Searching for Wallenberg

by Alan Lelchuk

  Presently he heard the sound of the wheels of the rolling cart. She wore an apron over her blouse and skirt while serving the cakes, pouring the tea.

  “I have this for you,” she said, placing a large book in his lap. “It’s in Hungarian, unfortunately. But you can glance through it, for the pictures. What is interesting is that it is a series of personal articles, all by Christians, about Raoul, but there is no mention of Jews, no memoirs by Jews. In other words, they are doing their best to change his acts and steal his true identity, for them, for the Christians. Can you imagine this?”

  Gellerman glanced through the well-made book, checked the familiar pictures, and looked up at Madame. “Why?”

  She furrowed her brow. “This is the way it is, in Hungary. Jews don’t count, especially dead Jews. And if you have saved them, then what is to be remembered is that you are a great Christian. And mention will be made only of the Christians you have saved.” She sipped tea. “This is the way history is revised here, always.”

  “So anti-Semitism is creeping back again?”

  She gave a little laugh. “You are innocent. It has never left. Not here. It is in the blood or DNA of the citizens.”

  “I see.” He looked over the familiar interior, the flowery wallpaper coming apart at the seams, the faded upholstered chairs, the ancient daybed, and the black and white photographs bunched into corners. There was a musty odor too, and he made a note to send her sometime an air purifier. He felt oddly gripped, and estranged at the same time.

  Zsuzsa smiled sympathetically. “You are seeing something you don’t like, or understand?”

  He gave a little uncomfortable smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Maybe something I don’t understand. Or can’t quite … believe.”

  She arranged her linen napkin on her lap. “Of course, I understand. You shouldn’t feel the need to believe.” She fingered the cameo locket hanging on a gold chain around her neck. “Belief and faith are the hardest things to achieve, in human relationships or religion.”

  Her modesty, or lack of defensiveness, touched him. He sipped the rich tea.

  “Tell me, how did that young lady’s thesis progress? Is it finished?”

  “Yes, that’s done. And it turned out well, I would say. If you’d like to see it, when I return, I will send you a copy.”

  She smiled narrowly, revealing yellowing teeth. “Not necessary. I am glad it went well. I simply never heard from her again.”

  They paused, and heard the cars whisking by below.

  “And please tell me, are you writing something yourself?”

  Was he? Well, yes, but he still wasn’t sure of what that form was, his “Scenes from a Shadow History,” but he did know that it was private, for now, anyway. “Oh, not really, not now.”

  “But you will tell me when you do write something, I hope.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The phone rang, and she excused herself to go to a corner of the room to answer the black phone. He admired her well-kept figure, her well-kept calm; he had never seen obsession in the midst of such calm, actually.

  “So, Professor, how long will you stay this time?” she said, upon returning. “And tell me, if you would, why did you come this time?”

  He pondered an answer. “I have returned because a part of me does believe there is something in your story, something important, but I am not sure if I can put my finger on it.”

  “Well, at least that is some progress, no?” she teased him.

  He smiled, feeling more relaxed. “I’ve even had a private conversation or two with Raoul, if you must know; so therefore, I must have some sort of faith in me, in him!”

  She eyed him. “Another piece of cake?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “What sort of conversation?”

  “A private one, in which he wondered what was I doing, still searching for him. He counseled me that his time was long ago, and that nobody was interested, then or certainly not now.”

  She laughed. “Well, I am not sure I knew you were ‘searching for him,’ but I am glad to hear the news! But of course he was mistaken, thinking he was forgotten. Deeply mistaken. In fact, it may be said that he is remembered more now, by a devoted circle, than when he was living.”

  “Oh, really? A more devoted circle? I must meet them one day.”

  “Maybe you will.” She eyed him. “When next we meet.”

  Gellerman saw she wasn’t kidding. A devoted circle … He kept learning from this smooth-faced mystery woman. But learning what?

  She rose to remove the tea cups and saucers onto the cart, and he went to help her, but she waved him back. “This is my job, please.”

