The Invisible Bridge

by Julie Orringer

  Through those dreamlike days he was aware of little else beside the ebb and flow of Tamas Levi's needs. The war seemed far away and irrelevant, the Munkaszolgalat a bad dream. But on the night of the seventh of December, the eve of Tamas's bris, Andras's father brought the news that the Japanese had bombed an American naval base in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor: The name conjured a tranquil image, pale gray sky above an expanse of nacreous water. But the attack had been a bloodbath. The Japanese had badly damaged or destroyed four U.S. battleships and nearly two hundred planes, and had killed more than twenty-four hundred men and wounded twelve hundred others. Andras knew that the States would declare war on Japan now, closing the ring of the war around the earth. And in fact the declaration came the next morning as Tamas Levi entered the covenant of circumcision. Three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and then Hungary declared war on the Western Allies.

  As Andras stood at the bedroom window that night, listening to a volley of voices from Bethlen Gabor ter, he found himself considering what the new declaration of war might mean for his little family, and for his brothers and his parents and Mendel Horovitz. The city might be bombed. What had become scarce would get scarcer. More troops would be called, more labor servicemen deployed. He had just told Klara that he was home for good, but how long would this spell of freedom last? The KMOF wouldn't care that he was just now beginning to recover the health and strength he'd lost during his months in the Munkaszolgalat. They would use him as they'd used him all along, as a simple tool in a war whose aim was to destroy him. But they didn't have him yet, he thought: Not yet. For the moment he was here at home, in this quiet bedroom with his sleeping wife and child. He could look for work, could begin to support Klara and the baby. And he could give something to Gyorgy Hasz, some small part of the vast sum he was paying each month to keep Klara out of the hands of the authorities. He had hoped he might approach Mendel Horovitz's editor at the Evening Courier and speak to him about a position in layout or illustration, but Mendel had left the Courier when he'd been conscripted; his old job had long since been filled, and the editor himself had been fired and called into the Munkaszolgalat. Since his return, Mendel had been pounding the pavement every day with his portfolio of clips. In the afternoons he could be found at the Cafe Europa at Hunyadi ter, a cup of black coffee before him, a notebook open on the table. Well, Andras would go to Hunyadi ter the next day and approach Mendel with a proposition: the two of them might present themselves at the office of Frigyes Eppler, Andras's former editor at Past and Future, and ask to be hired jointly as writer and illustrator. Frigyes Eppler now worked at the Magyar Jewish Journal. The paper's offices were located on Wesselenyi utca, a few blocks from the Cafe Europa.

  At three o'clock the next afternoon, Andras walked through the gilt-scrolled doors of the cafe to find Mendel at the usual table with the usual notebook before him. He sat down across from his friend, ordered a cup of black coffee, and stated the proposition.

  Mendel pulled the V of his mouth into a narrow point. "It would have to be the Magyar Jewish Journal," he said.

  "What's wrong with the Journal?"

  "Have you read it lately?"

  "I've been the full-time servant of Tamas and Klara Levi lately."

  "It's been dishing up a steady diet of assimilationist drivel. Apparently, we've just got to put our faith in the Christian aristocrats in the government and all will be well.

  We're supposed to keep saluting the flag and singing the anthem, just as though the anti-Jewish laws didn't exist. Be Magyar first and Jewish second."

  "Well, we're safer if the government considers us Magyar first."

  "But the government doesn't consider us Magyar! I don't have to tell you that.

  You've just done your time in the Munkaszolgalat. The government considers us Jews, plain and simple."

  "At least they consider us necessary."

  "For how much longer?" Mendel said. "We can't work for that paper, Parisi. We should look for work at one of the left-wing rags."

  "I don't have connections at any of those places. And I don't have time to spare.

  I've got to start supporting this son of mine before I'm conscripted again."

  "What makes you think Eppler would consider taking us both?"

  "He knows good work when he sees it. Once he reads you, he'll want to hire you."

