by Magda Szabo
The face of the man in black seemed to soften. The idea of a childish prank was easier to accept than the story the new girl had told him—that such a godless custom had survived in his institution since the days of the First World War. He told Mari Kis that for her part in this tasteless jest—one that might have damaged the reputation of the school—she too would be gated for a fortnight, and since Murai and Szabó had been so eager to help her perpetrate this brainless scheme, perhaps they could show the same loyalty in sharing her punishment. Furthermore, it might be a good idea for Mari Kis to consider her general behavior. There were plenty of candidates to take her free place. One more of these clever schemes and she could say goodbye to her bursary. The class watched in grim silence as his black shape disappeared through the door.
Kalmár gestured to Gina to return to her seat. Her heart was beating wildly as she took her place between Torma and Mari Kis. She wanted to say something to them immediately, but there was no chance. Kalmár had begun to hand out textbooks, exercise books and writing materials, and while they were being given them and were busy arranging them on the desks no talking was allowed. Her moment came only after the lesson, when they arrived back at the day room. First, she whispered to Mari Kis not to be angry with her. Mari replied that she wasn’t angry, and said no more. She then asked Murai and Szabó to forgive her, and they too assured her that they bore her no grudge. She was filled with gratitude: what thoroughly decent girls these were!
It took her a while to work out what this “not bearing a grudge” really meant: “I don’t know who you are. You are not one of us, you simply don’t count. For us you no longer exist. You are nobody.”
At home, she had been at the center of her father’s life, and to a certain extent of Auntie Mimó’s; in her old class she had been, if not the very best student, highly praised and respected, someone who both counted and was liked. Now, in this squat ugly world of the fortress, she found herself alone. There was no one now to put her right or come to her aid, and she belonged to no one. From that point on the behavior of the class towards her would have revealed nothing to an outsider. At lunch they would politely pass the salt or the basket of bread when they noticed her indicating by her glance that she wanted them, but the moment there was no one else around it was as if a glass jar had been set down over her, one that seemed to cut her off even from the air. For a while she continued to make efforts in the hope that they might soften towards her; then she fell completely silent. She kept her nose in her books, telling herself that they would eventually come to see reason—the situation was so absurd it simply couldn’t continue for very long; she had been in this position before, sometimes with more than one person; it went on for a bit, but it had never lasted. They would sulk for a while and do their best to avoid her, then there would be an explosion of laughter and all would be well again.
But as the hours dragged by she began to panic. This was something she had not reckoned with: the terrifying self-discipline of the Matula. These girls were not like any other. They had been brought up in their own special world and trained to keep their silence. She remembered what Mari Kis had said: “The Matula is one of the best schools in the whole country,” and the idea that she would have to live among these people, in such inconceivable isolation, brought tears of helpless despair to her eyes.
At five in the afternoon they lined up for the usual walk. Susanna now knew of the ban the four of them were under and stood shaking her head gravely throughout the long talk she had with Mari Kis. Mari listened with head bowed and trembling lips, but made no attempt to defend herself. Then the rest of the class set off, once again in their appalling hats and with the tulip-embroidered bags on their shoulders, like an elongated swarm of identical blue insects. Mari Kis, Szabó, Murai and Gina stayed behind, in the garden. The other three were chatting and laughing, and at first Gina traipsed along behind. Finally she tried to join them. They made no attempt to send her away: they simply ended their conversation, drew a circle on the wide path and began a game Gina did not know, though she picked it up quickly enough. They did not invite her to join in. She stood and watched for a while, but they remained completely absorbed in their game, and soon she wandered off on her own into the garden.
Apart from the sister on duty sitting by her window and casting an occasional supervisory glance in their direction, the fortress seemed almost unbelievably dead. Gina wandered about, pausing every now and then to touch a flower and trying to persuade herself that what was happening was not so very painful. Every so often she peered through one of the open windows on the ground floor corridor, which the day before (day? ten years? a hundred?) Torma had told her were always shut because behind them lay the section where the unmarried male teachers and the director lived, unlike the female teachers, who lodged alongside the deaconesses next to the dormitories. She squeezed her head through the bars and peered around, but saw no one. What might the teachers be doing at this time of day? Those who weren’t on duty had obviously gone into town, where everything was: cinemas, theatres, people they knew. They were under no obligation to spend all their time in the fortress. As she turned away from the grille she found herself facing Abigail. Everything that welled up inside her at that moment predisposed her against the smiling statue. She could hardly bear the sight of the miracle-working maiden with the pitcher in her hands. The tradition of Mitsi Horn! Would that this Mitsi Horn had never existed!
