“We were slaves . . .” She repeats the last words.
“WE ARE NO LONGER SLAVES”—THE COMRADE PARTY SECRETARY says this in the House of Culture. At times like this, they always mention Petőfi. “Availing ourselves of the poet’s words: ‘Until today we were slaves, our forefathers were damned.’” That’s what they say. And they talk a lot about freedom. On the facade of the Party headquarters is a large red star. In the House of Culture, everything is red. All this red is pretty. I like it. At home everything is black, brown, or gray. At home I have a pin for my cap, a red star. I got it from Ottó in exchange for eleven card calendars. There are red flags everywhere, and Hungarian flags, too. Everyone gets free sandwiches. Every year at this time, we eat rolls with bologna. Everyone gets one. The men get free beer. My father likes Petőfi. He says that he has read him. My mother says that we are still slaves. Beer tastes bitter, I tried it once. Máli also has a glass on the holiday of the Revolution. The name CSÁRDÁS is written on it, and a couple is dancing on the label. The woman wears a headdress, the man a little round hat. A ribbon in the national colors winds after them in the air. Otherwise, their clothes are black and white. My mother says that beer makes you think of bitterness; that’s why she doesn’t like it. The men ask for second rounds.
Máli is talking with a man. She’s already drunk up her beer. I’m listening to them; I got half of Máli’s roll and half of her Vienna sausage. I’ve never eaten such tasty rolls and sausage before. The man is teasing her, bantering with her.
“There are two kinds of men: those with cocks of blood and those with cocks of flesh,” says Máli. “As for women, there are two kinds: those who like it from behind and those who like it in front. The ones who like it from behind also fondle themselves. Men like that, too. Even if she’s ugly, they don’t mind,” she says. The man breaks out in coarse laughter and leaves Máli there.
I don’t understand damnation. Máli says that it means hell. But Máli doesn’t believe in hell, I know that. She says that the priests just made it up. My father says the same thing about God. Máli says there is a God, she saw Him. When they took away the Jews, Old Mózsi and his family, she saw Him. It was in May, a beautiful day. They lived next to them in the Old Village. Old Mózsi and his wife. The gendarmes put them into the cart. With their daughter-in-law and the two children. One was a boy, the other was a girl. Máli says they were beautiful. They were called Goga and Monkey. They called the little girl “Monkey.” That wasn’t her real name. People made fun of her because the Jews dressed her up fancy. Their ringed hair fell down in tresses. The children were crying. Old Mózsi was seen crying for the first time. People lowered their eyes. They pressed their lips together. They were silent. There were those who cursed, as well. A few depraved souls spit after them. Máli looked at the sky just then, that’s how she tells the story. Then she saw God, above the clouds. His hair was a white curling cloud, his beard was white like foam. She saw how, in the ocean-blue sky, He hid behind the clouds. And watched sadly. But Máli doesn’t always tell the truth. Once the men got her drunk in the fields, but we’re not allowed to talk about that.
THE NEXT DAY, MY MOTHER CONTINUES THE READING. I can play with the coins again. When she finishes, she puts down the book and is quiet for a long time. When she looks at us again, there are tears in her eyes.
“You know that we are despised. We are hated in this village. We are hated in every village. Do not forget that you must always be careful about what you say, where you are speaking, and in front of whom. Be quiet when you’re with the children of Party members. Don’t even play with them. That is safe. You must always be silent. You may not speak with anyone. You may not play with anyone. You must not say who you are. Don’t gang up together with the rest of the peasant kids, because you will always end up scapegoats. The black sheep. They will always blame you for everything,” she says. Then she is silent again. The Little One is breathing smoothly. Sometimes his mouth makes a squishing sound.
“We will leave this place. It won’t be long now, and we will leave. God will liberate us, may His name be blessed,” she says, and her gaze wanders far away into the uncertain distance. Her voice is also uncertain; there is no conviction in it. As if she herself doesn’t believe what she is saying. Then she begins to speak again, but much more softly this time. She whispers.
“Jesus was hated, too. No one would take him in. They had no place to stay. When the ancient fathers, many years earlier, left the land of slavery, the pharaoh didn’t want to let them go. At one moment, he was going to let them out. ‘Go, in the name of God!’ But then his heart grew hard and he changed his mind,” says my mother. She stops here, as if she herself doesn’t understand. She thinks.
