by Alan Lelchuk
“What is this ‘digging?’”
“Her investigative research.”
She smiled, more fully, not unlike an Ingrid Bergman smile. “Into me?”
“Oh, well, you’re part of it, yes.”
“And you are checking on other facts in her thesis?”
“Well, yes, I am, or will be.”
She had placed him squarely on the defensive, and he felt uncertain of his ground, actually. But he sipped his coffee and persevered, hearing the tinkling of glasses, low chatter.
“So, I will show you a few things if you wish, and you can check up on Angela’s work. She is very thorough, I will tell you, though.”
They took one of the trams, Zsuzsanna decrying his taxi suggestion, and in ten minutes they had wound their way to a stop near her apartment. They walked another six or eight minutes, past the impressive Parliament building by the river, and soon were climbing the stairs of an old shabby apartment building.
Her apartment was large, old, high-ceilinged, and fitted out with 1930s furniture. No upscaling or modernizing here. She escorted him through a dark vestibule into a kind of sitting room/salon, and through that to a large living room where she sat him down at a round wooden table. He was growing faintly excited. She asked if he wanted a tea or coffee, and he said sure. While she put it up, he looked around: a daybed in one corner covered with old brocade, a large dreary armoire, a desk and study chair and several bulging bookcases, a maroon upholstered reading chair. He stood and walked to one of the two large mullioned windows, and to his surprise was able to spot the river at the end of a long street between buildings. He checked out one of the pictures on the wall, an old family photograph, entirely foreign.
He sat back down and waited, staring at a bookcase protected by glass, and thinking how preposterous this whole thing was, this Hungarian woman inventing a life for herself, and blurring the line between the fictitious and the real. Well, that was fine for her, but not for history or Wallenberg. And for his student, well, he’d have to educate her gently in the way of hard investigating into original sources and hard documents.
“So, here we are. Can you move that notebook? Thanks.” And she set down a tray of small cakes and tea. Rather formal, with decorated porcelain teapot and cups and saucers; but why not? She was European. “Let’s let it settle for a few minutes, yes?”
“Are these ruglach?” he asked.
“Yes, they are.” She smiled at his recognition—a lovely smile, tarnished, he saw now, by yellowing teeth. She got up, walked to the old Winthrop-like secretary, removed from a drawer an old scrapbook, and brought it over.
“Here, some photos of my mother and her parents: as you can see, I look a good bit like her. And this is the same apartment, before they moved her.”
The enchantment of old photographs pasted on a scrapbook page, each held by four white corners, recalled his childhood scrapbooks.
Early on, small photos of the grandparents, a tall doctor with a goatee and a plump grandmother, with their only daughter, Zsuzsanna’s mom, Klara. Patience, he told himself, as they went through those nostalgic worn photos from the 1930s and ’40s. His host turned each ancient page as though it were a rare jewel, reminding him, because of the thick paper, of leafing through those old thick pages of the book catalogues at the British Museum. Zsuzsanna looked with an attached but restrained emotion, and her long fingers suggested the upright piano in the room. He was slowly drawn in to the atmosphere before and during the Great War, though the figures could have been his own mother and father, Russian immigrants.
“You do this often?” he asked.
A wry smile. “Some months yes, some no. Depends on my inside life. And also on Dora, my daughter, whenever she wishes to look through them.”
“Oh, your daughter. How old is she?”
“Twenty-nine. Perhaps you’ll meet her one day, if you stay long enough.”
She leafed through several more pages of these three-by-five black and white photos. Next came an enlargement of several photos of ID cards, one each of the mother and father, and a third of the daughter, Zsuzsanna’s mother. Each bore a stamp of the Swedish delegation, and a signature. “This is signed by Carl-Ivan Danielsson, the head of the diplomatic office; the other two by my father … Immediately afterward, we were taken to this apartment house, one of the first of the safety houses, you see? A plain, nondescript six-story apartment building, with corner balconies.” She had pulled her chair closer to his, and spoke in a small quiet voice, showing and telling him her family history. “Here,” and she turned to a photo of Wallenberg himself, the pale narrow face, the solemn stare; and alongside, a handwritten card of his phone numbers. Manny realized he was gradually getting hooked on this strange stuff, like a whiff of opium, and cautioned himself to take it easy.
