by Derek Hansen
From her aisle seat Gabriella couldn’t see much through the windows, but others could and cried out the names of stations as they passed by, each one a friendly reassuring sound and another step closer to home. Refugees wept to be back among their own people where their language didn’t occasion scorn. Somebody started to sing the Himnusz, Hungary’s doleful national anthem, and the entire carriage including Gabriella joined in. In her heart she was still Hungarian, whether her troubled country wanted her or not. They were all Hungarians, weeping now for joy at being returned to their homeland. Hungarians first, Jews and gypsies second. While everyone was singing Gabriella looked around and understood what it was they were really weeping for. They were weeping for what had been lost.
Gabriella slowly came to the realisation that when she’d left the prison camp months earlier and begun walking home, she was heading for a place that didn’t exist any more, except in her memory. She’d been walking back to 1940, when she still had a father and mother, brother and sister, and a wonderful home in Tokaj Street. All about her, people were singing and weeping and asking themselves the same question: ‘What do I have now?’
What do I have now? she asked herself. No father, probably no mother, maybe a sister and, by some miracle, maybe a brother. Did she have a home? If she did, there would be no warmth in it, no sunlight, no beef goulash on the stove, no sizzling pork chops, no roast chicken thighs, nothing. Unless she did still have a mother, brother or sister and one of them had miraculously beaten her home. But in her heart she knew Elizabeth had been too sick to escape the gas. She had been to Auschwitz, had seen the selections, how few were called out of line, had seen the chimneys smoking all day and all night. Why would the Germans keep alive a sick girl with diarrhoea when there were others who were healthy? She knew there was little hope for Balazs too. There had been little hope even before the Germans had come and taken her away. In the space of one song Gabriella had asked herself what she had and found the answer. Nothing. She had nothing. She’d survived for nothing. That was why she cried now, why they all cried.
When the train pulled into Budapest, Gabriella had to be carried off. The realisation that her survival had served no purpose had drained her of the last of her energy and robbed her of the will to go on. She spent two weeks in a hostel for homecoming refugees, where she was kept fed and warm and looked after by compassionate Hungarians who weren’t Jews and who worked hard. They were the good Hungarians whom no one could find during the war, and there were many of them. They worked off their shame by comforting, nursing and consoling Gabriella, but nothing they did could bridge the chasm of her loss. Gabriella retreated into a shell they could not crack. But she was just one lost soul among thousands and compassion had to be shared among many. When she was strong enough they put the little zombie back on the train, this time to Sarospatak.
Sarospatak. Gabriella no longer knew why she was returning there, only that it was journey’s end. Sarospatak was her finishing line, the place where her struggles would be over. It was a target, an objective. She believed that if she made it home to Sarospatak then she would have survived and therefore would be allowed to die. The train emptied the further east she travelled. By the time they reached Miskolc there were just six refugees remaining in the once crowded carriage. Six husks, drained of hope and tears. When the train finally pulled into Sarospatak station, Gabriella was reluctant to get off. From the moment she’d been taken from her home, her life had been dedicated to returning and now she had returned. There was nothing left for her, neither purpose nor incentive. She was the only person in her carriage to disembark. Those remaining went on to Satoraljaujhely.
Once again Gabriella stood alone on a railway platform, this time a stranger in her own town. She sat down on the ground, collapsed really, lacking the strength or will to take one step further. People walked around her to board the train or to reach the exit. She was the piece of dog shit on the footpath that everyone avoided. She sat there with her tattered bag, mumbling incoherently. On the handle was a label with her name and destination.
Gabriella’s presence was an embarrassment and an indictment. A railwayman came and tried to lift her to her feet but she resisted and instead lay down with her head on the platform. He gave up. Gabriella closed her eyes, deciding that now would be a good time to die. She had crossed her finishing line, she had beaten Eichmann, the SS, the Arrow Cross and Auschwitz. The little Jewish bag of bones had won. She drifted off to sleep or death, not caring which.
