Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

Ellen was indignant. “How could you have been? How could anyone foresee what would happen?”’

“Perhaps not. But the trouble is that Chomsky comes from a very wealthy and distinguished family-his father is a high-ranking diplomat who’s served in the Hungarian government; he has connections everywhere. Our Chomsky is the youngest of five brothers who are all powerful men. Laszlo wasn’t quite up to those sort of pressures, which was why they sent him here. As a kind of refuge.”

“I see.” Marek’s words came back to Ellen: “His appendix was taken out in the most expensive clinic in Budapest.”

“I don’t think they’ll make trouble… sue us or anything like that. But if they did…” Bennet was silent for a moment, foreseeing yet another form of ruin for his beloved school. Then he came to the point. “Chomsky asked for you when they took him away in the ambulance. He wanted you to bring some of his clothes and belongings, but mostly he just wanted to see you. I gather his mother and some other relatives are coming from Budapest to visit him in hospital. If you could go there, Ellen, and make contact-I think if anyone can turn away their wrath, it’s you.”

But when, two days later, Ellen knocked on the door of Room 15 in the Sommerfeld Clinic for Nervous Conditions, she saw at once that there was no wrath to turn away.

The clinic was light, sunny and opulently furnished, with deep pile carpets and reproductions of modern art. Chomsky’s room faced a courtyard with a Lebanon cedar and a fountain, and resembled a suite in an expensive hotel rather than a hospital.

But it was the gathered Chomskys, seeming to Ellen to be ranked tier upon tier like cherubim round Laszlo’s bed, that gave the metalwork teacher the look of a potentate holding court. Beside his locker a woman in a superb embroidered jacket and silk shirt was arranging fruit in a crystal bowl: peaches and nectarines, figs and almonds and bunches of blue-black grapes. Her resemblance to her son was marked: the same fervent dark eyes, the same eager movements. Two handsome men, also unmistakable Chomskys, stood by the window: one was smoking a cigar, the other was just opening a bottle of champagne. A grey-haired woman, wearing a silver fox stole in spite of the heat, sat on a chair at the foot of the bed, her fingers clasped round an ebony cane.

“Ellen!” cried the invalid, sitting up in bed in yellow shantung pyjamas with his initials on the pocket. “You have come!” His happy shout cut short the Hungarian babble. Madame Chomsky advanced towards Ellen and threw out her arms. Laszlo’s brother Farkas and cousin Pali were introduced, as was his great aunt Eugenie who had been taking the waters at Baden when she received news of the accident.

“We’ve heard so much about you!” said Madame Chomsky in German, while cousin Pali, in English, offered champagne and brother Farkas took the suitcase Ellen had brought and found another chair.

Within minutes Ellen found herself in a huddle of approving Chomskys: Chomskys thanking her for her kindness to their Laszlo, Chomskys hoping that the suitcase had not been too heavy, Chomskys offering her a holiday in their villa on Lake Balaton, their mansion in Buda, their apartment in the Champs Elysees. Far from blaming anybody at the school for his accident, they seemed to feel only gratitude to Bennet for having found work for the baby of the family whom they loved dearly but who had not shown himself to be quite in the ambitious, thrusting mode of his older siblings.

“Is she not like little Katya?”’ Chomsky wanted to know-and was reproved by his mother, who said that Ellen was much prettier than his nursemaid and how could he say such a thing?

An hour later, Ellen had still not been able to take her leave. She had the feeling that the Chomskys would have given her everything they possessed, including their youngest son in marriage. Every time she tried to go she was promised another treat-a new cousin arriving shortly from Transylvania, a slice of the special salami which Madame Chomsky had brought from Budapest because the Austrians could not be trusted where salamis were concerned; the ratio of donkeys to horses in the meat was never satisfactory west of the Hungarian border.

At six o’clock the nurse returned with the empty suitcase for Ellen to take back.

“We won’t need the passport or the birth certificate,” she said. “I’ve put them in the inside pocket; they don’t like valuable documents lying round in the clinic.”

“But you must have dinner with us!” cried Farkas, as Ellen got to her feet. “The food is not at all bad at the Imperial.”

Since the Imperial was a sensationally expensive hotel with its own park beside the lake, Ellen said she was sure this was so, but she had to get back to her children.

“Next time, then!” cried the Chomskys, kissing her fervently on both cheeks, and Madame Chomsky followed Ellen in the corridor to give her a last bulletin about her youngest son.

“It may be necessary to take him away to some spa to make a full recovery,” she said. “But I think he just needs to rest quietly till this dreadful play is over. Please tell Mr Bennet he can be sure that Laszlo will not desert him; he will return.”

Ellen smiled, detecting behind the effusive warmth of Cliomsky’s mother, a flicker of anxiety lest her Laszlo might be returned permanently to the fold, and promised that she would set the headmaster’s mind at rest.

“I have put a few little things in, also, for the children,” said Madame Chomsky as Ellen picked up the case, which certainly seemed to contain more than a passport and a few documents. “You will not be offended?”’

Ellen shook her head, kissed everybody yet again and was escorted to the bus station by Farkas, still complaining because she would not dine with them.

She had missed the bus which would have taken her past the castle and was compelled to walk from the village. On an impulse she decided to walk along the eastern shore of the lake, along the road which led her past Professor Steiner’s house.

It was a foolish impulse, delaying her by nearly half an hour and pointlessly, for no light showed in the windows; the van was nowhere to be seen. It was time to face the fact that they had gone for good; that there would be no chance now to put things right between herself and Marek.

All the same, she paused for a moment by the path that led to the house-and as she did so she saw someone moving in the bushes. A man, furtive and silent in the dark. Not Marek-this man was smaller, and who could imagine Marek looking furtive?

She hesitated, then began to walk down the path.

“Is there anyone there?”’ she called. If it was a burglar maybe her voice would scare him off.

The man had vanished. Stupidly fearless, as she later realised, she made her way towards the door.

Then a hand come round behind her and she was pulled backwards on to the grass.

It began like all the other journeys they had made. Marek drove the van to the checkpoint and the guards examined their papers only perfunctorily.

“Got any good tunes?”’ Anton joked, and they played him a bit of the old lady singing “Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes” and he waved them through.

After twenty kilometres they turned north west towards the German border and presently Marek left the van and Steiner drove down a rutted lane and parked in a clearing. There was no hope of recording anything here; they had been here too often. He could only wait and pray while Marek plunged into the densest part of the forest to meet his contact and-if their luck held-the man for whom they had searched so long. And the waiting today was going to be harder than ever. The news that Meierwitz had broken cover and was on his way at last had come with another piece of news that they had been half expecting. The line of rescuers was breaking up: one man had been arrested and shot; the Sudeten Nazis had joined the Germans in patrolling the no man’s land between the borders.