Gratitude (18 page)

But I will say that, as I saw it again on this side of the Atlantic, I kept remembering the afternoon seven or eight years ago when I was sitting with my director, Lothar Mendes, and my editor, and we were cutting the film in a mad hurry to get it ready for its release, and we were looking at take after take of Roland Young saying something inconsequential, but he had trouble spitting it out—getting the one bit right. Mendes had made him do it over and over. As I watched, and we selected the right take to attach to the previous scene, I realized that the magic had almost evaporated for me, that cutting this movie was like cutting up the miracles themselves. It took me back to the days when we used to sit in our
paholy,
you and I—do you remember, Klarikam, our booth at the Octagon? Or even better—do you remember the coffee grinder cum projector cranker at the New York Café? Good God! What magic he cranked out of those first transparent moving pictures. Do you recall, galambom?

Forgive me for getting carried away, but I find myself doing that more often in these stormy times, looking day after day for the sky to clear, searching my memory for the sunny days. They were hardly carefree but they seem so now. Everything was ahead of us, wasn’t it, Klarikam?

I also remember one thing you said to me, on one of the last days we spent together, when you knew your father and I were going to come to blows. You said, “Be kind.” That was all, and it has remained with me since. I always have to remind myself in this nasty place, this nasty world, just to be kind because when I am I feel better. It’s all so simple, isn’t it?

Please pass on my love to your family, whichever members you choose to share my love with. I leave that judgment with you. Be well, and as I said last time, get out of Europe. It’s time.

With much affection,
Sir Sanyi

“So, there you have it,” Klari said. “I’m sure now you’ve had your fill.” She was looking down, folding up the letter again, preparing to tie up the bundle with the red ribbon. Lili thought Klari might cry.

That night, as Lili helped Simon into bed, she said, “Your mother was so smitten.”

“How about you and me?” Simon asked. “Do we have a chance at smittenhood?”

She took his hand again. “No, something more meaningful,” she said but then blushed right away.

They kissed softly, Lili conscious of his sore nose.

THIS DAY
, Lili was on the hunt for meat. She walked quickly and with her head down, but she tried not to look conspicuous. She was to meet her friend Maria at the Madar Café, where Maria was a waitress. Lili had run into her in a park one day. As Maria was feeding the pigeons, Lili took a risk and told her about herself, and Maria sobbed and hugged Lili hard. That afternoon, Maria arranged to get Lili a good-sized Emmenthal cheese and some crusty bread to take home. Still, Lili avoided calling upon Maria too often; she didn’t want to get the kind young woman into trouble. On this occasion, though, Maria had insisted. She said she had something for Lili.

Lili walked the twenty blocks without incident, but right outside the Madar stood a German officer, a lieutenant. Lili was about to turn sharply to the right and head down Szemzo Street—as casual as could be, as if she didn’t have a care—but the officer stopped her. Her heart lurched.

She felt for her papers in the front pocket of her blue skirt. She wore a blue blouse, too, with a white collar. The German didn’t seem to care about papers. “Where are you going?” he asked in German, speaking slowly and quietly.

“I was coming here to meet my friend Maria.” Lili was able to answer in German, but she had to watch she didn’t accidentally throw in a Yiddish word.

“Oh, Maria,” he said, as if he knew her. “My name is Horst Immel.”

“We’re going to her uncle’s church,” she blurted out. “He’s the priest there. Father Ambrus. It’s the little Church of St. Margaret, over on—”

“Why don’t I walk you there?” he interrupted.

“Because I’m supposed to go with Maria, as I said.”

“All right, with Maria, then.”

Horst Immel took off his cap and rubbed his forehead with his sleeve. He was quite tall, and blond, though not as blond as Lili. The sun was at her back, and he closed one eye to block it out. He seemed gentle and trustworthy, but three months before Lili had believed most people were that way. Could he have already completed one campaign and now been reassigned to another? Had he been promoted to lieutenant because of the good work he’d done as a sergeant back in Tolgy? Could he have been one of her family’s captors? She wanted to ask him, What have you Germans done with my family? With my friend Hilda? If you want to do something nice, ask your friends, please, what became of them. Ask your colleagues for me, your compatriots. Yes, I am one of
them
. Lili had to cross her arms to muffle the drumming of her heart.

