He sat down next to me and asked, “How is your grandmother feeling these days?”
“She has been very tired,” I began. “I don’t think she sleeps much during the nights, I can hear her twisting and turning in her bed.”
“What do you think has been bothering her?” Ferenc asked.
I hesitated before telling him, but I wanted to hear what he would say. “I think she has been trying to talk my mother into sending me and my sisters to America.”
“That would be a smart thing to do, and she shouldn’t go on living here alone, either,” he said. “She should sell her property, move to Beregszász, and live with your mother. She’d be closer to things there. She’s too isolated here, and it isn’t safe. Please tell her what. I said. Now I’d better move on before she finds me here.”
I did not want Ferenc to leave. “Don’t go yet. She doesn’t mind when you talk to me. It’s only when it’s Rozsi that she gets upset.”
He laughed and got up. “When is Rozsika coming back?”
“After Mother has the baby. It’s expected in a few weeks. It might even be born on my birthday.”
“When is that?”
“June 10th.”
“Then I may not see her. I’m being transferred,” he said. “Please explain to Rozsi about my new orders. And I hope you have a nice birthday.” He left the porch and watered his horse. Then he waved to me, sadness lingering in his face, as he rode off.
Soon after Ferenc left, Babi came from the fields with a special treat of wild strawberries laced on a long grass stem. While we were eating supper, she said, “You had a visitor,” and I knew from the tone of her voice that she meant Ferenc.
“Oh, you saw the horseshoe prints around the trough.”
“Yes, and I also saw the horse and his rider and so did everyone else in the fields. You don’t think such a sight can go by unnoticed.”
She sounded amused, and I was surprised. “You’re not angry.”
“What good would it do me if I were?”
Later that evening, Babi asked me, “What did you and Ferenc talk about?”
I knew I had to be careful about how much I said. “First he asked how you are.”
“How I am! How! Rozsi is would be more to the truth.”
“No, Babi, you just don’t like him, but he really did ask about you. He even asked me to give you a message.”
“This I would like to hear.”
“I told him about your wanting to send us to America.”
“You told him that?”
“Yes, Babi.”
“Piri, you can’t go repeating to strangers things that are said in our house.”
I was silent. I had said too much again. But Babi asked me, “What did he think I should do?” When I didn’t answer, she repeated the question.
“He said that you should sell and move to Beregszász so you can be closer to things.”
“What things?”
“He didn’t say. He just said it was not safe for you here, so isolated from everything.”
“Suddenly everybody is telling me what to do. I managed all right up to now. I’ll just have to take my chances. Did he ask you when Rozsi is coming back?”
I did not answer immediately, so she added, “Or did you just tell him?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“Did he say when he would be back?”
“He is being transferred. He won’t be coming this way any more.” I resented the expression on Babi’s face as she looked up from her sewing.
School was over at the end of May, and by the time my birthday came around, I was spending most of my days roaming the fields with Molcha.
* * *
Joli was born June 16. Rozsi sent a letter telling us that Mother and the baby girl were fine. Lajos’ leave was over and Lilli and Manci were expected back from Prague any day.
Babi was happy to hear that it was all over. I realized from her expression of relief how concerned she had been. “Well, you know that your mother should stop having children, she is not so young any more.”
“How old is Mother?” I asked.
“She will be thirty-nine on her next birthday.”
I started to think about what it would be like to take care of and play with a little sister, and began to get excited about going home to see her. But when Rozsi returned to Komjaty toward the end of July, I became uncertain again. Whenever Rozsi spoke to Babi about life in Beregszász, I listened very carefully for news of any changes. Babi asked many questions, and they spoke about political changes, but their main topic was the well-being of the family.
When I told Rozsi about Ferenc’s visit, she listened with anticipation, her face flushed, anxious to hear every word. I felt bad having to tell her what he said. Stalling, I first told her about the message for Babi.
“Did he have a message for me?”
“He was sorry that you were not here.”
“Did he say when he would be coming again?”
