Home Game

by Endre Farkas

  “It keeps everyone employed,” Gabi replied. He neatly folded his paper and put it down.

  “Oh, and while at the post office, I met Police Chief Barna. He said he was a friend of Apu’s.”

  “He was. What did he want?” Gabi asked checking to see where Emma was.

  “Just wanted me to give him his greetings.” He decided not to tell him about bumping into Szeles. Gabi had enough to worry about.

  “Carrot dropped by. I told him we’ll meet him at the Nylon tonight.”

  “Good. And Frog?”

  “You still want to see him?”

  This was the third time Gabi had tried to dissuade him. “Yes.”

  “Okay. After lunch. But don’t say anything to my mother.”

  Tommy nodded.

  Emma called them to eat.

  Cold cherry soup always evoked summer for Tommy. It was the ice cream of soups. He loved soaking fresh rye bread in its rich pink liquid and squeezing it out in his mouth. “You get the flavour twice.”

  “You sound like Sanyi,” Emma said.

  “Yes, he taught it to me,” Tommy said during his second helping.

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?” Emma asked.

  “We’re just going for a walk. Tomi wants to take more pictures.”

  “Don’t be too long.”

  A light breeze under a blue sky accompanied them to the putri. He remembered the way. He had been there often to go frog catching with the best frog catcher in the world. His friend had the patience, the stillness and the quickness that Tommy didn’t. He couldn’t remember a time when Frog’s gunnysack wasn’t full after a hunt. His mother used to boil them to make medicine and potions. She also fried their legs, which tasted like chicken.

  “Why do you think Chief Barna really wanted to talk to me?”

  “Because he was your father’s friend.”

  “That’s it, you think?”

  “In this country, nothing is simple. What did he say?” Gabi asked. “If all he wanted to do was to tell you to say hello to your parents, he would have come by our house. But since he took you into his office, he wanted to remind your dad that he was a policeman and has power. You know the trouble your dad got into before you escaped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know that Chief Barna covered it up?”

  “No. Really?””

  “He got him out of the jam. So maybe he wanted you to tell your dad that he felt that your father owed him. Or maybe that he could still cause problems for him.”

  “How? We’re in Canada.”

  “Yes, but we aren’t. Your Aunt Magda and grandfather aren’t.”

  “What does he expect?”

  “Maybe he thinks that your father should send him something in the packages you send us.”

  “Like what?”

  “American dollars.”

  “And what about him saying I’d be welcomed back?” Tommy asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe he was asking you to work for them.”

  “What? Be a spy?” Tommy almost shouted.

  “He talked to me before you came and suggested that I keep him informed about what we talked about.”

  “What? You’re joking.” He eyed Gabi, trying to figure out who he really was. “Why? What could I say or do?”

  “You could try to convince me to be a spy for Canada.”

  “What? I’m a university student and a jock. What would I know about spying? Are you serious?”

  “Here everything is serious. Especially after what I did.”

  Tommy was silent for a minute. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Emma, but I saw the guy who was following us the other day again today.”

  “Not surprising. I would be more surprised if they weren’t following you. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chief Barna isn’t also being watched. Here everybody is watching everybody. And everybody knows it.”

  “So, what do you do?”

  “Live a watched life.”

  “Can we sit for a minute?” Tommy asked.

  “Sure.” They sat by the edge of a ditch that ran along the road.

  Tommy rubbed his ankle. “What kind of trouble was Frog in?”

  “As I told you, I don’t know all of it. He doesn’t talk about it much. Maybe he’ll tell you.”

  “What do you know?”

  “We were good friends in Békes, and both of us went to the same university, but we drifted apart there. It’s a big university. We went into different disciplines, and made new friends, though I heard that he didn’t really have any. Also, I got really involved in soccer, and as you know when you get on a team, your teammates become your friends, your world.”

  “Yup.”

  “I didn’t have any contact with him, though I heard he got into trouble because of his big mouth.”

  “How?”

  “Because he did so well in high school, The Party wanted to make him the shining example of socialist success. They’ve wanted to integrate the Gypsies into Hungarian society for a long time. He was the educated, civilized symbol of what could be. He was a rising poet who could show his people the way.”

  A poet showing the way? Hah. Artie Gold was a poet, but he didn’t show anybody the way. Except maybe some girls into his bedroom, the bastard. “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know everything, but I heard he started questioning his professors.”

  “He got kicked out for that?”

  “And for his poetry, which I don’t know much about.”

  Tommy couldn’t even imagine the government in Canada hassling a poet for what he wrote. “What happened after that?”

  “We better get going.”

  They got up. No one seemed to be following them. “I lost track of Frog after that. He disappeared. The next thing I heard was that he was conscripted.”

  Tommy didn’t believe Gabi was telling him everything.

  “There’s the putri.” Gabi pointed to a field dotted with mud-and-straw-stubbled brick shanties. Wisps of smoke curled up through zigzag chimneys of tin. Paneless windows too small to let in light stared back at him. Doors hung precariously from loose hinges. The shanties were on the verge of collapse. Skinny hens pecked at the dirt. An old mare was tethered to a broken-down wagon. Small boys were chasing each other, wrestling, duelling with sticks. Their shouts and laughter filled the air. Young girls in rags were singing and dancing, while women with babies were gathered around the well, chattering loudly and drawing water. Men, squatting between the shanties, smoked, drank and played cards. Tommy felt as though he had stepped into another world.

