Searching for Wallenberg (47 page)

Manny stared at the grave expression and felt his own heart beating at the words and the meaning of the revelation. Finally, he said, “
Lived on? Where? For how long
? How did you—”

“That is why we need you to get out,” Mr. Wallenberg smiled triumphantly, “and begin the search, the new search.”

“But how and where—”

Mr. Wallenberg tipped his hat and added, “It is fitting, don’t you think, that you, a Jew,
should be helping me now
?” He nodded, “And myself, a sort of ghost, accepting aid from a private ghostwriter?” He smiled and exited.

Manny, still in shock over the revelation a moment ago, sat there for a while on his cot, trying to take it all in. What was going on? Was he batty, or more whole than ever?

Then, suddenly renewed in spirit by the new direction, he stood up to call the warden, to see about his release, to explore his new mission … He called, “Guard!”

Here in elegant Stockholm, he would situate his base of operations for a while. And probe the austere, masked city with more hands-on investigation, especially with his ghost of a friend around so much, revisiting—and haunting?—his old home ground. Maybe the two of them together, one living, one a live-in specter, could indeed work to dig up new old evidence, discover something newly relevant, either here in this stealthy town in a secret diplomatic note, or family letter, or in KGB/FSB files, or in a new surprise … Gellerman felt in his gut something stirring, sure now that they were forming a unique partnership, a kind of metaphysical detective agency, in pursuing the elusive truths of this sixty-plus-year-old cold case of murderous indifference and moral corruption. “Guard!”

The guard came by and informed him of his lawyer’s appearance, and Manny adjusted his shirt and jacket, alert, refreshed. He would have to get out, but on terms different from the plaintiff’s lawyer’s demand.
Fitting, that a Jew should be helping Raoul now.
And that he the historian should now evolve into a ghostwriter…. Should he speak to the judge directly? Or call in his American lawyer friend? Whatever. But outside, he’d be able to work hands-on to gather significant documents, alongside his guiding shadow, who had much experience in this old town and knowledge in avoiding predators, just in case Manny himself became too hot to handle.
He lived on, really? Where? How? For how long?
Did the Mystery Lady from Budapest have anything to do with that?

Meanwhile, over pickled herring (in cream sauce) and Swedish schnapps in the smaller conference room, with a framed photo on the wall of Björn Borg hitting a two-handed backhand with a wooden racket, and another of the king, Manny discussed with Advokat Sonnerup the various options he had for returning to the orderly streets and his newfound (collaborative) work. Yes, he’d work a compromise out, now that he knew from his lawyer that the other side, the Wallenberg family, wanted one too, as it was getting embarrassed and slammed more and more in the daily media.

While waiting for his release, he sat in his cell and took up a favorite book he had brought along, Bernard DeVoto’s “The Course of Empire,” which he admired for the passion and the sweeping narrative, a book which always relaxed him.

At the same time he understood, or sensed, that he was pushing farther his imaginative projection, and hoped that it was taking him in the right direction; and yet not taking him too far out, like sailing in the Archipelago with his friend and finding themselves drifting into the Baltic Sea.

The cordial guard, Lovah, came over while he was reading, and announced that he had a visitor from abroad. He looked up, surprised, and was led into the small conference room, where he found, sitting at the long table, Dora. She was dressed in a blue wool cardigan sweater and green blouse, looking about fifteen.

He sat down across from her and shook his head slightly.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded. “You’ve cut your hair.”

Half smiling, she said, “Twice, since I’ve seen you last.”

“Yes, it’s been a while. How’s your mother?”

“Fine. Worried about you.”

He paused. “Did she send you here?”

She shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t listen.”

He nodded.

“So you came on your own? I am flattered.”

She smiled her small crooked-toothed smile.

“How long will you stay here?” she asked.

“Oh, not much longer, I don’t think.”

She fixed him, concerned. “Where will you go then? Do you have plans?”

“I don’t think so, not firm ones.”

“Then will you return to Budapest?”

He half smiled. “It’s a thought.”

She paused. “I would like that.”

He wondered, What did she mean? “You know that I have more work to do, and it may take me to different places, like Moscow or here in Stockholm.

And—”

“But Budapest surely is one of those places, yes?”

“Yes,” he conceded. “It is one of those places.”

She fingered the large collar on her blouse. “Do you think I can help you?”

He removed his glasses and wiped them with a tissue.

“Well, that is an interesting proposition. Let me think on it.”

She nodded.

“Do you offer this for Mr. Wallenberg’s sake, yours, or your mother’s?”

She smiled. “You forgot the professor’s sake.”

Yes, he had. “You are good, and brave, to come here independently and get involved this way and even offer me this. Thank you.”

