Train to Budapest (9 page)

What a strange letter. A man met on a train telling her such private things about his life. A man with a complicated and unhappy past, asking if he can come to her and help her. Should she trust him or not? Something she remembers in his smile inclines her to trust him, despite her doubts and a mass of unanswered questions.

11

Hans and Amara are sitting in the Cafè Mayakovsky on Izaaka Street. In front of them are glasses of white wine. Great drops of water are sliding down the window and lightly touching the amaranth-coloured damask tablecloth.

‘Our glasses are weeping,’ says Hans with a smile. Amara looks at the man with the gazelles who today is wearing dark trousers and a white shirt open to his long thin neck.

‘What shall we drink to?’

‘To research!’

‘Have you discovered anything?’

‘So far, no.’

‘I’ll help you in any way I can. I seem to know this Emanuele already: have you a photo of him?’

‘As a child, yes. Nothing later.’

‘When did he disappear?’

‘His last letter is from ’43. It’s in an exercise book sent to me after the war. I don’t know who sent it. He may even have sent it himself. This is another reason I think he survived.’

‘So you don’t know whether he died at Auschwitz or survived. What makes you think he might still be alive? They gassed the children at once. Useless for forced labour. In fact they caused nothing but trouble.’

‘Emanuele was fifteen when he was taken from the Łódź ghetto, and he had always seemed older than his years. I found no trace of him at Auschwitz. But, as the guard explained to me, the later records are incomplete: too many trains were arriving and unloading in a hurry and the Germans didn’t always keep a proper register of the new deportees, particularly if they were destined for the gas chambers.’

‘And what makes you think he ended up at Auschwitz?’

‘Everyone from the Łódź ghetto was sent there after ’42. Before that they were sent to Chełmno. Or so I’ve read.’

‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to let it go and stop looking for a needle in a haystack?’

‘I don’t believe he is a needle in a haystack. And I’ve dreamed he’s alive.’

‘You believe in dreams?’

‘When they’re as sharp and vivid as that, yes I do.’

‘Even if he is alive but hasn’t been looking for you, might not that mean he would rather keep himself to himself?’

‘I dreamed he was calling me.’

‘Can you describe the dream?’

‘I was at a railway station, a derelict one; the tracks had been abandoned and were overgrown with grass. I noticed a fresh red poppy growing in the midst of those rusty rails. When I went to get a closer look I felt a vibration accompanied by a hissing sound. Looking up I could see, in the distance, a locomotive belching smoke and struggling towards the station. But how could this be possible, surely the line was dead? How could there be a train arriving at that ruined station. I stood in a daze watching the engine advance down the ruined tracks. It was about to run me down and I needed to get out of the way. I wasn’t afraid, just reasoning in the same way as I do when I’m awake. I kept asking myself: if this station has been derelict for so long, where can this train be coming from? And how can it run on these damaged rails?

‘It still came on huffing and puffing and slowly reached the station. Then, squeaking and creaking, it stopped. And I noticed it was a train made up of cattle trucks sealed by planks nailed up in the form of a cross. I glimpsed a movement. I thought it must be animals, cows or horses being taken for slaughter. But, in a gap between the boards, fingers were moving. When I looked more closely I could see eyes shining in the dark. So there were people in those trucks. Even in my sleep I was astonished. Then a dirty little piece of paper fell from one of those hands. I quickly picked it up and pushed it furtively into my pocket for fear I might be seen. I knew danger was hanging over me and over these people. Looking round, I could see armed men standing pointing rifles at the train. Where could they have sprung from if until then the station had been deserted and derelict?’

‘Did you ask yourself that in the dream?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘A dream is only a dream, dear friend.’

‘I suddenly realised it was a train full of people being deported to the camps. I don’t know how I knew this.’

‘How old were you when you were watching that train?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe the same as now. Or younger. I snatched that bit of paper with a rapid, agile movement.’

‘What was written on it?’

‘I didn’t read it. I pushed it hurriedly into my pocket.’

‘And when did you read it?’

‘After the train left and the SS and their rifles had disappeared. I was alone again but the poppy was still there, a fantastic red colour basking in the sun.’

‘And what did it say on the paper?’

‘I didn’t think about that. I was focused on the poppy. It seemed such a clear, unabashed sign of life that it made me happy. I wanted to pick it but when I went near it moved aside as though it didn’t want to be picked.’

