Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (6 page)

As her heel slipped on a patch of ice, Joseph’s hand tightened around her arm. “It’s a good thing I came along,” he said.

She agreed, reluctantly. Mrs. Tuesday treasured her independence, hated the aches and pains and need for help from others that had come gradually and then swiftly, after she’d turned eighty. “Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” she asked.

“I’m taking my girlfriend down to Times Square. She wants to see the ball drop. I told her she was crazy, but this is her first year in the city.”

A rapid staccato that sounded like gunfire follow
ed
by a thunderous boom reverberated suddenly through the apartmen
t-lined canyon.
 
Joseph’s gentle
hand tightened around her arm. “They’re starting the fireworks early this year.”

Fireworks didn’t scare her. It was the memory of bombs, the flames that consumed the buildings and their inhabitants. It was the scream of the rockets that sounded so much like the last shrill warning of the trains that filled the station before their departure, taking all she loved. 

Mrs. Tuesday remembere
d
the fresh excitement of the city in the early years after her arrival. She’d been twelve then, spoke little English, an orphan of the war sent to live with strangers. She’d always imagined her exile would be temporary, that one day her mother would rescue her and they would return to Hungary together. She eventually realized being assigned the role of mother did not insure reliability or the reciprocation of love. The years passed and she grew up and put away childish wishes, taking a job, getting married, having a child, and then growing old.

“My husband and I watched the ball drop for the Millennium. We weren’t actually down on the street, we watched from a friend’s apartment. But that was fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen years, I was just a kid,” Joseph laughed.

Mrs. Tuesday paused in front of the church doors. “Thank you for walking me here.”

“I’ll come back and pick you up after Mass, how long do you need?”

Mrs. Tuesday sighed knowing she had no choice in the matter and secretly grateful for his insistence, “About an hour, I appreciate your kindness.”

She’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the church. She looked up at the heavy wooden doors and the darkened entrance that emitted only the faintest twinkling of candlelight.
 
Perhaps she should go back for the package.
 

I tried t
o
gain my bearings through the fog but my vision clouded, I saw only my husband’s face. His serene gaze focused on my own. It was not the face he’d had when he died. This one was no longer ravaged by illness, thinned because he was no longer able to eat. These eyes were not lifeless, but vibrant and clever. In death, my husband had returned to the beauty of the days of our early marriage.

“How could they let an old woman be beaten?” I asked.

“Because she is not their old woman, Natalie,” he soothed. “Why are you so naive?”

“Have we come to this?”

“This is only the beginning,” he replied.

“I have to save Mila,” I said. “Ilona has abandoned her.”

He nodded. “I know, but you must be more careful.”

“Is this a dream?”

His eyes twinkled and he smiled. “No, not really.”

His eyes, so brown. Like those of the old woman. “But you’re not real.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise, “Of course I’m real.”

I searched for his hand. “Am I becoming like Anna?”

“You’re stronger than you think.” His breath was warm against my hand, his mouth so soft.

“Take me with you,” I begged.

Swallowed in a yellow filmy haze, Max’s face faded from my view. “No, not yet, my darling. Not yet.”

“Come back!” I cried, coughed, and reached into the emptiness but found nothing.

Blinking back th
e
throbbing in my skull, I slowly raised myself and slid up the wall. The sun had set below the buildings casting long grey shadows down the street. A man leaned over, helped me to my feet, and then scurried away before I could thank him.

“Max?”

My head swam with pain. I stumbled forward and then saw the old woman sprawled on the sidewalk. I knelt and touched her face. It was cold and lifeless. I looked up as people walked by, avoiding my stare. Raising my head I whispered, “Dear God, have mercy on her soul and on ours for our sins.”

Pushing myself up I managed to cross the street to the alley. There I found my basket of food untouched.

Somehow, I foun
d
my way home. Mila and Anna met me at the door. The worry on their faces turned to anger when they saw the wound on my head.

Anna touched my cheek. “What happened?”

I handed Mila the basket of food as Anna took off my coat. “An accident,” I replied.

“Who did this to you?” Mila demanded. “Were you robbed?”

“No, it was the soldiers.”

“I heard their bull horn, they were announcing another curfew,” she said. “I was coming to look for you.”

The thought of Mila alone on the streets, confronted by the Arrow Cross...meeting the same fate as the old woman. Suddenly the full assault of the day’s events caught up with me.

My eyes filled with tears and I reached out for Mila’s arm. “I need to sit down.”

“You need dinner.” Mila grabbed my arm and I leaned against her, resting my face on her head. Her hair was smooth against my cheek, so soft, I turned and kissed the top of her head.

Anna came to my right, placed her arm around my waist. She guided me to a chair and gently pushed me down into it. “Sit and I’ll be right back.” She hurried down the hall to the bathroom and I could hear her rummaging through the cabinet.

“Mila, it’s not safe for you to leave the apartment,” I said. “We have to make arrangements to hide you. To get you to safety.”

Mila placed the basket on the counter and began to take the food out. “I want to stay here with you.”

I rubbed my head wearily. “Max said I should find someone to help us.”

“Uncle Max?” Mila turned and looked at me, she furrowed her brow in concern.

I saw the fear in her eyes and immediately recanted. “No, I’m confused. It was just a thought that occurred to me.”

She shook her head, not ready to believe me. “We should call a doctor.”

