Traitors' Gate (42 page)

‘It’s a market cart,’ Sabine whispered. ‘If only we could get its driver to take us across the bridge.’

‘Market cart?’ Gregory echoed. ‘But today is Sunday. There wouldn’t be a market on a Sunday.’

‘Not of meat or fish; but some of the stalls open for a couple of hours to sell fresh vegetables and dairy produce.’ As she spoke the horse began to drink from the trough. The elderly man who was driving the cart hitched the reins to a peg, climbed down and went into the nearby urinal.

‘Now’s our chance!’ muttered Gregory, and on tiptoes they ran towards the cart. The horse stopped drinking and looked up but, evidently used to this early morning routine of being left there for a few minutes by its master, it did not move. Quickly and as quietly as possible Gregory gave Sabine a leg-up across the backboard of the cart, and followed her over it; then they crouched down under its hood. They did not see the driver return but, while they were still striving to quiet their hurried breathing after their dash to hide in the cart, it jolted into motion.

By peering between the flapping canvas curtains hanging from the back of the hood, Sabine was able to keep a check on the direction the cart was taking. It went at a quiet pace through the long
Parade Platz
, ambled down the hill below the Royal Palace and along the embankment, then across the Elizabeth Bridge.

Once over the bridge the cart had served their purpose. Soon afterwards, as it turned right on its way to the Market, it was held up for a minute by an early morning tram. Seizing the opportunity, they dropped quietly over its backboard, and hurried off down the nearest side turning that led away from the river.

There were now quite a few people about and had it been any day other than Sunday there would have been many more. Even as it was, several stared in open curiosity at the hurrying couple who were clad expensively yet looked as if they had just been dragged by the hair through a coal mine. Fortunately
they had only three-quarters of a mile to go and two main boulevards to cross; so they succeeded in keeping well away from major crossroads where there were police, and arrived at the furrier’s in the Kertész Utcza just as a nearby church clock was striking six.

A few yards from the entrance to the shop, a green painted door evidently led up to the flat above. Gregory pressed the bell beside it and, having heard it ring, they waited with such patience as they could muster while casting anxious glances up and down the street. Several minutes passed and no sound came from within the building so Gregory rang again. The shrill peal had hardly ceased when the door was opened.

To Gregory’s relief it was Levianski himself who answered it. His dark curly hair showed no signs of rumpling, but he was clad in a blue silk dressing-gown and his eyes were a little bleary; so it was clear that they had roused him from sleep. As he took in Gregory’s battered face his black eyes showed sudden fear and he made to close the door; but Gregory was too quick for him. Putting his foot in it, he said:

‘Please don’t shut us out. I’m Commandant Tavenier. We had a long talk together at the Café Mignon a little over a fortnight ago.’

Levianski slowly opened the door again, and nodded. ‘Yes, I recognise you from your voice. I doubt if I would have otherwise. I thought you were a gangster who had just raided one of the night clubs and stolen those beautiful sables your companion is wearing—and that you had come here to try to force me to buy them.’

Gregory gave a wry grin. ‘For the past half-hour that’s the very thing we feared that a policeman would think, if we ran into one. But please let us come in.’

Instead of moving aside, the furrier said doubtfully, ‘It is obvious that you have got yourself into serious trouble. Are the police after you?’

‘No. At the moment they believe us both to be dead. In the course of an hour or two when they fail to find our bodies they will realise that we are not; but there is no possible way in which they could get any idea that we have come here.’

‘Very well then.’ Levianski stepped back for them to enter a narrow hall, shut the door behind them, and asked, ‘What has happened that you should be in such a shocking state, and
be in danger of arrest by the police?’

Gregory knew that within a few hours the story of the Arrow-Cross smoke-bomb attack on the Tuzolto palace would be all over Budapest, and that Levianski could hardly fail to identify Sabine as the Baroness; but he saw no point in telling the furrier more about himself than he had already, or of the parts that Ribbentrop and Grauber had played, so he said:

‘The Vichy police agent here got on to me and in collaboration with the Gestapo asked the Hungarian police to pull me in. But as the Baroness Tuzolto is a very old friend of mine she used her influence with the Regent temporarily to spike the Nazi’s guns, and gave me asylum in her palace. We meant to drive to the frontier last night but the Germans held up the car and tried to kidnap us. That’s how I got so knocked about. Then they got the Arrow-Cross boys to try their hand at flushing us out with, smoke bombs; but we got away through the caves that lie under Buda hill.’

