CHAPTER 9Next Year in Jerusalem
I marry Béla Eger on November 12, 1946, at the city hall in Košice. We
could have celebrated with a lavish affair at the Eger mansion, we
could have chosen a Jewish ceremony. But I am a girl, I am only
nineteen, I have never had the chance to ĕnish high school, I am
falling from one thing to another. And my parents are dead. One of
my father’s old friends, a gentile, has been checking in on my sisters
and me. He is a judge, and it turns out that he knew Béla’s brother
when George was in law school. He is a link between Béla’s family and
my own, he is a link to my father, and so he is the one we choose to
marry us.
In the ĕeen months since Béla and I met, my hair has grown from
meager fuzz to full waves all the way to my shoulders. I wear it down,
a white barrette clipped at my temple. I am married in a borrowed
dress—knee-length black rayon, with puffed shoulders and a white
collar and tapered sleeves. I hold a small bouquet of lilies and roses
tied with a wide satin ribbon. I smile for photographs on the balcony
of my father’s shop. ere are only eight people at the wedding—me,
Béla, Magda, Klara, Csicsi, Imre, and two of my father’s old friends,
one of them a bank president, the other the judge who marries us.
Béla stutters when he says his vows, and Klara gives me a look, an
admonition. e reception is in our apartment. Klara has cooked all of
the food. Roasted chicken. Hungarian couscous. Potatoes with butter
and parsley. And dobos torte—seven-layer chocolate cake. We try to