Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  Milos laughed politely. His father had told him a similar story when they’d first arrived in Sarospatak and he’d heard variations on it ever since. He thanked the shopkeeper and set off for the old glass studio, but held out little hope. His path took him past the Jewish cemetery which was already overgrown and in a state of disrepair. Who was left to tend it? He walked on, remembering everything that Tibor had told him about the deportations and trying to put it out of his mind. But the cemetery and the Jewish names on the doors of closed shops and businesses were a constant reminder.

  By the time he’d crossed the river he was regretting the fact that he hadn’t brought a drink with him. When he left Sarospatak he’d thought finding jars would be easy; it had never crossed his mind that he’d spend the day fruitlessly pounding pavements. As he drew closer to the border with Czechoslovakia his hopes diminished. There was evidence everywhere of the fierce fire fight that had taken place when the Germans tried to repel the advancing Russians. Craters in the roadway had been filled in but nobody had done much to repair the bombed-out buildings. What chance did a glass studio have amid so much destruction?

  Milos made the right turn and began walking down a street where few buildings had been spared. The old shopkeeper hadn’t given him a street number, so he searched for the name. Milos checked each doorway, constantly criss-crossing the road. Finally he found ‘Levy Glass’ written on a faded sign but the discovery brought only despair. The front of the building was little more than a doorway, a shell of what had once been showrooms and offices. Milos pushed forlornly at the door; to his surprise, it yielded. He looked around for somewhere shady to sit and catch his breath before the long walk back to the station, somewhere that hadn’t been charred. The first thing that struck him was that the ruins were unlike many of the others: they’d been cleared of debris and made tidy. There was nowhere to sit.

  Frustrated, Milos advanced into the wrecked building and was rewarded by the sight of broad stone steps leading up to a double door. The top three or four steps were in shade and, as far as Milos could tell, clean, as though someone had swept them. But who? And why? Milos slumped down on the top step and leaned against the door. His eyes were heavy and he was looking forward to a rest before trudging back to the station. Unexpectedly, the door gave under his weight. The hinges creaked loudly.

  ‘Hello?’

  Milos jumped to his feet. ‘Hello?’ he called back, peering through the doorway.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness within and another few moments to appreciate the reason for the gloom. Miraculously, the roof over the rear of the building was still intact. In front of him was a pile of boxes and crates, some on their side so Milos could see they were empty.

  ‘Hello?’ he called again.

  ‘Come in,’ said the voice. ‘But whatever you want, we are closed.’

  ‘Mr Levy?’ said Milos.

  ‘Yes, I am Levy.’

  Milos heard the dull ring of tools being placed down on metal and the sound of footsteps on the bare timber floor. The gaunt frame of a man appeared from behind the stack of boxes.

  ‘I am Levy,’ he repeated, ‘Benjamin Levy. Who are you?’

  ‘Milos Heyman from Sarospatak.’

  ‘Milos Heyman from Sarospatak,’ the man repeated. He walked right up to Milos, adjusted his glasses and peered intently into his face. ‘Tell me, Milos Heyman from Sarospatak, where were you?’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Theresienstadt, Mauthausen, Belsen?’

  ‘None. I fled.’

  ‘You fled?’

  ‘My brother and I. Behind the back of God until we met up with the Russian army.’

  ‘I should have fled. I should have fled with my family.’

  ‘Yes, you should have. Where were you, Mr Levy?’

  ‘Auschwitz. I lived.’

  Milos nodded. There was nothing to add.

  ‘Now, what are you doing here, Milos Heyman from Sarospatak?’

  ‘I need glass preserving jars. One thousand, maybe fifteen hundred.’

  ‘And you come to me?’

  ‘There is no one else.’

  ‘Why me? You have heard that Levy makes preserving jars?’

  ‘No, art glass.’

  ‘And do you know what art glass is?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Not really. So. My studio was famous throughout Europe, first for my art nouveau glass then for my art deco glass. I was very famous for my art deco. I was never famous for jars.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Milos.

