The Choice

by Edith Eger

  I give Marianne a bath and eat lunch with her. I put her down for her nap. I am buying myself time to think and making sure she gets all the nourishment and creature comforts she can. Who knows if we will sleep tonight, or where? I am living minute by minute. I don’t know what I will do next, only that I must find a way to get Béla out of jail and to keep our daughter safe. I gather everything that might come of use without arousing suspicion. While Marianne sleeps, I open my dresser drawer and take out the diamond ring Béla had made for me when we married. It’s a beautiful ring—a perfect diamond, round, set in gold—but it has always made me feel self-conscious and so I never wear it. Today I put it on. I put the papers Béla retrieved from the American consulate in Prague inside my dress, flat against my back, held to my body by the belt on my dress. I can’t look like a person who is on the run. I can’t use our bugged phone to call anyone for help. But I can’t bear to leave the house without contacting my sisters. I don’t expect them to be able to help us, but I want them to know we are in distress, that I might not see them again. I call Klara. She picks up the phone and I improvise. I try not to cry, I try not to let my voice tremble or crack.

  “I’m so happy that you’re coming to visit,” I say. There is no visit planned. I’m speaking in code. I hope she’ll understand. “Marianne has been asking for her Auntie Klarie. Remind me, what time is your train?”

  I hear her begin to correct or question me, then I hear the brief pause as she realizes that I’m trying to tell her something. Train, visit. What will she make of these scant clues? “We arrive this evening,” she says. “I’ll be at the station.” Somehow, tonight, will she meet us on a train? Is this what we have just arranged? Or is our conversation too coded even for us to understand?

  I tuck our passports into my purse and wait for Marianne to wake. She has been toilet-trained since she was nine months old, but when I dress her after her nap she allows me to put a diaper on her, and I fold my gold bracelet into it. I don’t take anything else with me. I can’t look like a person who is fleeing. Everything I say for the rest of the day, for as long as it takes to get us to safety, I will say in that language I find under duress, that way of being that is not authoritarian or domineering but also is not cowering or weak. To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. And to trust that there is enough, that you are enough.

  Oh, but I’m shaking. I leave the house with Marianne in my arms. If I act correctly, I won’t be returning here to the Eger mansion, not today, maybe not ever. We will be on our way, tonight, to make our new home. I keep my voice low-key. I talk to Marianne nonstop. In the twenty months since Marianne’s birth, besides nursing, this has been my success as a mother: I tell my daughter everything. I narrate what we are doing throughout the day. I name the streets and the trees. Words are treasures that I offer her again and again. She can speak in three languages: Hungarian, German, and Slovak. “Kvetina,” she says, pointing at a flower, saying the word in Slovak. From her I relearn what it is to be safe and curious. And in return, this is what I can provide for her—I can’t stave off danger, but I can help her know where she stands and what she’s worth. I keep up the monologue so that there is no room for the voice of fear.

  “Yes, a flower, and look at the oak, all leafed out, and there’s the milk truck. We’ll go see the man at the police station now, it’s a big, big building, like our house, but with long hallways inside …” I talk as though this is an ordinary excursion, as though I can be to her the mother I need for myself.

  The police station is intimidating. When the armed guards usher me into the building, I almost turn away and run. Men in uniforms. Men with guns. I can’t tolerate this expression of authority. It spins me out, unplants me. I lose myself and my direction in the current of their threat. But every minute I wait heightens the danger for Béla. He has already shown that he is not a person who rolls over and complies. And the Communists have already shown that they are intolerant of dissent. To what lengths will they go to teach him a lesson, to extract from him some imagined piece of information, to bend him to their will?

  And what about me? How will I be punished when I reveal my purpose here? I summon the confidence I found the day I bought penicillin from the black market dealer. Then, the biggest risk was that he would say no. I risked more if I didn’t ask for what we needed to save Marianne’s life. Today, asserting myself could lead to retaliation, imprisonment, torture. And yet, not to try, that is a risk too.

