The Book of Fathers (27 page)

In the Lyceum, Szilárd registered as Berda-Stern on the various lists. From his mother and stepfather he had a monthly hamper, with the finest from the kitchen and the garden in it. From the Stern house there came with similar regularity a letter, which was always begun by Yanna, after whom the goose-quill passed to the other relatives in turn. Sometimes there were visitors from either or both quarters, though most often it was Yanna who undertook the journey to Eger, accompanied by one of her grandchildren. She listened proudly to the boy’s account of the progress of his studies. Szilárd Berda-Stern once tried to address his grandmother in Hebrew, but it soon transpired that Yanna’s Yiddish had precious little in common with the language of the Torah scrolls, which they were translating with the help of Professor Xavér Fuchs, scholar of the classical and pre-classical tongues.

Apart from the stars, it was the dramatic society of the upper school that gained his devotion. The ceremonial hall next to the oratory was used for the students’ performances, with its large auditorium and a substantial, raised wooden stage. Szilárd Berda-Stern could not overcome his shyness, so he never volunteered for an actual role, but as the jack-of-all-trades for the company found a great sense of fulfillment in the role of prompter. He showed great flair for prompting players who faltered on the open stage, offering
a carefully chosen key word from the next line, which immediately reminded them how to continue. Béla Berda took great exception to his squandering his time on such frivolous nonsense, but dared not forbid him, for it had to be granted that the boy had inherited a certain bent for the poetic qualities of the stage. It was curious that his mother also disapproved of this way of spending his time: “I had hopes that you were fueled by more serious passions than this!”

“And I have to hear this from you, of all people?”

“I am your mother and I want you to make more of your life than I have done of mine.”

In fact, Szilárd Berda-Stern did not consider that being the dogsbody for a theatrical troupe was a career for life. What he considered as a possible calling was the investigation of the secrets of the stars. To this subject he devoted many more hours than the timetable prescribed, and he would stay in the observatory until the cleaners ordered him to leave. He crouched under the telescope with one eye closed, using his right hand to focus and his left to make notes—being left-handed was, in this case, a distinct advantage. (The teachers’ beatings in the lower school had forced him to use his right hand for writing, and in the presence of others he dared not do otherwise, lest they mocked him as “Left Behind.”)

On the far side of the Lyceum there stood perhaps Magyarland’s finest church, the object of admiration, both inside and out, for visitors from near and far. Szilárd Berda-Stern, too, brought all his visitors to the church, showing them also the bishop’s palace, which housed the priceless treasure of the nation, the Gallery of Choice Pictures. Whenever he could he would spend his time in the square, among the trees of the bishop’s garden. The view, which cried out for a painter’s brush, was somewhat spoiled during the day by a dozen or so beggars, and after dark by a similar number of gillyflowers, which latter the Lyceum’s strict
regulations forbade him from spying on, though from the Specula he could see them simpering in their revealing clothes at the men who passed by. On seeing them he always felt two searing stabs of pain, one because of his mother and another because of his swelling male desire.

One dull afternoon he met in the Lyceum square the dramatic company of Kálmán Jávorffy. This troupe of players planned to put on two performances in Eger, and wanted to hold them in the ceremonial hall of the Lyceum. They intended to put on the noted comedy
Matilde
. But his grace the bishop decided at the last minute to withdraw his permission for the use of the venue. The company was thus obliged to seek an alternative stage and eventually found itself performing at the Restaurant Spitz. On these nights the auditorium was less than half full. Szilárd Berda-Stern sat in the front row on both occasions. The box-office took no more than fifty-one florins, as Kálmán Jávorffy complained to the correspondent of
Hungarian Life Magazine
, who happened to be in town. The reporter concluded his review: “Woe unto you, poor players! From here, too, you will have to leave one by one without farewell, or fight starvation while performing gratis.”

