by Alan Lelchuk
“Oh, yes, perfectly in order. Thank you.”
The bill was presented; Manny paid it and departed.
On the evening flight to Budapest, he sat in the window seat looking out at the lines of blue and white horizon, and felt himself to be like a constant commuter, flying back and forth without a final destination. Where he was going now, he knew; but later on?
Just then the man next to him removed his hat and asked if Gellerman might lower the porthole shade a bit.
Manny nodded and complied.
He put on his CD player and listened to his son’s CD, playing the gavotte movement of the fifth Bach suite. The notes were clearly and surely played, and the repetitions and variations seemed nuanced and rather exquisite. In his mind, he saw the boy’s bowing hand, with the elbow in its correct position, and the fingers moving quickly over the strings. Each year he took more and more control of the instrument. Soon he would go to music camp in Maine, and in a few weeks he would be playing a small chamber concert there, which Manny would attend. Recently, the boy had even begun taking an interest in composing! This stirred the father.
For some reason that movie poster of Leslie Howard as the Scarlet Pimpernel floated before him, and Manny remembered that handsome hero who led the double life during the French revolution, the undergound hero and the effete aristocrat. If he were alive and was playing in this current film, should he be cast as Manny, the professor/detective, or as RW, the noble hero? Easy choice. No question about it.
A woman next to him asked why he was going to Budapest.
Gellerman was taken aback, couldn’t quite answer at first. “Well, I’m trying to find someone actually.”
“Who?”
Manny stared at this curious woman, with the prominent-featured face, asking these oddly nosey questions.
“Well, he’s dead now. The man I’m looking for. A Swedish fellow who lived in Budapest in 1944.”
The woman took her eyeglasses from her chest and put them on; she nodded and opened her Swedish newspaper. “Why are you hunting down a dead man?”
Manny was bewildered both by the question and by the line of questioning. It was not the woman’s business! And yet Manny didn’t feel as though the stranger was being impertinent; it was something else—seriously inquisitive, even intimate. He couldn’t quite find the right words to answer.
She refolded her newspaper and took out a laptop.
Manny felt perspiration. Why? The plane dipped. What was going on here?
“Do dead men really have that much to say to you? Unless they are family, of course.” The lilt of her accent was Swedish, modified by expert English.
“No, he’s not family. A stranger, actually, but one I have come to know.”
“Know? How so?”
“Through letters, witnesses, research, bits and pages of history …”
The woman looked out over her bifocals. “You can’t really know a man that way, can you?” She shook her head, skeptically. “That’s hearsay. Other men’s views and illusions. Then there is the distance of many years, and faulty, selective memories. No, not the same as the real person, living, acting, having to make difficult choices in a sudden moment.”
Manny wondered about this woman, berating him this way.
“Besides, how do you ever know a man, unless you’ve been with him a long time and observed him under various circumstances?” A pause. “Most men hardly know themselves! Or can admit truths to themselves.”
Manny closed his eyes for a minute, baffled, just as the jet was jarred suddenly by a wave of turbulence.
When he opened his eyes again, the woman was absent, replaced by a ruddy fellow in a suit, who jovially apologized for having taken the armrest!
CHAPTER 11
In Budapest Manny called his cello boy in New Hampshire, got an update on his music plans, and told him to be prepared: Dad would be in the other Sweden, in Maine, to see his August performance. Next he read an e-mail from his other son, Seth, who was sending on a small piece he had written for a college course in essay writing. With force and clarity, the essay depicted the death of his uncle at a young age, twenty-one. Manny admired the boy’s superior prose and his insights. He had secretly felt ashamed that he had never felt “authentic” grief like that of his mother and the other mourners, but only followed the protocol of the event. But the real success of the essay was the strategy of describing, and using as a metaphor, the Lego monorail that the young uncle had created and kept in his room while he was dying of cancer; such a creation had always been the highest aspiration of young Seth, whose passion for Lego building had started at age three, when he made his first piece, a green tractor, while on a plane ride to Jerusalem with his parents. The boy had it in him to be a writer, a real writer, not a journalist or advertising jingle man. Imagine that, one boy a cellist, the other a literary man. Where was the young historian? Well, no need; the world had enough of those.
