Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  Tibor and Milos took extraordinary risks in their haste to reach Sarospatak and warn their father, Aunt Katy, Elizabeth and Gabriella. They travelled non-stop through the night but also well into the dangerous daylight hours of morning. For the sake of speed they surrendered the concealment of the fields and woods and travelled openly down laneways, their only concession being to choose those which were lined by cherry trees and poplars and afforded some cover. They could not abandon caution altogether and took to the fields the instant they heard voices or the sound of approaching vehicles. Yet they made good progress until they neared their home town when, once again, they encountered patrols and bands of hapless Jews being marched along by gendarmes. Neither boy needed telling what that meant, and their fears for the safety of their father first, Gabriella and her family second, drove them on.

  But their movements were so restricted! Even travelling by night they had to exercise extreme caution and on two occasions nearly stumbled into gendarme camps. Mostly the gendarmes took over Jewish property in the villages, using them for sleeping quarters. But there weren’t always villages where the gendarmes chose to rest and in these instances they took over farmhouses that had belonged to Jews. With limited accommodation, some gendarmes were forced to put up tents and sleep outside, certainly no hardship in the balmy late spring weather, but a trap for the weary boys. If the sentries had been alert, or in some cases even awake, Tibor and Milos would certainly have been captured.

  Although Sarospatak was barely twelve kilometres by rail from Satoraljaujhely, the circuitous route the boys were forced to take trebled if not quadrupled the distance. Yet they arrived at the outskirts of Sarospatak barely thirty hours after leaving Satoraljaujhely, exhausted and with stomachs crying out for food.

  ‘Let’s go in now!’ said Milos desperately. The hands on his watch ticked past eleven. ‘It’s dark enough. It’s quiet enough. We can be in and out in no time.’

  ‘No,’ said Tibor quietly. The horrors of Satoraljaujhely were behind him and once again he employed the caution that had kept them alive. He had no doubt that they could reach their little cottage undetected but wasn’t sure what they’d find when they got there. Their father? A new stationmaster? Or gendarmes using the cottage as a billet? It was precisely this lack of certainty that urged caution.

  ‘Then what?’ said Milos. ‘Lying here is doing nobody any good.’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Tibor.

  ‘Jesus, Mary, Mother of God!’ said Milos impatiently.

  Tibor laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t think your God’s listening. I don’t think anyone’s God is listening.’ He paused momentarily. ‘But you’ve given me an idea. Come.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ve seen the light. I know where we can find sanctuary.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Milos again.

  ‘Have faith, little brother,’ said Tibor, ‘have faith.’

  He led Milos around the back of the rail line away from the river, hugging the privet hedges that bordered the outlying houses, all the while checking the cloud cover to make sure the moon would not break through and reveal their presence.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ hissed Milos.

  There were several ways across the railway lines that would ultimately take them to their cottage but Tibor steadfastly ignored all of them.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ said Tibor.

  ‘Do we cross the railway?’

  ‘No. Now if you can’t guess, shut up.’

  Milos ducked lower and followed his brother in their practised stooped run.

  ‘This way,’ said Tibor and ducked between two lines of privet hedge. He stopped and waved Milos to do likewise. He put his finger to his brother’s lips for silence. Mosquitoes hummed and somewhere in a nearby ditch a frog croaked. But from the little cottage on the other side of the hedge came another sound. Mozart. Even in the dark Tibor could see the recognition dawn on Milos’s face.

  ‘My God! What are you doing here?’ The man had responded quickly to Tibor’s knock on his door. ‘Quickly, come inside, come inside. Lonci! Lonci! Come see who is here!’

  Milos couldn’t help smiling. Have faith, Tibor had said, but he’d failed to make the connection. But how had Tibor made the connection between his blasphemy and their godparents? He allowed his father’s clerk to usher him inside, worrying at them both like a small dog with a recalcitrant sheep.

