Gratitude (4 page)

People passed by as if the musicians were not there. Lili had never witnessed such a thing—people ignoring the lovely music as if they were strolling through a park and it was the birds that were singing. How could they not be drawn to it all, the girl possessed by the music, the wonder of it—reminding us that we’re still here and it’s a sunny day, and we’re in love and the baby is coming and we’re all going home to supper. Lili smiled brightly now at the group, and the lights of her charm came on. The men smiled back at her, and then, miraculously, the girl smiled, too. The players switched to a Gypsy dance. It sounded cheerful and exotic—Spanish, possibly, or farther even, African, Moroccan, Middle Eastern. Lili stood too long to watch these nice, sun-darkened men play here with their spinning blind girl, especially with people scattering to avoid them.

Had she landed on the moon? No, the moon was not far enough. Another galaxy?
People were being taken—whole towns full of people—and here the music played, and people ran to avoid it as if it were going to detonate.

It was enough, too much. Lili curtseyed in her dress, and the three men bowed. It only then occurred to her she could give them a coin, and she tried, but the men wouldn’t take it. Lili tried the girl, though she was still in her hypnotic state, no longer smiling, somewhere above the ground. And then the girl took the coin and clutched it hard in her hand, as if the hand were disembodied from the mesmerized girl. With more bowing and curtseying, Lili backed away.

Lili came eventually upon the famous synagogue on Dohany Street, an immense Moorish structure, with a multitude of towers rocketing toward heaven. Her skin bristled. She looked left and right and turned around, not wanting to show people what she was seeing, not wanting to be identified with it. When a woman and boy stopped beside her to see if something had happened, Lili fled.

On a corner leading toward Vorosmarty Square, she stumbled into Paris Yard. She felt again as though she’d stepped into another world, another century, stepped into a film. Arabesque arches welcomed her into the arcade and drew her toward beautiful wrought iron, like lace-work crocheted by some mythic grandmother working in the heart of an iron mountain. A handsome young man in a tan spring suit stood in the doorway of a bookshop, flipping through the pages of a book. He noticed Lili and smiled, but she clamped her silly dress to her sides and fled toward Vaci Street and all the way out to the grand cobblestone square before Gerbeaud, a pretty patisserie bustling with business. She wished she could enter. People were eating pastries perched royally on Herend dishes. They dabbed their mouths with linen napkins, checked their makeup in mirrors.

Two women, one with a floppy black hat, hustled past Lili along the cobblestones. Lili felt a stabbing pain at her side, a pain so sharp she thought she would collapse. She ran, gasping, a limping run, now, as she made her way around another corner. An older gentleman with his wife on his arm stopped to point with his cane, but Lili continued on her way, found another small park—thank heaven for the small park—and dashed inside like a rabbit that had found its warren.

It was here, in a corner of the park, that she felt another stab of pain at her side, and she slumped to the ground, curled up and writhed in agony. She remembered for a moment even in her pain that she was now almost certainly adding green streaks to her grey-white dress, remembered even as the stabbing radiated over her abdomen that the humiliation of expiring here in this spot after her ordeal would be at least as sharp as the pain itself.

A shadow passed over Lili’s racked face. She clutched her satchel, felt for the ring on her finger. She opened her eyes and thought she saw someone quite tall, asking her something.

Two

Szeged, Hungary – March 20, 1944

IN HIS SUNNY OFFICE
overlooking Klauzal Square in Szeged, Istvan Beck was drilling a molar. He pumped the drill’s motor vigorously by stepping down on a steel button beside his dentist’s chair. He’d begun to wonder whether he could save the tooth at all.

Marta Foldi, his assistant, came in. “Dr. Beck,” she said, “your friend Miklos Radnoti is on the phone. He says it’s important.” Istvan kept working on Ella Brunsvik’s mouth. “It’s important,” Marta said again. “It’s about your father.”

“My father? What about my father?”

“Come,” Marta said, indicating the phone.

Miklos Radnoti sounded out of breath on the phone, as if he’d been running. He was a calm man usually, a poet. Istvan had known him since his student days at the University of Szeged. They’d been in a philosophy class together and become fast friends. Miklos Radnoti had never known his mother. He was the twin that had survived, while the other one took his mother down with him. Radnoti had married Fifi Gyarmati, a Catholic woman who was charmed by his poetry and by his wit. He’d converted to Catholicism, but he’d still been taken away to a labour camp near the Ukraine to work with explosives.

