Leah's Children

by Gloria Goldreich

  “At least the Israelis know who their enemies are.” She was deeply hurt. The man who had made the remark was a colleague. She had helped him with his thesis and had been his advocate during his defense.

  “And so do we,” he replied gently.

  *

  HIS MOTHER called from New York. Eileen Manning, his secretary, phoned her daily, wanting to know when Aaron would return. He had been gone for weeks now, and he had dates approaching on court calendars.

  “I left Eileen instructions about substitutes,” he said. His New York practice belonged to another world. He was on leave from that life, and he felt a vague irritation that it impinged on his involvements in Budapest.

  “The dean of the Law School called,” Leah continued. “He wanted to know if you would be available to teach a course in the spring semester.”

  “I would think so.” His voice was vague, and then he focused on her question and added firmly, “Of course.”

  Spring. His heart sang at the sound of the word, at the thought of winter’s end, of Lydia walking beside him in the warm, sweet air of freedom. Warmth and liberty were only a season away.

  Leah had had a phone call from Rebecca, who had returned to Israel.

  “How did she sound?” Aaron asked.

  “A bit worried, or perhaps just sad. Yehuda is still away, but she plans to join him in London shortly.” Michael, on the other hand, she reported, seemed to be settling in well at Berkeley.

  “Rebecca will be fine,” Aaron assured her.

  He had not seen Yehuda since the Rajk demonstration. Perhaps his brother-in-law had left the country. As he and Lydia would. Soon. Very soon.

  “And Aaron—you’re all right?” Leah asked cautiously.

  He knew the effort it had cost her to refrain from asking what he was doing, was it safe, was he being careful? Once, during the sad, confused days of his boyhood, he would have thought her uncaring, indifferent. Now he knew that it was because she cared so much that she granted her children their freedom. Leah practiced the wisdom of David Goldfeder. “If you care about your children,” David Goldfeder had said, “you must give them roots and teach them that they have wings.” Leah had given her children roots, and she had allowed them to fly.

  “I’m fine, Mama,” he said. “I’m being careful.”

  *

  REUVEN GREENSTEIN joined Aaron at breakfast one morning.

  “Such a surprise to find you in Budapest,” he said as the waiter glanced at them curiously and took their orders. “Yehuda would have come himself,” he said more softly but still smiling his unctuous grin of pleasure, “but he was afraid that they might make the connection. Their research is fairly thorough.”

  “I understand,” Aaron said. If Yehuda was known to the AVO as a Mosad agent, then all his family connections would also be known. A month ago he would have scoffed at such a conjecture. Now it seemed not only reasonable but obvious.

  “We wonder how much longer it will be before you and the Groszmans leave. Yehuda asked me to tell you that there is some urgency.”

  Aaron stirred his coffee and pondered the question.

  Much had happened in the two weeks since the Rajk reinterment. Imre Nagy had been readmitted to the party. The students had won some concessions. The university curriculum had been expanded. Russian university students had broken their ties to the Communist Youth Organization and founded their own political unit. Lydia was increasingly optimistic.

  Lydia and Aaron had spent the previous evening at the Hemmingses’, and Betty had told them that she was pregnant.

  “It’s funny,” Betty had said, “I never thought that I wanted children, but now all I can think about is the baby.”

  It occurred to Aaron that it was the first time since his arrival in Budapest that he had seen Betty happy and relaxed. But then, he himself felt happy and relaxed. Like Betty, he was looking forward to new beginnings.

  “I’m happy for them,” Lydia observed as they walked through the deserted streets. “In a way I’m sort of sad that I won’t be in Budapest when the baby is born. I’ve known them only a short time, yet I feel a closeness to them. I suppose the hardest thing about leaving will be the goodbyes.”

  They had paused on a small bridge, and Aaron tossed a pfennig into the water and watched the concentric moonlit wavelets dance on the ink-dark Danube.

  “I spoke with Paul the other day,” he said. “He does not seem enthusiastic about leaving.”

  “Ah, Paul, my Paul. Do you know he fancies himself in love?” She laughed lightly, but he remained serious.

