The Angel Makers (2 page)

As long as she can remember, she’s been skirted by whispers wherever she goes. Her father had tried to explain it. ‘It’s because they loved your mother,’ he said, but that’s never made sense to Sari. She loves her mother too, a wraithfigure whom she’s never met, only heard about, and woven her image out of stories and imagination; a young woman – barely older than Sari now – who had left her family, smiling, to marry Jan Arany. Still smiling, she’d swollen with Sari inside her, and then split open at Sari’s birth, and died.

‘I didn’t want her to die,’ Sari would say to her father, after someone or other had hissed
witch
behind her back.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘But they just think it’s unlucky, that’s all.’

That’s not all, though, and Sari knows it, though she’s always appreciated her father’s kindness to pretend otherwise. Sari understands that she is odd, that there’s something in the way she holds herself, in the way she looks at people, in the things she says and the things she knows, that isn’t what the rest of the village considers right and proper. She envies the girls she sees walking through the village, arm in arm with easy familiarity, but she can’t see how to get from where she is to where they are, how to change her behaviour in order to be liked. The only concession that she makes these days is her silence. Keeping her mouth shut gives the villagers fewer new stories to tell about her, but as with most villages, many of them are all too happy to tell the same stories over and over again.

It happened the day her father died, too. It was morning, and Sari was at the door of the Mecs house in the noisechoked heart of the village, buying a bottle of
czerenznye
from Dorthya Mecs. As she reached out her hand to take it, she heard the voices – distinct, clear, dominated by Orsolya Kiss’s high, nasal drawl. Hearing her name, Sari moved her eyes without turning her head, and saw Orsolya, one hefty buttock hoisted onto the edge of the Gersek porch, leaning and grinning, surrounded by three or four other women. Two, Sari saw, were Orsolya’s best friends, Jakova Gersek and Matild Nagy, flanking her like bodyguards; one of them she didn’t recognise, but the shape of her face recalled Orsolya’s, and Sari remembered hearing that Orsolya’s cousin from Város was visiting. Well-practiced at avoiding notice, Sari softened her body slightly, fitting herself easily into the swoops and shadows of the narrow, slanted lane.

‘She’s never quite been right,’ Orsolya was saying, the mock sorrow in her voice unable to hide the underlying glee at being the bearer of a good story. ‘A terrible trial for her father, who’s a good man. And her mother—’ Orsolya paused to raise her eyes piously to heaven, the other three following suit, ‘– Monika was a good woman. Her death was tragic, so young, but, forgive me, sometimes I thank God that she never had to live to see what her daughter is.’

‘What does she do?’ Orsolya’s cousin whispered, in the hushed, excited tones of the consummate gossip.

The exchange was wearyingly familiar to Sari, a ritual song of call and response. She realised she was frozen, one hand holding the bottle of alcohol, as she met the eyes of Dorthya, who raised her eyebrows and gave a slight sympathetic shrug. Sari withdrew her arm, but remained rooted to the spot, listening, still.
Which one will it be, Orsolya?
she asked silently.
The one where I drive the dog mad because it won’t stop shitting in front of our house? The one where I put the curse on Éva Orczy’s baby because I think she looks at me oddly? The one about me having a birthmark in the shape of an inverted cross on my back? Or maybe something new that you’ve dreamt up? Come on, Orsolya
, Sari challenged.
Surprise me.

‘Well, I saw this one with my own eyes,’ Orsolya said, and Sari relaxed slightly. She’d heard this one, and it was almost comforting to hear it repeated; it had taken on the soothing quality of a fairy tale. ‘She must have been four or five,’ Orsolya continued comfortably. ‘It was Sunday, and we were in church. It was summer, maybe late July, or August, and you know what the flies are like then – anyway, there was a big old
dongó
buzzing around Sari, and she was swiping and swatting at it, like children do, but it wouldn’t leave her alone. So finally, she sat up straight, and just
stared
at it – this fly – and that was it. It fell onto the floor, dead.’

