Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

Once, as a substantial shipment was setting off for Lemberg, Aaron Stern shook his head incredulously: “How in the name of all that’s holy can this be? They hounded our people out of there and now they’ll pay a good price for our wine? It’s a crazy world we’re living in!”

István Stern was inordinately proud of the fact that the family wine business had prospered since he made himself useful in it. He wrote only one letter to his mother, most of it on this topic.

I have not, with the greatest respect, fulfilled my dear mother’s words of ill-omen, that I shall be a masterless man and will beg on bended knee to be taken back at home. With the work of my own two hands I have provided for my family. I hope that your anger will in time lessen and that you will kindly visit us. If my good fortune should hold, I expect that by then there will be three of us at least to welcome you.

After Lemberg it was the turn of palates in Tarnopol, Odessa, and Vitebsk to make the acquaintance of the Stern brand. In earlier times it had been difficult to carry wine of quality such distances, or only in barrels. István Stern had special crates made with thin wooden laths separating the twenty-four bottles and holding them secure. The crate lids had a huge S, for Stern, burned into them with an iron like those used for branding animals. To István Stern this was a glittering snake that haunted his dreams.

At the end of their first year of marriage Éva found herself with child. The birth was difficult and protracted, with the midwife as concerned for the life of the mother as for that of the child.

István Stern recorded the birth of his offspring in The Book of Fathers as elsewhere they might in the family Bible.

Our Richard was born on the seventh day of July in the year 1775, one month earlier than expected. He was very small at birth but proved to be a good child; even as an infant he cried only when racked by pain. His small body was well-proportioned and flawless, like a statue. His only weakness, perhaps, is his eyes, which were prescribed eyeglasses by Dr. Rákosfalvy as early as primary school…

Our Robert was born on the last day of the year 1777, much more easily than we had feared. My Éva is in bursting good health…

Our little Rudolf was born on the twenty-third day of March in the year 1779. Like Robert he perhaps takes more after me, at least with regard to build. My wife Éva had a particularly painful time with him. After the birth she recovered the slender figure that she had when I came to know her at the Debreczen ball. Those who do not know often take her for our sons’ older sister. I wish everyone the enormous joy that it has been my good fortune to share. Truly, my cup runneth not over only because I have not secured my mother’s forgiveness, and would dearly like to see her and my younger brother. I think of them often. I wonder if they ever miss me.

Twice István Stern rode over to the five-pointed turret, fondly imagining that he might simply knock on the door, but he shrank back each time, fearing Borbála would order him to leave. Around the turret lily-of-the-valley had burgeoned wildly. This caused him a special kind of pain.

On Friday afternoons the extended family would gather in Grandfather Aaron’s house, spending the evening and the following day together and passing Shabbos free of work, as prescribed. The three girls-all married by now-took turns to bring dinner in pans, jugs, and dishes whose number increased with the size of the tribe. The food was laid on the table and the candles were lit early in the afternoon, so that when they returned from the synagogue of Ben Loew, there would be nothing left for them to do. After dinner the grandchildren would beg Uncle Aaron to tell them about the old days. These tales had only one listener more attentive than the children, and that was István Stern. He had preserved in his memory many fragments of the past of the Stern (Smorakh) family, whose meaning fell into place only very gradually. Grandfather Aaron reveled in the telling of the tales, with frequent digressions, and returning again and again to certain details. He etched in vivid colors the Smorakh home in Lemberg, which had burned to the ground when hotheaded scoundrels threw flaming torches onto the half-tiled roof. This was a scene István Stern had seen many times, but only later was he to discover why.

The children could not understand who those scoundrels were and why their heads were hot.

“It was a pogrom,” said Aaron Stern.

“What’s a pogrom?”

“It’s when Jews are attacked for no rational reason. People can be very wicked.”

“What does rational mean?”

There was no answer to this. The room fell silent, only the crackling of the wood in the grate.

Éva grasped the shoulders of her older sons (the smallest had fallen asleep in her lap): “Don’t you worry, there will never be a pogrom here.”

After the children had gone to bed Grandfather Aaron told his sons-in-law how the family’s library of books, collected over four generations, went up in flames in Lemberg’s Haymarket. “Two of the curs threw the books out of the window, the pages sizzling as they flew; another two made a bonfire and shoveled the knowledge of the world onto it: literature, holy scripture, everything. The paper quickly caught fire; the bindings burned more slowly, giving off thick smoke, and the choking smell penetrated our clothes; we could smell it for days. Elise’s mother herded everyone behind the house and took them over to the Market Place where a cart was waiting for us… Yes, that’s how it was. I have never since felt like buying books, as my first thought is: what if the fire gets it… stupid notion.”

Indeed, Aaron Stern’s house contained very little reading matter; his library consisted of yearbooks and almanacs. The Torah rolls that had been Rabbi Ben Loew’s gift, he kept in a locked chest.

Though regularly invited, the Rabbi was not a frequent visitor to the Sterns’ house. But he was a weekly institution at the István Stern household. The latter had never been called the Stern house: after the avenue of trees before it the house was always called the Chestnuts. The Rabbi’s preference for István Stern was all the more curious because, in the words of Grandfather Stern, “He isn’t really a Jew, we just sort of took him in.”

In fact Aaron Stern was beginning to take offense at the Rabbi, who had, when all was said and done, him, Aaron, to thank for settling there, but preferred to give his attention to a person who had also him, Aaron, to thank for settling in Hegyhát. István Stern was aware of the tension and even mentioned it to the Rabbi, who replied: “I am not in the debt of Aaron Stern, nor of any other local, just as they do not owe me anything either. We all of us owe thanks only to Him whom we cannot mention by name.”

Conversation flowed easily in the Chestnuts, at the ash table with wine bottles and peeled fruit, in the reed armchairs lined with soft lambskins. Rabbi Ben Loew told parables from the Talmud that István Stern, who still considered himself a tyro in matters of the history and traditions of his chosen people, was happy to make notes of in his head. In the company of the Rabbi he became unusually loquacious and found himself gabbling, as he had in his childhood. Often he would disrespectfully interrupt the Rabbi, of which he was much ashamed.

Not infrequently he would complain how hard it was to assimilate into their community. In the synagogue he was never sure whether he had to bow or stand and some of the Hebrew texts had never been explained to him, and he mouthed them without knowing what they meant. The long and short of it was that he still felt himself a stranger among the Jews.

“Everyone is a stranger in this world,” said the Rabbi. “Above all the Jews. The pharaohs drove them from their ancient homeland, they dispersed to all points of the compass. They are to this day not allowed to buy land in many places. If, after all that, you have asked to join them, why should they not accept you?”