I hadn’t noticed how close we were getting to home. I looked up and saw my apartment building on the next block. “I need to think about it.”
Jozef nodded and said, “There’s nothing to think about. I want to meet Deszo, it’s a simple request.”
“But you haven’t told me what the purpose of your meeting would be.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Deszo is a friend of mine,” I warned. “I’m not going to put him in harm’s way for you. Or anyone else.”
“He’s already in harm’s way.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
I COULDN’T RECALL anything in the past that would have alluded to Deszo’s participation in any organization on campus that would put him in jeopardy. In fact, Max used to tease him about his ardent disdain for the student organizations against the government. “In what way?” I asked Jozef.
“He works with the Nazis.”
I was stunned, “You mean a collaborator?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“How do you know this? You said you don’t know him.”
“I hear things.”
I shook my head. This was unbelievable. “You’re a thief!”
“I am a businessman,” Jozef said defensively. “It is my business to know where opportunities are, and how I can take advantage of them.”
“You could get yourself killed.”
He smiled. “So, you’d like to take care of me too.”
“Tell me what you know of Deszo’s work,” I demanded.
“He is in contact with some German officers,” Jozef explained. “And I have some talks from time to time with those officers soldiers.”
“What could you be talking to them about? Are you working for them? How do I know that you won’t tell them about Mila?”
“Not that kind of work. I have no interest in helping them round up Jews.”
“Then what?”
“They are new in town,” he laughed. “They want to find friends. Female friends.”
“You’re a pimp as well as a thief.”
“I simply make introductions. The girls know what is expected of them. They have a variety of reasons to do what they do.”
“Yes, but without your help it wouldn’t be so easy.”
“If it wasn’t me it would be someone else.”
My head was reeling. This was ridiculous. A black sedan bearing Nazi flags drove by us slowly. It stopped and a rear window rolled down.
A young soldier stuck his head out the window and gestured toward us. “Where are you two going so late at night?”
“We’re on our way home,” Jozef answered.
“You’re breaking curfew,” the soldier said. “Let me see your papers.”
I reached in my coat pocket but Jozef stopped me.
“It’s not so late is it?” Jozef looked toward the horizon as if he expected to see the sun just setting. He then made a show of looking at this wrist. “I must have left my watch at home!”
“Your papers!” The soldier demanded.
Jozef held up his hands as if to show that he was unarmed. “Can’t a man take a stroll with his girlfriend?”
The soldier looked from me to Jozef and laughed. He turned to his companion in the car and I heard the laughter of another man. “She’s too old for you! Not for us!
I shivered. Was this how Jozef got women for the Germans? I pulled my coat closed and took a step backwards.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
THE GERMAN’S EYES traced my body from top to bottom. He held out his hand toward me and I shook my head. “Why don’t you join us for a drink?”
“No thank you!” I tried to sound pleasant but my voice was shaking.
“It’s not a suggestion,” he retorted. “You wouldn’t be wise to turn us down!”
Instinctively I looked toward my apartment building. It was within one block, I could see the doorway from where I was standing.
The officer followed my gaze and then looked back at me. “You live there?”
“No,” I gasped. “I was on my way to visit a friend.”
He nodded toward Jozef, “He said you were on your way home. So who’s lying?”
I looked toward Jozef.
“Maybe you have more friends to entertain us,” the soldier gestured toward my building, “over there.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I was going to visit an old friend of my husband’s.”
“A lady friend?” Laughter emanated from the backseat.
“No, of course not, a gentleman.”
“Ah, a gentleman, you must be lonely,” the soldier said, with a wink. “Come with us and you will be less lonely.”
“I have a better idea.”
Jozef stepped up to the car and leaned over placing his hand on the windowsill as if he and the officer were old acquaintances. He spoke in a low tone so that I was unable to hear his conversation. His face turned away from me, but I could see the expression of the German soldier’s face change from stern accusation to recognition and then a sly smile.
He nodded several times and then turned back to his companion in the back seat to consult with him. Jozef said something and pointed down the street in the opposite direction from my home. The German followed his gesture and then looked back at me as if trying to decide. Jozef took a roll of money from his pocket and pushed it toward the soldier. The German looked at the money and then at Jozef. He shook his head and pushed the money away.
He frowned and pointed to me and then said something as if bargaining. Jozef shook his head and put both his hands on the window ledge blocking me from the view of the German. He gestured down the street and tried to force his money toward the German. He said something and then the two of them laughed.
Finally, Jozef stepped back from the car and made a mock salute. The German returned the salute and then blowing a kiss in my direction, he sat back in his seat and rolled up the window. I held my breath as the car made a u-turn and slowly drove down the street.
Jozef walked back to me and took my arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What did you say to them?”
“You don’t need to know, the outcome is obvious.”
He walked me to the steps of my building. I was surprised when he stopped.
“Thank you for your help,” I said. “This is the second time tonight you’ve come to my rescue.”