“Rozsi, Ferenc is not going to come. He has been transferred.” She stood up abruptly and said, “It is for the best. I would not want another confrontation with Babi. And what is the use of it, anyway?”
A heavy feeling had been pressing in my chest at the thought of leaving Komjaty. I would miss Babi, Rozsi, and Molcha, just as I missed Mother, Iboya, and my friends when I first came to Komjaty. But now I wasn’t so sure about Beregszász and the people there. I felt confused and decided to talk to Rozsi about it.
“As usual,” she said, “you have been listening to too many stories. A few days after you get home you’ll be in school and so busy that you’ll forget about all these things.”
“No, I’ll miss Komjaty a lot. You and Babi especially.”
“So next summer you’ll come back.”
“What if by next summer…” I paused and then said, “Or perhaps Mother will decide to send us to America.”
* * *
The Sunday of my departure arrived before I had fully faced the fact of leaving Komjaty. Babi and Rozsi had filled baskets with dried mushrooms, prunes, lekvár, and jams. My clothes were packed in one large suitcase.
“Eat your breakfast,” Babi urged as she watched me dawdling over the piece of egg on my fork. “You will have to carry two heavy baskets.” My head ached, and my stomach was all mixed up.
“I’ll just drink the milk, Babi.”
Shaking her head from side to side, Babi offered a compromise. “You have to eat one egg, too.” I washed down the buttery egg with milk and picked up the box I had prepared to leave with Molcha.
“Go, she is waiting in the road,” said Babi, opening the oak door to the porch. As soon as Molcha saw the door open, she ran up onto the porch. Babi closed the door and left us alone.
“So,” Molcha said, “I guess you will be leaving on the train.”
“Maybe you can come to visit me in Beregszász sometime. Maybe next summer if I don’t come here.”
“Why wouldn’t you come here next summer?”
“I don’t know.” I handed her the box containing paper, a pen, ink, and a blotter. “I’m leaving these things for you so you’ll be able to write to me and tell me everything that’s happening.”
“Like what?” she questioned as she took the box.
Rozsi opened the door. “We have to get started. Walking will be slow because we have so much to carry.”
Molcha and I hugged, practically crushing the box between us. “Szervusz, Piri, thank you for the things,” said Molcha. She rescued the box, turned quickly, and ran off the porch. When she stopped to wave, I saw that she was crying.
“Szervusz, Molcha,” I called. “I’ll write first.”
I turned toward the house, hoping Rozsi would not see the tears in my eyes. Babi stood on the threshold of the kitchen, her arms open to embrace me.
“It’s all right, little lamb, some things are hard for all of us. That is the way it goes with life.” She wiped away my tears with the hem of her
apron. “Here, I have something to take away the sadness of parting.” She reached into her apron pocket and brought out a small box, opened it, and lifted out the garnet earrings she had given me for my birthday.
“You forgot about these, didn’t you? Well, I want you to take them home with you and wear them on special occasions so that you’ll remember your Babi.” Her worn brown fingers shook as she hooked them through my earlobes. When she had finished, she smoothed my face first with tender fingers, then with her own face, which she rubbed against mine. I tried to say goodbye, but the words would not come out. I kissed her wrinkled face, hoping that she would understand. Rozsi picked up the large suitcase and one of the baskets. I picked up the remaining two, thankful for the excuse to turn away from Babi and start moving.
“I’ll come back right after I’ve put Piri on the train, most likely in time for lunch, if the train is not late,” Rozsi said. Babi walked down to the road with us. “Godspeed,” she called after us.
Fifteen minutes later we stopped to rest and I turned to look back at Komjaty. Babi’s house seemed so small in the distance. I wondered if she were still standing in the road, trying to see us.
“Babi isn’t in the road,” I said to Rozsi.
