Mary, p.1
The Compass Point, page 1
Patty Duffy
THE COMPASS POINT
Copyright © 2024 Patty Duffy
All rights reserved.
First Edition.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in any part (beyond the copying permitted in the US Copyright Law Section 107 “fair use” in teaching or research, Section 108, certain library copying, or in published media by reviewers in limited excerpts) without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, dates, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes.
Cover Design and Formatting by The Book Khaleesi
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
2000 New York
CHAPTER 2
1967 Israel
CHAPTER 3
2000 Hungary
CHAPTER 4
1978 Austria
CHAPTER 5
1980 Austria
CHAPTER 6
1988 Austria
CHAPTER 7
1988 Corsica
CHAPTER 8
1988 Corsica
CHAPTER 9
1989 Corsica
CHAPTER 10
1989 Dubai
CHAPTER 11
1989 Dubai
CHAPTER 12
1989 Czechoslovakia
CHAPTER 13
Czechoslovakia
CHAPTER 14
1990 Austria
CHAPTER 15
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 16
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 17
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 18
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 19
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 20
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 21
1991 Hungary
CHAPTER 22
1991 Austria
CHAPTER 23
1992 Vienna
CHAPTER 24
1992 Vienna
CHAPTER 25
1992 Vienna
CHAPTER 26
1992 Spain
CHAPTER 27
1992 Spain
CHAPTER 28
1992 Austria
CHAPTER 29
1992 Czech Republic
CHAPTER 30
1992 Syria
CHAPTER 31
1992 Syria
CHAPTER 32
1992 Austria
CHAPTER 33
1992 New York
CHAPTER 34
1992 New York
CHAPTER 35
1992 Austria
CHAPTER 36
1992 Prague
CHAPTER 37
1992 Spain
CHAPTER 38
1993 Vienna
CHAPTER 39
1993 Spain
CHAPTER 40
1997 Spain
CHAPTER 41
1997 - Archie Tours Kenya
CHAPTER 42
1997 Switzerland
CHAPTER 43
1997 Switzerland
CHAPTER 44
1997 Spain
CHAPTER 45
1998 New York
CHAPTER 46
1998 New York
CHAPTER 47
1998 Estonia
CHAPTER 48
1998 Austria
CHAPTER 49
1998 Czech Republic
CHAPTER 50
1999 New York
CHAPTER 51
1999 New York
CHAPTER 52
1999 New York
CHAPTER 53
1999 New York
CHAPTER 54
1999 New York
CHAPTER 55
1999 Hungary
CHAPTER 56
1999 Czech Republic
CHAPTER 57
2000 Austria
CHAPTER 58
2000 Czech Republic
CHAPTER 59
2000 Hungary
CHAPTER 60
2000 Russia
CHAPTER 61
2000 Hungary
CHAPTER 62
2000 Hungary
CHAPTER 63
2000 Austria
CHAPTER 64
2000 New York
CHAPTER 65
2000 New York
CHAPTER 66
2000 Hungary/New York
AFTERWORD
About Gratitude and The Author
Readers’ Guide Questions for The Compass Point
Books that Inspired Archie’s Character
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
– Sophocles The Cure at Troy
Dedicated to my grandchildren
Ella, Wyatt, Dylan, and Cameron,
in hopes of a safer world.
CHAPTER 1
2000 New York
A September cold snap had brought early tinges of red and orange to the trees. Past the suspension bridge just short of the steep Stairway to Heaven incline, Archie and his nephew found a cluster of ghost apples. Logan looked over the empty, crystalline clusters. Below them, some berry-sized apples had escaped and tumbled to the ground. In a ten-year-old huff, he stomped on them with his hiking boots.
“Okay, are you going to tell me now why I needed to fly here?” Archie said. His impatience was a sham.
“Every time Dad comes home, it’s worse,” Logan said. “Whatever I do or say, it’s wrong. He says not to tell anyone at school that he’s home, or they’ll come after him. I ask who is coming after him, and he won’t answer. ‘Why don’t you do this’ and ‘You should do that,’ he says.” Logan gave his imitation of his father. “He drinks, and then he argues with Mom.” He kicked a stone.
Archie waited. Logan closed his eyes and breathed in the cool air. Opening his eyes at Archie, he didn’t reveal his usual crap-detecting scowl or glint of anticipation, just sadness.
“He watches me like I’m doing something wrong all the time. I had my history book out for homework, and he grabbed it. He said my book was a bunch of lies and the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. He said the slaves were treated great, and it was better for them than dying, that the South had the right idea, and I should tell my teacher. I’m not telling my teacher that shit.”
Archie swallowed the words he wanted to say. “There are people who agree with your dad, but your teacher is right. You can make up your own mind.” He told his nephew that he did the right thing by calling him instead of running away. Archie told him that there were times he wanted to run away, too.
