Now You See It, Now You Don’t and House of Cards have been included as part of the Open Society Archive dedicated to this period in the CEU. You can read a serialisation of them here on Xpatloop. You can also buy the dual-volume book on Kindle as well as in Stanfords London.

Book Two, Chapter 6
Part 1 – Building projects

As another Christmas approached, we received a telegram from Virginia inviting us to visit them and their new baby – their long-awaited son – János. Her parents, travelling in Europe, were also there. József’s mother prepared lunch for us all, after which the children found their presents under the small Christmas tree and disappeared into their bedroom to play with the new games.

János, like so many third or subsequent babies, was easy-going and enjoyed the chatter and laughter of the other children. Virginia for her part seemed more relaxed and was obviously very much enjoying seeing her parents again.

‘Come!’ she suddenly said, jumping up and taking my arm, ‘Come – I want to show you something.’

We followed her into the congregation room, cold and unfriendly as always, and still littered with innumerable cardboard boxes of books and belongings shipped over from America but as yet unpacked.

‘Look!’ she said, pointing towards the window. There, across a patch of snow-powdered, frozen mud stood the new parsonage, to all intents and purposes finished.

‘But when did they do all that?’ I asked.

‘Oh, through the summer and fall. I think they had just had enough of it and wanted to see it done. There were men working here day and night – we should be able to move in the spring!’
 

Paul wanted to see it at close quarters, so we pulled on our boots and walked over the splintered puddles and frosty earth and into the new building. Virginia walked ahead of us explaining the function of each room and what still needed to be done.

‘There’s no terrace, then?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’  And then after a moment, ‘We’ll have a telephone here, József’s even agreed to a dishwasher, and the whole house is so light, not gloomy like the old one! But you’re right, it hasn’t the atmosphere either – and all the children were born over there, all our married life has been spent there. It’ll be difficult to leave.

‘Is anyone interested in buying it yet?’

‘No. It’s a real problem that it can only be renovated and not demolished. Lots of people have been to see it, but no-one wants to spend that much money on such a derelict building.’

We returned to the children and Virginia’s parents. József had gone to see someone at the church, and Virginia went to feed János who was now grizzling in the children’s room. We sat with her parents and talked about the new house. It was obvious that they were pleased about the impending move and felt more optimistic about Virginia’s future in this strange land so far away from the constant sunshine and easy living of their native California.

Both her father and mother, now in late middle age, were themselves church ministers, and as her mother said, ‘Virginia was never one to be interested in clothes or physical comfort, we weren’t at all worried about the practical difficulties of her being here…’ She tailed off.

‘It has been hard, not to have telephone contact, but József tells us that there will be a phone in the new parsonage,’ said her father.

‘We have been a bit worried though, over the last year,’ her mother took up again. ‘Virginia seemed very down. I do think József is a bit hard on her. We don’t like to interfere and Virginia doesn’t really tell us many details.’

She tailed off again, as though hoping I might supply her with the information that they were lacking.

‘We’re very grateful to you both for your friendship and help towards her,’ said her father.

I felt somewhat nonplussed, realising how many months it had been since we last met, and that I quite likely knew even less about Virginia’s unhappiness than did her parents, to whom she wrote regularly. Without a telephone I could only speak to Virginia when we had the chance to meet personally, and what with our present lack of a car and the birth of her third child, our visits were becoming ever less frequent.

It was soon dark. József returned and we prepared for our homeward train journey. In spite of her parents’ anxieties, Virginia seemed happy and was eagerly awaiting the new year and the move to the new house, and thus I consoled myself that for once I could take my leave without that feeling of abandoning her. József went ahead to start up the car, calling back as he opened the front door, ‘It’s starting to snow!’

We took the children’s hands and walked to follow József and Virginia outside. Suddenly, I felt aware of Virginia’s father stuffing a piece of paper into my hand. He said, ‘Goodbye, and thank you so much for supporting Virginia. This is our postal address in California – you don’t have e-mail, do you? No, of course not. Please, if anything happens, if Virginia seems depressed, if you feel at all worried, please contact us. We can’t ring her, we have to rely on her letters.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry. Things will be easier for her in the new house.’ We piled into the spluttering Trabant. The car hiccoughed through the broken garden gate and we waved through the rear window until Virginia, her children and her parents blurred into the now thickly falling snow.

                                                                                                                 *

The onset of spring in Hungary was often dramatic: a sudden rise in temperature of maybe ten degrees occasioned such a rapid thaw of snow, that in conjunction with the rain which also characterised a change in season, the lower road by the Danube usually flooded.

Bulky, dark coats were temporarily jettisoned and mothballed, trees turned green in a matter of days, and the remnants of the blackened mud and sooty snow which had cloaked the city for weeks was finally washed away in the spring rains. People began frantic cleaning activities, while those with more leisure laid claim to every bench in every park, waiting for the comforting warmth of a pale sun.

People stood at bus-stops, meerkat-like, and stretched their necks to more fully absorb every life-giving ray on their upturned faces. Meanwhile, an increased bustling activity could be observed on every corner as café waiters washed down tables and chairs to be placed on the pavements, building and renovation work started up again, and the familiar orange vehicles appeared along the boulevards spraying water on the roads to wash away any grimy reminders of winter left by the rain.

Manifestations of this change were also affecting our household. First of all, our cat Gulliver had disappeared, possibly urged on by the same feelings of spring restlessness that seemingly affected everyone, to find himself a mate. More disturbingly, however, the proposed garage-building project was also being coaxed out of its hibernation. Everyone was invited to a residents’ meeting, though little real progress seemed to have been made in the preceding months. More sketched plans were presented to us, scarcely less vague than at our previous such gathering.

‘But this isn’t big enough to get your car into!’ exclaimed Mrs. Katona, as she disdainfully put the plan back on the table.

‘Of course it is!’ retorted Ákos.

‘You’ll never do it,’ said Mrs. Hortobágyi. ‘It is the same size as our garage and we can only just get our Lada into it. For an Audi like yours you’d need a garage half as big again.’

The argument continued pointlessly back and forth with other random complaints thrown in – the branch of the acacia tree Mrs. Hortobágyi wanted to remove, the fact that ‘someone’ should replace burnt-out lightbulbs, and ‘someone’ should put out the bins and bring them back in to the garden; and then back to the garage and whether it would be possible to get out of a car that size, even assuming one could get it into the garage in the first place.

Then totally without warning, Mrs. Kis got to her feet, and looking Ákos straight in the eye said slowly and deliberately, and with icy calm, ‘You are lying.’ And with that she left the flat. A tense silence hung in the air, our hovering suspicions having been voiced. There were a few embarrassed coughs, glances exchanged, and then one by one everyone mumbled their goodnights and departed.

In the days following there was a return to whispered conversations on the stairwell, surreptitious pacings in the garden, and quick reconnoitres to see if the coast was clear before anyone ventured out of their flat, lest they should meet either of the Szabó-s and be drawn into the only topic of conversation that we now all had in common.

As I returned from the park with the children one morning I bumped into the Szabó-s standing in the middle of the garden. I groaned inwardly – no escape.

‘Look,’ began Edina, ‘we’re not barbarians. The garage will fit in perfectly here next to yours. We don’t want to spoil the garden, we’ll have it all landscaped afterwards.’ I kept silent.

‘We need a garage!’ Ákos burst out, ‘You’ve got one, so have the Katona-s and the Hortobágyi-s. Why can’t we have one? Of course it will fit in here.’

I walked away, catching a fleeting glimpse of Mrs. Zombori who had been observing us from her window, probably in no doubt as to the subject and tenor of our exchange.


Mrs. Zombori’s house

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