The Angel Makers Read Online Free PDF

says to herself.
    ‘It – it’s by the same person who wrote—’
    ‘No, it’s not, it’s her sister,’ she interrupts, then smiles faintly at his crestfallen face. ‘I haven’t read it,’ she says, her voice unusually gentle, ‘but I’ve heard about it. Thank you. Where did you—’
    ‘Oh, Mama had it round the house,’ he spouts his prepared line, not wishing to let her know of the over-eager journey to Város the other day to buy it.
    ‘Won’t she miss it?’
    ‘She doesn’t read much.’
    Sari gets up then, places the book carefully on the table, and sits down. ‘Sit,’ she waves at the chair opposite.
    The silence is fathomless.
    ‘How are you?’ Ferenc asks at last.
    ‘Oh, fine. Sad. But fine. I’d been expecting it.’
    ‘You must be worried about what you’re going to do,’ he ventures, and she raises an eyebrow at him.
    ‘Must I?’
    ‘Well, you’re on your own, and you must – you can’t live on your own here, and I – I mean, I haven’t spoken to my parents about it yet, but I’m sure … and I know Jan said we shouldn’t until … but it seems to make sense now.’ He trails into silence, having cunningly said nothing concrete, but framed his intentions clearly in unfinished sentences.
    ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘I thought you might be thinking about that.’
    ‘So …?’
    ‘No.’
    He feels as if the breath has been knocked out of him, as she sighs a little, suddenly seeming a lot older.
    ‘Ferenc, I like you. I’m surprised at how much I like you. And I’m happy to marry you when I turn eighteen, if you’re happy. But not yet. I promised my father, not yet.’
    ‘But what will you—? I mean, you can’t —’ He can’t bear the idea of her living alone in this old house; it’s bound to only exacerbate her strangeness, both in the eyes of the village and in reality.
    ‘I’m not going to stay here all the time. Judit says I can live with her, and I’ll become her apprentice.’
    ‘ Judit! ’ he exclaims. He is hot, angry and humiliated, but he can’t quite say why. He just wants her, that’s all, and he thought he was going to have her, and now she’s going back out of reach, and how on earth could she prefer the idea – She puts her hand on his.
    ‘I’m sorry, Ferenc. I can see that this disappoints you. But you must just be patient, that’s all. I don’t want to break a promise that I made to my father. And I just – I’m not—’ she falters, which is rare, Ferenc thinks. Normally her short, unelaborate sentences drop out of her mouth fully formed, seeming to reflect a complete certainty of opinion.
    ‘I’m not ready,’ she says at last. ‘And I feel that this is a bad time.’
    ‘A bad time for what? For whom?’
    ‘I don’t know. I just feel that it would be wrong to do it now.’
    Ferenc feels suddenly, frighteningly, that he is going to weep with frustration, and for a moment he hates her. Whenever he’s around Sari, it’s as if he’s unravelling: he’s less and less what he thinks of as himself, and though he has no particularly exalted opinion of himself, reliability, steadiness, predictability – these are qualities that he usually feels secure in possessing. Over the past few months he’s been like a horse maddened by a horsefly, wallowing in disproportionate bliss when the irritation is taken away. Sari has amazed him by making him feel more intense excitement than he thought existed, but, he realises, sometimes he doesn’t like himself much around her. Twice since getting to know her he’d been woken from eerie dreams of the szépasszony , the fair ladies – and while he knows that Sari’s nothing but a girl, he sometimes finds himself wary of her.
    ‘You should go,’ she says suddenly, and he looks down in surprise to see his hands gripping the edge of the table in a vicious, rictus-like grip. Later, he will find long, ridged bruises on the palms of his hands. He’s vaguely conscious that, as far as marriage proposals