Gratitude

by Joseph Kertes

  He said to Marta, “I don’t think Mrs. Brunsvik would appreciate my leaving such a gaping hole in her tooth.”

  Marta helped the woman by removing the apparatus from her mouth. “Don’t be silly,” the older woman said. “You’ve got to get out of here. It’s not the same for you. If we had even a place on the floor for you, you could stay with us. But you have to hide, or the hole in your head will be bigger than the one in my tooth.” She was taking off the apron herself. “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Brunsvik went on, “my husband, Lajos, will take care of my tooth with a pair of pliers. Now go. Please. Listen to your assistant.”

  She wanted to give Istvan a brooch for the work he’d done, but he said, “Don’t be silly.”

  The old woman sighed before setting down her big purse on the dentist’s chair to tuck the jewel in a side compartment. Istvan admired the chair as he waited. All the way from the Ritter Company of Rochester, New York. The latest in dentistry in this grand old building in Szeged: a newfangled air blower, a diamond-tipped drill, the largest supply of novocaine (thanks to a generous Greek supplier who’d brought it in from Britain), even a brass cuspidor into which Mrs. Brunsvik spat one last time before turning to leave.

  OVER MARTA’S PROTESTS, Istvan insisted they go first to see what his father was up to. They drove together in Istvan’s Citroën toward Mendelssohn Square. As they approached, they passed German tanks and Jeeps. “This is dangerous,” Marta whispered. “Let me drive, and you lie low.” They pulled over and switched seats with some difficulty, she climbing over him. She wore a soft perfume which reminded him of lily of the valley.

  But there was not much driving for her to do. Teleki Street was blocked, as was Juhasz. The sirens still sounded. They parked the car and pushed through a crowd of several hundred onlookers. “What’s going on?” Istvan asked a woman wearing a red-and-gold bonnet.

  “It’s the mayor,” the woman said. “He’s trying to prevent the soldiers from taking down the statue.”

  “Of Mendelssohn?” Istvan asked.

  “If that’s who he is,” the woman said. “The statue in the park.”

  A man nearby wearing an ascot said that Mendelssohn was forbidden, “So they’re pulling him down.”

  “And the mayor?” Marta said.

  “He’s trying to stop them. He’s saying the composer stayed in town once, and his music is for everyone.” Then the man added, “They’re taking some Jews. They’re rounding them up over on Kossuth.”

  Istvan froze for a moment. Marta looked hard at him, took his face in her hands. “Let’s go,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do. Let’s go back to the car. I’ll hide you in the trunk.”

  “In the trunk? Marta, please, let me try to get to my father. I have to speak to him. Maybe I can get him to come with us.” He resumed his push through the crowd.

  “What can you say to him?” she yelled as she followed. “The sirens are blaring and Germans are everywhere. Are you going to reason with him? Are you listening?”

  But they were close now. Istvan caught sight of his father. He was standing in front of the green Mendelssohn, his arms crossed. He was blocking soldiers, who’d wound a chain around the statue’s shoulders and another around its neck.

  Istvan wanted to call out, “Father,” but Marta pulled hard on his arm.

  Heinrich Beck could be heard shouting, “So this is the kind of regime you mean to have here, the most civilized of nations, the most noble of composers?”

  Istvan watched as two soldiers turned to their commanding officer to receive instructions. His father stood firm. The commander signalled for a nearby tank, and it rolled up into the little park. The chain was removed from Mendelssohn’s neck, and a small cheer went up. A pigeon cut the blue sky before drifting down and landing on Mendelssohn’s three-cornered hat. Bird droppings had turned the composer’s cravat and green shoulders white.

  The soldiers climbed aboard the tank, fastened the chain to a lamppost, and made a loop at the end of it. No one budged, but people stopped talking. A couple of boys behind Istvan squealed. Istvan turned toward them. His stomach churned. Marta turned, too, and even though she was facing away from the square, she covered her eyes. The siren continued wailing. The wind furrowed into Istvan’s back. The boys wore identical green-and-orange striped jerseys and woollen Parisian caps. Certainly, they were brothers, with the same brown hair and brown eyes, but they were at least two or three years apart. “Look at the Lord Mayor,” the older one said. “They’re winding the chain around his neck.”