A photograph of a railway station, a crowd of a few hundred Jews, several Arrow Cross soldiers and authorities. “Look, I show you something,” she gestured, taking up a magnifying glass, and holding it in position for him to gaze through. “There is my mother, you see? And here is my father, speaking with the local commandant.” Well, yes, it did look to be whom Zsuzsanna claimed it was. But so what? “He already knew her, you understand, originally from the orphanage, but pretended not to.”
Stay skeptical, he counseled himself; no real proof here. But she was performing well.
Zsuzsanna smoothed her hand over the next two crinkled pages, proudly displaying photographs of her young mother, a pretty woman of eighteen or so, with flowing dark hair and a lovely smile, a good looking Jewish maidela. “She was active in the resistance already as a teenager, in late 1943, and then became a helper to the woman who became Raoul’s secretary, Elizabeth Nako, once he realized his true mission in Budapest.”
“Oh,” he said, going along with the story.
“And here you will see, the two of them together …”
Well, what he saw was what appeared to be Wallenberg and the same young woman in several photos, with the faces ambiguous, though, and the figures in rooms or outdoors in parks, also too shadowy for clear identification. What was he seeing?
“You may say it was a great mitzvah, you realize, this union,” she explained, leaning back, exalted at the photos, the thought, “A young Hungarian Jewish girl and this older Swedish diplomat who was turning into a demigod. I believe that it was his love for my mother which truly inspired his great mission.”
“Oh,” he murmured, not wanting just now to break her spell. He couldn’t resist saying, “He did have a task assigned to him in Stockholm, though, by the Hungarian businessman and by—”
“A task assigned is not the same as inspiration, Professor,” she corrected, taking his wrist for just a moment. “It is inspiration that drives great missions, not the assignment of tasks.”
He nodded, drained his cup, and felt the room to be losing all its light somehow.
“And here you can see the true union.” She shifted course and smiled radiantly, and pointed to a strange photo, again shadowy and hard to read, of a man and woman and a rabbi with tallis holding a book, in the outdoors, with overhead boughs crossing. “You know what this is?” she asked.
What could he say? What the hell was she getting at?
“You are not Jewish, are you?”
Did he redden from shame or anger? “Yes, I am, actually.”
“And you don’t know what a chupah is?”
Looking hard at the odd, ambiguous photo, he kept his doubts private. “Yes, I do know what a chupah is—what Jews get married under.”
She shot him a look. Then, “Naturally. And there it is, on the outskirts of Budapest. A miracle, no?”
“A miracle,” he repeated dumbly. But, he wondered, how might he crash this miracle politely, without injuring feelings, and yet preserve trust? “You are sure that this is what it is, are you?”
Her face tightened, and the pale skin got color. “Bist du meshuggah? You are asking me about the most sacred photograph, most important me
mory, in my life, whether I am sure it is what it is? Yes, Professor, I am sure it is what it looks like,” she noted derisively, “a marriage ceremony according to Jewish law and tradition.” She shut tightly the scrapbook and checked her wristwatch.
“Wait, please,” he pleaded, “you mustn’t misunderstand me, Zsuzsanna. I was only asking, you realize. Of course, I don’t doubt you or your veracity, but the photograph, well, it is a little vague or shadowy, you will admit, as to its participants. Not,” he reassured her, sounding somewhat foolish in his imploring, “its underlying meaning.”
“Enough for one day at least.” She relented slightly in her stiffness. “More tea, this time with some milk or lemon?”
“Lemon,” he said, resting easier.
She poured a second cup, spooned him a wedge on his saucer, and said, “Please be honest with me. What is it you want to know about my father?”
