by Magda Szabo
I was once again standing at the window looking out into the garden. Now of course I understand the significance of that instant, though I had no sense of it at the time. We always realize too late the importance of drawing out the moment while you can, while it is still possible. I didn’t. I didn’t savor it or hold on to it. I was in too much of a hurry. I just wanted the time to pass, for us to get breakfast over, fly off to church, come back, and sit down to the celebratory meal. Out of consideration for Uncle Held it was to be at midday and not in the evening. I wanted everyone to be there, everyone I cared for: that day was to be the fulfillment of my destiny. There was only one date ahead of me that would be even more important, the day I became Bálint’s wife. So let everything begin!
It began.
The people who were with me on that day were imprinted on my memory—some of them permanently, some for many years afterward—exactly as they were at the time, both as they arrived at the house and in the way they conducted themselves.
Blanka woke with a yawn. Then, suddenly remembering what day it was, she held out her arms to me. I went over to her and kissed her round, childish, beaming face. I knew I wasn’t the only one who was in love with Bálint: at various times Blanka and Henriette had been as well. I didn’t mind; I never thought of them as dangerous rivals. Bálint was the sort of person who inspired that response from others without in the least intending to. You simply had to love him.
The eyes that met mine were neither envious nor sad. Had Blanka been the one about to become Bálint’s bride she could not have been happier. My thoughts often went back to that moment, just as they did to the sight of Mrs. Temes coming into the bedroom carrying a tray, a strong, laughing, ever-cheerful, and reassuring figure. The Mrs. Temes I know today is very different—tearful and timid, her face empty, watchful, or lit up with greed. I didn’t know then that some people die long before their real death. Nor did I imagine that the last time you saw them might also be the last time they were truly alive.
As for my mother, this was probably the first time I saw her pull herself together. She was very nicely turned out. She had taken a proper bath and gone to agonizing lengths with her hair and her clothes. She approached me with the smile of a naughty little girl, a very small child who knew that, yes, she was always at fault but see how clean she was now, and how hard she was trying. At breakfast she paid close attention to the way she ate and drank, and said nothing that was either stupid or shocking. It was as if she were rehearsing for the lunch, hoping to avoid disappointing the Major or giving the impression that the Elekes girl wasn’t good enough for the Biró boy.
My father shot her the occasional surprised glance: a proud, almost amorous look. His habitual dignified reserve had softened to something like cheerfulness, no doubt with the growing realization that everything might yet turn out well, that his daughter might have not just a successful life but a happy one. I think he lived in the constant expectation that one day a sign would come down from heaven, the expression of God’s recognition of his honest and vigilant labors, and that on that day, the day of my engagement, he felt it had come.
If I retain an image of the Helds it is of them seen from the back. Only after I had opened the window did I realize that they had just that moment walked past our house. I caught a glimpse of Uncle Held’s erect, slim body, his striking blond hair, and Auntie Held’s neat little person. I leaned out with the intention of calling out to them to be sure to get back in time and not be late for the lunch but decided not to—I was in the middle of cleaning the house, I had a cloth in my hand and a scarf around my head, which didn’t seem altogether right for a bride-to-be. Nowadays, no matter how hard I try, I cannot conjure up their faces: just those two figures walking slowly, arm in arm, toward the Katalin Street church, moving steadily away from our house. In my dreams I call out to them, but they keep on walking, until finally they disappear from sight.
Then Bálint and Henriette arrived, together.
Even today I don’t understand why it was only then, and not much, much earlier, that I realized I was jealous of Henriette. Ever since she had moved into the street she had somehow belonged not just to all of us but especially to Bálint. That he had never smacked her as hard as he did either Blanka or me was not in itself surprising. She wasn’t the sort of person you would ever want to hit, being so quiet and timid, and the smallest of us three. There was a certain pleasure in slapping Blanka, in pinching her leg or smacking her bottom, but it was never like that with Henriette. Bálint sometimes inflicted pain on me too, though never again after the play when he had been the Hussar. We couldn’t find words for it, but thereafter if we pulled each other about or caused each other physical pain it just seemed so wrong or, to be more precise, so strangely satisfying. So we stopped, and we never again had a fight. A little later, when we knew we were in love, we both did all we could to avoid arousing the other.
But at that moment, with the two of them standing before me, and Henriette with that solemn little smile on her face, I suddenly understood that her being there irritated me deeply. It annoyed me that she was a person in trouble who had to be cared for, that Bálint was standing by her side like a guard and I couldn’t utter a word of complaint because in these insane times we simply had to look after her. That they should have come together was perfectly logical. I had seen the Helds going off myself, and Henriette wasn’t allowed out on the street alone, so Bálint had obviously called to collect her. But that was no comfort to me just then. I cannot decide how reasonable my reaction was, because I did love Henriette. If they hadn’t arrived together on the day of my engagement, I would never have had those feelings. I would simply have felt, as I always did, that the poor Held family were in a terrible situation, and that I wanted to be kinder and behave better toward her, because no one, least of all Henriette, should be put in the position they were in. I did love her, but seeing her at that time, on that day, standing there with Bálint, somehow got to me. She should have waited until her parents returned and come over with them. Why couldn’t she have the tact, on our day of betrothal, to let Bálint and me have just five minutes together before the guests arrived?
