The Invisible Bridge (61 page)

Ilana blushed at the attention, protesting that it wasn't right to allow herself to be waited upon by her husband's brother. Andras thought he had never seen her look so beautiful.

Her skin, like Klara's, seemed lit from within. Her hair was hidden under the kerchief worn by observant married women, but the scarf she'd chosen was made of lilac-colored silk shot through with silver. When she laughed at Matyas's jokes, the black-brown depths of her eyes seemed to flare with intelligent light. It was astonishing to think that this was the same girl who had lain pale and terrified in a hospital bed in Paris, her lips whitening with pain as she woke from the anesthesia.

After they finished their coffee, Andras and Matyas went out for a walk together in the mild September night. From Nefelejcs utca it was only a few blocks to the city park, where gold floodlights illuminated the Vajdahunyad Castle. The paths were full of pedestrians even at that hour; in the shadowy recesses of the castle walls they could see men and women moving against each other in imperfect privacy. Matyas's high spirits had quieted now that the two of them were alone. He crossed his arms over his chest as if he were cold in the warm breeze. His time in the Munkaszolgalat seemed to have sharpened him somehow; the planes of his face had become harder and more distinct. His high forehead and prominent cheekbones, so much like their mother's, had begun to lend him a gravity that seemed at odds with his prankster wit.

"My brothers have beautiful wives," he said. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous."

"Well, I'd be rather disappointed if you weren't."

"You're truly going to be a father?"

"So it seems."

He let out a low whistle. "Excited?"

"Terrified."

"Nonsense. You'll be wonderful. And Klara's been through it once before."

"Her child wasn't born during a war," Andras said.

"No, but she didn't have a husband then, either."

"She didn't seem so much the worse for it. She got work. She raised her daughter.

Elisabet might have been a more pleasant girl if she'd had a different sort of family--a brother or sister to play with, and a father to stop her from being so unkind to her mother.

But she turned out all right, after all. I'm not much use as a husband. So far I've been nothing but a weight around Klara's neck."

"You were drafted," Matyas said. "You had to serve. It's not as though you had any choice."

"I haven't finished my studies. I can't come home and start working as an architect."

"Then you'll go back to school."

"If I can get into school. And then there's the time and expense."

"What you need," Matyas said, "is some well-paid work that doesn't take all your time. Why not go into business with me?"

"What, as a tap dancer? Do you imagine us as a performing team? The Amazing Levi Brothers?"

"No, you dolt. We'll be a team of window-trimmers. The work will go twice as fast with two of us doing it. I'll be the stylist. You'll be my slave. We'll get double the clients."

"I don't know if I could take orders from you," Andras said. "You'd break my back."

"What'll you do for money, then? Sit on a street corner and make caricatures?"

"I've been thinking," Andras said. "My old friend Mendel Horovitz worked at the
Budapest Evening Courier
before he went into the labor service. He says they're always looking for layout artists and illustrators. And the pay's not bad."

"Akh. But then you'd just be someone else's slave."

"If I've got to be someone's slave, I might as well do it in a field where I've got experience."

"What

experience?"

"Well, there was my old job at
Past and Future
. And then there are the newspapers Mendel and I have been making, the ones I wrote you about. I would have brought you a copy if I'd known I was going to see you."

"I understand," Matyas said. "Window-trimming isn't fancy enough work for you.

Not after your Paris education." He was teasing, but his expression betrayed a flicker of pique. Andras remembered the fierce letters Matyas had written from Debrecen while Andras was in Paris--the ones in which Matyas had claimed his own share of an education. Then the war had begun, and Matyas had been stuck in Hungary, working first at window-trimming and then in the Munkaszolgalat. Andras was ashamed to realize that he did feel as if he should have moved beyond a job like window-trimming, which carried a flavor of commercial servitude. It was the wild luck of his last months in Paris that had made him feel that way, the kindness of his professors and his mentors that had led him to expect something different. But that was behind him now. He needed to earn money. In a few months he would be a father.

"Forgive me," Andras said. "I didn't mean to suggest your work wasn't an art. It's a higher art than newspaper illustration, that's for certain."

