The Wrong Boy (2 page)

Father’s breath was short and the back of his shirt was stained with sweat by the time he finished digging. He laid the shovel down, pried the lid from the tin and took out a clutch of gold coins, then a wad of notes, a handful of gems, and finally a velvet bag containing a gold pocket watch.

“There’s enough here to buy you a new piano, Hanna.” He smiled weakly. “And anything else you might need.” He placed the velvet bag, gemstones, coins and notes back in the tin, then lowered it into the hole. Mother reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a yarmulke and a frayed leather prayer book and placed them on top of the tin. Finally, with trembling fingers, she pulled her wedding band from her finger and dropped it into the hole.

We crept back to the apartment. I was glad to be inside again, seated at the kitchen table, watching my mother peel potatoes. The familiar smell of simmering cabbage was reassuring. I didn’t want to think about Father outside packing the hole with soil. I didn’t want to think about digging up the ground and dusting off Mother’s wedding ring. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow. Erika couldn’t wait to escape the ghetto. I didn’t want to leave, not when I didn’t know what was waiting for us outside.

Inside the ghetto walls no one called you a
dirty Jew
. There was no
us
and
them
. It was just
us
and we all wore stars, and no one had new clothes, and we all shared our bedrooms with our brothers and sisters. Nothing divided or distinguished us from one another and – like the cabbage simmering on the stove – it was comforting.

Mother had stopped crying, distracted by the task of preparing food for our journey: cheese, hard-boiled eggs, pickled cucumbers. Her pantry emptied into a bag. She had once had a full pantry, its shelves fringed with white lace and bursting with preserved fruits, jams, biscuits, a dozen types of tea. Mother had been happy then. Now her eyes were ringed with dark circles and she had grown thin with worry. She cleaned incessantly. Outside, in the gutters and alleyways and front porches of the ghetto, rubbish piled up. But mother waxed and polished and dusted and swept till our apartment gleamed. I left her slicing potatoes and went back to bed.

I woke the next morning to piercing whistle blasts and the tramp of boots.

“Jews outside! Fast!” Hungarian police officers were at the end of the street emptying apartments. Angry voices floated up through the window. A dog barked. A child screamed.

Erika was already dressed and placing the last of her belongings into her rucksack.

“You can’t take that,” I said, reaching for her camera. “No photos outside the ghetto, remember what Papa said? Besides, the soldiers won’t let you.”

“The soldiers won’t know.” Erika plunged the camera deep into her pack. I slipped out of my nightgown and pulled on a dress. Mother had prepared eggs for breakfast but I couldn’t eat. I sat at the piano so I wouldn’t have to listen to my father’s whispered prayers or watch the tears trickle down my mother’s face. I’d been so naive. I’d thought we were lucky when the ghetto walls went up. Our apartment building was in the heart of the ghetto, so we didn’t have to move. I still had my piano, my bed and my family. I thought if we stayed behind the brick wall, we’d be okay.

I sat at the piano and began to play, and after a while I forgot about the guards in the street. I forgot about the buried treasure in the backyard and Mother’s bulging bag of food. I forgot about Father’s big, sad eyes. I was playing piano and there was only me, the black-and-white keys and Mozart.

“Hanna, grab your suitcase. It’s time to go!” Father stepped into the corridor. The soldiers were outside our building.

I placed the black felt cover over the keys and closed the lid. Two weeks ago I’d promised Piri, my piano teacher, I would perfect Liszt’s
Hungarian rhapsody No. 6
before our next lesson. Then the ghetto had been sealed and I hadn’t seen Piri since. And now we were leaving the ghetto and I couldn’t practise, and that sour-faced police officer would get his sweaty hands on my piano, and I’d never match Clara Schumann’s concert schedule.

“Hanna, come down at once!” Father’s voice was urgent.

I thought of my piano-thief and his fat fingers and his ugly smile.

“Just a minute, Papa,” I called, throwing open the lid and tossing aside the felt. I ran my fingers over the keys, feeling for the one loose black key, the wobbly C-sharp Father hadn’t gotten around to fixing. Pressing down on the keys either side of the C sharp, I pulled and tugged at the note until it jerked free. Then I shoved it into my pocket and ran downstairs.

We marched through the ghetto in rows of five. I could see Mr Benedek the kosher butcher, little Max Spitz who I’d babysat on weekends, old Mrs Eppinger bent over her walking stick, and the Markovits twins dragging matching bags. Mother, Father, Erika and I joined the cobbler, the fishmonger, the tailor and the dentist.

On either side of our unhappy procession stood SS soldiers and Hungarian guards. “
Mach schnell!
Faster!” The guards raised their truncheons. Father took my suitcase. He was already carrying a rucksack on his back and the bag of food.

Outside the synagogue a line had formed. My mother reached for my hand and we stepped into line together, snaking our way towards a convoy of open-air trucks. It was hot and my mother’s hand was clammy. The pale blue fabric of her cotton dress was stained blue-black under her arms, and her hair clung to her face in matted strips. We climbed aboard the third truck and waited.