She heard sounds of movement outside the school gate. Those lucky enough to go into town were obviously back, and she went to meet them. Mari Kis and Szabó had snubbed her, and so had Murai, but perhaps the others’ anger might have run its course? Perhaps one of them would take pity on her, would see her standing there hoping to be spoken to at last and forgiven? But even Torma’s glance passed over her. Susanna was the only one: she adjusted the bow at the end of Gina’s plaits and asked her how she had spent the afternoon. “Very well,” she replied, with bitterness surging through every drop of blood in her veins.
During supper she tried hard to follow the reading. It was written in old-fashioned language and concerned the spiritual growth of a noble-minded orphan who had lived in Geneva in 1827. But she found it impossible. Instead she gazed in silence at the faces of her classmates and reflected that if she had accepted the husband she had been offered she would at least have an aquarium to think about and would not now be feeling so unimaginably alone.
After they had gone to bed Gina listened carefully to try and hear what the others were whispering in the darkness. They were talking about the director, and Kalmár—whether he would be getting married soon—and how they had discovered some new information about the prefect: Susanna looked so very young on the outside, but she was already over thirty. There was talk of the new textbooks, and of an outing that had been held every autumn to date but might not happen this year. While they were walking back Susanna had rather surprisingly said that they shouldn’t hope too much because, with the war going on and all the bombing, the Bishop hadn’t yet decided to approve it; but how wonderful it would be if they did manage to visit the vineyard, because things were so much more relaxed there. They chatted about everything except the class inventory and of course Gina. Gina had never lived. She did not exist. They had never set eyes on such a person. It proved a difficult night. It weighed on her as heavily as the punishment itself.
The next morning was no easier. The first lesson was taken by the class tutor, and officially a history lesson, but several other matters arose. Mari Kis asked if she could sit nearer the front: she thought her eyesight must be deteriorating; then Torma stood up and asked if she too could move—she seemed to have developed long-sightedness over the holidays and she thought she would be able to see the blackboard better from the back. Kalmár made an entry for Susanna in the day’s notes suggesting that the two girls be sent for an eye test, and sat them for the time being in new places, one nearer the front and one further back. He doesn’t seem to realize, thought Gina, red
-faced with humiliation, that they just don’t want to sit next to me. Why can’t he see that?
The second period, with Miss Gigus, was less eventful. It passed more easily for Gina because the teacher spent most of the time talking to her, trying to establish how well she knew German. That presented no problem: Marcelle was from Alsace and spoke German as fluently as she did French. The rest of the class turned a deaf ear to their conversation, but Gina made a special effort to speak not just accurately but choosing her words with great care. She impressed no one: her classmates stared at the blackboard without interest. Miss Gigus congratulated Gina and called on Szabó to follow. Gina quickly saw that she was making a real mess of it, pronouncing words with a thick Hungarian accent and constantly placing the wrong inflection on her nouns. At the Sokoray Atala Gina had always been happy to help the weaker girls practice their languages, and she wondered if she should offer to do the same for Szabó. But she dared not suggest it: she had had all the rebuffs she could cope with. She would raise the subject later, when the others had cooled down.
Of that happening there was no sign at present. The fifth year, she suddenly realized, were now playing a game that did not originate with Mitsi Horn. They were amusing themselves by seeing how long they could carry on treating one of their number as an outcast without anyone noticing. This was hardest to keep up during gymnastics, when some of the exercises had to be done in pairs. Gina’s partner Bánki started to limp, pretending to the gymnastics teacher that she had hurt her foot, to avoid having to work with her; and when that excuse no longer worked, she simply let go of Gina’s hand and allowed her to fall off her back. Had Gina not been so agile she might have been seriously hurt, so severe would the impact have been when she landed.
The days passed, and her efforts were getting nowhere. By now she had got to know all her teachers, and, contrary to expectation, she found she liked them all: all, that is, apart from Kőnig. She was working very hard, harder than she ever had before, hoping to hear some kind words, if only from the staff. She had never in her life enjoyed a teacher’s praise as much as she did that term. Quite why she had taken against Kőnig she could no longer say: she must have been influenced by having heard, and by continuing to hear, what Torma and Mari Kis said about him. The Matula was used to the iron fist, but Kőnig was gentle. He marked generously. If someone burst into tears during the lesson after giving a poor answer he would always be happy to postpone the questioning until the following day. The girls were forever complaining about being kept on a tight leash, but as soon as someone applied a lighter touch and allowed them a looser rein they showed how deeply the system was ingrained in them by despising his kindness as weakness. They even played practical jokes on him. One day they hid his glasses and then pretended to be searching frantically for them. While he stood at the desk complimenting them on how kind and attentive and considerate they were, they were passing the huge spectacles from one to another beneath the benches and almost exploding with mirth. But the glasses never reached Gina. They’re afraid I’d give them back to him, she thought bitterly.
