The Afterlife of Stars

by Joseph Kertes

  Sister Heidi must have found this to be the funniest remark she’d ever heard, because she laughed up a storm, laughed until she hiccuped. Her magical neck spasmed with it.

  Then she straightened herself out and said to me, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” She smiled, turned, and strolled away. Is that what she thought I was, then? Meek? My head was hot under the Tyrolean hat. I took it off to smooth back my hair.

  Attila came up behind me. “What’s that one’s name?” he asked.

  “Sister Heidi.”

  “That’s the same one from before, right?”

  “Yes. Before.”

  “Wow, she would be the Virgin I’d select for the Second Coming. And she’s a nun! She wouldn’t ask questions about the mystery of it all. What did she tell you?”

  “She told me the meek shall inherit the earth.”

  “Great,” Attila said. “Very wonderful and very great. Is that what she is? Is she meek? If that’s meek, then take me to your leader.”

  Attila and I got on the bus, and I turned to the window right away to look for Sister Heidi. But I knew now that she was out of reach, just like the girl with the stringy hair and exceptional lips. We were not at a place where we could stay or even visit again. We were at a place we had to leave, and Sister Heidi and the girl belonged only in this place.

  Back home, bombs were dropping or rising out of the ground, saying who would sit on the throne, who would lie in the cemetery, who would be moved to the Statue Graveyard, and who the meek would be. But how could we go toward something that was only a word? Canada. It was just a sound. It had no shape or weight. You could not take its temperature. It was hard to imagine Canada as a place where people were eating eggs or taking a walk or hugging nuns or playing cards. If God switched off gravity, maybe we wouldn’t be bound to Canada or Paris or Utah or here, and we could fly where we wanted or just tread the air, become fluttering things.

  I kept straining to see Heidi by the convent door. I couldn’t get over the feeling that I was seeing things for the last time. It came over me in waves, like the memory of Judit.

  As we settled onto the bus, I carefully placed my satchel in the rack overhead. Attila threw himself down beside me.

  A woman was getting on the bus just then, all decked out, her shiny long brown hair hanging and bouncing, her pearl earrings dangling and a pearl necklace curving down from her neck to her black dress.

  I stared at my brother, extra hard. I asked him, “What will you do in the Wild West?”

  He tapped his chin with his index finger. He was taking my question very seriously. “I’ll become a cowboy rabbi,” he said. “And a fur trader as well. Beaver and otter and silver fox, I think.” He patted me on the head. “And you can pursue your dreams of becoming a singing nun.” I shoved his patting hand away.

  Our father had been a tool and die maker during the war because he couldn’t become a lawyer. By the time he was ready to go to university, Jews could not be admitted. I asked Attila if he thought Dad would be a tool and die maker again.

  Attila looked over at our father, then shrugged his shoulders. Sunlight beamed into the bus now. My brother shut his one eye against it.

  “Ah, the Brothers Karamazov,” our father said. He startled me. He was checking our things above our heads too and was standing over us.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said, and I looked at my brother.

  Our father patted me on the back of the head. I had an excellent head for patting. He then made himself comfortable opposite his mother and ours. They were smiling warmly, our mother especially.

  A minute later, my brother was asleep again in the seat beside me, his grasshopper legs like the gangling woman’s, up and folded back beneath him. I wondered if the Lord had considered making retractable limbs for when they were not in use. I was surprised Attila hadn’t put his feet up on the empty bench in front of us.

  “Are you not worried?” my mother said to my father.

  “Yes, but I’m happy to be on my way to something new.”

  My mother stepped across to sit with my father. She took his hand in hers. “You are worried. Please don’t be so anxious,” she said. “When you’re anxious, everybody is anxious.”

  “People are quite adept at being anxious on their own,” he said.

  “They get more anxious,” said Mamu, “when you go mad.”

  “I’ll replace your records,” he said.

  My grandmother smiled warmly, brought her hand up to her mouth. But what she said was, “Records are just records. A child was being born right before our eyes.”

