Searching for Wallenberg by Alan Lelchuk

resistance already as a teenager, in late 1943, and then became a helper to the woman who became Raoul’s secretary, Elizabeth Nako, once he realized his true mission in Budapest.”
    “Oh,” he said, going along with the story.
    “And here you will see, the two of them together …”
    Well, what he saw was what appeared to be Wallenberg and the same young woman in several photos, with the faces ambiguous, though, and the figures in rooms or outdoors in parks, also too shadowy for clear identification. What was he seeing?
    “You may say it was a great mitzvah , you realize, this union,” she explained, leaning back, exalted at the photos, the thought, “A young Hungarian Jewish girl and this older Swedish diplomat who was turning into a demigod. I believe that it was his love for my mother which truly inspired his great mission.”
    “Oh,” he murmured, not wanting just now to break her spell. He couldn’t resist saying, “He did have a task assigned to him in Stockholm, though, by the Hungarian businessman and by—”
    “A task assigned is not the same as inspiration , Professor,” she corrected, taking his wrist for just a moment. “It is inspiration that drives great missions, not the assignment of tasks.”
    He nodded, drained his cup, and felt the room to be losing all its light somehow.
    “And here you can see the true union.” She shifted course and smiled radiantly, and pointed to a strange photo, again shadowy and hard to read, of a man and woman and a rabbi with tallis holding a book, in the outdoors, with overhead boughs crossing. “You know what this is?” she asked.
    What could he say? What the hell was she getting at?
    “You are not Jewish, are you?”
    Did he redden from shame or anger? “Yes, I am, actually.”
    “And you don’t know what a chupah is?”
    Looking hard at the odd, ambiguous photo, he kept his doubts private. “Yes, I do know what a chupah is—what Jews get married under.”
    She shot him a look. Then, “Naturally. And there it is, on the outskirts of Budapest. A miracle, no?”
    “A miracle,” he repeated dumbly. But, he wondered, how might he crash this miracle politely, without injuring feelings, and yet preserve trust? “You are sure that this is what it is, are you?”
    Her face tightened, and the pale skin got color. “ Bist du meshuggah ? You are asking me about the most sacred photograph, most important memory, in my life, whether I am sure it is what it is? Yes, Professor, I am sure it is what it looks like,” she noted derisively, “a marriage ceremony according to Jewish law and tradition.” She shut tightly the scrapbook and checked her wristwatch.
    “Wait, please,” he pleaded, “you mustn’t misunderstand me, Zsuzsanna. I was only asking, you realize. Of course, I don’t doubt you or your veracity, but the photograph, well, it is a little vague or shadowy, you will admit, as to its participants. Not,” he reassured her, sounding somewhat foolish in his imploring, “its underlying meaning.”
    “Enough for one day at least.” She relented slightly in her stiffness. “More tea, this time with some milk or lemon?”
    “Lemon,” he said, resting easier.
    She poured a second cup, spooned him a wedge on his saucer, and said, “Please be honest with me. What is it you want to know about my father?”
    He felt he had to get back on the right track now, in order to explore further those pictures and the curious madness of this invented biography. Did it have a medical name? “Well, I want to know how come he was so special? I mean there were others who saved Jews, right? The wonderful Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, for example, and the Spanish ambassador, and even the Vatican’s man, Antonio Rotto—I forget their exact names. So what made your father”—he used the noun easily—“so different, so unique?”
    She relaxed more fully, the lines of the face softening, and she brushed her hair from her forehead. “Do you know the word