My Canary Yellow Star (12 page)

“Thank God your grandfather had business dealings with Sweden,” Mama said.

The relief left us exhausted. The others slept, but I let myself out and knocked on Judit’s door. I showed her and her mother my Schutz-Pass.

“Let me take you there. They’ll help you. They were so kind.”

“It’s useless for Judit to go,” Mrs. Grof said. “Our family never had any connection with Sweden.”

“Please, Mother, let me go with Marta,” Judit cried. “Perhaps they’ll be able to do something for us anyway. Marta doesn’t even have to wear a yellow star any more.”

“We could tell them that our grandfathers were business partners, that both of them imported lumber from Sweden,” I suggested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mrs. Grof said. “They’ll probably check what you tell them. Then we might be in worse trouble than before.”

No matter how hard Judit and I tried, we could not change her mother’s mind.

J
udit and I were standing in front of Aunt Miriam’s dresser mirror, posing. I swept my hair up on top of my head.

“Do you think I look like Judy Garland?”

“No, actually, you look like me, Judit Grof!” She laughed.

It was true. Both of us had dark eyes and olive skin. We wore our shoulder-length brown hair in a pageboy like the actresses in American films. Judit’s hair was naturally wavy, so this style was easy for her to achieve. I, on the other hand, had to tie my poker-straight locks in rags every night before going to bed to get the same effect. Judit was also a head taller than I was. Secretly, I envied her more womanly figure, although I never would have admitted it. My own chest still resembled a washboard.

“Do you girls ever stop talking? We’re trying to concentrate,” said Ervin. The boys were playing checkers on the floor. “We’ve been here for three months, and you two haven’t run out of things to say. Come and play with us.”

We sat down on the floor.

“Who’s winning? Gabor again?” I asked.

“No,” said Ervin.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked Gabor sarcastically. “Have you forgotten how to play?”

“Is something bothering you?” Judit asked.

“Oh, nothing. I just … Never mind,” Gabor stammered. I was immediately sorry for having made fun of him.

“Are you crying?” Judit’s brother, Adam, asked. He took advantage by skipping his red checker piece over Gabor’s black one. “Beat ya!” he crowed.

“Quiet!” Ervin snapped, jabbing Adam in the ribs with his elbow. He turned to Gabor. “What’s the matter?”

Gabor gave him a grateful look. My brother nodded back encouragingly.

Gabor cleared his throat. “Does anybody know the date today?” he asked in a reedy voice.

“August 19, 1944,” Adam crowed. He liked to show off.

“I am supposed to have my bar mitzvah exactly one week from today. But with Father gone and the synagogue closed … Mother says my turn will come after Father comes home. I know she’s right, but …” He stopped for a moment. “I’m so disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to
reading from the Torah for so long, and who knows when Father will come home … if he ever does.” His voice trailed off miserably.

“Don’t even think of something so awful!” Judit said fiercely. “Your father will be home soon. You must believe that with all your heart!”

Gabor shook his head in resignation. “I hope so. I know God will help us. It’s just that I was looking forward to my bar mitzvah so much.”

I remembered how happy Ervin was at his own bar mitzvah the year before. Papa was so proud. And Gabor’s family was more observant than mine.

“Why don’t you explain your Torah reading to us?” I suggested. “And after Uncle Laci comes home, we can all go to the synagogue and see you get called up.”

“Do you know your Torah portion?” Ervin asked.

“By heart. I’ve been practicing it for a couple of years.”

“I like Marta’s suggestion,” Ervin said. “You can explain the meaning of your Torah portion on the same day that you were supposed to be having your bar mitzvah. Afterward, the four of us can have a little party in your honor. A party just for kids.”

Each of us had found gifts to give Gabor to commemorate his bar mitzvah. Judit and Adam’s present was a deck of cards – Gabor loved all kinds of games. I gave him my copy
of
The Boys of Pal Street.
The novel was dog-eared because I’d read it over and over again. But his mouth really fell open when Ervin presented him with his pocket knife. Grandpa and Gran had given it to him for his own bar mitzvah, and he never went anywhere without it.