“But you haven’t accepted me yet.” She smiled. “Or have you?”

Oh, how clever and wily were the perfectly innocent! That much he knew, for sure. “You will have to do a bit of traveling, and taking notes, and keeping your eyes open and ears alert.”

She smiled broadly, her looks rather dazzling.

“You may not even like some of the things you hear, or see.”

“I am not a child, you know,” she retorted sternly. “You mustn’t treat me as one.”

He took that in. “All right, accepted.”

“Good.” She softened. “Now, is there an immediate task?”

Impressed, he said, “Well, not really”—but then he thought of something. “I understand that Mr. Wallenberg may have lived on, beyond his supposed death in Lybianka Prison. Can we find out more about this?”

She took out a journalist’s notebook and jotted a note with her left hand.

“You came prepared, I see.”

A light smile, still note-taking. “Any more details, Professor?”

How ironic, that this young Budapest beauty—perhaps, on the long-distance chance, Raoul’s granddaughter—was now agreeing to work to find the grand old man’s whereabouts. Was she doing this for him, or for Manny?
(Or did the ghost himself send her?)

He put that question to her, soft-toned.

She eyed him carefully. “I am working for you, Professor. And if we discover useful new facts about Mr. Wallenberg, that will be good, very good.”

“Yes, this is true.”

She stared at him, mustering force. “I am serving you, sir, not any wild dream or vision.”

He understood, and thanked her.

“I will get to work, Professor Gellerman—”

“Please, call me Manny.”

“All right, I will get to work and report back tomorrow or the next day.” She paused, looking at him. “Professor.”

She stood up, took her wool coat from the wall hook, smiled curtly, and left.

In his room, he considered matters, looked through some recent documents online, and wondered if indeed Wallenberg himself had sent her as his living emissary. How clever that would be!

Two days later he found himself sitting in the small kosher café/restaurant in Budapest, the same shabby one in the Jewish Quarter where he had first met the lady a few years ago. (He told Dora to meet him later, after his meeting with her mother.) Zsuzsanna looked the same: oval pale face with smooth skin, and hair tied up in a bun, looking like a young teenager. She greeted him with a warm smile.

“You have missed our Event while you were over in Stockholm.”

“Yes, the séance; your daughter told me.”

“But something important has perhaps resulted, as I told you on the phone, which I have waited to pursue with you personally.”

“Thank you.”

She stood up, tucked her cashmere shawl around her, and took him by the hand. “Come, it is a short walk from here, please.”

She walked with him down the long narrow street toward the Great Synagogue, holding his hand firmly.

“Spring will be here soon. You remember this, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Lots of excitement since I last saw you, Emmanuel.”

“Yes, although I myself have been away from it all for a few weeks.”

“I have heard.” She giggled and her eyes twinkled.

She marched them down Dob utca, nodding to several people and giving a Yiddish greeting, gripping his hand. Just before the Holocaust sculpture garden with the metal tree of remembrance at the back of the Great Synagogue, she steered him into the old wooden doorway of the dilapidated old Shul.

“And this perhaps you remember too?”

He nodded, recalling, surprised.

They walked inside, down the long decrepit corridor, passing an old Jew in a fedora, moving to the other shul rooms in back, where they had sat for the Tisha B’Av ceremony a few years before.

What was going on? he wondered. Yet another of Lady Z.’s “revelations”?

In the drab, modest library room, she took out a spiral notepad from her pocket and found her notes. Then she motioned for him to follow her along the musty bookshelves, where, with reading spectacles, she fingered the Dewey decimal numbers on the book spines, searching them according to her notes.

What was this? he wondered. Jewish Raiders searching for the Lost Ark?

She led him along, finally stopping at a rickety shelf of history books; she set down her large handbag and took out a row of a half-dozen books, and then, strangely, she stretched in vain to reach behind to the empty space.

“Please, you can help?”

She pointed to the vacated space on the bookshelf, and he reached up and inside, bewildered, but quickly felt something. He lifted it out and handed it to her.

She smiled blissfully at the long brown envelope, blew dust from it, and wiped it with her hand. Reading the words on the face, she nodded and handed it to Manny.

“There you are, Professor, directly from my father to you.”

He stared at her, astonished, and accepted the missive, wondering what the hell she was talking about. Crazy, as usual?!

“To Whom It May Concern,” was written in cursive on the outside, and inside was the handwritten letter, on some crinkly old airmail paper.

Manny shook his head, baffled, sat down at the end of the long wooden table in the center of the room, and the Lady Zsuzsanna followed him, sitting across. She clasped her hands together like a little girl waiting for the teacher to direct the lesson.

Privately, Manny read the letter, handwritten in pencil, reasonably legible: