The Red Magician

by Lisa Goldstein

  “I don’t know. I can’t very well throw you off the train. I might have known you’d be as stubborn as your sister.” Then he became serious. “But listen to me. I wasn’t joking about the danger. You will see things—well, things you will not understand. Are you still willing to come along?”

  “Yes,” said Ilona, and Tibor shrugged.

  “I have no choice, do I?” he said finally.

  “All right, then,” said Vörös. “Let’s find a place to stay for the night.”

  They found lodgings at a small place near the station. Ilona and Kicsi took the bed and Tibor stretched out on the floor. Vörös leaned against the wall near the door.

  Kicsi did not sleep well. Several times during the night she was startled awake by a dream or a noise. Each time she woke she saw Vörös sitting by the door, his eyes open. Once she thought she heard wolves howling in the distance. Vörös nodded at her, quietly, and she turned over and went to sleep.

  “I don’t like it,” Vörös said in the morning. “I think he’s found us.”

  “He’s here?” said Tibor. “What can we do?”

  “We can leave as quickly as possible,” said Vörös.

  After breakfast they boarded the train. At first Ilona and Tibor watched silently as the miles of fields and forests passed by on either side of them, or talked in low voices among themselves, or shared a loaf of bread between them. Once Ilona turned to Kicsi and said, “Are you looking forward to going back to the village?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kicsi.

  Later Ilona said to her, “Was it bad where you were?”

  “As bad as any other place, I guess,” said Kicsi, and turned away.

  After a few hours Tibor stood and began to walk to the end of the car.

  “Where are you going?” said Vörös.

  “I thought I’d look around a bit,” said Tibor. “See what the other cars are like.”

  “No,” said Vörös.

  “Why—why not?”

  “As long as we travel together I want everyone to stay with me,” said Vörös. “I am responsible for all of us.”

  “Oh, but—” said Tibor. “Do you think he’s on the train? I mean, wouldn’t you have seen him get on?”

  “Maybe,” said Vörös. “Maybe not.”

  “You mean—he might be in disguise?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh,” said Tibor. He sat back down next to Ilona. “I was prepared for danger,” he said to her, “but I don’t know how much more of this boredom I can take.” She laughed.

  “Who is this man we’re supposed to avoid, anyway?” said Tibor. “And what has Vörös done to him that he wants to kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ilona. “I think Kicsi knows, though. Those two have always had their secrets. But I wouldn’t try asking her.”

  “No.”

  In the evening they came to another small town. They left the train and walked through the town, coming finally to a narrow side street and a small inn serving dinner. They were greeted at the door by a small fat man, a Czech.

  “Well, what can I do for you?” said the man. “Food and then a room, is that it, sir?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Vörös.

  “Very good, very good,” said the man, hurrying to the table to seat Kicsi and Ilona. “Just sit over here and I’ll be right back.”

  “Vörös,” Tibor said as he sat down. “How much longer before we get to the village?”

  “That depends,” said Vörös. “I think there’s a stretch of railway around here that’s been bombed, and if it is we’ll have to take a longer way. We may even have to walk for a few miles.”

  “And if the railways have been fixed?”

  “If the railways have been fixed, and if the man who is hunting me does not find me, we will be in the village in a few days.”

  “Good,” said Tibor. “What’s it like now, the village?”

  “Changed,” said Vörös. “Like every other town in Europe.” The fat man came back and poured each of them a glass of wine. Vörös took a sip and went on. “There are parts of the village you would not recognize. And there are places that have been changed only slightly. Those will be the hardest for you to bear, I think.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ilona. “Which places?”

  But Vörös was not listening. His eyes had narrowed and he was watching carefully some people who had just come through the door.

  Tibor and Ilona looked at the door. Imre and Sarah stood there, their arms outstretched. Imre held his left arm awkwardly, as he had always done.

  “Mother!” said Ilona joyfully. She and Tibor stood, pushing back their chairs.