Logan sighed and kicked the ground. He looked up the steep trail. “Why can't you just stay here? This can be your home base. You fly back and forth anyway.”
Archie looked at him with a rueful smile. He ruffled his nephew’s hair. “Let’s go,” he said.
The two followed the circular path for the rest of the day, clearing their steps over stones kind enough not to twist an ankle. Archie listened to Logan’s telling of the words that hurt and his dread of the next ones to come until they arrived back at the brownstone late for dinner.
The next day, a secure phone message cut short Archie's visit. He took the stairs two at a time to pack his bag. A shutdown at his university in Hungary had sparked the beginning of a student protest. Archie viewed the forced shutdown as problematic but not unexpected. His surprise was the students’ response, and he had to be there in support.
As Archie told his security detail to get tickets for his flight to Budapest and ten boxes of fruit pastries for the protesters, he spotted Logan standing at the bottom of the stairs. Somehow, he’d explain why he had to leave. Logan would have to understand.
A few days earlier, when Archie was in Hungary, Logan had called to ask about hiking the trail.
“I want to try that stairway trail, like the song?”
“Stairway to Heaven? How do you know about that song?
“I heard Dad singing it. He’s home. Please, Dod Archie. I want to go hiking.”
Archie pictured his nephew near the wall phone in the kitchen, twisting the chord as he spoke. He didn’t want to force Logan into an uncomfortable explanation, but the timing was odd. All of their prior hikes had been in the spring and summer. Now it was fall, and Logan was back in school. He’d have to pick up some warmer gear.
Logan spoke so quietly on the other end of the line that Archie could barely hear him. “Dod Archie, if you can’t come, I think I’ll run away again.”
Archie recalled his sister’s wailing phone call last year when Logan had been missing for fourteen hours. Uncounted blocks away, a homeless man had listened to Logan’s story and walked him back to the brownstone. “I’ll clear my calendar and catch a flight from Budapest tomorrow,” Archie said.
“The earliest one?” Logan asked.
A tug on Archie’s raincoat brought him back to the present. The SUV was quiet on the ride to JFK. Everyone seemed as lost in thought as Archie was. He felt his nephew lean into him as the SUV turned a sharp corner, and he watched as Logan’s finger traced the tiny black monogram beside the buttons on his frayed shirt cuff: a six-pointed star, bars, and a bird in flight.
“What’s that?” Logan asked.
“I’ll tell you.” Archie rechecked his watch. “These are reminders to me. That’s the Star of David.” He pointed to his cuff. “It mea
Archie looked down at the wayward waves of his nephew’s hair and worried about him.
“Dod Archie, Mom said it was just your fancy shirt,” Logan said.
“Dod Archie, Dod Archie, call him your uncle like a normal kid,” his father said, turning to them from the front seat.
Archie caught his sister’s frown in the rearview mirror as she drove toward the airport, the SUV’s windshield wipers working against the Midtown rain. “It’s what he wants. Dod is the language of our people,” she said.
“Yeah, well, this is not the land of your people,” Logan’s dad replied as he fiddled with his phone. He turned and looked down his nose at Archie. “What time ya need to be there?”
“If I’m there in forty-five, that should do it.” Archie’s baritone voice cut through the echoes of street noise outside. He hoped their hike, that time away to vent, would be enough to keep Logan from cutting loose.
CHAPTER 2
1967 Israel
Archie and Rivka hadn’t been on the kibbutz for a year yet when the taunting started. Rivka was only four but made friends easily in the children's house. For most of the day, she could forget that they had no parents to visit at 4:00 each day like the other children whose parents came to collect them. For Archie, it was more difficult. The boys made fun of his Hungarian birth, his accent, his skinny legs, and his poor health. It wasn’t as bad as the first years after the war when they moved to Israel with his mother.
Walking the streets of Haifa, a man shook his fist at them, calling them traitors. He claimed to be a resistance fighter and called Archie’s father a coward. When Archie yelled back, his mother yanked his arm “Shh. It’s not safe.”
Back at the house, his mother locked the door. Shortly before they had fled Hungary, because of the threats, and fear of something worse, she said. But the anger seemed to follow them here.
At home, his mother had a way with words, telling him the truth about his dad and the Hungarian resistance so that he would never forget. Jews worked hard for Hungary before the war, and they thought that the government would protect them like any citizen. Instead, the government handed them over.
A tip from a neighbor revealed that his father was working for the resistance, making weapons from broken guns. Rather than kill him, the Germans made him repair weapons for them, threatening to kill his parents if he refused. At the end of the war, he learned that they took his parents to Auschwitz anyway. The years he spent in the resistance never mattered. He was an honorable man, but neighbors knew him as a collaborator, a pariah. After the war, he married and had a family, hoping that times would change and that they wouldn’t have to suffer. One day when Archie was small, his father was gunned down by another resistance fighter, a veteran. It was hard for Archie and his sister either to act ashamed about their father or to risk violence.
