“No,” Lili said.
“It’s called the Perfume River. Imagine that—imagine the rosy rain there, the pink clouds.”
Lili said, “It must be lovely.” She hesitated. “But I think you’ll feel better once you eat something, dear Rozsi. We’re going to have stew—look!” She held up the pot, and Rozsi stepped aside.
THE GERMANS were on the run from all parts of the city as the Russians moved in. Eichmann’s troops had blown up two of the primary bridges over the Danube, linking Buda with Pest, the Erzsebet and the Chain bridges. There was no water or electricity in several parts of the city. The thousands of advancing Russian troops needed places to hole up, so they indiscriminately took over buildings themselves, took the residents’ jewellery and watches and sent them into the winter streets. After the Swedish embassy staff were relieved of their watches, they, too, were cleared out of their makeshift offices on Ulloi Street.
Paul called together all the people in the building. When they were crowded into the front hall, just inside the entrance, he said that they all had to be very careful still—nothing was certain, nothing could be taken for granted—but the Germans were leaving Budapest. It would only be a matter of days.
A great cheer went up. People threw things into the air—caps, gloves, handkerchiefs—one boy threw a shoe. Klari kissed her nephew, and then the lineup formed. Rozsi kissed him; Lili kissed him; Simon shook his hand, but then kissed him, too; Robert only hugged him, but he did it hard. Most of the nuns came forward and bowed to Paul. Beata hugged him. And then she threw off her habit, and was dressed normally underneath. All the nuns then did the same and began hopping and dancing around.
“Beata, what are you all doing?” Klari asked. “Aren’t you going to stay dressed in your habits?”
“No, we’re not nuns,” one of the older ones said. The woman hadn’t spoken once. “We stole these habits from the Church of St. John the Divine. They’d just been laundered and nicely pressed and were piled on a cart just inside the entrance. Beata found them and brought them home to us in the ghetto. We’re Jews like the rest of you, but our husbands were taken to a labour camp. We haven’t seen a single one of them back yet. So we pretended to be nuns. We thought God wouldn’t mind.”
“No, God wouldn’t mind,” Klari said, as she looked over the bunch. “But why didn’t you tell us?”
“We were scared, you see. We didn’t know if it was wise to tell.”
People wanted to thank Wallenberg, too, but he remained closeted in the back.
WALLENBERG AND PAUL and several of the staff soon left to take up residence at the offices of the Red Cross on Benczur Street at the invitation of George Wilhelm, the head of the organization in Budapest.
Two German soldiers still guarded the Red Cross building, an impressive villa near the City Park. The soldiers came courtesy of SS Colonel Weber because of his devotion to the charming Wilhelm. Wilhelm had studied at Cambridge, and had formed a natural bond with the other prominent English-speakers, Wallenberg and Paul. Wilhelm had not only attended Cambridge, like Paul, but had also been the son of a prominent Hungarian lawyer. He wore the black uniform of the SS commander, and, being more fluent in German than he was in English, he masqueraded as a senior officer about town, assisting in the Swedes’ rescue operation whenever he could, intimidating even the Arrow Cross on occasion to get his way, or bribing them when he could not.
The few days Wallenberg and his small team spent at the Red Cross were like the still point in the eye of a storm. The one-time chef of the Astoria was housed there also and cooked as well as he could for them, under the circumstances. After a meal one evening with Paul and Wilhelm of duck a hunter had brought, together with beetroots and fennel, followed by English brandy that Wilhelm had saved for just such an occasion, Wallenberg told them that they were not at the end of their operation but the middle.
“How so?” Paul asked.
“As I began to say before, you can’t just save lives, you have to restore dignity.”
Later, in his room, Wallenberg told Paul, “I want you to meet the King of Sweden after the chaos subsides. I want to get his blessing as well as the support of the government to establish an institution here for restoration—the restoration of property, law, peace and dignity. Dignity comes last, but it is foremost.”