Levianski nodded. ‘And what do you plan to do now?’

‘We have plenty of money on us and would like to buy a car to get away in. But we didn’t dare to show ourselves at a garage in our present state; and, anyway, we are pretty well dead-beat. You were good enough to offer to help me, providing I didn’t have the police on my track; so I’ve come to you. I was hoping that you would be willing to let us stay here for the day, so that we can get some sleep. Then if you could find us some second-hand clothes we’d be able to make a fresh start with a fair chance of reaching the frontier.’

Pinching his thick lower lip between his forefinger and thumb, the short square-shouldered Jew remained thoughtful for a minute, then he said, ‘You seem to have got completely clear for the moment; but, all the same, to let you stay is a risk, and I have to think of my family. Please to stay here for a little, while I consult my wife.’

Having pulled out a straight-backed wooden chair from beside the hallstand for Sabine, he gave a jerky bow and hurried off up the stairs. There was no other chair, so Gregory closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. Although he had spent most of Friday night in bed, during the past forty-eight hours he had had little more than four hours’ proper sleep, so he was very, very tired; and what they were to do should
Levianski refuse to let them stay there he could not think.

They were not kept waiting long, and when the furrier came downstairs again he was followed by a small, plump, bright-eyed woman of about thirty. She had hastily done her black hair up into a bun and put on a Persian lamb coat over her night-dress. He introduced her as his wife, and said:

‘Huldah says the more trouble there is in the world the more we should try to help people who are in trouble; so you are welcome to stay here until you are well rested and can go on your way. But in a matter such as this we dare trust no one. We must take every precaution that your presence here does not become known to our employees or the neighbours; so we wish to conceal you from our two young sons. They are only six and eight, and children of that age cannot be trusted not to blurt out secrets. They might tell one of their little school-fellows, or the woman who comes in on week-days to help in the kitchen.’

Gregory nodded. ‘I fully appreciate that; and we should not in the least mind remaining hidden if when we have slept you could bring some old clothes and cold food to us.’

‘We will do that willingly; but we are worried about where to put you. In our apartment we have only four bedrooms: our own, that of the boys, that occupied by my wife’s mother and one spare room.’ Levianski paused and looked at Gregory. ‘The attics on the third floor are all used for stock, and are visited regularly by my night-watchman; so if I made you up a bed on the floor of one of them you would have to be out of it by the time he comes on duty again this evening.’

Sabine looked up at him and said with a faint smile, ‘Please don’t let that worry you, Mr. Levianski. As the
Herr Commandant
said just now, we are very old friends. Had it not been for the war we should have been married in nineteen-thirty-nine. As it is, we were married very quietly two days ago; so we shall be delighted to share a room.’

Little Mrs. Levianski’s eyes went round with surprise and excitement at finding herself privy to the romance of a Baroness who was being hunted by the Gestapo, and she exclaimed, ‘Oh, gracious lady, how tragic for you to find yourself in such straits on your honeymoon! We must put you in our room, which is much nicer; and we will do everything we can to make you forget your troubles.’

‘No, Huldah, no!’ The more practical Leon quickly shook his head. ‘We will do all we can for our guests, yes; but how could we explain having given up our room to strangers? And we must lose no time. In half an hour or so the boys will be awake and, soon after, running about the apartment. By then our guests must be in the spare room and its door locked.’

‘Come then, and quietly please,’ Huldah gestured towards the stairway. ‘I will show you your room and the bathroom. Forgive, gracious lady, that I lead the way.’

Having followed her upstairs, with Levianski bringing up the rear, they were shown a twelve feet square room with a vast double bed in it, and not far from it a bathroom. To an offer of food they declared that they were too tired to be hungry; and, after thanking the Levianski’s most warmly, they shut themselves in to get cleaned up.

