Shtum (24 page)

For the eyes of Benjamin Jewell
ONLY
. March 1976

We had lived for hundreds of years – although nobody knows for certain – in Hungary, a place far away from here, to the east, in a city called Budapest – well two cities actually: Buda and Pest, divided by the River Danube but united by a great bridge. Well, the Friedmans were not unhappy there. We were a good family, a big family, your grandfather – my father – Louis, was a physician. He had many patients and we lived well.

When I was born in 1934 it seemed to be very good to be a Jew. My father and my mother, Edit, loved me very much and they loved my brother, Jonatan – your uncle – too. I worshipped my brother, he was three years older than me, tall and dark with a beaming smile that was always shining on me. But in other ways he was different. He would or could not speak and seemed to float through life. If I didn’t watch over him carefully, he could just disappear, and when he lost his temper? Oh my God! Even I could not calm him.

On three occasions the police returned him to the house after he’d slipped away from Mamma during shopping trips. There had been complaints, they said. Jonatan apparently had been wandering the fruit market helping himself to whatever he fancied, taking a single bite and then tossing the apple, orange, plum or pear over his shoulder without a second thought.

Now, in 1939 the Germans and that bastard Hitler invaded Poland – which was next door to Hungary – and they had already marched into Czechoslovakia. Then, the following year, Hungary became allies with Germany and the atmosphere changed for us. Suddenly, people stopped visiting Father’s surgery and Mamma began to cry every day. I was too young to know this at the time, of course, I wasn’t much more than a baby – but it is important for you, Benjamin, to know because you are the youngest Jewell, you must keep this story alive for your own son or daughter.

In January 1944, I was nine and Jonatan was twelve. He still wasn’t talking and had not started school. My father employed a tutor for him, but he would not learn. By then, also, I was talking non-stop and was reading like a grown-up. I don’t know if I was any cleverer than the next nine-year-old but, compared to Jonatan, I was a child prodigy and quickly I became the older brother. Jonatan couldn’t learn, couldn’t sit still and the tutor resigned in frustration – there was nothing he could do – Jonatan, he said, was an imbecile.

During the following weeks, as I had not started school yet, I became my brother’s keeper. It was impossible to keep him in the house, he was physically strong and would become aggressive to everybody but me if he was locked up. So, as a compromise, I would go walking with him every day, firing back the taunts of the neighbourhood children and returning stones with equal venom. I loved my brother and would have killed anyone who tried to harm him.

We celebrated his thirteenth birthday on February 18 that year with a party for family and friends – Jonatan didn’t seem to notice or care. That night, when I was in bed, my father came to visit me. ‘Georg,’ he said, ‘Jonni is going away tomorrow.’ I sat up, panicking. ‘Why, Father?’ I asked. ‘I can look after him.’ He smiled at me and lay next to me on my bed – something he’d never done. ‘He is going to a place where he cannot hurt himself or be hurt and hopefully where he can learn to look after himself. Where he will be safe from whatever happens here.’ ‘But I’ll look after him,’ I appealed. ‘It is agreed,’ he said, shaking his head, and even at that young age I could hear the pain in his voice, Ben. And then I heard my father cry, huge gasps and sobs, and the wetness on my cheek I can feel to this day.

When you see your father cry for the first time it is like someone cuts your legs from you, the world changes in an instant and everywhere you look you see dangers, threats. When I heard my father cry that night I suddenly knew that I had to take care of myself from then on. Seeing your father cry is a terrible thing.

The following morning, Jonatan was gone. I could see Mamma had been crying – her eyes were ringed with red – and my father seemed to have shrunk into his reading chair, his newspaper covering his face. I grabbed some bread and jam and slipped out of the house and – day after day – I repeated the walk that Jonatan and I had taken before he left. I didn’t know if I hoped to see him or some of the boys who had taunted him then so I could get my revenge. I was a man now, I knew, and would never back down.

I walked like this for a month, Ben, until the streets became full of people running in all directions like a lion had escaped from the zoo and was rampaging through the city looking for dinner. But it wasn’t a lion, Ben, it was those bastard Nazis, their boots cracking on the cobblestones, their eyes identical and black as their uniforms, silver bolts of lightning on their shoulders and skulls on their lapels. I’d heard of these Nazis – the very worst, Ben, the SS. My Uncle Piotr had warned me of these; like the evil aliens in my American comic books, their arrival meant death, our death, the Jews’ death.

