She looked at him with an expression that suggested she was ready to get upset at him, but wasn’t going to do so quite yet.
“You do not make joke about Hungarian lessons do you?” she asked.
“No,” Pierson replied. “No, I wasn’t joking, but, um, I’m not sure if it’s really worthwhile to pursue them.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m going to be leaving shortly,” Pierson replied. “I wasn’t even supposed to have come to Hungary in the first place.”
“Oh,” she said, refastening the button on her coat she’d just opened, and looking rather more crestfallen than Pierson had expected, and it made him feel badly, as he did want to spend time with her, which was ensured to be aboveboard to others by it being over language lessons.
“I’d still like to get started,” Pierson said, hesitating before putting his hand around her wool-clad arm. “And then, hopefully, after the war we can find each other again and maybe even continue the lessons.”
She looked up at him with something of a sceptical look. “That not maybe happen.”
“What do you mean?” Pierson asked.
“We are in war,” she replied. “We have no knowing how it end. We may not even be alive. You and me.”
Pierson felt a churn of sickness in his stomach to think that she might not make it, as he knew he would, because he was playing the role of Uncle Ashford, and Uncle Ashford had died at the age of 101.
“I guess that is true,” he admitted. “But can’t we maybe do a little bit still? Maybe enough that I could book my own train ticket to Kr– ah, where I’m going, and maybe even enough to make some small talk so that I seem like a Hungarian, or, at least, not the person anyone who might be following me thinks I am.”
She nodded. “We do it.”
Pierson felt pleased as she unfastened the buttons of her coat before Pierson helped her out of it, hanging it, her scarf, and her hat onto the coat tree before leading her to the dining room where she revealed what was in her bag, which looked like old fashioned school books.
“I’d offer you tea, but I’m not very handy in the kitchen,” Pierson said. “Nor am I entirely sure if I should go making myself quite that at home in a flat that isn’t mine.”
“I need no drink now,” she said. “We begin.”
Pierson nodded, seating himself beside her.
“These books from school,” she said. “Youngest, my brothers and sisters use them.”
“When they first started school?” Pierson asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “We begin, letters.”
“Alphabet,” Pierson said.
“Alphabet?” she asked.
“Yes, all the letters that belong to a language are called the alphabet,” Pierson replied. “There’s the English alphabet, and the French alphabet, and the Hungarian alphabet, and the Russian alphabet, which are the letters those languages use in their words.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Maybe we’ll both teach each other a little about our languages,” Pierson said.
“Maybe,” she replied with a smile.
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