The Invisible Bridge (62 page)

"Does Klara know you came to me?" Hasz asked.

"No," Andras said. "Though she wouldn't have discouraged me. She's confident of your help in all matters. I'm the one whose pride generally prevents the asking."

Gyorgy Hasz pushed himself up from the leather chair and went to tend the fire.

The previous day's soft heat had blown away overnight; a sharp wind rattled the casement windows. He moved the logs with the poker and a flight of sparks soared up into the heights of the fireplace. Then he replaced the tool and turned to face Andras.

"I have to apologize before I speak further," he said. "I hope you'll understand the decisions I've made."

"Apologize for what?" Andras said. "What decisions?"

"For some time I've been operating under a rather heavy financial and emotional burden," he said. "It's entirely independent of my son's situation, and I'm afraid it's going to continue for some time. I can't imagine what the end of it will be, in fact. I haven't spoken to you about it because I knew it would be a source of worry at a time when your greatest concern was to stay alive. But I'm going to tell you now. It's a grave thing you've come to ask of me, and I find it impossible to give an answer without making you understand my situation. Our situation, I should say." He took his seat across from Andras once again and pulled his chair closer to the table. "It concerns someone dear to us both," he said. "It's about Klara, of course. Her troubles. What happened to her when she was a girl."

Andras's skin went cold all at once. "What do you mean?"

"Not long after you went into the Munkaszolgalat, a woman came forward and informed the authorities that the Claire Morgenstern who had recently entered the country was the same Klara Hasz who had fled eighteen years earlier."

His ears rang with the shock of it. "Who?" he demanded. "What woman?"

"A certain Madame Novak, who had returned from Paris herself not long before."

"Madame Novak," Andras repeated. In his mind she appeared as she had that night at Marcelle Gerard's party, quietly triumphant in her velvet gown and jasmine perfume--on the verge of effecting a twelve-hundred-kilometer separation between her husband and the woman he loved, the woman who had been his mistress for eleven years.

"So you know the situation, and why she might have done such a thing."

"I know what happened in Paris," Andras said. "I know why she has reason to hate Klara--or why she
had
reason to, in any case."

"It seems to have been a persistent hate," Gyorgy said.

"You're telling me that the authorities know. They know she's here, and who she is. You're telling me they've known for months."

"I'm afraid so. They've compiled a great dossier on her case. They know everything about her flight from Budapest and what she's done since then. They know she's married to you, and they know all about your family--where your parents live, where your father works, what your brothers did before they entered the military, where they're stationed now. There's no chance, I'm afraid, that we could arrange an exemption for your brother at the common rate. Our families are connected, and the connection is known by those who have power in these matters. But even if we could convince your brother's battalion commander to name a price--and that in itself is not at all certain, considering how many of those men are terrible anti-Semites--it might be impossible to produce the money. You see, I've had to make a financial arrangement to preserve Klara's freedom, too. The chief magistrate in charge of her case happens to be an old acquaintance of mine--and happens, as well, to be intimate with my financial affairs, due to my removal from the bank presidency and my efforts to protest it. When the information about Klara emerged, he was the one to offer a kind of solution--or what one might call a solution, in the absence of any other source of hope. A sort of trade, as he put it to me. I would pay a certain percentage of my assets every month in perpetuity, and the Ministry of Justice would leave Klara alone. They would also see to it that the Central Alien Control Office renews her official residence permit each year. They don't want her deported, of course, now that they've got her back in the country and can use her to their advantage."

Andras drew a breath into the constricted passages of his lungs. "So that's what you've done," he said. "That's where the money's going."

"I'm afraid so."

"And she knows nothing about it?"

"Nothing. I want her to have the illusion of safety, at least. I think it's best to say nothing to her unless the situation changes significantly for the better or the worse. If she knew, I'm certain she would try to stop me. I don't know what form her attempt might take or what its consequences might be. I've informed my wife about the arrangement, of course--I've had to explain to her why it's been necessary to dissolve so many of our assets--and she agrees it's best to keep the whole thing from Klara for now. My mother disagrees, but thus far I've managed to make her see my perspective."