  “Tell me,” he said, “is that locket a family heirloom?”

  A soft smile. “Yes, it is actually. Raoul gave it to my mother.” She fingered it and then put it forward. “She put a family photograph in it. Would you like to see it?”

  “Why, yes.”

  She set down the cups, wiped her hands on a napkin, and flicked it open, then leaned forward so he could see the small photograph.

  He peered at a small black and white photograph, heart shaped, that had been fit inside. A young mother holding a baby, accompanied by a young handsome man who indeed looked a bit like Wallenberg. The photograph was so small, however, that Manny couldn’t quite tell; and he did not want to ask for a magnifying glass.

  “I am impressed. She, you, the family, are really very beautiful.”

  She laughed, easily. “Of course! Why would you think otherwise? We were all younger then! And remember, we are Hungarian!”

  “Good point, I am beginning to understand that.”

  She started pushing the cart. “So you like my photograph? Perhaps I will show you more later. You will stay for dinner, I hope?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t planned on that …”

  “But Dora is expecting to see you.”

  “I didn’t realize she was coming over.”

  Zsuzsa wagged her finger. “You do not come to visit us that often, you know; and you made an impression on her. Truly.”

  Manny felt a sensation in his chest. “She made an impression on me too.”

  “Good, then that is settled.”

  She left the room for the kitchen, and he was alone to think, to plan, to figure things out … He cleaned his eyeglasses, using a cotton cloth, stood up and wandered across the room. Feeling alone, he took a few steps into the adjoining room, a small study. Her “father’s ‘sanctuary,’” she had called it, and the cramped room did have a safe feel; it was a twelve-by-fourteen-foot room with oak desk, pictures, a file. Feeling like the intruder that he was, he took a step to leave, but stopped, just at the doorway. He viewed the small photos set in a tripartite frame, one of Raoul, one of her mother, one of a baby. And next to it, a kind of sketch for—?”

  “I see you have found Father’s private room,” she smiled, forgivingly. “And you like his drawing? It was meant to describe the site of a new skyline off of Lake St. Clair, by Detroit.”

  He shook his head, in bafflement.

  “An assignment from his graduate days in Ann Arbor,” she smiled warmly, and observed him for his reaction. “It is not too bad, yes?”

  Gellerman nodded. “Yes, not bad at all.”

  She took his arm and guided him out of the room. “He had this idea for creating a grouping of similar skylines all around the Great Lakes; those interested him very much as one geographical unity. It’s in his notebooks, which fortunately I have kept.” She squeezed his wrist. “Perhaps when you trust me more, I can show it to you!” She flirted like a teenager.

  He nodded, dumbfounded, and followed her back into the dining area.

  Standing there was Dora, the daughter. In a white blouse with ruffled sleeves and short tartan skirt, she looked fourteen. So the stage was set, he felt, for the next scene; what was that to be? This was brilliant theater, filled with surprise, changes of pace, and incongruous happenings. Touches of Ionesco?

  Do
ra put her hand forward and greeted him, and he took her hand cordially. Actually, she resembled neither the mother nor the grandmother. Curly hair, small nose, pink skin, trim figure, short. What role was she to play in this? he pondered. He knew his role, at least: the intellectual fool, the country-bumpkin believer. Curiously, “Gimpel the Fool” by I. B. Singer struck him; he had a model to follow, if he wished—that perennial fool whose total belief is honed and tested by outrageous lies and fabulous acts, only to eventually become saintly. Saintly Gellerman, yes.

  Now, as they moved around, arranging the dining table (adjusting the extra leaf), the women seating him with a cognac in the salon, he wondered what the remaining scenes of this play would portray? Tonight, and later on? He was open to conjecture, to a script of surprise and manipulation. You had to give them credit; they were a super team, crazy Mother and quiet sane daughter, and the spirit of Raoul hovering in the background, infusing the apartment, inspiring the play. Schubert seemed to be playing, hauntingly.

