The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

  Now she held her back rigid while another women leaned close to her ear; it was clear that the other woman was narrating the progression of Novak's tete-a-tete with Klara.

  When Andras reached the sofa, Monsieur Novak got to his feet and held out a damp red hand for Andras to shake. His eyes were raw, his breathing labored. After his first words of greeting he seemed unable to introduce a subject of conversation.

  "I understand you're going home to Budapest," Andras said.

  Novak smiled with obvious effort. "Yes, indeed," he said. "And what will I do this time for a lunchtime companion? Madame Novak prefers the dining car."

  "You'll probably cheer up some young fool on his way from Paris to Budapest."

  "Fool indeed, if he's young and heading back to Budapest."

  "Budapest is a fine place for a young man," Andras said.

  "Perhaps you ought to have stayed there, then," Novak said, leaning a shade too close to Andras; in an instant Andras knew he was drunk. By now Klara knew, too, of course; she stood and placed a hand on Novak's sleeve. A flash of resentment kindled in Andras's chest. If Novak was going to undo himself, Klara shouldn't feel under an obligation to protect him. But she gave Andras a look that begged forbearance, and he had to relent. He couldn't fault Novak. It had been only three months, after all, since his own bout of drunken howling at Jozsef Hasz's flat.

  "Monsieur Novak was telling me about his new position with the Royal Hungarian Opera," Klara said.

  "Ah, yes. They're lucky to have you," Andras said.

  "Well, Paris won't miss me," Novak said, looking pointedly at Klara. "That much is evident."

  Madame Gerard had crossed the room to join their group, and she took Novak's hands in her own. "We shall all miss you terribly," she said. "It's a great loss to us. A great loss to me. What will I do without you? Who will preside at my dinner parties?"

  "You will preside, as always," Novak said.

  "Not 'as always,'" she said. "I used to be morbidly shy. You used to do all the talking for me. But perhaps you don't remember that. Perhaps you don't remember how you were forced to ply me with wine in your office, just to convince me to take Madame Villareal-Bloch's role."

  "Ah, yes, poor Claudine," Novak said, his voice rising in volume as he spoke.

  "She was brilliant, and she threw it all away for that boy. That press attache from Brazil.

  She followed him to Sao Paolo, and then he dropped her for a young tart." He turned a glare upon Andras. "And she was so certain he loved her. But he made a fool of her." He drained his glass, then went toward the window and stared down into the street.

  A wave of silence spread from Novak to the rest of the guests; conversation faltered in one small group after another. It seemed they'd all been watching the exchange between Andras and Klara and Novak; it was almost as though they'd been notified of the situation in advance, and advised to pay particular attention. At last an elderly woman in a black Mainbocher gown cleared her throat delicately, fortified herself with a sip of gin, and declared that she had just heard that the forty thousand railroad workers fired by Monsieur Reynaud would stage a protest, and that the only good that might come of it would be that Monsieur and Madame Novak's departure might be delayed.

  "Oh, but that would be terrible," said Madame Novak. "Mother is giving a party to welcome us, and the invitations have already been sent."

  Madame Gerard laughed. "No one could ever accuse you of being a populist, Edith," she said, and the conversation soon resumed its former pace.

  At dinner, Andras found himself seated between Madame Novak and the elderly woman in the Mainbocher gown. Andras found Madame Novak's jasmine perfume so overpowering that it seemed to lace the flavor of every dish set before him; he ate jasmine terrapin soup, jasmine sorbet, jasmine pheasant. Klara was seated beside Novak down the table to Andras's right, where it was impossible for him to see her face. The talk at the table was at first of Madame Gerard: her career and her new apartment and her enduring beauty. Marcelle listened with poorly acted modesty, her mouth slipping into a self-satisfied smile. When she'd grown bored of basking in flattery she turned the conversation to Budapest, its charms and difficulties and how it had changed since the Hungarians among them had lived there in their youth. She kept beginning her sentences by saying, "When we were Monsieur Levi's age." A Captain Something-von-Other seated across from Andras declared that Europe would be at war before long, and that Hungary must be involved, and that Budapest would undergo profound changes before the decade closed. Madame Novak voiced the hope that the park where she'd played as a child would not be altered, at least; that was where she intended for her own child to play.

