By the time the Gestapo released Ernő, darkness once again covered the city. The Germans had held him for almost twenty-four hours. For a while he wandered the streets, his muddled brain working to recall where he was and how to get home. Soon, though, the Buda castle rose above the city, and he managed to orient himself.
In a short amount of time, he stood in front of his family’s three-story residence, staring at it. How could he go inside if Zofia was still missing, out there somewhere? What might be happening to her if they still held her? Now he had something of an idea. If the Germans ever found her, they wouldn’t be any gentler because she was a woman.
His Nazi interrogator’s scorching breath still singed Ernő’s cheek. He struggled to get air into his lungs, every expansion of his chest like knives ripping his ribcage open. Likely broken. Maybe all of them.
Had they broken Zofia’s bones? Was she in pain? Suffering?
“Tell me where your wife is.” The soldier’s demands had reverberated in the dark, tiny room.
“I don’t know.”
The Nazi slapped him across the cheek, the sting of it no match for the pain in the rest of his body. “Fool. You’re stalling, and I’m tiring of your game.”
Ernő sat as straight as possible and clung to the edge of the chair. “I don’t know where my wife is.” Zofia had told him how the Nazis had killed her mother when she couldn’t tell them where her daughter was. Would they do the same with him?
Let them do what they wanted with him. Just don’t let them harm Zofia. His precious, precious wife. His everything.
The questioning, badgering, and beatings had lasted for hours. More than one officer took his turn with Ernő. In the rare moments they left him alone in the room, he caught a few seconds of sleep. But his body cried for more.
His heart cried for Zofia.
Then, just like that, they had released him. Was it because they had arrested her?
“Ernő! Ernő!” Éva’s cries snapped him from his memories. She raced down the steps and stopped short. “I can’t believe you’re home. I was watching out the window for Patrik to come for dinner, and there you were.” She touched his face, her fingertips soft and gentle. “What happened?”
He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped his lips. “I didn’t expect such a homecoming. You’d think that I’d been gone for a year.”
“Look at what those beasts did to you. An innocent man. Are you in much pain?”
“More worried about my wife.”
“Zofia isn’t here.”
“I know. They wouldn’t have released me if she were. Either they have her in custody, or they let me go in hopes I will lead them to her. Or that she’ll come to me.”
“At least you’re home.”
“I need to find her.”
“Later. Please, come inside.”
Patrik rounded the corner and grinned at Ernő. “Good to see you.”
“When you didn’t meet me last night, I thought they’d taken you too.”
“I had a lead. Though it turned out to be nothing, I had to check it.” Patrik toed the ground.
Interesting. He couldn’t look Ernő in the eye. Why not?
The door opened, and Anya stood in the entrance. “There you all are. Ernő, my boy. Come in, come in. Allied planes are headed this way. They just announced it on the radio. We have to take shelter.”
At that moment, the air raid sirens blared their warning, their awful screech piercing his eardrums. The rumble of planes sounded in the distance. But Zofia … she always froze when the sirens sounded, her face draining of its color. He had to push her to the shelter. What would she do without him? He had to continue searching. Couldn’t give up.
Overhead, the roar grew louder, the whine of the engines and the howl of the air raid sirens filling his ears. Antiaircraft fire split the air, tracers and searchlights illuminating the deepening night.
“Ernő, you can’t look for her now. What good will you be to her dead?” Anya motioned him inside.
She was right. With great reluctance, Ernő climbed the steps into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
While the rest of the family made their way down the stairs, Ernő stopped Patrik. “You know more about the situation with my wife than you are acknowledging. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing, I promise you. You know as much as I do.” Again, Patrik’s attention was elsewhere as he spoke to Ernő.
“You’re lying.”
A deafening whistle cut off the rest of Patrik’s words. The ground shook below them.
At that moment, someone pounded at the door. “Open up.” Not German words but Hungarian.
Ernő turned the knob and three policemen burst into the house. What did they want? Who did they want? The pain in his ribs prevented him from taking a deep breath.