  So was it all fantasy, or was it part real? Which part was which? Some of those photos perhaps, but how? Easy enough to cut and paste, as they did on the Internet, and/or have a photographer touch up. What about the notebooks that Madame had proclaimed? Might he read that, and then be able to get a copy and check that out, verify in some way, especially back home? … A long shot. How about DNA? But that seemed impossible, given the absence of RW. But let’s say it was all fantasy, he mused as the cognac coursed through his blood. What did that suggest? A single woman’s mad obsession with Wallenberg? Wouldn’t it be more significant if there was indeed that group of worshippers, believing in RW like some ancient Greek or Jewish religious cult?

  Over the three-course dinner of bean soup, a paprika meat stew, cucumber salad, he went through the motions of a conversation, listening to the mother and daughter chat about Dora’s work on her thesis (on childhood trauma), the new scandal of the socialist government, the recent novel of Kertész. During the talk, he observed the young woman eating like a bird, her tiny adam’s apple barely moving with her small bites, and every now and then looking over at Manny, checking on his interest. She seemed to be trying hard, in her body language, to restrain her impatience with the mother’s focus on her. Zsuzsa meanwhile laughed heartily, scooped food onto Manny’s plate at every opportunity, teased her daughter, and hosted the dinner with cool ease. She had put on a little jacket for the dinner table, and on her lapel wore a small golden band.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “This hamsa?” she responded, shaking her head at his ignorance.

  What was most strange, however, was that he didn’t feel like an intruder here, an American stranger, but one of them, a family member. Yes, it was boring and unfamiliar (deeply) and the characters were odd, but he was made to feel at home, a natural part of unnatural things. So, once again, the course of the play had turned slightly, this time more subtly.

  After dinner, he was escorted into the heavy salon, where he waited until the ladies cleaned up. He listened to the music—now Mozart?—and picked up a book.

  An old edition of the work of Louis Henry Sullivan, the “pioneer of skyscrapers.” He sat on the pale green Chesterfield sofa, decorated with a white lace shawl, and looked through the book. Yes, a Mozart clarinet concerto. A bit of sweetness to lighten the somber room. What was next for him? Some magical trap, a central European seduction? If he were taking opium in a Shanghai den, would it be any stranger than this? Not by much. He waited, heard a clatter of cups and saucers, a car whisking by. Odors sweet and strange wafted by. What did all this have to do with his mission, to search for the truth about Raoul? Thank god, his colleagues were not there to witness this sort of “research.” They’d laugh him out of the profession!

  Well, there could be more curious hands-on research resources. He stood and went to the framed photograph corner, and there, bending closer, read the text of one, which was in Hungarian, Swedish, English:

  The Royal Swedish Legation in Budapest confirms that the aforementioned [a passport photo of an older couple] will travel to Sweden in accordance with the scheme of repatriation as authorized by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The aforementioned is also included in a collective passport. Until his repatriation the holder and his domicile are under the protection of the Royal Swedish Legation.

  Validity: Expires 14 days after entry into Sweden.

  “Oh, you’ve discovered how my grandmother was saved,” murmured Dora. “‘The Protective Passport,’ or ‘letter of protection.’ We’ve brought the dessert and tea.”

  She set it down on the small footstool, asked if that was all right, and sat across from him in a wing chair. She took up her knitting and looked like a little princess, feet swinging off the floor, in the huge chair.

  “Mother is becoming more comfortable with you, more trusting,” she observed, attending to her wool and needles. “She believes, I think, that your interest is genuine.”

  “There seems to be this question of authenticity around here,” he retorted, “whether I am who I appear to be.” And whether your mother is who she says she is, he might have added.

  She smiled, her teeth a bit crooked. “Maybe I can hear what you are thinking.”

  His turn to smile.

  “And you are satisfied with your student’s thesis work?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it is fine.”

  “Does it add anything to the ‘controversy?’”

  A new admiration rose in him for her. “Oh, I think it is a solid work. It’s not a PhD thesis, you understand. But there is much that remains … unaccountable for, unexplained. Unknown.”

