Csardas (71 page)

Malie didn’t know when dread began to grow in her heart, a dread that descended upon her within a few seconds of waking each morning, dread that was carefully hidden from everyone during the day and that, at night, kept her staring into the darkness until her confused thoughts finally collapsed into sleep.

She remembered her anguish of the last war, hoping and praying for the safety of her lover at the Russian front, but this fear was different, born out of unknown terrors that vanished as soon as she tried to grasp them.
We are known and respected in this town
, she thought to herself a hundred times a day.
The Ferencs, the Bogozys, the Racs-Rassays, Kaldys, and Kleins, what harm could come to us providing we stay where we are known?

No one else seemed to share the fear, or at least there was no indication of it in the family. Papa was absorbed by the continuing inflation brought about by the forced trading with Germany, Mama by the lack of materials to make clothes. Jozsef, who had been called up into his regiment, visited them on leave, looking proud and rather foolish in his lieutenant’s uniform but apparently unconcerned by any deeper implication of the war.

Her sons, nearly grown up now, were such serious, silent young men that she could not bring herself to voice the dread in her heart. Against all common sense, all reason, was a conviction that if she ignored the fear it would go away.
My age,
she said to herself,
that’s what it is all about. I’m forty-six, the age when women begin to grow nervous and worry unnecessarily. That is all that is wrong with me.
And she would throw herself into a frenzy of household tasks, determined to give herself no time to brood on what might happen.
Two fine sons, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl niece, and a hard-working husband to look after, and I spend my time fidgeting like a neurotic woman over nameless fears.
Sometimes, when she had time, she would look at herself in the mirror and think how impossible it was that anything dramatic or dreadful could happen to someone so ordinary. She saw a tall, well-built woman with brown hair growing a little gray at the sides, a healthy, serene, ordinary-looking woman. It was ridiculous to suppose that anything could happen to ordinary people.

Towards the end of 1942, David began to make several trips to Budapest. It was like the old days when he had travelled up to the capital every week, but now he did not ask her to accompany him and he never talked about what he did there. He looked tired, a little drawn, and sometimes she caught him staring at his two strong sons with an expression of ineffable sadness in his eyes, and then she felt the fear clamping down over her senses again.

Just after Christmas he went, yet again, to Budapest, even though he had a feverish cold and was coughing very badly. It was soaking wet outside, snow that thawed into slush even while it was coming down. Their cobbled street and courtyard had always looked its prettiest in the winter, but on this particular day everything was misty, wet, and dirty. He had gone up by train, leaving his car at the station, and she waited anxiously for his return, concerned about the cough and yet almost pleased to be able to worry about something as normal and everyday as a cough instead of the other thing.

She heard the car at last—driving into the courtyard, the place where once old Uncle Sandor had driven his horse—and she hurried to open the door of their apartment, anxious to welcome him before he arrived at the top of the stairs.

“David!” she cried. “Come quickly into the warm and...” Her voice died away. The fear swept over her, receded, returned. David lifted his face to her, a face that was exhausted and as afraid as hers. His smooth olive skin had faded to the colour of parchment and every line was drawn down in haggard despair.

“What’s wrong?”

He dragged himself to the top step, then silently put his arms round her and laid his head on her shoulder, like a child needing comfort. He had never, in all the years of their marriage, asked her to be the strong partner. He had always been the capable one, the self-possessed husband who coped and made provision for every eventuality. His arms held her tightly and the weight of his body leant down on her.

“What’s wrong?” she said, hysteria mounting in her voice. “What is it?”

“Let us go inside, little one. I have matters to tell you.”

“Money? Have we sustained more losses? It doesn’t matter, David. You know we managed last time. It isn’t important.”

“Not money, little one.” He still, after all these years, called her little one. In some respects, when they were alone together, she was still the child bride, still the young wife he had been so proud to acquire. The endearment suddenly hurt her. She saw how old he was and realized how infinitely precious he was to her, this kind, gentle, sophisticated man whom she had not wanted to marry.

