Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

He’s wearing motorcyclist’s gauntlets even though he sold his motorcycle years ago. On top of the gazelles he has a waterproof jacket slung over one shoulder.

‘What can a citizen of the West want in a city of the East? Why can’t Mr Hans Wilkowsky stay at home? What is all this coming and going? What can he hope to find in the camp at Auschwitz? And why is he taking with him Mrs Maria Amara Sironi Spiga, an Italian from Florence? I explained it a hundred times,’ says Hans, sipping a large cup of milky coffee, ‘but they seem incapable of understanding.’

Amara has propped her elbows on the little table cut from a single piece of wood, and is listening with a worried expression.

‘My transparency alarms them. They asked me so many questions that by now they know everything there is to know about my life. But nothing satisfies them. They’re as suspicious as monkeys. Just wait and see, they’ll interrogate Frau Morgan. And we can expect a visit to your room in the Pension Blumental. They’ll go through everything then put it all back as it was. Their conscience isn’t clear. I told them repeatedly that we’re searching for traces of a child who disappeared in ’43. And that you are also writing articles for an Italian paper. Who knows what they think can be hidden behind that. They’re probably following us now. Listening to every word we say. But why should we care?’

‘Do you really mean they could be spying on us at this very moment?’

‘Possibly. How could all those guards and secret service agents make a living, if not from the existence of people like you and me who refuse to stay quietly at home but insist on travelling from city to city in pursuit of a child now grown up, who just possibly may have survived the war?’

‘And my permit?’

‘You’ll have to wait. They won’t say anything definite. Maybe two days, maybe five. There are things they have to check. I expect they’ll have phoned the police in Florence about you. And they’ll have rummaged through the whole of my past to find out who I am and what I want. For a bureaucrat it’s difficult to understand that anything can ever exist for no particular reason. There’s no obvious reason why I should come with you on your search for Emanuele Orenstein, there’s no obvious reason at all for your search, and there’s no reason they can understand for why you should want to go to Auschwitz again.’

‘Well, there is a reason. We’re going to study the new lists of arrivals at the camp.’

‘But that makes no sense to them. Too vague, too sentimental. It has to be a front for something else.’

‘What on earth can they suspect? They won’t find anything and in the end they’ll get tired.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘Shouldn’t you be writing for your paper? Make the most of the chance. I’ll take you to see the Belvedere Gardens.’

‘No, no gardens. I want to write about Vienna and the cold war. How the people are living and what they’re thinking.’

‘I’ll help you if you like.’

‘Have you no work of your own you should be getting on with, Hans?’

‘I did. But I’ve lost it. I’ll manage, though.’

‘How?’

‘Well, for example, by being a father to brides at the altar. So many men have died and someone has to take their place. I can perform. I have my own tailcoat. And I know how to smile nicely. People always say: you seem too young to be her father, but it’s wonderful how you and your daughter are as alike as two peas in a pod!’

He laughs, throwing back his head. Amara notices two gaps between his side teeth. Seeing her looking at his mouth, he shyly cups his hand under his nose.

When an hour later Amara returns to the Pension Blumental, Frau Morgan, red in the face, stops her before she can go upstairs. ‘You have caused me to suffer two hours of interrogation this morning.’

Amara apologises. But what can they have been asking? Frau Morgan looks askance, uncertain what, if anything, to say. All the fear caused by the war and the Nazi terror is coming to the surface again. We must all keep our mouths shut, Frau Morgan seems to be saying with her slightly squinting eyes that are looking simultaneously above and to one side of Amara’s face. Always mind your own business and keep clear of other people’s. Especially foreigners; you always have to keep them at arm’s length, because they only bring trouble.

‘They turned your room upside down, I warn you,’ adds Frau Morgan brusquely, heading for the stairs.

‘Never mind. I’ll sort that out.’

‘I’ve done it already. I just left a few papers on the floor because I wasn’t sure where to put them.’

‘I have no secrets, Frau Morgan. There’s nothing hidden in my room.’

‘But they don’t believe that. If only you know how many questions they asked me. And then they accused me of civil disobedience for taking two hours to report your name to the police.’

‘It’s the cold war, Frau Morgan.’

‘If I was you, I’d be furious. And they took away a packet of letters.’

‘They’ll find it very difficult to decipher them, and they’ll discover they’re only letters from my father, written down by Sister Adele. And from my husband Luca Spiga, who wants us to start living together again. Not very interesting, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t like the police and I don’t want them in my house, Frau Sironi. I’m very sorry but I must ask you to pack your bags. I don’t want them suspecting me. I have a boarding-house to run, you understand, and my good name to protect.’

‘As soon as my visas for Kraków and Budapest come through I’ll be on my way. I promise. But please can I stay two more days? You won’t see the police again, they’ll be too busy trying to decipher all those letters written in Italian. Just two days, all right? Then I’ll go.’

Frau Morgan half-closes her eyes, thinking things over. Her lips grow stiff and thin. She is clearly torn between sympathy for the young Italian who has always paid so promptly for her room, and fear of the police and what the neighbours may say when they realise she is herself being investigated. Then she bows her head in a less than enthusiastic gesture of assent.

The library should open at nine but today things are not as they should be. The doors are closed, and even when Amara and the man with the gazelles knock, nobody answers. They sit down on the steps that lead up to the great door decorated with historical scenes, and share a bunch of September grapes.

He is wearing a green shirt and beneath its gaudy collar the sweater with the running gazelles can be seen. She has on a light-blue raincoat and pink beret that give her the look of a high-school student.

They stand in silence watching the people pass. There’s still a lot of poverty around. Many people are wrapped in heavy patched coats, either too long or too short, with sweaters in dark colours so as not to show the dirt. Anyway, who has access to hot water? And soap is too expensive. Tired early-morning faces, resentful from having slept badly and too briefly, and knowing they must now face an exhausting and humiliating day. The young run; they have cheap clothes and second-hand army boots. The old move slowly in long handmade scarves and synthetic cloth caps.

‘How can this man and his gazelles make a living just by leading young brides to the altar as if they were his daughters, playing at being their father?’ asks Amara, pointing at the herd of gazelles running in orderly procession towards the future.

Hans turns his suntanned face towards her. The light-brown lock of hair slips over his brow. He screws up his ash-grey eyes with the patient gesture of one who must explain the inexplicable.