Suddenly, Maria was beside them on the sidewalk, still wearing her apron. She had seen them outside. “Lili,” she said, a little breathless.

“Oh, Lili?” the officer said.

“Are you ready to go?” Lili asked Maria.

Maria said she’d just be a second and ran back into the café to shed her apron and get her purse. The coffee shop was a modest one, but clean and cheerful. It was a favourite of soldiers, mostly German ones. They were able to get a good schnitzel and wurst there, and the best Pilsner in town. The owner often bragged that he drove all the way into the country to get the supplies he needed, and they were all fresh.

“I want to walk with you,” the German said to Lili. “There are some dangerous elements around these days who might not treat you as kindly as you’d like.”

Lili tried not to look astonished. He still had an eye closed to the sun—the other eye this time—as he looked at her.

Maria was back. “Come on, then,” she said. She wanted to get the walk over with. Her German was not as good as Lili’s, but no one would ever suspect Maria of anything. She had the look of the ancient Hungarian tribes, thick black hair, slightly oriental brown eyes, with a good strong thickness about her body.

“Where do you live?” Horst asked Lili.

“Over on Jokai Street,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“She and her family attend our church,” Maria said. “Are you a Catholic, Lieutenant?”

“No, I’m Lutheran.”

“Oh, we have some of those in Hungary, too, though most are Catholic—the Christians, I mean.”

Lili saw that Maria was looking the other way, as if at a store window. She knew her friend was blushing. She was anxious and talking far too much.

“I grew up on a farm,” Lili said, “in the southeast.” She wanted to see if there was anything suspicious about his look, but how could there be? He was invading Budapest now. Horst smiled at her as they walked. His teeth were very white. He took long strides, so the women had to walk quickly. “Geese and chickens, mostly,” Lili added.

“My family is in Dusseldorf,” he said. For the first time, Lili realized that he might have someone waiting for him, too, a mother, a sister, a girlfriend—all the men in their lives scattered—and that Horst might never be back. “Is your family here with you now, in Budapest?” he asked. “On Jokai Street, is it?”

“No, I’m staying with an uncle and aunt here, just for a little while.”

“She has a fiancé too,” Maria said. “She’s engaged.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding genuinely disappointed. They slowed down slightly, as the lieutenant saw that the women were almost out of breath.

What dangerous elements did the German have in mind, Lili wondered, from which he could protect them? Was he not the one out of place on these streets? What was he expecting? Wild dogs? Wild Hungarians—psychotic ones, turned Nyilas? What would happen then? Would they duel it out for the privilege of protecting the honour of these two fine girls?

The streets were surprisingly quiet. They felt, for a shiver, like the streets of Tolgy. Lili and her sister Tildy, not too many years before, used to think that the windows of empty houses were eyes that had been blinded as a result of staring one another down for too long. Her friend Hilda said no, they were not blind, but saw everything, and could report it at will to “the authorities,” whoever they were.

On the corner was a barbershop where, short weeks before, Simon and his father used to go for a haircut. The place was now dark, the owner and his family having been taken to the walled ghetto behind the temple on Dohany Street. Lili felt ashamed as they passed the shop, felt like a betrayer, or a bad actress playing a betrayer alongside her German guard.

They made it to the church without incident. Lili wondered anxiously what might happen next, but Horst merely saluted casually and said he hoped to see Maria and Lili at the Madar Café again sometime. Lili could picture him dressed as a gentleman back in Dusseldorf, someone who tipped his hat as he came and went. And then he was gone. Lili actually paused on the steps to watch him go before following her friend into the little church.

Father Ambrus greeted both girls warmly if a little solemnly. Candles burned behind him. They stood in a bed of sand. Maria had apparently told her uncle Lili’s story. He handed Lili some fresh wafers, wrapped in a tea cloth. “These are for your Budapest family, and you, of course,” he said. “Have one now, if you like. They’re very nice.”

“They’re the flesh of Christ,” Maria said, and she laughed out loud. No one joined her. “I mean at Mass on Sunday,” she said quietly, “when people take communion.”

