Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (15 page)

“But you haven’t told me what the purpose of your meeting would be.”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Deszo is a friend of mine,” I warned. “I’m not going to put him in harm’s way for you. Or anyone else.”

“He’s already in harm’s way.”

I couldn’t recal
l
anything in the past that would have alluded to Deszo’s participation in any organization on campus that would put him in jeopardy. In fact, Max used to tease him about his ardent disdain for the student organizations against the government. “In what way?” I asked Jozef.

“He works with the Nazis.”

I was stunned, “You mean a collaborator?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“How do you know this? You said you don’t know him.”

“I hear things.”

I shook my head. This was unbelievable. “You’re a thief!”

“I am a businessman,” Jozef said defensively. “It is my business to know where opportunities are, and how I can take advantage of them.”

“You could get yourself killed.”

He smiled. “So, you’d like to take care of me too.”

“Tell me what you know of Deszo’s work,” I demanded.

“He is in contact with some German officers,” Jozef explained. “And I have some talks from time to time with those officers soldiers.”

“What could you be talking to them about? Are you working for them? How do I know that you won’t tell them about Mila?”

“Not that kind of work. I have no interest in helping them round up Jews.”

“Then what?”

“They are new in town,” he laughed. “They want to find friends. Female friends.”

“You’re a pimp as well as a thief.”

“I simply make introductions. The girls know what is expected of them. They have a variety of reasons to do what they do.”

“Yes, but without your help it wouldn’t be so easy.”

“If it wasn’t me it would be someone else.”

My head was reeling. This was ridiculous. A black sedan bearing Nazi flags drove by us slowly. It stopped and a rear window rolled down.

A young
soldier
stuck his head out the window and gestured toward us. “Where are you two going so late at night?”

“We’re on our way home,” Jozef answered.

“You’re breaking curfew,” the
soldier
said. “Let me see your papers.”

I reached in my coat pocket but Jozef stopped me.

“It’s not so late is it?” Jozef looked toward the horizon as if he expected to see the sun just setting. He then made a show of looking at this wrist. “I must have left my watch at home!”

“Your papers!” The
soldier
demanded.

Jozef held up his hands as if to show that he was unarmed. “Can’t a man take a stroll with his girlfriend?”

The
soldier
looked from me to Jozef and laughed. He turned to his companion in the car and I heard the laughter of another man. “She’
s too old for you! Not for us!

I shivered. Was this how Jozef got women for the Germans? I pulled my coat closed and took a step backwards.

The German’s eye
s
traced my body from top to bottom. He held out his hand toward me and I shook my head. “Why don’t you join us for a drink?”

“No thank you!” I tried to sound pleasant but my voice was shaking.

“It’s not a suggestion,” he retorted. “You wouldn’t be wise to turn us down!”

Instinctively I looked toward my apartment building. It was within one block, I could see the doorway from where I was standing.

The officer followed my gaze and then looked back at me. “You live there?”

“No,” I gasped. “I was on my
way
to visit a friend.”

He nodded toward Jozef, “He said you were on your way home. So who’s lying?”

I looked toward Jozef.

“Maybe you have more friends to entertain us,” the
soldier
gestured toward my building, “over there.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “I was going to visit an old friend of my husband’s.”

“A lady friend?” Laughter emanated from the backseat.

“No, of course not, a gentleman.”

“Ah
,
a gentleman, you must be lonely,” the
soldier
said
,
with a wink. “Come with us and you will be less lonely.”

“I have a better idea.”

Jozef stepped up to the car and leaned over placing his hand on the windowsill as if he and the officer were old acquaintances. He spoke in a low tone so that I was unable to hear his conversation. His face turned away from me, but I could see the expression of the German soldier’s face change from stern accusation to recognition and then a sly smile.

He nodded several times and then turned back to his companion in the back seat to consult with him. Jozef said something and pointed down the street in the opposite direction from my home. The German followed his gesture and then looked back at me as if trying to decide. Jozef took a roll of m
oney from his pocket and
pushed it toward the
soldier
. The German looked at the money and then at Jozef. He shook his head and pushed the money away.

He frowned and pointed to me and then said something as if bargaining. Jozef shook his head and put both his hands on the window ledge blocking me from the view of the German. He gestured down the street and tried to force his money toward the German. He said something and then the two of them laughed.

Finally, Jozef stepped back from the car and made a mock salute. The German returned the salute and then blowing a kiss in my direction, he sat back in his seat and rolled up the window. I held my breath as the car made a u-turn and slowly drove down the street.

Jozef walked back to me and took my arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What did you say to them?”

“You don’t need to know, the outcome is obvious.”

He walked me to the steps of my building. I was surprised when he stopped.

“Thank you for your help,” I said. “This is the second time tonight you’ve come to my rescue.”

Jozef shrugged and then looked up at the windows of my apartment. “They’d think nothing of taking a girl of Mila’s age and using her for their own entertainment instead of sending her to the ghetto.”

I was shocked and yet I knew he was right. “What can I do?”

He hesitated continuing to look at the windows and then looked back at me. “I will come to your apartment tomorrow.”

“When?” I asked. “I have to go out tomorrow.”

“To meet Deszo?”

