Abigail by Magda Szabo

Author:Magda Szabo
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2020-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

CARICATURES

So now the central problem was the question of Kalmár and Susanna.

The fifth year had decided that they certainly should be married, but they could think of no way to help them attain that goal in the shortest possible time. In fact they soon realized that there was very little they could do. There was no point in dreaming about it. They would somehow have to find a way of making it possible for the two of them to spend time together away from other people. They took their meals in the same room, and every Saturday Susanna joined Kalmár for the weekly class assessment, but generally their lives were lived within such narrow constraints that if they hoped to avoid the most painful consequences there was absolutely no hope of their ever being able to spend time together. Susanna seldom left the school, and when she did, to go to her professional association in town, the Bishop’s office or the dentist, she always left a telephone number with the duty sister, so that even the day staff knew where to contact her in an emergency. The idea that she would ever venture outside other than on business or to carry out some charitable task was unthinkable.

The same could not be said of Kalmár. First of all, he lived on the other side of the grille-gated corridor, in the staff residence from which there was another exit onto the street, and when not on duty he could come and go as he pleased. And their daily timetables were very different. There was simply no chance of their ever meeting without other people being present unless they themselves planned it, which, knowing Susanna, was not likely to happen. None of the girls doubted that she had been far from indifferent to the way he had looked at her on the train, or imagined that he could be any less attractive to her than he was to them. They spent many hours considering the possibilities.

It was therefore both hilarious and confusing that night, when the prefect came unexpectedly into their room to stop them gossiping after the lights had been turned out: at just that moment their “gossip” had been every bit as altruistic as she expected from them at all times in other areas of life. How could she possibly have guessed that it was her own wedding that they were busy organizing, and debating how she should do her hair for the great occasion, and what indeed could be done with such long tresses. Torma knew the most about these in-house Matula weddings. She had been barely seven when she first visited her uncle and met some retired former employees who had been there at the start of the century and had actually attended Mitsi Horn’s wedding, the first ever in the school, in which, she claimed, Kőnig had acted as a witness. No one was ready to believe that, but Torma swore “honest to God,” which brought a temporary chill to the proceedings (to swear an oath in regard to such matters was considered a terrible sin).

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