No one envied them, which was unusual in the general poverty following the lost war, for the Perthrényis were not simply old-style rich, but kept up a private empire in the area known as the Great Wood, and managed a household with a proper staff amidst the scenery of their improbable life. They had a cook, a housemaid, a coachman who later served as footman promoted to the post of chauffeur, the idol of our young hearts, with masses of gold braid; they had a gardener too, who lived in a detached cottage in the kitchen garden, while the other servants lived in the bright, tiled basement, in rooms of their own; the little kitchen maid was housed in an alcove off the huge pantry, to safeguard her from wordly temptations.

Mrs Perthrényi was not only wealthy, but also kind-hearted, a good woman, who felt responsible not only for her pack of dogs and the army of cats wandering about the house, but also for the young servant girl. She brought up her only daughter with the assistance of her old nursery governess; Solange had remained with her former pupil after she was married, and shared the work with Mrs Perthrényi’s brother, Father Fülöp, who, being practically crippled with arthritis, had the archbishop’s permission to reside with his sister, and so could act as master of the house. After her husband’s death, Mrs Perthrényi considered her life as a woman ended, she never thought of replacing the dead man, nor of endangering with affairs the memory of her happy marriage or her daughter’s formative years: Mrs Perthrényi had loved Ákos Perthrényi, and when the tragic accident took him from her, she dedicated herself to the raising and education of her child, which was completed at a convent of the Daughters of Mount Sion; she renounced the world, had no social life, surrounded herself with small circles of women recruited mostly for the purpose of doing good works. When she looked at her daughter she felt that there was something that helped her to endure her unforgotten loss: her growing child was a constant source of happiness.

What distinguished the mother was an unobtrusive but constant benevolence; though in her mode of life she was a strict Catholic, she had practised the idea of ecumenism even before the establishment of Taďzé; at times her solicitor had to gently chide the widow, who was always prepared to listen and to help, but whenever he hinted that she must be careful not to overstep the invisible barrier if she did not wish to endanger nor squander her child’s fortune, she always curbed her natural propensity for openhandedness, for the centre of the universe was of course her daughter, and just to attend school with her was ecstasy for any child. Cincu was as naturally kind-hearted as her mother, and Solange, who in the beginning brought her in from the Great Wood by carriage, later by car, and beside Cincu’s lunch basket, always packed a huge box of things to nibble on for her classmates—delicacies like rolls filled with ham appeared out of the box, and every now and then, as a mark of courtesy towards the headmistress and the teaching staff, bottles of wine, poultry or half a porker would also arrive; and every May Mrs Perthrényi would invite the whole school to their estate at Gut, for her delight in the pleasure of others was as sincere as the humility with which she had accepted her husband’s death, and the self-evidence with which she had refused suitors after the year of mourning had passed. She considered Perthrényi’s death a punishment for her sin of wilfulness; Sarolt had been granted permission to marry her own first cousin by ecclesiastical authority, following family disputes that ill befitted people of their position, the sober adults pleaded genetic reasons against the marriage, but the young people’s love would not be swayed by refusal of permission. After her husband’s death, Mrs Perthrényi perceived her loss as a sign of God’s displeasure, while Solange and Father Fülöp saw this manifested in Cincu’s delicate health. The child’s natural resistance was weak—at the time, immune deficiency was not a household word—during the years of adolescence, Cincu’s heart-beat was sometimes arrythmic, she was not allowed to do every exercise during physical education class, but the symptoms ceased, and the susceptibility to catch almost every contagious disease was conquered by time, and as a young girl Cincu was a beautiful and amiable creature, as eager to please others as her mother Sarolt. She spoke often of her father, which grieved her Uncle Fülöp, who felt this lament for her lost father was impolite, as he had moulded her himself, so she should not feel deprived, and if she did, it was not justified, but the Father was wise, and though he feared the moment when the child he had reared would become aware of her feminity, he coloured the galloping hero of the girl’s imagination, the never understood, but well-loved brother-in-law, Ákos Perthényi, with monastic humility. Then Satan found the classical gap in his defences, and brought a new Perthrényi into Cincu’s life on the night of the officers’ ball, a Perthrényi so distantly related that he could not really be counted as kin at all, but, as a lieutenant of hussars, and in appearance so very similar to Sarolt, to the girl, to the poor dead Ákos, he walked into Cincu’s life as is prescribed in the most banal novels, those that convey fundamental precepts on the deepest level.

