The Angel Makers (13 page)

They’ve stopped walking now, Sari staring at Marco balefully: what right does he have to pry into her feelings in this way? Seeing that he’s upset her, he holds out his hands, palms upwards, and frowns slightly.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it, all right? I doubt that most people are in love with the people that they marry, but that doesn’t make the marriage any worse. I was just wondering whether you felt the same way for Ferenc as the way he seems to feel for you.’

A breath. A beat. The implacable rush of the river.

‘No, I don’t think so. I think I love him – or I think I
can
love him, over time. I think he will be kind to me. That’s enough.’

Marco nods. ‘You’re right, you know. That is enough.’

She’s silent for a moment, amazed and horrified at what she’s just said. ‘And you?’ she asks, attack being the best form of defence. ‘Are you in love with your wife?’

He is irritatingly unruffled by her question, though she supposes that he must have realised that a counterattack was inevitable, given his military background.

‘I love my wife. We live very well together. She gives me what I need – calm, and stability – though I don’t know what I give to her. But no, I’m not in love with her.’

They look at each other for a moment, still, appraising.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sari says.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Marco agrees.

Sari thinks, these days, that she’s probably happier than she’s ever been. It’s not very fair either to Ferenc or her father for her to be so happy without them, she thinks guiltily, but she has friends, and she’s learning so many new things, and she can’t help revelling in the luxury of it all.

Judit is always one for spoiling a good mood, though, and the third time she comes across Sari humming cheerfully in the kitchen, she draws a laboured sigh. ‘Don’t get too comfortable, Sari,’ she says. ‘You should never get too comfortable.’

Sari grins and scoffs and the words are out of her head within moments, but then one afternoon in August, Anna has nothing much to do and asks to accompany Sari on one of her walks into the forest to look for burdock leaves.

As they go, Sari talks quietly about the latest things that Marco has been telling her – he’s been scraping his memory for Roman myths, and they’ve captured her imagination like nothing before. The shade of the forest is like balm to their skins, and before long they give up the search for burdock – ‘It wasn’t urgent, anyway,’ Sari says – and settle together under a tree and talk about Giovanni. He and Anna have made great strides in communication, thanks in part to Marco’s Italian lessons which Sari has been passing on, but it’s mainly down to the fact that when two people want nothing more than to speak to one another, they will find reserves of time and patience that they never would have thought they possessed.

Giovanni, it turns out, is a country boy from the south of Italy. ‘He has a farm,’ Anna confides, ‘With sheep and cattle.’ Sari can tell that already in her mind’s eye Anna is seeing herself there, in some Italian farmhouse in the country, cooking for a brace of children and a smiling Giovanni, but of course there is another part of her mind that can’t help imagining the end of the war, Giovanni leaving for the west, and Károly returning. Anna is determined to fight the return of her old life every step of the way.

‘Is there news of Károly?’ Sari asks after a while.

Anna shrugs bitterly. ‘I had a letter from Lajos a few weeks ago. Says Károly’s fine, as usual. He – I—’ she stumbles into silence again.

‘Sari?’

‘What?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’ Sari is puzzled. Anna is direct, and normally she comes straight out with what she wants to say; even when asking for something to stop her from getting pregnant she didn’t hesitate and prevaricate like this.

‘I was wondering,’ Anna says haltingly, ‘whether there is anything you can do to – to stop Károly coming back from the war.’

There is a silence as loud as the clashing of cymbals. Sari, used to having nothing to say, has never found herself literally speechless before. It’s as if she’s dropped back two years into the past, hearing the whispers of
witch
from illmeaning villagers.

‘What do you think I am, Anna?’ she asks quietly.

‘I—’ Anna refuses to look at her; she’s digging the earth violently with her fingertips.

Sari’s heart is racing, and she can’t seem to pull enough breath in to her lungs to speak. Finally, she says, ‘Never say anything like this to me again.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Anna’s voice is shaking now, and Sari sighs.