Matyas's look seemed to soften, and he put a hand on his brother's arm. "That's all right," he said. "I might think myself too fine for window-trimming, too, if Le Corbusier and Auguste Perret had been my drinking companions."

"We were never drinking companions," Andras said.

"Don't try to go in for humility now."

"Oh, all right. We were great friends. We drank together constantly." He fell silent, thinking of his real friends, the ones who were scattered across the Western Hemisphere now. Those men were his brothers too. But there hadn't been word from Ben Yakov after that conciliatory telegram, nor from Polaner since he'd joined the Foreign Legion. Andras wondered what had happened to the photograph that had been taken when he and Polaner had won the Prix du Amphitheatre. It seemed strange to think it might still exist somewhere, a record of a vanished life.

"You look grim, brother," Matyas said. "Do we need to get some wine into you?"

"It couldn't hurt," Andras said.

So they went to a cafe overlooking the artificial lake, the one that became a skating rink in winter, and they sat at a table outside and ordered Tokaji. The war had made wine expensive, but Matyas insisted upon the indulgence and further insisted upon paying, since he didn't have a wife or future child to support. He promised to let Andras pay the next time, once he'd landed a job at a newspaper, though of course neither of them knew when that might happen, or even when they might next be home together.

"Now, who's this Serafina?" Andras asked, looking at his brother through the amber lens of his glass of Tokaji. "And when will we meet her?"

"She's a seamstress at a dress shop on Vaci utca."

"And?"

"And
, I met her when I was working on a window. She was wearing a white dress embroidered with cherries. I made her take it off so I could put it in the window display."

"You made her take her dress off?"

"Do you see why it might be an attractive job?"

"Did she go back to her sewing machine naked?"

"No. Sadly, the dressmaker had something else for her to put on."

"Now, that's a shame."

"Yes. I've felt the sting of it ever since. That's why I decided to pursue her. I wanted to see what I missed when she stepped behind the changing-room curtain."

"You must have seen enough to make it seem worth the pursuit."

"Plenty. She's what I like. Just a shade taller than me. Black hair cut into a neat little cap. And a mole on her cheek like a spot of brown ink."

"Well, I can't wait to make her acquaintance."

Again, the glint of mirth faded out of Matyas's eyes; the faint shadows beneath them seemed to deepen as he looked down into his glass of wine. "I'm going to follow my company tomorrow," he said. "We're off to the big party."

"What big party?"

"Belgorod, in Russia. The front lines."

A terrible clang in Andras's chest, as though the bell of his ribcage had been struck with an iron hammer. "Oh, Matyas. No."

"Yes," Matyas said. He looked up and grinned, but his expression was one of fear.

"So you see, it's a good thing we ran into each other."

"Can't you get a transfer? Have you tried?"

"Money's the only way, and I've only got enough for small bribes."

"How much would it cost?"

"Oh, I don't know. At this point, hundreds. Maybe thousands."

Andras thought again of Gyorgy Hasz in his villa on Benczur utca, where he was most likely sitting by the fire in a cashmere robe and reading one of the financial papers.

He wanted to take Hasz and turn him upside down, shake him until gold coins rained out of him as if from a broken bank. He could think of no reason why that man's son should have a painting studio and a stretch of leisure-filled months ahead, while Matyas Levi, son of Lucky Bela of Konyar, had to go to the Eastern Front and take his chances in the minefields. He, Andras, would be a fool, worse than a fool, if he allowed his pride to keep him from applying to Gyorgy for help. This wasn't a matter of whether or not Andras could support Klara and their child; Matyas's life was at stake.

"I'll pay a visit to Hasz," Andras said. "They've got to have a chest of kroner hidden somewhere, or something they can sell."

Matyas nodded. "I don't suppose Jozsef Hasz has to go to the front lines."

"No, indeed. Jozsef Hasz has got himself a nice atelier in Buda."

"How timely," Matyas said. "The destruction of the Western world should make an interesting subject."

"Yes. Although, strange to say, I haven't felt the urge to visit him and check the progress of his work."

"That

is
strange."

"In seriousness, though, I'm not sure Hasz the Elder has ready cash. I think it's all they can do to keep that house on Benczur utca and maintain Madame's furs and their opera box. They had to sell their car to get Jozsef exempted from his second call-up."

