My Canary Yellow Star (8 page)

I had told Judit my secret. I was certain she wouldn’t betray me, for behind my loyal friend’s practical exterior beat a romantic heart.

“Peter must like you a lot,” she said as I was dressing.

“Of course he likes me. We’ve been friends for ages.”

“You know what I mean.” She giggled.

“Don’t be silly! He’s just a friend. I’ve known him forever.” I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a sure sign that a blush was about to follow.

“So what if you’ve known him for a long time? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“So … so nothing! Nothing at all! We’re just friends,” I repeated, though I knew it was not true.

When I’d finished dressing, I said goodbye to Judit and told Mama I was going out to buy some food. I told myself I wasn’t really lying to my mother, just postponing telling her the truth. Still, I felt so guilty when she accepted my
explanation with no questions asked. Food shortages had become so severe that my excuse was believable. We were allowed fewer rations, and we could not go to the grocer’s early in the morning because of the curfew. By the time we did get to the shops, the shelves were bare; most of the day’s merchandise had already been sold to customers who were able to line up early in the morning. Sometimes it took hours to find a grocery store that could sell us a loaf of bread or a small block of cheese.

“Be careful,” Mama said as she looked me over from head to toe. She didn’t ask why I was wearing my one good skirt. Its black folds ballooned out satisfyingly and made my waist seem smaller. Grandmama had made it out of the dress I used to wear at Madam’s. My former apron had become a fashionable white blouse with a Peter Pan collar. A wide black belt completed my outfit. I didn’t own any high-heeled shoes, so I had to be satisfied with my ancient, slightly scuffed black Mary Janes. I had asked Judit to take a piece of charcoal from the stove and draw two straight black lines down the back of my legs. From a distance, it looked like I was wearing nylon stockings with seams. I had rolled the front of my hair into a fat sausage curl, just like the one the American movie star Judy Garland wore. In the bottom of my only purse, a hand-me-down from Mama, was Judit’s lipstick. It was Passion Red. She lent it to me whenever I went to see Peter. I knew better than to try to put it on at home, however. Mama would have killed me.

Once I was out the door, I quickened my step. The streetcar was clattering to a stop at the end of our street just as I got there. I climbed up into the last car, but it was full, so I had to stand. At least I knew I wouldn’t smear my charcoal seams against the seat. I put the strap of my purse over my shoulder, shifted my sweater into the crook of my arm, and with my other hand, clutched the leather loop hanging from the ceiling. It bothered me that I still had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the loop, but I was afraid to hang on to one of the metal poles next to the seats. I wasn’t in the mood for nasty comments about how I was crowding the passengers in the seats next to the poles.

There were two other people with yellow stars in the last car. One was a white-haired lady who was sitting with a large wicker shopping bag on the floor between her feet. A few seats over from her was a youngish woman with a little boy in her lap. The blond child steadily picked with his chubby fingers at the yellow star on his mother’s blouse. The only sounds came from her fruitless attempts to hush her little boy’s chatter. The rest of the passengers seemed absorbed in their own thoughts – all except an older gentleman who was hanging on to the last leather loop at the back of the car. He was dressed rather formally, in a black suit with a black homburg on his head and a briefcase clutched in his hand. He smiled at me.

At the first stop, two youths wearing the green shirts of the Arrow Cross climbed aboard. The first boy stopped
close to me and grabbed one of the leather loops hanging from the ceiling. I inched away from him as inconspicuously as I could. His friend walked up to the old Jewish woman and kicked her wicker basket with his filthy boots.

“Hey, mother!” he sneered, spitting on the lady’s shoes, “why is a dirty old Jew like you taking up my seat? Get the hell up!”

The old woman hoisted the heavy basket over her arm and stood up wordlessly. The youth pushed her aside and lowered himself onto her seat with a laugh. The lady shuffled down the streetcar to where I was standing. None of us in this compulsory society of the yellow star looked at each other. Not a single one of the other passengers betrayed any sign of noticing what had just happened. It was as if the lady was invisible.

