The Invisible Bridge

by Julie Orringer

  "My God!" Andras said. "That's miraculous! How did you do it?"

  "I correctly estimated the value of my connections," Vago said, and smiled.

  "I've got to wire Tibor right away. Where do I go to send a telegram?"

  Vago put up a hand in caution. "I wouldn't send word just yet," he said. "It's still just a possibility. We wouldn't want to raise his hopes in vain."

  "What are the chances, do you think? What does the professor say?"

  "He says he'll have to petition the admissions board. It's a special case."

  "You'll tell me as soon as you hear from him?"

  "Of course," Vago said.

  But he had to share the preliminary good news with someone, so he told Polaner and Rosen and Ben Yakov that night at their student dining club on the rue des Ecoles. It was the same club Jozsef had recommended when Andras had arrived. For 125 francs a week they received daily dinners that relied heavily upon potatoes and beans and cabbage; they ate in an echoing underground cavern at long tables inscribed with thousands of students' names. Andras delivered the news about Tibor in his Hungarian-accented French, struggling to be heard above the din. The others raised their glasses and wished Tibor luck.

  "What a delicious irony," Rosen said, once they'd drained their glasses. "Because he's a Jew, he has to leave a constitutional monarchy to study medicine in a fascist dictatorship. At least he doesn't have to join us in this fine democracy, where intelligent young men practice the right of free speech with such abandon." He cut his eyes at Polaner, who looked down at his neat white hands.

  "What's that about?" Ben Yakov said.

  "Nothing,"

  Polaner

  said.

  "What happened?" asked Ben Yakov, who could not stand to be left out of gossip.

  "I'll tell you what happened," Rosen said. "On the way to school yesterday, Polaner's portfolio handle broke. We had to stop and fix it with a bit of twine. We were late to morning lecture, as you'll recall--that was us, coming in at half past ten. We had to sit in the back, next to that second-year, Lemarque--that blond bastard, the snide one from studio. Tell them, Polaner, what he said when we slid into the row."

  Polaner laid his spoon beside the soup bowl. "What you thought he said."

  "He

  said

  filthy Jews. I heard it, plain as day."

  Ben Yakov looked at Polaner. "Is that true?"

  "I don't know," Polaner said. "He said something, but I didn't hear what."

  "We both heard it. Everyone around us did."

  "You're paranoid," Polaner said, the delicate skin around his eyes flushing red.

  "People turned around because we were late, not because he'd called us filthy Jews."

  "Maybe it's all right where you come from, but it's not all right here," Rosen said.

  "I'm not going to talk about it."

  "Anyway, what can you do?" said Ben Yakov. "Certain people will always be idiots."

  "Teach him a lesson," Rosen said. "That's what."

  "No," Polaner said. "I don't want trouble over something that may or may not have happened. I just want to keep my head down. I want to study and get my degree. Do you understand?"

  Andras did. He remembered that feeling from primary school in Konyar, the desire to become invisible. But he hadn't anticipated that he or any of his Jewish classmates would feel it in Paris. "I understand," he said. "Still, Lemarque shouldn't feel"-

  -he struggled to find the French words--"like he can get away with saying a thing like that. If he did say it, that is."

  "Levi knows what I mean," Rosen said. But then he lowered his chin onto his hand and stared into his soup bowl. "On the other hand, I'm not at all sure what we're supposed to do about it. If we told someone, it would be our word against Lemarque's.

  And he's got a lot of friends among the fourth- and fifth-years."

  Polaner pushed his bowl away. "I have to get back to the studio. I've got a whole night's worth of work to do."

  "Come on, Eli," Rosen said. "Don't be angry."

  "I'm not angry. I just don't want trouble, that's all." Polaner put on his hat and slung his scarf around his neck, and they watched him make his way through the maze of tables, his shoulders curled beneath the worn velvet of his jacket.

  "You believe me, don't you?" Rosen said to Andras. "I know what I heard."