  A minute later, Istvan could hear the tank grunt away. The onlookers gasped. Istvan couldn’t look. He covered his eyes now, too. Marta gripped his other hand so hard the ends of his fingers tingled.

  The older boy said, “Look, he’s wriggling like a fish on a hook.” Istvan felt faint. Marta pulled on his hand to lead him away, but he wouldn’t move. Through the screen of his fingers, he could see the wonder and horror on the boys’ faces.

  The younger one pointed and said, “His tongue is out. He’s sticking his tongue out.”

  It was then that Istvan turned. His father had stopped moving. He merely turned in the wind, toward Istvan, Marta and the boys, and then away.

  The commander pointed again to the tank, and the crowd watched as the vehicle backed up, spun toward the hanging figure, then chugged over the curb and into the park, crunching through the flowerbeds, squashing the spring hyacinths, the rows of manicured boxwood, and rammed the statue, toppling the cheerful bronze in a single blow. The pigeon flapped off in a hurry.

  The siren ceased to sound, though its wail still burned. Now the twittering and squawk of birds entered people’s ears. Marta covered her mouth as she looked for the first time. Istvan took her hand and held on. Certainly this was the time to go.

  But now she froze. He looked down, buried her face in his jacket, turned his back to the spectacle to watch the crowd watch his father. He could see the woman with the red-and-gold bonnet and noticed now that her gold teeth and scarlet cheeks matched the bonnet perfectly, as if she’d planned it that way. He couldn’t spot the man with the ascot. He checked the boys again. They looked solemn now. Some people still covered their eyes, men as well as women. Istvan looked directly again at his father, stared as the crotch of his familiar charcoal suit pants darkened and the urine ran from the pant legs to his Oxfords and sprinkled the grass below. Even the Germans paused to inspect their handiwork. Though he was pained by it, Istvan wanted to memorize the sight. He stood in this place for his brother, Paul, and sister, Rozsi, too, and if Istvan lived and were ever to see his siblings again, he would have to tell them what he saw. He found himself already wondering whether he would conceal certain details from his sister. He imagined embracing her, smelling her hair, giving her something to calm her down. But how would it be possible to reach her or see her again?

  Paul might have rushed forward to demand justice. It was altogether possible. He might have stood up for his father, the way his foolish father had stood to defend Mendelssohn—and not even Mendelssohn the man, or Mendelssohn the music, the achievement—but the likeness of the man, a Hungarian statue commemorating a visit. Symbolism. That’s what it was. Paul might have thought twice, taken the fight higher. Istvan was glad his older brother was not there with him, just in case.

  Marta and Istvan pushed back hard as they headed for the familiar black Citroën, the beloved car Istvan enjoyed showing off. They looked all around before she pulled open the trunk and he got in. “Hurry,” he said before she closed the lid. He took a last look at the spring light before it went dark. In the cramped darkness, he could feel himself getting sick, and then, as the car jerked away, he had to turn his head as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor of the trunk.

  Three

  Budapest – March 20, 1944

  THAT SAME AFTERNOON, Istvan’s brother and sister met for coffee at the Gerbeaud Café in Vorosmarty Square. Paul had already had a difficult morning. He’d found out i
n the middle of a case—in the middle of a proceeding before the court—that his right to practise law had been revoked. He was on a break, sipping hot espresso when his private secretary, Viktor, came in to tell Paul the news. Paul was distracted by the case. He tried to brush off the silly man, but Viktor wouldn’t leave. A letter had been brought to the court, and Viktor handed it to Paul.

  The regent, Miklos Horthy, was quickly losing his authority. How could Hungary be allied with Germany and at the same time allow Jewish attorneys to plead before the courts?

  “But my father—”

  “I believe your father has lost his authority, too,” Viktor said. The man’s voice was quiet and respectful. He handed Paul the nearby phone.

