A call for a doctor can be heard from a corner at the back. A short man in a beret hurries over; he has a Red Cross armband and is gripping a doctor’s bag under one arm. The warden shouts out four names from the head of the cellar. Today’s water-carrying brigade; they should be at the main gate in ten minutes’ time. I’ll go with them. I tell Father I’ll take a quick look around and promise to be back in five minutes. Let him stretch his legs, the physicist says; he needs the exercise.
I try to tiptoe my way out and keep bumping into bodies. It is hardest of all to move forward in the shorter leg of the L-shape. When I get to the bend I am helped by the glimmer of light from the cellar head.
The warden’s wife speaks in the same military voice as her husband. Just as tall, and she, too, goes around in a short fur-lined overcoat. She has a pointy nose; her chin is protuberant. They have a daughter whom I have not yet seen. She is said to be eighteen years old, ill and has to lie in bed, so maybe it was because they could not take her away that they stayed in a yellow-star house.
Three of the men who had been designated to carry water were standing at the gate. The warden is again wearing his old officer’s cap. One of the men asks him where he acquired it. It’s from the First World War, he says. One of the men in the cellar had been a first lieutenant in the First World War. He asked him for it. If he was a first lieutenant then he could also take a job on, the man comments. He’s ill, says the warden. He has spells of amnesia.
I do not know what amnesia is, but fortunately neither does the man, because he asks. Loss of memory, says the warden. He remembers nothing? That I can’t say; I can’t concern myself with everything. Where’s the fourth bloke who’s been assigned?
The man with the Red Cross armband makes a hurried appearance. Sorry, he says, it was hard getting past the people. You stay here, says the warden; you are needed here. Today I’ll be the fourth. We start in five minutes. Get the buckets ready.
Anyone who’s curious about what amnesia is like can ask the doctor here, he says, but there are times when he himself cannot recall things. You’re healthy, says the doctor; I’ve already taken your blood pressure.
From the front gate I can see that new anti-aircraft batteries have been placed in firing position by the Comedy Theatre. A caterpillar-tracked tank wheels out of Csanády Street, a couple of streets away, with a black-uniformed SS soldier in the turret scanning the road with binoculars. Two women, shopping baskets in hand, hasten to the far side of the road. An Arrow Crosser is approaching and changing the magazine in his submachine gun as he walks. An old man shouts to two children from the doorway of the house next door that they should clear off into the cellar.
Have you got a ciggy? A lanky boy, probably a couple of years older than me, has come up.
I don’t smoke, I tell him. He has only recently got into the habit, but he hardly smokes because it ruins the voice. He is a singer with the chorus of OMIKE;11 he has already had solo parts with them. I used to have a season ticket for OMIKE concerts, I say. That’s where I heard baritone Andor Lendvai in Faust and Dezső Ernster, the bass, in Aïda. Did you enjoy Aïda? Yes, I did, but I thought they would put on a full performance; they just lined up in evening dress on the stage. There was no acting, only singing. That’s what they call a concert perfor mance, he says. When there is no money for costumes or scenery or time for rehearsals they sing from the score. Ernster knew his part anyway; he had the role at the Opera House until he was kicked out. Gabriella Relle sang the role of Aïda, do you remember? I remember. I was standing in the second row on the right as an understudy. It could have been another performance that I saw. But I may have seen you.
In my mind’s eye I see a giant figure, his face like a statue. I have a seat in the eighth row on the right, and I am wearing brown corduroy trousers. Gabriella Relle is singing. But I am looking at the giant. In front of him is a short slim soprano so the giant’s chest is also visible — as broad as if it were a papier-mâché structure designed to make him look so enormous. The others have little or no makeup, but his eyebrows are pencilled, his face is powdered white and his lips are very red.
I was heavily made up to make me look older, he says.
He does not have a winter coat on, just a rust-coloured pullover — his chest just as impressive as it had been on the stage, his eyebrows bushy even without any make-up.
Aren’t you freezing without a coat?
No, my body temperature is fine. It’s a genetic endowment, know what I mean?
I get it, I say, even though it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
Did you see Don Giovanni? I did. Well, it could be you saw me in that, too, another role I understudied for. I was the Commendatore. They had to switch it to baritone range for me. Vilmos Komor conducted.
If you were the Commendatore, then I was a bit scared of you.
He has a recent wound on his chin, pink in colour.
Your chin was much the same as now only grey.
That was a fake scar. Your coat would suit my needs very well, though. Would you consider swapping? I can trade it for a revolver.
It’s not up for a swap, I say, and I don’t want a revolver anyway.
He says that he has two revolvers, and it could be he’ll make use of them if that’s how things work out.
I ask him if he had used them already.
He had wanted to, but his friends would not let him; that was why he had the wound on his chin.
At this juncture the German panzer squeaks in front of the house on its way to the Outer Circle. Aeroplanes are approaching again. I say, I’m going back into the cellar. It’s senseless to cram in with all those shit-scared Jews, he says; it’s safer here. Pannónia Street is narrow; any bombs are going to fall on the roofs. They crash through two or three storeys. Here on the street only the bomb blast is dangerous. It’s best not to stand in the doorway. He asks where I had been holed up, like that, and I tell him in Red Cross homes, in the hospital and now here with my parents. After some reflection I add, With my younger sister, too. They’re downstairs in the cellar. He says he is an orphan. I don’t say anything. He says his parents were taken away from his native town of Szolnok during the summer; he had been staying with relatives here in Budapest because of the singing.
Do you know where they died?
We got the news in from the Jewish Agency on Vadász Street. It’s ninety-nine per cent sure that the Szolnokers bought it.
I was in Vadász Street myself, I say, but I left.
Bombs are falling.
He had stayed on there, even got a job. The day before yesterday Arrow Crossers broke in. We had organized armed resistance, he says, but they banned that. The leadership was terrified. Maybe they were right, because if we had started shooting the Arrow Crossers would have wiped out three thousand. As it was they only took away a couple of dozen men, although they shot Arthur Weiss on the spot, right in front of the main gateway.
I don’t know who Arthur Weiss is.
The house belonged to him. It was he who kept in contact with the Swiss. He gave them the addresses of the houses to be put on the protected list, including this one.