his hand in guarantee.
‘According to this then,’ she quickly ran through the list, ‘she can do everything that is required round the house: she’ll do the shopping, bring in the coal, darn stockings in her spare time, mend clothes, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘She’s not the choosy kind, are you Anna?’
‘That’s as it should be. Once you’re here you’ll have to work. It’s not a female companion I want but a maid. The place should be spick and span.’
Anna did not look at her all this time but stared at the floor. The voice remained disembodied, official. Confusedly she shifted from foot to foot. From the moment she had entered the room she felt sick: indeed she felt so unwell she feared she might faint. There was a vaguely foul smell about the place she didn’t recognize, something like the interior of a chemist’s shop, a sharp cold smell which invaded her senses and disturbed her stomach. Mrs Vizy kept a piece of camphor in the piano to protect the felts. Anna didn’t know where this medicinal odour emanated from, she only knew she couldn’t bear it and that she wanted to rush out immediately. Had she paid any attention to this natural instinct she would already have been halfway down the stairs and running through the streets; nor would she have stopped till she was back in the fields of her native village. However her uncle stood beside her and she dared not move a muscle.
If she did raise her eyes at all it was no more than enough to allow her to see Mrs Vizy’s shoes and stockings and, beside her on the wall, the ebony case of the pendulum clock whose even ticking divided the silence and lent the dining room an air of stiff aristocratic authority. She even managed to peek into the living room. The mirror there was a smear of colours reflected from paintings. A long low divan covered with a piece of scarlet Torontal carpet extended below it, blazing in the afternoon sunshine. She had seen nothing like it at the Bartoses’ or the Wilds’. She stared at it dizzy and bewildered. Her eyes kept returning to it. The whole flat seemed to be an enchanted castle.
‘The question is,’ Mrs Vizy declared, ‘would she like to work here? Well? Would you?’
The girl kept silent. Barely perceptibly she shrugged her shoulders
. It was a vague, sad gesture.
Mrs Vizy’s visage darkened. She knew too well the insubordination in that dumb movement, and in that instant she sensed the ruin of all her hopes and efforts. She decided that this was the time for firmness, that she must bring this business to a head.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I am not used to being answered like this. If you don’t want the job, girl, here are your references.’ She made a point of dropping the employment book on the table so it made a noise. ‘You may go.’
‘Anna meant no harm,’ Ficsor hastened to the rescue. ‘You do want the job, don’t you Anna?’
‘Does she or doesn’t she?’
They both waited for an answer. Silence.
‘Yes.’ Anna’s answer was barely audible. Her voice trembled. She had simply meant she didn’t mind. Wherever she went she had to work.
‘That’s different. Speak clearly and comprehensibly as is the habit in any decent house. If you behave well you will find this a good situation.’
‘It’ll be a good situation,’ Ficsor hurried to reinforce the honourable lady. Their combined power would win the day.
‘There are only the two of us, I and my husband. There are no children.’ Mrs Vizy cast an unwitting glance at the photograph on the wall and went through the usual idiotic motion of smoothing back her golden hair as if her bun were inordinately heavy and the skull beneath it cracking under the strain. ‘Furthermore I am more relaxed about certain things. You won’t have to pay for bread – you can eat as much as you like. I understand that in your last job you breakfasted on brown soup. Here you will get coffee every morning. Hot coffee. On Sunday there is pastry, twice a week there’s meat. If your work is satisfactory we may be able to run to a pair of shoes now and then. Or a dress.’
‘Imagine, Anna. A dress!’ The caretaker smiled encouragingly at her.
‘And perhaps in due course,’ and this was always the joker in Mrs Vizy’s pack, ‘I may have you taught to sew.’
‘Do you hear that, Anna? Taught to sew. The honourable lady will get someone to teach you sewing. But you must work hard. You’ll be mixing with the gentry. That’s the sort of household it is. You won’t find another like it,’ he continued, and looked around for something that would make a deep impression on her, ‘not in the whole Krisztina district.’
‘When can she start?’
‘Immediately,’ replied Ficsor.
This took Mrs Vizy back a little. She had expected her to start the next day.
I’ve sorted it all out with them,’ he boasted. ‘If once I promise something, your ladyship . . .’
‘Where are her belongings?’
‘Downstairs, with us.’
‘Bring them up,’ she instructed him.
She waited till the caretaker had gone and then she stepped over to the maid. She stood so close their faces were practically touching. Frightened, Anna raised her big tired eyes. Her eyes were blue without any sparkle, a milky blue verging on violet, like the waters of the Balaton at a humid summer dawn.
It was the first time they had met Mrs Vizy’s. A tall pale icy woman was staring at her who for some reason reminded her of a strange bird with a mess of bright decorative feathers. She backed away towards the door.
Anxious to calm the girl after that earlier moment of sharpness, and also because she wanted to hear her voice – the only word the girl had spoken till now was yes – she asked her in a conciliatory manner what her father had been.
‘A servant.’
‘What kind of servant?’
‘A hired-man. At the squire’s.’
‘A day labourer. Does he have anything? A house? Some land? Some pigs?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No doubt he gets wheat? Ah, you’re better off than we are. And your mother?’
‘Mama . . .’ she began. The word caught in her throat.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘She died. I have a stepmother,’ she replied in a strangled voice.
