Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

‘You stay,’ said Andras with finality.

  ‘What about the mare?’

  ‘She will be glad of your company. You may not be so glad of hers.’

  Milos bowed his head. ‘I don’t know how to thank you and I don’t know how to repay your kindness. But I will. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Your brother,’ said Andras, ‘be more like him.’

  Over the next two weeks, Milos helped Andras refurbish the loft, replacing old and missing planks with new timber and lining the roof with straw for insulation. He took time off to check the lists of the dead at the town hall before going to the station to check the arrivals. Every day brought its mixture of good news and bad. Neither his father’s name nor Katica’s nor Elizabeth’s appeared on the lists but neither did any of them arrive at the station.

  Gabriella responded to the constant care she was given. Her breakfast of coffee, bread and jam exceeded her daily ration in the camps. Lunch was the main meal, usually a stew with pieces of pork and pork fat, but sometimes with beef. She craved the meat, devoured it first, and never objected when Milos gave her more from his own bowl. Dinner was usually lunch watered down and stretched with the addition of dumplings and vegetables. Aunt Klari also brought her milk from their one cow or an egg from their few remaining hens. Gabriella began to put on weight and get her colour back. Her hair stopped falling out and there was a peach fuzz where new hair was beginning to grow. The scarecrow was slowly coming back to life.

  When she was strong enough she began to tell her story while they sat around the table in the evening. She told them about the box cars and Krakow station, Theresienstadt and the selections. She told them about Auschwitz and the terrible chimneys, the work camps and the increasing hunger and deprivation as the war ground to a halt. She told a little at a time because there was a limit to what her grim-faced audience could bear.

  ‘Enough!’ Andras would say. He was a man accustomed to hard work, hardship and disappointment, but the heart beating inside his tough shell was not impregnable. At this point he would leave the table and the cottage and disappear into the night while he digested what Gabriella had said and walked off his anger.

  Gabriella told them about her journey home, about the Russians who had raped her and the kindness of the families across Czechoslovakia who had taken her in. She told her story dispassionately, without tears or bitterness, little realising that one day she would be incapable of telling it at all. The only times she became animated were when she told them about Julia, the tattoo, the potato cake, and the stew with meat in it that the Russian soldiers had shared with her.

  The day after Milos moved up into the loft, Gabriella asked him take her to see Tokaj Street. Milos was reluctant to oblige because he didn’t want to risk upsetting her, but she insisted.

  ‘My mother may have come home, or Elizabeth, or even Balazs,’ she said.

  It didn’t matter how often Milos told her he’d know if any of them had made it back, she had to see for herself. Prior to her deportation, Gabriella could cover the walk between Aunt Klari’s and Tokaj Street in around forty-five minutes. It took her and Milos most of the morning, with stops to sit and rest, yet Gabriella was determined not to be denied.

  When they finally reached Tokaj Street, Gabriella paused, trying to reconcile what she saw with her memories. Something had happened: the street she’d known so well had become somehow foreign. There was no hiding the shabbiness. Paint peeled from window frames. Fences were missing palings. Mismatched curtains hung at windows. The once grand houses looked tired. When she found her home she had to look to Milos for confirmation. The garden was overgrown and a window was boarded over where the glass had been broken. Vague memories stirred. She recalled the night when the window had been broken by a piece of brick thrown by Jew-baiters. That seemed a lifetime ago and yet the window still had not been repaired. She stood by Milos when he rang the bell, hoping someone from her family would open the door, but knowing that would not happen.

  ‘What do you want?’ The man who opened the door was unshaven and wore only a singlet and trousers.

  ‘This is Gabriella Horvath. She is the daughter of the family who lived here and owned this house prior to the deportations,’ said Milos.

  ‘Listen, kid, if she’s come to throw us out, she can’t,’ said the man belligerently.

  Milos fixed him with a look Tibor would have been proud of and took a step closer. ‘You are as aware of your obligations as I am.’ The issue of home ownership had not been resolved, but occupiers of confiscated homes were obliged by law to provide accommodation to any owners who returned.

