The Book of Fathers (7 page)

“He is not noted for his hospitality,” remarked the dean. He instructed the driver to wait for them and set off along the path, using both hands to raise his cape high, as in places the grass was spattered with mud. The maestro followed doubtfully. Soon the building came into sight. The maestro had to rub his eyes. An Italian turret in the shape of a five-pointed star stood in the thick of the forest, but without ramparts. It was as if storms had ripped it from a fortress elsewhere and dropped it in the middle of this wild
terrain. Instead of windows the gray walls sported only embrasures, slits for shooting arrows. A long ladder as to a hen coop led up to the first-floor entrance, which was more like the narrow opening of a cave than a door. They climbed up. A copper bell dangled at the end of a cord; they gave it a pull. There was nothing to indicate that it had been heard within. The dean, a noted bass in his day, boomed out: “Anyone within?”

“Who may that be?” came the reply.

The dean gave both their names.

“What business have you in these parts?”

“We have come to see milord Sternovszky, our business being singing!”

A deal of shuffling could be heard behind the wooden structure barring the entrance, and soon this moved aside to let them enter the turret. There was total darkness, so at first they could see nothing. Two flambeaus blazed on the walls. A hump-backed figure with a soot-lined face led the way up the spiral stairs: “Sorr’s steward. Sorr will be with yer honners presently.”

To the maestro it was like climbing inside a beehive. They reached a level where there was some planking, a bare, unadorned dining area, with two long benches lining one corner and a dining table between them, the table supported on four thick pillars of the hardest oak, with wide footrests which in that region they called “swelpmegods.” At the head of the table was placed a large armchair similarly furnished with a footrest; it was practically a throne, with the family coat-of-arms carved in the wood of the back: a precious horn-shaped stone splitting a rock in twain.

The steward offered them seats and then disappeared. They remained standing. The three sooty oil-lamps barely made an impression on the semidarkness. On the far side of the dining room there was a large fireplace, burning a
sizable fire. Two foxhounds lounged before it, their tongues lolling; one of them gave a bark as the strangers entered.

When Bálint Sternovszky entered, the floorboards creaked under his feet. He was a well-built man, with pale skin and luxuriant chestnut-colored hair brushing his shoulders; a thick but untrimmed beard covered much of his face. He wore ceremonial garb, with lavishly embroidered hose.

“God grant you a good day.”

“And you also,” they responded politely.

After introductions they settled down, Bálint Sternovszky taking the armchair. Though he sat very much at his ease in the chair, he still towered above those sitting on the benches below. The dean sang the praises of the maestro, who in his turn elaborated the nature of the performance that he had the honor of inviting his honor Sternovszky to participate in, should he be willing.

“What makes you so convinced of my skills as a singer?”

“It’s the talk of the county,” said the dean. “We thought you would very kindly give us a demonstration.”

Bálint Sternovszky gave a mellifluous laugh. “I might and I might not.”

“What can your honor sing and in what part?”

A watch-chain dangled from Bálint Sternovszky’s trouser pocket, which he proceeded to withdraw; at the end of it was a deerskin-covered timepiece in the shape of an egg, the top of which he flicked open and then said: “Night is drawing on. You gentlemen will be my guests for dinner. We shall resume this conversation thereafter,” and he clapped. Two servant girls entered and quickly laid the table for four. The dean did not forget his coachman, whom Sternovszky gave orders to be provided for in the lower kitchen.

Soon there appeared the lady of the house, Borbála, who at the sight of the visitors showed neither pleasure nor displeasure on her face, which reminded the maestro of a knotted breadroll. The dinner was superb. The two servant
girls piled everything high on the table in the Transylvanian manner. There were loaves made with hops, beef with horseradish, fowl au poivre, and pasta with lashings of butter. The red wine, from the vintage three years back, went very well with the meal and was much praised by all.

“Your honor,” began the dean, “how is it that you built your lodge so much out of the way and not in some secure town?”

“I don’t trust people. They are capable of the utmost evil. It is better to withdraw. If you are not in the public eye, you will not attract trouble.”

