“I didn’t know them. Lotty has always claimed they were an acquaintance merely, and I have acquiesced in that.”
Calia climbed down from the table, announcing she was through with breakfast, she was tired of the house, she was going outside now.
“When your grandpapa and I are through talking we’ll go across to the park with the dogs,” I said. “You hold tight for ten more minutes.” I mouthed “television” at Agnes, who made a sour face but took Calia upstairs to the universal baby-sitter.
“You think the Radbukas were relations or close friends of Lotty’s?” I said to Max.
“It’s what I said Sunday night. Lotty always made it clear that one didn’t discuss the Radbukas with her. I assume that’s why she gave me the information about them in writing, to preclude any discussion. I don’t know who they were.”
He moved Calia’s dishes to the sink and sat back down at the table. “Yesterday I went through such files as I have from that trip I made to central Europe after the war. I was looking for so many people that nothing stands out very clearly in my mind. Lotty had given me her grandparents’ address on the Renngasse-that was where she lived before the Anschluss-a very tony address which had been taken over in ’38 by people who wouldn’t talk to me. I concentrated most of my energy in Vienna on my own family, and then I wanted to get to Budapest to look for Teresz’s people. We weren’t married then, of course, we were still very young.”
His voice faded into memory. After a minute he shook his head with a sad little smile and continued. “Anyway, the notes I have about the Radbukas-well, let me get them.”
While he went up to his study I helped myself to fruit and rolls from his refrigerator. He came back in a couple of minutes with a thick binder. He thumbed through it, opening it to a sheet of cheap grey paper encased in plastic. Even though the ink was fading to brown, Lotty’s distinctive script-spiky and bold-was unmistakable.
Dear Max,
I admire your courage in taking this trip. Vienna for me represents a world I can’t bear to return to, even if the Royal Free would grant me a leave of absence. So thank you for going, since I am as desperate for a conclusive answer as everyone else. I told you about my grandparents. If by a miracle they have survived and have been able to return to their home, it is Renngasse 7, third-floor front.
I want to ask you also to look for any record of another family from Vienna, named Radbuka. This is for someone at the Royal Free who sadly cannot recollect many details. For instance, the man’s first name was Shlomo but the person doesn’t know his wife’s name, or even if they would have been registered with some kind of Germanized names. They had a son called Moishe, born around 1900, one daughter named Rachel, two other daughters whose names the person isn’t sure of-one might be Eva-and a number of grandchildren of our generation. Also, the address isn’t certain: it was on the Leopoldsgasse, near the Untere Augarten Strasse end: you turn right from U.A. onto L-gasse, then it’s the second turning on your right, into the interior courtyard, and on the third floor at the back. I realize that’s a hopeless way to describe what may now be a pile of rubble, but it’s the best I can do. But please, I ask you to treat it as seriously as your search for our own families, please make every effort to see what trace you can find of them.
I am on duty tonight and tomorrow night both, so I won’t be able to see you in person before you leave.
The remainder of the letter gave the names of some of Lotty’s aunts and uncles and concluded with, I’m enclosing a gold prewar five-Krone piece to help pay for your journey.
I blinked: gold coins sound romantic, exotic, and wealthy. “I thought Lotty was a poor student, barely able to make her tuition and rooming payments.”
“She was. She had a handful of gold coins that her grandfather had helped her smuggle out of Vienna: giving one of them to me meant wearing her coat and socks to bed in lieu of heat that winter. Maybe that contributed to her getting so sick the next year.”
Abashed, I returned to the main question. “So you don’t have any idea who in London asked Lotty for help?”
He shook his head. “It could have been anyone. Or it could have been Lotty herself, searching for relatives. I wondered if it might be one of her cousins’ names: she and Hugo were sent to England; the Herschels had been quite well off before the Anschluss. They still had some resources, but Lotty once or twice mentioned very poor cousins who stayed behind. But I also thought it might be someone who was in England illegally, someone Lotty felt honor-bound to protect. I didn’t have anything to go on, mind you. But one imagines something and that was the picture I painted to myself… or maybe it was Teresz’s idea. I can’t remember now. Of course Radbuka might have been a patient or colleague from the Royal Free for whom Lotty felt similarly protective.”
“I suppose I could get in touch with the Royal Free, see if they have lists that date back to ’47,” I said doubtfully. “What did you find in Vienna? Did you go to-to-” I looked at Lotty’s note and stumbled through the pronunciation of the German street names.
Max flipped through the binder to the back, where he pulled a cheap notebook from its own plastic cover. “I looked at my notes, but they don’t tell me much. Bauernmarkt, where my own family lived, had been badly hit in the bombing. I know I did walk all through that area, through what they used to call the Matzoinsel, where the eastern European Jews gathered when they immigrated during the early years of the century. I’m sure I tried to find the place on the Leopoldsgasse. But the site of so much desolation was too depressing. My notes I kept for news from the different agencies I visited.”
He opened the notebook carefully, so as not to tear the fragile paper. “Shlomo and Judit Radbuka: deported to Lodz 23 February 1941 with Edith-I think that’s the name Lotty thought might be Eva-Rachel, Julie, and Mara. And a list of seven children, two to ten years old. Then I had a job tracking down what happened in the Lodz ghetto. Poland was a very difficult country then-it wasn’t yet under communist control, but while some people were quite helpful, there were also ferocious pogroms against the remnants of the Jewish community. It was the same story of desolation and deprivation that existed all over Europe: Poland lost a fifth of its population to the war. I nearly turned tail a half dozen times, but finally I did get hold of some of the records of the ghetto authority. The Radbukas all were deported to a death camp in June of 1943. None of them survived.
“Of my own family, well, I found a cousin in one of the DP camps. I tried to persuade him to come to England with me, but he was determined to return to Vienna. Where he did live out the rest of his life. At the time no one knew what would happen with the Russians and Austria, but in the end it worked out fine for my cousin. But he was always very reclusive after the war. I had looked up to him so as a child; he was eight years older than me, it was hard to see him so fearful, so withdrawn.”
I stood silent, sickened by the images he was conjuring, before bursting out, “Then why did Lotty use the name Sofie Radbuka? I-that episode-the picture of Carl going to the country, looking for her cottage, Lotty staying behind the doors and using the name of a dead person-it’s very unnerving. And it doesn’t sound like Lotty.”
Max rubbed his eyes. “Everyone has unaccountable moments in their lives. It may be that Lotty thought she was responsible for the loss or death of this Sofie Radbuka, whether it was a cousin or a patient. When Lotty thought she might be dying herself-well, we were all living difficult lives then, working hard, coping with the loss of our families. The deprivation in England after the war was still acute, too-we had our own bomb sites to clean up. There were coal shortages, bitter weather, no one had any money, food and clothes were still rationed. Lotty might have snapped under the strain, overidentified with this Radbuka woman.