The Invisible Bridge

by Julie Orringer

  One morning when he was feeling particularly desperate, he went to the prayer service before work. A group of men met in an empty storage building every day at dawn; some of them had tiny dog-eared prayer books, and there was a miniature Torah from which they read on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbos. Inside his tallis, Andras found himself thinking not of the prayers, but, as often happened when he performed any religious observance, of his parents. When he'd written to tell them Klara was pregnant, his father had written back to say they'd make a trip to Budapest at once. Andras had been skeptical. His parents hated to travel. They hated the noise and expense and crowds, and they hated the crush of Budapest. But a few weeks later they had gone to visit Klara and had stayed for three days. Andras's mother had promised to come back before the baby was born and to stay as long as Klara needed her.

  She must have known it would be a comfort to Andras. She was expert at comforting him, at making him feel safe; she had done it unfailingly all through his childhood. During the silent Amidah, what came to him was a memory from Konyar: For his sixth birthday he'd been given a wind-up tin circus train with little tin animals rattling behind the bars of their carriages. You could open the carriages to take out the elephants and lions and bears, who could then be made to perform in a circus ring you'd drawn in the dust. The toy had come from Budapest in a red cardboard box. It so exceeded any Konyar child's imagining of a toy that it made Andras the subject of jealous rage among his classmates--most notably the two blond boys who chased him home from school one afternoon, trying to catch him and take the train away. He ran with the red cardboard box clutched against his chest, ran toward the figure of his mother, whom he could see up ahead in the yard: She was beating rugs on wooden racks at the edge of the orchard. She turned at the sound of the boys' approaching footsteps. By that time Andras couldn't have been three meters away. But before he could reach her, his foot caught on an apple-tree root and he flew forward, the red box leaving his hands in a rising arc as he threw out his hands to catch himself. In one graceful motion his mother dropped her rug-beating baton and caught the box. The footsteps of Andras's pursuers came to a halt. Andras raised his head to see his mother tuck the train box under one arm and pick up her rug-beater in the other hand. She didn't make a move, just stood there with the tool upraised. It was a stout branch with a sort of flat round basket fixed to one end. She took a single step toward the two blond boys. Though Andras knew his mother to be a gentle person--she had never struck any of her sons--her posture seemed to suggest that she was ready to beat Andras's attackers with just as much fervor as she had employed in beating her rugs. Andras got up in time to see the blond boys fleeing up the road, their bare feet raising clouds of dust.

  His mother handed him the red box and suggested that he keep the train at home for a while. Andras had entered the house with the sense that his mother was a superhuman creature, ready to fly to his aid in moments of peril. The feeling had faded soon enough; not long afterward he'd left for school in Debrecen, where his mother couldn't protect him. But the incident had left a deep imprint upon him. He could feel his mother's power now as if it were all happening again: The red cardboard box of his life was flying through the air, and his mother had stretched out her hands to catch it.

  When he wasn't consumed with thoughts of Klara, he was thinking about his brothers. The mail distribution center had become a source of constant dread. Every time he passed it he imagined receiving a telegram that brought terrible news about Matyas's fate. There had been no word since his deployment to the east, and Gyorgy's efforts to help him had met with frustration. Gyorgy had sent a series of letters to high Munkaszolgalat officials, but had been told that no one could bother with a problem of this scale when there was a war to be fought. If he wanted to arrange Matyas's exemption from service he would have to contact the boy's battalion commander in Belgorod.

  Further inquiry revealed that Matyas's battalion had finished its service in Belgorod and had been sent farther east; now the battalion command headquarters was situated somewhere near Rostov-on-Don. Gyorgy sent a barrage of telegrams to the commander but heard nothing for weeks. Then he received a brief handwritten note from a battalion secretary, who informed him that Matyas's company had slipped into the whiteout of the Russian winter. They had registered their location via wireless a few weeks earlier, but their communication lines had since been broken and their whereabouts could not be determined now with any certainty.

  So this was what he had to picture: his brother Matyas somewhere far away in the snow, the tether to his battalion command center severed, his company drifting with its army group toward deeper cold and danger. What was he eating? What was he wearing?

  Where was he sleeping? How could Andras lie in a bunk at night and eat bread every morning when his brother was lost in Ukraine? Did Matyas imagine that Andras hadn't tried to help him, or that Gyorgy Hasz had refused? Who was responsible for Matyas's current peril? Was it Edith Novak, who had spilled Klara's secret? Was it Klara's long-ago attackers? Was it Andras himself, whose connection to Klara had made the price of his brother's freedom so high? Was it Miklos Horthy, whose desire to restore Hungary's territories had drawn him into the war, or Hitler, whose madness had driven him into Russia? How many other men besides Matyas found themselves in extremis that winter, and how many more would die before the war was over?

  It was some comfort to know that Tibor, at least, remained far from the front lines. His letters continued to drift in from Transylvania according to the whims of the military postal service. Three weeks would go by without a word, then a clutch of five letters would come, then a single postcard the next day, and then nothing for two weeks.