  The warden sits on a stool behind a high counter. He is a large man. I am afraid Marianne will observe that he is fat, say it too loudly, and ruin our chances. I make eye contact. I smile. I will treat him not as he is, but as I trust he can be. I will talk to him as though I already have the thing that I want. “Thank you, sir,” I say in Slovak, “thank you very much for giving my daughter back her father.” His forehead creases in confusion. I hold his eyes. I take off my diamond ring. I hold it toward him. “A reunion between a father and a daughter is a beautiful thing,” I continue, twisting the jewel back and forth so that it shines like a star in the dim light. He eyes the diamond and then stares up at me for an interminable moment. Will he call for his superior? Will he pull Marianne from my arms and arrest me too? Or will he seize something good for himself and help me? My chest tightens and my arms ache as he weighs his choices. Finally, he reaches for the ring and slips it into his pocket.

  “Name?” he says.

  “Eger.”

  “Come.”

  He takes me through a door and down some stairs. “We’re going to get Daddy,” I tell Marianne, as though we’re meeting him at the train. It’s a dismal, sad place. And the roles are topsy-turvy. How many of those locked up aren’t criminals at all but the victims of misused power? I haven’t been around prisoners since I was a prisoner myself. I feel ashamed, almost, to be on this side of the bars. And I am terrified that in a moment of arbitrary horror we might be made to switch places.

  Béla is in a cell by himself. He’s wearing his regular clothes—no uniform—and he jumps up from the cot when he sees us, reaching for Marianne’s hands through the bars.

  “Marchuka,” he says. “Do you see my funny little bed?”

  He thinks we are here for a visit. One of his eyes is black. There’s blood on his lip. I see him wearing two faces—the innocent and happy one for Marianne, the quizzical one for me. Why have I brought a child into a prison? Why am I giving Marianne this image that she will always know by heart, even if she can’t call it by its name? I try not to feel defensive. I try to make my eyes tell him he can trust me. And I try to shower him with love, the only thing bigger than fear. I have never loved him more than I do at this moment, when he knows instinctively how to make a game for Marianne, to reduce this bleak and terrifying place into something harmless.

  The warden unlocks the cell. “Five minutes!” he yells loudly. He pats the pocket that holds the diamond ring. And then he retreats down the corridor, his back toward us.

  I tug Béla through the cell door and I don’t breathe until we are on the street again, Béla, Marianne, me. I help Béla wipe the blood off his lip with his dirty handkerchief. We begin walking toward the train station. We don’t have to discuss it. It’s as though we have planned it all, his arrest, our sudden escape. We are making everything up as we go along, but there’s the giddy feeling of moving quickly through deep snow, stepping into leftover footprints, the surprise of finding that the tracks already laid out fit our feet and our speed. It’s as though we have already taken this journey in another life and now we operate on memory. I am glad Béla can carry Marianne. My arms are almost numb.

  The important thing is to get out of the country. To get away from the Communists. To get to the closest place where the Allies have a presence. At the train station I leave Béla and Marianne on a secluded bench and go alone to buy three tickets for Vienna and an armful of sandwiches. Who knows when we will eat agai
n?

  We still have forty-five minutes to wait for the next train. Forty-five more minutes for Béla’s empty cell to be discovered. Of course they will send officers to the train station. The train station is where you go to track down a fugitive, which is what Béla is now. And I’m his accomplice. I count my breaths to keep from trembling. When I rejoin my family, Béla is telling Marianne a funny story about a pigeon that thinks he’s a butterfly. I try not to look at the clock. I sit on the bench, Marianne is in Béla’s lap, I lean against them, try to keep Béla’s face obscured. The minutes tick slowly by. I unwrap a sandwich for Marianne. I try to eat a bite.

  Then an announcement that makes my teeth chatter too violently to eat. “Béla Eger, please report to the information booth,” the announcer drones. It cuts through the static of ticket transactions, of parents reprimanding their children, of separations and goodbyes.