The breathless silence following Orsolya’s declaration cleverly conjured the dull
plop
of the fly dropping to the ground. In another life, Orsolya could have been a performer, but here, her repertoire is limited, and Sari knew this particular piece off by heart. It was that silence that she had been waiting for. Whatever she did, they were going to believe what they wanted to believe, and so she was allowed a little fun, surely? She paid Dorthya, her hands perfectly steady, and turned to face the group of women. Deliberately, she took a deep breath, pulled herself up as if the top of her head was anchored to the sky and, with a gesture loaded with intent, flicked her hair back and hit first Orsolya, then her cousin, then her vapid, giggling friends with the stare she knew had come to scare people. She watched, gratified, as the smug smiles slid from their faces (like shit off a shovel, she thought), then turned, hoisting the bottle in her arms, and walked home.

She’d only just arrived, and was peeling the potatoes for the midday meal when she heard it: a thick, heavy thump from upstairs (for a moment she thought instinctively of Orsolya’s fictitious fly hitting the ground), and she knew straight away what had happened. Her face didn’t change. First, she finished peeling the potatoes. Then, she got to her feet, shaking the water off her hands, wiping them on her skirt, before slowly, slowly climbing the stairs. At the top, she entered her father’s bedroom, and there he was, on the floor, slumped and crumpled like she’d known he would be. She moved over to him, knelt down beside him and smoothed her hand over his face, closing his eyes. Of course he was dead: there was something in the timbre of the sound he made when he fell that just couldn’t belong to something living.

For five minutes she was motionless, kneeling by her father, not weeping, not speaking, not praying (though later, she thought, she might tell people she prayed), just feeling her heart banging inside her chest, her blood thrumming at her wrists, soaking in the impossibility that she could still be living while her father was dead. She stayed there until she became conscious of the absence in the room, until she could feel that the corpse on the floor had ceased being her father and become a thing. It was all right for her to leave him then.

Sari is best known in Falucska for her unnerving silence and stillness, and at the funeral she embraces this image, gathering it around her like a comfortable old blanket. She seems unmoved as the priest speaks of her father, unaffected by the weeping of the women surrounding her. All the village is there, and all eyes are on Sari. While many genuinely mourn Jan’s death, there’s no doubt that Sari’s presence at the funeral is a supplementary attraction. If she were to do something even slightly shocking, like laughing during the eulogy, it would enliven the funeral enormously, and give the village something to talk about for days. It’s not outright malice in most people, Sari realises: it’s the crushing boredom of life in a small village becalmed in the middle of the plain. While they’d never admit it, there are some in the village who are grateful to Sari for shaking things up a little. If it weren’t for her, they’d be discussing crops and pregnancies and the weather all the damn time.

Sari can feel them watching, and resolves not to give them the satisfaction of behaving in the way that they expect.
This is not my father
, she says calmly to herself, and promptly sends her mind away – the ability to detach from any given situation is one she’s fostered for years. Only when the first clump of earth hits the coffin is she brought back to the present: she has a brief, horrifying image of her father, wormridden, covered in soil, and that’s it. She flinches as violently as if she’s been stung – and the villagers are on tenterhooks, placing internal bets about what she’s going to do:
she’s going to throw herself into the grave; she’s going to start screaming; oh, she’ll attack the priest, for sure
. But all she does is turn and walk away, back towards the clutter of houses; Father István continues his droning after only the briefest of pauses, and a great sense of anti-climax settles over the crowd.

A twitch of movement at the edge of the knot of people, and Ferenc Gazdag, nineteen and desperately earnest-looking, makes a move to follow Sari, but his mother’s hand on his shoulder stops him.

‘Leave her,’ she hisses. Márta Gazdag is the sister of Sari’s late mother, and although she has very little liking for Sari (because, honestly, how can you be fond of someone who is so odd?), there’s something in the straightness of Sari’s back, the pagan swatch of black hair, that sometimes reminds Márta of her sister. Her sister, whose grave is only a few feet away. The eyes are still on Sari, following her as she walks away, watching to see where she’s going, although they suspect her destination already. Sure enough, at the crossroads she heads left, instead of right; she climbs the steps leading to the midwife’s door and lets herself in.

‘Aunt Judit?’

Sari’s never been sure whether Aunt Judit really is her aunt. She’s always referred to her as such, but then so does the rest of the village, even the few people who are older than Judit herself. It’s the only thing that ties Judit to respectability; the adopted kinship is the only thing that stops small boys throwing stones at her windows when they pass by the house (and they still do, sometimes), and the kinship has been necessary to adopt, because the village needs her, no matter what they may feel about her. Judit’s the only midwife in town, and, more, the only person within several miles with any medical knowledge at all. You may be high and mighty enough to take your son to Város for his regular check-ups, or to have your teeth looked at there, but woe betide you when you’re up puking in the middle of the night, woe betide you if Aunt Judit isn’t on your side, cause that’s who you’ll be shouting for.