  "I believe you. But I agree there's nothing we can do about it."

  "Weren't we talking about your brother a moment ago?" Ben Yakov said. "I liked that line of conversation better."

  "That's right," Rosen said. "I changed the subject, and look what happened."

  Andras shrugged. "According to Vago, it's too early to celebrate anyway. It may not happen after all."

  "But it may," Rosen said.

  "Yes. And then, as you pointed out, he'll go live in a fascist dictatorship. So it's hard to know what to hope for. Every scenario is complicated."

  "Palestine," Rosen said. "A Jewish state. That's what we can hope for. I hope your brother does get to study in Italy under Mussolini. Let him take his medical degree under Il Duce's nose. Meanwhile you and Polaner and Ben Yakov and I will get ours in architecture here in Paris. And then we'll all emigrate. Agreed?"

  "I'm not a Zionist," Andras said. "Hungary's my home."

  "Not at the moment, though, is it?" Rosen said. And Andras found it impossible to argue with that.

  For the next two weeks he waited for news from Modena. In statics he calculated the distribution of weight along the curved underside of the Pont au Double, hoping to find some distraction in the symmetry of equations; in drawing class he made a scaled rendering of the facade of the Gare d'Orsay, gratefully losing himself in measurements of its intricate clock faces and its line of arched doorways. In studio he kept an eye on Lemarque, who could often be seen casting inscrutable looks at Polaner, but who said nothing that could have been construed as a slur. Every morning in Vago's office he eyed the letters on the desk, looking for one that bore an Italian postmark; day after day the letter failed to arrive.

  Then one afternoon as Andras was sitting in studio, erasing feathery pencil marks from his drawing of the d'Orsay, beautiful Lucia from the front office came to the classroom with a folded note in her hand. She gave the note to the fifth-year monitor who was overseeing that session, and left without a look at any of the other students.

  "Levi," said the monitor, a stern-eyed man with hair like an explosion of blond chaff. "You're wanted at the private office of Le Colonel."

  All talk in the room ceased. Pencils hung midair in students' hands. Le Colonel was the school's nickname for Auguste Perret. All eyes turned toward Andras; Lemarque shot him a thin half smile. Andras swept his pencils into his bag, wondering what Perret could want with him. It occurred to him that Perret might be involved with Tibor's chances in Italy; perhaps Vago had enlisted his help. Maybe he'd exerted some kind of influence with friends abroad, and now he was going to be the one to deliver the news.

  Andras ran up the two flights of stairs to the corridor that housed the professors'

  private offices, and paused outside Perret's closed door. From inside he could hear Perret and Vago speaking in lowered voices. He knocked. Vago called for him to enter, and he opened the door. Inside, standing in a shaft of light near one of the long windows that overlooked the boulevard Raspail, was Professor Perret in his shirtsleeves. Vago leaned against Perret's desk, a telegram in his hand.

  "Good afternoon, Andras," Perret said, turning from the window. He motioned for Andras to sit in a low leather chair beside the desk. Andras sat, letting his schoolbag slide to the floor. The air in Perret's office was close and still. Unlike Vago's office, with its profusion of drawings on the walls and its junk sculptures and its worktable overflowing with projects, Perret's was all order and austerity. Three pencils lay parallel on the Morocco-topped desk; wooden shelves held neatly rolled plans; a crisp white model of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees stood in a glass box on a console tabl
e.

  Perret cleared his throat and began. "We've had some disturbing news from Hungary. Rather disturbing indeed. It may be easier if Professor Vago explains it to you in Hungarian. Though I hear your French has advanced considerably." The martial tone had dropped from his voice, and he gave Andras such a kind and regretful look that Andras's hands went cold.

  "It's rather complicated," Vago said, speaking in Hungarian. "Let me try to explain. I received word from my friend's father, the professor. A place came through for your brother at the medical college in Modena."

  Vago paused. Andras held his breath and waited for him to go on.

