The Dispossessed

by Szilard Borbely

  “I’ve had enough of your father. And of the whole kith and kin.” She sobs and cries. We hush her. It’s like she isn’t herself. Slowly, she grows tired. Her face smooths over, she calms down.

  Tonight she will sleep deeply. We take her back to the house.

  She lets us. She doesn’t protest. She sniffles, wiping the snot dripping from her nose with her hand.

  I AM WALKING WITH MY GRANDFATHER. I HOLD HIS HAND. He limps, so that I have to limp alongside him. I count the hobbling steps. I need to adjust my gait to his. I always hold his left hand, because with his right he leans on his crooked cane. He limps with his right leg. The foot was frostbitten in the First World War. When I am at his house, I massage it for him. I take the sheet-metal basin from the washstand. From underneath, I take the metal soap dish and the gray-brown soap that my mother and Máli make from pig lard in the spring. I smear it on his foot. I unwind the footcloth. The footcloth stinks; in places, the sweat has rotted it through. His foot also stinks, but I’m used to that already. His hand trembles as he runs it along his foot. He rubs it, trembling, like an old man.

  “I can’t feel it,” he says. “For fifty-nine years now, I can’t feel it.” His hand trembles, feels, rubs the shin.

  At these times, he speaks of old things. I like to listen.

  “Listen well to what I’m telling you,” he says. “We are Romanian.”

  “How could we be Romanian,” I ask, “when we don’t even speak Romanian?”

  “Trajan Popescu, the great-great-grandfather of your great-grandmother, still knew,” he answers. “Your grandmother knew Romanian, too, she learned it from her great-grandmother. When she was angry, she always cursed in Romanian. She vilified others in Romanian. She really knew how.”

  “When did my grandmother die?” I ask.

  “You had just turned one; it wasn’t even five years ago. We were at the corn harvest. In the evening, we came home from working. She lay down and died. Then she no longer cursed. We worked from dawn to dusk. She was tired. And she was tired of life. Our life wasn’t easy,” he says.

  “In Berek, the Popescu family were the priests. They had been resettled by the house of Károly. Berek was deserted. It had been plundered by the Turks and the Tatars, the people had been killed. There was no one there for a long time after. Then the Károlys thought to bring over some Romanians. They brought nineteen families, among them the Popescu family. The name of your great-great-grandmother’s great-great-grandfather was Avram Popescu. He was the Orthodox priest.

  “First they came from the snowy mountains to Transylvania, but they couldn’t get hold of any land there. All they had brought with them was their little wooden temple. They sold their sheep and goats in order to pay the taxes. The lord of the estate was Hungarian, and in the summer he employed them, but when winter came there was no work for them. Sometimes they did some woodcutting, forest clearing, and manual labor, until the frosts came. But the corn soon ran out, the bacon box was bare. Every pot of lard was empty. In the winter they took the bark off the trees and ground it to bake scones. In the spring their teeth fell out, the children grew bald, and the women did, too, beneath their kerchiefs. They looked like Jewish women. So when Count Károly’s agent went to Transylvania to recruit workers, they signed up joyfully. They came here. They didn’t need to leave anything behind there, as they had nothing. They just took apart the little temple again, the temple in which there was not even one part made of iron. Neither clamp iron nor iron nail nor screw. Everything in it was crafted out of wood. They carried it here. They put it up again here in the neighboring village. They left behind the morning fog above the mountains, the winter chill of the ice in the brook, the packs of wolves that sometimes descended from the pine forests and snatched up the children. And they left behind the murderous springtime famines, when the old people returned to the distant home beyond the blue mountains. The priest blessed the ground, the trees, the waters; and with his guidance they marked out a new village for themselves here.