“I can’t take this. It wouldn’t be right,” Gabor said. I could see by his expression that he wanted to keep the knife badly.

“I want you to have it,” Ervin replied, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder.

“Thank you, Ervin. Thank you all,” he said. He was beaming from ear to ear.

Gabor had a collection of American jazz records, so we pushed all the furniture except the sofa to the wall, piling the chairs and small tables on top of each other to give us more room. After we’d rolled up the Persian carpet that covered the parquet floor, there was a little space to dance. We turned up the music so loud that we didn’t even hear Peter when he came in.

“Peter! You came at the right time,” I said.

“I came to say goodbye. My parents are making me go to Pecs. Away from ‘bad influences,’ they say.”

“I’m the bad influence?”

“You’re the least of their worries now. They want to know why I won’t enlist. By the way, you forgot to lock the door, you know. What’s going on here?” He looked around
and saw the records and the cake Grandmama had somehow managed to bake for us. “Are you having a party?”

Ervin stopped the music.

“Well, sort of,” I said.

“I’m going to talk,” said Gabor. “But first I’ll lock the door.”

Peter watched as Ervin and Gabor put satin yarmulkes on their heads. Gabor wrapped his father’s tallis, his prayer shawl, around his shoulders, and Ervin wore Papa’s. Judit, Adam, Peter, and I sat down on the sofa. Peter was beside me, holding my hand. All I could think of was that I might never see him again.

Gabor stood very straight, facing us. “My Torah portion is full of beautiful ideas,” he said in a serious voice. “It discusses the sacredness of each individual human life. It also talks about how people should behave if the corpse of a murder victim is found in their community and how –”

A sudden banging shook the apartment door. My first thought was that whoever it was mustn’t discover Peter. He looked around the room in a panic.

“Peter, get in the closet!” Ervin said. “Hurry up!”

Ervin and Peter rushed to a large mahogany wardrobe in the corner of the room and opened its double doors wide. Peter squeezed in behind Aunt Miriam’s dresses. Ervin locked the wardrobe’s door and put the key into his pocket.

The banging outside intensified. I shook my head to clear it. “Put the key back. They might notice it’s missing,” I told Ervin.

“You’re right.” Ervin pushed the large, old-fashioned metal key back into the lock on the wardrobe door. The banging grew still louder. The boys shoved their yarmulkes and the tallisim under the sofa cushions. The banging was becoming so loud that I feared the door would break down. We looked at each other anxiously.

“I’ll do the talking,” Ervin said. “Marta, let them in.”

I took a deep breath and opened the door. Two policemen and a civilian with a pockmarked face pushed their way into the apartment. The handles of the policemen’s revolvers were sticking out of the holsters on their hips. Their knee-high boots gleamed brightly, even under the dim electric lights.

“You took your sweet time answering the door, Jew,” the older policeman snarled.

“I’m sorry, but we were listening to the phonograph and didn’t hear you knocking,” Ervin said. His tone was conciliatory. “What can we do for you, officer?”

“Mr. Szilard here,” the older policeman said, pointing to the man with the pockmarked face, “reported to us that somebody from this apartment has been signaling the Americans.”

It was only then that I recognized the pockmarked man as the janitor of the apartment house across the street.

“That’s not true, officer!” Ervin cried. “We’re loyal Hungarians. We wouldn’t support the enemy.”

“The Jew is lying!” yelled Szilard. The veins in his forehead bulged in an alarming manner. “I saw with my own two eyes these Jews sending light signals to the Americans. They were signaling them from their front window, across the street from us. They must be spies!”

Ervin gave the rest of us a warning look. Judit and Adam were holding hands for comfort, while Gabor glared at Szilard, his eyes full of hate. My own heart was racing so rapidly that I had trouble catching my breath.

“Take us to the room Mr. Szilard is talking about,” the younger policeman ordered brusquely.

We led the three men to Aunt Miriam’s bedroom, the only room in the apartment that faced the street. The curtains over the windows were kept wide open to let in the evening summer breezes. We closed the blackout curtains only when we had to turn on the lights.

