Miklós Vámos - The Book of Fathers

“No, not yet. Grammy, what was your maiden name?”

“Pardon?”

“Your maiden name! Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Don’t shout.”

“All right, just tell me quickly, because my phone card is running…” The line went dead. He bought another in the shop. “Grammy, please, before it runs…”

“What do you need it for?”

“Complicated. I’ll tell you in a letter, just tell me what it was!”

“No… I’d rather not.”

“Why? Are you ashamed of it?”

“No… but…” Again they were cut off.

I was a little shocked to hear you asking about my maiden name. I am not a criminal to be hunted down (his grandmother wrote in her next letter). To cap it all, I have told you this, too, many times. I was born Rachel Steuer.

“Your grandmother is either German or Jewish,” Ann opined. “I thought as much.”

“Which did you think she was ‘as much’?”

“Jewish.”

“Why?”

“That’s what they’re like.”

“What are they like?”

The girl did not reply.

“You can’t say that sort of thing! That’s the beginning of fascism!”

“No, it’s the beginning of your unbearable oversensitivity!”

“Even an elephant would be offended by this!”

“The shit it would!”

They had such a row that Henryk almost moved out.

On his next trip to Szekszárd he discovered that there had been no fewer than three Rachel Steuers born in Szekszárd on Grammy’s day of birth. The clerk in the office was surprised: “Three Rachel Steuers on the same day in the same small town!” She had an excess of communicativeness and told how she came from Paks, but her parents’ house, where she had been born, was acquired by the state and razed to the ground. “They needed the space, you know, for the Paks nuclear power station.”

Henryk did not know. He hurried to fax the photocopy of the appropriate page of the register to Grammy in Brooklyn, via the Roosevelt Avenue post office. His grandmother’s reply was not long in coming.

As I’ve already told you, I have no interest in my past-thanks, but no thanks. But you were always as mad as a March hare. Have another look at my letter; what I wrote was Steiner-STEINER-not Steuer!

Henryk was ashamed. In his computer he copied this odd-sounding name a hundred times, one under the other, in New York Bold type, half an inch high. Despite this, he was unable to remember it. “Not Steuer, but Stouer!” he said, when Ann asked what his grandmother had written.

In Hungary it’s always third time lucky. It’s a folk saying, I heard it from the doorman. My third trip to Szekszárd had a resulting outcome. That is to say:

Rachel Steiner was born July 3, 1927, in Szekszárd at 6:30 in the morning. Father: Walter Steiner, farrier; mother Gabriella Duba. Both living at No. 18 Retek Street. Father R.C., mother’s religion not stated.

On the mother’s side this is as far as I have got.

Ann clapped her hands in joy: “Farrier, that’s fantastic! Congratulations! Put it on your CV.”

“What exactly is a farrier?” asked Henryk.

As soon as he was told, the scenario began to unfold before him: Walter Steiner, tall, muscular, bare-chested, the face of Marlon Brando, body like Arnold Schwarzenegger, brings the gigantic iron hammer down on an anvil incandescent with heat, pauses a second to take a breath, wipes the sweat from his brow, lowers the hammer, placing it by his feet, just like that statue Henryk saw on Dózsa György Way.

He was constantly sending his CV (in the end he did not put his farrier ancestor on it) to Budapest branches of the large multinationals, because he soon grew bored with journalism. But that was not all he grew bored with. At first he was unwilling to admit it, but his ardor towards Ann was cooling; it was only Bond, James Bond, who he continued to adore.

As the leaves began to fall, Grammy acknowledged that her grandson would not be visiting Brooklyn in the near future. “I’m arriving tomorrow,” she told him on the phone.

Henryk’s heart welled up with love for his grandmother, which he seemed to have forgotten in the recent feverish weeks. “Goody, goody, groovy Grammy’s coming soon”: he made up a little song as he danced around the loft flat.

Ann understood. “She’s coming here? You mean here?”

“Well…” he drooped. “Where else is she going to go?”

“But this is my home, only I can invite her to stay.”

“Yeah? Well, invite her.”

“How can I invite somebody I have never even met?”

Henryk stared at her and for a while they looked each other steadily in the eyes. Then Henryk started to pack. He called Jeff McPherson. The fellow knew at once who was on the line. His characteristic Irish brogue resonated in the receiver. “Hi, Henryk, long time no see. What’s new?”

“All sorts, Jeff. Jeff, would you put me up for a couple of nights?”

“Here’s the address.”

Jeff lived on the winding road up to Buda Castle, on the top floor of a four-story house, also a loft, or as the Americans liked to call it, a penthouse. Seems the Americans love these, thought Henryk as he hauled his gear up four flights, then another level, up the spiral staircase. No elevator.

He enjoyed the welcome drink by the kitchen bar and apologetically confessed that tomorrow they would be joined by Grammy. “Sorry!”

“No sweat! Perhaps she’ll make us paprika chicken.”

“If she manages to climb up.”

“Hey, we’ll bring her up ourselves!” Jeff’s good mood was a ray of sunshine that lit up the darkest corners of life. By midnight Henryk knew that the flat was Jeff’s own, as it was now possible for foreigners to buy property in Hungary. By two in the morning he had heard that Jeff bought and sold property, buying run-down houses, renovating them, and selling them on at a hefty profit. By four in the morning, that Jeff preferred men, but there was no problem, he only went for men like Doug, his partner, who was on a business trip to Romania. “He likes to travel, I don’t. We make a good pair.”

Black-and-white photos of Doug were everywhere. Doug in the Palatinus Lido. Doug in Venice. Doug at Lake Balaton. Doug in Ibiza. Generally in swimming trunks but at least half-naked. Henryk thought he looked like he imagined his farrier grandfather to be.

They drove out to meet Grammy in Jeff’s ivy-green sports car. At the last minute Jeff managed to conjure up a cellophane-wrapped bouquet for the old girl. “I can’t help it, flowers are my fatal weakness.”

Grammy was bowled over by Jeff. “A fine strapping fellow, your friend!” she whispered to him in Hungarian, so only he understood, from the rumble seat. Her sparse hair was tied in a girlish ponytail and fluttered in the slipstream.

“What does strapping mean?”

“Nice. Decent. Substantial. Don’t they say that any more?”

Henryk didn’t know.

Jeff made them dinner, Chinese. “Canard laque!” he declared with some ceremony as he whipped the ornate lid off what looked like a silver dish.

Grammy was spellbound. “And what do you do?” she asked Henryk. The conversation was in English.

“I’m in between jobs just now.”

“He’s joining us,” said Jeff with an encouraging smile. “We’re in property, that’s the going thing at the moment.”

Henryk’s grandmother left after three weeks, secure in the knowledge that her grandson had rounded the corner. Jeff showed them the country house whose renovation was next on the agenda. The old lady burst into tears. The building reminded her of her childhood in Szekszárd. Jeff offered to drive her down to Szekszárd, especially as he had never been to the area, but Grammy declined. “There is nothing left there of what’s in here,” she said, tapping one temple.