Both of them would have given a great deal to luxuriate in a hot bath—and it would not have been the first they had had together—but to make one with the gas geyser would have taken a quarter of an hour and, from fear of being discovered by the Levianski children, they dared not linger there too long. It was, after all, only their faces and hands which were so grimy. Having had a thorough wash and combed their hair, they tiptoed across the passage to the spare bedroom.

The big bed had as its principal covering one of those square goosefeather-stuffed pillow-eiderdowns beloved by Central Europeans. On it the Levianskis had laid out a clean suit of pyjamas and a flimsy night-dress. Sabine had already stripped. Picking up the night-dress she looked at it with a crooked smile, put it on, got into bed, and said:

‘It was very kind of Mrs. Levianski to provide me with the bridal trimmings; but I’m far too tired to tease you into making me take them off.’

Gregory returned her crooked smile. ‘At the moment I feel too old by a thousand years to care one way or the other.’ Slipping on the pyjamas he got into the big bed beside her, and added, ‘I never thought I’d break down on a honeymoon, but one lives and learns.’

She sighed. ‘I never thought I’d break down on a honeymoon either. We’ve had the most filthy luck so far. But we’ll make up for it before we are much older.’

Five minutes later they were both in the deep sleep of utter exhaustion.

It was more than twelve hours later when they were roused by a heavy knocking on the door, and on Sabine’s calling a sleepy ‘Come in’ Leon Levianski entered carrying a well-laden tray. As he set it on the top of a chest of drawers that flanked the bedside, he said:

‘I knocked on your door this afternoon when the children were out, but could get no reply. Now, Huldah has just put them to bed, and we thought you must be starving; so she first got this tray ready for me to bring up to you.’

Sabine murmured her thanks and quickly wriggled down to hide her bare shoulders under the bed-clothes; but Gregory sat up and said, ‘I had no idea we had slept so long. We were hoping to get out of the city tonight but it seems we have slept away the chance to make any preparations.’

Levianski shook his head. ‘It would have been foolish to rush matters and so increase the likelihood of your being caught. Much better stay here till tomorrow night. By then you will be fully recovered and far more capable of making a successful get-away.’

He was so obviously right that they did not attempt to argue the matter, but again thanked him for his most generous hospitality. With good appetites now, as soon as he had left them they set about the meal. Shuddering slightly, they covered the pickled herrings garnished with circles of onion with a plate; but the ample portions of cold goose and apricot compote washed down with a bottle of Bulls-blood of Badascony tasted as good as anything they could have got at the Ritz Grill of the Donau Palata.

When they had eaten, knowing that the children were in bed they crept across to the bathroom, and enjoyed a hot bath. Then, banishing the thought of the perils they must soon face again and, living only for the moment, they spent what they later agreed to be one of the never-to-be-forgotten-nights-in-a-life-time.

In the morning, although Huldah Levianski did not bring along their breakfast until her two boys had gone to kindergarten, she found them fast asleep. She told them that she had sent her daily help, Rosa, out to do some shopping, so for the next hour they could use the bathroom without fear of discovery.
Then she produced the morning papers and pointed out in them the accounts of the attack on the Tuzolto Palace.

The newspapers gave only a garbled version of the affair. It was stated that a rumour had got round that the Baroness had had staying in her palace the Commandant Tavenier, who had recently been received into Budapest society; and, believing him to be engaged in spreading propaganda in favour of the Allies, the Arrow-Cross had given a violent demonstration of their disapproval. Many windows of the palace had been smashed by smoke-bombs being thrown through them, and these had driven its inmates out into the street. The Baroness and her French friend had not been recognised; so it was believed that they must have disguised themselves before leaving in order to escape a rough handling by the young hooligans outside. No mention was made of the fight in the Arizona on Friday night, of Gregory’s arrest or of the disturbance’s having been inspired by the Germans. In two of the papers the accounts ended with an indignant denunciation of the Government’s attitude in allowing the Arrow-Cross to carry out acts of violence against private property and citizens who had not been officially accused of any crime.