The Arrow Crosser hares off after his superior.
Gizi pushes the elderly man into the doorway of the yellow-star house from which he had been led. Two bursts of submachine-gun fire strike the wall next to her; the Arrow Crosser is racing back. Gizi says that she does not know what happened to the elderly man. The Arrow Crosser leads her off to the group walking to Pozsonyi Street. At the head is a first lieutenant with an Arrow Cross armband. Gizi shows him her papers, but the first lieutenant looks at her rather than at the papers. He is tall, slim and has a wound on his chin; his cape is immaculate, white kid gloves, holster on his belt. He salutes Gizi and gives her back the papers. Madam, if I am not mistaken, you are Jewish, aren’t you? he says. Gizi protests with a laugh. Begging your pardon, madam, the first lieutenant says, don’t play games with me. You are Jewish. In our family we can spot the racially pure at a glance.
Gizi is wearing a dark-blue beret. With her right hand she sweeps her shoulder-length hair behind her ear then again holds out her diplomatic identification card to him. Madam, I will say it once again, there are some things a person can sense. He makes a sign to the armed men, and the procession moves off. The first lieutenant then steers Gizi over to a nearby house, which has an Arrow Cross sign on the doorway. According to this the Party has an office in the basement. A small bedsit apartment. The officer leads her in and takes off the white kid gloves; he undoes the belt and places it on a chair. On the wall is a framed portrait of Ferenc Szálasi.
Would you be so kind as to take off your clothes, madam.
Gizi takes off her three-quarter-length fur coat, the first lieutenant his cape. He has six medals on his tunic. Gizi spots an Iron Cross.
If you wish, madam, I shall turn away until you have undressed. Don’t worry, you will get to the Swiss Legation by midnight.
At that the first lieutenant turns away.
Gizi reaches for the pistol, but the first lieutenant senses that and throws himself at her. She shoots point-blank at his brow. She pulls the trigger twice. She puts on her fur coat and adjusts the armband. The street is empty. There are bursts of submachine-gun fire from the direction of the river. Ack-ack guns at Margit Bridge are firing at dive-bombing aircraft. Nearby houses are on fire. Sneaking from one doorway to the next Gizi reaches Szabadság Square. A police sentry has been posted to the entrance of the building of the Swiss Legation’s Department of Foreign Interests. She finds just one typist in the office, about twenty-five years old and wearing heavy-framed spectacles. She is sitting terrified in one corner. Gizi recognizes her and knows that she had come to the country two years ago from a Swiss village and had learned to speak Hungarian fairly well, not withstanding which she asks if she might talk in German. It may be because she’s panicking, Gizi supposes. Herr Lutz was unable to get back from Buda and had charged Herr Feller, the legation’s first secretary, with taking over business, but his car had been held up by the Arrow Crossers. From the window she had seen them taking him away.
Gizi goes to the bathroom and moistens her temples. She finds a bottle of cognac in a writing desk and asks the typist if she would like a glass. The young woman shakes her head. Gizi swigs from the bottle. She sits down in an armchair, and they look at each other without saying anything. Gizi then gets up and dials the number of Lutz’s quarters in Buda. A woman’s voice announces that the Vice-Consul is unable to take telephone calls at the moment. Gizi asks for Gertrud. Darling, I’m so relieved to hear from you … Gizi interrupts to ask her to get a message to Carl that Arrow Cross assault units are taking people off to the Danube from houses under Swiss protection in the international ghetto, St István Park, Tátra Street and Pannónia Street. He needs to go there at once.
Gertrud says she will tell her husband. Gizi should stay by the telephone; she will be called back very soon.
But you are OK, aren’t you, darling?
Never felt better.
You speak very good German, madam. The young woman finally gets some words out.
It seems to Gizi that she is calmer, possibly because she is not on her own. She explains that both she and her younger sister had a German governess. Our father took language skills very seriously and was always saying that without languages he would never have achieved what he achieved.
And what did he achieve?
He was a scholar.
Of the German language?
No, he was a classicist.
The typist said that Giselle was a pretty name, very exclusive. She laughs as she says the word exclusive. Gizi gets the feeling she is trying to prove that she is not unfamiliar with circles of that type, and she even asks if she has a younger sister with such a pretty name …
Erzsébet, but we all call her Bőzsi.
So where is Bőzsi now?
Gizi looks hard at the typist until she sees the terror reappearing on her features. She gets up and so does the young woman.
Gizi dials again and Gertrud picks up the telephone again. You’ll have to wait a bit. Carl is in conference with Signor Giorgio Perlasca — you know, the Italian who is pretending to be the Spanish Consul-General — and Mr Daniellson, the head of the Swedish mission, is also here. They are putting together some sort of statement.
Gizi tells the secretary that the Herr Vice-Consul had instructed her that she should get into the legation’s car and get over to him as soon as possible.
What about me?
You stay here. The building is under police protection. It will soon be at an end. Calm down!
Carl Lutz writes in his diary that evening:
The war has reached our house in Buda. All the windows of the British Embassy were smashed to bits by the detonations. For us the darkest period has commenced. For a start I instruct the men to clear away the shards of glass from the stairwell. My chauffeur Charles also sets to it. He has just arrived back from Szabadság Square, bringing that pretty blonde whose acquaintance we made in November. She is also helping. We fill one bucket after another with kilograms of glass fragments. Renewed explosions from near by. I order the women and children to take shelter in the cellar. Five policemen who were under orders to protect us had to lug carpets, upholstered furniture and a metal cupboard of food into the cellar. In case of emergency we also have to have access to a slop pail and a hand basin. The cellar was used to store wine, and the ceiling is reinforced concrete thirty-five centimetres thick.
He wants to be left alone in the room that has been set up as a study room. Gertrud and Gizi do not go down to the cellar, but Lutz asks his wife to leave him to himself. There is a mirror on the wall. The features he sees in that seem calm in contrast to his feelings. He places the thumb of his left hand on the pulse of his right hand, counts and measures a pulse of seventy-six, which also surprises him. Daniellson and Perlasca had been undaunted, conducting them selves like soldiers, he considered. Wallenberg was prudent, taking steps elegantly in even the most horrific situations. Lutz also envied his martial resoluteness and worldly aplomb. He inspects himself in the mirror. I’m just an ordinary official, he thinks; he sees his look behind the glasses as being expressionless, which makes him smile, and with the smile he looks more self-contented.
Gertrud comes in. Don’t be angry, darling, but Walter Rüfenacht, the consul in Vienna, is on the line and wants to have a word with you.
As it is three days since anyone from Switzerland made any enquiry Lutz is surprised that anyone is at all curious about him. He thanks the Viennese Consul for his interest and says that he is as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but Budapest is experiencing a terrible time, with armed Arrow Crossers who were allied to the Germans murdering by the thousand Jews, military deserters and anyone at all whom they regard as unreliable. He had received a message that assault groups were preparing to set the ghetto alight. Even the German military command opposed that, but he did not know whether it could be prevented. We are in God’s hands, says Walter Rüfenacht and hastily ends the call.