The Collaborator

by Diane Armstrong

  Whenever she reads an article favourable to Miklós, she shows it to him, so he will see that some influential people support him. At first he pushes the papers away. ‘What difference does it make what they say?’ he sighs. But eventually he picks them up, and for a short time he feels heartened by their comments, especially when they criticise the judge.

  He rereads one article so often that he can recite it by heart, and sometimes quotes parts of it to friends who visit him.

  ‘This issue was far too complex and too huge for one person to decide, especially a man of limited understanding who sees the world only in black and white. How could he ignore the extraordinary situation in Hungary in 1944, and presume to pass judgement on how someone living in that black hell should have behaved? The judge’s language was intemperate and inappropriate. It resembled a defence counsel’s summation rather than a judge’s considered opinion.’

  ‘That reporter got it right,’ comments Uri, who drops in every evening to try and lift his friend’s spirits. ‘This case should have been heard by a panel of judges, not by a single one, and definitely not one with a grudge against the government.’

  Always scouring the papers in search of articles to boost her husband’s morale, Judit triumphantly places a newspaper in front of him one morning as he sips his black coffee. ‘Read this. It’s an interview with someone who was on your train.’

  ‘He wasn’t my friend and I didn’t really like him,’ the interview begins. ‘Miklós Nagy was arrogant, patronising, and aggressive.’

  Miklós puts down his coffee cup and raises his eyebrows. ‘This is supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘Just keep reading.’

  ‘But it was precisely because of those qualities that he was capable of doing what he did during Nazi Occupation. To take any action in that situation, you had to have that kind of personality — lots of chutzpah and self-confidence. The verdict was a terrible injustice perpetrated by a judge who didn’t understand the situation in Hungary. No-one living in safety and security today has the right to judge Miklós Nagy’s actions or malign the reputation of a man who risked his life to save others.’

  ‘So where was this guy during the trial?’

  ‘He wasn’t asked to testify,’ Judit says. ‘Look, it says here that he offered to testify but the prosecutor didn’t call him. He probably never dreamed that the judge would arrive at such an unfair conclusion.’

  ‘I was the victim of an underachieving prosecutor and an overachieving defence attorney.’ His reply makes her smile. It’s the first time he has referred to his situation with any humour, albeit black humour, and he realises it’s a long time since he has seen her smile.

  ‘You’d think the government would make some comment about the verdict, and support you,’ she says.

  ‘With the elections coming up, they can’t say much or they’ll be accused of attacking the judiciary for political advantage,’ he argues. She is relieved that these days he is becoming a little more animated and engages in discussions instead of brooding in silence, and she no longer hides the newspapers from him.

  ‘Did you see what Ben-Gurion wrote?’ he says one morning. ‘He doesn’t mention the verdict or the judge, but it’s obvious what he’s referring to. Listen.’ And he reads it aloud.

  ‘I would never have presumed to judge the actions of any Jew who was there while I was here. This should be left to the tribunal of history in the generation to come. Jews who were safe and secure during the Hitler era should not presume to judge their brethren who were burned and slaughtered, nor the few who survived. Those of us who did not experience this hell would do best, in my view, to remain silent in humility and grief.’

  But for every article or interview that supports Miklós, two condemn him and demand that he be tried for collaboration.

  ‘Have you thought of leaving Israel?’ Uri asks one afternoon. ‘You should consider it. Life would be easier for you away from this toxic atmosphere. For the time being at least.’

  ‘Leave Israel? Never. This is where I was vilified, and this is where I will be vindicated.’

  ‘Then you should go and live in a kibbutz up north, perhaps, until things die down. Some kibbutzniks I know have suggested it.’

  ‘I’m not going to hide in a kibbutz.’

  ‘At least move to another apartment.’

  Miklós tamps his cigarette in the ashtray and leans towards his friend. ‘I’m not moving anywhere. I’m going to stay right here. I’ll clear my name, just like Dreyfus did. But I don’t need a Zola to vindicate me. I’m going to do it myself.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Tel Aviv, 2005

  Annika walks out of the Law Library archive dazed more by the insights into human nature revealed by the trial transcript than by the vagaries of history. She can’t stop thinking about the testimony of the witnesses, the ones that Miklós Nagy saved. How can people be so ungrateful?

