Searching for Wallenberg (16 page)

The husband brought in a tea cart, with coffee, tea, and cakes as well, and poured a cup of tea each for Maria and Manny.

He asked her some questions about Budapest in 1944, and she suggested an important book on the subject, The
Siege of Budapest
, by Ungváry, which she believed was in translation, and continued for another half hour on elements of his arrest and Soviet deportation. Manny, sensing he had only a limited amount of time with the brave lady, then put out his gambit: “My strong feeling or opinion is that he was gay, a closet sort of gay probably, if you understand what I mean. This is based on the evidence I have seen. Do you think I am mistaken?”

She smiled wryly, coughed, excused herself as she brought a handkerchief to her mouth, before she was finally was able to speak. “Yes, I do think you are mistaken. He was not a ‘closet gay,’ as you put it, but an active gay!” She looked at him for a reaction. “I spoke with several German officers from the war, who had seen him in the several known gay bars of Budapest of the time, openly with men. Also, there were Hungarian witnesses who knew about this and kept it quiet, of course. I even have some written letters. So it is not a mystery, or even a well-kept secret, but rather,
a closed open secret.
”

Manny almost fell back, as though he had taken a punch. “But why, why has this never been mentioned or cited?”

As she leaned over to put down her cup, she revealed a Hebrew
chai
around her neck. “Why do you think? It was his private life, and what he did with that private life was his business, especially since his public life was so important, so necessary. It was not a big deal, in the light of the whole context.”

Gellerman scratched his head, returned to drinking tea, and took a slice of cake. He asked, “Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”

“Only Borhi, whom I trust, as I informed you.”

“No Americans or Western historians?”

“Who comes to see an old lady?” She smiled, even beamed, at her self-description. “Or wants to see an insignificant journalist.”

Manny wanted to ask to see those letters, but Maria began coughing; the husband came to her aid, and nodded to Manny in a signal to depart. Manny stood up, waited several minutes until the coughing spell diminished, then took Maria’s hand. “Please, no need to get up. Thank you so much. I will be in touch. Here is my card with e-mail. Do you use e-mailing?”

She shook her head. “But you have my telephone and can call me always. Also, you may write my husband, who checks his e-mail at the university.”

As Manny turned to leave, he realized he might never see her again. “I think Mr. Wallenberg would have appreciated knowing you, for many reasons.”

She smiled, clearly exhausted. “The feeling is common, you say?”

He nodded, understanding her intended meaning, and left. Rather than take a taxi back, he decided on a tram; and as it zigzagged and rattled through the streets, it felt like his old Ralph Avenue trolley ride in Brownsville. His head was buzzing, and he tried to connect up the many thoughts racing through his brain. This new information was stunning, and upsetting to his view of the man. (If only he could see actual evidence!) But Borhi had vouched for this Maria; Manny had met and found her totally credible and sincere, and he held in his hands her two booklets. As the tram rocked, he tried to absorb his recent findings. While passing over the Danube on the Margaret Bridge— no Jews floating now—Manny contemplated the sharp careening passage from Budapest family fantasy to sudden real history. It was dizzying. This new piece of the puzzle—did it change the overall picture, or just add some invaluable if oddly-shaped pieces? …
Maybe Raoul needed Manny the historian more than either of them had suspected?

Walking through his country house in New Hampshire, he felt comforted to be back amidst his orderly disorder: mounds of papers and books, clothes strewn everywhere, notes upon notes of things to take care of, people to call. Surrounded by the photos of old friends and the boys when they were little. This fond past had provided nutrition for his rather thin present. Outside, the green meadows of June were already high, and he spotted the monarch butterflies back again, flitting among the clumps of milkweeds. Three radios were going in his daily rooms, one classical, one country, one NPR talk. He had made arrangements for his son to come over later and mow the lawns on the riding tractor, a task the boy adored and did rather well, if somewhat dangerously. In the two weeks since he had been home he had gradually caught up with the piled-up e-mails, attending first to the more urgent ones from the students, his son in New York, his ex-wife, his CPA. And just yesterday a note arrived from Angela, telling him that her final draft was done. Should they meet so she could deposit it with him?