He felt he had to get back on the right track now, in order to explore further those pictures and the curious madness of this invented biography. Did it have a medical name? “Well, I want to know how come he was so special? I mean there were others who saved Jews, right? The wonderful Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, for example, and the Spanish ambassador, and even the Vatican’s man, Antonio Rotto—I forget their exact names. So what made your father”—he used the noun easily—“so different, so unique?”
She relaxed more fully, the lines of the face softening, and she brushed her hair from her forehead. “Do you know the word ‘tikkun?’”
“Well, I know the word, but not really the meaning.”
“It is a word that means healing, restoration. That is what my father brought to the Hungarian Jews in 1944. The sense of healing, recovery, in the middle of catastrophe; that is very special. And for that they loved him, you see. Not merely admired him, but loved him.” Her face grew luminous. “Wanted to touch him like touching the Torah itself, you understand? Others may have helped Jews, but from afar, and with letters and papers; my father stood with them bodily on the ground, at the railway stations, on the streets, at warehouses or on the forced marches, always.” She stared at, scrutinized, him, to see if he was understanding the depth of her words. He followed her eyes closely. “I would not call him their zaddik, you know; he wasn’t quite that; he was their mentor, their tikkun; their on-the-ground living moshiach, you may say, though that is blasphemy for our people. But the Soviets, later on, knew what they were doing when they took him away and kept him locked up, in isolation; their vengeance was Stalinist anti-Semitism. But he tricked them, even then.” Her smile was filled with furtive pleasures.
“How do you mean?”
“Never mind, Professor, never mind. And please, it is late, I must do my errands.”
Had she somehow gone too far? In any case, he was escorted out and returned to the busy streets and his hotel room and his swirling thoughts. He took notes. What did she mean by that last remark about tricking the Soviets after all? More tantalizing but fraudulent leads? He felt annoyed with himself for putting up with the charade for so long and not getting tougher with Madame Frank. Oh, well, that was not really needed. Let her be. A cultish nut? A self-styled mystic? A would-be astrologer? Whatever. The main point was, after two hours plus in that dark room of her strange fantasy, he was delighted to be out and connected again to the real world.
Should he leave early for Moscow? he pondered. And rid himself, for now anyway, of that haunted lady? That would be best, he thought, glancing at CNN and packing. After a bit, he went for a walk, hit up a travel agent, and boarded Trolley 64, bumping along and remembering the old electric trolleys at Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn. He headed over to Margaret Island, a recreation park situated on the Danube between Pest and Buda, a ten-minute ride away. Presently he was wandering in that wonderful park, opened in May for the season, enjoying the warm sunshine and the parade of citizens out walking, bicycling, sunbathing, picnicking. What a relief after that room of dark memories and Madame’s fantasies! He decided to rent a motorized golf cart and ride leisurely through the strip of island, a few miles in length.
He was feeling at loose ends; what was he doing here now? What was this mad lady’s relation to Raoul? Was there one, in some bizarre way? In Moscow would he be able to dig up some hard facts, a counter to this mystical adventure? Who could have imagined such a scene? Here in the broad sunshine, in his little cart, he felt himself driven, heading somewhere. But where? Toward further mystery, further illusion, or toward real explanation, a surprising truth? …
And should he not try for a pit stop in Stockholm—he thought, darting around and heading back—and try to meet with the living Wallenbergs? To ask some hard questions about the dead one, and their family’s role in Raoul’s ordeal? What did those rich uncles and powerful cousins know, or remember and lock away? And how in the world might Detective Gellerman pursue those secrets? Clearly, whatever “scenes” the professor/scriptwriter had invented, or would invent, were to be equaled or eclipsed by the dark actualities, if they could be unearthed … Just consider the fantastical Zsuzsanna Wallenberg here in Budapest, and go from there …
Before heading back, he stopped for an ice cream at a stall, and realized there were more parts to this plot, and maybe more surprising characters, than he could have imagined …
CHAPTER 6
Picked up at Sheremetyevo airport by an appointed driver who held up a placard with his name on it, he had an immediate impression of Moscow as he rode away from the airport and slowly passed a huge truck on fire, blazing away, the heat visceral, creating a massive traffic jam on the incoming road. Where were the fire engines to pour water on the spectacular blaze? he wondered aloud, and his driver shrugged, smiled wanly, and said, “Russia.”
