They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [184]
‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, though it’s a dreadful thing for a mother to do. Oh, yes! The thought came, though I wish it hadn’t … but it’s impossible! How could I leave her here knowing that I’d be responsible for her death? For she will die soon if I go away, if I abandon her … and just think, think! If we were to have children of our own we’d never be free of the memory of what we’d done. Every time we looked at our children, every time we kissed and caressed them, I’d remember that it had been for them that I’d forsaken this fatherless child and left her here to die alone. No! No! No! The horror of it!’
For some time they sat there without speaking, both with their own sombre thoughts. Finally Balint broke the silence between them.
‘You would throw away your happiness for someone who doesn’t love you and never has loved you?’
‘It’s true,’ she replied softly, almost as if she were ashamed of admitting it. ‘It’s true enough, but I have to do it, it is my duty. You see, I know that she’s clinging to me now because she believes that only I can help her.’ Now Adrienne raised her voice until she was almost shouting at him. ‘What else can I do? Every night she clutches at me and cries, “You won’t let me die, will you? You won’t let me die?”. I have to stay with her. What else can I do?’
Balint stood up and walked over to the balustrade of the terrace and leaned on it looking into the distance. After a moment Adrienne joined him there. For a long time they just stood side by side without speaking. The daylight faded into evening and soon the valley below was in complete darkness. Only the mountain tops were still lit by the dying sun. Now and again one of them would say something, a few disjointed words that were little more than punctuation to what they left unsaid.
Then Balint said: ‘Why should we separate now? Why do we have to decide? Why now? Something will come up … we can wait.’
Much later Adrienne murmured: ‘I will always fight for what we want, in every way I’ll do everything I can,’ and fell silent again. After a long time she said: ‘It may be a very long time. With proper care she may live for ten years.’ Several minutes later she murmured: ‘To wait so long? We’ve waited so many years already; and I am so tired.’
‘I’ll wait for ever! Until the time …’
For a long time they did not speak. It was now quite dark and a few stars appeared in the sky.
‘I’ll have to go back soon. I’m afraid she’ll be waiting for me, that she won’t sleep until I come. And she has to sleep a lot. It’s important for her … I have to go!’
But she did not move and Balint realized that she still had something to tell him, something that was even more painful for her than what had already been said. She was a long, long time making up her mind to speak and, when she did, it was very softly as if she were talking to herself, though none the less determined:
‘We are no longer young enough to make plans for the future. You are thirty-six, I will soon be thirty-four. Time passes; and you cannot wait for a long, long time,’ she said with renewed emphasis. Then she paused again before saying: ‘It would add to my grief if I knew I had forced this waiting on you … made you so … so … lonely. That is why I have to know you are free and … and not thinking any more about me.’
Balint did not answer but hid his face in his hands. The night grew colder as they stood there silently together.
All around them the snow-clad peaks glimmered softly in the light of a crescent moon. Below them, as far as they could see, stretched the frozen clefts of a great glacier. There was