  “And Judit was dying,” my father said and covered his face with his hands.

  My mother cradled his head and told him it was all right. It was not his fault. A few minutes later, he was asleep.

  I stared again at Attila—he and I, the two musketeers. We’d left plenty behind, but whatever was ahead, we would overcome it. First, though, we needed our rest.

  Eight

  The bus stopped for a short time at a place called Eisenstadt, jolting my brother and me awake. From the window we could see that the town had an impressive church and railway station, but it looked like a country town in every other way. Carts and wagons rolled in with their chickens and milk and cheese. In the center of the main street stood a single fountain, where a bronze chubby naked boy peed out water to anyone who wanted some. Only the pigeons seemed interested.

  We’d had our feet up on the empty bench seat opposite us on the bus, but a young gentleman got on and chose to sit across from us. So my brother and I straightened up. A handful of other passengers who looked as if they might have been farmers boarded, carrying bulging sacks. Across the aisle, our father was asleep, but not our mother and grandmother, though they looked hypnotized by the ride.

  The gentleman said something to us in German, but when we didn’t answer he switched to Hungarian. He said, “Are you going very far?” I told him our destination, and he said cheerfully, “I’m going to Paris too, finally!” He sounded for a second like one of us, a boy himself.

  “Have you always wanted to go?” Attila asked.

  “I’ve been there twice, but it has been difficult these past couple of years.”

  We nodded that we understood, and he looked us over, as we did him. Where had he crossed the border? Had he crossed a minefield too, or had he known a better way? The gentleman had an elegant Old World look about him. He was dressed in a gray three-piece suit with a herringbone pattern, a starched white shirt with French cuffs, and a black Ascot cap, which he’d removed with a flourish when he greeted us. His hair was thick and as black as the cap. He carried only a black leather briefcase, which he tucked under his arm and kept secure on the seat.

  He introduced himself as Peter Halasz and offered us his hand.

  My brother took it firmly. “We’re the Beck brothers,” he said, eyeing our companion. “Attila and Robert. Robert was named after our grandfather. I was named after the warrior, the ruler.”

  “Of course.”

  “The Hun,” Attila added, and the man smiled.

  The bus departed Eisenstadt and bounced along the road. The countryside looked like Hungary’s. I would not have guessed we were in another country except for the odd sign in German, sometimes with Gothic lettering to give it a higher feel.

  The bus slowed slightly for a man riding a white horse on the road. He passed right by our window. “Nice horse,” my brother said with authority. “Fine leather saddle.”

  Was this our future as cowboys? It dawned on me that the saddle separating the man from his horse was made of cowhide. He was sitting on the crumpled-up hide of a cow and wearing a deerskin vest and a lambswool hat. What a piling up of animals was there!

  Suddenly I wished I had put on my brown loafers instead of the black lace-ups I was wearing. The loafers weren’t as nice, but they were roomier. I wondered if I’d left them by the front door at home, or underneath my bed, and what the Russians would do with
them—throw them out or give them to someone who could enjoy their roomy comfort.

  For a short time, Peter Halasz looked out the window, as we were doing. Our mother kept an eye on us and flashed her characteristic smile. It was hard not to smile back at her many times a day.

  “What do you do?” Attila asked.

  “Guess,” Peter Halasz said. The man didn’t know what he was getting into.

  “You’re a lawyer,” Attila answered.

  “No.”

  “A professor?”

  “No.”

  “A government official.” Peter shook his head no. “A doctor.” No. “A chemist.” No. “A manager of a department store—the manager of Kossuth’s.” Peter shook his head. “An army officer, a milliner, a sommelier, a volcanologist, a diplomat, a landlord, a crystal physicist, an engineer, a researcher in textiles.” No, no, no.

  “I’m—” Peter Halasz was about to say, but my brother wouldn’t let him.

