“I believe you lost something of great sentimental value to you today.”
“I cannot think of anything,” Aaron said.
“You recall the pin that I admired when we spoke at the Hemmings’? I especially remembered it because, if you will recall, I explained that the brother of a dear friend of mine also had such an insignia. She was a lovely woman, my friend. In any case, just such a pin has been brought to my attention. As there cannot be many such insignia in Budapest, I thought it might be yours. If you have lost it, you will perhaps remember where.”
“It is very kind of you, but I am certain that I have my pin,” Aaron replied. His throat was dry, and he fumbled wildly at the clothing he had worn that day. He picked up the jacket, fingered the lapel, and, with a sinking heart, felt the rip of the fabric. The pin was gone. Sickened, he remembered the frantic clutch of the Russian’s fingers, the clawing at his face, his clothing. Had they found the small gold pin in the dead man’s fist or beside his lifeless body? It did not matter. It was in Yuri Andropov’s hands and he had recognized it, had surely read the initials that Leah Goldfeder had had engraved on its back: A.G. There would be no doubt. The pin was enough evidence to warrant his arrest, and yet Yuri Andropov had sent no officers to detain him. Instead there was his strangely polite phone call.
“If you have your pin, there is nothing more to be said,” the Russian countered. “We are grieved at my embassy over the death of young Mrs. Hemmings.”
“Yes. It was very tragic,” Aaron said.
“Such times as these create many tragedies, Mr. Goldfeder. But of course, tragedies can often be avoided. One can turn one’s back, leave. Budapest must be a sad city for your friend, Dr. Groszman, just now.” The Russian’s voice was careful, controlled, and Aaron tried to match its tenor.
“I think it is.”
“There are other cities. Vienna is lovely this time of year. My friend, the woman whom Dr. Groszman resembles so closely, loved Vienna.”
“Vienna,” Aaron repeated. “We will consider it, Mr. Ambassador.”
“I hope you will do more than that, Mr. Goldfeder.” There was a new edge in Andropov’s voice, a veiled urgency. “Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Ambassador.”
Had the Russian been threatening him or warning him? Aaron wondered. It was also possible that he had been setting a trap for him. But it did not matter. His intent was irrelevant. The same decision applied no matter what the case. They had to leave Budapest at once. There was no time for a special hearing. There was no time to wait until American travel documents were issued. There was no longer time for the luxury of hesitation, for the assimilation of grief.
A sharp knock sounded at the door. The staccato summons was repeated.
“Who is it?” His voice was casual but his heart pounded.
“Yehuda.”
He opened the door, and Yehuda Arnon slid into the room and bolted the door behind him.
“Aaron.”
They clasped hands, embraced. They were linked by more than family ties now. They had common cause, fled common danger.
“What happened?” Yehuda asked. He looked tired. An urban pallor had erased the bronze glow of his skin, and his gray eyes were bloodshot, as though he had spent too many sleepless nights in too many smoke-filled rooms. The sleeves of his suit jacket were too short for him and his tie was awkwardly looped, yet he moved with lithe certainty, drawing the drapes closed, turning the radio on, lighting all the lamps.
Aaron told him. He was ashamed because his voice trembled, because doubt shadowed his mind.
“I shouldn’t have killed him. I should have knocked him out, grabbed Lydia, run like hell.”
“You did what you had to do,” Yehuda said. “There was no time for judgments, for careful assessments. You weren’t sitting behind your desk in your law office. You were in a Budapest alley and the bastard had a gun.” A reminiscent melancholy tinged Yehuda’s voice. “You know, Aaron, the mother of my children, of Noam and Danielle, was named Miriam. Mia, I called her. Mia. My own. We grew up together on the kibbutz and were married when we were in our teens. Mia was only twenty when Noam was born. During the war we worked as Mosad agents in Czechoslovakia. We would meet, sometimes, in the woodlands outside of Prague. One day a German officer followed her. She struggled with him, and I rushed from my hiding place to protect her. I was too young, too much in love, to be cautious. The German drew his gun, and Miriam, who was also too young and too much in love, ran between us. She was killed with the bullet meant for me.