Could Manny find a clue to solving his present puzzle from those Lego creations? He recalled the child’s patient, meticulous work on these ingenious innovations—miniature masterpieces. Sometimes, when Seth was not happy with a packaged result—too dull or too ordinary—he’d invent his own model, mix and match and come up with something original. And that result was unfailingly better than the packet’s picture. So now, as Manny proceeded toward the Budapest lady of fantastic imagination, he’d observe her as some sort of new invention or creation, one that might shed light on the original order of things. In other words, mix and match her intimate fantasy with solid reality, her wish fulfillment with the grimmer truth. (Who was kidding whom here?)
Budapest, he figured, with its series of painted bridges and its old castles and hills, cut through by the curving Danube, seemed built for a world of dreams and phantasmagoria, creating a convenient stage for Zsuzsa Frank Wallenberg to perform her lifework/act here.
But before seeing the lady, Manny took a little trip by train down along the river, about an hour and a half, to a small village. In Kismaros (“Keesh-marrosh”) lived one Józséf Nemeth, a man in his eighties now, who claimed to have seen Wallenberg back in his prisoner days. One of several dozen witnesses who provided annual “sightings” of the legendary man, in the years since the reputed death in 1947. Like birders sighting rare species, these Wallenberg watchers had turned up everywhere, in all countries, never able to provide enough evidence to make their sightings verifiable.
This Nemeth, who met him at the train station, was a small stocky man, with a rich skein of white hair. Walking with a cane, he took Manny to the local tavern, a ten-minute walk, where he ordered a couple of local beers; they were seated in the patio area by a plastic round table. He thanked Manny for coming down to see him, and they made some small talk.
Józséf wore an open-necked shirt and a light windbreaker, and he was soon answering Manny’s questions. “Well, you see I first heard about him when we were at Vladimir Prison—you know that place? The cleaner woman mentioned a Swedish prisoner to me, someone of importance, because he played chess, and so did I. I meet him several times to play. You could see a nobleman from his manner, polite ways, and he was a good player too. We didn’t talk much, but when we did, in German, it was not about much.”
“How long did you stay at Vladimir?” And how long did he stay?”
“Maybe some months?”
“And then?”
“Then? If you lived through Vladimir, you got your opportunity to serve in the Gulag. I was sent to a place called Vörkuta.” He smiled. “Cold, and a long distance from all things.”
“I have heard of it, yes. Up north somewhere. Not open to foreigners. Or Russians.”
He shrugged. “But you should visit it now since it’s been opened. To see the geography, ways of life, what’s left of the place.” He drank his beer. “Then I got sick and was sent to a psychiatric hospital, somewhere in Siberia. You see?” he pointed to a number on his wrist. “Out there, I heard again about this old Swedish prisoner who
was there, and very sick.”
Gellerman gestured for Józséf to continue. “I saw this old shriveled man, wearing a small beard,” he motioned his chin, “and we met a few times.”
“But what makes you think, years later, this was Wallenberg?”
“Well, we realized we both played chess, and we played a few games, and you know what, he made the same moves he had made years before! Always with the same queen pawn opening and bishop threat! And then he made a few moves, to control the center. Years ago he explained that he was a follower of Nimzovitch!”
Manny eyed this curious fellow, who was anything but strange. “Still, what you knew was that he had played chess with you years ago at Vladimir; but why did you think this was Wallenberg?”
“Yes, I understand your question. First, that cleaner woman told me his name, years before. And second, he knew certain things, bits of news, which maybe only he could have known. We had no newspapers there.”
Manny gazed at half-drunk men a few tables away, and at this firm lively octogenerian. “No proof, though? No other witnesses have you?”
“Maybe a German fellow, prisoner number? …” He shrugged. “It was him all right, I truly believe.”
“Any name for the German? And the date, do you recall?”
