Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two Read online

  Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure

  Suzanne Anderson

  Henry and George Press

  Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure

  By Suzanne Anderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Suzanne Anderson

  ISBN-13: 978-1468170542

  ISBN-10: 1468170546

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover Design © 2012 Tinashe Designs

  For more information about the author and upcoming books, please visit:

  http://www.suzanneanderson.net/

  Published by

  Henry and George Press

  PO Box 2465

  Evergreen, CO 80437

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  For my mother

  Adeline Lucas Anderson

  Her love and encouragement makes everything possible.

  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

  the evidence of things not seen.

  ~ Hebrews 11:1 King James Version

  Suzanne Anderson

  Chapter One

  “I CAN’T SLEEP Nana.”

  Mila’s skin was clear and pale; like the antique German porcelain dolls I’d bought for her when she was a child. Long dark lashes shaded her almond shaped blue eyes.

  I released the doorknob that I’d been ready to close, entered her room and settled into an overstuffed chair with a sigh and a smile that belied my worry. Candlelight silhouetted Mila’s face in a halo of pale yellow. The book she held created a shadow that fell across her chest making the pink roses on her nightgown glow and float in the shadows of her long dark hair. In the five years that Mila had lived here, there were few nights when I did not find her with a book.

  When Mila first arrived, I placed this chair next to her bed to read aloud one of the children’s books that provided me with my living and my reputation. Over the years, the chair remained, I wrote more books, and read each one to Mila until she outgrew them and began to read the novels she found in my study. The ritual of our time together before bed, our discussion of books, remained. Even during these years of war.

  She propped the book against her chest and watched me expectantly. “You’re coming with us aren’t you?”

  “Of course.” I turned from her gaze and smoothed the edge of the comforter wishing our conversation could skim the surface as lightly as my fingers.

  “And Aunt Anna?” Mila’s eyes searched my face for signs of deception.

  “Yes, she seems to understand.”

  “But she forgets things so quickly,” Mila added anxiously. “You know what she’s like when she becomes confused.”

  “We’ll sort it out in the morning,” I folded my hands in my lap and leaned back in the chair. “She’ll come with me.”

  “Mom’s worried she’ll slow us down.”

  “She said that to you?” my voice tightened as I finally looked into her eyes.

  Mila looked away. “I overheard Mom and Bela in the kitchen before supper.”

  “I’ll make sure that Anna reaches the station on time.”

  Chapter Two

  WITH THAT WE sat among the shadows of the bedroom, neither of us willing to enter the overrun province. My younger sister and her husband resented my care taking of my twin sister. A year ago, Anna had moved in with us. A nervous breakdown made it impossible for her to continue living alone in her apartment near the university where she had been a poet in residence.

  Mila began again. “When I try to talk to Momma she snaps at me.”

  “She’s just concerned about the arrangements for our trip,” I offered.

  “Sometimes she looks over at Bela before answering me.”

  “Bela’s a difficult man.”

  “I think she’s afraid he might leave without her. Would he do that, Nana?”

  “No. He wouldn’t leave without her.”

  I rubbed my hands down the length of my wool skirt to warm them. This room resisted warmth despite the clanking radiators that sat like plump cats hissing and spitting against two of the bedroom walls.

  I disdained my younger sister’s choice in men. Ilona effortlessly used hypochondria as a defense against any form of housework or childrearing labors. She’d picked her husbands accordingly. Men willing to care for her in exchange for total control of her movements and her affections. Jealous masters. As a result of Ilona’s disposition, and the low wages Bela received as a legal clerk, they’d come to live with me after my husband died. They insisted they were concerned about my living alone. Though I surmised my spacious apartment was a greater priority to them than my welfare. My husband and I lived in a large three-bedroom apartment in the center of Pest. I kept the master bedroom that I’d shared with my husband, which still held his clothes, and his scent. There were two smaller bedrooms. Mila slept in one, my sister Anna in the other. Ilona and Bela felt those bedrooms were too small for them, and when they realized that I was not going to relinquish the room I’d shared with my husband, they claimed the living room as the only room large enough to accommodate them comfortably. As a result, my study became both a library and a living room. The dining room and kitchen remained, as they were when my husband and I lived alone here. I maintained the truce with Ilona and endured the angry outbursts of her husband to keep Mila near. She was the daughter I’d always wanted. She was an inquisitive and beautiful young girl.

  “What are you reading?” I leaned forward and gestured toward her book, hoping an old routine would bring comfort and distract us from our separate worries.

  “Aunt Anna’s poems,” Mila said, turning the cover toward me. “I can’t believe that she wrote the words.”

  “Before her illness, Anna was a brilliant poet with an enormous gift for making the mundane sublime. She was a remarkable woman. She still is.”