  ‘Have you eaten? Have you eaten? No, of course not! Lonci!’

  He led the boys into a tiny kitchen, cramped even further by the small wooden table and two chairs.

  ‘Only if you can spare the food, Mr Zelk,’ said Tibor.

  ‘Ha! You are our guests. We are your godparents. You can take the food from our mouths and we would give it gladly. But yes, we have food. Of course we have food. Don’t you know your father gave us a bag of vegetables, when? … Thursday afternoon, not three days ago!’

  Tibor’s eyebrows rose. Sometimes his father amazed him. Was he prescient, he wondered, or just covering all his options?

  ‘We’ve been away,’ said Milos.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Mr Zelk. He clasped his hands together unhappily. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Tibor sharply, far more sharply than he’d intended.

  The old man turned to him in horror. He caught sight of his wife on the stairs in her nightgown, her hands suddenly shooting upwards to cover her mouth. ‘You mean you don’t know?’ he asked incredulously.

  Tibor closed his eyes and slumped down into the wooden chair. Suddenly weariness overwhelmed him. They were too late, too late.

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Milos. ‘Tell us what’s happened.’

  ‘When?’ asked Tibor.

  ‘Two days ago. Your father knew what was going to happen which is why he gave away his vegetables. He knew.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Milos, unwilling to believe the obvious until it was spelled out to him in all its horror, ‘what happened?’

  ‘They’ve taken him,’ said Mr Zelk simply. ‘They rounded up all the Jews on Saturday morning. They’ve crammed them into the old warehouse just off Kazinczy Ferenc Street. All of them in that little old warehouse.’

  ‘You poor boys.’ Mrs Zelk finally plucked up the courage to join them. Tears flowed down her plump cheeks and she put her arms around Milos. ‘You poor things,’ she said again.

  ‘Is there any way in or out?’ asked Milos.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘The warehouse is heavily guarded day and night. The only Jews that come out are taken away to be tortured. The gendarmes seem to think Jews have gold and jewellery hidden under every bush. I have talked to people who have heard the screams. The gendarmes also boast about their finds.’ He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Any news of our father?’ asked Tibor.

  ‘None,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘That would be asking too much.’

  ‘We have friends in Tokaj Street,’ said Milos. ‘Have the gendarmes cleared out Tokaj Street, do you know?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘I’m sorry for you and for your friends. Yes, they have cleared all of Sarospatak and all the surrounding farms and villages. Now, let Lonci prepare you some food. You look starved.’

  Milos’s head fell onto Mrs Zelk’s shoulder. Never in his life had he needed comforting more than he did then. His father taken! And Gabriella. Two of the three people most precious to him. But what comfort could a friendly shoulder and a stroking hand possibly offer? A despairing wail broke free from his throat and he began to sob uncontrollably.

  ‘Their army is pulling back into the Ukraine and desperately needs transportation but what do the Germans do? Instead they use their trains and carriages for this,’ said Mr Zelk disgustedly. ‘But why should I look for sense where there is none? Why should I expect sanity when it’s clear the world has gone mad?’

  Tibor didn’t respond. What was left to say?

  The railwaymen’s uniforms Mr Zelk had
found for him and Milos were a thin disguise at best; their faces were too well known, especially around the railyards. They stood on the tracks looking back down the line at the locomotive and enclosed cattle trucks which were already in position at the station. A light mist and the grey dawn light hid much of the detail but Tibor already carried most of that in his head.

  ‘The engine driver and fireman are German,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘The guards are Hungarian but doubtless they will be changed somewhere before the border. Geza Apro is acting stationmaster. He is the only one of us allowed on the platform during loading.’

  Tibor nodded. Geza Apro had been his father’s signalman. He was a man of little ambition and equivalent intelligence. Yet he was good company, enjoyed a laugh and was, above all, loyal. Geza would not betray them.

  ‘Who is in the signal box?’ asked Tibor.

