The Light After the War

by Anita Abriel

It was always assumed she would marry a Jew. She had only known Jewish boys at dancing school and art class. But what if she returned to Budapest and there were no Jewish boys left?

  New York sounded like a place in a storybook: the Empire State Building, Central Park, and Times Square. Fifth Avenue teeming with well-dressed men and women and long black cars and steel skyscrapers that touched the clouds.

  It wasn’t the strangeness of New York that was holding her back, or even the fact that Anton wasn’t a Jew. So much had changed that she had learned to lock up the past and look ahead. But when she saw a life without children, her heart sank.

  But how could she live without him? She had never known before what it was like to be in love. The simplest things made her happy: sharing one of Gina’s omelets, arranging his newspapers, taking an evening stroll through the Piazza del Plebiscito.

  And he didn’t know her whole story yet. She had to tell him how she met Captain Bingham and what he learned when he went to Budapest. It was Captain Bingham who had encouraged her to go to Naples. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t be sitting in a hotel room in Capri with Anton’s engagement ring on her finger.

  She gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her lipstick was smudged, and her hair had escaped its clip. There was a tiny run in her stocking and a loose thread on her dress.

  Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She grabbed her room key and stepped into the hallway. She hurried to the staircase and climbed the stairs to Anton’s floor.

  “What are you doing here?” Anton asked when he opened the door.

  “I need to speak to you.” Vera strode into the room.

  Anton’s dinner jacket lay across a chair and a book was open on the coffee table. A glass ashtray was full of cigarette butts and a shot glass stood next to a bottle of cognac.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Anton admitted. “I was afraid I’d wake up and you’d have been a dream.”

  Vera walked across the room and touched his shirt. She reached up and kissed him.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Anton’s voice was low. “It’s late and we’ve both had too much champagne.”

  “I shouldn’t have said yes before you heard my whole story.” She looked at him. “You might change your mind about marrying me.”

  “It’s not your fault that you and Edith jumped off the train and your mother and Lily were left behind,” Anton reminded her. “You have to forgive yourself.”

  “It’s not about that. It’s about our time on the Dunkels’ farm,” Vera replied. “The next morning, before we left, Ottie’s husband, Peter, fell off a ladder and broke his back. Peter couldn’t move and was stuck in bed for months. Ottie couldn’t run the farm by herself, and there were no young people left in the village to help. She offered to hide us if we did his work on the farm.” She looked at Anton and there was pain in her eyes. “While our mothers were starving at Auschwitz, we were fed breakfasts of eggs and toast. On the farm there were no German officers waiting to escort us to the gas chamber if we broke a rule. Instead, we sat in Ottie Dunkel’s cozy kitchen and ate stew and homemade pies,” she gulped.

  “You were only doing what you needed to survive. How would that make me change how I feel about you?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Ottie’s son had been in the German army. He was responsible for killing Jews! And Ottie’s husband made it clear where his loyalties lay.” Her voice grew anguished. “We could have left and tried to make it on our own. But we were there for more than a year. When I met Captain Bingham, Edith and I were still staying in the Dunkels’ barn.”

  * * *

  Vera stood behind the counter of the bakery and watched children play in the village square. It was September 1945 and the scene was like a postcard: wooden chalets and thick forests of fir trees, and in the distance a shimmering lake. A light dusting of snow clung to the mountains, and the fields were dotted with chrysanthemums.

  Everything was different since the war had ended. Vera and Edith ate meals with Ottie and even went to the market together on Saturdays. Ottie’s husband still treated them coldly, but he acknowledged the farm wouldn’t have survived without them.

  All summer and winter they hid in the barn and helped Ottie run the farm. Then in May the war was over, and they waited for news of their parents and Stefan. There was no record of Alice and Lily’s fate at Auschwitz, and Stefan’s name wasn’t on the list of Jews released from Strasshof.