Milos waited by the exit to the station where it was easy to scan the faces of the arrivals. He did this every day a train was due from the west. Each train brought new disappointment and with each disappointment he became more convinced that his brother was right. He was wasting his time. Every morning and afternoon he walked to the town hall to check the growing lists of those who had perished in the concentration camps. Each time he feared finding his father’s or Gabriella’s name written there, was relieved not to find them but dismayed to see so many others, many of them familiar. He could not shake the increasing feeling of dread that each passing day brought him closer to the moment when he would see written there the two names he didn’t want to read.
Today he waited outside the station with little hope or expectation. Occasionally a Sarospatak Jew had returned but there had been so few. He was about to leave when he noticed Geza Apro coming towards him. Sometimes the stationmaster invited him in for a coffee, a treat Milos never refused.
‘You might be able to help me,’ said Geza. ‘There’s this girl off the train, a returning Jew. She’s too small to be the one you’re looking for. Your Gabriella would be sixteen, right?’
‘Same age as me,’ said Milos.
‘Could you have a word with her anyway? She’s lying down on the platform and refuses to move. I don’t want to be unsympathetic but she can’t stay there.’
‘I’ll speak to her.’
‘Thanks. I’ll put the coffee on.’
Milos went onto the platform wondering who the girl could be, whether he would know her. At first glance she appeared to be just a bundle of rags. Any faint hope that the girl might be Gabriella vanished. The figure was just too small. He walked towards her, trying to think what he could say that would make the girl want to get to her feet. And if she did, where would he take her, what would he do with her?
As he drew closer he noticed she had a bag and that a tattered book was protruding from it. The girl was turned away from him so he couldn’t see her face. It occurred to him that the book must be very precious to her since she’d clung to it throughout all the appalling things that must have happened to her. Perhaps talking about the book might be a way of getting through to her.
He was ten paces away when a cold shiver ran through his body, as sudden and sharp as an electric current. He thought he recognised the book’s cover, battered and worn as it was. Surely there couldn’t be two of them? Surely not. Five paces closer and he was certain. He didn’t have to read the title or the author’s name. The important thing was that he knew whose name was inside the book and who had written the sentiments preceding it.
He knew what the bundle of rags contained. His heart began pounding. It had to be her, had to be, yet she was so tiny.
‘Gabi?’ he said tentatively. He placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘Gabi?’
Gabriella was on the brink of unconsciousness when she heard a voice say her name. She thought it was an angel calling to her, that she’d died and the sweet voice was calling her to heaven. Suddenly she realised she recognised the voice of the angel. Her fogged mind struggled to grasp the significance. The angel called her name again, so beautiful to hear, and asked her to open her eyes. So she opened her eyes, saw her angel and heard her voice say his name.
‘Milos?’
‘Yes, Gabi. It’s me, Milos.’
He gently stroked her forehead, almost fearful in case she shattered at his touch. Her once beautiful hair was thin and patchy, no more than two centi
metres long. Her once beautiful face was grey and gaunt. Her beautiful lips were thin and without colour. She was tattered and worn like the cover of her book but there was no mistaking her. His Gabi had come home. She had survived! Every night in bed Milos had pictured their reunion as a moment of unrestrained joy and love. Not for an instant had he pictured this. He wanted to hug her but feared she might break, wanted to hold her and kiss her but feared denying her breath. He wanted to sing but it was all he could do not to cry.
‘Milos, are we dead?’
‘No, Gabi, we’re not dead.’
‘We’re not dead?’
‘No, Gabi.’
‘Not dead. Then take me home. Please, Milos, take me home.’
‘Would you like a break?’ said Ramon, interrupting the silence. He couldn’t see Milos staring unblinking at his coffee cup, lost in his memories, but guessed what had happened.
‘Milos?’ said Lucio.
