The Dispossessed

by Szilard Borbely

  My father doesn’t speak. He is silent.

  “Tell them! Stand up for yourself, don’t just talk into your ass,” my mother instructs him.

  The next day my father goes to the workshop. But the brigade leader doesn’t give him any work. He stands around forlornly, asking for work.

  “There’s none for you. Go home. You’ve got a big mouth,” the brigade leader says.

  “I work here. What do you mean, there’s no place for me here?” my father says. “So fire me. I’ve always done everything you said. You have no reason for this.”

  “Understand what I’m saying. There’s no place for you here,” the brigade leader says. “If you don’t like it, then you can go ask the foreman.”

  My father did exactly as he tells the story at home. He goes to the foreman, and he complains. He wants to work so he can support his family. He has three children, the third is still a babe in swaddling clothes. He needs money. And at the final settlement he didn’t even get so much as a fillér.

  “I don’t even have anything to give the cow anymore,” he says, “and the cow is what keeps us going.”

  “Take your fucking cow and shove it up your ass,” says the foreman.

  “Don’t fuck me over like this,” says my father. “I’ve got two kids on my neck. And a third in the mother’s stomach, you can’t do this to me.”

  “So don’t make so many of them,” says the departmental director. The entire brigade laughs.

  “That’s why the class war is what it is, comrade—now you’re down and we’re up. Your father was a kulak. He would have fucked a goat for two fillérs, and he would’ve done so even if he hadn’t gotten that. Just so that he could have more. While everyone else had nothing. They scraped away at the land. Scraped and scraped so you could have more. And the hired hand got zero.” My father doesn’t answer. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I have a trade. Let me work.”

  “What have you got, you nobody,” he says. My father’s comment makes Pista nervous, because he never even finished eighth grade.

  “Well, you be off now, as far as the eye can see. Don’t stand there like an idiot. There’s nothing for you here,” he says. “I’m just saying this so we understand each other.”

  MY MOTHER WANTS TO MAKE SOUP FROM NESTING DOVES for the Little One.

  “Bring me two nestlings,” she says.

  My older sister holds the ladder, and I climb up to the dovecote. Next to the well, there’s a pigeon loft placed at the top of a column. My father wrapped barbed wire around it so the cat can’t climb up there. It’s like a castle turning around on a duck’s webbed foot, like in the fairy tale. We can hear the fluttering of the young pigeons already. We looked at them a few days ago, they were still downy. Now their hair is soft and yellow. There are two of them. Each dove lays two eggs. Dove eggs are smaller than those of pullets, you can’t eat them. Sometimes the doves throw their eggs out of their nests. It’s not known why they do this. Then the hens eat them up. Or the cat, if it notices in time. They tend to prowl around beneath the pigeon loft.

  “Hold the ladder,” I say to my sister.

  I have to stand on my tiptoes and lean forward to take out the little ones. They don’t want to come out. They’re very nice and plump. They have feathers. They claw and they peck. But they’re still weak. I try to be careful, but I have to hurry. The ladder is wobbling. It’s in bad shape, the wood is rotten. I’m afraid it’s going to fall apart. Then I’ll get in trouble for breaking it. My sister is sniffling. I’m angry at her. She shouldn’t be sniffling now but holding the ladder. We have to get the nestlings, because the Little One needs soup.

  “If only it will give him some strength,” my mother said.

  Both of them are nice and fat. I pulled out one of them already. I hand it down to my sister.

  “Hold it well,” I say. I pull out the other dove, as well. Now I’m hurrying. My older sister is holding the ladder with just one hand. Grabbing the wing, I pull out the other nestling. It whimpers, its mother agitatedly alighting on the roof of the loft. Then it circles around and comes back. I’m not scared of it, just a little afraid.

  When I’m ready, I quickly climb down the ladder. I squeeze the burning bodies of the doves in my two hands. Hens are warmer than we are. I can sense their hearts nervously beating.

  “Don’t let go,” I say to my sister.

  I put my dove under the basket. Carefully I pull out my hand.

