All was quiet. He had to make one last stop in the district, one last attempt to pry open the heart of a stranger. The only other person he could reasonably reach was Anna Barta, the woman who’d made it possible for him to discover The Trial, knowing the book was banned, risking her own safety. She was a better bet, even though calling upon her was the greatest risk. Anna would quickly surmise where he’d been holed up—or, if not, where he would be holed up.
Istvan remembered Marta’s description of Anna’s place, here in the northwest corner of the city, a red stone house smaller even than theirs, a house on Arany Street, the so-called “Golden Lane,” a lane so narrow that if Anna kicked up half the fuss the Brunsviks had, Istvan would have to dash home as fast as his injured rib would allow. Istvan remembered that the flower shop Anna used to run was directly across from her house. She used the shop now to dispense food stamps and gossip, but he’d be able to identify it still by a sprig of bronze fig leaves over the door.
It took Istvan less than half an hour to work his way over to Golden Lane. Some of the houses had been built directly into the arches of ancient walls that might once have been part of the palace of King Mathias. It was here that late-Renaissance goldsmiths created their royal pieces and plied their wares, and it was here that writers and artists moved in, as the years passed, to replace the poor of the nineteenth century, though they were just as poor. Marta said that according to Anna the great poet Sandor Petofi and his father once stayed in one of these little houses. Everyone who lived here spoke of this greatest of all visitors. Istvan decided that nationalism could be as parochial as a street sometimes. If this little place were where the almond had been discovered, they would always have to have almonds here, even if they were forbidden. If it were where light was discovered, they would always have to have light, show them who they were. Maybe he could one day provide Tower Town with its own claim to glory: the World’s Longest Lasting Fugitive resided here until he was killed one day with a skillet; the World’s Last Jew thinly prowled this neighbourhood with the World’s Last Half-Jewish Cat, perversely named Smetana. It was said the Jew controlled Two Beams of Light like a Baton Twirler, the Only Specimen to have been so Peculiarly Gifted in History.
Golden Lane was as narrow as could be. Those who built it never anticipated modern vehicles. It was easy, even in the dim light, to find the bronze fig leaves and to look directly into Anna’s little row house opposite, red stone as promised, the only one, Number 16. The door was too low for Istvan to walk through without stooping. He wanted to get in—get in or get caught.
He took a deep, splintered draft of dark air as he stood before the door. The houses were far too close together. What would they be thinking their Anna was up to if they heard her talking at this hour? Would they not want to know, want to check?
He raised his hand to knock on the irregular goblin’s door but turned first to look at the flower shop, the food-stamp depot. He would make this last stop as quick and painless as he could. He tapped so quietly, he was sure he wouldn’t rouse a mouse, but he did rouse Anna, who must have slept like one. He saw a match flare through the window, followed by the dim glow of a lantern, and then Anna herself appeared at the window, peering out at him. She could make out little more than a tall, thin man, but decided to take a chance, as he had.
She opened the door more widely than either of his previous hosts. “I’m Istvan Beck,” he whispered.
She gasped, put a hand up to her mouth, held the lantern high, so each could see the other’s face. To his astonishment, she yanked him into the house so quickly he banged his head on the doorframe. She checked around outside, eased the door shut and looked at him some more, continuing the gasp as long as it was possible to draw it out. He felt his hair brushing the ceiling, felt the stab of the rib in his back.
The room served both as kitchen and bedroom, with a stove in the middle and two beds on either side of it against the walls. She sat on one and urged him to sit on the other. She then changed her mind and joined him on his bed, where she could see him better.
“You’re Marta Foldi’s Dr. Beck?”
He nodded solemnly.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Around,” he said.
“Around? She’s been worried sick about you. She went to work for another doctor in your office—did you know that?”
He hesitated but shook his head.
“Did you try Marta at home?”