  “A haberdasher,” Attila said, “an archaeologist, a philatelist, a conductor, a fabulist, a playwright, an opera singer.” Attila was red-faced. I dared not guess in case I got it right, nor did our mother, who was listening. “A botanist, a zookeeper, a Communist spy, a film director, an architect, a tool and die maker, a millwright, a linguist—”

  “I’m a master perfumer,” Peter cut in.

  “What?” Attila said. He seemed ready to jump out of his seat.

  “I am an expert in scents.” He pointed to his nose.

  Attila and I were both impressed and curious. “Of course,” Attila said, slapping his own head. He looked at me, then back at our companion. “You’re going to Paris!” He slapped himself again. “But a master perfumer,” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “You have heard of more professions than I was expecting,” the gentleman said, “but, yes, that’s who I am.

  “I’m glad we got that out of the way.” He pointed to his nose.

  Our grandmother was staring at Peter Halasz. She was ready to hear more too.

  “I smell heather from a field coming up ahead,” he said. “I smell paprika. Hay for horses and flax for linen. I smell coffee from a thermos up near the front of the bus. You must smell it too.”

  We both nodded. We studied the man’s cheerful face. Our mother was doing the same now.

  “I smell some pickled herring, a single serving, most likely, not much more. I smell its onions and salt. You might smell it as well.”

  Attila stood up to see if anyone was eating. I did too. There was an old woman hunched over something, an open jar, but it was not easy to tell what was in her jar, which she guarded on her lap.

  “But the difference,” Peter said, “is that two days from now, I will smell the fish oil flowing under the skin of the person who’s eating it, settling there.”

  Our mother shook her head, but she smiled some more.

  “I smell earth on board,” Peter went on. “Black earth, not much, earth drying on boots, almost certainly farmer’s boots.”

  “Yes, but you got on the bus with farmers,” Attila said.

  Peter ignored my brother and closed his eyes. His nose became his eyes. “I can smell the powder of moths’ wings.”

  “What do you mean?” Attila asked. “What does it smell like?” He was sitting right up in his seat, all set to hunt for moths.

  Peter explained that it isn’t really powder. It only looks like powder, and butterflies have it too. The powder is made of tiny scales, cells like our own skin cells. But in moths the scales protect it from water and abrasion, and they are slippery so that moths can escape a spiderweb. “I can smell male moths and butterflies,” he went on, “because they can turn on a scent with their scales, to attract a mate. I can smell the scent of sex in insects. You can imagine it in humans.”

  Attila looked alarmed. He sat back in his seat.

  “I can gauge the humidity in the atmosphere, the ratio of water particles to air, within a single percentage point,” the man said. “I smell microbes, spores, pollen, the feces of mites, and scents all the way up the ecosystem, including those of large mammals—whales. I can tell if water particles have passed through the spout of a whale or fallen unimpeded to the earth.

  “When I go to the theater, I smell the cedar of fur closets, citrus aftershave, the rose note of Chanel Number Five—the five-petal Cistus rose—which conjures up the boyish flappers of the 1920s, clean and simple. I smell the filaments of wool, whether from Highland sheep or the merino lamb of Vermont’s rolling hills and the green valleys between.”

  “What are you?” Attila said. “You’re a freak. You’re like a fox or a bloodhound.”

  “Something like that,” Peter Halasz said, “except foxes and bloodhounds can’t name what they’re smelling, even if they have an instinct for what it might be.”

  “It’s a gift,” I said, only because I thought my brother might be insulting Mr. Halasz.

  “It’s a curse and a gift,” Peter said.

  “You have a sixth sense,” our mother said.

  “Not a sixth one, just an outsize version of one of them—outrageously outsize. I’m like a blind man, a deaf mute.”

  We all stared at Peter’s nose as if it were an instrument, an artifact—the Magic Nose. He raised his fingers to cover it.

  “You’re like a superhero,” Attila said. “I wish I had that. You’re like Superboy. But you’re Noseboy. You could be Noseboy.”

  “That’s why I’m a perfumer. You can see why.”

  I nodded, but Attila said, “You could do so much more—fight crime or save people.”

