Jakobovits thought about this for long minutes.
In the tense silence, Hirsch’s exclamation hit them like the celebratory chime of a bell. ‘She’s alive!’ Hirsch was sitting up in bed waving a letter. ‘She’s alive! My wife is alive!’
Everyone stared.
He stood up and looked around with a radiant face. ‘Do you hear? She’s alive!’ He set out, marching between the beds, waving the letter like a flag above his head and shouting, ‘She’s alive! Alive! Alive!’
Harry was the first to join him. He fell in behind Hirsch with his hands on his shoulders, taking up the rhythm. They marched round and round between the beds, belting it out like the beat of a drum. ‘She’s alive! Alive! Alive!’
Then Fried, Grieger, Oblatt and Spitz joined in. There was no resisting the joie de vivre that swept them along, Miklós too, until all sixteen survivors were in a line. Hirsch led the way, holding the letter-flag up high, and behind him came the rest, Jakobovits and Litzman bringing up the rear.
They swirled around the room, finding different routes each time, like an endless snake. They clung to each other’s shoulders and soon discovered they could tramp over everything, beds, tables, chairs—the main thing was not to break the rhythm.
‘Alive! Alive! Alive! Alive! Alive! ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE!’
Today one of my friends, Tibor Hirsch, got a letter from Romania. It said that his wife was alive and at home. Yet three people have already told me they are absolutely certain they saw her being shot in Belsen.
This triumphant episode inspired Miklós to make one last attempt to win permission for his journey.
He knew that Dr Lindholm spent Wednesday evenings working in his office in the main building. So he borrowed a coat to put on over his pyjamas, walked across the yard and knocked on his door.
Dr Lindholm motioned for him to sit down while he finished his sentence, and then looked up. The room was lit by a desk lamp, and its circle of light ended just under the doctor’s eyes. This put Miklós off slightly.
‘I’d like to speak to you about the soul, doctor.’
Lindholm’s chin and nose were in the light. ‘Yes, is a strange thing.’
My father took off his coat and threw it on the floor. He was sitting there in his frayed stripy pyjamas like a mediaeval saint. ‘Sometimes it’s more important than the body,’ he said.
Dr Lindholm clasped his hands. ‘A psychologist is coming next week.’
‘No, I want to discuss this with you. Have you read The Magic Mountain?’
Dr Lindholm leaned back, his face disappearing in the darkness. He became headless. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘I’m a bit like Hans Castorp. The wry envy that I feel for the healthy almost hurts…’
‘Is understandable.’
‘Give me permission. Please.’
‘How does that fit in?’
‘If I could go and see my cousin, just for a few days. If I could pretend to myself that I was cured.’
Dr Lindholm interrupted. ‘Is becoming obsessive, Miklós. Drop it, for goodness sake!’
‘Drop what?’
‘This travel madness! This stubborn behaviour. Come to senses!’ Dr Lindholm was almost shouting. He got up and stepped out of the light.
Miklós jumped up too. He also raised his voice. ‘I have come to my senses. I want to travel!’
‘But you will die. You will die soon!’
Dr Lindholm’s terrifying diagnosis circled them like a bird of prey. Miklós could see only the doctor’s two well-lit legs in their suit trousers, and decided that his verdict could therefore be ignored.
In the ensuing silence only their rapid breathing could be heard.
Dr Lindholm turned round, ashamed, and went to the cupboard. He opened the door. Shut it. Opened it again. Shut it.
Miklós stood still, growing pale.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ Lindholm said softly in Swedish.
He opened the cupboard again, took out a file, went over to the backlit wall and flicked the switch there. The room was flooded with cold, sterile light. The doctor removed some X-rays from the file and held them in front of the pane of glass on the wall. There were six of them. He didn’t turn round. He didn’t catch my father’s eye.
‘By the way, where is your “cousin” being treated?’
‘In Eksjö.’
‘Take off pyjama jacket. I listen to your chest.’
Miklós slipped out of his jacket.