He decided to adopt this as his motto in his new life and copied it into The Book of Fathers on his last night in Eger. Mariska Zalay, the troupe’s soubrette with the unfading smile, had captured his heart. Kálmán Jávorffy, learning of his skills as prompter, offered him casual work and Szilárd Berda-Stern knew he had to accept; he had no other choice. He bundled up his earthly goods and early in the morning loaded them onto the covered wagon. He found Mariska Zalay even more attractive when he was sleepy-eyed than at any other time and held her hand tight when they settled into their seats in the second cart.

They bade farewell to the town in a biting, hair-ruffling wind. They headed for the Hatvani Gate, and constantly had
to pull aside to avoid the laden peasant carts rattling along the uneven cobblestones as they headed for the weekly market. The southern gate’s open doors were hung with motionless chains; above them, darkly, loomed the fortifications.

Eger had almost disappeared from view when they caught sight of the scaffolds, from which swung the now-black bodies of seven convicted thieves. The women of the troupe began to shriek. The heavy smell of decay hung about the clearing; Mariska Zalay snatched up her pocket kerchief doused liberally with eau-de-cologne and thrust herself in some agitation into the arms of Szilárd Berda-Stern. He tried to play the tough man, though he knew that in his dreams these seven unfortunates would loom large for some time.

From the second stop on the tour he managed to send word to his mother as well as to the Sterns, asking for their blessing and approval of his decision. Instead of his mother, it was Béla Berda who replied with an icy, threatening letter, full of
unless
es and
without ado
s, and eight occurrences in all of the words
disown
and
disinherit
. Yanna was briefer:
How you make your way in the world is up to you. I want you to find a space where you can make the most of your talents
. Into the couverture there had been slipped a high-denomination banknote. Szilárd Berda-Stern pasted both letters into The Book of Fathers with starch gum.

His duties were described by Kálmán Jávorffy as follows: “My boy, you are going to be the maid of all work. So if someone asks for boiling water, you jump to it and boil her some water, and if she demands cold water, you blow on it until it cools … do you get my drift?”

He nodded his assent. He had no wish to alert the company manager to the fact that he well knew what the ladies of the stage were like, from somewhere very close to home. What he really loved in his job was the prompting, when he felt as if the success of the whole performance depended on
the sharpness of his wits. It filled him with an almost lascivious thrill that the audience knew nothing of this. It was like the work of the anonymous authors of codices: we discover many things in their codices but almost nothing about these humble faceless servants of the spirit.

When he asked Mariska Zalay whether she would consent to be his partner for life once he came of age, the wonderment on her face masked two different kinds of emotion: “Szilárd, my darling boy, how can I know that? You are still only in your seventeenth year, are you not? And in any event, do not forget I am eight years your senior. By the time you might marry me I would be on the verge of old maidenhood.”

Szilárd Berda-Stern protested and when Mariska Zalay still refused to utter “yes” to his proposal of marriage, he moodily withdrew into himself. He felt he had been betrayed. He had quit the Lyceum in the belief that he had now found his better half. How long was he to live in such uncertainty? He thought with increasing sorrow of the Lyceum. Of his daily life there what he missed most was the time spent among the stars, and he decided that as soon as he had the time and the wherewithal he would make himself a telescope, so that he could continue his wandering among the night sky’s wonders. When he stared into the light of distant stars he had the same feelings as when he was able to look into times gone by.

Mariska Zalay insisted that wherever they lodged in a new town, she was accommodated in a room of her own, claiming that if she had to share with another she would be unable to prepare for her performance. Szilárd Berda-Stern was always obliged to share with one of the coachmen, though he was nauseated by the latter’s powerful smell of sweat. Some nights he would slip into Mariska Zalay’s room: they had agreed that if a candle or lamp was lit in the window, he could come; otherwise he was to keep out. As
time went by, there was a gradual diminution in the number of nights that the flickering light appeared on a range of window ledges. Szilárd Berda-Stern suffered in silence. His agony was noticed only by Kálmán Jávorffy, and on one occasion he offered the lad what was intended to be a consolatory lecture on the inconstancy of women who worked on the stage. “You can better trust a viper than one of them!”

