A Place to Stand Page 7

  The day after that was fine; quite delicious, with a warm sun and spring in the air. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland had to attend some function right out at Debreczen, and were to be away the whole day; when they had gone Hope rang up the Penzio to suggest taking Litka and her Mother out for an expedition in her car. (In her mind, these last two or three days, she was always contrasting that painting of the lovely house in Poland with the gloomy room in the Radolny utca, which, she gathered, the old lady seldom left except to go to Mass.) Anyhow, “Litka and Madame Moranska” was what she said to Jurek Hempel, who came to the telephone—she could always picture now the tottery bamboo table, the aspidistra and the scribbled wall, when she spoke to anyone at the Ibolya. Jurek said—“But Stefan and I—do we not come too? Boo-hoo!”—and he imitated a baby crying.

  “Yes, of course you can come, if you’re not too busy,” Hope said rather repressively—she wasn’t much amused by Jurek’s clowning; he did it too often, she had already decided—and she hadn’t quite forgiven him and Stefan for not turning up themselves at the Sörözö two days before. “I’ll be round in an hour,” she said.

  As they all squashed themselves into her Dodge, bought when the Kirklands had been home the year before, Stefan and Jurek exclaimed at the sight of the U.S. number-plates which the car still carried front and back. “Oh, how convenient to have these! We have so much trouble with our Polish number-plates; always being stopped. We can hardly use Polish cars at all, now.”

  Had they got their car? Hope asked. Oh yes—and she learned that Litka had driven her parents out to Hungary in it, the boys of course being in the army. It was on that trip, she supposed, that the old man, who painted so well, must have died. And once again she felt—“No, I am not a European; I am something quite different. I don’t know about escapes in cars which are too much for old people, and kill them.”

  She had decided to take her party up to the Hármashatárhegy, a big hill up-river on the Buda side. They crossed the Danube by the Lánc-Hid, the graceful Chain Bridge (it is gone now, bombed in the Russo-German battle for Budapest in 1944) and turned upstream along the embankment; then through the suburbs round the Rózsa-Domb, just beyond Buda, with their gay villas in pleasant gardens, and out into the northern ban-lieu, a place of cemeteries, and market-gardens cultivated by Bulgarians. Presently they drew abreast of the long low island of Szent-Endre, which here divides the Danube into two streams; its sparse trees, whiskery and bare, already bore a yellow tinge from the running sap—Stefan leant forward from the back seat to touch his Mother’s shoulder and draw her attention to this. “How like the willows along the river at home, isn’t it?”

  She agreed, eagerly. Hope gradually realized that merely to be in the open air, and driving for pleasure, was keeping the old lady in a trance of delight; as they came out into the open country and the great hill rose in front of them she exclaimed constantly—“How beautiful! What beautiful hills! I had no idea that Hungary was like this.”

  Hope was moved to ask how long she had been in Budapest?—Hempel took upon himself to answer. “They got here in December of ‘39.“ And this was March of 1941! Mme Moranska, the country-dweller, the country-lover, had been shut up in that city room for sixteen months.

  The road swung up in great loops to the summit of the hill; on all sides the country below expanded, blue and misty in the spring sunshine. At the top was a little countrified inn, much patronized by the skiers in winter; here they got out and admired the marvellous view—the great riverine plain spread out below them, the silver ribbon of the Danube winding away northwards till it was lost in the interfolding lines of the hills below Esztergom, lost southwards in the city haze that hung over Budapest. Then they went in to lunch. There was a huge iron stove in the middle of the room, with tables grouped round it; the air outside was still keen, and the windows were comfortably steamed over. The meal was plain and good, with the zesty taste of country cooking; they washed it down with the local wine, light, fragrant, a little rough on the tongue, as the speech of the countryside is apt to be, but sound as a country barn or a farmer’s horse. Afterwards they had barack, the Hungarian apricot brandy, with their coffee, served by the landlord himself in his shirt-sleeves, ice-cold in its tiny glasses; not tepid, as too often. Stefan was pleased; he sipped and sniffed appreciatively—“This is how it should be drunk,” he said; “this is how we drink spirits at home, very cold.”

