Burning Cold

by Lisa Lieberman

  “Ah, yes,” György acknowledged with a sigh. “I’m so accustomed to the shul, I forget how shocking it is to see the sanctuary for the first time.” He glanced at his watch. “We can talk more afterward, children, but it’s nearly Shabbas and we have an obligation to fulfill.”

  Moving purposefully, he now made for the dais in the center of the room, the three of us following more cautiously in his wake to avoid stumbling on the debris. Setting the rucksack down on the floor, György handed Gray the flashlight to hold while he reached inside to extract a pair of silver candlesticks from the bag’s depths. These he placed close together on a white linen tablecloth he spread out on the top step leading up to the marble platform, smoothing the wrinkles almost lovingly, as if setting a banquet table for royal guests.

  “There used to be a stand on the bima,” he explained as he stuck short white candles into the holders, “but I’m afraid this is the best I can do.” Next came a loaf of bread wrapped in a clean towel, followed by a bottle of wine. From its shape, I knew it to be a very fine Tokaji, the long, thin neck characteristic of the sweet Aszú that Father and his friends used to enjoy at the lodge. Uncorking the bottle, he poured a generous measure of wine into an ornate metal cup, which he set in front of the candlesticks. The final item in the rucksack was a woven shawl with long tassels knotted at each of the four corners. Reverently, he unfolded the woven cloth and kissed one of the tassels before draping the shawl around his shoulders.

  “Do you know the blessing over the candles?” he asked me. I shook my head no. “Never mind.” He gave me a box of matches. “You may still light them. I’ll say it for you.”

  “Now?”

  He nodded. I struck a match and as the wicks caught flame, György extended his arms out over the candles and drew his hands in toward himself three times, gathering the light as if to insulate us from the encroaching gloom. Covering his eyes, he began to recite the Hebrew prayer.

  “Baruch ata Adonay, Eloheinu melech haolam . . .”

  A whispering echo came from my husband’s direction. Eyes closed, head bowed slightly, he was absorbed in the ancient words in the same way I’d seen him absorbed in the notes when he played the violin, lost in a private space I could not enter.

  “. . . asher kidishanu bimitzvotav vitzivanoo, lihadleek ner shel Shabat kodesh.”

  The two of them finished the prayer in unison. György made the blessing over the wine, passing around the cup for the rest of us to drink from after he’d taken a sip. Gray and I exchanged smiles as we savored the honey-like sweetness of the Aszú. Such a distance we’d traveled to end up here, but our travels were insignificant compared to the journey Father had made. He’d spent his boyhood in this simple village, separated by more than an ocean from the luxurious life he lived in Hollywood. He’d bridged two worlds in one lifetime. The two worlds had nothing in common, but drinking his favorite wine in the town where it was produced, enveloped in the welcoming glow of the sabbath candles, I felt connected to Father in a profound way. A vital piece of the puzzle of who he was had been given to me—one that I hadn’t even realized was missing until the revelation of Zoltán’s existence a mere ten days before. Here were his origins, the place where he’d been formed, and I was eager to learn more about him from his oldest friend.

  “Good Shabbos, children.” The cup had come back around and György refilled it before reciting the blessing over the bread. He seemed perfectly content, in that moment, to have us there with him. Who knew how long he had been performing this ritual in the desecrated synagogue all by himself? Had he alone survived the cataclysm that had destroyed his entire community? To tell the truth, I was no less curious to learn why György had stayed in Mád as I was to understand our Father’s reasons for having left.

  The wine was soon gone, the bread consumed, and we stood huddled around the dais in the dark synagogue watching the candles burn. It seemed as good a time as any to broach the subject of Zoltán.

  “Outside the cemetery, when we first started talking, you mentioned our brother. He’s the reason we’re in Mád.”

  “Zoli? I’m so glad you know him!”

  “I’m afraid we don’t know him. We don’t even know where he is.” I proceeded to explain about our fruitless efforts to track Zoltán down in Budapest, starting with our visit to his office and the dismaying evidence that he’d been wounded in the fighting by the university district.