‘I know that you wouldn’t have said it if you hadn’t been desperate. It’s all right. But I am serious: never say anything like this to me again.’

‘I won’t,’ Anna whispers.

A bird calls, its cry harsh and too-loud within the suddenly smothering forest; Sari will not look at Anna afraid that she will see some sort of fear or awe in Anna’s eyes.
Judit’s right
, she thinks.
You should never get too comfortable. Things don’t change; people just get better at hiding them, that’s all.

CHAPTER NINE

It’s August 18th, 10 in the morning, and Lujza is at the door, holding what looks to be a telegram.

Sari’s mood has been buoyant for the past few weeks, and she’s only properly able to appreciate how happy she has been when she feels it all drain out of her at the sight of the telegram. She looks from it, to Lujza’s face, and then back again. Lujza is white, even her lips are pale, but her eyes are dark and burning.

‘Lujza – come in.’

Lujza doesn’t move. ‘I can’t read, you know,’ she says, and her tone is almost conversational. ‘So I need you to tell me what this says.’

She presses the telegram into Sari’s hands, and just the touch of it makes Sari feel nauseous. The village has been lucky with deaths so far, and the few that they’ve had news of haven’t made too large an impact: mainly husbands from loveless marriages; younger sons from large families. It’s been easy to pretend that the war’s not real, that something happening so far away can’t touch the village; in the middle of a long, lazy, beautiful summer, and in a climate of unprecedented freedom, it’s easy to choose to forget why that freedom has come about.

‘Lujza—’

‘Sari. Just tell me.’

She knows, of course they both know, but Sari forces herself to look down at the paper she’s holding, and she’s right, they’re both right,
Dear Mrs Tabori, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that your husband, Péter Tabori …

‘He’s dead, isn’t he,’ Lujza states; it’s far from being a question.

Sari nods, and with that the strength seems to go out of Lujza’s legs. She doesn’t faint, but sits down heavily on the rough wooden steps, and Sari sits down beside her, not knowing what to do. If Lujza were crying it might be easier, but she’s not. Her eyes are blank and tearless, but her breath is coming in ragged bursts, and she’s rocking slightly, arms crossed in front of her, hands clutching convulsively at her elbows.

‘Sari?’ To Sari’s enormous relief, Judit appears on the porch behind them, and seems to take in the scene at once – the telegram, Sari’s white face, Lujza’s tense, shuddering back. She looks at Sari searchingly.

‘Is it Péter?’

‘Yes.’

Judit brings
szilva
, which Sari has often derisively remarked to be her answer for everything, but she’s never been more grateful to Judit’s plum brandy than she is now.

Judit sits down on the other side of Lujza, old knees cracking, and puts the cup to her lips, uncommonly gentle.

‘Drink this,’ she says, and uncommonly pliant, Lujza obeys, coughing sharply as the taste hits the back of her throat.

Sari closes her eyes, feeling sick. She tries to imagine what it would be like losing Ferenc, and then wishes she hadn’t: the thought provokes no more than mild regret, while Lujza’s bitter grief is so sharp that she can almost taste it. Time passes, and all Sari is conscious of is the warmth of the sun on her face, and the tightly-wound tension wafting off Lujza next to her. She wonders vaguely whether they should do something more for Lujza, take her home, or fetch her family, but perhaps silent company is all she wants right now. There’s a shadow of a movement beside her, and Sari opens her eyes, almost afraid to look at Lujza, but a faint tinge of colour has returned to her cheeks, and something has come back into her eyes, some sense of life.

‘All right,’ Lujza says quietly. ‘All right,’ she repeats, louder this time, and Judit and Sari look at each other, concerned.

Lujza’s eyes are far from blank now, but there’s something lit in them that Sari doesn’t like at all. She’s come to like Lujza a lot over the past couple of years, but she’s never come to trust her, and this is why: she’s always had a sense that Lujza, with her recklessness and her violent unpredictability, is just a couple of twists away from insanity, and right now there is no sense, no rationality in Lujza’s face, just a bleak, desperate sort of zeal.

