Parallel Stories: A Novel (54 page)

At least that was Erna’s story, that they really knew each other. Still, Margit Huber did not want to force the issue.

You must have been puzzled by such an unexpected telephone call, interjected the woman in the silk dress, hoping to clarify the situation. She’d quickly seen that their hostess was furious.

Her transparently blue eyes grew dark, she strained her thick neck, on her aggressively white skin red splotches appeared.

For god’s sake, what on earth are we talking about anyway, she thundered. I don’t understand anything, and now she blushed from her neck to her forehead. I have the feeling you’re being incoherent on purpose.

What we’re talking about is that Erna had a daughter who was taken away in October 1944, said the friend with the rasping voice in the softest possible tone. I guess during the same days when they took you away too. And the girl never turned up.

I see. I didn’t know about that, forgive me. I seem to remember she had a son in Switzerland.

The clattering and puffing of the tugboat on the river could be heard coming closer and closer.

For a few long seconds she sensed in her eardrums, in her loins, and in her throat that it wasn’t just some clattering and puffing she was hearing, but a steady, unavoidable throbbing. All her self-discipline was inadequate; she could not bear them—these unexpected blows. Just when she thought it was going to be a nice summer evening. In truth, she was surrounded and could resist no longer, she’d be swallowed up for good. This insane throbbing was nothing but a new yet long-familiar warning.

She was a first-year student at the faculty of arts, had her hair in braids, wore knee socks, continued Margit Huber, her raspy voice easily rising over the dreadful din of the tugboat, as if only she, with her smile, could trek safely across this difficult terrain.

Erna thought it was important to mention the braids and knee-socks, but I can’t tell you why, I really can’t. I myself knew nothing of all this. What can I tell you: the last time I saw them must have been in ’thirty-eight, when I came back here from Berlin. And even then it was only for a few minutes. Yes, her daughter refused to cut off her braids even after finishing school. She was a deeply devout soul, preferred to wear pleated skirts with her middy blouse.

She was arrested along with four others for some insignificant matter about organizing a few people, some childish thing, and she was taken to the Majestic.

She wanted to sound casual when mentioning this Majestic because she knew that Mária Szapáry too, after her arrest in 1944, had been taken to this Gestapo villa on Sváb Mountain.

Through the boarded-up window of her cell, she heard the cogwheel train when it stopped at the M
ű
vész Road station and then moved on. On the second day, judging by the sounds, she figured out where she was. Margit Huber waited a moment, watching, mesmerized, the features of their hostess. She had been beaten there, in the Majestic, several times. But she said nothing. Filled with indifferent anticipation, her lips trembling uncooperatively, she raised her strong eyebrows.

A week later, they took them to Berlin, as Erna Demén tells it, straight to Alexanderplatz. They wanted to make a big deal of the whole thing. Until Berlin, there were others, but afterward there was only one eyewitness, she continued, according to whom Erna’s daughter was sent off in a transport to Ravensbrück. They left no stone unturned. Dr. Lehr, of course, had connections with everybody, including the Nazis.

That’s the girl’s story in a nutshell.

But now there’s new information, said the woman in the silk dress, taking over the story, that the girl and Irmus were together, allegedly, in the Helmbrecht death march.

Oh, no.

Yes.

It must be a misunderstanding, or a fatal error.

And now all three of them realized it would be important to come up with some plan before Irma Szemz
ő
arrived. Whether they should burden her with this news, or should wait, perhaps slowly preparing her for the task that for humanitarian reasons could not be avoided, or should hold their peace. Mária Szapáry turned stubborn; not only was the matter not that urgent, but she did not even understand it. As if saying both yes and no, she swayed her large head, consolidating her stubborn silence.

Whenever conversation strayed to such topics, she’d keep quiet. Immediately after the siege of Budapest, they had giggled together about the most absurd things. But as the years passed, although nothing changed she found it harder and harder to talk about old issues; no matter whether some receded and some she forgot, she couldn’t do it. Her throat, her nose, perhaps the mucous membrane on the roof of her mouth preserved the stench of carrion. Her mind filled only with things one could not possibly speak about in a normal voice.

