“Bélushka,” she said emotionally, “we’re taking Istványka.”
Yes, I nodded silently, I knew. I couldn’t look at her. I stared straight ahead, my lips pressed tight together to stop me crying.
“You be good now, Bélushka,” she added. “An’ the Lord’ll help you, too.”
Then she hugged me and kissed me. Oh God, there was so much I wanted to say to her in that hurried moment. I wanted to thank her for being so good to me, for binding my finger, and getting me that whistle, and playing itsy-bitsy spider with me on Sunday afternoons, and hiding under the couch at the “dentist’s”. And a lot more things besides, things I couldn’t say, but my heart was so full of tears that I was afraid that if I moved, all that salty water would come sloshing out of me.
“Th-thank you!” is all I could say to her.
“What for, Bélushka?” she asked, surprised.
“Th-the whistle, P-Piroshka,” I stammered clumsily and ran off, because I could no longer contain my tears.
I hid, shamefaced, behind the hedge, but when I saw them going out of the gate, I sneaked after them. They didn’t turn around, they didn’t see me. It’s not as if I wanted to talk to them—God knows why I followed them. I just watched them from afar as they walked down the high street, the three of them, the half-pint mother on the left, the massive father on the right, and the boy István in the middle, as they held his hands from either side.
That was the end of my little story with Piroshkamydear. I never saw them again, but there was a time they drove me once more to tears. One morning, the old postman with a limp brought us a postcard: With best wishes, István K.
That was all it said, but that was enough. I knew that Istvány’s surname had been “Cs.” before, and this was probably the first time he had written his new—his father’s—name.
He was no longer illegitimate.
12
FOR THE SAKE OF THE HISTORICAL record, I won’t disguise the fact that I had to get Gergely to read Istvány’s postcard, because although I was by then nine years old, I couldn’t read or write. When I was six and had marched proudly off with the other boys to go sign up for school, the old woman had grabbed me by the ear and dragged me back in off the street.
“What next, gallows rat?” she bawled angrily. “Your bitch mother not pay for two months again, nothing at all, and you want go to school? Aren’t you ashame? Not enough my bread you eat, devil take your guts, you want go to school on my money too?”
I stood there in front of the frothing old woman as if she’d struck me a blow to the head. School was the biggest goal of my miserable childhood, and here I was being told I was a gallows rat for trying to go. The sobs were clutching at my throat, but my eyes stayed dry. I was a bastard child, I said nothing. What could I have said? That there was such a thing as compulsory education was totally unknown to me, but I did know that my mother was unemployed again, and I knew what that meant. I didn’t yet know how to write, but I had learnt that poor children like me only got from life whatever they could grab from it by force, subterfuge or cunning. So I had to bow to a wisdom beyond my years and admit that despite everything, my attempt at grabbing on to some knowledge had failed—I had been caught red-handed.
Six months before I might have protested, but since my mother had thrown herself at the old woman’s throat, I didn’t dare utter a word. I was in constant fear of finding myself out on the street, and I was cowed like a dog beaten into the corner. The old woman must have thought I’d resigned myself to my fate, but oh no—I was made of harder stuff than that. I was merely thinking like a peasant. I could see that the enemy was stronger and I wasn’t going to bang my head against a brick wall. I dug in under the powerful cover of silence and waited. As to what for, I don’t know. Perhaps a miracle.
I never talked to anyone about this. I told the boys, when they brought it up, that only sops went to school and I wasn’t a sop. But secretly I was consumed with jealousy when they left the house laden down with books on an autumn morning, or when they would talk about school life at the dinner table in what was to my ears a mysterious and incomprehensible slang.
Meanwhile, I’d become a maid. Zsuzsa, my predecessor, had got married on the feast of the Nativity of Mary, and since then the old woman had had me take over her duties. I did them well, and cost her nothing, so why would she have stood for my idling around in school instead? I was an expert in every kind of domestic chore, from peeling potatoes to scrubbing floors, and knew so much about the animals, most adults would have been green with envy. I could ride a horse bareback and was such a steady driver that they let me out in the cart alone on shorter trips.
This was something I liked to do. When I was driving, there was no one to boss me about; I’d lean back regally on the box and as the one-eyed mare clattered dolefully along with the creaking dray, I lost myself in daydreams, in fantastical castles in mythical lands. Myriad incredible tales filled my head, and I was always the hero—the great, just, renowned Béla who punished the oppressors of the poor, gave bread to the starving, and generally made certain the last would be first and the first last. The one-eyed mare, meanwhile, was transformed into a haughty charger and the rickety cart a glorious carriage in which I rode into town as a triumphant general, to the roar of cheering crowds. Sometimes, I’d embroider a single tale for months on end, working away at its colourful peasant-weave. Soon I would get so lost in my story that I began to talk aloud to my imagined companions, or give fiery speeches damning my enemies.
Where had that old, sober Béla gone? I was lost in a mist, taking dream-tablets to fight reality. I’d got so used to this dangerous game that I even imagined myself as a prince from a fairy tale who only went around barefoot in rags to get to know all the many tricks his people played so that one day, later, he’d be able to dispense justice all the more wisely. I had great plans. I told myself that when I grew up, I would organize the poor into gangs, like the children’s gangs that we had formed, and—like Sándor Rózsa—steal treasure from the rich and distribute it to the poor.
“I’ll show you all who Béla is!” I declaimed with an ominous crack of the whip, which—in my imagination—stood in for my sword.
Yes, I think I really was waiting for a miracle. But there are no miracles, of course. The years plodded by like the old woman’s cart, the first-years at school became second-years, the second-years third, and I became nothing at all. In vain did I imagine myself a fairy-tale prince; from time to time, I too—like the drunkard waking with a hangover—had to face the hopelessness of reality. I was nine and a half and couldn’t so much as read and write. I’d have been a fourth-year by now, I thought to myself, and burst bitterly into tears. Dear God, what’s to become of me?
I tried everything. When the boys were doing their homework, I would loiter around them like a dog to try and glean a little of their knowledge. I once lifted Péter’s reading and writing book and studied it for days on the privy. But what use was the book and my determination when I couldn’t distinguish an “A” from a “B”? Yes, I thought, if I could read, I could study all by myself. But like this . . . In these moments, I saw clearly that my fancy plans were nothing but childish daydreams. The fact was that I knew nothing, and gradually, I too would become like the one-eyed mare that just kept plodding along with the old woman’s cart until it plodded its way into the grave.
•
Finally, in the autumn of 1922, my fate did pull itself together. One morning when I was weeding in the cornfield, the swineherd called over:
“An’ when exactly are you in school, my boy?”
“Saint Never’s Day’s, at midnight!” I replied with my usual insolence.
“Ain’t they fined you yet?”
“Fine me? Why would they fine me?”
“Not you, the old woman.”
“Her? What would they fine her for?”
“For not sending you to school.”
That got my attention.
“They fin
e you for that?”
“They do, they do. Children got to go to school.”
“Even poor children?”
“Them too. Poor boys, rich boys, it’s all the same in the eyes of the law.”
I must say I’d never noticed that before.
“The same?” I asked, stunned. “Hand on heart, brother?”
The old man nodded.
“Look at you, how surprised you look!”
“I am!” I said, and my heart beat so hard it was as if it wanted to pound straight out of my chest. “Well, God bless, brother!”
With that I turned and was gone. I felt so lit up that anyone who’d seen me must have thought I was drunk. And I was. I was drunk on old János’s words. I screamed for joy and ran, galloped through the fields, meadows and pastures as far as my legs would take me. Then I threw myself face down in the grass, panting, and lay perfectly still. There was a great, humming, autumn silence, the sun beat down and the air was full of gossamer. I stared at the sky and thought feverishly. I knew what I was going to do. I had come up with my great plan: I was going to go and talk to the Schoolmaster!