  “No!” said Vörös. He waited a moment, then said a short word sharp as a blade and threw his wineglass at the two by the door. The glass passed through them and shattered against the wall. Someone screamed. Wine trickled slowly to the floor. Imre and Sarah wavered, then vanished as slowly as smoke.

  The other patrons turned to look at Vörös, or at the wineglass, or to talk loudly among themselves. The small fat man hurried toward Vörös. “I’m sorry,” said Vörös. “I will pay for the damages. Do you need help cleaning up?”

  “I don’t—What happened? Who were those people? I thought—I thought I saw them disappear …”

  Vörös shrugged and said nothing.

  “Why did you have to throw your glass at them?” the man said.

  Ilona began to cry. She cried as she had always done, with her hands over her mouth instead of her eyes, as though it was her mouth that would give her away. “I didn’t know,” she said finally. The fat man looked around the table, shrugged, and went to clear away the broken glass. “I thought—I thought I could survive anything, because—because of what I’d been through. But I didn’t know it would be like this. I know you warned us, but I thought—I don’t know—” She began to cry again. “Who is he? Who do you know that would do—would do—something like that?”

  “You know him,” said Vörös. “The rabbi.”

  “The rabbi?” said Tibor. He held on to his wineglass to steady his hands. “He wouldn’t—I know him. He taught me my bar mitzvah lesson. And he prayed for my father—” He stopped.

  “Try not to think about it,” said Vörös.

  Tibor nodded.

  “It’s true, then,” said Ilona. “You can work magic. And so can the rabbi. I always thought that Kicsi was imagining things …” She looked at her sister, who sat staring straight ahead as though nothing had happened. “But why? Why is he after you?”

  Vörös told her. “But he knows now that I am traveling with you. He must know or he would not have called up that illusion. I don’t know what he hoped to do. Maybe he just wanted to frighten you away. Maybe he wanted you to follow the illusion and so get to me through you. I don’t know. As I said, he is not in his right mind.”

  Ilona let out a shaky breath. “You were right,” she said. “We are a danger to you. Especially now that he knows we are here. I guess—I guess we should go back. Back to the DP camp. What do you think, Tibor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tibor. “I still can’t believe it. That the rabbi … How did he survive the war?”

  “In the shape of a wolf,” said Vörös.

  “In the shape of—” said Tibor. He laughed softly. “It sounds so reasonable when you say it. I can almost believe it. Did you know he was going to do … what he did?”

  “I knew he was going to do something,” said Vörös. “He is a master of illusion. Do you remember when I first saw you, at the train station?” Tibor nodded. “I hesitated before going up to you because I feared that you might be an illusion.”

  The fat man brought them trays of hot meat and vegetables. He served them silently. The other patrons had gone back to their dinners.

  After a little while Vörös said, “What do you plan to do now?”

  “I thought we might—I mean—” Tibor stopped, put his head in his hands. “Ohhh
h,” he said, a long whispery sigh that shuddered with every heartbeat. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. What can we do?”

  Vörös looked at him carefully. “Tibor,” he said. “Your father was a very wise man. But you cannot acquire his wisdom by pretending to have it already.”

  Tibor nodded slowly. “Can I think about it?” he said. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  The fat man came to their table and began to clear it away. Without looking at them he said, “You cannot stay here tonight. I’m sorry. The other patrons think that you’re—well, that you’re sorcerers.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Tibor. “Do we look like sorcerers to you?” He made a gesture that took in everyone at the table, daring the fat man to look at Kicsi, who was staring blindly in front of her, at Ilona, her eyes still red from crying, at Vörös.

  “Tibor,” said Vörös gently. Then to the fat man he said, “That’s all right. We’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the man. He bowed as he took the dishes away.

  “Where will we go?” said Ilona. “It’s too late to find another place—”

  “Where?” said Vörös. “To the forest.”