I realize now that she was afraid, and that Bálint also feared for her safety. No matter now. It is not only facts that are irreversible; our past reactions and feelings are too. One can neither relive them nor alter them. Henriette gave me a kiss, whispered something in my ear, congratulatory, no doubt, and pressed her cheek against mine for what seemed ages. I held her in an embrace, but there was not the slightest warmth toward her in my heart, only this feeling of vexation and annoyance. Then she stepped to one side and dropped out of sight, just as my father and my mother had, and likewise Mrs. Temes, who had been rushing in and out of our house since early morning. At the time I failed to register the soft thud of a door closing behind me; but later that day, when for the tenth or hundredth time I tried to reconstruct the sequence of events, the sound of that door came back to me in a flash, along with the fleeting glimpse of a red dress. It was Blanka. She had shepherded everyone out of the room, so that I could at last be alone with Bálint.
Never again did I see him the way I saw him in those few moments, and never again have I felt those same feelings for him. I believe now that that was our real marriage, our true married life together, those few short minutes the two of us spent there, not touching or moving toward one another, simply gazing into one another’s eyes, beyond the need for expression, gesture, or action, simply surrendering ourselves to the stern and painful laws that direct the course of youth and love.
That was the life we shared, so much more so than the many nights that have followed since I became his wife. We have been together for many years now, and when we make love it is good, but all the time two people inside us, the old Bálint and the old Irén, sit there at the end of the bed and register the same sardonic amusement that so disconcerted the witnesses at our wedding lunch. I sometimes wonder if it has ever crossed Bálint’s mind
that he is not my second husband but my third, and that I am in fact his second wife, not his first. The pair who married at the start of the 1960s were not a bachelor and a divorcée but a widow and a widower, the first of whom had been married briefly once before, the other twice: two people who no longer had any illusions about life or any expectations of it, but were simply unwilling to set off down the road to death, that difficult journey to make, alone. So if from time to time they found themselves in each other’s embrace and “got along well enough,” it was because each harbored the private memory of their first spouse, the true one, whose memory could never be erased: the Bálint Biró who had died along with Henriette and her parents, and the Irén Elekes, with her special smile, who was so loving and who had almost died at the same time.
So if one of them withdrew into silence, the other knew that he was remembering his first marriage, but she, being too weary to register the pain of that, and being older and wiser now, chose not to intrude on his recollections. But if she did have the strength at that particular moment, she might well retaliate in her own particular way. She could summon up memories of her own: what a fine head of hair you had then, and now you’re going bald; what splendid blue eyes you had, and now you can’t see properly without glasses; how very talented we all thought you were, and what a mediocrity you have turned out to be; but most of all, how inexpressibly I loved you then, and now the only thing that holds us together are these memories of Katalin Street . . . though it’s true, of course, that they will stay with us until death.
That morning the Major was late.
The Major was never late, but these were exceptional times, and even when he still hadn’t arrived, as he had promised, by nine o’clock, we thought little of it. In any case, we had to wait for the Helds. Henriette had told us that her father had gone to some office or other, taking all sorts of letters and documents with him, possibly so that he could do something for her grandparents, and of course when you went to these places they always kept you waiting. I longed for them to come back soon, because I wanted us to exchange rings straight after the lunch.
Meanwhile Henriette was tiptoeing around us in total silence, and this time it was her very tactfulness that annoyed me—wandering restlessly about from room to room and staring at my mother’s cushions as if she had never seen them before, like some snotty-nosed sixteen-year-old who thought we were so desperate for a kiss that we couldn’t wait for her to go home.
We chatted calmly enough until midday, when Bálint mentioned that his father had been told to report to command headquarters. Blanka suggested, rather hopefully, that he might buy some drinks on his way back because we were in short supply. My mother was still maintaining the uncharacteristic self-discipline she had shown at breakfast. My father took out a book and sat down under the bust of Cicero to read. Mrs. Temes, busying about in the kitchen, called for Henriette to come and help. Blanka was now back in the bedroom, furiously and audibly revising, and once again the two of us found ourselves alone. This time we did kiss, happily and passionately: my whole body was on fire.
At one point Henriette came in to ask Bálint what he thought might be the reason why her parents still hadn’t arrived. He muttered something or other, not having grasped the point of her question. It was only after she had slunk timidly away that he called after her that it might have taken longer than usual to witness or copy some document. My heart beat so wildly I could hardly breathe. It was a moment of real triumph. For those few minutes I had reduced Bálint Biró to total confusion.
One o’clock came and went, and still no sign of the Helds; only, at long last, the Major. That was wonderful, but what puzzled me was the odd way he let us know. He didn’t come round and ring the bell; he went straight to his own house and phoned to ask us to send Bálint home.
“Something’s up,” Bálint observed. “I’ll run over and see what it is.”
