Dacia Maraini - Train to Budapest

‘I really believed they returned to Florence,’ insists the consul, smiling sweetly.

‘Have you ever looked for them? Have you ever tried to make contact with them?’

‘Well no, actually not. We Germans were not allowed to have relations with Jews. And I was still a member of the diplomatic corps despite our change of home. It would not have been at all possible for me to …’

‘You know that all the Jews deported from Vienna to Łódź ended up in the death camp at Auschwitz?’

‘If you say so, I believe it. But we knew nothing at the time. The Orensteins, and many like them, rich Jewish indutrialists, were said to have sold their houses for a good price before the buildings were bombed by the British and Russians. It said so in all the newspapers. Some repeated this with admiration. They always know where the money is, these people, don’t they?’ he added with a malicious little smile.

Amara blushed with anger. How can he allow himself to repeat the vile, stupid propaganda put about by the SS at the very moment they were plundering Jewish homes? But not wanting to interrupt the conversation which might lead to some useful bit of news, she forces herself to keep quiet.

‘And how was Frau Orenstein when you met her,’ she asks, pretending to be stupid.

‘Very well. A beautiful woman of about forty. They had this one son of whom they were very fond. Every morning they would go and play tennis nearby, father and son. Or so I heard. Even when the bombing started they could be seen going out in their shorts with their racquets. Nothing seemed to frighten them. They were passionate about their tennis.’

‘Is it really possible you never heard anything of what happened to them? You were a consul and …’

‘Consuls never know anything, signora. They concern themselves with high politics and international law. But they know nothing of what is happening in their own country. And then I was recalled to concentrate on administration.’

‘Herr Orenstein was found mortally wounded in the Łódź ghetto, I repeat, and Frau Thelma Orenstein was hanged for internal sabotage at the factory where she was working, Consul Schumacher.’

‘You shouldn’t be so pessimistic. Have you any proof of their deaths?’

‘Their own son wrote about them in his diary.’

‘Pay no attention to him. He was a congenital liar. He even claimed he could fly. They will have undoubtedly moved to Palestine. Many Jews moved there, some of them secretly. My view is the Gestapo closed one eye when Jews wanted to escape to Palestine.’

‘And my view is the Gestapo kept their eyes wide open. Anyway, if they had gone to Palestine, we would have heard from them.’

‘And what happened to their house in Florence?’

‘Confiscated.’

‘Oh no, they will have sold that too. Canny people. Brilliant investors. I should have followed their advice instead of groping my way between Tokyo and Berlin.’

‘Goodbye, Consul Schumacher. You’ve been a great help. Not with finding traces of Emanuele Orenstein, but in helping us in understanding what Nazism did to this country: how it was able even to corrupt honest folk and make them blind and deaf.’

‘Why say such things, Herr Wilkowsky? Where were you during the war? Don’t tell me you survived by playing hide-and-seek.’

‘My mother died at Treblinka. I survived because I followed the advice of my family and went to Denmark, where I was hidden by decent Danish people.’

‘Oh, Denmark!’ intervenes Frau Schumacher as if it were nothing. ‘Such clever people, I’d have so much liked to go there, but we never had the chance.’

‘Thank you, Frau Schumacher. We really must go now. I wish you a happy future in this beautiful house so full of pictures and flowers!’

Christmas Day. Even though the city still carries the wounds of war, even though many of the vital necessities of life are scarce or can only be found on the black market, the windows of homes and shops are sparkling with festivity. Coloured paper hangs in festoons over front doors. Fir trees adorned with cheap ornaments stand in the squares. The crowded Naschmarkt with its curtains, lamps, acetylene lighting, stalls selling marzipan dolls, fake flowers, almond confectionery, sugar fir trees and ginger biscuits. Great fat Father Christmases circulate with long white beards and white curls over their brows and collars. There is even a noisy band and in front of the musicians four lines of girls in short skirts and stiff hats are beating their feet on the snow and brandishing tufted canes. The first time majorettes have been seen in Vienna; people say it’s the influence of America. ‘It’s the war that has brought all these strange new fashions: boogie-woogie, blue jeans, chewing gum, Pall Mall cigarettes, Lucky Strikes, Camels in their pretty packets with a honey-coloured camel against a white background, and of course Coca-Cola, small chocolate bars and cans of Carnation condensed milk.’

Amara feels light-hearted as she walks among the stalls. It took her a few days to recover from her meeting with Consul Schumacher and his ineffable lady. Now she is waiting for her visa to be able to return to Italy. But she is in no hurry. After all, her father is dead and no one is expecting her. Her editor has told her that for the moment he doesn’t want to hear any more about Eastern Europe. And he has even criticised her for being so slow in sending in her articles from Budapest. ‘I published them but always late. That won’t do, my dear Sironi, you had the luck to find yourself in the position to pull off a coup and you let it slip. Quite frankly, as special correspondent you’ve been a disaster.’ She tried to get him to understand that the telephones were out of order, that the post office was closed, and that it was even difficult to find a typewriter, but he answered rudely that he didn’t give a fuck for her excuses.

She is free until the first days of the New Year. Why not take a few days off in Vienna? — collecting material for possible further articles, enjoying the festive atmosphere, sleeping without having to wake in the night for fear of tanks.

She stops in front of a man struggling with enormous wads of candyfloss being churned out by a machine. It reminds her of when she was little. Once in the Piazza D’Azeglio Gardens with Emanuele, they had bought two balls of the stuff and watched spellbound as the machine pushed out the floss until it grew into a cloud. Increasingly slender threads piled up like cotton wool in the skilful hands of the salesman; they had watched him turn his little stick till the big ball was plump and round. The Piazza D’Azeglio candyfloss had been white; this in Vienna was a sugary pink, but when the man turned a handle, the skein turned purple.

She has an appointment this evening to dine with Hans and Horvath, who has gone back to his library and also put on several kilos in weight. Only his feet are still relentlessly bare in the friar’s sandals he wears everywhere in Vienna despite the snow and slush, covering the pavements with the great strides of a mountaineer. But it’s barely six now and their appointment is for seven. She decides to wander a little further among the stalls which she finds cheering. I shall buy myself a stick of candyfloss she tells herself, pulling out a coin and offering it to the man who looks at her with astonishment. Those he serves during the holidays are always children. Bur he gives her a smile and an extra ball of floss.

Amara lifts it to her mouth, but as soon as she smells the sugar and synthetic strawberry she no longer wants it. She turns it in her hand, thinking of Emanuele. Can she really have forgotten what they did that day after they bought the candyfloss? Perhaps they went on the merry-go-round. Perhaps they climbed onto the flying seats. Or was it the terrifying whirling wheel. But to please Emanuele she would have faced any sort of fear.