My Canary Yellow Star (14 page)

I lost track of my surroundings, and my entire being focused on the words I was saying: “On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; … But repentance, prayer, and charity remove the evil of the decree!”

Papa and the others were so real that I had only to reach out to touch them. Then the moment was gone.

I tried to focus on the prayers I held in my hand, but the words in my prayer book blurred then faded away until the pages became completely blank. I searched and searched, but the prayers had disappeared. Suddenly, I was
in a strange place where everything was shadowy and out of focus. A whirling black cloud surrounded me, and I couldn’t find my way no matter how hard I tried.

Then I was with Papa and Uncle Laci in a deep forest, saying the same words of prayer. Grandpa and Gran were there too, but then all of them disappeared. A shiver ran down my spine.

I woke up. My heart was hammering, the hair at the nape of my neck was damp. The stillness was broken only by Grandmama’s gentle snoring. Tears ran down my cheeks as I whispered to myself, Please, God! Please, God! Don’t let them kill us! Let us survive! Let us live! I even made a special bargain with God: I’ll be good! I’ll be kind! I’ll never, ever hurt anyone as long as you let us live, dear God!

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Grofs joined us as we crowded around the kitchen table. Mrs. Krausz’s potato pancakes were piled up beside a bowl of Mrs. Kaufmann’s cucumber salad. Our peas were on their holiday tables.

Ervin and Gabor covered their heads with yarmulkes. Ervin blessed the chala Grandmama had baked. Water had to substitute for wine. The light from the two tall candles in the center of the table cast mysterious flickering shadows over our faces. Grandmama’s dish of peas in sauce was the hit of the evening.

“You’re a talented cook, Grandmama,” Mrs. Grof exclaimed as she took another helping.

“I do my best,” Grandmama said modestly, though I could sense how much the compliment pleased her. “The girls deserve all the credit.”

“The peas are really delicious,” said my mother. “Anybody for seconds?”

“I’ll have some more,” Gabor said.

Ervin and Adam just held out their plates to Mama.

“What about you girls? Don’t you like peas? Neither of you took any. There is enough here for everybody,” said Aunt Miriam. She reached for the ladle with one hand and my plate with the other.

I gripped my dish protectively. “No, thank you. I don’t feel like eating peas today.”

Judit was giggling and running the fingers of her left hand up and down her right forearm, imitating crawling insects. “I don’t want any peas either,” she announced.

“What’s the matter with you two?” Aunt Miriam asked. “The peas are very tasty.” She grabbed hold of Judit’s plate and ladled a generous helping onto it.

I tried unsuccessfully to stifle a chortle.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Grof asked sharply.

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

Mama looked around the table. “Good food, good friends, laughter.” Her face darkened. “If only …”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. If only Papa were
with us, if only her parents were safe, if only Uncle Laci would come home, if only Judit’s father would return. If only they’d been with us, I wouldn’t have cared about anything – not the war, not the hunger, not my disappointment over school.

Mama reached across the table and grasped my hand tightly. “Don’t worry, love! The war will be over soon, and then Papa will be coming home.” Her voice sounded hollow, as if she were trying to convince both of us at the same time.

“Yesterday, Sam Lazar from the apartment next to us told me that the Soviets and the Americans are getting much closer,” Mrs. Grof said brightly.

“That’s wonderful news,” Mama said.

“Lazar also had some not-so-wonderful news,” Mrs. Grof added in a more somber tone. “He said the Germans are becoming so panicky that they’re speeding up their plans to deport all of us. Hundreds of empty cattle cars are waiting at the Keleti railway station to take us away before the Soviets or the Americans arrive.”

A cold draft seemed to have entered the room. I couldn’t have swallowed another morsel of food if my life had depended on it.

“Are you sure about this, Rachel?” Mama asked.

Mrs. Grof shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s a rumor, but in these times …” As her voice trailed off, my heart filled with terror.

Gabor looked around the table at our worried faces. “We’ll be all right,” he said. “God will protect us.”

Ervin’s face turned red. “We have to protect ourselves, Gabor! Can’t you see that? God has turned His face away from us! We have to rely on ourselves.”

The boys glared at each other. I had never seen either one of them get even mildly upset with the other.

Finally, Ervin broke the silence. “Tomorrow Gabor and I will try to find out what’s happening,” he said in a milder tone.

“Be very careful!” Mama cried. “You know what can happen!”

“We have our Schutz-Passes,” Ervin said. He sounded brave, but he was grasping the edge of the table so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“You don’t want to test your Schutz-Pass if you don’t have to,” Mama warned. “The Germans and the Hungarian police, they’re animals. What if they decide not to accept it?”

The warmth around the table had vanished completely. My teeth were chattering and the glowing candles were flickering out, along with my hopes for a happy future. What would the next days, the next weeks, and the next months hold for us? Would we be deported to the camps, never to return? I had never heard of anyone who was taken away and came home again – not Gran and Grandpa, not Ida, who wrote that nice postcard to us from the Waldsee.
And Papa … he had not written home for so long. The thought was too painful even to contemplate.

If I was gone, would Peter remember me? Probably, but for only a short time. I knew that I already had to concentrate really hard whenever I wanted to visualize Papa’s face, and I loved Papa so much. Peter would remember what I looked like less and less every day. Well, at least I knew exactly what I had to do to prevent that from happening.

