Julie Orringer - The InvisibleBridge

“Klárika,” he said, and she turned to face him. Her hair had dried in soft tendrils around her neck and forehead; he had such a strong desire for her that he wanted almost to bite her.

“What is it?” She put a hand on the bare skin of his arm.

“Something’s happened,” he said. “I have to go to Budapest.”

She blinked at him in surprise. “But Andras-my God, did someone die?”

“No, no. My visa’s expired.”

“Can’t you just go to the consulate?”

“They’ve changed the rules. József was the one who told me. He had to leave, too-he was on his way to the Gare du Nord when I saw him. I’m here illegally now, according to the government. I have to leave at once. There’s a train tomorrow morning.”

She took a white silk robe and wrapped it around herself, then sat down on the low chair beside the vanity table, her face drained of color.

“Budapest,” she said.

“It’s only for a few days.”

“But what if you run into trouble? What if they won’t renew your visa? What if a war begins while you’re away?” Slowly, pensively, she untied the green ribbon that bound her hair at the nape of her neck, and for a long time she sat holding that bit of silk. When she spoke again, her voice had lost its careful balance. “We were supposed to be married next week. And now you’re going to Hungary, the one place I can’t go with you.”

“I’ll be gone just long enough to get there, see my parents, and come back.”

“I couldn’t stand it if something happened.”

“Do you think I want to go without you?” he said, and pulled her to her feet. “Do you think I can stand the thought of it? Two weeks without you, while Europe’s on the brink of war? Do you think I want that?”

“What if I came with you?”

He shook his head. “We know that’s impossible. We’ve talked about it. It’s too dangerous, particularly now.”

“I never would have considered it while Elisabet was here, but now I don’t need to protect myself for her sake. And Andras-now I know something of what my mother must have suffered when I had to go away. She’s getting older. Who knows when I’ll have a chance to see her? It’s been more than eighteen years. Perhaps I can arrange to meet her in secret, and no one will be the wiser. If we stay a short time, we won’t be in danger-I’ve been Claire Morgenstern for nearly two decades now. I have a French passport. Why would anyone question it? Please, Andras. Let me come.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I couldn’t forgive myself if you were discovered and arrested.”

“Would that be worse than being kept from you?”

“But it’s only two weeks, Klara.”

“Two weeks during which anything might happen!”

“If Europe goes to war, you’ll be far safer here.”

“My safety!” she said. “What does that mean to me?”

“Think of what it means to me,” he said. He kissed her pale forehead, her cheekbones, her mouth. “I can’t let you come,” he said. “There’s no use discussing it. I can’t. And very soon I’ve got to go home and get my things together. My train leaves at half past seven tomorrow. So you’ve got to think now. You’ve got to sit down and think about what you’d like to send to Budapest. I can carry letters for you.”

“What small consolation!”

“Imagine what comfort a letter will be to your mother.” With trembling hands he touched her hair, her shoulders. “And I can speak to her, Klara. I can ask her if she’ll allow me to have you for my wife.”

She nodded and took his hand, but she was no longer looking at him; it seemed she’d retreated to some small and remote place of self-protection. As they went to the sitting room so she could write, he stood by the open window and watched the sapling chestnuts show the pale undersides of their leaves. The breeze outside smelled of thunderstorm. He knew he was acting for her safety, acting as a husband should. He knew he was doing what was right. Soon she would finish her letters, and then he would kiss her goodbye.

How could he have known it would be his last night as a resident of Paris? What might he have done, how might he have spent those hours, if he’d known? Would he have walked the streets all night to fix in his mind their unpredictable angles, their smells, their variances of light? Would he have gone to Rosen’s flat and shaken him from sleep, bid him luck with his political struggles and with Shalhevet? Would he have gone to see Ben Yakov at his bereft apartment one last time? Would he have gone to Polaner’s, crouched at his friend’s side and told him what was true: that he loved him as much as he had ever loved a friend, that he owed his life and happiness to him, that he had never felt such exhilaration as when they’d worked together in the studio at night, making something they believed to be daring and good? Would he have taken a last stroll by the Sarah-Bernhardt, that sleeping grande dame, its red velvet seats flocked with dust, its corridors empty and quiet, its dressing rooms still redolent of stage makeup? Would he have crept into Forestier’s studio to memorize his catalogue of disappearance and illusion? Would he have gone back through the secret door he knew about in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, back to his studio at school, to run his hands across the familiar smooth surface of his drawing table, the groove of the pencil rail, the mechanical pencils themselves, with their crosshatched finger rests, their hard smooth lead, the satisfying click that signified the end of one unit of work, the beginning of another? Would he have gone back to the rue de Sévigné, his heart’s first and last home in Paris, the place where he had first glimpsed Klara Morgenstern with a blue vase in her hands? The place where they had first made love, first argued, first spoken of their children?

But he didn’t know. He knew only that he was right to keep Klara from going with him. He would go, and then he would come back to her. No war could keep him from her, no law or regulation. He rolled himself into the blankets they’d shared and thought about her all night. Beside him, on the floor, Tibor slept on a borrowed mattress. There was an unspeakable comfort in the familiar rhythm of his breathing. They might almost have been back in the house in Konyár, both of them home from gimnázium on a weekend, their parents asleep on the other side of the wall, and Mátyás dreaming in his little cot.

All he had was his cardboard suitcase and his leather satchel. It wasn’t enough luggage to require a cab. Instead he and Tibor walked to the station, just as they had when Andras had left Budapest two years earlier. When they crossed the Pont au Change he considered turning once more toward Klara’s house, but there wasn’t time; the train would leave in an hour. He stopped only at a boulangerie to buy bread for the trip. In the windows of the tabac next door, the newspapers proclaimed that Count Csaky, the Hungarian foreign minister, had gone on a secret diplomatic mission to Rome; he’d been sent by the German government, and had gone directly from the airport to a meeting with Mussolini. The Hungarian government had refused to comment on the purpose of the visit, saying only that Hungary was happy to facilitate communication between its allies.

The station was crowded with August travelers, its floor a maze of rucksacks and trunks, boxes and valises. Soon Tibor would get on a train and go back to Italy with Ilana; in the ticket line Andras touched Tibor’s sleeve and said, “I wish I could be there to see you married.”

Tibor smiled and said, “Me too.”

“I couldn’t have guessed it would turn out this way for you.”

“I didn’t dare to hope it would,” Tibor said.

“Lucky bastard,” Andras said.