I ran home so fast I thought my chest would explode and found my father sunken in his chair with his newspaper just as I’d left him the month before. ‘The SS, the SS are here!’ I screamed, but he didn’t move. ‘Father, the Nazis are in Budapest!’

‘It was inevitable. Now go and clean up, your hands are filthy.’

By October, they were everywhere, tanks and soldiers marching and rumbling down the streets; German blaring from megaphones – and that’s when they started taking people away. They were in a hurry, because the war by then was going badly for them. They were in a hurry to send all the Jews off to the camps, to Auschwitz. We all had to wear yellow stars so they could round us up easily and they had lists of names and addresses of important Jews – like my father.

I wasn’t there when they took him and Mamma. My last memory of him was in that chair with his newspaper. And my last memory of her? In bed, my lovely boy, red-rimmed eyes and smelling of Palinka. I tore off my yellow star and ran through the streets for hours looking for them, but as dusk fell I knew I was in danger and crawled beneath a wooden porch for the night. All I had were the clothes I wore and a piece of paper taken from Father’s study with the address of Jonatan’s sanatorium written on it. I decided to rescue him.

If only Dad had talked to me about Jonatan. Surely he could see that autism was something in our family? How much heartache could he have saved me from, the guilt over my drinking, the thought that I was responsible for Jonah’s autism. But then, I hadn’t shared those fears with my father. We had hereditary speech and language problems of our own, it would seem, just less obvious than Jonatan’s or Jonah’s.

Maurice is standing sheepishly by the door.

‘How long have you had this?’

He comes and sits beside me on the sofa. ‘Maybe thirty years, give or take. It is all true, Ben, every word,’ Maurice says. ‘There’s a lot more of it, too.’

Icing

The ride to Lake Balaton from Budapest is forty-five minutes, but with Maurice beside me it feels like days. In Budapest, I register a claim for my grandfather’s property and look into reparations for my father. The authorities are polite, the forms constructed to deter. I make a mental note to make use of Emma’s legal brilliance. It’s not really about the money, or the belated justice, I think that with Jonah’s help I have warmed to the prospect of the fight. Almost seventy years ago it may be, but my indignation is new and raw and Jonah’s adult life is not yet secure. He has been at Highgrove Manor for a year now. The time has flown and I am looking forward to his first fortnight-long stay at home.

Norah, our guide, meets us from the train. Early twenties and socially optimistic, she’s of a generation that is not embarrassed by a mission such as ours. Her white VW Golf zips us from Balatonfured toward the lakeside town of Tihany, along a flawless tarmacked road.

‘The building is still there,’ she says to me over her shoulder – the car has only three doors, so I’m in the back. ‘I checked. There has been no major development there.’

‘What’s it used for now?’

‘A private school of some sort, they’re expecting us.’

‘And the lake house?’

‘Redeveloped.’

Tihany is swish. Oversized villas, disguised with logs and planks to resemble simple cabins. Norah takes a road to the right as we enter the village and we lose sight of the lake. We drive through pines until the road narrows into a drive and – at its end – a grand house.

‘There, did I tell you, Ben,
nu
?’

But I am staring at a painted wooden sign above the entrance: JEWELLY ISKOLA AUSTIST GYERMEKEK.

‘Norah?’

‘It says the Jewelly School for Children with Autism.’

I need to sit down, there is a bench just inside the building’s portico. So this is where our name comes from, where my identity was forged also. Then I spot the PECS and Makaton symbols stuck to Velcro on the door’s glass panels. I don’t need Norah to translate these.

The director speaks perfect English and entertains us with coffee and cake.

‘The Government gave us the property in 1993, no claim had been filed.’

‘But you kept the original name from when it was operating?’

‘Yes, it seemed fitting. Here are the photos you asked about. I think this one you will find most interesting.’

It is black and white, a postcard of the house taken from outside what appears to have been a perimeter wall – now gone – and taking in the foreground. On the far left of the image, in the shadow of a pine tree, stands a shed.

‘The shed, is it still there?’

‘No, it was falling to pieces when we arrived. Nothing had been touched for fifty years and it was hazardous for the children.’

‘And the wall?’

‘This is not a prison. It was the first thing to go.’

I’m anxious to search the grounds. ‘May we go outside?’

‘Of course, I will accompany you.’

The area is overgrown with woodland plants and grasses. It’s thick and anonymous, no noticeable undulations or clearings. Maurice and I walk figure of eights, kicking away small plants, weeds and bracken. After half an hour I’m hot, tired, frustrated and drop to my haunches to smoke a cigarette. It must be here somewhere.