  “What sort of spirits?” Hope asked.

  “Vodka.”

  After lunch Hope suggested a walk. She wanted them to see the beauties of the Hármashatár-hegy, she loved it so herself. Litka looked worried, and murmured that she was afraid her Mother would be too tired if she didn’t go home soon. Hope thought privately that the old lady didn’t seem tired at all; she had eaten everything with relish, and praised the coffee and the wine—however she asked if perhaps Mme Moranska would like to rest while they walked? If so she would arrange it—there were plenty of rooms. So the old lady was settled in a sunny bedroom, with part of that glorious view visible from the window, and the two pairs of young people set out for their stroll.

  They walked through a magical world, in the spring sunshine. The upper slopes of the Hármashatár-hegy are covered with the scrubby growth of a dwarf oak, only three or four feet high, whose buds are pink and carmine and covered with a silvery down like velvet; among them, in the short wiry turf, the winter aconites spread their starry blooms, bright and large as pale golden pennies, and hidden away between the bushiness of pink and silver were dark maroon-coloured spikes of an early orchis, as furry as the silver velvet on the baby oak-leaves. Litka exclaimed in delight; broke off boughs, picked flowers, called on Jurek for his knife to dig up some of the roots—“In a bowl, in the window, they will flower for ages. No, not that, Jurek; dig up the ones in bud—then they will flower longer.” And again Hope saw with her mind’s eye that gloomy room, and the contrasting picture of the sunny country house.

  But because of this digging and picking she and Stefan soon left the other pair behind, and found themselves alone in that pink and silver world, with the great views spread out below them. Stefan was rather silent at first. After a time he said—“What made you think of bringing us here? It is wonderful. You see what it means to Litka—and to my Mother.”

  “Yes; I’m so glad.” Hope felt shy. “I love it up here myself, so I thought you might like it too.”

  “How well you understand us,” he said, turning his dark eyes full on to her. “You have a great gift of sympathy, of comprehension. It is unusual to find strangers to Europe—English or American, who think of doing anything but the obvious when they wish to be kind. But to bring us precisely here was not obvious—it was something that an old friend might have done, who knew us well.”

  Hope blushed at this praise, and under what she felt to be some sort of pressure in his dark gaze.

  “Well, I’m not an old friend, but I feel like a friend—of you all,” she said, rather awkwardly. “I like Litka so much,” she added.

  “I don’t think we have ever had any friend who has done more for us,” he said. “But the passports and the certificates were—well, works of mercy, of charity; such things as the good nuns do, impersonal. Bringing us here is different; it is an imaginative, a personal thing.”

  Hope laughed a little when he spoke of the things that nuns do: she knew them so well, after her years at the Sacré Cœur, and the particular detached quality of their works of mercy. But at his tone when he said “a personal thing” she blushed again, and could think of nothing to say.

  “I am glad that you like Litka,” he went on, courteously filling the gap left by her silence. “She was so happy to have that little talk with you at the Sörözö—she likes you too, very much.” Still Hope, embarrassed, was silent—she had said that she liked Litka, she couldn’t say it again. And again Stefan filled the gap for her.

  “I was so sorry, so disappointed, that I could not come myself to tell you that all had gone wel
l with Dr. Kraljic,” he said. “You must have thought us very discourteous and ungrateful. I fear that you waited.”

  “Well, yes, I did wait. But then Litka came.”

  “And told you that we had a summons?”

  “Yes. She didn’t say what it was,” said Hope.

  “We were helping some of our fellow-countrymen,” he said, rather hesitantly. “I think it might be more convenient if I do not tell you exactly how. But these things have to be done very fast, if they are to succeed; one cannot delay.”

  Hope was disappointed; she was full of curiosity about this mysterious sudden call to a special job, and had hoped that Stefan might tell her, in his present expansive mood. But she realized that she could not press him. Her mind ran on to another preoccupation—whether Kraljic had said anything about her thumping lie to him about the “engagement”.

  She began warily.

  “Anyhow, it all went well at the doctor’s?”

  “Very well. It was clear that you had completely subjugated him,” he replied, with a smile that practically added “and no wonder”. It made Hope blush once more; it made it harder to put her next question. But she did put it—she really had to know.