“I strangled the German, Aaron, just as today you strangled that Russian soldier. Still, sometimes, I can feel my bare hands against his neck, the muscle tendons cutting into my fingers. There are no choices at such times. Our instincts make the choices. We strike to survive, and we know that we must survive because our lives extend beyond ourselves. Others wait for us, rely on us.
“I remember now, and I am ashamed, but I did not weep as I hid Miriam’s body in a cave covered with bramble bushes. I thought only of how I would get away, how I would complete my mission. And that is what you must concentrate on now, Aaron—how you will get away and how you will get Lydia Groszman out of Hungary. Andropov may have given you a head start. We’ll have to gamble on it.”
Yehuda lit a cigarette, and it occurred to Aaron that he had never seen his sister’s husband smoke before. But then, there was much that he had not known about Yehuda Arnon, who had always been strangely silent with his wife’s American family.
“Not quite the simple mission of representing Dr. Groszman at an immigration hearing,” Aaron said.
Yehuda shrugged.
“We didn’t foresee the imminence of the revolution. We didn’t know how deeply Lydia was involved. And most important of all, we couldn’t predict the Russian reaction. Do you want an apology, Aaron?”
“No. Probably I owe you a debt of gratitude.” He glanced at the door to the bedroom where Lydia slept. “But I do want to get the hell out of Hungary and to get Lydia out with me.”
“Good.”
Yehuda flipped open his attaché case.
“We have a new identity card for Lydia. Not a bad job.” He showed Aaron the document, which had been creased and stressed. Clearly, he had had it in readiness—an insurance policy if the regular immigration proceeding failed. “A Jewish printer on Dohány Street. A master engraver. During the war he manufactured birth certificates for the children we smuggled into Palestine. His revenge on Hitler, he said then. Now he calls it his revenge on Stalin. It seems that only the names change.”
“A terrific job,” Aaron said. “Congratulate him for me.”
“Here is a road map with your route marked. A list of addresses of safe houses on the route.”
“Safe houses?”
“Mostly Jewish families or friends who have helped us before. This is not our first time along this route,” Yehuda said wearily.
“We’ve arranged for a car. A black Chaika. Greenstein will be driving. He’ll leave it in the hotel parking lot and lean against it. Then, when he sees you, he’ll walk away. The keys will be under the mat on the driver’s side.”
“When?”
Yehuda checked his watch.
“In an hour’s time. Can you manage?”
“We can manage.”
“Do you need cash?”
“I cashed a check against Joshua’s letter of credit this morning.”
“Ah. Your sister would be proud of you.” Yehuda flashed him a conspiratorial grin and shut his case.
“Is she proud of you?” Aaron asked, curious suddenly about his sister’s marriage. Rebecca had married into Yehuda’s world. She had plummeted from the tennis courts of Scarsdale, from the tree-shaded paths of Bennington, into life with a man who lived at the edge of a desert yet negotiated the cities of the world with clandestine ease. It was possible, after all, for two people from different worlds to build a life together. Rebecca and Yehuda had done it. He, too, could do it.
“I don’t know,” Yehuda said, and his voice was strained. “We don’t speak of such things. Aaron, you’ll cross the border at Sarfolld. Go straight to Vienna, to the American embassy. They’ll be expecting you. Rebecca and I will meet you in London.”
“London?”
“Yes. You will understand why.”
Aaron asked no further questions. Yehuda stood.
“Shalom, Aaron. Good luck.”
“Goodbye, Yehuda.”
Again they clasped hands, embraced. A new bond had been forged between them. They had shared secrets, uncertainties. They smiled in parting, offering each other the comfort of optimism, the gentleness of friendship.
Aaron went into the bedroom where Lydia still slept, so exhausted that she had not heard Yehuda enter or leave. Her long black hair fanned out against the white pillow slip. Her pale skin was almost translucent and her mouth turned upward, as though brushed by a brief, happy dream.
“Lydia, wake up.”
She stirred and stretched luxuriously.
“Ferenc?” Her voice was drowsy, dream-bound, and he felt irrationally betrayed. It was her husband who had caused her to smile as she slept.