“I see what you mean,” said the dean, though his eyes showed otherwise.

“And where did you learn to sing?” asked the maestro.

“From my grandfather.”

On hearing this reply Mrs. Sternovszky rolled her eyes towards the rafters, as if her husband were claiming something nonsensical. The pewter plates had been removed by the servant girls and they brought coffee in the Turkish coffee pot.

“Where do you perform?” asked the dean.

“Rarely … sometimes on family occasions.”

“Your repertoire?”

“Seven hundred and fourteen songs and arias.” Bálint Sternovszky left the room, returning with a thick, much-thumbed tome which he opened towards its end and pointed: “This is the folio in which I have written all their titles. The ones with a cross I can also play on the virginal.”

“No small achievement. Your grandfather must have been a well-trained musician.”

Bálint Sternovszky nodded sagely. A tremor passed across Borbála’s face, which it was impossible not to notice. The two visitors caught each other’s eye.

Bálint Sternovszky elaborated: “My paternal grandfather, Péter Csillag, was a tanner who also played the pianoforte in
the town orchestra of Thüningen. He also wrote songs to the words of Otto von Niebelmayer, the orchestra’s first violin.”

The lady of the house guffawed, and planted a fist in her mouth.

The dean cleared his throat: “Might I be so bold as to ask why … Did you deem my query impertinent?”

“It is my answer she deems impertinent,” replied Bálint Sternovszky, “for my grandfather Péter Csillag departed this life in the year of our Lord 1702. My good lady is doubtful that I could have learned my musical skills from my grandfather if I was born 24 years after his death.”

The two visitors again exchanged glances. Sternovszky continued: “I see that you gentlemen also doubt my words. Yet I must tell you that my German speech, for example, which is quite fluent even though I have never studied the language, is also wholly inherited from my grandfather.”

Borbála tried to control her laughter, and stared intently at the floor. “That could as well have come from your father.”

“True. Only my dear father kept a lifelong silence about his knowledge of the German language. Furthermore, my younger brothers speak no German: how am I to explain that? And I also speak Turkish, of which my father knew not a word, whereas my grandfather was brought up with two Turkish playmates.
Per amore Dei
, my father was wholly ignorant of music.”

The maestro looked round carefully: “So … how was it possible to learn from someone who would …”

“Indeed, I do not understand that myself. From time to time I have the ability to go back into the past and at such times I feel quite clearly what my forefathers felt and know what my forefathers knew. Never have I had any musical training, yet the music that my grandfather Péter Csillag knew, I am able to play and sing myself. I could, if the opportunity presented itself, conduct an orchestra the way
he did. I can feel exactly, with eyes closed, the tune, the phrasing, and … Do not imagine that I have taken leave of my senses!” He stood up and almost ran to the corner of the stone steps and, whipping off the brocade covering the virginals, began to play. The melancholy chords echoed around the bleak stone walls, which amplified their volume.

The dean closed his eyes and the maestro’s feet began to tap in time to the beat. Bálint Sternovszky’s performance of the piece was flawless.

“What is the name of this piece?” the visitors asked.

“It was composed by a young organist who went to school with Péter Csillag in Luneburg. Bach is the name.”

“Bach? Johann Sebastian?” asked the dean.

“His Christian name I have not been vouchsafed.”

“He has distinguished himself considerably. I had news only the other day that he was on his deathbed. I have a good friend who is a choirmaster in Leipzig; he mentioned it in a letter.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Does your honor read music?”

“To some extent. What I sing or play on the virginal I can certainly follow in written form. But I have little practice, rarely do I have music to read.”

“So,” said the maestro, going over to the instrument, “your honor did not learn to play this, you know it only through the memory of your grandfather?”

“Something of that sort.”

“It’s quite unbelievable!”

“Yes. Yet that is how it is.”

“And your honor also learned the arias in the same …?”

Sternovszky nodded.

“Terrifying,” said the maestro.

“Were others able to avail themselves of this … technique, our craft would become quite pointless,” mused the dean.