  “Genia is a beautiful girl,” he said.

  “Aaron, they are children—secondary school students.”

  He said nothing. He did not tell her that he, too, had been a student and had loved Lisa Crowley, gentle, sweet Lisa who had been as pretty as Genia, as vulnerable as Paul.

  “For argument’s sake,” he asked cautiously, “would you leave Budapest without Paul?”

  “I won’t have to.” Her reply had been firm.

  He turned now to Reuven Greenstein.

  “I think it is safe to say that I will leave Budapest with the Groszmans in a week’s time.”

  Later, he would recall with wry satisfaction that he had erred only by a few days.

  *

  AARON AND LYDIA had decided not to meet on the afternoon of October 23. She had a great deal of work to do at her laboratory, and the demonstration planned for that day ensured a quiet work area. She wanted to validate and record the results of a recently completed experiment.

  “I will have to leave all the corroborative data here,” she told him. “And it will be a while before we can reconstruct the sonar equipment in the West. But at least I’ll have the basic report to work with.”

  Lydia’s work was a strangely exciting mystery to him. He did not understand it, nor did he ask for explanations. He took her statement as a sign that their departure was imminent and called Tom Hemmings to ask if he could work at the embassy library that day. He needed only to check a few more documents and await word from Washington on Paul’s status. Joshua Ellenberg’s Budapest agent had assured him that it would be forthcoming any day now.

  “Everything going all right, Aaron?” Tom asked, and it occurred to Aaron that his friend had never again mentioned Yuri Andropov. One of those rumors that flew about Budapest, he supposed. It was just as well that he and Lydia had decided to ignore it.

  “We’re about ready to schedule the hearing,” Aaron replied.

  “Good, fine. I’ll leave a pass for you at the front desk, but I won’t be here. I’m taking Betty out to Lake Balaton. A sort of compensation prize. We were supposed to spend a couple of days in Paris. Mollet invited senior personnel from NATO countries to some sort of special briefing session, but it’s been called off. Betty’s in a funk about it. You know Betty—her last chance to wear her Bergdorf’s designer specials before disappearing into maternity clothes.”

  “Too bad,” Aaron said. He liked Betty Hemmings, but her social disappointments did not interest him.

  “It seems that Mollet has unexpected visitors. Important ones.” Tom paused significantly and cleared his throat.

  “Oh?” Aaron remembered suddenly that that had been Tom’s technique during their Harvard days. He beckoned with bits of information, teased and taunted with scraps of gossip: “I hear that a really big name is leaving the faculty.” “Rumor has it that a certain fair-haired boy flunked Torts and is packing it in.” There was no malice to his method. His knowledge and his companion’s ignorance vested him with a brief and obscure power. He anticipated curious questions and would be annoyed if they were not forthcoming. Aaron was impatient, but Tom had been kind to him, and Aaron expected him to be kinder still.

  “They must be very important visitors,” he said, playing according to his friend’s rules.

  “As important as you can get. Key figures in the Middle East. Your boys.”

  “My boys?” Aaron was guarded and
curious.

  “Ben-Gurion. Moshe Dayan. Shimon Peres.”

  “Ah. My boys,” Aaron said. His emphasis on the personal pronoun was lost on Tom, who was in a hurry to clear his desk and meet his wife. The students planned another demonstration today. That meant the roads would be blocked. He wanted to get out of the damn city early.

  “Have a good time, Tom. My love to Betty.” Aaron replaced the receiver and walked over to the window. Margaret Island was shrouded in a quivering mist, pierced here and there by shafts of sunlight. He thought he understood now why Greenstein had been sent to verify the Hungarian timetable. He and Lydia were barometers by which developments could be measured.

  The attention of the world was focused on Eastern Europe and the anticipated crumbling of Soviet domination. Gomulka had glided quietly into power in Poland. Now Hungary was stage center on the international scene. There was room on the front pages of the New York Times and Le Monde for only one dominant headline, and if the screaming banner highlighted events in Budapest, the attention of the world’s readers would be diverted from the Middle East. A publicized meeting of Marshal Tito and the Hungarian premier Gero was certainly of more interest than a secret encounter between David Ben-Gurion and Guy Mollet at an obscure safe house in France. A complicated game of chess was being played, and the international grand masters scurried about the world placing their key pieces into position.

