Gratitude by Joseph Kertes Page A

departing.
    Istvan had waited all night to open the Dumas, but when morning came and he could light his lamp, he didn’t. He had badly wanted to gallop off with the musketeers. He had once fled Budapest for Paris for his own silly adventure, but now, instead of Athos, Porthos or Aramis, he had become Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo—no, even better, even worse : Kafka’s Joseph K. It was a life-and-death adventure, after all, but not as he’d imagined it, not along the paths of glory. The paths of glory were illuminated by celestial beams, not thin filaments cut through floorboards.
    The Three Musketeers . Istvan laughed out loud and startled the cat—startled himself. Dumas in the original French. Tolstoy in Hungarian, Kafka in German, as written by the Czech author himself. Heavens above!
    That night Marta was agitated when she arrived home. He could hear her banging about, not tiptoeing and shuffling as usual. Smetana meowed, and Marta, usually so protective, let him out of the house. “Go,” she told him, “go,” and he went.
    An hour later, she came down to him. She was not wearing her night things, nothing comfortable or loose, and he got the message. She brought a cabbage roll—what next!—a rich, beefy cabbage roll and, as he ate alone (she had not brought one for herself), she said loudly, carelessly, “They came by today unannounced as usual. They searched the office, then cross-examined Dr. Benes. They wanted to know about me. They didn’t ask me, just him. Did she live alone? Did she have a lover? Where was her original Jew boss? What did she do with her nights? Had she read one Franz Kafka, or did she listen to Mendelssohn?”
    “What did he say?” Istvan asked.
    “He said nothing. What could he say? He knows nothing. He told them that he really didn’t know anything and minded his own business. I’m like that, too. People keep mostly to themselves. They trust no one. The Jews are being transported away from here somewhere—Poland, they’re saying, Oswiecim—Auschwitz, they’re calling it. The temple on Jozsika is filled with their belongings. That’s where your own books are, I suspect, with everything else from your father’s house.” She looked down. “When Janos asked me this morning if I’d started the Dumas, I simply smiled, and that was the end of it.”
    Istvan gulped down hard. “Then what?” he asked.
    “Then he left it alone.”
    “No, I meant the visitors, the SS.”
    “Then nothing. Then the bastards turned and walked out.” Marta’s voice was agitated. “Europe’s gone mad. What happens when the world is mad?”
    He took her hand and squeezed it. The hand was limp, lifeless. It did not correspond with her voice.
    “Another letter came from your Aunt Klari,” she said.
    “No wonder they’re suspicious. They must be watching everything. Klari must still be hoping we’re here somewhere and the letter will find us.” Istvan looked across the dark at Marta, measuring her shape with his eyes. “I have to go,” he said. “I have to locate Radnoti. He’s a Catholic now. He’ll get word out to my family. Then these visits will stop.”
    Istvan could feel Marta glaring back at him in the dark. The two of them were like bats. “Are you mad, Istvan?” she said. “You want to leave this perfect hideout—perfect for all of us—and risk whatever future we may have just to get word out? Your uncle and aunt are smart, and so are your brother and sister, from what I’ve heard about them. After a while they’ll stop writing.”
    Istvan thought of his family. He was surprised especially that Paul had not managed something. Paul was the capable brother, but it was not so much that Paul could do things—Istvan could too. It was that Paul would when others wouldn’t. Istvan didn’t know if he’d stand in the storm the way his brother would, but how hard it must be, how absolute the Aryan Eagle’s hold, if Paul had not managed to free his only