Szilárd Berda-Stern strove not to show how shattered he was by what he had heard. But the more he thought about it, the clearer it became to him that the manager was right. After all, he should have known from his mother what sort of a woman she was before she married. Nonetheless it took him the better part of a year to build up the courage to break with Mariska Zalay; moreover, he had to quit Kálmán Jávorffy’s troupe to do it. He joined the Hungarian Theater of Pozsony, in a role similar to his position hitherto, though the recompense was half as much again.

In this town, where there is a permanent Hungarian theatrical company, I found what I was seeking. Beside my theatrical work, I secured some income from teaching the Latin language by the hour. In a curious twist of fate I met a lady, Margit Galántay, a fanatical devotee of the theater, and when I had made clear the seriousness of my intentions, she told me that her father Márton Galántay was the town’s clerk. Appealing to this chance congruity, I sought the consent of my mother and stepfather to my marriage, which subsequently I did indeed obtain
.

His wife presented him with a boy and a girl. Their names Mendel and Hannah were taken by their parents from the heroes of plays fashionable at the time, but this was not something they made a great deal of fuss about. The Berda-Sterns’ doors were open to all, and many of the town’s most distinguished citizens passed through their
gate. On Thursday afternoons they organized five o’clock tea, where gifted amateurs read from their poetry. Particular success was enjoyed by Bendegúz Tolnai, the teacher of Hungarian language and literature at the gymnasium, whose work,
The Silence Before the Storm
, saw print in the
Anthology
. The Berda-Sterns subscribed to numerous literary and scientific periodicals, which Szilárd felt could not be missing from the educated person’s bookshelves. He gladly spent money on these. Though, it must be said, not at all gladly on other things. Their family bliss was frequently punctuated by rows that were invariably to do with financial matters. Margit often accused her husband of being a tight-fisted Harpagon. Szilárd Berda-Stern countered by accusing his wife of profligacy and even wanton squandering of their money.

Disturbing news came from Pest-Buda, where the young writers were constantly at odds with the censor’s office. In the salon of the Berda-Sterns the names of the novelist Jókai and the poet Petöfi were mentioned in awed tones. The evening after the latest
Pictures of Life
arrived bearing the headline “The Press Is Free!” they held an extraordinary meeting at the home of Bendegúz Tolnai. The poet, trembling with an intensity of emotion that appeared truly life-threatening, wanted to read out the journal in its entirety to the gathering, but as he could nowhere find his eyeglasses, he devolved this honor onto Szilárd Berda-Stern. The editorial opened thus:
The revolution has begun. Magyarland begins to live its days of glory. Our correspondents in the regions will know what they must henceforth write about
. These words were received with joy unconfined. The company did not disperse until midnight or perhaps later, the March Youth were repeatedly toasted, along with the revolution and the breaking of the new Hungarian dawn.

The public reading of Szilárd Berda-Stern was to have the strangest consequences. When the Emperor’s troops
occupied the town, the first task of Géza Ráth, county commissioner plenipotentiary, was to have the leading rebels rounded up. On this list next to the name Szilárd Berda-Stern was written the word
conspirator
.

It surpasses my comprehension still that I should be in prison, writing my farewell letter. What offense have I committed against the emperor? It must be such a small thing that he can hardly have felt it. But the commissioner wants to make an example of me at any cost. Now it has at last dawned on me that I did indeed see the future, for I stared many times down gun-barrels aimed at my chest, only I, misguided fellow that I am, believed I was reliving the last moments of Grandpa Czuczor
.

He wrote separately to his son, daughter, wife, mother, and the Sterns, though what he had to say was by and large the same.

At first light, the duty guard looked in and gave a salute. “Last requests?”

“See that these are delivered to the addressees.”

“It will be done.”

“My last wish is that my gravestone should bear no word but Star.”

“Star? What for?”

“It was the fine Hungarian name of my earliest forebears.”

The guard nodded. Misguided fellow, he thought, imagining that the executed get some sort of tombstone rather than ending up in a ditch at the end of the cemetery. “You have an hour remaining!” he said with a click of his heels, and left Szilárd Berda-Stern to his thoughts.