Lindholm took out his stethoscope. ‘Deep breathings. In, out, in, out.’
They avoided each other’s eyes. Miklós breathing. Dr Lindholm listening. He listened for a long time, as if he were enjoying some distant, celestial music.
‘Three days,’ Dr Lindholm said. ‘To say goodbye.’
Miklós pulled on his pyjama jacket. ‘Thank you, doctor.’
Lili,
Now you have to be quick and nimble because we’re going to trick the Red Cross. I need a letter in Swedish from your doctor in which he recommends my visit on medical grounds. I’ve already managed to persuade my doctor!
Dr Lindholm fiddled awkwardly with his stethoscope. In the strange, intimate glow he was brave enough to take his wallet out of his back pocket. ‘Finish with her. Is my opinion as a doctor, but what matters my opinion? The soul…sometimes you have to bury it.’
He took the X-rays down from the wall and put them back in the file. He switched off the backlit wall. Now, he took a small, creased photo out of his wallet and handed it to Miklós. It showed a fair-haired little girl with a ball in her hands, gazing warily into the lens.
‘Who’s that?’ Miklós asked.
‘My daughter. Not now. She die in an accident.’
My father hardly moved. Lindholm shifted from leg to leg. The floor creaked. His voice became husky. ‘Life sometimes punish us.’
Miklós stroked the face of the little girl with a finger.
‘Her name is Jutta. From my first marriage. Márta related second part of story to you. Jutta is first part.’
This time Lili and the others had planned a longer program. Sára sang eight songs with Lili accompanying her on the piano. They included two Hungarian songs, one Schumann, two Schubert and some of the popular songs from operettas.
The soldiers, in their pyjamas, and the nurses applauded loudly. On stage, Lili and Sára gave a modest and graceful bow after each song. It was to Lili’s credit that Dr Svensson came too. He sat in the middle of the front row with a little girl on his lap, and after every song he stamped his feet.
At the end of the evening he went on stage to congratulate Lili, who was standing tensely by the piano. Lili looked longingly at the little girl, who hadn’t been the slightest bit fidgety, but nor had she fallen asleep. In fact, she had clearly enjoyed the concert.
‘Can I hold her?’
Svensson handed the girl over to Lili, and she chuckled as Lili hugged her.
Meanwhile Sára was surrounded by soldiers. It didn’t take much asking for her to sing them an encore, just like that, unaccompanied. She chose ‘Crane Bird High in the Sky’. A few soldiers wept, though they didn’t understand a word.
Lili caught the mood too—a kind of sorrow overwhelmed her.
One evening a few days ago I went into town and wandered around on my own in the snowy streets.
It was dusk. Miklós was tired by the time he reached the top of the hill and he couldn’t pedal any more. He got off his bike, pushed it about twenty metres, then stopped.
There were no curtains in the windows of the house; from where he stood beside the fence he could easily look in. The scene was like a nineteenth-century realist painting. The man reading, the woman sitting at her sewing machine, and lying between them in a wooden cradle a young child. He could even see that the child was playing with a doll and smiling.
I could see into a worker’s home. I feel very tired. Twenty-five years and so many awful things. I can’t look back on a good and harmonious family life: I
never had one. Perhaps that’s why I long for one so much. I couldn’t bear to see them any more, and hurried away.
Eight
LILI KEPT hugging Dr Svensson’s little girl. The soldiers, moved by Sára’s song, still surrounded her.
Crane bird high in the sky
Is flying homewards
The gypsy boy is walking on his way
His staff in his hand.
Dr Svensson touched Lili’s arm. ‘I’ve received a letter from the Avesta rehab centre. A colleague of mine wrote it, the head doctor. He’s got a Hungarian wife.’
Lili blushed and stammered something. ‘Yes.’
‘It was about your cousin.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I’m not quite sure how to tell you. It’s a disturbing letter.’
The little girl suddenly felt heavy in Lili’s arms. She put her down. ‘We’ve been planning for him to come and visit me.’
