“He doesn’t know if Tibor or Ilona are here,” Vörös said. “We’ll have to look for them ourselves.”
Kicsi looked around her. Everyone seemed much healthier than Kicsi remembered from the camps. Couples held hands and walked together in the sunshine. She could not see Tibor or Ilona.
They searched for about an hour, then rested on the steps of one of the buildings. “Is that them?” Kicsi heard someone say in Hungarian. She turned to look.
“It looks like them, Sándor,” someone else said. “A tall man with red hair and a young woman. That’s what they said.” Two men came forward hesitantly.
“Are you—do they call you Vörös?” Sándor asked.
“Yes,” Vörös said.
“Good,” said Sándor. “I have something for you. It’s from Tibor and Ilona. They said that they knew you.”
“What about them?” said Kicsi. Panic, the same sort of panic she had felt when she realized that Vörös would leave her soon, hit her like a wave. She had learned how quickly death could come, how unstable the world really was. “Are they all right?”
“Yes, they’re fine,” Sándor said, laughing. “They’re better off than we are, anyway. They say—wait. I’d better show you the note they left.”
They followed him to his barracks and waited outside while he got the note. “Here it is,” Sándor said, coming out of the door. He handed the note to Kicsi. “They said I should give it to you.”
She opened it. “Dear Kicsi,” it said. “We got a chance to go to America and decided that we couldn’t wait. We hope you’ll follow us soon. Maybe Vörös can help you. We’ll be staying with our cousins in New York. We look forward to seeing you. All our love, Ilona.”
“So they’ve gone to America already,” Kicsi said.
“They felt badly about leaving you here,” Sándor said, “but it was a chance they couldn’t refuse. They thought that you would be able to make it to America on your own. I don’t know how,” he went on, glumly. “I’ve heard rumors that there’s only space for ten people on the next ship.”
“Really?” said Vörös. He was smiling, and his blue eyes were round with amazement. “I’ve heard there will be space for fifteen.” He looked at Kicsi.
“If you say so,” Kicsi said. She was smiling too.
“Fifteen!” Sándor said. “That’s good news. But—what are you laughing at?”
“I don’t know,” Kicsi said. “I don’t think I could explain it to you, anyway.”
Kicsi spent the night at the DP camp. She found a spare bed and took the evening meal with everyone else. No one noticed that she did not belong there. Vörös was gone for most of the night and the next morning.
He returned in time for the noon meal and slipped into the seat beside Kicsi. All around them were the sounds of forks hitting tin trays, of water being poured into tin cups, of conversation as people sat down to eat. “He will make the announcement very soon,” Vörös said to her, and at that moment the American walked to the front of the room.
“Attention!” the American said, and an interpreter repeated him in a few languages. “Can I have your attention!” The room quieted. People were turning to face front. “A ship will be leaving for America next week.” Everyone nodded. That had been a camp rumor for weeks. “We have space on board for fifteen people—” Talk sprang up—“Not ten!” “I told you, the man I talked to said fifteen.” “Fifteen! Maybe we have a chance this time”—until the American called for quiet. “Quiet, please! Please be quiet. I’m going to read the names of the people who will be going.”
Kicsi was not surprised that she was included among the fifteen people, though she had hoped until the last name was called that Vörös would be going too. She was surprised when the American called out Sándor’s name. “Thank you,” she whispered to Vörös. “I would never have thought of him.”
“Thank you for what?” Vörös said, but his eyes held the same amusement as yesterday. Kicsi thought she could not remember another time that he had looked so free of cares.
The place was in an uproar. Friends hugged each other, pounded each other on the back. Sándor jumped up on his chair and gave a farewell speech. His friends saluted him with tin cups of water. Kicsi sat quietly. I will be going to America, she thought. It did not seem real to her yet.
The next few days passed quickly. Vörös got her some clothes and a hairbrush and a small bag to carry them in. The day before she was to leave he gave her twenty dollars in American money.
“How much is that?” she asked. “Is that a lot?”
Vörös laughed. “Enough until you get to your cousins, anyway,” he said. “Be careful with it.”
She woke early the next day. The thought was already in her mind, waiting for her. America, she thought. I will be going to America today.
Around noon a bus with English words written on the side drove into the camp. The fifteen people did not need to be told that it was for them. They stood near it for two hours, until an American came up to them. A small crowd had gathered. The American called out the names.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Vörös after he had called Kicsi’s name. “You will not be allowed to get on the bus with her.”
“All right,” said Vörös. “I’ll see you at the dock,” he said to Kicsi.
“I know you will,” Kicsi said. She boarded the bus with the American. Someone slammed the door shut, and the driver started up the engine. The crowd outside cheered them on as they drove through the gates of the camp.
The ride to the port was a short one. Kicsi looked out the window for the ship or Vörös.
They drove into the port. Vörös was there, waiting for her as she stepped down from the bus. She ran to him. “Vörös!” she said. She hugged him closely. “Oh, Vörös! Good-bye!”
“Come on,” said the American. He looked at Vörös with curiosity, wondering how he had gotten from the camp to the port so quickly, then shook his head. “This way. The boat leaves in half an hour. Come on, people.”
“Good-bye!” Kicsi said again. Now that she was leaving there were so many things she wanted to tell him. She had never thanked him for saving her life. She wanted to ask him if he thought the rabbi would be all right. She had never told him how much he had meant to her.
“Good-bye, Kicsi,” Vörös said. She smiled. He probably knew what she would have said anyway. She turned and ran to catch up with the rest of the group.
They climbed up the ramp to the ship. It was already filled with American soldiers returning home. They ran to the railing, and Kicsi thought how odd it was that they were all so anxious to get a last look at the land they were leaving. Vörös’s hair was a small dot of color among the people at the dock. He waved to her.
The ship left the dock. She waved back to him and continued to wave until he was out of sight. The coastline faded as slowly as a smile fades.
She turned and looked to the west, to America.
About the Author
Lisa Goldstein has published ten novels and dozens of short stories under her own name and two fantasy novels under the pseudonym Isabel Glass. Her most recent novel is The Uncertain Places, which won the Mythopoeic Award. Goldstein received the National Book Award for The Red Magician and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.” Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Some of her stories appear in the collection Travellers in Magic.
Goldstein has worked as a proofreader, library aide, bookseller, and reviewer. She lives with her husband and their overexuberant Labrador retriever, Bonnie, in Oakland, California. Her website is www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents eith
er are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1982 by Lisa Goldstein
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7359-5
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Red Magician Page 17