The Collaborator Page 9

  CHAPTER NINE

  June 1944

  As the beige Mercedes Benz speeds through the streets of Budapest, Miklós glances through the tinted window at the river. Its dull, grey waters reflect his mood. He is on the way to Kolostór to tell the people on his list about his rescue plan, and his brain churns with possibilities, probabilities, perils and risks. For one thing, their rescue isn’t guaranteed. Eichmann might not honour his promise to a Jew: he could break his agreement and instead of allowing the visa holders for Palestine to leave, he might deport them all to Poland instead. For another, he will have to be very discreet when he contacts people to let them know that he has organised a train that will take them to the safety of a neutral nation, and he’ll have to swear them to secrecy, or there will be a riot when others discover that there’s a list and they aren’t on it.

  Past the squares and monuments that made Budapest a showcase of Austro-Hungarian architecture, they drive through shabby outer suburbs whose buildings look as defeated as the people in the streets. Soon they have left the city behind. Sitting in the back seat of the official car that Kurt Becher has provided, Miklós thinks about Becher’s unexpected co-operation. Although he is reluctant to admit this even to himself, in any other circumstances, he would probably have liked this man. It’s gratifying to be treated like an equal by a high-ranking Nazi officer instead of as a Jew who could be deported or killed at a moment’s notice, on a whim. Becher is disgustingly venal, but fortunately his desire for wealth seems stronger than his desire to murder Jews.

  Miklós winds down the window. Instead of the odour of leather upholstery, he wants to breathe the fresh air of the countryside. The road is lined with poplars, birches and chestnut trees glistening in the morning light, and in the distance he hears the warble of a nightingale. The mottled white trunks of the birches gleam in the sunshine, and old bridges span streams that flow with melted snow. In the villages, they pass clusters of simple peasant huts with tall sunflowers, straggly tomatoes, and chickens pecking in the yards, and large stork nests on the roofs. It’s a familiar scene from his childhood that evokes a past when life was uncomplicated, and the terrors of war were far away.

  In this rural area, so close to the city, it is easy to imagine that Budapest is thousands of miles away, and the war is being waged on some distant planet. Occasionally they drive past hunched women with worn faces, thick woollen stockings, and floral kerchiefs tied around their heads, who walk along the side of the road with their cows or goats, a scene that is at once strange and beguilingly familiar. It looks as if nothing here has changed for a hundred years.

  But as they approach a township, his nostalgic idyll comes to an abrupt end. Along the dusty road, groups of Jews with despair in their eyes trudge beside ox-drawn carts heaped with bedding, bundles and small children. Behind them stride Hungarian gendarmes with rifles, bayonets fixed, yelling abuse and lashing out at those who lag behind, mostly frail old people and exhausted mothers clutching babies and dragging toddlers. He knows they are being herded to a ghetto where they will be crammed in without food or toilet facilities, and he longs to leap out of the car and yell at the brutal guards who are escorting them. His driver lets out a low whistle. ‘Thank God they’re getting rid of the Yids for us,’ he says with a grin. ‘They’ll all be gone soon, and good riddance. Hungary for the Magyars, I say.’ Miklós clenches his fists. His plan has to succeed.

  As they approach Kolostór, he feels increasingly unsettled. How much did the Jews in his home town know about the fate of those who had already been deported from the ghettos? Did they know that the Germans were deceiving them with lies about relocation to towns where they’d find work? Oskar Schindler once told him a story that made his hair stand on end. He said that over a million Polish Jews had already disappeared without a trace, and that most of them had ended up in gas chambers that had been specially constructed at Auschwitz, the most satanic machine of mass murder that had ever been invented. He warned Miklós that a similar fate awaited the Jews of Hungary. Miklós distrusted this German womaniser who fraternised with the Nazis, but his account of murder on an industrial scale was something no-one could have invented. He wouldn’t have believed it had he not come face to face with Eichmann.

