Tel Aviv, August 1957
News of the impending appeal invigorates Miklós Nagy. He spends hours discussing the possibilities with his friends as they wonder who will be appointed to the appeal panel at the Supreme Court, and how the five judges will assess the verdict of the District Court. He no longer spends his days indoors, withdrawn and brooding, and the insults of strangers no longer stop him from leaving the house. Even calls from various right-wing publications for him to be tried on charges of collaboration don’t depress him as they once did. And, unlike Judit, he isn’t concerned by occasional death threats.
‘Don’t take them seriously,’ he tells her. ‘It’s just hot air. Who ever heard of a murderer announcing that he’s going to kill someone? And don’t forget I’ve got two bodyguards watching over me from morning till night.’ He can’t resist adding, ‘Just as well I didn’t listen to panic merchants like Uri who advised me to move from here.’
The Nagy appeal is now off the gossip agenda. These days everyone is discussing the current political crisis. Some of the coalition parties have moved a no-confidence motion in the Knesset and this pushes the ruling Mapai party to a knife edge. At the government office where Miklós still works, some of the clerks suspect that this motion is a cynical attempt by these groups to serve their political ambitions, while others maintain that it’s caused by their hostility to the appeal that the government has launched on his behalf.
‘I never thought I’d be at the centre of a political storm,’ he says to Judit, and they both laugh at the absurdity of it, although her laughter is less spontaneous than his. He knows she would be even more apprehensive if he had told her that the bodyguards assigned to him have been removed. A few days ago he received a message from the head of Special Services that, as he was no longer in any immediate danger, they couldn’t justify stretching their strained resources to guard him twenty-four hours a day.
Even though his appeal isn’t due to be heard for another six months and he is still in legal limbo, he is optimistic. The majority decision of five judges is bound to overturn the verdict of one biased judge in the District Court. Sitting behind the wheel of his second-hand Ford, he whistles Bing Crosby’s hit tune ‘In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening’ while driving home from the office later than usual one evening. It’s a dark, windy night, and as he watches the leaves blowing across the street, he thinks about the latest controversy over the government’s recent Sinai campaign. He is looking forward to discussing it with Judit but remembers that she has gone to a teachers’ meeting at the boys’ school, and will be home late.
His thoughts turn to an article by Amos Alon which was published in Herut the previous week. Predictably Isaiah Fleischmann’s defence attorney has condemned the appeal and accused the government of trying to defend a collaborator in its ranks.
He’s like a dog with a bone, he just can’t let go, Miklós thinks as he swings into Gavriel Avenue and parks under the palm trees outside his building. He notices that the street is unusually dark. When he looks up, he sees why: the street lamp outside his house isn’t lit. He makes a mental note to tell the council to replace the light bulb.
He has just switched off the engine when he hears rustling. He assumes it’s the wind whipping the palm fronds, but suddenly a young fellow dressed in a khaki jacket emerges from the bushes at the side of the house, flashes a torch in his face and asks, ‘Miklós Nagy?’
‘Yes,’ Miklós replies, startled by the abrupt question and the sudden appearance of the questioner. He wants to ask the stranger who he is, and why he is lurking around his house, but he is struck dumb by what he sees. The man has a revolver in his hand, and he is aiming it at his head. Miklós ducks, jumps out of the car, pushes him aside, and starts running towards the entrance. Before he reaches the door, he hears a shot and then another one, and falls to the ground clutching his side. He hears footsteps running down the darkened street, and realises that his assailant is running away into the night.
His hand feels something wet and sticky pooling onto the ground beside him, and he smells the metallic odour of blood. He shouts for help but his voice is weak and there’s no-one around on this dark night. He cries out several times in vain. He tries to drag himself back towards the car, to sound the horn, but he can’t move. There are no lights on inside the building. Everyone must be asleep or listening to the radio. If only Judit was home. Perhaps one of the neighbours will wake up and hear him. ‘Help!’ he calls out. ‘Help me! Police! I’ve been shot!’
