Swimming Across: A Memoir Read online

  Jozsef bacsi 's parents were about my grandparents' age. They never called me anything but Andris, and they acted without exception, unfailingly, as if I were Andris Malesevics. I wondered if they knew who I really was, but they never indicated that they did.

  Ordinary life ceased to be. The apartment was like a village, with regular residents and a transient population of people displaced from the countryside because of the fighting. There were more women than men, and the men were mostly older; all the young men were in the army. People came and went, tending to the daily chores of getting bread from the bakery and finding firewood. We didn't spend much time with each other, but there was still a sense of belonging to the apartment unit.

  My mother helped with cleaning the apartment and cooking. I was never hungry, but the food was always the same: dried beans or lentils and bread, if we could get it. In addition to the gas stove used for cooking, there was a wood-burning stove used to heat the apartment. But there wasn't much wood, so the stove was lit only part of the day. We generally wore our overcoats even inside.

  It was November, and the weather was cold and dark. Occasionally, it would snow. Things were gloomy. But my mother was there, and that made me feel there was something warm and normal at the center of this strange existence. Her constant presence reassured me enough so that I could have fun with Jozsi. My days consisted of playing outside with my friend, coming in from time to time to warm up a little, then going outside again. Our friendship was the only spark in this dreariness.

  I wasn't going to school, and Jozsi had no school, either. There was not much else to do but play in the courtyard. Every once in a while, my friend and I would go outside the courtyard and play in the street. We were told not to go very far. That was fine with me because I did not feel comfortable being far from my mother.

  I noticed big posters plastered on the walls. There was a colored one showing English or American planes flying overhead in the background; the foreground showed a little girl who had picked up a doll that exploded and blew her hands off. The little girl was looking toward the planes, a question printed next to her face: “Why?”

  But that wasn't the poster that made the biggest impression on me. That one warned in big bold black letters what would happen to people who harbored Jews or Communists. The warning stated that people found doing that would be—and then came a word that I didn't recognize but that sounded very, very scary. One night, I whispered to my mother, “Mama, what does folkoncoljak mean?” My mother put her finger on my lips. Later, when no one was in the apartment, she told me it meant “to slaughter.” Somehow, it sounded even worse to me.

  I never said anything about these posters. Jozsi didn't, either. Some mornings, I would notice that somebody had used a rubber stamp to stamp red Communist stars all over these posters. Of course, I didn't know who it might have been, but the appearance of those red stars gave me a warm feeling. They suggested I was not alone. But I never looked at the posters for more than a second, because I was afraid that I would give myself away to my friend.

  We weren't the only refugees living in the apartment building. There were several others, mainly women, who boarded with some of the tenants. One of these women had red hair, which almost got her into trouble.

  One day I was playing with Jozsi in the courtyard. It had snowed and people had shoveled the snow into a big mound in the center of the courtyard. Jozsi and I were trying to slide down the mound in an old sled when the redheaded woman came through the entrance with a German soldier. He stood in the courtyard while she went into the apartment where she was staying. She reemerged shortly afterward with her identification papers in her hand. The German soldier examined the papers very thoroughly, then eventually folded them up and handed them back to the woman, saluted, and went away.

  After he left, all the other residents came out to find out what was going on. My mother was among them. The woman told them that because of her red hair, the soldier thought she was a Jew, and whatever papers she had with her were not sufficient to convince him otherwise. I continued playing with Jozsi in the snowbank, as if what I had heard had nothing to do with me. But my heart beat rapidly for a long time.

  Above: The remains of barricades set up in Budapest by the German army. (Sovfoto/Eastfoto)

  Right: A square in the center of the city after the Russian army took it over. (Sovfoto/Eastfoto)

  The retreating Germans blew up all the bridges connecting Buda with Pest. (Major Edward Czerniuk)

  Chapter Five

  CHRISTMAS IN KOBANYA

  IENCOUNTERED MY FIRST Christmas ever in Kobanya. didn't know much of anything about Christmas, but I knew it had to do with gifts. Jozsi's family had a makeshift Christmas tree, and I was invited to come and exchange gifts. I was impressed with the Christmas tree. It was a small branch of a pine tree that they had propped up on a table. It was overloaded with decorations, all the decorations that would have gone on a much bigger tree.

  You couldn't buy any presents. Nobody was working anymore, and even if they had some money, no stores were open. Jozsi had some homemade small gifts for me. With the help of my mother, I worked up some gifts for him, too. I gave him police paraphernalia: a makeshift badge, a whistle, and a few other things. We played around the tree and then went outside and used our new gifts in our games. Christmas was fun.

  A few days later, I woke up to a strange sound. It sounded like someone was dropping planks of wood on top of each other. Three or four planks would drop with loud thuds, then there would be some minutes of quiet, then the thuds would start again. When the planks were dropping, the adults around me stopped talking. It looked to me almost as if they were holding their breath. My mother told me that what we were hearing was the sound of Russian artillery. I was fascinated and went outside with Jozsi to be able to listen better to the sound of the big guns.

