Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

Otto Stern took out two hundred florins and then, after some hesitation, another hundred. That evening he counted it all out into Miksa Stern’s hands and asked for a receipt. “To be continued,” he said. He had worked out that in three years he would be able to honor his undertaking. With luck it might be sooner. From time to time he would disappear for a day to no one knew where-Nanna Eszter and Yanna hoped that he was secretly wooing some marriageable girl, like that one in Rakamaz.

After Hanukah, Mihály bade farewell to the family and moved to Debreczen where the Collegium-thanks to the intervention of Endre Dembinszki-had given him a place. Richard Stern slapped his back proudly: “Don’t you dare bring shame on me… many people there know me.” Leaning closer to his ear, he whispered: “There’s no need to advertise what family you come from… understand?” As the boy looked blank and blinked at him he added, even more quietly: “We are Jews, but that is our business, right?”

Otto Stern encouraged little Józsi and János to follow Mihály’s example while there was still time, but a family council resolved that the two boys should not yet leave the family home. Ferenc and Ignác, on the other hand, were hoping to travel to Vienna and with someone’s influence ask for admission to the cadet school. Richard Stern broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of his sons as army officers of the emperor whose secret service had deprived him of so many years of his life. But he voiced his opposition only once, and even then it sounded more with melancholy than command. Ferenc and Ignác responded that times had changed.

Otto Stern shrugged his shoulders: “If the grapes are ripe, they have to be picked.” Nowadays he expressed himself solely in viticultural metaphors. When his father asked him to explain this gnomic utterance, he elucidated: “Let them play at soldiers if that is what they want.”

The spring brought much rain and brown, muddy liquid swirled down the hillsides, swelling the rivulets into streams, the streams into rivers. The vintners watched with sinking hearts as the water poured down through the lower-lying vineyards. They dug trenches to divert the water, built sandbanks, and emptied the tool sheds. While Richard Stern’s house was safe on a hilltop, the old Stern house was almost encircled by the swollen stream and the rising waters had burst into the cellars and were lapping the supporting walls outside. Those were made of the local red stone, but the rear walls, of sun-dried brick, virtually fell apart in the water. Carpenters were summoned to prop up the ends of the timbers with supporting beams. Nonetheless the situation was dangerous; if the blessed waters from above did not cease, more serious problems were in the cards.

The whole of Hegyhát, from youngest to oldest, was preoccupied with the floodwaters when there arrived, incognito, Graf Franz Neusiedler, a member of the Governing Council, and took lodgings in the Nagyfalu hostelry. He made the county council building his first port of call. He had his calling card sent in to Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., the alispán, who received him without further ado. Graf Franz Neusiedler announced, in a singsong German that made little effort to disguise his Tyrolean origins, that in his capacity as a royal commissioner he had been charged with the confidential task of investigating a report made to the police by one Lipót Vinkó, an inhabitant of Tokay. According to Lipót Vinkó there had been established here some kind of secret society, with subversive aims, whose members have declared themselves a citizen’s militia and carry out training with arms and in uniform. The ringleaders are Miksa Stern, unemployed jurist, and Nándor Wimpassing, apothecary. In every matter relating to this case the alispán will be kindly subject to the commissioner’s instructions.

Ádám Geleji Katona, Jr., was open-mouthed. To the best of his knowledge no such organization existed in the area. The office workers he summoned assured the gentlemen that no apothecary by the name of Wimpassing was to be found either in Tokay or in Hegyhát; the locals had to send for their medicaments to Szerencs, where the apothecary was one Gyoözoö Ferenczy, an elderly widower of a sedentary disposition who lived on his own and could hardly be suspected of such activity. Miksa Stern had indeed founded a Magyar Society for the advancement of Hungarian culture, but had obtained permission in writing to do so. The document was duly presented to the commissioner. Graf Franz Neusiedler gave a knowing smile: “Because you are not aware of something, it does not mean that it does not exist. Have Miksa Stern sent for at once.”

The bailiff had not located Miksa Stern by nightfall, so the interrogation was postponed until the following day.

That night Miksa Stern was to be found in Szerencs, in the Tulip House. This modest building was concealed behind a high stone fence and centuries-old oak trees; it was known only to those who had heard about it by word of mouth. It owed its name to the four-petal tulips crowning its wrought-iron gate. The house had only a single story, its thick walls rising to arches, its roof tiled, and its windows and doors so ungenerously proportioned that candles and lamps needed to be lit even during daylight hours. It consisted of six square rooms, a kitchen, a bathing room, and a privy. The rooms were identical and could be made into one enormous space by opening the interconnecting doors, at the cost, of course, of privacy. This arrangement was suitable for the Tulip House’s current use: a card-playing saloon in which the gentlemen played for quite hair-raising sums.

Otto Stern was counted among the regular visitors, Miksa Stern came less often, preferring to be the kibitzer, if they let him. Otto Stern played with clenched teeth and if he did not leave with his money trebled he would be most dissatisfied. Miksa Stern played for smaller stakes, which he nonetheless managed to lose in the end. He never asked for loans or credit; at such needful times he would rise from the card table, offended, and watch how the others battled on without him.

Otto Stern was having little luck that day. He was surrounded by four tobacco merchants at the table, people used to playing together and capable of understanding each other from the droop of an eyelid. When the amount that he had allotted himself for gambling had migrated over to his partners, Otto Stern struggled to his feet, departing with a click of his heels and the accompanying of his spurs. Miksa Stern followed him like a puli dog. “Where now?” he asked when the iron gate had slammed behind them.

“What is that to do with you? Mind your own business.”

“Be not angry with me, I was on your side. I find it touching, your effort on the Society’s behalf.”

“Not the Society’s; my own. I keep my word.”

They walked on towards the center of town, where they had tethered their mounts. No one ever tied up a horse at the Tulip House, lest the act reveal that their owners were within. Otto Stern gave a round stone such a kick that it flew some two hundred ells, hitting a post with a sharp crack.

It was well past midnight when the two riders reached the first bend in the Hegyhát stream. The low-lying field was waterlogged, the water up to the tired horses’ knees, their hoofs slipping dangerously. Otto Stern turned back. His cousin thought he was looking for a ford, but Otto Stern had decided to head for the Nagyfalu hostelry. Climbing down from his horse, he gave the wooden door a resounding knock. No answer. He then battered on the door with both fists so hard that at every blow the wood visibly bent inwards. An old woman wearing a black kerchief looked out of the spyhole; she must have tumbled out of bed-a gray feather fluttered on her hair. “Stop that row!”