Leah's Children

by Gloria Goldreich

Their waiter, a slight young man, treated them with extreme courtesy. He knew who they were. The story of Paul Groszman had spread through Budapest. His name was spoken softly, reverently. A small bonfire had been lit on the spot where he had died, and passersby kept it alive by adding twigs and papers to the low-burning brave flame.

  The fighting continued, the waiter told them as he poured Aaron’s coffee, Lydia’s tea. He himself had decided to resign his position at the hotel and join his friends, who had formed a fighting unit at the Corvin Cinema. He waved away the tip that Aaron offered him. He had been a comrade-in-arms to Paul Groszman. There could be no question of an exchange of money between like-minded men, warriors for freedom.

  “We must make plans,” Aaron said when they were alone. “Now is the time to leave. There is nothing more that you and I can do to help, and the situation is so uncertain.”

  “But in the end we will win.” Her voice was as timorous as that of a child asking for reassurance. Will everything be all right? Paul must not have died in vain. Please tell me that there was reason to his death. The unspoken questions glittered in the unnatural brightness of her blue eyes.

  “I don’t know what will happen,” he said honestly. “Everything depends on what the Russians do. If they make a show of force, how will the Americans react? It’s a question of timing. If all this had happened after the American elections, everything might be different. But Eisenhower and Stevenson are both caught up in their campaigns, and neither has outlined a scenario for Hungary.”

  “But things are not as they were under Stalin. There is a softening. Khrushchev and Andropov are different. There were no Soviet tanks at the radio station.” Her voice was insistent and vaguely querulous. He welcomed her argument. It marked an emergence from the first stage of mourning. And she was not entirely wrong. A Hungarian bullet had killed Paul Groszman, not a Russian grenade. Even in death there were gradations. They had lost Paul and were comforted because his death had been swift. He was dead, but his death was the result of a demonstration gone berserk, not of a Soviet onslaught. Tragedy was ameliorated and rationalized until it became bearable.

  “What you say is true,” Aaron conceded. “But men like Andropov take their time. They wait to see which way the wind is blowing. They wait until the songs are silenced and the paper flags are ripped and the carnations are wilted. And while they are waiting they say ‘yes’ and ‘maybe’ while all the time, perhaps, they mean ‘no, never.’”

  “You are so cynical,” she said bitterly. Anger froze her voice, sorrow dulled her eyes. “Paul died full of hope. Ferenc never despaired.”

  Paul and Ferenc Groszman formed a shadowy but impenetrable barrier between them. Aaron competed with the shades and beliefs of the dead. If he slept with Lydia, would she whisper Ferenc’s name into the darkness? If they had a son, would she compare him with Paul? And would he call out for Katie? They were ghost-haunted, the two of them, bereft but entangled. And yet it was possible to break free of the past—his mother had done it and so had David Goldfeder. He felt a brief surge of courage, a new tenacity.

  “It is not cynical to confront the truth.” He kept his voice hard. “We must make a decision. We must leave Budapest as soon as possible.”

  “Yes.” She looked down at the table, her slender fingers again constructing a roadway of bread crumbs—the remembered gesture of their first meeting. He was right, she knew. She was too well trained in the assessment of problems, of alternatives, not to see that.

  “I’ll call Tom Hemmings. Your papers are in order. He’ll arrange for an immediate hearing.”

  He left to phone the embassy. Lydia stared into her teacup as though she might read the future in the blackened, muddied dregs. Soon it would all be over. They would leave Budapest. Efficient Tom Hemmings would arrange everything. She looked up as Aaron returned to the table and saw that his face was ashen, his eyes clouded with sorrow.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “There was an accident. Tom and Betty drove to the Lake Balaton district, and at the Bickskel intersection their car was rammed by a truck. Betty was killed, Tom is badly hurt. He’s in the hospital.”

  “Betty is dead?” Lydia asked, and her voice was shrill with disbelief. She pressed her fisted hands to her eyes. Another death. When would they receive news of life?

  Aaron nodded wordlessly.

