Gratitude

by Joseph Kertes

  Suzanne Rosenthal Stein

  22 Washington Boulevard

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  April 19, 1945

  My dear Paul,

  I’m writing on the chance that you have made it and will read this greeting. It has been too long. I thought of you often in the middle of the turmoil at home. I imagined you crusading in the way that you do. I had only a glimpse of that quality in you, but it stayed with me. The news reports that came to us here were quite incomplete. Only now are the stories and pictures appearing. I hope your family came through it all right.

  I think about us in Komarom that day, how your aunts Klari and Hermina had arranged a lunch. I didn’t think the lunch would turn out so memorable.

  I have an eight-year-old son, but no husband any longer. Jonathan went over last June to fight in Normandy and, on July 6, I had word that he’d been killed in action. I guess there’s no guarantee of safety wherever you go.

  I have enclosed a photograph of my son and me, taken when he was six. His name is Sam. We’re standing in front of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

  If it is ever possible, I hope you can visit.

  Look after yourself, Paul.

  Zsuzsi

  Paul spent a long time studying the photograph. She looked exactly the same, slim and elegant—elegant as a calla lily—though this picture was taken at a little distance. The boy in the photo had curly hair, while hers was straighter. He stood quite upright and confident, in her care.

  AS KLARI HELPED LILI get ready for her big day, Rozsi excused herself and fled to Robert’s study to visit with her brother. Paul sat looking straight ahead in the half-light of the room. He had Zsuzsi’s letter and photograph in front of him, and she asked if she might look.

  He pushed the letter toward her, and she read it, examined the photo, and cried. She looked at her brother. His eyes were open and unblinking. He frightened her, until he said, “They’re nice, aren’t they?”

  “Very,” she said. Then she asked, “Are you going to the wedding?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She approached him, placed a hand on the back of his head, grasped the auburn curls. “In the last days,” he said, “Adolf was throwing choirboys at the Russians and Americans—did you know that? ‘Rip them to pieces,’ he must have been telling them. ‘Throw off those robes, strap on these uniforms—off with their heads! Off! Off! Chew them up and spit them out. Chew them up with those same fangs and tongues and lips with which, after vespers, you daily sing ‘Panis Angelicus’ and dear Papa Bach’s ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster.’”

  Rozsi stepped back from her brother. He smiled at her, looked contrite. “Palikam,” she went on, “just tell me, please. You know everything, you and your Swede. Look into your crystal ball and tell me, is my Zoli coming back to me?” Paul looked up into her eyes but couldn’t answer. She sat on one of his bony knees and hugged him. “Forgive me—please don’t judge me,” she said. “I’m in despair, that’s all.”

  “That’s plenty,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she said. “Of course you do.” She kissed his cool cheek.

  They sat quietly.

  “I miss people,” Rozsi said. “Even the ones who are still with us.”

  They sat for a minute. He heard her sniffle, and she said, “I miss you.” He put his arm around her waist. “We’re all here because of you. Zoli was not as smart as you. You knew how to get out there and order them around. That’s what the Germans knew best—being ordered around.”

  He gave her his handkerchief and she blew her nose, tried to smile at her brother. “I know that you have the rest of Zoli’s pictures. I can’t even look at them. I saw a couple of them. The rest must be horrible. I’ll look at them only when he gets back, and he can tell me what’s in them.” Paul nodded but didn’t answer. “What if he doesn’t come back to me?” she went on. She was looking down at her ruby ring, twirling it on her finger. It was far too big. Everything was too big. A heavy rain must have passed over them when they weren’t looking, she was thinking, and shrunk them all.

  “I sometimes think of our cousin, Alexander the Great,” she said. “I want to ask him to remake the world for me like Hollywood. End it the way Hollywood does. Not Europe. Europe is no good at these things.”

  He tried to smile again, but couldn’t find anything reassuring to say. “Listen to us,” she said, getting to her feet. She looked unsteady. “You’re talking about throwing choirs at people, and I’m talking about Tinseltown.”

  Hermina surprised the Becks by coming from Paris. The family had already been disappointed by Istvan. He had called to say Marta was not feeling up to the trip. They were very sorry. It was Marta’s third trimester, and they wanted to be careful.