  "Isn't that right?" she asked her husband across the table. "I'll have Janos's nurse take him there as soon as we get to town."

  "Where, my dear?"

  "The park on Pozsonyi ut, at the river's edge."

  "Of course," said Novak absently, turning again to Klara.

  The dinner concluded with cheeses and port, and the guests retired to a buff-walled room that held velvet settees and a Victrola. Madame Gerard demanded that they have dancing. The settees were moved aside, a record placed upon the Victrola, and the guests began swaying to a new American song, "They Can't Take That Away from Me."

  Monsieur Novak took Klara by the waist and led her to the center of the room. They danced awkwardly, Klara with her hands braced against Novak's arms, Novak trying to lower his head onto her shoulder. Madame Novak, willfully oblivious, danced a jerky jazz step with Captain Something-von-Other, and Andras found himself partnered with the elderly woman in black. The way you wear your hat, she sang into Andras's ear. The way you sip your tea. The memory of all that--no, they can't take that away from me.

  "It's about lost love!" she said, when he protested that his English was terrible.

  She seemed to think she had to shout into his ear in order to be heard above the music and conversation. "The man is parted from the woman, but he'll never forget her! She haunts his dreams! She's changed his life!"

  No one could get enough of the song. Madame Gerard declared it her new favorite. They played it four times before they tired of it. Andras danced with Madame Gerard, and with Edith Novak, and with the elderly woman again; but Zoltan Novak would not release Klara. In a short time he would leave Paris forever; nothing could prevent that--not a rail strike, nor the threat of war, nor the force of his own love. Klara tried to extricate herself from his arms, but each time she pulled away he protested so loudly she had to stay with him to avoid a scene. Finally, too drunk to stand, he stumbled back onto a settee and wiped his forehead with a large white handkerchief. Madame Gerard took the record from the turntable and announced that the birthday cake would now be served, and Klara motioned Andras into a hallway.

  "Let's go," she whispered. "We should never have come. I should have known Marcelle would arrange some horrible drama."

  He was only too eager to leave. They retrieved their coats from a red bedroom and slipped out into the hall. But Novak must have missed Klara, and then heard the lift descending; or perhaps he had just decided he couldn't bear the heat of the room any longer. When they emerged onto the sidewalk he was there on the balcony, calling out to Klara as she and Andras walked arm in arm down the street. Andras, far from feeling any triumph, was sick with empathy. It seemed just as likely that he himself might have been the one she was leaving behind forever, the one who'd been sent back to Hungary without her, and the feeling was so strong he had to sit down on a bench and put his head between his knees. It was a fresh shock to feel her close beside him, her gloved hand on his shoulder. They sat there on the bench in the cold for what seemed a long time, neither of them speaking a word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Signorina di Sabato

  ON A DAY of knifelike December wind, the Ligue Internationale Contre l'Antisemitisme staged a protest against the German foreign minister's visit to Paris.

  Andras and Polaner and Rosen and Ben Yakov
stood in a tight group of demonstrators outside the Elysee Palace, shouting slogans of protest against the French and German governments, waving signs-- NOFRIENDSHIP WITHFASCISTS; VONRIBBENTROPGOHOME--and singing the Zionist songs they'd learned at earlier meetings of the Ligue, which Rosen had insisted they all join after the pogrom in Germany. That morning he had woken them at dawn to paint placards. There could be no excuse for passivity, he said as he dragged them from their beds, no excuse for lying around while Joachim von Ribbentrop prepared to sign a nonaggression treaty with France; Bonnet, the French foreign minister who had been so accommodating about Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, had arranged it all. At Rosen's they drank a pot of Turkish coffee and made a dozen signs, Rosen stirring the paint with a ruler and insisting they all breathe the fumes of revolution. Andras knew Rosen's performance was largely for the benefit of his new copine, a Zionist nursing student whom he'd met that summer.

