“There were a few obstinate Romanians who still had to be punished. But the majority of them saw that it was better this way. Because they had come to love the slow-flowing river, the silent allotments, the mud-brick houses built in place of the wooden ones, and the fiery plum brandy of Szatmár—and so they did not miss the snowy peaks where in the springtime they had had to grind tree bark in order to bake loaves of bread for their kids. They didn’t miss the famines, when at the end of winter their teeth fell out, their gums swelled up, and their bald-headed women were like the pious Jewish wives with their shaved heads. Where in the springtime, the old people were decimated by waiting.
“So that slowly they grew unused to their little temple built of wood and got used to the new one built of brick, where the priest of the Uniate Church sang the same liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, just like Popescu used to, only now it was no longer sung in Romanian but in Hungarian. And the children went to Hungarian schools. The old people passed on the threadbare Romanian speech secretly, like stolen goods. In time, the foreign-sounding words were no longer swept into the ponderous river of memory.
“So there was not even the slightest outcry when one day the tiny temple, which they had brought with them from the Carpathians, somehow caught fire and by the next morning had burned down to dust. By the time they gathered around the embers of the dying ashes, there was nothing left to put out. There was nothing more to revive. As the village stood there in the biting dawn chill of the grass, underneath the dawning sky, they breathed in for the very last time the unknown scent of the snowy trees, they sensed the piercing breeze of the pastures, the fogs above the craggy cliffs, the untamed winds that ran from one end of the peaks to the next, swirling up the eternal snows.
“The onetime Romanians pulled their necks in. The chronicler convinced them that servitude was better than the hunger that the old people told stories about on anxious winter evenings. They no longer mentioned Popescu. News came from Munkács with ever less frequency. Then the name of Popescu was never pronounced again. And just as they never spoke of the envoy, so they never again spoke of the old stories.
“Only we do not forget. That is why I’m telling you, so you will not forget,” he says.
“Stop telling him all this nonsense! Don’t make the kid dizzy, you old bumberhead,” Máli shouts over to him. “Let the kid help me instead.”
MY GRANDFATHER IS THE OLD CRIPPLE. THAT’S WHAT THEY call him in the village. My grandmother, Mária Pop, was older than him, she was the man in the house. They even say that she was the one who asked for my grandfather’s hand in marriage. My grandfather was a cripple even when he was young, because he was sent to the front when he was seventeen. Seventeen cannot be divided. The autumn leaves had fallen several times already, but Franz Joseph still needed soldiers. By that time, they were conscripting young men. It was summer. It was said that by the time the leaves fell, the young men would be back. This time, it would really happen. But the war would not come to an end. The last winter of the war had come. The rain poured down all autumn. Then everything froze. My grandfather’s leg was maimed there. And so he became a war invalid on permanent relief. A state pension. Mari Pop calculated how much this would mean over ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years, and how much land could be bought with the money. Then she asked for the boy’s hand. Mari Pop was neither pretty nor ugly.
She’s a strong, tall girl who can stand the work, thought my grandfather. There can be no problems with that.
And she even came with a dowry.
“So in that way, I ended up with your grandmother,” he says.
Mari Pop wore the trousers in the marriage. My grandfather had someone to take care of him. He spared his leg. He worked very little. He always slept at noon.
“In the early forties, we acquired a few acres of land. Your grandmother really knew how to get hold of money. She was always able to scrape something together. After thirty-eight, when Gömbös’s men came up with the land reforms, the estates began to sell off their holdings. The owners of the estates wanted to get rid of the bad land, like in Tumblefields—the fields that didn’t produce anything, just buffalo shit. We bought it. We pulled the thorn out of the lord’s feet and pushed it into our own. Because land is necessary,” says my grandfather. “Then that, too, went to the collective lands.”