‘And the bit of paper? Weren’t you curious at all?’

‘I was distracted.’

‘So when did you read it?’

‘I’ve completely forgotten.’

‘Completely?’

‘Completely.’

‘So you never read it?’

‘Later I did. Years later.’

‘Years passed in your dream?’

‘I knew my body had changed and matured and my walk had become less bold and secure. The paper was still in my pocket.’

‘So in the end, even years later, you read it. And what was written on it?’

‘“I’m here”, that’s what was written, “Emanuele”.’

‘Was it signed?’

‘Yes, it was signed.’

‘“I do not know if I was Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming he was Tzu.” That’s what Chuang Tzu says, and it seems to fit the case. The dream tells me nothing about the survival or otherwise of your Emanuele.’

‘But I know he’s waiting for me somewhere. And I’m here to
find him. If you can help me, Hans, I’ll be grateful; if not let’s just say goodbye.’

‘All right. I’ll help you. Give me more facts. His family name, the date of his disappearance, a photograph, whatever you have.’

‘His family name is Orenstein. His father Karl was an industrialist, his mother Thelma Fink an actress. I have no photographs of them, only one of Emanuele as a child.’

‘We must search the archives, Maria Amara, but where did your own unusual name come from? I’ve never heard it before.’

‘My mother wanted to call me Marlene after her favourite actress, Marlene Dietrich. My father wanted me to be Mariuccia after my grandmother. They argued for a bit, then settled on Amara, which was the name of a little newborn bear in a caravan with Togni’s circus, which had just stopped at Rifredi. It was in all the papers. It seemed a strange name, but also easy to say, so they settled on Amara.’

‘Your grandmother Mariuccia must have been unhappy.’

‘My name was registered as Maria Amara but they immediately started calling me just Amara. For my father, choosing such a strange name was also a way of cocking a snook at the fascists who only approved recognisable names, connected with the saints and above all, Italian. But on official documents I’m still Maria Amara Sironi.’

‘Tomorrow morning at eight we’ll go to the police where it seems they have some recently discovered camp registers. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

Hans moves away. She hasn’t even asked him where he lives. Does he have a telephone? She is on the point of calling him back but he has already turned the corner.

Amara sets off down Estery Street. The pavement is wet, but the grey stones are shining now in the fresh sun peeping out from behind thick, heavy clouds. The houses she passes smell of pork and boiled cabbage.

She touches the letters crushed into her shoulder bag. They are heavy, but she carries them everywhere. Every now and then she likes to pull them out and read them again. There is also the exercise book with its closely written pages in pencil, the handwriting light and meticulous but also distorted and full of crossings-out, as if written propped on bare knees when the writer was not at all
well. A black school exercise book with squared pages. Something always leaps out from the letters to surprise her, like a novelty. The certainty that he is alive somewhere stays with her. She absolutely must find him! The dream comes back to her mind, bright and clear. The scrap of paper was addressed to her and carried a precise request: come on, look for me, find me, I’m here, I’m here, but where are you?

12

Hans ought to be at the corner of the market square; he phoned her at the hotel in the evening to make the appointment, but she sees no sign of him. Perhaps he’s forgotten. Poor Hans whom she privately still thinks of as the man with the gazelles. But why ‘poor’? He has the air of a slightly damaged young man, though basically robust and healthy. Hans, the man she met on the train, the man with a sad past, the man saved from the Nazis by the foresight of a loving mother. While Emanuele who if he had stayed in Italy would probably have escaped the death camps, was deliberately taken to Austria by an optimistic and patriotic mother. Who was blind, utterly blind.

It’s just eight and the roller shutters of the shops are still closed. Amara’s light footsteps echo on the wet pavement of Plac Nowy. The sky is opening over a city getting ready for work. Who knows how many families are sitting at table behind those misted windows over a breakfast of milk and barley coffee, toasted hard bread and home-made jam. Amara had tea in the empty dining room of the Hotel Wawel where a waitress in black stockings and lilac slippers, her maid’s cap perched crookedly on curly grey hair, had served her unceremoniously with a spoonful of fresh yoghurt and tinned fruit in syrup.

