The Fourth Estate Read online

  “Good morning, Mr. Farkas,” said Lubji, raising his wide-rimmed black hat.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hoch,” he replied. Until that moment Lubji had never thought of himself as Mr. Hoch. After all, he had only recently celebrated his seventeenth birthday.

  “Do you wish to speak to me?” asked Lubji.

  “Yes, Mr. Hoch, I do,” he said, and walked up to his side. He began to shift uneasily from foot to foot. Lubji recalled Mr. Lekski’s advice: “Whenever a customer looks nervous, say nothing.”

  “I was thinking of offering you a job in one of my shops,” said Mr. Farkas, looking up at him.

  For the first time Lubji realized Mr. Farkas had more than one shop. “In what capacity?” he asked.

  “Assistant manager.”

  “And my salary?” When Lubji heard the amount he made no comment, although a hundred pengös a week was almost double what Mr. Cerani was paying him.

  “And where would I live?”

  “There is a room above the premises,” said Mr. Farkas, “which I suspect is far larger than the little attic you presently occupy at the top of the Ceranis’ house.”

  Lubji looked down at him. “I’ll consider your offer, Mr. Farkas,” he said, and once again raised his hat. By the time he had arrived back at the house, he had decided to report the entire conversation to Mr. Cerani before someone else did.

  The old man touched his thick moustache and sighed when Lubji came to the end of his tale. But he did not respond.

  “I made it clear, of course, that I was not interested in working for him,” said Lubji, waiting to see how his boss would react. Mr. Cerani still said nothing, and did not refer to the subject again until they had all sat down for supper the following evening. Lubji smiled when he learned that he would be getting a rise at the end of the week. But on Friday he was disappointed when he opened his little brown envelope and discovered how small the increase turned out to be.

  When Mr. Farkas approached him again the following Saturday and asked if he had made up his mind yet, Lubji simply replied that he was satisfied with the remuneration he was presently receiving. He bowed low before walking away, hoping he had left the impression that he was still open to a counter-offer.

  As he went about his work over the next few weeks, Lubji occasionally glanced up at the large room over the paper shop on the other side of the road. At night as he lay in bed, he tried to envisage what it might be like inside.

  * * *

  After he had been working for the Ceranis for six months, Lubji had managed to save almost all his wages. His only real outlay had been on a secondhand double-breasted suit, two shirts and a spotted tie which had recently replaced his academic garb. But despite his newfound security, he was becoming more and more fearful about where Hitler would attack next. After the Führer had invaded Poland, he had continued to make speeches assuring the Hungarian people that he considered them his allies. But judging by his past record, “ally” was not a word he had looked up in the Polish dictionary.

  Lubji tried not to think about having to move on again, but as each day passed he was made painfully aware of people pointing out that he was Jewish, and he couldn’t help noticing that some of the local inhabitants seemed to be preparing to welcome the Nazis.

  One morning when he was walking to work, a passer-by hissed at Lubji. He was taken by surprise, but within days this became a regular occurrence. Then the first stones were thrown at Mr. Ceranis shop window, and some of the regular customers began to cross the road to transfer their custom to Mr. Farkas. But Mr. Cerani continued to insist that Hitler had categorically stated he would never infringe the territorial integrity of Hungary.

  Lubji reminded his boss that those were the exact words the Führer had used before he invaded Poland. He went on to tell him about a British gentleman called Chamberlain, who had handed in his resignation as prime minister only a few months before.

  Lubji knew that he hadn’t yet saved enough money to cross another border, so the following Monday, long before the Ceranis came down for breakfast, he walked boldly across the road and into his rival’s shop. Mr. Farkas couldn’t hide his surprise when he saw Lubji come through the door.

  “Is your offer of assistant manager still open?” Lubji asked immediately, not wanting to be caught on the wrong side of the road.

  “Not for a Jewboy it isn’t,” replied Mr. Farkas, looking straight at him. “However good you think you are. In any case, as soon as Hitler invades I’ll be taking over your shop.”

  Lubji left without another word. When Mr. Cerani came into the shop an hour later, he told him that Mr. Farkas had made him yet another offer, “But I told him I couldn’t be bought.” Mr. Cerani nodded but said nothing. Lubji was not surprised to find, when he opened his pay packet on Friday, that it contained another small rise.

  Lubji continued to save almost all his earnings. When Jews started being arrested for minor offenses, he began to consider an escape route. Each night after the Ceranis had retired to bed, Lubji would creep downstairs and study the old atlas in Mr. Ceranis little study. He went over the alternatives several times. He would have to avoid crossing into Yugoslavia: surely it would be only a matter of time before it suffered the same fate as Poland and Czechoslovakia. Italy was out of the question, as was Russia. He finally settled on Turkey. Although he had no official papers, he decided that he would go to the railway station at the end of the week and see if he could somehow get on a train making the journey through Romania and Bulgaria to Istanbul. Just after midnight, Lubji closed the old maps of Europe for the last time and returned to his tiny room at the top of the house.

