The Travellers

by Ann Swinfen

  Papa comes in the door of the bedroom. He is fully dressed, with a greatcoat and boots, and his winter cap with the fur lining and the earflaps.

  ‘Out of bed, István? Come, you’ll get cold.’ He folds back the feather bed invitingly and István climbs back into the cosy nest. Papa kisses him and then goes over to the cot and drops a kiss on the forehead of the sleeping Magdolna.

  ‘Are you going away?’ István whispers.

  ‘Just for a little. Hush now, and go to sleep.’

  But the moment his father is out of the room, István skips across to the window again. He expects to see his father emerge from the front door and then slip away to the left, skirting round the village to the fields, as he has done before when he has left in the night. But before the door opens a large black car glides round the corner from the village street and stops in front of the house. The snow muffles its arrival, so that it seems to appear silently and as if by magic. But the next moment a great wave of noise rises up and engulfs István. Four men jump out of the car, shouting. Two run round the back of the house, the other two start to pound on the door. All the dogs in the village begin to bark, and the donkey next door brays frantically. The light from the moon gleams on something in the men’s hands. Revolvers, thinks István, who is familiar with guns, and he is suddenly sick and afraid.

  The door opens and Papa steps out, quite calm and quiet, and speaks to the shouting men in a low voice. The men grab him and drag him away from the door. One of them strikes Papa on the side of the head and he falls to his knees in the snow. The other man pushes Papa over, kicks him, and then fumbles with his clothes. He waves Papa’s gun in his face. The other two men have come back round the house and now they run in the front door, and István can hear feet thundering up the stairs. The door of his room is thrown open and one of the men comes in. He shrinks against the window, but the man ignores him, pulling his bed apart, tearing the clothes out of the cupboard.

  Magdolna wakes up and begins to cry. The man turns and prods about in her cot. Grandmama is at the door now, in her dressing-gown and with her hair falling in a grey plait over her shoulder. Very quietly she says to the man: ‘There is nothing here but the children, as you can see. Must you frighten them so?’

  The man shrugs and does not speak, but he goes out. Grandmama looks across at István.

  ‘Go back to bed now. I’ll come back in a minute and see to the baby.’

  She closes the door.

  But István cannot move. Frozen in terror he looks out again at the scene below. The first two men are pushing Papa into the car. There is something dark running down his face, as he raises it briefly towards the window where István is watching. Then all of the men climb into the car, and it drives away.

  Gradually, the village dogs stop barking.

  * * *

  Sitting now in his car on the place where the black car parked that night, István found he was gripping the wheel until his knuckles showed white. His teeth were clenched together, and he was shivering, despite the heat of the day. He forced himself to relax.

  But the thought came to him, as it always did these days: If his father had not stopped to kiss his children goodbye, would he have had time to escape?

  ‘Uncle István,’ called András, coming across from the brook with his fishing rod over his shoulder, ‘why are you sitting there in your car? Mama’s in her studio, but we’ll call her in half an hour for lunch. I’m starving, aren’t you?’

  * * *

  The village inn at Szentmargit looked charming, Kate thought. It was painted a soft lime green, against which the wisteria, trained around the windows and over a trellis, made darker patterns of leaf and shadow. There were window-boxes overflowing with pink geraniums, and a scatter of tables in front under a walnut tree where some men were drinking beer – farmers, by the look of them, in faded dungarees and dusty work boots. The square was no more than flattened earth, but the village looked well kept and the men smiled and nodded affably as they climbed out of the car.

  ‘This certainly seems better than that grim institution in Györ,’ said Kate. ‘I kept expecting a female warder to come round with a bunch of clanking keys at her waist to lock us up if we didn’t conform.’

  Sofia looked about her in satisfaction. ‘The Blue Heron was always a decent clean place, but it seems much improved. It never used to be so pretty. I was a little doubtful when we telephoned for the rooms, but I think I need not have worried.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Look.’

  She pointed to a curious platform fixed to the roof of the inn, which was covered with what appeared to be a pile of sticks.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Kate, puzzled. Then she had her answer. A large heron came lazily flapping from the direction of the marshes they had passed a little way back to the east. A frog dangled from its mouth, and it landed with awkward grace on the platform, like a film in slow motion.

  ‘There are many herons and storks here in the Szigetköz, because of the marshes,’ said Sofia. ‘The herons have nested on the inn for years. For centuries, if you believe village tradition. As long as they remain, the superstition goes, the village will be safe.’

  Kate wondered whether this had proved true over recent years, and speculated about what they would discover in this place. Sofia was bright-eyed and excited, and for the last miles, since they had turned off the main road, had been pointing out landmarks like an eager child. It was good to see her so happy. Kate hoped, whatever they might find here, that she would not be hurt.

  As if Sofia could read her thoughts, she said, ‘It was right to come.’

  They walked towards the door of the inn.

  ‘I needed to confront the past in order to be at peace with the present, and with whatever future I have left. Good or bad, it will put my mind at rest to know. Not to be any longer in the cloud of ignorance.’