  The girl, Shalhevet, had joined them that morning to make the signs. She was tall and fierce-eyed, with a heartbreaking lock of white in her black hair; her occasional winks at Andras and Polaner and Ben Yakov suggested she knew how absurd Rosen could be, but she watched him with an admiration that betrayed her deeper feelings.

  Though Andras had complained at being dragged from bed, he was glad to be called upon to do something more substantial than read the newspaper and lament its contents. As he stood outside the Elysee Palace holding his sign aloft, he thought of the young Grynszpan in Fresnes prison--what he must have been feeling at that moment, and whether or not he knew France was welcoming the German foreign minister that day. At noon, von Ribbentrop's black limousine pulled up to the gates of the palace and was quickly ushered through. While the police watched warily and guarded the barricades around the palace, the Friendship Declaration was signed. There was nothing the protesters could have done to stop it from happening, but they'd made their feelings known. After the foreign minister had departed again, the Ligue marched all the way to the river, shouting and singing. And at the quai des Tuileries Andras and his friends broke away to end their afternoon at the Blue Dove, where the talk was not of politics but of their other favorite subject. Ben Yakov, it seemed, faced a terrible problem: Despite all his efforts, he'd only managed to save two thirds of the money he needed to bring his Florentine bride back to Paris--to steal her away, as Rosen said. And time was of the essence; they couldn't wait any longer. In another month she would be married to the old goat to whom her parents had promised her.

  Rosen knocked a fist against the table. "To arms, men," he said. "At all costs, we must save girls from goats."

  Shalhevet agreed. "Yes, please," she said. "Save girls from goats."

  "You people insist upon making a joke out of everything," Ben Yakov said.

  "It's your own medicine, I'm afraid," Polaner said.

  "This is the most critical moment of my life," Ben Yakov said. "I can't lose Ilana.

  For four months I've been working like a dog to bring her here. Day and night, at school and at the library, trying to save every centime. I've thought about nothing but her. I've written her nearly every day. I've been as celibate as a monk."

  "Excuse me," Rosen said. "What about the Carousel Dance Club last weekend?

  What were you doing there with Lucia if you've been celibate as a monk?"

  "One lapse!" Ben Yakov said, raising his hands heavenward. "A farewell to bachelorhood."

  Andras shook his head. "You must know you'll make a terrible husband," he said.

  "You ought to wait a few years until your blood cools down."

  Ben Yakov frowned at his empty glass. "I'm in love with Ilana," he said. "We can't wait any longer. But I'm still missing a thousand francs. I can afford to get there and back, but I can't afford her ticket."

  "What about your brother?" Polaner asked, turning to Andras. "Can he help?"

  Tibor was coming to visit in three weeks; he would spend his winter holiday in Paris. He and Andras had been saving the money for months. Even Klara had contributed to Tibor's ticket; she'd insisted that as Andras's fiancee she had a right to do so. "I won't let him give up his ticket," Andras said. "Not even for Ben Yakov's fiancee."

  "He wouldn't have to give it up," Rosen said. "Ben Yakov can afford to buy her ticket if he doesn't have to get one of his own. And then Tibor could escort her. He would just have to get to Florence, that's all."

  Ben Yakov rose from his chair. He put his hands to his head. "That's brilliant," he said. "My God. We could do it. It can't cost much to get from Modena to Florence."

  "Wait a minute," Andras said. "Tibor hasn't agreed, and neither have I. How is this meant to work? He goes to Florence, and elopes with her in your place?"

  "He'll meet her at the train station and they'll leave together," Rosen said. "Isn't that right, Ben Yakov? He would have to do nothing but show up in Florence."

