The Book of Fathers (45 page)

Balázs Csillag ordered the mounted police to Beremend, and this time he led them personally. By the time they reached the village, the gendarme saddle that he had polished to a shine had worn the trousers and the skin on his rear to shreds. The gates to the cemetery still gave shelter to a few unpeaceful descendants of those at peace within it. An old woman in a black headscarf, who somewhat resembled Ilse, shook her fist in front of Balázs Csillag’s nose, whereupon he dismounted with great difficulty. “What do you think you lot are doing, eh? Haven’t you hounded us enough? No respect even for the dead, eh?”

The situation was complicated by the fact that Marchi’s father and mother were both calling out the names of all the dead of the family who lay here. “What sort of eternal rest is this?” Then they suddenly noticed their son-in-law. They hesitated for a second, then decided to ignore him.

“So even they …” thought Balázs Csillag. I should have known. He tried to raise his hand to indicate he wanted to say something. It took a long time for them to calm down. Then he said: “People, listen. Orders are orders. With your help, we can save every gravestone. Without it, we can save only as many as we can shift by the end of the day. The tractors are due tomorrow.”

“Of course,” shrieked the old crone reminiscent of Ilse, “the stones yes, the dead bodies no?”

“Look, my good woman, what are we to do with the bodies? It’s better for them where they are,” replied Balázs Csillag, quietly but firmly. He had witnessed enough scenes like this at the Front; he knew these people would give in.

“You’re not a Jew, right? No idea what one is, eh?” the crone shrieked, stabbing the air with her gnarled fingers.

As the slabs left the ground one by one, each felt like a dull thud on his heart. He told himself off: it’s all the same.
Your
loved ones don’t even have a grave! He sauntered out of the cemetery, feeling that a cigarette would help him relax.

I shouldn’t have smoked so much, he thought now, in his hospital bed. How many people had warned him, and how often! He had just waved them aside: “You have to die of something sometime anyway.”

“True, my dear,” said Marchi, “but it is not all the same when.”

There is a strong likelihood that it will be soon. Though Dr. Salgó is quite upbeat: “Now that we’re controlling the embolism, we have every hope of positive developments.”

I would be happy with the positive development of getting up, he thought. He had difficulty in using the bedpan; he felt awkward that women slid it under his buttocks, while they could glimpse his dried-up naked body as they lifted up the blanket, his manhood too, which, against his will, would curl out of the pajama bottoms. He was ashamed all his life, not only of the ridges and craters of his burned skin; in his youth he had been ashamed because he was so sickly, after the war because he had put on a lot of weight, and in recent years because he had become so shriveled and shrunken. Only when he was in the upper years of secondary school had he had any success with women. Since then he had at most dared to stare at them, and if one happened to return his gaze, he would look away in confusion.

Now, sunken, incapable, and unworthy on a hospital bed, he was troubled by the thought that he had not had enough female attention. There had been only three women in his life, not counting stolen kisses in school. The second he had married. The third—a silly affair at work—developed on a work outing and reached its climax in a clearing at Szilvásvárad. The reason he had so much enjoyed being with Iduska, who worked in accounts, was that he did not have to divest himself of his clothing and so had fewer inhibitions. There, in the grass, he realized that he had been quite seriously in error regarding the variety of ways in which a man and a woman may gratify each other. The thought of divorce flashed through his head, but Iduska poured cold water on it at once: “You must be joking, my dear Balázs; we are both married with a raft of kids!”

“I have only one.”

“Well, I have three.”

The memories of Szilvásvárad again and again came to the fore, like a postcard that had lost none of its glossy sheen. Since he had vowed to rid himself of the family tradition of looking into the past, this was perhaps the first
time that he allowed his thoughts to gambol about among the peaks of time, like giddy little goats. Initially, no further back than the years after the war.

