The Collaborator

by Diane Armstrong

  He shrugs. ‘That’s exactly what it is, garbage. So why are they bothering with it?’

  ‘The minister said he’d like to see you in his office tomorrow morning,’ she says, side-stepping the question. She’s stout, with heavy legs, but she’s pretty, with the smooth, unlined face he has observed in many plump women.

  She’s single, and he can tell by her lingering glances and the excuses she makes to come into his office that if he suggested a rendezvous, she would jump at the chance of an affair, but his philandering days are long over. He is a family man now, with a loyal wife and two high-spirited little boys he adores.

  He glances at his watch. Judit is giving a concert this evening, and he doesn’t want to be late. As he walks briskly from the office, he passes the white Bauhaus buildings that are a remnant of Tel Aviv’s pre-war architecture, and crosses the road in front of the town hall where the country’s independence was proclaimed only five years before.

  As he walks, he reflects on his own life during the past few years. Everything has fallen into place in ways he never expected. In 1946, a few months after their arrival in Tel Aviv, Judit gave birth to a boy they called Binyomin after her father, and a year later, they had another son, Gil. The ruling Mapai party, which had evolved from the Jewish Agency, knew all about his rescue of a trainload of Hungarian Jews, and his reputation smoothed the path for them both. It helped him secure a small but well-located flat near Dizengoff Street, and an administrative position in the Ministry. He had bought a piano for Judit from a family whose daughter had given up playing, and she had found a childless neighbour who was happy to help with the children, so she could resume her musical career in a city whose newly arrived European survivors were hungry for the culture they had enjoyed in their homelands.

  Since then, his career has advanced as well. He has just been promoted to spokesman in the Ministry, and he has heard rumours that Moshe Sharett, the prime minister, has his eye on him, that he is destined for the Foreign Ministry in the parliament of a country with which he feels an almost biblical bond. During his teenage years in Hungary he had come under the spell of Zionism, and the fulfilment of his dream of settling in the Promised Land hasn’t disappointed him. From the first moment he felt at home here, despite the stifling summer heat of the parching Hamsin that blew in from the desert, despite the war, the tension and the conflicts. Or, he admitted to himself as he turned into their street, perhaps it was on account of these factors. After surviving on a knife edge in Hungary, living by his wits, an uneventful existence in a peaceful country would probably have been an anticlimax.

  So far, everything in his life has worked out better than he expected, and his decisions have been vindicated. With one exception: Ilonka. Whenever her name comes into his mind, his triumphs turn to ashes. He tries to avoid thinking about her, tries to suppress the memories, but now that she has invaded his thoughts again, the ache returns. He sighs and quickens his step, but no matter how fast he strides, the memory of that last reproachful expression in her dark eyes, and the terrible words she uttered at the railway station in St Margarethen claw at his mind. They are words he will never forget. He still longs for her caresses, for the feel of her yielding body pressed against him, and for her strength and her love. He knows this longing will last for the rest of his life.

  For the past five years he has tried to find her, to explain why he couldn’t bring himself to abandon Judit, who was unexpectedly pregnant with his child. But Ilonka disappeared, and his efforts to trace her have been futile. Desperate to find out what had become of her, he approached various Jewish agencies in Europe and the United States, but drew a blank each time. It was as though she had vanished off the face of the earth so that he would never find her.

  He felt bitter at the way she had erased him from her life without giving him the opportunity to explain. But even if he had the chance, how could he possibly explain Judit’s pregnancy in a way she could understand? He had been motivated by honour and responsibility, but she had placed hurt pride before love. Gábor, too, had vanished, and he supposed that, wherever they were, they had resumed married life.

  Judit’s recital that evening consists of Hungarian melodies by Kodály and Bartók, and a sonata by Liszt. The crowded hall bursts into enthusiastic applause as the tiny pianist walks onto the stage, and he feels a surge of pride looking at his wife’s dreamy expression as her agile fingers run up and down the keyboard almost too fast for his eyes to follow.