The hussar and the girl caught sight of each other, and Solange and Sarolt—the Father had not dragged his decrepit body to the ballroom—knew at once that here was the first suitor, and from the way they looked at each other, he might well be the last, those who could be refused had come forward long before, but Cincu’s bodyguards had successfully warded them off. The hussar greeted Sarolt as a relative, first he kissed her hand, then her face, he did no more than glance at Cincu, but in such a way that it would have been less dangerous if he had kissed her too. Mrs Perthrényi dreaded the thought of her daughter being taken away from her, but having learned from the reports of the solicitor and the lieutenant’s regiment that the officer was well-to-do, had no debts, and had sown only as many wild oats as his position in society demanded, having also discovered that the general expected much of his intelligence and character, and as her daughter was reeling under the unaccustomed storm of emotion, Mrs Perthrényi knew that it would be hazardous to say no, for she had no reason or justification to do so. Her daughter was, thank God, healthy, Huttra, who had been treating her since her birth, saw no cause for anxiety, no reason against their building a family in the time to come, so Mrs Perthényi permitted the young man to propose to the girl. The betrothal took place after high mass, and was restricted to the family circle, Father Fülöp blessed the diamond engagement ring; beside Sarolt and her household, only the groom’s also widowed mother was present at the engagement dinner, the young lovers were so radiant that Sarolt could not help but stare at her daughter, slave to an emotion she had not felt for a long time. The mother was disciplined, but she was not blind, nor foolish, and, though she had resigned herself to what she had no choice but to accept, she realized that now would come the time of true loneliness, and she could show no sign that life had robbed her again, that Cincu too would be taken from her. Of course she curbed her selfishness, nothing counted except her child’s happiness.

My parents and the Perthrényis belonged to the same social circle, my mother and Sarolt had played tennis together as young girls. Sarolt had married when my mother married her first husband, Cincu was born at the same time as my half-sister, I, child of the second marriage, was ten years younger than the Perthrényi girl, whose original name was Genevičve, though no one ever called her by that name. After the father’s riding accident and death, the ties that bound the families together loosened, then were broken off; until Cincu reached the age to attend balls, the Perthrényis did not seek the company of their old circle, and by the time they would have sought it, they had no reason to do so, Cincu had finished with balls on her very first night as a debutante, they were busy making preparations for the wedding that was to be delayed a little, my father just left his card at the residence, P.f., after the engagement announcement arrived.

The family asked the lieutenant for a year’s waiting time until the day of the wedding, it was during this period that I officially became acquainted with Cincu, we often met at the lido, she always sat in the shade, bathed very little, and when she lay in the deckchair to dry off, she allowed the circle of gaping children to approach her with the natural charm of the very kind. Cincu as a fiancée was just what she had been born and brought up to be, as soon as she noticed the eager faces of the little ones around her, distorted by longing and looking almost old as they stared at her left hand, at her engagement ring—next to which, in church, the gold wedding band would be slipped, and which, as propriety demanded, was an antique family diamond, because a lady should not wear cut diamonds even when she was married, not if she was a real lady—she would smile a beautiful smile at us as she said something in French to Solange, who hurried over to the ice-cream vendor, also standing in the shade waiting for customers, and asked him to come over to Cincu’s deckchair, and give an ice-cream to any of the circle of children who wanted one. Once he had served them all, he was to bring the bill to her, she would pay him in Miss Perthrényi’s place.

That summer I used to go swimming with my favourite cousin Tiger; we went for ice cream together too—for which I got a good scolding when I reached home and boasted of it; I was told that I should not have accepted the offer, it was not fitting, "it wasn’t what I’d been taught", and Tiger too got her share of scolding at home from my aunt Piroska. I did not understand what was wrong about Cincu’s standing us all an ice cream, Tiger—who was an oddity even in our family, famous for producing extraordinary individuals, Tiger who was a time-bomb set for an unspecified time—understood even less. Tiger did not shy at any obstacle, never waited for an opportune moment, never deliberated, never gave in, and jumped even if she knew she was going to hurt herself. We had so many relations we could have peopled an entire village, almost all of them have been dispersed from around me by the wind, but Tiger’s memory has become fixed in my mind, I still feel her loss. When she died, it was not pain I felt at first, but indignation. How did she dare leave me?