When they moved up to the capital, they did not avail themselves of the tiny, two-room service flat on the newly built Ministry of the Interior estate in Kispest, because they were able to set themselves up in the family house in Terézváros, where the lower floors were occupied by Marchi’s eighty-two-year-old widowed aunt; the upper floor was empty because this aunt’s brother, a retired doctor, had received extraordinary permission to emigrate to Canada, where another sister lived. The Porubszkys were secretly hoping that if Captain Balázs Csillag moved in, the authorities would leave their property in peace. Marchi’s aunt, Dr. Lujza Harmath, always referred to the house as “the villa” and to Hungary as “The Balkans! My dear girl, these are the deepest Balkans!”

Balázs Csillag was irritated by the old lady’s airs and graces and he took not one step to save the villa—in fact, a very modestly constructed and, after the 1944 bombing, rather poorly restored building; so it was, in due course, nationalized and Dr. Lujza Harmath, as well as they themselves, became tenants.

“Let’s just be glad that they aren’t allocating some of the rooms to strangers!” opined Balázs Csillag. But the Porubszkys were not glad, and with this their contacts with the young couple came more or less to an end.

On the third day at work, the minister called him in. “Strength and health the Hungarian says, Comrade Csillag. I hope you have settled in. I am glad to inform you that you will be working directly under me, drafting documents.”

“Understood, Minister.”

It soon became clear that Balázs Csillag was regarded by his minister, László Rajk, as a kind of personal secretary; he made him write his speeches, too. When he was made
Foreign Minister he ensured that Dr. Balázs Csillag was (“pro. tem.,” he said with a wink) assigned to him, though formally he retained the rank of Major at the Ministry of the Interior. He would often call him in for informal discussion. In their personal contacts—that is, behind closed doors—he soon suggested that they drop the formalities, and they drank to this from the entertainment allowance cognac. He always appeared interested and understanding. He supported Balázs Csillag’s request to continue his legal studies at the University of Budapest, and from time to time inquired about the topics he studied and the examinations. “I’m envious. I’d much rather be at university.”

Balázs Csillag’s feeling for László Rajk was unalloyed respect, perhaps even admiration of sorts. He could talk to no one of official matters, having been obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, which extended the period of silence to ten years beyond the loss of his post for any reason, and he did not convey these sentiments about his boss even to Marchi. Comrade Rajk was a living legend, the hero of the Spanish Civil War, the youngest boy of the fairy tale, who had succeeded in scaling the highest peaks of the state machinery by his own efforts. He was a shining example to Balázs Csillag; for him he was prepared to work overtime, burning the midnight oil for nights on end, unremittingly poring over the text of the laws. He often sat on the edge of the bed, checking his texts and checking them again. Once his eyes strayed to the mirror mounted on the wardrobe door and he saw himself as he rocked to and fro, just like the Orthodox Jews intone their prayers. “Let the past go!” He ordered his upper body to be still, and from then on he checked his texts sitting bolt upright.

Marchi, on the far side of the bed, tossed and turned in her sleep, making a noise typical of her. She snored, a rough, noisy snore, like a man’s. For a long time Balázs Csillag dared not bring it up, until one morning he decided
to mention it. Marchi recoiled: “The things you say, Balázs! How could I possibly snore—look at me!”

“Well, I suppose … to be sure …” It really did seem impossible that this ethereal woman should snore. The topic never came up again.

At the degree ceremony, Marchi’s face had a transcendent glow as she saw the applause from the other—mainly younger—graduates as Major Balázs Csillag received his doctorate in the maroon folder. He himself wondered what Comrade Rajk would say when he introduced himself as “Doctor” and informed him that he had been awarded a red doctorate. Marchi bought him a richly engraved timepiece for the occasion and was a little disappointed that her husband’s joy on receiving it was less than unalloyed.

Dr. Balázs Csillag hurried back to the Ministry. On his desk lay an envelope. There was a minuscule gold pine-cone in it and a card with the words:
Well done! R
. The right leg of the letter curled away in a flourish and Dr. Balázs Csillag was sure that it continued onto the enormous ministerial desk.