  “And which side am I on?” Aaron thought bitterly, resentful suddenly that he and Lydia were pawns, subject to remote control by invisible forces. But then, of course, there were no sides. The Israelis and the Hungarian liberals were fighting for the same cause—the cause that had sent him across the border to Canada to join the British forces during the terrible fall of 1939. The strong must not be allowed to terrorize the weak. Then they had fought for Czechoslovakia and Poland and Ethiopia. And the Jews. Now they fought for Hungary and Poland and Israel. And the Jews. He fingered the menorah pin at his lapel and started out for the American embassy.

  The streets of Budapest were even more crowded than they had been on the day of the Rajk reinterment. But of course it had rained that day, and today a perversely bright sun defied the season and beat down on milling throngs. Aaron felt warm enough for the first time since his arrival in Budapest.

  There was a holiday atmosphere about the crowd. Young girls, their heads and shoulders covered with brilliantly patterned shawls, carried bouquets of brightly colored flowers. Beaming women offered candies and sweetmeats to excited children, who scurried about waving their red, white, and green Hungarian flags. Young men sporting tricolor pins smiled importantly as they distributed the inevitable mimeographed propaganda sheets. The rainbow-colored papers were passed from hand to hand. After his weeks of exposure, Aaron could discern the slogans. Russians Go Home! Imre Nagy to Power! Hungary for the Hungarians!

  Middle-aged and elderly couples strolled leisurely through the crowd, dressed in their best. The day was warm and would grow warmer, but men in fur-collared coats and women in heavy wool suits trimmed with elaborate brocade smiled at each other. They nodded and bowed, perspiring profusely but unwilling to divest themselves of the splendid garments of another time. Now, perhaps, on this bright October day, they would see a return to a vanished era of elegance and grace.

  Aaron entered the American embassy, went to the library, and worked steadily until he reached two forms that required Lydia’s signature. Hesitantly, he phoned her at the laboratory and managed to get through.

  “I’m so glad you called,” she said. “It’s impossible to work today. Most of the technicians have gone to the demonstration, and even the phone operators called in sick. Shall we meet in an hour at the Luxor Café on Saint Stephen’s Square?”

  “All right,” he agreed. “But the streets are impossibly crowded.”

  He set out at once, but although the distance was short it took him an hour and a half to reach their meeting place. He saw her standing in front of the café, and he thrust himself through the surging crowd to reach her, struggling against the onslaught of shouting demonstrators.

  “Isn’t it exciting?” Her face was flushed and her blue eyes gleamed like polished lapis gems. Her scarlet cape had slipped about her shoulders, and he adjusted it, tied the grosgrain ribbons, and pinned her tricolored emblem firmly into place on the collar. His large freckled fingers were skillful with the supple, delicate fabric.

  “How brotherly you are,” she said teasingly. “Did you take good care of your small sister when you were a boy?”

  “Yes,” he said seriously. He had taken good care of Rebecca, his sister. He had tried to take good care of Katie, his wife, and he would, if given the chance, take excellent care of Lydia Groszman. Beautiful Lydia. His snow-white maiden. His sad-eyed princess.

  He no longer deceived himself. The game of make-believe that he and Lydia had devised so that they might proceed with the propaganda campaign had evolved into reality. He was in love with her, he knew, and he trembled at the thought that she loved him.

  They joined arms and followed the crowd to the Petofi Monument. As they passed the large apartment houses on Bajcsy Boulevard, windows were flung open and carpets and scarves were hung out.

  “An old custom,” Lydia explained. “This is the way the people of Budapest pay tribute to the passage of a sovereign.” The people were sovereign in Budapest that afternoon, and they sang jubilantly as they marched.