“No, she went back in just after we left. Come on, let’s move. We’ll stop again soon,” Rozsi urged as she looked toward the forest. The leaves on the maples and oaks skirting the road had just begun to turn their autumn bronze, yellow, and red, and the forest evergreens contrasted harshly with the bright colors. In the distance I could hear the rushing waters of the Rika. Soon we were closed into a separate world by the walls of the forest and the sound of the water; no sight or sound from the outside penetrated this world.
We rested on the bank of the river. I looked down into the water, watching the swiftly flowing current. We could not hear each other above the noise, but Rozsi took a pendant watch out of the bosom of her dress, checked the time, and motioned that we should start walking. I was grateful to move on. My thoughts drifted back to that early spring day when I had seen the uniformed bodies floating in the water. With Father and Lajos in the army, my imagination was creating awful pictures. Why did I think of such terrible things, I wondered.
Coming out into the open clearing with the bright sun and blue sky to greet us lightened my mood. The Komlos station was in sight. “We made good time,” said Rozsi, checking her watch, “It’s only ten o’clock.”
The big coal-burning train came screeching down the tracks with large clouds of black smoke puffing from its smokestack. The wheels stopped abruptly, and we picked up the baggage and climbed aboard. After I was settled, Rozsi went to talk to the conductor about looking after me and helping me off the train in Beregszász. Then she hugged and kissed me goodbye and gave me instructions. “Take care of yourself,” she called over her shoulder as she left the train.
The whistle blew and the wheels began to turn. I leaned out of the window to wave goodbye to Rozsi and Komjaty.
BEREGSZÁSZ
6
IT WAS EXCITING to be back in Beregszász; the big houses and city people generated a kind of energy that was absent in Komjaty. My whole family turned out to welcome me at the train station. Mother, Lilli, and Iboya carried off the suitcase and baskets. I ran over to Manci and Sandor, who were standing near the baby buggy.
“She is big, not the way I pictured her,” I said. Joli cooed and waved her arms. With her sparkling blue eyes and square shoulders, she resembled Sandor and my father; the three of them made their own group in the family.
When we got to Gyár Street, I was grateful to find it deserted as I was not ready to face my friends. Mother closed our gate and walked us into the kitchen. Iboya and Lilli took the children into our bedroom.
“You must be hungry,” Mother said, as she removed the stove ring under the red enamel pot, exposing it to the coals. A few minutes later she dipped a spoon into the simmering mixture and filled a plate with hot pörkölt. The sight of large chunks of veal held together by a thick paprika gravy made my mouth water. “Eat first,” she urged. “Then you can wash, change your clothes, and go out to see your friends.” I savored the tender and spicy pörkölt, so different from Babi’s bland dishes. As I finished, Lilli, holding the baby, appeared in the doorway.
“Mother wants to transform you back into a city girl,” she said, as she handed Joli over to her. Cradling the baby in her left arm, Mother sat down in the armchair beside the kitchen table, and with her right hand, opened her blouse. Joli turned her attention to the breast and Mother caught my eyes watching intently. “She sucks the way you eat,” she said jokingly, “anxious for every drop. Come to think of it, you nursed the same way.”
Mother watched as Joli grew drowsy in her arms. After a few more minutes, she rose with the baby and walked toward her bedroom to put Joli down in the crib. When she returned to the kitchen, she filled the tub with water from large pots that had been warming on the stove, and I sat down in it. Holding a bar of soap in her left hand and the brush in the other, Mother proceeded to rub and scrub, determined to get me clean and shining. She even tried to wash the dark bruises off my bony legs.
“They are from the heavy water buckets hitting up against me as I carried them from Tercsa’s well,” I explained.
“And climbing and falling,” added Mother.
“I am going to miss Komjaty,” I reflected.
“I think I got you home just in time or you would have turned into another Rozsi.” Mother studied my face. “What does Rozsi do all day while my mother is out in the fields?”
“She looks after the chickens, geese, and ducks; she gathers eggs, milks the cows, gives them water, works in the vegetable garden, cooks, and takes Babi her lunch if she doesn’t come home for it. She cleans the house and sings,” I finished.
