Ernő held fast to the leather strap hanging from the streetcar’s wood ceiling. The bell clanged at regular intervals along the route home. Buildings of every architectural style from the past few hundred years edged the street. A chilly, foggy drizzle obscured the Buda castle rising high above the city.
Bognár’s Clarinets didn’t produce many instruments these days. Importing wood and getting metal and felt to make the keys was impossible. The company refurbished and rebuilt what they could, but business was hurting.
The motion of the car rocked him into a teenage girl sitting beside him. He peered down to apologize, and the redness of her hair caught his eye.
So much like Zofia’s.
For yet another day, he’d awakened without her beside him. Her disappearance hadn’t been a bad dream. It was reality. Every morning that truth punched him in the gut.
For yet another day, he was going to the home he’d shared with her. And she wouldn’t be there.
The streetcar slowed and came to a stop not far from the residential area where his family lived. Stepping to the street, he paused to remind himself that Zofia wouldn’t come to the door and greet him with a kiss. Because sometimes, when he walked into the house, he expected just that.
“Hello, Ernő, is that you?” Anya called to him as he arrived inside. “You have a note on the table there. I came home from the market and found it in the letter box. Very odd, if you ask me. I hope it’s not more bad news. This family can’t stand any more.”
Ernő tuned out the rest of Anya’s words as he picked up the paper. His heart pounded in his ears. The writing, though shaky, was familiar, like the love notes Zofia would stick in his lunch box. Could this be from her? Was he about to get answers?
He couldn’t breathe. He broke the seal on the paper.
I have reason to believe your wife is alive and in hiding.
That was the entire length of the letter. He slammed it on the table. Nothing. No real information about Zofia such as her location or her well-being. It couldn’t be from her. If it had been, she would have written more. Been more specific.
She would never have gone into hiding without informing him.
Anya emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s wrong?” A few more crinkles appeared in her already-wrinkled brow.
“This.” He shook the paper. “It says Zofia is in hiding.”
Anya raced forward and gave him a gentle embrace. “What wonderful news.”
He broke her hold and stepped away. “Not really. Who is it from? How does this person know for sure? Where is Zofia? All it has done is add more questions to the ones I already have.”
“But it’s hope. You can’t deny that.”
“You’re right. And I know who can answer those questions.” He turned to leave the house.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Patrik. Deep inside, I know he’s the key. This time, I intend to find out what information he has.”
After all, what did they really know about Patrik? He’d come into their lives just a year ago and won his sister over. The man had no family and hailed from another town. Was he a spy? When he met Zofia through the symphony, had he known her background or suspected it? Had he then used Éva to get to her?
It had happened before with Károly. He had used Éva to get information on Zofia, to dig into Zofia’s background when she worked with the Polish underground. Éva had fallen in love with him, a man with a deep-seated hatred of the Jews. One he’d kept hidden from them until it was almost too late. If not for …
No time to dwell on that now. Ernő hurried in the direction he’d come from, avoiding the clanging streetcar, and traversed the few blocks from his house to Patrik’s flat.
As soon as Patrik answered the door, Ernő stormed in, slamming it behind him. “What is the meaning of this?” He thrust the note at Patrik.
Patrik grabbed the piece of paper and read it, his eyes widening. “How did you get this?”
“So you do know something about it?”
“Nem, I don’t. But who brought it to you? Who is it from?”
“At first, I thought Zofia, because the handwriting is similar to hers. Now I’m convinced it’s not. She wouldn’t drop me a single line and not tell me more.”
Patrik shook his head. “You’re right. If she were going to contact you, she wouldn’t be this cryptic.”
“So you do believe she’s alive?”
“I can’t say.” Patrik turned his back on Ernő before facing him once more. “I just can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t? From the time she disappeared, you haven’t been able to look me in the eye. What is that about?”
“My friend …” Patrik’s gaze flicked to Ernő’s and then away again.
“Do you have any idea who this is from? Who might have information about my wife?” He resisted grabbing Patrik by the neck. Barely.
Patrik gave a slow shake of his head, his mouth turned down. “I am sorry for you. For Zofia. I’m sorry I … I can’t look at you because every time I do, I see what could happen to me, to Éva.”
Was his disappointment genuine? Was Ernő reading something into Patrik’s behavior that wasn’t there? Who knew anymore? He hadn’t been part of their lives long enough for Ernő to read him well.
Ernő leaned in, close to Patrik though still half a head shorter than him. “If I find out that you had anything to do with my wife’s disappearance, anything at all, I will come after you. What the Nazis did to me will be minor in comparison to what I will do to you. Do you understand?”
Patrik stood to his full height, towering over his friend, but his eyes were soft. “Of course I understand. You would protect your wife as I would Éva. I know you miss Zofia. We all do. How is Éva?”
“Confused. Hurting.”
“Perhaps I’ll stop over later tonight. I need to see her, speak to her. Tomorrow is supposed to be our wedding day.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“But I’d like to be with her.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I understand it’s difficult to know who to trust these days. But you have to believe me. She can’t sort through her feelings without me there to answer her questions, if nothing else.”
“Just leave her be.”
“If you think it’s best.” Patrik sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I understand what you’re going through, though, missing Zofia. So you know why I’m anxious to see Éva.”
