Lunch with the Stationmaster

by Derek Hansen

  They told us which hospital he was in, which ward and the visiting hours. In just one morning I’d found my Milos! I could not move from my chair. I’d found my Milos. Just like that! Tears flowed down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t stop smiling. Crying and smiling, that was all this foolish woman could do.

  The young woman took me back to my room so I could wash, change and make myself presentable. Now I was excited. Now I was impatient. My hand shook so much my new friend had to apply my lipstick for me. She came with me in a taxi to the hospital, walked with me to the ward and tactfully waited outside the door. I tiptoed inside. My Milos, my beautiful Milos, was asleep on the bed in front of me. After eight years my Milos had come back to life. My heart went out to him when I saw how pale he was and how thin. I was too scared to touch him, too frightened to wake him. I started crying again and, as I stood there my Milos opened his eyes.

  However long you know Milos, you will never see the smile that I saw that afternoon in Vienna. It was brighter than all the suns in the universe. No matter how long you live, you will never find two human beings more glad to see each other. I ran into his arms and we embraced each other, held each other and cried like babies. Ask me the happiest moment in my life and I will tell you: it was sitting on that hospital bed in Vienna. Not even the tragedy that followed can diminish it.

  Milos slowly released me so he could look again at my face and into my eyes. ‘Where’s Tibor?’ he asked.

  Of course Milos was distraught when he heard. He wanted to go back into Hungary to find Tibor and warn him. He shook uncontrollably at the thought of what Istvan Kiraly would do to Tibor if he captured him. Fortunately, Milos was still too weak to go anywhere and there was no way I would have let him go anyway. With the help of the Red Cross, we managed to put a call through to the station at Sarospatak to ask Geza Apro to find Tibor and tell him that Milos was already safe in Vienna. But Geza Apro was no longer stationmaster and Milos’s godfather, Mr Zelk, had retired. We asked if somebody could take a message to Aunt Klari but the answer was no. Nobody wanted to help us.

  Milos asked for and got the number of the AVO office in Sarospatak. His hands shook as he dialled, gave a false name and asked to speak to Major Kiraly. He was told Major Kiraly was out of the office on AVO business and to leave his number. Milos hung up and held his head in both hands. Istvan Kiraly had survived the revolution and returned to Sarospatak. We both knew what had taken him there: Milos’s broadcast. The goat had managed to slip its tether but had foolishly left a scent behind. That scent had lured Tibor into a trap.

  Milos and I should have been rejoicing at our reunion but instead all we could think of was Tibor and the terrible fate in store for him. A cloud settled over us as dark as any I have known. For five days I divided my time between Milos’s bedside and the telephone in my hotel room, willing it to ring. And then, on the night of the fifth day, when hope had all but faded, the telephone rang. It was Tibor. First Milos had come back from the dead, now Tibor.

  ‘Tibor!’ I screamed. ‘Where are you? Don’t go back to Sarospatak! Can you hear me? Milos is here! I have found him!’

  ‘You have found Milos?’

  The phone line crackled and Tibor’s voice was faint but even so I heard it rise with disbelief and delight. I told him how I had found Milos in the hospital, how he was recovering from pneumonia.

  ‘You found Milos. You found him.’ He kept repeating these words over and over as though savouring them, but there was also wonder in his voice that someone as useless as me had accomplished this miracle. I told him about ringing the AVO office in Sarospatak and discovering that Istvan Kiraly had set a trap for him.

  Tibor laughed. ‘When I arrived in Budapest I rang my friend in Sarospatak. You remember my friend? He has exchanged his horse and cart for a truck, a Skoda. He told me Istvan was back in Sarospatak and that plain clothes AVO were watching the trains. We both realised why.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ I asked.

  ‘Not over the phone, Gabi. I am safe, trust me. I will give you a number for Milos to ring.’ Tibor slowly recited the number while I jotted it down. ‘Tell Milos to ring me at ten tomorrow morning. That’s all for now.’

  ‘Don’t hang up!’

