DESPITE THE RISING WAVES OF WHITE HEAT NOT A LEAF stirs; time seems to slow to a halt. Like shimmering aspic the heat dribbles down even into the depths of the cellars. The wine is on the turn, viscous, its fire and its bouquet slowly evaporate. Languid bees lazily loop the sweet malvasia grapes. In the fields are ever-widening fissures in the ground, which the oldest mavens think it unwise to inspect lest their faces be singed by a blast from hell. The song of the whitethroat, the crested lark, and the titmouse is heard rarely in the land. Only the cry of the cuckoo breaks the silence now and then, and the persistent tap-tap of the woodpecker on the desiccated trunks.
The gentry regularly visited the Nagyfalu hostelry to seek, and find, amusement. Benedek Bordás had started out as a common tapster in Varjúlapos, but as the years went by he realized that the more moneyed the class of customer, the better he fared. He sold his wayside alehouse and had a hostelry built in Nagyfalu, close by the lock-keeper’s cottage. Here the best of Gypsy bands played for all they were worth, the finest cooks from Transylvania bustled about the kitchens, and eye-catching wenches from Ruthenia served the oaken tables. The full-bellied gentlemen were able to take their ease and recover from the orgy of culinary delights in the hostelry’s spacious guest rooms. Benedek Bordás took care always to keep freshly filled the china lavoirs of the mirrored washing table, with a crisp napkin on the side; and on the bedside tables a bowl of fruit, with knotted rolls fresh baked that dawn.
Keen young wenches frequented the hostelry by the dozen, some without the knowledge of their families, others-particularly from the wrong end of Basahalom and Kazárbocor-with their heads held high. A particularly dissolute group of regulars liberated Benedek Bordás’s heavy bunch of keys and took off with it to the Lesser Tisza, intending to throw it in the river, declaring that “Henceforth the Nagyfalu hostelry will never shut its doors!”
And it never did. The finest wine drained unceasing from the barrels into the wineglasses, while in the fire they grilled and roasted vast quantities of game and fowl, in the belly of which the Transylvanian cooks always liked to conceal some surprise: perhaps a smaller bird roasted whole, or a pierced apple stuffed with heart and liver. But the gentlemen did not always demand such masterpieces of the cook’s art; simpler, homemade delicacies regularly featured on Benedek Bordás’s bill of fare and enjoyed great popularity: pork crackling served lukewarm, for example, or fried dough with bacon.
In the entrance hall a wooden board proclaimed: “Any dish prepared on request, if ingredients available.” Visitors sometimes put Benedek Bordás’s claim to the most severe of tests, but he almost always managed to keep his promise. The only guests who shrank his stomach to a walnut-sized dumpling were the Vandal Band. These rough fellows were the terror of the neighborhood. The Vandal Band feared nothing and no one and rarely did a week pass without stories of their duels or revels or other adventures reverberating round the barstools. One August, after a night of drinking and carousing, they painted the Nagyfalu calvary red and-God forgive them their sin-stuffed a lemon in the mouth of the Christ on the cross. Another time they forced the Gypsy band to strip and hung them upside down from the branches of the oak tree by the hostelry entrance and ordered the mortified musicians to play their favorite tunes as they hung. The mirrored great saloon they smashed up almost every month. Though their moneyed parents invariably paid for the damage, Benedek Bordás could not abide them. Every time he heard their horses’ hoofs thundering in the puszta-his ears were keenly attuned to it by now-he prayed: “The pox consume you all!”
But the pox had other matters to attend to, and never did consume the Vandal Band. They rode in every week; sometimes, to the owner’s chagrin, every day. Those who had already had the pleasure avoided them at all costs; in the barroom no one ever sat at their table. Their cordovan knee-boots redound roughly on the floor as they enter, and the last one slams the door behind them. Reaching the corner table, they slap down their riding crops and Otto Stern, the senior Vandal, with mane of reddish hair like a lion, immediately bellows: “Wine! White! The roughest!” His powerful voice commands respect: the barflies fall silent, and only the hum of the fat kitchen flies can be heard.
Old Örzse, whose job it is to keep the tables clean, rushes over with the dishcloth, but without turning her back on them, else she is bound to get slapped on the rump. The six goblets are empty in a flash and Benedek Bordás can bring over the second round. And very soon the third. The Vandals know how to drink, no two ways about it. Little János, the youngest, constantly wants to dance with all the waitresses, sometimes even dragging Örzse round the tables. The other visitors dare not laugh; they have learned the unwisdom of getting involved with this lot; bloodshed is never far away. Following these visits, Benedek Bordás nearly always found it necessary to take to his cart and seek out their parents with the handwritten bill, often several pages long, which offered a history, indeed a blow-by-blow account, of the particular night’s revels. Their father, Richard Stern, was a keen historian of these accounts. “It completely passes my understanding what they find so amusing about smashing up an inn,” he grumbled to himself as he rummaged in his leather pouch.
“They are but young and giddy-pated!” Yanna purred.
Benedek Bordás reflected that if these Vandals were his own, he would break them in two, but he kept his views to himself. Richard Stern was a bookish man held in great esteem in the locality and was therefore forgiven the antics of his six sons. The Sterns managed the region’s most highly respected firm of vintners and retailers of wine, though it seemed that it was mostly the women who did the work to enable their menfolk to spend the money on their whims. The office with its solid, weathered floor was in the hands of Nanna Eszter, a bent old lady nearing eighty. With her pebble glasses she had to peer so closely at the folded sheets of the accounts that she often had ink on the tip of her nose.
It was said among the traveling wine merchants that until you have tried to make a deal with Nanna Eszter, you do not know what haggling is. Behind her back Nanna Eszter was known as Jew ultimo, this being the term at the time for the Pagát, the first card in the Hungarian tarot pack. No one dared cast her ancestry in the face of this sharp-visaged old woman or her family since she had all but blinded a Romanian trader with a whip for insulting her. She had been only about seventy at the time but her strength had diminished little since. Her gray, waist-length hair was always carefully coiled into a severe chignon; whenever her temper rose, a lock of hair would break free and begin a life of its own, fluttering like a miniature pennant.
