Traitors' Gate (43 page)

From this it was clear that the police had not yet issued a ‘wanted’ notice of Gregory and Sabine; but they felt sure that by this time Grauber would have forced the Regent’s hand, and that the omission was a trick inspired by Grauber to lull them into a false sense of security while the whole police-force of Budapest was actually alerted to keep a sharp look out for them.

When they had discussed the reports of the affair with Huldah Levianski, and given her a more detailed account of their escape than they had done on their arrival, she raised the question of clothes and offered to go out and buy everything they needed.

They made a short list, and Sabine was able to reel off her measurements from memory, but Gregory’s had to be taken from his much-soiled dinner-jacket suit. For two suits ‘off the peg’, ready-made underclothes, two dressing-gowns, toilet articles and a cheap suitcase to pack them in, Huldah reckoned that a thousand
pengoes
should prove ample; and Gregory having given her that sum she went off to shop for them while they spent a drowsy morning in bed.

Once when Gregory turned over and his body came in contact with Sabine’s warm thigh, he thought for a second that he was back with Erika. Realisation that he was not came as a sudden shock, but he quickly put it from his mind and dozed off again.

It was half-past two before Huldah brought them their lunch, and she explained that she had had to wait until she could get rid of her two boys for the afternoon with a neighbour. While they were eating she brought in a second-hand suitcase and produced from it the purchases she had made for them. Then she said:

‘Now you have clothes, Leon suggests that you should have dinner with us this evening; then I shall be able to give you a hot meal. My woman goes at six and I shall have the boys in bed by half-past-seven; so by eight o’clock the coast will be clear.’

‘We should love to do that,’ smiled Sabine, ‘but isn’t there a risk that one of the boys might be taken ill, or come along to you for something, and find us with you?’

‘No. You must continue to be very careful about using the bathroom in the daytime, although Rosa is unlikely to come to this end of the apartment; but it wouldn’t matter if one of the children found you with us this evening. We should simply say that you were two friends we had asked in to dinner.’

When Huldah had left them they saw no point in getting up and, even without the aid of some books she had brought them, they found no difficulty at all in whiling away the afternoon most pleasantly. Soon after seven they roused from a nap and started to dress. The clothes were a long way from being the type they would have chosen for themselves, and Sabine groaned at having to put on garments in such flamboyant taste; but Gregory pointed out that being so far removed from the creations in which people were used to seeing her made it much less probable that she would be recognised when she had to go out in them.

Levianski came for them at eight and took them along to a lounge which was over-full of modern furniture showing the same flamboyant taste that his wife displayed in clothes. There he introduced them to his mother-in-law, a Mrs. Klitzberg.

She was a very fat woman of about sixty with a sallow, wrinkled face and, although she was almost cringingly polite
to Sabine, they could see that she did not at all approve of their presence. For that, Gregory did not blame her in the least, as it was very understandable that she should fear they would bring trouble on her daughter’s family. In the hope of reassuring her a little, he remarked that now they had clothes they must not abuse the hospitality which had been so generously extended to them for a moment longer than was absolutely necessary.

Their host was pouring glasses of
Baratsch
for them. Looking up quickly, he said, ‘I think you will have to remain here a few days yet; but it would be better if we put off discussing plans for you until after dinner.’

It was not an altogether happy meal. Huldah’s anxiety to do her guests well had led her to give them too many courses and, as she and Leon refused to allow them to wait upon themselves, this resulted in the constant break up of conversation. Moreover, Mrs. Klitzberg remained covertly hostile, and Huldah persisted in calling Sabine ‘gracious lady Baroness’ although Sabine protested that she was now Madam Tavenier, and that she would prefer such friends as the Levianskis had proved themselves to be to call her by her Christian name. Leon alone of the three behaved naturally, and they wished that it had been possible for them to have dined with him without his womenfolk.

Soon after dinner Mrs. Klitzberg relieved them of her presence, and they tackled the subject which was uppermost in all their minds. Gregory opened the matter by asking Leon if he could buy them a reliable second-hand car.

‘I could,’ he replied, ‘but I am doubtful if you would be wise to stick to your idea of trying to reach the frontier that way. In the first place, our one serious shortage here is petrol; and it is not easy to obtain even on the black market.’

‘Oh, we’d be all right for that,’ Sabine assured him. ‘I was given a special allowance, and have more than enough coupons.’

He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘That is not the only thing. Owing to the petrol shortage there are far fewer cars on the roads these days, and they are hardly ever used for long journeys. It seems to me that you would run a great risk of being pulled up and questioned about where you obtained your
petrol. Then, if your description has been circulated, it would be all up with you.’

‘Gregory pulled a long face. That hadn’t occurred to me; but I’m afraid you are right.’

‘How do you propose to get across the frontier if you can get to it?’ his host asked.

‘We have passports; but of course we wouldn’t dare to use them now. I had intended to abandon the car in a wood and that in the middle of the night we should make our way across by stealth.’

Leon shook his dark, curly head. ‘I feared as much, and the dangers you will encounter there are a lot greater than these others I have mentioned. Have you considered, too, the terrible demands that such a journey would make on a lady. I am told by friends of mine who know about such matters that the patrols not only keep watch on the frontier but also range for several miles in depth behind it. That means that from a long way back you would have to avoid all tracks, and so be faced with a most exhausting tramp through woods or across marshes. You would not dare to use a torch and might easily lose your way. Even if you succeeded in evading the Hungarian patrols, you might run into the Yugoslavs on the other side and be turned back.’

Gregory had crossed frontiers clandestinely before; so he knew, only too well, that Leon was not exaggerating the difficulties. Had he been on his own he would have backed himself to get through; but he realised now that during the past twenty-four hours his thoughts had been too distracted by more pleasant matters for him to give due weight to the handicap that having Sabine with him must prove. The abrupt awareness of what it would entail came as a very nasty shock. Now he was seized with a sudden fear that to do as he had planned would prove next to impossible.