He hesitated again, but this time nodded. He caught her looking at his sweater, wondered if she recognized it as Marta’s. He scratched his chest through the wool. He could feel his rib, though not as sharply in the warmth of the little room, and he could feel prickly dry stickiness below and remembered Piroska.
“She’s gone. They sent Marta away. Poor darling.” Anna took Istvan’s hand in hers and patted it. “She waited for you, poor thing. She may even have been in love with you, I can’t say for sure. She had that look. But she waited. She had a glow when your name came up—that I can tell you.” She looked at Istvan, who turned his head down and away. “I don’t know where they took her,” Anna said. “They’ve taken some people, and they haven’t come back. But it doesn’t mean they won’t. They must all be somewhere. You can’t just go off and kill that many people. I thought you were dead, too, and now look at you. You’re not. Here you sit, praise be to Jesus-Maria.”
She stood up and studied him in the light of the lantern. She was half his height, a perfect size for this little cabin. She was wearing a full-length flannel nightgown topped off with a heavy wool tartan jacket. To the outfit she’d added thick wool socks and men’s leather slippers. He thought, as he looked at her, that she was gazing at his sweater again and wondering. Instead, she stepped up to him and felt his shoulders and chest. “Look at you,” she said again. “Where have you been? Did they not feed you a thing?”
Istvan felt the apple in one pants pocket and the potato in the other. “Not very much,” he said. “I’ve been all over.”
She was already stoking up the wood stove, causing it to blaze. The room began to feel too warm. He hadn’t felt such warmth in years, hardly remembered the sensation.
“I’m going to have to feed you now before that meat of yours, whatever’s left of it, falls off your bones.”
“You have something for me to eat?” Istvan was conscious of how pathetically the question had come out. He tried to compose himself. He sat up straight.
“Of course I’ve got something to eat,” she said. “I’m the food-stamp person.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. “I’ve got some nice stew,” she said. “Rabbit.” She went to the back, through a dark curtain, and returned with a pot. “A fella brought me some rabbits he shot some days ago. I’ve got far too much. I’m grateful to have you to share it. It’s got luscious stuff in it, too: potatoes, beets, parsnips, celery—um-hmm—imagine all that bubbling together in a pot to keep the rabbit company.”
Istvan’s mouth watered. He could barely maintain his dignity. His heart was beating a path out of his chest, looking for a new home. She didn’t ask more questions. She just said, “Go on in the back, there, and splash some water on your face. Wash up, feel free.” She was pointing to the curtain. She bent down, doubled right over, and from beneath the bed fished out another pair of men’s leather slippers. “Take off those shoes of yours. Put these on. Go, wash up.”
He did what she told him and set his shoes just under the bed he sat on, their noses poking out still. He put on the slippers and stepped through the charcoal grey curtain to the back, where a little water closet greeted him on one side and a cool pantry on the other. Another lighted lantern awaited him in the water closet. He looked at himself in the mirror, saw his gaunt face repeated there. He had the eyes of a wren, quick, dark and alert. He felt he’d travelled from Outer Mongolia and finally come to rest in the land of his keepers, felt he could play the role she’d imagined for him with ease. He even found himself
hoping, as he brushed his teeth with his finger and some baking soda he’d found in a jar by the sink, that Marta would reappear from some obvious place the way he had.
Istvan stepped out from behind the curtain. The aroma of the stew and the light of the lamp must have rung out over the neighbourhood. He paused where he stood, watched small Anna set out a nesting table for each of them—a cup and saucer for her, a great bowl, a spoon and a crust of bread for him—and he was overtaken with feeling, considered retreating again to the water closet.
She felt his presence behind her. “Sit on your bed,” she said, pointing, urging—his bed. “Sit, go on.” She turned to make sure he was doing it. She had the scheming eyes of a fox, but he felt sure they’d be scheming on his behalf now.