  In the pause between the pieces, his mind turns to the pamphlet that Ora brought him. He would like to dismiss it as mischievous nonsense, but it nags at him like an aching tooth, impossible to ignore. He would like to confront the malicious writer and demand to be told how he dared to publish such malicious accusations, but he knows that these rantings on smudged bits of paper don’t merit his attention. Still, his pride is injured. Why did that man, whoever he is, attack him like this, even if his accusations are lies that no-one in their right mind would believe?

  The concert is over, the applause finally dies down, and he wraps a warm coat around Judit’s thin shoulders as they walk home along Dizengoff Street, discussing her performance. There are plans to build a large modern concert hall, and she is looking forward to playing there when it opens. She is on a high, as she usually is after a performance, and as she slips her hand into his, he marvels that these small hands have the strength to play such powerful music, and the sensitivity to evoke such nuances of feeling.

  From the moment he held her on the train station and stroked her swelling belly, he noticed that she looked at him more tenderly, more attentively, than before. Perhaps it was due to her pregnancy, but sometimes he wonders if it was on account of his affair with Ilonka. Although it had never been mentioned by either of them, he suspected that she knew everything and was relieved that he had given up Ilonka for her. Some things don’t need to be articulated to be understood.

  The boys are asleep when they come home, and as they creep into their room to cover them up and kiss their flushed little faces, Miklós knows that, all things considered, he is a very fortunate man.

  That night, he dreams he is trudging up a mountainside. Even in his sleep, he knows he is dreaming. He recognises this dream. It’s the one that tormented him for so many nights in Budapest in 1944 when he was weighed down by the responsibility he had assumed for saving those lives. In his dream, he has almost reached the summit, but when he looks up, there’s a man standing there, and he’s wearing an SS uniform. It’s Adolf Eichmann, and his mocking laughter resounds all over the mountain.

  Miklós wakes with a start, and although it’s a cold night, he is drenched with sweat. It’s a long time since he has thought about his terrifying encounters with Eichmann in his headquarters on Swabian Hill. Thank God those times are over, he thinks. From the pale light that shines through the thin curtain, he can see that day is breaking. It’s too early to rise, but he knows he is too churned up to sleep. For a long time he stands at the door of the room that the boys share. They are still asleep, and he tiptoes out, dresses quietly not to wake Judit, brews some coffee, and reads the morning paper until it’s time to go to the office.

  Later that morning, Ora ushers him into the minister’s rooms, which are sparsely furnished, but decorated with black-and-white photographs of old Tel Aviv. Miklós knows that they were taken by the minister’s son, who was killed during the War of Independence.

  Shlomo Segal is a snappy dresser who distinguishes himself by wearing a tweed jacket and a tie twisted into a Windsor knot to work, while everyone else wears open-neck short-sleeved shirts, even the prime minister. He knows he is laughed at behind his back for his formal English sartorial style, and that he is sarcastically referred to as Sir Shlomo. He is an expansive character who usually greets Miklós with a joke or an amusing anecdote, but this time he has an unusually sombre expression, and launches into the subject of their meeting without any preamble.

  ‘You read that pamphlet?’ he asks.
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  Miklós makes a deprecatory movement with his hands. ‘Ridiculous stuff written by some deranged crank.’

  The minister doesn’t reply and the silence that follows unnerves him. ‘Surely you’re not taking it seriously?’

  ‘He doesn’t like it.’ Shlomo inclines his head upwards, to indicate that he is referring to the head of the Department of Justice on the next floor.

  ‘He can’t possibly read every scurrilous note that someone writes. How come he’s bothering with this one?’

  ‘He thinks this one can’t go unchallenged.’

  Miklós looks at the minister. He can’t find the words to express the emotions that are whirling around his head. ‘So what does our attorney-general want to do?’ he asks finally. ‘Take some nebisch loser to court for writing nonsense?’ He is joking, but Shlomo isn’t laughing.

  ‘As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what he intends to do.’