  They debated returning to Budapest, but what would they do there if their parents didn’t return? Vera wrote a letter to a neighbor in Budapest asking if they had come back to the apartment, but she hadn’t received a reply. In the meantime it was easier to stay where they were. Edith assisted the village seamstress and Vera worked at the bakery. Food supplies were still low, but there was a trickle of visitors who passed through on their way to hiking in the mountains.

  There was another reason they wanted to stay. Vera didn’t want to run into her mother’s siblings if they had survived. It was Vera’s fault that her mother had gone to Auschwitz, and she couldn’t face them until she knew whether or not Alice was alive. And what about Edith? It would be difficult for Edith to be in Budapest where everything reminded her of Stefan. It was better for them to stay in Hallstatt until they heard some news.

  “A loaf of pumpernickel, please,” a man said in English. He wore a khaki uniform with a smart leather visor.

  Vera took the bread out of the case and set it on the glass.

  “Is that an American accent?” she asked, thinking it reminded her of the American movies her parents took her to see before the war.

  “I hope it is,” he chuckled. He was in his midtwenties with reddish hair. He slipped his hand in his pocket and leaned against the counter. “I’ve been over here so long I might have lost it.”

  She wrapped the loaf in paper and handed it to him.

  “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been to America.” She shrugged and turned to the cash register.

  “You speak very good English,” he said approvingly. “Are you from around here?”

  “Budapest,” she answered, embarrassed for starting the conversation. “My friend and I have been here for more than a year.”

  The officer looked at her and she noticed a quick flash of sympathy.

  “I’m on my way to Budapest.” He shuffled his feet. “I’ve been at Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.”

  “Auschwitz?” Her eyes opened wider.

  “The Russians liberated it in January, but we were sent to inspect it.” His face drained of color. “The army tries to prepare you, but they have no idea.”

  The man paid for the bread and walked out into the square. Vera untied her apron and ran after him.

  “Please, wait!” she called.

  “Did I forget something?” he asked, checking his package.

  “My mother was at Auschwitz,” she said urgently. “I wrote a letter to a neighbor in Budapest to see if she returned, but I haven’t received a response. I have to know if she survived. I wonder if you could help me?”

  The man moved closer and removed his cap. “Captain Allan Bingham,” he said, and held out his hand. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. I have to return to Auschwitz on army business soon, but I will see what I can learn.”

  They walked through the square and sat at an outdoor café. Captain Bingham ordered two coffees and Vera told him the story of how she and Edith had escaped. She gave him their mothers’ names and asked him to make inquiries.

  * * *

  Six months later, Vera was arranging a plate of Sachertorte. Ever since Captain Bingham left, she hadn’t been able to concentrate. All winter, she gave the wrong change to customers at the bakery and at night she tossed and turned so much, Edith said she’d rather sleep on a bale of hay.

  The shop door opened and Vera turned around. Captain Bingham stood behind the counter.

  “You’re back. It’s been six months. I thought you had forgotten!” she breathed in
relief. “Please tell me, what did you find?”

  “Why don’t you ask if you can take a break,” he said gently. “I’ll wait for you in the square.”

  Vera spoke to the owner and joined Captain Bingham outside. They sat at the same café where they’d met the first time, and he placed his officer’s cap on the table.

  “There was nothing at Auschwitz,” he said after a waiter brought two coffees.

  “Nothing?” she said, disappointment washing over her.

  “I combed through every name,” he continued. “So I went to Budapest.”

  “Budapest?” Vera repeated.

  “I was on my way there anyway. I visited your neighborhood.”

  “How did you know where it was?” she asked, startled.

  “There aren’t many Jewish neighborhoods left in Budapest,” he answered apologetically. “I figured I’d ask around until I met someone who knew Alice Frankel.”

  “Did you?” Vera was almost too anxious to breathe.

  He nodded. “A woman named Miriam Gold. She attended the same synagogue. She’d been at Auschwitz, too.”

  Vera remembered a dark-haired woman with two young girls. They sat near them at temple, and the girls passed the time by braiding each other’s hair.

