Fever at Dawn Read online

  Did Miklós ever wonder what these girls might feel when they opened the envelopes addressed to them? What did they think when they took out the letters and began to read his neat, swirling handwriting?

  Oh, those girls! Sitting on the edges of their beds, on garden benches, in the corners of disinfected corridors, in front of thickened glass windows, stopping for a moment on worn staircases, under spreading lime trees, on the banks of miniature lakes, leaning against cold yellow tiles. Did my father see them in his mind’s eye as they unfolded the letters in their nightdresses or in the pale grey uniforms they wore in the rehabilitation centres? Confused at first, later smiling perhaps, heartbeat accelerating, skimming the lines over and over in astonishment.

  Dear Nora, Dear Erzsébet, Dear Lili, Dear Zsuzsa,

  Dear Sára, Dear Seréna, Dear Ágnes, Dear Giza,

  Dear Baba, Dear Katalin, Dear Judit, Dear

  Gabriella…

  You are probably used to strangers chatting you up when you speak Hungarian, for no better reason than they are Hungarian too. We men can be so bad-mannered. For example, I addressed you by your first name on the pretext that we grew up in the same town. I don’t know whether you already know me from Debrecen. Until my homeland ordered me to ‘volunteer’ for forced labour, I worked for the Independent newspaper, and my father owned a bookshop in Gambrinus Court.

  Judging by your name and age, I have a feeling that I might know you. Did you by any chance ever live in Gambrinus Court?

  Excuse me for writing in pencil, but I’m confined to bed for a few days on doctor’s orders, and we’re not allowed to use ink in bed.

  Lili Reich was one of the 117 women who received a letter. She was an eighteen-year-old patient at the Smålandsstenar rehabilitation hospital. It was early September. She opened the envelope and scanned its contents. The young man from distant Lärbro did have lovely handwriting. But he must have mixed her up with someone else. She promptly forgot the whole thing.

  Besides, she was terribly excited about her own plans. A few days earlier she and her two new girlfriends, Sára Stern and Judit Gold, had decided to put an end to the grey days of slow recuperation and set their hearts on staging an evening of Hungarian music in the hospital hall.

  Lili had studied piano for eight years, Sára had sung in a choir and Judit had taken dance lessons. Judit had a large, pale face with fine dark hairs above her thin, rather severe lips. Quite the opposite of Sára, who was blonde and light boned with narrow shoulders and shapely legs. Two other girls, Erika Friedmann and Gitta Pláner, joined in just for fun. They banged out three copies of the thirty-minute program on the typewriter in the doctors’ room and pinned them up around the hospital. On the night of the performance, the creaky wooden chairs in the hall filled with patients and curious visitors from the nearby village of Smålandsstenar.

  The concert was a resounding success. After the last piece, a lively Hungarian dance, the csárdás, the audience gave the five blushing girls a standing ovation.

  As she ran offstage, Lili felt a sudden unbearable pain in her stomach. She hunched over, pressing her hand to her belly, moaning. And then she lay down; her forehead was bathed in sweat.

  ‘What’s the matter, Lili?’ asked Sára, who had become her closest friend, crouching down beside her.

  ‘It hurts dreadfully,’ she said, and passed out.

  Lili couldn’t remember being put in the ambulance. She could only recall Sára’s blurry face saying something she couldn’t hear.

  Later, she would often think that without this pain, which had something to do with her kidneys, she might never have met Miklós. If that hulking white ambulance hadn’t taken her to the military hospital more than a hundred kilometres away in Eksjö; if, when she came to visit, Judit hadn’t brought Miklós’s letter, along with her toothbrush and diary; if, on that visit, Judit hadn’t persuaded her, against all common sense, to write a few words to the nice young man (for the sake of humanity if nothing else); that’s where the story would have ended.

  But as it happened, on one of those interminable hospital evenings, once the noise filtering in from the corridor and the clanging of the old-fashioned lift with its grating doors had ebbed away and the bulb above her bed was casting a pale light onto her blanket, Lili took a sheet of paper and, after a bit of thought, started to write.