  “And so the years passed: they cleaned the waterways, they cleared the forest, so that there would be land to plow. They worked the land. They built houses. At first, as was their custom, from wood. Small and warm wooden houses. With tiny windows. But the Károlys had not given them enough wood, because there are few trees here and they must be preserved. And the trees here are not slender pines. Even the oak doesn’t grow as tall as in Transylvania or the snowy mountains. So when things were a bit better, they built big houses out of mud bricks, the custom in these parts, next to the little wooden houses. They caught fish in the river. There was enough wheat. There was fruit in the gardens, too. Now only the blue of the plums reminded them of the mountains. The springtime famines were gone. Their teeth didn’t fall out. Their kids and their women weren’t bald. Every spring, the priests blessed the fields. The entire village came out so that Popescu’s grandson could sprinkle holy water on the freshly sowed fields. They brought their icons, their banners, they sang those strange songs in which they ceaselessly entreated their God, the Orthodox God, whom the surrounding Protestants could never revile enough.

  “But the Károlys weren’t satisfied. The village paid ever higher taxes. They were industrious. They took the fruits of their harvests to the markets in Károly and Szatmár. There they sold their goods on the square next to the Chain Temple. They went to faraway Nagybánya or to Sziget—Máramarossziget—as well. They offered their goods in the market in nearby Jánk. The blessing of God was upon the village,” says my grandfather. He wipes away a drop of saliva from the tip of his left mustache. He looks at the point of his boot.

  “Until one day, the county envoy appeared. He came from Károly, accompanied by the county hajduks. The envoy wore a great black dust cloak, the hajduks wore green cloaks. They proceeded slowly, at a leisurely pace. The hajduks approached on horses; the envoy flew from tree to tree. Across and above the heads of the hajduks. Like a crow, flitting from one branch to another. He turned his head to the left, he turned his head to the right, so he could see what was in the middle. He surveyed the road to see where they had to go after Zajta. They only knew the way as far as that point. But after that, all the same, they entered Berek. The envoy descended from the slenderest poplar tree on the outskirts of the village. From there, he glided to the center of the village. He brushed the dust off his cloak, and from his inner pocket he took out a document. It was folded lengthwise, and the bottom was adorned with three seals: one from the Chamber, one from the lord lieutenant, and one from the metropolitan who had been raised in captivity. They were all carmine-colored, as if fresh blood had dripped onto the paper. And while Nyisztor, the town chronicler, read out what was written there to the Romanians gathered around the priest, something began to drip from the seal of the metropolitan who had been raised in captivity. And because they did not understand the wooden jargon of Hungarian officialdom, they all just looked at Popescu.

  “And all the while from the third seal—that of the metropolitan of all the Romanians in Transylvania, raised in captivity—thick drops of blood fell and fell.

  “‘Singe,’ said the people superstitiously, and they shuddered.

  “Singe means ‘blood.’ And in truth, it was blood: the blood of the Romanians. Of the tormented Romanian peasants who clung to their faith, their priests, and their language. Who didn’t want their little wooden temple to be taken away, their little wooden temple that had been taken apart many times, the pieces of which had been divided up among the families when they set off on their journey. In this way it was carried across the mountains, the brooks, and the rivers. Down the snowy mountains, it was lowered on sleighs. Across the rivers, it was floated. The temple was made of such wood as they were never to see again. From pine trees, which never grow here on the plains. From leafy trees that drop their leaves in the fall and grow green in the spring, the colors of which no one ever saw here.

  “When they arrived, they assembled their little wooden church. The priest bles
sed it, and the people sang. Bowing their heads deeply, they stepped through the low entrance. In the church, the next generation, as well, could sense the fragrance of the distant forests. Even in the greatest heat, they could feel the piercing alpine wind striking their faces. And the brilliance of the eternal green surrounded them. But they knew that behind the tripartite gate that separates the holiest of holies no womenfolk may enter, only menfolk—for present is the living God, not like in the churches of the faithless. Only the priest may open the middle door, while he sings ‘the Blessed Doors, the Blessed Doors . . .’ There, between the altar and the gate, resounds the sonorous voice of Popescu, like an echo endlessly rolling across the peaks. And when he opens wide the two wings of the doors, the village, crammed into the tiny church, peals forth, like a cry of jubilation, they sing with all their hearts, like the triumphant:

  “‘Blessed be our Lord from now to eternity, now and forever and unto the ages of ages! Amen.’