  So Hermina’s appearance brightened up the Becks’ Budapest home. Klari was happiest to see her, and she laughed out loud. Hermina was got up in a splendid blue taffeta dress with a majestic black collar. “It’s a quinze-seize,” Klari said. Hermina wore a silk slip under it. “I asked one of the ‘residents’ living in my house—because we have had permanent visitors since we abandoned the place to go be kidnapped and hung off frozen cables in Munich—I asked one of them, a seamstress, to turn some curtains into a dress for me, clever thing. She agreed without a bribe, so I gave her a gift of a pearl bracelet my dear Ede had found for me in Munich, of all places, a bracelet I’m sure was confiscated from some soul in heaven by now. I didn’t care for it much, to tell you the truth. But at least it’s made it back to the right place, or close to it. Here’s the matching necklace and earrings,” she said, running her fingers over the pearls.

  “Hermikem, only you could have conjured up such a thing,” her sister said. “And your hair! Goodness. How did you manage the lovely black colour?”

  “Klarikam, a girl doesn’t give away all her secrets.” Hermina patted a newly made curl at her temple. “But if I left it to Nature, she’d leave the job undone, save all her colour for the young. Heartless Nature. More snake than nightingale.”

  Then Hermina turned to Lili, and Klari introduced the young woman. “Like the gold stingy Nature has given to you. So this is the bride.” She stepped back from the younger woman and took her hair in her warped fingers. “Nature has not lost her touch. We should be happy.” But Hermina looked dramatically teary.

  She said to Lili, “Look what I’ve brought for you for your wedding. The taxi driver carried it in for me.” She closed the front door and, behind it, folded into a small silk Persian rug, was a grand portrait in oils of a young woman sitting in a chair. The woman was no older than twenty-seven or-eight. Soft eyes looked out from the picture; soft hands were folded in the woman’s lap. One hand, adorned by a warm gold wedding band, rested on the other, which bore an amethyst ring.

  Lili stared at the impressive painting and said, “She looks familiar, the eyes…” She turned toward Hermina.

  “Yes, dear,” Hermina said. “It’s a portrait of me. Look at me then, and look at me now.” She held up her hands to the light. The fingers were curled as if they were cradling something. “They’re like talons.”

  Klari took her sister’s hands in hers and kissed them, and then Lili stepped between the two and took the liberty of kissing them both. “What a lovely, thoughtful gift,” Lili said. “I’ll cherish it.”

  “And it was done by a fine artist, too—Ferenc Martyn. The man has strange ideas, but he’s an immense talent, as you can see.”

  Simon turned up then, and Lili showed him the painting his aunt had brought, but Hermina held up her hands again. “I look like a crow,” she said.

  “No you don’t,” Simon said, and he hugged her, too. “A robin maybe, or today a bluebird,” he was looking at her dress, “but certainly not a crow.”

  His mother swatted at him, but he got out of the way.

  Lili burst into tears. Simon took her in his arms. “What happened, my sweetheart?”

  “Nothing,” she said, but her sobs intensif
ied.

  “It’s your parents, isn’t it?” Klari said. “Your family.” Lili nodded. “It’s her wedding day, and her family’s not here.”

  Simon held her. “I wish I could meet them.”

  Just then Robert arrived home. “Tears?” he said. Robert was the most remarkably shrunken of them all. There were only so many times a suit could be taken in.

  Klari explained, and Robert said, “Of course. Poor dear thing. It’s an emotional day.”

  And then he saw his sister-in-law. “Hermina,” he said, “what a wonderful surprise. Is Ede with you?”

  “He couldn’t come,” Hermina said. She offered her cheek for Robert to kiss. “He’s as busy as you are, I imagine.”

  “I’m sure he is. What an ordeal you went through,” Robert said.

  She held up the curled hands. “I’m a crow,” she said.

  He stood back from her and brought her fingers to his lips as he studied her. “Not a crow,” he said. “A peacock.”

