The family didn't move into the stately house on the hill until 1929 when Karola was pregnant again. She was still overseeing the installation of draperies, upholstery, wallpaper, and finishing touches to the house when, in the spring of 1929, she gave birth, upstairs in their bedroom overlooking the vineyards, to their youngest, a baby boy named Bela.
View of Nagyszollos, circa 1930. The town was renamed Sevjlus when it became part of Czechoslovakia in 1920.
chapter 2 | 1933
BY THE TIME TIBOR was a teenager, he was acutely aware of the political realities of the day and curious about the turmoil in the world. He was eager to understand what was happening around him and realized there were only two individuals with whom he could discuss politics, economics, and the opposite sex. One was his older brother, Istvan. There was a natural bond between the two siblings despite the four-year age difference. They were very young when their parents separated and, once their mother remarried, they never saw their biological father again. Whenever they asked their mother questions about their father, she dealt with them curtly.
"He contracted a little-known disease after the war and became very unstable," she told them. When they learned he had passed away, they speculated about what a brave and handsome officer he must have been.
Istvan and Tibor respected and grew to love their stepfather, Domokos. After all, he was the only father they knew. As their family grew, with the birth of their younger sister, Picke and, later, brother Bela, the two boys became enamoured with them. Their mother made very sure that no distinctions were made between the two sets of siblings and they were all treated as "our" children.
The other person Tibor trusted implicitly was Marton Kadar, his tutor for many years who later became a friend. Tibor felt he could get straight answers and a keener insight into the ever-changing sociopolitical state of the world from him than from anyone else.
Marton Kadar had been fired from his teaching position at the secondary school when the region was annexed by Czechoslovakia. The new regime demanded that teachers sign an oath to the new state. Being a specialist in the history and geography of central Europe and understanding that under the new regime the history of Hungary was a taboo subject in the schools, Marton knew that he could not possibly teach the history of the region while ignoring the history of the neighbouring country. He refused to sign the oath, and was terminated.
Karola was aware that Marton Kadar was an excellent teacher and when she learned that he was available as a tutor, she knew he would be ideal for her sons. At first, Tibor and Istvan were intimidated by the serious-looking tutor. Marton's stature was not particularly overwhelming - he was of medium height and build. But his deep brown eyes looked straight and unflinchingly at them and the boys felt instinctively that he would demand the best of them. He was also a meticulous dresser, and his hands were always well-manicured and his shoes always polished. Would he expect them also to look so perfect?
In time, however, Istvan and Tibor realized they could ask this man practically anything. The surprise came on a day when the boys were waiting for Marton to arrive. Istvan had acquired a package of condoms. Tibor wasn't exactly clear on what they were for, but Istvan wouldn't tell his younger brother where he got them or from whom. By themselves in the study, the teenagers were filling the condoms with water, tying the ends and throwing them onto the top of a bookcase. Istvan called it a "quality control test." He wanted to see if they would burst from the weight of the water or from the crash landing. They could barely contain their laughter as they flung the condoms onto the top of the bookcase, watching as they sometimes bounced right off and back onto the carpet below.
It was at just such a moment that Marton walked into the room, catching the boys squealing with laughter. Tibor thought he would die of embarrassment. There he stood, the front of his pants splashed with water, a water-filled condom in his hand. Both boys turned crimson as they watched their tutor calmly go to his desk, put his briefcase on the floor in front of him, and ask them what they were doing. Istvan opened his mouth and started stammering. Marton looked from one to the other and asked Tibor if he knew what a condom was for. Tibor quietly replied that he didn't. Marton told him.
As growing boys, they were curious about their own bodies and wanted details that were difficult to obtain. Initially, it took a lot of courage for them to ask the things they really wanted to know, but the incident with the condoms taught them that Marton would certainly not scold them for their questions. He made it clear that there was no such thing as a stupid or bad question and assured the boys that if he knew the answer he would tell them and, if he didn't know, he would find out.
Also, they had discovered that Marton was single and in love with a particular woman. That fact made him seem a little more human and approachable. Istvan deduced that he was probably in love with a married woman and speculated about it endlessly, imagining how they arranged secret rendezvous without her husband finding out about them. But Tibor wouldn't believe any of it. Infidelity in Nagyszollos? Impossible!
Marton realized early on that, if he was to keep the rapt attention of the two boys, he would have to submit to questions that interested them as well. The questions began innocently enough. Would masturbation truly cause them to go blind? Why did the urge for sex come upon them while they slept? As the years passed, though, the students became more comfortable with their teacher and the questions became more complicated. They wanted to know things like how babies were made in the womb of a woman. Marton answered their questions matter-of-factly and never scolded them for or appeared embarrassed by their questions, even though he was sometimes taken aback by how little the teenagers knew about their own biological urges, desires and processes.
So, when Marton began to discuss the topic of history or economics or geography, Tibor and his brother learned they could interject with a question on the topic that really fascinated them. By the time Istvan went away to school in 1932, Tibor had turned thirteen and had Marton completely to himself. Tibor enjoyed learning and soon realized that, through his tutor, he was gaining a much wider, more comprehensive view of world events than he ever would have otherwise. Marton brought immediacy to his lessons with visual aids. He had dozens of maps of the world: maps of the United States, Canada, Central and South America, and, of course, hidden among the ones of the newly organized post-1920 Europe, there was a map of Europe prior to the Great War. He taught Tibor about the French Revolution and the theories of Alexander de Tocqueville. He also talked about the United States and they discussed how democracy and government worked there. Tibor became more and more fascinated with the history of the United States, a country that he began to see as a beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world - one that all nations should emulate.
"Myopic" was the word Marton used to describe so many of the false political theories and beliefs that were widely accepted at that time. He spent a considerable amount of time talking to Tibor about the question of how the mentality of the Hungarian nation had changed since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the 1920s and 30s, Marton told him, the rallying cry for the Hungarian nation had become "Nem, Nem. Soha!" ("No, No, Never!"), named after a poem of same title by the brilliant Hungarian poet Jozsef Attila. Never would the country and its citizens accept the injustices of the Treaty of Trianon. Hungary had been a multicultural, multilingual nation. All that had changed with the Treaty of Trianon when territories that historically had belonged to Hungary were carved up. "Hungarians became insular, self-absorbed and angry," Marton told Tibor.
Tibor learned that there were one million Jews living in Hungary - almost five percent of the population before Trianon. Marton spoke to Tibor about the loyalty of these Jews who had remained ardent Hungarians and had retained the Hungarian language and culture even after the territory where they lived had been partitioned off to the successor states.
"Yet, who did the Hungarians blame after their country was dismembered?" Marton asked Tibor.
"The Jews," Tibor replied.
"Why?" Marton asked. Tibor looked at his tutor and waited. "Scapegoats," Marton said. "The Hungarians made them into scapegoats for all that was wrong."
Marton explained to Tibor why this had happened. The short-lived, 1919 communist takeover of Hungary occurred just as the peace talks after the First World War were taking place in Paris. This communist regime, organized and led by Bela Kun and his henchmen, created widespread fear of Hungary in the West. Kun was Jewish, as were some of his deputies, and, looking back, it seemed that Hungarians were convinced it was this takeover of the country by Kun that had fuelled the vitriolic hatred of Hungary at the peace talks. In a short time, the Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats had convinced the major victorious powers that they would wipe Hungary clean of the communist scum, if only they were granted more territory.
This conviction led to the first of a series of "Numerus Clausus" - laws enacted in 1920 that limited the number of Jews allowed to participate in education and business.
"History continues to affect us in countless ways," Marton lectured Tibor. "Trauma inflicted by history will haunt future generations. That is why we should study history and learn from it. Otherwise, we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. What is the great lesson in this all? We must continue to learn. It is a crime to prevent the study of the history of any people or nation."
The Aykler distillery.
As he tutored his willing student, Marton placed special emphasis on how economic factors played such a critical role in history. Following the Great War, he explained, the three countries surrounding Hungary (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania) formed an economic and trade union called the Little Entente. This alliance was supported in large part by France and provided the evidence Hungarians needed that a conspiracy existed to strangle the country economically and destroy any hope they had of rebuilding their crippled country.
"What has the Little Entente achieved?" Marton queried Tibor.
"It has driven Hungary into Germany's sphere of influence again," he answered. The fourteen-year-old Tibor was enthralled and excited by the thinking process his teacher encouraged in him. "Because Hungary was excluded from the Little Entente," he went on, "it had to find other trading partners. This drew her close to Germany who became, once again, her largest trading partner."
Marton nodded. He was pleased with Tibor's ability to grasp what he taught him.
"Now," Marton continued, jabbing his finger into the air, "the world is witnessing the meteoric rise of a politician named Hitler. His new German regime promises territorial revision to the government of Hungary in return for its alliance."
Tibor continued to seek out Marton for long discussions about how this situation would affect them all. So much was happening so quickly. Hungary was still a kingdom, although without a king. The government was headed by Regent Miklos Horthy, an admiral of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy. Hungary no longer had a navy or access to a seacoast, however, the former naval admiral impressed Hungarians with his demeanour and right-wing politics and Horthy promised to bring stability to the much-diminished country and to work for territorial revision.
Meanwhile, his own father, Domokos Aykler, was in a Czech prison being tortured and detained for speaking out against injustice. Tibor was incensed and struggled to understand what possessed people to be so cruel.
chapter 3 | 1936
VILMOS WEISZ THOUGHT HE was hallucinating. He stopped in front of their house, staring at the top of the chimney stack of the distillery. He distinctly saw the head and upper torso of his older son, Bandi, pop out of the top of the chimney. Bandi was examining the lightning rod just outside the outside apex of the chimney. The lightning rod was a source of constant fascination for the boys. Suddenly Bandi glanced around and saw his father as well. Vilmos withdrew back into the house, barely able to breathe - the clatter of children's voices echoing inside the tall chimney filled him with dread and foreboding. As supervisor of the distillery, he would be held responsible if anyone was injured or killed on this site, even if he had been completely unaware of the accident. His own children had been repeatedly warned about the dangers of being near the chimney, let alone inside it.
