The Collaborator Read online

  But even before her mother replies, Annika knows what her answer will be.

  ‘You’re a journalist, so it’s your job to ask questions no matter how they may upset people. You think you’re entitled to know everything, and it seems to me that sometimes your curiosity gets the better of your empathy. I think your grandmother is entitled to her privacy and you should respect that.’

  Stung by Eva’s retort, Annika thinks about the dysfunctional triangle in which they are enmeshed. The one with unequal sides, with her grandmother at the apex, and she on the smallest side.

  Fuming, she hangs up, but she knows that she won’t let the matter of Miklós Nagy rest. For once her grandmother won’t succeed in imposing her will.

  BUDAPEST

  CHAPTER THREE

  May 1944

  Miklós Nagy is walking slowly along the Danube embankment, past the fanciful neo-gothic facade of Parliament House and the gigantic statues in Hero Square, but his mind is not on Budapest’s impressive monuments. He is back in Kolostór, the country town where he was born forty years before. He can see the spreading mulberry trees in front of his family home, the purple mess on the unpaved street that the crows made of the fallen fruit every summer. Along that street, which ran down to the wheat fields, old women in headscarves led their cows to pasture in the mornings and brought them back again at night. He smiles at the memory of the town crier who was usually followed by a ragtag group of rowdy urchins as he beat his drum along Main Street, shouting the latest news. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing to listen, and later discussed the day’s events, arguing back and forth as they puzzled over them. It strikes him now that it was probably the excitement of the townsfolk at hearing the news that had inspired him to become a journalist.

  Lost in thought, he crosses Erszébet Avenue and comes to the Astoria Hotel, another relic of the grand days of the Hapsburg Empire, now the headquarters of the Gestapo. That jolts his mind to the bleak present. The skies over Budapest have darkened ever since that Sunday barely two months ago. It was on the nineteenth of March, a day he will never forget. That day he watched hundreds of jackbooted Germans on motorcycles with sidecars roar into the city along Andrássy Avenue ahead of a motorcade of tanks and beige Mercedes Benz automobiles carrying the SS officers. Miklós had taken the measure of the complacent faces inside those cars, the Death’s Head insignia on their peaked caps, and the pitiless gaze that conveyed the chilling conviction that they were Aryan supermen destined to rule the world.

  He crosses the Chain Bridge and steps into the shiny red Sikló cable car which sways up Swabian Hill on the other side of the river, clenching his fists to stop his hands from trembling. He has to keep his wits about him for the meeting ahead. He must appear calm and in control, but the thought of the man he is about to confront brings beads of sweat to his forehead. A cruel wind is blowing, and even though it’s May, spring feels a long way off. He takes off his grey fedora and wipes the perspiration from his brow.

  An avenue of old oaks and beeches cuts through the terraced gardens that surround the Hotel Majestic at the top of the hill. Armed guards at several posts along the avenue order him to halt in guttural German voices and demand to inspect his papers. The sight of armed German soldiers in their helmets and stiff uniforms all over the city always churns his stomach, especially as the ever-increasing anti-Semitic laws have included a ban on Jews using public transport, holding any public office, swimming in public baths, or even shopping for many basic food items. But from the perfunctory way the guards check his papers, he knows they have been informed about this meeting. With a peremptory gesture, they motion for him to enter the hotel.

  Miklós waits in the marble foyer while the guard hands his papers to the official behind the counter, a Hungarian flunkey whose smug expression indicates that he relishes his new role. The guard shrugs, and gestures several times towards Miklós, who looks around. The last time he was here, it was on a very different mission. This hotel used to be ideal for secret rendezvous, with its discreet reception staff and well-trained waiters who never seemed to notice the languid presence of a woman in a black lace negligee reclining on a velvet settee.

  He sighs as he recalls delicious afternoons spent with lovers in the intimate boudoirs upstairs. With its gold-framed mirrors, crimson velvet couches and Bohemian chandeliers, this hotel is another of Budapest’s famous Austro-Hungarian extravaganzas, but now, as he looks towards the ornate reception desk with its gilded arabesques, the gaze of the reception staff is a grim reminder that this hotel is no longer a pleasure palace but the headquarters of the most feared man in the city.