The doctor took his daughter by the hand. ‘That’s what it’s about. I agree with the visit. I shall certainly give my permission.’
Lili shrieked, and grabbed at Dr Svensson’s hand to kiss it. The doctor did all he could to pull his hand away.
Down among the audience Sára was singing, ‘If I could only be with you once more, I’d lie beside you on your violet couch.’
Svensson held his arm behind his back. ‘But there’s something you should know.’
‘I know everything.’
‘You don’t know about this.’ Svensson waited. ‘Your cousin is seriously ill.’
‘Is he?’ Lili felt a tiny pang in her heart.
‘It’s his lungs. Very serious. Irreversible. Do you understand? Irreversible.’
‘I do.’
‘I was in two minds whether to tell you. But since he’s family I think you should know. It’s not contagious.’
‘I see. It’s not contagious,’ repeated Lili, as she stroked the little girl’s hair.
Sára had finished her song and there was a hush except for the sound of Svensson’s daughter humming, the effect of which was like a fading echo. Svensson put his finger to her lips, and the echo died away too.
‘Take care of yourself, dear Lili. You’re not well either. Far from it.’
Lili’s mouth was dry; she couldn’t say anything.
Miklós tried to conceal it, but Lindholm’s diagnosis nagged at him. He didn’t really believe the doctor, but for his peace of mind he felt it would be good to get a second opinion. So he asked Jakobovits, who in peacetime had worked in a hospital as a theatre assistant, to assess the X-rays. That meant breaking into Lindholm’s office. Harry happily joined the mission; he was up for anything that had the tang of adventure.
The narrow corridor of the main building was lit by the yellow glow of a night light. Miklós, Jakobovits and Harry crept towards Lindholm’s office like three hobgoblins.
Harry was carrying a piece of wire. He often boasted of having belonged to a gang of thieves before the war. Apparently he was an expert at picking locks.
He fiddled about in the keyhole for ages, giving Miklós time to regret the whole idea. Their escapade seemed almost laughable. But eventually Harry succeeded in opening the door and they were inside.
They went into action like a crack military unit. Miklós gestured to Harry which cabinet to open, and Harry fiddled around with his wire once again. They didn’t dare turn on the light, but there was a full moon and Lindholm’s room was bathed in an unearthly phosphorescent glow. The three men might have felt like heroes in a fairytale.
The cabinet lock clicked. Miklós reached in and ran his fingers over the files; he remembered that his was somewhere around the middle. He breathed out when he found it, took the X-rays and handed them to Jakobovits.
Jakobovits settled himself comfortably in Lindholm’s armchair and, holding the images up to the light of the moon, began to study them.
Someone flung the door open, flicked the switch and flooded the room with the unforgiving light of three hundred-watt bulbs.
Márta stood in the doorway, her tiny bosom heaving. ‘What are you gentlemen doing here?’
The gentlemen, all wearing uniform striped pyjamas beneath their makeshift coats, leapt to their feet. The X-rays slipped out of Jakobovits’s hands. No one answered. The situation spoke for itself. Márta added to the pantomime by strolling over to the X-rays and picking them up one by one.
Then she turned to the honourable company. ‘You may go.’
The men began to tramp out in single file.
‘You stay here, Miklós,’ Márta said.
The relief felt by the other two was palpable. The door shut behind them. Miklós turned round with the most penitent expression he could summon. Márta had already taken up residence in Lindholm’s armchair.
‘What do you want to find out?’
‘My friend Jakobovits is some kind of doctor,’ Miklós stammered. ‘Or used to be. I wanted him to take a look at the X-rays.’
‘Didn’t Erik assess them for you?’
Miklós looked down at his shoes with their sloppy laces. ‘Yes.’
Márta stared at him for such a long time that he was forced to return her gaze. Then the head nurse nodded, as if she had taken note and understood. She stood up, put the X-rays back in the file and the file back in the cabinet. ‘Erik does all he can for you. You are his favourite patient.’