  Paul dialed the operator. He told the man his father’s office number in Szeged. Heinrich Beck’s secretary answered. Paul asked to speak to his father, and far too many minutes passed before Heinrich’s secretary—or someone—hung up the phone at the other end. Szeged was three hours away by train. Paul, Rozsi and Istvan were all born and raised there, but when Paul set up his practice in Budapest, Rozsi came too to the exciting city to supervise his household.

  When Paul asked the operator to try the number again, no one answered.

  An hour later, Paul sat with Rozsi. He watched the café manager, Ervin Gaal, as he struggled to communicate with an elegantly dressed younger man with receding hair who had just entered. The manager seemed to be nodding at Paul.

  Rozsi said, “Do I look presentable?” She was pinching her thick black curls to check for herself. Some said Rozsi reminded them of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Rozsi had the same rich hair, the same sparkling green-blue eyes which turned violet in a certain light. She also had a quality of helplessness, which, while annoying in some, was charming in her. It made people want to look after her, especially people like Paul. But she sometimes tired Paul out.

  “Are you listening to me?” Rozsi asked.

  “Yes and no,” Paul said.

  “Yes and no?”

  “Yes I am. And no I’m not,” he said.

  “Well, thank you very much,” she said and looked genuinely hurt.

  “I’m sorry, Rozsi. You can understand I have other things on my mind today, can’t you?”

  Rozsi nodded and sighed. Paul watched his sister. Maybe she wasn’t as certain of her beauty since their mother died. If she was, she didn’t know how to wield it and often gave men the wrong impression. She unsnapped her small reticule, took out a patch box, removed a beauty spot and placed it at the left side of her lip. She then took out a slim mother-of-pearl case, pulled out a cigarette from behind its thin garter and leaned forward to accept a light from her brother.

  She was wearing a cartwheel hat with a great brim, but now flung it down on the empty chair beside her. “Do I have hat ghost?” she asked.

  “What?” Paul said.

  “The ghost of the hat in my hair.”

  “I’ve lost my job,” he repeated. “And I can’t find Father. Have you heard from him this morning?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him in days.” She looked her brother in the eyes. “How will we live?” she asked. Rozsi looked mildly concerned. She bit her lower lip and then detected a bit of tobacco there. She gently hunted around for it with her tongue.

  “Did you hear from Istvan?” Paul asked. “Did he call the house?”

  She shook her head. “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just asking,” he said. “Things are happening.”

  Paul gazed into the heart of the café. The long display cases in the centre of the room were overflowing with pastries that would sweeten Iago: marzipan goblins and chestnut purées crowned by whipped cream; strudel of all kinds—walnut, apple, cherry and poppyseed; hazelnut cream torte; vanilla cream cake; custard cake; Gundel palacsinta and milk chocolate cake with almond cream filling; Dobos torte; Linzer pastries; Napoleons; walnut crescents.

  “Do you know what sets us apart from the animals, my darling sister?”

  “What, my darling brother?” She aimed a stream of smoke at the chandelier.

  “Dessert, that’s what. Do you think a lion polishing off a zebra turns to his partner and says, ‘That calls for a bit of Sachertorte’?”

  Rozsi giggled and looked at the cases of cake. Kaiser Laszlo, Gerbeaud’s popular monkey, screeched, grinned and yanked gleefully at the bars of his golden cage. The small monkey was dressed as a bellhop, complete with a pillbox hat. Rozsi was relieved to see that the Kaiser was as chipper as ever, chattering with the regulars of Gerbeaud, working on a crust of cake someone must have handed him through the bars. She thought she might say hello to the Kaiser, as she often did, but satisfied herself for the time being by staring at him until he met her gaze with his small, sharp eyes, like human eyes. A young girl, wearing a royal blue jacket-and-skirt ensemble, complemented by a blue derby hat, approached the cage and fed the Kaiser a marzipan monkey wearing a bellhop suit, fashioned after the original one.

  “He’s like a little cannibal,” Rozsi said to Paul. “I wish I could speak to the Kaiser—learn his language and speak to him.”

  “As long as you don’t make him learn yours. That’s what we usually expect, isn’t it? How many of us speak dog or cat?”

  “You really are very silly, do you know that?” Rozsi said.

