Julie Orringer - The InvisibleBridge

“Lévi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Andras said. “I suppose I wanted a word with you.”

Novak stood for a long moment before Andras, taking in the Munkaszolgálat uniform and the other changes that accompanied it. He let out a long and labored exhalation, then lifted his eyes to Andras’s.

“I must say you’re the last person I would have expected to find outside my door,” he said. “And, to be perfectly honest, among the last I might have wanted to see. But since you’re here, you might as well come in.”

Andras found himself following Novak into the dim sanctum of the office and standing before the large leather-topped desk. Novak waved a hand toward a chair, and Andras took off his cap and sat down. He glanced around at the shelves of libretti, the ledger books, the photographs of opera stars in costume. It was the Sarah-Bernhardt office refigured in a smaller, darker form.

“Well,” Novak said. “You might as well tell me what brings you here, Lévi.”

Andras folded and unfolded his Munkaszolgálat cap. “I had some news this afternoon,” he said. “I’ve just learned that your wife revealed Klara’s identity to the Hungarian police.”

“You learned that just this afternoon?” Novak said. “But it happened nearly two years ago.”

Andras’s face flamed, but he kept his eyes steady on Novak’s. “György Hász saw to it that I knew nothing. I went to him today to see if he could help exempt my brother from front-line duty, and he told me that his funds were engaged in keeping my wife out of jail.”

Novak got up to pour himself a drink from the decanter that stood on a table in the corner. He glanced back over his shoulder. Andras shook his head.

“It’s just tea,” Novak said. “I can’t take spirits anymore.”

“No, thank you,” Andras said.

Novak returned to the desk with his glass of tea. He was pale and haggard, but his eyes burned with a terrible fierce light, the source of which Andras was afraid to guess. “The government is a clever extortionist,” Novak said.

“Thanks to Edith, Klara’s life is in danger,” Andras said. “And my brother is on a train to Belgorod as we speak. I’m to rejoin my company in Bánhida tomorrow morning and can do nothing about any of it.”

“We all have our tragedies,” Novak said. “Those are yours. I’ve got mine.”

“How can you speak that way?” Andras said. “It’s your own wife who did this. And it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d had a hand in it.”

“Edith did what she got it into her mind to do,” Novak said curtly. “She heard a rumor from a friend that Klara had come back to town. Heard she’d married you, and that you’d gone to the work service. I suppose she thought I might go looking for Klara, or that Klara might look for me.” He spoke the last words in a tone of bitter irony. “Edith wanted to give her what she thought she deserved. She thought it would be a simple matter, but she didn’t count on the Ministry of Justice to be so willing to be bought off. When she heard about the arrangement they’d made with your brother-in-law, she was furious.”

“And now? How do I know she won’t do something more, or worse?”

“Edith died of ovarian cancer last spring,” Novak said. He gave Andras a challenging look, as if daring him to show pity.

“I’m sorry,” Andras said.

“Spare me your condolences. If you’re sorry, it’s only because you’ve lost the chance to hold her accountable for what she did. But she was punished enough while she lived. Her death was a terrible one. My son and I had to watch her go through it. Carry that back with you to the work service, if you want something to ease your anger.”

Andras twisted his hat in silence. There was no way to reply. Novak, seeing he’d rendered Andras mute, seemed to relent a little. “I miss her,” he said. “I was never as good to her as she deserved. I suspect it’s my own guilt that makes me cruel to you.”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Andras said.

“I’m glad you did. I’m glad to know Klara’s still safe, at least. I’ve tried not to hear of her at all, but I’m glad to know that much.” He began to cough deeply, and had to wipe his eyes and take a drink of his tea. “I won’t know more of her for a long time, if ever. I’m leaving here in a month. I’ve been called too.”

“Called where?”

“To the labor service.”

“But that’s impossible,” Andras said. “You’re not of military age. You have your position here at the Opera. You’re not even Jewish.”

“I’m Jewish enough for them,” Novak said. “My mother was a Jew. I converted as a young man, but no one cares much about that now. I shouldn’t have been allowed to keep this job after the race laws changed, but some friends of mine in the Ministry of Culture chose to look the other way. They’ve all lost their jobs by now. As for my position in the community, that’s part of the problem. They mean to remove me from it. Apparently there’s a new secret quota for the labor battalions. A certain percentage of conscripts must be so-called prominent Jews. I’ll be in illustrious company. My colleague at the symphony was called to the same battalion, and we’ve just learned that the former president of the engineering college will be joining us too. Age isn’t a factor. Nor, unfortunately, is fitness for service. I’ve never quite shaken the consumption that brought me back here in ’37. You’ve been through the service yourself; you know as well as I do that I’m not likely to return.”

“Surely they won’t make you do hard labor,” Andras said. “Surely they’ll give you a job in an office, at least.”

“Now, Andras,” Novak said, with a note of reproach. “We both know that’s not true. What will happen will happen.”

“What about your son?” Andras said.

“Yes, what about my son?” Novak said. “What about him?” His voice trailed into silence, and they sat together without saying a word. Into Andras’s mind came the image of his own child, that boy or girl sitting cross-legged in Klara’s womb-that child who might never be born, and who, if born, might never live past babyhood, and who might then live only to see the world consumed by flames. Novak, watching Andras, seemed to apprehend a new grief of his own.

“So,” he said, finally. “You understand. You’re a father too.”

“Soon,” Andras said. “In a few months.”

“And you’ll be finished with the labor service by then?”

“Who knows? Anything might happen.”

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “You’ll make it home. You’ll be with Klara and the child. György will maintain his arrangement with the authorities. It’s not her they want, you know; it’s his money. If they prosecute her it will only bring their own guilt to light.”

Andras nodded, wanting to believe it. He was surprised to feel reassured, and then ashamed that it was Novak who had reassured him-Novak, who had lost everything but his young son. “Who will look after your boy?” he asked again.

“Edith’s parents. And my sister. It’s fortunate we came back when we did,” Novak said. “If we’d stayed in France, we might be in an internment camp by now. The boy too. They’re not sparing the children.”

“God,” Andras said, and put his head into his hands. “What’ll become of us? All of us?”

Novak looked up at him from beneath his graying brows; the last trace of anger had gone out of his eyes. “In the end, only one thing,” he said. “Some by fire, some by water. Some by the sword, some by wild beasts. Some by hunger, some by thirst. You know how the prayer goes, Andras.”

“Forgive me,” Andras said. “Forgive me for saying you weren’t a Jew.” For it was the verse from the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, the prayer that prefigured all ends. Soon he would say that prayer himself, in the camp at Bánhida among his workmates.