Even in her old age she combed her hair like … says Mother.
Like who? I ask Mother severely. I am trying to get her to realize that she is not finishing her sentences.
Gizi, of course.
And how did she comb it?
Why, the same way as Bőzsi, she says, and saying it as if she did not understand why she has to repeat herself. Did you never notice that the hand gesture she made when she swept her hair aside was the same as Bőzsi’s? You know, I think that what was important to Gizi later on was not what she said but having someone to say it to. Once I sat with her up in the café on Castle Hill, and she said, You know, Rosie, I ought to take a trip to Switzerland to see Gertrud or Carl Lutz — she said Gertrud or Carl because they had divorced by then; Gizi had heard about it. I ought to take a trip and have a talk with them. And when she said it, says Mother, her look was just like that of someone who had no interest in what had happened to Gertrud or Carl Lutz, and she was not interested what she was saying, just in talking about it with someone.
It was not hard for me to picture Gizi’s face when she says this to Mother, because Mother’s expression was also like that of someone for whom, similarly, it was more important just to be able to talk with me than what was actually said.
Gertrud places the gifts she has prepared for colleagues and staff of the legation under the Christmas tree. Continuous din of weaponry from the Pest side. She had managed to bring back a Christmas tree from Bicske, and she had thought about candles well before. She would not allow Gizi to leave. Not long before, a barrage of mortar shells had hit the neighbouring building. Carl Lutz helps to light the candles and joins in the singing of ‘Silent Night’. He records that in his diary, as well as the fact that he had been informed that both Adolf Eichmann and Kurt Becher had left Budapest.
The cannon fire dies down around midnight. Just two of them are left by the Christmas tree, Gertrud and Gizi. Gertrud relights one of the candles. They remain wordless until it has burned down. Darling, does it matter if I ask you about your husband? No, why would it matter? You never spoke about him; you only mentioned Karol. Károly, Gizi corrects her. Admittedly, I never said anything to you about my husband. Oh yes you did, says Gizi, about your travels, about Palestine, you did. Gertrud laughs. More intimate things, I meant, darling.
Józsi was always very plucky, says Gizi. It took pluck just to dare to ask my father for my hand in marriage. It was also pluck that he was willing to fight a duel when my honour was insulted.
Gizi senses, though, that Gertrud is not interested in what Józsi said when stood to attention, his officer’s shako in hand, in front of his future father-in-law or when he named his seconds for a duel. It is pleasing to recall her father’s cigar smoke, pleasing to think of Józsi at the family banquet of Seder, drinking his third glass of wine and trying to peck Bőzsi on the cheek.
Gertrud, too, must clearly sense what Gizi feels, as she does not enquire about things that Gizi obviously does not wish to talk about. You know, darling, she says, Carl was never plucky. He lacks those masculine traits. Gizi nods, finding what Gertrud is saying interesting, but right now nothing comes to mind about Carl Lutz other than that before lighting the candles on the Christmas tree he signed the family’s safe-conduct papers covering four names, with which, if possible, she will set off to the Alice Weiss Hospital at cockcrow.
Not that I can complain, says Gertrud. My life with Carl is certainly interesting, but I do envy you a little, darling, for being able, no-big-deal, to gain more experience in the sphere of men. Gizi muses that she does not know how much of that pluck would have remained with Józsi if he had been faced with the situations that Carl Lutz had faced. And I am envious of you for not having had to gain more experience in the sphere of men, she says.
Gertrud laughs. All is not lost yet, darling.
They exchange a kiss.
X
Another nurse comes into the sleeping quarters. I had not seen her before; she can be only two or three years older than me. Red hair in a long ponytail; she is freckled and has luminous green eyes.
Dress! Make it snappy!
Should I make the bed?
Oh, just leave it! Come quickly!
Snow had fallen during the night, covering footprints and also the corpses that had been stacked beside the building.
The head physician is standing in the doorway of the main building, which lets on to the yard. Dr Temesváry is stout and very bulky, blocking the entrance. The small nurse snatches at my arm and hauls me back; the head physician had given a sign that we should wait. I did not see him make a sign.
Two Arrow Crossers try to tug Dr Temesváry out of the doorway. He holds fast. They are grasping submachine guns. Temesváry says something to them and does not budge. A third Arrow Crosser comes, and they manage to haul him aside. Men are shoved out of the building. The little nurse puts an arm round my shoulder. The men with submachine guns lead the men away. Maybe they’ll content themselves with those eight, the nurse says.
Should we wait?
You can be sure the director will signal when we can go.
I don’t see him make any sign, but the nurse says, Now. We run.
Gizi emerges from the building, and, while running, I see that she, too, breaks into a run to the front and towards the main entrance. We reach the door on to the corridor. Temesváry grabs me by the arm and the sister runs inside.
Gizi comes back. They’ve just taken them away, she says to Temesváry.
I can see nothing in the dark of the basement, only seeing Father when he is standing right in front of me, behind him Mother and Vera. My parents are carrying haversacks, Vera her little suitcase. Gizi produces from her handbag the new Swiss letter. She shines a torch on it. It’s got all of your names on it. Your family name has changed, she says to Vera, and you must practise using it. And when my parents return … it’s only till then, isn’t it? Yes, says my mother. She last saw Vera’s mother in the marching column as it neared Hegyeshalom.
We step over people lying on mattresses. Gizi spots the yellow stars on Mother’s and Father’s winter coats. Heavens, Rosie, she says as if scolding a child. Rip those off immediately!
They tear the yellow stars off their coats. I am about to take Vera’s hands, which I have got used to doing — that’s how we set off on our journeys — but instead step over to Father and help him pick out the ends of cotton threads that have been left where the star had been sewn on. Gizi says, Well done; good job. She then turns to Vera. You go first to the main gate, and you have to act as if you’d just dropped by to visit someone. That job appeals to Vera, and so, getting into her role, she sets off. I’m raring to go after her, but Gizi says, Wait a bit. You’ve got a haversack; that’s different.
Behind me is the dark bend of the basement corridor. The old people are shouting the loudest, not so much the women as the men.
The ginger-haired ponytailed young nurse pops up from the inner depths. It’s time for your rounds, Doctor, she says. Temesváry stretches a hand out to Gizi. The nurse pecks me on the cheek. Vera looks back, but Gizi gestures that she should keep going. At the main gate we should turn right straight away, says Gizi. I will keep twenty or thirty metres ahead, so if I stop and signal look for a doorway, step into it and wait. You come after me, she says to Father, after you Rosie and the girl. You stay at least twenty to thirty metres behind me and keep a look out behind. If you notice anything, tell your father, and you, Béla, pass it on to me.
It’s time to make your rounds, Doctor, says the ginger-haired nurse, who I can see is looking at me.