  During his time in the Carpathians, the tone of Tibor's writing had devolved from its casual banter to a stricken monotone: Dear Andras, another day of bridge-building. I miss Ilana terribly. Worry about her every minute. Plenty of disaster here: Today my workmate Roszenzweig broke his arm. A complex open fracture. I have no splints or casting materials or antibiotics, of course. Had to set the fracture with strip of planking from the barracks floor. Or, Eight servicemen down with pneumonia last week. Three died. How it grieves me to think of it! Iknow I could have kept them hydrated if I hadn't been sent out with the road crew. And another letter, in its entirety: Dear Andraska, I can't sleep. Ilana is in her 21st week now. Last time the miscarriage occurred in the 22nd. Andras wished he could write to Tibor about what he'd learned in Budapest, but he didn't want to compound Tibor's fears with his own. He wasn't alone in his anxiety, though; every week a pair of ivory-colored envelopes arrived from Benczur utca with words of reassurance. One would be from Gyorgy-- No news, no new threats. All goes on as before--and the other would carry Klara's mother's seal-- Dear Andras, know that we are all thinking of you and wishing you a speedy return. How Klara misses you, dear boy! And how happy it will make her when you come home. The doctor believes her to be getting on quite well. Once she sent Andras a small package, the contents of which had evidently been so attractive that nothing remained in the box except her note: Andraska, here are a few sweets for you. If you like them, I'll send more. Andras had brought the box back to the barracks to show it to Mendel, who had roared with laughter and suggested they display it on a shelf as an icon of life at Banhida. It was a comfort, too, to have Mendel there; they would finish their terms of service together and would travel back to Budapest on the same train. At least that was what they planned, marking off the boxes on their hand-drawn calendar as the days grew colder and the distant hills faded to winter brown.

  But on the twenty-fifth of November, a day whose gray blankness yielded in the evening to a confetti storm of snow, there was a telegram from Gyorgy waiting for Andras at the central office. He tore it open with shaking hands and read that Klara had given birth the previous night, five weeks before her due date. They had a son, but he was very ill. Andras must come home at once.

  It was a long time before he could move or speak. Other work serviceme
n tried to shuffle him aside to get to the counter; was he going to stand there all day? He made his way to the door of the office and staggered out into the snow. The lights of the camp had been lit early that evening. They formed a brilliant halo around the quadrangle, broken only by a brace of brighter, taller lights on either side of the administrative offices.

  Andras moved toward that bracket of lights as if toward a portal through which he might be conducted to Budapest. He had a son, but he was very ill. A son. A boy. His boy, and Klara's. Fifty miles away. Two hours by train.

  The guards who usually flanked the door had gone to supper. Andras went in unhindered. He passed by offices with electric heaters, telephones, mimeograph machines. He didn't know where Major Barna's office was, but he felt his way into the heart of the building, following the architectural lines of force. There, where he would have placed the major's office if he had designed this building, was the major's office. But its door was locked. Barna, too, had gone to supper. Andras went back outside into the blowing snow.

  Everyone knew where the officers' mess hall was. It was the only place at Banhida from which the smell of real food issued. No thin broth, no hard bread there; instead they ate chicken and potatoes and mushroom soup, veal paprikas, stuffed cabbage, all of it with white bread. Servicemen who had been assigned to deliver coal or remove garbage from the officers' mess hall had to suffer the aromas of those dishes. No serviceman, except those who waited on the officers, could enter the mess hall; it was guarded by soldiers with guns. But Andras approached the building without fear. He had a son. The first flush of his joy had mingled with the physical need to protect this child, to interpose his own body between him and whatever might do him harm. And Klara: If their child was dangerously ill, she needed him too. Guards with guns were of no consequence. The only thing that mattered was that he get out of Banhida.

  The guards at the door were not ones he recognized; they must have been fresh from Budapest. That was to Andras's advantage. He approached the door and addressed himself to the shorter and stockier guard, a fellow who looked as though the smells of meat and roasted peppers were a torment to him.

  "Telegram for Major Barna," Andras said, raising the blue envelope in one hand.

  The guard squinted at him in the glow of the electric lights. Snow swirled between them. "Where's the adjutant?" he asked.

  "He's at dinner, too, sir," Andras said. "Kovacs at the communications center ordered me to bring it myself."

  "Leave it with me," the guard said. "I'll see he gets it."

  "I was ordered to deliver it in person and wait for a reply."

  The short stocky guard glanced at his counterpart, a bullish young soldier half asleep at his post. Then he beckoned Andras closer and bent his head to him. "What do you really want?" he asked. "Work servicemen don't deliver telegrams to camp commanders. I may be new here, but I'm not an idiot." He held Andras's gaze steady with his own, and Andras's instinct was to answer truthfully.

  "My wife just gave birth five weeks early," he said. "The baby's sick. I have to get home. I want to ask for a special leave."