  "Professor Turano sent a letter to the Jewish organization that provides your scholarship. He wanted to see if money could be found for Tibor, too. But his request was denied, with regrets. New restrictions have been imposed this week in Hungary: As of today, no organization can send money to Jewish students abroad. Your Hitkozseg's student-aid funds have been frozen by the government."

  Andras blinked at him, trying to understand what he meant.

  "It's not just a problem for Tibor," Vago continued, looking into Andras's eyes.

  "It's also a problem for you. In short, your scholarship can no longer be paid. To be honest, my young friend, your scholarship has never been paid. Your first month's check never arrived, so I paid your fees out of my own pocket, thinking there must have been some temporary delay." He paused, glancing at Professor Perret, who was watching as Vago delivered the news in Hungarian. "Monsieur Perret doesn't know where the money came from, and need not know, so please don't betray surprise. I told him everything was fine. However, I'm not a rich man, and, though I wish I could, I can't pay your tuition and fees another month."

  An ice floe ascended through Andras's chest, slow and cold. His tuition could no longer be paid. His tuition had never been paid. All at once he understood Perret's kindness and regret.

  "We think you're a bright student," Perret said in French. "We don't want to lose you. Can your family help?"

  "My family?" Andras's voice sounded thready and vague in the high-ceilinged room. He saw his father stacking oak planks in the lumberyard, his mother cooking potato paprikas at the stove in the outdoor kitchen. He thought of the pair of gray silk stockings, the ones he'd given her ten years earlier for Chanukah--how she'd folded them into a chaste square and stored them in their paper wrapping, and had worn them only to synagogue. "My family doesn't have that kind of money," he said.

  "It's a terrible thing," Perret said. "I wish there were something we could do.

  Before the depression we gave out a great many scholarships, but now ..." He looked out the window at the low clouds and stroked his military beard. "Your expenses are paid until the end of the month. We'll see what we can do before then, but I'm afraid I can't offer much hope."

  Andras translated the words in his mind: not much hope.

  "As for your brother," Vago said, "it's a damned shame. Turano wanted very much to help him."

  He tried to shake himself from the shock that had come over him. It was important that they understand about Tibor, about the money. "It doesn't matter," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "The scholarship doesn't matter--for Tibor, I mean. He's been putting money away for six years. He's got to have enough for the train ticket and his first year's tuition. I'll cable him tonight. Can your friend's father hold the place for him?"

  "I'd imagine so," Vago said. "I'll write to him at once, if you think it's possible.

  But perhaps your brother can help you, too, if he's got some money put away."

  Andras shook his head. "I can't tell him. He hasn't saved enough for both of us."

  "I'm dreadfully sorry," Perret said again, coming forward to shake Andras's hand.

  "Professor Vago tells me you're a resourceful young man. Perhaps you'll find a way through this. I'll see what I can do on our side."

  This was the first time Perret had touched him. It was as though Andras had just been told he had a terminal disease, as though the shadow of impending death had allowed Perret to dispense with formalities. He clapped Andras on the back as he led him to the door of the office. "Courage," he said, giving Andras a salute, and turned him out into the hall.

  Andras went down through the dusty yellow light of the staircase, past the classroom where his Gare d'Orsay drawing lay abandoned on the table, past the beautiful Lucia in the front office, and through the blue doors of the school he had come to think of as his own. He walked down the boulevard Raspail until he reached a post office, where he asked for a telegraph blank. On the narrow blue lines he wrote the message he'd composed on the way: POSITION SECURED FOR YOU AT MEDICAL COLLEGE M

  ODENA, GRATIAS FRIEND OF V AGO. O BTAIN PASSPORT AND VISAS AT

  ONCE. H URRAH! For a moment, in a fog of self-pity, he considered omitting the H

  URRAH. But at the last moment he included it, paying the extra ten centimes, and then walked out onto the boulevard again. The cars continued to speed by, the afternoon light fell just as it always fell, the pedestrians on the street rushed by with their groceries and drawings and books, all the city insensible to what had just taken place in an office at the Ecole Speciale.