"But how long can it go on?" Andras said. "They'll bleed you dry."

"That seems to be their plan. I've already had to place this house under a second mortgage, and recently I've had to ask my wife to part with some of her jewelry. We've sold the car and the piano and some valuable paintings. There are other things that can be sold, but not an endless supply. And as my assets diminish, the percentage inches up--it's a way to keep the arrangement lucrative for this magistrate and his cronies in the Ministry of Justice. I believe we'll have to sell the house soon and take a flat closer to the center of town. I dread that--it'll become increasingly difficult to explain to Klara why we have to do these things. It's not possible to claim Jozsef's exemption as a continual drain of that magnitude. But Klara's freedom may be infinitely dear. Now that the government has found a way to siphon away our assets, I'm sure they won't stop until there's nothing left."

"But the government is the guilty party! Sandor Goldstein was killed. Klara was raped. Her daughter is the evidence. The government was responsible. They're the ones who should be paying
her."

"In a just world, it might be possible to prove their guilt," said Hasz. "But my lawyers assure me that Klara's accusations of rape would mean nothing now, particularly considering the fact that Klara fled justice herself. Not that they would have meant much at the time, mind you. Her situation was desperate from the beginning. If she'd stayed, the authorities would have pulled every dirty trick to demonstrate her guilt and hide their own. That was why my father and his lawyer decided she had to leave the country, and why they couldn't bring her back. My father never stopped trying, though--until his dying day he hoped it might still be done."

Andras rose and went to the fire, where the logs had burned down to glowing coals. The heat of them seemed to reach inside him and send a bright wave of anger through his chest. He turned to look into his brother-in-law's eyes. "Klara has been in danger for months, and you didn't tell me," he said. "You didn't think I could bear to know. Maybe you thought I didn't know what existed between Klara and Novak in Paris.

Maybe you're afraid yourself that something's happened between them here in Budapest.

Did you plan to keep making these payments until the problem went away? Were you going to leave me in the dark forever?"

The furrows of Hasz's brow deepened again. "You have a right to be angry," he said. "I did keep you in the dark. I didn't feel I could trust you not to tell her. You have an uncommon relationship with your wife. The two of you seem to confide everything to each other. But perhaps you can understand my position, too. I wanted to protect her, and I didn't see how the knowledge could help either of you. I imagined it could only bring you pain."

"I'd rather have worried," Andras said. "I'd rather have had the pain than been kept ignorant of any problem that concerns my wife."

"I know how Klara loves you," Gyorgy said. "I wish you and I had gotten to know each other better before you were conscripted. Maybe if we had, you'd understand why I felt it was right to act as I did."

Andras could only nod in silence.

"But as to the question of Klara's fidelity, I can assure you I've never felt the slightest uncertainty in that quarter. As far as I can divine, my sister adores you and you alone. She's never given me reason to believe otherwise, not in all the time you've been away." He took the poker in his hand and looked toward the fire again, and his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. "If I had anything like my former property or influence, I might be more certain of being able to do something for your brother. The military has become increasingly greedy regarding bribes and favors. But I'll see if I can speak to someone I know."

"And what about Klara?" Andras said. "How can we be certain she's safe?"

"For now, apparently, the payments protect her. We can hope that the authorities will lose interest before my assets are exhausted. If the war goes on, they'll have more pressing worries. As for taking the course we took before--in 1920, I mean--Klara's leaving the country is an impossibility, particularly in her current state. Her comings and goings are too closely watched. In any case, it's impossible to get entry visas now to the countries where she might be safe. We'll have to persevere, that's all."

"Klara is an intelligent woman," Andras said. "Perhaps she could help us see a way through this."

"I have the most profound admiration for my sister's intelligence," Hasz said.

"She's managed brilliantly in adverse circumstances. But I don't want these concerns to weigh upon her. I want her to feel safe as long as she can."

"So do I," Andras said. "But, as you observed, I'm not in the habit of keeping secrets from my wife."

"You've got to promise me you won't speak to her about it. I don't like to place you in a position of incomplete honesty, but in this situation I find I have no choice."

"You mean to say that
I
have no choice."

