A thousand butterflies had taken up residence inside Éva’s stomach. She peered over the small crowd assembled in the church. The early evening sun streamed through the stained-glass windows and exploded into a rainbow of colors on the stone floor.
She’d never been nervous for a performance before. But this was no ordinary concert. Nem, this was for the dead and the might-be dead. For the living who would forever be haunted by the events of the past months and years. And for the generations to come, that they might never forget.
As the audience of farmers and laborers and shopkeepers quieted, she licked the reed on the clarinet and blew warm air through the ebony instrument.
“Ready?”
She turned to Patrik and nodded.
He counted the beat, and they came in together, working in perfect harmony. The Russian Cossack tune got the crowd involved. They clapped their hands, and many tapped their toes. At the end of a long workday, music uplifted the spirit, reminding the soul that God gave both joy in labor and rest from work.
This time Éva managed to get through the song without crying. Ernő and Zofia would have been proud of her. Often in the evenings, the lovebirds had pushed the furniture in the living room against the wall and waltzed to whatever might be playing on the radio. How happy they had been in each other’s arms.
That is what they would want for Patrik and Éva. Joy, not sorrow. Love, not discord. Peace, not hatred.
So those left behind would live the lives others couldn’t.
When they reached the end of the piece and Patrik gave the cutoff, the audience stood and cheered. They too recognized that survival called for celebration.
Patrik reached over and squeezed her shoulder. This next selection would be the hardest. A requiem. So far today, she hadn’t played it through without breaking down. He’d told her they didn’t have to perform it, but she had insisted. The music was an important part of the story they told tonight.
On Patrik’s cue, they began. The minor key squeezed her heart and closed her throat to where she had difficulty supporting her tone. As the music carried her along, a wind-swept hill came to mind.
She stood on top of that rise, searching the landscape for something. Nem, for someone. All the someones. Apu and Anya. Ernő and Zofia. Those she prayed lived.
Then she gazed at her feet, and there were headstones, names carved deep into the brilliant white granite.
Her place to mourn all who hadn’t survived.
So she did. In the heavy, painful music, she thanked each of them for their sacrifice. Told them she would always carry a bit of them within her. Assured them she would make it.
For a moment after they concluded the song, the audience sat in absolute silence. You could have heard the squeak of a mouse inside the ancient church walls.
Then thunderous applause drowned out all thought. Éva swayed, overcome, spent. She set her clarinet on her seat, then leaned over to speak to Patrik. “I need a break. Can you do a few songs without me?”
He grasped her by the hand and pressed it to his face. She nodded. “I’ll be fine.” Then she sped out of the building into the late-summer evening. Leaning against the warm, rough stone of the church, she prayed.
“How can I do this, Lord? How can I not break into thousands of pieces when I have so little left?”
That still, small voice whispered to her, in the depths of her being. She whispered along. “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”
She clung to the rocks protruding from the old church exterior. “I trust and hope in You, Lord.” Like the thirsty ground drinks in a spring shower, so her soul absorbed that truth. “In You.”
The Nazis could arrest her brother and sister-in-law. The Allies and their bombs could destroy her home. Reka could rip away her belief in humanity. But neither principalities nor powers could separate her from the love of God in Christ Jesus the Lord.
She covered her eyes and slid along the wall until she crouched on the ground. “Thank You, Father. Strengthen me and keep me from being tempted to despair.”
She inhaled and exhaled, drawing in and letting out as much breath as her lungs could handle. For the first time since the Germans had taken possession of her homeland, every muscle in her body relaxed. She leaned against the everlasting arms.
And the music of thanksgiving swelled within her.
Though the train ride back to Budapest in the open flatbed was far from comfortable, Ernő was grateful he had transportation. And had it to himself. If the rumors were to be believed, that’s not the kind of trip the Jews on their way to the camps experienced.
At least deportations from Hungary had stopped in July. Zofia would not be part of them. That didn’t mean the Nazis couldn’t still send her away.
Or worse.
As the train slowed on the outskirts of the city and the land flattened, Ernő took the opportunity and hopped off. Had only a week or ten days passed since he’d seen this city? If possible, the destruction was worse. The devastation magnified as he moved deeper into Budapest.
