Vilmos frowned, unsure of what to make of this. I, on the other hand, understood perfectly. “Don’t!" I said, taking another step toward Gyuri, my hands reaching to grab hold of his shirt. But then he surprised me by tearing his hunk of bread in two and tossing the two halves high in the air—one at me, the other at Vilmos.
Reflexively, I halted to grab hold of the bread. Gyuri had started running as soon as he’d tossed it. He ran straight toward the nearest fence. By the time I caught the bread and started giving chase, he had opened a formidable lead. I shouted for him to stop, and heard Vilmos shout as well, but Gyuri paid us no heed. He no longer lacked energy. Propelled by his grief, his pain, and his decision, he had grown wings. I did not think I could catch him, but I had to try. I had to save him. I pumped my arms and ordered my legs to move faster. I willed myself forward, finding a strength I thought was long gone. I started gaining on him. I was going to make it.
Then I nearly collided with one prisoner, and then with another, which broke my run. Gyuri experienced no such trouble. He bumped into no one, nor did any other prisoner attempt to stop him. His path appeared to have been cleared by a heavenly hand—the same hand that had once cleared a path through the Red Sea for Moses and the People of Israel, a path toward safety and freedom. Though Gyuri’s path led to neither of those things.
Again I shouted for him to stop. Again I sprinted to catch him. All to no avail. I was a good distance behind him when he crossed the dead line near the fence, the line no prisoner was allowed to cross on pain of death. The guards in the watch-towers could have shot him, but why waste bullets? They knew what Gyuri intended to do. They’d seen it before.
"Stop!" I yelled, as Gyuri hurled himself forward, leaping into the air with arms stretched wide, like a bird spreading its wings as it launches into a clear blue sky.
He hit the fence with a dull twang. Then his body tensed, his head rearing back, his mouth gaping wide in a soundless scream. He hung on the fence with his arms spread horizontally, like Jesus on the cross, attached to the wires by the electric current that ran through the fence and now him. His body jittered and twitched. His flesh started to burn. I could smell his singed skin.
He died as soon as he’d touched the fence. My brain knew that. But the rest of me didn’t. I was intent on reaching him, on saving him. Logic and caution had deserted me. I was gripped by one all-consuming need—to save Cyuri. At that moment, it was not merely the most important thing in the world but the only thing in the world.
I was two strides from the dead line when someone tackled me, falling on top of me and trying to pin me down. I bucked, meaning to throw whoever it was off me and continue my senseless sprint toward Cyuri. But the man pressed me harder to the ground, his arms hugging my torso, his knees tight around my thighs.
"It’s no use, Adam. It’s too late," Vilmos said in my ear. His voice was strained and breathless. He was smaller and weaker than me, and he knew he couldn’t hold me down for long. "He’s dead, Adam. It will do no good if you kill yourself, too."
It wasn’t true. It couldn't be true. I tensed my muscles, gave a great cry, and jerked upward with all my strength, hurling Vilmos off me. I rolled and pushed myself to my feet, meaning to run again toward Cyuri, but Vilmos was in my way, and he raised both hands, palms out, and shouted, "Don’t, Adam. Look at him. He’s dead. Cyuri’s dead."
This time the words penetrated, stopping me like a slap to the face. I looked at Cyuri’s lifeless form at the base of the fence, then at Vilmos sitting on the ground with tears running down his face. He had saved me. He had stopped me before I’d crossed the dead line and killed myself. But I had failed to save Gyuri.
I sank to my knees and started to cry. It made no sense, because I’d barely known Cyuri. Why was his death more meaningful than that of any of the other men I’d seen die in the camp? Why did it hurt so much?
Maybe because I’d become invested in his survival. I had saved him from Hendrik. I had shared my bowl with him. I had tried to help him make the transition to camp life. And all that effort had been for naught.
A short while later, our faces wet, Vilmos and I rose to our feet. With a final glance at Gyuri, we turned and walked toward our block. Neither of us spoke. It was a few minutes before I noticed that the bread Gyuri had tossed at me was still clasped in my hand. Camp instincts. Vilmos had tucked his half into his sleeve when he ran after me. I did the same now. I’d save it for breakfast tomorrow.
We ran into Hendrik, who grinned when he saw me. “I told you he wouldn’t last. He was weak."
Red fire erupted in my head. I turned to Hendrik with violence in my heart. I wanted to rearrange his face, to replace that grin with blood and broken teeth.
"You son of a bitch," I said, marching toward him. “I’m going to—’’
My voice died mid-sentence. For at that moment, in the mass of prisoners milling behind Hendrik, I saw a man that I knew. And he saw me. His appearance was different from the last time I saw him. His hair was gone, his face thinner. But I recognized him all the same. And by the widening of his eyes and the twitch of a smile on his lips, I could tell he had recognized me as well.
A bolt of fear shot from my belly button to my chest, supplanting my hatred for Hendrik. I rushed past him, ignoring his shouts, but the man had already turned and disappeared into the crowd. With mounting dread, I pushed my way after him, but he was gone. I weaved through the prisoners, searching for the man, but it was like trying to find one specific grain of sand in a beach. In their striped uniforms, with their starved physiques and shaved heads, the prisoners provided the perfect camouflage for one of their own.
Vilmos caught up with me. “What is it, Adam? What’s the matter?”
"Did you see him?"
"See who?"
I was about to say Andris Farkas, the man’s name, but Vilmos didn’t know him. "The man who smiled at me. He was standing right there." I pointed to where Farkas had been standing when we’d locked eyes.
Vilmos shook his head. "No, I didn’t. But if he was smiling at you, why do you look so distraught?”
Because Andris Farkas was trouble. Andris Farkas meant that, in all likelihood, I had no more than a day or two to live.
10
“His name is Andris Farkas,” I told Vilmos after we found a relatively isolated spot, out of earshot of other prisoners.
"Okay. Who is he?"
"He’s from Hungary. A Jew. And a thief. One night in '38, I caught him as he was climbing out a window of an apartment he’d broken into.”
"Oh,” murmured Vilmos, understanding where this was going.
"He knew my name," I said. "Knew I was Jewish. So when his attempt at bribery failed, he appealed to our common ethnicity and asked me to look the other way while he made a quick getaway."
"But you didn’t?"
"No. We’d been looking for him for months. He’d committed a string of robberies, which was bad enough, but in one of them, he’d beaten an old woman who lived in the house he broke into. She had to be hospitalized. So I arrested him. He got eighteen years ”
Vilmos let out a low whistle. "A harsh sentence, isn't it?"
"Yes. The prosecutor in the trial used Farkas’s Jewishness against him, portrayed him as a slimy rat who robbed good Hungarian folk even though he had plenty of money. It wasn’t true; Farkas had grown up poor, and his robberies never netted him much. But the prosecutor didn’t let that get in the way of a good story. It was right before the government started enacting anti-Jewish laws, and the atmosphere was darkening by the day. So Farkas got eighteen years. I remember sitting in the courtroom, hearing the sentence and feeling sick to my stomach and thinking that maybe I shouldn't have arrested Farkas after all. Maybe I should have let him go with a warning and a little roughing up to make him reconsider his life of crime."