  “I wish I could talk to her about the poems,” Mila said.

  “Try,” I said. “There are moments when she still understands a great deal.”

  Mila pushed herself up in the bed and leaned toward me. “What does she remember?”

  “For her, the poems that were written a decade ago are the freshest in her mind. That’s some of her best work. She can still tell you exactly what she was trying to achieve in each line. Ironically, it’s her inability to process what she did yesterday, or a moment ago, that keeps her from creating. It’s sad. I know she has so much more to say.”

  Mila leaned back against the pillows and chewed her lip. “Does she realize what’s happening to her?”

  I took Mila’s hand in mine and gently squeezed it. “She knows.”

  A year ago, Anna had handed me a stack of leather-bound books. The journals contained Anna’s notes on poems that she had struggled through, political skirmishes at the university, and embarrassingly detailed notes on her love life. Anna asked me to edit them and publish them for her. It was one of the first things she asked for when the doctor concluded that her delusional bouts would become more frequent over time. She wanted some te
stimony to survive as her real self slipped away. I’d begun working on them when my own writing stalled. I was piqued, discomfited, and touched by what I read. In the long sloping lines of confession that covered the pages of her journals, I realized a depth to her I’d never imagined.

  “How long will she recognize us, Nana?”

  “I hope forever.”

  Some things a young girl should not have to learn too quickly. The irony of life, that insanity should take the one thing that allowed Anna to express her greatest gift. I shook my head. No, that was the least of it. There was so much more I was trying to protect Mila from. Outside her windows, four floors above the street, the March wind moaned. The windows rattled and whistled softly as cold air seeped through cracks in the warped wooden frames. The streets were unusually quiet. Even at this hour, Budapest should have been alive with the sounds of the city. But there were no cars on the street or pedestrians making their way home from the opera house or the cafe. What a sharp contrast to the celebrations held just days before.

  Chapter Three

  ON THE FIFTEENTH, the National Opera premiered “Petofi”, its opening coinciding with our national holiday. The Regent Horthy and his wife attended the event and there was a collective opinion that this was a good omen. So many happy memories belonged in that hall. Then in the last two days, the lightness and hope vanished. The streets were alive with rumor and fear. Increasingly, it became clear that we would be drawn into the same hellish pit that had swallowed our neighbors. Budapest was the last morsel for the Nazis to devour before their own demise.

  For years, we had remained remarkably unscathed by the war. Hungary had made a pact with Germany, more to their economic benefit than ours of course. In exchange, lands that had been taken from us during the First World War had been returned and we were mollified.

  Then the tide had turned. The Allies on one side and the Russians on the other were finally weakening Germany’s stranglehold on Europe. As the noose tightened, the Germans had become more brutal. Bela told us of rumors that our government was secretly in negotiations with the Allies. As a result, Hitler had ordered his troops to invade Hungary, punishing us like disloyal children.

  An uneasy calm fell over the city. It was as if we were playing a deadly game of hide and seek. People watched one another, no longer sure who to trust. We’d heard what had happened in Poland. Our government seemed more likely to aid the enemy, than us.

  Mila brought me back to her.

  “Did you ever write poetry?”

  “Many years ago,” I smiled, shaking off a bitter memory.

  “You haven’t read anything to me lately, are you working on something new?”

  “No.” How to explain that watching children being taken away to labor camps, separated from their parents, left me with little motivation to write fanciful stories. To lull innocents? To suggest that the world we had brought them into was fair and just? What use would a work of fantasy be in times of such horror? “There’s no market for children’s books right now,” I said.

  “You haven’t stopped writing have you?”

  I bowed my head and looked at my empty hands. “I have nothing to say right now.”

  “When the war is over? Or when we get to Switzerland. When we are safe, will you write again?”

  “Yes, when we are safe.” I leaned over and gently kissed her forehead before blowing out the candle. Mila was my greatest source of inspiration. From our home in Pest, Mila and I’d spent Sundays’ taking the tram to the zoo, or the City Park to rowboats on the pond. How could I write when she was in danger? If I could write anything, it would be a story of her escape to safety. I would attach the four posts of her bed to a hot air balloon and send her sailing through night sky, across the ocean, to safety.

  “Nana, what if the German’s arrive before we get to the train?”

  I reached over and brushed the hair from her eyes. “I believe we still have a little time.”

  Mila turned and looked out the window, she flinched at the sound of distant gunfire.

  “We’ll leave before it gets worse,” I promised.

  “Do you really think we can?” Mila turned to look at me. “Everyone will want to get on that train. Is there enough room for us?”

  “There will be,” I assured her. “We have tickets.”