"Understand me, Andras. We've invested a great deal in Klara's safety already. If you were to tell her now, it might all have been in vain."

"What if it were my wife's wish not to bring her family to ruin?"

"What else can we do? Would you prefer that she turn herself in? Or that she risk her own life and your child's in an escape attempt?" He got to his feet and paced before the fireplace. "I assure you I've considered the problem from every angle. I see no other course. I beg you to respect my judgment, Andras. You must believe that I have some insight into Klara's character too."

Though it still seemed a betrayal, Andras agreed to keep his silence. In fact he had no other choice; he had no money of his own, no high connections, no way to step between Klara and the law. And he was to leave again for Banhida in the morning. At least the current arrangement would keep Klara protected while he was away. He thanked Hasz for his pledge to see what might be done for Matyas, and they parted with handshakes and serious looks that suggested they would move through this difficulty with the stoicism of Hungarian men. But as Andras left the house on Benczur utca the news struck him again with all its original force. He felt as if he were walking through a different city, one that had lain all this time just behind the city he had known; the feeling brought to mind Monsieur Forestier's stage sets, those palimpsestic architectures in which the familiar concealed the strange and terrifying. In this inside-out reality, the secret of Klara's identity had become a secret kept from her, rather than one held by her; now Andras, no longer deceived, had agreed to become his wife's deceiver.

He thought it might calm his nerves to go down to the river and stand on the Szechenyi Bridge. He needed some time to arrange the situation in his mind before he went home to Klara. How long after he'd entered the work service, he wondered, had Madame Novak gone to the authorities? Was it merely the memory of past wrongs that had sent her there, or had there been a more recent wound? What did he really know of the present situation between Klara and Novak? Was it possible that, despite Gyorgy's reassurances, Andras had been betrayed? A jolt of nausea went through him, and he had to stop at the curb and sit down. A stray mutt sniffed around his ankles; when he extended a hand toward the dog it drew back and ran away. He got up and pulled his coat closer, tightened his muffler around his throat. From Benczur utca he walked to Bajza utca, and from Bajza to the tree-lined stretch of Andrassy ut, where pedestrians huddled against the chilly wind and the streetcar sounded its familiar bell. But as he walked down Andrassy he found himself becoming increasingly anxious, and he realized that it was because he was approaching the Opera House, where, as far as he knew, Zoltan Novak was still director. It had been more than two years since he'd seen Novak; the party at Marcelle's had been the last time. He wondered if the wounds Novak had suffered that night could have moved him to a cruel and subtle act--if he might have brought Klara's peril to his wife's attention, might have betrayed Klara through his knowledge that Edith would want to be rid of her. Andras stopped on the street before the Operahaz and considered what he might say to Novak that very moment if he could walk into the man's office and confront him. What accusations might he make, what would Novak admit?

The knot of connection among the three of them, himself and Novak and Klara, was so convoluted that to pull at any one of its strands was to draw the whole mess tighter. It was possible that if Andras walked into that building he might emerge with the knowledge that Klara had betrayed him, had been unfaithful to him for months--even that the child she was carrying was not his own. But wasn't it worse to stand outside in ignorance, worse to return to Banhida and not know? The doors of the Operahaz were open to the brisk afternoon; he could see men and women inside, waiting in line at the boxoffice window. He drew a breath and went in.

How many months had passed, he wondered, since he'd been inside a theater? It had been since his last summer in Paris--he and Klara had gone to see a dress rehearsal of
La Fille Mal Gardee
. Now he walked in through one of the Romanesque doorways of the performance space and made his way down the carpeted aisle. Onstage, the curtains had been drawn aside to reveal an Italian village square with a white marble fountain at its center. The buildings surrounding it were made of fake stone cut from yellow-painted pasteboard, with awnings of green-and-white-striped canvas. A carpenter bent over a set of steps leading into one of the buildings; the sound of his hammer in the open space of the auditorium gave Andras a pang of nostalgia. How he wished he were arriving here to install a set, or even to set up a coffee table for the actors and deliver their messages and fetch them when it was time to go onstage. How he wished he had a deskful of half-finished drawings waiting for him at home, a studio deadline looming in the near distance.