Gratitude by Joseph Kertes

to his chest in place of the cloth star issued to the Jews still standing, miraculously still resident, in Szeged, when the good Mrs. Barta came again on a Sunday to call on Marta. Smetana scratched on the planks above Istvan.
    Had she destroyed the book? Mrs. Barta wanted to know. Had Marta read it and destroyed it as discussed?
    She’d read it—yes—she’d read it, and—yes, no, she had destroyed it, of course.
    Had she liked it? Smetana scratched. Marta’s eyes darted about the little room. Istvan sat like a statue directly below them, fearing his eyes made noise as they shifted in their sockets. Yes, of course she liked it.
    But nightmarish—she remembered what Istvan had said, though she’d hardly listened at the time—nightmarish. “Awful.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” the older woman said. “Who has time to read?”
    Istvan wondered if good Anna had watched his father dangle in Mendelssohn Square, wondered if she’d made some sort of unconscious connection. He didn’t know anymore what he was talking about, thinking about.
    He thought again of Paul and Rozsi. Where had the remains of his family got to? Would the line end here? Rozsi had often talked about becoming a mother just like their own, like Mathilde. They had been inseparable, mother and daughter. Every boy who wandered into Rozsi’s sphere had to be assessed by their mother, the supreme judge and the wisest counsel on all such matters. She possessed radar—she knew before anyone else which boy would be wayward and which one loyal. On her own, Rozsi was bereft, needing Paul, needing him, Istvan. He longed to introduce Marta to his brother and sister.
    That evening down below, a warm evening in June, Marta sounded more cheerful than usual, almost careless, wanting to leave the planks up for a little air just a few minutes more, risking both their lives, the slits of light inadequate for their food and love. Blindness inadequate.
    When they were finished, sitting naked on the warm blanket in the cool cellar, she said she wished they could throw aside the planks above them forever, but of course they didn’t. Then she said that Dr. Benes had been nice to her, given her more food lately because his patients had little else with which to pay him. Istvan had noticed: sausage twice that week, a half-dozen eggs, three tins of herring (who knows how many for the cat?), crusty German rye.
    “Why not before?” Istvan asked. He was gnawing on a parsnip. He had grown to love them raw. “Why hasn’t he given us food before?”
    “He has. You know he has—as far back as early April. Don’t you remember? The peppers in April? The radishes in May?”
    “Yes, I remember.”
    Her skin felt coarse in the darkness. Gooseflesh. She heard him crunch on the parsnip.
    “Is he in love with you?”
    She pulled away from him. “Of course he’s not in love with me.”
    “He doesn’t know you have someone else. You’re not married.”
    “ He has someone else. He has a wife and two daughters. I have someone hidden in the cellar.”
    “And you would die in an instant if they found out,” he said. “You’d be shot in the head where you stood.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. It’s difficult being the invisible man.”
    “It’s just as difficult being the visible woman.” She fumbled around beside her among the food things she had placed out of harm’s way and, in the darkness, put a book into his hand. “It’s Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers in the original French. A cousin of Dr. Benes had it. I asked to borrow it, and Janos visited his cousin on Sunday. I had it with me all day, and I was bursting to tell you I did.”
    “You are precious,” he said, grinning. “Janos, is it now? You call him Janos?”
    Marta went silent, then she left. The next morning, he heard her shuffling about as she got herself ready. She usually knocked three times gently with her heel to say goodbye, but this time she spoke only to Smetana before