by Magda Szabo
Gina suppressed a smile as she listened to the adults discussing this mysterious relapse; only she knew that Torma had bolted down Mr. Hajda’s cream cake on an empty stomach. But it all felt very distant from her now, as did the fortress in which she was still compelled to “live, move and have her being.” These grown-ups seemed to her no more than shadows. Susanna made no reference to their conversation of the night before, or to what had happened earlier at Torma’s bed, and Gina gave no thought to them either, so insignificant did they seem beside her current problems.
It was only after prayers, when the nurse went up to the director to tell him something and the man in black turned towards her with a look of astonishment, that she started to wonder again what sort of punishment lay in store for her. She now realized that Susanna had chosen to keep what had happened a secret, or at the very least wait to tell him at some other time, or even to present it in a rather different light. But the Nursing Sister had been mortally offended, and her sense of justice called for instant retribution, so the day would almost certainly begin with some sort of punishment. When she was told after prayers that she was to miss the first lesson and go unaccompanied to the director’s office instead, she was almost glad. Anything was better now than being left alone to her thoughts, to the task of sorting through the mass of fragmented memories and trying to make sense of things she had never before considered problematical or felt a need to resolve.
She had no opportunity to take her leave of her classmates, or even to explain what had happened to her this time, and they followed her with looks of alarm as she set off for the office. She gathered that Gedeon Torma intended to summon Kalmár between 8 and 9 a.m., when he was free, and that he would be there when they decided what the punishment would be. It mattered little to Gina. Indeed, the thought was almost welcome, a concrete detail in the miasma of horrors swirling about in her mind.
As she waited to be called in she gazed at the director’s door with an affection she had never felt before. Kerekes’s mania for the correct shape of her number fours, Hajdú’s fanatical insistence that they pace their canticles precisely, the order and regularity observed by one and all, the rules that were never to be transgressed, in short the whole daily life of the fortress, now appeared to her benign and comforting. This world of black and white, with all its severity, was a universe away from that outer world of deceit and betrayal, of base conduct, danger and death. At that moment she was merely Georgina Vitay in year five, awaiting her well-deserved punishment. She had hidden banned objects in the building in defiance of the school rules; she was a thoroughly disobedient little girl, who would be dealt with severely. When she behaved well they praised her, when she was naughty she was punished, and she could forget about Gini, that spoiled niece of Auntie Mimó, that silly, arrogant little girl who had imagined that she was an adult because she had mixed with adults, and the moment the Internal Security department of the Ministry of Defense sent a personable young lieutenant to woo and flatter her, in order to tighten the net around her father and force him to reveal the names of those who fought with him on an invisible battlefront in his attempt to end a murderous war and save the lives of soldiers and prevent the total destruction of the country, that same Gini had believed that he genuinely admired her English-style tresses and was sincere in his pursuit of her, had instantly fallen in love with him and yearned for nothing more than to become his fiancée. Her father had realized that he was under surveillance, had feared for her life and sent her to Árkod for her own safety, and she had put everything at risk by her foolish attempts to escape. Her behavior had been incredible. The luckless Bánki had betrayed her secret, and had Abigail not stepped in to save her she would have been captured by Feri Kuncz the night before.
When they finally called her in, the first thing she saw was the towel lying on the table spread with the evidence of her guilt. The director had spaced out the different items so that Kalmár could see them. The class tutor was standing at the window, looking solemn and aggrieved, but not because of the trinkets. What upset him now was that once again Vitay, his favorite, would have to be punished. As she entered the room he shook his head reproachfully and lowered his eyes in the approved manner.
The director picked up the silver-handled comb, threw it down in disgust and launched into one of his sermons. It began with a brief account of the character of his niece, a girl difficult to control because of her weak nature. What made him especially angry with Georgina Vitay was that she had exposed this impressionable child, with all her love of vanities, to worldly temptation, and for that he intended to hand out a more severe punishment than he otherwise would have. He had reached this point in his Ciceronian peroration when the telephone rang. Kalmár went to pick it up, but the director stopped him with a shake of the head: he did not like being interrupted in full flight. But the instrument refused to stay silent. It rang again and again. He kept trying to press on with his suitably eloquent description of what the future might hold for someone as devious, untruthful, hypocritical, prone to hiding meretricious baubles and ungovernable as she . . . until he finally gestured to Kalmár to pick it up and silence it that way. Kalmár held his ear to the receiver for a few seconds, said, “Yes, of course, straight away,” and handed it to the director.
“I’m busy,” he snapped. “Tell them to ring some other time. I’ve already told you that.”
“It’s Kázmér Szenttamássy,” Kalmár whispered. “He wants to speak to you personally.”
The director, muttering something about there being no question of installing a first-aid center in the school as the Pál Kokas secondary was not a religious institution and it would be much better to put it there, reluctantly took the receiver. Gina gazed at her possessions spread out on the table. She was thinking that, centuries before, when the students in the school were all seminarists, there was an underground cellar where they shut miscreants up as a punishment. It was still there, but no longer used as a prison; they grew mushrooms in it that were sometimes used in preparing meals. They could do worse than lock me in there for my crimes, she mused. No one would find me down there. I’m sure I would be frightened, but the girls would work something out and Abigail would think of a way to visit me. At least I would be safe from Feri.