  We go to the woodpile. I have already prepared the ax, placing it on the tree stump. My father showed me how to do it. I take the nestling from my sister. With my left hand, I hold its two legs. I lay it on the stump so that I’m pulling its head forward with my right hand. I press down on it, holding the bird in place. I show my sister, so she can see how it has to be done.

  “Now you hold its head,” I say.

  “I don’t want to,” she whines.

  “Don’t be so touchy. Girls are always so touchy,” I say. “I’m going to cut off its head. You just hold on to it here. Close your eyes. This is a man’s work.” I repeat what my father said.

  At first I didn’t want to cut off the dove’s head. But my father said that I’m big enough already. They will laugh at me if I don’t know how to do even that. I should stop being so helpless.

  “Your mother doesn’t dare to. If I’m not at home, someone has to do it. You be the man of the house. You have to help your mother. This is a man’s work.”

  I cry, but I harden my heart.

  “If you eat a hen, then you also have to kill it,” he says. “You have to do it quickly so they won’t get scared.”

  My sister grabs the dove’s neck but turns her head away. The dove’s neck is stretched out. The hairs on its neck are standing on end. You can see its skin in between the feathers. It’s making a slurping sound because my sister is covering the holes in its beak.

  “You have to cut decisively,” my father explained. “With one blow. Sometimes they run off, even without a head.”

  The strong ganders run around in the autumn after we cut off their heads; they run in circles in the courtyard. At the end of their long necks, there’s no head. The dog named Gypsy bares its teeth at them.

  “First say a prayer. May God forgive me,” says my father.

  My father strikes decisively. Since then, I do, as well. I cut off the dove’s head with the ax. Its eyelids smooth onto its enormous eyes like membranes. I throw it next to the tree stump. My sister can’t bear it. I see that she’s going to throw a fit any moment now. I grab the other baby dove from beneath the basket.

  “Hold its head. We’ll be finished in a moment,” I hurry her on.

  “I’m the shochet now,” I say to her. “I know how to do it.”

  “You’re going to cut off my fingers,” she says.

  “Of course not. Hold its head already,” I say. I have to hurry. The body of the dove, headless, flails, beating its wings. Blood is spraying out from its neck. My sister stamps her feet with impatience, but she holds the head. I strike quickly, flustered. Now this one is ready, too.

  My mother said that the butcher came on Thursday from the third village over. My mother feels sorry for the animals. Ever since my father hasn’t been at home, I have been the man of the house. I cut the necks of the hens and ducks. In the autumn, I cut the goose’s neck. The blood has to flow out of them. The important thing is that they don’t suffer, and that no blood remains in them.

  “It is forbidden to eat blood,” my father always says.

  “Peasants eat it, disgusting,” my mother always says. She spits. “At pig killings they drink it warm, like brandy. They even boast about it,” she grimaces. The men drink it out of arrogance, they scuffle, they arm wrestle in the tavern.

  The heads of young doves must be cut off quickly.

  “Then they don’t suffer, do you see. The quicker we do it, the less they suffer. Think of the Little One and our M’my,” I say to calm my sister down.<
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  The two headless doves’ bodies lie next to each other. We leave the heads here. The cat will find them. I lift up the nestlings by their legs so all the blood will drip out of them.

  “Come here. Help me pluck them. Our mother has already boiled the water. You have to be careful, their skin is very fragile,” I say.

  ONCE, THERE WAS A HAPPY DAY. I REMEMBER: IT WAS THE time of the plum harvest.

  An angel came to the village. Everyone was preparing to gather plums. The branches of the enormous trees were beginning to split from the weight. The forked poles appeared again, just like last year, leaned up against the side of the shed. My grandfather, after long deliberation, used them to prop up the stooped branches. It was during this time that the angel might have arrived, when the flesh of the downy plum grows firm under its blue skin. Drops of dew ran down it in the early autumn mornings. Whoever touches this pale transparent layer leaves a trace with his fingers upon it.

  As the plums ripen, their flesh grows soft. The greengage plums become fragrant, the Berzence plums become honeylike, the plums whose names I don’t know peek out perplexedly from amid the leaves, as do the honey-sweet cherry plums, from which the finest brandy can be made. The angel itself was blue. Something glimmered pale blue beneath its skin. As if it was always trembling. And as if this was the particular shade caused by shivering. Its face was also composed of bluish tones, and on its skin small dry blue patches were visible. Its hair was long and fell down in locks. Next to its ear, one single lock curled into a snail-like shape.

