Gratitude

by Joseph Kertes

  “Ah, safety,” the Swede said, looking all around him.

  “Why would you risk your neck?” Paul asked.

  “It’s just a neck. It holds up a head.”

  “Really, though. I don’t understand. Why would you come back?”

  “To help you throw pastries and Jews at the hating hordes. May I try to help you?”

  Paul was stunned by the stranger’s generosity and forthrightness. He said, “I’ve heard they can, and do, do terrible things to people—to Jews, Gypsies—whoever—homosexuals, communists.”

  “I’ve heard that too,” Wallenberg said. “But they won’t do anything to Swedes. Germans follow rules, even in butchery.”

  “But there aren’t many Swedes here. Only Hungarians, Jews, Gypsies.”

  “So we’ll convert some.” He took a slim silver case with a tortoiseshell face out of his breast pocket, snapped it open and gave Paul a card too. He then offered his hand again. Rozsi said goodbye in German but hardly looked up. Paul stayed on his feet until the visitor had gone.

  Gerbeaud’s pianist was playing Schubert. The Sonata in B-flat Major. Schubert was Paul’s favourite composer. Little Schubert. Short-lived Schubert. Standing in the valley between Mount Ludwig and Mount Wolfgang. Little, perfect Schubert. His music gave Paul a feeling of fulfilment and sadness both, and always an undefined longing.

  “What did he say?” Rozsi asked.

  “Nothing, really.”

  “He said something.”

  “He said he was a banker.”

  “Is the trouble coming here?” she said.

  “The trouble?” She made it sound like a dust storm. She’d paid no attention to world events outside their townhouse, outside this café. “Yes, the trouble’s coming,” he said.

  “So what will we do, take another holiday in the Italian Alps until it passes?”

  Even though the Hungarians had not participated in the war, they’d felt imprisoned by it. In times of trouble or tension, the Becks had taken flight to the French Riviera or to Majorca or to Santorini. How Rozsi had loved those trips. She remembered coming upon Michelangelo’s David in Florence with her father and brothers, soon after her mother had died. “So there he is in marble,” Paul had said at the time.

  “Oh,” she said, as she circled the sculpture.

  She looked far too long. “He’s too heavy,” Istvan said.

  “What?” She put her hand up to her mouth. She was blushing.

  “He’s too heavy. You can’t take him home with you.”

  But now Europe was closing in on them. While Rozsi was not aware of daily events and tuned out when the subject of the war came up, she knew that her own question was not a serious one.

  Still, she thought, surely all those nice people who ran those quaint lodges and chalets in the Swiss and Italian Alps, whose relatives made cuckoo clocks and glockenspiels and creamy chocolate and precision watches and music boxes that played the whole of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, had not turned criminal, turned their white-capped green slopes into impenetrable fortresses.

  A young man entered and came straight to Paul and Rozsi’s table. He wore a tan herringbone spring suit—too cool for the weather yet, Rozsi thought, but he was handsome and confident. Though he wanted to speak to Paul, the young man kept staring at Rozsi. He seemed disarmed by her, unsure of how to greet her, even.

  Paul rose and said, “Rozsi, this is my friend Zoltan Mak.”

  “The journalist?” she asked. She felt she wanted to stand, too, to get a closer look, but it would have been awkward.

  “Yes,” Zoltan answered for himself. She offered her hand and he took it. “Your brother has mentioned you sometimes—frequently, actually—even just a couple of days ago—and now, here we are. But he didn’t say much more. I didn’t know.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged.

  She said, “Your father is the famous—”

  “Yes, photographer,” he interrupted. “Or photojournalist, as they’re called these days. He’s the one who inspired me to go into journalism.”

  Paul had known Zoli, as he liked to be called, only for a little time. He’d known his father, Peter Mak, much longer. The elder Mak had covered some of Paul’s better-known trials—better-known, sometimes, because of Peter Mak’s attention to them and the respectful attention his stories attracted. Paul owed some of his reputation and fame to the Maks. Zoli got into the act now, too, and he and Paul became fast friends. They’d once had a heated discussion on how their friendship might affect Zoli’s neutrality.