  The guard strides across the foyer and escorts him up the curved staircase to the second floor. When they come to a double door with moulded panelling trimmed with gold leaf, his escort knocks with the deference that hotel staff once displayed when these apartments were occupied by princes, diplomats, and their mistresses.

  Miklós takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders. Under his woollen coat, he can feel sweat pooling in his armpits and knows it’s not the heat. An angry voice from inside the room orders them to enter.

  ‘The Obersturmbannführer will see you now,’ the guard says in the self-important voice of those who are convinced that the power of their superiors has rubbed off on them. With exaggerated deference, he opens the door. The moment Miklós has dreaded has finally arrived.

  The man inside the large room is sitting at a carved walnut desk, smoking a cigarette that fills the room with the sweet aroma of Turkish tobacco. He is smaller than Miklós had imagined, quite insignificant-looking really, with a narrow face, pale eyes and a sardonic curve in his thin lips. His grey-green SS jacket fits him so well it looks as if he was born wearing it. The four stars on his epaulettes indicate his rank: lieutenant-colonel. His pistol lies on the desk in front of him in a brown leather holster. He glances at Miklós without interest and doesn’t ask him to sit down.

  There are chandeliers on the frescoed ceiling, sconces on the walls, and silk Persian rugs on the marble floor, but the man behind the desk doesn’t appear to be awed by the palatial setting. And that’s not surprising. After all, Miklós reflects, he wields more power than the hotel’s illustrious residents ever did.

  The tasselled burgundy velvet drapes on either side of the window frame the best view in Budapest, one that has inspired painters for centuries, the wooded slope of Buda rolling down to the Danube, and the filigree spires of Parliament House on the opposite bank of the river, but Miklós notes that the man sits with his back to the window, arrogantly indifferent to the view. He wasn’t sent to Budapest to admire the scenery.

  In any case, it’s clear that the beauty of this city holds no interest for him. From what Miklós has heard about his single-minded devotion to his task in other countries, he knows that the man is not simply obeying orders: he is carrying out what he considers to be his sacred mission.

  Finally he looks up from his papers and surveys Miklós with an expression that suggests that this is Judgement Day and the sentence will not be merciful. He doesn’t offer him a chair. Tamping out his half-smoked Turkish cigarette with short jabs, he immediately lights another, stands up, and pushes his armchair back so violently that it topples over and crashes to the floor. Miklós supposes this is meant to intimidate him and put him off guard. He watches the Nazi lieutenant-colonel pacing up and down the Persian carpet in jackboots whose sheen reflects the light from the crystal chandelier. With each step he winds himself up into an uncontrollable fury.

  ‘I’ll soon rid Budapest of you vermin! You Jews are the scum of the earth! The sooner the world is free of you, the better. Even your Hungarian leaders agree. In fact they can’t wait to get rid of you. We’ve never encountered such enthusiastic co-operation. If it was up to your government, we’d be getting rid of you even faster.’

  With a scornful glance he plants himself in front of Miklós and yells, ‘Do you know who I am?’

  Miklós is drowning in fear
but he looks straight into the granite eyes without flinching. He knows only too well that he is confronting Adolf Eichmann, who has been sent to Budapest to destroy the last surviving Jewish community in Europe.

  Like a snowflake floating inexorably towards the flames of hell, Miklós knows that this moment could be his last, and he must make it count.

  How he, a Jewish journalist, has come to confront the most terrifying man in Hungary at a time when being a Jew in Budapest means being deprived of every civil right, being rounded up into a ghetto and then forced onto a train for a journey to an unknown destination, is a source of wonder even to himself. His father often said that you only discover what you’re made of in times of war. Miklós has never asked his father what he discovered about himself during the Great War, in which he fought for Emperor Franz Jozef and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now he wonders what he is about to discover about himself.

