Upon the Head of the Goat (13 page)

So Iboya went to work in the fish store. She had to wear a rubber apron there because of the splatter of fish scales. When she came home on those nights, she would heat pots of water and immerse herself in a tub of suds, trying to get rid of the fishy odor. I could still smell the fish in her hair while we lay together in bed, but I never mentioned it.

*   *   *

After Mother's return from Poland, Lujza became a frequent visitor at our house. She and Mother seemed to dissolve their prior antagonisms as they sat at the kitchen table in the evening, sipping herb tea, plotting possible means of getting Etu home from Budapest. One night, as they discussed Etu's situation and Rozsi's, Mother suddenly asked Lujza if she could get any information on Father's prison camp in Russia, and how to get a letter to him.

“Rise, I wish I had the means. After all, he is my brother. You should hear what goes on at home. My mother thinks that the Zionists are magicians. She wants me to find out not only about Ignac, but also about Srul and his wife in Russia and my brother-in-law in Rumania. I wish the Zionist underground were half as powerful as you and my mother would like them to be. As a matter of fact, with the new law of restriction on travel and the Americans not sending us as much help and money as they used to, almost everything has stopped. No, I'm afraid it's almost all over. Our main mission—to get Jews out to Palestine—is finished. Whoever did not get out by last December is stuck. Nor can we do a lot of the things we used to do. We had to give up our regular meeting place, and we are being watched, the really active Zionists like me, I mean. And if the police pick one of us up, they do not punish just the individual; the entire family receives the same punishment—deportation to Poland. It just happened to one of our most active agents. He and his whole family—father, mother, wife, and children—were deported. Who can take it on his conscience to bring such a fate on his family?” At this point, Lujza stopped talking.

Mother got up to brew her a cup of tea, scraping at the bottom of the can to get out the few remaining leaves. When the tea had set, she poured a cup for Lujza. Then, on a sudden impulse, she moved quickly to the cupboard that held her precious last bottle of rum. She took the bottle out and uncorked it. Lujza held her teacup while Mother gently tilted the bottle and splashed a small amount of the amber fluid to mix with the dark Russian tea.

“Have some, too, Rise,” Lujza insisted. Mother hesitated for a moment, then placed the silver tea strainer over a fresh cup, poured some of the tea for herself, and added the rum. Their faces began to relax as they sipped the tea.

Lujza smiled. “Well, it looks as though the Allies are going to be able to chase the Germans out of North Africa.”

“Africa,” said Mother. “What good is that to us? What we have to hope is that the Russians get here before the Nazis take over completely.”

Lujza looked shocked, but she didn't say anything. The Communists, I knew, were anti-Zionist, and I was surprised to hear Mother say what she had said. But I didn't make a comment either. Lujza got up slowly, took her coat, said goodbye to us, and left.

*   *   *

Mr. Schwartz started taking Iboya with him to Porta, a small fishing village near the Slovak border where he met the fishermen as they hauled in their catch. They left at dawn on Thursday and Friday mornings and were back at the store by 9 a.m. to open the doors for the waiting crowd that had gathered. By noon the fish were all gone, and Mr. Schwartz had to close for the day. Sometimes the people who had not gotten any fish threatened to knock down the locked door. Iboya had to leave the store by the back way with her fish hidden in a piece of tarpaulin.

One Thursday evening, while we were eating supper, Iboya complained of a bad headache, and she seemed unusually tired and upset.

“I could tell Mr. Schwartz that I don't want you making the trips to Porta with him to get the fish,” Mother said.

“You can't now,” Iboya answered. “He really needs my help.”

“He could take one of his other helpers.”

“They are goyim and can't be trusted.”

“Do you handle money in dealing with the fishermen?”

“That and…” Iboya stopped and cupped her hand over her forehead.

“You are now getting headaches from the fish?”

“It's not the fish. It's those people,” Iboya burst out.

“What people?” Mother looked serious. “Tell me about it.”

Iboya threw a worried glance in my direction. I was burning inside with anger. Ever since she had started working at the fish store, she had alienated herself from me. She had become too grown-up to confide in me. She had drawn into herself and lay silent in our bed, her eyes shut. But I knew she wasn't sleeping. “I don't care if you don't want to talk to me,” I had said angrily.