Yanna, Richard Stern’s wife, now close to completing her fifth decade, retained her original colors, the complexion and hair for which her husband would have walked all the way to Pest-Buda; neither the honey of her skin nor the silky ebony of her hair had faded, only little crow’s feet around her eyes suggested the passing of the years. Yanna became the right hand of Nanna Eszter. She picked up the mysteries of viticulture with such natural ease it was as if she had been born a Stern. These two women understood each other without recourse to words. There was no man that Richard Stern was jealous of, save Nanna Eszter, who seemed to require Yanna’s services for very considerable periods of time. If he protested, Nanna Eszter would stop him short with the words: “Not a word, Richard. Someone has to mind the shop while you bury yourself in your books in the ivory tower.”
Yanna was responsible, in Richard Stern’s name, for the formulation of the rules of conduct for the vineyards on the entire hill, which subsequently gained the acceptance of all the producers. The charter, affirmed by the initials or marks of all, hung in the office of the Master of the Guild of the Hill’s Vineyards and its text was drummed out once a month. The Vandal Band would even sing it, accompanied by the Gypsy band, at the climax of a night out, to the tune of the subversive Kurucz song “Csínom Palkó.”
Since the creation of too many paths is damaging to the vines, it is hereby ordered that everyone will keep to their traditional paths. If a stranger walks the paths, the Master of the Guild shall arrest him and whatever is taken from the stranger is his to keep.
If anyone steals of the grapes and takes them to his cellars, upon proof of theft he will lose those grapes. If it be a child stealing but without the father consenting, the above punishment may be excused.
Affray on this hill will result in a fine of eighteen florins, five to accrue to the municipality, the rest to the owner. If there be damage in consequence, it will be assessed and a further fine levied.
If swords or flintlocks be carried in a hostile manner, the Master of the Guild will arrest the party and lock him in his house. Those with fences who fail to maintain them and in consequence let cattle stray shall pay due compensation.
No one may sell their grapes directly, nor transfer his lease, except with the knowledge of the Master of the Guild. Those who do so nonetheless will pay a fine of twenty florins…
Yanna felt proud to have her words sung. Richard Stern, however, was beside himself: “Wretched curs! You hold nothing sacred!”
It was generally every two months that he completely lost his temper with his sons. He would line them up in the dining hall filled with heavy, dark furniture and give them more or less the same dressing down each time. Well now, what on earth do you think you are doing? Why did they think they could do as they like? That they owned everything including the walnut trees? How many more times would the family have to pay for their frolics? Would they ever grow up?
The boys listened to the speech with eyes firmly fixed on the ground. When their father had unburdened himself, Otto acted as spokesman for them all. “Father dear, may it please you not to be too upset; we were just amusing ourselves!”
By then they had drawn the sting of Richard Stern’s words and he excused them with a shaking head. “For Heaven’s sake, do something useful!” he said and disappeared into his study. That year he was translating some Hebrew prayers into Hungarian, so that those without knowledge of the Old Testament language could also pray when they would. (He was also the first to produce a Hebrew-to-Hungarian glossary, of which the printing house of Izidor Berg printed 150 copies almost nine years later. As he surveyed the clarity of the printed page and the quality of the binding, Richard Stern could not help thinking that this would have gained the approval of his ancestor, Grandpa Czuczor.)
The six Vandals were back in the Nagyfalu hostelry that night. Otto Stern demanded a virgin and when he was offered one, chased her out of his room at the point of his sword, bellowing that if this whore was a virgin, he was Pegasus. Eventually his brothers managed to calm him down. Little János suggested a game of cards. Otto Stern was reluctant: “Why should I take the shirt off my own brothers’ backs? Let’s play with others!” But no one really wanted to share the green baize table with the six Vandals. “I am bored!” boomed Otto Stern. “Let’s ride down to the Greater Tisza and have a swimming race!”
“We’ve done that twice already this week… and you always win!” said Mihály.
“A fencing competition then!”
“You always win that as well.”
“Then tell me a story!”
But his brothers were not as skilled at the storyteller’s craft as he. They could guffaw, and guzzle wine and spirits, but in the end it was Otto Stern who told a story to the others, about all that he saw in his visionary moments about the past and the future. His brothers were unsure whether to believe him or not. The most inclined to believe him was the fourth-born, Mihály, who was still in short pants when he declared that he was going to be a famous general or statesman. His hero was Alexander the Great. He hoped that in his career he would encounter a knot like that of Gordius, which he would be able to cut with his saber at a single stroke. He was taken aback when Otto Stern informed him: “You will not be a general, but you will be elected a senator in Parliament… next century there will be a street named after you in Pest-Buda… that is to say in Budapest.”
“ Budapest?” All five young men burst out laughing. In fact all six, as the word had an amusing ring for Otto Stern as well.
The prophecy was the cause of endless banter from the other four brothers, who thenceforth called him Nobby Nobody. Otto’s claims were not taken seriously. The only thing he himself could not understand was why it was his eyes that had been chosen by the heavenly powers to be opened to the flow of time. In his childhood he had thought that the past and the present were visible to all, at least sometimes. He wanted to convince especially his brothers that this was no laughing matter. If only he could have offered to prophesy something in the near future that would soon have come to pass! But no such opportunity arose.
Of the six, Nobby Nobody was the most serious, the most industrious, and the most intelligent. The two lads who were his elders, Ferenc and Ignác, were in the same league as Otto as regards physical strength, but not in respect of their mental power. They rarely spoke, and if they wanted something they simply took it by force. The girls went in fear of them, even the humblest. With Mihály, however, it seemed as if some other kind of blood had transfused into the family, and little Józsi and János, who followed him, were more in his image than in Otto’s. Though the three youngest lads joined in the amusements of the brothers, the destruction and violence was nearly always wrought by the others.
Otto Stern organized the activities of the Vandal Band with military precision, brooking no opposition when he gave an order: “We shall swim the Tisza and ride to the fair at Eszlár!”
They all suspected that at the fair there would be some rumpus for which their graying father would once again have to reach into his pockets and give them a telling-off, and rightly too. During these ritual reproofs it often occurred to Otto that it was perhaps time to bring down the curtain on this revelry, or at the least to spare Mihály and little Józsi and János this wastrel way of life; in their case it was worth educating their minds. “They could be sent to the Collegium!”