  He thought of slender Betty Hemmings, who had only wanted to have a good time, to live an exciting life, to entertain others and be entertained herself. She would never be a mother. She would never be posted to Paris or to London. She would never laugh again with her Vassar classmates or walk the Hampton beach at the end of a summer’s day. He remembered now that Betty had caught Katie’s bouquet of wildflowers at their wedding. He imagined Betty lying on the concrete highway, like a fragile broken doll, and again he saw Katie’s lifeless body, a ribbon of blood trailing from her pale lips. Nausea swept over him, and he fought desperately for control as Lydia watched him. She understood instinctively, he knew. She did not speak but filled a water glass and gave it to him. He drained it thirstily, as though the water were a secret elixir that would restore his balance, lessen his pain.

  “Look,” he said finally, “Tom’s assistant is going to try to get things moving. It will take a little longer, of course, but it will give you a chance to get things in order. What do you have to do?”

  “Just some packing. My papers are in order, and I’ve already disposed of most of my things. But I want to get to the laboratory and collect my data. I should have kept copies.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” he said.

  “Known what?”

  “That today the whole world would be turned upside down.”

  They laughed bitterly together then, declaring a truce, a respite against new grief and lingering sorrow.

  *

  THEY never reached the university. The Russians had at last come to a decision, made their move. They would not relinquish their hold on Hungary. They had never planned to. Aaron understood now that Andropov’s message had been a warning and they had ignored it. He cursed himself for his stupidity, his optimism.

  The ancient city of bridges and boulevards had become a battlefield. Soviet tanks rolled through the streets, and small children dashed after them, hurling bottles of gasoline. The church bells, stilled for so many years, chimed in melodic threnody and clashed with the staccato tympany of automatic rifle fire. Rumors abounded. The Russians controlled the university. The revolutionaries occupied the newspaper offices. It was dangerous to walk in the old quarter. The Corvin Cinema and the Killian Barracks were held by the insurgents, the freedom fighters.

  Aaron and Lydia walked slowly, cautiously, pressing their bodies against buildings, keeping their heads down. Twice, when the sounds of automatic weapons were dangerously close, he thrust her to the ground, shielding her body with his own.

  “We can’t go on,” he said finally. “It’s too dangerous. How important is it that you have that data?”

  “I can rerun the experiments,” she said. “It would have been helpful, but it isn’t vital.”

  Her voice was weary. Her revolution of songs and flowers, of paper torches and passionate poetry, had turned into a nightmare of tanks and explosives, blood and fire. Her shoes were sticky because she had walked through a puddle of blood. Whose blood? she wondered. They had seen no body. She was weighted with sorrow. The sonar experiments on which she had worked for so many months seemed unimportant now.

  “All right, then. If we can, we’ll make it back to the Grand Hotel. If not, we’ll go straight to the American embassy,” Aaron said decisively.

  “All right.” She was too exhausted to argue with him, to suggest an alternative plan. Most probably he was right. She was grateful to him now for his forceful direction, his ability to make a swift decision.

  They crossed Museum Boulevard and paused at the small bonfire that burned still on the spot where Paul had died. She bent and added a twig to the
flames. She thought to say a prayer, but instead she murmured a farewell.

  “Goodbye, Paul. My friend. My son.” No tears came. They had been dried by a terrible, absorbing sadness. Her grief was as heavy as stone; it did not require the moisture of tears.

  Aaron’s hand came down heavily on her shoulder.

  “Close your eyes,” he said harshly. “Don’t look.”

  Reflexively, she obeyed him, and he guided her past the street lamp where a dead AVO man was suspended by the neck. The bulb was still lit, and its orange glow illuminated the face of the corpse, which grinned at them like a grotesque jack-o’-lantern. He hurried her off the tumultuous main thoroughfare and onto a small side street that seemed peaceful and deserted. Like many Budapest byways, the small street curved intriguingly, and it was only after they had walked several paces that he saw that a Soviet tank blocked the exit.

  “Just remain calm,” he told Lydia. “I don’t think they’ll stop us.”

  But the click of her heels alerted the Russian who sat astride the tank. He wheeled around, his carbine lifted in readiness.

