Two weeks later an SS patrol came and took them to Heldenplatz to join other couples like themselves. They were forced to wear placards round their necks. On hers was written I’M A JEWISH WHORE AND I CORRUPT CHRISTIANS. On his I’M AN AUSTRIAN PIG AND I LUST FOR JEWISH MONEY. The SS photographed them in right profile and left profile, and made them stand in the square all day with passers-by staring at them. Some, encouraged by the guards, spat on them, particularly on the ‘Jewish whore’. Others showed sympathy, but didn’t dare to stop. I still have a photograph published in a Nazi paper. She is in a light-coloured dress, her curly blonde hair now touched with grey, wearing her hat at a jaunty angle, her head poised with a certain defiance despite the humiliating situation. Her face is serious, not exactly resigned, more ironic I think: it’s easy to see how contemptible all this is, she seems to be saying; I’m here and you are there, you’re free to spit on me, but you can’t avoid seeing me and understanding the horror of my situation. My father seems much angrier, even disheartened. He is holding his placard by one corner; its chain is probably hurting his neck. With his other hand he is holding his hat against his leg; he has a white shirt and bow tie and his eyes are sad. Behind him are standing four SS guards in brown shirts, their collars tightly buttoned to the chin, bandoliers across their chests, swastikas prominent on their shirt sleeves, more swastikas stamped on their caps. They are standing stiffly, pleased with themselves. One is smiling; another sports a Hitler moustache though his manner is unconvincing. A nice souvenir photo …
I was in Denmark at the time and so missed the whole wretched scene. It was nearly evening before the police let them go home. But after that nothing was the same as before. A few days later my father lost his job. My mother had to wear the yellow star on her chest. My sister died soon after of tuberculosis. When their friends saw them approaching, they would cross to the other side of the road and look away. They no longer had any right to go into shops, sit in trams, or go into a cinema or restaurant. I wanted to come home, I wanted to be near them, but they begged me to stay where I was. That saved my life because my mother was deported to Treblinka, where she died of privation a few months later. My father managed to hide until almost the very end of the war, when they found him and took him to Auschwitz. I did not know about this till later. For years I heard nothing. I went on writing to them thinking they must still be alive somewhere. But I never had any answers.
It was only after the end of the war that I found my father, who had miraculously survived not because he was an Aryan but because at the very moment when the Germans decided to burn the camp and exterminate all the survivors as embarrassing witnesses, Soviet tanks arrived and set them free.
When I met him again in ’46 he weighed only thirty-eight kilos and had lost all his teeth. I took him in my arms like Aeneas with his father Anchises after the terrible sack of Troy. It was like embracing a little child. You can’t imagine, my dear Saviour, what it was like for me to take home the featherless sparrow my father had turned into. He couldn’t even speak and only chirped, just like a little bird. I had the joy of seeing him get back his health. A little at a time, stuffed with eggs, meat and apples, he recovered. I also bought him a set of dentures. We were happy together for two years. Then he fell in love with a Frenchwoman called Odette who had settled in Hungary and set up house in the centre of Budapest with her and his friend Ferenc Bruman, first violin in the city orchestra.
Please forgive me if I have bored you with my family history but you are the first person I have felt to be sympathetic and understanding, even though you are so much younger than I am. I know you are not only working as a journalist, but also trying to track down someone you love. I put myself at your disposaclass="underline" Hans Wilkowsky, man of many occupations, resident in Vienna but temperamentally a vagrant, proposes to help you find the child who was deported so many years ago. Will you accept me as a companion in research?
What a strange letter. A man met on a train telling her such private things about his life. A man with a complicated and unhappy past, asking if he can come to her and help her. Should she trust him or not? Something she remembers in his smile inclines her to trust him, despite her doubts and a mass of unanswered questions.
11
Hans and Amara are sitting in the Cafè Mayakovsky on Izaaka Street. In front of them are glasses of white wine. Great drops of water are sliding down the window and lightly touching the amaranth-coloured damask tablecloth.
‘Our glasses are weeping,’ says Hans with a smile. Amara looks at the man with the gazelles who today is wearing dark trousers and a white shirt open to his long thin neck.
‘What shall we drink to?’
‘To research!’
‘Have you discovered anything?’
‘So far, no.’
‘I’ll help you in any way I can. I seem to know this Emanuele already: have you a photo of him?’
‘As a child, yes. Nothing later.’
‘When did he disappear?’
‘His last letter is from ’43. It’s in an exercise book sent to me after the war. I don’t know who sent it. He may even have sent it himself. This is another reason I think he survived.’
‘So you don’t know whether he died at Auschwitz or survived. What makes you think he might still be alive? They gassed the children at once. Useless for forced labour. In fact they caused nothing but trouble.’
‘Emanuele was fifteen when he was taken from the Łódź ghetto, and he had always seemed older than his years. I found no trace of him at Auschwitz. But, as the guard explained to me, the later records are incomplete: too many trains were arriving and unloading in a hurry and the Germans didn’t always keep a proper register of the new deportees, particularly if they were destined for the gas chambers.’
‘And what makes you think he ended up at Auschwitz?’
‘Everyone from the Łódź ghetto was sent there after ’42. Before that they were sent to Chełmno. Or so I’ve read.’
‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to let it go and stop looking for a needle in a haystack?’
‘I don’t believe he is a needle in a haystack. And I’ve dreamed he’s alive.’
‘You believe in dreams?’
‘When they’re as sharp and vivid as that, yes I do.’
‘Even if he is alive but hasn’t been looking for you, might not that mean he would rather keep himself to himself?’
‘I dreamed he was calling me.’
‘Can you describe the dream?’
‘I was at a railway station, a derelict one; the tracks had been abandoned and were overgrown with grass. I noticed a fresh red poppy growing in the midst of those rusty rails. When I went to get a closer look I felt a vibration accompanied by a hissing sound. Looking up I could see, in the distance, a locomotive belching smoke and struggling towards the station. But how could this be possible, surely the line was dead? How could there be a train arriving at that ruined station. I stood in a daze watching the engine advance down the ruined tracks. It was about to run me down and I needed to get out of the way. I wasn’t afraid, just reasoning in the same way as I do when I’m awake. I kept asking myself: if this station has been derelict for so long, where can this train be coming from? And how can it run on these damaged rails?
‘It still came on huffing and puffing and slowly reached the station. Then, squeaking and creaking, it stopped. And I noticed it was a train made up of cattle trucks sealed by planks nailed up in the form of a cross. I glimpsed a movement. I thought it must be animals, cows or horses being taken for slaughter. But, in a gap between the boards, fingers were moving. When I looked more closely I could see eyes shining in the dark. So there were people in those trucks. Even in my sleep I was astonished. Then a dirty little piece of paper fell from one of those hands. I quickly picked it up and pushed it furtively into my pocket for fear I might be seen. I knew danger was hanging over me and over these people. Looking round, I could see armed men standing pointing rifles at the train. Where could they have sprung from if until then the station had been deserted and derelict?’