Yanna would not hear of it. “Far better they roister about here. The vineyards will come into their hands sooner or later, and the ins and outs of that life are best learned round here.”
Richard Stern did not agree, but by this time he had lost much of his ability to concern himself with the ways of the real world. It seemed that none of the six would ever get a decent education. This sometimes vexed Otto Stern, but he flicked the thought away, as an animal’s tail might a fly.
Otto Stern brought his clenched fist down on the solid wood table of the Nagyfalu hostelry: “Reveille! What are you waiting for?”
Benedek Bordás scampered up. “What can I do for you, sir?”
Otto Stern ordered dinner, for twelve, as usual. And new women. The owner delicately inquired whether he had any money. Having received some from his mother the other day, Otto Stern haughtily snapped back: “I shall not be in your debt!” like one who regards such questions as being completely uncalled for. He never let his brothers pay, nor anyone else. It did sometimes cross his mind that it was indeed someone else paying: his parents. He shrugged. With the advance on my inheritance I do what I will.
He ordered the Gypsy to come over. The band followed behind their leader, crouching humbly. Otto Stern launched into: The way before me weeps, the trail before me grieves… This was their father’s favorite song. He was always moved by it. Otto had seen a few times the scene from the past in which Borbála (his father’s grandmother) taught her grandson this song. His five brothers immediately joined in: they had all inherited their talent for music from their great-grand-father, Bálint Sternovszky. By this time the next course on the menu had arrived. Otto Stern examined them one by one, grasping them by the chin. The girls were either too thin or too young, none of them likely to be experienced in the bedroom. “I said women, not children!”
Benedek Bordás gulped, suspecting the worst. “Sir wanted chaste ones… I cannot answer for the chastity of the older ones.” He wished Otto Stern in hell. If only this booby knew how hard it is to find fresh whores! The women of this sort had already been used by the Vandals. The penniless families, whose daughters can be bought for small sums, keep racking up their prices. And it’s the poor old landlord who has to pay for it all in the end.
Meanwhile Otto Stern urged his brothers to take their pick of the girls, but they dragged their heels; none of them was in the mood. Nor was Otto. He could not understand what was wrong with him. One’s youth is for eating, drinking, dallying with women and one’s fellows. Could I have left my youth at home this morning?
While he was pondering this, Mihály said: “Let us go from here in peace. Let us devote ourselves to nobler things.”
It was clear that the other four were of the same mind and they began to get their things together. Otto Stern exploded in an impotent rage and with a sweep of his arm sent the bottles and glasses on the table crashing to the floor and set off after his brothers.
Benedek Bordás barred his way: “And who is going to pay?”
Otto Stern threw a shower of notes on the floor and elbowed the owner, who smelled of onions, out of his way. As he reached the gate the others were already in the saddle. “Hey! Wait! Where now?”
“Back to Hegyhát,” said little Józsi. “There is a meeting in the synagogue.”
“What kind of meeting?” There was no reply. The brothers were already heeling their horses round and Otto Stern followed them. His mood had taken a turn for the worse. He was hurt that his brothers seemed to be slipping out of his control. While they were growing up, the five younger brothers had accepted him unconditionally as leader; now the halo of their boundless admiration was slipping. But he resolved generously to give his approval to this particular excursion. Why should they not, for once, go where Józsi and the others wished?
The stream was in full spate and had surely risen while they were in the hostelry. On the way there the water had come up to the horses’ flanks; now they had to lift their boots out of the stirrups to keep dry. Otto Stern’s horse shied back when the stream swept a dead cat by; he kept it calm by squeezing the animal with the inside of his thighs.
They reached the yeshiva, where some thirty horses were already sniffling around the grass. As many people must have come on foot: the two interconnected rooms were filled to capacity, with some standing in the narrow corridor.
“We are too late!” said Mihály.
“Come on!” said Otto Stern, taking the initiative and, instead of entering by the door, strode to one of the arched windows and climbed in. His brothers followed. They were hushed and hissed by those within. On the platform one of the Sterns’ distant relatives, Miksa Stern, was reading from a sheet of paper to which he held a candle so close that Otto Stern thought it might at any moment catch fire.
Miksa Stern’s reedy voice kept halting; he was so moved that tears came to his eyes. “Whereas our Magyar mother tongue has for centuries on end languished in the slough of imperfection, we have here gathered together this day, inspired by our love of the tongue of our motherland and at the instance of our highly respected and learned Mr. Lajos Bullock, teacher of the Hungarian language at the yeshiva of Hegyhát and Doctor of Philosophy and the Fine Arts, to form a Magyar Society…”
The audience clapped. Lajos Bullock sat in the front row, and on being repeatedly prompted, rose and awkwardly bowed. As the noise died down, Miksa Stern continued: “We desire, on the altar of the homeland, to unite our humble thoughts and efforts, insofar as our modest abilities allow. Let our Magyar Society strive for the cultivation of our language, for the flowering of philosophy and belles-lettres. Let the guiding spirit of our efforts be the great God of the Magyars, so that, reaching our desired goal, we might rejoice in the sight of the fruits of development in ourselves and in those who come after us.”
Applause rang out once more. Miksa Stern bowed repeatedly, his right palm stretched out pointing to Lajos Bullock.
“Vivat! Vivat!” came the cry from all around, the voice of Otto Stern rising above the chorus.
There was pandemonium for several minutes. The audience, mainly the cream of the youth of Hegyhát, tossed hats into the air, embraced each other, shook hands vigorously. The enthusiasm was catching and caught the Stern brothers, who felt they had been part of an exceptional moment of history.
On the platform a ruddy-faced boy of about fourteen with dark hair was clearly waiting for his turn. Miksa Stern began to make hissing noises and tried to curb the passions of the audience. As this proved ineffectual, he urged the boy to start. But he was a long time getting ready.
Mihály leaned over to Otto and whispered in his ear: “But seeing as we are Jewish, why are we setting up a Magyar Society, rather than one that is partly Magyar and partly Jewish?”
Otto Stern pondered the question as the next one came: “And why is it only the great God of the Magyars that is our guiding spirit? What will happen to our faith?”
“Magyar tongue goes with Magyar God,” said Otto Stern.
At length the dark-haired boy had the stage. He was declaiming a poem by the man they called the Hungarian Horace, Benedek Virág:
While youth smiles still,
With strength of will,
The path of glory you should tread:
The Muse doth hold
No silver, nor gold,
But laurels and life ere we are dead.
Otto Stern’s mood unexpectedly changed. Indeed, how noble a task it was to concern oneself with the mother tongue, philosophy, belles-lettres, the sciences… Father devotes his life to such things, why should we not make sacrifices for their sake? He could hardly wait for the recital to end. Scarcely had the applause subsided before he elbowed his way into the middle of the throng and in his booming voice declared: “In the name of the family Stern I pledge one thousand florins in support of the noble aims of the Magyar Society!”
For a moment there was complete silence and then an eruption of hurrahs fairly raised the rafters; Otto Stern, too, was raised shoulder-high and tossed in their direction by the founders of the Society. (His brothers were concerned that they might drop him, as they knew only too well the true weight of that body.) Sigismund Beleznay asked for the floor; at one time all the land on the hillside had belonged to his family. “If the Jews are going to be so generous, we shall give, too, as much as we can!” He pledged two thousand.
Their example was followed by many others: the figures came thick and fast so that Miksa Stern could barely keep track. To celebrate the triumphant establishment of the Hungarian Society, a toast was proposed. Otto Stern proudly displayed the swell of his massive chest; he was pleased to have turned this evening, too, to his advantage. They were riding back at a comfortable canter when Mihály asked: “And where did that thousand come from?”
Otto Stern harrumphed. “It will surface somehow…” and his throat constricted at the thought of having to ask for money yet again. Surely Father will give to a cultural good cause! He has devoted his whole life to it, after all. It would of course be more sensible to turn to Mother, whose heart is softer in matters of money. But a thousand florins is a veritable fortune… perhaps five hundred would have been enough… or three hundred… well, it’s too late now. He decided to leave the matter to another day. He might as well leave worrying about it until the morrow.
As he was getting ready for the night he scoured his memory for anything that would help him discover what lay in the future for the Magyar Society, to see if he might find arguments to support his plea to his father. But when it was at his request, nothing ever came; only his own memories, and what had occurred earlier, swirled around his head. He lay on his stomach. He thought of girls, as always when sleep would not come, of those he had enjoyed in Benedek Bordás’s hostelry, not those that he was wooing as a suitor. His most committed suit lay in the direction of Rakamaz, the middle daughter of Baron Hadházy, Clara, but that family did not think much of approaches from nobodies like the Sterns.
Nor was Otto Stern entirely certain that he could spend the rest of his life by the side of the always pale Baroness with the bloodless lips, though the substantial dowry that came with her did increase somewhat his interest in a union. How wonderful it would be if there were a marriageable girl within his circle of acquaintance, who might kindle his passion in the manner of the little strumpets with their rags reeking mustily of the forest yet with marble skin of immaculate smoothness.
Yanna was keen for Otto to marry as soon as possible, and Nanna Eszter urged him likewise. “I want six boys, as many as your good mother bore, and while I am still able to enjoy them.”
Of course, his mother and grandmother imagined some well-to-do Jewish girl by his side. Otto Stern knew-he could see-that he would have only one child and it would not be a Jewess who brought it into the world. But he had no wish to dishearten Yanna and Nanna Eszter.
The following morning he gritted his teeth to bring up the thousand florins at the breakfast table, but Richard Stern was unwell and did not come down to breakfast. The following day Otto Stern spent at Rakamaz, so again support for Hungarian culture went undiscussed at the Stern residence. Richard Stern, Yanna, and Nanna Eszter learned of his magnanimous gesture from the columns of the Magyar Society’s Gazette, which was sent to all the generous patrons of the Society. Otto Stern’s morning greeting received a whiplash response from his father: “Have you taken leave of what little sense remains in your skull? What makes you think I am going to reach into our coffers for this latest idiocy of yours? Have you no shame? Are you glad to lose your self-respect before everyone? Because you will! Because we are not going to pay! You have waded waist-deep in the family fortune for long enough!”
Otto Stern held up his arms to shield his head from the blows raining down on it. “But Father, how can the sorrowful state of the Hungarian language and the arts leave you cold? You, of all people!”
“Hungarian language and the arts, my foot! Did you swallow all that eyewash? Did you read, at all, what you have put your name to? Why should you squander money on that? A few hotheads getting all worked up will not lead to the cultivation of the language! If you want to support culture, you should give your money to the poor Collegiums, which are on their last legs! What did I do to make you such a prize idiot? And this is the example you set your brothers! Out of my sight, you useless piece of…” he bellowed, lashing him with the whip right, left, and center.
Otto Stern held him down. “That’s enough, Father, because I cannot vouch for myself!” He was a head taller and quite a bit wider than Richard Stern. For a while, as they both panted, they tried to stare each other down; then the son turned and walked out. He went up to the library and lay down on the bearskin before the fireplace. Thoughts whirled round his head. If his father did not pay up, he would be branded with an indelible mark of shame and have to leave the area. On the other hand, in terms of the future that he had foreseen, there was room for him elsewhere, somewhere new, where his son would come into the world, a son whose name would be-if the signs were to be believed-Szilárd.
He heard his father arguing with his mother, before Nanna Eszter joined in, and then the door slammed as Richard Stern rode out to work off his anger. I wonder where my brothers might be?
Silence reigned in the house, only the sound of the brook burbling outside could be heard. Lying on the floor, Otto Stern could see out of the leaded window: the crown of the garden willow had grown so huge that someone trim could easily have climbed out onto it. But perhaps vice versa, someone could get in with evil intent; he should have a word with his father about having the branches lopped. A sweet spicy smell tickled his nose. Honey bread… his favorite delicacy. He hesitated: should he go down the creaky stairs to ask for a slice? But it could just as well be his senses playing tricks on him. Outside the sun beat down fiercely. If Clara smiles with the sun at me, a fine crop of apples there will be, he thought-it was Clara’s name-day the following week. I shall take her flowers. And a case of the best vintage, if Nanna Eszter lets me. If not, I shall just filch a case myself.
