When he rushes to Becher’s hotel with the good news, Becher demands proof that the money has been deposited. Without pausing to weigh up the wisdom of his words, Miklós blurts out, ‘Tell me, Obersturmbannführer, what will you do with all this money when the war is over?’
Becher bursts out laughing. ‘Who knows? Perhaps I will become a businessman and do business with you Jews.’
He surveys Miklós. ‘And you, Herr Nagy. Why do you wear yourself out and risk your life with this mission of yours?’
Becher’s question surprises him. It’s a personal question, one a colleague might ask, and he wonders if, for the first time since their association began, this Nazi sees him as a human being, not just a means for further aggrandizement. A glib reply rises to his lips, but he reconsiders. Becher’s question deserves a sincere response.
‘For many years, I used to wonder if my life had any meaning. But if I can save this group of Jews, I’ll feel I haven’t lived in vain.’
‘Ah so. Naturlich. You want to be a saviour, nicht war? And those Jews, they will be grateful to you? For how long? People have short memories. Jesus Christ also sacrificed himself, but the people he saved didn’t appreciate him. They betrayed him.’
Miklós can’t help chuckling at the comparison. ‘Even if they don’t thank me, at least they won’t crucify me.’
Becher walks to the liquor cabinet, removes two glasses, fills them to the brim with schnapps, and holds one out to Miklós. This gesture surprises him. They have drunk together in bars, nightclubs and restaurants, but this is the first time Becher has offered him a drink in his office.
‘I have news for you,’ Becher is saying as he sprawls in his armchair. ‘I want you to know that I’ve been doing my best to have your passengers released. I am also trying to send thirty thousand Jews to labour camps in Austria to keep them there instead of deporting them to Auschwitz, but Eichmann has been blocking my efforts. He wants them all dead. The Reichsführer is willing to stop the deportations and close the concentration camps, but Eichmann undermines his plans.’
Miklós shifts to the edge of his chair, every muscle taut with anticipation. He is still waiting to hear Becher’s news.
‘I can tell you that thanks to my efforts, your people will leave Bergen-Belsen tomorrow, and their train will reach Switzerland in two days’ time,’ Becher says. ‘I am sure you will want to meet it.’ Leaning forward he clinks glasses, says ‘Prost!’ and downs his schnapps in one gulp.
For the first time in many months, the burden that has been weighing Miklós down finally slips off his back, and he walks home with a lighter step. Just a few more days, and he will finally triumph after all these terrifying meetings, dangerous discussions and failed negotiations. Thanks to his determination, over fifteen hundred Jews will have been saved from a horrible death, and Judit and Ilonka will be free. He’s the one who has achieved this, but he knows he couldn’t have done it without Becher’s help.
*
Three days later, on a frosty December day, the train from Bergen-Belsen pulls in at the station at St Margarethen on the border of Austria and Switzerland, brakes screeching, thick steam blowing across the railway track. Over a thousand faces are pressed to the slits in the walls of the wagons, anxious to catch their first sight of Switzerland. Some of the passengers are sobbing, overcome with emotion. Some are laughing, delirious with joy. Others are silent, trying to grasp the significance of a moment they have dreamed of for so long. Reporters are running along the platform and photographers have cameras poised to take their first shots of the liberated Hungarian Jews for international newspapers.
Pushing his way past the photographers, Swiss soldiers and Red Cross personnel, Miklós scans the passengers pouring from the wagons, impatient to place their feet on Swiss soil. Suddenly he hears someone shout his name. He turns, and Judit falls into his arms.
Resting her small head on his shoulder, she sobs, ‘Miki, you did it! I can’t believe I’m really in Switzerland. I can’t believe you’re here and we’re safe. Tell me this isn’t a dream.’
He closes his eyes and as he holds her against him, he feels an unfamiliar roundness. ‘Oh my darling,’ he says, and strokes her belly. The platform is crowded with passengers, porters and Red Cross officials, but they stand motionless in their embrace. Once again he caresses the hard swell of her belly with wonder, and knows his choice has been made.