  "But what about when she gets here?" Andras said. "She can't just step off a train and marry you at once. Where will she stay before the wedding?"

  Ben Yakov stared. "She'll stay at my apartment, of course."

  "She's an Orthodox girl, remember."

  "I'll give her my room. I'll come stay with one of you."

  "Not with me," Rosen said, glancing sideways at Shalhevet.

  "If Shalhevet is staying with you," Ben Yakov said, "let Ilana stay at her place."

  "You can't leave her all alone in a dormitory," Shalhevet said. "She'll be miserable."

  "Well, what am I supposed to do?" Ben Yakov said.

  "What about Klara?" Polaner asked. "Could Ilana stay with her?"

  Andras set his chin on his hand. "I don't know," he said. "She's preparing her students for their winter recital. It's the busiest time of year." And, though he didn't say it aloud, there were aspects of the situation he knew Klara wouldn't like. What business did they have importing a bride for Ben Yakov, their notorious scoundrel? The girl was running away from home to come to Paris; she had grown up in a close-knit Sephardic community in Florence, and was only nineteen years old. It was one thing to involve Tibor, but quite another to ask Klara to be an accomplice.

  Polaner looked at Andras with concern. "What's the matter?" he said.

  "I'm not sure. Suddenly I find I've got doubts about all of this."

  "Please," Ben Yakov said, putting a hand on Andras's shoulder. "I'm begging you.

  Of all people, you have to understand my situation. You've struggled for the past year, and you're happy now. Can't you help me? I know I haven't always acted like a gentleman, but you know how hard I've worked since I came back from Florence. I've done everything in my power to get that girl here."

  Andras gave a sigh and put a hand on Ben Yakov's hand. "All right," he said. "I'll write to Tibor. And I'll talk to Klara."

  ... 12 December 1938

  Modena, ItalyAndraska, I consider it an honor to be asked to conduct the future Madame Ben Yakov to Paris. I'm glad to be of help to any friend of yours. I do feel for the girl's parents, though. What will they think when they learn she's gone? I hope Ben Yakov will reconcile with them as soon as he can. He may be just charming enough to pull it off.

  Please have him wire me Signorina di Sabato's train information and I will meet her at the station in Firenze. As for me, I'm more than ready to spend a few indolent weeks with you in your self-loving city. I'm exhausted. No one warns medical students that the course of study itself may produce any number of the diseases studied. I hope I may cure myself with sleep, wine, and your company. Madame Morgenstern's book of anatomy continues to serve me well. I'll always be in debt to her for that gift. But please tell her not to make me any more such presents in the future! When my friends see that I own such a fine book, they overestimate my wealth and expect me to buy them dinner. At this rate I will soon be ruined entirely. In the meantime, I remainyour merely impoverished brother, TIBOR

  Andras brought the letter to Klara and asked for her help. Accompanying him was Francois Ben Yakov; it was the first time he
had made Klara's acquaintance. He had dressed for the occasion in a jacket of fine black wool and a red tie figured with barley-sized fleurs-de-lis. As Ben Yakov held Klara's hands in his own and begged her understanding, meeting her gaze with his dark film-star eyes, Andras half-wondered if Klara might fall under the spell Ben Yakov seemed to cast upon every woman he met.

  She was enchanted enough to agree to help, at least; she allowed Ben Yakov to kiss her hand and to call her an angel. Once Ben Yakov had gone, leaving Andras and Klara alone, she laughed and said she could see why he caused such trouble among the young ladies of his acquaintance.

  "I hope you won't elope with him before the bride arrives," Andras said. He pulled a chair close to the fire for her and they sat down to watch the coals burn low.

  "Not a chance," Klara said, and smiled. But then her expression grew serious, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "I share your brother's reservation, though. I wish the girl didn't have to run away. Would it really have been impossible for Ben Yakov to approach her father?"