  Dear Miklós,

  I’m unlikely to be the person you were thinking of, because, though I was born in Debrecen, I lived in Budapest from the age of one. Nonetheless, I’ve thought a lot about you. Your friendly letter was so comforting that I would be happy for you to write again.

  That was a half-truth, of course. Confined to bed with a strange new illness, out of fear, by way of escape or just to stave off boredom, Lili allowed herself to daydream.

  As for myself, neatly ironed trousers or a smart haircut don’t do anything. What touches me is the value inside someone.

  Miklós had grown a little stronger. He could now walk into town with Harry. Each of the patients received five kronor a week pocket money. There were two cake shops in Lärbro. One of them had small round marble tables just like a café in Hungary. On the way there, Miklós and Harry ran into Kristin, a plump Swedish hairdresser, and Harry urged her to join them. So now the three of them were sitting at a marble table in a corner of the cake shop. Kristin was politely eating apple pie with a fork. The men each had a glass of soda water. They were speaking German, because the Hungarians were only just getting used to the melodic Swedish language.

  ‘You are two very nice guys,’ declared Kristin, the sugar from the icing trembling on her pale moustache. ‘Where were you born exactly?’

  Miklós sat up. ‘In Hajdúnánás,’ he boasted, as if he had uttered a magic word.

  ‘And I was born in Sajószentpéter,’ said Harry.

  Kristin naturally attempted the impossible—to repeat what she’d heard. It sounded as if she were gargling. ‘Haydu…nana… Sayu…sent…peter…’

  They laughed. Kristin nibbled her apple pie. This gave Harry time to think up a joke. He was good at jokes.

  ‘What did Adam say to Eve when they first met?’ he asked.

  So keen was Kristin to work out the answer that she forgot to chew. Harry waited a bit, then stood up, miming that he was now stark naked.

  ‘Please, my lady, stand aside, because I’m not sure how much this thingamajig will grow!’ he declared, pointing down towards his fly.

  Kristin didn’t understand at first, but then she blushed.

  Miklós felt ashamed and took a sip of his soda. Harry, though, was just getting started.

  ‘Here’s another one,’ he blurted. ‘The lady of the house asked the new chambermaid if her references were good. The chambermaid nodded. “Yes, madam, they were satisfied with me everywhere.” “Can you cook?” The chambermaid nodded. “Do you like children?” The chambermaid nodded. “Yes, I do, but it’s better when the master of the house is careful.”’

  Kristin giggled. Harry grabbed her hand and kissed it fervently. Kristin was about to remove her hand, but Harry had a tight grip and she decided not to resist for a moment or two. Miklós took another sip of soda and looked away.

  Then Kristin freed herself and got up, smoothing her skirt. ‘I’m off to the ladies’ room,’ she announced, walking demurely across the café.

  Harry switched to Hungarian right away. ‘She only lives two blocks away.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘She said so. Don’t you listen?’

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘You, too.’

  ‘For all I care,’ replied Miklós, giving Harry a stern look.

  ‘You haven’t been in a café for years. You haven’t seen a naked woman for years.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ asked Miklós.

  ‘At last we can get out of the hospital. We should start living!’

  Kristin was now sashaying back to the table.

  ‘What do you say to a sandwich?�
� whispered Harry, still in Hungarian.

  ‘What sort of sandwich?’

  ‘The two of us and her. Kristin in the middle.’

  ‘Leave me out of it.’

  Harry switched to German, almost in the same breath, and began to stroke Kristin’s ankle under the table. ‘I’ve been telling Miklós that I’ve fallen head over heels for you, dear Kristin. Do I have any chance?’

  Kristin put a warning finger coquettishly on Harry’s mouth.

  Kristin rented a tiny flat on the third floor of a building in Nysvägen Street. The low rumble of traffic filtered in through the open window. She sat on the bed so that Harry could get to her more easily. The first test she set him was to mend a tear in the strap of her bra. ‘Are you finished yet?’ she asked, monitoring the process in the mirror.