  “He gave no special reason?—I mean, he didn’t say anything about an engagement?” (She used the French word fiançailles, which carries the single meaning of “betrothal”).

  Stefan stared in surprise.

  “No, not a word. Why should he? He could not know that Litka is betrothed to Jurek, nor would it interest him. Of what do you speak?”

  “Oh, nothing”—the girl tried to get out of it. But she realized at once from his expression, stubbornly penetrating and yet warm, that it was no good; she was for it, she would have to explain—quite needlessly, as it had turned out, since the doctor had been so discreet.

  “Well, yes—he was very sticky at first,” she said, plunging energetically, since she had to plunge. “He refused point-blank. And when I pressed him to help, he asked if I was engaged to one of you. So I said Yes.”

  Stefan broke out into a roar of laughter—which he checked almost immediately.

  “That was clever of you—and noble,” he said earnestly. “I see it all—he will help the poor Pole if he is engaged to the daughter of the rich American; otherwise, no! You did very well, very wisely; even more than I knew.” He stood still, and Hope perforce halted beside him; very deliberately he raised her hand and kissed it. “Thank you,” he said, with a smile of an astonishing brilliance. “Thank you, my unreal fiancée,” he repeated, still holding her hand; he raised it to his lips and kissed it again.

  Somehow that was more than she could deal with. Quite gently she took away her hand, and turned and walked on. He followed her, slowly, keeping a little behind her, till she had recovered herself sufficiently to turn and make some remark about a flower. They turned back towards the inn, and presently rejoined the others; they had coffee, and then piled into the car, Litka laden with spring flowers and boughs and little packages of plants; the old lady, as she had been all day, in such a daze of pleasure at being in the open air and seeing beautiful things as Hope found inexpressibly touching. During the drive home, down the long loops of the mountain road and along the valley plain, they sang songs—Polish songs, French songs, songs of the countryside—in spontaneous happiness.

  At the Penzio Hope refused to go in, though they pressed her to; Mme Moranska was tired, she said, Litka must give her some tea and make her rest. Stefan was touched by her considerate insistence on this, and as usual said that he would see her home. As the others set out to lead the old lady up those draughty dirty dignified stairs Hope said—“I’d better just put the car away; the garage is only round the corner, and I can take a bus home.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “Will you drive? I suppose you can?”

  “Indeed I suppose I can!” he said, laughing.

  As they got into the car Hope found herself saying, rather to her own surprise—“It’s early yet, and such a lovely evening; why shouldn’t we drive a little?”

  “Why not, indeed?” he said, his hands light and skilful on the steering-wheel. “Where to?”

  “Oh, let’s go down the river-road. I always love the Danube.”

  As they spun rapidly downstream along the broad embankment beside the great river, Hope’s conscience began to bother her about having suggested this drive, and altogether over her increasing pleasure—no, more, delight—in just being with Stefan, when she was engaged to Sam, and ought really not to take pleasure in being with any young man but him. But as we all do, if possible, she presently camouflaged her uneasiness about her own behaviour into a quite different worry—in this case, about Litka being separated from Jurek, her fiancé, when the two young men should leave. She had gathered when talking to Mme Moranska in her room up on the Hármashatár-hegy that when they did finally go, Litka and her mother were to follow “later”. What is more—also as we all do—Hope sought to give this rather bogus worry verisimilitude by speaking of it, which she did at some length, ending: “It seems so unfair, in a way, that Litka should be left behind, when she and Jurek are engaged. After all, he is practically all she has left, now.”

  Stefan listened in silence, his eyes straight ahead on the road. When she finished he said—“I think that you do not quite understand. Litka cannot fight; we can. Therefore we must go as soon as possible; and of course when we go, we cannot wait for our families—we must go right on.”

  “Where to? Turkey?” (Now why did she ask that?)

  “No. Cairo—or London.”

  “To take whatever it is that you’re waiting for, that’s coming from Poland?”

  This time he turned and looked at her, sharply.