  The Blue Heron proved to be as pleasant inside as out. It was very old. The door lintels were low and the rooms a little bowed, but it was spotless. They each had a separate room. Kate insisted Sofia should have what was clearly the best room in the inn, on the first floor, whose wide wooden bed had elaborate carved head and foot boards. Her own room was one floor higher, a sloping attic room with beams she would need to dodge and a sagging brass bedstead piled with feather beds to compensate for the dip in the springs. The windows were smaller than Sofia’s large one overlooking the square, but there were two of them, one on to the square, where she could see the onion dome of the church rising beyond the walnut tree, and one at the far end of the long narrow room, which looked across village rooftops to a rose-red house beside the river. Beyond it she saw a cluster of islands riding on the sparkling waters of the Danube, and beyond the islands she could just make out the top of a large ship moving along the deeper water of the shipping lane.

  Her heart leapt up. It was a perfect room. A room to be alone in, but contented. The light flooded in from the south-facing window over the square, while the other end of the room, with its wider view, was cool and shadowed. The floor was of wide old oak boards, glowing with years of waxing. There was a small rag rug beside the bed, and another in front of the basin. The rugs had faded to a soft pink and green. The bedlinen, blindingly white where the sun fell across it, was hand-embroidered and inset with lace. An old carved cupboard was wedged in under the uneven ceiling. Kate ran her fingers over the carving, which depicted apples and pears twined about with leaves and blossom. The cupboard stood at the shadowy end of the room, but her exploring fingers found, down in the far corner of one door panel, a harvest mouse with cupped ears alert and tail coiled around a clump of wild flowers.

  I love this, Kate thought exultantly, I love it. In Budapest Hungary had already begun to weave a spell for her, but here, in this crooked room up under the eaves she knew that something important was happening her. She was filled with expectancy, like a child on the eve of a party. Dunmouth, her family, the troubled undertow to her life that had seemed always to be tugging at her ther
e, had all fallen away. The very air of this place was exhilarating. The heat which, in the city, had been almost too much for her, was lifted here by the breeze coming off the river and stirring the curtains as she stood looking out of the far window. She could see a boy with a fishing rod, and a man in a dark city suit, and a small woman who came out of a door and hugged the man. Then they disappeared from her view, hidden by the house. There was a soft tap at her door.

  ‘Kate?’ called Sofia. ‘Are you ready for lunch?’

  Kate ran across the room and opened the door.

  ‘Sorry to be so long, but isn’t this lovely? Oh, Sofia, what a wonderful place.’

  And she threw her arms around Sofia and hugged her.

  * * *

  The next morning they decided to visit Sofia’s old home. They had spent a quiet time the day before, partly resting – during the heat of the afternoon – and partly sitting at one of the tables outside the Blue Heron sipping wine and watching village life going on around them, while the village – covertly and politely – inspected them. They were the only guests at the inn. It served mainly as the village bar and café and only had occasional visitors – officials from the agriculture ministry or the waterway inspection board. Few outsiders came to Szentmargit, so Kate and Sofia were naturally an object of some curiosity.

  The square was the centre of village life. Women coming to the shops stopped and gossiped, children rode their bicycles round and round its perimeter, and at regular intervals – at lunchtime, in the evening – the men would gather there to drink and exchange views on the state of the crops and the weather.

  After breakfast Sofia checked that the manor would be on view that morning and was assured that it would be, every day, at least until the end of September.

  ‘After that,’ said Mihály, the innkeeper, speaking in German for Kate’s benefit, ‘no doubt they will decide.’

  ‘Decide what?’

  ‘Whether to continue to open. This is the first season, and not many people have come. We are away from the regular tourist routes here, you understand? Unless some of the tour companies put the manor house on their itineraries, the authorities may decide it isn’t worth spending the money to staff it and keep it repaired. It’s not like the Esterházy palace at Fertöd, where people will come because of the associations with Haydn.’

  ‘What will become of the house if they close it again?’ asked Sofia.

  Mihály shrugged. ‘Who knows? I do not think they would pull it down. But there isn’t much money in the country for old buildings. What there is will go to the famous ones, the ones in Budapest.’ There was a note of scorn in his voice, the scorn of the provincial for the pretensions of the capital. ‘But if they do not keep the manor sound, it will eventually fall down.’

  ‘That would be a pity,’ said Kate, looking up from her camera, in which she had been fitting a new film. ‘Surely visitors to the house would bring money and employment to the village?’

  ‘I would not mind more business at the Blue Heron.’ Mihály laughed as he put away the glasses he had been polishing. ‘But I wouldn’t like to see Szentmargit overrun with coaches and tourists.’

  Kate thought of the tourists who flocked to the châteaux of the Loire, and the surrounding souvenir kiosks, litter and noise. ‘Oh no!’ she agreed fervently. ‘That would spoil it altogether.’

  ‘You have come to see the house?’ asked Mihály politely. Clearly he was very curious about them.

  ‘Partly,’ said Kate, as Sofia did not answer. ‘Partly just to have a peaceful holiday.’

  Mihály seemed reassured.

  ‘Fresh trout for dinner tonight. My wife will cook it for you, Hungarian style.’

  ‘With paprika?’ asked Kate, teasing.

  ‘Of course!’