  Mendel gave a half laugh. "The Jewish Journal!" he said. "You're going to drag me down there and get me a job, aren't you."

  "Frigyes Eppler's no conservative, or at least he wasn't when I knew him. Past and Future was a Zionist operation if ever there was one. Every issue carried some romantic piece about Palestine and the adventures of emigration. And you might remember their lead story from May of '36. It concerned a certain record-breaking sprinter who wasn't to be allowed on the Hungarian Olympic team because he was a Jew.

  Eppler was the one who pushed that story. If he's at the Jewish Journal now, it must be because he means to stir things up."

  "Oh, for God's sake," Mendel said. "All right. We'll talk to the man." He closed his notebook and paid his bill, and they went off together toward Wesselenyi utca.

  On the editorial floor of the Journal they found Frigyes Eppler embroiled in a shouting match with the managing editor inside the managing editor's glassed-in office; through the windows that looked upon the newsroom, the two men could be seen carving a series of emphases into the air as they argued. Since Andras had last seen his former editor, Eppler had gone entirely bald and had adopted a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He was round-shouldered and heavyset; his shirttails were apt to fly free of his trousers, and his tie often showed the mark of a hasty lunch. He never seemed to be able to find his hat or his keys or his cigarette case. But in his editorial work he missed no detail. Past and Future had won international awards every year Frigyes Eppler had edited it. His greatest triumph had been his placement of the young men and women who had worked for him; his efforts on Andras's behalf were among the many generous acts he undertook to promote the careers of his writers and copy editors and graphic artists. He had shown no surprise when Andras had been offered a place at the Ecole Speciale. As he had told Andras then, his aim had always been to hire people who would quit for better work before he had a chance to fire them.

  Andras couldn't make out the content of the argument with the managing editor, but it was clear that Eppler was losing. His gestures increased in size, his shouts in volume, as the altercation went on; the managing editor, though wearing a look of triumph, backed toward the door of his own office as if he meant to flee as soon as his victory was complete. At last the door flew open and the managing editor stepped onto the newsroom floor. He called an order to his secretary, trundled off down the length of the room, and escaped into the stairwell as if he were afraid Eppler might chase him. The fuming and defeated Eppler stood alone the empty office, polishing his scalp with both hands. Andras waved in greeting.

  "What is it now?" Eppler said, not looking at Andras; then, recognizing him, he gave a cry and clapped his hands to his chest as if to keep his heart from falling out.

  "Levi!" he shouted. "Andras Levi! What in God's name are you doing here?"

  "I'm here to see you, Eppler-ur."

  "How long has it been now? A hundred years? A thousand? But I'd have recognized that face anywhere. What are you wasting your time at these days?"

  "Not enough," Andras said. "That's the problem."

  "Well, I hope you haven't come here looking for a job. I sent you off into the world long ago. Aren't you an architect by now?"

  Andras shook his head. "I've just finished a two-year spell in the Munkaszolgalat.

  This tall fellow is a childhood friend and company-mate of mine, Mendel Horovitz."

  Mendel gave a slight bow and touched his hat in greeting, and Frigyes Eppler looked him up and down. "Horovitz," he said. "I've seen your picture somewhere."

  "Mendel holds the Hungarian record in the hundred-meter dash,"
Andras said.

  "That's right! Wasn't there some scandal about you a number of years back?"

  "Scandal?" Mendel showed his wry grin. "Don't I wish."

  "They wouldn't allow him on the Hungarian Olympic team in '36," Andras said.

  "There was a piece about it in Past and Future. You edited it yourself."

  "Of course! What a fool I am. You're that Horovitz. Whatever have you done with yourself since then?"

  "Gotten into journalism, I'm afraid."

  "Well, of all ridiculous things! So you're here as a supplicant too?"

  "Parisi and I come as a team."

  "You mean Levi, here? Ah, you call him Parisi because of that stint of his at the Ecole Speciale. I was responsible for that, you know. Not that he'd ever give me credit.

  He'd claim it was all due to his own talent."