Jozef shrugged and then looked up at the windows of my apartment. “They’d think nothing of taking a girl of Mila’s age and using her for their own entertainment instead of sending her to the ghetto.”
I was shocked and yet I knew he was right. “What can I do?”
He hesitated continuing to look at the windows and then looked back at me. “I will come to your apartment tomorrow.”
“When?” I asked. “I have to go out tomorrow.”
“To meet Deszo?”
I wanted to lie. My hesitation gave me away instead.
“Take me to your meeting with Deszo.”
“How do I know that you won’t blackmail both of us?”
“You don’t,” Jozef said. “On the other hand, if I were going to do that, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
I HURRIED UP the stairs trying at once to absorb Jozef’s demands and wondering if Mila and Anna were safe. At the first floor landing, I noticed Miss Szep’s door was ajar. I paused, undecided as to what to do. She lived alone, with no living relatives that I knew of. Even at her age and given the food shortages associated with the war, she’d remained mentally sharp and relatively healthy. It was unlike her to leave her door unlocked. She rarely went out anymore. Mr. Nyugati sent his son Michael once a week to deliver her a small bag of groceries.
I put my hand out toward the doorknob to pull the door close. The door resisted as if someone was holding it from the other side. I heard Miss Szep talking to her cat and then her head popped out from behind the door.
“Come in!” she whisp
ered, opening the door and motioning toward me.
“I’m sorry I really can’t. I have to get upstairs to my sister.”
Miss Szep looked down the stairs and then up towards my apartment. “I need to talk to you. Don’t worry they’re both upstairs.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“HOW DO YOU KNOW?” Then I nodded. Miss Szep’s apartment was directly beneath ours and she was able to hear our movements. From her sentry post at her front window, I knew she monitored the comings and goings of the occupants of the buildings and their guests.
I stepped into her foyer and squinted, adjusting my eyes to the dark hallway. “Have you lost your electricity?”
“No, it works,” she replied, taking my hand and leading me toward her sitting room. “I just don’t like to use it much at night. It’s too easy to see in my windows from the street.”
I held back a smile knowing that the darkened room allowed her to watch the street undetected. “You’re sure that Mila and Anna are both upstairs?”
“No one’s left the apartment since you left this afternoon. I saw them go out and come back before that. You should tell them it isn’t safe.”
“They know,” I said. “They just…”
“Yes, yes,” Miss Szep said leading me to a chair and motioning that I should sit. “Your sister is the restless type.”
“She sometimes lets her passion to help the students overcome her judgment,” I offered.
Miss Szep was a professor of chemistry at the university until she retired. She was also an ardent fan of Anna’s poetry. Before her illness, Anna often came downstairs and sat with Miss Szep, reading her latest poems, discussing poetry and drinking tea and eating the fresh poppy seed rolls that Miss Szep baked.
During the past year, Anna’s visits had become increasingly infrequent. There were days when she’d ask me who lived downstairs since Miss Szep’s death. And then the following week she’d come out of the bath and tell me she’d just had the nicest cup of coffee with Miss Szep, when of course, Anna hadn’t left the apartment all day.
“Anna shouldn’t worry about the students,” Miss Szep said, wearily sinking into a chair across from me. “The students will take care of themselves. If anything they will use her former stature to raise that of their cause, and then when her illness makes her inconvenient, they will abandon her. This is nothing new.”
I nodded knowing she was right. The students felt the revolution was theirs because only a young mind was uncorrupted. Yet, when the police had dragged Anna from the classroom, they’d cheered her call to arms. When she was taken to the Dean’s office, they’d scurried away like mice. Solidarity was admirable; loyalty was the person standing next to you when the devil came to call.
Although I trusted Miss Szep’s assurance that Mila and Anna were upstairs, I longed to see for myself rather than sitting here discussing politics. “Miss Szep was there something you needed?”
“I wanted to make you an offer,” she said.
My heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“I wanted to offer you the use of my apartment for Mila.”
“Miss Szep, I would never endanger you like that.”
“Nonsense,” she replied. “She would be safer here than in your apartment.”
“For a time,” I agree. “But if they came to search our apartment first, yours would be searched second. They would tear this building apart if they thought there were any chance she was hiding here.”
“But you can’t continue to hide her in your apartment,” she argued. “It’s only a matter of time before they come for her. There are others who know she’s here.”
“You mean Mrs. Nyugati,” I said.
Miss Szep looked down at her hands and nodded. “I won’t say a word. I already know about her. I know that you are dependent upon the kindness of Mr. Nyugati for your groceries. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
Miss Szep looked up at me and smiled. “I know you wouldn’t. I just wish there was something I could do to help you. Your family has always been very kind to me.”
“I’m trying to find a safe place to take Mila myself.”
“Together?”
“Yes.” I quickly added, “Anna will go to stay with a friend. I wouldn’t leave her here alone.”