He turned on his side. The floor under him gave a creak. One of the floorboards rose perceptibly. What is this? The top floor had been added by his father the previous year; the tipple-prone builder had made many mistakes and Richard Stern had held back some of the payment, some temporarily, some permanently. Otto Stern folded back the bearskin. One of the floorboards was warped and was on the verge of slipping onto the joists. He was about to adjust it when he noticed that it was loose. He lifted it up, revealing a long gap padded with pieces of felt. There was a large metal cask lying there and two books wrapped in white lawn. He could see that one of the volumes was French, a Bible of some considerable age. The other was… well, well… The Book of Fathers. He knew of its existence from any number of sources, but he had never been vouchsafed a look. Any such request was decisively rejected: “You will have it when the time comes!”
Otto Stern hesitated. Dare he open it? If his father found him here poking about in the stuff hidden under the floorboards, he would surely strike him dead. But he was unable to resist the temptation. With trembling fingers he opened the battered folio, at the very end. Three hundred and twenty numbered pages had already been filled. Richard Stern had even scribbled over the inside covers.
From this day on Otto Stern took every possible opportunity to hang around the library and secretly read The Book of Fathers. Richard Stern was uncomprehending: “What has got into you, my boy? You never read anything before!”
“I have taken a decision, Father,” he lied. “I shall pull myself together and apply to go to the Collegium.”
“Well said!” Richard Stern compiled a long list of basic works that he had to know without fail.
Otto Stern placed a few of these around him on the floor, but the moment he was on his own, he took out The Book of Fathers. He felt that the most important knowledge lay within its covers. He made slow progress, able to concentrate only when there was no danger of being caught book-handed.
He had little difficulty with the neat script of Kornél Csillag, though he had to make a guess at many of the Latin tags. Kornél Csillag must have been a meticulous person: not only was the date clearly given, but he had produced a balance-sheet of his assets and liabilities every year. Otto Stern found his last will and testament just as he found his views on the more important affairs of the world, as well as a summary of everything that Kornél Csillag knew or professed to know about his late father Péter Csillag and the Grandpa Czuczor who had brought him up, including the latter’s keepsake volume, of which the contents followed on twenty-four pages under Kornél Csillag’s title: Committed to paper to the best of my recall.
Bálint Sternovszky filled fewer pages and his spidery scrawl was much harder to decipher. It seemed that he was interested only in music. At the bottom of one page he had doodled a bouquet of musical notes in a circle.
István Stern had recorded his family’s tragedy at Lemberg in impassioned detail, as if the successful depiction of these horrendous scenes in The Book of Fathers would ensure that they haunted him less thereafter.
Otto Stern sobbed all the way through the diary of Richard Stern’s imprisonment, biting his lips to ensure he did not let out a sound.
When he had read every word, he understood why Richard Stern would not allow him to open The Book of Fathers before the time was ripe. Not only his father but also his grandfather had described their suspicions of the future and from this he knew that he would not have a long life himself: his death would be sudden and quick. At the same time the prophecy of István Stern regarding Otto was the same as that which he had foreseen himself: that he would have but one son, named Szilárd. The danger was still a long way off, he thought to himself, since I have not even married and a child would be conceived only after that. He tried to recall whether in his own visions his wife-to-be had made an appearance, but he found no trace of such a person. Would it be Clara? Or someone quite other?
He slid The Book of Fathers back into the hollow and replaced the floorboard. He stared blankly ahead. It was as if something had come to an end with the filling of the folio, which, as Kornél Csillag noted, had been specially brought from Italy. Said to have been made in a famous bible scriptorium and originally intended to bear the Holy Writ, for some reason it was never used for that purpose and became instead the personal bible of this family. Only now it was full, and this somehow seemed an ill omen. As if the story had come to an end.
Otto Stern resolved to have another folio brought from Italy, a faithful copy of this one, and one in which he would be the first to write. Thus could the end become the beginning of something new. But he had to act in the strictest secrecy, lest Richard Stern immediately guess that one of his sons had read The Book of Fathers-suspicion would be certain to fall on him. Weighing all this carefully, he thought it best to order a large-format folio from the Szerencs Paper Manufactory, with cream-laid paper suitable for handwritten script. This was perhaps one-fifth bigger than the original Book of Fathers, but of the same thickness. The deerskin binding bore on its cover an ornament: the snake in the shape of an S that had become well known as the seal on Stern wine bottles and cases. The gold paint on the S soon rubbed off, however.
Shalom aleichem. I am starting again, or rather, continuing on this day The Book of Fathers, in my own name and by right. As the firstborn of this generation of the Stern family, I beseech on behalf of my family and my household the protection and support on our path of Him whom it is not possible to name.
With these lines I bring to a close my dissolute youth and formally pledge that in the time that remains to me I shall put away my childish things and will instead serve the public good. First of all I must earn by dint of my own labor the one thousand florins I have promised the Magyar Society. Therefore, I vow to devote myself with all my strength to the family wine business.
Yanna and Nanna Eszter thought they had seen a ghost when among the carters arriving for the morning work-roll they spotted Otto Stern, whose build and height were certainly a match for theirs. “What are you looking for? Or perhaps I should ask: for how much?” said Nanna Eszter in lieu of a greeting.
“Work. All day.”
Amid gasps of incredulity he was assigned to copy bills of lading. Otto Stern’s grip on the goose-quill was initially awkward, but in a short while he produced reasonably legible documents despite his stubby fingers, which like his trousers became so spattered with inkblots that Yanna finally dug out an old leather apron for him to wear. By afternoon Yanna, followed later by Richard Stern himself, had wandered into the office to see for themselves that it was no mirage or trick: their eldest son had of his own accord put his shoulder to the wheel.
His brothers were at a loss to explain Otto Stern’s volte-face, and over supper bombarded him with questions. Otto Stern replied only: “The time of the Vandal Band is done.”
As night fell, Ferenc and Ignác were in the Nagyfalu hostelry; Mihály and little Józsi and János were not with them (“If Otto is staying, we are not going. We painted it red enough last week!”).
Otto Stern suspended his visits to Rakamaz also. In his industry and stamina he reminded the oldest generation of István Stern in his prime. Otto Stern also began to resemble his paternal grandfather in his looks, particularly his face, and the way he trimmed his hair and beard.