The tallest and heaviest of the bunch pointed his weapon at Patrik and Ernő. “Downstairs.”
Ernő dragged himself down the stairs behind Patrik to the basement where the rest of his family huddled on a sofa in the cold, damp room. “There you two are.” Anya crumpled a handkerchief in her trembling hands. “What is going on up there?”
“Just the air raid wardens making sure everyone is complying with the law to be inside.” At least, that’s what he hoped, though it didn’t make sense. Wardens patrolled the streets to be sure they were empty but didn’t enter homes. Their presence upstairs was both puzzling and troubling. Ernő’s thoughts traveled upstairs, outside, wherever his wife was. He paced the small space until he reached the foot of the stairs. Zofia was out there. Alone. What would happen if—
Apu stepped in front of Ernő, blocking his path. “She would want you here.”
Ernő stared at the low ceiling that was closing down on him and sagged in defeat. “Tomorrow I’m resuming my search for her.” When these air raids occurred, they lasted most of the night. For now, he was stuck inside, helpless to find Zofia, to help her, to protect her.
“Of course. Tomorrow you look for her. Tonight you rest and stay safe. You’ll do her the most good that way.” Apu led him to the sofa as if he were a small child and squeezed him between Anya and Éva. Ernő twiddled his thumbs, wishing the Allied planes away.
The floors above them creaked. Boots stomped up and down stairs. Their hard, almost angry words said they weren’t here for an innocuous compliance check. So what were they doing up there? Looking for something? But what? There was nothing that might interest them. They had to be searching for Zofia. Maybe, maybe it was best she wasn’t here.
Nem, not best at all. If she were here, he would give his life to ensure she was safe. That was how much he loved her. How much he couldn’t live without her.
After several more minutes, with a slam of the door, the police left the building.
For most of the night, Ernő and his family huddled together, quiet, deep in thought and prayer, until the all clear signal came. Could a person go crazy in that amount of time? Never had the hands on his watch moved with such maddening slowness. After an eon, Ernő and his family tromped upstairs and opened the door.
What a sight greeted them. Their visitors had overturned the couch and slit the cushions, had dumped the contents of every desk drawer on the floor, had broken the dishes on the table. Even the Germans hadn’t been this thorough. If he had to guess, he would say the police had been here on the Nazis’ authority.
Ernő swallowed hard. “They weren’t here to check on us. They came looking for something.”
Could it be true? Was Zofia caught up in the underground, writing the papers the Nazis accused her of writing? Is that what the thugs who barged in here were after?
He tried to catch Patrik’s attention. But again, Patrik avoided his gaze.
Patrik blew out a breath as the train chugged into the station in Nagyvárad. A red roof covered the platform that led into a low, cheery yellow building. Rain splattered the window of his car, and he pulled up his trench coat’s collar.
Despite everything going on with Zofia and with his impending wedding, he had to come. Had to see for himself, know for himself what had happened to his family.
The worst part was that he couldn’t speak to Éva about any of this. He’d told her he had to go out of town to scout new talent for the symphony and wanted to get it done before the wedding so he wouldn’t have to leave her right after their marriage.
He prayed he would return for the ceremony.
With a belch of steam and soot, the train halted. Along with many of the passengers, Patrik stood and retrieved his small bag. He had a few clothes inside but also a stash of money. Bribes, if he needed them.
The walk was long, but except for the Germans patrolling the streets, the city was beautiful. He’d loved growing up in this place, surrounded by amazing architecture. Every Sabbath, he, his parents, and his sisters had attended the Great Synagogue with its blue-ceilinged dome. A place of wonder and awe.
Now the place of worship sat on the very edge of the Nagyvárad ghetto.
After a warm, brisk walk of almost forty-five minutes, he arrived on Zarda Street. A wooden fence had been erected around the ghetto. Though it contained several blocks of homes, the place was nowhere near large enough to hold all Nagyvárad’s Jews.
