Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

‘Then let’s search in Vienna. His family lived there for years. There must be somebody there who knows what happened.’

Hans stretches out on the seat with his eyes closed. Perhaps he’s planning to go to sleep but the seats are too uncomfortable.

Horvath comes down the corridor with a paper bag in his hand.

‘Like some?’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Hans peers into the bag. Dried bananas. He sticks in two fingers and pulls out a sticky black pointed tongue of banana and lifts it to his mouth. He chews slowly.

‘Not bad,’ he remarks, ‘where did you find them?’

‘At the far end of the train, bought them from a man from Prague. He deals in dried fruit. I’d have rather had figs, but he had none left. His apples were all finished too, and his dates. All he had left were these little slices of banana.’

‘How much did you pay for them?’

‘More than they were worth. But we have to eat something before we get to Vienna.’

Hans watches him, chewing another small piece of burned-looking banana. Horvath offers the bag to Amara and she too pushes a sticky little strip into her mouth and chews it blissfully. Hunger can make any food delicious. True, a hot coffee or even a crunchy pretzel would be better than these sticky dried bananas, but that’s all that’s available to fill their stomachs.

‘I’ve had a word with the conductor. He’s says there’s been a warning of mines on the track. We’ll probably have to stop for a bit.’

In fact, less than a minute later, the train brakes. The pistons can be heard slowing down while the engine whistles and puffs, struggles along a little way then stops, gasping, on the frozen rails, in the middle of a field of snow. The sun has broken through the dark clouds like an egg yolk, bright and brilliant. Reflections on the snow have transformed the countryside into pure silver. In the sky a pale half-moon is hanging too like an electric bulb of frosted glass.

Hans pulls down the window. They breathe in fresh, pungent air. In the distance some women in long dark coats are hurrying towards the train, each with something in her hand. When they are near enough they lift their hands to show what they have to sell: a basket of hard-boiled eggs, some salt-encrusted perecs, a bowl of pickled gherkins. Hans buys what will fit into one of Amara’s headscarfs: six boiled eggs, six pretzels and three pickled gherkins. But is there nothing to drink? He indicates thirst, throwing back his head and pointing his thumb at his open mouth. The woman laughs, revealing an absence of front teeth. She sticks two fingers in her mouth and gives a loud whistle. A small boy runs up with under his arm an enormous metal thermos from which he pours a sugared black tea that he sells at ten centimes a mug. Amara drinks greedily, burning her tongue, and passes the mug to Hans who has it refilled and passes it on to Horvath. Lastly he drinks himself. No one cares that the mug has been through the mouths of heaven knows how many people. When the thermos is empty the small boy runs to have it filled again by a man wrapped in an ancient heavily patched army greatcoat, perhaps his father, who is sitting in the snow with a metal can between his legs. The child hands over the money which the man pockets before slowly opening the large lid of the can to pour the boiling liquid into the thermos. Then the child runs off to pour more tea for other thirsty and frozen passengers.

Frau Morgan hugs Amara as soon as she sees her. She seems to have no hard feelings, and is ready to take her back at the Pension Blumental despite the trouble caused her by the police. Amara drags her father’s old suitcase up the stairs. The only thing Frau Morgan asks is that she should take off her muddy shoes first. So she leaves them at the entrance, near the stove, and climbs the steep stairs in her stockinged feet. A little ashamed of her stockings, dirty and full of holes. But in Budapest she had no chance to change them.

She has her old room again: small, with two windows overlooking the yard and the roofs. Opening the windows she can see the little wooden tables in the restaurant that overlooks the courtyard, each with its lamp under a tiny reddish shade. Every time its door is thrown open the clash of plates and smell of salty fried food reaches up to the top floor. From the other window overlooking the roofs, she is sometimes involved in a squabble between pigeons fighting over a worm or midge, who knows. They too are going hungry in such a difficult year as 1956.

The high bed is as clean as ever; its immaculate sheet smelling of laundry and its quilt, folded back as is the custom in this part of the world, sheathed in a white cover with yellow stripes. The pillow is the kind she hates, into which you sink till your ears and even your eyes are covered.

Before she went up Frau Morgan handed her a card from Susanna: Where are you? Give some sign of life. Lots of love and best wishes ! As though she hasn’t been in Italy for years. As though she has been crossing a desert in the dark. ‘A shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night,’ as Conrad puts it. No one would believe her. Now that she has returned to the everyday world, everything seems different, everything paradoxically predictable and banal.

There is also a letter from Sister Adele. Amara opens it with feverish fingers. Something falls at her feet. She bends to pick it up: a photograph. It is her father Amintore as a young man. On a ledge in the mountains. He must have been scarcely twenty years old. A sunny day, cloudless. He is alone, up on a rocky ridge, on a peak at the top of a smooth perpendicular wall. Suspended in space, like a worker at the top of a skyscraper, calm, legs bent, one elbow on his knee, seen in profile, facing the horizon. A small man with regular features, with smooth black hair, a high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and big strong hands like the artisan that he was.

Dear Amara, your father died last night in his sleep. I don’t think he suffered. His last words were for your mother, Stefania. He called her several times. For days he had recognised no one, not even me, though I was his daily companion. We dressed him in his best suit, the formal blue one, and new shoes, and smoothed down his still abundant hair with water. His expression was relaxed, not contorted at all. He died a beautiful death, even if we are sorry he could not receive Extreme Unction. But I believe Christ will have been indulgent and ready to open his arms to a man who had for so many years been the prisoner of a severe illness, by now almost completely blind, but a man with a good heart who never harmed a fly. I enclose a photo I found among his papers. I’ve put all his possessions in a box: his striped rug, his dressing-gown, his watch, some letters and books, a photo of your mother and some other small things, and closed and sealed the lot. I’ll give the box to you next time you are in Florence. I’ve thrown away his slippers because they were in a terrible state, even if he was so attached to them and insisted on wearing them although we had given him a new pair.

I tell you sincerely that I am sorry he has gone, even if towards the end he had become very demanding to look after; he had to be fed like a child and have things put into his hands, because he couldn’t see any more. Mostly he would sit with his head bowed and a sad expression on his face. Only one word would ever get any response from him. The name Stefania. When he heard it he would raise his head and smile. The smile of a child, really moving. I am sure he never stopped loving her, even when he hardly understood anything else. And this made him dear to me, because he was a loyal man and I have not known many loyal men.