The InvisibleBridge

He wished he could talk to Tibor. He would know what Andras should do, how he might protect Klara and begin to reclaim his life. But Tibor was three hundred kilometers away in the Carpathians. Andras couldn’t imagine when they might next sit down together to make sense of who they were now, or at least to take some comfort in their shared uncertainty.

As it happened, it was his younger brother-the one whose function had always been to cause trouble, rather than to alleviate it-who materialized in Budapest during Andras’s furlough. Mátyás rolled into Nyugati Station with the rest of his company, which had been posted nearby while it awaited a transfer, and jumped off the train to enjoy a furlough of his own making. His company was directed by a lax young officer who allowed his men to buy an occasional exemption from work. Mátyás, who had hoarded money during his window-trimming days, had bought a few days off to see a shopgirl he’d met on one of his jobs. He had no idea that Andras was home on furlough, too, and so it was purely by accident that, on Monday afternoon, Mátyás jumped onto the back of a streetcar and found himself face-to-face with his brother. He was so surprised that he would have fallen off again if Andras hadn’t grabbed his arm and held him.

“What are you doing here?” Mátyás cried. “You’re supposed to be slaving at a mine.”

“And you’re supposed to be-doing what?”

“Building bridges. But not today! Today I’m going to see a girl named Serafina.”

An elderly woman in a kerchief gave them a disapproving look, as if they ought to know better than to engage in such loud and animated conversation on a streetcar. But Andras pulled Mátyás’s face close to his own and said to the woman, “It’s my brother, do you see? My brother!”

“You must have had donkeys for parents,” the woman said.

“Pardon us, your ladyship,” Mátyás said. He tipped his hat and executed a perfect backflip from the side rail of the streetcar to the pavement, so swiftly that the woman gave a little scream. As the passengers watched in astonishment, he tapped out a soft-shoe rhythm against the cobblestones and then fleetfooted his way up onto the curb, scattering the pedestrians there; he turned a double spin, whipped off his hat, and bowed to a young woman in a blue twill coat. Everyone who’d seen him gave a cheer. Andras jumped down from the streetcar and waited until his brother had finished taking his curtain calls.

“Needless foolishness,” Andras said, once the applause had died down.

“I must emblazon that on a flag and carry it everywhere.”

“You might well. Then everyone would have some warning.”

“Where are you going with a market bag full of potatoes?” Mátyás asked.

“Home to my apartment, where my wife is waiting for me.”

“Your apartment? What apartment?”

“Thirty-five Nefelejcs utca, third floor, apartment B.”

“Since when do you live there? And for how long?”

“Since last night. And for another day and a half, until I have to go back to Bánhida.”

Mátyás laughed. “Then I suppose I caught you by your shirttails.”

“Or I caught you. Why don’t you come for di

“I might be otherwise engaged.”

“And what if this Serafina sees you for the glib young fool you are?”

“In that case I’ll come over at once.” Mátyás kissed Andras on both cheeks and hopped aboard the next streetcar, which by that time had pulled up beside them.

For a few blocks, as Andras walked toward home, he felt inclined to tap-dance himself. Chance favored him at times; it had delivered the unexpected furlough, and now it had delivered Mátyás. But not even that welcome surprise could divert his mind from its new cha

At home he found Klara and Ilana sitting at the kitchen table and laughing over some intimacy, Ilana’s hands clasped in Klara’s own. It was clear to him, even at first glance, that the co

But there was no happiness that fall of 1941 that wasn’t complicated by worry. Andras could see it in the narrow lines that had gathered on Ilana’s brow. He knew what this pregnancy must mean to her after her miscarriage, and how terrified she would be for the baby’s safety even if they weren’t in the midst of a war. He would have embraced her if her observance hadn’t forbidden it. As it was, he had to be content to congratulate her and express his fervent wish that all would go well. Then he told the two of them how he had run into Mátyás on the streetcar.

“Well,” Klara said. “It’s a good thing I bought extra pastries for dessert. That young goat would eat us into starvation otherwise.”

Mátyás arrived just as Klara was setting out the pastries in the sitting room after di

“Your romancing must have gone well,” Andras said. “Your cheeks are on fire with lipstick.”

“It’s not lipstick,” Mátyás said. “It’s the stain of breached i