One Day In Budapest Read Free Page A

silver breastplate decorated with birds, fruit and leaves in an ornate pattern. Worn by the High Priest in the Temple, it hung around the neck of the Torah, protecting the holy words. If only it could have protected Raoul and those who died during that time, Morgan thought, clutching tightly at the handle of the case she carried. It contained so little, but was still important as a symbol of restitution, and she knew that her father would be proud that she was part of this.  
    “I’ve got a place for them here,” Anna called from further down the museum’s long hallway where she was putting on a pair of white gloves. Morgan rested the briefcase on a corner table nearby, finally unlocking the wrist-cuff and opening the case. Anna lifted the Torah carefully and laid it into the padded display case. Her eyes grew wider as she took out the painting and unrolled it, revealing a portrait of a young girl.  
    “I just wanted to see it,” Anna whispered. “But I’m planning an official unveiling and a special exhibition about the Gold Train, so for now, they will just rest here, secure and safe, back where they belong.” Anna closed the case gently. “Thank you.” She turned and grasped Morgan’s hand. “Now let me give you a tour of the grounds. At least it will be quiet now the tourists have gone. Come Ilona.”
    The little girl skipped ahead of them as Morgan and Anna walked back out of the museum and along a covered stone walkway towards the back of the synagogue precinct. On their left was a garden, mature trees with graceful branches hanging down towards gravestones propped against rectangular bases.
    “Of course, it’s not customary to have graves within the grounds of a synagogue,” Anna explained. “But this area is a mass grave for over two thousand Jewish people who died from hunger and cold within the Ghetto. Perhaps they were lucky to die here, close to home, with those who loved them.” Anna continued in a soft voice. “My grandfather was sent to the camps and never seen again, along with so many other Hungarian Jews.”  
    Morgan felt the overwhelming sadness of the place seep into her as they stood in silence for a moment. Where the massive numbers of dead in the concentration camps were difficult to visualize, this intimate graveyard brought home the reality of that time. The names of the dead were engraved in marble and she silently read some of them, the Hungarian pronunciation hard in her mouth, a long way from her father’s Spanish ancestry.  
    The grave backed onto one of the roads at the side of the synagogue grounds and as Morgan and Anna stood there, a rattle and a shout interrupted them. A group of young men loitered outside, their hands on the bars protecting the synagogue’s land. A couple of others dragged metal pipes across the fencing, the hollow metallic clang a barely concealed threat, their eyes a challenge of violence.  

CHAPTER 2

    “Ilona, come now,” Anna said, stepping away and walking quickly into the shelter of the stone corridor, out of sight. But Morgan remained, watching the youths as they began chanting something in Hungarian, no doubt some kind of racial slur. She stepped closer to the bars, smiling at them.
    “What do you want here, boys?” she asked, her voice unthreatening, her posture open. They looked confused by her advance, obviously expecting her to be cowed and frightened by their threats. “Should I come out there and see if you want to play up close?”  
    Perhaps they didn’t understand her words but Morgan knew they could sense that she was unafraid. She felt a rising outrage and a need to challenge their behavior. Although she wasn’t Hungarian, these were her people and this was her land, even though she had never been here before. She would fight, even in a country that wasn’t her own, because of the shared history of suffering. This group of boys probably didn’t even know what they were chanting about. They were merely repeating