  With a sigh he turns his mind to the present. They are almost in Kolostór, and he thinks about his impending meeting with representatives of the local Jewish Council, a prospect he dreads. As the Benz swings into the main street, he reflects on how shrewd and insidious the Germans have been in setting up these councils, ostensibly to liaise between themselves and the Jewish community to ensure that their plans ran smoothly. The Nazis assured the councils that nothing would happen to the Jews in their community as long as they followed orders and, in return, they were promised immunity from the anti-Jewish laws for themselves and their families.

  It infuriated him to see how, lulled into a false sense of security, the council members had chosen to put their trust in denial and illusion, and rushed to fulfil every Nazi order, from collecting cash, blankets, valuables and furs, to furnishing lists of Jewish assets and, eventually, Jewish names, convinced that by going along with the Nazi orders they would save their families, their communities, and themselves.

  Appalled by their gullibility, Miklós had argued with the council members in Budapest, urging them to stop co-operating with the Nazis. Frustrated by their inability or unwillingness to see through the deception, he shouted, ‘You can’t believe what they say. By colluding with them, you’ll only make it easier for them to destroy our whole community.’

  But they had called him arrogant and overbearing, and insisted that by following the Nazis’ orders, they were protecting the community from more violence. That hadn’t worked in Poland, he reminded them, referring to the fate of Adam Czerniakow, the president of the Jewish Council in Warsaw who had committed suicide the previous year when he realised that the Nazis were using the council to help them dispossess, round up and annihilate the Jews.

  But his words fell on deaf ears. What happened in Poland wasn’t relevant, they argued. We are loyal Hungarians, our government would never let that happen here. Miklós couldn’t suppress his frustration. ‘Have you forgotten that Hungary was the first country to pass anti-Jewish race laws, back in 1920? Have you forgotten that even before the Nazis occupied us, tens of thousands of Jewish men died in brutal forced labour camps run by our fellow Hungarians? Have you decided to ignore the fact that our government is enthusiastically enforcing anti-Semitic laws that deprive us of all our civil rights? And that they are colluding in the deportations?’

  He sighs again. This is an argument he will never win. He knows that for most people, denying reality is preferable to confronting a disturbing truth. Fraternising, co-operating, colluding. His mood darkens. It seems that one way or another, for noble motives or base ones, or merely from self-interest and the urge to survive, war turns us all into collaborators.

  They are passing the town square now, the town hall facing the huddle of small Jewish craft shops on one side and the Catholic church on the other. He wonders what the priest has said to his congregation about the deportation of Jews who have lived among them for centuries, made their shoes, sewn their clothes and ground their corn.

  For the hundredth time, his mind turns to the list. To ensure that the responsibility of compiling the list would be shared among the members of the Rescue Committee, they have drawn up their lists as well, but it was his own list of the people of Kolostór that preoccupied him the most. Apart from his parents, an aunt, two uncles and five cousins, the editor who employed him after he’d graduated, and three fellow journalists and their families, he has decided to include a cross-section of Kolostór’s Jewish population. Although he was an atheist, he was including representatives of the town’s various religious groups, even though he knew they detested each other. The Orthodox rabbis regarded the progressive Neolog group as apostates, as if they weren’t real Jews. Just the same, to be impartial, he include
d rabbis from both congregations.

  In order to raise enough money to bribe Becher, who was demanding US$1500 per person, he had selected a number of wealthy Jews who agreed to subsidise the ones who couldn’t afford to pay, as well as widows and orphans.

  The list included doctors, teachers and lawyers, craftsmen, tradesmen, artisans, and couples with children. There were times when he saw himself as a modern-day Noah, sending his ark out of Hungary in the hope that this tiny part of the community might survive the Nazi inundation.

  As he feared, news of his mission has leaked out after all, and as soon as the car pulls up in front of the straggly lilac bushes outside his parents’ home, a crowd surges towards him. People are tugging at his coat, pulling his sleeves, demanding, shouting, pleading and begging him to include them, their parents, their cousins and their children.