In the stacks of mail from the post office, he found the long one-hundred-page essay from Vladimir, the Russian exile in New York, asking him to read it through carefully and help find a place for it perhaps, if Harvard didn’t want it.

Several e-mails arrived from Budapest, one from the intriguing lady herself, which said how much she had enjoyed their meetings, and when did he plan on returning, “to continue their discussions?” Another came from the historian Borhi, reporting that Mária Ember had been taken to the hospital, very ill, and had he had a chance to meet with her? (Manny scolded himself for not informing the good fellow!) Also, he cited a conference coming up on RW in the fall; did Manny want to submit a paper? And a third, from daughter Dora who wondered if it was really “in Mother’s best interests, your visiting again?” So, demure Dora was quietly shrewd and protective. Maybe she was right?

Where was Gellerman in all this? he asked himself, sitting at his desk and gazing out at the nearby mountains, the foothills of the Whites. He felt in the middle of things, between the long ordeal of Raoul and the gray pall of the past, and this America the Easy; where kids tossed their Frisbees and were wired to iPods, where a student’s education often signified a brand name ticket to his future, and sports stadiums had come to replace churches for millions, with sports stars and movie celebrities their true ministers. Where was moral insight or understanding to be found—in CNN or PBS or NPR wisdom, corporate bottom lines? The society as a whole had been so deluged by Internet culture and cable journalism that real thought was hard to discover, limited to a few journals and a few thousand souls. On top of all that mass thinning down, so much of current “thought”—especially in the universities—had been traduced, mutilated by political correctness, in all areas. In this mess, Manny felt somewhere in the middle, in a peculiar cultural exile. Journals that used to mean a lot to him, such as the
New Republic
or even The
Nation
, he now barely looked at.

In the
Times
he glanced through articles on the brutal Iraq war, a new damning report on the environmental oil disaster, more European fury at Israel—all surrounded by the big ads for wristwatches, leather goods, jewelry. No, this was not tabloid reality, but, rather, advertising chic, with an emphasis on stylishness for its readers. Or consider the latest journalist star, whose op-ed columns were bejeweled with “witty” references from pop culture, TV sitcoms, and whose moral judgments were straight out of Sunday school. Was the
Times
serious? Style ruled the day here; thus you had the intermingling of the important with the cute, the important flattened out by the glamorous. The New Decadence was displayed everywhere. When had all this happened? In the nineties? Turn of the century?

But now, here, Manny wondered, why serve the long lost cause of trying to find out the truth about the elusive Swede? And what would Manny do with it, once figured out? Was he on a journey of self-discovery as well as a historical pursuit? Would he be contributing any serious revision of history? Or was its chief impact to be felt by the present Wallenberg dynasty in Stockholm, and maybe the state memory, part of contemporary history? As for the personal journey, did Manny really need Raoul for that? Was there an unknown connection? At this, something in him stirred, an odd emotional wave, but what was it? …

The next day he sat on a bench on the large college green, looking out at the white-steepled Baker Library, waiting to meet with Angela. The air was soft, and the green was filled with students reading in the grass, hooked up to their iPods, tossing balls, and sunning with friends. Here and there a mother with a toddler passed by, letting the child run free. Cars moved slowly, pausing to stop for any pedestrian who showed any sign of crossing the street.

“Here you are,” Angela announced, smiling brightly, “and here it is, sir, my final words of wisdom about the man.” She sat down alongside, opened her canvas briefcase, and took out her thesis. “One hundred-forty-two pages. I hope it works for you!”

Charmed by her turn of phrase, “working” for him, he nodded and thanked her. “I look forward to reading it, of course.”

“And how was your trip to Budapest? Did you meet with Mrs. W.?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you think? Was she real?” she gushed. “I mean, did you buy her story, as I did?”

Taking note of her new headband, shorts, and running shoes, he asked, “Are you jogging today?”

“Oh, this?” she smiled animatedly, “Yeah, I’m training for the marathon. First, a local charity one, and then down in Boston. Do you run?”

He shook his head. “I do all I can to walk, regularly.”

She nodded. “It’s a blast; you should try it, really.”