  György interrupted me before I could tell him about our latest encounter with Zoltán’s wife. “He’s here,” said the old man.

  “Do you mean to tell us he’s staying with you? Thank goodness!”

  “Not with me, no. He’s in the balcony, if I’m not mistaken. I sensed someone’s presence the minute we entered the shul.” György turned back toward the doorway through which we’d entered the sanctuary and shone the flashlight upward, illuminating the second-floor railing. “Zoli, ha ott fenn rejtőzöl, gyere le azonnal!” he called into the emptiness.

  We heard a rustling noise from up above, succeeded by the sound of a heavy item being dragged across the floor. Footsteps descending a staircase heralded our brother’s approach, but the gait was slow, uneven. A haggard figure emerged from the shadows by the back wall of the sanctuary. His left arm was in a sling and he was using his right arm, with only partial success, to pull a wool blanket around his body. Blinking behind his tortoiseshell glasses, our brother stood unsteadily before us. He swallowed hard, opened his mouth to speak, but the words came out with difficulty.

  “I’m sorry for making you come all this way for nothing,” he croaked, “but I’ve decided to stay and fight.” The blanket slipped off his shoulders as he reached out with his good arm to brace himself against the edge of the dais.

  György made a tsking sound and moved to lend him an arm for support. “Still the romantic, I see. Ah, Zoli. Let’s get you home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  György lived in one of the decaying mansions along Mád’s main street. We’d passed by it on our way through town, but the bulk of the property was concealed behind a fortress-like wall constructed of limestone blocks and I’d only gotten a peek through the metal gate. During the war, the house had been occupied by the German army, and then by the Russians. The downstairs rooms had evidently been used as barracks and in the cold winter of ’44, nearly everything had been burned: furniture, drapes, doors. The wainscoting had been ripped from the walls, floor boards pried up, window molding stripped away, and twelve years later the rooms remained in this ravaged condition. Only the kitchen had come through unscathed. In return for keeping the soldiers fed, the family’s cook had been allowed to live there and had somehow managed to keep the marauders at bay.

  “Magda also preserved my father’s wine cellar,” said György, uncorking a bottle of wine.

  Gray asked if he might look at the label. “Tokaji Fordítás. The aszú berries are pressed twice, aren’t they?”

  “Your father taught you a few things about wine, I see. I’m not surprised. Robi was quite the connoisseur.”

  We were all in the kitchen, sitting around a long wooden table and being served steaming bowls of goulash—all except for Zoltán, who was taking a bath at Magda’s insistence. One look at his filthy state and the old woman had sent him straight upstairs. The second floor of György’s house was in decent shape; the officers had been billeted in the family’s bedrooms. Jakub and I were given the master bedroom, and while we settled in, Magda had conjured up dinner.

  Our host poured a small amount of wine into my brother’s wineglass and watched approvingly as Gray swirled the topaz liquid around in the bowl before passing the glass under his nose and inhaling the bouquet. His first swallow was ecstasy, I could tell. He closed his eyes and his face assumed an angelic expression. György nodded to himself, poured glasses for the rest of us, and refilled Gray’s. He raised his glass to eye level and made a toast, looking at each of u
s in turn before putting the glass to his lips.

  “Egészségetekre. To your health, children.”

  “To your health,” I repeated.

  “Cheers!” said Gray.

  “Na zdrowie!” said Jakub.

  I’m positive that this was the best wine I’ve ever drunk and am ever likely to drink in my lifetime. Sweet without being cloying, it brought me back to an afternoon Jakub and I had spent walking along the Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes, oblivious to everything but one another. It was that perfect. I snuck a look at him, sitting on my right, to all appearances focused on the hearty meal in front of him, but sensing my gaze he shifted ever so slightly in his chair, until our legs were touching underneath the table. We’d been attuned like that since the day we met, communicating without needing to use words, and seeing that we were still able to reclaim that connection gave me hope that we would survive this ordeal.

