Ernő led the way down the street overflowing with people heading home after a long day’s work, weaving in and out of the crowd, setting a frenetic pace. Patrik scurried along, bumping into people on the street, mumbling apology after apology.
Ernő turned to speak over his shoulder. “Let’s check the music studio. Perhaps a student came in late and delayed her. Or maybe she wasn’t feeling well. She hasn’t been herself the past couple of weeks.”
They reached the storefront in record time. The late afternoon sun glinted off the spotless window, but inside it was dark. Ernő scrubbed his stubbled face. “The door is locked.”
Patrik clapped him on the back. “That doesn’t mean she’s not in there.”
Ernő drew the key from his pants pocket. His hands shook as he worked to insert it into the lock. Patrik snatched it from him and opened the door. Ernő glanced at him and bit his lip. “What if—”
“There’s no reason to think the worst.” Just to be sure, though, Patrik pushed by Ernő, stepped in first, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness. The racks of music, the chairs arranged in a little waiting area, the sales counter along the back of the room—everything was in its place.
Ernő crept in behind him. “Zofia! Zofia! Are you here, szerelmem?”
Silence hung over them. Ernő called out again with the same result.
They searched the back room where Éva and Zofia took their breaks and completed their paperwork. Again, not a cup remained in the sink or a paper on the table. Nothing was amiss.
Ernő grabbed the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “She left here just fine. So where is she? What happened to her between the studio and home?”
“We’ll retrace the routes she might have taken. Maybe she fell and twisted her ankle. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”
“It’s far too late to tell me that. Even if she met up with a friend, she would have phoned. Something is wrong. I feel it deep in my bones.” Ernő mussed his curly blond hair. “Since the day we married, I’ve never not known where my wife is. She’s my everything. You don’t understand.”
But Patrik did understand. If Éva had disappeared, Patrik would be frantic, beside himself. Unthinkable not to have his muse, his love, his life. Ernő was calmer than Patrik would be under these circumstances. Patrik wouldn’t be able to breathe. He might lose his mind.
“I keep imagining her out there alone. Is she hurt? Scared? Still alive?” Ernő’s eyes, the same eyes as Éva’s, shimmered in the dull light.
Patrik had no reply. A few afternoons ago, while Éva was out, he and Zofia had discussed this very scenario. What to do when the Nazis caught up with her. What to do when they discovered her truth.
Because, despite his assurances to Ernő, what happened to Zofia was clear.
They would not find her sitting on the sidewalk with a twisted ankle.
The Nazis had figured out her secret.
But he couldn’t tell Ernő what was happening. Couldn’t clue him in or suggest where to search. If Ernő knew what Zofia had been up to, he would discover Patrik’s own secret.
There was one spot he wanted to check that Ernő couldn’t come. “To save time, let’s split up. You take one of the possible routes home, and I’ll take the other. We’ll meet at your place in thirty minutes. I’m sure one of us will locate her in the meantime.”
Ernő nodded, his face drawn.
“We will find her.” Please, God, let us find her.
They exited the studio, securing the door behind them. Ernő hustled to the left, winding through the crowd, craning his head to search for his wife.
When he had disappeared into the throng, Patrik started in the opposite direction. He didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to find Zofia there. But the Gestapo headquarters was her likeliest location.
The sun dipped lower as he picked his way down the busy sidewalk. If God blessed them, there would be no bombing raids tonight, at least not this early.
He had gone several blocks when he noticed a commotion up ahead. His height afforded him a good view. A woman wearing a dark blue hat with a brown feather was weaving among the people, shoving them aside, moving as fast as possible.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t that the hat he’d tried to hand to Éva? The one she’d teased him about? That meant it belonged to Zofia. He thrust his way through the throng in her direction. A moment later and he reached her and strode alongside her. “Zofia.”
She either didn’t hear him or ignored him.
“Zofia.” A little louder this time. Thank goodness for his long legs. Fast though she was moving, he easily matched her pace.
