Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  ‘We have no option,’ said Tibor dismissively. ‘You know that. You saw this moment coming. Now is not the time to weaken.’

  ‘Tibor’s right,’ said Milos miserably. ‘You must convince Gabi, Dad. You must convince her.’

  ‘Then we’re decided,’ said Jozsef abruptly. He turned to Tibor. ‘You will go tonight as agreed.’

  Tibor grabbed his father’s hand. ‘You won’t regret this.’

  ‘And you will take Milos with you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. You will take your brother and come back for me on Friday. Come back for me and Gabi. Now go.’

  After the boys had left, Jozsef made himself a weak coffee and sat staring into the dying embers of the fire. He’d accused others of not facing reality, of burying their heads in the sand and not taking precautions to protect themselves. Yet he’d been procrastinating with his own and his boys’ safety. They should have been prepared weeks ago, should have fled days ago, should have somehow made provision for Katica and her girls. Jozsef resolved to leave with the boys as soon as they returned, with Gabriella if she was willing and had her mother’s permission. On Friday, no matter what, he would turn his back on Sarospatak for as long as the war lasted, and possibly for ever.

  ‘Do you honestly think they’ll come and take us away?’ Aunt Katica wrung her hands anxiously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jozsef. Elizabeth and Gabriella sat with them around the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, the only warm room in the big house.

  ‘Where will they take us?’

  ‘You’ve heard the rumours, Katy.’

  ‘Surely you don’t believe them,’ said Elizabeth. ‘They are outrageous. The Germans are civilised people.’

  Jozsef sighed heavily. ‘I believe it is my duty and in your best interests to tell you everything I know. Do I believe the Germans are transporting people to labour camps? Yes. We know they are. Do I believe they’re taking people to death camps? May the day never come when we’re in a position to find out for ourselves. But, yes, I do believe they’re taking people to death camps. The stories of the refugees are just too compelling.’

  ‘What can we do?’ said Aunt Katica. ‘We can’t run away like you.’

  ‘Is there anyone who could hide you?’

  ‘You know there isn’t.’

  ‘Then perhaps Gabi could come with us.’

  ‘No!’ said Gabriella. ‘I’m staying with Mamma. The streets are too dangerous.’

  ‘When are you leaving?’ asked Katica.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow …’ She said the word as though it was a death sentence. She turned away momentarily to regain her composure and fight back the tears that threatened. ‘What about Elizabeth? Can you take her too?’

  ‘No, Mamma!’

  Jozsef shook his head reluctantly. ‘We would love to take you all but …’ He shrugged apologetically.

  ‘Then take Gabi.’

  ‘No, Mamma!’ shrieked Gabi. ‘I won’t leave you. I won’t go!’

  ‘I’m only sorry Elizabeth cannot go with you,’ said Katica to her youngest daughter. ‘After what happened to you yesterday, you know you have no choice.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Jozsef quickly.

  ‘Gabriella and Elizabeth were lucky to escape the gendarmes last night,’ said Katica. ‘I won’t let them put themselves in that position again.’

  ‘What position?’

  ‘We didn’t want to tell you because we thought you would get angry. We thought your boys might start taking even more risks for us.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We went to visit Aunt Klari,’ said Elizabeth reluctantly. ‘She told us she had some eggs and cheese for us. Imagine that, eggs and cheese! She was too scared to bring them herself and thought maybe Gabi and I would have a better chance because she said we wouldn’t be searched. She said we’re too pretty and well-bred. According to Aunt Klari the gendarmes are reluctant to search young women like us. We thought it was safer for us to go than to ask Tibor to go for us.

  ‘When they didn’t search us the first time we crossed the bridge we thought Aunt Klari was right and that they wouldn’t search us on the way back. But there were no gendarmes on the way back, just Arrow Crossmen, and they were doing terrible things.’

  Elizabeth turned away from Jozsef and started sobbing. Gabi took her hand, tears beginning to spill from her own eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to say it,’ said Jozsef. ‘You don’t have to say another word. I know what they were doing.’