  When the children spotted Gabi and Tommy, they ran toward them with outstretched palms.

  “Don’t give them any money or we’ll never get out of here,” Gabi warned. By the time they reached Frog’s house, Tommy was sure that half the putri was following them.

  Gabi knocked on the doorpost. “Ancsa?”

  “Oh, my little Gabi, enter,” a voice called out.

  “I brought your other son, Hannah Wolfstein’s Tomi.”

  “Oh, my little Tomi!” A gnarled hand grabbed his and pulled him in. The smell of pipe tobacco embraced him. “Oh, my little Tomi,” she kept repeating as she stroked, pressed and caressed his face. She pulled it close to hers and planted wet kisses all over his cheeks.

  He was a child again.

  “Oh, the summer horses brought you. Come, sit. May they be blessed forever, and may the evil eye keep away.”

  Her face glistened. Tommy knew she was about his mother’s age but, like Rabbi Stern, she looked much older. Deep wrinkles creased her face, though her hair, still black as the night, had a sheen that reminded him of Marianne’s. Her coal-dark eyes sparkled, and her smile revealed teeth of gold. This was the woman whose breasts had suckled
him, whose hands had bathed him and whose stories had enchanted him.

  “My mother sends her best wishes and this gift.” He presented her the plastic bag.

  She held it up as if it were a holy object. “How smooth it is, as if the sun had polished it,” she said, stroking it. She reached in and drew out a bright yellow polka-dotted cardigan. It was an old one his mother no longer wore.

  “May Sara–la-Kali bless her,” Frog’s mother cried out. She held up the cardigan for the crowd that had gathered inside to see. The women clapped their hands and praised the gift. “The sun will always shine on me,” she said, holding it to her chest. She caressed and sniffed it.

  “And this is from me,” Tommy said, handing her a packet of pipe tobacco that Gabi had suggested he buy for her.

  She stuck her nose into the pouch and inhaled deeply. Taking her pipe from her apron pocket, she stuffed it, tamped it and lit it up. “Ahh such fine smoke,” she sighed after a couple of puffs.

  “And how’s your sweet blessed mother?”

  “She’s fine, in good health.”

  “That is good. The spirits have been kind to her.”

  “Yes.” He was trying to remember if Ancsa had always talked like this. “And how have the spirits been to you?” he asked, before he realized that he was speaking her way.

  “They have been fair and foul. They come and go. But today, now that you and Gabi and Frog are together again, they are fair.”

  “Dear little mother, where is Frog?” Gabi asked.

  “He is here and there,” she said. “Here, he is in the woods, there, he is in his head.”

  “We will go and see him there,” Gabi said.

  She smothered both of them again with loud kisses. “You are milk brothers,” she said to Tommy. Goose bumps rose along the nape of his neck.

  “Come on,” Gabi said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To see Frog.”

  The crowd parted to let them through.

  “How do you know where he is? She didn’t say.”

  “She told us he was in the forest.”

  “A forest is a big place.”

  “Not here. Come on.”

  What a difference it was from the bare dirt, treeless yards and collapsing shacks. The woods were rich with colour: leaves, flowers and in little clearings, carpets like the magic carpets of his childhood stories.

  Gabi pointed to a fork on the left. “I think it’s there.”

  “How do you know?”

  Frog was sitting cross-legged, with a notebook on his lap. The first thing Tommy noticed about him was how his taut, smoky-coloured face blended with the colours around him. He seemed to be part of this place. The girl was the second. She was reclining on the carpet, her head resting on her palm, sleeping.

  “Hey, Frog,” Gabi called out.

  Frog raised his eyes from his notebook. “I am no longer Frog. I am Broshkoy.”

  “What?”

  “I am my language. I am my words. I am Broshkoy. It means frog in my mother tongue.”

  His words hung in the air. Tommy recalled Mr. Papp’s words about names.

  “Mishto avilian amende. Taves baxtalo ando amaro. Sit,” he said and patted the carpet. He gently shook the girl’s ankle. “Rosie, we have visitors.” The gentle tinkling of her ankle bracelet bells mingled with the chirps of the birds. She had wild uncombed shoulder-length hair and a puggish nose. Like Ancsa and Frog, she had coal-black eyes.

  Rosie sat up, brushed her long hair out of her eyes and glared at Tommy. She seemed to be looking into him, not at him. He turned away and reached into his shopping bag and took out a bottle of wine and his Swiss Army knife. He passed the open bottle to Frog. He found it weird calling him Broshkoy. To him he was still Frog, the skinny, shoeless kid he had shared a childhood with. Frog took a small swig and passed it to Gabi, who passed the bottle to Rosie, who in turn passed it to Tommy.

  “He’s much younger than you,” she said to Frog.

  “No, we’re the same age,” Tommy said.

  “But you’re much younger,” she said, ending the conversation.

  Tommy wondered what she meant.