“WE ARE ROMANIANS. IN THE VILLAGE, THEY CALLED US newcomers. But if you own land, no one can tell you, ‘There’s the road, get lost.’ A peasant yearns for land like a drowning man yearns for air. Every Romanian believes that land gives him security in life. And that land will protect him. Your grandmother put money aside for this in advance. We acquired one acre after another. We didn’t even realize that war was coming. We worked day and night, we saved money. We had to ask for credit from the bank, as the land was burdened with a lien. It was really all the bank’s. We never ate to our stomachs’ content.
“We weren’t worried about the war. I didn’t have to enlist, because I was an invalid. The boys were still young. Only the older boys were called up for the Levente corps. Then in forty-four, they, too, were sent away. We didn’t even notice that the front was drawing closer to us. One day, they just showed up. They weren’t in our courtyard for even one week. They disappeared just as quickly as they came. Only the field kitchen remained, as they forgot to take it. It’s still there in the shed, where they left it. That’s where we keep the limewash.
“Then, during the hardest times, we acquired four acres on the edge of Gacsály. Your grandmother wanted to. It seemed like good business. We had already paid it off but had not yet registered it when the decree concerning kulaks was issued. With those four acres, we would end up on the list of kulaks. Well, may that dog Lord God fuck you now, I said to your grandmother.
“Your grandmother cried, yelled, and cursed like a drayman, but just in the inner room, so that the neighbors wouldn’t hear. Then in the evening, we went to the seller. We took all the money we had saved. I promised him half a pig in winter if they called off the deal. And so we didn’t become kulaks. We had to give the lawyer something to destroy the papers. Every trace disappeared. The Party secretary knew about the transaction, but he couldn’t prove it. That just made him all the more furious. He threatened us with this and that, said we wouldn’t get away with it. But he also saw that he couldn’t really do anything even if he tried, not even then. So in the end he didn’t take either me or the boys away. We were just decimated by the requisitions.
“But we survived. They took away all our land. Your poor grandmother went mad. Yes, it drove her mad. In the end, it was easier for her to die than to live without land. Now, down below, she has her land. May God rest her soul.
“She had that Romanian fear in her, that’s why she needed land. You don’t need it in a democracy, that’s what they say. But who knows. What did they do with the Jews? So never forget that you are a Romanian. Act as if you’re Hungarian. That’s what the others do. But don’t forget who you are. Hungarians are like mud. They pull each other down. But Romanians are light, like air. The Romanian words flew away, but they still hover in the air here above our heads. When I went to ask for Mari Pop’s hand, her father told me that theirs was the family that had given the village its priest. He explained every single part of the burned-down little church, so that one day it could be rebuilt again.
“‘The time will come,’ said my father-in-law, ‘when the border of greater Romania will be by the Tisza River. Then the church will be rebuilt. Then things will be good for us, for we will be free again. Until then, we have to act as if we are Hungarians. Nothing lasts forever. Water runs, stone stays still,’ he said.”
NARROW PATHS LEAD ACROSS THE WHEAT FIELDS; THEY are trod upon every year. The feet that come this way follow this trail. No one ever steps anywhere else, only into the footprint of the person in front of him. If many people cross the fields at the same time during sowing time, they go in single file, although it would be more comfortable to walk next to each
other. But no one ever steps away from the beaten path. This is the rule. It isn’t even permissible to cut across the fields, because every inch of land has its owner. Because that’s how people think, even today.
“Don’t stray from the beaten path,” Máli always says. Because everything always has to be done in the same way. With the same movements. Even if it doesn’t make sense. My mother cuts layered dough with a knife heated in the oven. She thrusts it in between the glowing coals, and when the knife is burning hot, she needs a rag to be able to pick it up. The greasy dough smokes from the sizzling hot blade. The metal, however, quickly oxidizes and gets rusty. We end up throwing these knives away all year long. For Easter, every year, my mother makes puff pastry. I help her. At the kitchen table, she rolls it out and folds it. It’s my job to make the knife burning hot; I grab the burning handle with a rag. I get bored, and I try to see whether the knife will cut the pastry if it isn’t heated up.
“It cuts well,” I say to my mother. “Let’s leave it like this. It will be simpler.” But my mother resists.