The sled with the ropes, whatever happened to the sled which they’d used to move the frozen Russian corpses. And she had never told anyone—except Médi, once—that she had raised her reflex camera above her head, hadn’t even leaned over the terrace railing, had clung to the wall sheathed in smooth cream-colored sheets of artificial stone so that nobody would see her, and had taken pictures for three consecutive days.

The pictures included ones of the dry pool of Szent István Park into which people were herded, and the yellow-tiled roadway on which the different groups were led away. What occurred to her now was that perhaps she had seen a girl with braids in the cellar of the Majestic, even though she’d seen no girl there with or without braids. I did not see her. I only saw the crudely whitewashed brick wall in the corridor. As though she had to keep apologizing. She’d never developed the negative, but kept them in the false-bottom drawer of the huge warped, buckling baroque escritoire.

She could not fathom what this miserable Démen woman could possibly want to know about these events, what she was so curious about. What would she do with her knowledge if she gained any, how would she gain. Why should she be helped. But one could not say this out loud, and because she knew she couldn’t say anything, not even to these friends, she could once again smell the sweet fragrance of the petunias. She said nothing about the sweet stench of carrion. And she also remained silent about how every year she compulsively planted, nurtured, and watered her flowers, but then at the end ripped them out of the dirt by their roots.

This has been the only trace she’s managed to come upon for years. I shouldn’t think she’s obsessed, but for her this is at least something practical to hold on to.

This is a colossal stupidity. What practical, what hold on to. This woman, this Erna of yours, she may not be a nutcase, but she’s not bright. No point in deceiving her, which you also know very well, my dear Médi, she said, speaking loudly to counter Margit Huber’s strong voice.

What can I do, she asked me to bring them together. I too think it’s stupid, but how can I get out of it. Ravensbrück is only an hour from Berlin. But from there she should have gotten first to Flossenbürg, or anywhere. All this sounds rather improbable, as she well knows. She’s asked many questions and looked into the matter in many places, no such transports appeared on any train schedules, still she has to hear it with her own ears.

Well, that’s what she said, and I can’t say more.

If we were to bring them together, and that’s what we were talking about, interjected the woman in the silk dress, who had a harder time overcoming the tugboat noise, then we’ll never dig Irmuska out of the pit.

Don’t be so sure. Sometimes she speaks of her own free will and you can hardly make her stop.

Simultaneously Mária Szapáry kept repeating, no, no, there’s nothing left but nonexistent cases. After twenty years there’s not a single trace left, nothing. Let’s understand each other, my love, this may well end up being one of the nonexistent cases. That’s what we’re looking at. You should have told her, listen, dear Erna, I understand you, but Irmuska doesn’t remember a thing. Nothing. And don’t worry, my dear Belluka, we won’t have to dig her out of anything. I won’t have her remembering anything. There is no pit. It’s all over. Twenty years later, there’s no need to remember.

Math was never your strong point, Mária. Let’s stay with fifteen.

All right, but what should we do, asked the worried friend in the silk dress, that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to come up with, what to do.

Oh come on, let’s not be ridiculous.

Well, I tell you, sweet Belluka, replied Mária Szapáry slowly, as if addressing a retarded person.

She wasn’t beautiful even when young, but she made many conquests with her smile and the power emanating from her body. With her healthy, pretty teeth, the well-defined arc of her lips, and the domed shiny forehead that commanded her entire face.

Let’s go to the kitchen and make gin fizzes. That’s all we can do, and, just as you’ve suggested, we’ll celebrate the festival of lemon blossoms or squash blossoms or whatever.

Nonetheless, she could not curb her seething and unaccountable anger, directed alternately against the others and herself, with these remarks. She burst out; she was beside herself; a horrific grin remained from her laughter when she began to yell, bringing sounds up from the depths. The vehemence of which surprised the two other women.

Would you just shut up, just this once, would you. Am I understood. I won’t have you screaming all sorts of nonsense in this infernal noise.