  “Lots of ‘uns,’” noted Dora dryly.

  Gellerman smiled.

  “And tell me this, Professor,” asked the sharp daughter, “are we also part of the ‘unaccountable’ facts?”

  Just then the mother came in, rubbing her hands with lotion, he saw, and she took a seat across from them, in another chair.

  “So you have been having a good chat? Have I interrupted?” Her look was eager, greedy even.

  Dora shook her head, and Gellerman followed, adding, “I have been getting quietly tested.”

  Zsuzsanna laughed, “Have you passed?”

  “You will have to ask the teacher.”

  Dora made a face. She helped serve the dessert, fresh fruit in small dishes, to both her mother and Manny. And then she said quietly that she had to depart; she had an appointment. Her mother was surprised, but then half giggled, hugged the girl, and said to Manny, as he stood up too, that she certainly hoped he was going to stay on; it was still very early. More of a declaration than an inquiry.

  He avoided hugging little Dora, who without her heels would have been under five feet. She moved off into the foyer, for her coat and the door.

  “I think she is rather special,” Manny offered, “full of a quiet poise, and … intuition.”

  The mother clapped. “Yes, you have hit it on the head. Sometimes she knows things way before I can understand them.”

  Oh, and what had she intuited about me? he wanted to ask, when Zsuzsa beckoned him toward the large oak desk.

  “Come, I will read to you a letter her grandfather, my father, wrote to me, which will be of interest perhaps.”

  At the desk she pulled open the second drawer on the right side, took out a green folder with a sheaf of letters, and, setting him down in a straight-backed chair, put on her reading glasses and searched through the letters. She proceeded to read in English:

  My Dear Daughter,

  Although you are only a little child now, and do not understand all of my words, I want to tell you that your father loves you very much, that you are and will be a special girl, and that, along with common sense and a good heart, you must always rely on your intuition. This will tell you what to do in different and difficult situations, when you are at a loss for logic or past history. You must decide swiftly, about a person, a situation, a friend or enemy, and the best you can
do is to allow your intuition to have its say, and to follow its way. This has always worked for me, whether in a difficult situation in Chicago, or in Haifa, or in Budapest. So once you learn the meaning of the word, and learn to listen to or consult your intuition, see if it works for you, as it has for me. I know that you will have a powerful one.

  She looked up at Manny, her face blissful as if she had just been spoken to by God.

  All he could do was to nod, and stay silent, and listen to the sounds of the grandfather clock ticking, and the cars going by.

  “Would you mind if I looked at the letter?”

  She gave him a look as though he were a thief, about to steal something from her!

  And then she handed over the page.

  Manny stared at the legible handwriting, felt the thin quality of the paper, looked up at her, with the green folder beside her on the desk. “But this is in English?”

  “Of course, why not? He never learned Hungarian to write it well, as he did with German. You knew that he wrote to Grandfather Gustaf in English as well as Swedish, didn’t you? Besides, he wanted me to know English, the language of the future, he believed. He was right, wasn’t he?”

  “And those are all in English?”

  She smiled, took the green folder into her arms like holding a child, shook her head. “Some are in English, some in German, but what difference? They are all magical.” She rocked with it in her arms, his “inspired” lady.

  He was bemused by her maternal pose, thought it best to say little of his avid interest in those letters, and said it was getting late; perhaps he should go now.

  “No, no, please, you must stay on for a while anyway. Here, sit, and while I bathe, I will give you another letter to read.” She giggled, “I must take my therapy bath, always at 10:30; so you will excuse me for a while?” A glance of girlish glory on her oval face.

  What was she up to now? And this tempting offer?

  She set him down, by his shoulders, and rummaged in her letters, selected one, and handed it to him, slowly letting go of it. What variation of cat and mouse was she playing? Smiling, she went to her disc player, made a selection, put it on, and took her leave. In a moment the jazzy rhythms of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin came on, for Manny’s lullaby.