  Chapter Four

  AFTER SAYING GOODNIGHT to Mila, I passed the dining room on the way to my study. The door was ajar and I noticed Bela and Ilona whispering to one another. When they saw me, they stopped talking and Ilona turned away flushed with embarrassment as if she’d been caught.

  “Is everything ready for the trip tomorrow?” I asked from the doorway.

  Ilona pushed by me without making eye contact and quickly left the room.

  Bela’s cheeks burning bright from alcohol and indignation, growled, “You sneak around listening to conversations that are none of your business.”

  I didn’t reply, only shook my head and continued to my study to drink coffee and write, in keeping with my nightly ritual, but Bela followed.

  He was of medium height, a stocky build and a walrus mustache that seemed more fitting with his odious demeanor than his profession. He was crude and unkempt, his clothes always seemed a size too small, buttons strained against the girth of his stomach, his pants were wrinkled and the cuffs worn from age and neglect. I couldn’t imagine what Ilona saw in him.

  “Would you like a cup?” I asked, pouring one for myself. With engraved silver tongs, I dropped a cube of sugar into my cup.

  “No.” He shook his head, but made no move to approach me. I shrugged my shoulders and carried the cup across the room.

  “You have the tickets?” I placed the cup on the table next to my chair, leaned over and picked up the journal and pen that I’d left open on the seat.

  “We get them tomorrow, at the train station.”

  “At the last minute?”

  Looking at Bela’s dull, indignant face, I felt exasperated. He snorted and placed his hands on his hips as if meeting my challenge. Whatever alcohol he’d already consumed this evening magnified his belligerence.

  The veins in his throat stood out like ropes. “I gave the man a deposit. I need more money. The tickets are expensive.”

  “The despicable get rich by preying on the desperate.” I lowered myself into the chair, not taking my eyes from him.

  “And the rich prey on everyone.” Bela sneered. “What do you know of the real world?”

  “I want to meet this ticket seller.” I took a sip of coffee and watched his reaction.

  He turned away from me and walked toward the window. “You’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “No. Tonight.”

  I put down the cup of coffee and took up my journal. I needed to keep my hands moving so that their shaking wouldn’t be evident.

  Bela stopped and stared at me, his forehead greasy with sweat.

  “That’s not possible.”

  I flattened the pages with my fingers. I looked down at the previous day’s entry not seeing the words. “If he wants money badly enough he’ll come.”

  He moved closer, stopping in front of my chair, his hands bunched in fists held at his side. He leaned over me. I recoiled from the stink of liquor and his cheap Turkish cigarettes. “And if I can’t find him?”

  “I won’t give you the money you need.” I watched the look of surprise, and then fury, contort Bela’s face. Our eyes locked.

  Chapter Five

  BELA STORMED OUT of the room. I heard him give directions to Ilona. The slamming of the front door shook the walls.

  I let out a long breath, closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the chair. I closed my journal and clasped my hands together. Bela was right. I was ill prepared to handle these matters.

  I opened my eyes and stood. On the bookcase, a china box still contained remnants of my husband’s favorite pipe tobacco. The green velvet chair across from my desk was where I would find him in the hours betwe
en dinner and bedtime. In the last days, softly snoring, his book closed, his body thin and ravaged by cancer, he seemed to sink into the down-filled cushions. I would come to him, sit on the arm of the chair, he would wake, smile put his arm around my waist and pull me forward for a kiss. He had been twenty years older than me, shocking to my parents when I’d brought him home to meet them.

  You’re destined to be a young widow they warned. They were right. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing. My heart ached in gratitude for sharing those moments with him. And in sorrow for our too few years together. I’d become a widow at forty.

  I walked to the window. On the sidewalk below, Bela spoke to someone and then lighted a cigarette, blue smoke creating an ugly halo around his head. He crossed the street, stole a glance up at my window, and hurried down the block.

  Max had tried on so many occasions to tell me of what he’d experienced in Russia. To teach me, he said, so that I’d be prepared. I’d always shaken him off; secure in the world that we’d created together, believing he would always protect me. In the years since his death, I spent many nights grasping to remember his words.

  How had we come so far? My childhood held warm memories of baking sweet walnut rolls with our housekeeper. Of hiding under the heavy wooden kitchen table while Anna, with arms outstretched and eyes closed, counted down from ten to one.

  How could I pack a lifetime in a small suitcase? Should I pack the valuable silver, jewelry to sell or barter for housing or food? Do I leave behind the books that I wrote, the journals I kept, the photos, the only real reminders of those I’ve loved, those who are now gone. Do I find room for the tweed jacket that still carries the sweet scent of my husband’s Latakia tobacco? The things that are priceless to my heart carry no currency where we are going.