  ‘Not quite. It’d be easier if you took it off.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘You’re torturing me.’

  ‘That’s the point. You should suffer. Restrain yourself. Do a bit of housework,’ replied Kristin, giggling.

  Harry finished at last, breaking the thread off with his teeth. Kristin went over to the mirror, turning around and fingering the mended strap.

  Harry grew redder and redder. Then he hugged her and clumsily tried to undo the bra. ‘I can cook, do the washing, scrub. I am a workhorse,’ he whispered.

  By way of an answer Kristin kissed him.

  When Harry came back an hour later, he found Miklós at the same marble table in the corner of the café. He was writing a letter and didn’t even look up when Harry flopped down beside him. The tip of his pencil seemed to glide over the white paper. Harry gave a deep dejected sigh.

  When at last Miklós raised his head, he showed no surprise at Harry’s dismal expression.

  ‘Aren’t you in love any more?’

  Harry swigged the remains of the soda in Miklós’s glass. ‘In love? I’m a wreck.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She made me mend her bra. Then I undressed her. Her skin was so silky and firm!’

  ‘Good. Now don’t interrupt me, I’ve got to finish this,’ said Miklós, returning to his letter.

  Harry envied the way that Miklós could cut himself off from everything with the merest flick of his finger. ‘But I wasn’t firm. It doesn’t work,’ he muttered. ‘It simply doesn’t work.’

  Miklós kept writing. ‘What doesn’t work?’

  ‘I don’t. And I used to do it five times a day. I could walk up and down with a bucket of water hanging from it.’

  ‘Hanging from what?’ Miklós enquired, biting the end of his pencil.

  ‘Right now…a slug hangs between my legs. Soft, white and useless.’

  Miklós found the right word. He smiled to himself and wrote it down, satisfied. Now he could comfort Harry.

  ‘That’s quite normal. Without feelings it doesn’t work.’

  Harry was chewing the side of his mouth in irritation. He slid the letter across the table and started to read. ‘“Dear Lili, I am twenty-five—”’

  Miklós snatched at the letter. There was a brief tug of war, which Miklós won. He thrust the letter into his pocket.

  Dear Lili,

  I am twenty-five. I used to be a journalist until the First Jewish Law got me thrown out of my job.

  Miklós had a special gift for poetic licence. The truth was that he had been a journalist for exactly eight and a half days. He was taken on at the Debrecen Independent on a Monday, more as messenger boy on the police rounds than an actual journalist. It was the worst possible moment. The following week a law banning Jews from certain professions came into force. His newspaper career was over. But he kept that brief apprenticeship on his CV for the rest of his life. It can’t have been easy for a nineteen-year-old to get over such a setback. One day he had a pencil behind his ear; the next he was shouting, ‘Soda! Come and get your soda water!’ as he leaned out from a horse-drawn cart and a bitter wind whistled around his ears.

  After that I worked in a textile factory, then as a bloodhound in a credit agency; I had a job as a clerk, an advertising salesman and other similar excellent posts until 1941, when I was called up for forced labour. At the first opportunity, I escaped to the Russians. I spent a month washing dishes in a big restaurant in Csernovic before I joined a partisan group in Bukovina.

  There were eight Hungarian deserters. The Red Army gave them a crash course in spying and dropped them behind German lines. Looking back, it’s obvious that the Russians didn’t trust them. The lessons of history teach us that the Soviets didn’t trust anybody. But when those Hungarian deserters turned up, they decided to enlist them.

  I can imagine my father wearing a quilted jacket and a knapsack, clinging to the open door of an aeroplane. He looks down. Below him there’s vertical space, clouds, and spreading countryside. He suffers from vertigo, feels dizzy, turns away and starts to vomit. Rough hands grab him from behind and shove him into the void.

  On that dawn morning, somewhere in the vicinity of Nagyvárad, Hungarian soldiers with submachine guns were waiting in open woodland. When the parachute team floated just a few metres above the ground, the soldiers casually fired off a few rounds for target practice. Miklós was lucky. He was the only one they didn’t hit. But as soon as he landed, they pounced on him and put him in handcuffs. That night he was transported to a prison in Budapest where, in the space of barely half an hour, he was relieved of most of his teeth.

