the first years in our new home.
We Hungarians can’t end a night of drinking without eating
sauerkraut soup. Mariska brings steaming bowls of it.
“Next year in Jerusalem,” we say.
* * *In the coming months, Béla buys the boxcar that will carry the Eger
fortune to Italy and then on to Haifa by ship. He buys the essential
equipment for the macaroni factory. I see to the packing of the silver,
the china with gold initials. I buy clothes for Marianne, enough for the
next five years, and sew jewels into the pockets and hems.
We send the boxcar ahead and plan to follow, as soon as Bricha
helps us find a way.
* * *One late winter day when Béla is away on business, a certiĕed letter
comes for him from Prague, a letter I sign for, a letter I don’t wait for
him to read. Before the war, the letter says, Czechoslovakian citizens
who had already immigrated to America were allowed to register any
family members still in Europe, under a law that would allow people
suffering persecution to apply for visas to come to America without
being subject to the quota restrictions that limited the number of
people who could ĕnd refuge in the United States. Béla’s great-uncle
Albert, who had been in Chicago since the early 1900s, had registered
the Eger family. We are now one of two Czech families registered
before the war invited to seek refuge in America. Béla must report
right away to the American consulate in Prague for our documents.
Our boxcar is already en route to Israel. A new life is already on the
horizon. We have already arranged everything. We have already
chosen. But my heart races at this news, at this unexpected