I get to my feet and start to say, “Excuse me, but—”
She doesn’t let me finish. “Do you know her?”
“That’s just it: I don’t know her, but—”
“But what?”
She towers over me. Strangely, her face is not as severe as her voice. I hardly know what to say. I’m rescued by the doctor’s arrival. She doesn’t seem surprised to find me there, nor to see the patient sitting on the floor. To the nurse, she says calmly, “That’s all, Marie. Everything’s all right. I’ll take care of it. Let’s get her back in bed.”
I make a move to help, but one look from the nurse stops me. The patient, back in bed, opens her mouth as if to cry out, then immediately closes it. The doctor draws the covers over her with hands that are confident but gentle, while murmuring, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. There’s nothing to fear.”
Again the patient opens her mouth but does not speak.
In the hall, I ask the doctor, “Why do you think she’s afraid?”
“Because she knows.”
“She knows what?”
“That she’s going to cross the threshold.”
“She told you that?”
“I know it without her telling me. It’s my job to know.”
We walk out to the garden. Night has fallen. Seated on the same bench as before, we look up at the stormy sky. It’s going to rain.
“Why did you come back here? It’s quite unusual for someone to visit a patient he doesn’t know three times in a single day.”
“Indeed. But there are moments when I have this curious, almost painful feeling that she isn’t a stranger to me.”
“You think you met her before?”
I look at the doctor in the shadowy light. Does she think I might once have had an affair with this woman? Might she be right? Anxiously, I search my memory. I haven’t had many women. One-night stands, yes, quickly entered into and even more quickly, by mutual consent, forgotten. One night in Brussels, I was initiated into novel byways of love by a tourist who was several years older than I. Her name? She refused to tell me, saying only, “Just call me Désirée.” Désirée vanished the next day. A journalist, in a hotel somewhere east of Suez, while we were making love, kept asking me about celebrities featured on page one in the newspapers. She left on assignment that same day. Which among them might have ended up in this hospital? None of them spoke Hungarian. So then, who is this old woman? What part might she have played in my life? Meanwhile, the doctor was evidently mulling over the same questions.
“The first time I saw you with her,” she said, “I had a sense that you knew her.”
“So did I.”
“You have to admit it’s bizarre.”
“I still have that feeling.”
“You’ll have to search your memory.”
“I am searching.”
“Would you like me to help? I’m a psychiatrist, after all.”
“I don’t know where to begin. Her face is disfigured, her memory is gone, and she’s oblivious to what’s around her. How, therefore, am I to find the clues that will lead my thoughts to a known place?”
“Yet, from a strictly medical viewpoint, there’s no indication of mental illness. No senility or Parkinson’s. It was her body that was so injured. You must have been told about it.”
“No, they just said it was an accident.”
“Yes, an automobile accident.”
Again I notice, as I did earlier in the day, that there is something poignant, something attractive, in the solemnity with which this woman expresses herself. Yes, if I were younger, I’d know what to say to her. Indeed, the next novel I sell to Georges Lebrun could be about the many challenges an old man faces; about all the ways he is doomed to failure. I would rage against his inevitable defeats: all those women he will no longer be able to seduce; all the voyages he will no longer undertake; all these projects that will fail or be abandoned. I’d recount his sterile dreams, the ways he’s found wanting, his complexes—in a word, his impotence. The famous French novelist would know how to make it a best seller. But where would I find the time for it?
“And you?” the doctor asks me. “What are you afraid of?”
“Who says I’m afraid?”
“Again, it’s my job to know such things.”
“I’m not your patient.”
“That doesn’t keep me from noticing,” she says, then adds after a moment’s silence, “and wanting to help you.”
The first raindrops fall, heralding the storm.
“I fear for the woman up there,” I say.
“Is that all?”
“No. I’m also afraid of her.”
“Although you don’t even know her?”
“Maybe I knew her. And maybe she knows things about me that I myself don’t know. Things about me or that concern me. That’s what scares . . . but . . . that’s not all.”
“What else is there? Go ahead. You can trust me.”
“I’m also afraid of you.”
“Of me? Afraid of me? How can I be a menace to you?”
“You threaten my freedom.”
She smiles, and I like her smile. “I take that as a compliment. Am I mistaken?”
“It’s a compliment.”
I take her hand; she does not withdraw it. I love the warmth that comes over me. At once I feel blessed.
“I want to ask something of you,” she says suddenly.
“Just say the word.”
“I’d like you to tell me another story.”
I look at her in surprise. Odd request, a story, at this time, when an old woman nearby is about to meet her death.
