I search for the words to help me to fill that void of six days in which I have lost my tracks. They may be somewhere in the blind spots of my memory but, sad to say, untraceable.
Vera never called me to account for leaving Edo and Judy on their own. She knew that before she could she would have had to call herself to account.
Vera was then three months past her twelfth birthday.
Dearest Father and Mother,
We are well! Misi was here and told us you are thinking we ought to gain admission to the Red Cross, which was granted an extension until the 22nd. We would rather stay where we are, as we don’t want to have to plan any more escapes, seeing that it’s already the 14th. If you are able, speak to Dr Temesváry, maybe we can join you at the hospital. Ask what the position is with Mihály Munkácsy Street! Don’t worry, we’re fine; we have food to eat. Misi said that you should not complete your registration forms but wait, because perhaps we can write in our actual home address soon! Write to say whether I should wait or should I send those too with Jolán Bors, as I’m right now expecting her to return. It would be good if she were to bring our registration forms; if you can get hold of papers without fail!!! We will be waiting here!!! For the time being we will not go there.
All my kisses.
Where could Misi have gone on 14 December? Where was it that we would rather have stayed than again having to avoid being herded into the ghetto? Did Misi bring registration forms for us? Then why was I asking to be sent some with Jolán Bors? It is quite certain, therefore, that we did not go back to Mihály Munkácsy Street.
I wrote that letter on a typewriter. Fourteen lines. Signed at the bottom with my name and Vera’s in ink. The typewriter lettering is recognizably that of the Remington in the workshop; that was also the only place there would have been any ink. Also the letter is on printed stationery bearing the letterhead MANUFACTURER OF STATIONERY AND SPECIALITY PAPER BAGS, with the address and telephone number: Budapest XIV, 41 Francia Road. Tel.: 297–826.
I ought to ask Misi. I put in another call to Mádi in Paris. Good timing, she says; my brothers will be paying a visit this evening. Misi has no recollection of where he met me, but the next day he says he is sure he went to the Alice Weiss Hospital, where my parents and yours were, and he also went to Amerikai Road, but he is quite sure that he did not go to Francia Road.
Mother reads my letter, sitting on a mattress in the basement of the hospital. She has to screw up her eyes to read, her glasses having broken long ago. Jolán Bors is standing beside her. Father bends forward as he looks at Mother; he is also sitting on the mattress and has to bend close in order to hear what Mother is reading because a dying patent next to them is wheezing stertorously. Nurses are racing about between those lying on the mattresses on the ground. There are no bedpans, they are yelling, they are not able to set up infusions for anyone. The head physician, Dr Temesváry, arrives by way of the steps; he is podgy, and his white gown is tight on him. He pays a call to everyone in turn, assistants — two plump nurses — in trail. Mother folds my letter; in her knapsack is a small pocket, which is where she hides it next to the letter I sent from Mihály Munkácsy Street.
It never occurred to me what my parents thought about what would become of me when their column left the Óbuda Brickworks. What did they think about, I wonder, when the ambulance brought them to the hospital and they were lying among the dying? These are not the sorts of things one can ask about, in just the same way as they never asked me what I had thought about them when I was left on my own.
On 15 December Carl Lutz gets news that Giorgio Perlasca, passing himself off as the Spanish Consul-General, had taken part in the rescue work and called upon the papal nuncio, Angelo Rotta, to threaten Hungary’s Arrow Cross government that diplomatic relations would be broken off if they did not abandon the mass murder. I cannot do that without instructions from the Vatican, he says.
Rákóczi Square, in the VIIIth District just off the main ring of the Outer Circle, is covered in litter. It is February, and the temperature is 5 degrees below freezing; the time is eight o’clock in the evening. I set off from the square down Miksa Déri Street. The entrances to the houses are barricaded behind dustbins. The reek of refuse and rust is pervasive. At the end of the block, at the junction with Víg Street, a man in a jacket is in discussion with a whore. Greasy locks of greying hair sprout from under his ski cap; the whore’s look is sympathetic. That was a long time ago, the man is saying, and the whore, seemingly remembering what was a long time ago, is nodding. Of course, it is possible that she is not a whore; maybe they are not holding a discussion, and it could be pure chance which has brought them together at this junction after decades. They are stamping their feet to keep warm; my feet are also cold, and the slush is splashing on to my trousers. On Nagyfuvaros Street, a few streets further on, a bus is in service and cars are being parked, yet, despite this being the city centre, it has the feeling of an outlying part of the world, a world of basements, a world of cellars.
I step into a house doorway. Six overflowing dustbins and enough rubbish all around them to fill a seventh. A child darts out of the stairwell and slips on the rubbish. Two young Roma men in their twenties come out wearing shabby but clean Adidas jackets. They wish me good evening and ask if they can be of any help. I tell them I’m just looking; there was a time when I lived around here. They would be glad to help, the taller man says. I thank them, but I can see that they are disappointed that I rejected their offer. They have sad looks on their faces. Come on, the taller one says, let’s get going.
The yard is tidier than the doorway. Three floors of outside corridors, gaps in the plaster. On the right is an unlit stairwell. Opposite is the back staircase, which in days past would have been used by servant girls, porters and postmen. The third floor has a vaulted passage, only the passage leads nowhere; all that can be seen is sky.
I note down the number of rubbish bins, the flight of stairs which leads nowhere, the grilled basement windows.
Nothing at all about the building seems to have changed over the past fifty-eight years.
We have to go up to the second floor. Vera stops at the landing on the first floor. It’s a good thing we are wearing two pullovers under our overcoats; it would have been even better if we could have had two pairs of hiking socks to put in our boots. It must be 10 degrees below. We keep beating our palms together.