  ‘I have to go, Gabi. And Gabi …’ There was a long pause which should have told me something. ‘Take good care of my brother. Promise?’

  ‘Of course!’ But the phone had already begun buzzing as I made my promise. Tibor had hung up.

  My mind was awhirl with questions. What did Tibor mean when he told me to take care of Milos? Where was he? When was he coming back? And what would happen then? It was too late to rush to the hospital and tell Milos the news that Tibor was still alive. That, like my questions, had to wait until morning.

  I think it was learning that Tibor was still alive that finally drove the pneumonia from Milos’s body. It was the best medicine he could have had. He could not stop hugging me while we waited for the operators in Vienna to make the connection with the number Tibor had given me. Milos had so much to say, but when Tibor’s voice came on the crackling line it was Milos who did most of the listening. Sometimes it is possible to know what people are talking about just by listening to one person’s responses, but, with so little to go on, I learned nothing. At first there was joy and tears as they exchanged their first words for eight years, but then Milos’s face grew serious and he hardly uttered a word. The call ended before Milos was ready, exactly as it had done with me the night before. Milos stood stunned. I had to take the phone from him and replace it on its cradle.

  ‘He’s not coming back,’ said Milos, his voice barely a whisper.

  ‘What?’ Tibor not coming back? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘He’s decided to stay on with Benke and steal more trains.’

  My jaw dropped in disbelief.

  ‘He made me promise to look after you. “Look after your wife,” he said.’

  Look after your wife. My eyes filled with tears as I realised what Tibor had done. He’d given me back to Milos. He’d accepted responsibility for our separation and was now making amends in the only way possible. When had he made his decision? It had to have been while he was talking to me on the phone; once he’d learned Milos was safe and outside Hungary. The significance of his silence and the promise I’d made to him the night before suddenly became obvious. Tibor had realised that if he came back he would be an obstacle between Milos and me, an impediment to us taking up the life we’d been denied. But what a sacrifice! He’d cut himself off from the two people he loved most in the world and who loved him in return. And what would be the price of his magnanimity? I shuddered involuntarily. Tibor had been my husband, my friend and the mainstay of my life. I had to face the reality that I would never see him again.

  Milos took me in his arms. Undoubtedly, similar thoughts were going through his mind. Weeping, I consoled myself by remembering how anxious Tibor had been to return to Hungary and how, for all the freedom Australia had offered, he’d been unsettled there. Tibor was a man for a time and a place and, in truth, his place was not Sydney but Budapest.

  Tibor made no further attempt to contact us. That silence spoke volumes. I took the initiative and decided we should return immediately to Australia. Eight years ago Tibor had stolen Milos’s identity and now Milos took it back. He pretended to be Tibor pretending to be him. It made everything so simple. He applied for a new Australian passport on the basis that he’d lost his. Milos looked enough like his brother to pass himself off as a sick Tibor, and I had copies of Tibor’s ‘Milos’ signature for Milos to practise. The consulate did not hesitate to provide us with travel documents that would get us into Australia. After all, as far as they were concerned, Milos was an Australian citizen, had a house in Rose Bay and an Australian wife. Our papers said so and papers were unarguable. That was the part Milos liked best: he had an Australian wife and the wife was me.

  Tibor set us free to live our lives together. He never wrote
to us but he did keep in touch with Aunt Klari from time to time. Through Aunt Klari we learned that he’d returned to his old ways and was up to his old tricks. Sadly, and perhaps inevitably, it was also through Aunt Klari that four years on we learned of his death. Somebody had talked, or was blackmailed by the AVO into providing information. Tibor was ambushed unloading a train and, when the hopelessness of the situation became apparent, turned his own gun on himself. Aunt Klari and Andras read about it in their local newspaper. Andras claimed Tibor’s body and buried it at the back of the farmhouse. We drew comfort from the fact that Tibor never saw the inside of Andrassy Street or any prison. We drew comfort in knowing that he was never tortured and that, with his last act, he had denied Istvan Kiraly the revenge he craved.

  ‘I have known people like Tibor,’ said Ramon quietly. ‘People who must risk everything just to feel alive. Inevitably the time comes when they risk too much.’