I beg your pardon, no one was screaming.

Besides, no one asked permission to scream.

Is it impossible for you to grasp that I can’t stand this noise, she asked, hissing. And you’ll do as I tell you to, she yelled, I hope that’s clear.

She turned on her heel and took off at a run in her huge apartment, the footfalls of her yellow-soled steps resounding. If the doors had not been open, she might have bashed into one or cracked her head on another. And sheepishly the two others followed. This made Margit Huber really angry. Ahead of her went the frightened woman in the silk dress, whom Mária Szapáry liked to call either my sweet or Belluka when she wanted to convey criticism of the slender woman’s mental abilities; the woman’s actual name was Izabella Dobrovan. Hungarians, full of their own language, were often nonplussed when hearing this decidedly un-Hungarian name, and Izabella was used to this response, which she’d observed even as a child. Slovak was her mother tongue, and she still had an accent, though only people who knew she wasn’t Hungarian would notice how she made her vowels a bit too large; to forestall questions or jests about her name, when being introduced she would often remark, my family is from the Felvidék
*
; sometimes she’d give this explanation even before saying her name.

But then at least tell us what on earth you want, she kept exclaiming irritably, loud enough to be heard over the pounding footsteps and creaking parquet floors, how on earth should we know what you want.

Making such a senseless scene for no good reason, Margit Huber shouted after them, but she could not stop them and did not want to. If she had no explanation for what they’d gone through in the past decades, if there was no explanation for even a single day, how could there be a sensible reason for this angry outburst. Still, they followed each other across all sorts of emotional swamps because they understood each other better than they did others. To the extent, of course, that one can follow another person or see into her soul. From which it did not follow, given her upbringing, that she would accept everything. She should have resisted, perhaps even with her body, the offended yet forgiving effusion with which Dobrovan had taken off after their friend. She felt they were both repugnant, as was the entire scene, including the role she had cast herself in. One of them was too impetuous and aggressive, the other unbearably emotional.

First, they hurried across a large room that Mária Szapáry used as a workshop, then across the foyer that led to a rather narrow, long connecting corridor where, in the trapped warm air of summer evening, they could smell a dense stale odor of food coming from the kitchen. Wherever they went the lights were on, which particularly irritated Margit Huber. But she usually didn’t let herself turn off the lights to appease her penchant for frugality, and the opportunities for doing so were rare, because every evening Mária Szapáry herded them into her living room with broad and inviting movements and clearly did not take kindly to anyone leaving it for any reason.

She was very strange about this. They laughed at her, saying she suffered from a persecution complex.

She always left all the doors open, the lights on everywhere, and though she never told anyone what to do or where not to go, she kept the other well-seen, well-lit, bare rooms strictly off-limits. If someone showed some independence or had to go to the toilet, she’d get nervous and follow the delinquent with her eyes through the empty rooms; worse, she’d keep calling after her.

No matter how good friends they were, they only laughed or teased each other about such peculiarities, and they never dug down deep, never asked questions. Not only did they refrain from kissing or hugging each other, ever, but they also weren’t keen on telling other people that they were good friends.

Perhaps they didn’t think they were.

Their noses were assailed not only by the odor of stale food but also by that of a brimming garbage can left uncovered and dirty dishes unwashed for days, perhaps weeks, which took up every horizontal surface in the kitchen; they towered on top of the stove, filled the sink, and were piled in wobbly pyramids on the kitchen stools and the huge, hewn kitchen table, which must have come from a liquidated country estate.

Excuse me, but this is outrageous. What is going on here, asked Margit Huber, greatly surprised, as she stood in the doorway.

The tugboat noise reached this far into the apartment with its rapid little throbs.

You don’t have a cleaning woman again, I presume, said Izabella, as if to express indignation.

Not only that, but the beast with her smelly flesh left me without a word of good-bye, grumbled Mária, and, finding no appropriate glasses in the cabinets, she began rummaging in the sink, full of dirty dishes. So don’t aggravate me with this too, now.