  He knew the time was fast approaching when he would have to tell Mr. Cerani of his plans, but decided to put it off until he had received his pay packet on the following Friday. He climbed into bed and fell asleep, trying to imagine what life would be like in Istanbul. Did they have a market, and were the Turks a race who enjoyed bargaining?

  He was woken from a deep sleep by a loud banging. He leapt out of bed and ran to the little window that overlooked the street. The road was full of soldiers carrying rifles. Some were banging on doors with the butts of their rifles. It would be only moments before they reached the Ceranis’ house. Lubji quickly threw on yesterday’s clothes, removed the wad of money from under his mattress and tucked it into his waist, tightening the wide leather belt that held up his trousers.

  He ran downstairs to the first landing, and disappeared into the bathroom that he shared with the Ceranis. He grabbed the old man’s razor, and quickly cut off the long black ringlets that hung down to his shoulders. He dropped the severed locks into the lavatory and flushed them away. Then he opened the small medicine cabinet and removed Mr. Cerani’s hair cream, plastering a handful on his head in the hope that it would disguise the fact that his hair had been so recently cropped.

  Lubji stared at himself in the mirror and prayed that in his light gray double-breasted suit with its wide lapels, white shirt and spotted blue tie, the invaders just might believe he was nothing more than a Hungarian businessman visiting the capital. At least he could now speak the language without any trace of an accent. He paused before stepping back out onto the landing. As he moved noiselessly down the stairs, he could hear someone already banging on the door of the next house. He quickly checked in the front room, but there was no sign of the Ceranis. He moved on to the kitchen, where he found the old couple hiding under the table, clinging on to each other. While the seven candles of David stood in the corner of the room, there wasn’t going to be an easy way of concealing the fact that they were Jewish.

  Without saying a word, Lubji tiptoed over to the kitchen window, which looked out onto the backyard. He eased it up cautiously and stuck his head out. There was no sign of any soldiers. He turned his gaze to the right and saw a cat scampering up a tree. He looked to the left and stared into the eyes of a soldier. Standing next to him was Mr. Farkas, who nodded and said, “That’s him.”

  Lubji smil
ed hopefully, but the soldier brutally slammed the butt of his rifle into his chin. He fell head first out of the window and crashed down onto the path.

  He looked up to find a bayonet hovering between his eyes.

  “I’m not Jewish!” he screamed. “I’m not Jewish!”

  The soldier might have been more convinced if Lubji hadn’t blurted out the words in Yiddish.

  6.

  Daily Mail

  8 February 1945

  YALTA: BIG THREE CONFER

  When Keith returned for his final year at St. Andrew’s Grammar, no one was surprised that the headmaster didn’t invite him to become a school prefect.

  There was, however, one position of authority that Keith did want to hold before he left, even if none of his contemporaries gave him the slightest chance of achieving it.

  Keith hoped to become the editor of the St. Andy, the school magazine, like his father before him. His only rival for the post was a boy from his own form called “Swotty” Tomkins, who had been the deputy editor during the previous year and was looked on by the headmaster as “a safe pair of hands.” Tomkins, who had already been offered a place at Cambridge to read English, was considered to be odds-on favorite by the sixty-three sixth formers who had a vote. But that was before anyone realized how far Keith was willing to go to secure the position.

  Shortly before the election was due to take place, Keith discussed the problem with his father as they took a walk around the family’s country property.

  “Voters often change their minds at the last moment,” his father told him, “and most of them are susceptible to bribery or fear. That has always been my experience, both in politics and business. I can’t see why it should be any different for the sixth form at St. Andrew’s.” Sir Graham paused when they reached the top of the hill that overlooked the property. “And never forget,” he continued, “you have an advantage over most candidates in other elections.”

  “What’s that?” asked the seventeen-year-old as they strolled down the hill on their way back to the house.

  “With such a tiny electorate, you know all the voters personally.”

  “That might be an advantage if I were more popular than Tomkins,” said Keith, “but I’m not.”

  “Few politicians rely solely on popularity to get elected,” his father assured him. “If they did, half the world’s leaders would be out of office. No better example than Churchill.”

  Keith listened intently to his father’s words as they walked back to the house.

  * * *

  When Keith returned to St. Andrew’s, he had only ten days in which to carry out his father’s recommendations before the election took place. He tried every form of persuasion he could think of: tickets at the MCG, bottles of beer, illegal packets of cigarettes. He even promised one voter a date with his elder sister. But whenever he tried to calculate how many votes he had secured, he still didn’t feel confident that he would have a majority. There was simply no way of telling how anyone would cast his vote in a secret ballot. And Keith wasn’t helped by the fact that the headmaster didn’t hesitate to make it clear who his preferred candidate was.

  With forty-eight hours to go before the ballot, Keith began to consider his father’s second option—that of fear. But however long he lay awake at night pondering the idea, he still couldn’t come up with anything feasible.

  The next afternoon he received a visit from Duncan Alexander, the newly appointed head boy.

  “I need a couple of tickets for Victoria against South Australia at the MCG.”

  “And what can I expect in return?” asked Keith, looking up from his desk.

  “My vote,” replied the head boy. “Not to mention the influence I could bring to bear on other voters.”

  “In a secret ballot?” replied Keith. “You must be joking.”