We arrived at the next stop. Two policemen in their distinctive blue uniforms climbed the steps of the streetcar. My heart pounded when I saw revolvers in the holsters on their hips. The older of the two policemen remained by the back exit while his younger partner came to the center of the car. Two more waited on the sidewalk by the streetcar rails.

“Your papers, Jews!” cried the younger policeman.

I was glad I had remembered my wallet. I took out a card that bore my picture and information about my age, sex, and address. Across the card was stamped the word “Israelite.” The policeman went up to the lady with the
basket first. He checked her papers and flung them back at her. Next, he came to me. He examined my documents, nodded, and returned them. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Both of you, get out!” the policeman said, pointing first to the older woman and then to me.

I was confused. “Why, sir? My papers are –”

“Are you arguing with me, Jewish bitch?” the policeman shouted.

“No, sir, I was just–” I stopped mid-sentence. The lady with the basket had kicked me hard over my ankle while she stared impassively out the streetcar window. To my great relief, the movie in my head switched on, just as it had back in Madam’s workshop. Once again, I was watching events unfolding around my other self.

“You what?” the angry policeman prompted me.

“Nothing, sir,” the girl in the movie mumbled.

“Cat got your tongue?” the policeman snarled, pushing his face into mine.

The movie dissipated like smoke, and I was back in my unbearable real world. The officer grabbed my arm and pushed me down the steps of the streetcar. The old lady with the basket stumbled down close behind. Two more policemen were waiting for us on the sidewalk. As I stood, terrified, I could see and hear everything that was happening inside the streetcar.

The younger policeman had approached the woman with the little boy in her lap. For a moment, the woman
sat frozen. Then she put her child down on the floor, pulled her identification papers from the pocket of her dress, and handed them over to the policeman only after he repeatedly shouted at her to do so. The child clung to his mother’s knees, looking in turn at her white face and the beefy policeman looming over her. The boy began to suck his thumb.

The woman’s papers showed that she was from Gyor, a town two hours away by train. She did not have the documents necessary for living in Budapest. The woman apologized and told the policeman she would be applying for her Budapest papers immediately. She explained that she had arrived in the city only a few hours ago. But the policeman ordered the woman off the streetcar with her child. She must have realized that being caught without her documents meant deportation. She got down on her knees and begged him to let her and the child go.

The policeman grabbed the woman’s arm and pushed her toward the steps. The child was still clinging to her skirt. The older officer, who had been guarding the exit, rushed up to the petrified little boy, tore him away from his mother, and carried him down to the street. The child began to wail. The mother, who had been kicking and clawing at the younger officer, gave up her fight and ran down the steps to reclaim her child. She grabbed the boy out of the policeman’s grasp and clasped him tightly to her chest, stopping right next to me.

“Why you …!” the policeman thundered. He drew his gun out of his holster and aimed it at her head. The woman covered the child’s eyes with her hand. My own eyes were riveted on the policeman’s fingers, which were moving toward the trigger.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but you forgot to check my papers.” A quiet, dignified voice broke the tense silence. The man with the briefcase was climbing down the street-car steps. “I am also a Jew.”

The officer lowered his gun. “Halt, Jewish dog!” he cried. “Where is your yellow star?”

“I am not required to wear one,” the man said. “My documents, sir.” He held out his papers to the policeman. Below the rim of his hat, his forehead was beaded with sweat.

“God bless him,” the mother of the child whispered under her breath.

“All right, Jew, let me see your papers,” the policeman growled, putting his gun back into its holster. His three colleagues exchanged relieved glances while he began to examine the man’s documents. “Is this a joke? What is this?” he asked. The other officers crowded around him, murmuring to each other.

“Where did you get this?” another one of the policemen asked. All of the officers seemed very interested in the Jewish man’s documents.

“I have a Schutz-Pass. A Swedish protective passport,” the man said in a calm voice. “It was given to me by Mr.
Raoul Wallenberg, from the Swedish embassy. Hungarian authorities do not have jurisdiction over me any longer. I do not have to wear a yellow star. I am a Swedish subject, a Swedish citizen protected by Sweden. You must let me go.”