“No name. The date? Oh, late seventies, early eighties maybe.” He produced an apple and polished it with a handkerchief. “Who knows, he could still be alive! Look, I am,” he said and he bit into the apple. “But he was sick; that was clear. Coughing a lot.” He leaned forward. “But he was a good chess player, I can tell you, because I am not bad myself.” A wonderful smile.
Presently, on the train ride back, Manny considered the hearty fellow, his secret sighting and firm belief. Sure, he could be right, like maybe trying hard to sight a true English nightingale in the New Hampshire woods and mistaking it for a wood thrush. Same song, different bird. Yes, it was possible, but improbable. Yet to cite it would bestow an immediate honor upon the sighter. (Like the German prisoner?) And didn’t Józséf have a right to imagine, speculate, exaggerate, after his years of deprivation and anonymity in Vladimir, Vörkuta? Out there, in the land beyond the Hungarian village, existed other sighters—in Russia, Israel, Germany, Poland—people who swore to have seen RW in one hospital or prison, or the Gulag. Hundreds. And why not? If you squinted real hard, pressed your temples, remembered your suffering and saw a photograph of a legend, a man of history, wouldn’t he turn up in the flesh, in some sort of human replica? To make all those years suddenly worthwhile, have a meaning? …
Now, he read the International Herald Tribune: how the Iraq war dragged on, bodies torn open, a country torn apart, and a president still using phrases like “winning a victory” and “spreading democracy.” Was there a connection between the words and the reality? Did anyone know how dangerous the preppie pipsqueek could be! In USA Today Manny read that American Idol was the top TV show, watched by forty million. So while the republic went down the tubes, the pop world assisted in dumbing down its young citizens. Further, our political culture of wars and violence was distracted and covered over by the newly expanded culture of fame, everyone encouraged to get in on the publicity, forget the talent. Crime would do just as well as merit. True crime stories, novels, movies, sold mightily. More, from the Wall Street Journal, yet another corporate head was forced to resign, this time a bankrupt airline, taking with him, for his failures, a golden parachute of sixty-seven million bucks, plus a hefty pension. Was all this really happening in one era? In all of Manny’s adult four decades, the society never seemed this shallow, arrogant, or reckless. Was this descent part of a historical destiny, like that of any ruling empire—as Ferguson or Kennedy wrote—or was it a temporary fall due to the current inept and dangerous gang running things?
Before meeting the lady illusionist—or shrewd strategist?—later in the afternoon, he chose to take a walk and tram ride around the town, glimpsing the old way of life. The small shops of superb cakes and strudels, the narrow messy streets and bustling gloomy citizens, the snaking, rattling tram/trolley—all this stirred Manny. Took him back again five decades to his venerable Borough of Kings. He stopped and found a shop for a custard, something like a Charlotte Russe, with the soggy sponge cake at the bottom and the whipped cream on top. Too bad his own sons missed out on that delight, along with chocolate egg creams, Lime Rickeys on hot summer days, corner candy stores, and the green oval of Ebbets Field—all the grand treats of the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time that the Soviets were capturing and imprisoning Raoul, Manny was a boy coasting in childhood wonders amidst Brooklyn comforts. Well, maybe it was time to make up for it now?
In Buda he walked halfway up Gellert Hill, found Gyopar Street, and soon came upon the large four-story mansion, surrounded by trees, that served as the old Swedish legation. In his mind’s eye he saw the Studebaker outside, with Vilmos standing by the car, perhaps with one of the Swedish girls, Margareta Bauer or Birgit Brulin, waiting with urgency for their boss, Raoul, to emerge. Then he wandered back down and took a taxi across the Margaret Bridge and over to the Pest area in the vicinity of the Wallenberg safe houses. Here he walked along the river, and found a small area where the Njilas thugs used to line up Jews, shoot them, and toss them into the river. It was noted here by a small marker in the stones. In the cool afternoon he walked along and asked a few people if they knew where Wallenberg utca was, but no one knew, or even knew the name. So much for history. He turned east and walked among small streets and apartment buildings, arrived at a bookstore, and asking again, learned from the woman assistant that he was headed in the right direction, just up the street a little until he hit the cross street. There, on the corner, he discovered a modest bronze sculpture set into the building, maybe ten or twelve feet high. A portrait of a handsome young man, in overcoat and hat, carrying a page in one hand, and with the other, holding up his palm to indicate stop, transformed the real into romance! The building was an ordinary one with many flats, hiding well the extraordinary tale within it.