  "Well, he's not such a bad draughtsman. I hired him for the paper I was editing."

  "And what paper was that?"

  From his satchel, Mendel produced a few dog-eared copies of The Biting Fly.

  "This is the one we made in the camp at Banhida. It's not as funny as the one we wrote when we were posted in Subcarpathia and Transylvania, but that one got us kicked out of our company. We were made to eat our words, in fact. Twenty pages of them apiece."

  For the first time, Frigyes Eppler's expression grew serious; he looked carefully at Andras and Mendel, and then sat down at his managing editor's desk to page through The Biting Fly. After reading for a while in silence, he glanced up at Mendel and gave a low chuckle. "I recognize your work," he said. "You were the one writing that man-about-town column for the Evening Courier. A smart political instrument dressed up as a young good-for-nothing's good-for-nothing ravings. But you were pretty sharp, weren't you?"

  Mendel smiled. "At my worst."

  "Tell me something," Eppler said in a lowered tone. "Just what are you doing here? This paper doesn't represent the leading edge of modern thought, you know."

  "With all respect, sir, we might ask you the same question," Mendel said.

  Eppler massaged the sallow dome of his head with one hand. "A man doesn't always find himself where he wants to be," he said. "I was at the Pesti Naplo for a while, but they let some of us go. By which you understand what I mean." He let out an unhappy laugh that was half wheeze; he was an inveterate smoker. "At least I stayed out of the Munkaszolgalat. I'm lucky they didn't send me to the Eastern Front, just to make an example of me. In any case, to put it simply, I had to keep body and soul together--an old habit, you might say--so when a position opened here, I took it. Better than singing in the street for my bread."

  "Which is what we'll be doing soon," Mendel said. "Unless we find some work."

  "Well, I can't say I recommend this place," Eppler said. "As you may have gathered, I don't always see eye to eye with the rest of the editorial staff. I'm supposed to be the chief, but, as you witnessed, my managing editor often ends up managing me."

  "Perhaps you could use someone to take your side," Andras said.

  "If I were to hire you, Levi, it wouldn't be to take sides. It would be to get a job done, just as when you were fresh from gimnazium."

  "I've learned a thing or two since then."

  "I'm sure you have. And your friend here seems an interesting fellow. I can't say, Horovitz, that I would have hired you on the basis of your Biting Fly, but I did follow your column for a time."

  "I'm

  flattered."

  "Don't be. I read every rag in this town. I consider it my job."

  "Do you think you can find something for us?" Mendel asked. "I hate to be blunt, but someone's got to be. Levi here has a son to look out for."

  "A son! Good God. If you've got a son, Levi, then I'm an old man." He sighed and hitched up his trousers. "What the hell, boys. Come to work here if you want to work so badly. I'll dig something up for you."

  That night Andras found himself at the kitchen table at home, sitting with his mother and the baby while Klara lay asleep on the sofa in the front room. His mother removed a pin from the nightshirt she was sewing and sank it into her gray velveteen pincushion, the same one she'd used for as long as Andras could remember. She had brought her old sewing box with her to Budapest, and Andras had been surprised to find that his mind contained a comprehensive record of its contents: the frayed tape measure, the round blue tin that held a minestrone of buttons, the black-handled scissors with their bright blades, the mysterious prickle-edged marking wheel, the spools and spools of colored silk and cotton. Her tiny whipstitches were as tight and precise as the ones that had edged Andras's collars when he was a boy. When she finished her row of hemming, she tied off the thread and cut it with her teeth.

  "You used to like to watch me sew when you were little," she said.

  "I remember. It seemed like magic."

  She raised an eyebrow. "If it were magic, it would go faster."

  "Speed is the enemy of precision," Andras said. "That's what my drawing master in Paris used to tell us."

  His mother knotted the end of the thread and raised her eyes to him again. "It's a long time since you left school, isn't it?" she said.

  "Forever."

  "You'll go back to your studies when this is all over."

  "Yes, that's what Apa says, too. But I don't know what will happen. I have a wife and son now."