“How do you know that I like stories?”
“You tell them so well, and your life is full of stories. Besides, your being here is part of a story, isn’t it?”
“Would you prefer a beautiful story or a sad one?”
“Sad stories are the loveliest.”
I feel like saying, The stories that happen to us are sad, but what’s lovely about them? A woman—maybe it’s Ilonka—is going to die up there; isn’t her story enough for you? I close my eyes, as I always do when troubled by doubt, and once more I see my father leaning over my bed. I hear his grave voice saying, “Happiness is waiting for you in your dreams.” He wants to put me to sleep, but I stay awake because I want to know what happens next.
I owe my love of stories to my father. He used to say that a man without a story is poorer than the poorest of men. Ever since, when I meet anyone new, a foreigner, a madman, I want to ask him to tell me a story. Somewhere, I remember a beggar answering me by saying, “Congratulations. Do you know why God created us? So we could tell one another stories.” But suppose the beggar was wrong?
“Lili,” I say, “someone should write the story of a man who has no story. It has neither beginning nor end; it is neither beautiful nor ugly, neither sad nor joyful—it’s just empty. Empty of life? Inconceivable. Nothing ever happens? Impossible. Since this man does exist, Death is waiting for him, so he must have a story, even though it’s of no importance. It doesn’t matter whether or not he remembers it. Even if he forgets it all, he’ll have lived his life. But suppose his story is that of a life forgotten, lost on the byways of dreams void of hope? Oh well, maybe one day we’ll know it. But one day—when is that? That question is a story in itself. It’s neither new nor old. It’s just a story.”
Lili looks serious as she thinks over what she has just heard. She’s not satisfied. She still wants a story. But from what well of memory shall I draw it? This story, did I hear it from my father?
“This is what happened to Jeremy, an intelligent, sensible boy, maybe a bit precocious. He was convinced he could never break out of the silence that enveloped him inside and out. He first realized this when, at the fair, he saw a woman, young and sprightly, who was a member of a troupe of acrobats who flew through the air under the great tent like angels defying the laws of gravity. The children clung to their parents, ecstatic an
d terrified. The adults cried out joyfully each time the trapeze artist, about to fall to earth, at the last second would catch the hand or foot of her partner, who appeared out of nowhere.
“Jeremy, in his excitement, remembered what he had read in a book of ancient wisdom: Man must always think of himself, morally and mentally, as an acrobat. If he doesn’t pay attention, he’s likely to fall to the ground. But in another volume, or another dream, Jeremy learned a different lesson drawn from the same acrobats: Remember that your life depends on others. If one of them is absentminded, it is you who will die.
“The acrobats stayed in town for a full week. They gave two shows a day. Jeremy went a second time, to their last performance. Again, the spectators cried out, but this time in horror. Whether due to an instant’s loss of concentration or a stroke of fate, the young woman reached out too early or too late. She fell from very high up. A moment later, her slender body was writhing in agony down below.
“She didn’t die right away. Nurses and doctors took her to a hospital. Jeremy was near the exit. He got a good look at her bloody face, and he heard her last words: ‘We die alone.’ ”
I fall silent. The story is my father’s, but the words are not. And now I clearly remember that his story ended differently. The young acrobat did not die.
“That’s it,” I say. “The end.”
“That’s not it.” She looks at me stubbornly. “Perhaps it’s over for my dying patient, but not for . . .” She pauses. I search her face for the words she dares not say. “You’re not an acrobat,” she resumes. “Nor am I.”
I want to tell her that we’re all more or less acrobats, each in our own way, but it’s begun to rain. The doctor gets to her feet.
“Let’s go in to the patient. Since she has spoken occasionally, perhaps she will be able to satisfy our curiosity. I told you: Here, for better or for worse, all things are possible.”
A voice inside me says: Not everything is possible, even here.
SUPPOSE IT REALLY IS ILONKA?