The first snow had fallen when Nanna Eszter and Yanna had the chief accountant produce the annual balance sheet for the business. By then most of their turnover had been achieved, and the contracts made it possible also to calculate the amounts outstanding. The Stern Wine Emporium had had a year that surpassed all previous years. Everyone had to grant that this was in large measure thanks to Otto Stern, and Nanna Eszter pushed the iron-bound cashbox on the table towards him: “Take as much money as you see fit!”
Otto Stern took out two hundred florins and then, after some hesitation, another hundred. That evening he counted it all out into Miksa Stern’s hands and asked for a receipt. “To be continued,” he said. He had worked out that in three years he would be able to honor his undertaking. With luck it might be sooner. From time to time he would disappear for a day to no one knew where-Nanna Eszter and Yanna hoped that he was secretly wooing some marriageable girl, like that one in Rakamaz.
After Hanukah, Mihály bade farewell to the family and moved to Debreczen where the Collegium-thanks to the intervention of Endre Dembinszki-had given him a place. Richard Stern slapped his back proudly: “Don’t you dare bring shame on me… many people there know me.” Leaning closer to his ear, he whispered: “There’s no need to advertise what family you come from… understand?” As the boy looked blank and blinked at him he added, even more quietly: “We are Jews, but that is our business, right?”
Otto Stern encouraged little Józsi and János to follow Mihály’s example while there was still time, but a family council resolved that the two boys should not yet leave the family home. Ferenc and Ignác, on the other hand, were hoping to travel to Vienna and with someone’s influence ask for admission to the cadet school. Richard Stern broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of his sons as army officers of the emperor whose secret service had deprived him of so many years of his life. But he voiced his opposition only once, and even then it sounded more with melancholy than command. Ferenc and Ignác responded that times had changed.
Otto Stern shrugged his shoulders: “If the grapes are ripe, they have to be picked.” Nowadays he expressed himself solely in viticultural metaphors. When his father asked him to explain this gnomic utterance, he elucidated: “Let them play at soldiers if that is what they want.”
The spring brought much rain and brown, muddy liquid swirled down the hillsides, swelling the rivulets into streams, the streams into rivers. The vintners watched with sinking hearts as the water poured down through the lower-lying vineyards. They dug trenches to divert the water, built sandbanks, and emptied the tool sheds. While Richard Stern’s house was safe on a hilltop, the old Stern house was almost encircled by the swollen stream and the rising waters had burst into the cellars and were lapping the supporting walls outside. Those were made of the local red stone, but the rear walls, of sun-dried brick, virtually fell apart in the water. Carpenters were summoned to prop up the ends of the timbers with supporting beams. Nonetheless the situation was dangerous; if the blessed waters from above did not cease, more serious problems were in the cards.
The whole of Hegyhát, from youngest to oldest, was preoccupied with the floodwaters when there arrived, incognito, Graf Franz Neusiedler, a member of the Governing Council, and took lodgings in the Nagyfalu hostelry. He made the county council building his first port of call. He had his calling card sent in to Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., the alispán, who received him without further ado. Graf Franz Neusiedler announced, in a singsong German that made little effort to disguise his Tyrolean origins, that in his capacity as a royal commissioner he had been charged with the confidential task of investigating a report made to the police by one Lipót Vinkó, an inhabitant of Tokay. According to Lipót Vinkó there had been established here some kind of secret society, with subversive aims, whose members have declared themselves a citizen’s militia and carry out training with arms and in uniform. The ringleaders are Miksa Stern, unemployed jurist, and Nándor Wimpassing, apothecary. In every matter relating to this case the alispán will be kindly subject to the commissioner’s instructions.
Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., was open-mouthed. To the best of his knowledge no such organization existed in the area. The office workers he summoned assured the gentlemen that no apothecary by the name of Wimpassing was to be found either in Tokay or in Hegyhát; the locals had to send for their medicaments to Szerencs, where the apothecary was one Gyoözoö Ferenczy, an elderly widower of a sedentary disposition who lived on his own and could hardly be suspected of such activity. Miksa Stern had indeed founded a Magyar Society for the advancement of Hungarian culture, but had obtained permission in writing to do so. The document was duly presented to the commissioner. Graf Franz Neusiedler gave a knowing smile: “Because you are not aware of something, it does not mean that it does not exist. Have Miksa Stern sent for at once.”
The bailiff had not located Miksa Stern by nightfall, so the interrogation was postponed until the following day.
That night Miksa Stern was to be found in Szerencs, in the Tulip House. This modest building was concealed behind a high stone fence and centuries-old oak trees; it was known only to those who had heard about it by word of mouth. It owed its name to the four-petal tulips crowning its wrought-iron gate. The house had only a single story, its thick walls rising to arches, its roof tiled, and its windows and doors so ungenerously proportioned that candles and lamps needed to be lit even during daylight hours. It consisted of six square rooms, a kitchen, a bathing room, and a privy. The rooms were identical and could be made into one enormous space by opening the interconnecting doors, at the cost, of course, of privacy. This arrangement was suitable for the Tulip House’s current use: a card-playing saloon in which the gentlemen played for quite hair-raising sums.
Otto Stern was counted among the regular visitors, Miksa Stern came less often, preferring to be the kibitzer, if they let him. Otto Stern played with clenched teeth and if he did not leave with his money trebled he would be most dissatisfied. Miksa Stern played for smaller stakes, which he nonetheless managed to lose in the end. He never asked for loans or credit; at such needful times he would rise from the card table, offended, and watch how the others battled on without him.
Otto Stern was having little luck that day. He was surrounded by four tobacco merchants at the table, people used to playing together and capable of understanding each other from the droop of an eyelid. When the amount that he had allotted himself for gambling had migrated over to his partners, Otto Stern struggled to his feet, departing with a click of his heels and the accompanying of his spurs. Miksa Stern followed him like a puli dog. “Where now?” he asked when the iron gate had slammed behind them.
“What is that to do with you? Mind your own business.”
“Be not angry with me, I was on your side. I find it touching, your effort on the Society’s behalf.”
“Not the Society’s; my own. I keep my word.”
They walked on towards the center of town, where they had tethered their mounts. No one ever tied up a horse at the Tulip House, lest the act reveal that their owners were within. Otto Stern gave a round stone such a kick that it flew some two hundred ells, hitting a post with a sharp crack.
