“How can I find them?” he asked, suddenly angry. “You know what the country is like. You know what this town is like. How can I find them?” His composure had vanished and he had forgotten how to be impersonal. The judgment that he brought to everything had been destroyed in a sea of panic. Nicholas was hugging his arm, gazing at him with huge pleading eyes. This close he could see just how thin and ill the boy looked. The veins were visible under his skin and there was a transparent appearance about him.
“You don’t have to go around looking,’’ Nicky said humbly. “I know you can’t do that with the Russians there. But if you just went to your sister’s and asked what had happened to them—”
“I can’t go!” he shouted. “You must ask someone else. Your Uncle Leo, ask him to go.”
“Uncle Leo wouldn’t get papers quickly enough; he’s not as important as you. You’ll get everything. They’ll let you use the trains and probably give you rides in their trucks. And if—if they are in trouble with the Russians, Uncle Leo would only make it worse. He would lose his temper and begin fighting. Please, Janos.” The boy’s hands pressed hard into his arm. “I would do it for you,” he said simply. “If you wanted me to go to Magyarovar and look for your sister, I would go.” He smiled again, that warm endearing smile that twisted into the breast and hurt. “I would go. Because you are my friend and I love you.”
Janos closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. “I cannot go,” he muttered, knowing that already it was too late. Whatever he did, whether he went or not, the pain was there and would remain. And because he was a rational man and did not believe in wasting energy in futile effort, he gave in, opened his eyes, and said coldly, “Very well, Nicky. If I can get passes and papers
I will go.”
The smile exploded over the boy’s face again. The hands gripping his arm hugged and pulled. “Thank you, Janos! Thank you!”
Janos pulled his arm away and stood up. For a moment he hated Nicky. He was disturbed and unsettled. His calm, abstract pattern for the future had been destroyed and Nicky must be punished.
“Go home,” he said curtly.
“You’re not angry with me, are you?”
“I’ve told you to go home.”
Uncertainty on his face, Nicky took a step towards the door. “I’m sorry, Janos. If you really cannot go—”
“I’ve told you I will go to Magyarovar. I have also told you to leave here.”
Tears stood in the boy’s eyes (yes, there had been a time when he too would have cried over such a rejection). Janos turned away and picked up a book from his desk, any book. It was his volume of verse, the poetry that he had written just before and after his mother’s death, and quickly he put the book down again. He heard the door close and footsteps on the stairs. The implosion of pleasure that marked Nicky’s coming was now matched by an explosion of misery. He held his body rigidly controlled for a moment and then rushed across to the window and threw it open.
“Nicky!”
The figure just emerging onto the road looked up.
“Good-bye, Nicky,” he shouted.
There was a pause, then a nervous smile appeared on the upturned face.
“Good-bye, Nicky,” he shouted again, and the nervousness disappeared. Nicky waved up at him and began to walk away. He looked back, waved again, tripped over nothing, and faded into the distance, a tall, gangling youth who had not yet learned how to live alone.
A hundred times during the journey to Magyarovar he cursed himself for surrendering to emotional involvement. He was an important man and he had urgent and difficult matters to attend to; instead he was rattling 200 kilometres across the country on a fool’s errand searching for three people for whom he cared nothing, just because a boy had made the very worst kind of sentimental appeal to him. He was angry, but he was sensible enough to admit that he could blame no one but himself for his irrational behaviour.
The journey would have taken less than a day including changes before the war, but now it took him three days to get there. Bridges had been destroyed, tracks blown up, and the Russians inspected passes and issued delaying instructions at every station and checkpoint.