The older officer switched on the lights but left the drapes open. The crystal chandelier cast gloomy shadows into the recesses of the room. My stomach somersaulted when I remembered that my aunt had hidden a radio under her bed. We listened to the Hungarian-language broadcasts of the BBC every evening. But fortunately, although the policemen looked around the room carefully, examining every nook and cranny, they did not bother to get down on their hands and knees to look under the bed. Nor
did they seem inclined to search the rest of the apartment.

“Nothing here,” the younger policeman announced, scratching his head.

The janitor was becoming more agitated by the moment. “The Jew is lying! Who are you going to believe – me or a dirty Jew?”

“You, of course, Mr. Szilard,” the older policeman said reassuringly. “The Jews must have hidden their transmitter somewhere else. We’ll take them down to headquarters. They’ll tell the truth there soon enough.” He turned off the lights, ready to leave the room.

I knew he was talking about torture. And Peter, hiding in the locked wardrobe – it was only a question of time before he was found. The moment seemed to last forever. I forced myself to look away from the policemen so I could think more clearly, more calmly. My eyes fell on the key cabinet hanging on the wall. This large cupboard filled with various household keys was attached to the back wall, right across from the open windows. The front panels of the ebony cabinet were decorated with silver inlays in the shape of peacocks. I had loved to trace the outlines of these birds with my fingers when I was a little girl. I noticed then that the peacocks’ plumage gleamed brighter whenever the moonbeams peeked out from behind the clouds. I realized what must have happened. The janitor had mistaken the moonlight reflected by the silver peacocks for light signals being sent to the Americans.

“Look, sir,” I said to the policemen. “The silver of the peacocks on the cabinet reflects the moonbeams. It’s moon-light, not light signals, that Mr. Szilard saw.”

The younger officer seemed to be convinced, but his older colleague looked doubtful. Somehow, I had to make him believe me.

“Let me prove to you, sir, exactly what did happen,” I said to the older policeman earnestly. “Why don’t you go over to Mr. Szilard’s apartment, to the window that faces our house, and see for yourself whether I am telling you the truth? You’ll see that as soon as the moon comes out from behind the clouds the silver inlay on the key cabinet reflects the light. While you’re gone, we’ll go into the parlor. That way, you’ll know that we didn’t touch a thing in here.”

I turned to the younger policeman. “Why don’t you stay with us to make sure that we don’t leave the parlor?” I smiled at the officer pleasantly. I didn’t want to give the impression that I was issuing orders.

After much deliberation, the skeptical older policeman and the janitor agreed to go across the street. They insisted that Ervin go with them. The rest of us filed in to the parlor. The young policeman threw himself down on the sofa, right on top of the boys’ yarmulkes and tallisim. He pulled a rolled-up newspaper from the inside pocket of his uniform and began to read the sports page. We sat in silence, waiting, afraid to speak to one another.

The minutes dragged by. I tried to estimate how long Ervin and the two men had been gone – at least fifteen minutes. I became more and more worried with every passing second. Was there still enough air in the wardrobe for Peter to breathe? Just then, I heard a slight rustle from that direction. I stood up from my chair.

“Where are you going?” the policeman snapped.

“Just stretching my legs, sir,” I answered. “Judit, why don’t you offer the officer a slice of cake?”

Judit stared at me as if I had lost my mind. We were looking forward to eating every morsel ourselves.

“Give the officer some cake, Judit,” I repeated. I walked to the table and pulled up another chair next to it. The back of the chair faced the room and the wardrobe.

Judit looked confused, but she did as I asked. She cut a slice of the cake, put it on a plate, then offered
it
to the policeman. The officer sat down at the table. His back was to the room and also to the wardrobe. While he concentrated on wolfing down the cake, I inched backwards, closer and closer to the wardrobe. Finally, keeping a large smile pasted on my face, I reached behind me and gently turned the key in the lock. Then I reached behind me again and pulled on the key, being careful not to dislodge it. The wardrobe door opened a crack. I coughed once again to cover the noise, but the officer was too busy eating to notice. I remained in front of the wardrobe, my hands
on my hips, my legs slightly apart, as if I was waiting for Ervin and the two men to come back.