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It was Sándor who finally posed the question in November of 1944, when it was clear the Red Army would take Budapest from the Arrow Cross and the Nazis. "If there's a siege, how are we going to protect the animals?" he asked, looking from one face to the next, totally baffled by the fact that everyone seemed far more interested in how they were going to protect themselves. "We're going to have to work double hard," replied Oszkár Teleki, director of the zoo, though Teleki would be the first to run off that December when the Russian tanks entered the squares and boulevards, telling his secretary he was going to meet with the Red Army and insist that they respect the animals, and then asking her to pack all of the zoo's money into a bag, just in case.
Sándor and József were the last to see Teleki leave, intercepting him near the exit and asking whether he had plans in place for the aquarium, where even now the attendants were working around the clock to keep the water from freezing by stirring it with paddles. Both men were suspicious because Teleki was wearing an overcoat belted at the waist and an elegant hat, and was carrying an ivoryhandled umbrella in one hand and a suitcase bulging with money in the other, banknotes fluttering from every crack. Also, Teleki wasn't taking the eastern exit out of the zoo, as he normally did when going home, but the western one, in the direction of Buda, of Germany, and away from the advancing Soviets.
"We should feed you to the lion," said Sándor, to which Teleki responded by fingering his collar and looking nervous and telling them he'd be back "really quite soon." "You're not going anywhere," said József, and he grabbed hold of Teleki as he was turning from them, jerking him so hard the old man's knees gave out and József had to hold him up above the muddy cobblestones.
József was about to do something else to him then - hit him, or pull the suitcase from his grip - but when he saw Teleki's face - the bared teeth, the eyes darting back and forth, the desperation to escape - looking just...