“Zofia. It’s me. Patrik.”
She stopped right in his path. He bumped into her and grabbed her in a hug. “You’re safe.”
With her bare foot, she kicked his shin, but without a shoe, she did little damage.
“Zofia, stop. Whatever happened, it’s over. I’m here. No one is going to hurt you now.”
She stilled in his arms. “Patrik?”
“Igen, igen.”
“They found me. We have to get home. Have to warn the others.”
He led her around the corner to a quiet side street but kept his voice low. “Who found you?”
“This German grabbed me right on the street, demanding information about our group. They know who I am. I denied it and fed the man false information. I took him to a location where I knew there would be no Jews. He was ransacking the building when I slipped out the bathroom window. I heard gunshots.” Her eyes glazed over as if reliving the horror, both from tonight and from many years ago.
“Then you can’t go home. That’s the first place they’ll search for you. You’ll endanger everyone there.”
“I have to warn them. This can’t end like it did with my mother. It can’t. I won’t allow it. Ernő has to get away. All of them do.”
“You’re risking your life, and you might be leading the Germans straight to your family. Did you ever think you might be followed? They know where you work. How long before they figure out where you live?”
“Nem. I’m going home. My mother paid with her life because of me. Because I didn’t tell her the Gestapo was after me. That will not happen again. Do you hear? I won’t allow it. I have to tell them what is going on. Tell them to leave. Immediately. Even now, we’re wasting time. The Gestapo might be on their way to the house at this moment.”
She wrenched from his grasp and raced away from him toward home. Even sprinting, he couldn’t keep up with her. Sheer determination must have fueled her.
But by the time they arrived at the Bognárs’ house, it was too late.
Ernő paced in front of his family’s three-story home. Where was Patrik? And Zofia? When they parted, he said they would meet here in thirty minutes. Why hadn’t they returned?
Sweat soaked the back of his shirt despite the chilly temperatures. He climbed the steps to the house, ready to turn the doorknob. Footsteps clicked on the street, and he turned, praying to see Patrik and Zofia. But it was only an old man out walking his little dog before the nightly air raids.
Still, Ernő bounded down the stairs, glanced both ways down the road. Empty. This time, he flew into the house. Éva, Apu, and Anya sat in the living room, Éva studying her fingernails, Apu with his nose buried in the paper, Anya with a serving fork in her hand.
“Any word? Did anyone ring?”
All three gazed at him and shook their heads.
Anya brandished her fork, waving it like a surrender flag. “What I don’t understand is how Éva and Patrik could have left the studio without Zofia. You know how dangerous it is for her on the streets.” She tapped Apu’s paper with her utensil. “You must tell her not to do such a thing again.”
Anya peered above the page. “She knows.”
Éva rubbed the back of her neck. “We shouldn’t have done it. But she assured us she was right behind us. She was giving us some time alone.”
Ernő strode the length of the entry hall and back toward the door again, cracking his knuckles. “I don’t care what she told you or how nice she was being. The two of you shouldn’t have left her wandering the streets alone.” How could they have done it? What were they thinking? They weren’t, that was the problem. Weeks away from their wedding, they had their heads in the clouds.
Éva stood, a blush rising in her fair cheeks. “She went out alone the other night. To that lesson, remember? You wanted to escort her, but she insisted on going by herself.”
“And this is why she shouldn’t be out at night at all, much less alone.” Ernő puffed out a breath. “Why, why did this have to happen?”
“What’s done is done. From here on, Zofia will be accompanied at all times. Finding her is what is most important right now.” Apu’s gentle words sliced like a blade.
“After the rain comes the raincoat.” Ernő pounded on the wall, the sting in his hand far less severe than the pain in his heart. “My wife is missing, possibly deported to a place where hundreds of thousands like her have been killed. I’m frantic about her. We can’t change the past, but this should never have happened.”
Anya came at him. Was she going to spear him with the fork? Instead, she embraced him, the warmth of her flowing into him. “Focus on what you have to do. Frustration won’t get you anywhere.”