  “What did she say about my mother?” Vera asked anxiously.

  “Alice and Lily weren’t sent to the gas chamber when they arrived; they were made to work in the kitchen. Miriam sat with them at mealtimes. Every night your mother prayed out loud in Hungarian over her portion of bread.” He looked at Vera. He took a notebook out of his pocket and read from the first page. “Kedves istenem, keriek, hagy a dragam Vera eszik egy nagyobb darabotd. Dear God, please let my darling Vera be eating a bigger piece of bread.”

  Captain Bingham stopped talking and Vera met his eyes.

  “Go on,” she said quietly.

  “One of the other women asked what happened to her daughter, and Alice confided how you and Edith jumped off the train,” he went on. “The woman must have turned her in. At the next meal time, Alice and Lily were gone.”

  “Gone?” Vera stammered.

  “To the gas chamber, I assume. There was nowhere else to go.”

  “I see.” Vera put her cup on the table.

  “Miriam wanted to tell you how sorry she is,” he finished lamely. “Her daughters died at Auschwitz.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

  “I asked about your father, too,” Captain Bingham said.

  “My father?” Vera repeated, and hope swelled in her chest. Her father had survived the work camp and was waiting for her at the apartment in Budapest. They would grieve her mother together and somehow create a new life.

  “I went to the temple and located the rabbi.” Captain Bingham sipped his coffee. “I thought your father might go there if he returned. Rabbi Letzig hadn’t heard from him. He said to offer his condolences. Lawrence was a good friend.”

  Rabbi Letzig and her father used to sit in the living room and discuss religion and philosophy. Vera would ask her mother if she could serve the coffee cake so she could listen to their conversations. Who would she learn about these things from now? And how had her father felt when the god he conferred with every Saturday deserted him?

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m grateful,” Vera said, and noticed her hands were shaking.

  “Here, this is for you.” Captain Bingham gave her an envelope.

  Vera opened it and inside was a ten-schilling note and a letter.

  “What’s this?” She looked up in surprise.

  “It’s train fare to Naples, Italy, and a letter of recommendation. The embassy there is looking for a secretary who speaks English.” For the first time since he sat down, he smiled. “You have my highest recommendation.”

  She handed it back. “I can’t take your money or your letter. You hardly know me.”

  “For the last fourteen months I’ve been at concentration camps, and all I’ve seen is death,” he began. “You can’t imagine how a place can hold so much death; it’s in the walls and the floors and outside the windows. Then I pass through a village in Austria and all of a sudden there are fresh cheeses and flowers and mountain air.” He fiddled with his cap. “I meet a girl who asks me to do her a favor. But instead of bringing her good news, I deliver more death. So every time she stands at that counter she’ll remember sitting with me at this café.” He glanced around the square. “The least I can do is help you get out of here. Go with your friend to Italy.”

  The sun gleamed on the church steeple, and all around them people drank coffee and nibbled on cake.

  “All right.” She nodded and took back the envelope. “I promised Ottie we would stay through the spring; her husband had a relapse and needed help on the farm. But you’re right, there is nothing keeping us here any longer.”

  * * *

  “You see,” Vera looked at Anton. The chandelier in the hotel room made patterns on the rug and Vera could smell the Mediterranean. “While we were eating Ottie’s food and sleeping under her blankets, our mothers were hungry and shivering on iron cots. And after the war, when we were alive and healthy and breathing in mountain air in Hallstatt, they were bones heaped in an open grave. How can I live with myself knowing everything that happened?”

  Anton stroked her cheek. “None of this was your fault.”

  “I may as well have escorted her to her death,” Vera continued. Her cheeks flamed and the familiar feeling of despair welled up inside her. “If it weren’t for me, she would have been one of those women you saw on the movie reels staggering out of the camps.”

  He drew her close. “You have to stop blaming yourself. The war is over. Nothing can change the past. I love you and I want to marry you.”