  “Oh,” he said. What would the mornings look like for him now, the long afternoons? “I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”

  “You’ll find something,” Rozsi said and took her brother’s hand. “We’ll be all right. You can do almost anything you set your mind to, and I can help. I can take on more piano students. Father will help us. We’ll figure something out.” She patted his hand.

  Ervin was coming toward Paul and Rozsi with the gentleman. “Paul, I’d like you to meet someone,” Ervin said in German. He looked at Rozsi and kept up the German. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Paul got to his feet and Rozsi offered her hand, which the elegant stranger took warmly in his.

  Ervin said, “This gentleman’s from Sweden. I told him you speak English, so he wanted to say hello.”

  Ervin bowed and backed away. Paul then took the Swede’s hand and introduced himself and his sister; his eyes never left the Swede’s. The young man’s eyes were dark, and searching. He was balding and had a slim but solid build. The bones in his hands were long and slender, yet his grip was firm. For a giddy moment it looked to Rozsi as though the two might embrace. Paul felt himself blush, felt his wit ebbing out of him.

  “Please sit,” he said in English.

  The man offered Rozsi her hat and took the seat beside her. “Why are you called Paul? Isn’t there a Hungarian version of that name?”

  Paul found himself stumbling. “I—well—um—I studied at Cambridge. Pal didn’t go over well there, so I guess I translated it.” He paused. He pronounced it again. “Paul. I studied law,” he added.

  “I studied in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My grandfather sent me there to become an architect. He was an ambassador.”

  “And so you became an architect?” Paul asked.

  “No, I work in financial services. I’m a banker. I’m here now only to visit someone I know, someone I met, but I’d like to come back in a more serious capacity sometime soon.”

  “Is banking not serious enough?” Paul said. Rozsi lit another cigarette and sipped her espresso. “You said your name was…”

  “Raoul Wallenberg. I’m here to visit a friend, as I said. I was in South Africa and in Haifa. I—” Wallenberg stopped himself when he heard the shriek of Kaiser Laszlo. He turned around in his chair so he could see the monkey. “This place is extraordinary, this Gerbeaud. It’s like the witch’s candy house in Hansel and Gretel.”

  “Yes, the witch’s house,” Paul said. “Europe is burning, but here you can get its leaders fashioned out of marzipan. People can’t find cornmeal or a horse shank for sausage. But in this place you can get anything you want.�
��

  “You Hungarians have been allied with the Germans,” Wallenberg said, “so they’ve left you alone.”

  “They won’t be leaving us alone much longer,” Paul said. “Hungarians always complain that world history is what happens somewhere else. The world is coming to us now, so maybe the complaints will stop.”

  “Don’t be too enthusiastic,” Wallenberg said.

  “Oh, I’m not being enthusiastic.”

  “Then don’t be romantic.”

  There was something oddly familiar about Wallenberg’s reproach, as if the two men were reuniting after an absence of some years. Yet there was something reassuring about his tone.

  Paul looked outside the window as if to check for Germans, but instead he saw a young woman in a wilted white dress gazing in from the cobblestones. Wallenberg looked, too, as did Rozsi. The girl walked away quickly.

  “I’m a Hungarian, and I haven’t been allied with the Germans,” Paul said. “I’m barely allied with my own country anymore. I can no longer practise law. As of this morning, I’ve been stripped of my rights. And yet here we sit,” Paul said, holding up his hands, “in the witch’s candy house.” He smiled.

  “Your legal wings have been clipped.”

  Paul shrugged.

  “What will you do when they invade,” Wallenberg asked, “throw cakes at them?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said. “Cakes and Jews, more likely.”

  Wallenberg smiled but didn’t laugh. Rozsi did laugh good-naturedly, not sure whether she’d understood what the two men had said. Paul had tried to teach her some English, but she said she was full up.

  “I’m afraid I have to go,” Wallenberg said, getting to his feet and offering his hand again. “I’ll look you up when I get back.”

  “Please do.” Paul, too, rose. He took out a case and gave the visitor a card. “But why would you come back? You’ll be safer staying in Sweden.”