“Well, I may be a bit too old for a marathon.”

She hit his arm. “Don’t pretend you’re too old! You look in shape; you can still do it, with some training. C’mon, get into a program. I can start you up, and before you know it, you’ll really be with it.”

He was impressed with Angela’s enthusiasm for him, and smiled at the kindly young woman. He’d remember to tuck in his belly when he stood up.

“So, sir, what did you think? I know she’s a bit weird, but …”

“Yes, I think your catch-all word is a good one here. To tell you the truth, I don’t quite know what to think. How to take her. And you?”

She angled her head, shrugged. “If it’s a fantasy, it’s a great one. But her tale may be too strange to be fictitious.”

“You put the matter well. On the other hand,” he smiled, reflecting on the matter, “
her fiction may be her life.
”

Angela paused, and she said, “Well, I never thought of it that way, sir.”

He stood up, said he’d read the thesis with interest, and they hugged.

“My dad is taking me out for graduation, to Simon Pearce, and he asked if you wanted to join us.”

“A nice invitation, thanks. Let’s see where I am, both in geography and in the thesis. But the food is good there, I understand. I’ve only visited the glass-blowing shop.”

“Oh, Dad says it’s the best around, and worth the pricy-ness. And he’d love to chat with you about your views on RW. Being half-Swedish himself, and from that generation.”

“It’s a bit warm for running, so take care.”

“Oh, I’m prepared, thanks!” She displayed her hip bottles of water.

Left alone, Manny went for his regular walk, striding first across the green and then over to Occom Pond and around to the golf course, and back again. The area was surrounded by trees, pond, lawns, fine homes. He began feeling firmer, walking quickly, checking his wristwatch to make it real exercise. When he read the thesis, he’d pay attention to the documentation, and the writing, since the content would be familiar and predictable; but maybe she’d have picked up a clue or two of some use. Young energy could do that. And maybe the father would supply a fact of interest…. Should he indeed get into his own long-distance training, as Angela had suggested? But wasn’t he already in some sort of training, though he wasn’t sure what its nature was, just yet? … A wired-up jogger ran past, oblivious, and a group of youngsters emerged from the golf course with clubs and bags. Maybe heading to the river now? College had been different for Manny, back in Brooklyn. Classes, library, study, and then work. Hard to figure this world of sports leisure at the college, even here. Yet, just last year the college had hired a new football coach (ex-quarterback), who declared that the old stadium needed a facelift to attract new recruits and crowds; so ten million was raised to remove one half of the stands, build a new field house, and lay down new turf. How did this happen so swiftly, so easily? Especially when the college was proclaiming huge cutbacks in humanities departments, secretaries and janitors were laid off, and adjuncts dropped. And Dartmouth was Ivy League, not a juco or state U. football factory.

On his return route, Manny recalled, out of the blue, the great Holocaust historian up in Vermont, who, curiously enough, had almost the same first name as RW. Amidst the tall maples, he made a mental note to contact the fellow.

He finished up the hearty walk, feeling heady in the wonderful sunshine, and met his son on the green. They drove over to The Jewel of India for their ritual dinner. Over their standard fare—curried lamb and tikka masala chicken, vegetable pakora and garlic nan—Manny listened to the brown-eyed boy describe, with bubbly excitement, his desire to try out for a Young Artist Orchestra in Tanglewood, where he might play for six weeks. “And, Dad, we would get to go
free to all
of the BSO performances. Can you believe it?!” I reminded him he was still a bit young for that. No matter. His fervent emotion was matched by his anticipation of the music to be played—Sibelius, Mozart, Beethoven—and the fact that he would get to see his regular teacher, the third cellist in the BSO, throughout the summer. As the boy wolfed the lavish dishes with familiar gusto and spoke about Mozart’s deceptive surface simplicity and underlying intricacy, Manny attended with interest and amazement—how had the boy turned out this way? How had this meteorite of talent and energy descended upon him? (From trying to match his older brother?) Manny wrote down the dates of the three orchestral performances and promised to go to every one. “But you have to be there on time, remember!” the son warned, knowing the father’s terrible habit of tardiness.