I nodded again. The young lady was still smiling. What on earth were these fancy young ladies smiling at all the bloody time, I thought to myself. I didn’t see anything funny in the situation at all.
“Go on, miss, have a heart!” I begged, my voice faltering. “I don’t know what’ll become of me if that letter don’t get sent.”
The young lady just looked at me, smiling, and started shaking her head more and more. I didn’t know what that meant, her shaking her head, and I didn’t know what to make of her constant dumpy smiling, either. Is she making fun of me, or what? My heart was in my mouth; I watched her tiniest movements.
“All right, then,” she said at last. “But you come and bring me the rest, you hear?”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“You mean you’ll send it?”
“Yes.”
I thought my heart would burst for joy. I grabbed the young lady’s hand and kissed it all over.
“God bless your kindness, miss! I’ll bring that money as soon as I’m better.”
That perennial, incurable smile vanished from the young lady’s face.
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, surprised.
“Oh, miss!” I said, the pent-up grievance bursting out of me, but that was as far as I got. My voice failed me, salty tears started flowing from my eyes, and though I wanted to speak, all that came out was “oh, oh, oh!”, and all the while I was thinking that this fine young lady who laughed at everything was going to laugh at me now, and I was terribly ashamed. I turned, without a word, and ran out into the street.
I ran down the street, sobbing loudly.
This was a new experience for me. I wasn’t one to cry much, and even if now and then I felt like crying, I wouldn’t have done so in front of others for all the world. I would think of my rep, and my eyes stayed dry. But recently, there had been nothing I could do. My nerves, like shredded reins, did not respond to my will, and rep or no rep, the salt water just kept flowing from my eyes.
“What’s the matter, son?” an old woman called after me, but I just swore at her kindness and tore out into the fields so no one would see me.
As soon as I was alone, I felt so weak I almost collapsed. I didn’t know what had got into me. I was sweating in rivulets, but I was still cold. My knees felt soft, and I could barely drag myself along. I had to keep stopping to rest over and over, and it took me a good hour to get home.
There was a huge commotion in the yard. The boys were playing capture the flag, which told me that the old woman wasn’t home. The world was spinning around me, but as I stepped into the yard, I drew myself up ramrod straight. I didn’t so much as look at the boys. I thought they already knew about my humiliation, but as it turned out later, they had no idea. I went straight to our room and collapsed into the straw. My teeth were chattering, I had the chills all over, my whole body was trembling.
I’d never been ill before, and now I was scared to death. I listened to the dull click of my chattering teeth, petrified. I’m going to die, I thought, and cried, and cried, and cried. Then, all at once, I was un aware of everything. I’d fallen asleep.
•
I woke to someone shaking my shoulder. It was Péter, one of the boys. He was standing in the straw before me, looking at me in alarm.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered dully. “I was sleepin’. What you starin’ at?”
“You was yellin’ in your sleep.”
“Doing what?”
“Yellin’. You could hear it all the way out in the yard.”
I felt myself blush. I was dreadfully ashamed of having yelled. What could I have been yelling about? I wanted to ask, but didn’t dare.
“None of your business!” I shouted, resenting him for having heard me yell. “Get lost, I need my sleep.”
With that, I turned to the wall and closed my eyes. But he just stood there, as if he had something more to say. I made a point of not asking him what. In the end, he couldn’t stand it any longer and leant down over me.
“Hey . . . Béla . . .”
He’d dropped his voice, his face was conspiratorial. I knew at once he had something important to say.
“What is it?”
Péter waited a few moments more for effect. Then he told me:
“The old woman’s havin’ one of her praying fits!”
At that, I jumped up as if I were fit as a fiddle. If the old woman was having one of her “praying fits”, anyone could get anything out of her they wanted. The boys all knew that and made good use of her fits of kindness. Not me. I lied, I stole, I beat people up for money, but two-faced I wasn’t. I’d always looked down on the boys for going and wheedling her at times like this, and now I was judging myself a hundred times more harshly for wanting to do the same thing. But what else could I do? I said to myself. I was already sick, and if she didn’t give me something to eat, I’d die.
“Go on, get in there, go!” Péter told me. “She’s kneelin’ in front of the Virgin.”
“Should I?” I asked, though by then I’d already made up my mind to go.
“Yeah.”
“What do I do in there?”
“You never done it before?”
“No.”
“You’re a fool. Want to starve? Just go in, calm as can be, and kneel down next to the old witch. Then say an Our Father, loud as you can.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Then she forgives you, all merciful and everything.”
“Oh the hell with her!” I burst out. “I hate the damn sight of her.”
“Me too,” Péter said. “But just you go in there. Know what’s for supper?”
“What?”
“Brawn and onions. Swear to God.”
My mouth began to water. My God, brawn and onions! I would have been off at once, but there was still one thing gnawing at me inside.
“Do you have to say an Our Father?”
“You don’t have to, but it’s better if you do.”
“Then I don’t think I will.”
“Why? Scared of him?”
