The Choice

put a happy spin on the day, but all of the absences tug at us. Orphans
marry orphans. Later I will hear that we marry our parents. But I say
we marry our unĕnished business. For Béla and me, our unĕnished
business is grief.
We honeymoon in Bratislava, on the Danube. I dance with my
husband to waltzes we knew before the war. We visit Maximilian’s
fountain and Coronation Hill. Béla pretends to be the new monarch,
pointing his sword north, south, east, west, promising to defend me.
We see the old city wall, double fortiĕed against the Turks. We think
the storm has passed.
at night at the hotel we wake to pounding on our door. Police
officers push their way into our room. e police are constantly
checking up on civilians, our lives a labyrinth of bureaucratic
necessities, official permission needed for even the minutiae of daily
life. ey can whisk you off to jail with barely a pretext. And because
my husband is wealthy, he is an important person, so it shouldn’t
surprise me that we’ve been followed. But I am surprised. And afraid
(I am always afraid). And also embarrassed. And angry. is is my
honeymoon. Why are they bothering us?
“We were just married,” Béla reassures them in Slovak. (I grew up
speaking only Hungarian, but Béla is also Ęuent in Czech and Slovak
and other languages necessary for his wholesaling business.) He shows
them our passports, our marriage license, our rings, everything that
can conĕrm our identities and our reason for being in the hotel.
“Please don’t bother us.”
e police give no explanation for their invasion of our privacy, for
their suspicion of us. Are they following Béla for some reason? Had
they mistaken him for someone else? I try not to register the intrusion
as an omen. I focus on the smoothness of my husband’s voice beneath
his stutter. We have nothing to hide. But high alert is my constant
state. And I can’t lose the feeling that I am guilty of something. at I