“Do you know where you will go?”
“No,” I replied. “I have to contact some of Anna’s old friends. There are so few that would have anything to do with her anymore. She alienated many of them before she left the university.”
“And you and Mila?”
“That will be more difficult. I think it would be best for us to go where we are not known.”
“I know someone in the country.”
“I’ve heard they have it worse than we do here,” I said. “With fewer people to see their brutality the Nazis are committing greater atrocities in the smaller villages than they would ever contemplate here.”
“No, the only reason we are not seeing the same massacres here is that they are finally meeting more resistance from the Allies, and their attention is distracted by the Russians.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And they’ve just arrived in our city. Just wait. They haven’t given up their old tricks. They simply haven’t had time to implement them. Budapest will see the same that others have seen.”
I shivered. “Then it is more urgent that I take Mila away.”
“Why not hide her here in the Buda? I have a friend, Mrs. Gödel, she has a home, and…”
“No, I don’t want to put your friend in danger.”
“But you admitted yourself that you need to go somewhere no one knows you. She lives in a different neighborhood. Up in the hills. You could be her daughter. Or a niece.”
It was tempting. I knew the woman. I had no doubt she would accept Mrs. Szep’s suggestion, or that she would keep our secret safe. I wasn’t familiar with the attitude of her neighbors, would they become suspicious of the timing of our arrival?
“Let me think about it,” I said.
“How is it possible for you to be so different from your twin? Living in the same house. How is this possible?”
I shook my head. “The answer would take too long to explain, Mrs. Szep.” I put my hands on my knees and stood up. “But now I have to go upstairs to see how my sister and niece are doing.”
“Think about my offer,” she said.
“Thank you, I will,” I said. “In the meantime, please come up and visit us. I know Anna and Mila would welcome the company.”
I went over to the chair where Mrs. Szep was sitting and leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Please come and visit.”
Mrs. Szep smiled and nodded. “I’ll bring some of Anna’s favorite pastry. Maybe that will make her feel better.”
I retraced my steps down the corridor to the front door and stepped back into the stairway, closing the door behind me. I hoped Mrs. Szep wouldn’t forget to lock it before she went to bed. I looked up toward the next landing and the entrance to my apartment and slowly began to climb the stairs.
Chapter Sixty
THERE WAS A time when evening meant quiet community, I could look up from my book and see Anna at the doorway smiling as she waved good-bye on her way out to spend the evening with Deszo at the opera. I would hear Mila down the hall, perhaps with a friend from school visiting, talking conspiratorially in her bedroom about some cute boy’s antics in class that day as they made some effort to get through their nightly homework. We were still a community of women then. Ilona and her husband were rarely around.
Still, I missed my husband. Anna or Mila could never fill the intimacy of understanding that Max and I shared. They filled the void he left with a different kind of love. We shared meals together. Sat and drank coffee afterwards and talked and more importantly, laughed.
Now that community had split apart.
I entered the apartment and found it quiet. I walked to the kitchen and looked at the dishes neatly stacked to dry on the washboard. There was no po
t of soup warming for me on the stove, though the smell of the meal remained in the air. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it had been hours since I’d last eaten.
I walked down the hall. The doors to Mila and Anna’s doors were open. I looked in one and then the other. Mila was sitting on her bed, leaning against the headboard reading. Anna’s room was empty.
“Where is Anna?” I asked.
Mila looked up from her book and said, “Where were you for so long?”
“I had a meeting,” I replied. “Where is Anna?”
“You got mad at us and we were only gone a couple hours.” Mila’s voice became a pout. “You’re a hypocrite.”
“Mila!” I tried fruitlessly to contain my rising anger. She’d never been so arrogantly defiant before. Clearly, this was Anna’s influence. I can imagine the bitter recriminations Anna must have filled her head with while I was gone. “Mila, my absence and yours are two different things. Now, tell me where is Anna?”
Mila hugged herself and turned to the wall. “Find her yourself.”
“Where did she go?”
Mila merely shrugged. Miss Szep had assured me that neither Mila nor Anna had left the apartment since my departure to meet Deszo. Then again, she was an old woman; it was likely that she could have been napping when Anna left the house.
“Mila you must tell me where Anna went.” I walked over to her bed and grabbed her chin, turning her to face me. “Tell me what happened.”
Mila’s eyes filled with tears, she was visibly frightened of me. I recoiled and dropped my hand. “I’m sorry Mila. You know she’s not well, it’s not safe for women out on the streets at night.”
I sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hand in both of mine. “I know how difficult this is to understand. I know that I seem like a different person to you. I haven’t changed.”
“You have!”
“No honey, I haven’t changed, the circumstances…”
“Even Anna says you’ve changed!”
I nodded and looked down at our hands. “You’re probably right. I’m not the same person that I was a week ago.” I needed to find someway to reach Mila. “It’s just that so much has happened. I’m trying to find a way to keep you safe since…”
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