The Book of Fathers (12 page)

“Don’t!” István Stern hurried over and prevented the man from emptying his basket again.

“István, why poke your nose into this?”

“Books and papers should never be thrown in the fire,” he repeated obdurately. To the man he commanded: “Pick them up!”

The man was young but already balding, with an enormous Adam’s apple, which now slid down his neck and disappeared below the collar of his embroidered shirt. He looked at the
alispán
questioningly. Sándor Vajda came out into the courtyard, took the basket and emptied the documents, followed by the contents of his smoking pipe, straight onto the heap. The dry sheets immediately caught fire. Enraged, István Stern tried to stamp out the fire and
kick the documents away. The
alispán
took him by the arm and dragged him off: “Come now, don’t make such a fool of yourself, Stern!”

Stern pulled himself free and again tried to put the fire out, but most of the sheets were now well and truly ablaze, giving off acrid fumes.

“Books and papers should never be thrown in the fire!” István Stern roared for a third time, kicking clear of the embers the few sheets that could still be saved.

The Smorakh family had moved from Lemberg to Prague and then again to Vienna in the hope of improving their lot. They reached the imperial capital just as Queen Maria Theresa was giving expression to her convictions about their kind in a phrase that was to be widely repeated throughout her lands: “The Jews are worse than the bubonic plague.”

Though she made this declaration in German, they understood it perfectly; there had always been at least three languages spoken in the family. The Queen’s was no empty phrase: with strictly enforced edicts she banned Jews from Vienna and Prague. The Smorakhs reached Posonium, the Queen’s Pressburg and the Hungarians’ Pozsony, on the back of a cart, in the hope of establishing themselves in the furniture business there, but they were not granted the necessary permit by the council. They loaded up again and went south, as Aaron Smorakh, the head of the family at the time, put it: “On the highway of hardships.” Their wanderings around the heart of Europe, punctuated by frequent stops, lasted some eight years. During these they suffered many hardships and disasters, of which the most painful was the death of Elisha, Aaron Smorakh’s wife, mourned by her husband, her mother, her three daughters Helga, Eszter, and Éva, and her two sons Jacob and Joseph. In these eight miserable years Aaron Smorakh tried desperately to keep the
family together by making what he could by trading. Asked what was his occupation, he would say with a crestfallen smile: “I buy and I sell!”

It was the autumn of their eighth year when they came to Hegyhát. The lord of the manor here in the Tokay region was looking for someone to take over his village general store, following the death of the previous leaseholder, Ármin Kertész, who had ingested poisonous toadstools. The contract was held by the Smorakh family in great respect and a gilt frame, which in the stone house they subsequently built for themselves had pride of place above the mantelpiece. Every member of the family knew its words by heart, like a poem.

On the sixteenth day of January in the year of our Lord 1759 the general store of the lord of the manor in Hegyhát is hereby leased to the Jew Aaron Smorakh in accordance with the points of the contract agreed as stated hereunder.

Firstly, the said Jew will stock in the general store all kinds of goods, iron and other necessities, to ensure that as and when the lord of the manor desires to purchase tools, equipment, or other goods for husbandry, they will not be wanting in the general store, and also so that the poor should not be obliged to walk long distances for every small thing.

Secondly, it will be permitted to the said Jew to trade in and sell salt, tobacco, candles, pipes, and other such small necessities.

Thirdly, if the lord of the manor himself or his officers or servants have need of some particular item and that item is wanting in his general store, the said Jew will be bound to obtain it and offer it for sale at a price that is meet. Fourthly, under the terms of this contract the Jew shall pay the sum of one hundred Rhenish florins by way of rent every year, and shall according to custom pay it in two parts, one part every six months. Fifthly, the said Jew shall be obliged to keep to the terms of this contract to the letter and if he should be disinclined so to do, it will be permitted to his lordship in person to take such steps concerning the general store as he deems necessary. Provided only that the terms of the contract are duly observed in peace, and that he behaves as behooves an honorable man, his lordship will provide him with due care and protection and will not permit any party to harass him unjustly. This contract will have force for a period of two years and if in the second year the Jew should be minded to extend it or surrender it to his lordship, he will be required to give three months’ notice thereof.