‘What?’ Milos started as though suddenly awakened. He smiled weakly. ‘Forgive me. It was so long ago. Suddenly I was recalling details I thought I’d forgotten. The sun was in my eyes so I couldn’t see Gabi on the platform at first, I had to shade them with my hand. Swifts were darting above her chasing insects. There was a haze, a late-afternoon golden haze. I paid more attention to the birds than the bundle on the platform. I never thought it was her, not until I saw the book.’
‘What if you hadn’t been there?’ said Neil. ‘Would Gabi have given up and died?’
‘Would I have died?’ said Gabriella. ‘The correct question is, would I have wanted to live?’
‘But I was there,’ said Milos. ‘The question is academic.’
‘Yes, you were there,’ said Gabriella. She let go of Neil’s arm, which she had been clinging to ever since the resumption of the story, and put her arms around Milos. ‘After all that had happened, you were there. Nothing else mattered.’
‘Nothing else mattered!’ said Neil. ‘What about the Russian soldiers? How can you dismiss the terrible things they did to you so easily?’
‘Milos, look at his arms! Look how he is flexing his arms. Like a Rottweiler’s, Milos says my grip is. Like a Rottweiler’s. I am sorry, Neil. You should have said something.’
‘Gabi, any time you want to hold onto my arm you go ahead,’ said Neil graciously. ‘There is no need to apologise. Now, what about the Russian soldiers? Can you really just dismiss what they did as though it never happened?’
‘It was inconsequential, Neil. Inconsequential to them, inconsequential to me. They satisfied my appetite, I satisfied theirs. That’s all there was to it. It is not as though I was the only one the Russians raped. I admit there are times when I wonder how I could have been so inconsequential, how I could have meant so little to them. I wonder how could they do such a thing to a child and be so indifferent. But mostly these days I find myself wondering how they could have got pleasure from such a scrawny bag of bones. There is the mystery. You know, when I was young I had always believed there was a God who looked after little children in distress. But he was nowhere, this God of little children. Throughout the war, he was nowhere when he was needed.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Milos gently. ‘It’s time for me to continue my story. I have not quite finished for the day. We have a schedule, no?’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Milos picked up Gabriella’s bag, slipped his arms beneath her and gently lifted her up. Gabi was smiling but her smile was a travesty, vague, unfocused and undirected. She weighed so little, so heartbreakingly little. As he carried her towards the exit Geza Apro intercepted him, a cup of coffee in each hand.
‘She is Gabriella Horvath?’
Milos nodded, not trusting his voice.
The stationmaster’s jaw dropped in astonishment. ‘No! But she’s so small. I’m sorry, Milos, I didn’t realise. Where will you take her?’
‘She has an aunt on the other side of the river.’
‘Milos, you can’t carry her all that way. Maybe she needs a doctor.’
‘She needs love, Geza, food and a home. That’s all she needs.’
Milos walked out onto the street. Passers-by avoided them, avoided even looking at them. So many Jews had been taken away yet so few had returned. Gabriella reminded them of their shame. Milos stood by the kerb, uncertain how to proceed. Gabriella was falling asleep, the dazed smile still fixed on her face as though painted there. Geza was right. The little she weighed was still too much to carry all the way to the other side of the Bodrog. Milos was considering his options when a horse-drawn cart pulled up in front of him.
‘What have you there, little brother?’
Milos jumped. He stared up at the driver, recognising neither the man nor his voice.
‘You forget your friends, little brother. Tibor never did.’
Milos stared at the driver as memories slowly awakened. He had seen the face only once before and then by the light of a flickering oil lamp. The man had been holding a pistol. He had sheltered Tibor and him a lifetime ago and taken half of their bacon bones as payment. The man on the cart smiled indulgently.
‘Your brother is very loyal to his friends. When you see him, tell him I appreciate his business.’
‘Do you still live across the river?’ asked Milos.
‘Just tell me where you want to go.’ He jumped down from the cart and helped Milos lift Gabriella up onto the seat. ‘It is your good fortune that I was passing by.’
