Dear Annie and Will,
How are you? We have been busy. Josef got a letter from Steven Spielberg. That’s right. The famous movie director. He started an organization called the Shoah Foundation. You remember his movie Schindler’s List? Mr. Spielberg wants to record survivors’ stories. They want to film Josef. Josef is excited and agitated. You can understand. The memories it brings up. We’ll see. How is business? And most important of all, how is our little Leo? He must be getting big. Send us a picture. We are waiting to hear from you.
Love,
Rose and Josef
PS: Did I mention that your house was repainted? It is dark green. You would not recognize it.
Annie put the fax into the stroller’s back pocket and headed out with Leo to meet Will for lunch at one of the state-run cafeterias, then on to the ferry to Vienna. She needed to write Rose but kept avoiding it, not wanting to write about the shadows of loneliness and disappointment trailing her, or about Edward and his daughter—his murdered daughter—and his request for help and, worse, whether she believed him or not. A trip to Vienna offered a mini-escape as she struggled to make up her mind. For eight-plus months, she’d been holding her breath in this city of contradicting currents.
“You can’t save him,” Will had said again in the kitchen before leaving to meet Bernardo for a breakfast meeting. She had finally told him about Edward’s daughter and how Edward had straight-out asked her to help him, and how she had, without thinking it through, said yes.
“I’m not trying to save him. He asked for help because he believes his daughter was murdered.”
“You don’t want to get in over your head.”
“And you?”
Will turned to her. “What’s wrong, Annie?”
“Are you in over your head?”
“No. I don’t think so.” He spoke slowly, looking at her, waiting for her to say more.
“Maybe I’m not either.” She went into Leo’s room to get him dressed and ready for their trip.
On the way to the cafeteria, she called Edward.
“It’s Annie. How are you?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I wanted to let you know that we’re going to Vienna today for one night. I’ll see you as soon as we get back.”
“What’s the reason for your trip?”
“We’ve been talking about going for a while.”
“I tell you about my daughter and now you’re running off to Vienna. I told you not to waste my time.”
“I’m not running off. We’ll be back tomorrow night.”
“I see what I see.” He hung up.
Stunned, she felt nauseated, punched in the stomach by his accusatory words. Leo was oblivious, waving a stick, happy to be in the jogger. She considered calling Edward back to tell him the timing wasn’t related—her trip and his daughter. Or was it? She walked faster, tears rising, her anger stirring with confusion. His voice jabbed at her, poked at her soft spots, hurting her. That was how he operated, wasn’t it? Provoke and conquer. Why did she let him get to her like this? Her wiser self understood he was in pain, inconsolable pain. That was all he could see. But that didn’t excuse his rude, abrupt behavior, did it? Working at the shelter, she learned not to judge. It was her number one rule. What did Mr. Weiss expect of her? He nudged and prodded her to act, take a stand. What did she need to prove?
Her family came first. Even Edward would agree with her on that. And what was Edward doing here? If he found his son-in-law, then what?
SHE PASSED THE Király Baths with the enormous green domes, the jogger practically driving on its own, the large wheels rolling over the sidewalk. How alien the domes looked to her last winter, hovering like spaceships above dark-limbed, bare trees. The city was known for its cleansing baths—famous for it—another favorite Hungarian word. She could use a cleansing bath for her own murky emotions. Was she losing her sanity? What was right?
She slowed down again and soon came to a memorial statue of Bem József, where demonstrators gathered during Hungary’s 1956 uprising—that bloody, brief explosion of hope for freedom. Almost every day she passed this statue, never stopping until now. She let Leo out of the jogger so he could touch the giant concrete figure dressed in an ankle-length coat and helmet. The statue of Bem József looked stern and defiant, one arm raised, a long finger pointing at the sky. As Leo started up the small steps to touch the base of the statue, Annie spotted Stephen smoking a cigarette on a bench nestled behind a small fir tree.
“Hello there,” he said.
“I run into you in the oddest places,” she said, parking the jogger next to the bench.
“I come here a lot.” Stephen took a long pull of his cigarette, this time not making any attempt to hide his habit. “It’s my sanctuary, you could say. A place where I come to honor my dad.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie said.
“Sorry doesn’t bring them back, does it?” A wrinkle of bitterness passed over his face.
“No. But I’m still sorry.” That’s how she felt about Greg’s death. Sorry for her brother’s sad, unfulfilled life. Sorry that she couldn’t bring him back for a second chance.
“That’s fair.” Stephen tilted his head back and blew a long stream of smoke at the blue sky, then tossed the dying butt into the trees behind him. “Where are you heading on this hot day?”
“Vienna. We’re taking the ferry and staying overnight. Do you have any recommendations?”
“The museums. There’s no denying their greatness.” He twisted his mouth as if he’d eaten bitter flakes of tobacco and were trying to spit them out. “But to be honest, the city doesn’t do much for me. You’ll enjoy the cafes. The pastries. When you get back, you can tell me what you think about it. Just don’t forget how rich countries like America and Austria are blind to the needs of countries like Hungary. Isn’t that right, Leo?”
“Up up.”
They both looked at Leo stretching his arms to get a better look at the statue looming over him.
Before she could tell him to stop, Stephen lunged toward Leo and scooped him up onto his shoulders so that Leo could touch the statue’s supersize shoes.
“Careful,” she said, standing behind Stephen, holding her arms out ready to catch her son if he fell back.
“He’s fine.” Stephen flipped Leo over and placed his feet gently on the ground.
“Again!” Leo said, thrilled with his new friend.
“Next time, little guy. I’ve got to get going. Happy travels. I’m sure Leo will love the boat ride.”