  Unseeing, unthinking, he walked the narrow curve of the rue de Fleurus toward the Jardin du Luxembourg, where he found a green bench in the shade of a plane tree.

  The bench was within sight of the bee farm, and Andras could see the hooded beekeeper checking the layers of a hive. The beekeeper's head and arms and legs were speckled with black bees. Slow-moving, torpid with smoke, they roamed the beekeeper's body like cows grazing a pasture. In school, Andras had learned that there were bees who could change their nature when conditions demanded it. When a queen bee died, another bee could become the queen; that bee would shed its former life, take on a new body, a different role. Now she would lay eggs and converse about the health of the hive with her attendants. He, Andras, had been born a Jew, and had carried the mantle of that identity for twenty-two years. At eight days old he'd been circumcised. In the schoolyard he'd withstood the taunts of Christian children, and in the classroom his teachers' disapproval when he'd had to miss school on Shabbos. On Yom Kippur he'd fasted; on Shabbos he'd gone to synagogue; at thirteen he'd read from the Torah and become a man, according to Jewish law. In Debrecen he went to the Jewish gimnazium, and after he graduated he'd taken a job at a Jewish magazine. He'd lived with Tibor in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest and had gone with him to the Dohany Street Synagogue. He'd met the ghost of Numerus Clausus, had left his home and his family to come to Paris. Even here there were men like Lemarque, and student groups that demonstrated against Jews, and more than a few anti-Semitic newspapers. And now he had this new weight to bear, this new tsuris. For a moment, as he sat on his bench at the Jardin du Luxembourg, he wondered what it would be like to leave his Jewish self behind, to shrug off the garment of his religion like a coat that had become too heavy in hot weather. He remembered standing in the Sainte-Chapelle in September, the holiness and the stillness of the place, the few lines he knew from the Latin mass drifting through his mind: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.

  Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy.

  For a moment it seemed simple, clear: become a Christian, and not just a Christian--a Roman Catholic, like the Christians who'd imagined Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, the Matyas Templom and the Basilica of Szent Istvan in Budapest. Shed his former life, take on a new history. Receive what had been withheld from him. Receive mercy.

  But when he thought of the word mercy, it was the Yiddish word that came to his mind: rachmones, whose root was rechem, the Hebrew word for womb. Rachmones: a compassion as deep and as undeniable as what a mother felt for her child. He'd prayed for it every year at synagogue in Konyar on the eve of Yom Kippur. He had asked to be forgiven, had fasted, had come away at the end of Yom Kippur with a sense of having been scraped clean. Every year he'd felt the need to hold his soul to account, to forgive and be forgiven. Every year his broth
ers had flanked him in synagogue--Matyas small and fierce on his left, Tibor lean and deep-voiced on his right. Beside them was their father in his familiar tallis, and behind the women's partition, their mother--patient, forbearing, firm, her presence certain even when they could not see her. He could no sooner cease being Jewish than he could cease being a brother to his brothers, a son to his father and mother.

  He stood, giving a last look to the beekeeper and his bees, and set off across the park toward home. He was thinking now not of what had happened but of what he was going to have to do next: find a job, a way of making the money it would take to stay in school. He wasn't French, of course, but that didn't matter; in Budapest, thousands of workers were paid under the table and no one was the wiser. Tomorrow was Saturday.

  Offices would be closed, but shops and restaurants would be open--bakeries, groceries, bookshops, art-supply stores, brasseries, men's clothiers. If Tibor could work full-time in a shoe store and study his anatomy books at night, then Andras could work and go to school. By the time he had reached the rue des Ecoles, he was already framing the necessary phrase in his head: I'm looking for a job. In Hungarian, A llast keresek. In French, Je cherche ...je cherche... a job. He knew the word: un boulot.