‘Brothers or sisters?’
‘An older brother.’
‘Is he a farm labourer too?’
‘He has just returned home.’
‘Demobbed?’
‘No. The French held him prisoner.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘You’re doing it again. You are not to answer like this. You must give a straight yes or no. Never mind, you’ll learn.’
There would be time for instruction later. She returned to the matter in hand. In a softer, more confidential woman-to-woman tone she asked her: ‘Do you have a lover?’
Anna shook her head. She didn’t blush but a slight red shadow ran across her sweetly rounded forehead.
‘Truth now. Don’t deny it if you have one since I am bound to find out eventually. This is a respectable house. You may not bring anyone here, by day or by night. In any case I look after the keys. You have no acquaintances?’
‘No.’
‘You must know somebody.’
‘I know the Ficsors . . .’ she hesitated. ‘And her ladyship, Mrs Wild.’ She hesitated again. ‘And Mrs Cifka, Mr Bartos’s sister-in-law.’
‘His sister-in-law? That tall powerful-looking woman who lives with them?’
‘That’s her.’
‘And no one else?’
‘No one.’
‘It’s better that way. Acquaintances only ruin you. Naturally if some relative should wish to visit you – your father or your brother for example – then you may ask permission to meet them. In any case you have every second Sunday off, from three to seven o’clock. But you must be home by seven.’
Ficsor appeared with a small package of belongings tied up in a chequered headscarf. Mrs Vizy, as the lady of the house, exercised her privilege of undoing it. Examining the contents was her habitual way of determining whether the new maid was a thief or not.
She found few enough things there. A few ragged cotton handkerchiefs without any monogram – therefore presumably not stolen – one blue calico dress, badly worn, a couple of headscarves, a pair of man’s shoes discarded by the squire and possibly received as a present, one cheap hand-mirror with a trademark and a steel comb in whose teeth there remained a few tangled strands of hair. There remained a dented yellow tin trumpet with a scarlet tassell attached to it, a child’s plaything. She picked it up and stared at it. She couldn’t imagine what possible use a servant would have for it.
At this point Katica entered to clear the table, her head raised haughtily with a smile of superiority, like a princess who had suffered some slight. Mrs Vizy forbade her to touch it, but sent her out and followed immediately after.
Ficsor used her absence to interrogate his niece.
‘Well?’
Anna didn’t answer.
‘It’s a good place,’ said the caretaker. ‘First class. Rich people. The house belongs to them, the whole house. He is a councillor. They’re gentry.’
That was all there was to the conversation. Their common bond of poverty had little charm since even ties of blood mean nothing without pleasant communal memories: people might lodge together, but if they worked from dawn till night they led their own impenetrable lives till great chasms opened between them.
Mrs Vizy wanted to smuggle Katica out of the house the way a hospital does its dead cholerics. The healthy must not be infected. She pushed her wages at her and told her to pack her belongings at once, and while she packed Mrs Vizy watched her like a hawk to check she did not steal anything.
While Katica’s pack was no bigger than Anna’s she stood more on her dignity. Before leaving she made a grand gesture of returning a jumper that she had received as a present. She too feared infection – by anything that reminded her of the house where she had been so humiliated. Mrs Vizy took the jumper and slammed the door behind her. When she came back she addressed Anna in an entirely new tone, the one she was to use from now on.
‘Come along, Anna. I will show you around the flat.’
They moved from room to room.
‘This is the study. The books need wiping daily, but nothing on the desk must be moved. My husband is particular with his things. You understand? Here’s another thing you must be careful with.’
A stuffed owl stared at the girl with its yellow glass eyes. Anna followed two paces behind Mrs Vizy and Ficsor, trailing her pack.
‘The dining room you have seen already. This is the laundry basket. That cupboard will naturally be moved from there.’
The living room followed. ‘This could do with a good clean too. We’ll have to clear it first. We ought to pull the piano forward. There’ll certainly be no shortage of work.’
The divan was covered with a red rug. Anna stood beside it, deathly pale from the overwhelming smell of camphor which clung to her. Ficsor and Mrs Vizy were already in the bedroom. She could faintly hear the latter’s voice urging her on.
‘Why doesn’t she come through? What a strange girl,’ Mrs Vizy said to Ficsor. ‘We’ll have a hard time with her at first.’
From the bedroom a door covered in wallpaper with pale climbing roses led into the dark dampness of the bathroom where water ran copiously from the broken taps.
‘Turn off the light,’ she ordered Anna. ‘Come along, my girl. Look sharp. Whenever you leave a room turn the light off. Waste not, want not, life is expensive enough as it is. And shut the door behind you. It’s not much effort. There’s a draught.’
They reached the kitchen. It had already taken on an empty, uninhabited look, as if Katica had never lived there.
‘This is your . . .’ Mrs Vizy began, but left the sentence in mid-air. ‘It’s not big, but it has done for everyone else so far. No, not there,’ she cried when Anna was about to put her baggage down on the table. ‘I don’t want your fleas in my flat. Is your head clean? You’ll take a bath tomorrow.’
She showed her the pantry. ‘This remains locked. Every morning I shall give you flour, lard and sugar. I don’t want anything to go missing,’ she warned her.
Anna Edes Page 6
