Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,111

Prague again, I could give Anna’s relatives your address, if that’s all right.”

“Yes, please, give them my address. I’ll try to get in touch with Anna’s family in Heidelberg.”

Something else James Grant did, to help in her search for her husband, was to take her to visit hospital wards set up in requisitioned private homes in Spandau, in Charlottenburg, but she did not see her husband’s name on any hospital lists or in any of the wards. At the Haus des Rundfunks, the broadcasting center on Masurenallee, on the day of a conference held by the Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands, an alliance formed to encourage a cultural revival and a free press in a democratic Germany, she stood near the door and watched. Everyone was there: writers, journalists, playwrights, actors, artists, many of whom had returned from years of self-imposed exile in Switzerland or Britain or the United States. Everyone except Miklós. Her searches seemed futile, but she was not going to give up. She had tried to phone Rozalia, but the phone lines in Hungary were only slowly being repaired, after having been destroyed in the war. Finally, she got through to the postmaster in the village. Yes, he said, yes, of course he remembered her. The army had only a few days earlier got the telephone lines to the village in place; he had just got service back. How are you, Countess? he said. He would be happy to give her message to the dowager countess. No, he had not seen Count Andorján. She gave him the number where she could be reached, so that he could call her if he had any kind of news.

James Grant called his parents in Seattle. He spoke to them and then handed the phone to Natalia. Anna came on the line.

“Are you doing well, Natalia? Are you getting stronger now?” Anna said.

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “How are you, Anna? How is America?” She held the receiver tightly; how good it was to hear Anna’s voice.

“America is okay,” Anna said. “I’ve really only seen Seattle, but it’s nice.” She had a new bike, red, with white handle-grips and a basket she could carry her books in. But she thought she was obviously too old for a bike like that. She would prefer to walk or take a bus. In America, she would be starting school. They wanted to put her with kids a year younger until her English improved and she got used to doing schoolwork again. She was afraid the other kids would laugh at her, and anyway, she hadn’t forgotten what she’d learned and would just have to show them she belonged in her proper year, with kids her age. After she said goodbye to Anna, Natalia handed the phone to James. She went to the kitchen and begged a cigarette from Gudrun and sat down with a cup of coffee.

* * *

Gudrun opened the doors to a wardrobe in the bedroom where she was sleeping and took out a blue silk dress. She held it against herself, smoothing the folds of the skirt.

“Go on, take it,” Gudrun urged Natalia. “It’s good quality. She had taste, whoever she was.” Gudrun put the dress on the bed and tried on a skirt and a blouse and then a jacket. “Does this jacket go with the skirt?” she asked, doing up the buttons. “Maybe not. Still, I can wear it when I go to England. What do you think, Natalia?”

“Yes, the color suits you,” Natalia said.

“It smells of camphor, but never mind,” Gudrun said. “I’ll wear it tonight. We’re going out to a nightclub.”

“I’m not going,” Natalia said. “What would I do at a nightclub?”

“Yes, you are. Here’s a dress that should fit you. I’m not going alone.”

Mike Rose drove them in the lieutenant general’s new car, a supercharged Mercedes coupe “borrowed” from a former Nazi. The nightclub, run by the Americans and called the Rio Grande, was in the cellar of a building that had suffered a lot of bomb damage. It was hot down there and noisy and smoke-filled, and they shared a long table with three GIs. There was a saxophonist and a piano player and a drummer. The lieutenant general offered Gudrun and Natalia cigarettes. Major Stevens brought a plate of food to the table, flat bread, little dry-looking sausages.

“Horse meat,” one of the Americans said.

“How do you know that?” someone asked.

The American shrugged and said, What the hell, and took two sausages. A friend of