Paul looked incredulously at his friend. He thought Raoul had finished what he’d come to do. The Swede said, “What did you expect? Did you expect me to go back into banking, or be an architect, or just a rich man about town, dropping coins into the cups of the poor? It’s not enough for me.”
“Of course not,” Paul said. He sat on the corner of Wallenberg’s desk so that he could look directly into the Swede’s dark and determined eyes. Wallenberg’s hair had thinned still more, it seemed, though he was only thirty-two, and he looked exhausted, though he steadfastly denied it.
Paul put his hands on the man’s shoulders. It was difficult to look at him the same way now. It was like looking at history itself, like looking at Churchill. And yet here Wallenberg was: close, human and vulnerable, his hair thinning, his weary mind racing to the place of the next mission.
The next morning, Paul got to work again, trying to seek Zoli’s release and restarting his search for Istvan. He couldn’t spend another minute in his sister’s company unless he had some kind of news. She had become inconsolable, distracted, and was turning darkly inward. She tore at his heart, got down on her knees, begged him. Not even Lili and Klari could calm her, not even Robert’s sedatives. She’d even got Wallenberg involved, got him to agree, as a special favour to Paul, to petition his own government to press the Germans to release the Swedish nationals they’d taken away.
So Paul was at it again that morning. He’d sent two telegrams, one to Sweden’s Ministry of External Affairs and another to the Wolf’s Lair itself, Hitler’s compound at Gierloz. Why not? What did Paul have to lose? Even in Hitler’s insane scheme there was logic. Even the Fuhrer had allowed that Swedes were not Germans and not Jews. He also managed a call to the mayor’s office in Szeged. The interim mayor could not be reached, Paul was told. “He’s taken a holiday.”
“He’s gone into hiding, you mean?” The man was a fascist, a Nazi sympathizer.
“Yes,” the man said. “A hidden holiday.”
Now Paul waited. He drank his espresso and smoked. He was at Wallenberg’s desk, and he looked across at the chair he himself usually sat in. Slung over it was the tie Wallenberg was going to put on that morning before he stepped out. The tie was baby blue and adorned with the golden crowns of Sweden. Paul spied a stain, coffee possibly, covering one of the crowns. He made a mental note to mention it to the Swede.
Wallenberg was in the front office, talking with some Russians who’d come that morning to ask him if he’d meet with General Malinovsky to discuss the complexities of the situation.
When Wallenberg returned to his inner sanctum, he described the proposed meeting with the Russian general as a debriefing.
Paul said, “Where? Here?”
“No, they have their base in the town of Debrecen.”
“Debrecen?” Wallenberg nodded. “All right,” Paul said. “I’ll finish up later. It’ll take me only a minute to get ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To go with you.”
“No need,” Wallenberg said. He took his tie from the chair. Paul wanted to mention the stain, but Wallenberg went on. “You just keep after the authorities, Paul. Work on getting people home again. Your sister is not doing well. You just keep after them.”
“I will. I’ll come straight back here and get back on it. But I think I should be with you. Your Russian is lousy.”
“And what about yours?”
“It’s lousy, too, but if we add the hundred words I know to your hundred, we’ll have two hundred.”
“I think they’re the same hundred,” Wallenberg said. “Vilmos will take me,” he added. “I’ll be back soon, and we’ll continue the
struggle. I won’t be gone two days, three at the most. We’ll take the Studebaker. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the Alfa Romeo. Besides, if I do, the Russians will probably pull it out from under me.”
“I’ll take you. It’s no trouble.”
“My driver will take me. Langfelder will take me. Trust me.” Wallenberg touched Paul’s cheek with his dry palm. The place burned. Paul watched the Swede as he took an apple from a wooden bowl on the stand by the door and left without looking back. His tie was slung over his shoulder.
Thirty-One
Szeged – November 16, 1944
WHEN MARTA turned up the walk of her little house in Szeged, she could faintly hear music. She also saw, suspended from the doorknob, a white tag fluttering in the fall breeze. She feared the worst. She snuck up to the window and peeked in. The two floorboards stood leaning on the wall opposite the window. She saw Istvan with Smetana curled up in his lap. At first they seemed lifeless, but then she saw the hand move, petting the cat. Istvan looked reasonably fit, as did Smetana. He was reading a book, and they were listening to Dvorak’s Rusalka.
