Julie Orringer - The InvisibleBridge

“You’re in no debt to me,” György said. “What’s mine is yours. Most of what I had came from our father’s estate, in any case. And it’ll do little good for you to put money into my hands now. Our extortionists will only find a way to take it.”

“But what can I do?” she said, on the verge of tears. “How can I repay you?”

“You can forgive me for operating on your behalf without your knowledge. And perhaps you can convince your husband to forgive me for requiring that he keep the secret from you.”

“I do, of course,” Klara said; and Andras said he did as well. Everyone agreed that György had acted in Klara’s best interest, and György expressed the hope that his son would seek Klara and Andras’s forgiveness too. But as he said it, his voice faltered and broke.

“What is it?” Klara said. “What’s happened?”

“He’s received another call-up notice,” György said. “This time he’ll have to go. There’s nothing more we can do about it. We’ve offered a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of the house, but it’s not the money they want. They want to make an example of young men like József.”

“Oh, György,” Klara said.

Andras found himself speechless. He could no more imagine József Hász in the Munkaszolgálat than he could imagine Miklós Horthy himself showing up one morning on the bus from Óbuda to Szentendre, a tattered coat on his back, a lunch pail in his hand. His first sensation was one of satisfaction. Why shouldn’t József have to serve, when he, Andras, had already served for two years and was serving still? But György’s pained expression brought him back to himself. Whatever else József was, he was György’s child.

“I haven’t done a very good job of raising my son,” György said, turning his gaze toward the window. “I gave him everything he wanted, and tried to keep him from anything that would hurt him. But I gave him too much. I protected him too much. He’s come to believe that the world should present itself at his feet. He’s been living in comfort in Buda while other men serve in his place. Now he’ll have to get by on his strength and his wits, like everyone else. I hope he’s got enough of both.”

“Perhaps he can be assigned to one of the companies close to home,” Andras said.

“That won’t be up to him,” György said. “They’ll put him where they want to.”

“I can write to General Martón.”

“You don’t owe József anything,” György said.

“He helped me in Paris. More than once.”

György nodded slowly. “He can be generous when he wants to be.”

“Andras will write to the general,” Klara said. “And then maybe József will come to Palestine, with the rest of us.”

“To Palestine?” György said. “You’re not going to Palestine.”

“Yes,” Klara said. “We have no other choice.”

“But, darling, there’s no way to get to Palestine.”

Klara explained about Klein. György’s eyes grew stern as she spoke.

“Don’t you understand?” he said. “This is why I paid the Ministry of Justice. This is why I sold the paintings and the rugs and the furniture. This is why I’m selling the house! To keep you from taking a foolish risk like this.”

“It would be foolish to throw away what we have left,” Klara said.

György turned to Andras. “Please tell me you haven’t agreed to this wild scheme.”

“My brother witnessed the massacre in the Délvidék. He thinks it could happen here, and worse.”

György sank back in his chair, his face drained of blood. From outside came the drumbeat and brass of a military band; they must have been marching up Andrássy út to Heroes’ Square. “What about us?” he said, faintly. “What’s going to happen once they discover you’re gone? Who do you think they’ll question? Who’ll get the blame for spiriting you away?”

“You must join us in Palestine,” Klara said.

He shook his head. “Impossible. I’m too old to begin a new life.”

“What choice do you have?” she said. “They’ve taken away your position, your fortune, your home. Now they’re taking your son.”

“You’re dreaming,” he said.

“I wish you’d talk to Elza about it. By the end of the year they’ll call you to the labor service too. Elza and Mother will be left all alone.”

He touched the edge of his blotter with his thumbs. A stack of documents lay before him, thick sheaves of ivory legal paper. “Do you see this?” he said, pushing at the papers. “These are the documents assigning possession of the house to the new owner.”

“Who is it?” Klara asked.

“The son of the minister of justice. His wife has just given birth to their sixth child, I understand.”

“God help us,” Klara said. “The house will be a shambles.”

“Where will you live?” Andras said.

“I’ve found lodgings for us in a building at the head of Andrássy út-it’s really quite grand, or it was at one time. According to these papers, we’re allowed to take whatever furniture remains.” He swept an arm around the denuded room.

“Please speak to Elza,” Klara said.

“Six children in this house,” he said, and sighed. “What a disaster.”

General Martón’s reaction was quick and sympathetic, but he lacked range: His solution was to secure József a place in the 79/6th. When the news arrived, Andras felt as though he were being punished personally. Here was retribution for the moment of satisfaction he’d experienced when he’d first heard that József had been called. Now, every morning, József was there at the Óbuda bus stop, looking like an officer in his too-clean uniform and his unbroken military cap. He was assigned to Andras and Mendel’s work group and made to load boxcars like the rest of the conscripts. Through the first week of it he glared at Andras every chance he got, as if this were all his fault, as if Andras himself were responsible for the blisters on József’s feet and hands, the ache in his back, the peeling sunburn. He was roundly abused by the work foreman for his softness, his sloth; when he protested, Faragó kicked him to the ground and spat in his face. After that, he did his work without a word.

June turned into July and a dry spell ended. Every afternoon the sky broke open to drop sweet-tasting rain onto the tedium of Szentendre Yard. The yellow bricks of the rail yard buildings darkened to dun. On the hills across the river, the trees that had stood immobile in the dust now shook out their leaves and tossed their limbs in the wind. Weeds and wildflowers crowded between the railroad ties, and one morning a plague of tiny frogs descended upon Szentendre. They were everywhere underfoot, having arrived from no one knew where, coin-sized, the color of celery, sprinting madly toward the river. They made the work servicemen curse and dance for two days, then disappeared as mysteriously as they’d come. It was a time of year Andras had loved as a boy, the time to swim in the millpond, to eat sun-hottened strawberries directly from the vine, to hide in the shadow of the long cool grass and watch ants conduct their quick-footed business. Now there was only the slow toil of the rail yard and the prospect of escape. At night, during his few hours at home, he held his sleeping son while Klara read him passages from Bialik or Brenner or Herzl, descriptions of Palestine and of the miraculous transformation the settlers were enacting there. In his mind he had begun to see his family replanted among orange trees and honeybees, the bronze shield of the sea glittering far below, his boy growing tall in the salt-flavored air. He tried not to dwell upon the inevitable difficulties of the journey. He was no stranger to hardship, nor was Klara. Even his parents, whose recent move to Debrecen represented the most significant geographic displacement of their married lives, had agreed to undertake the trip if it was possible, if entry visas could be obtained for them; they refused to be separated from their children and grandchildren by a continent, a sea.