  ‘They grabbed Gabi and me. They made us open our coats. We had eggs and cheese in the pockets but they weren’t interested in searching us. Aunt Klari was right. They don’t search pretty girls unless they think we hide food in our underwear!’ Elizabeth’s anger and disgust momentarily overrode her tears. ‘It was horrible. They had no shame and they said the most vile things to us. We just stood there, too frightened to do anything, too aware of the eggs and cheese in our pockets. Some others grabbed the shoemaker’s wife while we were there. She hadn’t done a thing, hadn’t done anything wrong. She was screaming and pleading with us for help but what could we do? They called her “fat Jew bitch” and then they threw her in the river. We heard a splash and her screams. They started shooting at her. They were laughing and shooting at her. They cheered when one of them shot her and the screaming stopped. We couldn’t believe it. One second she’s alive, the next she’s dead for no reason. Before we could even draw another breath, they threw another two men into the Bodrog. That’s when we realised they meant to kill us too. They were moving us to the edge of the bridge when the German officers arrived. The German officers saved us.’

  ‘They saved you?’ said Jozsef. ‘The German officers saved you?’

  ‘They ordered the Arrow Crossmen to release us and apologised to us. At least that’s how it appeared. They were speaking German so we couldn’t understand. They clicked their heels and bowed slightly and waved us on our way. We could hardly believe it. We were still shaking so much when we got home that Mamma had to take the eggs and cheese out of our pockets for us and help us off with our coats.’

  ‘But the Germans saved you,’ said Jozsef.

  Elizabeth nodded tearfully.

  Jozsef leaned back in his chair. ‘I wonder what that means.’

  ‘We didn’t hear any more shots,’ said Gabi. ‘We think the Germans stopped them from killing any more Jews.’

  ‘Maybe the Germans have come to restore order,’ said Jozsef. ‘Maybe they’ve come to keep the Arrow Crossmen in check.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Aunt Katica hopefully.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Jozsef. ‘They saved Elizabeth and Gabi. And they stopped the Arrow Crossmen killing more Jews. You said they were courteous? That they apologised?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Then perhaps there’s hope,’ said Jozsef. ‘Perhaps there is hope after all.’

  Neither Tibor nor Milos fully appreciated what they were witnessing from their hideout.

  ‘Here come some more,’ said Tibor softly.

  Milos lifted on his elbows so that he could peer through the tall grass, down the hill and across the fields to the narrow lane. All they knew was that the roads and lanes around Satoraljaujhely were crawling with gendarmes and that the gendarmes were rounding up all the Jews from the surrounding villages and farms. Two days had passed yet they still hadn’t reached their destination. They had no way of knowing that the extermination of Hungary’s Jews had begun. Or that Adolf Eichmann, contrary to their father’s expectations, had elected to exterminate Hungary’s rural Jews first. In his obsession to rid Europe of every single Jew, Eichmann had begun his deportations in Hungary’s eastern provinces so that he would not lose any Jews to the Russian advance.

  ‘Where are they putting them all?’ asked Milos. ‘There are so many.’

  Below them, another fifty to sixty Jews, mostly women and those too old or too young for
labour camps, walked quickly in a tight group along the narrow road towards Satoraljaujhely, driven along like cattle by six armed gendarmes. Except for the smallest children and babies each person carried one small bag. The spring sun had at last decided to put in an appearance and the morning air sizzled with unexpected heat. The boys were too far away to see the sweat on the faces of the elderly and the mothers carrying babies, but they could imagine it. Most of all, they could imagine their fear.