At the hotel he was too exhausted to go outside; he dove into bed, woke up in the middle of the night, read for an hour and a half, and returned to sleep.
In the morning, after a full breakfast, he was picked up, along with two other conference participants from Prague and Paris, and driven through the gray vast city to Moscow State University, a huge place. Soon, on the podium before about 150 people, he waited his turn along with four colleagues, and gave his little speech. He explained how Hungary’s coming entrance into the EU might help erase the heavy stain of recent history and politics, its self-betrayals and its persecutions, especially if the economy was prodded upward. He spoke about the literary and musical culture in the old Central and East Europe, especially during its years of Communist oppression, and emphasized how cultural expression was probably the best outlet for politically oppressed people. Did culture flourish as well in democratic societies? he asked rhetorically.
He listened to the next two speakers drone on about contemporary politics, and prayed for lunch. The last lecturer was a hefty Russian, and, speaking in a thick émigré accent, he jolted Manny alert with his talk. Concerning the Cold War, his talk also touched upon the case of Raoul Wallenberg; this Vladimir R. made the argument that RW was a rich dandy in his normal life, but in Budapest in 1944 was most probably a double spy who was at the center of the East-West political game. As he lumbered on, pumped by his conspiratorial theories, Manny came to understand that this was the fellow who had written the long unpublished essay that he had heard about, early on. Though he provided certain circumstantial notes for evidence, Manny remained skeptical but interested. Finally, after running fifteen minutes over his time, he was shut down by the moderator, and the call for lunch intermission was given.
As they moved toward the cafeteria, Manny sidled up alongside him, introduced himself, and said he’d love to read the unpublished manuscript.
“Of course, of course,” he said, taking Manny’s arm, enthused. “Where are you, England?”
“No, in New Hampshire.”
“Oh, well, that makes it very easy indeed. I will send it to you as an e-mail attachment when we return, all right? And you must give me your opinion on it please.” He paused and took out a pack of cigarettes. “I still need t
o complete the last section, but don’t worry, it will be worth it! I am hoping Harvard will publish it as a monograph. And now I must step outside for my smoke— American ways are sneaking into the Soviet—rather, Russian—state, sad to say.” Before departing he added, “I hope I didn’t offend you with my interpretation. But, you see, a lot of people think otherwise about Wallenberg; but what can you expect from a charming Swedish playboy?”
He smiled and shook his head. That last phrase played in his head.
In the cafeteria, an impoverished wood-paneled room, he took soup and a cheese and ham-style sandwich, and found a table.
A brown-haired middle-aged woman appeared, introduced herself, and said, “Please, I am Natasha Davidoff, you recall, yes?” and she handed him a card.
“Oh, yes,” he said to the would-be interpreter he had hired through e-mail. “Please join me.”
As they proceeded to chat, he was impressed by her English, her soft manner. He asked, “Have you had any luck with any of the names I gave you?”
“Not yet,” she acknowledged, “but I am still trying. You will be here longer than the conference, yes?”
“For a few days, that’s right.”
“Good. Maybe I can come up with someone of interest before you leave. Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to see a few of the relevant sites later today and tomorrow?”
They agreed to meet after the afternoon session, and he returned to the conference.
Fortunately, it ended about 3:15 p.m., and he was able to sidestep Vladimir and meet up with Natasha, who was waiting.
“Do you mind the metro? Much faster at this hour.”
They walked the ten minutes from the outsized university to the red-line stop, passing cheap kiosks selling sodas, chips, and chocolates, and rode down on the old escalator into the deep recess to catch their train. (“The Moscow subway system was built much farther down than the Western ones because of the fear of Nazi attacks,” she explained.) Within a minute it rumbled in, and they were whisked off.