Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

As Ági grew increasingly unreliable, so Vera became more willing to be a companion. Vilmos Csillag would never dare think of this tight-skirted, slickly made-up woman as one of the “girls” at the school.

“What have you done to your hair, Willie?”

“I’ve combed it. And… I wet it!”

“You’re such a sweetie!” Vera ruffled his hair. “You arouse the animal in me!”

“What sort of animal?”

“A shark!” and she clacked her teeth as if to swallow him up.

Next time she came to the door she said: “No Ági again, sorry.”

“Where is she?”

“Dunno. School play, I guess.”

“Ah.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll tell you the truth. She’s hanging out with Mishi. You get me?”

“What do you mean hanging out?”

“Going out with.”

“Going out?”

“Yeah. With.”

“But… I thought she was going out with me!”

“Typical. Can’t spare the time to let you know that she isn’t any longer.”

“I see.” He had to sit down on the laundry basket in the hall. He tried to summon all his strength not to burst into tears, but one tear got away.

“Oh, my dear Willie…” Vera embraced him, her thumb wiping the tear from his eye. “Come on!” and led him into her room. There she whispered: “Party time!”

“Pardon?” The expression was new to him.

“My parents are away, in Parádsasvárad. Get it?”

When she began to take her clothes off, Vilmos Csillag was embarrassed and at first pretended not to see.

“You too!” Vera gave him a hand. Elsewhere, too.

Vilmos Csillag had imagined the scene a thousand, a million times, but always thought it would last a bit longer.

The girl gave a wry little smile as she rolled off and lay beside him. “More practice needed.” She examined the refractory member, now shrunken and sleeping the sleep of a two-year-old. “Hey, aren’t you…?”

Vilmos Csillag, after a long pause: “Aren’t I what?”

“Circumcised.”

“Why should I be?”

“Because that’s the custom with your lot.”

“What do you mean, our lot?”

“Well, with Jews, OK?”

“I’m not Jewish!”

“I thought you were.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“Ági said. And you look it.”

“Come, come…” and he bit his lip as his father’s turn of phrase slipped out.

Vera explained that on the basis of his looks, only someone who had never seen a Jew would not think him one. Soft lines, dark, wavy hair…

“My lines are soft?”

“Yeah.”

“Pity.”

“No worries, eh! We’re Jews as well, it’s no big deal!” She waited with a mischievous smile for the boy to laugh, but in vain.

“What makes Ági think I’m Jewish?”

“Oh come on, it’s not cool. Perhaps you aren’t after all… Those eyes, sea-green, they’re suspect.”

“You suspect that I am or that I’m not?”

“Yeah, that you’re not.”

Vilmos Csillag could hardly wait for his father to come home that evening. Papa just then was spending more time in the hospital than at home, as the heart trouble that had been bothering him since the war had taken a turn for the worse. He rarely spoke to members of his family, so Vilmos Csillag, too, had lost the habit of sharing his thoughts with him.

The moment his father came through the door he gave a grunt and flung himself on the couch. Vilmos Csillag sighed. “Could I have a word?”

His father was sweating profusely and kept wiping his brow. “Sit down. What’s up?”

“Just between the two of us.”

“It is just the two of us, son. Your mother is in the kitchen.”

“But she might come in any moment.”

“Come, come.” There appeared on his father’s face a look that was partly abstracted and partly blank: the look with which he shut out the outside world.

Vilmos Csillag knew he had only a small chance, but cut to the chase. “How come I know nothing of your past or how things were with your parents?”

“No. Not that.”

“Why?”

“It was a long time ago. It’s of no interest.”

“But it is of interest.”

“End of story.”

Vilmos Csillag flew into a rage. “And what about… is it true that you are Jewish?”

His father jumped up and hit him across the face with the back of his hand. Vilmos Csillag staggered to the bookshelf, for an instant unsure where he was. His lower lip started bleeding and the blood trailed onto his shirt collar. He heard the door squeak open and his mother scream: “Jesus!”

“Leave Jesus out of it,” said his father, offering him a handkerchief.

Csillag Vilmos had never been beaten by his father-not that he ever gave much cause. At school he always managed to get marks that, if not the highest, were always good enough to put him into the bracket of “good” students. But for his poor memory, he would be academically quite outstanding. Alas, often a day or two later he could not remember something he had learned word for word. On the rare occasions that his mother gave him household chores, he washed up obediently, dried the dishes, and went to the corner shop. He could recall only one big slap across the face and that had not been from his father. At the age of six he had got it into his head that he wanted a younger brother or sister and began to pester his parents about it relentlessly. His mother quickly disposed of him: “Ask your father.”

Father had said: “Don’t stick your nose into grown-ups’ business.”

But he was not to be shaken off like this and showered his parents with questions: why, when, how, and why not. On one occasion during a three-hander he got so worked up that his voice began to sound like a dog howling and he yelled: “And if you don’t make me a little brother or sister, may you rot in hell!”

“Fine,” said his father.

“Now Willie, dear, that’s going too far!” exclaimed his mother, and let rip with a stinging slap across the face.

On that occasion there was no blood; now it would not stop. Sniffing, his mother brought the first-aid box and took out a little pillow of gauze to place on the split lip-she had done a first-aid course at her workplace. She wanted to know what had happened between the two men, but neither seemed inclined to tell her.

Hours later his father drew him to one side: “Come out onto the balcony!”

Outside he lit a cigarette and offered his packet of Mátra cigarettes to his son: “Want one?”

“Papa, I don’t smoke, and anyway… you’ve forbidden me to!”

“Come, come… you really don’t smoke?”

“No.”

“Clever lad.” For a while he puffed away without saying anything. “My boy. Now listen carefully to what I’m going to say. This topic is taboo. Do you know what taboo means? Right. One hundred percent taboo. One thousand percent. There is no such thing as a Jew. There are only people. There are people who are shits, there are people who are good, there are people who are so-so. There are no Jews, no Gypsies, no nothing. Do you understand me?” and he grabbed his son by his shirt, so roughly that the top button popped out of its hole.

“Yes.” He was scared.

“So that’s that cleared up.”

“But you haven’t yet… you didn’t…”

His father butted in: “You are dismissed.”

For years Vilmos Csillag wondered why his father had used this military expression. He was constantly preparing to bring up the subject again. He was just waiting for a suitable opportunity. But his father communicated with him less and less, and with others, too.

Once he had the idea of writing him a letter. He spent weeks trying to find the best way of putting things, sketching his ideas in the big spiral-bound notebook. Here and there he decorated the draft. He planned to transfer, when he was ready, the text onto the magnolia-colored writing paper he had received for his fourteenth birthday, but had not used a single sheet of the hundred in the set of stationery.