  Preoccupied, she steps onto the road in HaMedina Square without looking and jumps back as a motorist pulls up with a screech of brakes, missing her by centimetres. He leans out of the window and yells something in Hebrew before gunning the engine and driving on. As she stands trembling on the edge of the footpath, a woman trying to control a frisky terrier stops to commiserate.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks in a New York voice while the dog strains at the leash towards a nearby palm. ‘You’re not from here, are you? Next time cross further up, at Arlozorov Street, it’s safer. I’ve lived here for ten years and I still can’t get used to the way they drive, they’re like Fangio on steroids. And their language!’

  ‘I didn’t understand what he said.’

  ‘Just as well,’ the woman chuckles, and walks on.

  A few minutes later, Annika is crossing Arlozorov Street when her mobile rings.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve spent this beautiful day in the Law Library again.’ It’s Dov, and her heart beats faster when she hears his voice. Ever since the day she discovered they were both fans of Leonard Cohen, her feelings for him have intensified. It seems to her that their shared love of the sensuality and raw honesty of his songs have transcended musical appreciation and created a powerful emotional connection between them. She wonders if he felt it too.

  ‘I have to report on the opening of an art exhibition in Neve Tzedek this afternoon,’ he says. ‘Come with me. I think you’ll find it interesting.’

  *

  ‘You don’t usually write about art,’ she comments when they meet outside the gallery in Shabhazi Street an hour later.

  He smiles. ‘This is no ordinary exhibition, Annika. You’ll see.’

  As soon as they enter the Liora Gallery, a tall woman with Frida Kahlo eyebrows and straight black hair severely parted in the centre and braided into one thick plait, rushes up to Dov.

  She envelops him in a hug and kisses both cheeks while her eyes sweep over Annika, who feels she is being assessed, and not kindly.

  ‘So glad you’ve come,’ the woman murmurs, looking into his eyes. ‘I’ll catch up with you and your friend later. I want to hear what you think of the exhibition before I read about it in your paper.’ And with that she rushes off to greet another new arrival.

  ‘That whirlwind is Liora Bar-David. She owns the gallery,’ Dov explains.

  ‘Watch out, I think she fancies you,’ Annika whispers.

  ‘Me and anyone who can give her some publicity.’ He takes her arm. ‘Let’s look around.’

  In the first room of the gallery, Annika stands very still, staring at the paintings. She feels she has entered a deep cavern whose terrifying blackness offers no hope of light ever penetrating the gloom. Triangular faces with enormous black eyes stare at unimaginable horrors. The streets are deserted, with menacing shadows on the ground, and the dark branches of the trees seem to writhe in agony. Inside abandoned rooms, empty chairs, upturned tables and broken windows suggest shattered lives. The artist’s sparing use of colour contributes to the effect of desolation and despai
r. The paintings are all in tones of grey, the dirty grey of overcast skies, and the emphatic darkness of charcoal, relieved only by daubs of startling vermillion slashed across each canvas.

  Depressed by these paintings, Annika wants to share her reactions with Dov, but someone has buttonholed him, and she doesn’t want to interrupt what appears to be an intense discussion. With a sigh, she moves on to the next room, bracing herself for more distressing images. She wonders how soon she can leave, and resolves never to trust Dov’s taste in art again.

  But as soon as she enters the next room, her head explodes with light, colour and movement. She feels as disoriented as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she stepped from her monochrome life in Kansas into a dazzling world of fantasy. It doesn’t seem possible that these paintings are the work of the same artist. Here the paint has been thickly applied with bold brush strokes in colours so vivid they glue her eyes to the canvases.

  Mythical animals leap over gingerbread houses, naked couples fondle each other on emerald grass, and angels float above luscious plants that display erect stamens and soft fleshy petals that open like secret lips. There is no suffering here, no despairing faces confronting unimaginable horror, just a vision of life with all its pleasures, real and imagined.