But Hans is crossing the square towards her. She recognises his lean, happy walk. He walks like a youngster, she thinks, smiling to herself. Like a man who knows where he’s going, not afraid of tripping and falling, advancing happily on a new day.

They shake hands without a word. Then, guided by Hans, they cross Miodowa Street and make their way to the police station where he has made an appointment for them.

‘The Germans call it Krakau, the Poles Kraków. It has been the capital of the region of Lower Silesia since the fourteenth century. Doesn’t it make you think of the croaking of crows, this name
stuffed with k’s? Kra kra … you can almost hear them. But no, It was founded by King Krak,’ explains Hans, walking beside her and giving her arm a friendly squeeze. ‘They say that in the reign of King Krak a dragon infested the banks of the river. An enormous dragon that ate all the animals in the pasture, destroyed the crops and often even attacked people and tore them to pieces. He had a particular taste for virgin girls, so to keep him in a good mood the villagers would leave a naked girl each month in front of the cave where this revolting beast had his lair.’

Amara half-closes her eyes to savour the story. She loves being guided through a story. She cuddles up mentally in a corner of her body like when she was little, and listens in bliss.

‘The king was fed up with this nuisance so he issued a proclamation promising half his kingdom and his daughter in marriage to anyone who succeeded in suppressing the dragon. Knights came from all over the kingdom and beyond to kill the monster and marry the princess. But the dragon was very strong and very clever and had lots of heads and legs, and scales so tough that no lance could pierce them. When he was hungry he would whip out his long rapacious tongue and grab an animal or a man by the waist, flicking them deftly into its mouth where he would crunch them up with teeth as sharp as knives. People would throw pikes and javelins at the dragon and attack him with swords and knives and hurl enormous rocks, but no one could get the better of him.’

Hans stops at a kiosk to buy a bag of dried fruit. In among the figs and apricots are some cherries, shrivelled but extremely sweet and with a wild smell. The man with the gazelles pays for the bag and passes it to his companion who picks out the dried cherries and puts them in her mouth one by one. The bitter flavour reminds her of the tree she used to climb with Emanuele when they were children in the garden of the Villa Lorenzi at Rifredi. Can you stop time for love? Can you force a mystery? Can you take a secret by surprise to rescue it from the folds of the past? You have embalmed love, a voice says inside her, you can’t just snatch a dead body from the silence of the past. It’s not allowed, and you know it. But the desire to go on searching is stronger than every other consideration. The desire to hear that voice, to see that body again, is pulling her towards a future she knows will be full of dangers and delusions, like when the knights set off to fight the
seven-headed dragon. But despite her fear and the uncertainties, she can’t resign herself. Is this a serious fault?

‘Don’t you want to hear how the story of King Krak ended?’ asks Hans, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘One morning a young cobbler called Szewczyk Dratewka appeared before the king and said he could solve the problem. When the king looked at him he saw a thin youth with an emaciated face dressed in rags, and shook his head. The boy said he would use no swords or lances but only his brain. Studying him more closely, the king saw sky-blue eyes full of fun and realised the boy was intelligent. So he asked him what he needed. A sheep and a kilo of sulphur, said the boy. Puzzled, the king gave him what he had asked for. Szewczyk killed the sheep and disembowelled it, replacing its innards with the sulphur, then sewed up its skin and placed it at night in front of the dragon’s cave. It looked like a live animal grazing the riverbank. In fact this is what the dragon thought when he woke up and came out of his cave, so he crept up silently, grabbed the sheep and swallowed it in a single mouthful. But he soon began to feel thirsty. So he went down to the banks of the Vistula and began drinking. He drank so much and swallowed so much that he swelled up like a huge bladder. Withdrawing to his cave he slept for three days and nights in the hope of getting rid of all the water in his sleep. But he awoke thirstier than ever. So he went back to the river and drank and drank again, until his body became a great ball, an enormous globe full of water, and when he yawned his skin, which could not hold so much water, split and exploded. The villagers felt an enormous shock that shook the earth and frightened their livestock. When they ran to see what had happened they found the dragon blown into a thousand pieces near the cave at the foot of Wawel Hill. Who did this? they asked in astonishment. I did, said the young cobbler and everyone gazed at him in bewilderment and admiration. The king sent for his daughter, gave her to the boy in marriage and handed over half his kingdom.’