‘Maybe we should …’

‘No, Maurice. I need to find this.’

I drop my cigarette butt and grind it out with the toe of my boot and it catches on something solid. I fall to my belly and scrape through the undergrowth with my fingers – it is the corner of a brick.

‘Maurice, here.’

Maurice stands and lights a cigar, while I clear away the plant life and soil from the brick. Gradually more emerge, like a rusty mountain range. I feel like an Egyptian tomb raider, carefully digging out blocks of the pyramid. There are dozens of them. They have toppled over time, so I brush them off and lay them flat, running my hand over their surfaces, turning them over. Three stand out. They create an almost perfect square and the engraving, although weathered, is clear.

JONATAN, TIZENKET
BATYAM
NAGYON SAJNALOM
GEORG

I look to Norah.

‘It says: Jonatan, thirteen. My brother. I am very sorry. Georg.’

‘My uncle, my uncle is buried here. My Uncle Jonatan.’

Maurice begins the
Kaddish
.

I look at the school director and Norah. ‘Could we have a moment, please?’

The two women head back to the building as Maurice finishes the prayer for the dead and I unzip my rucksack and remove a trowel and the container – both smuggled through customs. I dig and the earth comes away easily, it takes me no time to create a hole large enough for the urn. I feel Maurice’s hand on my shoulder as I place the urn in the hole and refill it with my hand, patting it down.

‘You want it now?’

‘Yes, if you haven’t accidentally blown your nose on it.’

Maurice passes me the ragged onion skins of paper – the secret of my father – and I begin to re-read, out loud.

… I decided to rescue him. I had a roll of pengo notes stolen from my father’s bureau, tied with a purple ribbon and hidden inside the lining of my coat, and his gun, a Luger.

The morning was bright and cold, the sunlight slanting off the Danube warmed my frozen fingers and toes and dried my tears of grief to dirty smudges.

Kelleti Station was my destination, across the bridge in Pest. Before the fighting we had summered at Balaton every year; my father had a surgery there, which he held in the front room of our lake house. I would swim, while Jonatan paddled his feet in the cool waters from the jetty, laughing and splashing as I disappeared beneath the water, rising again to blow mouthfuls of water over him as though from the blowhole of a whale. He never learnt to swim and Anton, Father’s assistant, would sit with him, holding his shoulders in case he should slip in and drown.

After my swim, we would walk the shore, tossing stones and shingles into the lake and watching the boats bobbing and zipping around each other. There was always warm chocolate when we returned and a sip of Bull’s Blood at dinner. Then we would sit by the picture window as the summer sun bid us goodnight – waiting until the last orange glow tucked itself beneath the blanket of shallow hills opposite. I slept dreamlessly. Jonatan slept little.

Life was gentler than in the city, Jonatan was calmer, Mother was happier; Father smiled more.

A small blond boy in an oversized coat can wander invisibly beneath the frantic stares of adults and the walk to the station was surprisingly uneventful. The Nazis were edgy and unprepared, leaving the checkpoints to Hungarian sympathisers who themselves were terrified of the rumours of the advancing Red Army.

The station was heaving with people. I wound my way in and out of lines of queuing escapees, crawling sometimes, ignoring curses and flailing arms until I reached the ticket office.

‘Balaton,’ I said.

The ticket master laughed at me, patted me on the head and turned his gaze to a man standing behind me.

‘Balaton,’ I said, louder. ‘A ticket for Balaton, now, please. I have money.’ I could feel the agitation of the crowds behind and my resolve began to dissolve into tears.

‘How much to Balaton?’

‘Go home, sonny.’

‘I need to go to Balaton.’

The ticket master reached across the counter and grabbed me by the collar.

‘Go home now, boy, before …’

‘Sell the boy a ticket.’

I turned to see where the voice had come from. A tall man, blond-haired and bespectacled. The rest of the queue began to join in, chanting at the window.

‘All right, all right, Balaton. Four pengo.’

I dug into my coat and pulled four notes from my bundle and handed them over in exchange for a ticket.

‘The train, there, front two coaches. You’d better run, it leaves in three minutes.’

The train began to move as I closed the heavy door and stumbled down the corridor looking for an empty compartment. There were none, so I chose one with a single spare seat, next to the window, amid a family of five – grey-looking and nervous. I wrapped my fingers around the butt of the Luger and fought against the rocking train’s invitation to sleep.