How strange to find yourself thinking of a cellar as somewhere you would actually want to be!
The director was now speaking in monosyllables. Gina could not make out what the two men were talking about except that they were agreeing about something. It didn’t seem very interesting; she had other concerns and worries than who might be on the line to Gedeon Torma. When he finished, he pushed her hapless treasures under her nose one after the other, and demanded to know the story behind each—where, when and how it had been smuggled into the school, whether she had brought it when she first arrived or had it from her father afterwards, and where she had hidden it all this time. She told him about the flower boxes but not the wooden dress model in the art storeroom, so that Torma could continue to keep her nightdress in there. He asked repeatedly about the role of his depraved niece in all this, and it was now abundantly clear that that was what was driving him. Kalmár watched gloomily and asked no questions.
The director was ranting on about the squirrel with the marcasite eyes when the telephone rang again. Again Kalmár took the call. It was from the porter. The director growled, “Yes, yes, let him in,” and sent Gina out of the room. He told her that he would have to suspend the interview as he had to receive a visitor. She should wait outside in the corridor and not go back to the classroom; he would call her back when he had finished his meeting.
Off she went. Kalmár stayed in the room. Once outside, she leaned back against the wall and gazed at the rows of faces under the school crest in the framed photographs. Everything that had been boring, childish and indeed hateful the day before now seemed wonderful, reassuring and comforting. She wondered who it was that the director had given up his time to see: it must be someone very
important. That was a disturbing thought. If it were a member of the school’s governing body, the first question he would ask when he reached the top of the stairs would be, who is this girl standing in the corridor and why is she not in her lesson? She moved further away from the office. There was a swing door closing off the section of corridor that led to the storerooms. She stationed herself behind it and opened its two wings a crack so that she could watch what went on outside. From there she would hear if anyone called her and would be able to get back quickly, but the visitor would not be able to see her, and she would not have to stand before him in disgrace.
The person arrived at the second floor. When she saw who it was she was so horrified the doorknob nearly slipped from her hand. This time Lieutenant Kuncz was in uniform. He stopped to adjust his belt, then knocked on the office door. He glanced to neither right nor left.
Had she not had Abigail’s message she would have run to him, clung to his arm, and nothing would have dragged her away from him. Given the chance, she would have gone with him anywhere, in complete trust. She drew herself back, waited until he had disappeared inside, then went and stood at the door and pressed her ear to the keyhole. Her heart was beating wildly. She could hear every word as clearly as if she were in the room herself.
They must have got beyond the initial introductions because the director was speaking.
“Yes, Commander Szenttamássy did tell me that he was sending you here, Lieutenant. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Matula Academy is a listed historic building exempt from all forms of requisition, whether for housing personnel in the short term or for any other purpose, and I must regretfully inform you that although I am aware that in the interests of national defense I am obliged to give the security forces every assistance, our institution is specifically exempt from billeting under an order signed by the Minister himself.”
“You have nothing to fear, sir,” the voice replied—the same voice that the night before had been whispering, “Gini, little Gini, can you hear me?”—“This is about a different matter. My orders refer to one of your pupils, Georgina Vitay. I have come to take her to her father, who is seriously ill.”
My God, she thought. His smiles, his very breath, are nothing but lies. What will become of me if the director believes him? She was terrified. That Gedeon Torma, a man in whose eyes the lowest form of human depravity was represented by a hidden stick of rouge, would understand the kind of game he was being drawn into, seemed completely improbable. Why should he imagine for one moment that the lieutenant, a military officer who had come bearing an official directive, should not be telling the truth? In his little universe it was only pupils who told lies.
“I am sorry to hear that,” she heard Kalmár say. “What exactly is wrong with the General?”
“He has had an accident,” replied Feri Kuncz. “A car accident. His situation is serious. You might say critical.”
For once he speaks the truth, Gia thought. Every prisoner is in a critical situation. Yesterday it was a heart problem, today a car accident. I wonder what it will be next time.
If the director believed him and handed her over, she was lost. If she hid herself away somewhere in the building they would eventually find her. There was nowhere in it that Gedeon Torma did not personally know, and if she couldn’t hide there, then where could she? In Árkod, if they let her out? She could no longer count on Abigail. Did Abigail know where she was at that moment, or what she was doing? She probably did not even realize what danger she was in; she certainly had not been there to help her the night before. At any moment the director was going to say, “The girl you want is outside in the corridor. I’ll send for her.” If she went into the room and shouted in the lieutenant’s face that he was a liar and her father had been taken prisoner, how could she prove it? With the note from Abigail?