  Some promise to give him all their money or valuables, some threaten, others curse. With all the chaos and the shouting, no-one is listening, so it’s a waste of time to try and explain why he can’t include any more people on the train. With great difficulty, he extricates himself and strides ahead, not looking right or left or meeting anyone’s eyes in order to avoid painful confrontations and fruitless arguments.

  Finally he reaches his parents’ front door, and is grateful when it closes behind him. His mother throws her arms around him. ‘You’ve lost so much weight, you’re not eating properly,’ she laments, and he knows she’s thinking that his wife is neglecting him, that she is too focussed on her music to cook him decent meals. She attacks him with a barrage of questions, most of which he cannot answer, some of which have no answers.

  He can tell them that they will be leaving on a train destined for a neutral country, but he can’t reveal his negotiations with Eichmann or Gábor’s mission in Istanbul. He can’t explain how this audacious plan has evolved, and he doesn’t dare say that he doesn’t know when the train will leave or where it will take them.

  Watching his son’s face intently, Egon Nagy urges his wife to stop quizzing him. He makes only one comment. ‘I hope you’re strong enough to deal with the anger of the ones you haven’t included.’

  Miklós remembers what his father once told him. ‘You said that in times of war, people find out the truth about themselves. So what did you discover about yourself?’

  Egon rests his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘In battle, you can keep your head down or rush forward and be a hero. But as soon as you put your head up, someone is likely to blow it off. I found out that I didn’t want to lose my head, so I wasn’t a hero.’ He pauses and eyes his son speculatively. Then he adds, ‘Heroes are targets.’

  Miklós is unsettled by his father’s words, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on them because everyone assembled in the house is clamouring to talk to him, to hear details about their departure. Of his relatives, the only one who is not overjoyed at the prospect of leaving is Vera, his cousin Peter’s wife, who insists that she can’t possibly leave her parents, her seven siblings or her grandparents behind.

  Miklós warns them what will happen if they stay in Hungary, but she insists she will remain in Kolostór with her family and share their fate, and Peter refuses to leave without his wife and their daughter.

  Miklós glances out of the window and sees that the crowd has dispersed. It’s safe to venture out again. As he is unlatching the front gate, he notices a young couple and their son standing silently outside the wall. As Peter, Vera and their daughter have decided to stay, he realises that he now has three extra places, and he beckons to them. It’s an impulse. The boy’s bright eyes and alert expression remind him of himself as a child.

  He is about to step into the waiting car when a wild-eyed man rushes out from behind the bushes and collars him. Sobbing, he grabs Miklós’s coat, and begs him to save his mother and sister Malka. Cornered, Miklós explains, more brusquely than he intends, that unfortunately this is impossible.

  ‘God will punish you!’ the man shouts. ‘Just wait. One day you will answer for this!’

  Miklós isn’t superstitious but this malediction stings. He can’t wait to get away from the town, but he still has one meeting ahead of him, and he’s not looking forward to it.

  The Jewish Council. He feels he has to warn them about the real purpose of the deportations and their ultimate destination, but recalling the attitude of the members of the Budapest council, he wonders if they will take any notice of his warning.

  There’s an air of gloom in the small office of the Jewish Council. Ferenc Farkas, the council president, whose lanky build and badly trimmed moustache have always reminded Miklós of a brush at the end of a broom handle, mentions an article that has recently come to their attention.

  ‘It’s supposed to be an account of some death camp in Poland,’ Ferenc says in a tone that makes it clear he does not believe a word of it. ‘The writer claims that he escaped from a place called Auschwitz, but what he writes about that place is like something from one of Fritz Lang’s horror movies. He must be sick in the head to invent such stories.’

  ‘You should take his report seriously,’ Miklós says, and tells them what Oskar Schindler said. His comment prompts a loud and angry argument among the councillors, most of whom scoff at the report as despicable fear-mongering designed to create a panic. When one of the members suggests that they should believe the writer, he is shouted down. ‘This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages,’ someone protests. ‘Barbaric things like that can’t possibly happen today. And even if they happened in Poland, they couldn’t happen here. We are loyal Magyars.’

