Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (13 page)

In the silence of my study, I remembered the days when it was just the two of us living in this apartment. Before Max died. Before the entrance of Ilona, Mila, and finally Anna. Before the war started and rather than finding blue jays feasting on breadcrumbs, I saw black crows.

The front doo
r
slammed, followed by the stomping of boots and laughter. I swallowed the tune I was humming, my heart skipped in anticipation of Max, and then sank at the impossibility and then leapt again wondering who had entered the apartment.

“Mila?”  I turned toward the closed door. I heard more laughter and then footsteps coming toward my study. I looked back at the clock. It was three. 

“Mila?” The handle turned and the door opened.

Mila’s cheeks were flushed from the cold; she smiled warily, unwinding the blue wool scarf from around her neck. “Yes Nana?”

“You left the apartment.” The words staggered from my throat.

Her hands stopped, tightening around the tassels at the edge of the scarf. “We went for a walk.”

“Where?”

“Just to the park,” Mila didn’t move from her position at the threshold of the room. “Were you working on Anna’s journal?” she asked.

“Actually, I was working on a story of my own.”  I opened the drawer, lay the t
wo leather folders side by side
, and closed it. I tried to control the frustration in my voice. “You know you’re not supposed to go out.”

“Natalie, no one even noticed us.” I turned and saw Anna standing behind Mila, her hands holding Mila’s shoulders.

“You had no right to make Mila disobey me.” I looked again at the clock, calculating the time it would take me to dress and reach Deszo. “How long have you been gone?”

“Two hours, maybe less,” Anna replied.

“Only to the park?” I cried. “All that time? I don’t believe you.”

Anna sniffed, “It was cold, we stopped to have a cup of hot chocolate.”

“Why don’t you just take her down to the ghetto now!” My hands tightened around the arms of my chair. Mila cringed and I gasped. “I’m sorry Mila. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to protect you. Don’t you understand?”

Anna’s eyes narrowed and she steered Mila out of the room and closed the door behind her. I leapt from my chair and swung open the door following them down the hall to Mila’s room. “It’s for your own good. It’s not safe out there.”

“If anyone would have stopped us, which they didn’t, I would have told them that she was my daughter.”

Daughter?
Last night, Anna regarded her as a nuisance. Was this Anna’s jealous reprisal for Deszo’s attention to
ward
me? I looked from one to the other. They stood with their arms around each other’s waist.  Their alliance was a danger I hadn’t anticipated.

The atmosphere ha
d
changed drastically since I’d last been here.  I unbuttoned my coat and tugged the collar away from my neck; the café was like a steam bath. Waitresses, trays aloft, turned from side to side like ballet dancers as they snaked their way from the counter to the waiting patrons. I followed one of them into the throng. The tables overflowed with people huddled over small cups of ersatz-Turkish coffee, more chicory than coffee, their heads bobbing up and down as they carried on conversations and surreptitiously watched people at other tables do the same. A man suddenly pulled back from the table at which he was sitting and into my path. I stopped, grabbed my coat to my middle and turned sideways as he grunted an excuse and brushed by me.

I didn’t want to call attention to myself. There were too many uniforms. I couldn’t make out the faces through the tobacco smoke that hung in clouds over the tables, but it was clear that the Germans had come to occupy this place as easily as our country. I prayed Deszo had come alone. A rivulet of cold sweat slipped between my shoulder blades. There was another room beyond the heavy maroon curtains, shielded from view. I’d never seen them closed before. I could hear the laughter of men, and the guttural cadence of German coming from behind the curtain. I turned around surveying the main room.

There, finally. Deszo was leaning back in his chair surveying the room like a ringmaster, smoking. I wondered how long he’d been watching me. He signaled me with a wave of his hand and stood as I approached.

“Not our usual crowd is it?” Deszo took my coat and laid it over the chair between us. He caught the eye of the waitress and ordered another cup of coffee.

I sat down and slowly took off my gloves, studying my hands. “I don’t like being here.”

Deszo smirked and shrugged. “For the most part they’re harmless. At least in here.” The clank of his glass against the saucer brought my eyes to his. “Any more unexpected visitors?”

I shuddered remembering the look on the young soldier’s face as he stood just outside our door last night. I shook my head.

“How is Anna today?”

I looked at a bad reproduction of a Titian painting on the wall behind us, and then back at Deszo. “She took Mila out while I was writing.”

Deszo frowned.  “Where did they go?”

“Anna claims they went for a walk in the park and then stopped for hot chocolate.” I leaned back and waited as the waitress put a cup of coffee in front of me. “But that’s not the point is it?”

“Strange.” A bemused smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Anna’s never shown the slightest interest in Mila.”

“And she decided to teach her poetry this morning.”

“Who can understand Anna?” Deszo sighed and looked around the café. “Well at least, Mila doesn’t look…like her father.”

“But if she’s seen by one of our neighbors…there’s the incident with Mrs. Nyugati.”

“You think she’d turn in Mila.”

“Of course. To protect her shop from further persecution.”

“Self-preservation.” Deszo nodded and his blue eyes followed my hands. “We shouldn’t be surprised. So Mila should be moved.”

As the woman at the next table began to flirt with the German officer sitting next to her, I leaned forward and whispered, “What will she think if I abandon her to strangers?” 

“Lean back and relax Natalie.” Deszo smiled and lifted his cup to his lips. “Remember where you are, and we are discussing nothing more than the weather.”

I made an effort to relax my shoulders and return his smile. “She must stay with us.” I laughed lightly.