  ‘Some of the partisans were like that,’ said Lucio. ‘They looked forward to skirmishes with German soldiers. My Aunt Colombina used to say they laughed in the face of danger. When the war ended they had nothing. Many of them turned to drink. Thank you both for your story. Thank you for sharing it with us and for letting us into your lives so intimately, especially since the telling was often so distressing. I feel privileged.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Ramon.

  ‘We haven’t finished,’ said Milos.

  ‘There is more?’

  ‘Yes, Ramon, there is more. I told you at the very beginning of my story that I had no jurisdiction over subject matter. I told you there was the matter of a debt to repay.’

  ‘Ahh, the debt.’

  ‘Gabriella insisted.’

  ‘And it is her debt?’

  ‘Yes, Ramon, it is Gabi’s debt and hers to repay. Perhaps we should let her get on with it, no?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Happy-ever-after endings are not confined to fiction, but in life they are sometimes a long time coming. When Milos and I returned to Sydney I tried my best to be the wife he had always imagined I’d be. We made a new start so that Milos could have his own life and not simply inherit Tibor’s. We sold the house at Rose Bay and all the furniture and moved to Bellevue Hill. I did my best to shed some of my baggage. I didn’t object when Milos refused to put bars on the windows or double locks on the doors. In those first few months, with Milos beside me, I was strong. His love made me strong. Of course he wondered why I ran and hid whenever we needed eggs broken. He laughed about it and asked why. But I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anyone about the eggs. Maybe if I had, things might have turned out differently. My inability to face up to my torments was a warning that I refused to acknowledge. I thought time would heal but it only brought periods of remission.

  Milos’s presence gave me strength but it was ridiculous to expect that he would be present every minute of every day thereafter. Nobody in this world is entitled to a free ride, no matter how deserving they may think they are. Milos, like Tibor, was amazed by the opportunities he saw. Coming from a land of deprivation to a land of plenty, he was astonished by the waste all around him. People abandoned cars which in Hungary would still have years left in them. They threw away tyres that still had tread. People threw away washing machines and sewing machines because they were considered too old or not worth repairing. They did the same with bicycles and prams. Milos was fascinated by this waste.

  ‘If people think it is rubbish,’ I told him, ‘then it is rubbish. Rubbish is rubbish.’

  ‘Rich people’s rubbish,’ he said. ‘Poor people’s treasure.’

  Milos started a business buying up old cars. He repaired those that could be repaired and uncovered a ready market for good cheap cars. The cars he couldn’t fix he stripped for parts and uncovered a ready market for cheap parts.

  ‘Even in a land of plenty there are poor,’ Milos said. He catered to the poor.

  After the car yards came bicycle repair shops and appliance repair shops. There was nothing he could not squeeze more life out of: washing machines, vacuum cleaners, heaters, you name it. Milos didn’t do the repairs himself. He lacked the knowledge and the skills. He gave the work to people who were desperate for it, almost always immigrants who had the skills but nothing else, often not even a good grasp of English. Milos made sure he covered his costs and made a small profit. He made lots of small profits and they all added up.

  But these were not businesses which ran at arm’s length. Most people worked a forty-hour week but Milos ridiculed the idea. ‘Only in a rich country,’ he said incredulously. He worked ten-hour days and a half-day on Saturdays. You can admire his determination and his work ethic, but it had the effect of leaving me where I least wanted to be. Alone.

  Milos was the pillar I clung to, but my pillar left me for ten hours a day and half a day on Saturdays. I tried to keep myself busy but there were too many empty hours and too many opportunities for memories to resurface. Once again I found refuge in my Vincents powders. The nightmares returned, more vivid than ever, as though invigorated by their time away. Once again I stood out in the cold in my prisoner’s striped uniform and heard my name called out. Once again I was burned alive in the ovens of Auschwitz. Once again Milos was shot and his body ripped apart by dogs. And through it all, through this nightmare, came the sound I dreaded most: the cracking of eggs. Where could I find consolation and relief but in my powders? I began to withdraw and for a while Milos, my precious guardian angel, was too busy to notice.