Hungarians had been forbidden to use railway stations, and although his pass gave him a dispensation, he thought it safer not to wait around at night when trains were unlikely to run. It was warm and he spent one night curled against his rucksack in a field of grass—grass was all that was left anywhere this spring—and another night sleeping in an ammunition train waiting for the morning departure. As he moved west the evidences of war were more prevalent, for as the Germans had been pushed back against the Austrian border, they had tried, once more, to launch delaying tactics. With only one more country, one more border before the Russians were on German soil, pockets of resistance had tried to hold for a few days. He learned that the German garrison had been cleared from Magyarovar on April 3 and that the town was still in post-battle chaos. The train was halted some 20 kilometres outside and soldiers began to unload ammunition. He was offered a ride in a jeep into Magyarovar but decided that from this distance it would be easier to walk across country direct to his sister’s village. His sister had married well—all his sisters had married well—to a landed peasant with a small but fertile patch; at least it had been fertile once. Now, as he looked about him, he supposed it would be like anywhere else, stripped, unsown, and devoid of cattle. So much to do, so much to do....
The last time he had visited here the fields had been full of sunflowers, moving their great dinner-plate heads round to gaze at the sun, a good rich crop of seed and oil. He was still, for all his early exile from the country, a child of the soil, and as he struck off across the fields he stared down at the ground, hoping that perhaps some of the flowers had seeded themselves for this year. There had been fighting in Magyarovar and, inevitably, some evidence had carried over into the surrounding countryside: an abandoned tank, a crater in a field, a bombed farmhouse. These things were nothing compared to the neglected fields, the lack of cattle, the things that meant no food next winter. What was he doing trekking across the country looking for the wife and children of his old master when he should be at home, trying to plan how they were going to cope with the bad months that lay ahead?
Madame Kaldy—the young Madame Kaldy—Terez, George: what were they to him? They were not the same people that young Nicky described to him, for Nicky had created an image of a pretty, silly, rather sharp-tempered Aunt Eva that bore no resemblance at all to the languid, distant lady he remembered from his youth. He could recall her sitting on the veranda, sipping juice from a long glass, playing tennis in a white dress, or alighting from a car or carriage carrying parcels and smelling of city perfume. Terez he could remember, a jovial baby up at the farm whom he once prevented from falling into the river and, after that, a schoolgirl who always smiled when they met in the town and said, “Good morning, Janos Marton,” making it plain that in spite of the age difference, and the fact that he was a schoolteacher, she still considered him the Marton boy from her father’s estate. George was a schoolboy whom he knew only by sight. What were these people to him? Why had he come to look for them?
During the months that Nicky was in hiding, the boy had talked incessantly of his family, relating stories and family jokes. At first he had listened because he could not be cruel. And then, in spite of himself, he had become fascinated by the incredible descriptions that in no way matched up to his memories of the amoebic country family. Uncle Adam—who had set the pandur to beat the truth out of his father—a dull, fair, and kindly man? Uncle Leo—that weak, over-emotional pseudo-liberal—a brave and adventurous rebel? Nicky’s mother, Kati Racs-Rassay—a timid mouse who had disgraced her family—a brilliant, talented cosmopolitan? And so it went on, the people whom Janos had watched from childhood, watched fascinated because they had lifted him from his world in a careless amused way just as they put out crumbs for birds or fed stray dogs, revealed as many-faceted humans, not gods to be hated or r
evered. There was only one where Nicky’s description matched his own recollection, “Aunt Malie.” He too remembered her as kindly, gentle, concerned; even that time she had visited him, accusing him of being in league with the Germans and Arrow Cross, even then he had recognized her gentleness. But of the others, none were the same.
In the distance, across the fields, he saw the smudge of buildings and he swung his rucksack to the other shoulder and wiped sweat from his neck. Soon he could complete this ridiculous mission and go home, to a future he had carved for himself and where Nicky could be his friend or not as he pleased. He stared at the village—something wrong—and realized that the shape and colour of it had changed. It was dirtier, flatter... bombed. His heart quickened, as did his pace. He did not want his sister to be dead—even though they meant little to each other he did not want her to be dead. He did not want the others to be dead either; if he found their bodies he would have to tell Nicky—he shut the thought down and ran towards the ruined houses. The main street was flattened, just walls and chimneys rising from heaps of rubble. There were still some houses in the side streets, whole houses, and some that could be lived in even though they were damaged. He ran into the maze of smashed clay and earth, finding his way unerringly amidst the blurred roads to the house that had been his sister’s. It wasn’t there.