He looks up. Standing apart from the crowd, Ilonka is staring at them. His heart is hammering. He longs to rush to her, to sweep her up in his arms and hold her, but he manages to control himself. Several moments later, he pulls away from Judit and starts to move towards Ilonka. But before he can reach her, she holds up her arm in a gesture that warns him to keep his distance. He wants to speak to her, to say something, but the words freeze on his lips as he hears her say, ‘Don’t come near me. I never want to see you again as long as I live.’ Then she turns her back on him and walks away.
His face is the colour of the whitewashed station building, and he leans against it as he watches her retreating figure. Just then a cameraman asks her to join the group he is about to photograph near the St Margarethen sign and she forces a smile as the flash goes off.
It should have been the most triumphant moment of his life, but he knows he will never forget the words Ilonka spat at him. He has lost the only thing that made his life worth living. As he walks slowly from the station with his arm around Judit, he wants to weep. Everything in life comes at a price, but this time the price was too high.
ISRAEL
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Tel Aviv, 2005
Annika flings her suitcase onto the hotel bed and opens the door to her tiny balcony. Squinting against the dazzling light, she gazes at the scene below and catches her breath. Nothing she has seen since arriving in Tel Aviv has prepared her for this sight.
As soon as the plane touched down at Ben Gurion Airport, hundreds of travellers jostled each other at the luggage carousel and then, pushing trolleys loaded up with trunks, cases, boxes and cabin bags, they’d rushed to the taxi stand like greyhounds released from their cages at the start of a race. They pushed past her, men in long black coats with beards and wide-brimmed hats, and women in long skirts with lots of children in tow, shouting addresses at the drivers even before they reached the cabs. ‘Why don’t you wait your turn?’ she snapped at the woman who had shoved her out of the way and was already pushing her two small children into the back of a taxi.
Eventually she was able to secure a taxi, and as it made its way along streets jammed with cars whose drivers sounded their horns in frustration at the slow-moving traffic, she looked at the nondescript buildings and dusty palm trees and felt she wouldn’t want to stay in Tel Aviv a minute longer than necessary.
But now she sees the view from her balcony, hears the boom of waves breaking on the shore and breathes in the familiar salty smell of the sea, and her muscles begin to unknot.
Coming from Sydney, she is rarely impressed by beaches in other countries, but spread before her is one of the most beautiful beaches she has ever seen. Stretching into the distance is a succession of scalloped bays, and spread out on sand the colour of icing sugar are rows of crimson, royal blue and sunflower yellow deckchairs under striped umbrellas. Young people leap up and toss balls across volleyball nets.
She rummages through her suitcase for her leggings and runners, changes her clothes, leaves the mess on the bed, and hurries downstairs. She doesn’t want to waste a minute of this perfect afternoon. The promenade is wide and attractively paved and as she dodges dozens of cyclists speeding along it, she passes cafés, kiosks and juice bars, whose vendors chat up passers-by to lure them inside.
‘Hi, come in, have a coffee! Madonna said we have the best coffee in Tel Aviv,’ one of them calls out to her. He has olive skin and eyes as bright as polished obsidian, and she likes his cheeky smile.
‘Go on, Madonna didn’t even come to Israel, she cancelled her tour,’ she counters.<
br />
Without missing a beat, he shoots back, ‘But if she did come, she would have said that.’
Annika bursts out laughing. ‘Is this what you call chutzpah?’
‘Here we call it good business. I’m Ari. Come in, try my coffee, you will see.’
She sits on a bamboo stool and gazes at the beach. It’s Saturday, and whole families are strolling along the promenade, groups of cyclists chain their bicycles to the rail and take off their helmets to admire the view, and girls with long tanned legs and brief shorts shoot flirtatious glances at the guys and walk on, whispering and giggling. If not for the occasional group of young khaki-clad soldiers of both sexes with semi-automatic rifles slung on their shoulders, it could have been a beach in any holiday resort in the world; a scene she did not expect to see in Tel Aviv.
She doesn’t really know what she expected. There was ancient Israel, the so-called Promised Land, whose mystique encompassed thousands of years of history from biblical times, but she had seen no indication of that exotic past on the drive into this modern city.