That summer, we suffered the waiting period imposed on the betrothed together with Cincu, founded a new religion, with Cincu as its goddess. We dared not engage her in conversation, dared not even address her, at the time, to approach someone without an invitation was much more strictly restricted even within the family circle, we just followed her around and watched her, and sometimes spoke her name out loud to each other. The whispering of her name was part of the cult, for us she was not Cincu—Cincu could have been anybody—but Genevičve, the bride, whose wedding-day was slowly approaching. We spied on her before her cabin, in the water, as she lay in the sun to dry, it was a wonder that she bore it so patiently, I think we were both in love with Cincu. We were not jealous of the hussar bridegroom, he was part and parcel of the magic of that extraordinary summer, a special relationship developed between us, as we realized, Tiger and I, that, strictly speaking, the man was one of us as well. Cincu is the bride, but she cannot take a step without us, her royal pages, we shall probably be her bridesmaids at the wedding, who could be more worthy than us, and we day-dreamed that we might be allowed to throw rose-petals as well. Cincu’s trousseau, following the custom of those times, was displayed to the public in the shop window of the successor to our family’s former store, indeed, by favour of the senior manager, we were allowed to touch her gossamer nightgowns after closing. What we associated with the flimsy clothing was improper, hardly known, not at all understood, in any case wrong, and brought us both in thought at least into physical contact with the hussar. The groom hardly looked at us, he was a polite man, he showed no sign of what he must have felt, that he was tired of and inconvenienced by our constant shadowing, and that he wanted us to leave them in peace. He was kind-hearted, would offer us sweets from time to time as well. One time Tiger—I have said she had no inhibitions—offered home-baked cherry pie in return, which she had brought to the lido in a box. Cincu thanked her very prettily, but refused, pleading her diet as an excuse, the hussar politely ate a slice.

We had an untroubled, beautiful two weeks during that summer, when the groom disappeared, on manoeuvres as it turned out, which we did not know, but they took the hussar from our midst, and at last Genevičve was ours only. By this time, emboldened and defiant, we had taken to sitting beside the unfortunate girl, of course Solange was always there too, so we could not approach her in a truly confidential way. Solange, the heartless, the cunning, sent the ice cream vendor to a distant corner, we were continually forced to make a choice, let it be said to our credit that we did not forsake the object of our worship for worldly pleasures, we did not want the ice cream, we stayed beside Cincu. Our presence did not bother the girl, we too were somehow part of the wonderful turn her life had taken. The swarm of children had disappeared from around her, Tiger—who had been prone to kick and bite even as a very young child when she felt someone was a nuisance to her—had driven them away. Solange knew she could read in the shade quite safely, the bodyguards, those two crazy children, would keep watch; as time passed, Cincu became even more friendly and kind, we were the protective screen between herself and the townfolk, to approach a girl freshly betrothed in the absence of her fiancé would have been improper even in the presence of the governess, but she would still have been hounded by the curious if we had not been there to shield her. Solange, when she was flustered, always forgot her Hungarian, and Cincu had no wish to make acquaintances, nor to declare her sentiments, and she was utterly incapable of offending or refusing anyone.

If Sarolt had not bought her daughter a sixth swimsuit beside the five she already owned, this extraordinary summer would have remained in my memory as a time of harmony and of presexual, or if not that, then sacred, foolish puppy love. Cincu was ours, we were hers, the sun magical, fiery, the pool could not cool us, Cincu did, yet what we felt for her was not gentle blue like the water, but bright red, like the face of someone with fever.

Sarolt felt that time was running out, her daughter, her only source of joy, would be taken from her in the autumn, and she tried to assuage her impotent pain by adding yet another piece to her trousseau, that is how we came to see the new, sixth swimsuit, which seemed like fairyland itself to our child’s eyes, it was in this suit that Cincu truly became Genevičve. The soft brown tones of the suit made her fairness even more dazzling, the material was decorated with little Chinese men jumping off tiny bridges into small pools, and each little Chinese was watched by another from a height. A coolie hat completed the outfit, and a parasol made of the same material as the suit. On this day Tiger behaved like one deranged, especially when she saw the parasol, she asked to have it to play with, Cincu gave it to her, but when she asked to have it back, Tiger shut it and sat on it. Tiger’s eyes were beautiful, of all my cousins she was the only one who had inherited my mother’s green mermaid eyes. She stared, almost hostilely, like Alberich, and stretched herself out on the parasol. Cincu must give it to her—she said—to her, and for keeps, because she cannot live without it. Cincu laughed, in the bright summer sunlight the words sounded comical, a ten-year-old child who cannot and will not live without something, and that that something should happen to be, of all things, a brown parasol with a Chinese pattern. Solange said something not very pleasant in French, I pretended I had not understood, Tiger didn’t.

"Drop dead!" Tiger cried. "Don’t you talk against us! I want the parasol!"

Solange now began talking very rapidly, Cincu tried to calm her, but this time she too held out against Tiger. She was a little more solemn than normally, she did not like discord.

"That was not very nice of you, Ibolyka," she said, pronouncing Tiger’s official name, "please beg Miss Solange’s pardon, as you have offended her, and it is very bad manners to demand things."