He stared, unbelieving. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a battered village, but this was his sister’s home, and now there was nothing, just some remnants of wall and fireplace, not even broken furniture—nothing. He clambered over the wall and began to tear at the rubbish. “Elza? Elza?”
“They’ve gone.” Behind him an old woman—why did the war seem to leave nothing but old women?—leaned on a stick and watched him over the wall. “They went before the Russians came; quite a few did. They decided to go back behind the German lines.”
Fool! Elza had always been a fool. Did she think by continually moving back before the advancing line she could miss the war? The nearer they got to Germany the worse it was going to be. Why hadn’t she stayed and got the unnerving transition over with?
“If she had stayed,” the old woman said cannily, “she would have been killed when the shell hit the house.”
“Of course. Thank you,” he said coldly, and then, as she began to move away, “Do you know what happened to the—the people who were staying with her, a dark-haired woman with her daughter and son?”
The old woman’s eyes glittered maliciously. “The Jews, you mean?” she asked. “The Jews with false papers?”
Shock again. Jews? The family he had feared and hated and thought of for so long, dismissed merely as Jews with false papers?
“What happened to them? Did the Gestapo—’’
“No.” She shrugged. “We knew they were Jews but we never told; we never told the Germans anything. And they paid well—your sister had money arrive every month—but when the Germans began to retreat your sister said that the Jews could not go back with her. It was too dangerous. The Gestapo would have killed her for helping them.”
“So they went... somewhere else?” he asked. She was already walking away, shuffling along between the rubble, bending now and again to see if there was anything worth salvaging on the road.
“They stayed here. They’re living in what is left of the Dobi house, up on the left, next door to where the butcher used to be.”
He began to run, and as he did so he felt that old familiar implosion of happiness. He had succeeded; he had found them. Nicky, Nicky, I’ve found them for you. Your family, a little more family for you so that you will not be quite alone when you realize your mother will never come back. For a moment, as he ran, jumping over heaps of dirt and clay, he was Nicky, running to meet them, Aunt Eva, Terez, George. They were safe, and he had found them.
There were two walls, a mountain of rubble, a chimney, and part of a roof. Someone had piled up pieces of stone to form a fourth low protection against the wind. The makeshift wall obviously kept falling, because that someone was trying to rebuild it, filling a basket with broken stones and trying to block up the holes.
“Terez!” She turned, and his stomach twisted suddenly and he couldn’t say anything else. That face again, that thin, ill, but smiling face with the bright brown eyes and the hope not yet killed, the face he thought he had left behind him back in the town, the face of a happy child who had been made desolate by the war. The face, framed by thick curly hair in braids, stared at him, unbelieving. It crumpled, and then the eyes widened, just the way Nicky’s did.
“Janos! Janos Marton! From home! You’ve come from home!” The girl’s body—how tiny she was, how thin and tiny—was against him, her arms clinging round his neck, her face buried hard into his chest. “You’ve come from home,” she sobbed. “You’ll help us! That’s why you’ve come, to help us!” Her arms had dropped from his neck and were riveted around his waist, her head boring into his chest. “Dear, dear Janos! From home!”
He had never comforted anyone except his mother, but for a moment he found he knew how to do it—you put your arms back round them and rocked a little—only for a moment, and then the astonishment and horror of what was happening became uppermost and, gently, he pushed the girl away.
“Terez? Who is it?” The querulous voice helped. It came from behind the shelter and it was curious to hear it like this, the voice that he had only heard distantly before, talking to servants, now coming from a ruin while he held the voice’s daughter in his arms.