  National flags dangled on improvised broomstick poles and were nailed to window frames. The red, white, and green banners had been slashed down the center and the Soviet symbols removed. A small boy gave them little paper flags, and Lydia waved them as she walked.

  “Look, there’s Paul,” she said. “Paul! Paul!” she called excitedly.

  Paul Groszman broke out of the line of marching students but kept his arm around Genia’s shoulders. The girl wore a pale blue dress and a matching scarf wrapped about her bright hair. She waved shyly, and Paul stepped forward into a circle of brilliant sunlight that transformed his golden hair into an aureole of brightness. His smile was radiant.

  How wonderful to be seventeen and in love and in the vanguard of a successful revolution, Aaron thought.

  Paul shouted something to Lydia in Hungarian and moved on. His friends were singing a soaring anthem, and even above the roar of the tumultuous crowd Aaron discerned the sweet clarity of Paul’s voice.

  “Could you make out what he said?” he asked Lydia.

  “Yes. He probably won’t be home tonight. His group is planning an all-night vigil at the radio station.”

  They drew closer to the monument and heard a great swell of voices, a mighty chorus. Lydia and the others paused and placed their right hands over their hearts as they, too, sang “God Save the Hungarians,” the national anthem. Aaron stood silently beside her. How vulnerable they were, he thought, this passionate, singing crowd, with their paper flags and wilted carnations. In his mind’s eye he saw Yuri Andropov, his steel-gray eyes metallic and unyielding, his stance rigid. Again he pondered the Soviet ambassador’s oblique interest in Lydia. Did she perhaps remind him of another Jewish woman he had loved and betrayed? Would such feelings make him want to protect her—or punish her?

  They had passed the Hotel Gellert, where most of the Russian diplomats resided. Heavy draperies had been drawn across the windows, but Aaron had seen those on the second floor part. Yuri Andropov had stood in a rib of sunlight looking down at the swarming street and smiling a bitter, patient smile.

  At the monument, Imre Simkoviks, an actor with whom Aaron and Lydia had shared a bottle of plum wine after the Rajk demonstration, climbed onto the pedestal of the statue and recited a Petofi poem in resonant tones. The crowd thundered the refrain, and Lydia translated it for him.

  By the Hungarians’ God

  We swear

  That we shall no longer be slaves!

  Never! We swear! Never!

  “Never is a long time,” Aaron murmured, but Lydia did not hear
him. She was translating for him again as Simkoviks read the program of demands drafted by the students—the same program that had littered Aaron’s bed at the Grand Hotel, that he had carried in the folded pages of the Herald Tribune to a Gypsy café in a distant quarter of the city. He felt a surge of pride, of self-satisfaction. He had, after all, been of service. Part of this bright, sunlit afternoon belonged to him and to the beautiful woman at his side. Lydia’s finger pressed hard upon his own, a tactile acknowledgment that they were linked in song and flame, in common cause.

  And then they were on the move again, following the crowd across the bridge to the Parliament Building. They were singing the Marseillaise now, and he lifted his voice and matched his deep tenor to Lydia’s sweet alto.

  A tranquil dusk dimmed the brightness of the day, and the marchers lit paper torches against the encroaching twilight. A gentle evening wind carried the dancing sparks skyward, and the faces of the crowd were bathed in the golden light of their brave, brief flames. At the Parliament the national tricolor, with the Soviet symbols excised from the center, was hoisted. The crowds roared in unison.

  Restlessly, the assemblage listened to a speech delivered by a nervous and hesitant Imre Nagy. Aaron noticed that the popular leader’s hands trembled and droplets of sweat rimmed his high, pale forehead. He looked about and felt a flicker of fear. Almost one hundred thousand people were assembled now. There was no way to control or organize such a crowd, and Imre Nagy was faltering; his voice was unsteady and his eyes were glazed.

  “We should leave,” Aaron whispered to Lydia.

  He saw with relief that small groups were dispersing. Men and women were glancing at their watches. There were tasks to be accomplished, dinners to be prepared and eaten, children to be supervised. The day’s objectives had been accomplished. The demonstration had been held and Imre Nagy had spoken.