He looked up warily at the thirty-metre chimney looming above him. His son wasn't there anymore. Vilmos stepped closer, tilting his head, his ear directly in line with the resonance. He was close enough now to the structure to distinctly hear two voices and he listened intently. As he crooked his head closer still, he heard the soft sound of small footsteps clambering down the ladder. In a few seconds, his youngest son, Suti, popped out, enveloped from head to toe in black soot. Vilmos couldn't even make out the colour of the child's hair.
When Suti saw him, he stopped abruptly and his eyes opened wide as tears began streaming down his face. Suti stretched out his small arm, pointing behind him, and cried out in a plaintive voice, "I only went up half way!"
Vilmos had to concentrate on maintaining his serious, irate expression, but the boy's appearance was so comical he wanted to laugh. The white orbs of his eyes were the only part of him that weren't jet black.
"What are you pointing to?" Vilmos said, feigning anger. He assumed the boy's older brother, Bandi, was still inside the chimney.
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, so relieved to see that his sons were unharmed, Vilmos called out to his wife. "Terike, come quickly. I can't tell if this is our child but, whoever he is, he needs a bath."
Terez came running toward her husband, wiping her hands on her apron. She stopped short when she saw Suti, laughter welling up in her throat. The poor child was crying so bitterly it broke her heart just to listen to him.
"Where's your brother?" she said as she took his hand. Suti pointed to the tower. "I'm sure Bandi will be coming down immediately, if not sooner," she scolded as she led the child home to bathe. "And your father will deal with him." She bit her lip to hold back a smile.
As she began to scrub the black soot off her son, Terez looked around at her home with pride. She, her husband, and their five children lived in a one-storey house with five rooms near the distillery of Baron Perenyi. A deep well with fresh, cold water supplied their household throughout the year and she considered herself lucky that she could bathe the children and wash their hair whenever she wanted to. A specialized heating element at the distillery gave them constant warm water and the children considered it their private little swimming pool.
Suti sat in the bath, relishing the warm water and his mother's soft, gentle hands on his body. Even as an eight-year-old, he knew instinctively that he lived in a paradise. His family lived on the grand acres of the Perenyi Estate, where his father was not only responsible for running the distillery, but also for harvesting and bringing in the crops needed to operate it. This entailed hiring the workers, organizing the farm machinery, and ensuring that everything was completed in a timely, efficient manner.
When his friends weren't around, Suti had his siblings, his dogs Buksi and Medi, and the cat Pityur to play with. Aliz and Bandi were much older but Suti felt comfortably cushioned between his middle sister, Hedy, and Icuka, the youngest in the family, who was a year and a half younger than Suti and always around. Hedy and Icuka were also his best friends, although he wouldn't tell them that directly.
He adored spending time with Hedy. They were constantly laughing, inventing riddles and word games. The days were never boring when Hedy was around; she was smart and he learned a lot from her.
Their town had an entertainment centre called the Casino, a hall where dances and social gatherings were held. On rare occasions, it was even transformed into a cinema and it was where Suti saw his first movie, The Thief of Baghdad. He was mesmerized by it. Hedy explained to him beforehand that those weren't real people on the big screen, they were actors who were acting, and it was all recorded with a camera and film. But, to Suti, it all seemed so real. During one particularly hair-raising scene when the evil magician Vei
dt was ready to kill the native boy Sabu, Suti couldn't stand the tension. He stood up, pointed at the screen, and yelled, "Look behind you! He has a knife!" Hedy wouldn't speak to him for a week after they were ejected from the theatre because of his outburst.
Hedy was Icuka's role model and told everyone that when she grew up she would be just like her picture-perfect older sister. When Hedy was getting ready to go out to meet her friends, Icuka would sit on a footstool next to her sister and imitate her every move as Hedy primped in front of the mirror, combing her hair, brushing her teeth, and applying a bit of imaginary blush.
Icuka, being a year and a half younger than Suti, followed him around everywhere. Suti didn't really mind and he had fun with her even though she was younger. There was something about his younger sister that was irresistible. Icuka had chestnut-coloured brown eyes that matched her deep brown hair and she had a warm, loving nature, a quick wit, and a delightful smile.
As soon as she could walk and talk, everyone in the family noticed how clever she was. When Suti read a book, even as a toddler, she would sit next to him and pretend to read. She imitated his every intonation. One day, as she was telling a story from a book she had heard Suti read dozens of times, she completely skipped a page but kept turning the pages and telling the story. The family knew she didn't know how to read and had just memorized the entire book, which she recited from memory.
Suti smiled now, remembering how funny it was. He closed his eyes and relaxed into his mother's arms, swaying back and forth as she scrubbed the black soot off his back. His mother was the true centre of his life. He knew she was the centre of all their lives, but Suti liked to think that, in some ways, she belonged exclusively to him. He could not imagine anyone more beautiful than his mother, and it fascinated him that whenever he asked her anything, she always knew the right answer. How could anyone be so smart? When he was at home, he just wanted to be near her comforting presence.
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