Bratislava. Lale steps off the train into the city where he has lived and been happy, where his life should have been playing out for the last three years. He wanders through districts he used to know so well. Many are now barely recognisable, due to bombing. There is nothing here for him. He has to find a way back to Krompachy, some two hundred and fifty miles away: it will be a long trip home. It takes him four days of walking, interspersed with occasional rides in horse-drawn carriages, a ride bareback on a horse and one on a tractor-drawn cart. He pays, when he needs to, the only way he can: a diamond here, an emerald there. Eventually he walks down the street he grew up in and stands across from his family home. The palings of the front fence are gone, leaving just the twisted posts. The flowers, once his mother’s pride and joy, are strangled by weeds and overgrown grass. Rough timber is nailed over a broken window.
An elderly woman comes out of the house opposite and stomps over to him.
‘What do you think you’re doing? Away with you!’ she screams, brandishing a wooden spoon.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just … I used to live here.’
The old lady peers at him, recognition dawning. ‘Lale? Is that you?’ ‘Yes. Oh, Mrs Molnar, is that you? You … You look …’
‘Old. I know. Oh my Lord, Lale, is it really you?’
They embrace. In choking voices they ask each other how they are, without either letting the other answer properly. Finally, his neighbour pulls away from him.
‘What are you doing standing out here? Go on in, go home.’ ‘Is anyone living there?’
‘Your sister of course. Oh my – she doesn’t know you’re alive?’ ‘My sister! Goldie is alive?’
Lale runs across the street and knocks loudly on the door. When no one answers immediately, he knocks again. From inside he hears, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’
Goldie opens the door. At the sight of her brother she faints. Mrs Molnar follows him inside as he picks his sister up and lays her on a sofa. Mrs Molnar brings a glass of water. Cradling Goldie’s head lovingly in his arms, Lale waits for her to open her eyes. When she comes to, he offers her the water. She sobs, spilling most of it. Mrs Molnar lets herself quietly out as Lale rocks his sister, letting his own tears flow too. It is quite some time before he can
speak and ask the questions he so desperately wants answers to.
The news is bleak. His parents were taken away only days after he left. Goldie has no idea where they went, or if they are still alive. Max went off to join the partisans and was killed fighting the Germans. Max’s wife and their two small boys were taken, again she does not know where to. The only positive news Goldie has to offer is her own. She fell in love with a Russian and they are married. Her name is now Sokolov. Her husband is away on business and is due back in a few days.
Lale follows her into the kitchen, not wanting to let her out of his sight, as she prepares a meal for them. After they have eaten, they talk late into the night. As much as Goldie pushes Lale for information about where he has been for the past three years, he will only say he has been in a work camp in Poland and that he is now home.
The next day he pours his heart out to both his sister and Mrs Molnar about his love for Gita and how he believes she is still alive.
‘You have to find her,’ Goldie says. ‘You must look for her.’ ‘I don’t know where to start looking.’
‘Well, where did she come from?’ Mrs Molnar asks. ‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Help me to understand this. You have known her three years and all that time she told you nothing about her origins?’
‘She wouldn’t. She was meant to tell me on the day she left the camp, but everything happened too quickly. All I know is her surname: it’s Furman.’
‘Well, that’s something, but not much,’ his sister chides him.
‘I’ve heard that people are starting to come home from the camps,’ says Mrs Molnar. ‘They are all arriving in Bratislava. Maybe she’s there.’
‘If I’m to go back to Bratislava, I need transport.’
Goldie smiles. ‘So what are you doing sitting here then?’
In the town, Lale asks everyone he sees with a horse, bike, car, truck, if he can buy it from them. They all refuse.
As he is starting to despair, an old man comes towards him in a small cart drawn by a single horse. Lale steps in front of the animal, forcing the man to rein it in.
‘I’d like to buy your horse and cart,’ he blurts out. ‘How much?’
Lale pulls several gems from his pocket. ‘They are real. And worth a lot of money.’
After inspecting the treasure, the old man says, ‘On one condition.’ ‘What? Anything.’
‘You have to take me home first.’
A short while later Lale pulls up outside his sister’s house and proudly shows off his new means of transport.
‘I haven’t got anything for him to eat,’ she exclaims.
He points to the long grass. ‘Your front yard needs mowing.’
That night, with the horse tethered in the front yard, Mrs Molnar and Goldie set about making meals for Lale to take on his journey. He hates saying goodbye to them both so soon after arriving home, but they won’t hear of him staying.
‘Don’t come back without Gita,’ are the last words Goldie says as Lale climbs into the back of the cart and is nearly thrown out by the horse taking off. He looks back at the two women standing outside his family home, each with an arm around the other, smiling, waving.
•
For three days and nights Lale and his new companion travel down broken roads and through bombed-out towns. They ford streams where bridges have been destroyed. They give lifts to various people along the way. Lale eats sparingly from his rations. He feels profound grief for his scattered family. At the same time, he longs for Gita, and this gives him the sense of purpose he needs to carry on. He must find her. He has promised.
When he eventually arrives back in Bratislava he goes immediately to the train station. ‘Is it true that survivors from the concentration camps have been coming home?’ he asks. He is told it is and is given the train schedule. With no idea where Gita might have ended up – not even which country – he decides the only thing to do is meet every train. He thinks about finding somewhere to stay, but a strange man and a horse is not an attractive proposition as a lodger, so he sleeps in his cart in whatever spot of vacant land he can find, for as long as it takes for the horse to eat the grass or for them to be moved along. He is often reminded of his friends in the Gypsy camp and the stories they told him about their way of life. It is nearing the end of summer. The rain is frequent but doesn’t deter him.
For two weeks Lale loiters at the train station as each arrival pulls in. He walks up and down the platform, approaching every disembarking woman. ‘Were you in Birkenau?’ On the few occasions he gets a yes, he asks, ‘Did you know Gita Furman? She was in Block 29.’ No one knows her.
One day the stationmaster asks him if he has registered Gita with the Red Cross, who are taking the names of the missing and of those who have returned and are seeking loved ones. With nothing to lose, he heads into the city centre to the address he has been given.
•
Gita is walking down the main street with two friends when she sees a funny-
looking cart being drawn by a horse. A young man stands casually in the back.
She steps out onto the road.
Time stands still as the horse stops of its own volition in front of the young woman.
Lale climbs down from the cart.
Gita takes a step towards him. He doesn’t move. She takes another step. ‘Hello,’ she says.
Lale drops to his knees. Gita turns around to her two friends, who are looking on in astonishment.
‘Is it him?’ one of them calls out. ‘Yes,’ says Gita. ‘It is him.’
Clearly Lale is not going to move, or is incapable of moving, so Gita walks to him. Kneeling down in front of him, she says, ‘In case you didn’t hear me when we left Birkenau, I love you.’
‘Will you marry me?’ he says. ‘Yes, I will.’
‘Will you make me the happiest man in the world?’ ‘Yes.’
Lale sweeps Gita up into his arms and kisses her. One of Gita’s friends comes over and leads the horse away. Then, with Gita’s arms around Lale’s waist and her head resting on his shoulder, they walk away, merging into the crowded street, one young couple among many in a war-ravaged city.