  Once Milos realised what was happening to me, he started spending more time at home. He learned to use his time more wisely and to conduct his business by telephone. We worked together to overcome my demons. Every morning when the sun beat down on the front of our house, he made me open the door and leave it open for one hour. The idea terrified me but, with Milos by my side, I could do it. If there was a problem at one of his yards and he had to go, I kept the door open and counted the minutes until the hour was up. Gradually we extended the hour to an hour and a half, then two hours. Sometimes I even managed to forget the door was open. We went out for walks every day. Milos insisted on it, whether it was sunny or raining. Once again Milos put himself between me and my fears.

  We made progress. We had good weeks, good months and, on balance, even good years. In a moment of inspiration, Milos got me two Hungarian housemaids. They came twice a week, down from the Blue Mountains by train. Such a long way to travel but they didn’t seem to mind. Their names were Martha and Maria but to me they were my Australian Aunt Klari and Aunt Jutka, and like my aunts they were as round as Russian dolls. They had come from a village near Apafa, almost due south of Sarospatak and near the border with Romania, but their lives had not been dissimilar to Aunt Klari’s. They worked hard and every summer we made preserves and jams from plums, apricots and peaches. Preserves and jams were cheap in the shops but we made them for the sheer pleasure of doing it. For days at a time, our home in Bellevue Hill became the Tokaj Street of my childhood. They helped me and Milos helped me. But all they were doing in reality was sustaining remission when what I needed was a cure.

  For almost thirty years we lived the myth that I was getting better. We were happy. But the truth was, I was dependent upon Milos, my two Ems — Martha and Maria — and my powders. I had survived Eichmann and escaped Soviet Hungary. I had come to a new country which took freedom for granted, but I was still not free. I was not free of my fears. One day Milos told me he was taking me to see a doctor. It was a new doctor, not our regular doctor, and for a long time I didn’t understand why Milos took me to see him. I went twice a week, every Monday and Wednesday morning for one hour. At first the hours were very pleasant. The doctor became my friend. He asked me about Hungary and I told him about my family and Tokaj Street. All we did was chat for an hour and then Milos took me home. This went on for months.

  ‘Why do I have to go there?’ I asked Milos. ‘Why do you take me there?’

  ‘Don’t you like g
oing?’ he replied.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What is not to like? My friend the doctor is a nice man. We chat. I do most of the talking and he does most of the listening.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘What’s not to trust?’

  ‘Good,’ said Milos. ‘One day your friend the doctor is going to set you free.’

  I believed Milos but I couldn’t see how my friend the doctor was ever going to set me free. All we did was talk about our Sunday lunches at Tokaj Street and the crush I had on Tibor. I talked about Aunt Klari and Aunt Jutka and how we made wonderful preserves. My friend the doctor always listened attentively and smiled and laughed. I looked forward to seeing him for my two hours a week. Then one day he asked me about the day they took my father away and the sun disappeared behind a cloud. It wasn’t long before the cloud darkened my sky and the storm burst. My happy hours with my friend the doctor became hours of pure hell.

  I would do anything rather than go to see the doctor. But Milos made me. Every Monday and Wednesday he dragged me kicking and screaming to the taxi and held me tight all the way there while I shook and cried. My friend the doctor asked me about the train that took me away, about Krakow station, about the camps and the selections. He asked me about Auschwitz and he asked me about Julia. Julia, for heaven’s sake! My friend from Theresienstadt. I had tried not to think about her for years. He prised open all the doors in my mind and dragged out the pain. But even then there were things I could not tell him, things I was not able to face. I told him about the Russians who raped me, and how I had learned that I was the only member of my family to survive. I told him about my guilt for surviving when there were others so much more worthy. I told him so many things, but I could not tell him everything, and I certainly could not tell him about the cracking of the eggs. One day, about four years ago, he gave me a boiled egg and a spoon.

  ‘Crack it open,’ he said. ‘Crack open the egg.’