  Vera closed her eyes and listened to his heart beating in his chest. Suddenly she slipped off his bow tie and undid the buttons on his shirt.

  “I want you,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “In a couple of months we’ll be married. Our wedding night will be at the St. Regis.”

  “Please,” Vera breathed, inhaling the scent of aftershave and cigarettes.

  “You should go.” Anton put his hands on her shoulders and gently propelled her to the door.

  Vera turned around and kissed him. His mouth was warm and his arms circled her waist.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, kissing her hair.

  “I want you more than anything,” she implored. “If we’re going to get married, you have to treat me like a woman instead of a girl.”

  Anton picked up her up and carried her to the bed. He slipped off her dress and unsnapped her bra.

  Vera lay on the satin sheets and studied his smooth chest. His mouth moved down to her stomach and stopped at her thighs. He looked up and his eyes were filled with wonder.

  “Are you quite sure?” he asked. “We can stop and go to sleep.”

  Vera was suddenly filled with a terrible sense of loss. Edith waiting for Stefan to come home and knowing he never would. Her mother and father going to their bedroom after a night at the opera, her mother’s gown rustling and her father in a cashmere overcoat.

  “I’ve never been more sure,” she said, nodding and drawing him back on top of her. Her legs opened and something hard pushed inside her. She bit her lip, ignoring the sharp pain and tearing flesh.

  Her eyes closed and she tried to match Anton’s rhythm. He moved faster as if he were running a race. Suddenly he stopped and let out a moan. Then he pushed with such strength, she was afraid she’d be crushed.

  Vera lay in the dark, listening to Anton’s breathing. They were joined now, and she would never doubt their future again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Summer 1946

  Two weeks after the trip to Capri, Vera stood at the counter while the butcher wrapped a piece of meat. She selected a jar of olives and a thick sausage. She liked to bring Signora Rosa little treats to thank her for her kindness.
This afternoon Anton would purchase their tickets, and in a week they would sail for New York.

  Vera had been afraid to tell Edith about the engagement. But Edith hugged her and said it was the best news. She was certain Marcus would propose and they would find a small apartment. His photographs were receiving praise, and Maria, the boutique owner, had ordered four more dresses.

  Vera studied her reflection in the mirror above the counter. They never repeated their night in Capri, but she knew she looked different. She wanted to tell Edith, but she couldn’t find the words. She hid her secret by discussing plans for the wedding and the honeymoon on the coast of Maine.

  Vera left the butcher and stepped into the piazza. She passed the jeweler and noticed Marcus standing at the counter. He reached into his pocket and took out a wad of lire. She ducked out of view before he saw her and ran down the cobblestones.

  “Guess who I saw at Grimaldi Jewelers,” Vera announced, running up the stairs to their room.

  Edith sat at the vanity, brushing her hair. She wore a red cotton dress and a silver necklace. Her cheeks were smudged as if she’d been crying.

  “Marcus was standing at the counter with a wad of lire.” Vera dropped her shopping bag on the bed. “I think he bought your engagement ring!”

  “Leo loaned Marcus money and he’s paying him back,” Edith said, turning to Vera. “He’s not going to propose. He isn’t in love with me.”

  “Of course he is!” Vera protested. “He bought lilies for your birthday; he takes you dancing every night.”

  “He’s in love with someone else,” Edith replied. Her eyes had lost their sparkle and her mouth turned down at the corners.

  Vera shook her head. “I’ve never seen him with another girl.”

  Edith threw herself onto the bed. “He’s in love with Leo.”

  Vera thought Edith was being ridiculous. Marcus waited for Edith every evening. He bought her pastries and little trinkets. On Sundays they borrowed Paolo’s car and explored Amalfi and Sorrento.

  “He first fell in love with a boy when he was seventeen,” Edith began. “Luca was a migrant worker and got a job in Marcus’s family’s orchard. One night his mother discovered them in the chicken coop. She threw Marcus’s bags onto the street.”