“Lydia.” He told her about Andropov’s call, Yehuda’s visit.
Fear darkened her eyes and she pressed his hands, her nails carving small arcs into his skin.
“It will be all right,” he said.
“Of course,” she said. They could not afford to believe otherwise.
She dressed quickly and helped him to pack, placing the paisley dressing gown in the largest case. He called the desk and asked them to have his bill ready.
“Rather a sudden departure,” the desk clerk said.
“Not really.” He kept his tone casual, indifferent. Yehuda had taught him to ration his words. Words left unsaid cannot be regretted.
Greenstein was in the parking lot. He left the car without acknowledging them, and they waited until he had turned the corner before getting into it, stowing their luggage, and driving away.
As they drove out of Budapest, Lydia turned and looked back at the city of her birth. She did not face front until the last of the city lights had disappeared; she sat quietly then, her hands clasped in her lap, like a mourner resigned to an irrevocable loss.
*
IT took them two days to reach the small town of Sopron. There they bought tickets for a small commuter train, which moved slowly and laboriously toward the border town of Sarfolld. The railway guard pointed to a small wooded area.
“There is a bridge just beyond the copse,” he said softly. “When you cross it, you will be in Austria.”
He asked them no questions. Indeed, no one had asked them any questions along the way. They were two more marchers in the parade that was wending its way through the country. Everywhere in Hungary, people were on the move, carrying their possessions in flimsy suitcases, showing snapshots of their children and their aging parents to strangers briefly encountered at inns and safe houses. The optimists among them moved toward Budapest. They believed still that the Soviets would capitulate, that the Hungarian people would triumph. The pessimists rushed toward the border.
We are in the company of the disenchanted, Aaron thought as he and Lydia paused, with the small group that had disembarked. A child began to weep suddenly and was lifted into the arms of a tall man. A woman stared across the rolling hills and crossed herself, and a sad-eyed youth stooped and scooped up a handful of earth, which he placed in his pocket. And then, moving swiftly, they turned to the border.
Aaron walked rapidly, and Lydia kept pace with him although gray circles of fatigue rimmed her eyes and her breathing was shallow. It had rained, and the ground was sodden beneath their feet, the sky mantled in gray. They were almost at the bridge. He tried to estimate the number of steps they would have to take to reach it. It was only meters away. He grasped Lydia’s hand.
“Can you run?” he asked.
She nodded, but before they could sprint forward a shout rang out.
“Hey. Hey, you there! Halt! Stop, I say!”
Aaron turned. The mild-mannered railway guard was racing after them, brandishing his club.
“Stop, Aaron. He has a gun. I saw it at his belt.”
“But he seemed so friendly. So sympathetic.”
“Perhaps he received a telegram. If we stop, perhaps we can bluff our way out. If we keep going, he may shoot us in the back.” She spoke with the professional tone of a scientist who has weighed two possibilities and come to a decision. She paused and turned to their pursuer, smiling inquiringly.
Puffing and panting, he came up to them, put his club away, and reached into his pocket.
“You are American?” he asked Aaron.
“Yes.”
“Please. When you reach your country, mail this for me. It is a letter to my brother. In the city of Chicago. In the state of Illinois. Here is a florin for the stamps.”
“That’s all right,” Aaron said. He waved away the money, took the envelope. “I’ll mail it.”
“Good luck.” The guard shook his hand, and Aaron read the envy and despair in the man’s eyes. The fear and weakness he had felt only seconds ago left him. He and Lydia were among the fortunate, the chosen. They had been selected for survival, for freedom.
They walked on, hands linked. As they crossed the bridge the clouds parted. They walked through a vale of silver sunlight into a woodland of evergreens and saw a small Austrian flag planted on the velvet bed of moss that grew between the borders.
*
AARON AND LYDIA remained in Austria just long enough to obtain a temporary visa for Lydia at the American embassy in Vienna. The vice-consul handed Aaron a manila envelope that contained their airline tickets to London. Tom Hemmings was recovering, he told them, and would be reassigned to the States.
Rebecca met them at Gatwick. She had been in London for only a day.