  In the café in Lärbro, Harry looked at Miklós with admiration. ‘How many have replied?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Are you going to write back to all of them?’

  ‘Some of them, but she’s the one,’ Miklós answered, patting the pocket where he had hidden the letter.

  I’ve introduced myself, now it’s your turn, Lili. First of all, please send a photo! Then tell me everything about yourself.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  Three

  LILI BLEW her nose and wiped away her tears. It was the end of September. She was in a four-bed ward on the third floor of the Eksjö hospital. Outside the window stood a lonely birch tree that had already shed its leaves for winter.

  Dr Svensson had started going bald early. He wasn’t yet forty, but pink skin, reminiscent of a baby’s bottom, was already shining through his colourless hair. He was short and stocky, and his hands were like a child’s. His thumbnails were the size of cherry-blossom petals.

  He removed his protective apron of leather and wire mesh, and wandered into the bleak X-ray room. Beside the ugly apparatus there was a single chair on which Lili was sitting. She looked pale and scared in her washed-out striped hospital overall.

  Dr Svensson squatted down beside her and touched her hand. It was encouraging that the Hungarian girl spoke excellent German. Nuances counted a lot in this context.

  ‘I’ve assessed your last X-ray. This new one will be ready tomorrow. We suspected scarlet fever at first, but we’ve excluded that now.’

  ‘Something worse?’ whispered Lili, as if they were in the audience at the theatre.

  ‘Worse in some ways. It’s not an infection. But there’s no need to worry.’

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’

  ‘That kidney of yours is behaving badly. But I’ll cure you, I promise.’

  Lili started to cry.

  Dr Svensson took her hand. ‘Please don’t cry! You’ll have to stay in bed again. This time we’ll have to be stricter.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two weeks to start with. Or three. Then we’ll see,’ he said, taking out his handkerchief.

  I haven’t got a photo of myself. I’ve been back in hospital again for the past few days.

  I hate dancing, but I love having fun—and eating stuffed peppers (in thick tomato sauce, of course).

  The story goes that Miklós wasn’t even nine years old when, with his hair dampened down and wearing a suit that felt like armour, he
was dragged along to a dance at the Golden Bull Hotel. He was already having trouble with his eyes, and due to some sort of refraction error he had to wear glasses with thick, ugly lenses that did nothing for his looks.

  At an energetic moment in the dance, the young Miklós and a little girl named Melinda were shoved into the middle of a circle of girls. The crowd of dancers clapped wildly and urged the pair to start spinning. Melinda came to life. Swept up by the wave of good cheer, she grabbed Miklós’s hands and swirled round with him, until he slipped on the waxed parquet floor. And from this ignominious position he watched Melinda become the belle of the ball.

  Now Miklós and Harry hurried back to the hospital. A strong wind was blowing. Miklós turned up the collar of his thin spring coat.

  Harry stopped and took Miklós’s arm. ‘Ask her if she’s got a girlfriend.’

  ‘Not so fast. We’re only at the beginning.’

  That day the men had a party. They turned the barracks upside down, pushing the beds into the corners. They borrowed a guitar from somewhere, and it turned out that Jenö Grieger could at least strum the latest hits.

  The dancing began. At first they just threw themselves around with abandon, then the urge to play different characters took over. They didn’t discuss parts or assign roles, but began to act out dashing hussars and flirtatious girls. They clicked their heels. They curtsied; they whispered sweet nothings. They fawned over each other, swirling and spinning. Instincts that had been buried for months erupted.

  Miklós didn’t take part in this childish game. In silent lonely protest, he settled himself on his barricaded bed. He leaned his back against the wall, put his favourite book by Nexø across his knees, and began to write.

  You didn’t say anything about your appearance!

  Now you’re probably thinking that I’m some shallow

  Budapest type who only cares about that sort of thing.