Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (3 page)

The negotiations had begun. I gestured toward a chair. “Sit down.”

The boy remained standing. “Please.” I added.

He looked around the room and then took a seat closest to the door. I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him with a small plate of biscuits.

I watched him savoring what I knew was the best coffee he’d had in these days of black market chicory. I needed to establish our roles. Coffee, his hunger, this room, the old oriental rug he scraped his filthy shoes against, were just props. Bela and Ilona stood in the doorway as if watching a play.

“Where are you getting the tickets from?” I asked taking a sip from my cup. I made a show of enjoying the bitter taste before placing the cup back in its saucer. “It’s been impossible to get a seat on any train going to Switzerland.”

“I have a friend at the train station,” the boy said, not meeting my eyes.

He was lying. There were no friends now, only business associates. He took one biscuit from the plate, and then stuffed the rest into his coat pocket.

I watched his eyes travel the room, as if appraising the value of the paintings or the china arranged on the shelves between the rows of books. Good, I thought, fighting a sense of violation. “Why not use the tickets for yourself or your family?”

“I don’t need to escape.” He straightened the lapels of his jacket with an air of nonchalance and leaned back in the chair as if this domain was no longer mine, but his. “I’m not a Jew.”

“Neither am I.” I smiled. The smug look faded from his face.

He looked at me and then at Bela as if expecting an explanation. “You need to leave the country, right?”

“No one wants to remain in the middle of a war,” I replied drawing his attention back to me.

Bela interrupted. “It’s her niece she’s interested in saving.”

Ilona’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment, she pursed her lips as if a secret had escaped. I shook my head, but offered no defense.

“And don’t forget that you are a Jew as well, Bela,” I said.

Bela’s mouth opened to reply, but Ilona grabbed his arm.

“Bela has given you a deposit,” I said turning to the boy. “How much more do you need for five tickets?”

The ticket seller started to reply but Bela stepped forward and cut him off. “The deposit covers only a quarter of the total price of the tickets.”

I addressed the boy, “You’ll meet us at the station tomorrow to give us the tickets?”

“Yes.”

“What guarantee do we have that you’ll be there?”

The boy shrugged his shoulders and smiled gamely. “You don’t.”

“Other than your desire to make a healthy profit.”

“I have to feed my family.”

“Your father?” I asked.

“In the army.” He looked at his feet. “My mother and sisters rely on me.”

Another lie. Our eyes met and with a tilt of his head and the faintest smile, he acknowledged my verdict.

Ilona clutched Bela’s arm. “Natalie, you ask too many questions.”

I smiled at the boy. “I will rely on your greed.”

I rose to signal the conversation's end. The boy nodded grimly and stood to leave.

Bela regarded me with contempt. “Are you satisfied?”

“When we have the tickets in our hands I will be.”

“You see, Ilona, she’s never pleased.” Bela took her arm, “Let’s go to bed.”

Ilona paused at the threshold of the doorway and looked at me with eyes filled with pain and something else. Anger, perhaps. Or triumph.

“
Nana, we’re no
t
going to make it
!”

Turning from where I was desperately trying to hail a taxi, I watched my young niece run into the street.

“Mila get back to the sidewalk with Anna!”

Tires squealed and a horn blasted. Following Mila, my twin sister, Anna, stepped into the path of a car. The front fender grazed her, spinning her in slow motion. For an instant, I shared her helpless vertigo as the world spun before my eyes, and sky and buildings and pavement swirled around my head like a tumbling house of cards.

She fell with all the pageantry of a well-dressed bundle of sticks, arms outstretched, the blue silk of her ball gown parachuted up and over her head, revealing spindly legs covered by stripped flannel pajama bottoms. She landed on the road in a heap of colorful fabric. My poor, delusional sister, dressed for a night at the opera, on the morning that held our last chance to escape from the Nazis.

I rushed to her side. Mila knelt next to Anna, wiping blood from her forehead, and I cradled Anna’s head in my lap.

The driver of the car jumped out and shouted, “I didn’t see her coming! She walked out in front of me.”

“Anna, where does it hurt?” I murmured, my hands frantically groped through the yards of fabric to feel for broken bones.

“Why don’t you look where’re you’re going!” yelled the driver over the blaring horns of the stalled traffic.

“Look at my dress!” Anna moaned. “I’ll have to go back upstairs to change.”

“Your dress is fine,” I made an effort to brush away the dirt.

“Deszo will notice the stain on the skirt.”

“He’s too much a gentleman,” I assured her.

Anna winced as she tried to raise herself. “My head hurts.”

Looking up, I yelled at the driver of the car. “We have to get to the train station. You have to take us.”

“Why?” He threw his arms up in the air. “Because this crazy woman ran in front of my car?”

“Yes,” I screamed. “Please, we have to catch a train.”

“There’s no way you can get to the train station in this traffic.”

“Please help us,” I begged. “We have to leave.”

Cursing, he slammed his fist on the hood. “Get in the car.”

Mila and I lifted Anna to her feet and helped her into the back seat of the car. The driver pulled back into traffic, lurched around a corner, nearly sideswiping a delivery truck attempting the same corner from the opposite direction.

“Nana, how much time do we have?” Mila asked.

I checked my watch. Worry shook my hands. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes until the train leaves?” The driver craned his neck around to look at me.

“Yes.”

He shook his head, hunched over the steering wheel, the edge of his dirty wool coat rubbed against the edge of his cap. “No chance. You’ll never make it.”