J
udit had often talked about her uncle Natan. Before the war, he had been one of the most famous photographers in all of Budapest. Judit’s aunt had died when her youngest cousin was born, and Natan raised the baby and his two older sons by himself. Everybody in Judit’s family considered Natan to be the luckiest of men – not only because he was the father of three wonderful sons, but also, oddly enough, because he walked with a pronounced limp, the result of a childhood bout of polio. His disability exempted Natan from being sent to a forced labor camp. His sons were not as fortunate, however; all three young men were digging ditches on the Russian front. Mrs. Grof had not had any news of her nephews for several months.

The day his sons waved their last goodbye from the back of an army truck, Natan tore off the yellow star that
was on his shirt and moved all of his meager belongings to a basement apartment located below a photographer’s studio on Kerepesi Road, far from the Jewish district. As soon as the studio’s owner saw Natan’s portfolio, he offered Judit’s uncle a job. Judit had once shown me a photograph Natan had taken of her on her birthday the year before. The photograph, while not particularly glamorous, had captured my friend’s quiet goodness, her sense of mischievous fun. The Judit in the picture was a real person. That’s how I wanted Peter to remember me.

If the unthinkable happened, I didn’t want to become a shadowy outline in Peter’s memory. I wanted him to remember me the way I was and be reminded of who I might have been. I was certain that if Natan took a picture of me, Peter would never be able to forget me. He would remember our conversations in the little café, the glistening candles on the table at the Shabbos dinner he shared with my family, and most important, our stolen kiss in the ivy’s embrace at the Casino. The day after the Jewish New Year, I set out for Uncle Natan’s studio at 26 Kerepesi Road.

I told my family only that I was going for a long walk. Judit had given me careful directions, so I knew the way and was quite certain that I wouldn’t get lost. I had no money for a streetcar ticket, so I walked and walked. When I passed the Keleti railway station, I crossed the street and fixed my eyes on the ground. Unfortunately, I looked up
too soon. The long, long line of empty cattle cars parked on the steel rails leading into the station hypnotized me. I stood there staring at them for a long moment. The bulge of the Schutz-Pass in my pocket was comforting.

I couldn’t help myself – I broke into a run even though I knew it was foolish. I kept running, terrified, barely aware where I was heading. I ran and ran and ran, my breath ragged. From the corner of my eye, I saw the tall white crosses of a Christian cemetery straining toward the sky.

The window of the photographer’s studio at 26 Kerepesi Road was boarded up. A rusty padlock hung from the iron grille barring the entrance. I hurried down the worn stone steps leading to Natan’s basement apartment. Stained green curtains covered the window and red paint flaked off the door. I banged on it. No response. I banged again, even harder. Where could Natan be? Judit had said that her uncle rarely left his apartment. I tried the door one last time, but the building remained silent. I was already at the top of the steps when a reedy voice stopped me.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Marta Weisz. Your niece Judit Grof is my best friend,” I said to the small gnome standing in the doorway. The little man was so bald that the midday sun’s rays reflected off the top of his head.

“I am Natan Donat,” the man said, beckoning me to come down. “Come in,” he added, standing aside.

We entered the tiny apartment. A blackened wood-burning stove in the corner had stained the walls of the room a dirty gray. The soles of my shoes stuck to the squalid linoleum. A rickety brown table and chair stood by a chipped porcelain sink on the left wall. Across from them was a brown settee whose springs had escaped the tweedy material in several places. Natan motioned for me to sit down. I lowered myself gingerly onto the sofa, careful to avoid the springs. Natan perched on the edge of the table.

“So, Judit’s friend, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I saw the photographs you took of Judit on her birthday, and I was hoping you could take one of me too,” I explained. “I have no money to pay you, but I could do some work for you in return. Like cleaning your apartment.”

Natan observed me for a moment. “So my apartment isn’t clean enough for you?”

“No, no! I just –”

“Never mind!” He silenced me with a wave of his hand. “I don’t take photographs any more. Why should I? What’s worth preserving?” he asked. I had the feeling that he had forgotten he was addressing me, that he was really talking to himself. Suddenly, he looked at me as if he’d just remembered that I was there. “I don’t have a camera,” he said in a rough voice. “The Germans took it. I couldn’t take your picture even if I wanted to.” I could feel tears welling up
in my eyes. “Why do you want to be photographed?” he asked abruptly.

“We heard that cattle cars have arrived at the Keleti station, that they are here to deport us. I have a friend, a boy …”

“Go on,” Natan said.

“I want to give him my photograph. I don’t want him to forget me when I’m gone.”

“I see,” Natan said. “You’re quite right. The trains arrived three days ago. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“And the boy?”

“He is a year older than I am.”

“The same age as my youngest boy,” Natan said. “Exactly the same age as my son.”

He stood for a long moment, his expression guarded. Then he crouched down and crawled under the wooden table. I inched toward the door. He took a penknife out of his pocket and used it to ease up the edge of the linoleum by the wall. A large square of the grimy floor covering rolled away, revealing a small wooden trap door. He pried the door open with his knife and retrieved a package wrapped in brown oil paper. He unwrapped a large black camera and several rolls of film.

“We’re in business,” he said, cackling.

After loading up his camera, Natan began to photograph me. He had me sitting on the couch, standing in the
doorway, looking over my shoulder, smiling, laughing, and in one picture, thinking sad thoughts. Finally, he put his camera down.

“This should give me enough to work with. You have an interesting face. I would have liked to have taken more pictures of you, but I have to be careful with my film. I can’t buy any more, and I have only the few rolls that I have hidden. Come back in a week and I’ll have your photo ready.”

“Thank you so much! I meant it about your apartment. When should I come to clean it?”

“Don’t worry about it, Judit’s friend. This rat’s nest is beyond redemption. As you can see, a dirty floor has its uses,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “Just come back to pick up your photo next week.”