Anna came in and knelt by my side. With tender concern, she dabbed the wound on my forehead with a cotton swab and antiseptic. I flinched at the burning sensation.

“I’m sorry, Natalie,” Anna said. “Mila’s right, we should call a doctor.”

“No, I’ll be fine. We can’t invite anyone to come here it’s too dangerous. Just bandage it, Anna.”

Anna’s eyes met mine as she placed the bandage on the wound. “Tell us how this happened.”

“I was stupid,” I said. “Coming home from Mr. Nyugati’s store, I saw an old woman assaulted by the Arrow Cross. No one would help her.”

“So you did.”

“I tried,” I sighed.

“And you got this for your efforts?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What happened to the old woman?” Mila asked.

I remained silent; Anna looked at me and shook her head.

Mila persisted. “What happened to her?”

“It was too late to help her.”

“They took her away?”

I shut my eyes, seeing the old woman’s battered face before me. “When I woke up she was dead. They killed her. For what? Because her papers weren’t in order. Because she was a Jew.”

Mila turned back to the stove, but her body shuddered. I pushed myself up from the table and embraced her. “I’ll just go to bed. We’ll sort this out in the morning.”

Exhausted I went to my room, closed the door, and shed my clothes, too tired to bathe. I pulled on a nightgown and slipped between the covers. I looked at the picture of Max that sat on my nightstand. I picked up the heavy silver frame and clutched it to my chest. I heard him sigh from a corner of the room and I gently laid the frame on the pillow next to me. I turned on my side and let my fingers trace the edge of the sheets where he had lain next to me for so many years.  “Come back to me, darling.”

I fled, pursue
d
down streets slick with icy rain, luminous against overhead streetlights. I tripped and fell scrapping my knees on broken glass. I struggled to my feet and threw myself forward. I rushed toward the familiar buildings of the university.

“Nana, help
me!”

Mila’s scream. Where? Ahead the street was deserted.

“Nana!”

Her cry. I saw her face in my mind, anguished in pain and fear. 

“I’m here, Mila.” I spun around desperately trying to locate the sound of her voice. I’d reached the courtyard between the Economics and Physical Sciences buildings. Under the spotlights, shrouded in mist, I saw two men dressed in full fencing uniform, faces covered, engaged in aggressive battle. Their attack and parry were interspersed with grunts and harsh laughter that belied the friendly competition.

“My point!” exulted the man on the left.

“I’m still ahead,” gasped the other man, regaining his balance and launching into an attack.

“Max, Deszo?” I shouted. “Where is Mila? Didn’t you hear her cries for help?” I rushed toward my husband, reaching out for his arm. At the same instant, Deszo leapt forward, his saber moving toward me carrying the full force of his weight. A searing pain ripped through my chest, knocking me backward. I coughed and knew my lungs were filling, drowning me with my own blood. I touched my lips and the warm liquid oozed over my hands. I tumbled down a tunnel surrounded by hideous screams.

Choking, I sa
t
up
in bed, bathed in sweat, my heart pounded in my chest.

I heard a crash and swearing.

I shook off the terror of the nightmare and fixed on the danger within my home.

Silently I lifted my feet from under the comforter and placed them on the cold floor. I slipped toward the door. Slowly I retraced my path. I needed a weapon. I looked around my room and then toward the closet. My foot stumbled on a slipper twisting my ankle; I stifled a cry of pain. I reached the door to the closet and opened it. My lungs filled with the sweet painful scent of him as I pushed aside my husband’s old suits. My fingertips felt the cold steel blade and reached up to grasp the handle of the old saber. I heard Max chuckle. During the early days of our marriage, I’d ridiculed his pursuit of this historically Hungarian sport. He’d chided me that a good Russian could handle any weapon with ease.

Pulling the saber from the closet, I weighed it in my hand. It was heavier than I’d imagined, its dull-edged blade made for fencing not slicing, but it would serve.

I retraced my steps across the room and into the hall. Books fell against what I knew to be the empty shelves that had held my china. The other bedroom doors were closed. I hoped Anna had taken her customary sleeping pill. Mila was another matter.

I hurried to the entrance to my study. I threw on the light switch and stepped into the doorway.

“You came back for the china?” I asked.

Regaining his composure, he smiled and stooped to pick up the sack without taking his eyes from the saber I held in front of me. “Yes.”

I surveyed the empty shelves. “At least you have good taste.”

He looked now from the saber to my face. He paused and then answered. “I didn’t know who would be chosen.”

“But when you went to the station this morning and saw Bela and Ilona, you figured it out. Two women, and a young girl were left behind,” I suggested. “No great threat.”

“You should’ve remained in your room.”

“You’ve done enough harm.” I raised the saber to the height of his chest.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped forward. “You think you can stop me with that?”

My hand shook, but I held firm. “I will.”

“Nana?”

His eyes went to the door.

I called out, “Mila go back to bed.”

“No.”

I looked back and saw the knife in her hand.

Mila’s voice carried a quiet authority. “Put the bag down and leave.”

He smirked, but there was enough hesitation to know he was playing at bravado. I stepped toward him. “What’s your name?”

“Jozef” he said without taking his eyes from Mila.

I needed to change the atmosphere, to de-escalate the confrontation. “Jozef, my name is Natalie. This is my niece,” I said watching him. “Let’s compromise.”

“Of course,” he said. “Let me go.”

“Nana, what’re you doing?”

“He’s the ticket seller,” I explained.