  “Are you suggesting that my word is not good enough for you?”

  “Something like that,” replied Keith.

  “And what would your attitude be if I could supply you with some dirt on Cyril Tomkins?”

  “It would depend on whether the dirt would stick,” said Keith.

  “It will stick long enough for him to have to withdraw from the contest.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll not only supply you with two seats in the members’ stand, but will personally introduce you to any member of the teams you want to meet. But before I even consider parting with the tickets, I’ll need to know what you have on Tomkins.”

  “Not until I’ve seen the tickets,” said Alexander.

  “Are you suggesting my word is not good enough for you?” Keith inquired with a grin.

  “Something like that,” replied Alexander.

  Keith pulled open the top drawer of his desk and removed a small tin box. He placed the smallest key on his chain in the lock and turned it. He lifted up the lid and rummaged around, finally extracting two long, thin tickets.

  He held them up so that Alexander could study them closely.

  After a smile had appeared on the head boy’s face, Keith said, “So what have you got on Tomkins that’s so certain to make him scratch?”

  “He’s a homosexual,” said Alexander.

  “Everyone knows that,” said Keith.

  “But what they don’t know,” continued Alexander, “is that he came close to being expelled last term.”

  “So did I,” said Keith, “so that’s hardly newsworthy.” He placed the two tickets back in the tin.

  “But not for being caught in the bogs with young Julian Wells from the lower school,” he paused. “And both of them with their trousers down.”

  “If it was that blatant, why wasn’t he expelled?”

  “Because there wasn’t enough proof. I’m told the master who discovered them opened the door a moment too late.”

  “Or a moment too early?” suggested Keith.

  “And I’m also reliably informed that the headmaster felt it wasn’t the sort of publicity the school needed right now. Especially as Tomkins has won a scholarship to Cambridge.”

  Keith’s smile broadened as he put his hand back into the tin and removed one of the tickets.

  “You promised me both of them,” said Alexander.

  “You’ll get the other one tomorrow—if I win. That way I can feel fairly confident that your cross will be placed in the right box.”

  Alexander grabbed the ticket and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow for the other one.”

  When Alexander closed the door behind him, Keith remained at his desk and began typing furiously. He knocked out a couple of hundred words on the little Remington his father had given him for Christmas. After he had completed his copy he checked the text, made a few emendations, and then headed for the school’s printing press to prepare a limited edition.

  Fifty minutes later he re-emerged, clutching a dummy front page hot off the press. He checked his watch. Cyril Tomkins was one of those boys who could always be relied on to be in his study between the hours of five and six, going over his prep. Today was to prove no exception. Keith strolled down the corridor and knocked quietly on his door.

  “Come in,” responded Tomkins.

  The studious pupil looked up from his desk as Keith entered the room. He was unable to hide his surprise: Townsend had never visited him in the past. Before he could ask what he wanted, Keith volunteered, “I thought you might like to see the first edition of the school magazine under my editorship.”

  Tomkins pursed his podgy lips: “I think you’ll find,” he said, “to adopt one of your more overused expressions, that when it comes to the vote tomorrow, I shall win in a canter.”

  “Not if you’ve already scratched, you won’t,” said Keith.

  “And why should I do that?” asked Tomkins, taking off his spectacles and cleaning them with the end of his tie. “You certainly can’t bribe me, the way you’ve been trying to do with the rest of the sixth.”

  “True,” said Keith. “But I still have a feeling you’ll want to
withdraw from the contest once you’ve read this.” He passed over the front page.

  Tomkins replaced his glasses, but did not get beyond the headline and the first few words of the opening paragraph before he was sick all over his prep.

  Keith had to admit that this was a far better response than he had hoped for. He felt his father would have agreed that he had grabbed the reader’s attention with the headline.

  “Sixth Former Caught in Bogs with New Boy. Trousers Down Allegation Denied.”

  Keith retrieved the front page and began tearing it up while a white-faced Tomkins tried to regain his composure. “Of course,” he said, as he dropped the little pieces into the wastepaper basket at Tomkins’s side, “I’d be happy for you to hold the position of deputy editor, as long as you withdraw your name before the voting takes place tomorrow.”

  “The Case for Socialism” turned out to be the banner headline in the first edition of the St. Andy under its new editor.

  “The quality of the paper and printing are of a far higher standard than I can ever recall,” remarked the headmaster at the staff meeting the following morning. “However, that is more than can be said for the contents. I suppose we must be thankful that we only have to suffer two editions a term.” The rest of the staff nodded their agreement.

  Mr. Clarke then reported that Cyril Tomkins had resigned from his position as deputy editor only hours after the first edition of the magazine had been published. “Pity he didn’t get the job in the first place,” the headmaster commented. “By the way, did anyone ever find out why he withdrew from the contest at the last minute?”

  Keith laughed when this piece of information was relayed to him the following afternoon by someone who had overheard it repeated at the breakfast table.

  “But will he try to do anything about it?” Keith asked as she zipped up her skirt.

  “My father didn’t say anything else on the subject, except that he was only thankful you hadn’t called for Australia to become a republic.”