  “Never fear,” Zoli had said. “If it’s between you and the story, the story comes first. Ice,” Zoli said, pointing to his chest. “My words don’t lie any more than a photograph would.”

  “Oh, even photographs lie. It depends on where the camera is pointed and where it isn’t.”

  Zoli realized he was still holding Rozsi’s hand. He blushed and let it go. He looked down at the table in front of her.

  He turned to Paul. “I have something to tell you,” he said, barely audibly.

  “Sit down,” Paul suggested. “We’ll have coffee.”

  Zoli stayed on his feet. “I have to tell you alone. Please excuse us, ma’am—Rozsi.”

  “Go ahead,” Rozsi said, and she stood. Zoli’s blush deepened. Paul thought that a very warm species of ice beat away in the younger man’s heart.

  Zoli led Paul away to the door and then, unexpectedly, outside.

  Their waitress, who’d been hovering, returned, and Rozsi ordered another espresso but nothing else. The woman replaced her pad and pencil inside the pocket of her white apron. She wore the same apron and black silk dress and white open-toed shoes as all the waitresses at Gerbeaud.

  The café occupied the middle of an old cobblestone square as if it were sitting in the middle of another century, when the booming Austro-Hungarian Empire, presided over by the Habsburgs, looked west to Paris and north to Berlin and London for inspiration. The square was filled with strolling people, carrying parcels and flowers. For the first time, Rozsi noticed that the café’s heavy green curtains were parted like those in a theatre, the bright light from outside slicing between them and casting dramatic shadows over the patrons’ faces.

  She felt awkward, felt a yearning she couldn’t account for, a restlessness, having to do with spring, she thought at first, but maybe the times they lived in, or the friend of Paul’s she’d just met. What would Paul do now? What would they all do? Too much was happening too quickly.

  Outside, Zoli told Paul that he’d heard from Istvan’s friend Miklos Radnoti. “I had a wire this morning. Radnoti’s trying to get back here, but he says your father and brother may be in some kind of trouble.”

  “I tried to call my father,” Paul said.

  “The Germans have arrived in our country,” Zoli said. “The invasion has begun.”

  Paul swallowed hard. “I’ll have to get to them in Szeged.”

  “I don’t think that’s smart,” Zoli said. “If they’re in trouble, you can be of little help to them by yourself.”

  “We have quite a few friends in Szeged.”

  “Your friends are in trouble, too. You’re better off lobbying from here.”

  “I’ll start on it right away from my office.” His gaze fell on Zoltan. Paul was a head taller than the younger man. “Zoli, please don’t tell my sister anything, but do me the favour of taking her home.”

  “The favour?” Zoli asked. “You’re doing me a favour, entrusting her to me. Does she—I mean, does she have anyone?”

  Paul looked at his friend. “No, no one she likes.”

  “I’d be happy to—walk her home, I mean. Don’t worry, please.”

  “I should say goodbye, so she won’t be alarmed.”

  “Don’t,” Zoli said. “She’ll ask you too many questions. I’ll just tell her you were called away to your office on a legal matter. It’ll be all right, I promise.”

  Paul thought of what Raoul Wallenberg had s
aid. They could turn Hungarians into Swedes. He asked Zoli, “If papers were to be drawn up for people, could you take the photographs?”

  “Quite easily. I have access to a studio. Just say when.”

  “I’ll call you,” Paul said. “Thank you for looking after my sister.”

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, Rozsi and Zoli were walking across the cobblestone square on their way to the Becks’ townhouse. He watched the sunlight in her eyes. He asked if she minded stopping at his place first. “My father is developing a photograph, and I need to pick it up and take it to the paper for tomorrow’s edition.”

  Rozsi said, “You go on ahead. Don’t let me slow you down. I can make it home on my own.” She felt uneasy about her brother’s sudden departure and wanted to get home quickly.

  “It’s not urgent,” Zoli said. “Your safety is more important.”

  She felt better right away and smiled. “Can you say what is going on, please, Zoli, and tell me why my brother had to rush off?”

  “Not too much yet, not here, but your brother lost his formidable law practice today, and he has a lot to look after and clean up.”