  ‘There’s a hall cupboard left. If she wants to sleep in it, she’s welcome,’ said the man reluctantly. He glared at Gabriella. ‘Three families live here now. There’s no room for anyone else.’

  ‘Have any of her relatives come here?’ said Milos. ‘She’s looking for her mother, sister and her brother.’

  ‘No!’ said the man. ‘Just her. That all you want?’

  ‘If any other member of the Horvath family returns I want you to tell the stationmaster,’ said Milos.

  ‘Sure, kid.’

  ‘At least tell whoever it is that Gabriella has been here looking for them.’

  ‘Gabriella. Okay. That it?’

  Milos shook his head in disgust, took Gabriella’s arm and turned to leave. But Gabriella didn’t move.

  ‘Which room do you sleep in?’ she asked.

  ‘Front bedroom at the top,’ said the man. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘That was my bedroom,’ said Gabriella.

  She allowed Milos to guide her down the steps to the street. As they walked away she made no attempt to look back. They had destroyed her home but she wouldn’t let them destroy her memory of it. She wanted to preserve the Tokaj Street that existed inside her head.

  Milos tried to take her back to Aunt Klari’s but Gabriella insisted on going to the town hall. The lists of the dead had grown but none of the names they were looking for were on it. There was another list, one which was pathetically short and bore silent witness to the scale of the tragedy. It was the list of survivors who had returned. Gabriella added her name.

  ‘Come on,’ said Milos. ‘Let’s go home.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Be more like your brother.

  Andras had meant well when he’d given the advice, but it had cut Milos to the core. It left him feeling inadequate and incapable. The truth was, Tibor would know what to do. Milos had always thought Tibor was cleverer than him because he was two years older, but Tibor had always known what to do and that had nothing to do with the gap in their ages. This was the thought that occupied him most as he made his daily trips to the town hall and station.

  Milos scrutinised the faces as they left the station, knowing from the very first glance that they brought only more disappointment. Once the platform had cleared he sat down on one of the station’s two bench seats to take stock, to figure out how he could contribute, how he could become more like his brother.

  Every day there were queues outside the town’s three bakeries and he was aware that most people queued in hope rather than with any real expectation of getting bread. There was never enough bread because there was never enough flour. People queued outside butcheries hoping that somehow they’d acquired an animal to slaughter. But the Russians had left little as they’d swarmed over rural Hungary, as rapacious as a plague of locusts. Cobblers waited in vain for leather. Tailors and dressmakers waited for material. The town’s only chemist was reduced to herbal remedies. Milos knew the kind of goods his brother stored in his warehouse and knew what he could supply. Flour, sugar, material and pharmaceuticals were relatively easy.

  He considered walking into the stores and asking people what they wanted. He could argue that he’d just come from Budapest and knew people who wanted to sell product before the Russians confiscated it; that he had contacts in Budapest and on the railways and could supply what they wanted provided they w
ere prepared to pay. Milos ran the argument around in his head. He’d be doing the town a favour and would be able to pay for his and Gabriella’s keep at Aunt Klari’s. Of course he’d have to pay off people in the railways and probably even some of the local police. He’d need a warehouse and a truck.

  He became so engrossed in logistics that it took him a while to fully comprehend what he was doing. The realisation hit him like a slap across the face. In copying his brother he would become him. A black marketeer, profiteer and criminal, wanted by the authorities and at war with his competitors. And he’d have competitors, Milos had no doubt about that. One of them had taken Gabriella and him on his cart to Aunt Klari’s. There were sure to be others. Would the time come when, like Tibor, he’d also need a flak jacket and bodyguards? Milos didn’t even want to consider the issue. That was a road he had no desire to travel.

  He thought back to the shops that struggled to remain open, those that had closed and the factories that ticked along at little more than idle, constrained by lack of materials. Somewhere in all this need was the solution to his problem. Tibor could always find a solution and, if he thought like his brother, so would he. He closed his eyes and his brother’s voice began harping in his ear.