  We couldn’t know anything about it for certain, besides the fact that it had come from somewhere in the east. It didn’t come alone, because it looked like it was around ten years old, just like us. It just appeared in our classroom, and we didn’t even notice. And even that wasn’t surprising, because with the customary confusion of the first days of the school year at the beginning of September a long time passed before we noticed it. It left just as it had arrived. In its place there remained a chilly blue shadow for a long time. It seemed familiar, but I didn’t know why it seemed familiar. Only later on, I realized that it reminded me of my little brother. Its face was like the face of the Little One when he was sleeping. When I saw this bluish color again on my little brother’s face, then I understood.

  MY LITTLE BROTHER’S ILLNESS DID NOT LAST FOR A LONG time. He couldn’t even talk yet.

  He left our midst just as he’d come. Almost imperceptibly. We believed that he would be our Messiah. We only ever spoke about him or to him, because he couldn’t speak yet. And since he couldn’t speak, it was as if afterward there was no need to speak about him. We were silent about him, at least my mother was silent. But first she ripped out her hair. She tore the kerchief from her head. She rent her clothing. She accused my father. And the village.

  “You killed him! Murderers! You’re murderers,” she screamed.

  After the floods, my father was chased out of the village. He was lucky he didn’t have to be there when my mother went mad. That’s what they said in the village, that she went mad.

  When the Little One left, he took only a name with himself. His own name.

  Everything happened very quickly. I cried with my older sister, but we didn’t understand anything. He got the Sunday-best clothes that I had grown out of. The little jacket that Dolha had made. And my little trousers, which were still too big for him. They had to be turned up. My white kneesocks were pulled onto his thin little legs. And my black-and-white patent leather shoes were put on his feet.

  We resembled each other like two eggs. It was as if I were lying there on the table covered by the black draperies.

  My mother bit into her wrist. My father did not speak.

  Only we whimpered confusedly when his body was laid out on the kitchen table. He was with us for thirteen months. Thirteen cannot be divided.

  IT WAS WHEN I LEARNED HOW TO CATCH FLIES THAT I began to be preoccupied with the question of what life is. Life is black and white. Or it’s colorless and therefore can’t be seen. I observe the air, of which they say that it’s everywhere. That’s what my father said about God the Father, that He is present everywhere. That He is like air.

  My father says that air has weight. I don’t want to believe this. I try to perceive the air, but I don’t see it. Nor do I see God. He doesn’t show up anywhere; it’s only the autumn flies that begin to buzz ever more slowly everywhere. They climb up the window. I experiment further with the flies, to try to see what life is, I have time to practice because there’s nothing else to do in school. You have to be quiet. Lately, my mother hasn’t been talking.

  WHEN IN THE AUTUMN I HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL, MY MOTHER didn’t come with me. I was very afraid, and for a long time I didn’t talk to anyone. I just caught flies and collected them in my pocket, but first I ripped out their wings. And I only did this in secret, because I was afraid of the teacher.

  Ever since I started going to school, I already know all the letters of the alphabet, but I don’t like all of them. Certain letters trouble me, so I don’t want to read out the words that contain those letters. I like the little letter k, and I like the words that contain it. But I’m afraid of capital K. I’m also afraid of the letter j, because it means Jew. I tremble when I see the letter j. Then I pretend that I’m just reading it to myself. Or that I don’t know how to read.

  In the meantime, I wait for a fly to come closer to me.

  It was the end of October, and I was looking out the window. The chest below the window is my hiding place. From here I could see the blue sky very well. I froze, motionless. At the same time, I held my hand in the air so I could move it around easily. I did not want to give myself away. I watched the flies as, unsuspecting, they came toward me. At the beginning, they were a little suspicious. They circled around. But if I didn’t move, they grew bolder. They strolled right beneath my hand; I only had to close my palm. And I trapped them ever more expertly in the palm of my hand. My hand was little, so it was easy for them to get away. I had to crush their bodies a little if I wanted to play with them.