She tapped lightly on the window, and Istvan leapt out of his chair. The book dropped to the floor and Smetana flew out of his lap like a crazed bird. Istvan turned and saw her, his mouth fell open, and then they smiled. He clearly still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He looked behind her, around her, but it was just Marta. His eyes filled with tears, as did hers.
He still hadn’t reached for the doorknob. He brought his hands up to his cheeks, and she went on standing at the window. He was wearing her Alpine sweater, and she giggled. He saw what had amused her and laughed with her.
He let her in, and they embraced for a long moment before speaking. He kissed her forehead and then the top of her head. “You’re still here,” she said. Tears poured down her face.
He took her face in his hands. “What happened?” he whispered.
“Do you have a minute?” she asked, and then burst out laughing again.
He joined her, and then he took her hand and led her to the bedroom. “Don’t leave out a detail,” he said.
“Not today. Today, the news is that I’m back, and that you’re still here—that’s all.”
“That’s enough.”
They sat down together on her small sofa. Rusalka continued to play. “The music’s nice,” she said. “Remember, no more news? I’m tired.”
“You must be.” He looked her over more carefully. “You came back to me.”
“We have to sleep in the cellar.”
“We can stay up here, now, in your room.”
“No, we can’t. I’ll feel exposed. We’re both in hiding now.”
“We have a tag on our door. Abandoned—Forgotten.”
“It doesn’t give us immunity,” she said, and took his hand. “Let me wash up and get some things, and we’ll go down.”
“The end is near, I think.”
“It must be,” she said.
So he got up with her and followed her lead. She switched off the music, took some things from the bedroom and led him down into their dark cellar.
IT WAS NOT UNTIL CHRISTMAS that she told him she thought she was pregnant. He’d wondered about her morning sickness, and they’d both suspected. But he never asked her whose baby it was. He decided it didn’t matter and he never would ask.
On New Year’s Day, Anna Barta welcomed the Russians into Szeged as they rolled through the streets in tanks and in army trucks. She was so happy, she’d had a bit too much apricot palinka that afternoon and was close to toppling over as she spun and danced. She staggered toward a parked Russian truck, offered her palinka up to one of the soldiers, who took it and shot her dead.
Thirty-Two
Budapest – February 16, 1945
Dearest Rozsi,
I want to outwait this bad time, and then marry you, if you’ll have me. This ring was my mother’s. May its ruby heart stand up to your stout Beck heart. Please take it and accept it.
Zoltan
I love
Rozsi folded up the note for the hundredth time and asked Lili, for the fiftieth time, about the people who’d returned. Could Lili go with her to the Jozsefvaros station and wait for the trains to come in?
The Germans were gone from Hungary. The Soviets were in charge. Wallenberg had never returned from his meeting in Debrecen, and the Swede’s whereabouts were unknown. Some suspected he’d been taken to Siberia. Per Anger could not get an answer from Stalin’s government.
Robert and Klari had returned to their house on Jokai Street to find that, in addition to Vera’s family, another family, the Oszolis, had moved in. Robert insisted on having his home back, but Vera’s uncle said they were not leaving. “We’re willing to make room for you, Dr. Beck.”
“Willing to make room?”
Robert and Klari had no recourse. The provisional government was not discussing such trivial matters. Vera made the Becks a meal, and Robert calmed down.
Klari noticed her Turkish carpet with the great medallion pattern was gone, as was the tablecloth she’d bought outside the gates of ancient Ephesus. She was relieved to see her raspberry marble-topped table with the painting on it by Edvard Munch was still there. The silver griffins and eagle clock were gone, and so was the cabinet they had stood on. She had a blue-and-white platter, from the Ming dynasty, which she’d inherited from her mother, and it was gone. She noticed things missing every day. But they had one another, she kept telling herself. She had her Simon and her Robert, and Lili. And she had Paul and Rozsi.