“Tell me! Please tell me what is wrong, David!” The panic in her voice made him straighten his tired body. Immediately he was the old David, the cool, competent man who always had every situation well in control.

“Calm, Malie. We do not want to disturb the boys or Terez. Come now, we shall sit by the fire and talk.”

With difficulty, disciplining herself against hysteria, she took his coat and hat from him, rang the bell for coffee, and poured brandy. He was almost the old David, almost composed and assured, but not quite.

“I have some news of Leo. It is not good.”

“He’s dead!”

“No. Not dead. Or injured. But he was transferred... to a labour battalion, the White Labour Corps. That is why we have not heard from him for three months.”

There it was, the fear, and now almost with relief she let it swamp her. No point any more in fighting it. Now the gnawing anxiety could be openly exhibited. Leo Ferenc, her brother, was in a labour battalion for Christians of Jewish extraction. It was on record. Someone, somewhere, had noted officially that the Ferencs were not pure Magyar. Whatever followed was inevitable.

“So,” she said quietly.

David put his hands over his eyes. His head sank forward a little.

“You understand, Malie, there is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of in joining the White Labour Corps. It is purely to comply with regulations.”

“I understand.”

“Malie, that is not all. Karoly has to go too.”

“Oh, no, David. No!”

“I was told privately... by a friend at the ministry.”

“Not my son! No! Not my son!” The fear exploded inside her. Her son, nineteen, not even to go in the army—that would have been bad enough—but the Labour Corps! First Karoly, then it would be Jacob, swept away, branded... and if the worst happened, if the Germans came in.... She clenched and unclenched her fingers. “There must be something we can do. We are people of importance in this town, respected, responsible for the livelihood and welfare of many! And look how we are related: to the Bogozys, the Kaldys, the Racs-Rassays. Why must my sons be sent to the White Labour Corps?”

“Only one, Malie, only Karoly.”

Karoly, named after her dead love. She rarely thought of that bright, golden young man any more. Now the name Karoly meant a tall, dark boy with soft brown eyes who sometimes called her Mamalie, who was demonstratively affectionate to both his parents, her firstborn, a plump solemn little boy who had always preferred to read rather than play games. Very quietly she began to cry.

“Malie, Malie.” He came across to her chair, knelt, and put his arms round her. “It is not so very dreadful, not like prison. It is the army, just a branch of the army. And if, by forming labour battalions—white, or yellow—we can keep Hitler out of our country, surely it is better....”

His voice was bleak, lacking in conviction, and abruptly she ceased to cry. Karoly was his son too. The implications were as clear to him as they were to her. He knew only too well the danger of possessing Jewish blood. She rested her head against his. The feel of him was so familiar it was only rarely she thought of him as another being. His body was as well known to her as her own. And suddenly the anxiety of her sons receded into a greater anxiety for this man, her husband. “There is nothing else you have to tell me, is there?” she asked, afraid. “You are safe, aren’t you? You don’t have to go away, do you?”

“What would the Labour Corps want with a sixty-four-year-old banker?” he said dryly.

“David, whatever happens, however bad things become, you and I will stay together, won’t we? It doesn’t matter, what happens, but you and I will be together?”

“For as long as we can.”

The fear receded a little, settled into a gentle ache that was never again to leave her. “Is there nothing we can do?” she asked softly.

David shrugged. “I have been trying to find a way of getting us out of the country, all of us: your mama, papa, the boys, even Kati and her son. I thought I might be able to find a way; I had influence in the old days. But there is no way out. We should have gone before, in 1938; it is my fault that I did not foresee all this happening. I should have made provision for you all.”

“Oh, no, my darling! You have done everything for us, always. You saved us after the war, and you saved us again in 1929. You have always looked after us, protected poor Papa’s pride and shown kindness to my silly mama. We owe you everything.”

They rocked against each other. She felt her tears surging up and swallowed them away. What would I do without him? she thought. How could I face life without him beside me?