“It isn't you, I can't talk to anybody,” she had answered.

Now Mother stroked Iboya's hair. “It's all right,” she said. “Piri would never repeat anything she is told not to repeat. Not even to Judi.” Mother gave me a warning look. I nodded my head in agreement.

“Mother, Mr. Schwartz hides people on his fish truck on the way back from Porta,” Iboya said slowly. Mother's face grew white and tense. “You know, refugees,” Iboya continued after a moment's pause. “This morning we brought in a woman with two children. One of them kept crying, she was so frightened under the tarpaulin.”

“How long has this been going on?” Mother's voice was stern.

“Ever since I started to go there with him. He sits up on the box holding the reins, and I sit next to him riding backwards to watch where he can't see. If I see anyone coming, I throw the tarpaulin over the passengers. They have to stay under it until there is no one in sight; then they can come out for air. Today we had our first incident. A policeman on a horse stopped us and heard one of the children crying.

“‘My little girl is sick,' Mr. Schwartz said, ‘I'm taking her to be looked at by a doctor.'

“‘No wonder she is sick,' the policeman laughed, ‘lying with that stinking fish.'

“Mr. Schwartz pushed his papers into the policeman's hand and turned to me. ‘I told you to pick her up and hold her,' he yelled. ‘Why did you put her down there?' He slapped me, reached under the tarpaulin, pulled the screaming child out, and handed her to me. Next he reached under the tarpaulin again, pulled out a large fish, wrapped it in a piece of newspaper, and handed it to the policeman.

“‘Take this home to your wife. It was swimming two hours ago,' he said.

“The policeman gripped the fish in his gloved hand and handed Mr. Schwartz back his papers. ‘I guess everything is in order,' he said.

“What if the policeman had looked under the tarpaulin and had seen the woman with the other child? I was so scared!”

“What happened to the woman and the children when you got back to Beregszász?”

“He usually drops me off with whomever we have with us on the corner of Tinodi Street, and then I walk them to Mrs. Silverman's.”

Mother looked thoughtful for a while. “I am going to talk to Mr. Schwartz when he comes for dinner tomorrow night,” she said finally, “and put a stop to this. It was not part of the bargain.”

“But, Mother,” Iboya replied, “there are so many people that need to be taken, and he can't trust anyone but me. I usually don't mind. It was just this morning with the child crying and his yelling at me. I didn't know what was going to happen. Mr. Schwartz really handled it very well by yelling at me, saying all of that to the policeman, and giving him the fish.”

Now that I had heard Iboya's story, I felt very ashamed at my anger, and understood that she was only trying to protect me by not telling me anything. Still, I wished that she had trusted me enough to tell me. I could keep a secret, even from Mother, if I had to. After all, I never told Mother about Iboya's seeing Shafar whenever she went to the Zionist meetings. Somehow I had to make Iboya understand that. And I certainly wasn't going to tell Judi about what I had just heard. In fact, the idea of knowing something she didn't pleased me.

At dinner the following evening, Mother did voice her surprise to Mr. Schwartz at what he and Iboya were really doing in Porta, and she questioned the wisdom of letting Iboya continue to help him. But he managed to convince her that he could handle any other situation that arose just as well as he had the one yesterday. He really needed Iboya, he said. So Iboya kept on going to Porta to bring back refugees all through the summer.

*   *   *

That fall, a few days after our makeshift school had started its second year, I was in the kitchen helping Mother prepare our dinner. The door opened and Iboya, drained of color and energy, came through it, a newspaper tucked under her arm. Mother put down the tray of potatoes and took the paper from her. Her back stiffened as she read the headlines.

“Hungary is right in line with Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Germany in carrying out Hitler's orders against the Jews. They are all the same, and we are all Jews, and nobody cares.” Iboya spoke in a bitter tone.