What a time Radnoti had spent. These labour camps were not as bad as the concentration camps they’d heard rumours about, but the inmates were worked like slaves nevertheless. Many died. Others survived and came home. Heinrich Beck, Istvan’s father, had used his influence as mayor of Szeged to persuade the authorities to get the poet out and back to Budapest. Radnoti had written to his friend Istvan to tell him that that experience made him appreciate life for the first time. Istvan still remembered some of the lines his friend had sent him:

To forget would be best, but I have

Never forgotten anything yet.

Foam pours over the moon and the poison

Draws a dark green line on the horizon.

I roll myself a cigarette

Slowly, carefully. I live.

Now Radnoti had returned to Szeged, briefly, to visit an ailing aunt. The poet told Istvan, “My aunt’s housekeeper saw your father a few minutes ago at Mendelssohn Square. There’s trouble, and you have to save yourself, Istvan. Get out, fast, save yourself.”

Istvan was still picturing Mendelssohn Square, the bronze statue of the composer, the little park. “What are you talking about?” he began to say, but there was static on the line and then the phone went dead. Istvan tried to call his father’s office, but couldn’t get through.

Ella Brunsvik was now standing beside the dentist’s chair with all the gear still in her mouth and the apron hanging from her neck. Istvan told Marta and Mrs. Brunsvik what Radnoti had said. “The Germans must be here,” he said. “They’re right here in Szeged.” He rubbed his face and ran his fingers back through his hair.

Marta said, “We should leave right away, Istvan. I know where we can go.”

“We can’t avoid the Germans,” he said, “even when we’re allied with them. How can you invade an ally?”

The siren had begun to sound in the square below. Marta said, “Please, Istvan.” She took both his hands and tugged as if he were a child. His eyes rested on hers. Never was there a more perfect specimen of a Jew than Marta, with her coal-black hair and eyes, yet she was Catholic. It must have been the Roman invasion, thought Istvan. Her devotion to him was striking, touching.

Istvan had felt close to Marta from the day he interviewed her. For her part, she looked after him as few assistants had, and while an electric current flowed between the two of them, they had always tried to keep their relationship professional.

Over the siren, Istvan could still hear the music in the outer room, coming from the Graetz console he himself had picked out with such care in Berlin—and at such expense. And now his patients—if they’d stayed—would have been treated to the
Enigma Variations
by Elgar.

He said to Marta, “I don’t think Mrs. Brunsvik would appreciate my leaving such a gaping hole in her tooth.”

Marta helped the woman by removing the apparatus from her mouth. “Don’t be silly,” the older woman said. “You’ve got to get out of here. It’s not the same for you. If we had even a place on the floor for you, you could stay with us. But you have to hide, or the hole in your head will be bigger than the one in my tooth.” She was taking off the apron herself. “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Brunsvik went on, “my husband, Lajos, will take care of my tooth with a pair of pliers. Now go. Please. Listen to your assistant.”

She wanted to give Istvan a brooch for the work he’d done, but he said, “Don’t be silly.”

The old woman sighed before setting down her big purse on the dentist’s chair to tuck the jewel in a side compartment. Istvan admired the chair as he waited. All the way from the Ritter Company of Rochester, New York. The latest in dentistry in this grand old building in Szeged: a newfangled air blower, a diamond-tipped drill, the largest supply of novocaine (thanks to a generous Greek supplier who’d brought it in from Britain), even a brass cuspidor into which Mrs. Brunsvik spat one last time before turning to leave.

OVER MARTA’S PROTESTS
, Istvan insisted they go first to see what his father was up to. They drove together in Istvan’s Citroën toward Mendelssohn Square. As they approached, they passed German tanks and Jeeps. “This is dangerous,” Marta whispered. “Let me drive, and you lie low.” They pulled over and switched seats with some difficulty, she climbing over him. She wore a soft perfume which reminded him of lily of the valley.

But there was not much driving for her to do. Teleki Street was blocked, as was Juhasz. The sirens still sounded. They parked the car and pushed through a crowd of several hundred onlookers. “What’s going on?” Istvan asked a woman wearing a red-and-gold bonnet.

“It’s the mayor,” the woman said. “He’s trying to prevent the soldiers from taking down the statue.”

“Of
Mendelssohn
?” Istvan asked.

“If that’s who he is,” the woman said. “The statue in the park.”

A man nearby wearing an ascot said that Mendelssohn was forbidden, “So they’re pulling him down.”

“And the mayor?” Marta said.

“He’s trying to stop them. He’s saying the composer stayed in town once, and his music is for everyone.” Then the man added, “They’re taking some Jews. They’re rounding them up over on Kossuth.”

Istvan froze for a moment. Marta looked hard at him, took his face in her hands. “Let’s go,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do. Let’s go back to the car. I’ll hide you in the trunk.”

“In the trunk? Marta, please, let me try to get to my father. I have to speak to him. Maybe I can get him to come with us.” He resumed his push through the crowd.

“What can you say to him?” she yelled as she followed. “The sirens are blaring and Germans are everywhere. Are you going to
reason
with him? Are you
listening
?”

But they were close now. Istvan caught sight of his father. He was standing in front of the green Mendelssohn, his arms crossed. He was blocking soldiers, who’d wound a chain around the statue’s shoulders and another around its neck.

Istvan wanted to call out, “Father,” but Marta pulled hard on his arm.

Heinrich Beck could be heard shouting, “So this is the kind of regime you mean to have here, the most civilized of nations, the most noble of composers?”

Istvan watched as two soldiers turned to their commanding officer to receive instructions. His father stood firm. The commander signalled for a nearby tank, and it rolled up into the little park. The chain was removed from Mendelssohn’s neck, and a small cheer went up. A pigeon cut the blue sky before drifting down and landing on Mendelssohn’s three-cornered hat. Bird droppings had turned the composer’s cravat and green shoulders white.

The soldiers climbed aboard the tank, fastened the chain to a lamppost, and made a loop at the end of it. No one budged, but people stopped talking. A couple of boys behind Istvan squealed. Istvan turned toward them. His stomach churned. Marta turned, too, and even though she was facing away from the square, she covered her eyes. The siren continued wailing. The wind furrowed into Istvan’s back. The boys wore identical green-and-orange striped jerseys and woollen Parisian caps. Certainly, they were brothers, with the same brown hair and brown eyes, but they were at least two or three years apart. “Look at the Lord Mayor,” the older one said. “They’re winding the chain around his neck.”

A minute later, Istvan could hear the tank grunt away. The onlookers gasped. Istvan couldn’t look. He covered his eyes now, too. Marta gripped his other hand so hard the ends of his fingers tingled.

The older boy said, “Look, he’s wriggling like a fish on a hook.” Istvan felt faint. Marta pulled on his hand to lead him away, but he wouldn’t move. Through the screen of his fingers, he could see the wonder and horror on the boys’ faces.

The younger one pointed and said, “His tongue is out. He’s sticking his tongue out.”

It was then that Istvan turned. His father had stopped moving. He merely turned in the wind, toward Istvan, Marta and the boys, and then away.

The commander pointed again to the tank, and the crowd watched as the vehicle backed up, spun toward the hanging figure, then chugged over the curb and into the park, crunching through the flowerbeds, squashing the spring hyacinths, the rows of manicured boxwood, and rammed the statue, toppling the cheerful bronze in a single blow. The pigeon flapped off in a hurry.

The siren ceased to sound, though its wail still burned. Now the twittering and squawk of birds entered people’s ears. Marta covered her mouth as she looked for the first time. Istvan took her hand and held on. Certainly this
was
the time to go.

But now she froze. He looked down, buried her face in his jacket, turned his back to the spectacle to watch the crowd watch his father. He could see the woman with the red-and-gold bonnet and noticed now that her gold teeth and scarlet cheeks matched the bonnet perfectly, as if she’d planned it that way. He couldn’t spot the man with the ascot. He checked the boys again. They looked solemn now. Some people still covered their eyes, men as well as women. Istvan looked directly again at his father, stared as the crotch of his familiar charcoal suit pants darkened and the urine ran from the pant legs to his Oxfords and sprinkled the grass below. Even the Germans paused to inspect their handiwork. Though he was pained by it, Istvan wanted to memorize the sight. He stood in this place for his brother, Paul, and sister, Rozsi, too, and if Istvan lived and were ever to see his siblings again, he would have to tell them what he saw. He found himself already wondering whether he would conceal certain details from his sister. He imagined embracing her, smelling her hair, giving her something to calm her down. But how would it be possible to reach her or see her again?

Paul might have rushed forward to demand justice. It was altogether possible. He might have stood up for his father, the way his foolish father had stood to defend Mendelssohn—and not even Mendelssohn the man, or Mendelssohn the music, the achievement—but the likeness of the man, a Hungarian statue commemorating a visit. Symbolism. That’s what it was. Paul might have thought twice, taken the fight higher. Istvan was glad his older brother was not there with him, just in case.

Marta and Istvan pushed back hard as they headed for the familiar black Citroën, the beloved car Istvan enjoyed showing off. They looked all around before she pulled open the trunk and he got in. “Hurry,” he said before she closed the lid. He took a last look at the spring light before it went dark. In the cramped darkness, he could feel himself getting sick, and then, as the car jerked away, he had to turn his head as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor of the trunk.