“We can’t, because we’ve always done it this way.”
“Why can’t we do it another way? Just because it’s always been done this way?” If my sister is arguing with my mother, then my mother says, “Don’t interrupt.”
“I shit you out. Later on, I’ll debate my own shit,” she says at these times. It’s no use.
“If this is how we’re used to doing it, then it’s good,” she says stubbornly.
“But it cuts well. Surely you can see that it cuts just as well. Then the whole house doesn’t have to fill up with smoke. And we don’t have to burn our hands. As long as the pastry is baked, there will be no difference.”
My mother’s eyes are also stung by the smoke. And she, too, is already sick of the usual ineptitude with the knife that keeps cooling off, the embers falling out of the stove, the ruined blades, the burns on our hands. With difficulty, she acquiesces and lets us give it a try.
The cold knife cuts the dough exactly the same. And after it’s baked, there is no difference.
“I just hope that none of the guests or your father notices difference in the dough,” she says.
Because we refer to pastry as dough.
WHEN MY GRANDFATHER TALKS, HIS MUSTACHE JUMPS UP and down. His lower jowl goes right up to his nose. As if he wanted to snatch up his jowl. That is, my grandfather doesn’t have any teeth anymore. He soaks crusts of bread in his tea. He soaks crusts of bread in his milk. He soaks crusts of bread in his soup. He always eats crusts of bread soaked in something. He gives the inside part of the bread to us. My grandfather carries a pocketknife in his pocket. He cuts small pieces from the bacon so he won’t have to chew it. He just gnaws on it and swallows it down. He slices the sausage into small pieces with his pocketknife.
My grandfather tells me what he heard from his father-in-law. The Romanians always carried knives. Even when they went to balls, everyone had a pocketknife. My grandfather didn’t like Romanians because they were always stabbing people. They were quick to pull out their pocketknives.
“Your grandmother was also notorious,” he says. “I should have fought with Mari Pop, but I obeyed her.” After my grandmother’s death, he never went to the cemetery. He never takes flowers to the grave. That’s not a man’s job. Máli goes every day. Years later, when the grave marker was prepared from artificial stone, the date of my grandfather’s birth was engraved into the black marble sheet. 1897. Later on, the date of his death will have to be engraved.
“It looks at me like some kind of question mark,” he says about the gravestone.
Máli says that my grandfather is also Romanian and that’s why Mari Pop was given to him, but he tells everyone that he is Hungarian. And that his family was a noble family. The noble Bobonkays. It’s just that they lost the sheepskin.
“He’s been looking for it for decades now, that lost parchment,” Máli says derisively.
“But that’s how it is. I am of the noble Bobonkays,” claims my grandfather. Máli taunts him.
“So that would make you the relative of nobles? Hungarian nobles?” she asks.
“Yes indeed,” states my grandfather.
“And how is that? Because Adam shit in the water, and Eve drank it up?” she shouts, and cackles so much that she pees her pants. “You are Romanian, no?”
But my grandfather just grumbles on, like old people do. He even says it when he’s alone.
“Yes indeed! We are nobility, it’s just that the sheepskin was lost.”
“You’d better have a good look around, just in case it turns up,” says Máli.
Because my grandfather collects everything that he finds on the street. He brings home screws that have fallen out of machines. Because there is always some kind of metal part, screws, hooks, or nuts falling out of tractors and trucks.
“They shed them like a cat sheds its hair,” my grandfather repeats.
My grandfather picks them up and brings them home. He puts them in the shed. He loves everything made of iron. He collects all kinds of objects. When he finds a stone, he also brings that home.
“One day it will be good for something,” he always says. My father does the same. He fills up the shed with pieces of iron. I, too, pick up every screw, little nail, every strange pebble. My sister and I always hope to find money. We have found ten and twenty-fillér coins many times already. Sometimes even a fifty-fillér coin. It’s best to keep an eye out near the tavern. The men shove money into the pockets of their work trousers. That’s where they also put pliers, wrenches, and screws. There are always holes, though. Screwdrivers make holes in their pockets.
