Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,86

and their children and their children’s children lived very happily for a very long time. And so it was. So it was.

Chapter Fifteen

Natalia wrote to Miklós. She dated the letter May 22, 1942, Prague, and began by describing her circumstances and the house where she was staying, in the same street where Franz Kafka had lived.

Maybe, she wrote, this is the same house.

I have with me your mother’s tarot cards. I am pretending to be a tarot card reader. It is not that suddenly I believe in the occult. It is just that I need the money. One evening two young women came to my door. They are cousins, Anna and Reina. They entered my house, those two girls, like beams of light, unstoppable. A journey by water, I said. A fortuitous meeting. Anna, the younger girl, gave me a look. “Well,” I told her, “That’s what I see. That’s what the cards see. You have a special fondness for animals,” I said. “You like knowing why things are as they are.” She conceded that this was true. Reina wanted to pay me. I said, No, I haven’t told you anything, the cards were not cooperative today.

A day later they were back, and this time they brought food. And what food! Bread baked fresh, with white flour. Strawberries that glowed like cabochon rubies. Cheese made at a farm near Zürau, where Reina’s parents live. Kafka again. The Zürau Aphorisms.

Reina asked for a reading, I said, No, I’m not very good at it. No, you are crap at it, she said, and we laughed. I set out the cards. I moved them here and there. I said, “The Twins are a positive sign. And here’s Temperance. Do you see how she has one foot in water and one on land? This suggests accord, balance, compromise. And happiness.”

Three times lately, Miklós, I have set out the cards and turned up the Emperor, Ezekiel’s Chariot, and the Devil. This is a sign of loss, misfortune, violence.

My hands tremble. I am always cold. I suffer tristezza. Beloved, are you well? Do you have a safe place to lay your head at night, are you taking care of yourself? Where are you? I remember ordinary things, everyday life. Driving to Budapest in the open Bugatti, driving to Berlin, attending the Press Ball at the Hotel Adlon. Our apartment in Mitte, where we were so happy. The warmth of your smile, the touch of your hand on mine. The way you impatiently searched your pockets and briefcase for your reading glasses. That ever-growing stack of newspapers on your desk. The clatter of your typewriter keys when you were working.

* * *

She missed Rozalia. That was one thing. Then there was the other: she was so hungry her stomach felt as if rats were gnawing it. She wanted a real bath, with hot water up to her chin. Another thing: Mr. Nagy had not left Prague for Budapest. His health was deteriorating. He was short of breath; he described a sensation as if a weight was sitting on his chest, and this woke him in the night and he could not get a good breath. Natalia stood up. She paced one way and then another in the confined space. She said they were going to the hospital. He would see a doctor in Budapest, he said. Yes, in Budapest, of course, she said. But here too, right now, he had to see a doctor.

“No, please leave me alone,” he said.

“You are like a child,” she told him.

She went to Mr. Aslan’s shop and used his telephone, asking the operator for the number and address of Dr. Schaefferová. As soon as she had that information, she located the doctor’s house. It was a fine, tall edifice with plaster walls and an iron balcony and a white front door. Crossing the street, she was nearly struck by a black limousine flying the SS standard. The driver stopped and shouted at her. A man got out of the back seat and asked if she was hurt. No, she was fine, she said. He asked if she was on her way to see Dr. Schaefferová. This man, the passenger, was, she realized, Dr. Schaefferová’s husband. He was carrying a sort of portmanteau splotched with paint and a collapsible artist’s easel. He walked beside her to the door. He put down the portmanteau and opened the door for her. On the wall beside the door, she noticed there was a small brass