Train to Budapest Read Free Page B

him a perfect knot.
    There are no trees to climb here, Amara my love. We’re living in a flat in the centre of the city. From my window I can see a big grey building with friezes sculpted in stone. I can see vases displayed on balconies. I can see closed curtains. I’ve never managed to catch a head looking out of those windows. How I wish I could be with you in Florence, where people lean out from their balconies and call up from below, like in a village. In the morning I get up at seven and eat with Papà. Mamma sleeps till ten. Our nanny, Mariska, makes us fine breakfasts: fresh yoghurt with sliced banana on top, hot milk laced with coffee, slices of toast spread with fresh butter and jam she has made herself. Every day she complains that because it’s wartime she can’t get the ingredients to make food the way she wants. And Papà has to give her more and more money for buying things at the market.
    The train sways. Now the young mother is asleep with her daughter in her arms. But even in sleep she doesn’t relax. She grasps her child as though they might take her away at any moment.
    The man with fur armbands seems to be having disturbing dreams because he keeps thrashing about, still stretched out in his seat. He has taken off his shoes. His big feet are enclosed in woollen socks threadbare at the heel. But the man with gazelles on his chest has woken up and is reading in a corner, his book close to his face. There is very little light, but he persists. His face shows intense concentration, almost as if he has forgotten where he is and who he is travelling with.
    Amara pulls out another letter.
    Why don’t you come here to Vienna too? Yesterday I went for a gallop on a lion with a red mane. At one point I kicked his sides so hard he took off and flew, but my father said that’s enough so he came down again all crestfallen. He’s irritable these days, Papà. He says the business isn’t going well. The SS are constantly under our feet. And they want to give the orders, he says. Mutti has promised to sew me a pair of wings with real feathers for Christmas. Why don’t you come and see me for Christmas? I like the apple tart here in Vienna, but not the ice creams. They don’t have good ice cream here, not like in Florence. What’s good here is the cream. Almost as good as in Florence. Do you remember that day in the Cascine when we ate four wafers with cream and then we ordered a fifth and you dropped it in the bushes? I’m waiting for you, Emanuele.
    The train moves off again. The new day has started, young and sunny. They are running through the middle of a birch wood. The tall slender white trunks flash past. When the man with the gazelles disappears to the toilet the traveller from Kladno with the fur armbands opens his eyes, turns towards Amara and saysmysteriously: ‘That man must be a spy. You should never have acted as his guarantor. They’ll catch up with you. They’ll take away your passport.’
    ‘But I’m Italian. And I have a permit.’
    ‘These days anyone crossing the boundary between the two worlds is suspect. Don’t you know about the cold war? No one can avoid it. You also could be a spy.’
    ‘What sort of spy?’
    ‘The West needs information about the East. And the East needs information about what you call the “free” world.’ The man smiles, showing bright red gums.
    ‘So you could be a spy too.’
    ‘Of course. Who says I’m not?’ He sneers, his eyes still dull and very sad.
    ‘May I ask you something: why do you wear those fur armbands?’
    ‘Rheumatism in my wrists. My hands get paralysed if I don’t keep them warm. Satisfied? But maybe that’s not true at all. Maybe I tried to cut my wrists and want to hide the scars.’
    There is something disquieting about this man who says things and then immediately contradicts them.
    Now the woman is walking up and down the corridor with her baby, humming a lullaby. The child whimpers feebly with a low, tentative