At the stench that reached him, Patrik gagged. The foul odor of human excrement. Of unwashed bodies. Of death.
So strong he tasted it and fought to keep his breakfast in his stomach.
He meandered the perimeter of the ghetto, always searching for his dark-haired sisters. Like him, they were tall and willowy. But he spied no one who even resembled them.
In fact, he spied no one at all. An eerie silence hung over the place. With tens of thousands of Jews crammed into this tiny area, with the heat of the approaching summer and open windows, he should have heard the sounds of everyday living. Clinking of plates. Laughter of children. Talk between friends.
Instead, there was nothing but silence. Heavy. Oppressive. Deadly.
He peered down one street. The doors to the houses hung open. Belongings were scattered about the road. Parcels and bags lay where they had been dropped and abandoned, and food rotted in the late-spring sun.
The dusty street was a confusion of footprints—scuffed, crazy patterns, prints of all sizes. Hundreds of people had passed through here not long ago.
Amid it all, a stuffed polar bear lay in the middle of the street, trampled, dirty, destroyed.
Goose pimples broke out on Patrik’s arms. In his head, voices whispered, the voices of those who had marched down this road. The only voices he could hear.
Where had they all gone?
He moved on toward Rhedey Park. What he saw next almost brought him to his knees. He leaned against a tree for support. Thousands of Jews guarded by gendarmes and SS soldiers crowded around the train tracks that ran along the park.
Here at last there was sound. Moaning. Crying. Screaming. Armed soldiers herded groups of Jews, regardless of youth or age, into cattle cars, stuffing them inside one after the other. The soldiers maintained order, but chaos and confusion were in the eyes of the people. Patrik’s people.
They had no idea of their fate. Or, like his sisters, they had chosen to ignore it for too long, certain that what was happening to other Jews throughout the Third Reich and even in their beloved Hungary would never happen to them.
Then, on the edge of the crowd, Patrik spotted them. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. Their dark hair, chopped at their ears, was unmistakable. They rose above the other women.
Róza, the oldest, bent over and straightened her son’s cap while her husband held to the child’s hand. Patrik’s nephew, István, was just three years old.
He would never survive.
A lump formed in Patrik’s throat and grew.
Then there was Magda, so much like Róza they almost might be twins. His effervescent sister, making friends from strangers, always attracting a crowd.
Now she shuffled along, her head bent. The Nazis had already snuffed the life from her.
“Róza, Magda.” He shouted and waved. “Over here! Over here!”
Igen, igen, it was dangerous for him to call attention to himself. Crazy, really, if they realized who he was. But he had to see them. Try to help them. Freedom was just a short distance away.
Spurred by a burst of adrenaline, he rushed in the train’s direction. “Róza, Magda, it’s me.”
They didn’t turn one way or the other. Did they hear him? Or were they too frightened to answer him?
“Róza! Magda!” He screamed with all his might.
As Patrik surged forward, an SS officer, the silver bars on his collar glinting in the sunlight bursting through the clouds, advanced and, gun raised, stopped him. “Where are you going?”
Róza disappeared into the car. “Nem, nem!” The narrowing of his throat restricted his breathing. The world tilted.
“What do you want with them?” the German demanded.
“They are, were, my neighbors. I … I wanted to say good-bye.”
“You cannot go there. Unless you are one of them.”
István’s father lifted him into the car, jumped inside himself, and pulled Magda inside.
They were gone. Forever.
Great, uncontrollable sobs tore from Patrik. “Nem, nem!”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here. Now. You don’t belong.” The soldier trained his rifle on Patrik’s heart.
One of them had to survive. The Friemann family couldn’t be extinguished from the earth. Shuddering, Patrik backed away.
Across the tracks stood a blond Aryan woman, concealing a smile behind her handkerchief. From a brooch on her dress came a glint of red.
Patrik knew that face. But from where?