  They hardly spoke again for several minutes. She was certainly reassured by the stranger’s presence but felt anything but relaxed. They stared down at their feet as they walked. Finally, she said, “I’m worried about what is to become of us.”

  “To us Jews, you mean?”

  “Yes, to us Jews, us Becks, us Hungarians.”

  He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how.

  She thought he might be feeling a little unsteady himself. “May I take your arm?” she asked. She gripped him anxiously. He could feel the birdlike bones of her fingers. “Your face says it all,” she said. She was looking directly at him. “It’s a bad time to become attached.”

  “Attached?”

  She took her hand back and blushed hotly.

  “Please,” he said, offering his arm again. “Please.” She took it. “Maybe it’s the best time to become attached.”

  They were both thinking the same thing. Why hadn’t Paul introduced them earlier? When he dropped her off, he asked if he might see her again, and she said she’d like that.

  PAUL WALKED QUICKLY toward Marko Street. He was now truly worried about his father and brother, but especially his father. He was so exposed. The last Jewish politician in the land to retain office. They were all gone, every last one of them: Kovacs in Works, Klein in Justice, Berkovics in External Affairs, and all the mayors, four of them, and councilmen. Except his father. And his father didn’t even have his wife, Mathilde, Paul’s mother, to comfort him. Cancer took her six years before this dark era began.

  Paul found himself still struck by his encounter with the Swede. He recalled the penetrating eyes. Paul wondered why he had seemed so serious about the Hungarians. He couldn’t shake the feeling of the Swede’s presence.

  As Paul strode through the small park on the corner, just over a block from his office, he was startled by a young couple dressed in dingy coats. The two sprang out of a nearby bush, wielding a hammer and an axe. In a minute, they stripped a park bench of its wooden seat, no doubt for firewood. Paul realized that the park had several seatless benches; their metal supports looked odd on their own, like modern sculptures, arranged in pairs here and there.

  Paul heard what sounded like a woman grunting then stifling a shriek. He looked all around but couldn’t see anyone. Another sound, more like a yelp. On the corner, between the lamppost and a great dark bush, Paul spotted a shoeless foot, moving as if it wanted to clasp something, then opening, trembling.

  As he approached, he could see that the shoeless foot had its companion nearby, this one with a shoe. The missing shoe had been kicked beneath the bush.

  Paul thought at first that the woman’s attacker might still be nearby, but she was alone, in acute pain, and young, no more than a teenager, dressed in a fancy white dress.

  “What’s the matter?” Paul asked as calmly as he could. “How can I help you?”

  “Oh,” she said, writhing, and clenching her eyes shut.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “No—oh—please.” She folded into herself. “It’s my side.” Paul could detect an accent, but only a faint one. It was tinged with Slavic and…what? German? Yiddish?

  “I’ll get help,” Paul said. “It’ll be all right, I promise you. I’ll get help.”

  He rushed to the curb to wave down a passing car. It sped by him, followed by another car, and another one, nearly running him down. He leapt out into the road between the lanes of traffic and challenged the drivers directly, forcing them to swerve to avoid hitting him. Paul saw a cab a block away and flailed like a clown to get the driver’s attention.

  The Mercedes pulled over, and Paul ran to fetch the young girl. He lifted her up and carried her carefully. He laid her across the back seat of the cab.

  Within a quarter of an hour, the girl was in a hospital. That night, Paul returned. The girl’s appendix was floating in a bottle beside her. It was not until then that Paul learned her name, Lili, and found out what had happened to her, though she left out the part about the horses.

  Lili was encouraged by the many questions Paul asked.

  “My dress,” she said. She was wearing a hospital gown.

  “It’s been sent out to be cleaned,” Paul said. “Poor thing. I didn’t know whether you were going to make it. I’m glad I got you here in time. My Uncle Robert did the surgery.” Paul pointed to the bottle on the sill.

  “Oh,” she said. “He’s a surgeon?”

  “Yes, he’s chief of surgery here, actually.”

  “Maybe my father knew him. My father would come to conferences here in Budapest.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Your name is Paul?” she asked.