Since Paul and Rozsi’s home had been burned to the ground, Robert asked his nephew and niece to move in with them.
“We’ll find another home,” Paul said.
“I won’t hear of it,” Klari said. “It’s roomier than Ulloi Street with all those people and the fake nuns.”
“Please,” Robert said to his nephew. “Don’t insult us.”
And now, sitting on the bed she shared with Rozsi, Lili swept the hair off Rozsi’s forehead. “Of course we can go to the station, sweetie,” she said. “I’ll wash you up a bit. We’ll see who has come back today.”
Word was out that people were trickling back. Lili herself had heard from Maria at the Madar Café that Emil Gottlieb, the pharmacist from over on Kiraly Street, had reappeared one day. His wife, Izabella, and their unfortunate daughter, Nora, with the early onset of rheumatoid arthritis, hadn’t returned with him. He had been hoping to find them at their old home on Rose Hill, but there was no sign of them. He described himself as the “first” one back. When he arrived at the house, he found five families living in it. He shoehorned himself in the way the Becks had, moving into a small sunroom at the back and saying it would be fine, but only until Izabella and Nora made it back. It was only a matter of time.
The florist, Monika Danzinger, had come back to find her husband, Oliver, sitting in their flat tending to their poodle, Arisztoteles, named after the Greek philosopher because the Danzingers could tell she was extra smart from the day she was born, and their parakeet, Mor, because he had so much to say, like the writer Mor Jokai.
Monika had stood, stunned, at the door when Oliver opened it. She’d hoped and prayed for his survival and begged the kapo at the camp to let her know about him, if not see him. But she eventually despaired that she would never lay eyes on her husband again.
“I was here the whole time,” he said, meekly.
“I thought you’d been taken ahead of me. When I came home last April 11, you were gone. I thought you’d been taken.”
“No, I was at the Fenix, having supper. When you didn’t come back, I thought you might have been taken.”
“So you went for supper?”
“Not right away. I looked everywhere for you and waited.” He lowered his head. He was petting Arisztoteles, who was still not warming up to Monika. The talkative parakeet was quiet.
“Didn’t you move to the ghetto?”
“No, I didn’t want to.”
“You didn’t want to?”
“All Jews this way,” the parakeet finally said. “All Jews out.”
The humans looked at Mor in his cage. “It might have been mandatory,” Oliver said, “but I didn’t want to. I figured, if they wanted to take me, they’d take me. I’d wait. But no one came for me.”
“So you’ve lived in our place all this time, since I was taken?”
“All Jews out,” Mor said. “Curfew time. Let’s close the curtain. Curfew.”
She looked around the apartment before stepping in. They hadn’t even hugged yet.
“I found provisions for us as best I could, Arisztoteles, Mor and me. I did the best I could.”
“Well, weren’t you clever?” she said. “Foolish, but clever.”
“Yes, both.”
She looked unspeakably skeletal. He looked better, but not much. The dog and parakeet looked best. Finally, the Danzingers embraced, painfully, her bones grinding against his. But she was home, now, and so was he, and they had to hope for the best from here on in. He gave her some tea and biscuits, for which he’d traded a watch some time before and was saving for just such a day, and the two had a little meal together.
Every story was extraordinary, every rumour, every anecdote. To the last possible minute—until three weeks before—Germans were still rounding up people. The Nyilas were still summarily executing Jews and dumping them into the Danube. Robert had heard, on one of his few forays out of the Dutch insurance building, that a colleague of his, Zsigmond Lengyel, a neurologist, was shot to death five minutes after he got off the train on which he had returned to Budapest. The news was mixed everywhere.
Robert was welcomed back to his clinic at Sacred Heart, though not to his old job as chief of surgery. He was happy to find the jacket he’d left behind hanging in the closet, still waiting for him—and his Swedish papers still in the pocket. His first order of business was to get his niece a bottle of sedatives.
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