  These paintings are so engaging that she takes her time in front of each one, delighted by their innocence and sensuality, and increasingly curious about the artist. Dov is talking to a woman whose face she can’t see, and when they turn in her direction, she recognises the American who stopped to help her in HaMedina Square. Dov beckons her to join them, but the small gallery is so crowded that she can’t squeeze past the flustered waitress who is pushing her way through the throng with a tray of glasses of wine, orange juice and soda water jiggling precariously.

  It’s too difficult to get past, so she takes a glass of sauvignon blanc and waits for the crowd to thin out, amused to see that, unlike gallery guests in Sydney, most of these people opt for soda water. While sipping her wine, which she decides is no match for the Marlborough variety, she sees a woman bearing down on her wearing an Indian caftan with a mirror-encrusted skirt and a psychedelic scarf wound around her head. It’s Tamar, the flamboyant tarot reader and doll-maker she met near this gallery soon after she arrived in Israel.

  ‘So you are still in Tel Aviv,’ Tamar says in her husky voice. ‘I saw you come in with that guy over there.’ She gives Annika a playful nudge. ‘I was right, yes? You already found your man but you didn’t know it.’

  Annika thinks back. The fortune-teller was right. She had already met Dov.

  ‘You made a good choice,’ Tamar goes on. ‘Dov Erlich is a very attractive guy.’

  Annika laughs. ‘So I’d better go and grab him before someone else does.’

  She manages to push her way through the throng. By the time she reaches Dov, he is talking to a woman he introduces as Batya Barak, the art critic for the Jerusalem Herald. Batya nods briefly to acknowledge Annika’s presence, and continues her analysis of the exhibition for Dov’s benefit. She speaks with emphasis and authority, fixing her gaze somewhere in the middle distance, as if addressing an audience with opinions she expresses as incontrovertible truths. Irritated by her supercilious manner, Annika tunes out. She wants to find out something about the artist, but is reluctant to display her ignorance by asking. In any case, she can’t get a word in.

  Looking around the gallery, she notices a middle-aged man with a Salvador Dali moustache and a floral shirt unbuttoned to the waist, a thick gold chain resting on his hairy chest. He is surrounded by a large group of people all clamouring for his opinion, and she wonders if he’s the artist. Just then there’s a crackle followed by a low hum and some shrill sounds as Liora Bar-David fiddles with the microphone. When she has checked that everyone can hear her, she thanks them for coming, and says how privileged she is to present such a unique exhibition by such an extraordinary artist. Then she stands back and they all wait for the artist to appear.

  Annika cranes her neck to see who it is. The man in the floral shirt is walking towards the dais but he is not alone. He is propelling a tiny woman by the elbow, and after depositing her in an armchair, he lowers the microphone so that she can reach it, and leaves the stage.

  ‘That’s Dora Zielinski, isn’t she amazing,’ the woman next to her says. ‘Can you believe it, she’s a hundred and one years old. A hundred and one! And she’s still painting!’

  Annika stares at the artist. The only centenarians she has ever seen were on television, white-haired, toothless, hunched people with faces like crumpled maps who lived in villages in Sardinia or Japan and answered reporters’ predictable questions with monosyllables. Dora Zielinski has flamingo pink hair piled on top of her head, lips painted the same colour, and fingernails lacquered to match. She wears a purple velvet cape fastened with gold buttons, shoes with little heels and a strap across the instep, and she doesn’t wear glasses.

  The room falls silent as she begins to speak. The brown-speckled hand holding the microphone is shaking, but her voice is surprisingly strong. ‘Maybe you heard of the American artist Grandma Moses?’ she begins in a Polish-Israeli accent. ‘Well, I’m Great-Grandma Moses.’ While they laugh at her quip, Annika reflects that Dora has more in common with Grandma Moses than just old age: she shares her innocent childlike vision of the world.

  ‘This exhibition represents the two parts of my life. I was born in a Polish town called Oswiecim — you know it better as Auschwitz. I was one of ten children, and when it was over, they were all gone. Only I survived.’