They took comfort from each other, and the peace that flowed between them formed a brief illusory defence against the fear. Nothing could harm them when they were as close as this.

Later, when emotion had been swallowed into ordinary things—the eating of the evening meal, preparations for bed, the necessary nightly rebuke to Terez and Jacob, who always called to each other from their rooms long after it was time to sleep—they spoke again, but this time more rationally.

“How is it that Jozsef has not been transferred? Why is he still a lieutenant, and Leo in the Labour Corps?”

“I suspect it was too late to do anything about Jozsef. I think his regiment is probably already in Russia. I have not mentioned this to your papa.”

At any other time the news that Jozsef was fighting in Russia would have filled her with anxiety. Now, beside all the other news, it seemed just a minor unpleasantness.

“Why us?” she asked, puzzled. “Why have we been picked out so quickly? There are others like us in town, the Maryks, the Glatz family. They are like us but nothing has happened to them yet.”

“I think—suspect—someone has drawn attention to us, Malie,” he said into the darkness. “Someone has pointed to the Ferencs and the Kleins a little before it is our turn. I received the same feeling every time I approached the matters of special papers for getting out of the country. Someone was there before me, making sure we are blocked.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“I spoke to Leo on his last leave. He had a theory. He hardly believed it himself, it was so absurd. But do you remember the peasant child your brother-in-law befriended?”

“Janos Marton? Of course, we all befriended him. We gave him clothes and Leo’s old textbooks. Marie even used to feed him sometimes. And he did well. He became a schoolteacher here in the town. You have seen him, David.”

“Yes, I took little notice of him. Perhaps I should have done.”

“But why should he hurt us? He owes us everything.”

“Sometimes it is the very ones to whom we owe the most that we hate the most. Leo told me that he was always aware that Janos Marton hated him, has hated him from childhood.”

“It sounds so foolish,” she said despairingly. “And how could he harm us? A provincial schoolteacher, a peasant.”

“He writes for the newspapers. He has friends who are minor officials, bureaucrats. It is easy to do. Just a whisper, a name dropped....”

It was insane, mad. Impressions, memories, raced through her head in disorder, trying to weave logic out of a sequence of irrational events. She was tired and her head ached with trying to understand, trying to reason what they could do to save themselves. She felt David’s hand in hers finally begin to relax. Let him sleep, poor darling; he has worked and worried for us for so long. Let him sleep.

The turmoil in her own brain continued, grew worse. One thought emerged clearly, a piece of good common sense. Terez must go home. If the Ferencs and the Kleins were marked, Terez would be safer up at the farm with her father’s people. Adam would be able to protect her better than David, for the simple reason that Adam was not Jewish. Terez, whatever the hazard to her education, must go home.

“But why must I go home? I’ve only just come back for the new term! I need to study for my
Abiturium!
And the school play. I was to have the lead in the new play, and Jacob has promised to take me skating when the lake freezes. I don’t want to go home!”

She looked so much like Eva that Malie had a sense of time telescoping: Eva at the end of a ball—“Uncle Sandor has come, Eva”—“But I don’t want to go home!”

“Darling, you know Uncle David and I love having you here. We shall hate to lose you. But we feel you will be safer with your papa. The war—”

“You mean because Uncle David is Jewish?” asked Terez slowly. Her brown eyes stared hugely into Malie’s, trying to be brave but showing the first glimmer of the now recognizable fear that hovered over all of them. “Nothing could happen to us, could it, Aunt Malie? Everyone at school says we’ll be all right if Horthy can keep the Germans out. I think he can, don’t you?”

“I hope so, dear. But I still think you should go home. It isn’t just your Uncle David; there is Grandfather Ferenc too. You do understand, don’t you, Terez?”

The girl was still. She sat lifeless in the huge carved chair they had brought with them from their Budapest apartment. Everything around them was rich, luxurious, in perfect taste. It seemed ridiculous to be talking about danger in this comfortable drawing-room.

“Terez, if you go home to your papa and your grandmother Kaldy, people will not be constantly reminded of... of the other side of your family.”