A Song for Summer

"Next time, then!" cried the Chomskys, kissing her fervently on both cheeks, and Madame Chomsky followed Ellen in the corridor to give her a last bulletin about her youngest son.

"It may be necessary to take him away to some spa to make a full recovery," she said. "But I think he just needs to rest quietly till this dreadful play is over. Please tell Mr Bennet he can be sure that Laszlo will not desert him; he will return."

Ellen smiled, detecting behind the effusive warmth of Cliomsky's mother, a flicker of anxiety lest her Laszlo might be returned permanently to the fold, and promised that she would set the headmaster's mind at rest.

"I have put a few little things in, also, for the children," said Madame Chomsky as Ellen picked up the case, which certainly seemed to contain more than a passport and a few documents. "You will not be offended?"'

Ellen shook her head, kissed everybody yet again and was escorted to the bus station by Farkas, still complaining because she would not dine with them.

She had missed the bus which would have taken her past the castle and was compelled to walk from the village. On an impulse she decided to walk along the eastern shore of the lake, along the road which led her past Professor Steiner's house.

It was a foolish impulse, delaying her by nearly half an hour and pointlessly, for no light showed in the windows; the van was nowhere to be seen. It was time to face the fact that they had gone for good; that there would be no chance now to put things right between herself and Marek.

All the same, she paused for a moment by the path

that led to the house--and as she did so she saw someone moving in the bushes. A man, furtive and silent in the dark. Not Marek--this man was smaller, and who could imagine Marek looking furtive?

She hesitated, then began to walk down the path.

"Is there anyone there?"' she called. If it was a burglar maybe her voice would scare him off.

The man had vanished. Stupidly fearless, as she later realised, she made her way towards the door.

Then a hand come round behind her and she was pulled backwards on to the grass.

It began like all the other journeys they had made. Marek drove the van to the checkpoint and the guards examined their papers only perfunctorily.

"Got any good tunes?"' Anton joked, and they played him a bit of the old lady singing "Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes" and he waved them through.

After twenty kilometres they turned north west towards the German border and presently Marek left the van and Steiner drove down a rutted lane and parked in a clearing. There was no hope of recording anything here; they had been here too often. He could only wait and pray while Marek plunged into the densest part of the forest to meet his contact and--if their luck held--the man for whom they had searched so long. And the waiting today was going to be harder than ever. The news that Meierwitz had broken cover and was on his way at last had come with another piece of news that they had been half expecting.

The line of rescuers was breaking up: one man had been arrested and shot; the Sudeten Nazis had joined the Germans in patrolling the no man's land between the borders.

But when Marek had reached the meeting place, the man they knew only as Johann was there--and with him someone whom at first he did not recognise. Meierwitz had been a portly person, fond of his food, with an engaging tuft of reddish hair and bright black eyes. This man was thin and hunched and he shivered in the summer night.

Afraid to shine his torch or speak, Marek

only put out his hand--but Isaac knew in an instant.

"You!" he whispered incredulously. "My God, Marek--you!"

He managed to hold his emotion in check as they made their way towards the van but then, wrapped in a blanket, given coffee from a Thermos, the tears he had managed to control through his years of flight and danger and imprisonment could be held back no longer.

"You," was all that he could say, over and over again. "My God, Marek--you."

Then Steiner came out of the driving seat and embraced his former colleague, and for Isaac there was another shock as he saw that this eminent and venerable scholar had involved himself in his rescue.

They set off then; Steiner drove and Marek sat in the back with his friend. There were several hours of relative safety before the next hazard, the crossing of the border into Poland. Marek took care to make light of his search, his obsessive determination to set Meierwitz free, but Isaac guessed, and it was a while before he could speak calmly of what had happened in Berlin after the Nazis came to power.