Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

The decline of the glassworks began as the young couple were enjoying their honeymoon. One night the drying kiln burned to the ground. Bálint dismissed the news with unconcern: “It could have been worse. At least we shan’t have to dry the glass for a while.”

Haller, who had retained his post, clapped his hands to his head: “But sir, that’s impossible. It will crack!”

“Less fussing, Haller! Some of the glass will, some won’t.”

No one could understand how Bálint Sternovszky could remain so indifferent to the rapid decline of the glassworks. He would spend long mornings in the forests he had inherited alongside the glassworks. He told his wife he was looking for mushrooms.

“How is it, husband mine, that you are always looking for mushrooms, yet never find any?”

“Find them I certainly do! Only they are poisonous, like your good self.”

In fact, mushrooming was not how he spent his days. The moment he found himself in the thick of the forest, he would sit down and eat his rations. Then he would burst into song. He sang all day long, as the locals could testify. When he was in full flow he could be heard many miles away.

Betimes he would wander so far that he would not return home for the night. He preferred to sleep under the open sky rather than seek the hospitality of others. He liked to lie in the dark on the grass or on the sand and examine the stars, as he ground his memories ever finer in the windmills of his mind. It was during such reveries that it dawned on him that he had to make the trip to Kos to find the house of Great-Grandpa Czuczor, or rather the garden with the rose bushes where he could dig for the iron casket and get hold of the treasure he had buried. He was certain there was a reason that God had blessed him with the rare gift of seeing into the past. It was compensation for all he had endured.

So when one afternoon he came upon the forest that had grown over the old village, he recognized it at once. Ankle-deep in black dust, he knew that the rains and the snows had still not washed the soil clean of the black ash that was all that remained of the houses burned to the ground all those years ago. He looked first for traces of Great-Grandpa Czuczor’s house. In a landscape almost entirely reclaimed by nature he found it hard to make out the building that had so vividly appeared to him. The road up the mountain was overgrown with scrub; the only sure sign of the route was the jagged cliffs. Bálint Sternovszky was almost beside himself with excitement as he hacked his way through the prickly bushes and fought off the trailers twining round his legs, careless of the bloody scratches from the spines and spikes of the vegetation. He did not mind. He knew that no one can blunder into the past without paying the price.

Another clue presented itself in the form of a fragment of wall no more than waist high, a remainder of the church. It had been overgrown by a bed of reeds that would have made the average visitor think that there was a lake or river behind it, but there was no trace of either. Bálint followed the twists and turns of a line where the vegetation was somewhat less lush, thinking that perhaps it might once have been the road. As he slowly reached the top of the mountain, night was falling and he sat down by a tree stump and cut himself some bread and salami from his shoulder bag. He fell asleep as he sat, and dreamed of his ancestors. Great-Grandpa Czuczor was throwing rocks into the stream, to dam the water in order to have a bath. He called out to Bálint, who was reluctant to join him, thinking the water too cold, but when he eventually did so, it turned out to be lukewarm and silky. Great-Grandpa Czuczor was stroking his brow, his wet fingers felt rough.

He woke to find a dog licking his face.

“Get out of here!” he said, chasing it away. The animal went a few steps, then stopped and turned back. In its eyes there burned a fire, a light of longing. He’s hungry, thought Bálint, and threw it a piece of salami. The dog gave a snort and wolfed it down greedily. Bálint threw it some more pieces and got to his feet. He was in a clearing covered with boulders and rocks and overgrown with scrub and trees that had grown up wild, some the height of a man. He heard years later that this clearing was called Bull Meadow. Long, long ago the bull belonging to Gáspár Dobruk, the local farrier, had got free and it was here that they caught up with the unruly creature, eventually.

“Here,” said Bálint out loud. “Here and nowhere else!”

He wondered if it would not be a good idea to seek out the scene of all the memories that had come to him in Kata’s room. But the only place with a name had been Kos. If He who had revealed to him all this wanted to direct him to another place, surely He would provide the means.

That same afternoon he happened upon the outlines of his great-grandfather’s garden. The rose bushes had long been strangled by weeds. He hacked off a willow withy and marked out in the soil the area where he suspected the iron casket lay. Who was the trusty servant he could return with to dig up the treasure? Who could be warned-as did Great-Grandpa Czuczor-with the words:

“Du darfst das nie erzählen, verstehst du mich?”

“ Jawohl!”

There was no one. It was an act of criminal folly to let that boy into the secret. Were they to survive the catastrophe, the German lad would surely loot the treasure. You must never trust anyone but yourself.

Thanks to Grandpa Czuczor’s valuables, he would never be short of money again. This was a secret he shared with no one, any more than he shared the buried treasure. At times he was troubled by his conscience. Perhaps his brothers should have had some of it. In his mind’s eye he often heaped up into three piles what he had found, or rather what was left of it. But he kept putting off the time he would reward his brothers.

In any case, they would not believe where and how I had come by the money. They think little of me as it is. Let them think they have the better of me.

On Saturday afternoon the wind picked up again and began to whip the ribbons on the maypole. The slim trunk of the tall maple began to sway perilously, sometimes seemingly at breaking point. The broad courtyard of the castle rapidly filled up with carts and sprung carriages, indifferent to the careful raking of the gardeners. The visitors alighted and paused when they saw the giddy swaying of the maypole, its colorful ribbons swishing sharply in the wind. Four of the ground staff also rode in, to keep order. Two posted themselves at the double oaken gates of the building, while two secured the entrance to the stairwell.

Castle Forgách had been decorated in readiness for the ball. The famed avenue of walnut trees was hung with lanterns whose candles, to say nothing of the vast array of lights on the stone balustrades of the first-floor terrace, could hardly be lit if the wind did not abate; indeed, the lanterns themselves were in some danger. The ornately carved sides of the bridge across the artificial lake had been garlanded with flowers.

Manager Bodó was regulating the arrival of the carriages, having planned well in advance how they might all fit into the courtyard without ruining the lawns or the flowerbeds. In his agitation he was crunching away furiously at the walnuts he had stuffed in his waistcoat pocket. He needed this ball as an oxcart needs a ditch.

The maestro had had the first-floor terrace in mind for the evening concert, but had to report to the Count that in such a wind neither musicians nor audience would feel comfortable; so they moved to the grand hall of the castle-the Count called it the sala grande-in plenty of time. The servants were already offering drinks in the foyer.

Bálint Sternovszky had been quartered in the end room on the second floor of the U-shaped building, from the window of which he was able to follow with interest the folk streaming in. He had brought his binoculars with him. These, too, he had found in his great-grandfather’s iron casket, and although he had never shown them abroad, he was of the opinion that they were made of gold. He could see his wife and two sons alighting from a black carriage. Little János was pushing his way forward as he clung to his mother’s frilly skirts. István, his firstborn, strode along with all the soldierly pride of a four-year-old, his miniature mantle ornate with frogging, his right hand resting on a tiny sword.