“Why was God so cruel as to make the pharaoh be so obstinate when he wasn’t even so evil?” asks my older sister.
“It was because God does not show mercy to the evil,” says my mother. “If the pharaoh had repented, then he would have escaped punishment,” says my mother.
“But why did He kill the children in Egypt?” my older sister asks. “God must be really evil if He allowed them to be killed . . .”
“God is not evil. He didn’t let so many children die just like that. They were taken away and killed. I used to play with them . . .” says my mother, who now seems confused.
“M’my, how could you have played with them?” I ask incredulously.
“Didn’t this all happen a long time ago? When Jesus went to Jerusalem at Easter, He was betrayed and put in prison. Didn’t it happen like that?” my older sister asks, agitated. But our mother doesn’t answer our questions anymore.
I count up the money I’m playing with. I’m thinking of how Jesus had twelve disciples. So all together, they were thirteen in number. Thirteen cannot be divided, only by one and by itself. Thirteen is a superstitious number. It doesn’t bring good luck, they say.
EVERY EVENING, OUR MOTHER PRAYS TO THE VIRGIN MARY. We even have a picture of her on the wall. The Virgin Mary is wearing blue garments. Her clothes are white and blue. A thin strap runs across her forehead. Her hair is long and straight. You can only just glimpse it, because a kerchief covers her head. You can just sense her hair through it faintly, sometimes. She holds her left hand in front of her body, as Jesus does with his right hand. Her thumb is folded in. With her index and middle fingers, she points toward the sky.
This picture horrifies me. I don’t like to look at it. Around the area of her collarbone, you can see the Virgin Mary’s heart. Her chest is open. As if she is wearing her heart on top of her clothes. The ends of the veins are chopped off, like during a pig slaughtering when my father cuts out the animal’s heart. My father always cuts a cross into the heart so that the blood will wash out of the chambers. Then I pour lukewarm water from the big pot onto the heart, my father’s hands, and the carving knife he is holding.
This is what hens’ hearts look like, too. I watch as my mother cuts the hen into pieces. I help her. First, she always cuts around both thighs. She pulls them until there is a cracking noise at the joints. Then she cuts the tendons that hold the thighs in place. She has already cut off the wings. Then she stabs the tip of the carving knife into the chicken’s side and cuts from the thigh to the wing. The fragile ribs make a dull cracking sound. The innards spill out. My mother’s hand disappears inside the chicken. With a twisting motion, she breaks off the heart and the intestines. Then she cuts the heart out of the formless mass. The chicken’s intestines are dark colored; the droppings are in there. She, too, carves a cross into the heart, which is made out of pure muscle, just like she carves a cross into the garlic that she throws into soup. She washes the congealed blood from the chambers of the heart. Then she rinses it in water from the washbasin. She throws it onto the enamel platter. On top of the other pieces. She doesn’t even look over there as she’s doing this.
She quickly rubs her nose with the top part of her right hand because it is itchy. The knife stabs at the air before her eyes. She grimaces.
In the meantime, the Virgin Mary watches us in the room. She is surrounded by a pink courtyard. Around the area of her heart, her clothes are transparent.
“Doesn’t it hurt the Virgin Mary?” I ask.
“No. It’s just a picture,” she says. Then she doesn’t say anything else about the picture. She tells the story of Easter. How Jesus was received with rejoicing in Jerusalem. With palm leaves and shouts of “hallelujah.”
“What’s hallelujah?” I ask.
“They cried out, they hailed Him. Then they spit on Him and hit Him in the face. They betrayed Him, they seized Him, and they tortured Him. They said that God doesn’t love everyone, only the priests. Jesus was from a poor family, he wasn’t a child of priests. So he couldn’t teach the people. But Jesus said that God loved him because He was the Son of God. Then they assaulted Him. They placed a cane in His hand as his scepter, and they crowned Him with a wreath of thorns. On Good Friday, they crucified Him on Mount Golgotha. His mother’s heart broke in grief because she saw her son die. That is why her heart is painted in the picture, because she suffered so much,” says my mother.
“Jesus was resurrected, wasn’t He?” asks my older sister.
“Yes,” my mother allows.
“So where is He now?” my sister asks insistently.