Mother threw the paper on a chair and turned back to the potatoes. Iboya took off her jacket, hung it up, and began to set the table. I took the newspaper from the chair and opened it. “
JEWS MUST WEAR THE STAR OF DAVID.
”

The next morning, the town crier appeared at our street corner. He stood with his booted feet spread apart, the big drum hanging from a strap around his neck and covering most of his short body. His hands beat the drumsticks in furious rhythm. When the crowd around him had grown to about a hundred, he tucked the sticks under the drumstrap, and rolled out the scroll of announcements. Clearing his throat, he stretched out his neck and started to read.

“By the end of this month, September 30, 1943, it will become mandatory for all Jews in Hungary so defined by Article 270 to wear a yellow star sewn on the left side of their outerwear. A curfew will also be in effect. Jews may not leave their homes before 10 a.m. or after 3 p.m.”

Iboya and I stopped listening and left the crowd, but we did not continue on our way to school, where we knew little teaching would be done that day. Walking through the streets aimlessly, we came to Tinodi Street and stopped to watch an organ grinder. As he cranked the handle at the side of his box, playing the melody of “Sorrento,” a large colorful bird danced on the flat surface in rhythm to the tune. After the song was finished, the man passed around his hat, and received a few coins. Iboya and I were embarrassed that we had none to give, and walked on slowly. We met a family of refugees from Rumania, a mother with two little girls about two and six years old. She told us they had been walking for days and could not find lodging. We took them to Mrs. Silverman. When we finally got home, we found Mrs. Gerber and Mother sitting on the porch. We told them about the Rumanian woman and her two children.

“A friend wrote to me from Budapest that there are over fifteen thousand Jewish refugees roaming the roads of Hungary, and the government is pretending not to be aware of them,” said Mrs. Gerber.

“But now, with the curfew in effect, and the Star of David, that will be pretty difficult,” commented Iboya.

“My grocer heard that Horthy succeeded in rejecting the Germans' demands on enforcing the yellow star,” Mrs. Gerber replied.

“What about the curfew?” I asked.

“It could be worse,” said Mrs. Gerber.

But the curfew was related to rationing, Mother explained when she returned home from the market with an empty basket. “After 10 a.m., there is nothing left. Now we can throw away our ration coupons. They are of no use to us.”

16

L
ATE ONE NIGHT
, we heard a knock at the door. Mother jumped out of bed, fumbling in the dark trying to get into her bathrobe. I could see her silhouette struggling with the sleeves. “Why don't you put on a light?” I asked. She did not answer.

“Who could it be at this hour?” I huddled up against Iboya and could feel her body shiver. I recalled the time Father jumped the train and knocked at our window in the night. I prayed, “Dear God, let it be Father or Lilli.” Iboya and I got out of bed and joined Mother at the door. She called in a forced voice that did not sound like her at all, “Who is there?” The hoarse voice that answered sounded just as strange.

“It is I, Sanyi.”

“Oh, my God! What has happened?”

“It is Lujza,” sobbed our uncle Sanyi outside the gate. Iboya and I stood behind Mother and watched in the moonlight. Mother unbolted the door with rushed, trembling hands. Sanyi passed through and tried to talk, but he could not stop sobbing. His fingers held the collar of his black coat up around his neck. Mother put an arm around him and led him into the kitchen. She switched on the light, looked at him, and then cuddled him in her arms.

“You poor boy!” Sanyi put his face on her shoulder and stopped sobbing after a few minutes, picked up his head, and looked into Mother's face with red, feverish eyes.

“Lujza is dead!”

“How? When? Because of the Zionists?”

“No. She was accused by her supervisor of stealing money from the store. She came home from work very depressed. They had told her not to come in any more. She would never steal anything. They lied.” He began to cry again.

“But how did she die?”

He drew a deep, racking breath and continued. “The train. We heard the screeching of the train. It was the night train from Miskolc. Father and I ran out to see what made the train come to a stop outside our house. We have heard the trains pass all these years, but never heard one stop before it got to the station. There was a big commotion, and a crowd had gathered. ‘A woman threw herself under the wheels,' a man told us. The train ran right over her.' Father and I moved through the crowd and saw two trainmen lift a body wrapped in a blanket onto a stretcher. In the dark, we could only make out that it was a female form. So we started to walk back toward the house. When we got to the front door, there was a policeman with some papers about to knock. ‘Mr. Davidowitz?' he asked.