  ‘I am,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘I change the semaphore from red to green when the train is ready to depart. I also have three more non-stops heading up the line to Satoraljaujhely.’

  ‘Who switches the tracks?’

  ‘Geza.’

  ‘Would he allow us to do that?’

  ‘Maybe. But you would be exposed. Someone would be bound to recognise you. The gendarmes are looking for you. Your names have not been crossed off the registry of Jews.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Mr Zelk. ‘Why risk everything now? I will get word to your father somehow. Geza will help.’

  Tibor met this suggestion with stony silence. His eyes flicked to Milos. He was like a zombie, not speaking, not smiling, not crying, just mutely obeying instructions. His brother was a risk he couldn’t afford to take. But somehow, somewhere there had to be a solution.

  The world ended for Jozsef when the boys failed to return. He had little doubt what had happened. Two boys on the run in the open with so many patrols about, there could only be one outcome. The numbness that enveloped him made it easy to accept the inevitability of his own fate.

  He’d sat up through Friday night waiting for the telltale sound of the key in the back door that would signal the boys’ return. He’d delayed his visit to Tokaj Street to collect Gabriella because he couldn’t bear to leave in case Tibor and Milos returned. He’d stalled until just before noon when he realised he had no choice but to make for the rendezvous or, at least, find somewhere to hide until nightfall. His one hope was that the boys had realised the danger in coming home and holed up at the meeting place instead. He’d gathered up his bag and taken a last look around the little cottage. Even then he’d paused, listening for a tap on the window or a scratching at the rear door, anything that would indicate that his sons had returned. His spirits had lifted momentarily when he heard footsteps on the street outside. But the knock on the door that followed was one of authority, not of two fugitive boys, and in that instant Jozsef knew that all his plans and decisions were meaningless. They were no longer his to make. He’d offered no resistance.

  Jozsef had expected to be taken to a temporary ghetto but he’d imagined it would occupy several streets and buildings, not just an abandoned warehouse. The warehouse, Jozsef soon discovered, didn’t just concentrate the Jewish populace but despair of the deepest, darkest kind. No one had anticipated the nightmarish conditions, the overcrowding, the lack of amenities and the absolute inadequacy of the sanitation. No one had foreseen the abandonment of all hope. Some wept, some withdrew, some lost their minds.

  Through the horrors of Saturday afternoon and the resignation of Sunday, Jozsef trawled the sea of bewildered, disbelieving, fearful faces for information on Tibor and Milos. But nobody had seen or heard from them. He clung to the slim hope that his boys had made it back to the rendezvous and were hiding there, waiting for him. But as more and more Jews were rounded up and packed into the warehouse, Jozsef’s despair grew. What chance did his boys have against such thoroughness? Tibor was resourceful but the enemy were everywhere.

  As the days passed and there was no word, he began to accept that his sons were lost, that all his plans for them and all his preparations had, in the final analysis, amounted to nothing. They were gone, captured, tortured, or shot dead in the fields. All because he had procrastinated and failed to act when they still had time to act. But had he failed them or was the enemy just too strong and all his precautions never anything other than futile? He tried his hardest to believe the latter.

  His one act of courage was to put on a brave face for Katica and her daughters, to comfort them and encourage them to believe the lie that they were being taken out to the plains of the Alfold to help harvest grain, to pick fruit and tobacco. Even in this, he was aware that he was aiding the enemy in their cause by placating fears and stifling resistance. But the lie helped the women and gave them hope when the dreaded alternative offered none. It was the positive side of that great flaw in the character of human beings that makes them believe what they want to believe when all evidence indicates the contrary.

  Now, as the gendarmes began lining them up for the march to the station, Jozsef guessed that around eight hundred Jews from Sarospatak had been crammed into the warehouse and half as many again from surrounding villages. One trainload, somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-six box cars. Jozsef could envisage the loading and the renewed disbelief on the faces of the unwilling deportees as they were jammed into every centimetre of the box cars, when they realised the purpose of the two buckets, when they realised what little human dignity remained was a luxury no longer available to them. How many times had he witnessed it before? How many times had he previewed his own deportation? He recalled the bravery of Thomas and Balazs and determined to hold his head up like them and not be bowed. But sometimes he believed that the weight of his loss, the burden of his two lost boys, was heavy enough to bring Samson to his knees, and he hoped desperately that somehow he would bear up until it no longer mattered. These were the thoughts he carried as he stood in line, his small suitcase in one hand and his free arm around Gabriella.

  It was a day devoid of mercy. The sun beat down upon the assembled Jews from a clear blue sky without hope of relief. There were no clouds and no breeze to summon them. Ordinarily, Jozsef would have greeted such a day with a smile, but now it seemed as if nature also conspired against them. They didn’t march to the station but shuffled, a miserable line of humanity, mothers soothing frightened children, elderly husbands supporting elderly wives, boys and girls wide-eyed with fear holding the hand of any adult who’d take theirs. Around him Jozsef heard muttered prayers in Hebrew and wondered what these people now expected from their God. A change of heart from the Gestapo overseers? A change of policy from Berlin? The vanguard of the Russian advance? Prayers and hopes were the foolish machinations of minds that refused to accept reality. Reality was the leering, brutal faces of the gendarmes and Arrow Crossmen, the quiet approval and satisfaction of the German overseers, the crowd of hostile citizens of Sarospatak who’d come to see the back of their Jews. Reality was the box cars.

  Jozsef clasped Gabriella’s hand firmly and stuck closely to Katica and Elizabeth. It would be intolerable and the last straw for any of them to be separated now. He didn’t blame Gabriella for his capture; it had been his decision to wait and his fault that they’d waited so long to act. His only regret, one he felt deeply in his soul, was that he hadn’t been with his sons when the axe fell upon them.

  Gendarmes counted the front of the line up into sections like so many sausages. Seventy-five in this group, seventy-seven in that, each led to a box car and forced in under a barrage of threats. Signs on the sides of the box cars proclaimed the occupants to be ‘German Workers-Resettlers’ but few were prepared to believe them. As their turn approached, Jozsef took a last look at the town that had sheltered him and finally rejected him. He saw his replacement, his one-time underling Geza Apro, standing in front of his old office, staring at him as though deliberately trying to catch his eye. Geza turned and nodded almost imperceptibly towards the signal box
seventy metres down the track. Jozsef followed his look, puzzled. To his amazement, the semaphore arm dipped twice, slowly but quite deliberately. He stared hard at the window of the signal box, excitement and relief beginning to flood through every vein and artery in his body. Yes! Yes! There at the window, three signalmen where there should only be one! A godfather and his two godchildren!

  ‘Move! Move!’

  Jozsef heard the gendarmes but stood momentarily transfixed, filled with joy and pride. The angel of death hovered over him yet his back straightened and his chin rose in defiance. Eichmann was good but not good enough. His boys were better.

  Eventually the blind man broke the spell that had descended over the table. He reached over to where he knew Milos would be and patted him on the arm.

  ‘Let me get you a coffee, my friend. You have certainly earned one.’

  ‘Thank you, Ramon, but not yet.’ Milos ran his hand through his thinning hair wearily. ‘I haven’t quite finished.’

  ‘Not finished? I thought …’

  ‘I’m sorry if I gave that impression. It is my fault, no? I paused too long while I gathered my thoughts. I’ve talked too much. I’ve journeyed to places I left behind a long time ago and the effort has worn me out.’

  ‘Then leave it until next week,’ said Lucio. ‘The first part of any story is always the hardest, and this time clearly harder than most.’

  ‘No,’ said Milos, ‘I will finish now so I can have a clean start to next week’s episode. All I want to cover is how Tibor and Milos felt at seeing their father herded onto the train to Auschwitz.’