Moshe Krausz whispers something to Lutz. Lutz makes a telephone call. He demands that the under-sixteens among those collected in the Dohány Street Synagogue should be taken over by the ICRC.
At daybreak two cars set off from Vadász Street. Gizi is sitting on the back seat in the second of these, between the two officers.
Lutz is unaware that at dawn the daily log for the Budapest ambulance service records its inspection of the site after a fusillade had been unleashed on the first group to be dragged to the bank of the River Danube. He is unaware that at midday, in a speech he makes to Parliament, MP Károly Maróthy will point out that something must also be done about the dying scattered along the highway towards Vienna so that they could not be heard groaning all day long in the ditches; it would be better to dispatch the Jews; any dormant pity for them should not be allowed to be awakened.
An old man is sitting on a step leading to the Ark of the Covenant, his head covered by a tallit, a prayer shawl. He reminds me of how my grandfather used to sit at the head of the table in his dwelling on Rákóczi Avenue. It is Seder, the family meal and service on the evening of the first night of the Passover feast, but he did not wear a prayer shawl. The way Mother tells it, he would only don that for services on the Sabbath.
A dozen of us are seated at a big oval table, me opposite Grandfather, between Mother and Father; on the table are dishes filled with the food that will be involved in the ceremony.
Remember, Gizi says to my mother, who later tells me, how my little sister used to sweep her hair, which cascaded to her shoulders, behind her right ear when she lifted up her glass to take a sip of wine; her eyes would be sparkling, and she would place a kiss on my cheek, just like when my mother still lived, and it was her greatest pleasure to see her big daughter and the little one, sixteen years between them there were, exchange kisses. I remember that, Mother would tell me later on, and she asked if I could remember the Seder evenings. I was six or seven at the time. Yes, says Mother, I also remember the heaving plates and the crowd round the table. I don’t remember Bőzsi’s face, but I do somehow that gesture of the hand. As if it were self-contained, independent of the body. I don’t say that to Mother, but I see the cascading of her hair as in a film loop, the play of the fingers, the gesture of slightly throwing back the head. I took just a single sip of wine, and even that made me tiddly. Mother leads me into my grandparents’ bedroom to let me lie down on the divan which stands before the two beds. Meanwhile, I walk next to Bőzsi. I, too, get a peck on the cheek; I can smell her perfume. This comes back to me later. I tell Mother. It sets her mind at rest to have someone with whom she can chat about Gizi and Bőzsi, and I also learn from her that when Gizi’s father found out who her fiancé was he said that it was out of the question for him to be an army officer, especially a Jew. That is no way to make a living in times like this, Gizi’s father declared in the study. I know that in spite of this Józsi donned his first lieutenant’s worsted uniform, pinned on the silver service medal and the regimental Karl Troop Cross, polished his parade boots and showed up none the less.
Before the chambermaid announced him to Father, Gizi told my mother, before announcing that the first lieutenant was here, I went in to plead with Father, but he did not so much as look up. He was reading in that big leather-upholstered armchair of his. He had on a tobacco-coloured silk dressing-gown; he did not even bother to put on a jacket. That was his way of making me understand that for him Józsi was a nonentity, no big deal, a nonentity. I have no idea where Gizi got that ‘no big deal’ from, Mother added.
The door opened, in stepped Józsi, and he stood before Father as if he had been hauled up for a court martial, Gizi related to Mother. Józsi would have been thirty-four years old. Gizi could scarcely suppress her laughter as she recounted how Józsi had entered the room, says Mother, because her father, Uncle Siggie, didn’t so much as look up from the armchair, but then he got to his feet after all. Józsi thought that at last he could speak, but Father only went over to his writing desk and noted something down; he did not even sit, Gizi related. Father squiggled down sentences that nobody else could read, but he would later make use of them in his lectures at the university. He made notes for two minutes on end, no big deal, with Józsi stiffly at attention in front of the desk, then Father finally put down his pencil, placed the palms of his hands on the edge of the desk as was his habit, leaned forward, and, just imagine, he didn’t look at Józsi, just at his two medals, did not even say a word of greeting, even though Józsi had said, A very good day to you, Professor! He had practised that morning, Gizi told Mother, and Mother giggled when she told me, as if she were twenty and listening as Gizi described that when her father finally broke his silence he poked at Józsi’s jacket and said, That’s the regimental Karl Troop Cross, isn’t it? Józsi immediately answered that next to it was the silver service medal, but her father broke in to say that he was only interested in the regimental Karl Troop Cross. He knew that anyone who received it must have put in decent service of the front line.
He studied Józsi for a long time, and not the regimental Karl Troop Cross but the way he was standing stiffly before him with his adorable little ’tache and pomaded hair. Look, first lieutenant, he said, I know my daughter loves you. I take no pleasure in the marriage. I have serious doubts as to your career prospects, but my daughter loves you. He gave a resigned wave of the hand and stepped over to the cocktail cabinet, took out a bottle of cognac and poured out a drink, not for me, just for Józsi and himself, clinked glasses with Józsi, although Józsi had not been able to get a word out since entering the room saying, A very good day to you, Professor, and that is the silver service medal next to it, just stood to attention in front of Father. No big deal, that’s how the proposal of marriage went off, Gizi told Mother.
That was the point at which a coughing fit broke out, with Józsi unable to hold it back any longer.
Gizi’s father had already heard that Józsi received a lung wound on front-line duty, but according to all the doctors he had recovered completely. Gizi implored her mother, and Gizi’s mother implored her father, said Mother.
Ten years later, in the year Hitler came to power, Józsi was advised by the General Staff to ask to be discharged on the grounds of poor health. A captain tosses in the remark, You know, old chap, up at the top they aren’t too fond of Jews.
Józsi challenged the officer to a duel, Mother related, asking two young cadets to stand as seconds. He duly appeared at the appointed time at the appointed place, a forest clearing in Kamaraerdo over by Budafok. Gizi knew nothing about it. The captain didn’t show, sending a message by his batman that he would not fight a duel with a Jew. Józsi later recounted that the squaddie had stood before him, saluted and said, Beg to report that the first lieutenant should not hang on because the Captain sends word, by your leave, that if you happen to be Jewish, then he will not fight a duel.
Józsi suffers a coughing fit and is carted off to hospital, and when he comes out he asks for retirement on account of poor health.
That Seder evening was the last time I saw him. He poured a drink for himself the moment he sat down. By the time Grandfather had taken a sip, although convention prescribed that he should be first, Józsi was already on his third glass and asking the ladies, including Bőzsi, for kisses.