Sternovszky’s face broke into a smile. He suddenly launched into a song. His voice was mellow and powerful, though able to reach a higher register than could most men. The words of the Italian lyrics seemed unclear in places and some he certainly elided, but neither the dean nor the maestro noticed, so powerfully did they fall under the music’s spell. As he came to the end they both burst into spontaneous applause.

“Whence comes this aria?” asked the maestro.

“Also from my grandfather Péter Csillag.”

“Yes, but who is the composer? Monteverdi?”

“I do not know. My dear grandfather was unsure.”

“Let us have a look at the music.”

“I have told you: there is no music.”

“But then where are the words from?”

“Have you not been listening? I just remember what my grandfather knew; that is how it is with me!” he said, impatiently slamming down the lid of the virginals.

The two musicians voiced no further doubts. The maestro asked if his honor would be willing to perform at the ball to be held in Count Forgách’s castle, and what he would like to perform to the accompaniment of the orchestra. Bálint Sternovszky accepted the invitation. Though showing no interest in the fee, he remarked that he had never in his life performed with an orchestra. The maestro deemed nonetheless that two days’ rehearsal would suffice.

They thought Sternovszky would try to prevail upon them to stay the night, but as he made no remark to this effect, they packed their things. As they were saying their farewells, the dean asked Sternovszky: “With such a voice you could have gone to the top of the profession. Why have you not tried?”

“I am not even sure that it is right for me to sing before an audience, especially for money … My kinsmen will
curse me left, right, and center. My father, God rest his soul, might have disowned me.”

“Then it is fortunate indeed that he …” The maestro fortunately bit his tongue before reaching the end of his wayward train of thought.

“Our grateful thanks for your hospitality,” said the dean. “God bless you.”

As darkness fell Bálint Sternovszky watched through the window slits while the two men set off uncertainly along the forest track. They are afraid, he thought. Even in daylight this part of the world is none too friendly, never mind at night. Wolves howl by the reed beds; but as long as there is such a rich supply of pheasant, quail, and hare, they will not hunger for man flesh. Even the hen coops in the servants’ houses behind the turret were in no danger.

When Bálint Sternovszky had first come to these parts not every trace of the old village had been carried away by winds and thieves. The ruins of the houses had sometimes been covered by mounds of blackish dust. The area was largely in thrall to the young trees that had sprung up, forming a new forest. Where once the church had stood there were now reed beds, as if it were the shore of a lake. High above the rock face the peak loomed lonely, the color of rust, and rivulets of rainwater by the hundred bubbled down through the rocks, sweeping everything into the valley. The tiny traces of the life lived here by the people of old had crumbled away; there was, in any case, no one here to pick them up as souvenirs.

In the clearing alongside the rocky cliffs where he wanted to build his home, the brushwood and the undergrowth had first to be cleared away. Somewhere in the middle, mouth downwards, embedded in the soil, lay a copper mortar with a hole in it. Bálint Sternovszky had it cleaned and polished, and had treasured it ever since.

It took two years to build the turret, to his own design, in that clearing. “This is where it has to be!”

No one was clear why he wanted it built in just this spot or why he wanted this kind of structure as his home. The cost of the works regularly exceeded the budget. Bálint Sternovszky was unconcerned. “What has to be done, must be done.”

The family despaired when it learned that he had bought himself property many hours’ ride away from Felvincz, and that it consisted of two wholly ruined villages complete with the woods and meadows they shared. Nor could they find any explanation for where he had found the money for this purchase and for the building works. Income from the glassworks had declined steeply since Kornél Sternovszky had given back his soul to his Creator. His son Bálint was less successful as a businessman and devoted to it little of his time or energy. He was never very happy to be working; he preferred to sleep or to lie around dreaming of castles in Spain or Transylvania. However, he would have neglected the glassworks even if he had been of a more industrious nature. He hated the glassworks. In the absence of close supervision the master glassmakers who followed one another in rapid succession had little of his interest at heart and rather more of their own. The matriarch Janka summoned the family council with increasing frequency, but to no avail: neither carrot nor stick had any effect on Bálint Sternovszky.