  “Don’t look,” I whisper. “Whatever you do, don’t look up.” Béla tickles Marianne, trying to make her laugh. I’m worried they are making too much noise.

  “Béla Eger, come immediately to information,” the announcer calls. We can hear the urgency mounting.

  At last the westbound train pulls into the station.

  “Get on the train,” I say. “Hide in the bathroom in case they search the train.”

  I try not to look around for the police officers as we hurry to board. Béla runs with Marianne on his shoulders. She shrieks delightedly. We have no luggage, which made sense on the streets, walking here, but now I’m worried that the absence of luggage will arouse suspicion. It will take nearly seven hours to reach Vienna. If we manage to get out of Prešov, there is still the threat that police might board at any stop to search the train. There was no time to procure fake identification. We are who we are.

  We find an empty compartment, and I busy Marianne at the window, counting all the shoes on the platform. After springing Béla from jail, I can hardly tolerate the idea of his being out of my sight. I can’t stand for the danger to continue, to mount. Béla kisses me, he kisses Marianne, and goes to hide in the bathroom. I wait for the train to start moving. If the train can just leave the station, we are an inch closer to freedom, a second closer to Béla’s return.

  The train won’t move. Mama, Mama, I pray. Help us, Mama. Help us, Papa.

  The compartment door folds open and a police officer gives us a quick glance before shutting the door. I hear his boots as they move down the aisle, I hear other doors opening and shutting, I hear him shouting Béla’s name. I chatter at Marianne, I sing, I keep her looking out the window. And then I fear that we will see Béla in handcuffs, being pulled from the train. At last I see the conductor lift his stool from the platform and board the train. The car doors close. The train begins to move. Where is Béla? Is he still on the train? Has he managed to escape detection? Or is he on his way back to jail, to a certain beating—or worse? What if every turn of the wheels brings us farther apart, farther from a life we can make together?

  By the time we reach Košice, Marianne is asleep in my arms. There is still no sign of Béla. I scan the platform for Klara. Is she here to meet us? Will Csicsi come? Has she understood the danger we’re in? What preparations has she made in the hours since we spoke?

  Just before the train pulls away from the Košice station, the compartment door opens, and Béla rushes in, giddy from adrenaline. “I have a surprise!” he calls before there is time to quiet him. Marianne opens her eyes, she is disoriented, she fusses. I rock her, side to side, I reach for my husband. My husband who is safe.

  “Don’t you want to see my surprise?” He pulls the door open again. And there are my sister Klara, and Csicsi, and a suitcase, and her violin.

  “Any seats free in here?” Csicsi asks.

  “Little one!” Klara says, as she pulls me to her chest.

  Béla wants to tell how he evaded the police search in Prešov, and Csicsi wants to recount how they discovered one another here in Košice, but I am superstitious. It seems like counting chickens before they’ve hatched. In myths, nothing good comes from gloating. You have to let the gods maintain the image of their singular power. I haven’t even told Béla yet about the ring, about how I got him out of jail. He hasn’t asked.

  The train is moving again. Marianne falls back asleep with her head on Béla’s lap. Csicsi and Klara whisper their plans: Vienna is the perfect place to await their visas for Australia, the time is right to leave Europe, to join Imre in Sydney. I can’t let myself picture Vienna yet. I hold my breath at every station. Spišska Nová Ves. Poprad-Tatry. Liptovský Mikuláš. Žilina. Three more stops before Vienna. Trenčín yields no catastrophe. No crisis at Trnava. We’re almost there. At Bratislava, the border crossing, the place of our honeymoon, the stop drags on. Marianne wakes up, feeling the stillness.

  “Sleep, baby, sleep,” Béla says.

  “Hush,” I say. “Hush.”

  On the platform, in the dark, we see a dozen Slovakian soldiers walking toward the train. They spread out, approaching the cars in pairs. Soon they will be knocking on our door. They will ask for our identification. If they don’t recognize Béla’s face, they will see his name on his passport. It is too late to hide.