With a sinking feeling Gregory faced up to the gulf that lay between crossing the frontier on foot and, as they had originally intended, in a car. It would mean a whole night of desperate strain and endeavour; perhaps more, as dawn might catch them before they were across, and that would mean having to lie up for the day. For hours they would have to crawl flat on their stomachs through scrub and along ditches; and if they were spotted they would have to run for their lives to the nearest cover. Sabine had plenty of courage, but she was just not the sort of girl that Girl Guide Captains are made from. Physically she was incapable of standing up to such a gruelling ordeal. Uneasily, he admitted:

‘You’re right. The dice will be loaded against us. But it seems there is no alternative.’

Leon leaned forward. ‘You remember our first talk at the café? I mentioned to you then that Eichmann had already set up an office for so-called “Jewish Emigration” in Budapest. For us Jews that is the red light. We still pray that Hungary will protect us and that there will be no great persecution here. Most of us feel this to be so much our home that we prefer to take a chance on that, rather than give up everything and face a new life abroad almost penniless. But some, who have money or relatives in foreign countries, are already leaving from fear that the Nazis will force Admiral Horthy to abandon us to them. For those who wish to go it is not easy; because in wartime the Government will grant no exit permits, except in very special cases. In consequence, those who are leaving have to do so in secret. Some of them are doing as you suggest and attempting to cross the frontier at night. But for those who are rich enough there is an easier way. They are smuggled out in the big barges that go down the Danube to Turkey.’

‘By Jove!’ Gregory’s eyes lit up. ‘Do you mean that you could arrange for us to get out like that?’

‘These barge masters are rapacious. It would cost you
two thousand five hundred
pengoes
each.’

‘That is not much more than we should have to pay for a car.’

‘No. If you agree then, I will see what I can do. But it will probably be several days before the people I approach would be able to find a barge that will take you, and is due to leave.’

‘In that case, unless you know of anywhere else we can go, it will mean our continuing to accept your hospitality, and I feel that we have already trespassed …’

Holding up a plump hand, Leon cut him short. ‘Please don’t let that worry you. Huldah and I are glad to help. My mother-in-law may prove a little tiresome, but for our sake she will not breathe a word about your being here.’

‘No, no!’ Huldah put in. ‘I am sorry that she was not more cordial to you at dinner. But you need not have the least fear that she will be indiscreet. From tomorrow, I have arranged for my little boys to stay for some days with my sister; so it is only of my woman, Rosa, that you will still have to be careful. If it were not for her you would be able to move freely about the apartment all the time. As it is you will have to spend the days in your bedroom, and keep very quiet there; but if you can put up with that.…’

They ‘put up with that’ without any grief or pain at all. In fact they greatly preferred it to having to sit in the lounge with Mrs. Klitzberg, or even the kind but gushing Huldah; and, as Gregory remarked, it was almost as if they were having the Spanish peasants’ honeymoon of which they had talked—although it transpired that instead of a full week it lasted only five days.

Now and again thoughts of Erika drifted into Gregory’s mind, but he came to dismiss them with angry resentment. He had been faithful to her for over two and half years, and he had never remained faithful to any other woman for more than six months. Her life before he had met her had been as hectic as his own and neither of them have ever subscribed to the ‘one man for one woman’ Christian ethic. He was still at the height of his manly vigour and for him to have suppressed it would have been, he decided, entirely against both the laws of nature and common sense.

During those days they emerged only to use the bathroom each morning, while Huldah sent her cleaning woman off on
some errand, and in the evenings for a hot meal with the family; except for once after dinner on the second night, and then they ventured down into the street. Their reason was Sabine’s anxiety about her jewels and her wish to get hold of them to take with her if she could.

The risk of telephoning from the Levianskis’ flat was small, but there was just a chance that police had been installed in the Tuzolto palace and the call might be traced back; so Gregory accompanied her to a telephone kiosk some two hundred yards away. Her call was answered by Magda, who was able to assure her that the jewels were safe. But there was no possibility of getting them to her as, on the Monday morning, Pipi had lodged them at her bank, and it was certain that the bank would not let them be withdrawn again without her own signature. For her to call there herself would have been much too dangerous, and to have sent an order for their collection by anyone else might easily have led to their being traced; so she had to resign herself to leaving them behind.

However, with the large sum she had drawn in cash from her bank on the Saturday, and the considerable amount Gregory carried on him, even after paying for their transport down the Danube and their new clothes they still had over three hundred pounds between them; so they had no immediate anxieties about money.

It was on Thursday, after lunch, that Leon came to their room to say that he had unexpected good news for them. His friend had just let him know that the man of a Jewish couple who had planned to leave had been stricken with appendicitis; so the couple had had to cancel, leaving two places free on a barge that was sailing that night.

As they had few things to pack and there was ample room in their suitcase, it suddenly occurred to Gregory that he could, after all, take some
foie-gras
back to England; so he asked Leon to buy for him three of the biggest tins he could find.

That evening, after dinner, they sat about rather anxiously until eleven o’clock. When at last the time came to say goodbye Sabine handed a plain envelope to Huldah and said, ‘in this is a message that I am particularly anxious should reach a friend of mine tomorrow evening, when we are safely on our
way. Will you please keep it and telephone it to her; but not till then.’

Actually in the envelope there was a slip of paper on which was written:
Etienne and I will never be able to repay you and Leon for your courage and kindness, but will you please buy something for your little boys with these
, and ‘these’ were two five-hundred
pengo
notes.

Leon took them as far as the Customs House and on a corner nearby handed them over to a small Jewish man, whom he recognised from a description that had been given him. The little man said quickly: