George Konrad - A Guest in my Own Country

In a pub we find a tableau vivant and cimbalom music, outside — trucks with actors jumping and sneering and screeching and stomping something fierce, little children searching for their mothers, balls rolling off, drivers yawning, beer, wine, and pálinka flowing. A robust fellow stops the cars asking people to taste his beer, which he has brought in a fire truck.

My sons liked the Summer Santa best of all and then the four-legged, two-headed wonder. Zsuzsi liked both of them best.

It will soon be 2000. I am sorry to trade in all those nines — svelte, swollen heads — for the potbellied zeroes. With its large, backward-looking head, the nine seems so intelligent, while the three zeroes signify self-satisfied achievement.

The millennium is over. It’s time to pay the bill. Here comes the waiter.

“I had a twentieth century,” I tell him. He pauses. I don’t see why. I’ve made it clear I intend to pay.

“What about the second millennium?” he asks.

“Must I pay for that as well?”

“Who else?”

“Fine. Add it to the bill.”

But the waiter shakes his head sadly. “What about the first millennium?”

I am seized with fear. “How far back do you mean to go? You can’t hold me responsible for everything, can you?”

“Who else?” he says, shaking his head again sadly.

This time I’m angry. “I want to see the owner, the Lord Himself!”

And what does God do? He appears on the balcony. In person. He points a finger at me. I get up from the table, look Him in the eye, and point my finger at Him. We stand there for quite some time. Host and guest, father and son.

“I shall call for your mother,” He finally says.

“And I for your daughter,” I finally say.

The women come. The children have not yet had dinner. We are told to wash our hands, take our seats, and stop our bickering. “Stubborn old asses. Still pointing fingers.” We sit, nonplussed, the Old Man and I, waiting to be served.

After dinner the Old Man will not give up. “That bill of yours still wants paying.” We are about settle on a price. I hold out my hand. The Old Man’s hand rises. I wait for it to reach mine. Where does it stop? I do not know.

Where is home? Where I stand, inside a solar system. Where I sit, holding my pen tight. Here in the bed where I awake, where I set off for the bathroom, where I step out of the door and greet whomever I happen to meet.

Home is those few square kilometers where my paths come together. Home is the Jewish cemetery at Berettyóújfalu, unused for fifty years, my grandmother’s tall gravestone and my grandfather’s, just as tall, in black granite. (My great-grandfather’s, in white marble, is less than half their height.) Home is in the classroom I wanted so desperately to escape as I stared at the bakery sign across the way. (My schoolmates were murdered and the school torn down.)

Where is home? Where they don’t strike me dead. Where I know my children are safe. Where the individual and the word are held in high regard. Where being who I am and thinking what I think are granted the benefit of respect. Where there is a quiet kitchen nook for postprandial conversations over wine. Where the children play hide-and-seek and build bunkers. Where Jutka sits reading, feet up, in an armchair. Where I can stop for a glass of wine here and there on my way up the hill and, after the friendly invitations, prance my way down again.

Home is in the middle of the Elizabeth Bridge, where, coming home from my travels, I murmur, “How beautiful!” It is a house overgrown with woodbine, where I search for my key, climb panting to the third floor, a bag on each shoulder, and hear sounds within. Lively sounds. I have arrived.