  Now his wife swatted at him. He almost tripped but caught himself in time. “Damn!” It was the suitcases. Klari had insisted on keeping a packed suitcase in the hall since the family had arrived home. She feared anything could still happen, and she wanted to be able to slip away at any time before they were dragged away. So the suitcase, containing a change of clothing for each of them, some flour, some sugar, some salt, yeast and lard, stood always in the vestibule just behind the door. Every second or third day, Robert stepped in, turned around and tripped over it. “Damn thing! Damn!” He glared at his wife. But Hermina’s suitcase had been set down beside his wife’s, so he didn’t carry on.

  He straightened himself up and said, “Look what I rustled up.” He held out four corsages.

  Klari said, “How on Earth did you manage these?” They were red and white carnations. “Gorgeous.” She plunged her nose into one and inhaled its scent.

  “Do you remember Dezso, over on Vaci Street? He’s back. He made them. He looks like hell, but he’s selling flowers again. He’s determined. ‘What should I do, apprentice to a blacksmith?’ he asked me. ‘It’s all I know, and all my parents knew.’ He was in Buchenwald. His parents and sister didn’t make it back. Only him. And he’s got his flowers going again. ‘It’s June,’ he told me, ‘and the land is full of flowers. They don’t know any better, and neither do I.’ Ha!”

  “I need to get ready,” Lili said, wiping her eyes with Simon’s handkerchief.

  She headed back to her room. Rozsi was still lying on the bed with her eyes wide open, but looking at nothing at all.

  Lili said, “Uncle Robert brought us carnations—can you believe that? Some for you, too. They’re sweet.”

  Rozsi sat up in the bed. “You’ve been crying,” she said.

  “Just the sniffles.”

  “I’m so tired, but I can hardly ever sleep,” said Rozsi.

  “Have a nap this afternoon, then, when we come back from the temple.”

  “Where will I sleep tonight?” Rozsi asked. Lili looked at her and realized what she was asking. “May I stay here in this room with you, just until Zoli gets back? I promise we’ll find another place then.”

  “Of course you may,” Lili answered.

  “What about your husband?” Rozsi asked, like a child.

  “My husband and I, if we make it that far today, will find our moments together, don’t worry.”

  “It’ll just be until Zoli gets back.”

  Robert checked for Paul in his study. When he saw the younger man, he smiled and told him about Dezso and the corsages. Paul said how nice it was that people were reappearing, a few of them, and Robert went quiet for a moment before saying, “Did you know that Manfred Weiss, the industrialist, met with Eichmann? Adolf Eichmann. The butcher who would not condescend to release a single Jew except to ship them off. He met with Weiss. He had to cut a deal with Weiss—that’s how powerful the bastard was, powerful as Eichmann.”

  Paul didn’t respond to his uncle. He’d behaved throughout the war like an agent for a secret service and had got out of the habit of talking about delicate matters. Robert never knew of Paul’s own visit with Wallenberg to Eichmann’s headquarters. Paul recalled the things he wanted to tell the little bastard, and he smiled now. Eichmann had still not been apprehended. He might have been in Germany still, somewhere, or he might have left the continent, for all anyone knew. Fleeing Nazis were turning up in Argentina, living and working side by side with Jews who had fled earlier.

  “Weiss arranged for transport out of the country,” Robert went on, “a personal escort of Hungarian troops for him and his family in exchange for signing over his holdings to the Germans. They got out to Switzerland, and I heard today they might be heading to New York, those Weisses.” Robert relit a small cigar he’d been carrying in his jacket pocket and shook his head. He took his stethoscope out of the same pocket and tossed it on the desk. “Imagine. He met with Eichmann. As determined as Hitler. He might as well have met with Hitler.” Robert was still shaking his head as he blew smoke all around him. He was waiting for his nephew to react to the news, but Paul just continued to gaze at him, lacing his fingers together and blowing over them as if he, too, were smoking. “I wonder where Weiss is now, exactly, or if he’ll come back to Hungary in the end. I wonder where bloody Eichmann is now.”

  Paul’s silence bewildered Robert. “Are you ready for today?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said without affect, and the two men looked at each other.

  Robert punched out his cigar in the lid of a jar he was using lately for that purpose. His crystal ashtray had gone missing, as had the porcelain Herend one in the living room.

  Robert felt uncomfortable in his own study. “Excuse me,” he said and departed.

