Puppet (9 page)

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1882 —
FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1882

Mr. Bary, Chief Recsky, Mr. Peczely and Warden Henter were part of a buzzing crowd of people huddled around an object lying on the muddy bank of the Tisza River. The gorge rose in my throat at the sight of the hairless, naked figure of a girl. A small rag thrown over her midsection was the only concession to modesty I quickly looked away. I had never even seen my own mother naked. A pile of clothes were on the ground close to the body.

A weeping Mrs. Solymosi was being supported by Esther's aunt. They were flanked by Sophie and her brother, Janos, and several people I recognized from the streets of Tisza-Eszlar. There was no sign of Morris or the shopkeeper Kohlmayer, the last person to have seen Esther alive.
None of the Jews from Tisza-Eszlar were present. There were also several strangers in city clothes. Standing apart from them was a group of men with worn faces, their heads covered by skull caps. They were the Jewish raftsmen who had found the body. Their rafts were moored on the riverbank.

“It's high time you got here!” cried Mr. Bary in greeting. “Look at the corpse carefully! Have you ever seen her before?”

I forced my eyes back to the wretched figure lying at my feet. I looked at the hairless head, the distorted face, the swollen throat, the defenseless body, and my heart filled with pity. I swallowed hard to keep my dignity and looked away once again.

Chief Recsky's fingers were suddenly like a vise around my cheeks as he forced my head in the direction of the dead girl. I closed my eyes.

“You better look if you know what's good for you,” he whispered in my ear.

So I looked. I looked at the battered face long and hard. There was something familiar about the ravaged features. I looked even closer. Then I knew. My eyes traveled to the wretched girl's feet and rested on the crescent-shaped scar at the base of the big toe of her right foot. I had seen the same scar a thousand times before. I had no doubt in my mind.

“It's Esther, sir,” I said in a quivering voice. “This poor creature is my friend Esther Solymosi.”

Mrs. Solymosi flew at me, clawing at my face.

“Liar! Liar!” she cried. “This detestable lump is not my beautiful girl.” She clutched Bary's arm. “A. mother would know her own child, live or dead, wouldn't she, sir?”

Recsky pulled her away. Bary turned to me.

“You must be mistaken!” he said. “None of the others identified the body as Esther Solymosi!”

“No, sir, I'm not mistaken. With God as my witness, I'm telling you the truth. If you look hard you'll see that the body must have had Esther's features before she was buffeted this way and that by the river.”

Bary shook his head. I could see by his expression he didn't believe me.

“Think carefully before you speak,” Warden Henter warned me.

“Why do you keep on lying?” Mrs. Solymosi's voice was a screech.

I spoke as gently as I could.

“Look at her feet, ma'am! Look at the scar beneath the big toe on her right foot. Don't you remember when Magda stepped on Esther's foot when we were still young girls?”

“Hush your lying mouth!” cried Mrs. Solymosi. “That ugly lump can't be my Esther!” she repeated.

“Young woman, be careful what you say, for if you make a mistake, you'll have to pay for it,” said Peczely in a silky voice.

One of the men in city clothes stepped forward.

“There is a way to settle this for once and for all!” he said. “Show this girl the clothes the corpse was wearing when the
rafters fished her out of the Tisza. Show her the tin box full of paint the dead girl was clutching in her left hand.”

“Silence, Zuranyi!” cried Bary. “The body can't be that of Esther Solymosi. The Jews cut Esther's throat! That would have left a scar.”

All of us looked at the smooth, unmarked neck of the corpse on the ground.

“Use your reason, Bary,” said Zuranyi. “If the dead girl was wearing Esther Solymosi's clothes, it must be her.” He nodded at me. “If this girl was Esther's friend, she might recognize her clothes.”

I tore my eyes away from the pitiful wreck and looked carefully at the garments on the ground beside her. I recognized Esther's red, white, and black plaid jacket. There was also her black skirt, white apron and blouse, and a white underskirt, the likes of which all of us wore. Beside it was the red-striped belt. On top of the clothes lay the same tin container I had seen in her hand the last time I had seen her.

“Those are Esther's clothes. She was wearing them the day she disappeared.” I pointed at the belt lying in the dirt. “Esther never took off this belt!”

I fell silent before Chief Recsky's venomous glance.

“You see,” said Zuranyi, “the dead girl must be Esther Solymosi. The clothes are hers. The blue paint in the tin box is more proof. You can't explain all this away.”

“Esther told me she was going to buy blue paint at Kohlmayer's shop!”

Bary's face turned so red I was afraid he might have an apoplectic fit.

“The dead girl is not Esther Solymosi! This girl's throat is not cut and it is a fact that the Jews cut Esther's throat,” he said. “The Jews must have taken Esther's clothing and put it on another corpse of similar age! They must have put the paint in this corpse's hand.”

He marched up and down the riverbank, punctuating each step with a wave of his hand.

“Yes, that's what must have happened,” he said. “The Jews put Esther's clothes on another body. This girl is definitely not Esther Solymosi.”

Once again, all of us stared at the unblemished throat of the poor girl at our feet.

“How can you be so sure that the Jews killed Esther?” Zuranyi asked. “I beg you, Bary be rational! This must be the body of the missing servant girl. Her friend recognized her. She was wearing Esther's clothes. She was clutching blue paint in her hand. Her friend says she has the same scar at the base of her toe as Esther did. What are the odds of two people having the same scar in the same spot?”

“You're wrong, Zuranyi!” Bary said. “I know that the Jews killed Esther Solymosi because I have a witness. A Jewish witness.”

Poor Morris, I said to myself.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1882 —
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1882

I was sitting under the kitchen window, sweltering. Perspiration matted my hair and ran down my cheeks and my back. I kept wiping my hands on my apron as I was afraid my damp palms would leave sweat marks on the shirt I was mending.

After I had visited Clara in Csonkafuzes, I realized it would take me forever to save up enough money from my salary to have Clara come and live with me. I had to come up with a plan to earn extra money. My head was full of hare-brained schemes that couldn't work until I noticed a few days later that one of the prison guards was missing several buttons from his jacket.

“I'll sew on the buttons for you, sir,” I offered.

To my surprise, he accepted and pressed a shiny coin into my hand. After I gave him back his jacket he told his cronies I was a good seamstress. Since then, the prison guards had kept me busy with britches that had to be patched and torn shirt sleeves that had to be sewn together. I kept the little pile of money I earned tied up in a handkerchief in my apron pocket in the daytime and under my pillow while I slept. When my fingers closed around the small bundle, I thought of Clara and the day when we would be reunited.

The hot weather took my breath away and I stopped to fan myself with my apron. I wiped my face and my hands again and then it was back to work. Despite the heat, I took my time and made my stitches nice and even, like Ma had taught me. My mind wandered back to Csonkafuzes. Since that day by the river I couldn't stop thinking about what I had seen there. Nobody could convince me that the corpse the raftsmen fished out of the Tisza was not Esther. I had tried to explain, over and over again, what I knew to Mr. Bary but he wouldn't listen to me. He told me to mind my own business. He even ordered my poor friend's body to be dug up from her grave for a second time to be examined by learned city doctors who said they couldn't decide for sure whether the dead girl was Esther. I knew better.

When I found out that Bary would not relent, I went to see Warden Henter. I found him in the prison courtyard throwing a stick to his dog.

“Bring me the stick, Felix!” he cried.

The beast lumbered after the stick and fetched it for him every time.

“Good dog! Good dog!” he said, scratching Felix behind his ear.

I stood silently, a few meters away, waiting for him to notice me.

“What do you want?” he finally said.

The dog began to growl. Warden Henter patted his head.

“It's all right, boy” he murmured.

The dog calmed down and Warden Henter turned back to me.

“Have you got something to say?” he asked.

I told him why I was certain that the corpse from the river was Esther. He listened carefully, steepling his fingers. “You talk too much,” he said evenly when I finished. “If you persist on repeating your nonsense, I'll have to find somebody else to help Teresa in the kitchen.”

I realized at that moment that although I knew the truth, nobody around me wanted to know it. Mr. Eotvos, the only person who would have listened to me, was far away in Budapest.

I saw that the sun was overhead, so I put my mending aside and carefully packed up Ma's workbox. Teresa was at the shops, but she had told me before she left to warm up the potato soup she had prepared for the prisoners' lunch and to deliver it to them. I carried the two pails of soup to the guards and asked them to give it out. As usual, I left
Morris's meal for the last. I hadn't seen him since I went to Csonkafuzes. An extra crust of bread was hidden in my pocket, next to the coins. I planned to slip it to him while Bako wasn't looking. I had also put away a bone for the warden's dog.

I was on my tiptoes as I passed the warden's office on my way to Morris's cell. Felix was lying in front of the door with his eyes closed. He must have sensed my presence for he climbed to his feet, growling. This time I was prepared. I took out the bone from my pocket and threw it to him.

“Down, doggy! Down, doggy!”

The beast fell on the bone ferociously. I passed him as quickly as I could, my heart pounding.

When I got to Morris's cell, I found him sitting on his cot with his head resting against the wall. I thought he was asleep. The tiny room was unbearably hot. Bako, standing guard in the hall, opened the metal doors to let me in. Morris looked up at the clanging of his key.

“I'll lock you in with the Jew boy for a few minutes while you give him his soup,” Bako said. “I want to get something to eat myself.” He snickered. “Don't get too close to the dirty Jew. He stinks too much!”

Morris and I watched him turn the corner.

“It's good to see you, Julie.”

I sat down on his cot, next to him. It's never easy to apologize, but it had to be done:

“I owe you an apology, Morris, for doubting you when you told me your pa and your people were innocent. I should have believed you.”

“You're loyal, Julie. Thank you.”

I moved farther away from him. “I may be loyal, but there is something that's been troubling me for a long time. I think about it every time I see you. I don't understand how you could have testified against your own pa and your friends when you knew they are innocent?”

“They beat me! Can't you understand that? I couldn't take it anymore!” he cried. “They told me that they'd beat my papa too and keep him in jail forever if I didn't sign their confession. What else could I do?” He grasped his head with his hands. “What else could I do? What else could I do?”

I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn't. His lies had brought about so much wretchedness and there would be more to come.

“Why do you believe me now about the girl?”

“They found Esther's body in the river at Csonkafuzes. I have proof that you Jews didn't kill her, but nobody will listen to me.”

“Proof? What kind of proof?” he asked eagerly.

“Eat your lunch first. It's easier to think on a full stomach.”

He drank down the soup greedily and ate the bread.

He sighed. “That was good. I was so hungry.”

“I'll try to slip something extra to you at suppertime.”

“Do you think you can? Be careful, Julie.”

I told him that I recognized the poor battered face of the dead girl fished out of the Tisza.

“She was Esther. She wore the same clothes that I saw Esther wearing the day she disappeared. She had the same scar at the base of her right toe as Esther did. She was even clutching a tin of paint in her hand. Esther told me that she was going to Kohlmayer's to buy blue paint the last time I saw her.”

“You're sure?”

“I've never been more sure of anything in my life. The body at Csonkafuzes was Esther's body. The Jews were supposed to have cut her throat. Esther's throat didn't have a single mark on it. I tried to tell Mr. Bary but he won't listen. Nobody wants to hear. I don't know what to do.”

“You must tell my papa what you told me. He'll make Bary listen. My papa is a very smart man.”

“You know that I can't get close to your father. He and the other Jewish prisoners are guarded day and night.”

“I understand. I keep telling myself that at least my papa isn't alone. He has his friends with him. Do you think they can convince Mr. Bary?”

“Morris, we know that's never going to happen. The person who has to know is Mr. Eotvos. I think he'll believe you, but he is far away.”

He sidled closer to me. “You must tell him the truth when he comes to town for the trial.”

“I will.”

“You're a good friend, Julie, the only friend I have.”

I remembered Esther saying the same words to me the last time I saw her alive. They frightened me.

“Are you all right, Morris?”

“All right? How could I be all right?” he said angrily.

The violence in his voice made me cringe. “Hush! Keep your voice down!”

“How could I be all right?” he whispered. “I never leave the jail. I never see anybody but you or my jailers. I haven't seen my family for months. I'd go crazy without you to talk to.” We heard the steps of the guard down the hall, so we fell silent.

The next morning, Teresa asked me once again to deliver breakfast to the prisoners. When I got to Morris's cell, it was empty One of the guards told me he had been released from the prison. However, he wasn't allowed to go home to his stepmother and brother. He would be living in Warden Henter's house, under the care of the warden.