  ‘Don’t be. The world needs jars now, not art. Come.’

  Benjamin Levy led Milos around the stack of empty boxes and crates, past a line of machines which were little more than large masses in the gloom, to a tiny room where the curtains were drawn back from the window and sunlight flooded in. A narrow bench and cupboards covered the far end and a table with six chairs crowded what space remained.

  ‘Coffee, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Milos.

  ‘Jars?’ said Benjamin Levy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You saw the machines?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They were to be our future, our leap into multiple production. Limited editions. The market for originals was becoming too exclusive, too expensive. We thought we could also do limited runs of good, simple designs and sell them in Britain and America.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The war is what happened. When the machines arrived we had no room so we put them in storage. Nobody knew about them when they seized my business. These machines are all I have now. They are all I came home to. No wife, no family, just machines.’

  ‘Do they work, these machines?’

  ‘Almost. I have sugar. You want sugar?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Before Auschwitz I took one spoonful of sugar. After Auschwitz I take two. It is fair, no?’

  Milos smiled.

  ‘There. Drink your coffee and we will discuss jars.’

  ‘Can you make them?’

  ‘I have glass in the Louvre. I have glass in museums in America. You ask can I make jars?’

  ‘Can you make them by July?’

  ‘Yes, Milos Heyman from Sarospatak, I can make by July.’

  ‘Lids?’

  ‘I have a friend makes lids.’

  Milos sat and drank his coffee and told Benjamin Levy of his plans. He told him about Tibor and their contacts in the railway. They discussed cost and deadlines and how things were before Eichmann came. Finally, Benjamin Levy walked Milos to the door.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Levy,’ said Milos and shook his new friend’s hand.

  ‘Thank you, Milos Heyman from Sarospatak. Thank you for thinking of me.’ The man’s eyes sparkled. ‘Levy is back in business.’

  From mid-July and into the first week of August, Milos’s ten kitchens sweltered under the heat of summer and stoves running hot. Aunts Klari and Jutka each produced two hundred and fifty jars of preserves, with the balance of one thousand spread among the remaining kitchens. Gabriella worked her heart out, relishing the smells and the industry which reminded her of happier times. For the entire duration of the bottling her nightmares stayed away.

  Milos supervised the crating and paid off eight of the kitchens with cash from his pig sales. Only the aunts remained to be paid and Milos had invited them to share in the proceeds. Then, with Tibor’s usual forged documentation, he despatched the entire consignment to Budapest. On his way home, he bought a bottle of Tokaj wine to celebrate. Later, when Gabi asked Aunt Klari and Andras to raise their glasses in his honour, he genuinely believed he was a hero in her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Tibor was a criminal but to some he was also a patriot. When the liberating Russian army first drove into Hungary the soldiers raped the women. Later they raped the country. Zabra was the word they used, which Hungarians quickly translated as ‘give’. The Russians
would point to a watch on someone’s arm and say ‘zabra’. Maybe zabra was a Russian word for spoils of war, but the result was the same: whatever was zabra they took. They took bread from the arms of mothers who had queued for hours if not days. They took everything the Germans left behind. Watches, clocks, radios, gramophones, reading glasses, vases, kettles, household tools and anything else they fancied. They took wheat from the fields, coal from the mines and robbed the country of its industrial heart.

  The Russians stole mercilessly from the Hungarian people. Tibor stole from the Russians and, in partnership with Vilagosi, sold his booty back to the people. Of course he was motivated by profit. But to a population stripped of everything but pride, his exploits also made him a patriot.

  When the Russians appropriated all the leather from the tanneries that had managed to reopen, Tibor stole back enough to keep at least some shoemakers in business. When the Russians appropriated all the output from the textile mills, Tibor stole back enough to keep some clothing factories operating. Jobs, businesses and the fabric of commerce were sustained by the activities of Tibor, Vilagosi and their rivals, but it was Tibor who caught people’s imagination because of his youth and his daring.