She looked back at her stew and tasted it. With a full mouth she said, “The Russians are going to be here.” He didn’t answer. “You must know that,” she went on. “Maybe you brought them with you.” She laughed heartily. “The cockroaches have come to drive out the shits.” She laughed again uproariously, pleased with herself. He tried to laugh as she took his bowl and ladled out a steaming helping of the stew. “Anyways, maybe you didn’t bring them, but you’re here with us now. You made it home—that’s what counts.”
Home, she’d called it. The word seemed too corny to be true, the place too warm, the steaming bowl too fragrant. But surely even interlopers had a home. Even cosmopolitans had a resting place. A watering hole. A hitching post. Even rapscallions. Even dentists with renegade noses and telltale surgery scars.
He tried to control the speed at which he gulped down his stew. He was full in a minute, bursting, but he pressed on. “You’re starving,” she said, watching him. She got up to pour boiling water into a teapot and sat with him again as he ate. She took a small tin out of her jacket pocket and stuffed a little snuff into a nostril. “Didn’t anyone feed you in that big country?” He shook his head. “I heard it on the BBC.” He looked at her, puzzled. “The Russians.” She pulled a small radio set out from beneath her bed. What else did she keep down there? “I heard about the Russians on the BBC.” He looked at her. “I heard some other things, too.”
“You did?”
She adjusted the snuff in her nose, snorted, then nodded. “They tried to kill the man—the big shit.”
“Do you mean Germans—you mean the Fuhrer?”
She nodded. “They tried to blow him up, but they missed somehow, the dumb asses.” She chuckled at her own wit. “It’s not the first time people have tried. And they’ve paid. They got strung up themselves. I hear he even has a poison tester. Next thing you know, he’ll be wearing a suit of armour like an old knight.” Istvan nodded. “I guess he’d have to wear it even when it got hot in the summer,” she said. “It’d get just a tad sticky in there, I imagine.” She snorted again, attended to her snuff.
He had no comment. He was imagining how the Germans dealt with would-be assassins. Death would have been too simple.
“Do you have family?” she asked.
“Not here.”
“Where, then? Back in Russia?”
“No, Budapest. I have some in Budapest.”
“Look,” Anna said, excited. She was pointing to a shelf of knickknacks above the foot of her bed. She dashed over and fetched down a bowl to show him. It was a fruit bowl from Lake Balaton. It had “Memories of Lake Balaton” spelled out in seashells embedded in its blue ceramic base. “We were there,” she said as he held it, “Arpad and I. We visited the lake in 1933. It was not a good year, but Arpad needed to get away from some men here, so we went to visit a cousin of his, who’d married a nice fellow, and they took us to lovely Lake Balaton. Our only holiday in years, and so lovely. We were lucky. We could’ve had our only holiday somewhere crappy, but our Lake Balaton isn’t that at all.”
Istvan looked at the blue bowl with its loud shells and smiled. The bowl was hideous, but at this moment he sincerely felt it was the most pleasing object he’d held in years. “It’s very nice,” he said.
She took the bowl back from him and replaced it as though it were fine porcelain. “They’re coming into all the occupied countries,” she said. She was pointing to the radio this time.
“Who—the Russians?”
“The Russians on the one side, the Hitlers on the other. The Hitlers came in to clean out the Jews and Gypsies, and I hear they’ve done better than expected under the circumstances, working from the frontiers in toward the capital, like a vise.”
Istvan wanted to get to his feet, as if there were somewhere to go. He felt the stew in his stomach curdling. He excused himself, bolted back through the grey curtain to the water closet and vomited the good dinner into the toilet bowl.
“Are you all right in there?” she was asking.
When he didn’t answer right away, she came in after him. She prepared a wet cloth and, when he finished, when he’d stopped heaving and grunting, she wiped his face vigorously with the cloth as if he were a small boy who’d come in from the dirt. “I had a husband once,” she reminded him. She rinsed the cloth and wiped him over again, going all the way up to his hair and through it. “He threw up his guts in this very bowl, damn fool—turned himself inside out. ’Course, he was yellow by then, drank himself yellow. Then his insides revolted and burst out. Damn fool.”