Stamped and dated in the year of our Lord stated above, on the day of the month and in the place there stated.

Bertalan T. Vámbéry

Aaron Smorakh was thirty-two years of age when he signed this contract, his hair already white, his face furrowed and worn. He knew that for their rapid change of fortune his family owed particular thanks to two powerful men who wished them well, namely Bertalan T. Vámbéry and His Majesty King Joseph II, who only a year after his intolerant mother’s death ordered that the Jews were to have the status of a “tolerated minority,” as they were “in this wise more useful to the state.” Aaron Smorakh even adopted as his own the favorite saying of the only uncrowned king of Hungary: “
Es geht, wenn man’s nimmt!”
“It goes—if you take it.”

His Majesty Joseph II had ten years earlier, while still co-ruler with Maria Theresa, determined that the Jews choose “proper” surnames. To this end they were to appear in the offices established with the aim of noting down the date of
birth or death of every single subject of the Empire. Since the official language was German, it was expected that the Jews would choose German names. As a dutiful citizen, Aaron Smorakh duly rode into the town of Eger to find a new name for his family. His first act was to place two jeroboams across the ink-spattered desk (the family had by then obtained permission to cultivate a vineyard on a share-cropping basis), and then he asked the bespectacled official: “
Wie heissen Sie, Herr
…
?
”

“
Wilhelm Stern
,” came the reply from the surprised official.

Aaron Smorakh drew himself up to his full height and announced solemnly: “
Dann wird Stern unser Name sein
.”

“
Sind Sie sicher?
”

“
Ja, ja
.”

“
Also, Stern?
”

“
Gut
.”

Aaron Stern jiggled and jolted his way home to Hegyhát, with the deed poll in his saddlebag. Up went the new shop sign without any more ado:
Stern and Son
. Jacob, his firstborn, was already his right hand in the store.

Éva, now of marriageable age, these days often busied herself with her trousseau, assisted by two servant girls. Aaron Stern had laid by a crate of special, sparkling wine from the region of Champagne for the wedding feast. She had a dozen or more suitors vying for her hand in the next few years, but found none to her liking. By her age her older sisters had long tied the knot. Aaron Stern was more and more concerned: “You are certain? Not this one either?”

Éva would give a nod. She trusted that her father would have as much patience as she to wait for The One.

She met István Sternovszky in the burgh of Debreczen, whither she had gone with her father to buy supplies. A harvest ball was being held in the grand hall of the hotel. Aaron Stern was so pleased with the advantageous terms on which he had secured his purchases that he surprised his daughter
with an evening gown decorated around the neck with the most delicate Brussels lace. The event was patronized chiefly by the nobility of the area, the only outsiders apart from the Sterns being the debonair Sternovszky boys, magnets for the fan-shielded eyes of every girl’s mother. István and János stood a head taller than the mass. Their glances kept returning to Éva, whose coal-black curls bounced and fluttered like dark little birds around her ivory shoulders. They both put themselves down on Éva’s dance card. Though they spent the same amount of time in the girl’s company, it was clear from the outset that István’s intentions were of the utmost seriousness. The Sternovszky boys were on a two-month tour of the kingdom, thanks to their uncle’s generosity. A few days later István abandoned the tour to ride to Hegyhát to see Éva again, leaving his younger brother in the hostel at Csaroda. Unable to see her, amid the utmost secrecy he sent her three brief letters. He received but one reply: “The road to me leads through my father.” The higher the wall, the harder it is to conquer, thought István Sternovszky, his ardor only further inflamed by the delicate pearly script of her dear hand.

Éva forbore to inform him that she had told her father: István Sternovszky is the one. Aaron Stern flew into a rage, his white hair billowing as he stormed: “Have you taken leave of your senses? The Sternovszkys of all people … Does that man have any idea who we are?”

