Outcasts (19 page)
She heard the guards tell two young boys standing beside them to "Fetch Hedy Weisz." And she thought she would faint. She looked around. Everyone in the room was sleeping. Her entire body trembling, she quickly glanced into her compact mirror, pinched her cheeks for colour, and walked calmly to the front entrance where Tibor was engaged in friendly banter with the two guards and was offering them cigarettes.
Few people noticed the corporal in full dress uniform and his stunning fiancée as they walked purposefully out of the ghetto. Arm in arm they walked, looking to the world like any normal couple. Hedy could feel the strength and fearlessness emanating from Tibor as she clung to him for courage. She kept repeating to herself, "Put one foot forward at a time. Relax. Keep walking." As they walked away from the gate, Hedy expected to hear gunshots. She visualized the two of them, lying on the ground, arms entwined, little rivulets of blood flowing from their upper torsos onto the cobblestone street. Their last moments on this earth, finally, happily together, forever.
They walked at a measured pace and, amazingly, no shots were fired. Hedy really didn't know where they were going but, as the distance grew, each step she took became lighter and lighter. She would have followed him anywhere, she was so giddy with the excitement of leaving that dreadful place.
Tibor led them directly to the train station and to Berti Mecseri's office. He had the key to the station master's office and opened the door.
Tibor guided Hedy over to a chair, motioned for her to sit down, and went to a side table in one corner of the office. He opened the cabinet door, grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses, and poured each of them a generous serving. As they drank, they let out a sigh of relief, then began talking.
"That wasn't so difficult, was it, my darling?" Tibor asked Hedy as he took another sip of wine. He thought of their boldness and started laughing quietly, more out of a sense of relief than anything else, then he stopped himself.
Hedy was still so shaken by the brazenness of what they had just done, she could barely lift the glass to her lips her hands were shaking so.
She grabbed a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and wiped her forehead. Her voice shaking, she asked, "How did you arrange that?"
She raised her glass to toast with him, but he held up his hand, as if to caution her.
"You know I'm superstitious, my dear. Let's not clink glasses yet. Our luck could still run out." From the seriousness of the tone, Hedy felt instinctively that Tibor was about to tell her something of great significance. They sat across from each other, each immersed in their own thoughts for a moment. His dark brown eyes, brimming with emotion and love for her, held something more - something serious and troubling. She waited for him to begin.
"I've prepared a place for you on this train," he began. "Come. Take a little walk with me. I must show you something."
They walked out of the main administrative building and headed down to the train tracks, stopping alongside a dark and waiting train at the station. The moon was so bright they could see their shadows. Somewhere a dog was barking - a lonely, plaintive cry. When they reached a railway car elegantly embossed with "
Posta Kocsi
" (mail car) on the side, he helped her up the three steep, iron-forged steps and, once again, extricated a key from his pocket to unlock the door.
Once inside, Hedy's senses were overwhelmed by the delicious smell of freshly baked bread mixed with a slight tinge of ground coffee. Oh, how she loved that smell. How she had missed it. The car was filled with sacks labelled "wheat," "flour," "apples." Hedy looked questioningly at her fiancé. Tibor, still holding her hand, kissed it and led her down the narrow centre aisle of the train car that had boxes and sacks piled up on either side of the central walkway.
At one end of the railway car, small arms ammunition crates were piled on top of each other. Each was made of wood and was 4' x 11' x 14' in size. Tibor removed the lid of the top crate. Hedy peered in and saw that the bottom of the top one had been removed and connected to the one below it, doubling the size of the crate. The sides had been reinforced so that, from the outside, the crates still all looked identical. On one side of the enlarged crate a little doorway had been crafted, also invisible from the outside. Tibor opened it and motioned for Hedy to enter. She squeezed through the door.