  "Well, it's good news about the job," his mother said. "You were wise to think of Eppler."

  "Yes, it's good news," Andras said, but it felt less like good news than he'd imagined it would. Though he was relieved to know he had a way to earn money, the idea of going back to work for Eppler seemed to erase his time in Paris entirely. He knew it made no sense; he'd met Klara in Paris, after all, and here on the table before him, asleep in a wicker basket, was Tamas Levi, the miraculous evidence of their life together. But to arrive at work the next morning and receive the day's assignments from Eppler--it was what he had been doing at nineteen, at twenty. It seemed to negate the possibility that he would ever complete his training, that he would ever get to do the work he craved.

  Everything in the world stood against his going back to school. The France in which he'd been a student had disappeared. His friends were dispersed. His teachers had fled. No school in Hungary would open its doors to him. No free country would open its borders to him. The war worsened daily. Their lives were in danger now. He suspected it wouldn't be long before Budapest was bombed.

  "Don't give me such a dark look," his mother said. "I'm not responsible for the situation. I'm just your mother."

  The baby began to stir in his basket. He shifted his head back and forth against the blankets, scrunched his face into a pink asterisk, and let out a cry. Andras bent over the basket and lifted the baby to his chest.

  "I'll walk him around the courtyard," he said.

  "You can't take him outside," his mother said. "He'll catch his death of cold."

  "I won't have him wake Klara. She's been up every night for weeks."

  "Well, for pity's sake, put a blanket over him. And put a coat over your shoulders.

  Here, hold him like this, and let me put his hat on. Keep his blanket over his head so he'll stay warm."

  He let his mother swaddle them both against the cold. "Don't stay out long," she said, patting the baby's back. "He'll fall asleep after you walk him for a minute or two."

  It was a relief to get out of the close heat of the apartment. The night was clear and cold, with a frozen slice of moon suspended in the sky by an invisible filament.

  Beyond the haze of city lights he could make out the faint ice crystals of stars. The baby was cocooned against him, quiet. He could feel the rapid rise and fall of his son's chest against his own. He walked around the courtyard and hummed a lullaby, circling the fountain where he and Klara had seen the little dark-haired girl trailing a hand through the water. The stone basin was crusted with ice now. The courtyard security light illuminated its depths, and as he leaned over it he could mak
e out the fiery glints of goldfish beneath the surface. There, beneath the cover of the ice, their flickering lives went on. He wanted to know how they did it, how they withstood the slowing of their hearts, the chilling of their blood, through the long darkness of winter.

  There was something otherworldly, it seemed to Andras, about the advertisements published in the Magyar Jewish Journal. As assistant layout editor it was his job to arrange those neatly illustrated boxes in the margins that flanked the articles; inside the bordered rectangles depicting clothes and shoes and soap, ladies' perfume and hats, the war seemed not to exist. It was impossible to reconcile this ad for cordovan leather evening shoes with the idea of Matyas spending a winter outdoors in Ukraine, perhaps without a good pair of boots or an adequate set of foot rags. It was impossible to read this druggist's advertisement listing the merits of its Patented Knee Brace, and then to think of Tibor having to set a serviceman's compound fracture with a length of wood torn from a barracks floor. The signs of war--the absence of silk stockings, the scarcity of metal goods, the disappearance of American and English products--were negations rather than additions; the blank spaces where the advertisements for those items would have appeared had been filled with other images, other distractions. The sporting-goods store on Szerb utca was the only one whose ad made reference to the war, however obliquely; it proclaimed the merits of a product called the Outdoorsman's Equipage, a knapsack containing everything you would need for a sojourn in the Munkaszolgalat: a collapsible cup, a set of interlocking cutlery, a mess tin, an insulated canteen, a thick woolen blanket, stout boots, a camping knife, a waterproof slicker, a gas lantern, a first-aid kit. It wasn't advertised for use in the Munkaszolgalat, but what else would Budapest residents be doing outdoors in the middle of January?