  He knows he’s no hero. Was it courage, foolhardiness or sheer stupidity that has lured him to this audience with the Devil? Vanity, perhaps? Defiance? Or hubris? Was it the unspoken, unacknowledged longing for prominence and praise, the desire to become the Moses of his people at a moment when their extinction seemed certain that has pushed him towards this hopeless encounter? He is astonished that Eichmann has agreed to this meeting, but he knows that no matter what happens, he must push his advantage to the limit. Doing nothing would be tantamount to colluding in the destruction of his people.

  But right now, in Eichmann’s terrifying presence, he doesn’t have time to analyse or philosophise. Time is running out, and he must summon all his energy, all his guile and strength, to focus on his aim. He must find some way of negotiating with the arbiter of death for the lives of the remaining Jews of Hungary.

  There is one other person in the room, a younger SS officer, and Miklós wonders about the tall blond Nazi with a smooth round face and the eager expression of a child about to receive a longed-for gift. While Eichmann has been ranting and pacing, this young man has moved towards the window and gazes impassively at the river, as if to distance himself from their conversation.

  Eichmann is finally still, and he sits down again. When he speaks, his voice is surprisingly quiet. There is a mocking smile on his lips, and his eyes have the triumphant gleam of a wolf that has cornered its prey.

  ‘Are you a Zionist, Nagy?’

  Before Miklós can reply, Eichmann says, ‘I believe in Zionism.’

  Taken aback by this extraordinary statement, Miklós doesn’t know what to say. Is Eichmann baiting him, trying to put him off balance? Or is he making some kind of macabre joke?

  But Eichmann doesn’t expect an answer. He leans over, picks up a book from the far corner of the desk and holds it out. The Jewish State. ‘This Herzl had a point,’ he says. ‘All you Jews should be in Palestine, instead of contaminating Europe. It would have been easier and cheaper for us to deport you all there, but the Grand Mufti wouldn’t allow it, and he’s our ally, so we had to abandon that idea and find some other way to get rid of you.’

  He sounds like a businessman discussing the need to dispose of unwanted waste. Pausing to light yet another cigarette, he inhales, gazing at Miklós with narrowed eyes. Miklós is wondering how long this harangue will continue, and whether he can believe any of it, when Eichmann points to the book.

  ‘I read it so I could understand you Jews. It’s important to know your enemy, especially when he controls world finance and politics.’

  Miklós suppresses a bitter laugh. He wishes he could point out how ludicrous this statement is. How can Eichmann believe in the world domination of the people that he and his fellow Nazis have almost wiped off the face of Europe? Only the Jews of Hungary now stand between him and his goal of total annihilation.

  ‘You see, Nagy? I can be as devious as you people, but I’m not as good at making money.’ He chuckles and looks at Miklós, as if expecting him to appreciate his joke.

  While Eichmann is still in full flight about the wealth and power of the Jews, it strikes Miklós that Eichmann’s fantasy about a powerful World Jewry might make him receptive to the offer that he has come here to make. When he pauses, Miklós takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know if he has the authority to speak on behalf of international Jewish organisations, but he has to sound as if he has some powerful body behind him because the situation is so desperate. There’s no time to lose. His mouth is so dry that he rasps the words in a hoarse voice he hardly recognises.

  ‘Every day, you deport thousands of Jewish men, women and children to concentration camps. I’m here on behalf of the Jewish World Congress to make you an offer. We are willing to raise a large sum of money if you stop the deportations.’

  At the mention of a ransom, Miklós notices that the young SS officer at the window, who until now has been motionless and apparently detached, turns slightly and inclines his head towards the speakers. He figures that money is the button that switches on this Nazi’s attention.

  Eichmann slams his fist on the desk and screams, ‘How dare you! Are you trying to bribe me, Nagy?’

  He plants himself in front of Miklós, so close that he can smell the tobacco on the Nazi’s breath. ‘You are offering me Jews for sale!’ He spits out the words. ‘Don’t take me for a fool!’