  They finished the wine and left the lighted inn. The road was very dark and the stars were cold and far away, comfortless. Kicsi felt small and lost, like a ghost walking among ghosts. Somewhere, she knew, a fifth ghost waited without pity, waited to kill them all. It did not seem important.

  They entered the forest one at a time, walking slowly. Vörös gathered together some logs and twigs and started a fire. They arranged themselves in front of it and went to sleep.

  That night the howling of wolves was closer than before. Kicsi woke once to see Vörös sitting in front of the fire, feeding it twigs and bits of leaves. Tiny sparks cracked out of the fire’s heart and reflected in his eyes, gold within blue. She lay down and went back to sleep.

  They woke the next morning and stretched, easing the soreness out of their joints. Tibor walked over to Vörös.

  “I’ve talked it over with Ilona,” Tibor said. “We’ve decided—well, we want to go back. To the DP camp in Italy. We’re no good to you here. We’d like Kicsi to come with us, of course, but we don’t think she would.”

  “No,” said Vörös. “She wouldn’t.” They both looked at Kicsi, who sat staring into the dying fire. The forest was very quiet.

  “Well,” said Tibor. “You’ll take care of her, won’t you? And when this whole thing is over, will you bring her back to us?”

  “I’ll try,” said Vörös.

  “You know,” said Tibor, “I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking—they weren’t dreams, they were very real—I kept seeing the way our parents looked. And I kept wondering what he would try to do next. What if the next illusion is—is Aladár?”

  “I know,” said Vörös. “I’ve thought of that myself. I don’t know.”

  They left the forest and came, tired and hungry, to the train station. Vörös bought a few loaves of bread for the trip and gave one each to Ilona and Tibor. People who had been at the inn the night before avoided them, and once they heard the word sorcerer.

  “Good-bye,” said Ilona. She embraced Kicsi and whispered to her, “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  “I’m sure,” said Kicsi.

  “Be careful,” said Ilona. She stepped back and smoothed her sister’s hair. “Come back to us.”

  Kicsi said nothing.

  “Good-bye,” said Tibor, and they turned to board their train.

  The train Vörös and Kicsi were to take came soon afterward. They boarded and sat down, not speaking. The train pulled away from the station. Vörös, sitting near the window, watched the fields of grain pass.

  Suddenly he turned to Kicsi. “I would like to tell you a story,” he said. “Would you like to hear it?”

  Kicsi shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “All right,” said Vörös. “This time it will be a true story. You will know that it is true because you are in it—part of it. It is the story of a part of my life. You know—I have told you—that it is dangerous for me to speak of myself, that words are weapons and it is safest to say nothing at all. But I feel I must tell you this—that I must explain.”

  Kicsi nodded once, slightly.

  “The story starts before I met you and your family. You see, it was given to me to see the future—not all the future, but that part of it that would happen during the war. Night and day I saw before me smoke and furnaces and barbed wire. Night and day I heard the cries of those who were beaten and starved and tortured. I knew that I was given this sight so that I could help as many as I could. But, you see, no one else saw the things I did. No one else had my urgency. And I did not know when these things would take place—if they were in the past or in the future or only in my imagination. I think I went a little crazy, like your rabbi is now. ‘You must leave!’ I said to everyone I met. ‘Death is coming!’ And they all looked at me as though I had lost my wits. They could not see death. They did not understand why I acted the way I did.

  “Anyway, that’s why I began to make mistakes. The first was when I talked of death at the wedding of the rabbi’s daughter. When that woman began to cry I knew that her son was dead. I could see him as the flames took him, could see him clearer than I could see the wedding canopy in front of me. But I should not have said so at the wedding. I was driven by what I saw.

  “I made my second mistake shortly after that, in the forest. I should not have shown the rabbi the word I had written on the golem’s forehead. Had I been thinking clearly I would have known that. But I saw the man with no teeth in front of me, and I could not tell when he would come. I only knew that the village must be protected from him.”