This was the Budapest of Raoul in 1944–45, and Manny was experiencing it with a rising feeling in his chest that he couldn’t quite name. Was this what the madwoman of Budapest was experiencing all the time? … A constant stir of emotion, tied to the thirty-three-year-old Swede of fifty years ago? No wonder she lived in that other world, the imagined, the delirious; it was richer, more intense.
Did these stucco buildings and brick tenements serve as fortresses of locked memory, guideposts to the scarred past? Keeping their secrets well hidden? The trick was to get the key to unlock them.
A fellow stepped out, lit a cigarette, motioned Manny inside, and led him to a long iron staircase and, behind it, to a dark crawl area.
The familiar fellow spoke:
I used to sleep there, every so often, on a thick blanket with a sweater covering my backpack for my pillow. For precaution, and only Vilmos knew my whereabouts at night. And it wasn’t bad, once you got used to it. Others had it much worse, my American professor.
Now let me say a few words to answer your basic question, of a while ago. Why did I do this, subject myself to such inconveniences and trials? I shall tell you what I think, my interpretation. It may be true; it may not. As you know, Grandfather was my tutor and mentor, and he trained me, in his open-minded way, for some mission. I didn’t really understand that then, as I moved around from place to place—Ann Arbor, Haifa, Capetown—and witnessed various situations and peoples. When Lauer gave me money to take care of his Jewish family in Budapest, and then the American Olsen added some funding, it seemed a good job, a good coincidence. But when I landed in Budapest, and saw up close what the Arrow Cross and Nazis were doing, I was shocked; I found my driver, Vilmos, and met his fearful Jewish family; and he took me around to see a few more of the Jews, awaiting deportation and death. Witnessing my first deportation at Keleti Railway Station, the moment seized me and I felt it much stronger. I understood what Grandfather had wanted for me, to fulfull
myself through a great mission, not merely a job. I understood what was required and what I needed to do. And I felt comfortable doing it, not at all heroic, providing the Jews with whatever assistance they might need to stay alive. This was the mission that Grandfather had trained me for, I realized.
I will acknowledge, as well, that my Wallenberg family and their activities and beliefs added to my beliefs and determination. I knew how they had acted with the Nazis for business reasons, helping them in many key areas. Capitalists do many pragmatic things, but rich capitalists may have to do unethical things. But I didn’t think they would not aid Jews, for many reasons. Even my “neutral” country helped Jews; did you know that Sweden took in five thousand Jewish women from East Europe, mainly Poland, and saved them in monasteries and religious sanctuaries until the war was over when they released them to Palestine? But my cousins, well they used Enskilde to serve the Nazis, also sold them iron ore for necessary wheel bearings, made much profit from them. Yet they looked away when it came to the Jews. And to me.
For them to stand aside when it came to my being in Lybianka, that was no surprise. It was a disappointment, yes, but not a big surprise. I did feel very badly for my mother, who suffered from their indifference, and my half brother, who genuinely liked me, but for myself, I knew I had done what Grandfather had intended for me all along. And what I had wanted. So I did not mind too much paying for it in Lybianka.
The gentleman nodded, adjusted his coat lapels, and departed.
Madame Zsuzsanna Frank Wallenberg looked as grave and austere as ever, when she opened the door and invited him in.
“I am very glad to see you again; I thought you would return,” she said, taking his two hands in hers and surprising him with a real smile. She showed him into the living room, into the same wing chair as earlier.
He felt like a time traveler, going back to the 1940s and ’50s as he awaited her tea cart. Restraining an impulse to get up, leave, and escape the mystifying spell that approached, he sat like a good schoolboy, hands clasped.