Bombs had sheared off the fronts of apartment buildings, exposing the flats inside. The families still occupying them went about their days as if their lives weren’t on display for the world. Everywhere he meandered, he dodged rubble that clogged the roads. The streetcar no longer ran, its tracks missing in many places. Not that Ernő had money for it.
He ended up in his old neighborhood, the one he’d lived in his entire life. Nothing more than a large, brick-filled hole marked the spot where he’d been born. He’d almost forgotten about the bombing the night they fled.
His parents had promised to stay with friends from church, so he headed in that direction. He rounded the corner, and a machine-gun-laden Gestapo officer patrolled the avenue a few feet ahead of him. His breath caught in his throat, and he ducked around the corner.
The officer crossed the street without so much as glancing at Ernő. After a minute or two, Ernő’s heartbeat resumed its normal rhythm. Why had he been so frightened? The Gestapo had what they wanted from him—his wife. They no longer had any use for him.
He continued his trek to where his parents had said they would be. How different this neighborhood was from theirs. A few of the buildings had missing bricks, and a green-and-white-striped awning sported a hole through the center of it, but otherwise, the bombs had not touched this section of Buda.
The cream-colored brick building where the Bognárs’ friends lived remained unscathed, just as it had been before all this craziness began.
He climbed the two dark, narrow flights of stairs, his aching knees protesting each step. His legs might as well have been cast from concrete, they were so heavy. A hot bath, a soft bed, and a long sleep were all he required.
Exhausted, he knocked on the plain door.
And there was Anya. “Ernő! My boy! You’re back.” She pulled him inside, shut the door, and hugged him until he was about to burst.
“Anya, Anya.” Safe in her arms, he gave in to the tears that had threatened to spill the entire way home—great, heaving sobs as the pain over losing Zofia ripped his heart from his chest.
What was he going to do without her? And their child. Oh God, it wasn’t fair that he lived while his wife and child might not survive. One so innocent, not yet drawing this earth’s air into his lungs. And Zofia, so much a part of him. How could he even breathe without her?
When his tears finally subsided, Anya reached into her apron pocket and produced her handkerchief. He lifted it to his face, the scent of flowers wafting from it. At that, he relaxed. Whatever else happened, he was home.
“Édesem, come and see. Ernő has returned to us.”
Apu burst into the hall and embraced his son, slapping him on the back. “So good to see you, my boy. Where are the rest?”
“Can I sit before I tell you? It’s been a long few days.”
They led him into the cluttered living room, furniture and knickknacks everywhere, and Anya bustled about, getting him cabbage soup and a cup of ersatz coffee. Once satiated, he spilled the entire story.
Tears ran down his parents’ cheeks by the time he finished. Anya shook her head. Were those a few more gray hairs? “That poor, poor girl. And our grandchild. There has to be a way we can locate her and get her freed. Now that you’re home, you’ll have access to our resources. We’ll do whatever we can for you.”
Apu rubbed his knees. “Of course we will. Do you know what you’re going to do first?”
“Sleep. I’m so tired, I can’t think straight. After that, I’m going to contact some of Patrik’s friends. They’ll know better how to go about this.”
Anya drew him a bath, and he relished it for a short time until he yawned so much he feared he might fall asleep in the tub and drown. But though Anya afterwards tucked him into a clean, soft bed with a down pillow, sleep refused to come.
Then he closed his eyes, and there was Zofia, so beautiful, her red hair rolled like she had always worn it, her cheeks ruddy, her smile large. In her arms, she held a small bundle. Ernő pushed the blanket aside, and there was the face of his son, his eyes green like his mother’s, small red lips, Ernő’s own distinctive chin.
A pounding on the bedroom door jolted him awake. Where was he? What was happening? Oh, that was right. He was at their friends’ in Budapest.
“Ernő, are you awake?” Anya’s voice was insistent.
“Come in.”
She burst in, breathless. “A man just delivered this for you.” As she passed him the small, folded piece of paper, her hands shook.
The outside of the note bore his name and this address.
In Zofia’s handwriting.