Lili felt like an intruder. Father Ambrus asked the girls to sit and wait. Lili didn’t know what for, but she and Maria made themselves comfortable at the back of the little church. Lili set the package of wafers down gently on her lap. She didn’t want to damage them.

Lili had never been to a church before, but she felt utterly safe. What better place to be concealed? Someone off to the side began playing the organ. Lili searched the shadows.

“That’s my uncle,” Maria whispered. “He plays Bach. It gets him into moods.” Maria tapped her temple. “It stirs the spirits.”

Lili looked at her friend.

“The music, I mean, the Bach.”

Lili listened some more and soon understood why. The music fluttered like a bird flying up to the belfry, searching for a door out of which to soar even higher. A porcelain Jesus looked down from his cross at the altar, his expression serene despite his circumstance. Lili was carried away by what she saw and heard, almost forgetting the package in her lap.

Maria said, “Everyone is afraid.” Lili looked straight at her friend. “We
are
,” she said. “Nobody knows what’s coming. The Germans are here now. They’re shovelling people around. Russians might come, or, my fiancé says, even Americans, possibly, or Japanese—who knows? And we’re hungry, too. Not me, necessarily, because I have the café, but some of my family, and Patrik’s family—my fiancé.”

“I didn’t know.”

“He’s coming for us now. He’s taking us somewhere.”

“He is?”

“Yes, don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”

The music stopped, and a minute later Father Ambrus came to tell the girls that Patrik was out back. Maria said, “He’s brought a carriage, pulled by a horse.” Then she said again, “It’ll be all right.”

The priest nodded as he helped the young women into the carriage. Patrik looked rustic, though of course he couldn’t have been. He was a big man with broad shoulders and straw-coloured hair. Lili sat in the back, guarding her wafers. Maria sat with her fiancé in front, and between the couple lay a formidable bayonet. Behind them were burlap sacks; one of them looked to be full of potatoes.

“Where are we going?” Lili asked.

“Patrik is a zookeeper,” Maria said. “You’ll see.”

“We’re going to the
zoo
?” Lili had been to the zoo only once in her life, and that was the small one in Szeged. What a thing to propose on such a day, with the worries they had.

“The zoo’s closed,” Patrik said, without turning his head, “but we can get in.”

They clopped through the city at a reasonable pace. After a time they turned a corner and saw a long line of people, each wearing the yellow Star of David sewn to their jackets or coats. They looked like families, most of them; they included the old and the young, and the line extended from one end of the avenue all the way to the other. They were being marshalled by Germans. Lili felt her stomach convulse, felt herself gag. She’d heard from Paul and others about these processions, but this was the first she’d witnessed.

Patrik pulled up on the reins—“Whoa”—and turned the horse around to take another route. The bayonet clattered to the floor, and Maria retrieved it. She turned to look at Lili, who clung to her wafers. Lili wanted to ask to be let off, but Patrik turned and said, “We’ll be there before too long, and you’ll feel calmer.”

It was another hour before they arrived at the zoo, but the summer trees gave the travellers shade, and the rhythmic clopping of the horse’s hooves on the stone calmed Lili down the way the church music had.

The gates of the Budapest Zoo were closed, and as Patrik leapt down and unlocked them, Lili admired the ironwork: figures of animals of all kinds, in pairs, merrily prancing toward the apex of the gate, where Noah, his welcoming arms open, awaited them in his ark.

Maria took the reins to drive the carriage through, and Patrik locked the cheerful gates behind them. Lili caught a country whiff of manure as they entered, and she thought again of Tolgy—Erik, the rooster, and the geese and horses.

Patrik took over the reins again, and bent into the task of steering the carriage down the lanes of the zoo. Maria glanced over her shoulder at Lili and smiled. Lili heard the exotic shriek of birds she couldn’t recognize. They passed an expansive pen marked “Ostrich (
Struthio camelus
),” but Lili couldn’t spot an ostrich anywhere. She’d never seen one and would have liked to.

Around the corner, a lone giraffe in a forested enclosure stood and chewed the leaves of a tall tree. Lili said, “Can we get down?”

“No,” Patrik said too abruptly. “It’s better if you stay in the carriage. We won’t stay long.”