  There is total silence now, as if the entire room is united in a state of suspended animation, hardly breathing. Not even the clinking of a glass can be heard, only the voice of an artist whose urge to share her vision has impelled her to continue creating art long after most people have stopped communicating anything. Dov squeezes Annika’s arm and she leans against him.

  ‘So I don’t need to explain what I painted in the first room,’ Dora says. ‘But here, in this room, I have come from the darkness into the light. And the light is shining on my second life, here in Israel, and I have painted the shapes and colours of hope and love, and all the wonderful things in life, including sex. I mention this in case some of you youngsters think I’m too old to remember such a thing.’ She wags a mischievous finger at the crowd. ‘You’re never too old to remember that. Too old to find someone to do it with, maybe.’

  They’re still chuckling as she continues. ‘There’s a custom today of celebrating someone’s life when they die. But I don’t intend to die for many years, and I don’t trust my colleagues. Who knows what they will say about me when I can’t answer back? So I’m celebrating my life now, through my paintings.’

  Dora takes a breath and in a more serious tone, she says, ‘I am a very lucky woman and I want to say to you that I am grateful for my long and wonderful life. Thank you all for being here and celebrating with me. Near the catalogue on the table, my dear friend Nella —’ and she waves at the American woman Annika met in HaMedina Square, ‘has left a pile of Peace Now leaflets.

  ‘I know most of you are too mean to buy a painting, but if you want to do something good for our country, take a leaflet. It’s free.’

  With the help of the man in the floral shirt, who turns out to be her grandson, Dora steps down from the podium. Annika turns to Dov. ‘What an incredible woman. I’m so glad I came.’

  ‘What do you think of the paintings?’ he asks.

  ‘Marc Chagall meets Georgia O’Keeffe in the land of Oz.’

  He smiles. ‘I like that. Can I quote you?’

  They push their way through the crowd towards Dora, who is surrounded by admirers, all talking at once. She glances up, sees Dov, and gives him a flirtatious smile.

  ‘So, Mr Reporter, you going to write something nice about my paintings?’

  ‘You never know your luck,’ he retorts. ‘What I want to know is, when’s the next exhibition?’

  ‘Probably in te
n years’ time,’ she says tartly. ‘I hope you’re still around by then.’

  Dora turns her gaze on Annika, who is enjoying their repartee. ‘So you have a young lady. It’s about time. You’re no spring chicken, you know. Time you settled down.’

  ‘The trouble is, she’s Australian,’ he says, looking at Annika with what she hopes is regret.

  ‘Life is short. Make the most of it,’ Dora Zielinski says, looking from him to her.

  As they say their goodbyes, Annika says, ‘I’ll never forget you or your paintings, Mrs Zielinski.’

  They are about to walk out of the gallery when Annika sees Tamar standing by the door, watching them. She gives an inscrutable smile, and Annika wonders if she can see into her future.

  They walk several blocks along Shabhazi Street, past walls covered in dense graffiti. Further on, posters advertise the Batsheva Ballet and forthcoming rock concerts starring Mick Jagger and Celine Dion.

  They enter Shoshi’s Café, find a table in the shady courtyard, and order coffee and cheesecake.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about Dora Zielinski,’ Annika says.

  ‘Those paintings are very powerful.’

  ‘Not just the paintings. Her. After all she’s been through, she sounds so positive. She said she was grateful. That made me think of the people Miklós Nagy saved. I can’t understand why they weren’t grateful.’

  Dov puts a second spoon of sugar into his coffee and stirs it slowly. ‘Gratitude can make you feel beholden,’ he says eventually. ‘It reminds you of a time you’d prefer to forget, when you were helpless, at the mercy of others, a victim who needed someone to extricate you from a dangerous or humiliating situation. I read a book by a psychologist who said that when people have been victimised over a long period of time, they begin to doubt their own worth. Then, after the danger is gone and they rebuild their lives, they feel ashamed of having been treated like that, of being so vulnerable. They want to believe they’ve been responsible for their own survival and success. They don’t want to be reminded of the time when they had no control. I think he called it the shame of vulnerability.’