This he asked with such an air of disdain that I felt ashamed. Péter was a third-year, and since he couldn’t compete with me physically, he was always trying to lay me low with his spiritual prowess instead. I didn’t know what to say. I have to admit, I hadn’t thought much about theological questions at six. Maybe they’d learnt about it in third year, I thought, and—being a careful sort of lad—didn’t reply. Péter was obviously relishing his spiritual superiority. He looked at me with furrowed brows like a strict but kindly teacher and put his hand on my shoulder with a significant gesture.
“Listen,” he said. “I ain’t scared of him no more.”
“Not scared of God?”
“Not a bit! He don’t care about us boys anyway, not if we’re poor. It’s a load of rubbish, my friend. When did Jesus last get you something to eat? Never, that’s when. Far as he cares, you can go starve to death, ain’t that right?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, either. Jesus really hadn’t brought me any food, that was true, but what Péter had said still made me angry, though I couldn’t exactly tell you why. It’s possible that some instinctive sense of religiousness revolted within me, but it’s also possible that I was angry because this uppity boy was so full of his own knowledge again.
“But it’s still wrong to say an Our Father and not mean it,” I grumbled.
“Don’t be so scared, my friend,” he said dismissively, “It’s all a load of tripe. Just do what I do.”
“What’s that?”
“I walk right in the front room, kneel down next to the old witch, roll my eyes all saint-like, then trot out the prayers, keen as anything, like I was sorry for my sins. But in my head, I just say:
Our Father,
who art in heaven
Your old man’s
a big ol’ melon
Your mam’s a pea
,
and you’re a lemon!”
I broke into loud, vicious laughter.
“Again!” I said, panting for breath. “How’d it go?”
By then, Péter too had got the giggles. We were laughing like a couple of lunatics, whooping, jumping up and down, and repeating the little ditty again and again:
Our Father,
who art in heaven
Your old man’s
a big ol’ melon
Your mam’s a pea,
and you’re a lemon!
We tottered with laughter for several minutes, like a pair of drunks. Then Péter put his hand on my shoulder again, and with the haughtiness of a schoolteacher asked me:
“Still scared, my friend?”
“The hell I am!” I replied cockily. “And you can stop calling me ‘my friend’ or I’ll kick you up the arse!”
With that, I turned and went out into the yard. Everything was churning up inside me. I don’t have to be scared of God, I’ve got to convince the old woman, my friend, it’s all a load of rubbish anyway! I spat a juicy one out of the side of my mouth and, pressing my chin down onto my neck, headed for the old woman’s room with heavy, angry, bull-like steps, as if getting ready to kill.
It was already getting quite dark. An eerie quiet had settled on the yard. Not a soul around. In the kitchen, the maid was humming something in a flat, throaty voice, but that only seemed to make the silence deeper. I was cold. I must have had a high fever.
The maid left off her humming when I came into the kitchen and stared at me with her dumb, bovine eyes.
“What’s the matter with you?”
I didn’t reply. Absolutely determined, like someone climbing the gallows steps, I entered the front room. The old woman was kneeling in front of the picture of the Virgin, grinding away at her rosary, head bowed. It was dark in the room, only the flicker of the eternal flame glowing in the red glass under the Virgin. The wind blew in through the open window, causing the flame of the candle to gutter and scratch again and again. Long, lopsided shadows swayed on the wall. The old woman looked at me, but it was as if she hadn’t seen me. Her eyes were hollow and fixed, like a blind man’s. I knelt down beside her without a word and, following Péter’s advice, started mechanically muttering to myself:
Our Father,
who art in heaven
Your old man’s
a big ol’ melon
Your mam’s a pea,
and you’re a lemon!
“Our Father, who art in heaven . . .”
I shuddered. My voice seemed as strange as if I were hearing it for the first time. My teeth were chattering, I could barely go on.
“Give us this day our daily bread,” I heard the strange voice beseech, and I started sobbing terribly.
“And forgive us our trespasses,” the old woman continued, “as we forgive those that trespass against us . . .”
She spread out her arms wildly and her voice was as deep and full as Péter’s when he was imitating her. All at once I came to my senses. I saw myself as if the old, healthy Béla had peered in at the keyhole, rolling about sobbing beside the half-crazed old bat, and Squirrel piped up in a mocking grumble:
Our Father,
who art in heaven
Your old man’s
a big ol’ melon
Your mam’s a pea,
and you’re a lemon!
“Amen,” the old woman mumbled in a saintly voice, because she’d come to the end of her prayers meanwhile; and then she turned to me and irritably, like a servant just carrying out the master’s orders, crowed at me: “You get food from today. Now out!”
But I just stood there in front of her, immobile, as if her incredible mercy had rooted me to the spot. I don’t know what I was waiting for. Perhaps a miracle, or to get up enough courage to throw her sainted alms back into her face. I hated her more than ever, and the thought that I had no right to hate her seemed absolutely intolerable.
“Give me work,” I begged. “I’ll work for my bread.”
“Don’t talk back!” she snapped at me. “I said out!”
With that, she crossed herself and went on with her prayers.
•
That night, I had supper with the other children again. I felt awful and can’t have had much of an appetite, but you don’t eat for your stomach alone. Even the thought that I could eat at last was dizzying, especially brawn and onions.