"I want the parasol!" The mermaid’s eyes were fixed on her like a sea creature’s eyes from below the depths of some mysterious sea. It was not a pleasant gaze, rather frightening. Cincu stood up, straightened her beautiful body, pulled out the parasol from beneath Tiger, and started to walk away with Solange. Tiger stared after them with the same gaze. After a couple of steps Cincu called back that the parasol was worth nothing without the hat and the suit, she would give it to her if she could, but she can’t, as the suit would be incomplete without it. If she dies, Tiger can have it, she will leave it to her as a keepsake.

She hadn’t taken twenty steps towards the exit when Tiger rushed after her. It was the first time in her life that she touched her, she hugged her, pressed her body against her, and cried, cried so hard that all the people at the lido stopped in their tracks, and the swimmers too in the nearby pool could hear, could not help hearing that a frantic child was screaming, don’t die, don’t ever die, don’t die.

"C’est dégoutant," said Solange, who gave a sharp tug at the child, without even trying to be gentle. She had to practically tear off Tiger’s thin arms from Cincu’s waist.

"Mais non," I heard her reply. "C’est drôle et tragique."

Of course it was tragique, I was close to crying myself then, what were they tormenting poor Tiger for, what was her great crime, and how come it never entered their heads that if our Aunt Gizella gave French lessons, we would naturally be made to attend them as well, so she should earn a little more money, Tiger understood, just as I did, that they said she was disgusting. Understood? She understood so well that she collapsed in a heap upon hearing those words, she lay there on the ground, pressing her face against the sand and gravel, like one killed. Incidentally, it was the first and only public humiliation of her life that went unavenged, my walk of life led uphill and down dale, hers, from that moment, always led her higher and higher, even death could not down her without a struggle. I knelt down beside her, brushed off her face so the gravel would not graze her, even so her forehead was scraped raw. She let me help her to her feet, by then Solange had put Cincu in the car. I hoped she at least would look back, but she didn’t. What Tiger got for this scene at home it’s best to forget, her parents, especially her father, a school principal, knew no mercy when he felt that it was his own child who had brought shame upon his head. Some kind soul had already dropped in on them by the time the trembling, unaccountably limping Tiger got home, the parents knew everything, when she walked in through the gate her bags were already packed and they set off with her straight away to her paternal grandmother’s at Haláp, she was not allowed to return until school began. Without her I did not go to the lido either, I did not see Cincu again until her wedding, only her hussar, whom I ran into just the once on the promenade, I tried to slip past him but he recognized me and stopped me. There was something new about his face, something unfamiliar, I did not know it was the face of a man who is pleased with life, who is loved.

"And where’s the other guardian angel?" he asked. "Where’s the little monster? I heard what she did."

I was silent. What could I have said, I was a child, but a child who had been taught her manners. I knew I could not reply to an officer of the hussars in the way Solange had disposed of us, I could not tell him that to accost me and ask about Tiger was dégoutant.

"Would you not like something of Cincu’s too?" he continued. "You almost loved her to distraction, you silly little fools. Well, never mind, I’m not really angry, because who wouldn’t always want to be where Cincu was?

Will you come into the tea-shop with me? The ice cream is better here than at the lido."

He was trying to make peace, make amends for Solange, but I would have none of it. I found the only polite insult that even an officer had no choice but to swallow. I felt as Caesar must have felt after occupying Gaul. My hands were steady, but in this we had always differed with Tiger, she always struck at once, I bided my time, waited for the best opportunity. And it had come.

"Thank you very much, but my parents taught me never to accept sweets from a stranger."

The blow struck home. He did not say another word, but turned and hurried away, the redness of his face indicating that he had understood me very well. He an old lecher, he a stranger! I skipped all the way home, I wasn’t allowed to write to Tiger, and later I did not want to tell her about the meeting.

Naturally, only those who had received an invitation were to attend the wedding, and Mrs Perthrényi had invited parents without their children. The nephews and nieces of the handsome hussar carried the bride’s train and scattered rose-petals.There was of course a very large crowd in Saint Anne Street, we stood opposite the church, Mrs Ilka, our cook, clutching me firmly by the arm, a great many people came to gape because Cincu counted as a society lady even in the capital, had been written up in the society columns even though she had attended just the one ball in her life, and that in the country. We stared at the wedding guests, I in particular at my father, it was the first time I had seen him in a morning coat and top hat, which made him for once as tall as his much taller wife. Genevičve was preceeded by her mother-in-law and mother, behind them came Solange pushing the Father’s wheelchair. It is only now that I realize what a sad procession it must have been, that radiant life between the two widows, behind them the crippled priest and the spinster. At the time I thought it as beautiful as a fairy-tale. The whole town was there in the church and out on the steps, those who were not in morning coats were wearing the ceremonial attire of Hungarian noblemen, there were a great many officers there as well, and after the ceremony Genevičve, now a married woman, descended the steps between their ranks, and at last we got to see her face, which until then had been covered with a veil, as propriety demanded. Genevičve’s bridal dress was made of old lace, worth more than diamonds, my mother whispered with awe. It was a long wedding, the mayor had stopped the traffic on the main street for the duration. The Perthrényis had restored or placed orders for several buildings as a way of supporting the undertakings of the town council.