  “I’ll be back,” Csicsi says. He pushes out into the aisle, we hear his voice, the conductor’s, we see him step down onto the platform just as the soldiers reach the door. I will never know what Csicsi says to them. I will never know if money or jewels change hands. All I know is that after a series of excruciating moments, the soldiers tip their hats at Csicsi, turn, and walk back to the station. How did I face a selection line, sometimes every day, sometimes more than that? At least in a selection line the verdict comes quickly.

  Csicsi returns to the compartment. My heart has stopped its frenzied beating but I can’t bring myself to ask him how he convinced the soldiers to turn away. Our safety feels too fragile to count on. If we speak our relief out loud we risk destroying it. We are silent as the train moves on to Vienna.

  In Vienna we are little drops in the flow of 250,000 seeking refuge and passage to Palestine or North America since the end of the war. We take shelter at the Rothschild Hospital in the American-occupied part of the city. The hospital is being used as a center for refugees fleeing Eastern Europe, and the five of us are assigned to a room with three other families. Though it is already late at night, Béla leaves the room even before I have settled Marianne into a bed. He is intent on contacting Bandi and Marta, the friends from home with whom we have been planning to go to Israel, to tell them where we are. I rub Marianne’s back while she sleeps, listening to Klara’s whispered conversation with the other women who share our room. Here at the Rothschild Hospital are thousands like us, all awaiting help from Bricha. When we sat at our table eating sauerkraut soup with Bandi and Marta on New Year’s Eve, hatching the plan to start a new life in Israel, we were building something, not running away. But now, in a crowded room with other refugees, I realize the meaning of Bricha. Bricha is Hebrew for “flight.” We are in flight.

  Is our plan a sound one? The women in our room at Rothschild tell us about their friends who have already immigrated to Israel. It’s not an easy place to be, they say. After a year, the Arab-Israeli War is finally winding down, but the country is still a war zone. People live in tents, do what they must in a time of deep political unrest and continuing hostilities between Arabs and Jews. That is not the life we prepared for when we packed our boxcar. What good will our silver and china be in a tent surrounded by violent conflict? And what of the jewels sewn into Marianne’s clothes? They’re worth only what others will pay for them. Who wants to eat on gold plates that bear our name? It’s not the idea of hard work or poverty that creates a little drag of resistance in my stomach. It’s the reality of more war. Why start again if it yields nothing more than the same suffering?

  In the dark, waiting for Béla to return, I open the papers from the American consulate, the papers I was so adamant that Béla retrieve in Prague, that have
crossed the border with us, strapped against my back. Two Czechoslovakian families qualified for immigration to America. Just two. The other family, Béla learned when he went to Prague, has already left Europe, they chose to immigrate to Israel instead of America. It is our turn, if we choose to go. I turn the papers around in my hand, look at the words, blurry in the dim light, wait for them to crumble in my hands, to rearrange. “America, Dicuka,” I can hear my mother say. America is the hardest country to get into. The quotas are fierce. But if the letter is not a fraud, a hoax, we have a way in. Yet our fortune is in Israel. The letter must be a false invitation, I convince myself. No one wants you if you’re penniless.

  Béla comes in breathless, waking our roommates. He has managed to contact Bandi in the middle of the night. Tomorrow night our friends will travel to Vienna, we will meet them at the train station the following morning, and together we will travel to Italy where Bandi, with the help of Bricha, has secured our passage to Haifa by ship. We will go to Israel with Bandi and Marta as we have been planning since New Year’s Eve. We will build our macaroni factory. We are lucky to be leaving Vienna almost as soon as we have arrived. We won’t be waiting years, as Klara and Csicsi might have to in order to go to Australia.

  But I don’t feel joyful at the prospect of leaving Vienna in thirty-six hours, of having fled the postwar chaos of Prešov only to bring my daughter back to a volatile conflict zone. I sit on the edge of the bed, with the papers from the American consulate in my lap. I run my fingers over the ink. Béla watches me.