  “BUT NOW THE PEOPLE WERE SILENT. THEY WATCHED AS the Romanian blood dripped from the metropolitan’s seal onto the gleaming black boots of the county envoy with his black cloak. While the envoy read, the village no longer looked at Popescu but at the drops of blood crystallizing on the toe of his boot. First on his boot they saw the village reflected back. There was everything in miniature. The frightened parish gathered together around the priest, like chicks trying to hide under a brood hen’s wing. Because of the dripping blood, they no longer saw themselves. And when the envoy had finished reading the letter, there was a painfully long silence. His gaze ranged all over the people, and he asked:

  “‘Is the declaration of the majestic Royal High Court—which the noble commission and His Transparency, the Lord Lieutenant, has deigned to sign with his own hand and to uphold with his carmine-hued seal—comprehensible to all? The declaration to which, moreover, the metropolitan of all Romanian subjects of Transylvania has, in his approbation, appended his signature as perfectly accordant with his own will, affixing it with the most excellent carmine-hued seal of the cardinal, prepared from the finest Hungarian wax?’ sounded the voice of the envoy, imperative and impatient.

  “Having thus completed his statement, the envoy, shouting ever more threateningly, turned to the village priest Popescu, clothed in full ecclesiastical garb; and who, despite all this, next to the envoy, who was dressed simply but in fine fabrics, looked like a chicken who had fallen into pig swill.

  “Popescu was silent.

  “‘Has everyone understood what I have said, you priest?’ the envoy asked, shouting. To which Popescu, the father of your great-great-grandfather, meekly replied:

  “‘My esteemed sir, the unfortunates hardly know Hungarian, for they are Romanian—’

  “‘Well then, that is the problem!’ the envoy shot back. ‘Let them learn! Until then, you translate for them,’ he said, enraged, strongly emphasizing the word you. And the blood just kept on dripping from the seal of the metropolitan raised in captivity, the metropolitan who was never able to leave his bishop’s cage. Sometimes escaped prisoners reached him, bringing him news of dreadful tortures that they could depict only by drawing them in the dirt of the courtyard, for their tongues had been cut out. They showed their wounds to the metropolitan, who just placed his index and middle fingers on the living cicatrices and tore off the pus-covered flesh with his own hands, digging into the scab-encrusted parts while mute tears flowed down his face. Then, later on, when he touched the paper gently with his ring finger, thus ratifying the seal and validating the latest measure against the Romanians, the mute tears cut furrows into his fine skin, protected from the sun.

  “And then Popescu, the father of your great-great-grandfather, told his frightened flock that they could no longer speak Romanian, that in the little church they had brought with them they could no longer sing in Romanian the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. No longer could the mysterious words of the faith with their hidden meaning resound in the church:

  “‘O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life—come and abide in us, and cleanse us of every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One!’

  “This was the section that he loved most of all from the text of the liturgy. The secret shall be lost, he thought, for they are taking the words away from the people.

  “‘We may no longer say the heavenly liturgy in Romanian.’

  “Then, from the people, anguish burst out. They shouted, they lamented, they began to weep.

  “In time, the murmuring began to subside. The cold voice of the envoy, his raised hand, silenced the people, commanding a final silence. The Orthodox priest, however, your great-great-grandfather, continued, saying that from now on, by means of the acquiescence forced from the captive metropolitan with his bleeding seal, they no longer belonged to the metropolitan of Transylvania’s Romanian subjects, no longer to the suzerainty of the uniquely redeeming Orthodox Church—but from now on they were to be the pious flock of the Uniate Church of Ungvár and Munkács, created at the price of ignominious betrayal. When Popescu, speaking in Romanian, used the word miserabil and then repeated the more grievous word josnic, thus voicing his opinion of the declaration—these words bearing the meanings of ‘villainous’ and ‘ignominious’—the envoy standing beside him, in a sudden movement, slapped him across the mouth so that his hat flew off his priestly head.