  Think it through, Milos. Go beyond the obvious, Milos. Look for the fundamental truths and use them.

  Fundamental truths! Milos didn’t know where to begin. Sarospatak was a backwater, a rural outpost, a town that didn’t matter except to the people who lived there. Everyone was hungry and in need of something. There wasn’t enough of anything. Not enough flour, not enough milk, not enough eggs, not enough chickens and not enough meat. Milos grimaced. Until the war, he’d been raised on meat, all Hungarians were. They ate meat every day, mainly pork, beef when they could get it, chicken, turkey and fish if they could afford it. Just thinking about it made Milos hunger for a thick slice of fried pork, for peppers and cabbage leaves stuffed with beef and rice and cooked in rantas, a heavy roux of pork lard and flour. He smiled grimly. Look for a fundamental truth, Tibor had said, and there was the most fundamental truth of all: Hungarians were meat eaters and there was no meat to eat. Milos snapped upright, his brain whirring. He asked Geza Apro if he could use his phone.

  The following morning Milos arrived back at the station just as Geza was unlocking the ticket office. The regular service from Satoraljaujhely to the main line for connection through to Budapest was not due for more than two hours. Geza made coffee while Milos waited impatiently. He was bursting to tell somebody his idea and anxious for Aunt Klari and Andras to know that he wouldn’t be dependent on them much longer. But a fait accompli carried considerably more weight than an idea, no matter how colourfully presented, particularly one with major hurdles to negotiate. Milos drank his coffee but discouraged Geza from engaging him in conversation. He had to plan what to say to Tibor and cover all possible arguments. He didn’t doubt Tibor would ring back; his brother would recognise the station number and know when to call. When the phone finally rang Milos was so engrossed in thought it caught him by surprise. Geza answered and passed the phone over.

  ‘Hello, little brother,’ said Tibor.

  Milos winced. The mocking tone was unmistakeable even over the phone. It was his brother’s way of reminding him of the pecking order.

  ‘I’ve got a deal for you,’ said Milos.

  ‘Not so fast,’ said Tibor. ‘How’s my girl?’

  ‘Six breeding sows,’ said Milos.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And a stud boar,’ Milos added. He smiled. For once he’d caught his brother off guard.

  ‘Six sows and a boar? What do you want them for?’

  ‘Can you do it?’ Milos sensed he had the upper hand for once and revelled in it.

  ‘Of course. It’s only a matter of price.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Plenty,’ said Tibor. ‘How are you going to pay for them?’

  ‘In piglets,’ said Milos. For a moment he thought he’d lost connection.

  ‘Piglets?’ said Tibor eventually.

  ‘Piglets, pork chops, trotters, bacon, ham.’

  ‘Tell me the deal,’ snapped Tibor.

  ‘You provide the six sows and the boar. In return I send you a regular supply of porkers.’

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘For twelve months I keep a third of all pigs born to cover the cost of feed, wages and transport.’

  ‘A quarter. I’ll handle transport.’

  ‘A third.’

  ‘After that?’

  ‘We split the proceeds fifty-fifty.’

  ‘How soon can you start?’

  ‘I’m ready now.’

  ‘Sure, little brother. What about pens?’

  ‘You remember Andras, Aunt Klari’s husband? He’s building them as we speak.’

  Tibor laughed at the transparency of Milos’s claim. ‘And feed?’

  ‘There’s plenty of stock feed around because there’s no stock. One sow will buy us all we need to get started.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Tibor. ‘Now, how’s Gabriella?’

  ‘Funny you should mention her,’ said Milos.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘She never mentions you.’ Milos laughed and was still laughing when Tibor hung up. He thanked Geza and almost danced out of his office onto the platform just as passengers began arriving for the train to Budapest. In his haste he bumped into one of them.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Milos hastily.

