The InvisibleBridge

When the first bombs hit, the shelter shook as if the moon itself had fallen from its orbit and crashed to earth just overhead. Concrete dust rained from the ceiling, and the lightbulbs flickered in their wire cages. A few men cursed. Others closed their eyes as if in prayer. József asked an officer-in-training for a cigarette and began to smoke it.

“Put that out,” Andras whispered. “If there’s a gas leak down here, we’ll all be killed.”

“If I’m about to die, I’m going to smoke,” József said.

Andras shook his head. Beside him, József released a complex luxuriant cloud through his nostrils, as if he meant to take his time. But another concussive blast threw him against Andras, and he dropped the cigarette. A series of shuddering jolts rocketed through the foundation of the building like small earthquakes; this was anti-aircraft fire, the kick of the artillery installation housed not far from the assembly hall. Glass exploded above, and faint cries reached the men through the walls of the shelter.

“At attention, men!” one of the officers commanded. They stood at attention. It took some concentration, there in the flickering dark; they stood that way until the next bombs hit. As the foundation shuddered, Andras thought of the weight of building materials arranged above him: the heavy beams, the flooring, the walls, the tons of cinderblock and brickwork, the roof struts and frame, the thousands and thousands of slate tiles. He thought of all those materials raining down upon the architecture of his own body. Fragile skin, fragile muscle, fragile bone, the clever structures of the organs, the intricate arrangement of his cells-all the things Tibor had pointed out in Klara’s anatomy book a lifetime ago in Paris. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Another detonation knocked the room sideways, and a crack appeared in the ceiling.

Then there was a lull. The men stood silent, waiting. The anti-aircraft artillery must have been hit, or the gu

Then, all at once, the lights flickered on again. The men got to their feet. They dusted off their uniforms and pretended they hadn’t just been clutching each other’s arms, crushing their faces against each other’s chests, praying and crying and apologizing. They glanced around as if to confirm that none of them had really been afraid. The earth had gone still now; the bombing had stopped. Above, all was silent.

“All right, men,” said the officer who had commanded them to stand at attention. “Wait for the all clear.”

It was a long time before the signal sounded. When it came at last there was a push toward the hallways, a crush of men talking in shock-dulled voices. No one knew what they would find when they emerged. Andras thought of the labor camp where they were supposed to stay when they had first arrived in Turka-its mass grave, the wet dirt slumped into the ground like a sodden blanket. He and József shouldered into a stream of men making their way back toward the staircase. The air in the bunker seemed overbreathed, devoid of oxygen.

There was a bottleneck at the foot of the stairway. As Andras shuffled toward the stairs, someone bumped against him and pushed something into his hand. It was Erdő, his face red and wet, his monocle fallen. “I didn’t think of it earlier,” he said into Andras’s ear. “I was preoccupied with the play. I might have died and never given it to you, or you might have died and never gotten it.”

Andras looked down to see what he held in his hand. It was a piece of folded paper wrapped in a handkerchief.

He couldn’t wait. He had to see. He unwrapped the corner of the handkerchief, and there was Klara’s handwriting on a thin blue envelope. His heart lurched in his chest.

“Hide that,” Erdő said, and Andras did.

Back at the orphanage he wanted only to be alone-to get to some private place where he could read Klara’s letter. But the men of Company 79/6 met him and the others with a storm of questions. What had happened? Had they seen the planes? Had anyone been killed? Had they themselves been injured? What was the meaning of an air raid so far from the front lines? The guards had been listening to the radio in Kozma’s private quarters, but had told the men nothing, of course; the bombing had gone on for so long that the men thought everyone at the school must be dead.

Men had died. That much was true. When they’d come out of the meeting hall-the three walls that remained of it, in any case-they’d been swept into a stream of men ru

All that time, Andras had carried Klara’s letter in his pocket, not daring to read it. Now, finally, he was at liberty to climb into his bunk and try to decipher her lines in the dark. József seemed nearly as anxious as Andras; he sat cross-legged on the bunk below, awaiting news. Andras slit the envelope carefully with his razor, then maneuvered into a position that would allow him to use the moonlight as a torch. He pulled the letter out and unfolded it with trembling hands.

15 October 1942

Budapest

Dear A,

Imagine my relief, and your brother’s, when we received your letter! We have all decided to postpone our trip to the country until you return. Tamás is well, and I am as well as might be expected. Your parents are in good health. Please send greetings to my nephew. His parents are well, too. As for what you wrote about M.H.’s departure for Lachaise, I must hope I have misunderstood you. Please write again soon.

As ever,

Your K.

We have all decided to postpone. It was just as he had feared, only worse. Not just Klara, but Tibor and Ilana too. He would have done the same, of course-would never have left Ilana and Ádám alone in Budapest three days after Tibor had disappeared-but it was sad and infuriating nonetheless. In one stroke the Hungarian Army had grounded the entire Lévi clan. For the sake of an underground business in army boots and ti