Gratitude by Joseph Kertes Page A

important.”
    She felt better right away and smiled. “Can you say what is going on, please, Zoli, and tell me why my brother had to rush off?”
    “Not too much yet, not here, but your brother lost his formidable law practice today, and he has a lot to look after and clean up.”
    They hardly spoke again for several minutes. She was certainly reassured by the stranger’s presence but felt anything but relaxed. They stared down at their feet as they walked. Finally, she said, “I’m worried about what is to become of us.”
    “To us Jews, you mean?”
    “Yes, to us Jews, us Becks, us Hungarians.”
    He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how.
    She thought he might be feeling a little unsteady himself. “May I take your arm?” she asked. She gripped him anxiously. He could feel the birdlike bones of her fingers. “Your face says it all,” she said. She was looking directly at him. “It’s a bad time to become attached.”
    “Attached?”
    She took her hand back and blushed hotly.
    “Please,” he said, offering his arm again. “Please.” She took it. “Maybe it’s the best time to become attached.”
    They were both thinking the same thing. Why hadn’t Paul introduced them earlier? When he dropped her off, he asked if he might see her again, and she said she’d like that.

    PAUL WALKED QUICKLY toward Marko Street. He was now truly worried about his father and brother, but especially his father. He was so exposed. The last Jewish politician in the land to retain office. They were all gone, every last one of them: Kovacs in Works, Klein in Justice, Berkovics in External Affairs, and all the mayors, four of them, and councilmen. Except his father. And his father didn’t even have his wife, Mathilde, Paul’s mother, to comfort him. Cancer took her six years before this dark era began.
    Paul found himself still struck by his encounter with the Swede. He recalled the penetrating eyes. Paul wondered why he had seemed so serious about the Hungarians. He couldn’t shake the feeling of the Swede’s presence.
    As Paul strode through the small park on the corner, just over a block from his office, he was startled by a young couple dressed in dingy coats. The two sprang out of a nearby bush, wielding a hammer and an axe. In a minute, they stripped a park bench of its wooden seat, no doubt for firewood. Paul realized that the park had several seatless benches; their metal supports looked odd on their own, like modern sculptures, arranged in pairs here and there.
    Paul heard what sounded like a woman grunting then stifling a shriek. He looked all around but couldn’t see anyone. Another sound, more like a yelp. On the corner, between the lamppost and a great dark bush, Paul spotted a shoeless foot, moving as if it wanted to clasp something, then opening, trembling.
    As he approached, he could see that the shoeless foot had its companion nearby, this one with a shoe. The missing shoe had been kicked beneath the bush.
    Paul thought at first that the woman’s attacker might still be nearby, but she was alone, in acute pain, and young, no more than a teenager, dressed in a fancy white dress.
    “What’s the matter?” Paul asked as calmly as he could. “How can I help you?”
    “Oh,” she said, writhing, and clenching her eyes shut.
    “Who did this to you?”
    “No—oh—please.” She folded into herself. “It’s my side.” Paul could detect an accent, but only a faint one. It was tinged with Slavic and…what? German? Yiddish?
    “I’ll get help,” Paul said. “It’ll be all right, I promise you. I’ll get help.”
    He rushed to the curb to wave down a passing car. It sped by him, followed by another car, and another one, nearly running him down. He leapt out into the road between the lanes of traffic and challenged the drivers directly, forcing them to swerve to avoid hitting him. Paul saw a cab a block away and flailed like a clown to get the driver’s attention.
    The Mercedes pulled over, and