  One morning, shortly after I came back from the toilet, there was an explosion outside in the courtyard. It didn't sound like a plank dropping at all. It sounded the way I imagined an explosion would sound—a big, long, loud, reverberating bang, followed by the random, rattling noise made by the debris of roof tiles, bricks, and pieces of wood flying around. The silence after the explosion was deep. People sat frozen in place, as if waiting for more explosions to come. After a while, when nothing else happened, we went out and noticed that fragments of a shell had torn into the door leading into the toilet. I stared at the fragments; I had gone through that door just a few minutes earlier.

  The adults decided it was time for us to move to the wood cellars, where we would be safer from shells like this. As in Ki-raly Street, there was a central cellar area, and each apartment also had its own storage cellar. People dragged their cots and belongings down from their apartments and set up housekeeping. We shared a cellar with the redheaded woman who the German soldiers thought might have been a Jew, and another woman.

  It was just as well that we moved, because things were getting worse by the day. First the electricity went out. Then a day or two later the water stopped flowing. It would come back on from time to time, then go out again. When it did come on, everyone stockpiled water in every pan and bucket they could find. The only reason people left the apartment building was to attempt to get bread or other food. Most of these trips were unsuccessful, but every once in a while, one of the women would find an open bakery that had just finished baking bread and would rush home to tell the others to get some before it ran out.

  The cellars were dark, with wood and coal piled up on the side. The coal dust covered everything, including our clothes and belongings. Each cellar had a naked light bulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling, but since there was no electricity, the cellars were lit by kerosene lamps. The smoke from the lamps added to the grime. Most people had small stoves to cook the beans that made up our diet, but the stoves didn't do much to combat the cold and damp, so we wore our overcoats all the time, even to bed. We had no choice. We adjusted with numbed resignation.

 
Time went by slowly in the cellar. There wasn't enough light to read. Some of the men played cards. The women looked after the necessities of eating, scrounging up supplies, and cooking. The few kids there were just hung around underfoot. We weren't allowed to go outside. The sound of the artillery was a continuous backdrop. At first, it was a shock, but within a few days, we were so used to it that we hardly paid it any attention.

  One day, the father of one of the children decided to engage us in a useful activity. He gathered all the kids together in a corner of the cellar where a stove was lit, so it was fairly pleasant, and told us that it would be a good idea for us to practice our catechism. All the kids nodded. I did, too, but I was frightened out of my wits. All I knew about catechism was that it had something to do with the Catholic religion, but that was about it, and I was sure that my lack of knowledge would give me away in an instant.

  The man started questioning one of the children. I avoided looking at him, so that I wouldn't catch his attention. The answers were satisfactory, so the man moved on to the next child, one closer to me. When the question moved to the third child, I would have been next. I got up and excused myself and said, “I have to go to the bathroom.” The man nodded, then turned his attention to the child he was questioning.

  I ran to my mother, buried my face in her neck, and whispered to her what was going on. She hugged me firmly and said, “You will not go back.” Then, out loud, she told me that it was about time I gave her a hand and started bossing me around. I never made it back to the catechism.

  This experience made me avoid the other kids a bit more. I did not want to get caught in another educational exercise.

  A week or two after we settled into the cellar, a group of Russian soldiers showed up at our apartment house. There was no shooting or fighting; they just walked into the house and found their way down into the cellar. They came in casually, but each of them carried a machine gun. The Russian machine guns were different from the German kind. They were like a rifle, but the bullets were stored in a circular drum that was attached to the barrel of the rifle.

  The Russian soldiers had stubble on their faces and looked rumpled and tired. There were maybe ten or fifteen of them. The soldier who was in charge didn't seem much different from the rest. He spoke German, which made it possible for some of the tenants to communicate with him. Several of the other Russian soldiers also spoke a little German. One old man in the apartment building came from a part of Hungary where they spoke a dialect of Russian, so he became something of a translator for the Russians who didn't speak any German.

  The soldiers checked out the cellar, then they settled in the vacated apartments upstairs. They weren't too friendly, but they weren't unfriendly, either. They left us some of their bread. It was different from Hungarian bread; it was shaped like a brick, was very dark, and had a sourish taste. But we were very happy to have it.

  After this initial encounter, they pretty much left us alone. They left the apartment house very early each morning and came back late in the evening. It was just as if they went to work.

  The artillery fire continued and we were still living in the cellar, but I felt a little more secure now that the Russians were there. They weren't Germans, and they had pushed the Germans out.

  The soldier in charge—my mother told me he was a sergeant—often chatted with my mother in German and came down a number of times to visit with us in the cellar. I had never heard my mother speak anything but Hungarian before, so I was very impressed by how fluently she seemed to be able to talk with him. At one point, my mother, the sergeant, and I were alone in our cellar and my mother, after exchanging some words with him, turned to me. She said, “Andris, do you remember ‘Modim anachnu lach’?” This phrase was the beginning of the Hebrew prayer I had learned the year before in first grade and recited every morning at school. I froze. I wasn't supposed to remember things like that. My mother said, “Just for now, it's okay. If you remember it, tell it to the sergeant.” I did. A big smile spread on the sergeant's face, and he patted me on the head. That night, my mother and I snuggled up in our cot, and she whispered to me that the sergeant was a Jew and his family had been killed by the Germans in Russia. His name, she said, was Haie.