‘Wake up, Gabi, you must sit.’
‘Milos?’ Gabriella opened her eyes briefly. She snuggled up against him, rested her head on his shoulder and slipped back into sleep. The driver shook the reins and the horse slowly pulled the cart away from the station.
‘This is very kind of you,’ said Milos.
‘Kind!’ The driver snorted. ‘Little brother, you live in a strange world. Tibor asked me to keep an eye out for you in case the girl returned. When Tibor asks me to do something for him, I don’t argue.’
The old horse was slow and tired but the driver was in no hurry. They plodded along the streets, across the bridge and out into the countryside, finally turning down the cart track that led to Aunt Klari’s. The late-afternoon sun had painted the underbelly of the clouds red and pink as it slid towards the horizon and a cool breeze had sprung up. Milos couldn’t help thinking back to a year earlier, when Aunt Klari had escorted Tibor and him home from the church and the world had been a fearful place. He’d come so far to be back where his odyssey had begun. It felt like an ending yet he knew it could only be another beginning. But the beginning of what?
Gabriella had lost her mother but she found a substitute in Aunt Klari. She’d lost her father but found another in the taciturn Andras, Aunt Klari’s husband. She’d lost her home but found somewhere almost as welcoming in the little cottage. The peasant woman wept for joy that one of her girls had come back. The vine-covered mud cottage was small and basic but it did have a second bedroom which instantly became Gabriella’s. Aunt Klari bathed her, spoon-fed her chicken soup with galuszka tasty little dumplings, and tucked her into bed. Milos sat with Gabriella, holding her hand until she slid gently into sleep, still smiling.
‘Thank you for bringing Gabi back to me,’ said Aunt Klari.
Milos had joined them at the table where there was a place set for him. Aunt Klari shared the remaining chicken soup and dumplings between him and Andras, keeping only a little for herself.
‘We are all she has,’ said Milos.
‘Don’t say that!’ said Aunt Klari. ‘If Gabi can come home, so can Mrs Horvath and Elizabeth.’
Milos let the silence hang before replying, ‘I will keep going to the town hall and to the station. I am still waiting for my father.’
‘Where are you living?’ asked Aunt Klari.
‘I rent a room near the station.’
‘What do you do for money?’
‘I brought some from Budapest.’ He hunched his shoulders resignedly. ‘Soon I will have to find work.’
‘What will you do? Will you go back to Budapest?’
Milos smiled. It had been a long time since anybody had worried about him. He liked being the object of Aunt Klari’s concern. It reminded him of his Sundays at Tokaj Street with Aunt Katica fussing over him. But the mention of Budapest cast a shadow. His brother had become a stranger and Milos did not want any part of the life he’d chosen. He thought of Gabriella sleeping a few metres away and his brother’s claim on her. He shuddered involuntarily. What if she still loved Tibor? Gabriella had also lost a brother and he dreaded the thought that all he might ever be to her was a substitute for Balazs. That would be more than he could bear. He became aware of Aunt Klari and Andras waiting for an answer.
‘No, not Budapest. Maybe someone in the railway can help me. Maybe Geza Apro or my godparents.’ Even as he uttered the words Milos realised he was clutching at straws. It wasn’t just a bed for a night he wanted but something more permanent. And not just a bed but food as well, when the entire population was struggling to feed themselves.
‘The boy stays here,’ said Andras. ‘There is a loft in the barn. With work it can be made habitable.’
‘No, you’ve done enough for me already,’ said Milos hastily. He was well aware that his dinner had been intended for Aunt Klari and that he’d virtually taken it from her mouth. Life was hard enough for them and now they had Gabriella to care for. He was reluctant to add to their burden. But the prospect of staying at the farm with Gabriella made him suddenly dizzy. It was something he’d never considered, a possibility so remote and so wonderful that the idea had not once entered his head.
