by Shmuel David
When the guests began to arrive at the house, I stood at the gate to welcome them. Father insisted I keep my jacket and tie on and shake the hand of every guest. Only after the last guests had arrived, including the chief city engineer and the deputy mayor, to whom father introduced me, was I allowed to leave the garden entrance and join the guests.
Mother and Father were first on the dance floor, to the sounds of Strauss’s “Blue Danube,” Mother’s favorite waltz. I hadn’t seen them dancing together in a long time. After them, the dance floor filled with other dancers. Elegant waiters walked among the guests, carrying trays filled with little sandwiches, herring, and, of course, trays with glasses of Tokaji wine and slivovitz, Father’s favorite alcoholic beverage. The gomboti would be served as dessert.
When a band of klezmers played the song “My Yiddishe Mama,” Mother wiped away a tear; then it was my turn to go up there and read the speech I had worked so hard on. I put my hand inside my pants pocket to look for it, but all I found was a page of grammar exercises in German. My heart was pumping hard, and my face flushed scarlet. I couldn’t even think. Mother noticed and asked me if everything was all right. She wasn’t at all upset by the disappearance of my written speech and simply placed her hand on my shoulder, “Just thank all the guests for coming and you’ll see everything will be just fine.”
I hoped none of the guests had noticed my embarrassment. I stood on a stool beside the klezmer band and looked at everyone. I took a deep breath and began to thank the guests for coming to celebrate with me. I thanked Mother and Father for raising me so well. Then, suddenly, I remembered everything I’d written—that I intended to become a better son to my parents and a better companion to my friends; that I’d decided to try and uphold the commandments of Judaism, but not all of them, only the ones that really matter, the ones that are meaningful to the people around me. Finally, I spoke of my decision to try and uphold the values my parents had taught me throughout my adult life. I noticed everyone listening very quietly. Klarie hugged Father, who was standing next to her. When I finished, everyone clapped and came to shake Father’s hand again and tell him what a talented boy he’d raised, the kind of boy who could make such a graceful and eloquent speech without reading it from the page.
***
The doctor told Alan his father’s condition was sufficiently improved for him to move to a rehabilitation center. He was hospitalized in a spacious room, sharing it with another elderly person with a similar condition.
Alan came to visit him every day and take him out for a stroll in his wheelchair, skillfully navigating the narrow corridors, careful not to bump into walls and corners.
His father mentioned Inge each and every time they met. He told him about their first meeting on board the riverboat the Tzar Nikolai and how resourceful she’d been in all the chaos. He told him how attached she’d become to his mother, Louisa, who was like a mother to her.
“I loved her,” he said suddenly. “I just never realized how much.”
He held Alan’s arm and drew him close.
“It’s important to have love in your life,” he said in a sudden, rare moment of candor. “I chose life, there on the Sabac railway platform.”
“But wasn’t choosing life the obvious choice to make?” asked Alan.
“Back then, at the railway station, we didn’t realize we were choosing life. Who knew?”
“I’m here because you chose the life you’ve lived. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“She was a nurse, you know?” his father suddenly revealed another detail.
“Just like Mother,” said Alan.
“That’s right. Perhaps that was why I fell in love with your mother. Perhaps I was attracted only to women with a passion for helping others. Strong-willed women, maybe to compensate for my own weakness.”
When he got home that evening, Alan continued to read the diary. He’d already realized he wouldn’t find any information about Inge there. Still, he was spellbound by the diary. The situation in Europe continued to deteriorate, and with it the situation of the David family in Belgrade—Emil, Louisa, and their three children.
* * *
4A Hungarian pastry made of cheese, eggs, and semolina.
May 1938
I heard the sound of gravel under car wheels on the driveway leading to the house and realized that Father was home early from work again. I remembered how Lord and I used to wait for him in the doorway. Long before I could see or even hear Father’s car, he’d bark and wag his tail in excitement and anticipation. Two years have passed since Lord died. For several months, his eyesight gradually dimmed and he simply faded away until, finally, he could barely support his own weight.
Father came inside and told me he’d like to have a word with me before dinner. I tried to guess why he was so serious and was nervous about it all afternoon.
Lately, Father seems constantly troubled and depressed. He hardly ever laughs now and doesn’t clap my shoulder like he used to. When he walks, his shoulders are hunched and his back is bent as if he were carrying a heavy burden. Klarie told me a few months ago that Father’s financial situation wasn’t as good as it used to be. I hadn’t noticed anything then, but lately, I’ve started to connect clues.
He no longer takes the early train to Budapest with his briefcase and morning paper. He used to go there very often. He’d designed houses in Budapest, he proudly told us. Sometimes, he would come home that very same day. Other times, he would go for two or three days and bring Pauli and me gifts from the big city. When I was eight, we went to visit Aunt Emilia in Budapest for the first time. I’d always thought Belgrade was the largest city in the world, until I saw the bustling traffic in the streets of Budapest, the large stone houses with their ornate marble pillars, the tram passing in the middle of the street, and the cafés in the Váci utca promenade. Mother was very impressed by the beautiful store windows and occasionally stopped to examine a dress or coat.