“I’m afraid that will not be possible,” Gedeon Torma said. He always spoke more slowly than anyone else, but never as slowly as now. “General Vitay made it clear that I was not to hand his daughter over to anyone. It was a binding condition of our agreement. And at the moment it would be impossible anyway, because it is term time and it is not our practice to grant exceptional leave.”
“But if the General is so very ill . . .” Kalmár interjected.
“Seriously ill,” Feri Kuncz added. “So ill, I must repeat, that he is unable to come for her himself. Director, sir, I think you would not wish to be responsible if the girl never saw her father again, should he fail to recover.”
“That would be sad indeed, if it were to happen,” Gina heard the director say. “But in that case I should be answerable to the Lord’s Judgment Seat. General Vitay gave me precise instructions not to hand his daughter over to anyone other than himself. He also stipulated that if news came of his death the girl should not be given permission to attend his funeral. Those were his wishes, and that is what was agreed between us. The girl is not allowed to leave the premises without her father for the next three months and three years, when she finishes her school leaving exams. Her fees and boarding charges were calculated for that period.”
So, my dear father, Gina said to herself, overcome by the realization that she was thinking of him for the first time as a deceased person whose last wishes she had just heard, you have taken good care of me. You made sure that I would have some means of support if our home were blown away in the storm.
“The director appears to have forgotten that I am under orders to take General Vitay’s daughter to Budapest.”
“I certainly have not,” Gedeon Torma replied. His voice, which at various times had made her both tremble with terror and shake with mocking laughter, and had so often struck her as either boring or simply ridiculous, was now deadly serious, rock-solid as the city of Árkod, as the Matula itself. “I have not forgotten it in the least, Lieutenant. But this order of yours does not apply to me. My unquestionable superiors are the Bishop of Árkod, the Reformed Protestant Church and the Minister of Education. My invisible superior, to whom I must render my final account, is Christ the Redeemer Himself.”
“Consider this,” returned the voice, so soft and ingratiating beside the garden gate at midnight, now so harsh and filled with an anger that verged on contempt, “I would be reluctant to resort to stronger measures, but I am required to remove General Vitay’s daughter whatever the consequences.”
“You certainly will not remove her,” Gedeon Torma replied, and from the accompanying noise Gina gathered he had risen to his feet. “You will not, because my school and I have given her father our word that we would hand her over to no one we did not know, and we are even less likely to do so at the moment. There seems to be an unusual degree of interest in the girl right now, and the porter’s lodge has been under siege on her account. Unfortunately, I am rather busy at present. We are in the middle of a disciplinary matter. Allow me to ask that we put an end to this pointless conversation.”
“Be well advised, Director, sir, you will hand this girl over to me. And I cannot promise you that this institution will not feel the consequences of the fact that its director has willfully obstructed the work of the national army.”
“I understood that it was simply a question of my keeping a pupil away from her sick father,” Gedeon Torma said. “If by doing that I am obstructing the work of the national army that is a rather different matter, and one to be regretted. Nonetheless I shall not let you have the girl, because I cannot, and if you tell me that I shall be held responsible for the consequences, so be it. I accept that responsibility. I know that the future holds for me only what the Lord intends. I am delighted to have met you, Lieutenant. Oh, and one other thing . . .”
She was about to take refuge behind the swing door again when this last sentence stopped her. She was almost whimpering with joy and relief, and a fountain of warm love welled up inside her for Árkod and the man in black—something she would never have thought possible.
“I should just like to add, Lieute
nant, that I would have been only too delighted to let you have this girl. She is the most difficult, the most incorrigible pupil I have known in the thirty-five years of my career. It is simply that I cannot do that because I gave my word to her father. I wish you good day.”
She did not hear Feri’s reply as she fled back to the bend in the corridor. She saw him come out, adjust his belt again, this time in a rage, and hurry off down the corridor. She stared after him in fear and trembling, as at a complete stranger, a man she had never known. When she heard the steel grille clink shut she went back and stood outside the office door. It opened immediately. Had she not heard for herself what had gone on inside she would never have believed that anything had happened at all. Kalmár’s face was rather more flushed than usual, but the director was every bit his habitual self. He pointed a stubby finger at the incriminating items spread out on the desk.
“Have you reflected on how you can atone for what you have done?” he asked. He studied her with the fierce interest of a man obsessed with sin and sinners, as if his only concern in the world was that Georgina Vitay had hidden, Lord knows where, a squirrel brooch with marcasite eyes. “No, of course not. Typical. Mr. Kalmár, until I tell you otherwise, Georgina Vitay must not be allowed to leave the premises again, and, what is more, as the most severe punishment a pupil can incur, I shall prohibit her from going to services in the white church. She is to be a prisoner here.”
I see what you are doing, Gina thought. You have no idea how well I understand you. I will be safe as long as I remain inside the school. If only you would lock me up in that cellar, however deep and dark it may be! Better mushrooms for company than Feri Kuncz.
“Now clear out of my sight and go to your lesson. I am lowering your conduct mark. Mr. Kalmár, please note that, however well she does from now on, until the end of the year she is not to be listed among the outstanding pupils in her class.”