Finally a wrinkled face on the top floor peers through the shutters of a window that faces the street, and looks down. Miklós thinks it’s the old man who emptied his garbage on their doorstep several months ago, but he doesn’t care who it is, just as long as he goes for help. After what seems like hours, the man hobbles towards him, and with a shocked expression murmurs, ‘Oy gewalt,’ and says he’ll go back up to call the police and Magen David Adom, the emergency ambulance.
Another neighbour emerges from the building and kneels beside him. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ she says soothingly, placing a folded towel under his head, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Nagy, you’ll be all right.’
He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them he is still lying in the street and Judit is holding his hand. Her face is the colour of chalk, and he wants to tell her that she doesn’t look well, that she should look after herself, but no words come. By now a few onlookers have gathered, and everyone is talking at once, offering different suggestions.
‘Please move back and give him room to breathe,’ Judit is saying in a calm voice ‘We’re not going to move him until the ambulance officers arrive.’ Then she asks one of the neighbours to bring a pillow and blanket, and asks another to stay with the boys for the rest of the night.
An insistent shriek begins vibrating inside his head, and a moment later the ambulance pulls up and two paramedics jump out. He hears one of them saying, ‘We’re taking him to Masada Hospital,’ and as they place him on a stretcher, he sees Judit climbing into the back of the ambulance.
The high-pitched sound starts up again, and he supposes it’s the shrilling of the siren. He is conscious but curiously detached from what is going on, as if he were an onlooker rather than a patient. When they bring him to the Emergency room, he explains to the doctor what happened, down to every detail, even the rustling of the leaves in the darkened street, as if he saw it all in a movie.
‘We have to operate straightaway,’ the surgeon tells him after he has been examined and X-rayed. ‘The bullets have damaged some of your internal organs.’
Miklós listens to the surgeon’s quiet voice with interest as though he were talking about someone else. It becomes difficult to concentrate as they wheel him into the operating theatre. Above him, blinding light scorches his eyelids, and the last thing he remembers is thinking that they must have already repaired the street light on Gavriel Avenue.
*
Miklós is lying in a private room, guarded by two policemen. The boys visit after school. Ben sits on a chair close to his father’s bed and asks if he’s feeling better, and whether he can bring him anything. Although he coughs from time to time, Miklós always says he’s improving, and tries to smile. But Gil is like a coiled spring, unable to sit still or offer any words of comfort.
Every day Judit quizzes the nurses and doctors, and watches Miklós for signs of improvement. When he manages to swallow a few spoonfuls of soup, or says a few words, she pounces on them as a sign of recovery, and resents the doctors’ measured optimism.
One morning, Miklós asks, ‘Who shot me? Why?’ His breathing sounds laboured, he coughs and closes his eyes, and for the first time, the chill of fear grips her heart.
In his hospital bed, Miklós hears that high-pitched sound again, but this time it isn’t the siren, it’s a black train, and it’s shrieking into the darkness of eternal night. He is on that train, speeding through his own life. He hears Eichmann’s frightening voice, he sees Becher’s smiling face as he talks of redemption and crucifixion, and his head fills with the sweetness of lilies-of-the-valley while he gazes into Ilonka’s lovely face and hears her husky voice comforting him. ‘It will be all right, Miki,’ she says. ‘Hold on, please hold on. You will be all right.’ Then he sees another train, it’s his rescue train, and it’s speeding from the darkness towards the light.
He opens his eyes and his expression startles Judit. He is muttering something she can’t catch. He seems to be looking past her at something she can’t see and talking to someone who isn’t there. ‘The dead can’t save the living and the living can’t save the dead,’ he whispers. ‘Is it wrong to use the devil to save them?’
She swallows and tightens her grip on his hand. There is so much she wants to say, to convince him that what he did wasn’t merely right, it was noble. But before she can get the words out, he is whispering again.
‘I’m sorry, Ilonka,’ he says, and his eyes close for the last time.