Tiger of course was not allowed to attend, my aunt was afraid she would sneak out after them, so she was locked up in the nursery school among the butterfly wings. The crępe paper accessories for the butterfly dance were stored in the lumber-room, Tiger spent Cincu’s big day huddled among dead paper butterflies.

We were sitting down to luncheon when the liveried attendant of the county arrived with the news, Genevičve had stepped out of the carriage on the arm of her husband, and had got as far as the hall before collapsing at the foot of the stairs, by the time the hussar leaned over her, she was dead. No one knew the details, but this much was enough for us to forgo lunch. An hour later my aunt Piroska was at our house, looking for Tiger, who had disappeared. When she heard the sad news they greeted her with as they unlocked the door of the wing room, when she learned what had happened to Cincu, she had rushed out of the house and no one had seen her since. Piroska had hoped she would come to us, but as she had not, she would go on looking for her. She has no friends apart from me, well, no one else can suffer her terrible temper. She is not above running away, that one, or hanging herself, my aunt cried. To fall in love with a girl, it’s absurd. For if this is not love, then she’s no teacher. And Piroska cried and cried.

In the afternoon now this, now that member of the family dropped in, my aunt telephoned, the child had not been found, they had been to the parsonage to ask permission to take a look in the sacristry and the church, perhaps she had hidden there, had gone to take a belated look at what she had not been allowed to see, all the flowers were still there untouched on the altar. The county clerk reported that Mr Bauer, the coffin maker had succeded in helping the heart-struck Mrs Perthényi, beside herself with grief, Father Fülöp and Solange out of the carriage, and had taken them up into the house with his assistant. The situation at the residence was impossible, the mother would not allow them to take Cincu from her arms, she is sitting there on the floor holding Cincu and keeps saying that she will come to in a moment, Mr Bauer just happens to have a white sample coffin on hand, in principle, Cincu, poor soul, could already be resting there, but her mother will not allow anyone to even come near her, Mrs Perthrényi demanded that Cincu’s vanity case be brought to her, painted her daughter’s face pink and her lips dark red. I was too young to fully digest all that I felt at the time, the image of Mrs Perthrényi sitting on the floor like the statues and paintings of the Virgin Mary struck me so intensely that I could barely grasp that more important than the esthetic experience was the fact that Genevičve was no more. That is, I did grasp it, but assessed it in different way: I wished the same for myself. Who could have imagined a more beautiful death than to step out into life with a bouquet of tuberoses in one’s hand on the arm of a beloved person, and, in the most significant moment, have that life cease abruptly, before having to suffer a single disappointment. When my thoughts took a more personal turn I realized with a shock that poor Tiger was in hiding somewhere, and my body reacted to the double blow with tears and trembling. My mother pulled off my dress and stuck me under the shower and opened the cold water faucet. While she was rubbing me she called out to my father from behind the closed door of the bathroom if he thought they should call to offer their condolences the following day, or would it be enough to leave a card. My father decided on leaving a card. It is strange, but I felt no aversion at the thought of Mrs Perthrényi sitting on the floor with the dead Cincu in her arms, just inescapable sorrow that beauty and goodness had departed from us. I would so much have liked to see Cincu once more! I offered to take the cards myself, I hoped I might be allowed into the house and could see her for one last time. My parents gave no reason, but denied me the possibility of the visit. In the meanwhile, the chief of police telephoned that they had searched the church, but had found no trace of the little girl though they had looked for her even in the crypt, they had scoured the wood, but she was not there either, a policeman would be sent to the child’s grandmother, to the farm where the parents sometimes sent her to stay, she may have decided to go there alone in her sorrow, they are searching for her all along the main road, are going to ask after her at the stops of the narrow-gauge railway as well. The police chief was a friend of my father’s, not of Tiger’s parents’, so it was my mother who called Piroska with the news to have no fear, her daughter would be found; Sanyi Tóth, her former dance partner, was taking particular care over the search. Piroska just cried, because the day which was meant to be a sensation, a day of pure joy for the whole town, had darkened, the poor little bride who should be lying in her nuptial bed was lying in a coffin instead, that is, if only she could be lying there, but Mrs Perthrényi will not let go of the corpse, the situation at the residence was unchanged, the papal nuncio told the husband, who was practically beside himself, that he must help convince the mother, together with Father Fülöp, to lay her daughter in the coffin, the Father was unequal to the task alone, and the mother would not listen to him either. Huttra and the nerve-specialist called in for a medical consultation both declared that there was nothing to do but to wait until she grew tired enough for them to steal the unfortunate Cincu out of her arms.