  Vera spoke to Klari in the kitchen about the wedding, because Klari had invited her and her family to attend. Vera said they’d feel too uncomfortable, but she offered Klari a braided egg bread she had baked and covered with a cloth. “For after the ceremony,” Vera said.

  Hermina’s presence had emboldened Klari. She wanted everyone cheered and ready to go to the wedding of her son. So the sisters walked into Robert’s study just as Robert left it. “Look at you, sitting here in the dark,” Hermina said. Her presence caused Paul to smile again. Hermina went to open the curtains. “Look at you,” she said again. You’re like a bat.” And then she held up the fingers again. “And I’m a crow. Fine pair we make.”

  Paul rose out of his chair. “You poor thing,” he said. “I’ve heard about your ordeal.”

  “We’ve all been through a bad time,” she said. “But now that time is over.”

  Paul hugged Hermina surprisingly hard. “Careful,” she said, pulling away. “My hair.”

  “Paul, dear, you’re not ready for the wedding,” Klari said. “You were planning to come, I hope.”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “He’s your cousin. We’re a badly reduced family as it is, and each one of us is important to this ceremony. Look, your aunt came all the way from Paris—dressed in curtains—can you imagine?”

  Paul sat back down in a leather chair and covered his eyes with both hands. His aunts couldn’t tell if he was crying. Klari wanted to tell her sister that Paul had heard from Zsuzsi—they’d introduced the young pair, after all—but she decided to wait until later. She wasn’t even sure what Zsuzsi had said and wanted to find out first. Maybe Paul had left the letter in Robert’s desk drawer.

  “Come, my dear,” Klari said more tenderly to her nephew. “The days of being locked up are over.” Paul didn’t budge.

  “Why do you save people just to spook them with your moods?” Hermina asked. “We’re allowed to go out, without an armband, without a cloth star on our chests, and we’re allowed to head straight over to the site of a synagogue without being arrested. Time to get up.” She was ready to hook her warped hands under Paul’s arms and hoist the tall man to his feet.

  Paul uncovered his damp face and said, “Of
course, I’m coming.” He got up again. “Who said I wasn’t going to come?”

  “And let’s walk down Andrassy, not Kiraly,” Hermina said. “Let’s get noticed.”

  THE WEDDING PARTY that moved down Andrassy toward Rumbach was just a vestige of the original family, more like a band of itinerant actors playing the Becks, Izsaks and Bandels, the cast too small, the costumes too big. But the sun shone, the ladies sported carnations, and a new household was about to be established.

  Paul strode ahead like a scout. The ladies refused to march. They walked calmly up the avenue and would not be perturbed by Paul’s rush. “I don’t know what to make of that boy,” Hermina said. She stood out among the women in her bright gown—indeed stood out among all the people on the avenue—she was blue as the Danube once was, blue as the Danube of the waltz.

  “I know what to make of him,” Klari said. She wore her famous forest-green gown with the wide white collar, although the dress had needed to be pinned and taken in every which way. “I know exactly what to make of him.”

  “He needs to find someone,” Hermina said. “That’s all it is.” Then she added, “Thinking is an illness, more harmful even than remembering. Paul started mourning people even before they were being led off to die.”

  “No,” Klari said. “Paul’s not like that. Some people were made for mourning. They mourn even before they have cause. They’re in mourning-readiness. Not Paul. He wanted to stave off the day of mourning, prevent it from ever having to occur. There’s a big difference. It’s just that he couldn’t win over followers. There were days, during the dark campaign, when Hungarians wouldn’t heed his warnings. This couldn’t happen to them, they believed, not here. They were Hungarian first and Jewish second—a distant second. Paul really is a Cassandra. He saw the future, but people didn’t believe him.”

  And then they remembered they were walking with Rozsi, so Hermina said again, “He’ll find someone, I’m sure. Why shouldn’t he? Everybody will. And if not one person, then another. If not that nice Zsuzsi we once introduced him to, then someone. The world will remake itself. We’re here. We’re walking down the street, the sidewalks will refill and the coffee will pour again.” She leaned closer to Rozsi and said, as if in confidence, “All I can say is, don’t open a corset store in the near future,” and then she hooted up a storm.