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Authors: Alan Lelchuk
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And knew what ? Who understood anything about personal relations? He knew how to save Jews, how to stay calm in difficult and tense situations, how to stand up to authority. But about his own personal or intimate relations, what did he know or really understand? Very little—maybe nothing?
“They will probably try to turn us into spies, if we are not made honorary colonels—in the NKVD.”
“I will be happy enough to be a simple engineer again,” Vilmos remarked.
“And I, an ex-diplomat with architectural ambitions.”
They drove through the bleak landscape, Raoul catching fleeting images of his mother in Stockholm, and half-brother Guy, half-sister Nina. They hadn’t been in his thoughts in a long time. When would he see them again?
“There is the landmark, less than a dozen kilometers now.”
“If we should be split apart,” Raoul offered, “we must find a way to stay in touch. If it is prison for a while, we will use that same knocking system as we used for our entrances in Pest, yes?”
“Perfect. Yes.”
They drove, and Raoul said, “You must survive, Willy, that is the most important thing.”
Vilmos looked over at him, with his dark grin beneath his longish nose, and replied, “Oh, I know how to do that. It is you I am worried about, Raoul. They may want to press you for information, which …”
“Which I may or may not know, I understand. But remember, I have important friends, both in Budapest and in Sweden, so they will probably go easy on me. And besides, I am sure our cells will be airier than our home in the Hazai Bank vault.”
Vilmos laughed and nodded, remembering.
“Well, the motorcylist friends are signaling us, so we are almost there.”
Almost there—but where? thought Raoul—and still he had not gotten to say what he wanted to say. Better left unsaid anyway, he figured; not a good time or space for the intimate. There were more pressing matters at hand. Like where to hide that bag if possible …”
Was there enough evidence to warrant the subtext of baffling intimacy here? Was Manny making certain emotions too obvious for the evidence? Well, he’d have to continue his investigating and research for sure, but from what he understood now, it seemed to fit. At least the basic material facts were real enough: the trip down to Debrecen under the Soviet overseers, the uncertainty of what awaited them; all that he had added was an interpretation. And the personal was as important as the historical.
Again, what sort of hybrid genre was he seeking to create with these little scenes? A shadow history, a docu-fiction, a what-if narrative? Well, who cared for now? Manny thought, getting out his workout mat for his yoga exercises. Just proceed ahead and figure things out later, especially when he had more to go on. If the whole thing blew up in a comedy of smoke and illusion, a fog of wishful thinking, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time, he thought, bending forward in Sun Salutation, neck and back stretching, feeling familiar body-joy.
CHAPTER 4
For the next several months Manny taught, read, researched, walked, saw his son, and listened to him play regularly. He learned a bit about pizzicato and pitch and intonation, and about three classical cellists, Feuermann, Fournier, Piatigorsky. (Josh had put a photo of Feuerman, his favorite, inside his cello, the way Manny used to collect cards of baseball heroes.) The weather was better than in the old days, when minus twenty degrees at night would last for two weeks; freezing pipes and snowstorms would arrive late in spring, weighing down flat roofs and blocking walkways. Now, there were milder temperatures, less snow, and reports of disasters elsewhere. Apart from his class work and the newspapers—for the news, the sports, the obits—he read all he could about Raoul and tried to absorb the many parts, the odd gaps, the accepted information, conventional wisdom, attempts at interpretation. The mysteries remained, even
“They will probably try to turn us into spies, if we are not made honorary colonels—in the NKVD.”
“I will be happy enough to be a simple engineer again,” Vilmos remarked.
“And I, an ex-diplomat with architectural ambitions.”
They drove through the bleak landscape, Raoul catching fleeting images of his mother in Stockholm, and half-brother Guy, half-sister Nina. They hadn’t been in his thoughts in a long time. When would he see them again?
“There is the landmark, less than a dozen kilometers now.”
“If we should be split apart,” Raoul offered, “we must find a way to stay in touch. If it is prison for a while, we will use that same knocking system as we used for our entrances in Pest, yes?”
“Perfect. Yes.”
They drove, and Raoul said, “You must survive, Willy, that is the most important thing.”
Vilmos looked over at him, with his dark grin beneath his longish nose, and replied, “Oh, I know how to do that. It is you I am worried about, Raoul. They may want to press you for information, which …”
“Which I may or may not know, I understand. But remember, I have important friends, both in Budapest and in Sweden, so they will probably go easy on me. And besides, I am sure our cells will be airier than our home in the Hazai Bank vault.”
Vilmos laughed and nodded, remembering.
“Well, the motorcylist friends are signaling us, so we are almost there.”
Almost there—but where? thought Raoul—and still he had not gotten to say what he wanted to say. Better left unsaid anyway, he figured; not a good time or space for the intimate. There were more pressing matters at hand. Like where to hide that bag if possible …”
Was there enough evidence to warrant the subtext of baffling intimacy here? Was Manny making certain emotions too obvious for the evidence? Well, he’d have to continue his investigating and research for sure, but from what he understood now, it seemed to fit. At least the basic material facts were real enough: the trip down to Debrecen under the Soviet overseers, the uncertainty of what awaited them; all that he had added was an interpretation. And the personal was as important as the historical.
Again, what sort of hybrid genre was he seeking to create with these little scenes? A shadow history, a docu-fiction, a what-if narrative? Well, who cared for now? Manny thought, getting out his workout mat for his yoga exercises. Just proceed ahead and figure things out later, especially when he had more to go on. If the whole thing blew up in a comedy of smoke and illusion, a fog of wishful thinking, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time, he thought, bending forward in Sun Salutation, neck and back stretching, feeling familiar body-joy.
CHAPTER 4
For the next several months Manny taught, read, researched, walked, saw his son, and listened to him play regularly. He learned a bit about pizzicato and pitch and intonation, and about three classical cellists, Feuermann, Fournier, Piatigorsky. (Josh had put a photo of Feuerman, his favorite, inside his cello, the way Manny used to collect cards of baseball heroes.) The weather was better than in the old days, when minus twenty degrees at night would last for two weeks; freezing pipes and snowstorms would arrive late in spring, weighing down flat roofs and blocking walkways. Now, there were milder temperatures, less snow, and reports of disasters elsewhere. Apart from his class work and the newspapers—for the news, the sports, the obits—he read all he could about Raoul and tried to absorb the many parts, the odd gaps, the accepted information, conventional wisdom, attempts at interpretation. The mysteries remained, even
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