It was well past midnight when the two riders reached the first bend in the Hegyhát stream. The low-lying field was waterlogged, the water up to the tired horses’ knees, their hoofs slipping dangerously. Otto Stern turned back. His cousin thought he was looking for a ford, but Otto Stern had decided to head for the Nagyfalu hostelry. Climbing down from his horse, he gave the wooden door a resounding knock. No answer. He then battered on the door with both fists so hard that at every blow the wood visibly bent inwards. An old woman wearing a black kerchief looked out of the spyhole; she must have tumbled out of bed-a gray feather fluttered on her hair. “Stop that row!”
“Since when have they been locking the door?” asked Otto Stern.
“Holy Mother of God!” The old woman mellowed as the key rattled and turned in the lock. “A good while since Sir last honored us with his presence!” Wordless, Otto Stern aimed for the bar. Only two drunkards lay in a stupor across the tables, fallen together by the ears. The instruments of the Gypsy band were piled up in one corner, wrapped in layers of rags. Otto Stern let out a bellow: “What on earth is this? A condemned cell?”
The two drunks started awake and blinked at him in confusion. By then Benedek Bordás had scuttled out, a gown hurriedly wrapped about his nightshirt. “Mr. Stern, sir,… at such a late hour?”
“Just so. A pint of your best red!” he glanced at Miksa Stern: “Same for him!”
“Thank you, but I would rather…” he began, but an angry flash from the eyes of Otto Stern made him swallow his words.
When the wine arrived, Otto Stern tossed his off in a single gulp and then pulled the landlord close by his leather apron: “Have you any girls?”
“I do.”
“What sort?”
“What sort does Sir wish?”
Otto Stern considered his reply. He had not touched a woman since time out of mind; desire rose afresh within him. “Full bosomed, tight-rumped, and one who washes often!”
Benedek Bordás ran to the serving girls’ quarters behind the hostelry. There were only two left now, the others having moved on. Borcsa, the fiery Gypsy, and Fatimeh, who had fetched up here from some distant shore. Benedek Bordás wondered which one to wake up, and chose Fatimeh, as her door was closer. Fatimeh, dressed in accordance with the customs of her village, looked as if she had wound a Turkish prayer-mat around herself. She asked tremulously from within: “Who is that?”
“Open the door. I have a job for you.”
Fatimeh’s dark iris was clouded still by the mist of sleep.
Benedek Bordás felt sorry for her. “It is no joy for me either, at a time like this…” and he yawned.
“Let us go!” said Fatimeh.
Otto Stern was waiting in the back room. He was staring out of the window, wondering if those really were the first faint rosy fingers of dawn outside, or if his eyes were simply deceiving him.
They knocked. Otto Stern let the girl in.
“At your service.”
“What’s your name?”
“Fatimeh.”
“I have no memory of you here before.”
The girl did not reply. She was twisting and tugging at the material of her dress, her eyes fixed on the ground. Otto Stern took her chin into his hand and studied her more closely. Then, quietly, he asked: “Are you a Jew?”
“Of course I am not a Jew!” Fatimeh’s indignation raised the pitch of her voice so high that it offended Otto Stern’s ears.
“Well then, where were you sprung from?”
“Isn’t that all the same to you?”
Otto Stern bawled her out: “Answer my question if I ask you, or I will…”
But before he had a chance to strike her, Fatimeh began to undress, and as her soft nakedness shone out, there was more light than when the double candlestick was burning on its own. Otto Stern threw himself upon the girl in the way he thought a man is supposed to find pleasure in a woman. Fatimeh took him by the arm: “No, good sir, not like that. Let me undress you properly. Lie down, close your eyes, and leave the rest to me.”
Otto Stern’s anger-if he is paying, no little whore should be telling him what to do-unexpectedly dissipated, and warm feelings of childhood spread within him and for a few moments he was a suckling babe in the arms of his mother, Yanna. And then he received from the girl something he had never before experienced. For him hitherto the securing of pleasures of the body was a struggle: the more stormily he conquered the female of the species the more he felt himself the conqueror, and his pleasure came from this source too. Fatimeh tamed him, coaxed the feral beast within into a sweet household pet.
By the time he awoke in the morning the girl had gone. Otto Stern was staring at the ceiling, musing on the events of the night, when two bailiffs burst into the room and ordered him to the bar, and, since he resisted, they whistled for two more of their kind so that together they overcame him, tied him up, and led him through the corridor into the large room now bathed in sunlight. Already sitting there, every muscle of his body trembling and also with his hands tied behind his back, was Miksa Stern, face to face with Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., and Graf Franz Neusiedler, member of the Governing Council. Who proceeded to wipe his moustachios-they had just been drinking wine-and began, in the official language of the empire: “Do you speak German?”
“Yes… as much as I have to,” replied Otto Stern.
“Quite a fellow! While I have people looking for you everywhere, you are hiding in the hostelry, a stone’s throw from my bed for the night.”
“I am at home in these parts.” He bellowed at Miksa Stern: “You will shake yourself to death if you don’t stop! They are not going to eat you!”
“Speak only when you are spoken to!” exclaimed Graf Franz Neusiedler.
Otto Stern threw him a murderous look. The royal commissioner, leafing through his papers to begin the interrogation, was untroubled by it.
What were the aims of this particular Society? Why was the primitive Hungarian language more important to them than use of German or Latin? Where does the Society store its uniforms and weapons? Denial is useless: the truth will out. And so on, relentlessly, for many hours. Otto Stern sometimes lost his self-control and bawled or uttered threats, but the alispán always called him to order and because of the offense to a person of his rank he held out the prospect of monetary fines or imprisonment. Otto Stern felt worse and worse, sweat poured off his brow, but he could not wipe it away; the rope dug deep into his flesh; his spine had acquired a crick on the hard-backed chair; but most of all he was consumed by sheer fury: on what grounds were they interrogating him like a criminal? He was afraid that he would share the fate of his father, who in all innocence and in the prime of life was cast into the prison of the Austrian emperor and Hungarian king. Come to think of it, what right does he have to rule over us? Why is Austria not enough for him? And why don’t we have a Hungarian king of our own? One who speaks our language, knows our customs, has our interests at heart… When he reached this point it dawned on him that what they should have done is precisely what he was being unjustly accused of doing: donned uniforms, taken up arms, and gone to war against the tyranny that tells us what to do from far-off Vienna, with rough hands and the injudicious exercise of power. He felt a growing knot in his head and in his ribcage; he was wheezing like a blacksmith’s bellows.