The telephones did not stop shrilling until the evening, in the evening the police reported that the girl had not gone to her grandmother’s, no one had seen Tiger. I was very angry with the Lord, and whenever I was angry with him I did not say my evening prayers as a punishment, I did not even speak to Him because I knew He would not be pleased to hear what I would say. Of course sleep did not come easy, would not come at all, I thought that if they had allowed Tiger to watch from beside Mrs Ilka what every curious passer-by had seen, she would not have run away. My aunt was kind to every child, she was only cruel to her own, how could she have had the heart to lock her up in a lumber-room where she could not even open the window.

My thoughts stopped there. Well, of course she is there, if she is nowhere else. She did not go away , she went back, to the only place where she could be sure no one would think to look for her. Children do not come to Aunt Piroska’s nursery school on Saturdays and Sundays, and we had always been able to sneak out and back whenever we wanted by stepping on the door-knob of the small door opening onto Szepességi Street, holding onto a branch of the mulberry tree.

Should I tell someone? Who, and how?

Really, who should I tell, and how to say it? It is the middle of the night, Tiger is alone in the wing room, and apart from me, no one has the slightest inkling that she is there, she can grieve hungrier and thirsting for Cincu, whom she did not see walk into church as I did, how could she dare come out, she’d just be beaten again, but she cannot come out, there is a special lock, high up on the lumber-room door because of the inquisitive kindergarteners, it is easy to get in, but once it has slammed behind you, you cannot get out. This time, it was she who imprisoned herself, she cannot escape, though what a long time has passed since she last ate and drank, there isn’t even a loo in the lumber-room. What to do?

I could not think of anything. I tossed and turned but had no brainwave, nor could I sleep. Then I thought God must be angry with me because I hadn’t prayed, so I asked Him to forget what I had said about him, I would take it back, and would He please help, because there was big trouble, so big that I did not even have the time to be sad or to grieve properly. At last I fell asleep, and in the morning they greeted me with the news that Mrs Perthrényi had let go of Cincu, and she had been laid out; Mrs Perthrényi had fainted beside her, and that was how they had been able to take the dead bride from her arms. The question that remained was what was to be done about the mother, who still refused to let the dead girl out of the house; the husband, who had so quickly become a widow, was sitting beside the bier receiving the condolers, the papal nuncio was making arrangements for the funeral in Father Fülöp’s place, but Doctor Huttra, who had not left the residence either, said that if they could not shake Mrs Perthényi out of her grief it would be the end of her too, for she would surely lose her mind. If only her despair could be directed into some normal channel, but who could do it, and how?

We were sitting at breakfast, my father was an early riser and my mother had trained the entire household to conform to his habits from the beginning, at half past seven, every one was sitting at the big table, ready for work. I was hardly able to swallow my coffee when I heard that they had searched the outskirts of the town for Tiger, but to no avail, so now they were setting up a country-wide search.

"Eat, dear," my mother said. "You’re not going to solve anything by not eating. School starts in a week, these are your last free days. Eat."

I asked permission to go over to Piroska’s. First I had to drink my coffee, then I could go, my hankering for the nursery school caused no surprise, when I was born, my mother was seriously ill for almost two years, she could barely lift me, let alone feed me, it was Piroska who helped my father keep his daughter alive. I went at a trot to get there all the quicker, there were few people in the streets, but those few must have had their doubts about me, because I did not ring the bell at the front, but went round to the side entrance in Szepességi Street, clambered up on to the door-knob and climbed over the wall, once I was over the wall getting down was easy with the help of the mulberry tree, the nursery school building was placed at right angles to the apartment so there was no clear view of it. The door of the lumber-room was shut tight, I rapped on it.

We had a signal, ti-ti-ti-ta-ti, Iboly I’m waiting. If I was not mistaken, then Tiger was in there, she’d recognize the signal and answer me. And of course she did know it was me. And she did answer, she beat on the door with her fists. She must be very hungry, I thought as I unbolted the door.

