The Book of Fathers (46 page)

“I do,” said R.

“Do you admit your guilt?”

“I do.”

“In every respect?”

“In every respect.”

Again he was murmuring; his tone of voice recalled for Dr. Balázs Csillag his own during his cramming of the arcane language of the legal texts. This text was similarly arcane, yet R. was renowned for expressing himself with the utmost concision.

“He is mouthing a script he’s been told to memorize,” groaned Dr. Balázs Csillag that night in the kitchen.

“What?” Marchi had no idea where her husband had been that day.

“Nothing …”

“I have something important to tell you!” Marchi’s face was radiant, her smile mysterious. When she divulged her secret, she felt the same sense of disappointment as when she had presented him with the watch. “Aren’t you pleased?”

“Of course I’m pleased,” said Dr. Balázs Csillag somewhat mechanically. His head was filled with thoughts of R.:
he must have been drugged. He had never seen him look so dead.

Now, in intensive care, he could see again, on the faces of the patients at the end of their lives, the glassy stare that R. had worn at the hearing. It froze the spine to hear his last words:

I declare unreservedly my view that whatever the verdict of the People’s Court, I shall regard that verdict as just, because that verdict will indeed be just.

Such was the elaborate nonsense issuing from the mouth of R., famed for his succinct turn of phrase and the sharpness of his thought.

The special tribunal of the People’s Court announced its verdict at the end of September. Rajk, Szönyi, and Szalai received the death sentence; Brankov and Justus were given life imprisonment; and Ognenovich was jailed for nine years.

The executions were announced in mid-October in the newspaper
Szabad Nép
, “Free Nation.” Dr. Balázs Csillag could not get to sleep for a long time, and when he did, he saw himself on the gallows and awoke howling and in a sweat. We’ve all been conned, he thought, just as they’ve conned each other … and everyone else. The whole thing’s a fraud, lies, drivel; the crap about the peace front, the just fight, equality, brotherhood. It’s nothing but a ruthless struggle for power, with the stronger always crushing the weak. There is nothing new under the sun.

He felt that with R. he, too, had died, now for the third time. The previous time had been when he found out how his father, mother, two brothers, grandmother, grandfather, and all his other relatives had died. And the first time was in the typhoid hospital at Doroshich.

His howling went unheard; by then he had been sacked from the Ministry and was working as an unskilled laborer
in a factory in Pest’s industrial Angyalföld, permanently on the night shift. Such lowly work did not need a CV. By the time he got home, Marchi was up, though her pregnancy was a troubled one, and the doctor had ordered bed-rest. Dr. Balázs Csillag made no attempt to find a better job; he knew that wherever he went, telephone calls would be made. He would be lucky if things got no worse. As soon as practicable, he enrolled in a retraining program and obtained a qualification in machine tooling. With his brigade, in due course, he was awarded the Stakhanovite outstanding worker plaque.

Later, when he had progressed to shiftwork, their toddler once wandered into their bedroom in the middle of the night, sobbing. Dr. Balázs Csillag, a lighter sleeper than his wife, woke up first: “What’s up, young man, what are you doing in here?”

“Mummy’s noring, noring loud!” complained the little fellow.

By this time Marchi was up. “What did you say I am doing?”

“Noring!”

“Now, now, young man, how can she possibly be snoring? Just look at her!” said Dr. Balázs Csillag.

That sentence had a special resonance here in the hospital ward, where almost everyone snored, with the exception of Dr. Balázs Csillag. But that was because he could not sleep. As long as the light was on he continued reading his
Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets
. If it was dark he continued to view the film of his life. The reels kept getting confused.

László Rajk and his coevals were rehabilitated and, on the first Saturday of October, reinterred with due ceremony in the Kerepesi Cemetery. After a long hiatus Dr. Balázs Csillag met R.’s wife again, and his comrades of old, none of them any longer in work. As R.’s coffin was lowered into the
ground to the sound of slow funeral music, Dr. Balázs Csillag died for the fourth time. He withdrew completely into his shell, and neither Marchi nor his son could get through to him.