I stared at him in horror. Run home? Leaving me here? At a time like this? Had his father gone mad? Henriette had been standing beside him, and when he left she did too. Noticing that she had followed him, Bálint stopped and shook his head.
“No, Henriette,” he said. “Not you, just me. You stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
And off he went, leaving a difficult silence behind him, the sort of silence that follows when those remaining have no idea what has happened. I don’t know what the others were thinking, but my concerns were that Bálint had gone without saying goodbye, our rings were still there on the table, and when would we get to put them on? At the same time I was sure there must be a perfectly natural explanation for all this: perhaps he and his father were preparing some special surprise.
It struck me that today I was the lady of the house, so I went up to Henriette: I could see how very worried she was. I wanted to pull her close to me and caress her, but she stepped back and stood looking out through the window into the garden, as if listening for something. But there was nothing to be heard.
By now my mother was reaching the end of her tether. Something very unusual had disrupted the plans for the day, and she doubtless felt that there was no longer any need to rein herself in. I watched as she kicked the shoe off her left foot and then, at a look from my father, put it reluctantly back on. Then she stood up. This was because Mrs. Temes had come in, carrying the bowl of chicken soup and setting it down on the dining-room table. She had gathered from what we were saying that the Major was back next door, he had been on the phone, he presumably had returned with the Helds, and it was time to serve lunch.
“Don’t just stand there,” my father said to Henriette. “Read something until it’s served. A young girl should always be doing something.” And he thrust a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo into her hand. Mrs. Temes continued bringing the food in, this time putting the salad bowl down on the sideboard. Blanka picked up a tiny lettuce leaf and offered it to Henriette, but she didn’t want it and shook her head. She and I were the only two now standing. My father began to read the book he had offered to Henriette; my mother held her hand out behind her back and Blanka slipped the lettuce leaf into it without my father noticing. Mrs. Temes had vanished back into the kitchen.
The clang of the doorbell took us all by surprise. Blanka was the one who usually opened the door, but this time Henriette ran to get there first. “That’s very thoughtful of her,” I said to myself. “How quick she is.” Only after that (and somewhat grudgingly) did I think, “It’s because she’s so frightened.” The three of them came in, and it was as if the sky had suddenly cleared. The room came to life, and everyone was smiling. The Major kissed me first, with Bálint and Henriette standing on either side of him. Henriette’s face was radiant: she worshiped the Major. Bálint’s eyes were turned on me and no one else: only me. He was trying to signal something to me with his eyes, but I couldn’t think what it might be. I worked it out later, but at the time it seemed unimportant.
“Sadly, I can’t stay for the lunch,” the Major announced. “It’s most regrettable, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to leave you. Henriette must go with me. Her parents are waiting for her.”
Henriette went pale. The Major put his hands on her shoulders and reassured her: “Now don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I met them in the street. They were with some old friends, people from the country. They’re going to take you there, all three of you, very soon. It’s bad luck that Bálint and Irén can’t be going too. This never-ending bombing is really terrible. Now come, the car is waiting for you.”
I believed him. Why should I not have? I couldn’t understand why Henriette was behaving so oddly, standing there without moving. Was it because she would have to miss my engagement party?
“Say goodbye to the future bride,” the Major went on. “We must hurry.”
I stood and waited to see what would happen next. If the Helds were off to the country, they wouldn’t be eating with us. The Major wouldn’t either, because he was taking Henriette. There would be h
ardly anyone left. We’d done so much cooking there’d be enough for tomorrow.
Blanka dashed across and kissed Henriette. I should have done that, but I had been waiting to see if Bálint was going to stay or not. It was only when he didn’t move, and didn’t follow his father out of the room, that I rushed after her and kissed her too. I have no idea what she looked like when she turned back to glance at us briefly from the doorway. I still cannot recall that face.
My father was shaking his head, but my mother seemed both happy and relieved that neither the Major nor the Helds would be lunching with us. They always made her ill at ease, being so well turned out. Soon enough she had slipped off her shoes and started to hum a little tune. Blanka began to rearrange the table under Mrs. Temes’s instructions, removing the now redundant place settings. I was watching Bálint to see if he would at last open the jewelry box. He hadn’t so far. He hadn’t even glanced at the rings.
Then it came: “The Helds have been taken away. My father saw it happen. Everyone who went to that office was taken. I’m sorry, but Henriette has to go with them. He’s taking her there now.”
My mother came out of the bedroom, still in her stockinged feet, and stopped in her tracks. The slippers fell from her hand. My father went pale, and his eyes filled with tears. Mrs. Temes slumped against the sideboard and bit her lip, her face a mass of red blotches. I stood there and tried to imagine it: Uncle and Auntie Held had been taken away, and now Henriette had to go with them. It just wasn’t possible.
At that point Blanka burst into tears. My father put an arm round her and silently consoled her. I too should be crying, I thought. Bálint is waiting for me to cry. Years later he told me what he thought of me at the time, when he saw me standing there with eyes only for the two rings. But I couldn’t cry.