  No small part of my well-being at that moment had to do with feeling safe, for the first time since we’d arrived in Hungary. A cozy room, Magda fussing over us like a mother hen, urging us to take second helpings of her delicious goulash, and the promise of a night in the arms of my beloved, far from Nicholas and his minions. Was it only that morning we’d found József’s body on the sidewalk in front of our hotel? Had we really skirted roadblocks and advancing Soviet troops to arrive in this backwater, where we’d actually succeeded in finding our brother, along with our father’s boyhood friend?

  We’d found Zoltán! Quite a feat, considering the hiding place he’d chosen. Mád was a small town, to be sure, but minus the chance encounter with György we’d never have thought to look for him in the deserted synagogue.

  “How did you know that Zoltán was in the balcony?” I asked our host. Upon reflection, he’d been awfully nonchalant when he’d called our brother out of hiding.

  György made a dismissive motion with his hand. “It was more wishful thinking than anything else,” he admitted. “Zoli is like a son to me. When you told me that he was in trouble, I dared to hope. As a boy, and even as a young man, he knew he was always welcome, either here, or at my apartment in Budapest, no matter what the hour or what condition he was in.” His face grew soft with remembrance. “Your brother was quite a rabble-rouser in his university days. Communism was illegal under Horthy and they came looking for him at his mother’s home. We had to hide him here and smuggle him out through the cellars, or he’d have been arrested. Magda gave him a proper dressing down on that occasion.”

  The lesson must have sunk in. Half a lifetime later, Zoltán was not about to cross the old servant. She’d ordered him around as if he were still a boy, and he’d obeyed her without a moment’s hesitation.

  “But why was he hiding in the synagogue?” I said.

  György looked so stricken, I regretted having asked the question. “We parted on bad terms, the last time he was here. That was after the liberation of Hungary, years ago. A difficult time, for both of us.”

  “He might also have been afraid to approach you directly,” said Jakub, deftly steering the conversation in a different direction. “In case you were being watched.”

  “His fears were well-founded.” György sighed. “The entire country has become a penitentiary. Someone is always watching.”

  Gray was incredulous. “Even here? In the middle of nowhere?”

  “Especially here. Do you think it was an accident, our meeting outside the graveyard? Your arrival in town was noted, your movements tracked. I received a call telling me that three strangers had been seen entering the Jewish cemetery, and I can assure you that we were observed earlier going into the shul together. People will know that you are here with me now. They’ll be wondering who you are and why you’ve come to Mád, driving a car with foreign plates. Tomorrow morning we’re bound to have visitors, inquisitive neighbors and very likely an official visit from the mayor. We’ll have to think of a good story, to protect Zoli. It’s possible that he made his way back to Mád undetected, and it was dark by the time we got home.”

  I remembered the way György had hopped out of the Škoda, the minute we’d driven into the courtyard of his stately residence and were out of view from prying eyes on the street. Declining Gray’s and Jakub’s offers of assistance, he’d had the front door open and was escorting Zoltán inside the house before the rest of us had so much as gotten ourselves out of the car. Now a new stratagem must have occurred to him. He rattled off a set of orders in Hungarian to Magda, who grabbed her coat from its hook in the pantry and hastened off to do his bidding.

  “I sent her to borrow some eggs from a woman on the street, a notorious gossip. She’ll mention three unexpected guests from America. With luck, that will be interesting enough to distract the curious from our other guest.” He glanced over at the doorway through which the cook had just departed, and burst out laughing.

  Zoltán stood in the hallway, half wrapped in a paisley silk dressing gown that barely covered his body. “It was hanging in the bathroom,” he apologized. “Magda seems to have taken my clothes. It was either this or coming down in a towel.” He was, in fact, holding a towel to a wound on the upper portion of his left arm, and blood was beginning to seep through the terrycloth.