  Vörös paused for a moment, then continued. “For this mistake I paid with the life of one of my closest friends. He was a magician too, Akan was. We had traveled much together, studying ancient tapestries and pieces of parchment, looking in far-off cities for books of old spells, buying dusty amulets in remote bazaars. He was a subtle magician, and his knowledge was great. I should be dead by now, but for him.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Kicsi. “There must have been something that I could have done to save Ali. There must have been some way that I could have died in his place.”

  “No, that is not what I mean,” said Vörös. His voice cut into her skin, and she flinched. “I mean that the past is over, and to sit and talk about what might have happened is useless. Less than useless. A man is dead because of what I did—I must accept that and go on.”

  “No,” said Kicsi. “I don’t think I’ll ever accept Ali’s death. Ali’s and all the rest of them. Why am I alive when they are dead? I’m not worthy. I’m not as good as Ali was, or my mother, or—or anyone that died.”

  Vörös looked out of the window for a long time. Then he said, “You still want to die, don’t you?”

  Kicsi said nothing.

  “I won’t let you die, you know,” said Vörös. “The sages say that he who saves a life, it is as though he saved the entire world. How can you throw away your life, your world?”

  Kicsi turned to look at him. “I can,” she said quietly. They said nothing else for the rest of the trip.

  The next few days passed very much like that one. Lulled by the train’s rhythm, they slept or stared out the window, saying nothing. At night they would find lodgings, or buy food and continue on to the next station. The bombed stretch of track had been repaired, and they passed it without incident.

  One day Kicsi turned from the window and saw at the end of the car a ripple of color, silver and black. “Oh,” she said, without meaning to, and stood to see where it had gone.

  “What is it, Kicsi?” said Vörös.

  “I thought I saw—well, I can’t see it anymore. I must have imagined it.” She sat down.

  “What did you think you saw?”

  “Some colors—silver, mostly. Like a piece of
silk. I saw a wolf in a zoo once, in Budapest, that was that color.”

  “Just stay there,” said Vörös. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He walked to the end of the car and looked around carefully. After a while he came back.

  “Did you see anything?” said Kicsi.

  “No,” said Vörös. “It worries me. Tell me again what you saw.”

  “I—I’m not really sure. It could have been a wolf’s tail. But I could have imagined it. I think I was almost asleep.”

  “I don’t think you imagined it,” Vörös said.

  “Do you think it was the rabbi?”

  “Yes,” said Vörös. “I do.” He looked around the car, frowning slightly. Kicsi shrugged. If the rabbi had followed them, there was nothing she could do. She leaned back and went to sleep.

  She woke slowly. Someone was saying something over and over, in a tone of great urgency. “Papers,” he said. “Can I see your papers please?”

  She opened her eyes, stretched. A young man in uniform stood before them. “We are crossing the border now,” he said. “Can I see your papers please?”

  “Of course,” said Vörös, patting the pockets of his coat. Kicsi relaxed. She had seen him work this slight bit of magic before, at the last border.

  “Papers,” the man said again. “Can I see your papers please?” He smiled. He had no teeth.

  Kicsi moved back. The man’s smile grew wider. Everything real and solid fell away into the growing darkness of his mouth. The windows of the train turned black and melted toward each other, eating away the light. Over the noise of the train she heard a roaring, crackling sound, like the last fire of the world.

  Vörös shouted words into the din. The walls of the train returned for a moment, then flickered out. Someone else was shouting too, but he stood in the darkness and Kicsi could not hear him. Then both voices were drowned in noise. The darkness grew quickly, like a fire spreading through a dry forest.

  Vörös shouted again. The train built itself around them again, gray and unreal. Pieces of the world outside the windows broke through the blackness—a tree, a hill, patches of blue sky. Then the other voice spoke, slow and sure. Darkness crept out of the corners of the train, slower this time, but without stopping. A web of cracks ran from shadow to shadow and widened. A rift appeared at their feet.