  Defeated by their determination to deny reality, Miklós stops trying to convince them. He feels it’s useless to remind them how tenuous that identity really is, that Jews have not been regarded as genuine Magyars for a long time, and that ever since the disastrous Treaty of Trianon at the end of World War I, they have been scapegoats for Hungary’s massive loss of territory and wealth. In any case, what good would it do to insist? Where could they escape to? Perhaps they were better off deluding themselves. But despite his decision to drop the subject, he can’t resist making one more attempt to warn them.

  ‘Don’t believe what the Germans tell you, and don’t board the trains. They don’t take people to work camps but to concentration camps,’ he says.

  *

  Life is strange, he thinks moodily on his way back to Budapest. Instead of rejoicing in his ability to save over fifteen hundred people who would otherwise be deported and killed, he feels guilty that he can’t save more. But his conscience is clear. He has tried to warn them about the situation and he can’t do more than that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  2005

  Annika was in such a deep sleep that she didn’t hear the telephone the first time it rang. The grey cretonne curtains were drawn, and the hotel room was so dark that when she did hear it, she assumed it was the middle of the night. When it rings a third time, she fumbles for the receiver and drops it. Probably her mother calling at this unearthly hour to complain that she hasn’t heard from her. She is about to forestall the complaint with an excuse about jetlag when she hears Jansci’s voice.

  ‘Good morning Annika. I am ringing but you are not answering. I think maybe you are gone out.’

  She sits up, rubs her eyes, and glances at the clock beside the bed. Ten o’clock. Has she forgotten an arrangement to meet him?

  ‘Just getting ready,’ she mumbles, glad that he can’t see her dishevelled state.

  ‘I have something for you, Annika. I wait in coffee shop downstairs.’

  He is drinking black coffee and reading the morning paper when she comes in. As she looks at him in his blue jeans and New York baseball cap, she is struck again by his boyish appearance. On the table in front of him lies a faded manila envelope with dog-eared corners.

  ‘Aannikaa!’ he exclaims, and she feels a rush of pleasure at the way he pronounces her name. In Australia, it sounded too foreign. Her last boyfriend insisted on calling he
r Annie, which irritated her. No-one ever lingered over every vowel the way Jansci does, or made it sound so intimate.

  He points to the envelope. ‘My father wrote this. Is about train journey.’

  Perhaps it’s jetlag, but she doesn’t understand. ‘Train journey?’ she repeats.

  He laughs, not unkindly. ‘Annika, you are still sleeping I think so. Train journey from Hungary that Nagy Miklós arranged.’

  Now she is awake. ‘He wrote about that? And you’ve had it all this time?’

  He makes a noncommittal gesture. ‘Yes but also no. Was there but I did not know was there. Was in big box with father’s documents. But yesterday night I look in box and find this.’ He pushes the envelope towards her. ‘Open, read.’

  She takes out a slim sheaf of papers fastened by a paper clip which leaves a rust mark when she removes it. The paper is very thin, and in his haste to record his memories, the writer struck the typewriter keys so forcefully that they made tiny holes on the paper. She scans the first page, replaces the sheets in the envelope, and pushes them towards him.

  ‘This is in Hungarian!’

  He slaps his forehead. ‘Of course, Hungarian. But I have friend, he will translate. You are here how many days more?’

  ‘Three.’ When she booked her trip, that seemed long enough to gain an impression of the city of her ancestors, before travelling on to Prague and Vienna. She hoped to discover something about the mysterious Miklós Nagy whose name had aroused such a violent reaction from her grandmother, but this unexpected connection makes her wonder if somehow fate had conspired for her to meet Jansci. An electric spark courses through her body and she can hardly sit still.

  ‘How long will your friend need to translate this?’