At six o’clock, I knocked on Father’s study door. He opened it, holding a glass of slivovitz.
“Come on in, Hanne. Come inside and sit beside me,” he said, motioning to me to close the door.
He sat down at his desk, sipped from the glass in his hand, and said, “You probably know things haven’t been too good lately. Now that you’ve had your bar mitzvah, I can talk to you like a man.”
“I’ve heard there’s a world crisis. That’s what our geography teacher told us. He said it could start here too.”
“Well,” said Father. “I don’t know if the two things are related, but we have another problem.”
He raised his glass and took a long look at it before taking a small sip.
“What problem?” I asked, immediately realizing that Father had been hiding things from us.
“How are things in school?” For a moment, he seemed to be trying to change the subject. “I see you’re very good at languages. How’s your Serbo-Croatian?”
“It’s fine, Father. I got an A in my last test.”
“Then I have a favor to ask of you.”
He opened one of his drawers, took out a page bearing the symbol of the Serbian lion, and handed it to me. “Here, read this.”
I felt like an adult, proud that Father was sharing some of life’s real problems with me.
The letter went like this:
Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 05.11.1938
Re: A final extension of your residence permit.
As you know, the residence permit allowing you to remain within the borders of Serbia is about to expire on 07.31.1938. This permit also includes your work and business licenses. This is the final extension granted you by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs. You are entitled to submit an official appeal at our office at 65 Dragoslava Srejovica Street, within thirty days of receiving this letter.
Signed: Victor Petrović, A
ssistant Office Manager.
As I read the letter, I realized that my father, this upright, proud man feared by so many, was himself afraid. Afraid he wouldn’t get more work, afraid of losing his assets, even afraid of being deported with his entire family.
Father sat frozen in his seat while I read the letter, then he rose, started walking about the room, and said he knew he could count on me, because my Serbo-Croatian was excellent.
“I’ll be happy to help, Father. Just tell me your answer and I’ll write it down.”
“Very well, son. There’s a reason I’m asking for your help. I’m afraid that sending back a badly written letter in broken, badly spelled Serbo-Croatian might make the wrong impression on officials there; they might even decide I’m not a true Serbian.”
“Can they really deport us?” I asked, unable to hide a sudden surge of fear.
Frightening thoughts raced through my mind. What would happen to me? Mother? Pauli? And what about school?
“This was my third extension. I haven’t shared this with any of you yet, and I don’t want this information to leave the room. I don’t want to upset your mother. To answer your question, yes, they can.”
“You can count on me, Father. I can keep a secret, just like I learned in Akiba.”
I sat in the soft leather chair with its tall backrest and ornamental wood carving. On the table in front of me lay a sheet of paper on which Father had written all the reasons and justifications for extending our residence permit. Father strode about the room. Now and then he’d stop, saying, “The Ministry of Justice on Karlova Street, add that too. You’ve already mentioned the House of Commerce, right? They need to know how much I’ve done for this city. I may not have been born here, and it’s true that I was an officer in the Hungarian army more than twenty years ago, but we’ve lived here long enough not to be treated like immigrants.”
Having folded the paper and placed it in an envelope, I was about to leave the room, when Father stopped me and told me he’d sold our house. We’d be moving on June first to an apartment downtown, not far from the Ashkenazi synagogue.
I was shocked. Wholly unprepared for such news. I’d spent my entire childhood here on the hill. How could I ever get used to a new place?
And yet, I’d be closer to school and to Isaac, even though we’ve hardly spoken since our last argument.
I asked him what had happened and why he’d had to sell the house.
He said that maintaining such a large house with a garden and a swimming pool costs a fortune. It was a very difficult move for him as well, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. Office revenues had sharply declined, and we needed to cut down on our expenses.
The Apartment on Kralja Petra, November 1938
For the past five months now, we’ve been living in a downtown apartment at 47 Kralja Petra Street, on the fourth floor of an old building in front of the Ashkenazi synagogue. At first, I had a hard time with the move to that part of the city. I didn’t feel I belonged in the new neighborhood, and I missed the open spaces. But I got used to everything pretty quickly. I can walk by myself to school and even to the Akiba ken. I’m more independent here, and I’ve made lots of new friends. Even Isaac is in touch with me again. He no longer thinks of me as a spoiled child in a lofty palace. He doesn’t even care that I go to the Akiba ken while he goes to the Hashomer Hatzair ken. “We all do what we think is best for us,” he said with sudden generosity.
At the Akiba ken, now closer to our home, I made more new friends, two brothers from the De Mayo family: Alfonso, one of the elder brothers, is a very well-educated young man, who went to work on a farm so he could get a Hechalutz immigration certificate, and Samito, who’s about my age; he and I have become very close. I also meet Branka Garai there, the girl I used to dream about at night.