I hardly recognized her, she had changed so much. There were dark circles around her eyes, her lips were blue. A clear picture of the wash-tub standing on trestles in the courtyard came to me then, with clothes floating in it, and drying soap suds on the wide outer rim. They’ve been washing here today, and early at that, and it is Auntie Julinkó and Mrs Bakonyi who do the washing. In the town of my birth, washing served instead of a local paper, the washerwomen always knew everything there was to know about everyone, dirty laundry is a good witness, by now, Tiger must know all the details about Cincu’s death. When they let her out, she ran away and then concealed herself in the one place where no sane person would ever think of looking for her, the place she had escaped from.

She did not even glance at the house, she did not ask for food or water, she did not even want to go to the loo, as if she had dried out, become desiccated, like the shell of a fly’s body left as a memory in the spider’s web. She started running and began to climb over the wall in the same place where I had come in, I begged her to leave by the main gate, they’d beat her again, but she’d bear that, this way she’d just get into bigger trouble if Mr Tóth keeps up the search for her. She did not give a rational answer, but asked me whether I had any money. How could I have had money on me, I did not even have a pinafore on, it was only the first week of September.

"Then we’ll ride without a ticket," said Tiger, and throughout the long journey, as we rode out on the tram to the Perthrényi’s residence, she did not say a word, there were no tears in her peculiar, ocean-deep eyes, the shock had been so great that nothing could have eased it yet. What she wanted there, where we would not be allowed to enter, I could not imagine, but I accompanied her faithfully, and kept a lookout for a ticket inspector, but none came; when I was a child, people did not cheat on public conveyances, except perhaps for students, and they did it for a little excitement.

There were black drapes on the Perthrényi’s front door, the curtains were tied up with bouquets of myrtle. A footman stood guard at the door, I saw a couple of people standing about in front of the house, no one I knew, it was too early to leave cards, as I had learned from my mother. Tiger wanted to go in, the footman politely headed her off, she tried again, the footman’s refusal was sharper in tone this time, but then something disrupted the order of sentry duty, for the shouting from within was loud enough to reach the open French windows. I recognized the voices of Doctor Huttra and Solange, but not the third, I later learned that it was the handsome hussar who had shouted, and then another woman, the nurse, and another man, that was the nerve specialist, but all this I learned later, much later, for the events took their toll on me too. The footman’s attention turned from without to within, he rushed into the house at the noise, and Tiger and I followed him. The cause of the shouting was at once apparent: on the stairs, clutching the banisters, in a pose I have since then often encountered in Shakespeare plays, stood Mrs Perthényi, looking down silently, straight at the coffin, and there was the dead Genevičve before me.

I had thought that when I saw her I would feel the same way as when I saw the picture of Snow White in her glass coffin in my story-book, but I was wrong. It was a terrible sight. I did not know that a dead person was so very dead. Tiger stood one step ahead of me, Mrs Perthrényi’s eyes fixed upon us, Solange screamed. She said something like les enfants d’été. Then she changed over to Hungarian, and reprimanded the footman, and told us to get out of there. Dépéchez!

I left—left? I rushed out so as not to see that white something in place of the fairy princess Cincu, that stage set, the large coffin in the great hall enveloped in the dense, cloying fragrance of flowers. The handsome hussar was standing at Cincu’s unrecognizable head, which all the make-up in the world could not have made to look alive. I waited for a long time at the tram stop, trembling, shuddering in horror, my stomach churning, watching for Tiger to get there at last, but something else happened. She did not come.

She’s run away again, I thought. But where has she gone this time? She can’t have stayed there, that’s impossible. I went home without her, and because I did not want to cheat with the ticket again, I walked home, all the way from the Pallag to Saint Anne Street, and if the exalted Piroska had not telephoned in the meanwhile to relate all that happened during my silent and increasingly exhausting walk through the wood and along the endless Simonyi Road, I would never have guessed what had happened. I tried to imagine what each of them did after Tiger appeared beside the coffin, but my imagination proved inadequate. I thought she would be thrown out, the door closed behind her; that Mr Tóth would stop the search for her, and she’d be beaten again, and would get no pocket-money either. I thought the way logics dictated, I did not yet know how subtle and ironic life could be. When Doctor Huttra told my mother the true story, the authentic one, not the one Piroska had rounded out to substantiate her daughter’s greatness, I felt as if a dark breath of wind from the netherworld had brushed my face. The perfect roundness of life was spoiled, became dented, peaks rose or chasms opened up on its surface.