The thought cuts me like a knife. Perhaps fate isn’t blind after all. Perhaps it’s capable of fantasy, even compassion. Don’t all these chance encounters prove its good intentions, its determination to accomplish what cannot be imagined? Ilonka here, unknown and unknowable, in this hospital ward? It would be against all the odds. It’s a long way to go, this exile’s route from a Budapest apartment to a New York hospital. And yet, anything can happen. Even in the white immensity of the Siberian Gulag, couples who had been separated would glimpse each other when two trains halted; friends would meet while being transferred from one prison to another. Twenty, even fifty years after the most cruel of wars, friends and relatives who had survived Auschwitz or Treblinka found one another in Europe, in Israel, in America. Is the moment now propitious for the unfortunate victims of fate and the madness of man? On occasion, events lose their way, make no sense, contradict themselves. The great Israeli writer Samuel Joseph Agnon quotes a passage in the Sephardic Kabbalah. According to this passage, History sometimes goes insane: Then a day will last a month, a month a day or just an hour. . . . Is destiny toying with Ilonka? And has she found a way to triumph over madness? The doctor is speaking; I’m listening with half an ear. Should I tell her what I’ve discovered? She wouldn’t understand. Did I say discovered? To tell the truth, that was the wrong word to use. As I think it over, I realize that on my first visit this morning, I imagined I would see the beautiful singer who saved my life. Somewhere inside me I’ve kept on anticipating it. A small voice within me keeps badgering me: If fate has brought you here, to this land so far from your own, it’s because it insists on reuniting you with the woman to whom you owe your life.
Ilonka, marvelous Ilonka. I owe her everything. I think of her more often than I do of my mother. Thinking of my mother would be too painful. Afraid of imagining her in that cattle car, then at Birkenau. Afraid of seeing her last moments. I prefer to remember Ilonka. I had assumed she was dead. Otherwise, why did she never answer my letters from Paris and New York? If it’s really she, I’ll ask her. She’ll answer me with a smile or a nod. What matters is that she be able to see me and touch me and feel me. The rest will follow. She will get well. We’ll spend our days and nights reminiscing.
Memories are flooding in.
JANUARY 1945. BUDAPEST LIBERATED AT LAST. THE siege is over. The guns are silent. The old capital city, once so proud of its bridges, its buildings, its boulevards, lies in ruins. Gone are the Nyilas, the collaborators, the militia. Few buildings are undamaged. Drunk with victory, Russian soldiers wander the deserted streets arm in arm, drinking and singing. Tomorrow, they may be corpses in the snow in Poland or Germany. Local people, especially the women, hide from them. Ilonka holds me close. “What’s to become of us, my precious?” She’s afraid, and I don’t understand why. “But for us the war’s over, isn’t it?” I ask. She rocks me in her arms; her tenderness makes me want to cry. “The nightmare is over, but the war is not,” she says. Her hair hangs down limply, she looks old and sick. “I’m not beautiful to look at,” she tells me. “Isn’t it true that I’m not beautiful? Aren’t I ugly as sin?” I embrace her and protest. “You’re beautiful, Ilonka. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” She explains that right now it’s dangerous for a woman to be beautiful. The soldiers of the Red Army don’t behave well with women; it’s better to look old and ugly and repulsive. “You could never be repulsive,” I tell her. “Not for you, my boy, but for them.” “But they’re our friends,” I say. “They drove out the Germans and their collaborators. Jews no longer have to be afraid to say they’re Jewish. Why are you afraid of these good Russian soldiers?” Ilonka tries to smile. She says, “But I’m not a Jew.” “Don’t be afraid,” I whisper in her ear. “I’ll protect you, you’ll see.”
Incredible but true: I did protect her. Yes, I, little Jewish boy that I was, protected the celebrated singer, the star whom Budapest’s new all-powerful masters dreamed of. Yes, I saved Ilonka from humiliation and chagrin.
In my mind’s eye I see us there. We go hand in hand to stand in line at a bakery. We find it hard to get around. It’s a cold gray day; mud and dirty snow lie amid the ruins. Suddenly, a Russian soldier appears and grabs Ilonka by the arm. “Come, you!” he yells in her face. He keeps repeating those two words, all the Hungarian he knows. He’s drunk. He stinks. Ilonka struggles. As for me, I cling to her, crying, “No, she’s mine!” People in the line see what’s happening, but they pretend not to notice. By chance, an officer emerges from a building and comes to our rescue. Cringing, the drunken soldier disappears. The officer hands me a piece of bread and scolds the onlookers in bad German. “Cowards, that’s what you are! You see a boy defend a woman’s honor and you do nothing! You disgust me!” And he takes us into the bakery. The people are hostile and resentful, but they dare not show it. As for me, I’m proud of myself. I protected Ilonka. I kept my promise.