“Two days.” Éva paced the small living room from the piano in one corner to the radio set in the other. “Zofia has been gone for more than a month, and there are only two days left until our wedding.” She turned to Ernő and Patrik, who sat forward on the couch. “I can’t get married without her.”
Since Éva had become engaged to Patrik, she and Zofia had planned their wedding. A ceremony in a beautiful church, with stained glass splashing multicolored light across the stone floors. A lace gown with a cathedral-length train. An abundance of roses and orchids filling the space with their sweet aroma.
Above all, Patrik. Each other.
Zofia and Ernő flanking them.
Without Zofia, it wouldn’t be Éva’s dream.
On the other hand, she counted the hours until she became Patrik’s wife. How could she bear another day without him as her husband? Their love was like a symphony reaching its pinnacle. To halt it now would be unthinkable.
Patrik rose and enveloped her in an embrace. Most of the time, his warm presence calmed and soothed her. Not today. She had hardly slept, hadn’t eaten much since Zofia disappeared from the face of the earth.
Éva pushed away from him, her stomach in knots. “What are we going to do?”
Patrik stroked her cheek. “If you want to postpone the wedding, I understand. I’ll continue to search, but don’t get your hopes up.” He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips. “Please don’t make me wait too long to marry you.”
She reached for him and gave him a proper kiss. “Don’t worry, I won’t. Just until we know for sure.”
She glanced at Ernő huddled on the end of the couch, a faraway look in his brown eyes. Several days’ worth of stubble bloomed on his cheeks and chin. Even in such a short time, he had lost weight. She sat beside him and patted his hand. “She’ll come home soon. Keep believing that she will.” She said the words, but did she know them to be true? How long could she keep believing that nothing sinister had happened to Zofia?
A knock came at the door. Anya and Apu had gone to a friend’s home for the evening, so Éva hurried to answer it. Each time someone showed up at the house, a little flicker lit inside her, the tiny hope that Zofia stood on the other side of the door.
But the flame sputtered out. It wasn’t Zofia but a rotund woman, the string of pearls around her neck contrasting with her black dress, on which was pinned a red rose brooch. “Reka, good to see you.” Éva forced herself to be polite as she had been taught from childhood. As every Hungarian had been taught. “Won’t you come in?”
Éva stepped to the side so Reka could enter.
Reka embraced her. “I heard about your sister-in-law. What awful news. Is there somewhere we can speak in private?” She peered over Éva’s shoulder and into the living room, her features hardening.
What did Reka have to tell her that she couldn’t say in front of Patrik and Ernő? When they had been in school together, they hadn’t been close. They had never shared secrets before. But perhaps she brought news about Zofia. Éva shrugged and led Reka down the hall and into her bedroom.
Éva shut the door and motioned for Reka to take a seat on the narrow bed with its pink spread. The small room contained only that and a walnut wardrobe. Éva clasped her hands together and sat beside Reka.
The woman fiddled with her necklace. “How have you been?”
This wasn’t starting off like a private conversation. Or did Reka bring such awful news that she didn’t know how to come out and say it? “Right now, worried about Zofia.”
Reka jiggled her leg so hard that the bed shook like there was an earthquake. “It was nice of you to introduce Patrik to me when we met at the café a few weeks ago.”
“I like to show him off. He’s becoming quite well known as a composer.”
“That’s nice.”
Silence stretched in front of them until Éva squirmed. Reka’s leg jiggled again. Well, that was enough of this. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
Reka sniffled. “I can’t seem to find the words.”
“Just let them spill out.” Although by this time, Éva had broken into a sweat. Whatever Reka had to tell her wasn’t good.
“A few weeks ago when I was in the city, in the evening, I went to Szent Istvan Bazilika to pray. There were some things I had on my mind. As I was finishing and standing, from the corner of my eye, I caught a strange sight.”
Éva was ready to burst. “Was it Zofia?”
Reka bounced her leg harder than ever. “It was. Her hair was disheveled, and she didn’t have any shoes on. She was wearing a blue coat with a small matching hat with a brown feather. It appeared to me that she had a bruise on her face too.”