“He walks upon the earth. He may not rest. He seeks His mother,” says my mother. “But you must not speak of this in school. Not to anyone.” When my mother mentions school, there is fear in her voice. I know we aren’t allowed to talk about this. The Party members watch everyone. We believe in God. We keep up the traditions. We light candles on Friday night. We keep the fasts. We don’t eat until the morning star appears. On Sundays and holidays we go to the Pinkas’ house, to the Masses held in their good room.
“We are allowed to do this, we have nothing to lose,” says my mother. “Your father has been kicked out of everywhere already. These peasants would sell their own mothers and fathers for the tiniest advantage. That’s why they’re so wretched,” says my mother.
In the meantime, I’m making little piles of the old coins with my sister. On the side of the coin with the head, there is a picture of a crown with a slanted cross and chains dangling down. We play with a spinning top that our father carved for us. We wrote numbers on the sides with colored pencil so they wouldn’t wear off so easily. We play for money. Sometimes I win, but I also cheat. If the top falls on the wrong side, I lose everything. My older sister wins. When I have no money left, I begin to cry. My older sister grabs the money and stuffs it in her pocket. “I’m not giving it to you, not giving it to you,” she cries, mocking me. She always mocks me. When I’m big one day, I’ll give her a good thrashing. If only I were stronger.
MY FATHER ALWAYS CUTS THE CHICKENS’ NECKS. MY mother feels sorry for them. When I’m bigger, then I’ll have to do it. My mother loves all the animals that she feeds. She loves them all. It’s hard for her to decide to slaughter one. But it’s necessary. She decides which chicken will be slaughtered for Sunday days in advance.
“Pire, pire,” she calls out to the hens. When she feeds them on Friday morning, she takes the one she’s selected and covers it with a box. It waits there until evening. We give it only water in the box, in a liver-paté container. I go out with my father in the evening. I go after him, carrying the knife.
“Doesn’t it hurt the chicken?” I ask him.
“It doesn’t hurt. Just grab the legs,” he says.
I grab the chicken’s legs. Next to the well, the porcelain plate has already been prepared. As has the knife. He pulls the feathers out of the neck so the knife won’t slip. Then he won’t have to keep stabbing; he can slice across the throat with one cut. Sometimes he cuts really strongly, then the knife stabs among the vertebrae. Then the chicken’s head droops down. After he cuts the throat, he throws the knife onto the ground and, grabbing the wings together with one hand, stretches the hen’s head backward with the other hand. He holds the body vertical, the head facing down so that the blood will flow out as quickly as possible. The blood drips out, making a soft gurgling sound. At first the bottom of the white porcelain is a faint red, then by the end it is crimson, with thick globs of liquid sloshing around. It congeals quickly. The whole thing moves at once, like gelatin. He wipes off the knife blade in the hen’s feathers. He does this on both sides. My sister can’t stand the sight of blood. She goes into the house.
Killing is a man’s job.
MY SISTER’S NOSE IS ALWAYS FULL OF SNOT. SHE SNIFFLES. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She is always crying about something. Between us there are five years. Five cannot be divided, it can be divided only by itself. There is so much sadness between us. She must bear it alone. My older sister is always asking my mother for a ribbon, so she can be pretty. She wants to get a kerchief in the market, but we don’t have money for that. So she usually gets one ribbon. She ties the ribbon in her hair. Her mouth smells bad because of some illness. Everyone knows, though, that she is ugly; only she doesn’t realize it.
“You’re pretty like a donkey at wine-harvest time,” I mock her. She’s as skinny as a greyhound. I can’t stand her because she’s a finicky little toad. She always wants nice clothes, but she has to wear what she gets. Castoffs from other people. Then, after she grows out of them, I have to wear the castoffs. I hate my older sister. If I had an older brother, I wouldn’t have to wear girls’ clothes.
In vain do I tell my mother that these are girls’ clothes and I won’t wear them; I have to wear them. My mother beats me if I don’t wear them. The boys mock me because of them. They call me “Monkey.” Gedi has it so good, he has an older brother. I hate my sister; it’s because of her that I am ridiculed. Sometimes she tries to act like a mother around me; that enrages me even more. Above all, I’m angry with her when she plays with other kids. With the big girls who giggle, whisper, and jeer. They laugh at me. My older sister always leaves the house with them just to get rid of me. Then I have to play by myself.