  ‘You can’t be serious! No-one takes any notice of what this scribbler writes. People throw his pamphlets in the rubbish bin. I don’t think anyone apart from this office has even bothered reading this one, but suing him implies that what he writes has some validity. We should just ignore it.’

  Shlomo lets him finish. ‘You’re probably right,’ he says, ‘but that’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why on earth he wants to sue him?’

  ‘He is convinced that we have to fight back. He says a slur on you is a slur on the government because you are involved with the government, and the accusation is so serious. As you know, wartime collaboration is the only crime in Israel that merits the death sentence.’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to bother suing him,’ Miklós says.

  ‘You don’t have to. The government of Israel is going to do that on your behalf.’

  Miklós returns to his office in such turmoil that he can’t settle down. He paces up and down the small room, seething. He is convinced of the folly of this decision, and feels frustrated by his powerlessness to prevent legal action in a matter that concerns him. There’s no question that the government will win the case, because this diatribe is just malicious fiction, but won’t people wonder why they took the trouble to pursue it? Can’t the attorney-general see that taking this guy to court will only give him a legitimacy he doesn’t deserve? Until now no-one has taken him seriously. Even though the scribbler will lose the case, Miklós feels insulted at the implication that there is something in this accusation against him that needs to be proved wrong, that he needs to be defended.

  He is shuffling papers on his desk, brooding, when Ora knocks on his door. ‘The minister wants to let you know that the attorney-general’s associate will be the prosecutor in the Isaiah Fleischmann case.’

  Miklós quails at the prospect of the publicity the case will attract, and wonders if the pamphleteer will manage to find anyone to defend him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jerusalem, January 1954

  When Miklós Nagy arrives at the Jerusalem District Court, he is surprised at the size of the crowd clamouring to enter the nondescript sandstone building in the city’s Christian Quarter. As soon as he sees the courtroom, however, it becomes obvious that most of the people won’t be admitted; the chamber is far too small to accommodate more than half of them. He supposes that the prosecution chose this unimpressive venue anticipating that the trial would not last long. He takes his seat at the front, beside the prosecutor, and turns to look at the long wooden benches where people are trying to get comfortable on the hard seats with the narrow timber slats across the back. Unlike most courtrooms he has seen, this one has no jury box. It appears there will be no jury in this case, only a judge.

  It’s morning, and shafts of Jerusalem’s golden light slant into the courtroom from the tall French windows on the left. If he were religious, he’d be tempted to assume that these beams came straight from God. The windows are the only attractive feature in an otherwise austere room. The two large ceiling fans are still: it’s a cold winter’s day. As they wait for the judge to enter, he hears the evocative tinkling of bells from the nearby monastery, calling the Russian Orthodox monks to prayer, and he realises that they are not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which contains the tomb where Christ was buried and the site where he was crucified.

  They all rise as the judge enters, a distinguished presence in a black robe that accentuates the whiteness of his smoothly combed hair and the pinkness of his complexion. With precise movements, Judge Yaron Lazar places a sheaf of writing paper and a bottle of ink in front of him. Miklós turns to Noah Elman, the attorney-general’s associate, to ask where the stenographer is.

  ‘Hebrew is a new language for court procedure and they’re having trouble finding stenographers who know it well enough to take down legal proceedings accurately,’ Elman whispers back. ‘That’s why the judge will have to take down the questions and answers himself. That won’t sweeten his temper, but at least he won’t have to do it for long.’

  Miklós nods. Everyone knows that this trial will be over in a couple of days. He supposes that’s why the Justice Department has appointed Noah Elman, a junior member of the attorney-general’s office, to conduct the case for the prosecution.

  As Elman begins to read out the charge against Isaiah Fleischmann, Miklós looks at the short, skinny man in a shabby jacket and a limp white shirt with a worn collar, who stands very straight as he hears the charge against him. He expects the defendant to look nervous or worried, but Isaiah Fleischmann seems composed, almost defiant, and surprisingly self-assured.