  Even from their distant vantage point the boys could hear the guards cursing and yelling at their prisoners, telling them to keep up. It was a scene repeated for the third time that day, the fifth they’d witnessed overall as they’d tried to work their way unseen around Satoraljaujhely. As they watched there was a sudden disturbance. One of the small black-clad figures stumbled and fell, an old woman who had succumbed to exhaustion, frailty or fear. People broke ranks to help her; to the boys, it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Arms reached to lift the old woman back onto her feet but she struggled in vain. Still she might have succeeded if the gendarmes hadn’t intervened. They pushed the would-be helpers aside and dragged the old woman out of the line to the side of the road, while others used their rifles as prods to keep everyone walking. People were wailing and trying to restrain an old man from rushing back to help the fallen woman. Two gendarmes stood over her. There was a puff of smoke, a single gunshot and the two gendarmes rejoined the marchers. Two more sounds reached the boys, almost simultaneously: a chilling cry of despair and the sound of someone laughing.

  ‘They shot her,’ said Milos in horror. ‘They shot that old woman in cold blood.’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ said Tibor. ‘Just watch and remember.’

  Incredibly, the gendarmes started singing a coarse barrack-room song, interspersing it with abuse and shouts telling the stunned, terrified Jews to keep up. The boys watched until they marched out of sight.

  ‘Remember everything you see, little brother,’ said Tibor grimly. ‘These are Hungarians not Germans, gendarmes not Gestapo. Hate them as much as you like but keep your hate safely locked away. There will be times when we have no choice but to move among these men and deal with them. There will be times when we’ll have to convince them we’re one of them. That’s our only hope of staying alive.’

  He rose to his knees and slung his pack over his shoulders. ‘Come on. It’s time to find somewhere safer to hole up.’

  They turned and headed uphill deeper into the woods, looking for a place to hide and sleep until evening when they could continue the broad sweep that would take them around the town and railhead. Tibor led Milos higher, across pastures into another thicket of bush where he stopped and assessed the terrain before dropping his pack. They lay down close to the edge of the thicket where hornbeams formed a natural hideout, screened on all sides by overlapping leaves. Tibor had chosen their rest place well. If anyone approached from above, they’d hear them coming through the trees which would give them plenty of warning. If anyone came from the woods below they’d have to cross the pastures where they’d be spotted instantly.

  ‘You sleep first,’ said Tibor.

  Milos nodded gratefully. He swept leaves into a pile to cushion his body and used his pack as a pillow. He closed his eyes but sleep would not come.

  ‘What are they going to do with all those Jews?’ he said.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s hard to believe.’

  ‘Start believing. You saw what happened to that woman. You heard what happened on the bridge.’

  ‘Yes, but where are they going to put them? Thousands of Jews live around here,’ said Milos.

  ‘They probably want to transport all the Jews at once,’ said Tibor. ‘That’s what I’d do. Round them all up, stick them somewhere close to the railway and load as many as possible onto the trains in one go. Can you imagine trains just sitting at the station waiting for this or that piddly group of Jews to arrive? That wouldn’t be very efficient, would it?’

  ‘Suppose not,’ said Milos.

  ‘If they did that, don’t you think the Jews would try to resist? Those who hadn’t been taken would run away and hide at the very least. Hardly what the gendarmes would want. My guess is that they’ll take the Jews somewhere where the conditions are so bad and so overcrowded that the trains seem like a better alternative.’

  ‘Jesus, Tibor.’ Milos took a moment to digest everything his brother had said. It all made such horrible sense. He recalled the way the Jews heading for the labour battalions had been crowded together in Iskola Park and inevitably his brain made the obvious leap. ‘Tibor! What if they’ve also started rounding up Jews in Sarospatak?’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to hope Dad was smart enough to make a run for it.’

  ‘What about Gabi?’

  ‘Same rules apply.’ Tibor rolled over onto his back.

  ‘We’ve got to do something! I think we should go back to Sarospatak and tell them what’s happening here. Warn them.’

  ‘And I think we stick to our plan. On the way back I’m going to sneak into Satoraljaujhely to see if I can learn anything.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake?’ Milos gave up all pretext of trying to sleep and sat up.

  ‘Our survival depends on knowing what the Germans and gendarmes are doing and how they do it. I might learn something that can help Dad and maybe help Gabi. I might even learn something that could save our lives.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, you’ll do exactly what I tell you. If something goes wrong, you’ll have to go back alone and get Dad. Got that?’

  ‘I think we should go home now.’

  ‘I think you should go to sleep, little brother. It might clear your head, help you to think straight.’

  ‘I can’t sleep.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tibor, ‘you keep watch. Wake me in three hours.’ He rolled over and rested his head on his pack.

  Milos dragged himself into a position where he could keep watch on the fields below them. When his brother’s breathing had settled into a regular shallow rhythm he turned to look at him, wondering what made the two of them so different. When had Tibor become so cold and calculating? When had he become so wise?

  The boys resumed their journey at nightfall, skirting wide around Satoraljaujhely and heading north-east past eerily quiet villages and farmhouses. They walked with a sense of urgency brought on by what they’d witnessed and the knowledge that their journey would take them at least twice as long as they’d anticipated. The detours were not a huge problem even though they added twenty to thirty kilometres onto the trip. Their legs were strong and their bodies well-conditioned, but even fit bodies need fuel to sustain them. The food they’d taken for the trip was long gone and they had no option but to tap into the supplies they’d intended to bury. Opening one of the jars of pickled cucumbers seemed the obvious step but Tibor was reluctant to do that. Once opened, the jar would have to be finished as the pickles would no longer be suitable for burying. Furthermore, Tibor was uncertain that a diet comprised entirely of pickles was suitable fare for hard hiking. His fear was that the vinegar would sour their stomachs and the salt plague them with thirst. He decided they had no choice but to open the bag of dried vegetables. The problem was, they needed a pot to rehydrate and heat them. Around midnight, Tibor left Milos on lookout while he slipped quietly downhill and into what appeared to be a newly abandoned farmhouse.

  Tibor eased through the open doorway, his senses as alert as those of any wild animal on the prowl. Although certain the house was empty, he stood stock still just inside the doorway listening for the sound of breathing or anything that might betray the presence of others. He waited two minutes before striking a match. Perhaps once the room he was standing in had been kept immaculate, but whoever had taken its occupants had made sure they had little incentive to return. Chairs and tables had been overturned, curtains torn from windows and crockery smashed. But for the vandalism, the room was little differen
t to dozens of others Tibor had seen and stood in while negotiating. He quickly scanned the debris until he found the broken menorah he was looking for and, nearby, a stubby candle which had tumbled from it. He lit the wick with a second match and stepped over toppled chairs to the stove which had once provided the little cottage with its only source of heating. He removed a saucepan from the hook above it and then searched the cupboards for a preserving jar with a lid. He found one intact and unbroken, extinguished the candle and headed back to the doorway. He felt no guilt at plundering the home of a Jewish family he’d probably seen being marched along the road to the railhead. The loss did not matter to them any more. They were beyond help, but in this small way they could help him. That was all that mattered.

  He searched the yard until he found the hand pump that drew all the water the cottage used and filled the preserving jar. He was about to slip silently away when a sudden flutter made him drop to the ground. He lay there barely breathing, pulse racing, listening for anything that would help him identify the sound he’d heard, where it had come from and what had caused it. Had somebody seen the light from his candle? He thought about the torn and detached curtains and cursed softly. He’d chosen this farmhouse because no others were within its line of sight, at least as far as he could tell. Had he overlooked anything? He racked his brains trying to picture the landscape, trying to recall if there were any trees or hollows that might have concealed another dwelling. But there weren’t, he was sure of it. He’d been patient and thorough. Another sound in the darkness! He stiffened and peered across the yard trying to gauge direction, heard the sound again. Tibor exhaled quietly and stood. How many times had he heard it before? How many times had he lain in yards just like this and heard the scuffle of paws on hard-packed soil? A low, dark shape suddenly bolted away into the night. Tibor didn’t have to see the fox to know what it was. The smell was unmistakeable. He suspected they were both after the same thing.