The fifth death occurred soon afterwards, on November 4, 1956. He was queuing for bread with his six-year-old son. Later he couldn’t for the life of him understand how he could have taken the little boy with him out onto the post-invasion streets. A Russian FUG was passing by and sprayed bullets randomly into the crowd. People ran for their lives in all directions and in the confusion, for a few minutes, he lost track of his son. The boy turned blue with fear and had a stutter for some time thereafter.

He died for the sixth time having retired early one afternoon in autumn, while solving a crossword puzzle. He had lately got into the habit of passing the time in this way, filling the squares across and down at lightning speed, with the intense precision of someone preparing for the world crossword championships. Suddenly he felt his heart swell up like a balloon, shattering everything around him; he lost consciousness at once, knocking his brow on the table, the pattern of the lace tablecloth impressing itself upon his skin. The paramedic managed to catch him in the final seconds before brain death set in and restarted his heart by pounding his fists on his chest. He cracked three of his ribs.

Six deaths are more than enough for one person, and he felt an even greater need to cling doggedly to his lifesaving slogan: Let’s leave the past! He could no longer live through the death by fire again, or the trial and execution of R., or those seconds that lasted forever as he trembled in fear for his son’s life. Still less did he have the strength for what had happened to his father, mother, brothers, grandparents, and all his other relatives.

But now, as he felt the approach of his seventh death, he also felt the need to conjure up everything that he had
inherited the capacity to see. He closed his eyes, and with the face of the first-born of nine generations, he awaited the kaleidoscope of images, the private view of the history of the Csillags, the Sterns, the Berdas, and the Sternovszkys.

He detected only darkness under his eyelids, and sparkling circles of light.

It’s not working. It’s no longer working. I’m too rusty.

“Hello, Balázs my dearest! How are you?” came Marchi’s voice, affecting cheerfulness. “I’ve brought you lemons, fresh rolls, lemonade, and your puzzle magazines!”

“Thank you,” said Balázs Csillag without opening his eyes. In this new hospital, the presence of his wife was even more burdensome than before. Man is an ill-starred creature, expected to be loving even when he feels least like it. Marchi threw herself with military force into the care of her husband, and her overattentive ministrations Dr. Balázs Csillag found noisy and aggressive. In vain did he insist that two oranges would suffice; Marchi would pile six on his bedside table. There were even some leftover rolls from last time, and now here is the latest delivery, highlighting the distressing fact that he is unable to eat. I would be extremely grateful if you would kindly leave me alone, he thought.

In a short while his little boy ran in, covered in sweat—he was just as perspiration-prone as his father—and asked: “How are you, Papa?”

“So-so,” he replied, unwilling to alarm him.

“And what does Dr. Salgó say?”

“Slight improvement.”

This dialogue between them was repeated almost every time they met. There would then be a silence. Dr. Balázs Csillag knew that his son would much prefer to get the hell out of there; it must pain him to see his father like this. He should tell him to buzz off. But he lacked the strength even for that. Never mind. You have to bear it when your father …

His life had not been a long one, and it had been filled with little joy and even less meaning. Once, he thought to himself, just once he should have taken the trouble to tell this to his son. He wondered if he was able to see anything of the past. He had never asked him.

Perhaps it was a mistake to remain silent about your parents and the others. Once you are better, you must certainly have a talk. You squeezed the past out of you but somehow it took the present with it … You didn’t notice how you wasted the days and the years. Perhaps fate, heaven, God, or sod-all, will make sure your son fares better.

The next time he comes I really will make a start. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

That was the night death came knocking. The second day of January was two and a half hours old, so at least her husband did not pass away on New Year’s Day, when they had celebrated his birthday on the ward. He was able to receive the cake, blow out the candles, drink a drop of champagne, and open his presents, including the
Don Quixote
puzzle magazine’s annual. He had made a start on the Giant Crossword. MOZART. BILLYGOAT. WAR AND PEACE. VOLGA. LIFE IS A DREAM. AMETHYST. BAKTAY ERVIN. PORRIDGE. INDIA. HEARTSEASE—this was as far as he had got.

In his final moments he saw himself standing in front of the Taj Mahal, as pictured on a black-and-white postcard he had been sent as a child. All his life he had longed to see it, though he knew he had no hope of doing so. According to the pathologist’s notes his heart had swollen to twice the normal size because of the trials and tribulations of the life he had lived, and had encroached on the right side of the chest, pressing on the nearby organs, the lungs in particular. When the former colleague who gave the eulogy happened innocently to say, “He had a great heart!,” Marchi burst into tears.

