Free The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer

those who were
slowed by the burden of pushing and pulling their lives’ possessions. He overtook
laden donkeys, carts that needed their wheels repaired and families with young
children and aging relatives, held up by the pace of the slowest. He watched as
mothers cut the locks from their sons’ hair and began to abandon anything that
might identify them as Jewish. He would have stopped to remonstrate with them
but didn’t want to lose any precious time. He swore that nothing would ever
make him abandon his religion.
    The discipline
that had been instilled in him at the academy over the previous two years
allowed Lubji to carry on without food or rest until daybreak. When he
eventually slept, it was on the back of a cart, and then later in the front
seat of a lorry. He was determined that nothing would stop his progress toward
a friendly country.
    Although freedom
was a mere 180 kilometers away, Lubji saw the sun rise and set three times
before he heard the cries from those ahead of him who had reached the sovereign
state of Hungary. He came to a halt at the end of a straggling queue of
would-be immigrants. Three hours later he had traveled only a few hundred
yards, and the queue of people ahead of him began to settle down for the night.
Anxious eyes looked back to see smoke rising high into the sky, and the sound
of guns could be heard as the Germans continued their relentless advance.
    Lubji waited
until it was pitch dark, and then silently made his way past the sleeping
families, until he could clearly see the lights of the border post ahead of
him. He lay down in a ditch as inconspicuously as possible, his head resting on
his little leather case.
    As the customs
officer raised the barrier the following morning, Lubji was waiting at the
front of the queue. When those behind him woke and saw the young man in his
academic garb chanting a psalm under his breath, none of them considered asking
him how he had got there.
    The customs
officer didn’t waste a lot of time searching Lubji’s little case. Once he had
crossed the border, he never strayed off the road to Budapest, the only
Hungarian city he had heard of. Another two days and nights of sharing food
with generous families, relieved to have escaped from the wrath of the Germans,
brought him to the outskirts of the capital on 23 September 1939.
    Lubji couldn’t
believe the sights that greeted him. Surely this must be the largest city on
earth? He spent his first few hours just walking through the streets, becoming
more and more intoxicated with each pace he took. He finally collapsed on the
steps of a massive synagogue, and when he woke the following morning, the first
thing he did was to ask for directions to the marketplace.
    Lubji stood in
awe as he stared at row upon row of covered stalls, stretching as far as the
eye could see. Some only sold vegetables, others just fruit, while a few dealt
in furniture, and one simply in pictures, some of which even had frames.
    But despite the
fact that he spoke their language fluently, when he offered his services to the
traders their only question was, “Do you have anything to se11?” For the second
time in his life, Lubji faced the problem of having nothing to barter with. He
stood and watched as refugees traded priceless family heirlooms, sometimes for
no more than a loaf of bread or a sack of potatoes. It quickly became clear to
him that war allowed some people to amass a great fortune.
    Day after day
Lubji searched for work. At night he would collapse onto the pavement, hungry
and exhausted, but still determined. After every trader in the market had
turned him down, he was reduced to begging on street corners.
    Late one afternoon,
on the verge of despair, he passed an old woman in a newspaper kiosk on the
corner of a quiet street, and noticed that she wore the Star of David on a thin
gold chain around her neck. He gave her a smile, hoping she might take pity on
him, but she ignored the filthy young immigrant and