Deszo joined in the chuckle and added, “Not safely.”

Nodding toward the maroon curtains I sighed, “This silliness can’t go on much longer. Aren’t our friends expected soon?”

“The party could go on and on.” He tapped the edge of the saucer restlessly. “Regardless, they will continue to send our relatives on holiday. They’re single minded in their generosity.”

The woman at the next table squealed, “Stop it Gunter!”

I met the woman’s gaze and then quickly averted my eyes. “It’s not just them, our own are as responsible.”

I looked at her again. She was Hungarian. A young woman, attractively dressed, her hair carefully rolled under and lipstick freshly applied to an ample mouth. I wondered if her boyfriend or husband vainly fought at the front. What circumstances compelled her to offer herself in this way? Safety, shelter, food? Or was it as simple as loneliness.

“
They’ve become emboldene
d
by the presence of our new guests.”

“Where can Mila go?”

“There are homes. They’re overcrowded, filthy, with minimal food.”

“Impossible.”

The woman looked over at me and whispered something to her companion. The German officer looked at me, our eyes met. A surge of physical attraction made my cheeks flush and his look made it clear that he acknowledged my reaction. I smoothed my hair, his handsome features creased in a smile and I quickly looked away.

“Do you have any friends you could send her to? Someone you trust.”

The enemy could be handsome.
I shook the image of Gunter’s smile from my mind and answered Deszo. “Friends yes. But none that I could ask... No. That won’t work.”

“Let me speak to my wife. Maybe she would…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then let me think further. In the mean time, keep Mila inside.”

“What if I went with Mila?”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Let me go with her to one of those houses.”

“And leave Anna alone?”

“Damn it! Why can’t Anna take care of herself?”

“You know why.”

I knew better than Deszo what it was like to live with Anna’s erratic swings between hysteria and calm, her unpredictable lashing out.

There was a scrape of a chair and then the German was standing over us. “Excuse me,” he said, bowing slightly. “Could you spare a cigarette?”

Deszo paused and then tapped one out from the pack next to his cup. “Of course. Do you need a light?”

He offered his lighter; the German leaned over bringing the cigarette close to the flame. He inhaled deeply and then straightened and smiled at me, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Thank you. I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation, you looked so engrossed.”

I fumbled with the scarf I held in my lap, “Just friends.”

The German smiled and examined the ash of his cigarette. “Would you like to join my friends at our table?”

I looked at Deszo afraid he would feel compelled to consent. “Thank you, no.”

Gunter’s eyes searched my face and then wandered down the length of my body. “Are you sure I can’t convince you?”

I blushed at the warmth that coursed through me, frightened that my body could react this way to an officer who would just as easily kill my niece as seduce me.

“Certainly your conversation can’t be that important.” He off
ered me his hand, I took it,
but remained seated.

“I’m sorry but I have to go soon.”

“Something more interesting waiting at home?” he asked. The strength of his fingers made me gasp as he enclosed his hand in mine.

I pulled my hand away and quickly returned it to my lap.

“Gunter!” The woman at his table whined, “I’m getting lonely!” She looked at me with eyes clearly stating her territorial intentions.

Once again, Gunter bowed from the waist, his eyes never leaving mine, “Perhaps I’ll have the pleasure of your company another time.”

He released my hand slowly, lingering at my fingertips. He returned to his table and quieted his companion with a whispered message in her ear. I shivered feeling his breath against my neck. My hands trembled as he continued to watch me even though his companion was doing her best to distract him by kissing his cheek and pressing into him.

“Deszo, I must go,” I said reaching for my coat.

“Not unless you want to make him suspicious.” Deszo signaled the waitress for two more cups of coffee. “Sit back, smile and pretend we really are just two old friends.”

I couldn’t stop the trembling in my hands. “Yes, but I really should get home.”

“I think we should finish our conversation about Anna first.”

I glanced over at the German relieved to find that the woman’s eager hands had at last distracted him. “We can find someone to take Anna. Then I would be free to go with Mila.”

“You’ll choose Mila over Anna?”

“A plan for both.” I splayed my hands on the table as if mapping out the solution.

“There’s no telling what Anna would say.” Deszo sat back and lighted another cigarette. “After all she’ll perceive that she’s been betrayed by you.”

“You think it’s a betrayal.”

“She’s your sister.”

“A compromise. Anna deserves a holiday in the country. And then Mila and I will leave together.”

Deszo squinted as he exhaled a blue plume of smoke. “Why not go with Anna?”

“It will only work if she doesn’t know where we are.”

Deszo rolled the ash of the cigarette along the edge of the saucer. After a moment he said, “Then we find a place to take Anna, get her there, and convince her to stay, without you.”

“Depending on her state of mind, it will either be easy or impossible,” I replied, but my eyes focused again on the German. His hair was a paler blonde than my own. I guessed that we were the same age, though his face bore the evidence of someone who has seen death more often and more closely. It had been so long since I’d felt the touch of a man.

“Natalie, I’m concerned that this is too much for you.” Deszo leaned forward and reached for my hand. Behind me, someone began humming. The flirt had invited Gunter to join her in a song and they were joined by a group of soldiers who’d just entered the cafe.

“Natalie.”

I put up my hand to stop him. “Deszo, don’t. Don’t tell me what you are feeling.”

“But…”

“No! No! You have no right.”

I grabbed my coat and stood. Gunter stood at the same time. I gasped, his table went silent and turned in our direction, I clutched my throat, and he tipped his cap and smiled. I looked at Deszo and then hurried for the exit.