"It was all a question of whether Sarolt would ever be able to speak again, her sanity hung in the balance," Doctor Huttra explained to my mother. "It was Solange who first caught her attention, because Solange had once told her about Cincu’s summer admirers, so when two little girls suddenly appeared before her, she realized that these must have been the children Solange spoke of as Cincu’s bodyguards. Solange shouted at them infuriated to get away from there at once, Magdolna ran out immediately, but Iboly stayed, she stared fixedly at

Mrs Perthrényi, jerked herself out of Solange’s hands, who wanted to lead her out of the house, she went over to Sarolt and told her that she wanted all the accesories of the swimsuit, the brown parasol included. Sarolt stared at her in alarm, like one who has just realized that she had not only lost all that she held dear on this day, but had obviously also lost her senses, for how else could a strange little girl be standing by her child’s coffin with such an absurd demand.

"The parasol," repeated Tiger, "she promised I could have the parasol if she died, well, she’s dead now, so could I please have the parasol. The entire suit. She left it to me. For keeps."

The situation was so absurd that the widow stirred on the stairs and carefully began to descend, her son-in-law jumped to her side to assist her; at last Sarolt was standing beside the coffin, and for the first time since the tragedy happened her eyelids began to quiver. The hussar grabbed Tiger’s arm and tried to throw her out, Sarolt shook her head, signalling that the child must not be harmed, and in a grating voice, as if it were issuing from a deep pit filled with daggers, as if every sound were cutting her mouth, she at last began to speak.

"Let go of her at once!"

Mrs Perthrényi turned to Solange, who was crying beside the coffin.

"There were two of them with her, that’s what you always said," said Sarolt to Solange. "The other’s gone, but this one, the faithful one, she stayed. One of the witnesses of the summer. Le témoin d’été."

"And then my heart was set at rest, I knew she would not lose her mind," related Doctor Huttra. The nerve specialist’s opinion, his hope was that if she began to speak, once she spoke, she would be saved. Sarolt behaved almost normally, she hugged her daughter, wiped off the make-up with her veil, then told Solange to give the strange child the suit that her daughter had promised her. Solange responded dumbfounded, it took a long time before she found the swimsuit at the bottom of the orphaned suitcase, packed in preparation for the honeymoon, Tiger put the coolie hat on her head, tucked the swimsuit under her left arm, and opened the parasol. Little Chinese men danced among the little bridges on the opened parasol, the son-in-law tore it out of her hand and snapped it shut, the sound was like a pistol shot in that great silence. Solange gestured to Tiger—she would not speak to her—that she had got what she wanted, it was time she went. Tiger walked over to the coffin, took a good look at Cincu, then turned straight to Sarolt and told her, in a very loud voice, not to cry, that thing lying there was not Cincu, it was just something. Cincu is here, in the parasol. Couldn’t she see?

At last they managed to hustle her out of the house, Sarolt began to cry, Father Fülöp began to tell his beads, there was the sound of crying, the mumble of prayer, Cincu slept in the coffin, and the hussar was no less pale than his wife.

That was the story that Huttra told, I scarcely figured in it, most likely I did not even know Cincu, did not release Tiger from the wing room—I did not do anything, I went away as I was ordered to from the coffin, Magdolna the obedient—and the disobedient, bad Iboly became the pride of the town. This play was a great play, but no part had been written for me, I was not even allowed to play the role of soubrette. I thought this was an oversight, a mistake. I did not know then that things do not happen by chance.

In my family the dead and the dying are mine. Tiger filled an important position in life, Piroska, Piroska’s husband, Tiger’s husband, Tiger herself died for me. When she looked up for the last time with her mysterious sea-creature’s eyes, clouded by the infinite water that had by then completely engulfed her life, her lips were trembling. The doctor was there, and the nurse, and they looked at us, cousins, one dying, the other mad, putting pencil and paper by the hand of the dying, who could no longer say anything, but obviouly wanted to. She reached for the paper, her hand moved with great effort, a couple of lines was all she had the strength for.

"Do you understand what she is trying to say?" asked the doctor.

I shook my head. The mermaid looked at me again, her lids growing heavy. She was annoyed that I could not understand what was so clear to her. She gathered all her strength and stabbed a finger at the paper.

"For you," she breathed.

"What, dearest? What? What is it?"

"That."

"She’s drawing some kind of object," said the doctor. The nurse thought she saw spokes of some kind, two sticks and a melon, I saw nothing but her.

She died and I could tell by her glance that she thought I had let her down and she did not know why.

I did not go home by car from the hospital, I took a tram. By then the tram line had been extended and ran before the former residence of the Perthrényis. We had long passed the lido by the time I realized what she had wanted to say with those sticks, the sphere and the spokes, what I should have recognized.

Of course. We two, the witnesses. Les enfants d’été! The witnesses of summer. That is, she was the one true witness, because Magdolna had run away. Magdolna had not recognized her signals till it was too late, did not realize that in the frame of a long perished parasol, and their childhood pictures, she had been left that summer. It was the sun she had drawn, two little girls and the ribs of the parasol.