  Miklós stares back at Eichmann with what he hopes looks like cool indifference but his heart is pounding and his legs are about to buckle. He clasps his hands to conceal their trembling. He can’t allow any twitch, tremor or flicker to betray his terror. He is playing a lethal game of Russian roulette with the murderer who holds his future, and that of the remaining Jews of Hungary, in his hands.

  Eichmann has stopped yelling once again. He returns to his desk and this time he motions Miklós to sit down. ‘I’ll tell you what, Nagy. Get me ten thousand trucks and I’ll let a million of your people go.’

  Miklós looks straight into Eichmann’s face and tries to regain his equanimity as he wonders how to respond to this preposterous offer. Is this Eichmann’s idea of a joke, or is it a trap of some kind? It can’t possibly be genuine. Even if the Allies wanted to save Jews — and the fact that they have refused to bomb the railway line carrying trains full of Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz makes him wonder if they do — no western government would supply the Germans with ten thousand trucks during the war knowing that they would be used against them.

  As if he can read Miklós’s thoughts, Eichmann adds, ‘We would only use the trucks on the Eastern front.’

  Miklós has to think quickly. The tables have unexpectedly turned, and instead of considering his offer, Eichmann has made a counter-offer, an outrageous demand that he must know will not be taken seriously. Britain and America would never agree to supply matériel for Germany’s war effort.

  As for the Jewish organisations in Istanbul and Switzerland, they wouldn’t agree to making any deal with the Nazis, and in any case he doubts if they have the necessary funds. But he knows he can’t risk an outright refusal. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, as well as his own, hang in the balance.

  Eichmann is still talking. ‘If your rich Jews agree in principle, as a sign of goodwill, to prove that my offer is genuine, I am willing to let six hundred Jews leave Hungary. You can compile a list of six hundred names of those with visas for Palestine, and give it to me. In the meantime, I will send your colleague Gábor Weisz to Turkey so he can pass on my offer to the Western Allies and the Jewish Agency in Istanbul.’

  Miklós’s mind is racing. There is no chance Eichmann’s plan will succeed, and when it fails, the fate of the remaining Jews of Hungary will be sealed. Sending Gábor to Istanbul is pointless. And yet their only hope is to stall for time, to delay the deportations. The Germans have suffered defeats all over Europe, and the Russians were advancing towards Poland. Surely the war would end soon. And then there was the matter of the visas. The Jewish Agency’s Palestine office has issued some permits but there weren’t enough, and they didn’t have official stamps and applica
tion forms to forge more of them. But somehow they would have to overcome that problem. There was too much at stake.

  Miklos manages to keep his voice steady as he says, ‘We will pass on your offer.’

  As he leaves the Hotel Majestic, he can hardly stand up. He feels exhausted and drained, as if all his marrow has been sucked away, leaving his bones desiccated and brittle. He walks slowly towards the Chain Bridge, hardly seeing the Danube or the buildings on the Pest side of the city as he struggles to make sense of this surreal proposal. Somehow he will have to present his colleagues with a coherent version of the conversation, create more permits for Palestine, and decide on a strategy to keep Eichmann dangling in the hope of receiving his trucks.

  He wonders if he is equal to the task that he has taken upon himself, and his father’s words resound in his head, accusing him of falling short. It feels as if he has lived a lifetime of anxiety, tension and terror in the past hour, and now Eichmann has chosen Gábor to go to Istanbul. He knows that he himself is a much better negotiator than Gábor, and he is convinced that he should be the one to go on that vital mission.

  He has almost reached his rooms when he feels a sudden surge of guilty joy. With Gábor holed up in Istanbul, his wife Ilonka will be left in Budapest. Alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  May 1944

  Miklós is about to enter the Europa Café when he feels someone tapping his shoulder. He turns and is alarmed to see the Slovakian couple for whom he has recently found shelter and false documents.

  ‘You are our saviour,’ the man is saying. ‘I don’t know how to thank you. You saved our lives.’

  While he is talking, his wife has grabbed Miklós’s hand and tries to kiss it. Miklós pulls his hand away, glancing around to make sure no-one has overheard their reckless expression of gratitude. They should be lying low instead of exposing themselves and endangering him.