Istvan felt much better. He’d got a brief taste of what it was like to be full, and now he felt better. She flushed the bowl and helped him to his feet, added a little grunt herself to the proceedings. “You’re lighter than I am. You’re a feather. When you feel better, I’m going to have to give you some more stew. I’m sure your family is all right back in Budapest. Marta’s all right, and your family’s all right, the same way you’re all right, or you will be soon. It’s a rough time for you people.”
When they returned to the warm kitchen-bedroom, Anna urged Istvan to lie down and rest. She took his slippers off for him, helped his head to the pillow. “I have some nightclothes for you if you want. They were my husband’s, but I washed them through, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Istvan said, “but I can’t stay.”
“Arpad—that was my husband—did me a big favour, damn fool. He died for me on a Sunday. We were getting all set to go to church, so he dolled himself up—as best you can when you’re yellow. He scrubbed himself top to bottom, shaved nicely, put some grease in his hair, shined his own shoes and got on his three-piece blue suit. Then his innards rebelled like always and, holding a towel to his front to save his suit, he ran to the toilet and let fly. He came out again, feeling relieved, sat on the bed right there where you are, closed his eyes a minute, and then he was gone. I called over the undertaker, and Arpad was all set to go into the box just as he was, poor darling. All I had to do was cover his yellow cheeks with a bit of rouge and away he went.”
Istvan was about to laugh when he saw that his hostess had begun to cry quietly and blow her nose. He buried his mirth along with the image of Arpad in his suit in his box, and told Anna he was sorry.
She sniffled before saying, “If you stay, I’ll keep you safe.” She was sitting down now on her bed.
“I’m sure you’d try, but you wouldn’t be safe.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“The lane’s too narrow; the place is too small. I’m sure there’s traffic, visitors, busybodies.”
“There are those,” she said, quick to chuckle again. He was sure she was familiar with the species.
Her offer was more than tempting. Here she’d been, all this time—the food-stamps lady—and all this time, he and Marta couldn’t be certain of her. He propped himself up on an elbow, his stomach still a little queasy, the pain in his rib sharp, and studied the floorboards.
She looked where he was looking. “Something wrong?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve been back a little time. I didn’t just get back. I’ve been at Marta’s.”
“Well of course you have,” she said without hesitation. “Where else would you go f
irst? But she wasn’t there—am I right? You’ve been waiting for her.”
“Yes, and I have to go back and wait some more there.”
“You’ll be safer here, and you’ll get fed.”
“You’ll be safer if I’m there.” He was sitting up now.
She gave it some thought. “I’m sure we can manage it.”
“I’ll go back to Marta’s. It’s good to know you’re here.”
“Well, then, take some stew with you. You’ll need to eat some more, first thing tomorrow, when your stomach settles. And then I’ll bring you something else.”
The comment got him to his feet. “I’m worried that—”
“Don’t worry,” she said, interrupting. She got to her feet, too, and looked at the stew. “I’ll be careful. No one will know. It’ll be at night, like tonight.”
She went out back through the curtain and returned with a preserving jar. “Is there anything else I can give you for now?” she asked.
“Marta has a cat, too,” he said. “Smetana.”
Twenty-One
Budapest – October 9, 1944
PAUL WAS WONDERING ALOUD how long the Swede planned to continue his campaign. “I’m not alone,” Raoul said. “There are others: Carl Lutz, the Swiss vice-consul, Per Anger, Angelo Rotta, the priest, Giorgio Perlasca, the businessman.”
Paul held up his hand. “Very few. You could probably name them all in a minute.”
Wallenberg took a sip of his espresso and frowned. The coffee was bitter. “How about you?” he said.
“I’m fighting for my own people. Because of the circumstance we’ve found ourselves in.”
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