I wanted to lie. My hesitation gave me away instead.

“Take me to your meeting with Deszo.”

“How do I know that you won’t blackmail both of us?”

“You don’t,” Jozef said. “On the other hand, if I were going to do that, I wouldn’t tell you.”

I hurried u
p
the stairs trying at once to absorb Jozef’s demands and wondering if Mila and Anna were safe. At the first floor landing, I noticed Miss Szep’s door was ajar. I paused, undecided as to what to do. She lived alone, with no living relatives that I knew of. Even at her age and given the food shortages associated with the war, she’d remained mentally sharp and relatively healthy. It was unlike her to leave her door unlocked. She rarely went out anymore. Mr. Nyugati sent his son Michael once a week to deliver her a small bag of groceries.

I put my hand out toward the doorknob to pull the door close. The door resisted as if someone was holding it from the other side. I heard Miss Szep talking to her cat and then her head popped out from behind the door.

“Come in!” she whispered, opening the door and motioning toward me.

“I’m sorry I really can’t. I have to get upstairs to my sister.”

Miss Szep looked down the stairs and then up towards my apartment. “I need to talk to you. Don’t worry they’re both upstairs.”

“
How do yo
u
know
?” Then I nodded. Miss Szep’s apartment was directly beneath ours and she was able to hear our movements. From her sentry post at her front window, I knew she monitored the comings and goings of the occupants of the buildings and their guests.

I stepped into her foyer and squinted, adjusting my eyes to the dark hallway. “Have you lost your electricity?”

“No, it works,” she replied, taking my hand and leading me toward her sitting room. “I just don’t like to use it much at night. It’s too easy to see in my windows from the street.”

I held back a smile knowing that the darkened room allowed her to watch the street undetected. “You’re sure that Mila and Anna are both upstairs?”

“No one’s left the apartment since you left this afternoon. I saw them go out and come back before that. You should tell them it isn’t safe.”

“They know,” I said. “They just…”

“Yes, yes,” Miss Szep said leading me to a chair and motioning that I should sit. “Your sister is the restless type.”

“She sometimes lets her passion to help the students overcome her judgment,” I offered.

Miss Szep was a professor of chemistry at the university until she retired. She was also an ardent fan of Anna’s poetry. Before her illness, Anna often came downstairs and sat with Miss Szep, reading her latest poems, discussing poetry and drinking tea and eating the fresh poppy seed rolls that Miss Szep baked.

During the past year, Anna’s visits had become increasingly infrequent. There were days when she’d ask me who lived downstairs since Miss Szep’s death. And then the following week she’d come out of the bath and tell me she’d just had the nicest cup of coffee with Miss Szep, when of course, Anna hadn’t left the apartment all day.

“Anna shouldn’t worry about the students,” Miss Szep said, wearily sinking into a chair across from me. “The students will take care of themselves. If anything they will use her former stature to raise that of their cause, and then when her illness makes her inconvenient, they will abandon her. This is nothing new.”

I nodded knowing she was right. The students felt the revolution was theirs because only a young mind was uncorrupted. Yet, when the police had dragged Anna from the classroom, they’d cheered her call to arms. When she was taken to the Dean’s office, they’d scurried away like mice. Solidarity was admirable; loyalty was the person standing next to you when the devil came to call.

Although I trusted Miss Szep’s assurance that Mila and Anna were upstairs, I longed to see for myself rather than sitting here discussing politics. “Miss Szep was there something you needed?”

“I wanted to make you an offer,” she said.

My heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“I wanted to offer you the use of my apartment for Mila.”

“Miss Szep, I would never endanger you like that.”

“Nonsense,” she replied. “She would be safer here than in your apartment.”

“For a time,” I agree. “But if they came to search our apartment first, yours would be searched second. They would tear this building apart if they thought there were any chance she was hiding here.”

“But you can’t continue to hide her in your apartment,” she argued. “It’s only a matter of time before they come for her. There are others who know she’s here.”

“You mean Mrs. Nyugati,” I said.

Miss Szep looked down at her hands and nodded. “I won’t say a word. I already know about her. I know that you are dependent upon the kindness of Mr. Nyugati for your groceries. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

Miss Szep looked up at me and smiled. “I know you wouldn’t. I just wish there was something I could do to help you. Your family has always been very kind to me.”

“I’m trying to find a safe place to take Mila myself.”

“Together?”

“Yes.” I quickly added, “Anna will go to stay with a friend. I wouldn’t leave her here alone.”

“Do you know where you will go?”

“No,” I replied. “I have to contact some of Anna’s old friends. There are so few that would have anything to do with her anymore. She alienated many of them before she left the university.”

“And you and Mila?”

“That will be more difficult. I think it would be best for us to go where we are not known.”

“I know someone in the country.”

“I’ve heard they have it worse than we do here,” I said. “With fewer people to see their brutality the Nazis are committing greater atrocities in the smaller villages than they would ever contemplate here.”

“No, the only reason we are not seeing the same massacres here is that they are finally meeting more resistance from the Allies, and their attention is distracted by the Russians.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And they’ve just arrived in our city. Just wait. They haven’t given up their old tricks. They simply haven’t had time to implement them. Budapest will see the same that others have seen.”