‘I always have a fever at dawn: thirty-eight point two.’
‘New medicines are becoming available all over the world every week. Who knows what might happen?’
Something burst in my father. It happened so swiftly that he didn’t even have time to turn away. It was as sudden as an earthquake. He collapsed to the floor and buried his face in his hands, sobbing.
Márta turned away discreetly. ‘You’ve been through terrible things. You survived them. You survived, Miklós. Don’t give up now, at the finishing post.’
Miklós couldn’t speak. He wasn’t crying any more—the sound he made now was more like the whimpering of a wounded animal. He tried to form intelligible words, but it was as if his voice had abandoned him.
At last, he said, ‘I’m not giving up.’
Márta looked at him in despair. He was huddled on the floor, his arms covering his head. She stepped closer to him. ‘Good. So now pull yourself together.’
They gave each other some time. Miklós was quiet now, but he was hiding behind his arms and had curled himself up even smaller.
‘Right,’ he said when he could speak normally again.
‘Look at me, Miklós.’ Márta crouched down beside him.
My father peered out between his two bony elbows.
Márta adopted her cold, bossy head-nurse voice. ‘Take deep breaths.’
He attempted to breathe evenly.
Márta conducted. ‘One, two. One, two. Deep breaths. Slowly.’
Miklós’s chest was rising and falling regularly. One, two. One, two.
‘Slowly. Deep breaths.’
My dearest little Lili,
I’m not stupid, I know that the illness that keeps me here will gradually disappear. But I also know my fellow patients. I hear the terrible pity in their voices when they say, ‘It’s his lungs.’
It was November and an icy wind blew leaves around the Eksjö hospital. There was an open, circular pavilion in its grounds, an attractive building with a dark green wooden roof supported by graceful white pillars. For Lili, forbidden to leave the grounds during the week, this pavilion was a refuge. When she couldn’t stand the smell of the hospital any longer she escaped there. On fine days she leaned against a column and bathed her face in the fitful sunshine.
But now, hostile winds were blowing. In their dejection, Lili and Sára were walking obsessively round and round the columns in their thick woollen uniforms.
My dear Miklós,
I am very cross with you! How can a serious, intelligent man of twenty-five be so foolish? Isn’t it enough for you that I am fully aware of your
illness and can hardly wait to meet you?
Late one afternoon, two men in suits and ties arrived in Avesta and were taken straight to the Hungarian section. It turned out they were from the Hungarian embassy. One of them held up a radio bound with a ribbon, and the other made an announcement.
‘This radio has been sent to you, on loan, by the Orion factory in Hungary. Happy listening!’
Tibor Hirsch accepted the radio on behalf of the men. ‘Thank you! News from home is more effective than any medicine.’
They put the radio on a table and my father looked for a socket. Harry switched it on. The tuning eye glistened green, and the radio crackled and hissed.
‘Search for Budapest,’ ordered one of the suited men.
Within half a minute they could all hear Hungarian. ‘Dear listeners, it is five minutes past five. We are transmitting a message to Hungarians abroad from Sándor Millok, Minister for Repatriation. “Every Hungarian scattered around the world who is listening to this program should know that we are thinking of them and have not forgotten them. In the next few minutes I will outline to them and to our listeners at home the regulations devised to simplify the administrative requirements for our compatriots’ return home.”’
That evening the men sat out in the courtyard with the radio on the long wooden table. The light bulb swung eerily in the wind. The men usually spent half an hour before bed in the open air. By now they had been playing the radio for six hours without a break. They had put on sweaters and coats over their pyjamas and wrapped blankets around themselves. They sat right up close to the radio. The green tuning light winked like the eye of an elf.
They were listening to Senator Claude Pepper talking from Washington. The Hungarian presenter whispered his translation every few sentences. Then they listened to the news from Budapest. The fragments of sound whirled around in their heads like the wind sweeping down from the North Pole.
Fever at Dawn Page 7