  They set off on the walk up the hill past the church to the gates of the manor. Sofia was quiet and Kate did not disturb her thoughts. She took a few photographs of the village from the rising road, and one of the lovely, neglected gates to the manor. Sofia made a slight sound of protest at their rusty state and Kate touched her arm.

  ‘Are you sure you want to see it? It may be very sad.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Sofia firmly. ‘But that does not mean that I have to be pleased about everything I see.’

  The house was painted the yellow-ochre Kate had learned was called ‘Esterházy yellow’ because of that family’s fondness for decorating their great houses in the colour. As they drew nearer they could see that the outer fabric of the building was crumbling.

  ‘I don’t believe it can have been painted since we left,’ said Sofia, looking at a peeling patch to the right of the front door.

  ‘You and your mother left in 1938, didn’t you? What about your father?’

  ‘I don’t know. We received two letters from him via an exiles’ network in London during 1939. At that time he was still living here. After that, nothing. We sent letters to him, of course, but I don’t believe he ever received them. The letters we did have from him gave no indication he had heard from us. He was still asking if we had arrived safely.’

  ‘But surely then, before the war, your letters should have reached him?’

  ‘It couldn’t be counted on. The Horthy regime was always oppressive and grew worse when the “Regent”, as he called himself, tried to appease Hitler. They would have regarded my father as a known subversive. I expect all letters to him were confiscated and scrutinised.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ said Kate. She felt a moment of chill, then shook herself.

  ‘Is this where we pay? It seems to be 100 forints.’

  She paid for both of them and they joined one Hungarian and three Austrians who were waiting for the next guided tour. The Hungarian, it appeared, was a schoolteacher from Györ who was planning to bring a school party to visit the house during the autumn term.

  ‘This was once a fine house,’ she explained to Sofia. ‘The family who lived here, the Niklais, were a very ancient family of this region. They distinguished themselves in the heroic siege of Szigetvár which halted the Turkish advance in 1564. The infidels won the battle, but they lost 25,000 men to our 2,500, and that was the start of their long decline. And in the rising of 1848 the Niklais led the demand in this area for independence from Austria. The very last count, Count Zsigmond Niklai, joined the resistance during the war. That was when the Nazis took over the building. And of course they stripped it of all its treasures.’

  Kate, sitting on a low bench and tying the compulsory grey felt slippers over her shoes, thought that Sofia had very quickly learned the answers to some of her questions about her father, but she seemed reluctant to talk to the teacher. Kate looked up.

  ‘What became of Count Zsigmond,’ she asked. ‘Did he die in the war?’

  The teacher glanced at her in surprise, as if she had just noticed her for the first time.

  ‘I’m afraid I have no idea, but perhaps the guide will tell us.’

  The guide was a cheerful, plump girl about Beccy’s age, probably a student doing a holiday job. She led them, shuffling in their clumsy slippers, from the imposing entrance hall to the even more imposing grand drawing room. She began to rattle off facts and figures – dates, the dimensions of the room, the number of rooms in the house.

  ‘We never counted them,’ Sofia muttered.

  The guide explained how all the furniture, tapestries, paintings, silver, china and other treasures had been looted by the Germans.

  ‘We have now just a few pieces. You will see a dining table and chairs of the appropriate period in the dining room.’

  ‘Couldn’t you demand them back?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The treasures that were looted by the Germans. Why don’t you demand them back?’

  The girl looked nervous. ‘It is very long ago, you understand. Fifty years. The Germans are the friends of Hungary now...’

  Ah, thought Kate, I see.

  ‘We are now entering the privat
e salon of the Countess,’ the girl gabbled on, hurrying them ahead, so that one of the Austrians stumbled over his awkward felt slippers.

  ‘Here we have put some photographs of the Niklai family. This is Count Ferenc Niklai in a photograph taken about 1900. Notice his formidable whiskers!’ The visitors laughed politely. ‘And here is the last family to live here, Count Zsigmond, his wife Eva Tabor, the famous violinist, and their little girl.’

  Kate craned forward to look at the family seated on a garden bench under a flowering tree of some sort. Sofia, aged about fourteen, sat between her parents with a puppy on her lap. Kate looked around and saw that Sofia had retreated to the window and was staring out at the garden. She had turned rather white. Perhaps it would have been better not to come. Or at least to have waited for a few days, until she had grown accustomed to being back here near her old home.

  To divert attention from the photographs of the Niklai family, Kate asked, ‘What are those huge, ornate cylinders in the corner of each room?’

  The Austrians and the schoolteacher looked amused, but the girl smiled patiently. She was used to the ignorance of the British and Americans.

  ‘These are the wood-burning stoves. There is one in every room, some made of cast iron – mostly the ones in the main rooms downstairs. Upstairs, in the bedrooms, they are a little smaller, and many are made of ceramic.’

  Kate laid her hand on the cool side of the great cream-coloured pillar, which rose above her head to a height of about ten feet. It was deeply moulded in a pattern of fruit and flowers similar to the carved cupboard in her bedroom at the inn, and in places it still bore traces of gilding where the pattern had once been picked out. At the top it narrowed to what she supposed was a disguised chimney, which disappeared through the ceiling.