“That was her. No one else has a hat like that. I don’t know what it all means, especially that she looked like she had been through some kind of ordeal, but you saw her. And she was alone?” Wait until Éva told Ernő.
Reka shook her head, her fair curls bouncing. “She wasn’t.”
Éva’s stomach sunk. “The Gestapo?”
“Nem. It, it was …”
“Who?” Éva’s voice was nothing more than a whisper. “You can tell me.”
“It was Patrik.”
Éva must have heard wrong. “Not Patrik. Someone who looked like him. He said he didn’t see her. He’d been out looking for her. He wouldn’t lie to me.” This was all a terrible, terrible mistake.
“He was leading her by the arm. She lagged behind him, almost like she didn’t want to go with him. I’m so sorry to be the one to have to tell you.”
“You must have confused him for someone else. You barely know him.”
“He was wearing pinstripe pants, a blue and white sweater vest, and a white shirt.”
Éva shook her head. “Those are the clothes he had on that day, but hardly unique. Most businessmen wear similar attire.” Did Reka have it out for Éva? Why would she tell such a lie?
“That’s not all.” Reka dug through her black pocketbook. “He dropped this on the way out.” She pulled out a photograph and handed it to Éva.
Her own eyes stared back at her, shining and full of light as she laughed, the sun streaming behind her. The photo Ernő took of her and Patrik last fall on a countryside picnic.
The photo Patrik told her he always kept with his handkerchief near his heart.
As she flipped it over, she held her breath. Penned on the back, in her own handwriting, were the words she had written. My darling Patrik, I’ll be your muse forever. Your loving fiancée, Éva.
Her hands trembled, and the picture floated to the rug. Why? “There has to be a reasonable explanation.” She worked to keep her voice strong and steady as if to convince herself of that truth.
“I saw him drop it.”
Reka’s voice startled Éva. She’d almost forgotten the other woman in the room.
“He pulled something from his breast pocket, I didn’t see what, and this fell when he did. As soon as they were out of sight, I picked it up.”
Éva closed her eyes and expelled the air she’d been holding. Though theirs had been a short courtship, he’d never done anything to make her question his goodness, his forthrightness, his truthfulness.
But there were those mysterious meetings he attended at night. And the way he evaded her questions. His mumblings the night Zofia disappeared.
None of this made sense. “Patrik was with me when she vanished. He couldn’t have been involved.”
Reka tilted her head and shrugged. “I only know what I saw. I’m positive of what I’m telling you. He was with her, dragging her away.”
“Was she fighting him?”
“Possibly. That might be why her face was battered.”
On the way home, had Zofia stopped at the church to pray? Like them, she belonged to the Hungarian Reformed Church, but maybe she had needed the cathedral’s solitude. Had Patrik found her there, alone, and taken the opportunity to be rid of her? Had Patrik arranged to meet Zofia there on false pretenses, planning her capture the entire time?
Possibly.
But nem, not her Patrik. Her beloved. Her man of God. The one who always protected her.
The picture. There was only one in existence. It belonged to Patrik.
Her Patrik.
Her thoughts tumbled over each other like a stream over a pile of rocks.
This was too much like Károly and his deep betrayal. The same nightmare all over again.
The pain ripping apart her insides was unbearable. She had brought Károly to her family, and he’d almost destroyed it. Had she done the same with Patrik?
She couldn’t breathe. Because it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.
She staggered to her feet and stumbled to the door. Shaking all over, she opened it. “Please, leave.”
Reka lumbered to the entryway, then turned. “Don’t be blind to the truth. He was with her. He’s involved.”
Éva answered through clenched teeth, “I said get out now.”
“Think about what I told you.” Reka exited the room, and shortly after, the door to the house clicked open and then shut.
Éva bit the inside of her cheek. Patrik couldn’t have harmed Zofia. Could he? What reason would he have? And why would he lie to her and to Ernő?
She crumpled the photograph and sobbed.