A Perfect Madness (43 page)

Julia was late for the morning-long
debriefing, requested of her by Czech and British intelligence.
Standing before Colonel Moravec, she had no excuse, nor did he ask
for one. The loss of any agent was felt deeply by everyone, but
somehow Eva had seemed indestructible to all who knew her during
her training because of her fearlessness.

“
She will be missed,” were
the only words he would ever utter about her loss, though the
fullness of those simple words, Julia knew, carried a deeper sense
of his own grief over Eva’s death.

Colonel Moravec shuffled the
debriefing notes taken from Julia when she first arrived, back and
forth on his desk several times before looking up to where she was
standing.

“
Do you know Hannah
Senesh? Who she is?” he asked.

Puzzled by the strangeness of such a
question at this moment, Julia waited for a few seconds before
responding.

“
Not personally, only bits
and pieces during my training. She seems to be a remarkable woman,
someone I would like to get to know when the war is
over.”

“
Yes, Senesh is what you
say and more. Several months back in March, she parachuted into
Yugoslavia to reach Budapest.”

“
Why Budapest?”

“
She is from Budapest and
the Nazis had begun deportation of the Jews in Hungary to the death
camps. The Allies hoped some underground aid could be established
to rescue as many Jews as possible.”

“
Why are you telling me
about Hannah Senesh, Colonel?”

“
We’ve heard nothing from
her, only rumors that she’s been captured. If the Germans have
Hannah, they will try to make her reveal everything about our
intelligence network there. We need to know the true
situation.”

Colonel Moravec lit another cigarette,
his third since Julia had reported to him this morning, and drew in
a long breath of hot smoke, holding it in his lungs for several
seconds before exhaling. Picking up three papers from his desk, one
holding a photograph of Hannah Senesh, Colonel Moravec handed them
to Julia.

“
We want you to go to
Hungary at once to find out exactly what has happened, what the
Germans and Hungarians know, if possible.”

Julia’s mind froze in disbelief at
what she was hearing and she struggled to control her
emotions.

“
I’m not ready for this
physically, and certainly not psychologically, it’s too soon,” she
said, her voice breaking.

“
I know, but you are one
of the lucky ones, Julia. The four SOE and OSS agents that flew
into Banska Bystrika right before you left were captured last night
by the Germans and executed.”

Julia heard little else that was being
said, except that she was expected to fly out tonight for Egypt,
where she would meet up with Andras Janik, an agent from Budapest.
Together they would parachute into Tito’s domain in Yugoslavia, as
Hannah Senesh had done, and from there cross into Hungary. When she
asked Colonel Moravec for a short delay, so that she might see Anna
and her brother Hiram, he replied quite coldly, “They will be here
when you return.” But he added, “We will pick you up no later than
March, I promise you. The Russians should be in Budapest by then
and you’ll have to get out.”

Colonel Moravec’s final words were of
little comfort to Julia. What she believed was that intelligence
knew now that Senesh had been captured and her real task was not to
find out about Senesh, but the Russians, and the extent of their
network in Budapest. She would go, though, as if Hannah Senesh
might still be free. It would give her the moral courage to do so
because she cared little about what the Russians might be doing—her
fight was with the Nazis. It was they that were keeping her away
from Anna.

Like most of her neighbors, Angie
McFarland had no telephone and relied on the radio and the church
to stay connected to the world around her. Much of what she would
hear in church came from BBC news. The war was going well, though
their Scottish lads were still dying. Some she knew in her church
would not be coming home. Like the Scottish folks before her, she
had to derive the same comfort they did from the faith that the
Scottish lads had died fighting. Angie believed Julia was dead,
having received no mail from her in over two years, but nothing
official came from anyone to tell her of Julia’s death. So every
night she prayed with Anna by her side that all would end well;
though deep down inside where the hurt comes from, it meant she
would lose Anna should Julia return from the war.

Julia’s short note, scribbled
hurriedly and mailed before she left for Egypt, telling Angie of
her return, turned loose in Angie a roiling sea of dichotomous
pangs of joy and loss. But loss is always a part of love, whether
it comes early or in fifty years passing, Angie knew, and would be
there for her the day Julia came for Anna. Praying may be good for
the soul, but not so much for feelings that only the heart knows.
Losing Anna would cut as deep as when her Robert went off to die in
The Great War.

Before Julia boarded the Flying
Fortress taking her to Egypt, Colonel Moravec’s jeep pulled up
alongside the huge plane. Taking her by the arm, he led her a short
distance away where they could talk for a quick moment.

“
You have lost a lot in
this damn war, Julia, but so has everyone else. I give you my word,
four months and you’ll be home to stay.”

Colonel Moravec proved true to his
word, sending a plane for Julia the first week of March, bringing
her home once more to England. Her war was finally over. She had
been forced to flee Budapest along with several other Czech agents
in January, to stay ahead of the rapidly advancing Russian forces
who would soon liberate the city. Liberate was too loose a term for
Julia, because the strong Communist underground in the ancient city
had begun killing anyone suspected of opposing them. Already caught
in the web of this ironic and twisted sense of liberation were most
of the democratic and anti-Communist leaders throughout Hungary.
Suspicion had become the guiding principle for being arrested, and
Julia as a Czech intelligence agent would be a prize fish if caught
in their sweeping net. Because of her father’s well-known stand and
lengthy orations against the Communist party in Prague, her name
would be all over the KGB books in Moscow. Her dear, sweet cousin
Abram would not escape the net, though. Breathing freedom only a
few short weeks in Prague after being freed from Auschwitz, he was
to disappear for forty-eight years behind the Iron Curtain
descending on Eastern Europe with each mile the Russians
advanced.

Leaving Budapest in the worst of all
winters she had ever known, Julia made her way back to Tito’s
mountain fortress in Yugoslavia, where Hannah Senesh had camped for
three months before crossing into Hungary. In time, she would leave
for Egypt to await her final trip back to England.

But the few weeks with Tito’s
partisans opened Hannah Senesh’s beautiful soul to Julia. Her own
battles with life these past two years, even Eva’s death, faded
gently into a peace she had known only as a child. Sitting alone
watching the rising sun spread its wings like colors of deep red
across the rugged mountaintops for as far as the eye could see, she
read Senesh’s poems, “Blessed is the Match,” and “Walking to
Caesara.” When she finished, she cried softy in the stillness
around her for hours. Julia had learned that after leaving Tito’s
partisans, Senesh had crossed the border into Hungary, where she
was immediately caught by the Hungarian police, who were rounding
up all Jews for deportation to Germany and Austria. Enduring cruel
torture by the police every day, she refused to divulge any
information that might bring harm to others. Months later, no
longer recognizable because of the brutal beatings by the Gestapo,
she stood undaunted without a blindfold staring down executioners
as she was shot by the firing squad.

Though British intelligence knew by
now from other sources the terrible fate that befell Hannah, Julia
still submitted her own separate report. To do so was her only way
of reaching down behind the cold, black typewritten words of an
official report to reveal the warmth and beauty and greatness of
this woman’s humanity. Where do people like Senesh and Eva come
from? Julia would ask herself a hundred times for months to come.
For them and their like, death held no meaning where honor and duty
stood next to it.

The morning after her return to
England from Egypt, she entered Colonel Moravec’s office to file
her separate report on Hannah Senesh, along with her report on the
ruthless suppression of freedom taking place in Budapest by the
Russians. Colonel Moravec could offer only a forced smile before
handing her a telegram from the War Department, which Julia knew
had to be about Hiram. The phrase, “presumed dead,” was the best
they could give her, but it was enough. The circle of dying was
complete now. She alone in her family had escaped it, the finality
of being that came so sudden to so many in these terrible times.
Julia would not cry in front of Colonel Moravec, or anyone else,
for a long time, saving her tears for the joys she was sure were
yet to come in her life. Anna was waiting with Angie McFarland, and
Erich was somewhere not so distant that her love couldn’t reach
him.

***

THIRTY

Hiram and Erich, Dresden, 1945

H
iram got to his
aircraft about twilight, climbed into the heavy Lancaster bomber
and started the massive engines to warm them up for the distant
bombing run that lay ahead. Though the skies were clear, the
darkening winter night would bring with it a bone-chilling arctic
wind that was pushing its way south across England and northern
Europe. It was the eve before Ash Wednesday, and would long be
remembered for its connection to that holy day.

When the engines finally warmed, Hiram
shut them down and waited in the silence of the cockpit with his
copilot for the green Verey light to flash from the control tower,
signaling him to move into a line with the other planes preparing
to take off. After the morning briefing, he had tried to rest, even
sleep for a few hours, to be at his best for the many hours of
flying ahead. But the excitement of his first command of the plane
overwhelmed his mind and nerves, causing his adrenal glands to pump
overtime. He had flown eleven missions as copilot, and had been
given the full command only hours earlier when the captain reported
in ill. Hiram knew he was ready though. Months back, when a heavy
burst of flak tore through the cockpit, wounding and disabling the
captain during a mission over Berlin, he took command and brought
the heavily damaged aircraft safely home after completing its
bombing run. A small matter, he would say to those who praised
him.

Lying in bed waiting for the evening
mission to come, he thought of all the bright, good days yet to be
lived when the war was over. He would then go home to Prague,
taking little Anna with him should Julia not see the end. It was
good he had promised to do so to Julia the night she first returned
from entrusting Anna to Angie McFarland’s loving care in Scotland.
All Julia would ever say about Angie was that God must always hold
in his hands a few special people for times such as these, and she
had to be one of them.

Anna was five now, and he had helped
celebrate her birthday with Angie, as he had each year after Julia
left. Taking what presents he could find in the stores, he rode the
bus to the small village below Angie’s high hill where she waited
for him with Anna by her side.

“
Uncle Hiram,” she cried,
running to him when he stepped from the bus.

“
Do I know you?” he said,
teasing Anna.

Then, sweeping her up in his arms,
Hiram held Anna high above his head as he always would do, holding
her there for a moment listening to her squeals of joy. Later, the
squeals would turn to wonder as Anna opened Hiram’s presents,
carefully saving the wrapping paper from each one like a good Scot
would do, whether in war time or not. A small wooden horse he had
discovered in a wayside craft shop outside of London immediately
became her favorite and didn’t leave her hand the rest of the
evening. Even when she recited passages from the Torah, as a
surprise gift to Hiram, Anna clutched the toy horse tightly for
fear that it might try to run away, as she often believed her
mother had done. No letters had come to her from Julia in nearly
three years and she was now only a faceless shadow to
her.

Anna’s final performance of the
evening brought tears to Hiram’s eyes, as she told the story of
Hanukkah and the festival of lights, which she would soon celebrate
with Angie. It wouldn’t be exactly right, but Angie had done her
best to make it so, and to teach her, using what she’d been able to
gather from the books she had read. She had bought an old metal
lamp, and, with Anna eagerly helping her, decorated it with a host
of paper symbols of lions and eagles, and then fashioned eight
branches for candles. Together, she and Anna would light the
Hanukkah lamp with its eight small candles on Christmas Eve and
offer special prayers of thanksgiving to God. With no Christmas
tree to be found on the barren hills around the house, Angie
bundled and tied together an armful of straw gathered from the
barn, which Anna quickly decorated with paper chains she had cut.
Colored in bright orange and red and green, they became their
joyous lights on the straw Christmas tree. “After all,” Angie told
Anna, “my Jesus came into this world with straw beneath his
feet.”