Inside, a blanket and pillow were carefully folded. A smaller apple crate was set next to the folded bedding. In it Hedy saw apples, bread, cheese, nuts, and bottles of water. Cloth serviettes were neatly folded over the food. There was even a book to read - a book of verse by her favourite poet, Sandor Petofi. Hedy knew instinctively, from the meticulous way in which the provisions were lined up and from the fresh scent of the sheets, pillow, and blanket, that Tibor meant this to be her hiding place. Her eyes widened. She certainly had not expected this.
"I am the only one who has access to this railway car," Tibor said. He held up the key. "This is the only key. Berti Mecseri is the only other person in the world who knows about this. But we can trust him. He helped me. I couldn't have accomplished all this without him." Tibor turned to Hedy, placed his hands gently on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes. "Come away with me, my darling. We will go together on this train to a place where no one knows us. This war will be over soon. Let's start anew in a brand new place. After all the destruction things will have to be rebuilt; there will always be work for an engineer." He pulled her close and she buried her face in his uniform shirt.
Hedy said nothing. Her mind was a blur trying to absorb all that he was saying and she was trying to imagine how the plan might work. Her heart was ready to go away with him. The idea of never going back to that dirty, overcrowded, lice-infested place was very enticing. She had only been out for an hour or so and already felt so much calmer, so much more like a human. But the thought of what would happen to her father, her brother, and her sisters was nagging at another part of her brain.
As if reading her mind, Tibor whispered, "There's nothing you can do for them by staying here. I've heard rumours that the Jews are going to be transported to a place called Waldsee. Once this nightmare war is over, we'll find them together, you and I. I promise you that you will be reunited with your family. Come with me, my darling."
Hedy realized she couldn't possibly give him an answer right away. He would have to give her a few hours to decide. They sat down side by side on two apple crates and talked in whispers, laughing quietly and shedding a few tears. They talked about their lives together in this new place, a city where they would start life all over again as newlyweds. They talked about the mundane details that would make up their daily routine. As the hours passed, it became cool and Tibor pulled out a blanket and wrapped it around them. They grew silent, both of them finally feeling the emotional toll of this exhausting day. Tibor kissed the moistness left by the tears on her cheeks, then his kisses became more passionate. "Life is but a day, our lives are but a single kiss."
It was two in the morning when Tibor departed. Hedy promised to spend the rest of the night in the hidden train compartment. In the morning, after a few hours rest, he would come back and they would finalize the details.
Tibor left with a heavy heart. He knew he had to go through the motions of life as usual and couldn't let anyone in the house know that this might be his final night at home, that he was planning to disappear forever the next day. He pushed away thoughts of what his disappearance would mean to his mother, who had come to rely on her son more and more. He shut his mind to his family. He couldn't bear to think of anyone but Hedy.
He hardly slept that night and no one was up yet when Tibor left the house the next morning. As fast as his feet could carry him, he went directly to the train car. It was empty. He dashed over to the station master's office but, before Tibor could ask anything, Berti Mecseri picked up a note from his desk and said, "She left this for you."
"What?" Tibor stammered. "When?"
"Around six in the morning. I had just arrived for my shift," Berti said. Tibor looked at his watch. It was just after seven. "Did she say anything? What direction did she go?"
"She really didn't have to say anything. Her eyes were red from crying. She looked wracked with sorrow."
Tibor mumbled something under his breath as he walked out of the station master's office in a daze, ripping open the letter.
My dearest Tibor,
Forgive me for writing you these lines. I do so because I could not bear to see the sadness in your eyes when I told you of my decision. I don't know if going back will make any difference to my family's future or, for that matter, our fate. All I know is that I have to go back and face that fate together with them. I cannot abandon my brother, my sisters, and my father now, in their hour of greatest need.
Forgive me, my darling.
Love,
Hedy
Tibor stood staring at the note, trying to let the message sink in. When it did, he came to the realization that he had been selfish in trying to save her. Since her mother's death, Hedy had become mother to her brother and younger sister - she was all they had. How could he not have seen the obvious?
As Tibor headed back to his office, he thought about how he had worked to secure Hedy's safety. He had planned everything, right down to the smallest detail, but the only scenario he had imagined was the one where they would leave together. He had never thought she would decide to go back into the ghetto.