But I wasn’t going to rush into anything head first. I spent three or four weeks preparing for the fateful meeting. I turned every eventuality over in my mind with a peasant’s natural caution: what he might ask, what I should answer, and what I would do if . . . I made up long, impressive sentences that I repeated to myself till I’d learnt my part like the catechism.
I also had a lot of trouble deciding when to go. On a weekday, he might say he was busy and couldn’t see me, while on Sunday, he might say it was his day off and I wasn’t to bother him. You can always find an excuse to turn away a child of shame, but in the end I decided on a Sunday after all. But that wasn’t so simple either. Sunday, all right, but when? I would be sure to find him at home early in the morning, but if I woke him from his sleep, he’d be bound to be upset and throw me out. I could have caught him after mass, too, outside church, but if he’d taken Communion, he wouldn’t have eaten anything and God save us all from a powerful man with an empty stomach! They may very well have just received the body and the blood of Christ, but they’ve no compunction cussing and swearing at the poor. After lunch—now that was different. A gentleman was bound to have a square meal on Sunday. His belly full, all that fine food would make him sleepy and he’d be too lazy to stir up any trouble. But would he even be lunching at home? He was a bachelor, after all. He might have been invited out for lunch to a house with unmarried daughters, or the priest’s, or the doctor’s. No, I didn’t fancy that, either. In the end, I decided to go and see him before church; that was the safest option.
I didn’t sleep much the night before that Sunday. I kept waking from my dream, and was up at five. There was a dreary, ice-cold autumn rain, and it was still dark as midnight. Shivering, I retreated to the warmth of the barn, and repeated my high-blown speech over and over to myself. When it finally got light, I went out to the well and washed for a good half-hour in the pouring rain. I borrowed the scissors from Ilona and cut the nails on my hands and feet. Then I ceremoniously donned the clean shirt I’d secretly been keeping for the occasion for some two weeks now; usually, I only got a fresh shirt every three or four weeks.
The weather was lousy, a dreary October morning fit for suicide. The autumn rains had started some two weeks before and the roads were so soaked that you had the feeling you were clumping through raw, rising dough. I trudged barefoot in the rain, since I had no shoes, and by the time I reached the Schoolmaster’s house, my legs, muddied to the knee, looked like a ham-fisted sculptor’s clay travesty.
The Schoolmaster lived with his spinster sister, whom the boys called Scarecrow among themselves. It was she who answered the door when I rang.
“What do you want?” she asked in her strange, high-pitched nasal voice.
“In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ!” I said, launching into my well-rehearsed litany, because I figured that Jesus, too, had been poor, and it was worth reminding the rich. “Begging your pardon, miss, I’ve come to speak with the Schoolmaster, it’s very important.”
I don’t know why, but I was absolutely convinced that when addressing your social superiors, you had to start every sentence of any significance with “begging your pardon”.
“The Schoolmaster is sleeping,” she said curtly.
“Begging you pardon, I’ll wait.”
“There’s no point,” she said irritably and was already shutting the door. “The Schoolmaster does not receive on Sundays.”
Well, I said to myself, that’s off to a good start. But I wasn’t going to leave just like that. I sat down on a stone in front of the fence, settling in for the long haul. He’s bound to go to church, I thought, and since I couldn’t go in, I’ll catch him on his way out. Just to be on the safe side, I rehearsed my speech once more in my head, and since he still hadn’t come out by the time I’d finished, I went over it again. As I was sitting there like that in the ungodly weather, the window suddenly opened behind me.
“What are you doing out there, boy?” Scarecrow called down.
I jumped up respectfully and stood to attention martially, the way I’d seen the young cadets do it.
“Begging you pardon, miss, I’m waiting.”
“Didn’t I tell you the Schoolmaster’s not receiving today?”
“Yes, miss, you did.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“The Schoolmaster, miss, begging you pardon.”