I SEE US AGAIN, TWO OR THREE WEEKS LATER. We’re in bed. It’s still early. We slept badly. The room is freezing. I’m wearing three shirts under my pajamas, but my body is still shivering. Holding our blankets tightly, we listen to the wind whistling through the ruined rooftops and the charred branches of the leafless trees. Suddenly, we hear an unexpected sound: heavy footsteps mounting the stairs, or what’s left of them. Pounding at the door. We hold our breath. If we don’t answer, maybe they’ll think no one is here, and they’ll go away. But they pound harder, and now the door creaks open. Four men enter, three officers and a civilian. With them comes the wind from Siberia. And fear, a great wave of fear that keeps me from breathing or even thinking. I hide under the coat I’m using as an extra blanket. In vain, the cold still seeps into me. I try to push it away. Never have I shivered so, my entire body shaking. I keep my eyes closed but my ears open, my senses on the alert. I hear everything. I hear time as it goes by. Two Hungarian and one Russian officer accompany the civilian. They surround the bed. The civilian, who is tall and thin, speaks angrily. “We know
who you are: Ilonka Andràsi, the nightclub singer. You collaborated with the enemy. You’re under arrest. Come with us.” Ilonka makes no protest. She hasn’t told me so, but she was expecting to be apprehended and mistreated. As she is already dressed, she gets easily to her feet. All she does is point to me and say, “And the child, who is going to care for him?” The civilian turns to me.“Who are you?” Holding back my tears, I reply, “You’re making a mistake. She’s not a bad person. She did nothing wrong. She worked against the Germans and against the Nyilas.” “Shut up, brat,” says a short, stocky man, one of the Hungarian officers. “We didn’t ask your advice about this scum who gave such pleasure to our country’s assassins. We want to know who you are.” “My name is Pé— no, it’s Gamaliel. My name is Gamaliel Friedman. I’m a Jew, and it was Ilonka who saved me.” The tall, thin one interrupts. “That’s a lie! She went to bed with the fascists; she was working for them. As for you, you little bastard, you must be hers, so you’re no Jew!” “Yes, I am, I’m a Jew, I’m telling you. My parents are Jews. And so am I.” I feel as if I’m about to burst out sobbing, but I’m able to hold back my tears. The civilian and the two Hungarians talk among themselves in lowered voices. Ilonka has started weeping. I see disaster ahead. They’re going to separate us. What will they do to her? And what’s to become of me? Where and with whom can I wait for my parents to come back? I get ready to jump up from my bed and to implore them to take me with Ilonka. To prison, anyplace. I’ll share her cell and her ordeal. I want whatever happens to her to happen to me. The Russian officer, meanwhile, has been observing me with interest. He comes over and says a few words to me in his language. “I don’t understand Russian,” I say. He asks, “How about German?” “I understand some German.” “Good, we’ll speak German. You say you’re a Jew. Where are your parents?” I tell him I’m waiting for them. “They were deported, but they’ll come back.” He switches languages. “Do you speak Yiddish?” “Yes, some.” Now he’s paying close attention. “Since you’re a Jew, or claim you are, prove it to me. What do you know about Judaism?” I must have looked puzzled, because he saw I hadn’t understood his question. He rephrased it. “What for a Jew is the most important of prayers?” Frightened, I’m about to say the Our Father, the prayer in which Ilonka had so often drilled me. Luckily, I catch myself, though I don’t really know why the Russian is asking me, and I reply, “The Shma Yisrael: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ ” “Good, very good. And Rosh Hashana, what’s that?” “The New Year.” “And Yom Kippur?” “The Day of Atonement. We pray to God to write our names in the Book of Life.” “And this year, did you pray like a good boy?” Yes, I prayed, I prayed often, but alone and in silence. Now I recall for whom and for what I prayed. For my mother and my father. I implored God to protect them, to let them return, even if they were sick, as soon as possible. I feel one tear, then another, burning as they trickle down my cheek. The Russian officer leans over me and wipes my face with his sleeve. He gives an order that neither the tall, thin man nor the short, stocky one seems to like. At that, he straightens up and repeats the order. That is enough to make the third Hungarian officer signal the others to obey the order and leave. The Russian officer sits on the rumpled bed and asks me to sit next to him. “I’m a Jew, from Kiev,” he tells us. “I’ve killed a lot of Germans, and I’ll kill more, to make them pay for the crimes they committed against our people.” He stops, and Ilonka takes the opportunity to say, in her hit-or-miss German, that she’s sorry she has nothing to offer him. She begins to explain why, but he interrupts. “I’ll bring you food and coal later on. But first tell me who you are and what you’re doing. . . .” So we tell him the whole story. My father, my mother. The fascist terror, the cruelty of the Nyilas. The roundups. The sleepless nights. Evenings at the cabaret. The sacrifices Ilonka made to keep me with her. Two hours go by, and still we have not finished. The Russian officer gets to his feet and says, “I have to go back to headquarters. I’ll come by this afternoon with supplies. I’ll post a soldier outside to guarantee your safety.”