After their mother’s death from random crossfire in front of their home in Haifa, the children were sent to a kibbutz near the border. Early on, the older neighborhood boys blindfolded ten-year-old Archie and dragged him far away to disorient him, removing the blindfold in a place in the kibbutz he’d never been in the hope that he’d get lost and never return. After a few of these episodes, he considered these kidnappings to be little adventures. He’d listen to the sounds of goat’s bells, echoes of cantors through open synagogue doors, the smell of the baker’s bread or the mechanic’s oil, and trace his way back by sound and smell. When the boys discovered that he didn’t mind these excursions, they gave up. But not Archie.
Although he was supposed to stay in the Children’s House, he found it easy to escape and to wander around the kibbutz during the parent visits. He was a curious child and enjoyed the freedom to go where he pleased. From time to time, he often ended up at the mechanic’s shop. The grandfatherly man would stop what he was doing and tell Archie stories about places he’d visited – Sharm al-Sheikh, Istanbul, and Rome. On one visit, he pulled a battered compass from his pocket and showed Archie how it worked. “Here is true north,” he said. “You know there is only one true north. People may try to tell you something different, but a compass reminds you to depend on yourself. Any time you’re lost, it will remind you to find your way.” Archie thanked the man and pushed the compass deep into his pocket, holding it tight. Like a soldier with a gun, he felt in charge.
He returned to the Children’s House and Rivka shortly after. With Rivka came her friend Adi who had just returned from Adi’s parents. Adi’s parents were happy to have Rivka join them as their daughter was an only child. Time with their quiet child was more pleasant with bubbly Rivka nearby.
Archie showed the girls his compass and told them about True North. He told Rivka the compass would always help him find the best way to care for her.
The next day, Archie was in the grove, raking olives from the tarp and putting them in boxes. The sun was hot, and Archie was tired. Jacob, Adi’s brother, who was big for his age, approached.
“Give it to me.”
“What?”
“That compass. I’m gonna tell. You can’t have anything that you can’t share. Give it to me, or I’ll turn you in, and you’ll be in big trouble.”
Archie clenched his fists, but Jacob pushed his shoulders and knocked Archie off balance. He landed on the olive tarp.
“C’mon. It’s old. It has dents in it.” Archie’s hand slipped into his pocket, and he held tight to the compass.
“Give it to me now,” Jacob said. He kicked Archie’s ribs and pulled his hand open. He grabbed the compass and ran off.
That night in the cafeteria line, Archie had an idea. He saw Jacob leaning over a bowl of hummus and left the line to talk to a cook. “I saw Jacob spit in the hummus,” he said, pointing to the bowl.
The cook went to the line, batting away a child who tried to pick up the serving spoon. She grabbed the bowl and took it to the kitchen. “Jacob Klein, come here.”
Archie watched from his table as the cook called out Jacob, gesturing and pointing to the dinner line and then the door. Jacob left for the Children’s House.
The next night, Archie got in line behind Jacob. He watched Jacob pull the ponytail of the girl in front of him. She turned to scowl at him, and he did it again.
Archie left his place in line and found the cook. “Jacob pulled Leah’s hair twice. Then he put hair in the salad.”
“Stop with this tattling,” she said. Mind your own business,” She walked around the salad and decided to remove it. “Jacob,” she called once more.
The next day, Archie found Jacob in the olive groves. “Give me back my compass.”
“What are you gonna do if I don’t?”
“I’ll tell Cook that you shit in our food.”
“Get outta here,” Jacob said.
That night, at the bottom of his toothbrush mug, Archie found the compass.
The following week, he sought out the grandfatherly mechanic who appreciated a good story. But the mechanic was gone. He returned and asked around, but no one knew where he had gone. Archie missed him.
CHAPTER 3
2000 Hungary
Students at Archie’s University Europe Central had been protesting in the streets for over 30 hours. His journalists walked with the protesters in Budapest’s Szechenyi Square and refused to leave. “All they want is relief from blisters on their feet,” Zolt told Archie.
“Betadine, Zolt. Send someone for Betadine cream and new socks. And ten more boxes of those layered fruit pastries from the Bottega di Finestra on Platnerska 11.”
Archie walked down the line of protesters, shaking hands and hugging them, ignoring the shouts from counter-protesters on the other side of the street.
“The Russian government subsidizes their protesters. We do not.” Nicoletta told Kristof. Nicoletta edited her story as they walked, but she wanted it out of her notebook and into the world. “So many signs – about freedom to make the films we want, books chosen by professors not – “ Nicoletta stopped in mid-sentence. Three young men in black t-shirts, arms linked, goose-stepped next to them singing the Russian national anthem loudly enough that the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Kristof linked his arm in hers and tugged her away to another part of the crowd.