We had supper out in the yard, around a long table under the walnut tree. I stared stiff and silent at the smoky petroleum lamp and never looked at the children. It was a fine, warm autumn evening, the sky full of shooting stars, the boys crowing, making wishes one after the other. All I wanted was for my stomach to be full and for the devil to take the old witch and the whole godforsaken world to boot.
Ilona, the dull-eyed maid, was serving supper. She was not a clever girl—even as a six-year-old I had established as much—but incredibly kind-hearted. She gave me twice as much as the other boys. Hungry as a wolf, I ate it all up, but started burping right after. This, in itself, did not upset me. Down our way, burping was considered a fine and healthy thing, and no one would have dreamt of thinking it rude. Peasants are absolutely convinced that if you don’t burp after a meal, you haven’t really had your fill, so it’s actually downright impolite for a guest not to burp at his host’s table. I’m nice and full, I thought, and tried not to notice that the world was spinning around me.
I didn’t last long, though. My stomach was so upset that I almost had to vomit right there. I jumped up and ran as fast as I could, but didn’t even make it as far as the privy. In thirty seconds, round the corner of the house, I threw up the dinner I had been waiting for so long and so desperately.
The old Komondor greeted my foul luck like some kind of birthday present. He bounded around my legs wagging his tail and licked up the whole lot while it was still warm. It was only later that I learnt that a man’s vomit is, for dogs, a delicacy, and that more generally, there is nothing bad that can happen to one of God’s creatures that isn’t good for another in some form or another. But I was hardly aware of that at the age of six, and so I thought to myself, in the narrow-minded way that anyone who’s suffering will, that Péter had been right after all when he said that God doesn’t care about the children of the poor.
I was sick for some time. I got a high fever from time to time, but I never missed a meal. I simply could not imagine someone not eating when they were given food, and it was, time and again, the dog that reaped the rewards.
My mother got my letter, but not the position she’d been hoping for. Instead of money, she just kept sending pleading letters. The old woman—no doubt thinking of the debt my mother had amassed—didn’t put me out of doors, but one morning she called me in to see her in the front room.
“If you want to work, work!” she grunted. “And not just run filthy mouth, you hear?”
Yes, I’d heard that, all right. That was clear as day and needed no eternal flame to illuminate it. From then on she was once more so genuinely loathsome that I could hate her with a clear conscience. So, with time, my emotional balance was restored.
I worked so hard I almost burst. Not because the old woman had told me to; good luck to her if she’d tried. No, I worked for pride, for my humanity. I wanted to show the old bat that I didn’t need her charity: I would “work for my bread”.
With occasional breaks of varying lengths, I worked seven or eight hours a day. I fetched water from the well, fed the animals, swept up, and cleaned the house. I didn’t stop working even when my mother managed to send a little money. I had lost faith in that source of income. I thought of motherly love as nothing more than hollow words that grown-ups made up to fool children. You couldn’t put it on a plate and eat it, I said to myself, thinking of my wild days of hunger. I wanted to stand on my own two feet.
I was quite a useful little lad and so strong that even the peasants passing by would stop and watch me work.
&
nbsp; “Well, I’ll be . . .” they’d say, feeling my muscles. “How long did your muther suckle you?”
But I didn’t stop to chit-chat with them. Even praise I greeted with suspicion. Why would anyone praise a little bastard boy? They just want to make fun of me, I thought, and pressed my chin to my neck and looked up at my kindly elders with my eyes down low, like a little bull ready to charge. No, I was no “dear child”. I was a lawless mongrel in this dog-eat-dog world of ours, with all its strict rules of breeding.
7
IF DAYDREAMING IS THE ENEMY of real life, then my little old life was in no danger whatsoever. I was as sober as an aged peasant.
I lost my head only once—on account of a girl, of course. It was a strange, stunted little love affair, but I still paid for it so bitterly that for the next eight years I didn’t want anything at all to do with love.
Sárika was her name. I don’t remember her face any more, only her pretty reddish-blond hair, her milk-white skin and her many, many freckles; and that she had that fragile, thin-as-a-rake look I couldn’t abide in boys.
She had a big doll she used to play with day in, day out, alone. She had no actual friends, but that wasn’t her fault. Nationalist Jew-bashing was in its heyday then, and Sárika was Jewish. There was only one Jewish family in the village, Sárika’s parents and grandparents. Her father owned the village shop and her grandfather the inn. They were quiet, decent folk, and before this wave of bare-breasted nationalism had reared its head, they had been well liked in the village. Now, the only people who went to see them were asking for a loan. Anyone who didn’t get one started cursing the filthy Jews, the ones who did nodding quietly along, because who doesn’t curse their creditors?
Children learnt to hate the Jews before they learnt to read or write. It was all they heard, and little wonder if they simplified things a little in their own way. Jews were the cause of all earthly ills, from headaches to hail, and so they hated Sárika, the only child representative of the detested race, like the Devil incarnate. That little girl was such a pariah in the village that even a self-respecting Gypsy child would have been ashamed to play with her.
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