  When the Russians decided to seize the stockpile of high-grade black coal from the mines of Komlo, they made a point of weighing each load and double-checking the number of coal wagons in each train. Tibor’s solution was simple: he arranged for an extra train to pull up for loading. The Russians dutifully weighed the load and counted the wagons. But while the other trains headed east, Tibor’s turned westward. By the time the Russians figured out that they’d loaded an extra train it was too late. Stealing trains became Tibor’s trademark.

  Vilagosi’s empire expanded but he was wise enough to cut his opposition in on the deals. In truth he had little choice. Entire trainloads of coal or grain were too much for any one organisation to handle. He kept forty per cent of every load and sold the remaining sixty per cent in equal quantities to the four opposition gangs, leaving them free to price and distribute in their own territories.

  The trade was so lucrative that the opposition went along with the deal and, for a while at least, Tibor’s successes on the railways caused a fragile détente between the rival gangs. But as Vilagosi’s organisation grew more powerful, jealousy and old enmities began to surface. It was clear to everyone that control of the railways could ultimately lead to control of crime in Budapest and, from there, all of Hungary.

  Tibor was planning the hijack of a train loaded with brown coal when a panicked Pal Szarbo burst into his Ferenciek Street apartment.

  ‘They got Imre!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was machine-gunned getting out of his car outside Gundel’s restaurant.’

  At that instant Tibor realised he was the heir to Vilagosi’s organisation, not Pal Szarbo. Vilagosi’s lieutenant should have taken charge, should be telling him what to do, not asking. Tibor seized the initiative. Pal Szarbo was used to taking orders. Tibor decided to give them.

  ‘Was it police or opposition?’

  ‘Opposition.’

  ‘Then we must strike back immediately if our organisation is to survive. I want hand grenades thrown into the homes of all our competitors. If we don’t know their homes, bomb their warehouses or offices. Bomb their bars, bomb their cars. Make certain every one of our opposition gets hit. Do it now and keep it up for two days. Keep our men active and constantly on the move. Deprive them of any opportunity to make private arrangements with anyone else. I’ll set up a command centre in the bakery in Kobanya. Do it!’

  Tibor sent messages to all the apartments he maintained telling his housekeepers to disappear for a week. In all the turmoil he had to expect that some of his organisation’s foot soldiers would be turned and persuaded to reveal his hideouts. He summoned his driver and set out immediately for Kobanya. His mind raced as he tried to guess which of the opposition bosses was behind the assassination and what other moves he had planned. He expected raids on his warehouses but not all the warehouses were known. The organisation’s cell structure made certain that nobody other than trusted leaders knew the whereabouts of more than half of their warehouses at any time. The organisation would survive provided its foot soldiers survived. Provided they took the initiative. Provided he survived.

  For two days, during which he barely slept, Tibor orchestrated the gang warfare which exploded onto the streets of Budapest. His men hit hard and often. On the third day, when he felt he’d convinced his rivals that his organisation was nobody’s easy pickings, he sent emissaries to each of the gang leaders informing them that the Vilagosi organisation was under his control. His offer of a truce, sweetened by a proposal to increase their share of the coal and grain to twenty per cent, was readily accepted.

  His sources confirmed that the gang leader Mihaly Pfiel was behind the hit on Imre Vilagosi but Tibor was quick to suppress any suggestions of retaliation. A strike on Pfiel would only re-ignite the gang war. Besides, Pfiel had only done what the other gang leaders had been contemplating. His mistake had been in thinking the strength and resilience of the organisation resided exclusively in Vilagosi. Pfiel’s assessment of Pal Szarbo had been correct in that the second-in-command hadn’t been ready to assume command; he had, however, failed to take Tibor into his calculations. For that, the other bosses held him responsible for the warfare that had erupted.

  Tibor’s main problem centred on Pal Szarbo. Once order was restored, Vilagosi’s former lieutenant began pressing his claim for leadership, or at least a greater say in how the organisation was run.