I was shaken awake by the guard. ‘Boy, you can’t live on this train. Get up now and get off – and be careful – there are still Germans near the oilfields to the north.’

I rubbed my eyes and felt for the gun and money in the lining of my jacket – both safe. ‘Is this Balaton?’

‘You are by the lake. Balatonfured. Where are you heading by yourself?’

‘Tihany, I’m going to meet my brother.’

‘Come, climb down.’

It seemed by luck that I was on the right side of the lake. Balaton is huge and it could easily have been an eight-hour trek around the shore, but the guard said if I walked quickly and took care I should reach Aszotto in an hour – where I could eat – and Tihany another two hours later.

‘Why Tihany, boy? There’s nothing there but some old lake houses and the sanatorium where they keep the lunatics.’

‘He’s in our lake house waiting for me.’ I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he told me to go carefully and remounted the train. I watched it build steam and disappear and began walking in the direction of Aszotto. I was starving, having not eaten for several hours, and the early autumn chill cooled me as I began at a trot.

But Aszotto was a ghost town, smouldering in places, windows were smashed and cartridge cases littered the floor. I searched three abandoned houses for food and found little but the remains of a hastily abandoned meal of pork and potatoes – too mouldy to eat. I drew some water from a well and drank and left as quickly as I could. Bad things had happened there, I knew, so I took the Luger out of my pocket and held it by my side as I left Aszotto behind and continued down the road to Tihany, talking in my head to Jonatan, planning adventures and games and trips to faraway places.

It was so silent that I heard the car approaching a full five minutes before it arrived and was safely behind a pine tree as it drew level and passed me. It was not a car, but a German truck, green and canvas-covered with Swastikas on the doors and the shadows of soldiers visible from its open back. It was heading where I was heading and where I was heading was to rescue Jonatan. Once it was out of sight I ran and ran until I thought my heart would burst.

It took me another thirty minutes before the roofs came into view, the roofs of Tihany, and ten minutes later I was crouching behind a tool shed, outside the walls of the Tihany Jewelly Sanatorium, Luger in hand, watching as about a dozen black-clad SS laughed and chatted in the fading light, passed cigarettes among themselves and urinated against the wheels of the truck.

There were five bursts – not the bang of my father’s handgun I now clutched in my hand, but something far bigger, something that sounded of death. I felt my heart split in two.

A few minutes later, two SS came out of the sanatorium and climbed into the driver and passenger seat. The others threw their cigarettes to the gravel and stubbed them out with fury before jumping into the back of the truck. It then swung round and sped off back toward Aszotto.

By now only the faintest glow outlined the horizon and the silence had returned – all but the pumping of my heart. I left my hiding place and ran, crouching, into the darkness of the sanatorium. My footsteps echoed off the marble floor. I could just make out a wide central staircase with a corridor either side – I went left, holding the gun in front of me.

There were five rooms off to the left of the corridor, offices, and as my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I saw that they were like my father’s with medical cabinets and charts and strange instruments. The first four rooms were vacant, but from the fifth came a light – dim and orange – and a whiff of tobacco smoke. I crept in slowly. It was the dying ember of a cigarette hanging limply from the lips of a man, his white doctor’s coat polka-dotted with red. Next to him, lined up like a little girl’s collection of dolls, lay four women in nurse’s uniforms – similarly polka-dotted – and to my young mind, playing dead.

‘Jonatan!’ I sprinted from the room, frantically calculating the burst of gunfire I had heard less than ten minutes before. Five bursts, five dead.

‘Jonatan!’ I searched the offices off the right corridor – all empty – then I took the stairs two at a time, all caution gone.

‘Jonatan!’ At the top, a large double door with the lock shot through stood open. Inside, beds sat either side like a hospital ward and on each lay a person, perfectly still, on their backs with their hands by their sides.

‘Jonatan!’ I found him in the last bed on the right-hand side of the row, tucked beneath a crisp white sheet, his eyes closed, his guileless smile fixed on me. ‘Oh Jonatan, Jonatan. It’s all right now, they’ve gone. I’ve come to rescue you, to take you home.’

I touched his cheek, but its chill stung my finger, I kissed him and shook him and cried on him but my tears froze to crystals. I climbed on to the bed with him and held him and spoke of our future into his deafened ear and then I slept.

I was young, but I had seen enough to know that he had been rescued by those with the polka-dots before I arrived and that they had died for their kindness. He was whole and he was smiling and whatever they gave him sent him off to be with Mamma and Papa in peace and with happy thoughts. They had saved him from a Nazi bullet.