“I planned to come in a month’s time to confer with a gallery here,” she said. “But Yehuda cabled me and asked if I could meet him now, and so I juggled things and here I am. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
She flashed him a smile, but Aaron saw the lines of worry about her eyes, the tiny nerve that throbbed at her neck.
“How are things at home?” he asked.
“Not good,” she replied tersely. “We are not at war, but there is no peace. Yehuda is here for a conference at Whitehall. I always think that Yehuda’s conferences increase in direct proportion to the dangers in Israel—not that I ever know what they are about.” She laughed with rueful acceptance, but her eyes were shadowed, and she nervously twisted the bright green scarf that matched her dress.
“That must be difficult,” Lydia said gently. Ferenc, too, had been involved in secret meetings, clandestine conferences, but always he had shared his experiences with her. It took a special kind of courage to accept exclusion, to anticipate danger without knowing where it lurked, how it might present itself. Aaron had told her that Rebecca sometimes did not know where Yehuda was and never did she know what he was doing. She was anxious, suddenly, to meet Yehuda Arnon, the architect of her escape, of her safe passage into freedom.
But he did not join them for dinner. He had phoned to say that he would be delayed, and Rebecca, Aaron, and Lydia decided to have coffee in the sitting room of the Arnons’ small suite. The BBC had announced a program of Mahler’s “Song of the Earth,” and Lydia wanted to listen to it. Aaron remembered that Paul had been rehearsing for a Mahler concert just the week before his death. He covered Lydia’s hand with his own. Her fingers were icy cold to his touch, but she did not withdraw her hand. She was leaning back, almost hypnotized by the lyric beauty of the first cycle of songs, when the news broadcaster suddenly interrupted.
“An emergency news bulletin,” he said in his clipped accent, and they leaned forward in their seats as he continued. Israeli Defense Forces had penetrated Ras el Naqb and Kuntilla and engaged fedayeen forces. They had also seized positions west of th
e Nakhl crossroads in the vicinity of the Suez Canal.
“It’s war,” Rebecca said. “It had to come. I knew it. We could not go on living in fear, but still I’m frightened, Aaron. I wish Yehuda were here. I wish we were both in Israel.”
Rebecca knew now that it was unlikely that Yehuda would return to the hotel that evening. She glanced worriedly at the clock and tried to imagine what was happening in Israel. Their children would be huddled together in the kibbutz bomb shelter, and Danielle would cradle the baby, Yaakov, who would whimper piteously as he always did when he was plucked from his crib in the bright children’s house and carried into the subterranean canyon of safety. Danielle and Noam might shiver with fear, but they were native-born Israelis and would not cry. It was Mindell who caused Rebecca the most worry. Mindell had lived with the Arnons since Rebecca had spirited her out of Europe. Always, she grew short of breath in an enclosed space, and only recently she had stopped dreaming of the malodorous tunnel in which she had been hidden in Auschwitz. Now she again sought refuge beneath the earth. Would there ever come a time when Jewish children would walk freely, without fear, beneath an open sky? Surely, it was not so much to ask, Rebecca thought, and soundlessly, she began to cry.
“Don’t, Becca. It will be all right.” Aaron’s voice was soft, tender. He patted his sister’s shoulder, stroked her hair. He noticed for the first time that its darkness was flecked with silver, and he was newly saddened. Rebecca, his little sister, was a woman whose hair was graying too early. Once again, they were Leah’s children, brother and sister united in a mysterious conspiracy of blood and memory, reassuring each other, protecting each other, whispering small lies, fictive talismans that would protect them from danger, shield them from loneliness.
Lydia watched them and realized suddenly the depth of her own exhaustion. She excused herself and went to bed in the room assigned to her, but through the closed door she heard the brother and sister continue their conversation. In hushed voices, they scattered names and memories, exchanged information.
“I had a letter from Michael,” she heard Rebecca say.
Michael. He was their younger brother in California, who was bent on changing the world. (“I’ll turn the whole world upside down overnight.”) She wondered if he was redheaded like Aaron or dark-haired like Rebecca. Did he, too, walk with that confident determination she had noticed in both Aaron and Rebecca?
Leah's Children Page 15