  “What are you doing?” my older sister asked me.

  “Nothing. I’m reading,” I answer.

  “So why do you keep snatching at things?”

  “I’m not snatching at anything.”

  “You need to be calm when you’re reading. Try paying attention,” she says.

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I answer.

  “So what are you paying attention to?”

  “These black splotches. The letters,” I say. And I quickly close the reader. The imprint of a fly, who just then was strolling among the letters, remains in the book.

  WE ARE WALKING ALONG THE SODGROUNDS. I COUNT THE trees along the side of the road. Máli prefers to go this way. Few people come this way. Now we’re living with them, up there in the Old Village. In the ancestral home, as they say. In the first good room. My grandfather’s house has two good rooms, because they were well-to-do. Only wealthy families had houses with four windows. They considered themselves to be wealthy peasants. After collectivization, only the house remained. And it still shows how well they were doing before, in the old days.

  After many arguments, my grandfather’s family allowed us to move in with them. For half a year, there has been no roof of our own over our heads. So during that time, we had to bring ourselves here. The house in the New Row was sold by my father’s family. The other house still isn’t ready. For two months now, my mother has been working on building the house. By the autumn, one room will be ready, in which we will be able to live through the winter.

  Máli is always fighting with somebody: with my mother, my older sister, or me. In the village there’s always someone who is angry. That’s why we don’t go up toward the road but below the gardens, along the sodgrounds. Then, leaving the village, we go farther along the fields, the woods, the dam, the embankment of the Túr River. Along the Old Túr or along the embankment of the Túr Canal.

  Máli is
like a goblin. She’s almost a dwarf. She’s hardly any bigger than me. Supposedly she looks like our auntie Alecska, who was a dwarf. Máli is just short. She walks barefoot the entire year. We call it bayfoot. Her feet are little, too, not any bigger than mine. She has canvas slippers, but she only wears them when she really has to. She cut out the toe of the shoe so her bunion could fit in comfortably. They say she was born with six fingers but one was removed. She also had six toes on her feet.

  “It’s not uncommon among the Bobonkas,” says my grandfather.

  NEXT TO THE GATE OF MY GRANDFATHER’S PROPERTY, THERE are cherry trees. Five cherry trees. And two cherry-plum trees. The hens are out here. If a plum tumbles to the ground, they stampede toward it. Suddenly there is a great throng. The dust rises from the ground. Even the fastest can hardly swallow it down, because there’s no time. They grab it with their beaks, run away with it. They seek out a quiet place where they will be able to eat it. But the others are running right after them. They run all around the courtyard. And then at some point they stop this, too.

  The hens gasp in the early summer heat. They bask in the sun. There is silence. The only noise is that of the turtledoves. The hens scratch out ditches for themselves because of the heat, they lie in them. They stretch out their wings so that their bodies are as close to the earth as possible. This is how they cool themselves off. Just like dogs, who also dig holes for themselves at these times.

  “Where-awa are you?” my grandfather yelled out; he was sleeping on the veranda after lunch. On the pallet. He leans his cane against the banister of the veranda. He turns around and he is sleeping already. Sometimes he clears his throat, he coughs. He spits onto the cement of the terrace. This is because of the tobacco. He grows his own tobacco. He planted a row of it in the garden. In the fall he gathers the leaves, then he hangs them on a string and dries them in the loft. He smooths out the tobacco leaves one by one. He puts them in wrapping paper and keeps them in the cupboard. He carries the cut tobacco with him in a small sack. When it’s empty, he ceremonially prepares more tobacco. He does this on Saturdays. In the meantime he listens to the radio. “A good Gypsy ballad for lunchtime.” He likes this kind of song. The Gypsy music crackles out from the world receiver purchased in the forties. He brings out the board for cutting tobacco and the tobacco-cutting knife. These cannot be used for anything else. He removes the large veins from the leaves. He puts a few leaves together, rolls them up into a cylinder, and cuts them into precise, thin strips. Then he cuts across, as well. If he finds another thick vein, he throws it out. These are called the taxman’s legs. And in the meantime, Máli fights with him.