  Another night, we were settled in our cot and I was asleep when someone came into the cellar. I drowsily saw by the light of the lantern that it was the old man who occasionally acted as a translator. The old man said something to my mother and the two other women. An argument ensued. I couldn't follow it, but I could tell that the women were very upset.

  A Russian soldier came in and waved the old man and the two other women out of the cellar. He closed the door and fastened it from the inside and propped his machine gun against it. He sat down at the side of our bed. He was grinning. My mother was telling him things in Hungarian, then in German, but he just continued to grin. He poked his forefinger against my mother's chest, then pointed it at himself and said, “Andrei,” as if his name were Andrei. My mother pointed to me and also said, “Andrei.” I figured that “Andrei” must be the Russian version of “Andris.”

  The Russian soldier kept grinning and again poked his finger against my mother's chest. My mother got out of bed and picked me up. The soldier moved his gun and opened the door and let my mother carry me out. She handed me to one of the women in another cellar. Then she went back to our cellar. The neighbor woman took me into her bed and put her arm around me. I lay there, stunned and full of apprehension. I had no idea what was happening to my mother or what would happen to us both. There was so much pressure in my chest that I could barely breathe.

  After a while, my mother came back for me. She was very tense and angry. She picked me up again, which was unusual, because I was too big for her to carry me. She carried me to bed and we went to sleep. Later on that night, some more Russians came into our cellar. My mother yelled at them something about how all three of the women had already done it today. After some hesitation, the Russians left.

  The next morning, my mother had a frighteningly determined look on her face. She brusquely told me to get dressed quickly. I knew better than to argue. She grabbed me by the hand and took me out of the cellar, out of the house, and started walking very fast on the street until she ran into a Russian patrol. She walked right up to them and started gesturing, asking about something called GPU. The Russians gestured in some direction and we went on. I had no idea what was going on and had no idea what GPU was about or who GPU was.

  After several stops to ask for directions, we ended up in another apartment house filled with Russian soldiers. My mother seemed to be asking them something. Then, still holding on to my hand, she was brought up to an apartment where there was an officer. The officer spoke German, so a rapid exchange took place. The officer nodded and said something. My mother seemed to be thanking him. We turned and went out. The soldiers in the courtyard stared at us without saying anything.

  We returned to our apartment building. I was panting because my mother was walking so fast. When we got back, Haie was waiting for us in the courtyard. He had a very serious look on his face. He gestured for my mother to follow him. I was sent back to the cellar.

  Later, my mother joined me there, clearly upset. That evening, Haie came for us in the cellar. We followed him to one of the apartments. It was full of his group of soldiers and also with several strange soldiers, including the officer with whom my mother had talked earlier in the day. My mother faced our Russian soldiers, then one after the other, she looked each one in the eye and shook her head no. I was holding my breath when she faced Andrei. Andrei himself was beet red, and it looked like he wasn't breathing. After a very brief pause, my mother shook her head no. I yanked at her hand. She yanked back and said to me, “Quiet,” in a fierce tone that forbade an answer. The examination continued until my mother shook her head no to each of the Russians in our house. After some discussion, the other Russians turned around and left. We went back to the cellar.

  That night in bed,
my mother explained to me what had happened. Haie told her that if she had pointed out Andrei, Andrei would have been shot on the spot. But his comrades for sure would have thrown hand grenades into the cellar and killed us all. So she had decided not to recognize him.

  After a while, the artillery exchanges subsided. The Russians moved on and we moved back upstairs. It was mid-January. One day, I was alone in the courtyard, building a snowman, when my mother came out of the apartment and beckoned me over to her. She looked different. She pulled me into the apartment and closed the door. She told me that Haie had come back to tell her that as of yesterday, there were no more Germans on the Pest side of the city. They had retreated to the Buda side and blown up all the bridges over the Danube after they left. This was intended to make it hard for the Russians to chase after them, but it also made it very unlikely that the Germans would come back. The wave of relief that swept through me was so strong that I felt dizzy. It was as if after holding my breath for a long time, I could start breathing again.

  But I could see in my mother's face that there was something else. She went on, “I think it's time for you to become Andris Grof again.” I was stunned. I had become Andris Malesevics so through and through that for a moment I was confused. But only for a moment. Then the significance of being free to use my real name engulfed me.

  Just then, I heard my friend Jozsi calling me to go sledding with him. I went. I wanted to tell him my news, but I couldn't find the right words or the right moment. So we just sledded and played in the snow on the street around the house, and I didn't say anything. When we had enough and were heading back to the house, without looking at him, I burst out, “You know, I didn't tell you the truth. I am not who I said I was. I'm not Andris Malesevics. My name is Andris Grof. I had to change it because I'm Jewish and they would have taken me away if I kept my real name.”