Tel Aviv was often in the news, usually with a negative slant that focused on occupation, oppression and conflict. Especially since the second Intifada had broken out, with suicide attacks on Israeli buses and crowded markets.
The reports filed by foreign correspondents gave the impression that Israel was a dangerous country, yet here in the middle of its largest city, locals were enjoying a laid-back beach culture like carefree sun-lovers everywhere.
Ari is watching her as she sips the espresso, eager for confirmation of his claim.
‘Madonna said she liked the coffee in Sydney much better,’ Annika says with a straight face, and he shakes his finger at her playfully.
She points at the beach. ‘I had no idea there was such a gorgeous beach right in the centre of town.’
‘If you come here at night, you will see something that will surprise you even more. Our nightclubs and discos stay open until dawn, and people dance all night. You should see the action! Tel Aviv is the rave capital of the world.’
‘You should be writing their travel ads,’ she says.
‘No, really. You like music? You dance? You should come. With your friend.’
She ignores his clumsy attempt to find out if she is alone. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says slowly. ‘How can there be such a light-hearted atmosphere here? Aren’t people depressed about the Intifada and the suicide bombers?’
He shrugs. ‘The rest of Israel calls us “The Bubble City”. They think we close our eyes to the real world. But we think, who knows what will happen tomorrow? So we must live for today.’
It reminds her of something Jansci said, and she feels a stab of nostalgia, but Ari is still talking to her, pointing to a sign hanging crookedly above the counter: Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today’s a gift, that’s why we call it the present.
‘It’s true, no? An American friend sent it to me from Los Angeles.’
That figures, Annika thinks.
A noisy group of locals has come into the café and someone orders a bottle of Yarden sparkling wine. The guy they are toasting has tightly curled hair that’s lightly speckled with grey, and when he turns to look at her and smiles, she can’t resist smiling back. But it’s his mouth that makes her linger on his face, especially the sensual lower lip which is bisected by a cleft. He is wearing board shorts and a floral Hawaiian shirt and seems to have a personality to match, a beach bum perhaps, but a convivial one, judging by the laughter that comes from his table whenever he speaks.
She would prefer to observe him and his friends from a distance, but to her dismay, the bon vivant is beckoning to her. ‘Come, sit with us, don’t be by yourself,’ he calls, and gives her that enticing smile. He holds out a glass of wine. ‘Have a glass with us. It’s my birthday.’
While she hesitates, Ari cuts in. ‘Yes, do what he says, or he might write about you. That’s Dov Erlich, the journalist.’
As soon as she hears that, the man at the next table stops being a jovial beach bum she would prefer to avoid and becomes an interesting colleague who might be able to help her. Okay, so I make snobbish assumptions and I use people, she thinks as she moves to his table, but what journalist doesn’t?
Dov makes room for her and fills her glass. ‘L’Chaim,’ he says, raising his glass to touch hers. ‘That means “to life”. Being alive is a major preoccupation in this country, but staying alive here is an even bigger challenge.’
Ari is already refilling their glasses. One of Dov’s companions raises his glass and says, ‘Happy birthday, Dov, may you live to one hundred and twenty.’
‘Better make that one-twenty and a day,’ Dov says.
‘Why “and one day”?’ Annika asks.
‘You want I should die on my birthday?’ Dov asks, and they all burst out laughing. So does Annika.
As soon as Dov finds out that she is also a journalist, he surveys her with an interested gaze. ‘So are you here on an assignment for your paper?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m on holiday.’ She is tempted to tell him about her quest but holds back. This isn’t the place or the time.
Dov leans towards her and when he speaks, she finds herself looking at his sensual lips. ‘I’m with the Tel Aviv Post. At least I think I am, but if you ask my editor, he mightn’t agree. He has a reference ready for when I resign. It says, Dov Erlich tells me he’s been working for me for the past ten years. If you can get him to work for you, you’ ll be lucky.’
When the laughter dies down, he adds, ‘But seriously, if you need anything while you’re here, you can call me.’
*
On her way back to the hotel, Annika feels light-hearted. Once again she is a stranger alone in a foreign city, but despite the threat of danger, she feels comfortable here in a way she didn’t feel in Budapest. And although she misses Jansci, she has no regrets.