  “I am glad that you came.”

  “Me too. How have you been?”

  “I have been well and not well and well again,” Frog said.

  Tommy wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He waited. After what seemed like a long silence he said, “Gabi told me that you write poetry.”

  “I did, then I didn’t and now I do.”

  There was awkwardness to the conversation that wasn’t just because of language, years and distance. Frog seemed to be pushing him toward something, but Tommy didn’t know what. “Gabi told me that after being expelled you disappeared.”

  “No. I did not disappear. I wandered. I travelled to putris listening to wonderful stories, beautiful songs, and I learned my history. I learned the beauty and the horrors of our diaspora, of our difference. And you know one of the things I discovered was how much like the Jews we are. Maybe we are the lost tribe.”

  Tommy smiled. “How are we the same?”

  “Well, we are both considered Christ killers.”

  “How are you Christ killers? I thought we were the only ones who had that privilege.”

  “Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago, we were the Athingani, iron mongers. We were the blacksmiths who forged the nails that were driven into Christ’s hands. And thus, we were set on the road of suffering. So the story goes. Once upon a time, we were untouchables, child killers who needed the blood of young children for our black arts. So the story goes.”

  “Sure sounds familiar,” Tommy said

  “And we also were victims of the Holocaust. We weren’t six million but during the war 25,000 of us were deported to Transnistrian concentration camp. Half of us died there. About 30,000 of us were deported to other death camps. Only two to three thousand of us came back. Often the Hungarian gendarmes and German soldiers did not bother to send us anywhere but lined us up outside our homes and shot us. About 600,000 of us were killed. Who cares?”

  “Does anyone?” Tommy asked.

  “I do.”

  “So, you wrote poems about that and it got you into trouble,” Gabi said.

  “How could I not? Writing poems, if they’re real, will get you into trouble eventually. Real poems don’t know borders, don’t follow collective orders, and don’t have five-year plans. Often you yourself don’t know what’s going on. They are like us Romas, unpredictable, wanderers. We sing, cry, curse, spit, dance and are. We lie to tell the truth. We are trouble.” He stared at Gabi. “Being a poet is not a career choice. You, you decided to be an engineer, so you followed a prescribed plan to become one. I didn’t decide to be a poet. I started writing not really knowing that I was writing poems. I liked the sound of words; I liked the way I could arrange them and how they created ways of seeing. Each poem made me want to write more. I learned that if the poem is strong and true, they make the reader pay attention. Maybe it began with Mrs. Gombás. Do you remember we had to memorize and recite a poem in grade one?”

  “Yes.”

  “I still remember that I had a lot of trouble memorizing it. You helped me and in the end, I was the only one who didn’t make a mistake. Aside from the pride of not making a mistake, I enjoyed how it took me away from the real and took me to the real real. And seeing how Mrs. Gombás belittled my mother because she shouted out her joy—called her uncivilized—made me feel helpless and angry. And so began my descent into that world.”

  “What world?”

  “The world of trouble. You also knew your poem by heart, better than me, but you weren’t allowed to recite. You got kicked out. Maybe seeing that also set me on the road.”

  “And because of that…?” Tommy asked.

  “Yes. I got c
onscripted.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hungarians say that there are only three kinds of Hungarians: those who have been in prison, those who are in prison and those who will be in prison. Eventually they get everybody. This is especially true for artists. The army was my prison.”

  “Why the army?”

  “Because they could break me, body and spirit, under the guise of trying to make me fit to defend my country. Imagine how desperate Hungary must be to need a myopic who is 158.5 centimetres and 49.9 kilos.” He shook his head. “They could humiliate me, degrade me and have my fellow soldiers do their dirty work by having them turn on me. I resisted as long as I could and when I couldn’t anymore, I slit my wrists.”

  Tommy, shocked, turned to Gabi.

  “I didn’t know if he wanted you to know that, so I didn’t say anything.”

  Broshkoy-Frog spoke with detachment, as if recalling facts, as if the story was someone else’s from another time.

  “I tried to kill myself because I didn’t want them to kill me. Because I didn’t want them to be in charge of my death as they were in charge of my life. I failed. The army didn’t. After they emptied me, they didn’t have anything to worry about, and they let me go.” He glanced at Rosie.

  “And I would have ended up like Smith, but this woman saved me.”

  “Who is Smith?” Gabi asked.

  “Tomi knows,” Frog said.

  “I’m sorry but I don’t know a Smith,” Tommy said

  “1984,” Frog said.

  “Oh.” Tomi was surprised that Frog knew of Orwell’s book. He nodded. “How did Rosie save you?”

  “She tried to kill me.”

  “What?” Tommy and Gabi exclaimed almost simultaneously.

  “All I’ll tell you is that as she had her fingers around my throat and as she was choking me, she kept asking, “better dead than alive?”

  “And?” Tomi asked.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Tommy now understood why Rosie had said that he was younger than Frog. Even though Tommy had had experiences, even though he had been shot, it was nothing compared to Broshkoy’s hell. Tommy was too young to have had important choices to make. Compared to Broshkoy, he was still in diapers. Broshkoy spoke with a sureness that came from knowing what he needed to do.