  “Yes, possibly.”

  Our mother and grandmother both beamed. They seemed to want to say something, but they didn’t.

  The bus rolled toward Vienna. We were on a bigger road now, a highway, not rocking quite as much in our seats.

  Attila said, “Can you smell your own heart beating, Mr. Halasz? Can you smell the red flow of it, the iron of it?”

  “I don’t need to smell it,” Peter said. “I still have other senses.” He cupped an ear and put a flat hand against his heart.

  “You’re amazing,” Attila said. He was admiring our companion as if we were actually sitting with Superman or Batman or Flash.

  “I smell honesty,” Peter said. “I smell eagerness, anticipation. I smell charisma, the musk of it. I smell fear. I smell fertility.” Attila’s eyes widened. “You might smell the coming of rain the way I do,” Peter said, “but I smell more. I smell the earth opening itself up to receive it.”

  I wanted to ask whether Peter could smell old light, the ancient light arriving from the stars, but I didn’t want it to be a silly question, so I held back.

  Nine

  In Vienna, we were once again led into a great hall, which held hundreds of other Hungarians and hundreds of cots. The immense hall could have been in a school or a hospital—I wasn’t sure—but it seemed so suited to the purpose of receiving people that I imagined that was what it was for. Vienna must receive many people all the time was what I imagined. The hall had a vaulted ceiling hulking over it, and its wooden ribs made me think of a fairy tale, though I wasn’t sure which one. There were no glowheads of any kind up there.

  I was impressed with how many of us had made it out. Right away, after an official looked at some of Peter Halasz’s papers, he was allowed to leave. He waved at us from a far door. I thought we’d be traveling to Paris together and was sad when I saw that we wouldn’t be. I’m sure Attila was too, but he didn’t say. It was a new trend: people coming into our lives and leaving just as quickly.

  I felt a twinge when I thought about Judit. She seemed even farther away, gone for months, even a year.

  Attila told our father all about Noseboy, and he asked if we were sure. Of course we were sure, Attila told him, and our mother nodded in agreement.

  “What if he was a fake?” our father asked. “A good one, a smart one, but a fake?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.r />
  “What if he was an actor?” our father said. “Or insane?”

  “Enough, Simon,” our mother said, and she glared at him. He glared back. Her glare was always less effective than his because you could tell she had a smile waiting behind hers.

  “What if he was a genius?” Attila said. “A freak, like Mozart?”

  He looked ready to hit our father, who backed down. “Well, it’s possible. Not likely, but possible.”

  “How likely was Mozart?” Attila asked, and he slapped at the air. My brother was a real slapper and puncher.

  This new building was not as welcoming and warm as the convent had been. We were given nice food, rounded off by more nice chocolates, in fact the same Mozart chocolates, but the place felt more regimented. These Austrians seemed mostly to have a processing job to do. There was a single standout, a boy no older than Attila who wheeled a cart around the room and stopped at every child, giving each of us a package. When he got to us, he said, “Pez,” and then in labored Hungarian told us that Pez candy was invented in Vienna. He handed Attila and me one container each. They were quite wonderful—figures from The Wizard of Oz. I got the Tin Man. I held it tightly in case the figure Attila got was not as good, like Glinda or Toto. But he got an excellent one too, luckily: the Scarecrow. Within seconds, we were lifting the heads of the dispensers and pulling the delicious rectangular candies out of their necks. Attila wanted to bang the heads together, but I put mine away before we could get under way.

  Then a girl came by our cots. She was as blond as Attila and dressed in a green-and-white gingham dress. The outfit was very tight, to bring out the figure eight of her form, except she was much smaller on top than on the bottom, so the eight came out like two plus six rather than four plus four. She floated by too slowly and wanted to linger near my brother, but he gave off his blue glare. Some girls didn’t know when they were flying too close to the sun. Attila half turned away from her, paying more attention to me, actually. I was worried he would offer her to me. He ignored her outright, and she drifted away.