Stephen bent his head in that way that she had first found appealing at Luigi’s, friendly yet offhanded. Except this time, she saw how his carefree manner was an endearing attempt to lighten the gravity of his father’s memory that she had unexpectedly interrupted.
With Leo back in the jogger, she started to run again to shake off her own unsettled memories. Yes. Taking this trip would be a welcome change, no matter what Mr. Weiss said.
When she first came to Budapest, she couldn’t comprehend Hungary’s widespread commemoration of battles lost. Slowly, she was beginning to understand that the country needed to celebrate courage, the simple yet monumental act of standing up for a belief, regardless of the outcome. That’s what mattered—that people did not die in vain. In 1956, innocent men and women were gunned down by Russian tanks, a few thousand brave souls risked their lives for justice, freedom for all, and the power to make choices. They got no help from the American troops who were a mere four hours away in Austria. In the end, their deaths released two hundred thousand Hungarians—a massive exodus west to dozens of countries—some walking into Austria, others flying to America, like Stephen’s family, escaping years of terror, years of silent witness to fathers, neighbors, friends disappearing in the night, tortured by secret police inside plain brick buildings. The insanity was everywhere in this city of lost dreams and failures. What had Stephen’s father seen? And what disturbances had he passed on to Stephen as a young child?
Where were the informers—the “bricks,” as Will had informed her they were called? How many of them were like her super, hiding behind innocuous jobs, living with vectors of those dark days circling inside their heads with no place to escape except inward, into the caverns of the mind. It was madness.
Was Mr. Weiss right? Was she running off? She had her son to think about. He had his daughter. If she tried to help him, what would she be getting herself into? A murder? And what about her son’s safety?
Yes. Yes. She was afraid. She was a mother. She had a responsibility now. She felt tested. The idea of summoning courage was easy to ponder as long as you didn’t have to do anything about it. Doing something made all the difference.
She approached another small neighborhood park they often visited, one of many such parks scattered throughout the city, and saw their friend Katya sitting on a park bench. She and Leo had befriended the older Hungarian woman from many morning visits to the swings.
“Katya!” Annie called out.“Hogy vagy? How are you?” Annie slowed the jogger but didn’t stop.
Katya waved and blew Leo a kiss. She was a short buxom woman with gray hair pulled up in a bun. She didn’t speak more than a dozen words of English. Annie couldn’t speak more than a few dozen Hungarian words, yet the two women had learned to talk to each other using their hands, facial expressions, and a traveler’s dictionary. Annie had even managed to explain to Katya that Will was here for work and how her parents couldn’t visit because her sister was sick. Beteg.
“Sick. Nem good.” The older woman had put a hand over her heart in sympathy and with gentle, warm eyes conveyed without words her full understanding of life’s complexities. It’s why Annie was drawn to older people like Rose and Katya, even Mr. Weiss.
Annie felt a connection with this woman who had a heart condition, its treatment hindered by the expense of medicine in the new noncommunist world that Katya couldn’t afford. Katya told Annie her pension didn’t cover her living costs anymore.
“Nem good for old people,” Katya said.
Annie wondered if she should offer Katya money to help her out but feared offending the older woman’s pride.
REACHING THE CAFETERIA, she found Will sitting at a long metal table, waiting for them with a tray full of food—roasted chicken breasts, quartered potatoes, and vanilla pudding.
“How’d it go with Bernardo?” she said, kissing Will and giving him a hug. “Thanks for getting lunch for us.”
“He wants me to come on board. Nothing’s changed.”
“What about you? Are you tempted? It’s a lot of money.” She immediately set upon cutting the chicken into smaller pieces for Leo.
“I’m listening to what he has to say. He’s staying another week. Eileen is coming over to check things out. The money’s hard to ignore.”
“When do you have to decide?”
“Soon. Don’t worry. I won’t make any decisions without you. We’ll decide together.”
“I know. I’m glad we’re going on this trip. It will give us some perspective.”
“I completely agree.”
She ate quickly, excited that they had finally decided to take the ferry, her mood lifting with the prospect of a four-hour boat ride down the famous Danube. In the cafeteria, an elderly man shuffled over to them, stopped to smile at Leo, then pretended to grab his nose. Universal baby trick. Leo giggled, encouraging him, so the old man leaned over and gave Leo a gentle pinch on his cheek. Kicsi baba.
Both she and Will smiled politely. The man bowed to them and left. These state-run cafeterias around the city were some of her favorite places to eat. Housed in large old buildings with big windows, fifteen-foot ceilings, industrial ceiling fans, and scuffed-up linoleum floors, no tourists came here, and for that reason Annie felt privileged, as if she had gained access to a country’s secret space where history and people converged in a way that most outsiders never experienced.
“We should go,” Will said, standing. “We don’t want to miss our boat.”
Outside, Annie wanted to cry when she saw the same old man begging for money on the sidewalk. He turned to them and opened his palm. She felt ashamed for him when he looked at her without recognition, as if he hadn’t seen her just minutes before, had never stopped to pinch their son’s cheek, and she felt effectively slapped by her own stupidity and arrogance. She understood that he had a job to do out here on the street, that begging for money had no connection to who he was a moment ago inside. In this way, he put her in her place, humbled her. Who was she to judge? Who was she to imagine his shame? Presume his pride? What did she know of his life? She heard Mr. Weiss telling them how Americans were never satisfied. Always wanting more. Am I right?
She put a ten-thousand-forint bill into the man’s palm. More than a day’s pay for some. The old man nodded, a hint of delight in his eyes, a triumph of good fortune before he turned away from her to beg from someone else.