“He is telling the truth,” said one of the policemen, his voice laced with amazement. “This Jew has some kind of Swedish passport. We have to let him go.”

“Damn it, you’re right!” said one of his colleagues.

None of the officers was looking in our direction. “Run!” I whispered to the people standing next to me. The woman with the basket dropped her load; the mother picked up her child. All three of us raced away. As we turned the corner, we scattered in different directions.

I ran and ran. I ran until I had no breath left to run any more. The entire time I kept thinking, Who is this Wallenberg? What is a Schutz-Pass? How can I get one?

I was afraid to get on a streetcar again, so I alternately ran and walked the rest of the way. By the time I arrived at the Café Peace, I was an hour late, hot, sweaty, and totally exhausted. Would Peter already have left?

I forced myself to stop for a moment to regain my breath before descending the well-worn stone steps to the café. A few minutes earlier, I had slipped into a public bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. Nobody was around
to see me emerge with my hair neatly combed and my white sweater buttoned up to the chin, covering the yellow star on my blouse. I wasn’t able to see the back of my legs easily, but my seams appeared not to be smudged. I had also put Judit’s lipstick to good use.

Peter was sitting at a corner table sipping raspberry juice and looking anxious. The sudden delight that filled my heart at the sight of him made me feel shy.

“Thank God you’re finally here. I was worried sick when you didn’t come,” he said.

“I was scared that I’d missed you, that you wouldn’t wait.” Peter’s response was a wry lift of his eyebrows that made me feel much happier. I collapsed into a chair. “Let me rest a couple of minutes, then I’ll tell you what happened to me.”

Peter ordered a glass of raspberry juice for me. I drank it greedily and felt much better. Then I told him everything that took place on the streetcar. “Who is Raoul Wallenberg? Have you ever heard of him?” I asked.

“No, but my father might have,” Peter said. “I’ll ask him.”

“Please don’t tell him I’m the one who wants to know.”

“Of course not. I know I can’t tell him. Does your mother know you’re here?”

“No. I want to tell her, but I’m scared.”

“Why? We’ve been friends for ages.”

“How about these reasons: you’re not Jewish, and it’s dangerous.”

Peter sighed. “What do you want to do today, Marta? Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Let’s do something else, something that’s really crazy. I am so sick of the war. I just want to have some fun.” I thought of the young woman and the frantic child.

Peter laughed. “Fine. We’ll do whatever you want.”

“Do you really mean it?”

“Of course. Just tell me what you want to do.”

I didn’t have to think before answering. “I want to go dancing. I even know where I want to go – the Casino on Margaret Island.”

Peter paled under his tan. “Marta, we can’t. I was at the Casino with my parents last week. The show doesn’t start until nightfall, long after your curfew. If you are caught by the police or the Gestapo, do you realize what will happen to us?”

I knew very well – the threat of deportation loomed large. But I didn’t care. For once, I wanted to forget about the war. I just wanted to enjoy myself. “We won’t be caught. I feel lucky tonight.”

“It might be dangerous.” Peter looked worried.

“You promised. You said you’d do whatever I wanted to do. I guess you didn’t mean it.”

Peter groaned. “Of course I did, idiot that I am. All
right, I’ll
go.
But I want you to know that it’s not the sensible thing to do.”

“I’m sick of being sensible,” I told him. I jumped up and pulled Peter out of his chair before he had a chance to change his mind. He sighed resignedly and followed me out of the café.

Twenty minutes later, we were on the number 6 street-car as it bounced over the bridge to Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube. I had never been to the island, a beautiful park full of hotels, theaters, outdoor swimming pools, and cabarets. When the streetcar stopped in front of the Casino, just past the bridge, we got off. The Casino was the most elegant and popular dancehall in the entire city. It was also a jazz lover’s paradise, especially if you were lucky enough to get a garden table.

We entered the tall white building through wide-open wrought-iron doors. A plump, white-haired maître d’ in a black tuxedo greeted us solemnly.

“The young lady and gentleman require a table?” he asked. Peter and I stood up a little straighter, and I moved closer to Peter.

“Two for espresso,” Peter said, taking hold of my hand. “We’d like to be seated in the garden.”