The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer Page B

of the Spanish front, he would walk the leaf-littered sidewalks toward the Ecole Speciale, distracting himself by repeating French architectural terms: toit, fenetre, porte, mur, corniche, balcon, balustrade, souche de cheminee . At school he learned the difference between stereobate and stylobate, base and entablature; he learned which of his professors secretly preferred the decorative to the practical, and which were adherents to Perret's cult of reinforced concrete. With his statics class he visited the Sainte-Chapelle, where he learned how thirteenth-century engineers had discovered a way to strengthen the building using iron struts and metal supports; the supports were hidden within the framework of the stained-glass windows that spanned the height of the chapel. As morning light fell in red and blue strands through the glass, he stood at the center of the nave and experienced a kind of holy exaltation. No matter that this was a Catholic church, that its windows depicted Christ and a host of saints. What he felt had less to do with religion than with a sense of harmonious design, the perfect meeting of form and function in that structure. One long vertical space meant to suggest a path to God, or toward a deeper knowledge of the mysteries. Architects had done this, hundreds of years ago.

    Pierre Vago, true to his word, tutored Andras every morning for an hour. The French he'd learned at school returned with speed, and within a month he had absorbed far more than he'd ever learned from his master at gimnazium. By mid-October the lessons were nothing more than long conversations; Vago had a talent for finding the subjects that would make Andras talk. He asked Andras about his years in Konyar and Debrecen--what he had studied, what his friends had been like, where he had lived, whom he'd loved. Andras told Vago about Eva Kereny, the girl who had kissed him in the garden of the Deri Museum in Debrecen and then spurned him coldheartedly; he told the story of his mother's only pair of silk stockings, a Chanukah gift bought with money Andras had earned by taking on his fellow students' drawing assignments. (The brothers had all been competing to get her the best gift; she'd reacted with such childlike joy when she'd seen the stockings that no one could dispute Andras's victory. Later that night, Tibor sat on Andras in the yard and mashed his face into the frozen ground, exacting an older brother's revenge.) Vago, who had no siblings of his own, seemed to like hearing about Matyas and Tibor; he made Andras recite their histories and translate their letters into French. In particular he took an interest in Tibor's desire to study medicine in Italy.
    He had known a young man in Rome whose father had been a professor of medicine at the school in Modena; he would write a few letters, he said, and would see what could be done.

    Andras didn't think much about it when he said it; he knew Vago was busy, and that the international post traveled slowly, and that the gentleman in Rome might not share Vago's ideas about educating young Hungarian-Jewish men. But one morning Vago met Andras with a letter in hand: He had received word that Professor Turano might be able to arrange for Tibor to matriculate in January.

    "My God!" Andras said. "That's miraculous! How did you do it?"

    "I correctly estimated the value of my connections," Vago said, and smiled.

    "I've got to wire Tibor right away. Where do I go to send a telegram?"

    Vago put up a hand in caution. "I wouldn't send word just yet," he said. "It's still just a possibility. We wouldn't want to raise his hopes in vain."

    "What are the chances, do you think? What does the professor say?"

    "He says he'll have to petition the admissions board. It's a special case."

    "You'll tell me as soon as you hear from him?"

    "Of course," Vago said.

    But he had to share the preliminary good news with someone, so he told Polaner and Rosen and Ben Yakov that night at their student dining club on