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She was leaving; it was almost certain, probably in March, maybe as soon as February. They would go by ship. For a whole week they would live on a ship as big as the Duna Hotel, with shops, movies, a swimming pool. Her father brought her pictures of trans-Atlantic steamers. When they talked about going to America she didn’t think about leaving Budapest or what it would be like in America, but only about living on a ship and actually crossing the Atlantic Ocean. By the middle of March it was certain that they were going, there were the tickets for the S.S. Aquitania leaving Le Havre on April fifth and the train ticket booked from Budapest through Paris.
Sophie’s meetings with her mother during these months were infrequent and irregular. Her mother’s involvement in her new life apart from her father and herself, lent her a new allure and even created a new closeness between them. On the few afternoons they spent together Sophie observed that her mother dressed more simply, living in fact under more modest circumstances than in her father’s house. She seemed more affectionate than before, and at the same time gentle and subdued. Now her mother was like a friendly stranger with whom she in turn could be friendly, and for the first time she felt they were intimate, discussing things she did not talk about with her father and his family because she did not feel this respect between them and herself. The possibility of Sophie’s going to America may also have created a new sense of closeness. But when her mother suddenly exclaimed, “You will go to America and leave me!” she didn’t know what to say. She endured in silence her mother’s tears at their separation, her ambiguous reproaches against fate and herself—against her daughter who was tearless; she couldn’t entirely believe her mother’s sincerity, that she was inflicting such a blow by going to America. She had not chosen to go to America with her father, but her mother demanded that she assume the role of a child she invented. Her mother had her own story of the wonderful, adorable, handsome Rudi going off to America with his lucky little girl; and even if she couldn’t entirely believe in her father as a demigod, she wanted Sophie to believe it. But her mother understood that her tears only hardened Sophie’s heart and surprised her by taking her side: her mother loved and respected the person she was who had no patience for a mother’s tears, who had her own will and destiny, who would let no one, neither father nor mother, stand in her way and in whom her mother took pride. At exalted moments Sophie would be torn between two temptations: to incarnate her mother’s vision of her strong-willed ambitious daughter, whose lack of attachment to family was not only forgiven, but encouraged, and to entrust herself to her mother who truly understood and would help her attain whatever ambitions she had envisaged for her. But if secretly she considered that she might be happier staying with her mother, she also understood that this was not a real possibility. On occasions her mother would daydream with her about their life together—but only supposing her father was not granted the visa. Her mother’s wistful make-believe, Sophie understood, was not only conditional, but predicated on its denial: on the child who could not be swayed, who would not be groomed or guided by her mother. However touched and tempted by these seductions, she understood that her mother wasn’t serious—she made it clear enough by breaking off each time she reached the climax of her invitation—the issue had been sealed by her daughter. Sophie listened to her mother, now charmed, now angry, but all the time looking behind her mother’s words for the real reason why she couldn’t make a genuine offer: whether she was lying to her or helpless or both. And finally, looking into her own heart, where she couldn’t find any truth either, left her baffled and resigned. Everything had become so strange. From the time of her mother’s marriage to Zoltan she had seen nothing of him; he vanished like the house. Whenever her mother burst into tears, Sophie lapsed into angry silence, thinking: In America I won’t see you cry. I won’t miss you. I’ll never feel sad. She was going to America where everything was white and very modern; in America she would speak and write and think in English and forget Hungarian.
But sometimes after seeing her mother it was she who cried, waiting at the trolley stop in the early evening, suddenly every portal, tree, shop window, chance passer-by seemed unspeakably beautiful and happy. And to think that all this was made meaningless for her because she was Jewish; her walks through the city, the long trolley ride twice a day, crossing the Chain Bridge, the school day, her pride in her homework made questionable when they began talking about leaving, then made totally meaningless when it was certain that she was going. She was waiting, counting off the days till she would get on the train. And at the same