“He does, rest assured, father dear.”

“Do you think his family will let him take a Jewish girl to the altar? How on earth could anyone imagine that?”

“Let that be his business.”

For more than a week István Sternovszky delayed making the announcement. His mother had a weak heart; he knew that if he now said his piece, it might be the end of her. Borbála no longer resembled the girl she had once been: in recent years she had put on a great deal of weight, so much
so that she was now out of breath after taking just a few steps, wheezing as if she had run halfway round the town. The doctor had put her on a strict diet that she only pretended to keep. Sometimes she would even slip out in the dead of night to feast on something from the larder.

When István Sternovszky finally steeled himself to speak to his mother, Borbála was lying in the deckchair, her feet raised off the floor, digesting her modest breakfast, which consisted merely of a bacon omelette, a jug of cream, two green peppers, a cup of Turkish coffee, and a few prunes that did not really form part of the meal but were taken, rather, for the benefit of her digestion. Hearing that her son wished to speak to her, she closed her eyes in weary anticipation of news of further debts amassed by István at the card table. “How much this time?”

Her son’s attempt to explain that this was about something else, that he wanted to marry, made simply no sense to Borbála. “Who is this Éva?”

“The girl I want to marry.”

“You?”

“Yes, Mother, me, not the Pope!”

“But you are still a child.”

“I’m in my twenty-third year.”

“Yes, but even so … just like that? From one day to the next?”

István Sternovszky patiently explained that such things always happen from one day to the next, and sought his mother’s blessing on the union. He did not receive it. Borbála insisted first of all on knowing who this girl was, where she came from, what was known of her family, and how much dowry came with her. István Sternovszky considered the dialogue increasingly irrelevant. “I had hoped you would rejoice at the news.”

“Rejoice at what? That you have been ensnared by a grasping woman?”

“I am the one who is ensnaring her!” he spluttered, gritting his teeth, knowing that the worst—Éva’s origins—was yet to come. He began a dozen times to say that his betrothed was Jewish, but the words stuck in his throat. For him the word “Jew” was a sharp knife twisted in his spine, though he himself knew only one Jew, old Kochán, the village grocer, who would give credit to anyone who asked. But he had no doubt that the darkest of evil fates dogged Éva’s ancestors and all her family, which he must perforce share if he really were to marry the girl.

“But why this Éva, of whom we know virtually nothing?”

“Because she is my twin, born to other parents.”

“Why would you want to marry her if she is already your twin?”

“Mother, I beg you!”

It did not take long for Borbála to unearth the location and origins of the Stern family. She declared, tearing at her hair, that she would not under any circumstances acquire them as kin. By then István Sternovszky had made several visits to Hegyhát and had decided beyond a shadow of doubt that he could not find happiness except by the side of Éva Stern. He regarded it as a sign from heaven that the beginning of his surname was the same as that of Éva’s. The situation at home had deteriorated to such an extent that he and Borbála were no longer on speaking terms and communicated only via his brother. “Tell him, János, that dinner will be served shortly!”

István Sternovszky saw that things could not go on like this. One night, when the turret’s inhabitants were fast asleep, he and his servant, the lanky Jóska, quietly carried down the two chests and six large leather bags in which he had packed all of his belongings. Into his calfskin satchel he placed everything that he wanted to preserve in case of disaster—as much money as he could, a few family mementoes, and above all his father’s and grandfather’s folio, to
which he gave the title The Book of Fathers. He considered that this was certainly his property.

Below the oxcart waited, with his dapple-gray, as he had ordered. He sat Jóska up by the driver, and they set off into an ominous night. By dawn next day they had reached Hegyhát and lodged themselves in the guest cottage that stood in the garden of the house, amid the raspberry bushes. Her husband-to-be could hardly take rooms at the hostel, for all to see. He unpacked, sent the cart back, and sent Jóska to fetch pen and paper. As soon as these were brought, he opened The Book of Fathers and in it inscribed these words: