Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

A half-naked man is painted green by a painter or artist in some bathhouse; the man is quite unable to wash or scrub off the paint. The painter must be one of the ancestors, he thought, that his father had told of before.

A red-bearded old man in foreign parts, packhorses and carts piled high. A large house Bálint had never known, where he could clearly see the furniture, the mysterious drawers and tools, out in the yard. The patriarchal figure must be Great-Grandpa Czuczor, who had been done to death by either the Kurucz or the Labancz. Bálint’s father had never mentioned his first name but always called him “Grandpa Czuczor.” He could even make out the inscription on the cover of the great folio book lying on the worktop: Bálint Czuczor his notes, made by his own hand . Now he knew he had been named for his great-grandfather.

He knew, too, that Great-Grandpa Czuczor had had to flee from Bavaria to Kos with his daughter and grandson, so it followed that this was how their house had looked. He feasted his eyes on the scenes as the lid lifted on the past.

He saw his great-grandfather busy at the bottom of the garden, behind the rose bushes, assisted by a lad no bigger than he was now, though with hair of a startling color, as yellow as the yolk of an egg. They dug long and hard and eventually lowered into the hole a black iron casket, which they then proceeded to cover up carefully.

“Wilhelm, du darfst das nie erzählen, verstehst du mich?” he warned, shaking his spade at the lad.

“ Jawohl!”

The sad end of his grandfather, too, came to life before him, a story he knew well from his father. His broad-chested dapple-gray throws Péter Csillag while he is out hunting, and as he falls he smashes his head into a tree trunk, never to recover consciousness.

“Are you unwell? Speak to me!” Kata was kneeling on the bed, the blanket drawn about her like a shawl.

Bálint gave a heavy sigh and was about to launch into his carefully prepared speech, a paean of praise for the girl’s beauty that would have culminated in a formal request for her hand. But before he could say a word fists battered on the door.

“Kata, open up! Open up at once, I say!” boomed the voice of Imre Farkas II.

“If you hold your life dear, run for it!” shouted the girl, jumping out of bed and half-pushing, half-tugging the lad in the direction of the window. He seemed not unwilling to comply, but could not bear to take his eyes off Kata’s face and the snow-white skin of her arms and legs left uncovered by her night dress. This was no time to worry about modesty, it crossed Kata’s mind. “Coming, father dear!”

By the time Bálint reached the ladder outside the window, the door had yielded to the shoulders of Imre Farkas, who was holding a three-pronged candlestick in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. He took everything in at once. He leapt to the window and in the light of the candles saw Bálint Sternovszky scuttling down the ladder. “Stop!” he cried, and when there was no response, he flung the heavy candlestick after him. As they fell the candles flew in three different directions and went out. Down below a shadow flew by, then came the sound of footfalls dying away.

Imre Farkas wasted no time in questioning his daughter, but to little avail: whatever Kata said he would not believe. He even slapped her across the face, just to be on the safe side. “You will get a hundred times that if I ever see him hanging around you again!”

Imre Farkas stormed round to his master’s first thing and demanded to be seen. Secretary Haller did not let him in. “Later, master glassmaker, he is just breaking his fast.”

“So what?” said Imre Farkas, pushing the wizened old man aside and bursting in.

Kornél Sternovszky was just stirring his tea, which he had reinforced with a tot of rum. “What is your business here?”

Haller was hovering in the background: “I did say to him, master…”

“I found your son Bálint in my daughter’s bedroom last night.”

“How do you mean?”

“I demand an explanation.”

“Haller, you may go.” Kornél Sternovszky placed the palms of both his hands on the table. He waited until the secretary had closed the door after him. “I find it hard to believe that my son would leave my house in the dead of night.”

“Is your grace suggesting that I am a liar?”

“That is not what I said. What I said was that my son Bálint is not in the habit of leaving my house without permission.”

“Yet that is what he did. Ask him.”

“I shall. Presently he is still abed, as indeed I believe he has been all night.”

“I tell you: he has not!”

“What is this tone that you take with me? Remember whom you are addressing!”

“It were not easy to forget.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Suppose what you will, it does not change the facts. But I will not allow the smallest blot on my daughter’s reputation!”

“How much longer do you expect me to tolerate your impertinence?”

“Let us not stray from the topic. If ever again I see your son hanging around my daughter, I swear he will bring home his head on a plate!”

“A threat? Are you threatening me? What an outrage!” Kornél Sternovszky rose from the breakfast table, knocking over as he did so a cup filled with tea, which rapidly soaked into the white damask tablecloth. “You are dismissed herewith! Leave at once!”

Imre Farkas II broke out in a cackling laugh of such vehemence that Kornél Sternovszky thought he had taken leave of his senses. He edged back, trying to reach the bell to summon his servant or Haller. Farkas was quicker off the mark and pushed the bell out of his reach as he bellowed: “You can’t get rid of me, I built the glassworks from the ground up, it will never function without me!”

“It will function if I will it to! You are not the only master glassmaker in the world. You will be amazed, Farkas, how quickly your name will be forgotten! Get out of here!” And Kornél Sternovszky took a step towards him.

The master glassmaker snorted like a wild boar: “Master thinks he can do with me what he will? Thinks his offspring can dishonor my daughter by way of amusement? That you can just throw me out, like some used washrag? That I will put up with anything and everything?”

“I have nothing more to say! Out!”

Kornél Sternovszky gave his master glassmaker a push in the chest. Imre Farkas II was in good shape and his chest barely registered the gesture. He began to shout out at the top of his voice unconnected words like “compensation,” “contract,” “complaint,” “courts,” and the like, until Kornél Sternovszky grabbed hold of the teapot and threw its hot contents in his face. For a fraction of a second the master glassmaker could not see. Then he drew his sword, as did Kornél Sternovszky his own, but the glassmaker was quicker on the draw and at the first clash of the blades wrenched Kornél Sternovszky’s weapon from his grip and with the same movement plunged his blade deep into his chest. For this Farkas was some months later duly hanged in the main square of Felvincz. By then Kornél Sternovszky lay in a copper-plated coffin six feet deep in the soil of his homeland. Kata’s mother came to take her away and Bálint never saw or heard from her again.

Three years after his father’s funeral Bálint Sternovszky took over from his mother the running of the glassworks. He also inherited Kornél Sternovszky’s papers and folio. His brothers were jealous, coveting especially the glassworks, for which they would both have given their eyeteeth. Yet Kornél Sternovszky himself truly hated the glassworks, as well as all master glassmakers, every one of whom brought Kata to mind. He married as soon as he could. The daughter of the miller of Felvincz brought less in the way of a dowry than a gentleman of his station was entitled to expect, but when his mother raised this topic, Bálint silenced her with the words: “She will make a good wife. That is what matters.”