He could hardly wait to thank him for it in person. But R. was not in the office and in fact did not turn up that week at all. They, however, went on holiday, in the Ministry of the Interior’s own complex in Siófok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton. On the second morning the commandant of the complex, a repulsively obese lieutenant-colonel, summoned the holidaying cadres to an ad hoc meeting. He informed them of the situation in which socialist agriculture found itself: because of the inclement weather the harvest had been delayed this year and this could have the gravest consequences. The difficulties are of such seriousness that they, the cadres on holiday, cannot pass over them without taking action. “We shall therefore volunteer ourselves for unpaid social labor for four hours every morning at SFAC, the Siófok Farmers’
Agricultural Cooperative. Coaches will depart from the main gate at eight o’clock.”

The announcement was met with an enervated silence. Dr. Balázs Csillag raised an arm to speak. “Comrade lieutenant-colonel, we have been building socialism for fifty weeks of the year, could we not be spared in those two weeks when we have been referred here to get some rest?”

“What’s your name?” asked the lieutenant-colonel, puffing out his chest.

“Major Dr. Balázs Csillag.”

“Stand to attention when you talk to me!”

“In a tracksuit? You must be joking.”

Faces in the audience reflected genuine panic. They are all shitting themselves, thought Dr. Balázs Csillag. The lieutenant-colonel inflated like a puffball: “This is by no means the end of the matter.”

“I certainly hope not.”

No one laughed. This was not the first time Dr. Balázs Csillag found that not many people appreciated his sense of humor. The lieutenant-colonel ordered every adult cadre to assemble at the stated time and place, in light working clothes.

“Wives as well?”

The lieutenant-colonel was growing increasingly irritated by the clever-clever major. “You heard me: every adult!”

“I’m afraid my wife is not in the employ of the Ministry of the Interior and therefore your orders do not apply to her.”

Despite Marchi’s implorings, Dr. Balázs Csillag insisted that she stay in the complex and she knew there was no appeal. So she spent her mornings on her own, basking in the sun on the stubby wooden pier in her lemon-yellow bathing suit, a magnet for male eyes. The other wives joined their husbands in hoeing, weeding, and picking fruit. Oddly enough, they ended up with a deeper tan than Marchi.

The commandant of the holiday home minuted the insubordination of Major Csillag and sent it to the party personnel department of the Foreign Ministry. There, however, because of the complete breakdown of line management, it was shelved. R. had not been seen for weeks and it was rumored that he had been arrested by the AVH, the secret police. Dr. Balázs Csillag considered these rumors completely false and was convinced that R. had been entrusted with some secret assignment. He clung to this view until a circular informed the employees of the Ministry of the crimes perpetrated by R. and his accomplices.

Dr. Balázs Csillag secured himself entry to the hearing, held in the HQ of the Iron-and Metalworkers’ Union. It was September and the summer was bowing out with a burst of humidity. The building in Magdolna Street was ringed by Ministry of the Interior security personnel cleared at the highest level; this was the first time that his pass failed to secure him priority. His pass was the same as everyone else’s. The hearing was set for nine in the morning, but the chamber filled up well before this. The silence was total; the little noises made by the official setting up the microphones were amplified to an unbearable squeak, particularly the shuffling of his rubber-soled shoes on a parquet floor waxed to a glinting shine.

When the accused were led in, Dr. Balázs Csillag could barely recognize R.: the minister’s skin had turned sallow and his hair was cut to recruit standard. Dr. Balázs Csillag positioned himself at the end of the fifth row, ideal for catching R.’s attention, but try as he might, he could not. He was even unable to catch his eye, though they looked at each other more than once. Does he not recognize me, he wondered in shock.

In the dock he was surprised to see András Szalai, a man he knew from Pécs, whom he had at least as much difficulty imagining as a spy as he did László Rajk. Charges of a more
fanciful nature were leveled at them, too. R. was supposed to have worked as an informant for the police while at university. His provocative actions were alleged to have brought about the imprisonment of several hundred building workers. He was a spy during the Spanish Civil War, then he became a Gestapo informant. Since the end of the war he had been recruited by the Yugoslav Spy Service, and he was also spying for the Americans. Recently he had been involved with carrying out Tito’s plot to assassinate Comrades Rákosi, Gerö, and Farkas, the triumvirate in charge of the country.

R. spoke very quietly and Dr. Péter Jankó, president of the special council of the People’s Court, had repeatedly to ask him to speak up.

“Do you understand the charge?”