  “How do you know about this?” Again there was that steely quality about his face and voice that she had first registered in the Sörözö, the day they all went there together and the agents from the Deuxième Bureau came in. But before she could answer he trod sharply on the brake. “No, wait—I want some cigarettes, and I expect I can get some here.” He drew in to the curb and pulled up beside a tiny little inn affair, what the Hungarians call a Kis-Kocsma, “a little wine-room”, which stood between the road and the river, stuck almost like a swallow’s nest on the lip of the high embankment. He went in; Hope got out too, and walked across the pavement to the river. The Kis-Kocsma stood close by the bridge leading to Csepel Island, that curiously-sited industrial centre lying in mid-stream on the outskirts of the city, with its great factories, their tall chimneys belching smoke, and the enormous warehouses where customs-free goods were stored. For all the main cargoes from the East—tobacco, dates, figs, sultanas; coffee, tea, spices and silk—came up by river from the Black Sea to Csepel; if they went on to Central Europe, again by the great river-road, they paid no customs duty; but once loaded on to lorries and carried out through the gates in the high barbed-wire fence surrounding the place, for Hungarian consumption, they paid, as they left, the local tariffs.

  At this hour, in the early evening, the bridge from the island was thronged from side to side with factory hands, on bicycles and afoot, streaming across from their work to return to their homes in the city; in the few moments while Hope waited for Stefan the broad embankment, empty when they arrived, became thick with a mass of bicycles. She watched them with surprise—she had never seen this before. Goodness, what hundreds—what thousands! Young men, mostly; some girls, pretty and trim. Here was another aspect of Budapest life, completely new to her, which Stefan had accidentally revealed.

  Presently he came and stood beside her, where she leaned her elbows on the parapet; he was smoking a cigarette, and offered her one. Hope didn’t like Hungarian cigarettes, but accepted it all the same.

  “I can guess how you learned that,” he said presently. “I don’t blame Litka—she says you are very persuasive! But I wish that you had not heard of it—you have done quite enough for us already. However, since she did let that slip out, it is
only fair that you should know a little more—at least know what is involved, and what the risks are.”

  “What risks?”

  “Grave risks, to anyone who touches this thing, in any way whatever.”

  “But I’m not touching it—and anyhow there can’t be any risk to me. I’m an American.”

  “You never know,” he said, quite sternly. “However, I shall tell you the facts. We are homeless Poles, yes—but we are more than that. We belong to an occupied country, but a country that is still fighting underground—a country with a hidden army, and even a hidden government. Yes, we have that!” Low as his voice was, the words resounded vibrantly; Hope listened wide-eyed. “And Jurek and I belong to an organization which brings out information, both of what our country is doing and of the enemy’s activities—which is of considerable use to the allies, to England and France. We are waiting now for a particular piece of urgent information—and evidence to support it; when we get it, we shall go, taking it with us. And others will take over our job here.”

  “But how can it be brought out? I thought the frontier was sealed between Hungary and Poland,” Hope said. “No Poles can cross anyhow, can they? I remember my Father saying that the Hungarians are being pretty rigid about that; they have to be, he said.”

  “Your Father was right,” Stefan said—to her surprise he smiled as he spoke. “But did you never hear of the Green Frontier?” (He used the famous German phrase, die grüne Grenze, so full of meaning in Central Europe in 1940 and ’41.)

  “Why no. What is the green frontier?”

  In reply Stefan sang a couple of lines, half under his breath:

  “Along the green frontier, the corn is so green—oh so green!

  And so high, that a man may pass through it unseen—all unseen!”

  “Goodness, you mean they hop the frontier! But there’s no corn up now,” Hope said practically.

  He laughed at that. “No, but there are woods: woods of oak, woods of pine, hazel-scrub. Die grüne Grenze is viable at all seasons,” the young man said merrily. “It is dangerous, of course; the frontier-guards use dogs, and they are well trained, those guards, German-trained! What a pity that the Germans so excel in competence—the rest of us could do with more of that. It is the quality of their defects!” he said, reversing the French phrase; Hope had to laugh. “Snow is really the worst,” he went on, “because one leaves tracks—but then the dogs can’t follow a scent in snow, that is one advantage.”