“What a foolish young man you are.” The old spinster shook her pointy bird-like face. “You’ll catch your death in this rain.”
“Perhaps, miss. But I’ll keep waiting.”
Scarecrow smiled. The devil take these fancy ladies and gentlemen, I thought to myself, you never knew what they were smiling at. What was so amusing about any of this?
“Is it really all that important, what you’ve got to say?” she asked, a little more friendly.
“Yes, miss, terribly.”
“Come on in, then, but be quick about it!”
I clicked my heels together.
“Thank you very much, miss. Begging you pardon!”
I went to the door, but before I pushed down on the handle, I looked around to make sure no one could see, and crossed myself. I never usually did that, but this time I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.
Finally, I was standing before the “gentleman” himself, the Schoolmaster. He was sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves, no collar, laying, with great gusto, into a bit of bacon. He was a handsome man, almost the archetype of the provincial Hungarian man, the kind who’d never quite outgrown his peasant roots. He had a bony face, burnt dark brown by the sun, its skin cracked, the purplish blots of his tippling shining on his cheeks like delicate, well-tended flowers. He must have been about forty. He was a man extremely fond of his drink and easily swayed by the ladies; they used to tell all sorts of stories about him. But he was good with the children, as long as you didn’t answer back too much, because he was quick to raise his hand, dispensing mighty cuffs. He had the torso of a wrestler and from what I could see of his great, thick, dark neck, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he could squeeze himself into a collar. There was something scarily oriental about this bear of a man, but his eyes as he looked me up and down and his big black moustache as he chewed his bacon were so friendly that I wasn’t the least bit afraid of him.
“Well, what is it, my friend?” he asked politely and sent a little glass of pálinka after his bacon.
“Begging you pardon, sir,” I began, my voice trembling slightly, “I’ve come to see you, sir, with something important to ask you.”
“Well, go on, then, I’m listening.”
With that, he bit the end off his cigar, lit it, and leant back comfortably in his battered grandfather chair.
“Well, begging you pardon, sir, what I’ve come to ask you is,” I said, stiffening to attention, “to let me go to school, sir, pl
ease, sir.”
The Schoolmaster was surprised.
“How old are you, boy?”
“Gone nine, sir.”
“Well, by goodness, then why aren’t you in school already?”
“Begging you pardon, I ain’t allowed.”
“Who’s stopping you? Your pa?”
I felt myself blush. I hadn’t been expecting that question. I stood there in awkward silence for a few moments, but then I found my footing again. I avoided the question:
“My muther’s in service in Budapest, sir.”
The Schoolmaster must have understood my meaning, because his next question was:
“Who’re you with here?”
“Um . . . old Rozi.”
“Hm. And why doesn’t the old girl let you go to school?”
“ ’Cause she says, sir, that my muther don’t pay on time, so I have to work off my board.”
The Schoolmaster leant forward in his chair.
“What do you have to work off?”
“Well, what I eat, sir.”
The Schoolmaster shook his head and cast a long, meaningful look at his sister, who was listening to the conversation propped against an old sideboard. I thought he’d looked at her, shaking his head, because he was angry with her for letting a beggar like me into the house. And now he’s going to say what they always say at times like this, that nothing in life is for free, not even dying, oh no, my friend, someone has to pay the priest! But I’d prepared for that eventuality, too. I hadn’t spent so long preparing for this meeting for nothing. I even had the sentence prepared, I just had to go ahead and say it. I did so quickly, before he’d even had a chance to reply.
“I may be poor, sir, but I ain’t askin’ you to teach me for free, sir.”
“Well, I’ll be . . .” smiled the Schoolmaster. “So you want to pay, do you, my boy?”
Well, well, I thought, he’s all smiles when there’s talk of money.
“Well, I ain’t got money to pay you with, begging you pardon, sir, but I’m strong—here, sir, feel my arm—and I’ll work off my schooling if you let me.”
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