  The guard laughed. "In the middle of dinner? You must be crazy."

  "It can't wait," Andras said. "I've got to get home now."

  The guard seemed to consider what might be done. He looked over his shoulder into the mess hall, and then at the bullish young soldier again. "Hey, Mohacs," he said.

  "Cover guard duty for a minute, will you? I have to take this fellow inside."

  The bullish man shrugged, made a grunt of assent, and sank back almost immediately into his half-conscious state.

  "All right," said the first soldier. "Come in. I'll have to pat you down."

  Andras, speechless with gratitude, followed the soldier into the vestibule and submitted to a search. When the guard had determined that Andras was not carrying a weapon, he put a hand on his arm and said, "Come with me. And don't speak to anyone, understand?"

  Andras nodded, and they stepped into the clamor of the officers' dining room. The long tables were arranged in rows, the officers seated according to rank. Barna dined with his lieutenants at a raised table overlooking the others. At his side was a high-ranked officer Andras had never seen before, a compact silver-haired man in a coat bright with braid, his shoulders bristling with decorations. He had a fine steely beard in an antiquated style, and a gold-rimmed monocle. He looked like an old general from the Great War.

  "Who is that?" Andras asked the guard.

  "No idea," the guard said. "They don't tell us anything. But it looks like you've picked a good night to make your debut in dinner theater." He led Andras to another soldier who stood at attention near the head table, and he bent his head to that soldier's ear and said a few words. The soldier nodded and went to an adjutant who was sitting at one of the tables close to the front. He bent to the adjutant and spoke, and the adjutant raised his head from his dinner and regarded Andras with an expression of wonderment and pity. Slowly he got up from his bench and went to the head table, where he saluted Major Barna and repeated the message, glancing back over his shoulder at Andras.

  Barna's brows drew together and his mouth hardened into a white line. He put down his fork and knife and got to his feet. The men fell silent. The splendid elderly officer glanced up in inquiry.

  Barna drew himself to his full height. "Where is this Levi?" he said.

  Andras had never heard his name sound so much like a curse. He struggled to keep his shoulders straight as he answered, "Here I am, sir."

  "Step forward, Levi," said the major.

  It was the second time Barna had given him that command. He remembered well what had happened the first time. He took a few steps forward and dropped his gaze to the floor.

  "You see, sir," Barna said, addressing the decorated gentleman beside him. "This is why we can't be too careful about the liberties we give our laborers. Do you see this cockroach?" He indicated Andras with his hand. "I've disciplined him before. He dared to be insolent to me on an earlier occasion. And here he is again."

  "What was the earlier occasion?" the general said--with, Andras thought, a hint of mockery, almost as though it might please him to hear of someone's insolence to Barna.

  But Barna didn't seem to catch the note. "It was when he first arrived," he said, and narrowed his eyes at Andras. "Did you think I'd forgotten, Levi? I had to strip him of his rank." Barna smiled at the elder officer. "He tried to cling to it, so I punished him."

  "Why was he stripped of rank?"

  "Because he'd misplaced his foreskin," Barna said.

  The room broke out in laugher, but the general frowned at his dinner plate. Barna didn't seem to notice that either. "Now he's come to us with an important request," he went on. "Why don't you step forward and state your business, Levi?"

  Andras took a step forward. He refused to be cowed by Barna, though his pulse pounded deafeningly in his temples. He held the telegram in his clenched hand. "Request permission for special family leave, sir," he said.

  "What's so urgent?" Barna said. "Does your wife need a fuck?"

  More laughter from the men.

  "You can be sure that problem will take care of itself," Barna said. "It always does."

  "With your permission, sir," Andras began again, his voice tight with rage.

  "What's that in your hand, Levi? Adjutant, bring me that piece of paper."

  The adjutant approached Andras and took the telegram from his hand. Andras had never felt such profound humiliation or fury. He stood no more than eight feet from Barna; in another moment he might have his hands around the major's throat. The thought was some consolation as he watched Barna scan the telegram. Barna raised his eyebrows in bemused surprise.

  "What do you know?" he said to the assembled men. "Mrs. Levi just had a kid.

  Levi is a father."

  Applause from the men, along with whistles and cheers.

  "But the baby's very sick. Come home at once. That sounds bad."

 
Andras fought the impulse to run at Barna. He bit his lip and fixed his eyes again on the floor. What he did not want was to be shot.

  "Well, there's no use giving you a special leave now, is there?" Barna said. "If the boy's really that sick, you can just go home when he's dead."

  A dense silence filled Andras's ears like the rushing of a train. Barna looked around the room, his hands on the table; the men seemed to understand that he wanted them to laugh again, and there was a swell of uncomfortable laughter.

  "You're dismissed, Levi," Barna said. "I'd like to enjoy my coffee now."

  Before anyone could move, the elderly general brought his hand down against the table. "This is a disgrace," he said, getting to his feet, his voice graveled with anger. He turned a thick-browed scowl on Barna. "You are a disgrace."