The Invisible Bridge Read Online Free PDF

man in an expensive overcoat who seemed to be looking for someone.
    He hadn't asked for a description or a photograph of Jozsef. It hadn't occurred to him that they might have trouble finding each other. But an increasing number of passengers filled the platform, and Parisians ran to greet them, and Jozsef failed to appear. Amid the crush Andras caught a glimpse of Zoltan Novak; a woman in a smart hat and a fur-collared coat threw her arms around him. Novak kissed the woman and led her away from the train, and porters followed with his luggage.

    Andras retrieved his own suitcase and the enormous box for Jozsef. He stood and waited as the crowd became even more dense and then began to dissipate. Still no brisk-looking young man stepped forward to conduct him into a life in Paris. He sat down on the wooden crate, suddenly lightheaded. He needed a place to sleep. He needed to eat. In a few days' time he was supposed to appear at the Ecole Speciale, ready to begin his studies. He looked toward the row of doors marked SORTIE , at the lights of cars passing on the street outside. A quarter of an hour rolled by, and then another, without any sign of Jozsef Hasz.

    He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the heavy card on which the elder Mrs. Hasz had written her grandson's address. This was all the direction he had. For six francs Andras recruited a walrus-faced porter to help him load his luggage and Jozsef's enormous box into a taxi. He gave the driver Jozsef's address and they rushed off in the direction of the Quartier Latin. As they sped along, the taxi driver kept up a steady stream of jocose French, of which Andras understood not a word.

    He was hardly aware of what they passed on the way to Jozsef Hasz's. Fog tumbled in billows through the light of the streetlamps, and wet leaves blew against the windows of the cab. The gold-lit buildings spun by in a rush; the streets were full of Saturday night revelers, men and women with their arms slung loosely around each other.
    The cab sped over a river that must have been the Seine, and for an instant Andras allowed himself to imagine that they were passing over the Danube, that he was back in Budapest, and that in a short time he'd find himself home at the apartment on Harsfa utca, where he could climb the stairs and crawl into bed with Tibor. But then the taxi stopped in front of a gray stone building and the driver climbed out to unload Andras's luggage.

    Andras fumbled in his pocket for more money. The driver tipped his hat, took the francs Andras offered, and said something that sounded like the Hungarian word bocsanat , I'm sorry, but which Andras later understood to be bon chance . Then the cab pulled away, leaving Andras alone on a sidewalk of the Quartier Latin.

CHAPTER THREE
The Quartier Latin

    JOZSEF H ASZ'S BUILDING was of sharp-edged sandstone, six stories with tall casements and ornate cast-iron balconies. From the top floor came a blast of hot jazz, cornet and piano and saxophone dueling just beyond the blazing windows. Andras went to the door to ring the bell, but the door had been propped open; in the vestibule a cluster of girls in close-fitting silk dresses stood drinking champagne and smoking violet-scented cigarettes. They gave him hardly a glance as he dragged his luggage inside and pushed it against the wall. With his heart in his throat he stepped forward to touch one of the girls on the sleeve, and she turned a coy eye toward him and raised a painted brow.

    "Jozsef Hasz?" he said.

    The girl raised one finger and pointed toward the very top of the oval staircase.
    "La-bas," she said. "En haut."

    He dragged his luggage and the massive box into the lift, and took it as high as it would go. At the top, he stepped out into a crush of men and women, of smoke and jazz; the entirety of the Latin Quarter, it seemed, had assembled at Jozsef Hasz's. Leaving his luggage in the hall, he stepped in through the open door of the apartment and repeated the