  ‘You had your chance and you failed to take it,’ said Tibor bluntly. ‘However, that is not to say all your options are exhausted.’

  The two men sat at the table in the Ferenciek Street apartment, eating a meal of pork fried by Tibor’s housekeeper, Eva, but provided by Milos. Pal Szarbo was a problem Tibor had thought about endlessly from the moment the truce had been accepted. Conventional wisdom required him to get rid of Pal Szarbo before Pal Szarbo got rid of him. There was no room for rivalry at the head of any organisation. Tibor could not function if every day also brought the probability of a coup. He needed a lieutenant he could trust completely and a man who believed he’d been deprived of his right to assume control was hardly the ideal candidate.

  Yet they needed each other. Tibor was still too young to command unquestioning loyalty and obedience from the hard men who were his section leaders and the men beneath them. Once his men started drifting away to other organisations he was finished. Pal Szarbo had the men’s respect yet he lacked the ability to take ultimate command or to plan and develop their operations.

  ‘What do you propose?’ asked Pal Szarbo.

  ‘We each have our strengths,’ said Tibor. ‘Imre Vilagosi was sharp enough to see that mine is in planning. Yours, on the other hand, is in commanding the men.’

  ‘I won’t be your lieutenant,’ said Pal Szarbo contemptuously.

  ‘But will you be my partner?’

  Pal Szarbo’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Fifty-fifty,’ said Tibor. ‘Joint leaders.’

  ‘How will that work?’ Pal Szarbo’s eyes were filled with suspicion, but the prospect of being joint leader had clearly struck a chord.

  ‘We each work to our strengths. Imre was responsible for planning; I will take over his role. While you are in every respect equal leader, you will continue to function as the second-in-command. That is your strength.’

  ‘If I am second-in-command it means you are first-in-command,’ snapped Pal Szarbo.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Tibor. ‘We are joint commanders with the proviso that you are also acting second-in-command. We have no choice. That is the command structure that works. I can’t do your job and you can’t do mine. You demonstrated that when you came to me when Imre was hit.’

  ‘I was caught off guard. I wasn’t thinking clearly.’

  ‘That is a luxury a leader cannot afford.’ />
  Pal Szarbo seethed quietly.

  ‘We make it clear that we are joint leaders?’

  ‘As clear as you like.’

  ‘And we split the proceeds down the middle?’

  ‘Fifty-fifty.’

  ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘No,’ said Tibor, ‘you give it your all. You commit yourself one hundred per cent and you commit yourself now! This has to be what you want, the best solution. There can be no regrets later or resentments. I will give you total loyalty and support and I insist on nothing less in exchange.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘You won’t leave this table alive.’

  Tibor’s driver appeared in the doorway with a pistol tucked under his belt.

  ‘You grow more like Vilagosi by the minute,’ said Pal Szarbo dryly. He offered Tibor his hand.

  Through the rest of 1946 and the best part of 1947, Tibor effectively ran what had been Vilagosi’s organisation. He was careful to keep in the background in deference to Pal Szarbo, but nobody was in any doubt as to who was in command and who was lieutenant. The organisation prospered and Tibor began to amass wealth he’d never imagined possible. But he was a realist and understood that he only got away with doing what he did because of the post-war turmoil. The Russians’ primary interest was in gaining political control of Hungary, from which everything else would flow. Centralised food production and distribution and state control of factories and banks was only a matter of time. He could see the heavy hand of the Soviets robbing the country blind, turning Hungary into a workshop for Russia and the population into little more than slaves. There would still be a place for him and his kind in the new order, but it would be a very dangerous place. Every day the AVO’s network of spies and informers spread further and penetrated deeper.

  Originally, his ambition had been to extract himself from day to day management by delegating more responsibility to Pal Szarbo. While his partner’s courage was beyond question, there were still doubts about his ability to plan and recognise opportunities. Basically, Pal Szarbo lacked the necessary cunning and insight. All the while, alliances and allegiances were being put under increasing pressure from offers of cash to threats of blackmail. Nobody could be trusted.