  György was still chuckling as he accompanied him back upstairs to find something more suitable to wear. “I want to take a look at that arm, too. What happened to you Zoli?” I heard him say. Our brother’s response was in Hungarian, and the two continued their conversation in that language. While I couldn’t understand the words, from György’s gentle, chiding tone and Zoltán’s bantering responses, the depth of the affection between them was plainly evident. I’d never have guessed that they hadn’t seen one another since the end of the war, or that they’d parted on angry terms. All I noticed was an unnatural brightness in both sets of eyes when the two came back into the kitchen.

  Zoltán now sported a black velvet smoking jacket with a green satin lapel over a white dress shirt. A pair of high-waisted trousers completed the ensemble, the sort of elegant evening ensemble favored by Fred Astaire in his heyday. Cleaned up and freshly shaven, his sparse hair combed flat against his head, he might have been mistaken for Astaire were it not for the Harold Lloyd eyeglasses. He had the same reedy build as the actor, another trait he had inherited from Father.

  Gray did a double take. “Nice duds!”

  “They were made by your father’s family business,” said our host. “I’m afraid I’ve run through the more practical items of my former wardrobe.”

  Zoltán struck a pose. “Uncle György lived the high life in the twenties and thirties. A suite in the Hotel Astoria. A front table when he dined at the Gundel. Summer weekends at Lake Balaton, always with a different woman on his arm.” He winked at György. “They were all beautiful, although you had a distinct preference for blondes, isn’t that right, Gyuri bácsi?”

  “Those days are gone for good.” Our host gave a rueful smile and patted his pot belly. Indeed, it was hard to reconcile the raggedly dressed man who stood before us with the dapper playboy he’d evidently been in younger days. Still, I reminded myself, he had been Father’s friend, and our father was nothing if not debonair. The smoking jacket looked like something he might have worn in the thirties, when he met my mother. I had a scrapbook full of pictures of the two of them, publicity stills culled from gossip magazines and the like. Despite the difference in their ages, they’d made a handsome couple.

  “Uncle?” said Gray, picking up on the term of endearment that Zoltán had used. “Are the two of you related?”

  György explained that “uncle”— bácsi—applied to any older person with whom one is on familiar terms. “I was the sandek at your brother’s bris. I held him still on my lap while the mohel circumcised him.”

  “I hardly think this is the time to bring up my bris,” said Zoltán, turning beet red. He was spared further embarrassment by Magda’s retur
n. She bustled into the room, took stock of the fancy dress, and nodded her approval.

  “Ez már jobban tetszik.” She made our brother sit down and set a bowl of goulash in front of him. “Most ehetsz!”

  “Finally, she says I can eat,” he translated.

  György poured him some of the wine and refilled our glasses as well. He’d brought out three bottles when we arrived and evidently intended for us to drink them all. Excusing himself from the table, he beckoned to Magda, and the two of them stepped into the hallway, where they conferred in low voices before going their separate ways. We heard the old woman’s footsteps as she trudged upstairs, but Gyögy seemed to be busying himself elsewhere in the house and did not return immediately.

  It was awkward in the kitchen without him there. I was sure that Gray and Jakub were bursting with questions for Zoltán—I couldn’t have been the only one—but where to begin? After his dramatic announcement in the synagogue, I didn’t think any of us were ready to challenge him on his reasons for wanting to remain in Hungary, but he had to know his wife had sent us out here. How else would we have found our way to this remote town?

  Come to think of it, he’d been remarkably incurious about how we’d managed to locate him on the basis of the scant clues he’d provided. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that we’d turned up in the Mád synagogue; it was almost as if he’d been expecting us. How could this be? I worked backward, from the present moment all the way through to the day we arrived at the Duna, searching for something we’d missed, something obvious that might have prompted us to look for him here, but nothing occurred to me. Then I tried viewing those same events from our brother’s perspective, and that’s when it hit me: Zoltán wasn’t aware that Father had been so circumspect about his past. He probably thought Gray and I knew all about the town where he’d grown up, making it a logical place to go if we were trying to pick up our brother’s traces. That could explain why he wasn’t surprised to see us; for all he knew, Father had been in contact with his old friend.