It was a relief when at midday the trucks’ engines finally spluttered to life and the breeze whipped my hair dry. We’d drunk all our water and I was thirsty and tired. I wanted to sink into sleep but there were no seats in the truck, so I stood, arms draped over the rails, facing out. I watched the wheels of the truck stir up dust clouds, and the synagogue, and everything I’d known, disappear into them.

Erika pulled her camera from her bag and a scarf from her pocket. She draped the scarf over the camera, then pulled the fabric back from the lens.

“Smile,” she whispered.

I glared at her. “Just because they haven’t inspected our bags, doesn’t mean they won’t.” I glanced at the camera. “Please get rid of it.” But she didn’t. She took photos of the guards and their guns, the trucks behind us, and the trucks in front.

“Gotcha!” she said, but she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the guards. She was talking to Hitler.

Our convoy wound its way through the narrow streets of the ghetto and out the front gate, past the Town Hall and my school, the library and the park. It had been two weeks since I’d seen the fountains and domes and stained-glass windows of Debrecen square, and I longed to jump from the truck and run through the streets. I wondered how the ducks in Debrecen gardens were faring. No one had bread to spare.

Hatvan Street was unusually quiet for a weekday. The few people who sat at the sidewalk cafes studied their menus in silence or scurried indoors as we passed. We rumbled past a familiar cream building.

“Leo!” Father gasped.

Leo Bauer stood on his second-floor balcony, his eyes fixed on our truck, his face drained of colour. The old watchmaker had worked for Father for fifteen years, until Mendel’s Watch Emporium was shut down, and Leo and the rest of Father’s non-Jewish employees were forced to leave their benches. The government had promised to find Leo work elsewhere, but the old man had refused.

“I know that man!” Leo pointed at my father, but the guards ignored him. “I know his family. They’re good people. They’ve done nothing wrong.” His voice echoed across the street. Behind half-drawn curtains and slanted shutters his neighbours looked out at us, but no one stepped onto their balconies to join his protest. Leo’s face crumpled. He raised his hand and waved goodbye.

A group of boys playing ball on the street moved to the curb as our convoy rumbled past. They didn’t duck into doorways or turn away. They raised their right arms.

“Heil, Hitler!” they chanted, running after the trucks, “Heil, Hitler.”

Erika grabbed the rails of the truck and leaned out as far as she could. Her eyes were wild, her cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth.

“Don’t!” I grabbed her arm. “You’ll get us shot.” Erika clenched the rails, her knuckles were white. She turned back to the boys.

“Screw Hitler!” she whispered under her breath. “Screw all of you!” She let go of the rails and slumped to the floor.

We arrived at the Serly brickyards, on the outskirts of town, in the early afternoon. I clambered off the truck after my father and followed him through the gates. We weren’t the first to arrive. Swarms of people from the surrounding villages and hamlets had already made their beds on the dusty dry ground. Their faces were grimy and their clothes dirty. They looked like they’d been there for days. Last year I’d camped under the stars in the Puszta Forest with father and three friends. I could sleep outdoors again, for a few days. I looked at my father uncertainly.

“I know it seems bad,” he said, “but if we stick together, we’ll be okay.”

Erika opened her mouth to say something. I shot her a look and she held her tongue. Papa was trying to convince himself.

I scanned the yard. There must have been more than a thousand people crammed into the brickyard, with more pouring in. I looked at the families camped outdoors, the contents of their suitcases scattered about them. Underwear flapped in the warm wind, strung out along the barbed wire fence. An old man, stripped to his waist, was bent over a steaming pot of water washing himself, soaping his soft belly and the sagging skin under his arms, and all I could think was,
I want to go home, I need to go home
. He pulled a dripping rag from the bowl, loosened his belt and reached for his zip. I looked down at my feet. I didn’t want the first naked body I saw to be old, pale and shrivelled.

We picked our way around bundles, bags and bedrolls, looking for an empty patch of earth. I recognised a few faces: my grade six teacher, the woman that worked in the post office, the Rabbi’s wife, but I didn’t wave or say hello.

I stepped over an elderly woman curled up on the ground, and followed Father past a boy brushing his teeth over a metal bowl and a man sobbing into his prayer book.

“Let’s make camp here,” Father said. “At least we’ll have some shelter.” He set our bags down beside a disused brick kiln.

I peered inside. The ground was littered with bricks where the roof and the walls had collapsed but there was enough room for the four of us to stretch out to sleep.

Father rolled up his trouser legs, dropped to his knees and began clearing the rubble. When the floor had been cleaned he pulled a quilt from his bag and smoothed it over the hard concrete.

“There’s room for your bags,” he said, standing up and dusting himself off. I tried to smile, but it was all too sad, the crumbling shelter, my mother’s awful silence, my father’s forced smile. I pulled the C sharp from my bag and hid it under my blanket. I wanted to change into clothes that didn’t smell, but there was a boy on a blanket less than a metre away. He was reading a book and his eyes kept wandering from the page. Erika smiled at the boy.

“He’s got good taste,” she whispered in my ear. She pulled the ribbon from her plait and loosened her hair so that it tumbled over her shoulders. “Let’s look for a shower. My hair’s filthy.”