  The person he’d collided with was about his own age but taller and broader. He stared at Milos contemptuously. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re the Jew kid, Tibor’s brother.’

  ‘Sandor Kiraly,’ said Milos. He remembered him from school and as the recipient of boots he’d grown out of. Sandor had matured into the thug he’d always threatened to become. Milos held out his hand. Sandor stared at it momentarily before deciding to shake it.

  ‘How are you?’ asked Milos. ‘How’s Istvan?’

  ‘Istvan lives in Budapest now. At a police academy. I’m going to join him in Budapest and become a gendarme.’ Sandor puffed up his chest as though becoming a gendarme was the pinnacle of human achievement.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Milos. ‘Oh, and give my regards and thanks to your brother. He’ll know why.’

  Milos left the station and promptly forgot about Sandor and Istvan Kiraly. They were distant echoes from a time long past and no longer relevant to his life. He had more important things to think about.

  In the months that followed, Budapest’s black marketeers defied the government’s early attempts to establish law and order and control over food distribution. Any attempts to peg prices for basic foods were doomed to failure as Hungary’s currency slid into the worst hyperinflation in history, resulting in notes worth 10,000 trillion pengo entering circulation. The government led by the Smallholders Party did its best but was forced into coalition with the Social Democrats and the Communist Party by the Soviet political officers. With the army of occupation backing them, the political officers were not to be denied. To make matters worse, the Russians’ claim on war reparation gathered increasing momentum throughout 1946. The entire contents of factories were put onto trains and sent back to Russia, along with entire grain harvests and the output of mines.

  Vilagosi’s enterprises flourished amid all the confusion as Tibor made good on his promises. Wagons filled with grain were mysteriously uncoupled en route and their contents redirected to Vilagosi’s warehouses. As winter approached, wagonloads of coal disappeared, their contents passing through Vilagosi’s organisation on their way to Budapest’s fireplaces and furnaces. His endeavours were made easier by the bungling of Russian bureaucrats and the inadequacies of their record-keeping. Tibor became a minor legend in Budapest’s underworld for his audacity. No one was better placed to take advantage of the conditions and, gradually, through his control of the railways, other criminal organisations far larger than Vil
agosi’s were ultimately obliged to deal with them. But fame breeds consequences as well as rewards. Other ears took note of his activities.

  When rumours about Tibor began circulating through the offices of the secret police, Istvan listened carefully and did what he always did with information. He began a dossier on Tibor Heyman, entering details that not even Major Bogati could know: Jozsef’s demotion from Deputy Director of Railways and his arrival at Sarospatak as the new stationmaster, the conversion of his two sons to Catholicism, Tibor’s extracurricular activities at school and the boys’ narrow escape from deportation. He also listed what he considered to be Tibor’s strengths and weaknesses. He compiled the dossier in his own time, even though there was precious little of it to spare.

  Istvan had become an officer of the Allamvedelmi Osztaly or AVO, the Department of State Security. The AVO was officially an organ of the fledgling coalition government but in reality was an instrument of the Soviet’s political arm. The Russians had little choice but to allow the majority Smallholders Party to provide the prime minister, but insisted on Communist control of the Ministry of Interior, which in turn controlled the police and the AVO. The AVO went about its business with an eye to the future and the consolidation of its power, building a nationwide network of spies and informers. Istvan’s job was to identify prospects, who were enlisted by whatever means necessary: bribes, blackmail or the threat of death or injury to family. Istvan enshrined their commitment in his dossiers. In the autumn of 1946, when he was summoned to the office of his superior, Major Bogati, he took his dossier on Tibor with him.

  ‘Your brother,’ said the major without preamble, ‘he failed his exam again. Speak to him, though I don’t suppose he needs qualifications for the role we have in mind for him. Your brother is who he is. At least he’ll be on our side.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I believe you have something to show me.’

  Istvan handed over his dossier on Tibor. The grey eyes lit up and the major smiled, an event so rare that Istvan suspected it lacked precedent.