Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,40

and then they turned and trotted away.

The count returned from Dubrovnik late at night, and Natalia didn’t see him until morning, when she climbed the circular staircase to the tower room with a cup of coffee. One hundred forty-seven steps, winding up and up to the sun-struck copper roof that was, Natalia imagined, like a beacon, a fabulous glinting light the villagers would look to as if for guidance. When she reached the count’s study, he took the coffee cup from her. The room, with its curved stark white walls, looked out in all four directions of the compass, a dizzying prospect that made her feel as if she were about to take flight. She remembered Zita’s story of the monk who left his body and drifted among the clouds like an angel. Between the windows were rough plank bookshelves filled with books, books piled on books, sheaves of papers, manila folders leaning haphazardly against books.

“Didn’t you bring coffee for yourself?” the count said, clearing newspapers from a chair for her. A breeze came in the window and ruffled the edges of papers on the desk. The sunlight in the room was very bright and constant. She saw a cot with a rumpled blanket on it and a table with a tray left on it from a meal. The count was trying to give her his cup of coffee.

“Thank you, but no,” she said. “It’s for you.”

“Next time, be sure to bring one for yourself.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said.

He apologized for not having better news. “Believe me, I searched. I inquired not only at hotels and pensions but at hospitals and police stations, where I was assured it was a case of no news being good news. They counseled me to go home and wait. I keep reminding myself that Zita is very capable, and while I can’t say she is being sensible, I know she wouldn’t let any harm come to your mother. In a week, I’m going to the International Press Conference in Geneva, but I’ll be heading first to Berlin. I can take you home then. Is that all right? You were comfortable here, I hope?”

“The countess is teaching me to make rabbit stew.”

He laughed. He was writing an article for a Budapest newspaper having to do with the end, this month, of seven years of military rule over Hungary by the Entente powers. “Good news, on the face of it, but the fact is, the Treaty of Trianon robbed Hungary of its only port city and its industrial base and good portions of its land, and how can a country go forward with an economy based only on agriculture? Rabbit stew notwithstanding.”

* * *

On the morning Natalia was to leave for Berlin, the countess went out riding in a rainstorm. Her riding boots were wet, and on her return she slipped and fell on the flagstones outside the kitchen door. Katya went to her and then ran up to the tower room to get the count, who came down and carried his mother to her bedroom. Natalia and Katya helped her out of her wet riding habit and into a nightgown. Dr. Urbán was summoned; he examined the countess and diagnosed a strained back and bruised ribs. The countess would need time to recover, but fortunately nothing was broken. He turned to Miklós and said the countess should not be alone at night. The count said he would hire a girl from the village to sleep at the castle when he was away. The countess objected. Katya would stay, she said. Or Fräulein Faber. Yes, she said; Natalia would stay. God sent Natalia to her for a reason, and she would remain a while longer, out of the kindness of her heart. Isn’t that so, my child? She pressed a hand to her ribs. Pleurisy, she said; she knew the signs.

“You don’t have pleurisy, you have bruised ribs,” the count reminded her.

Clearly, Natalia could not leave the countess in this state. She promised to stay at least another week.

“You’re so good to me,” the countess murmured. “You are like a daughter to me.”

Natalia remained at the castle with the countess not one week but two weeks. At the end of that time, the count returned. He came into the kitchen and took a postcard out of his pocket and put it on the table, where Natalia could see it. She picked it up. It was postmarked August 2, Dubrovnik. She read the message on the back.