  Before he was able to answer, the doctor stepped in. “Yes, Paul, with a u,” the doctor said. “He came back to us from England as Paul, and we don’t know where the original young man got to.”

  “And this is my Uncle Robert,” Paul said.

  “Thank you for what you did,” Lili said. She smiled for the first time.

  “I’m sorry I had to leave you here this afternoon,” Paul said. He stood looming over the bed. “I had to get to my office to make calls. I—”

  “What sort of office?” she asked eagerly.

  “I’m a lawyer. Or at least I was.”

  “My family’s been taken,” she began again. It might have been the remnants of the anaesthetic. She tried to sit up but winced. Robert eased her back down. “Near the southern border. In Tolgy. Do you know it?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” Paul said.

  Paul looked at his uncle. He saw alarm in the older man’s face and then felt it himself. How could it not reach them, Robert thought.

  “Can you do something?” Lili asked. “Please.” She tried to sit up again, but Robert kept a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “I can petition,” Paul said, “but I’m concerned about my brother in Szeged, too, I’m afraid, a dentist—that was another reason I had to make calls.”

  “And your father,” Robert put in.

  Paul sat on the corner of the bed. “Yes, my father.” His voice hitched. “Uncle Robert,” he began, “I can’t get hold of anyone in Szeged. I tried all afternoon. My assistant, Viktor, sent a telegram. Zoli, a reporter friend, can’t reach an acquaintance at the paper there.”

  “What’s happened to them?” Robert said as he sat down opposite his nephew on Lili’s bed. “The cancer has spread finally to Hungary. How could we have believed it wouldn’t? Poor Heinrich. Poor Istvan. If this girl’s family is any indication, I…”

  Lili was crying. Paul got to his feet and handed her his handkerchief. “I’ll go to Szeged.”

  Robert stood too. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “They took everyone in my town,” Lili said. “I was the only one left.”

  “It’s not as simple in Szeged,” Paul said. “And even
more complicated here. I have to get to my family and help them out.”

  “Please, Paul. Don’t be foolish. If anyone can do anything, Heinrich can.”

  “I don’t know about his influence anymore,” Paul said, “but I’ll find out more before I go. I promise.”

  WHEN ZOLI GOT HOME, he was eager to tell his parents about the lovely girl he’d met. He couldn’t stop thinking about Rozsi. He’d been seeing someone else, Margit Berg, until just months before, but Margit kept comparing him with other young men. She admired Laszlo Szent, an engineer friend they shared, who’d help draw up new designs to reinforce the Chain Bridge. She never missed an opportunity to tell Zoli how much she respected Szent, even as Zoli took her hand and strolled out on the bridge with her to admire the lights. Margit also insisted they catch every fencing match contested by another friend, Bela Festo, on his way to the Olympics. “Don’t you wish you could do that?” she would say wistfully to Zoli. Afterward, over coffee, she’d giggle at every word Festo said, no matter how inane, and she winked at Zoli when she saw him staring. He called off the relationship, and he was surprised at how hard she took it. She cried bitterly. He wondered whether she’d be comparing her next date with him as she admired Zoli’s pieces in the paper.

  Zoli picked up his own paper sitting on the sideboard in the parlour and called in the direction of the darkroom. His father didn’t answer. “Mother,” he said, but then he became distracted by the paper and sat down. Zoli wondered why the article he and his father had produced on the ascendancy of the brutal Hungarian Arrow Cross had been moved from the front page. He flipped to the city pages but couldn’t find the story there, either. He then realized that the house buzzed with silence. “Mother,” he called out more insistently. “Father.”

  When he filed his very first story in the Csillag, he remembered he’d stayed up all night to finish it. The story was supposed to involve a shipment of beets to Austria, how Austria was taking less of Hungary’s produce that season. But Zoli had filled it with high purpose, describing the train workers, who’d been underpaid for decades, and, even worse, the farmers, who’d have starved had they not had their own produce to consume. The story ended with a dissertation on the amorality of business and the dark forces of capitalism. Zoli also filed two photographs, which he’d carefully set up and composed: one of an empty railway platform and the other of an idle ox, standing in a farmer’s field.