Lujza gets to her feet, and the brandy cup falls to the ground, sending up a disconsolate puff of dust. Sari and Judit stand up beside her.

‘Why don’t you come inside?’ Judit entreats. Her voice is cajoling in a way that Sari’s never heard before, not even when talking to mothers in the throes of labour, which just serves to make Sari more anxious. ‘Have a sit down, something to eat maybe – Sari can go and get your mother, if you want …’

But Lujza doesn’t seem to hear, and takes a couple of unsteady steps away from the house.

‘Lujza, where are you going?’ Sari goes to take her shoulder, but Lujza shakes her off. The unsteadiness vanishes from her steps, which become strides heading unmistakeably downhill, in the direction of the camp. Sari shoots a desperate glance back over her shoulder towards Judit.

‘Go with her, foolish child!’ Judit shouts, and so Sari does, half-jogging to keep up, some vague, superstitious inkling warning her not to try and touch Lujza again. She only pauses when they reach Anna’s house, banging hard on the door, grabbing Anna’s arm when she appears, tousle-haired, dragging her along with them.

‘Sari – what’s happening?’

‘It’s Lujza. Péter’s dead.’

By the time they reach the gates to the camp, Lujza is a stride ahead of Anna and Sari. One of the younger guards, Werner, slouches by the entrance, looking bored as usual, but something in Lujza’s frightening, pale face seems to alert his interest and he gets up out of his chair as Lujza pushes through the gates.

‘Wait – hold on – what do you—’

Without even turning her head to look at him, Lujza’s right arm flashes out and punches him hard in the gut, and he crumples with a short yelp of surprise as much as of pain and fear. Lujza walks on into the yard, where the men are sitting, talking or reading or writing, and they’re swamped by silence, every eye on the white faced woman who is familiar to many of them yet, at that moment, utterly unfamiliar.

Anna moves to go after her, but Sari grabs her arm and points to the vicious-looking scissors that Lujza is clutching in her right hand. A man she doesn’t know seems to notice the scissors at the same time and shouts a panicked-sounding warning in Italian. A couple of the men who have started to get up and move towards Lujza freeze where they are, in positions that would be comical under any other circumstances. Heads swivel in unison to where Werner is still slumped on the ground, blood like a scarlet blossom on his shirt.

That’s when Lujza starts to scream.

At first it’s just a litany of meaningless invective, as if Lujza’s purging herself of every horrible word and phrase that she can think of. Sari hears Anna sob beside her, and it brings her partially back to her senses.

‘Run and get her mother,’ she hisses, and Anna goes, but even as she leaves Sari is wondering why she sent Anna rather than going herself. She can’t do anything here; this is far beyond her knowledge or control.

Almost reflexively, she starts towards Lujza, who chooses that moment to take the scissors and use them to tear open her bodice. Some of the watching men shrink back in response to the suddenness of Lujza’s movement, and one man grabs Sari’s arm and pulls her back, halting her steps. She doesn’t bother to fight, not knowing what she would do even if she could reach Lujza, whose screaming has changed. Barebreasted, Lujza seems to have become conscious of the men around her, and is turning on them one by one: ‘Do you want to fuck me now? Do you? Do you want to fuck me?’ Her voice is hoarse and half-lunatic, and the men can’t understand Magyar anyway, but they recognise the tone of her voice, and their horrified incomprehension starts to take on an air of pity, which intensifies as Lujza seems to lose her grip on words again, and screaming incoherently, drags the nails of her left hand across her face, drawing blood.

Someone moves.

It is Marco.

The man standing next to him, who Sari recognises as Marco’s friend, Bruno, the man who was with him in the courtyard that first day, tries to stop him, but Marco shakes off the restraining hand impatiently. Walking with a gentle but certain grace that is almost animal, he approaches Lujza straight on. Her eyes are screwed shut and she is oblivious. He stops when he is about a yard in front of her and catches Sari’s eye, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.