“Sings? Doesn’t she talk to anybody all day?”
“There is nobody around during the day.”
“What about the girls across the road—Molcha’s sisters?”
“They are busy during the day helping their mother around the house. Rozsi talks to Babi in the evening when they sit and sew.”
“But she needs to be with people her own age,” Mother commented, as she gave my elbow a hard scrub.
“She visits with neighbor girls on the Sabbath. They all get together then.”
Mother and Lilli exchanged glances. I stood up in the tub, and Lilli poured clean rinse water over my sudsy body. At that point, the two little ones came into the kitchen, their hands covered with wet sand. They giggled at seeing me undressed. Manci looked into the tub and rinsed her hands, Sandor copied her; they giggled again and ran out of the kitchen.
I bent over and Mother poured warm water on my head. Cupping the soap in the palm of her hand, she began to vigorously lather my scalp and hair. After two such soapings and several clear rinses, Lilli brought over the final vinegar rinse, which Mother slowly drained through my matted hair.
“There, your hair finally squeaks and shines again, the way it should,” Mother said, wrapping it up in a towel. I put on the dress Lilli had picked out for me, and went to sit in the yard. Mother fine-combed my long hair and clipped off the straggly ends. Then, after a final survey, she opened the big gate.
I walked to the gate and looked out, running my eyes up and down each side of the street. The cement sidewalks seemed so clean and white in the glare of the sun.
“Nobody is out there.”
“Milush and Vali probably walked to the park to play in the shade. Why don’t you and Iboya go and join them,” Mother offered.
I shook my head. I did not want to see my friends yet, and I walked inside, into the children’s room, where Lilli was putting my clothes away.
“Have you and Manci come to live with us?” I asked.
“No, I still have the apartment, but we do sleep over occasionally. Why, what’s the matter?”
“I was just wondering. I was away for a long time,” I said, not wanting her to see my fear o
f things having changed while I was away.
Late in the afternoon, while Iboya and I were sitting on the porch, Milush and Vali came through the gate. They were in their bathing suits, on the way back from the strand. They walked toward us hesitantly.
“Szervusz, szervusz, we came to see if you were home,” they greeted me.
We were all talking busily when Mother came out with a pitcher of raspberry punch. “Isn’t your mother coming over?” she asked Vali.
“I’ll go and get her,” said Vali, running off. Soon Mrs. Veligan appeared, with Vali alongside her.
“You should have come along, Mrs. Davidowitz, it was not at all crowded,” Mrs. Veligan said as she stepped onto the porch. “You could do with a little sun. Look how nice your girls look with their brown faces. My God, Piri! You look so tall. Stand up so I can see you.” She pushed Vali and me into a back-to-back position. “See, she has grown half a head. It is that country air, and I bet your grandmother fed you lots of milk and eggs. Nothing like that for growing children. You can’t get much of that here any more. Getting more scarce all the time.”
Lilli, closing her book, came to join us, with Manci and Sandor trailing behind her. Mother poured the punch into glasses and handed them around. As we stood there, I felt relieved, relaxing for the first time in that whole long day. I was home in Beregszász.
7
WHEN SCHOOL BEGAN in September, life resumed its routine for Iboya and me. Politics seemed remote from us all as we were kept busy with our studies in school and with our chores and projects at home. Lilli was still at our house most of the time; she and Mother read and wrote their postcards together. I never had to ask whether or not they had received mail from Father or Lajos; their voices and expressions told me as soon as I came into the house. Rozsi wrote to us often to keep Mother from worrying about her and Babi. Frequent letters from Molcha told me about her progress in school and the local gossip.
Winter arrived just before Christmas vacation, and snow covered the streets of Beregszász. We had to use both coal and wood in our classroom stove in order to melt the frost on the large windowpanes. During the holidays, not having school to absorb my thoughts, I became more aware of Father’s absence. Hanukkah did not seem the same without him.
Upon the Head of the Goat Page 4