Why did his words ring hollow? Ernő left Patrik’s flat and started for home. Anya would have dinner waiting. And one thing you didn’t do was make her wait to serve a meal.
Just as he was about to step onto the walk, he bumped into someone. The scent of lilies filled his nostrils, the same scent Zofia wore.
He tightened his arms around the woman. Before he could kiss the top of her head, she shoved him away and pummeled him with her pocketbook. The metal clasp bruised his flesh, and a shock of pain ripped through his not-quite-healed ribs.
“What do you think you’re doing, accosting a woman like that?”
Ernő covered his face and stepped away. “My apologies. I thought you were someone else.”
The hail of blows halted, and he glanced up. He squinted to be sure he saw right. Before him stood a plump, fair-haired woman in a black coat, a rose-shaped pin on the lapel. “Reka?”
“Ernő, what are you doing here?” Red flooded her round cheeks.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I asked first.”
“I needed to speak to Patrik. Your turn.”
“Oh, this is Patrik’s building? I didn’t know that. What a coincidence. I’m on my way home from a friend’s house. I’m in town on business. Has he told you where Zofia is?”
“You think he has something to do with her disappearance?”
“I saw them. With my own two eyes. On the night she disappeared.”
“He denies it. Says he could have dropped that picture anywhere.” He hated to believe that a member of their family had betrayed them.
“How would I have known what they were wearing? Did he deny being in the church?”
He hadn’t.
She shifted her considerable weight from one foot to the other. “These are the days when you can’t trust anyone. Not even your spouse.” With that, Reka flounced away.
Strange, bumping into her at Patrik’s flat. Very strange.
Éva slid the clarinet’s mouthpiece between her lips, drew in a deep breath, and blew through the instrument. The reed vibrated against her lips, the tickle of it familiar.
She threw herself into Carl Maria von Weber’s Concerto no. 1, the complicated runs and deep, haunting emotion of the composition lifting her from this world to one of music.
Nothing but music.
Her fingers ranged over the keys as her tongue tapped the reed during the staccato sections. The walls of her bedroom fell away. She didn’t see anything. Only heard.
Heard with her ears.
Heard with her heart.
She sprinted with the runs, cried with the melody, somersaulted with the turns.
At last the piece ended with a flourish. All of the sudden, the walls were back. The room, her bed, her small wardrobe in the corner.
And her worries.
Today would have been her wedding day. Should have been. How could it have only been a few weeks since she’d been happy? Since everything in her life had changed?
On the corner of her desk sat the crumpled picture. She turned her attention from it. Was the man in the photo who he said he was? Or did he hide a dark secret?
Despite sleepless nights and restless days, she’d come to no conclusions. That’s why there was no wedding today. No joyful start to a new life. Just questions and more questions.
With everything in her, she longed to believe in Patrik’s innocence. But maybe Reka was correct. How well did she know him? Their courtship had been so brief, as had their engagement. Just a year from the time they met until the wedding. Was that enough time to get to know someone, or did the war make life move faster, like a movie reel in fast-forward?
With their like faith and their similar interest in music, their relationship came without much effort. They spoke for hours upon hours at a time.
But Reka had nothing to gain from discrediting Patrik. She had no obligation to come to Éva and share what she saw.
Whom did Éva believe? A lifelong acquaintance or the love of her life?
She swabbed out her clarinet, pulled it apart, and placed the pieces in the blue-velvet-lined case, closing the lid with a click. What she needed to do was to speak with Patrik.
After informing Anya she was going out, she grabbed her coat and made her way toward Patrik’s apartment. What would have been her home after today. Already some of her clothes and other belongings were there.
As she neared the neoclassical building with its straight, true columns, what might have been a swarm of bees infested her stomach. Why was she nervous to speak to Patrik? She’d been ready to marry him, might still do so. What held her back?
As she stood down the block from his flat, he exited the building and strolled down the street, hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Patrik? Patrik!”
He didn’t turn around. She scurried to catch up to him, but then he turned the corner onto the main street, and she lost him in the crowd.
Nem, wait, there he was, head and shoulders above everyone else. Though she attempted to wind her way through the maze of people, she couldn’t catch him.
“Patrik!” Just as she shouted his name, the bells of the nearby church chimed the hour and drowned her out. Before she could call again, he turned down a side street and picked up his pace, his stride long and determined.
She remained behind him, too distant now. He was focused on something and not likely to respond to her call.
Before long, he reached a building much like his own. As he started up the steps, a German soldier departed the building, a creased cap on his head, a black belt cinched around his waist. The men stopped and spoke to each other.
Éva ducked behind a tree so neither one would catch sight of her. If only she could understand what they were saying.
Patrik laughed at something the Nazi said. Inconceivable. Patrik didn’t usually have much positive to say about the occupiers. Both men then turned, and Patrik held the door open for the other man as they disappeared inside.
Éva’s head swirled. What Reka had told her was true. All of it.
Patrik had been with Zofia. This jovial conversation with a Nazi proved he was collaborating with the occupiers and likely had been involved in her disappearance.
She tore down the street, not caring where she ended up or whom she bumped into. Her breath came in short spurts when it came at all.
She pumped her arms and legs, blinded by tears.
Then came the screech of brakes.
The shriek of an auto’s horn.
An awful thump and searing pain.
Blessed blackness.