  “Popescu was mute with shock, like the duck that swallowed a bumblebee, its throat swelling up within a moment. Or the goose that is being fattened that swallows the grain and croaks.

  “THE ENVOY THEN SPOKE TO POPESCU IN PERFECT ROMANIAN and with merciless severity informed him that the Orthodox priest, that is, Popescu himself, had given severe offense to the Holy Mother Church, which enjoyed high esteem under the protective wing of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Austrian Empire; in addition to which he had given offense to His Holiness, the clement pope embracing the Uniate priesthood to his bosom. From this it was clear that the envoy spoke perfect Romanian, with the fluency of someone for whom it was his mother tongue. Popescu’s heart contracted with pain, as there was nothing left to hope for anymore if Romanians were betraying Romanians. And he waited with resigned equanimity to see what would happen next.

  “The envoy raised his hand and again demanded silence.

  “‘By the authority vested in me, for the crimes of sedition and desecration I sentence you to twenty years’ imprisonment,’ he said to Popescu. ‘At the same time, I hereby designate as the priest of the Uniate Church Anselm Radu, whom I have brought with me here today to become the pastor of the parish: he will teach you the language and customs of the Uniate, the Greek, and the Catholic churches, and he will lead you into the redeeming fold of the Catholic Church, filled with sweetness of the soul.’

  “‘We don’t want him,’ murmured the Romanians. ‘We want Priest Popescu.’

  “The envoy did not speak. He watched patiently from within the circle of hajduks who were protecting him. He waited for the people’s anger to be spent, because the envoy knew the nature of the masses. The hajduks watched the peasants thronging and cursing with eyes like wolves. If someone came too close, they struck them with their cudgels, freshly carved from hazel wood. The others cordoned off the village. They were prepared for martial law, which in those days was referred to as summary justice. But every storm comes to an end at some point. All fresh shit hardens. Nothing lasts forever. When the people had quieted down, the envoy spoke.

  “‘Now then, listen here. Everyone will get a proper Hungarian name. Soon, during a mass christening, you will all confirm your voluntarily declared devotion to the Uniate Church. By the time of Corpus Christi, let there no longer be any pagans here! The new reverend father will prepare you so that you may become faithful subjects, believers in the Holy Roman Catholic Church, completing this earthly pilgrimage in the hope of salvation. The God-loving bishop of the exarchate of Munkács shall come to pay you a visit.
He shall, for all your sakes, take up the most holy of his shepherd’s crooks; his deacons, full of self-sacrificing love, shall place his bishop’s miter upon his head; onto his trembling, liver-spotted hands he shall pull his white kid gloves, and onto his ring finger he shall place his bishop’s signet ring, which he then shall graciously permit you to humbly kiss. And should there be anyone to whom this is not pleasing, he may leave behind everything he has here, and he shall be cast out from this place to beyond the Carpathians. Into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and lamenting and gnashing of teeth.’

  “The town chronicler had waited up to this point in silence. Until now, he had just scratched his head. But now he gathered up his courage and, so as not to be shamed before his people, he took off his fur cap and, humbling himself, went before the envoy.

  “‘I humbly request your honorable sir: if things are such that from this point on we must belong to the Uniate Church of Munkács as believers of the Catholic Church, then why may we not do this under the guidance of our current priest, Popescu?’ he asked, nudging the Orthodox priest with his elbow.

  “‘Well, say something already, Popescu. You will lead this village into the fold of the Roman priesthood, will you not? Because then the village will surely follow you, that much is certain,’ he said.

  “The envoy immediately shouted him down.

  “‘Impossible! In his sin, Popescu himself is an unrepentant heretic. Never shall he be a true believer of the supreme pontiff, let alone of our reverend lord prince primate. You can’t get bacon out of a dog. You should also know, Chronicler, that new wine is never poured into old goatskins. Popescu’s place—thanks to his abominable words—is in jail,’ he said.

  “And so it was, because, just as in the military, a precedent must be set,” my grandfather added.