The Sunflower Forest. Torey Hayden

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      She didn’t respond.

      ‘Did you hear me? That’s unsanitary. Go somewhere else.’

      Still no response. But she had stopped combing her hair. Instead, she just fingered through it, regarding the strands. ‘Les?’ she asked without looking up. ‘Why do you suppose Mama does that?’

      ‘Does what?’

      ‘You know. That. I mean, we were just goofing around, that’s all. How come she can never tell that?’

      I shrugged.

      ‘Why does she keep thinking we’re unhappy? How come it’s so important to her anyway that we be happy a hundred per cent of every second?’

      ‘It’s just one of those things, Megs.’

      ‘One of what things?’

      I shrugged.

      At a quarter to eleven Mama came downstairs again. Megan and I were still sitting in the kitchen. She came to the table and reached for her cigarettes.

      ‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’ I asked. I was already on my feet.

      She nodded. Going over to the sink, she leaned forward to look out the window above it. With fingers of one hand resting against her lips, she smoked without ever taking the cigarette from her mouth.

      ‘There are no flowers,’ she said.

      ‘No,’ I replied. ‘But there’ll be plenty again when spring comes. Remember all the new ones Daddy planted?’

      Megan had wrested the kettle from me so that she could fix Mama’s coffee herself. Carefully, she measured a spoonful of granules from the jar. ‘Here, Mama,’ she said, stirring the boiling water in. ‘Here’s your coffee.’ She squeezed her body between my mother and the sink in an effort to make Mama look down at her. She held up the mug of steaming liquid. ‘Here, Mama. Just the way you like it.’ But my mother stared over her to the window.

      They didn’t look much alike, my sister and my mother. Megan was thin and lithe and dark, like some half-imagined thing escaped from the pages of a fairy tale. Mama was tall and pale, with broad, prominent features. Her hair was still light as sea sand. The only thing she had given Megan was her blue eyes, and they were very blue, like chambray cloth.

      Mama turned entirely away from the window, and Megan had to run around to be in front of her again.

      ‘I’m sick of this place,’ Mama said. ‘It’s too cold. I hate the cold.’

      Mama went over to the table and sat down. With both hands she finally accepted Megan’s mug of coffee.

      ‘Does that mean we’re going to move again?’ Megan asked very quietly.

      ‘I don’t like it here,’ Mama replied.

      ‘I do,’ Megan said, her voice still soft and tentative. Mama was looking at her over the top of her mug as she drank the coffee. ‘I think it’s nice here, Mama. I got friends here. Like Katie and Tracey Pickett.’

      My mother lowered the cup. ‘There are no flowers.’

      ‘But Mama, it’s January.’

      With a sigh my mother set the coffee mug on the table. She gazed at it. ‘But there are no flowers here.’

      ‘There aren’t any flowers anywhere in January, Mama,’ Megan said.

      My mother was silent for a moment. ‘There were in Lébény. In Popi’s conservatory,’ she said. ‘There were always flowers there.’

      Megan’s face brightened abruptly. Coming closer to Mama, she knelt down and put her arms around Mama’s neck. With one hand she moved Mama’s face away from the direction of the coffee mug so that she would have to look at her. ‘Tell me and Lessie about Lébény, OK, Mama? About Popi’s flowers, OK? Tell us about that time you and Elek sneaked in and took Popi’s camellias for your hair and then you two went to that dance. You know. That time you weren’t supposed to be up late because it was a big-people’s party. The time they played “The Blue Danube” and you and Elek danced in the upstairs hallway and you could smell all the beautiful ladies’ perfume. Tell us that story, OK?’

      My mother’s face softened. The tired, bloodless look left her and she smiled down at Megan, who was on her knees beside the chair. ‘You know that story, Liebes. I have told you that story a hundred times already.’

      ‘Oh, I know,’ Megan said, her expression beguiling. ‘But it’s really my super favourite. Tell me again, OK? Please? Me and Lessie want to hear it.’

      Mama was still smiling when she touched Megan’s face. The smile made my mother very beautiful.

       Chapter Two

      My mother was born into a family of the Hungarian gentry, genteelly declining in the ruins of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her father, who had fought alongside von Hindenburg in the Great War, had retired from the military a short time afterwards and returned to manage his family estate in northwestern Hungary. His child bride, whom he’d met and married in 1914, was the youngest daughter of one of the old, established families in Meissen, in Saxonia.

      Besides my mother, there had been three other children in her family. Her older brother, Mihály, she remembered only dimly because he had gone far away for schooling in Germany before she was two. Her beloved younger brother, Elek, however, was only thirteen months her junior, and they had been constant childhood companions. Mama’s stories about Elek were so vivid he almost seemed to be my brother. Her younger sister, Johanna, had died of scarlet fever the year Mama was eight.

      Although my mother never said as much, I suspect she had been her father’s favourite among the four children. She had been a strikingly beautiful child, with that blonde, clear-eyed pureness that was so prized in those days in that part of Europe. In all the photographs, she was dressed up like a little princess, in velvets and silks and lace. Her flaxen hair was very long and carefully curled. And even with the solemn mood of those old pictures, she’d managed just the slightest hint of a smile on her lips. We had only one photograph of her entire family together, and in it, my mother stood apart from the other children and leaned against Popi’s arm. If you looked carefully, you could see his hand on her shoulder, his fingers twisted lovingly through her hair.

      Popi had seen to it that she was well turned out. She had been bilingual all her life because Mutti spoke to her only in German, while Popi spoke Hungarian. But he had also brought a special tutor from Milan for her when she was six so that she could learn Italian. She had had dancing lessons and voice lessons and had learned to play the piano and the organ. When she’d wanted a pony, Popi had hired a riding instructor from Vienna and bought her a white horse.

      Like her older brother, Mihály, my mother had been a gifted student. As always, Popi was determined to give her the best advantages. Both he and Mutti believed in the superiority of a German education, so when my mother was twelve, she went to live with Mutti’s sister, Tante Elfie, in Dresden. There she attended a private girls’ school and prepared for university.

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