I have to clean out the henhouse. I scrape away at the shit-spattered planks on which hen shit has hardened in thick layers. In the summer I have to whitewash the wooden partition walls once a month. It’s really hot in the henhouse. And it’s filled with lice from the hens. I’m still itchy from them in the evening. From time to time I sprinkle Matador powder on the hens. When I do that, I don’t let even one hen out in the morning; instead I sprinkle the powder on them. I sprinkle it into their eyes so it will sting. I Matadorize them. As I do so, I hold my breath. Matador powder really stinks. The hens cower in weakness the entire day. The next day, too. Before exterminating the lice, I have to do the whitewashing. I hit the hens with the handle of the lime brush. My mother shouts at me.
“If they go lame, I’ll strike you dead!”
At least then we’d eat meat, I think. But I don’t dare hit them as hard as I would like. So that they would croak. Instead, I just frighten them. I like it when they’re afraid of me. Let them be afraid. My older sister will learn that she, too, should be afraid.
“COME OUT, YOU FILTHY WHORE! IF ONLY YOU HAD DIED IN your mother’s womb!” my grandfather yells in front of the gate. Other times, he comes in. He hits our dog, Gypsy, with his cane, really hard. Just like that, out of habit. His cane knocks on the terrace. His lame leg drags behind him. He isn’t coming in now, just shouting. He is waving his cane in the air. He beats the wire fencing with it. He kicks at the smaller gate. We call it the trellis door. He shakes it, shouting. He pushes his hat back onto the crown of his head. I watch him secretly from the front-room window. I go back into the kitchen. My mother is sitting at the table. She is crying. My little brother is sleeping. My mother is crying quietly so she won’t wake the Little One. She just blows her nose. She wipes the mucus with the back of her hand. She strokes the Little One’s stomach so his digestion will be better.
“Don’t cry, M’my,” I say to her. “You know he’s crazy. Don’t cry anymore, M’my . . .” I repeat.
�
�What do any of you know?” my mother asks me reproachfully. “May the kid shit into a bag, let him suck on that,” she says.
I OFTEN HAVE TO LOOK AFTER THE LITTLE ONE. IF MY OLDER sister can’t watch him, then I have to do it. We call this lulling. I rock him in his cradle. I would like to leave him there, but I’m afraid. If I leave him, I’ll get in trouble. In the meantime, he cries continuously. He always cries. He howls. His head turns crimson and he yells. He has no teeth. His face is all wrinkles. His head is purple from the strain. He’s exactly like the little hairless mice. They disgust me. Mice nests most often turn up underneath hay. I stab the little mice with the pitchfork and take them out to the dung heap. Then I put a pitchforkful of shit on top of them. That’s their burial. We also do that with the baby sparrows that fall out of the nests. The hairless sparrows. They are always purple and thin. The veins are visible beneath their skin. They keep falling out from beneath the eaves. Their heads are big, their eyes are huge blue globes. They still can’t open their eyes. They’re as blind as bats. My father kills them by hitting them on the head with a shovel.
Ottó said we should step on them. I didn’t have enough strength for that. Then even Ottó didn’t dare. Instead he found a big stone and dropped it on them from a height. He didn’t look while it was falling. I didn’t even dare look. The birds were flattened out. We watched as everything flowed out of them. Their eyes popped out of their sockets. A tiny globe in the dust. Hairless mice and baby sparrows must be exterminated. Then we throw their corpses to the hens. Or onto the dung heap.
All newborn animals must be exterminated. We drown kittens in water. The smaller they are, the easier it is to push them down. When they’re only a few days old, they don’t scratch yet. Then you just have to press them down in the bucket. Or outside, in the stale water of the trough. Just a little water is enough, you don’t need a lot. Just make sure their noses are in it for a long time. For as long as they are still moving. In the spring, we just throw them into the outhouse. That’s also where we bring spoiled eggs. It’s filled with groundwater then. They drown in shit. In the summer, we throw them into the diesel-oil barrels that have been placed under the eaves to catch rainwater to use for the garden. If the kittens are a little bigger, then we put them in a sack and dash them on a stone. Or on the cement. Something hard, that’s the main thing.
The Dispossessed Page 5