Could it be that what I am seeing is two men? Or two women? Does it matter? In any case they are indistinguishable.
The tourists cannot have the slightest idea — even for me it is an insoluble task — who on the terrace is a survivor and who an actor. An assistant calls several of the spectators on to the terrace, as if the instruction did not come as a surprise to them, as if they had been waiting for it. A row of bushes in front of the terrace is hiding, like a fire screen, the legs of those waiting for the director’s instructions, so that only the upper bodies, arms and heads can be seen as in a puppet show. As if the survivors were the actors and the actors the witnesses, an assistant with flowing blonde locks hurries towards me. Schnell! Schnell! I’ve been looking for you for ages, she calls out. I try to take cover; the two harlequins are considerately concealing me as if we had ended up in some shared scene. The assistant grabs me by the arm and repeats that people are being kept waiting. Schnell! Schnell! Dragging me behind her, wrestling me up the steps. I step among the performers with the gravity of my shame. I hear a cry of Cameras roll!
XIII
I know what I have to do when I have to line up.
Father does not fold the blanket up in military fashion — there is no time for that — he folds it in four and clamps it under one arm. Mother squeezes a pair of warm stockings into the pocket of my haversack. I carry Vera’s little suitcase. Vera takes the blanket from Father, and he helps Mother put the haversack on her back.
Two Arrow Crossers are standing on the first-floor landing. We have to get into line; the front is already assembling in front of the gateway. Everyone is shouting out to husbands and wives, children try to stay beside their parents. Old people are helped down from the third-floor apartment. They are the last. Father says we should stand close together in line, to get into the same row at the front gate.
The warden is downstairs, a woman says.
How can you know that? You always know everything. You can’t even see who is at the gate.
The gent came up just now. He said so.
The gent is the physicist. The warden is in negotiations about the house’s residents being under the protection of the Swiss and Swedish legations, he tells Father.
Ghetto or the bank of the Danube? a man asks.
Don’t … The warden is talking it over.
I’m telling you the warden won’t have any say in the matter, and nor will you. In the end they’ll make out they are in the same position as we are. If confronted, they’ll pin yellow stars on; it would have been better if they had noticed earlier.
The physicist runs down to the gate then comes back up. People have arrived from the Swiss Legation he says. We are standing closely pressed together on the stairs. Listen here, people, the warden shouts out after a while. Everyone back to their places. Those who were in the cellar back to the cellar, and those who were in an apartment back to the apartment.
Gizi’s call can also be heard shouting out Bőzsi’s name. Mother wants to go down to her, but Father holds her back. He asks the warden if we might move down into the cellar because the apartment on the top floor is too cold.
The warden dishes out instructions: strident voice, short sentences. Do what I say. Calm down. There is no room in the cellar. Wait.
Mother attempts to push through the crush of people. She is calling out Gizi’s name.
I’ve already said, no shouting.
But she’s here. I can hear her voice.
I got used to everybody shouting all at once back at the brick-works. I can pick familiar voices out of the noise.
Father’s voice is the same as months ago; he has regained his confidence. Your mother is freezing cold up there. We won’t go back. I’m also freezing, says Vera. Better the cold than the dark, the crush, the shouting and whimpering all over again, is what I think. I can hear you, I can hear you, Mother keeps repeating, although I don’t ask what she hears. Almost certainly Gizi’s voice. It is difficult for two at once to pass through the doorway to the cellar. I am being shoved from behind — a man would like to bring out a little child in his arms, and we make room for him. Make way, air, he is calling out. Mother shouts out again that she can hear Gizi’s voice, but she cannot find her. Someone says that a man was calling out Gizi’s name a few minutes ago, but he wasn’t unable to find her either.
The cellar is L-shaped. Two lamps provide the light. The walls are dank, the ceiling is supported by timber beams. There must be a ventilation slit somewhere, because the lights of the lamps are quivering in a draught.
The cries are more muffled. Names, instructions, calls for help blend into one. I say to Father, shouldn’t Mother shout Gizi’s name, but he says nothing to her. He would like to take off his haversack, but there is not enough room. I help him, with Vera taking her small suitcase.
Gizi shouts out Mother’s name from the cellar doorway. She is wearing a black headscarf that has slipped over her eyes. She is gasping for breath, jostling the people around her. Mother embraces her; Vera, horrified, hangs on to me. I cannot hear what Mother is saying, but Gizi seems to be reassured.
Frau Gizella! Frau Gizella! Schnell! Schnell!
Mother says that we have rations for two days. Gizi says she will try to find some food, but she doesn’t know where. The Arrow Cross Minister of the Interior has ordered that everyone must be taken into the ghetto from the protected houses as well. In return for dropping that plan, Raoul Wallenberg on behalf of the Swedish Attaché and Carl Lutz on behalf of the Swiss Legation had offered their stockpiles of food reserves for the protected houses. She would make every effort, but she had to dash now. Lutz had to see to things elsewhere. She was sticking with him; she would be back as soon as she could. She had two apples in her pockets and gave one to me, the other to Vera.
There is no longer an officer’s cap on the warden’s head. He raises one hand to his brow and salutes Gizi.
People are seated on mattresses; room has been made for the sick as well. Squeeze up to let this family in. The warden makes arrangements. Father gets Mother to sit down on the edge of a mattress; Mother pulls Vera over. Father also finds enough room to set down his haversack. Someone holds it. The physicist. He is seated on a sack and pulls me down next to him. As far as I can tell the sack contains potatoes. It has to be guarded. It’s communal, belongs to the house — best if we sit on it.
I ask the physicist what his name is. He grins and offers his hand; he says only his Christian name, László. I also introduce myself by my given name. He has slender, bony fingers. The skin on the palm of the hand is warm and delicate; it is a pleasure to hold. I tell him that I have a pass as a Levente ARP messenger but have not yet had occasion to use it. Does he think it would be possible to go about on the streets with that? I dig it out of the inside pocket of the duffel coat while he fishes his spectacles out of his inner pocket. Wearing the glasses he really does look like a professor. He reminds me of my natural-history teacher. He also had glasses like those with thick black frames, and he looked over the skulls and the sponge models of human organs in his collection in just the same way before picking something, holding it in his hand so we would be able to see it better.
He squints and his features tighten up. He gives me the papers back. Don’t use it. Put it away. It’s good as a souvenir.
Is it a bad one?
It might be a pity to try it out.
From year 3 we had physics lessons, I tell him. I finished year 4 in May, but I wasn’t able to go to back to school after this autumn. He asks if I liked physics. Not a lot; I preferred Hungarian and history. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like physics, but it will help you think clearly. I know that; the teacher said so as well. He asks who was our teacher, and I give him the name. He is great scientist; it’s just that those idiots have not allowed him to teach at the university since the Jewish laws were brought in during the thirties. He carries on talking as though it was not me he was speaking to but quits his gesticulating as there is not enough room.