“Are you unwell?” asked Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., and motioned to one of the bailiffs to give the accused some water. Otto Stern would have reached for the cup but forgot that his hands were tied behind his back. He tripped forward on the chair and knocked his chin on the table with an almighty crack that made even the councillor shudder.
Miksa Stern gave a high-pitched shriek that sounded like a girl’s: “Otto!”
Graf Franz Neusiedler slipped out from behind the table. “We shall have a pause. Bring him round as quickly as you can.” Grasping the wine bottle and his cup he went out into the hostelry garden. In summer it was possible to dine out of doors, at X-legged tables painted green. He sat down on a bench at one of these.
Benedek Bordás hurried out to wipe down the wooden table as the Graf sat down, and instantly conjured up a blue-and-white tablecloth. “Nice day we are having!” he said to the Graf, in Hungarian.
Graf Franz Neusiedler looked straight through him. Thanks to his mother, Annamária Lórántffy, he was fluent in the language but considered that when representing the Austrian emperor he could not stray from the official language.
It proved quite impossible to obey his command and beat some life into Otto Stern, though they even tried to do so literally. In the end they had to seek new orders from the Graf, who had both suspects taken to the prison cell of the county assembly, where they were manacled hand and foot and chained to the walls. Otto Stern was in a sitting position on the cold stone. Miksa Stern’s chains were close enough to Otto Stern’s to allow him to reach his head with the palm of his hand. He kept putting his fingers in his mouth and with the moisture thus gained he would stroke Otto Stern’s face, though the latter continued to show no sign of life. Miksa Stern sobbed and wondered what his elderly parents would say if they knew.
Golden honey from the comb rolled softly on some flat surface, the bees buzzed soothingly above him. Otto Stern, in swaddling clouts, watched as Nanna Eszter spread the honey with practiced movements. Now Otto Stern could see that the pale surface was the rolled-out pastry of the strudel and covered the entire table, like a tablecloth. After the honey there came the sprinkling of poppyseed, sultanas, and chopped walnuts, and finally a dusting of fine white sugar-this was the Sterns’ recipe for strudel.
Otto Stern was clear, however, that he was merely remembering this. In the background the stone flags of the prison cellar, black with damp, confirmed that this was the dream, not the other. The images of the past were followed by a token vouchsafing of the future: he could see how there was a flood, then a conflagration, and the foaming of much blood: difficult years lay ahead of us. He could see the birth of his son Szilárd. He could see in the light of many candles on a glittering wooden podium wildly gesticulating men saying their piece as the now-adult Szilárd quietly whispered the odd word to them…
His pain increased and again he fell into the well of the unconscious.
When he next came to himself, night had fallen, and he was very cold. Someone nearby was snoring with something more like a croak (on the basis of his family history, his guess was that it was a dog). He could feel that the timepiece was missing from his pocket, the egg-shaped watch, his most treasured possession! He tried to reach for his pocket insofar as the irons permitted and could feel that the chain, too, was gone-someone had torn it off. The henchmen? Or that girl? What was her name? Fatimeh…
This loss pained him more than all the physical suffering. His teeth were chattering. Had he not been able to look ahead, he would have been quite unable to quell his baleful foreboding that this was undoubtedly the end. But he knew he would have a son, and that was possible only if he survived this filthy prison, this filthy business, this filthy time.
Graf Franz Neusiedler was still at the breakfast table when news was brought to him that one of the suspects had expired during the night.
“Pity. That means he will not be able to undergo interrogation.”
Some hours later he discovered from the sealed package brought to him by mounted courier that he had traveled so far from Vienna in vain. The Hegyhát where Nándor Wimpassinger (not Wimpassing) and Miska (not Miksa) Stern had secretly founded a citizen’s militia was another Hegyhát, at the far end of the country and no more than a day’s ride from the imperial capital. The councillor immediately issued instructions to Vienna to have the copyist who had committed the error dismissed from his post.
“What shall we do with Miksa Stern?” asked Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr.
“Is he a noble?”
“No. He is part of the local vintner fraternity.”
“The lash.”
“How many?”
“Five and twenty.”
“In public?”
“Please yourself.”
Graf Franz Neusiedler was the last person to leave the lower part of the village on four wheels, raising his feet onto the seat opposite, as the water in the carriage rose knee-high. There were no other outsiders there. A third of the houses, chiefly along the low-lying banks of the stream, were in danger of collapse. The cellars had turned into baths, the walls were wet through and on the point of disintegrating. The following day the waters rose again, drowned some domestic fowl, and all manner of objects were swept away by the swirling stream.
Along the stream it was possible to do little more than move what could be moved to higher ground. All the boats, rafts and other useful equipment that could be found or made proved inadequate. Those who lived higher up also thought it best to carry away their goods piecemeal; those who had carts of some sort used them; those who did not pushed or dragged trolley-like contraptions.
The flood had damaged twenty-three houses, of which fourteen collapsed. The embankment was breached. The water did not start to subside for another week. Those who had lost a great deal included the Sterns; though their homes fortunately did not fall, most of their goods were gone. In the confusion and chaos the death of Otto Stern passed with little notice; even his burial they did not get around to until a month later, and even then it did not go at all smoothly. His body had by then swollen considerably and a much larger than usual coffin had to be made.
The water table in the cemetery had risen so high that it was not possible to dig a grave; even a moderately deep burial pit immediately turned into a duck pond. The earthly remains of Otto Stern were laid to rest only by lining the sides of his burial chamber closely with rocks and using buckets, for hours before the burial, to empty it of the thin sludge that steadily seeped into it. When the gravediggers threw the earth on the coffin, the mourners feared that the clods of earth would float off at once, before their very eyes, as the water welled up again.
“We have done what we could,” mumbled Nanna Eszter, as she placed her own pebble on the mound. She kept thinking how this dear boy loved to swim. Her eyes burned, without tears, as she recalled how the six Vandals would swim across the Tisza, each urging the others on, like a pack of dogs let off the leash, with Otto Stern at their head, his muscular arms splashing and swirling in the river, his red hair blazing like the biblical burning bush.