H
EDY FELT CONFIDENT THEY
wouldn't lay a hand on her. She had returned to the ghetto through the secret entrance and was on her way to her family when a guard recognized and stopped her. Dezso Horvath, the same guard Tibor had paid off to get her out of the ghetto, had a devilish look in his eyes.
"Where do you think you are going?" he insinuated. But before Hedy could think of a possible answer, he continued. "We'll have to teach you not to sneak out again. There can be no waltzing in and out of here whenever you choose. Who do you think you are to assume you can break the rules?"
Hedy was so exhausted she found these questions almost comical. Horvath had taken Tibor's money and now he was making a show of his loyalty to the cause for the small group watching them. She was tempted to say something, here in front of witnesses, but she bit her lip. Horvath's beady brown eyes sat in a head that was narrow, but top-heavy like a turnip. He looked at her with a mixture of disdain and lust and pursed his thin lips. "You'll be sorry you tried to escape," he hissed, coming very near her face.
The kosher butcher shop was cold and humid. The refrigerated shelves were turned off and stripped bare of any produce. What goods there were had long been taken to feed the ghetto or pilfered by the gendarmes. Hedy guessed there were twenty other people there already, watched over by four guards. They ordered everyone to sit down on the cool tile floor. Then, for no apparent reason, two guards grabbed a reluctant man off the floor and dragged him out the door. The man's protests and screams pierced the air as the guards started to beat him. Hedy put her head down and tried to muffle the horrible sounds by putting her arms up against her ears.
Possibly to camouflage the noise, the two guards in the shop started berating those left inside. "You are all here because you are guilty of not following orders. No one will leave here until they learn that rules are made to be followed exactly. No one is exempt from these rules. Now, repeat after me: Lipit-Lopat."
The recitation went on for at least twenty minutes and was followed immediately by another series of nonsensical tongue-twisters. What is the point of this stupid exercise? Hedy wondered. Already exhausted from being up most of the night, she tried to follow the instructions of these guards who had probably never finished grade school. Her mind wandered back to the events of the previous night. She saw before her the intense look in Tibor's eyes, felt his loving caresses on her cheek and arms and felt a pang of love as she went back over in her mind the planning and thought he had put into creating that hidden compartment for her. She realized for the first time the tremendous risk he was taking in doing all this for her.
The repetition went on for another hour. Then they sat in silence for hours more. Suddenly, more of the stupidity of repetition. Hedy glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost evening; she had been there since 8:00 a.m. How could I have possibly thought that I could help my family? Hedy thought. They must be sick with worry right about now. She tried not to think about what Tibor must have felt when he found out she had returned to the ghetto. She looked down at her beautiful calfskin shoes and second-guessed her decision to leave the train car.
During the night, the beatings outside stopped and the guard who had ordered them to repeat the nonsense phrases also became silent. Hedy curled herself into a little ball, trying to retain the little warmth left in her body. Her fatigue and the damp, cool surroundings left her shivering all night. Toward dawn, everyone inside and out became silent. Then they heard the muffled footsteps. At first, it sounded to Hedy like there were just a few, then what sounded like hundreds of people walking past the butcher shop. Eerily funereal, it seemed like hundreds of people were shuffling by on the street outside, with hardly any other sound than the occasional baby crying or child talking. Panic set in as Hedy realized that another group from the ghetto was being taken to the train station. One thought kept running through her mind: They can't take my family without me.
S
UTI PROMISED HIS FATHER
that he would look after Icuka, who wanted to play a counting game as they walked. He didn't feel like playing - he felt hot and irritable. Who wears a coat on a warm day at the end of May? he thought. Yet Aliz, his older sister, had told him he must wear the coat or carry it. It was easier to wear it. He was already wearing a knapsack on his back, even though his wasn't as big as the one Aliz and father were wearing on their backs. He still couldn't understand any of this. Where were they going? When were they going to be allowed back home?