During the summer, we all went camping in Žirovnica. We spent a lot of time hiking, and one day we climbed all the way up to one of the summits of the Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia. From the top of the mountain we could see as far as the Austrian border. There was a fine view of mountains and forests, and in between, a green plain with several turquoise lakes like precious stones embedded in a piece of jewelry. Our camp was surrounded by a forest, and the lake was close by. We bathed in it, boys and girls together, which was thrilling, especially after studying at a boys’ school for so many years.
Branka and I went walking together outside the camp while the boys were playing soccer. Once, we even went around the entire lake. Branka let me hold her hand as we walked alone down the hiking trails. At night, I dreamed she let me kiss her, but I was too afraid to try. Although she always accepted my invitation, I found her a bit distant, even condescending. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough for her. Then Omer Bihali appeared and began to pursue her, and we grew apart. I felt the bitter taste of missed opportunity for many days after that.
Apart from Dr. Kaufman, who spoke to us about physics, history, and a bit of Judaism, there was a man called Hugo in our ken. He came from Israel and told us what was going on there, about the kibbutzim, about farming. Many of us dreamed of being farmers in Israel. He taught us Hebrew songs. At evenings around the campfire, we enthusiastically sang along with him, accompanied by Telbi’s accordion, and we danced the hora.
So I easily forgot we’d once lived on Dedinje Hill, in a large house with a garden and a swimming pool. It simply all became a distant dream. I was able to create a new and less lonely life for myself.
At home, my parents increasingly talk of fulfilling the Zionist dream and emigrating to Israel, especially Father. It isn’t only the economic situation that makes him want to leave. I think he is also disturbed by not having any national identity, not legally belonging to the place he’d lived in for dozens of years. The detailed letter we sent the authorities didn’t help. They hold a grudge against Father for fighting with the Hungarian army against the Serbs in the Great War; this is why they won’t give us Yugoslavian citizenship.
Father wants to emigrate to Israel, but Klarie won’t hear of it, probably because she has such a successful career as a lawyer.
In conversations with Father, she vehemently objects to the idea. Once, she even said, “You go to Israel if you like; go live in tents and catch malaria. I’ll stay here, hold onto my peaceful life, go on living in my beautiful house, and see a good movie or an opera once in a while.”
She tries to convince Mother it would be a grave mistake to emigrate to Israel, that conditions there are no good for people their age.
One day, Father came home with sorrowful eyes. He’d tried to arrange immigration certificates for us all to go to Israel, but apparently, he wasn’t eligible for a capitalist certificate because he’d gone bankrupt, and he wasn’t eligible for a Hechalutz certificate because he’d never been a Hechalutz. A student certificate wasn’t relevant, of course. The only option, and the most dangerous, was for them to illegally immigrate to Israel.
Mother saw it as an opportunity to dissuade Father from emigrating to Israel, saying that Klarie might be right after all. Perhaps it just wasn’t for us.
“Look at the DeVecchio family, Albert, Leon’s father,” she said. “They’re leaving for America. If we really need to leave, perhaps we should go and live in America?”
But Father thought Israel is where we belong and where we must go; it’s where our roots are. Father reminded Mother about her relative, Rabbi Judah Alkalai, who is buried on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. So many Jews had taken his advice decades ago and emigrated. It’s our turn now.
But Mother wasn’t convinced.
“The boys are finally happy in school. They have friends here. Isn’t that important enough?”
“Louisa, you aren’t seeing things clearly enough; read the writing on the wall. I think the situation is getting worse by the day, and we’ve got to wake up. With Hitler in power, new decrees against Jews are b
eing issued all the time.”
“But that’s taking place in Germany and Austria,” said Mother. “We’re in the Balkans. Why would it happen here?”
“It’s gradually influencing things here as well. This is why I’ve been getting fewer and fewer projects at the office. I have every reason to suspect this is happening just because I’m Jewish.”
“But if we can’t get a certificate, how can we emigrate?”
“There is a way. It’s called illegal immigration.” Father lowered his voice, as if saying something forbidden.
Mother was very worried about getting into trouble with the law. Father tried to calm her down, telling her he’d met with Mr. Spitzer from the Federation of Jewish Communities, an influential man with a lot of connections. It might take some time, but Spitzer has been trying to arrange a way for us to leave Europe without immigration permits. They would organize group certificates for the transport.
“How can they organize certificates? Who exactly would be responsible for that? It just doesn’t sound right. It’s no way to move an entire family to another country,” Mother voiced her concerns. Her arguments silenced Father; his confidence seemed to crumble before the solid wall of her objections.
The tenth of November. I will never forget that day. The day Mother was finally convinced we should leave.
The ringing telephone startled us from our sleep at seven in the morning. From outside my room, I heard Mother talking with Grandma.
Suddenly, she let out a great cry. I ran to her. From the bits of conversation I managed to hear between her fits of crying, I understood what had happened. The previous evening, hooligans armed with clubs and iron bars entered Grandma’s town in Austria, looking for Jewish homes and businesses. They tore down doors and smashed windows. Mother’s parents and her younger brother hid in the attic, trembling with fear and waiting for it all to be over, while the hooligans smashed the entire house, destroying all the furniture, expensive china, and glassware.