The school year had begun on a Monday and nothing had changed for her by the Saturday, when the post was given out. The days leading up to it had passed a little more easily, because she knew that on that afternoon she would hear her father’s voice: as soon as Budapest made contact she would have a chance to pour out her grievances. Her father would then give her some wise counsel and tell her what to do to put things right with the class: he always managed to find a solution—it was inconceivable that he would not be able to do so now. He would obviously be deeply upset when he learned that she felt so very alone in the school, but she could hardly conceal the fact from him because who knew how long it might go on for? And that would be something she simply could not bear.
On the Saturday, when the others were back from their afternoon walk, they all gathered in the day room. Susanna handed out sheets of writing paper to everyone except Gina. She was sent to the music room to learn the psalms, so that she need not be idle while she waited for her father to telephone.
When, as an adult, she thought back to the hymns and psalms of her youth, she never remembered them in isolation; particular sounds and scents drifted around them, and with them too the smell of the home-made soap that filled the corridors of the Matula, the soundless opening and closing of doors, the timid, hesitant movement of her fingers on the piano keyboard, and even her face as it had looked at the time. But just then she was busy pretending to study the texts she had been set to memorize. Her mind was elsewhere; it was as if her body and her whole being had been reduced to an ear listening out for the stabbing ring of the inter-city telephone. She had to wait a long time. The bell had already begun to summon the staff to lay the tables for supper by the time Susanna came in and told her to be quick because her father was on the line. She banged down the keyboard cover and ran. Her heart leaped when she realized that the Deaconess was taking her towards the teaching rooms and the school office. Her father had obviously rung the director’s number, so the conversation would at least take place away from the other girls. As they reached the door to the office the prefect called her back. She stopped, barely able to conceal her reluctance to obey. Could they not leave her in peace even at a moment like that? After a full week in this appalling Matula, a week in which she had spoken to no one in a normal way, she had to be given a lecture while her father waited at the other end of the line.
“Georgina,” said the Deaconess, “your fellow pupils must have told you that we do not forward letters that mention complaints.”
Gina stared at her dumbly, not grasping what she was getting at. She had spoken so little to Mari Kis and Torma that she had been told nothing about this.
“Our parents are far away, and they have quite enough problems of their own. If we trouble them with our day-to-day disappointments we shall only make them worried and anxious. Things always happen in a school that might upset a pupil for an hour or two, but experience shows that by the time the letter reaches home the particular difficulty has usually passed and the family have been needlessly upset. Do you understand what I am saying?”
No, no, no!
“You are allowed to discuss only positive things,” the prefect continued. “Only things that will reassure them. Anything bad, anything seriously bad, we will tell them about ourselves, officially, once a term. There are always difficulties at the start of the year in a new school, but apart from those you clearly have no cause for complaint. And even if you did have, you are not allowed to mention it on the telephone, just as the others in your class may not mention them in their letters. Your father the General is battling with the problems of the whole country and he should hear only cheerful, positive things from you.”
Gina felt that what was happening to her was beyond anything she could have imagined, beyond anything that she could possibly bear. Sometimes a nightmare can be so cruel, so murderous, so horrifying and hope-destroying that it leaves you whimpering and moaning for someone to come and wake you. Susanna pushed the door open and Gina followed her in helplessly. She was not surprised to find that the room was not empty. There next to the telephone hovered the black presence of Gedeon Torma. The moment he saw her he said into the receiver: “I’m passing her on to you now.”
To take the telephone she had had to go right up to him, and there she stood, between the director and Susanna, both of them watching the expression on her face. Her fingers felt so cold she could barely hold the instrument. Her father’s voice came to her from across a vast distance, as if it were addressing her from the end of the world.
“Hello,” it said. “How are you, my darling?”
“Very well,” she replied.
“So it’s not so terrible then?”
“No.”
“What are the other girls like? Have you made any friends yet?”
She stood staring into the telephone, without answering.
“Hello,” said the faraway voice.
“Are you there? I can scarcely hear you. I asked you what the other girls are like.”
“Very nice,” she replied. She was almost choking.
“Mr. Torma tells me you are in good health, and that they are very pleased with your work. He read out your marks to me, and they were all outstanding.”
“I’m working very hard,” she replied.
“Hello, Szeged,” a woman’s voice butted in. “Are you still on the line?”
“One more minute,” the General said. “Look after yourself, my little one. I have asked Auntie Róza to bake you some pastries. You’ll get them next week. Won’t that be nice?”
“Father!” She was now shouting. At the sound the director’s head went up, as if she had banged a fist on the table. “Father, I beg you, please come and see me! Come!”
