The Choice: Embrace the Possible

Edie and Magda arrive in Košice, the Czech name for Kassa, which now belongs to Czechoslovakia once again. On their way home, they spot Klara, who runs to embrace and cradle Edie. Klara nurses their wounds, unbothered by the rash that Edie and Magda spread to her. Klara explains that she avoided the concentration camps because her professor hid her in a Hungarian nunnery and her light hair and eyes helped her pass for non-Jewish. Klara spends her time performing violin concerts and scrubbing the floors of their house, which the town used as horse stables after nyilas deported the Elefánts. The three sisters share one good pair of shoes, and they take turns leaving the house with them.

Magda’s health improves, but Edie’s lung congestion worsens. Klara appoints herself as Edie’s full-time nurse and mother. Edie develops a fever, and Klara takes her to a doctor named Gaby, the brother of a classmate of Edie’s who died in Auschwitz. He diagnoses Edie’s physical diseases and, through his shared grief, helps her begin to process psychological traumas. Through his professional connections, Gaby learns that Eric died in Auschwitz one day before the camp’s liberation. Edie recovers from the fever, but Gaby sends her to a tuberculosis hospital to assess her weak lungs. Klara accompanies Edie on the train but must return home to continue playing concerts. Klara discovers a man who also receives treatments at the hospital and asks him to escort Edie. When Edie first approaches the man, Béla, he is kissing a woman, regarding Edie only curtly. He is inattentive and insulting toward Edie initially, but she—despite looking like a child from her diminished figure and typhoid-induced hair loss—determines to prove him wrong: “I will show him that the buoyant dancer still lives in me, no matter how short my hair is, how thin my face, how thick the grief in my chest” (94).

When Edie returns to Košice, Klara has started dating Csicsi. Magda takes Edie to an entertainment club to help her feel normal again. Edie starts receiving long letters from Béla. Béla drives an hour from his hometown to visit her, and despite not loving him as she loved Eric, Edie decides to marry him. Béla cuts ties with a few women, including a girl dying of tuberculosis and a wife he married for protection from deportation.

Edie and Béla marry in November 1946 at city hall with less than 10 people in attendance. The police burst into their honeymoon suite in the middle of the night, which is not unexpected—nothing forbids the police from arresting suspicious persons—but their intrusion still jars Edie. Edie moves into Béla’s mansion in Prešov. Hired servants do the chores, leaving Edie with few spousal duties. Béla soon introduces Edie to Prešov’s high society, and she befriends women her age, Ava and Marta. Edie adopts her role as Béla’s wife, suppressing her traumatic memories. Edie is delighted to discover she’s pregnant, though because her strength hasn’t fully returned, the doctor recommends abortion, which she dismisses. Edie visits Košice for Klara and Csicsi’s wedding. Klara tells her sisters that Csicsi’s brother Imre intends to immigrate to Australia, and Csicsi and Klara will follow him. This news coupled with Magda’s plans to apply for an American visa leaves Edie feeling unrooted and confused: “If there’s one small piece of hell I miss, it is the part that made me understand that survival is a matter of interdependence” (107). Edie and Magda were inseparable during the war, but now their lives drift in different directions.

Edie’s labor contractions begin while Béla is away. Klara, who lives two hours away, beats the doctor to Edie’s bedside. Edie names her daughter Marianne, and Béla gives Edie a gold bracelet to commemorate Marianne’s birth. At 14 months, Marianne falls ill with pneumonia. Penicillin is outlawed in the country, so Edie pays a black market dealer a small fortune to retrieve the medicine from London. Edie wants to escape the communist government, so she and Béla make plans to seek refuge in the new state of Israel. Béla makes the arrangements, but while those plans are in motion, Edie receives a letter and learns that a Czech relative of Béla’s who moved to Chicago before the war registered the Eger family for visa applications free of immigration quota restrictions. Though meticulous arrangements are already under way, Edie begs Béla to visit the American consulate and follow this lead. Béla reluctantly agrees to make inquiries.

In May 1949, communist officials arrest Béla. Given Béla’s history with the communists—when Béla refused a government position, they once forced his convertible off the road, confiscated their belongings, and bugged their communications—Edie knows he’s in real danger and breaks into action. She calls Klara, speaking with coded language to avoid alerting the authorities. Edie sews jewels into Marianne’s clothes, slips a large diamond ring on her finger, tucks the American consulate papers into her clothes, and leaves the Eger mansion with no other luggage. At the police station, Edie bribes the warden with her diamond ring. The warden unlocks Béla’s cell door and gives them a five-minute head start. Edie, Béla, and Marianne beeline toward the train station, careful not to arouse suspicion. As they board the train, officials are already looking for Béla, and Edie tells him to hide in the train’s bathroom. Edie and Marianne sit in a compartment while the soldiers check the train. The train finally leaves the station, but Béla doesn’t reappear until the train departs Košice station with Klara and Csicsi in tow. They all have a joyful reunion and travel safely to Vienna.

Béla’s arrangements in Israel are underway, but Edie hesitates to send her child into another war zone. Béla assures her that the plan will work and the boxcar containing their fortune already awaits them in Israel. Nonetheless, Edie can’t accept that they are out of choices. She takes the American papers to the consulate in Vienna and checks their legitimacy. The officer confirms that they can depart for the United States as soon as they process the visas, but Edie notices that the application checks medical history, particularly for tuberculosis. Knowing Béla wouldn’t pass the chest exam, Edie reluctantly puts her plan to rest. Klara, however, reminds her of their mother’s words: “When you can’t go in through a door, go in through a window” (124). That night, Edie kindly but firmly presents Béla with an ultimatum: He can choose which path is best for him, but she will take their daughter to America.