“It’s Janos, Mama! Janos Marton from home! He’s come to help us. He’ll get us better and then take us home again. You will, won’t you?” she asked anxiously, suddenly afraid that he’d come for a different reason. “You can’t help your sister; she’s gone. You’ll help us, won’t you?” One large tear rolled softly down her face. “I can’t manage any more on my own.”
He clambered over the improvised wall into the makeshift shelter. There was a broken chair on which her mother was sitting. It was supported underneath by bricks that extended out to form a kind of couch. Aunt Eva—Mrs. Kaldy—yellow and petulant, huddled into herself. In the corner on a blanket, very very still, the boy George was lying.
“What’s wrong with the boy?”
“He’s broken his leg. I’ve done the best I could. I tried to set it with splints, the way Papa used to sometimes with the horses—do you remember? But he’s getting worse. He has a fever. I don’t know what else to do.” The eyes huge and a rising note of hysteria in her voice. He knelt down by George and pulled back the coat that was over him. Above the knee and on the shin were two huge, misshapen swellings. Strips of black cloth held a broom handle down the side of the distorted limb.
“How did it happen?”
“He fell and—”
“Fell?” shrieked Mrs. Kaldy. “Fell? He was pushed and beaten by those—those pigs. He behaved like a true man, my poor little boy.” She began to sob. “He saw what those filthy animals were going to do to his mother and sister and behaved like a hero! A hero, I tell you! My poor little boy, poor brave little boy.”
Terez’s face had drained of colour, ugly in distress, eyes huge again, and he looked away.
“Never did I think we would suffer like that. My poor child, my poor daughter, so sheltered—and those filthy Russians! What kind of animals are they? They have destroyed me. Destroyed me, I tell you. What shall we do with ourselves? I ask you, what shall we do?”
One of the bricks supporting the chair became dislodged, mostly because Eva was swaying back and forth in dramatic frenzy. When she felt the chair slip she gave a little shriek and began to moan again.
He could feel Terez beside him, strung taut like a cat, and because he understood he made no effort to look at her or touch her. He examined the leg, then lifted one of George’s eyelids.
“I think you have done everything that could be done for the leg,” he said softly. “But I don’t like the fever. I think he has something wrong with his chest.”
“I trie
d to get medicine from the Russians.” She stared hard, down at the ground. “One of the officers finally gave me two pills—aspirin, I think.” In the background Mrs. Kaldy was working up to a fresh paroxysm of screams. The screams were interposed with details of what had been done to her by the Russians and what had been done to her child.
He saw Terez shudder, watched something in the eyes blank out and be replaced by an embryonic madness. He put his hands on her shoulders and felt her flinch, then stiffen. “Excuse me one moment, Terez,” he said courteously, and then he crossed to Mrs. Kaldy and slapped her across the face. “Be quiet!” he snapped.
Her jaw dropped open. She stared, then drew breath.
“Please don’t speak or moan any more, Mrs. Kaldy, otherwise I shall be forced to hit you again. We are trying to get you and your son away from here. I have come here to do that. So please help, and if you can’t help, be quiet.”
She gave a further wailing shriek and then turned a face of venom at him. “You’re the same! A peasant! Like the rest of them who raped my daughter and did not even have the grace to leave her mother alone! You’re the same, Janos Marton! I remember you and your father; he was a thief and you’re no better! You think you can have my daughter just as they have had her, and—aaah!” The final shriek was swallowed into a gasp because this time the slap had come from Terez.
“Be quiet, Mama,” she cried. “You’re not helping us! You’re not helping us at all!”
“Mrs. Kaldy,” he said icily, “I came here specifically to look for you and your family. You have suffered, but no worse than many others. I do not intend to take a screaming, insane woman back through the country when it is in its present condition. If you do not behave, remain quiet, and do exactly as you are told, I shall leave you here. It would be far easier for me to leave you here, and I will happily do so.”
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