Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

‘The house I live in is my own, my grandfather left it to me. I give music lessons, like my father. To his pupils. I inherited them with the house’ — when he smiles he takes on the malicious look of a child embarrassed by having to talk to others and planning to distract their attention with cunning little stratagems — ‘with that and the weddings I get by.’

‘I’m lucky too. I write for a provincial paper. It doesn’t have masses of readers but the few it does have think about what they read. They pay me on the nail. And I can write what I like.’

‘Do you keep a diary?’

‘No.’

‘I do.’

‘Will you let me read it one day?’

‘Maybe.’

Looking up Amara sees an elderly man advancing on them: he is extremely thin with long legs. His violet-coloured jacket hangs from his shoulders, his black trousers are covered with stains and he has two folders under his arm. He climbs the steps slowly. His trousers are too short. They ride up at each step exposing thin ankles lined with thick blue veins that stand out in relief, his two long broad feet confined in rubber sandals. His fine, modest face is surrounded by white hair, balding yet also thick, that forms a halo round his skeletal head. He is like a tired, perplexed Old Testament prophet laboriously climbing the steps to paradise, but not worried about getting there quickly.

Amara and the man with the gazelles get up and follow him up the steps. Finding his keys, he pushes open the great dark wooden door; they follow him in.

The spacious entrance hall smells of mould.

‘Sir and madam would like?’

‘Can we visit the library?’

‘It opens at ten.’

‘It says nine outside.’

‘I arrive at ten. The secretary comes when she feels like it. She’s supposed to be here at nine but at the moment she’s off work.’

‘Well, it’s nearly ten. Can we come in?’

‘Write your names here. Show me your papers. Leave your umbrellas and bags, if you have any.’

The old man sits down exhausted after pushing towards them a large exercise book with scuffed pages.

It’s a venerable local library with tall windows, long worm-eaten tables and uniform wooden chairs, though some have broken backs and stuffing coming out of their seats in tufts.

Amara and Hans go to the catalogue. Not much on the concentration camps, as if there could be nothing to say about facts so near in time and so inexplicable. On the other hand, not even the library’s readers seem anxious to know more. The books standing upright side by side seem never to have been touched, opened or consulted. They are chilly to the touch and their pages uncut. Undoubtedly there are more documents to be found in the libraries of the camps.

Amara reads their titles, pulls out a volume or two, puts them back in their places. More than anything, they are historical explanations. Few accounts by witnesses. Few novels or stories of the camps.

She sees Hans crouched on the floor, deep in what looks like a new volume.

‘What are you reading?’

‘Witness accounts of the siege of Stalingrad.’

Amara too crouches down and tries to read by pushing her head over his shoulder. It is clear the book was printed quite recently on wartime paper, coarse and fragile, and it is shabby.

‘Dear Magda, Miraculously I’m still alive, I can’t think how,’ translates Hans aloud into refined and precise Italian. ‘All my mates are dead. The Russians surrounded us and began firing from all sides. I lost my shoes, but I took a pair from a soldier who died at my side. Out of the five hundred Hungarians with me, only three are still alive. I never saw such fierce crossfire. I was hit too. I fell and lost consciousness. I thought I was dead but then, with the coming of night and silence, I found I was still alive, still breathing. But I couldn’t move. I must be completely shattered, I thought, even if I couldn’t feel any pain. Then I realised that though still alive I was crushed under two dead bodies. I didn’t even know where my companions had gone. Then I found them by chance, behind a group of Finns and Romanians pulling a cart full of wounded. I don’t know if you’ll ever get this letter. It’ll be best if I bring it to you myself in my pocket if I manage to get home, if we manage to overcome the Russians who are wearing us down. Or it may reach you with my corpse, though that’s not likely since no one collects the dead here. There’s no time to bury them. The wounded are barely rescued, and even then often die in the field hospitals because there are no more dressings or medicines, or even doctors: they are dead too. Goodbye darling sister, I really hope to see you again not in paradise but in our own lovely Budapest, your brother Oskar Horvath.’

‘What was a Hungarian doing with the Germans?’

‘It was the famous Operation Barbarossa, haven’t you heard of that?’

Amara admits she knows nothing, and asks Hans to tell her about it. She likes it when he reconstructs history for her. It excites her and her eyes light up.

‘Operation Barbarossa was invented by Hitler. Having swallowed at a single gulp Poland, Denmark and Norway, not to mention the Netherlands, the whole of Belgium and half of France, and after signing a non-aggression pact with Russia, he decided, scoundrel that he was, to attack his Russian ally without warning so as to disarm him and grab his oil and mineral resources.’

‘So the soldier Horvath would have been with Hitler in Russia as an invader even though he didn’t want to be?’

‘Naturally. Horthy’s Hungary had allied itself with Hitler who forced it to join his tripartite alliance with Italy and Japan. The Führer called up the various Horvaths and placed them under the command of his colonels. So they had no alternative but to follow him when he treacherously decided to invade the USSR, forcing his unwilling allies to go with him, as well as the willing ones like Italy, who of course wasn’t doing it for nothing, but was looking forward to her own share of the oil. That was the origin of the Italian Army in Russia or ARMIR, which was sent in with the worst possible equipment and arms. Hitler was desperate to get everything done before the winter, which had been so disastrous for other invaders of Russia; remember Napoleon.’

‘So the soldier Horvath would have followed the Nazis to Russia and written from there to his sister?’

‘On the night of 21 June 1941 Hitler’s troops crossed the border into Russia and after only thirteen days had arrived within twenty-two kilometres of Moscow. They besieged Leningrad and took Kiev and Odessa. Out of 128 Soviet divisions they immediately immobilised twenty-eight, treacherously, without so much as a declaration of war. Hitler cared nothing about pacts and didn’t believe in subtlety, he was a predator and acted accordingly. Among other things, he ordered his soldiers to ignore the rules of war. Prisoners were to be killed with a bullet to the head, even generals. He didn’t give a damn for the Geneva Convention. He just wanted to spread terror and make it clear who was in charge. The Red Army chiefs who until a few days before had been his allies were all killed, shot without trial. Meanwhile he pushed his remaining divisions towards Stalingrad, the gateway to the Caucasus where the Russian oil was to be found.’

‘But the Russians fought back, both in Leningrad and in Stalingrad, I do know that. But how did the Nazis manage to lose when they were so much better prepared and armed, stronger and utterly unscrupulous?’

‘The Krauts advanced into Soviet territory with a boldness and presumption that took the wind out of the sails of those facing them. Hitler was used to winning by gambling, tricks and violence; he had the mentality of a bandit and cared nothing for his own soldiers who were dying in thousands, or his generals who were advising him to stop and change tactics; all he understood was murderous fury.’