  Odd that he should be alone, Aaron thought. The tank was a TX 34, made in a single weld and impervious to the Molotov cocktails. It was always manned by a crew of two or more. But of course the Russian was probably waiting for his partner, who had gone off to answer nature’s call. Even during a revolution men had to empty their bladders.

  The Russian lowered himself to the ground, drew his gun, and approached them. He barked a question at them in Russian.

  “Say nothing,” Aaron cautioned Lydia, whose fingernails dug deeply into his wrists. He felt the skin break and was dimly grateful for the pain.

  “I don’t understand Russian,” he said, and began to reach into his pocket for his passport.

  The Russian’s arm shot out and restrained him. Aaron stood patiently while his body was frisked and his passport removed and closely studied. The Russian glanced at him and then at his picture. He passed his hand across the green cover, fingered the paper. When he returned to Moscow he would authoritatively describe the American’s passport, embellishing the incident. Aaron did not begrudge him his moment of power.

  “I am an American tourist,” he said firmly. “And this is my fiancée.” He drew a protective arm about Lydia.

  “Tourist,” the Russian repeated. “Americanski touristka.” He smiled proudly. He had understood the word. Now he approached Lydia.

  “Also touristka,” Aaron said.

  But the Russian frowned.

  “Nyet,” he said. “Nyet touristka.”

  Aaron followed his eyes. The man was staring at the small Hungarian tricolor, the symbol of the revolution, that was pinned to the collar of her scarlet cape. He cursed himself mentally. He had secured it there himself, damn fool that he was, to have been deceived by sunlight and songs, by laughter and flowers.

  The Russian grabbed her arm, and she pulled away. She pummeled him and shouted angrily, and her eyes glinted with fury. The soldier’s eyes narrowed. His teeth clenched. Again he clutched Lydia’s arm, and she spat in his face. Her spittle rested in a foaming globule on the man’s cheek; his skin was rage-mottled, his fists brutal. Lydia broke away from his grasp yet again, and the Russian steadied his carbine, took aim. Swiftly Aaron thrust himself between them, seized the Russian’s wrist, and dug his knee into the man’s groin. Forgotten secrets of combat flooded back, poured strength into his limbs. He wrestled the man to the ground and smelled the sourness of his breath commingled with the stink of the flatulence that came with fear.

  “Zhid,” the Russian hissed scornfully, clawing at the menorah pin in Aaron’s lapel.

  Aaron’s fist smashed against his mouth. The man screamed in pain, spitting out blood and splinters of enamel, but still he kept his grip on the weapon. Lydia screamed, and Aaron twisted the man’s wrist. Fury ruled his body now; an unloosed rage possessed him. He was claiming vengeance at last—vengeance for his unknown father, the redheaded youth in the blue cambric shirt beaten to death on an Odessa street. His father’s murderers had also shouted “Zhid” and brandished deadly weapons. He avenged his mother—the young Leah, stripped and raped beneath the lombardy tree by a Russian who hissed obscenities into her ear and poured his seed into the uterine cove that sheltered the fetus that had been Aaron.

  All the angers of his life, the loneliness of his childhood, the betrayals of his youth, and the bereavements of his young manhood were concentrated now on this adversary who battled him on a narrow street in a city that was not his own. He struck another blow—this one for sweet-voiced Paul, who would never sing again.

  The Russian strained to reach the weapon that had clattered to the ground, but Aaron reached for his throat. With thumb and forefinger he pressed down on the carotid artery, pushing with all his weight against the leathery neck. The Russian ripped at his body, clawed at his face, until at last his fingers weakened. His body slumped and he fell to the ground, moving heavily from the death grasp of Aaron’s fingers. Foam rimmed his lips and his face was the color of ashes. Aaron heard Lydia’s scream, then a strangled sob and an unfamiliar rasping rattle. He looked down at the lifeless body and understood that he had killed a man.

  “Come.” He urged Lydia forward. The Russian had a partner who would return any minute. They ran onto a connecting square, mingled with the crowd, and turned down one side street and then another until at last Aaron found a phone kiosk. He removed the slip of paper with the phone number from his wallet. Use only if necessary, Yehuda had written. Well, it was necessary, damn necessary. Miraculously, Yehuda answered the phone after the first ring.

  “We must make arrangements to leave at once,” Aaron said. “There has been trouble.”

  Yehuda’s reply was calm, unsurprised. He did not ask what kind of trouble.

  “Go back to the hotel. I’ll contact you there,” he said and rang off.

  Aaron took Lydia’s arm. She leaned against him as though devoid of will, and slowly they made their way back to the Grand Hotel.

  The lobby was crowded. Departing guests and those who were frantically making arrangements for departure milled about. Liveried page boys marched about with their signboards indicating messages and phone calls. A large radio had been placed on the head porter’s counter, and a small group clustered about it, listening to the dispassionate tones of the Voice of America announcer.

  “Tension continues high today in Budapest, but the forces of freedom are gaining power. Student groups control the national radio. The Soviet-controlled newspapers have suspended publication. There is sporadic fighting, and a spirit of unrest prevails.”

  “We have to listen to transmissions from London to find out what is happening on the other side of the Danube,” a British businessman said bitterly. Just a few nights ago he had explained to Aaron that he and his wife had chosen to vacation at the Grand Hotel because Margaret Island was so peaceful and British sterling bought good value in Budapest. Now his fingers trembled as he lit his pipe, and he repeatedly checked his breast pocket as though to reassure himself that his British passport was in place.

  “You were in the city today, Mr. Goldfeder?” his wife asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What was happening?” Her voice was curious but dispassionate. She might be asking if he had been at the races and which horse had won.

  “It was not pleasant,” he replied. What would she say, he wondered, if he described the AVO officer he had seen hanging from the lamppost? And by the way, he would add, an hour ago I strangled a man—a Russian. I wonder what his name was. (Had his father’s murderer known his victim’s name? Were the scales somehow balanced then?)

  “The Russians are getting their comeuppance in any case,” her husband added. “The concierge says that the student radio reports that a couple of their tanks were hit by Molotov cocktails. And they found the body of one of their Ivans in an alley next to his tank. Strangled, they say.”

  Aaron saw Lydia sway, and he slipped his arm
about her waist.

  “If you’ll forgive us,” he said. “My fiancée is not feeling well.”

  Gently, he guided her to the iron cage of the lift. Once in his room, she stretched out on the bed, and he took a long, hot shower, soaping himself again and again.

  He studied his arms, his hands, the long freckled fingers from which tendrils of russet hair sprouted. He had killed a man with those fingers. And he had wanted to kill him. The remembered ferocity of his rage frightened him, yet he knew that he had had no choice. He allowed the water to rain down on his body in searing, cleansing torrents, and then he emerged from the shower and vomited into the high white sink. Mechanically he cleaned up the mess, then washed his face with very cold water and studied himself in the mirror. A jagged scratch scarred his cheek, and tiny pockets of flesh had been gouged from his chin. A light purple bruise rimmed his right eye, and he was vaguely surprised to discover that it was painful and tender to the touch.

  Lydia was asleep when he returned to the bedroom, but the phone in the living room was ringing.

  “Aaron Goldfeder here,” he said, and his own name sounded strange to him. He had read that there were societies where men who killed took on new names. But such men were murderers. He was not a murderer, he reminded himself. He had killed in self-defense. And no one would ever know that Aaron Goldfeder had killed a Russian soldier on a Budapest street. He wondered now at his own urgency in the call to Yehuda. He had not been thinking clearly. He was safe. Nothing connected him to the murder.

  “Yuri Andropov speaks.” The Russian’s voice was clipped, pedantic. There were those who said he practiced his accent and repeated the intonation of the announcers on Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

  “Good evening, Mr. Ambassador,” Aaron said calmly, although a wave of panic swept over him and he felt unfamiliar tremors in his fingers. The telephone receiver trembled in his hand. “What can I do for you this evening?”

  “I think it is I who can do something for you,” the Russian replied.

  “Oh?”