Back in her room, she starts to unpack, but a spear of sunlight pierces the room through the gap in the curtains, and she sinks onto the bed and closes her eyes. As she lies there, her eyelids warmed by the sun, something that the guide in the Sydney Jewish Museum said comes back to her. No good deed goes unpunished. What did he mean? And how did that relate to Miklós Nagy?
She opens her eyes, alert now. That’s what she has to find out. Not knowing Hebrew will make it difficult for her to search old newspapers and archives. She might need to hire a translator, but that will take time, and having overstayed her time in Budapest, she only has a week left before her return flight to Sydney. She closes her eyes again. She is too tired to sort anything out, and it’s almost dinnertime.
The hotel terrace is already full of diners when she arrives, and above the buzz of conversation she hears Americans enthusing about their visit to Masada. At the table next to hers, an Israeli couple are speaking Hebrew which sounds guttural to her ears. The Israeli woman, a plump middle-aged blonde with hair that is too blonde and lipstick that is too red, looks up from her plate as Annika walks past, and gives her a friendly smile. ‘Try the chicken, it’s good,’ she says in English.
Instead, Annika orders veal with mushrooms, which is dry. The sauce could have done with some cream, but as the waiter explains, the restaurant adheres to kosher rules, and doesn’t mix dairy products with meat.
Suddenly, above the rhythmic sound of the waves pounding on the shore, she hears the shocking shriek of ambulances and police cars tearing through the streets. The restaurant grows silent. The diners stop eating, the waiters stop serving, and everyone seems to freeze. Some people pick up their mobile phones and dial with frantic fingers.
The couple behind her push back their chairs so violently that one crashes to the floor, and they rush towards the door. An American woman keeps moaning, Oh my God, oh my God. Shoshi’s not answering. What if she’s there? Her knees are buckling as she clings to her husband who is trying to support and reassure her although his face is as anguished as hers.
Annika tu
rns to the table behind her where another American couple are speaking in hushed tones. ‘What happened?’ she asks a man who wears a black leather kippah on his reddish hair.
‘Another suicide bomber, this time here in Tel Aviv. At a falafel restaurant near the market. The bastards know it’s a favourite meeting place for the young ones, and it’s always crowded on Saturday nights. They stuff the bombs with nails and bolts to make sure they inflict as much injury as possible. And those are the people our government has given the Gaza Strip to. From the pinnacle of their delusional idealism, they decided to give the land to the Palestinians so they can breed more suicide bombers on our doorstep. And this is only the beginning.’
In the intimate atmosphere that tragedy creates among strangers, he explains that he and his wife made aliyah from New York some years before, but they have become disillusioned with the politics of Ariel Sharon and his government who forcibly evacuated the Jews from the Gaza Strip and returned it to the Palestinians without any assurances of peace.
‘After years of hard work, those Jewish settlers had to walk out of there leaving everything they’d built up. They left hothouses full of tomatoes and strawberries that we exported all over Europe. And you know what the Palestinians did? They shattered the glass, wrecked the hothouses, and trashed the plants. That’s how they value peace and prosperity. All they value is violence and hatred.’
In his bitterness, she recognises the disillusionment of expats who have left their homeland to settle in a country they have idealised, only to find it no more perfect than the one they left behind. She saw this phenomenon with English journalists she worked with, who were constantly criticising every aspect of life in Australia, forgetting why they had left Britain.
Annika’s mind is on the victims of the bombing, and as soon as she returns to her room, she switches on CNN. Breaking News: Carnage in Tel Aviv, the scarlet headline screams. It turns out that twelve people were killed at the scene, but over thirty others have terrible injuries caused by the metal filings in the bombs. The carnage is captured on film which shows pools of blood on the ground, and bags and high-heeled shoes flung all around the marketplace. The camera zooms in on a dainty Chanel bag with a broken strap. Paramedics bend over bloodied youngsters, and rabbis are collecting body parts and placing them in special bags, while the wounded moan and bystanders scream. Annika shudders and her mouth is dry but she can’t stop watching. She hopes that Shoshi wasn’t there.
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