  The way he’s looking straight at the judge, you’d think he was here to receive a reward, not suffer the legal consequences of his malice. His attitude irritates Miklós but he is determined not to let this nudnik get under his skin.

  The defendant whispers something to his lawyer and Miklós takes his first look at the man who has the unenviable task of trying to defend the pamphleteer. It’s Amos Alon’s stillness that strikes him most forcibly, his air of alert watchfulness, and the incisiveness of his gaze. He doesn’t look like a man who has taken on a hopeless case. But as Miklós knows, a courtroom is really theatre, and he supposes that over the years the lawyer has become adept at playing a starring role in the drama. Whether he believes in it or not is irrelevant.

  The young prosecutor, whose voice wavers as he reads out the basis on which the State of Israel is suing Isaiah Fleischmann, seems overcome by the occasion. He alleges that the defendant criminally libelled Miklós Nagy by falsely claiming that during the Holocaust in Hungary in the year 1944, he collaborated with Nazis, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews, and was responsible for the acquittal of a Nazi war criminal. Having stated the case for the prosecution, Elman breathes out as he sits down. Miklós notices that his hands are shaking.

  Although Miklós has read a copy of Fleischmann’s pamphlet, hearing his accusations read out in public shocks him. They make it sound as if, instead of rescuing over fifteen hundred Jews, he was personally responsible for the murder of half a million. He clenches his fists and feels his heart pounding. Take a deep breath, stay calm, he tells himself.

  He is relieved when he is the first to be called to the witness stand. He has brought his worn leather briefcase which is bulging with reports, letters, documents, memos, cables and press clippings to support his statements. After each exhibit has been entered and labelled, the questioning begins.

  Prompted by Elman’s deferential tone, he details his activities in Hungary, before the German occupation. He describes how he became prominent in the Jewish community in Budapest, and organised help for the refugees from Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine. He explains the secret operation that involved smuggling the refugees across the border, bribing Hungarian officials, and providing the refugees with food, shelter and forged documents, all at enormous risk to himself.

  The next part of his story concerns his efforts to save some of the Jews after the Nazis
invaded Hungary and started deporting twelve thousand Jews a day. He tells it with quiet pride and knows that his pride is justified. No other Jew succeeded in rescuing so many fellow Jews who would otherwise have died a terrible death. He hears people in the courtroom gasp when he talks about his encounters with Adolf Eichmann, who offered him a deal to exchange Jews for trucks, and how, by cleverly playing for time, and expanding the number on his list, he managed to rescue over fifteen hundred Jews who were sent out of Hungary on a train which arrived in Switzerland.

  There is dead silence when he finishes speaking, and he can’t help casting a triumphant glance in the direction of the defendant and his lawyer. Despite his indignation at the outrageous accusations levelled against him, he feels almost sorry for them. Now that Fleischmann’s accusations have been refuted, he supposes that the case will be dismissed. Amos Alon can’t possibly have any grounds on which to defend his client’s slanderous lies.

  But Amos Alon doesn’t look defeated. With his muscular build and aura of self-assurance, he might have been a champion stepping into the ring to reclaim his title. As he begins to cross-examine Miklós, he speaks quietly, and goes over his story patiently.

  ‘How did you come to be in charge of aiding the refugees?’ he asks.

  ‘There was no effective central organisation of the Jewish community in Budapest because the Jews regarded themselves primarily as Hungarians, and didn’t see the need to protect themselves. The refugees who had escaped from Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine were destitute. They had no papers, nowhere to go, and were in constant danger of being deported or killed. Someone had to take responsibility for them.’

  ‘Were there any other members of this committee of yours?’ Amos asks. ‘Because so far we’ve only heard about you.’

  ‘Of course there were other members. That’s why it was a committee.’ He knows he shouldn’t retort but he can’t control his irritation. Something in Amos’s tone riles Miklós. Perhaps this is part of the role he is playing, to assume an air of mistrust and to plant doubts in the judge’s mind. If that’s his ploy, Miklós thinks, the facts will make him look foolish.