When they are heading home in the evenings, they step into the tavern to throw back a hasty shot, drink a beer, and during the confused conversation they don’t pay attention. Small change falls out of their pockets through the holes. In the winter, you have to observe the color of the snow. Money gets trampled into the snow. The practiced eye will notice where money is concealed on the basis of the telltale color. If I find something, I hide it from my sister, because she will take it away. When we are going somewhere together, if I see a coin, I stealthily reach down. It’s best if I quickly place my foot on it. And then when she’s not watching, I lean down and snatch it up. I clutch the frozen coin in my palm. But my older sister notices anyway.
“What’s that in your palm?” she asks. “Show me!”
When I open my palm, she hits it from below and quickly grabs the money. If I don’t open my palm, stubbornly squeezing my fist together, then she presses her nails into my wrist, into the tendons. I open my hand because of the sharp pain. And then she snatches away the money.
My older sister always takes away my money, just as my mother takes money away from my father. When he’s drunk, she turns out his pockets. So I hide the money at home, too. I put it underneath the hens’ nests; my mother won’t reach under there because she hates hen shit. It doesn’t bother me. That’s also why of late when I find money, I quickly put it in my mouth. I suck the ice off it. The cold metal feels good. If my older sister tells me to open my mouth wide, I hide it under my tongue. The aluminum has a strange taste. If there’s money in my mouth, I just hem and haw. My sister grows suspicious. And she takes it away.
“I AM NOT A JEW,” SAYS MY FATHER. HE SAYS THAT TO MY mother. My mother is angry at him.
“To hell with that stubborn Jewish blood of yours,” she says when they quarrel. Because my father doesn’t want to move away from the village. My mother wants us to go live in a city where no one knows us. They always fight about this. My father says he can’t live in a city.
“I am not Jewish. Get that out of your head,” he says to my mother. Softly, almost whispering. He is not shouting now, like the other times when they fight.
My father is not Jewish. My mother also says this.
“Your father is not Jewish. Only other people think he is.”
My older sister says that even she isn’t Jewish. And
even I’m not Jewish. Only Young Mózsi is Jewish, but everybody knows about him.
The Jew cannot be seen. The Jew is just a word. He is everywhere because he is always being mentioned, but he is invisible. He is the yellow egg on the underside of the potato leaf. Just turn it over, and there he is. People crush them between their nails, like lice. The Jew is the yellow flower of the dandelion, which we call cankerwort and lion’s-tooth. The Jew is the yellow star of which people speak but that I have never seen.
“Everyone mocks me for being a Jew, but I’m not Jewish,” my father says to my mother. My father’s hair is matted, his eyes are crossed. He was at the tavern again.
“I don’t want the kids to be mocked because of this,” he says, his speech slurred.
“Of course not. Why, did somebody say something to you today?” my mother asks with ridicule in her voice. But my father doesn’t hear this now. Other times, he would notice. But now he’s trying very hard to stay upright. He can only focus on trying not to fall.
That word, Jewish, is the word my father never pronounces. Only when he’s drunk. Otherwise, never. And even then, so softly, almost whispering it. You can sense from his words that the Jew means some dark secret. Something fearful. Something we don’t talk about. Something to be ashamed of. Because he speaks in a subdued voice. He says only this much to my mother:
“Well, you know. That.”
In other words, Jew. Because he avoids that word.
We’re afraid of this word. I never say it. Neither does my older sister. We’re afraid of names, as well. We never call anyone by their name. My father pronounces people’s names only rarely. Instead, he paraphrases. He just makes some kind of reference. Or he uses the person’s nickname. This exasperates my mother. How he just paraphrases every name and never pronounces them. The one who lives here, or the one who lives there. The one who has this or that characteristic. The son or the daughter of you-know-who, this one or that one, as my father always says. The wife or the child of this one or that one. Or her husband. We say her sire. I, too, am afraid of names.
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