Still, he accelerate
d
into traffic as if inspired by the impossibility of our plight, and then threw on his brakes as another car swerved in front of him. He retaliated, cutting off the car in turn, while gesturing wildly and swearing.

“What’s wrong with this driver?” Anna asked. “This isn’t the way to the Opera House.”

“Ignore her!” I cried.

He swore again and the car leapt forward. As we turned the corner, I saw a sliver of our beloved Danube, and the Parliament building, which sat on the river’s edge like a fat wedding cake. I shivered as I noticed the German tanks that circled it like a line of hungry rats. 

Mila leaned forward to look out the front window. “Nana, Momma wouldn’t let the train leave without us.”

“Of course not,” I said.

“She said we could take a later train.” Mila turned to me, her enormous blue eyes revealed her doubt more profoundly than her words.

“Of course.” I shot the driver a warning glance as he looked at me through the rear view mirror. 

“Anna how are
you feeling?” I asked.

“I have an awful headache.”

“What were you thinking, walking into the street?”

“That’s where you were.” she smiled up at me.

I leaned over, kissed her forehead, and gently brushed my fingers across her bruised cheek.

“We’re going to miss the first curtain,” Anna said. “I hope Deszo will wait for us.”

The traffic piled up and finally stopped. The driver slammed the steering wheel. “Lady there’s no way I can get you any closer than this.”

We were losing time. The train station was three blocks ahead.

“Mila, grab our bags, we’ll have to run the rest of way.” I opened the door and helped Anna to her feet.

I handed the driver a wad of bills. “Thank you.”

He smiled sadly, “Good luck.”

We hurried throug
h
the stalled traffic and throngs of pedestrians. Three gypsy children running against the current surrounded us. With ragged smiling faces, one stretched out a hand and another surreptitiously tried to find an entrance into a pocket or purse. Anna cried out as a young boy grabbed her coat. I slapped him away. Instinctively I clutched the lapels of my coat shut. Shoved from side to side, we slowly made our way forward. Pushed out into the street we moved between stalled cars.

Regaining the sidewalk, I clutched Anna as her feet slipped on a patch of worn shiny ice and her legs collapsed beneath her. Mila was steps ahead of us, looking back from moment to moment, urging us to keep up with her. Finally, we crossed the last street before the train station.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the ill-lighted gloom of the cavernous main hall. Our shoes slid against the slick marble floors. We stumbled over suitcases and bags tied together haphazardly with twine.

Old women fleeing the terror in the villages sat in a stupor clutching their grandchildren in one hand and their meager belongings in another. Men in military uniforms paced listlessly waiting for orders. Beggars, limbs missing, were propped against the steps, like discarded luggage. We slogged our way through the main hall toward the stairs that lead to the train platforms. To our left, we passed a waiting area, shrouded in darkness, in which rows and rows of benches were crowded with silent, vacant souls.
             

“Nana,” Mila yelled pointing to a sign overhead. “The train is on track three.”

“See if you can find your mother,” I shouted. “And get on the train.”

Mila hesitated.

“Go!” I shouted. “We’ll meet you there.”

The crowd swallowed Mila and I prayed that she would get on the train. Even though her success would mean our separation.

Clinging to one another in gray-cloaked clusters were those who had decided safety was hiding in plain sight. Others ran from one place to another, imagining salvation right around the corner.  I grabbed my sister’s face and our eyes met. “You must help me. We’ve got to get to the train track.”

For a moment, the clouds in her eyes parted and lucidity beamed through.

“Yes, let’s go.” she whispered.

We locked arms. Swept into the current of bodies pouring toward the entrance to the tracks, we struggled to keep up.

On the tracks, an explosion of cold washed away the fetid stink of the terminal. The noise level rose to a roar. The mob surged with the desperate energy of passengers on a sinking ship. Shouts from train conductors fought with the outraged defense of passengers without tickets. Fights broke out as people clawed and shoved their way onto to over-crowded trains. Above all of this, the monstrous hiss of engines and bone-crushing scrape of metal against metal heralded the trains’ departure.

I searched th
e
crowded platform. My frustration and fear mounted at the impossible task of holding onto Anna while watching for Mila.

I grabbed a passing conductor. “Where’s the train to Geneva?”

“Ahead on the left,” he shouted. “It’s leaving,”

I grabbed Anna’s arm, leaned forward using my shoulder to wedge an opening in the throng.

“Mila! Ilona!” My shouts were swallowed by the cries of my neighbors. I saw the train and continued pushing until I reached an open space just along the edge of the platform. I had to avoid falling onto the tracks, but ahead, I could see Mila arguing with a conductor as she tried to get onto the train. I used all my strength to push toward her.

“My mother has my ticket!” Mila pleaded. She attempted to push past the conductor. “Let me on and I’ll get the ticket from her.”

I dragged Anna along with me until she refused to keep up. I dropped her hand and ran forward without a word or a look backward.

The conductor shoved Mila back onto the platform. “No ticket, no entrance. This train is full.”

The train shuddered, lurched forward and back. Undecided, it paused. A loud shriek of steel and steam and I watched in horror as it started to inch forward. Mila noticed and her attempts grew more desperate.

“Please let me on,” she cried, skipping sideways to keep pace with the train. “My mother has my ticket.”

Mila looked along the length of the train and then sprinted. She stopped halfway down the car and then started trotting to keep pace with the slowly moving train.

She pounded on a window of the train, screaming, “Momma!”

The window opened and Ilona leaned out. “Mila, how did you get here?”