“You’re right.” He stomped out the door and onto the street. Still the road remained quiet. Deserted.
Until a shiny black car hummed down it. Stopped in front of their house. A large swastika was emblazoned on the side.
Ernő’s stomach sank to his toes.
He dashed inside. “The Gestapo is here.”
Anya and Éva blanched. Apu folded his paper as if a friend had come to call, and they were getting ready for a night of playing ulti cards.
The Germans pounded on the door. “Open up, open up.” The gutteral voices barked their demands.
Ernő swallowed. Shaking, he unlatched the door. As soon as he turned the knob, three Gestapo officers burst into the flat, silver bars on their shirt collars.
Ernő backed against the wall, digging his fingernails into the soft plaster. “What is the meaning of this? What do you want?”
“We’re searching for Bognár Zofia. I presume you are her husband.”
He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. “She’s not here.”
The biggest, burliest of the men, muscles bulging under his too-tight green shirt, pinned Ernő to the wall by the neck. Anya gasped. “Don’t try to fool us.” The soldier turned to his comrades and motioned with his head. “Search this place from top to bottom. She has to be here.”
Ernő couldn’t draw much air into his lungs. Despite the Nazi’s choke hold, he slipped out a few words. “Not here.”
The German kneed him in the crotch. He refrained from crying out, but only the man’s hands around his neck kept him from slumping to the ground. From the corner of his eye, he saw Apu holding back Éva.
If they were going to kill him, they might as well get on with it. But not in front of his family. God, not in front of my parents.
The Nazi kneed him again. Excruciating pain shot through him. This time, he didn’t have the breath to cry out.
“Where is she?”
“Don’t know.”
The German held him with one enormous hand and waved his pistol in the direction of the rest of Ernő’s family. “Do you need a little help remembering? Would seeing your father or mother die jog your memory?”
Nem, he couldn’t allow this man to harm his family. “Don’t know.” Ernő struggled for breath to speak. “Where she is.”
“Liar.”
Again the knee. And again. How many more times, Ernő didn’t know. He lost count when the pain became unbearable.
After an interminable length of time, the two other goons returned from ransacking the flat. “Nothing. But her clothes and possessions are here.”
“Well, well, well, isn’t that interesting?” The officer’s hot breath blew across Ernő’s cheek. “I have all kinds of questions for you.”
Where were they taking him? He didn’t care as long as they stopped this torture. The Nazi yanked him away from the wall, and the cold, hard steel of a revolver touched the back of Ernő’s head.
“Let’s go.”
“Nem, nem.” Anya and Éva’s cries faded as they marched him down the steps to the street and into a sleek black car parked at the curb. The other times Ernő had witnessed arrests, the detainees had been herded into trucks.
Special treatment? More likely, special torment.
The big thug shoved Ernő into the auto, the pistol still trained on his skull as he slid in. The other two jumped into the front seats, and the car roared away into the Budapest twilight.
They didn’t travel far before they reached the hotel that served as Gestapo headquarters, its many windows glittering pink and yellow in the dying light.
Between the pain in his groin and the mush of his legs, he could barely walk. The Nazis half carried him up four flights of back stairs to what had probably once been a janitor’s closet, now stripped of everything save for a metal chair.
Blood spatters covered the sterile white walls.
The beefy soldier shoved Ernő into the seat and at last holstered his weapon. “Now, Bognár Úr, would you mind clarifying something for us?” He drew a paper from his coat pocket. “This is an interesting piece I ran across published by some underground organization. Very curious. The author is named as Katona Marika. We have reason to believe she is your wife.”
Ernő kept what he hoped was a neutral expression that would not give anything away. But hadn’t Zofia teased him that if she changed her name to a Hungarian one, it would be Marika? It meant rebellious.
Trembling, Ernő grasped the proffered page. “In Defense of Those Who Assist Jews” by Katona Marika.
His pulse quickened.
What was his wife involved in?