"At least they still have the opera box," Matyas said. "Music can be such a comfort when other people are dying." He winked at Andras, then raised his glass and drained it.

The next day, after Andras had seen his brother off at Nyugati Station, he went to call on Gyorgy Hasz at home. He knew Hasz came home every day to have lunch with his wife and mother, and that afterward he liked to spend half an hour with the newspaper before he went back to his office. Even in uncertain times he was a man of regular habits.

In defiance of the change in his professional circumstances, he had retained the gentlemanly schedule of his days as the bank's director; his services were too valuable for the new bank president to prevent him from taking that liberty. As Andras had expected, he found his brother-in-law in the library of the house on Benczur utca, his reading glasses on, the newspaper butterflied in his hands. When the manservant announced Andras's arrival, Hasz dropped the paper and got to his feet.

"Is everything well with Klara?" he said.

"Everything's fine," Andras said. "We're both fine."

Hasz's brow relaxed and he gave a sharp sigh. "Forgive me," he said. "I wasn't expecting to see you. I didn't know you were home."

"I've had a few days' furlough. I'm going back tomorrow."

"Please sit down," Hasz said. To the man who had conducted Andras in, he said,

"Tell Kati to bring us tea." The man went out silently, and Gyorgy Hasz gave Andras a slow, careful perusal. Andras had chosen to wear his Munkaszolgalat uniform that day, with its green M on the breast pocket and its mended places where Major Barna had torn off his marks of rank. Hasz glanced at Andras's uniform, then put a hand to his own tie, blue silk with a narrow ivory stripe. "Well," he said. "You've got only three more months of service, by my calculation."

"That's right," Andras said. "And then the baby will be born."

"And you're well? You seem well."

"As well as can be expected."

Hasz nodded and sat back in his chair, crossing his fingers over his vest. In addition to the blue silk tie he was wearing an Italian poplin shirt and a suit of dark gray wool. His hands were the soft hands of a man who had always worked indoors, his fingernails pink and smooth. But he looked at Andras with such genuine and unguarded concern that it was impossible to resent him entirely. When the tea arrived, he prepared Andras's cup himself and handed it across the table.

"How can I help you?" he said. "What brought you here?"

"My brother Matyas has been deployed to the Eastern Front," Andras said. "His company left this afternoon to meet the rest of their battalion in Debrecen, and from there they'll go to Belgorod."

Hasz put down his cup and looked at Andras. "Belgorod," he said. "The minefields."

"Yes. They'll be clearing the way for the Hungarian Army."

"But what can I do?" Hasz said. "How can I help him?"

"I know you've done a great deal for us already," Andras said. "You've looked out for Klara while I've been away. That's the best service you could have rendered me.

Believe me, I would never ask for anything more if I didn't believe it was a matter of life and death. But I wonder if it might be possible to do for Matyas something like what you've done for Jozsef. If not exempt him entirely, at least get him transferred to another company. One that's not likely to be so close to the action. He's got eleven months left."

Gyorgy Hasz raised an eyebrow, then sat back in his chair. "You'd like me to buy his freedom," he said.

"At least his freedom from working on the front lines."

"I understand." He steepled his hands and looked at Andras across the desk.

"I know the price isn't the same for everyone," Andras said. He set his cup in the saucer and gave it a careful turn. "I imagine it would be a great deal less for my brother than it was for your son. I have the name of Matyas's battalion commander. If we could arrange for a certain sum to be transferred to him through an independent agent--a lawyer of your acquaintance, say--we might accomplish it all without revealing to the authorities the connection between your family and mine. That is to say, without compromising Klara's security. I'm certain we could buy my brother's freedom at what would seem to you a negligible sum."

Hasz pressed his lips together and brought his steepled hands against them, then tapped his fingers as he looked toward the fire. Andras waited for his answer as if Gyorgy were a magistrate and Matyas in the seat of judgment before him. But Matyas was not, of course, before him; he was already on a train headed toward the Eastern Front. All at once it seemed a folly to have imagined that Gyorgy Hasz might have the power to stop what had already been set in motion.