But Judit’s always been Sari’s second favourite person in the world, after her father. And now, she thinks, probably her favourite person altogether: not only has Judit never minded Sari’s oddness, but she seems actually to revel in it, perhaps because she’s no stranger to being an outsider herself. Judit fits everybody’s definition of a crone. Thin as a whip, white hair that she tries to tame in a bun but ends up rebelling and sticking out crazily from her head. Coal pits for eyes, a hooked nose, and a black hole of a mouth, missing all but a few teeth.

‘Be careful with your teeth,’ she always says to Sari. ‘You never know how much you’ll miss them.’

Sari can’t guess how old she is, perhaps seventy or even eighty, but Judit’s still so strong and able that it makes Sari want to revise her opinion downward. Judit says it’s a hard life that makes her look so ancient, but always follows that comment up with a cackle of such sublime enjoyment that Sari can’t tell if she’s being serious or not. Judit has the sort of face that inspires fear in children and, if they’re honest, in some adults too, and she seems to enjoy it; at any rate, she does not go out of her way to dispel any of the rumours about her that clog the lines of village gossip.

Now Judit comes striding out of her kitchen, glass in hand. ‘Sari – aren’t you supposed to be at the funeral?’

Sari grimaces, yanking her boots off. ‘It’s mostly over. I got sick of it, Judit, sick of the people and the words and the crying. It’s all wrong.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t go,’ Judit says. She eases herself down onto the wooden floor so that she’s on eye level with Sari, who’s still tugging at her right boot. ‘You know István and I don’t see eye to eye. Maybe I should have been there, to keep you company.’

Sari shakes her head vehemently. ‘Don’t be stupid. It would have made you as hypocritical as the rest of them. Besides, I can look after myself.’ Her voice breaks on the last word and abruptly, she claps her hands over her face. Judit puts a twisted hand on her shoulder but doesn’t hug her, because that would seem contrived. Sari’s shuddering violently, but Judit doubts that she’s crying. In the fourteen years she’s known the girl, she’s never seen her cry, and she doubts that this’ll be the first time. She thinks there’s probably something wrong with the child’s eyes that makes weeping impossible.

In time, Sari stops shaking and takes down her hands; for a moment she sits there in the unnatural stillness that makes people fear and distrust her, before she brushes a hand roughly across her face. ‘Sorry,’ she says stiffly.

‘It’s fine,’ Judit replies. ‘Wait.’ She goes into her kitchen and comes out with a small glass full of clear liquid, which she hands to Sari. ‘Drink this,’ she says. ‘It’ll do you good.’

Sari gulps it down in a couple of mouthfuls, making a face. ‘God, Judit, it’s worse than the stuff you made last year. This is why my father always bought it from the Mecs, not from you.’

Judit shrugs. ‘It’s still good for you.’

Footsteps crunch on the road outside Judit’s window. ‘There, the funeral’s over,’ Sari says. Her voice is deliberately light, but Judit picks up her meaning.

‘And so what’s going to happen to you now?’

Because that’s the question, really. The house where Sari grew up with her father – it’s hers now, and all Sari wants is to go back there, move through the rooms that held her father’s presence. But it’s not done; girls don’t live alone, nor do women, unless they’re widows, and while Sari’s used to telling herself she doesn’t care what the village thinks, she hardly wants to make herself more of an outcast than she is already. And then…

‘Well, there’s Ferenc,’ Sari says.

‘Yes. Ferenc,’ Judit says slowly. ‘He seems like a good boy.’

‘He is,’ Sari replies. She feels a general, unlocated fondness for her probable future husband. The idea of marriage still repels her slightly, but she understands her father’s thinking now. These past couple of days she’s had a hard, cold nugget of fear lodged somewhere between her lungs, and oddly, it’s been the thought of Ferenc that has made her feel slightly better. At least there’s one person who
has
to be nice to her, who
has
to take care of her (although, she adds swiftly, she can take care of herself).