XI

AN EXHAUSTED LANDSCAPE BIDS WELCOME AS THE
morning sunlight’s shimmer tumbles down like corn into the dust from a ripped-open sack. The very slight rise in the temperature ruffles the shrunken torsos of the wayside acacias. The glass panes in the windows, left to their fate for months, reveal their need for a proper wash-down. Slushy humps of snow solidified on the pavement gradually begin to shrink. Ice weeps in the water butts, but the cold of the night brings frost to overeager plants. The vortices of February’s freezing air disperse the last traces of any mildness in the morning.

He was six when he had his tonsils removed. Until then Vilmos Csillag was so scrawny that the kindergarten nurse called him “Thinbilly.” When he put on some weight, he was mocked as “Tumbilly.” Only when he reached secondary school did he shoot up. He was slow to acknowledge the improvement in his looks.

He was in his first year at the secondary school when he heard two of the girls in his class talking in the ladies, which shared a ventilation shaft with the gents. Ági and Márti were smoking, despite a strict ban, as they discussed the
boys in the class, where the girls were in the majority by twenty-eight to thirteen. Only one of the boys passed muster, the gangling French-born Belmondo (real name: Claude Préfaut), who was a recent arrival and loath to divulge the complicated international history of his family.

“And what about Vili Csillag?” asked Márti.

“He’s kind of …” Ági’s voice became uncertain. “A nice little boy.”

They giggled.

“Nice little boy, yes, you’re right. A nice little boy!” Márti repeated the phrase like some new slogan.

“It’s his eyes that are a knockout.”

“Right! You’ve noticed, like a kaleidoscope?”

“Yes. Sometimes gray, sometimes green.”

“Even light brown, sometimes.”

The bell rang. Vilmos Csillag did not stir. He would never have dreamed that he would get the silver medal in class. He examined himself in the mirror. Just then, his eyes were river-green.

Almost a year later they were revising French in the flat of Ági’s parents and exchanged a fleeting kiss over the kitchen table.

“You’re not doing it right!” Ági protested.

“But that’s how I usually do it,” Vilmos Csillag lied. In fact, it was his first time. The girl showed him how. Vilmos Csillag proved to be a quick learner. Of the girls in his class, Ági was fairly far down on the attractiveness scale as far as Vilmos Csillag was concerned, but she certainly rose a rung or two for finding him attractive. It was not the girl he wanted; it was the love.

Once it happened that only her older sister, Vera, was at home. She resembled her sister, but she was a fully grown woman, with substantial breasts, the mere sight of which made him break out in a sweat.

“Looking for Ági?”

“Isn’t she in?”

“You can wait for her if you like.”

Vera attended the same school and was just taking her final exams. She complained that she had no chance of getting through maths. “I just can’t remember all these stupid formulae!”

“Make yourself a crib sheet. And hide it in your …” He ground to a halt. He blinked unsteadily at the hem of the girl’s tight skirt, where the darker band of her black stockings could be seen.

“All right, Willie dear, I’ll make one,” she said, stroking his face; the red-painted nails traveled across the boy’s field of vision like five burning aircraft. “Listen … have you been with my sister?”

“You mean …”

“Yeah. Well?”

He blushed and made an uncertain gesture. “I can’t really … I don’t want to.”

“So you haven’t. I thought as much. She’s just blabbing.”

“Is that … what she said?”

“Yeah.”

Vilmos Csillag had no idea how to behave in such an awkward situation, to maintain the self-respect of the male. He began to chew the corner of his mouth relentlessly. Vera’s quick fingers hurried to the spot and separated mouth from teeth. “Don’t … Hey, your eyes have gone green.”

On another visit, he again found only Vera at home. They talked for a long time, about school, the summer vacation, teachers. Vera suddenly changed topic: “You should grow your hair, Willie. It would suit you better.” She brought a brush, ruffled up the boy’s somewhat curly hair and fashioned a Beatles cut for him. They took a look in the mirror in the hall. Vilmos Csillag knew that in the next few months he would not visit the barber’s even on
the headmaster’s orders they were not allowed to wear the Beatles’ mushroom-mop.