Triptych

by Margit Liesche

  “Back then, we live in a narrow world. Petty, confined. Connections with all of western culture, severed. Read Russian books, see Russian plays, study Russian philosophy, that is the dictate. Even music we listen to, controlled.

  “Imagine the escape that was possible in taking pictures then. It was like nothing else for me. By day, I go to school, wear a red tie, repeat Communist lies. But outside, behind the camera, I am free. I become an addict. Practice. Spend every possible moment with my camera. Can you understand?”

  I was a keen practitioner of escapism myself. “Yes, of course.”

  “Ahh,” Gustav turns to the photo of an elderly woman with thick, black-rimmed glasses peering into the distance. “A different sort of conformity.”

  He is referring to the narrow-brimmed black felt hat perched precariously on her head, tassels spilling from its tall crown. The woman’s fleshy face is plain, almost manly, made all the more masculine by a thick black band which covers nearly all of her white hair and holds the too-small hat in place. The profile of another woman on her other side wearing an identical hat is blurred. Women from Gotzens in the Austrian Tyrol.

  “Normally, a woman would be horrified to show up at a party only to discover another woman wearing the same clothing.” Gustav smiles. “Not so at folk gatherings. Uniformity, it is a mark of regional identity. There is pride in that.”

  “But you escaped the oppression,” I say, remembering the photo of the revolutionaries I had seen at his apartment. “Were you a freedom fighter?”

  A slight lift of his shoulders, a noncommittal shrug. “In university, students gathered regularly in covert meetings. It was a twenty-third October rally organized by students that started things—But do you know this, the history behind the Hungarian Revolution?”

  “My parents never talked much about what was behind the uprising, but as an adult I’ve read a great deal.”

  “I was among those who went to Parliament Square,” Gustav says. “I was still at the Square when word came of the violence erupting at the radio building.”

  “A demonstrator was shot wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. And a peaceful demonstration escalated into a revolution.”

  “And you left in ’56?” I ask.

  Gustav nods. “The AVO were blood-thirsty. They wanted scapegoats. I learned of a small group making plans to come to America. I joined it.”

  “And the photo of the couple, the revolutionaries, that I saw at your place. Yours?”

  “A memento. A reminder of friends gone, of why I left, of why I do what I do.”

  “But did you take the picture?”

  “Photojournalists were there during the fighting. Afterwards, it came into my possession.”

  I meet his gaze, anticipating the fuller explanation. Gustav’s eyes darken. He looks away.

  We are nearing the exit. Gustav speaks. His voice is earnest, low. “Ildikó, please you must try to understand. Against the odds, in the face of the lowest of betrayals, I made it here. To America. I find work, then art school. Now the big challenge. We are taught: look for beauty. How do you create beauty when the world has shown you such unspeakable ugliness? This is difficult. Then, a vision. Instead of composing beautiful pictures, I will capture the world as it is. The ordinary around us. My beginning…the church member photographs for the directory.”

  “My mother’s idea.”

  Gustav nods. “Through the frame, I learn I could make a living. It also was how I discover myself.”

  “By finding a world around you that is not-so-ordinary.” Through your gifts you shall succeed. “I believe I can understand your journey, Gustav.”

  The final photograph nearest the exit speaks exactly of this. It is of a Chinese couple, and I am immediately taken with them. Maybe it’s their deeply-lined faces and big smiles, showing imperfect teeth, yet they look completely at ease, happy to be alive, delighted to be photographed. Or maybe it’s that the couple might have walked out of the parsonage curio cabinet, players from my childhood fantasies. Like the carved wooden figures that lived inside the cabinet, the couple wears broad-rimmed straw Cantonese “coolie hats” and plain tunics, buttoned to the neck. My figurines had not worn a festive hat with a ruched fabric fringe like the woman wears, but my miniature rickshaw driver did have a long, feathery white mustache and goatee, like the man in Gustav’s photo.

  “Hakka minority people from Hong Kong,” Gustav says, standing beside me. “Hakka people have migrated many times in China’s history, both within the mainland and also to other countries. They told me each time they move, they carry with them something old and something new. A firmly rooted tradition.”

  Like the Hakka, my parents had picked up and moved more times than I can remember. Numerous times as a child, I’d moved with them, but only from one small midwest town to the next. My adult years have all been spent in one place. Gustav had talked about living in a narrow world under Soviet rule. What about my narrow world?

  Gustav is suddenly taken with Mariska’s shawl. “This is rooted in tradition,” he says, lifting the pointed end in back. “From Hungary?”

  “It’s not handmade. A friend brought it back from Budapest for Mariska.”

  He frowns, noticing my modern handiwork.

  “Except for that. That’s my creation. Or more correctly, deconstruction. Or, as some say, destruction.” My lips curve into a tight smile. Inside I’m fuming. Why do I feel shame? Like I have to apologize for being inventive? For trying something bold? New?

  Gustav reads my thoughts. “I think something I said about your mother’s triptych the other day, when we first met, it upset you. I am sorry, but I do not know what it was. And I do not want it to come between us. Can you please explain?”

  His desire to comprehend, to make up to me, the concern in his eyes…I soften.

  “You suggested in wanting to unstitch her work, I wanted to reinterpret her story. People object to what I do. They’re critical. But how about updating? Blending the two? What’s wrong with that? To unstitch you go to the core, the past, preserve the original threads, reinvent them.”

  Gustav looks confused. “You are saying I make a judgment of what you are doing with your art? That you are not sensitive to your mother’s gift to you?” He shakes his head. “I remember this moment. I merely asked a question. ‘You’d unstitch your mother’s handiwork?’ I thought the idea was…Bold. Once you undo the threads it is not easy, then, to blend in the new. Make it seamless. I was curious. Was not suggesting you are not capable of this.” He is still holding the shawl. “Just look at what you have done here.” He points to the rings. “In the midst of a conventional pattern, a surprise. It is provocative. Good. I like this very much.”

  Had I been projecting Vaclav on Gustav? He means it. I see it in his eyes.

  He continues, “As to your intention. I am against dwelling on the past. You cannot change what has happened. It is finished, over with. Look to tomorrow. And if preserving part of the past helps you to keep moving forward, then I am for it. It is what I do.”

  I smile. “Yes. And this—” I smooth my shawl, “is a work in progress. Like me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I know a good Czech restaurant,” I say when we are inside the cab of Gustav’s pickup truck.

  Gustav frowns. “Restaurant? Oh, sorry. I did not explain. I hope you will not mind. I have made a simple dinner for us. At my place.”

  His place. I start to refuse, but his enthusiasm as he describes what he has prepared—fresh sweet-pepper salad and gourmet tuna pasta salad (both secret recipes)—wins me over. That, and a man has cooked just for me? A man with a gallery show opening, no less?

  The narrow dining table is already set when we arrive. The light indoors is dim until Gustav flicks a switch. Oversized red, blue and green Christmas tree bulbs, strung above the table, reflect on gleaming white china. Ano
ther flick illuminates a garland of tiny bulbs dressed in colorful paper cubes, suspended above the long work table beyond the dining area. The effect is playful.

  Gustav takes a bottle of chilled wine from the refrigerator. I join him at the island separating the kitchen from the rest of the living space.

  “Tokaji?” He displays the bottle, the label written in Hungarian.

  I barely speak the language and my ability to read it is more limited yet, but I recognize száraz, which translates to dry.

  “Sure,” I say. “But aren’t Tokajis usually édes, sweet?”

  “Many are. But try this.”

  We toast, “Egészségedre!”

  I sip. Like fine chilled dry sherry.

  Gustav waits with an expectant look. I smile. “Ízletes. Delicious.”

  He returns my smile. “Now another specialty, from the package you delivered the other day.”

  My smile fades watching him stroll to the nearby cabinet, opening it to reveal a stereo unit inside. Was the mood about to be destroyed by rapid-fire Czardas music?

  Selecting a record from the boxed set, Gustav places it on the turntable, drops the needle in a groove. A bubbly tune bops through the room.

  If you change your mind, I’m the first in line

  Honey I’m still free

  Take a chance on me…

  ABBA?

  He’s picked the very song I put on in the privacy of my condo when I need a lift. Already, my head is bobbing to the rhythmic sounds. Across from me, Gustav’s shoulders sway, keeping time with the bouncy beat as, feet moving in a shuffly step, he heads back toward the kitchen.

  He removes a pair of small bowls from a cabinet. Not just any bowls. They look like they were dipped in wet black ink.

  “Ink bowls,” he explains adding, “Don’t worry. They are food safe—made of paper then finished with a natural resin from an African tree.”

  “How special.”

  “Like you.”

  My cheeks blaze. I look away, then quickly turn back. I am embarrassed, but I want more of the look in his eyes—genuine appreciation—a gift for my taking.

  My stomach chooses this moment to growl.

  Wrinkles fan from the corners of Gustav’s eyes. “I should proceed with our dinner preparations.”

  My hand moves to my midriff. “A distraction might calm the hungry lion. Can I help?”

  “No thanks.” He goes to the refrigerator, opens it. “Enjoy your wine, relax.”

  “Okay.” I’m proud of how casual that sounds.

  Glass in hand I stroll toward the dining table. At the table’s center, in a series of staggered glass cylinders like fat test-tubes linked with bands of pewter, are vivid strawberry-pink peonies in various stages of bloom. Is there any flower more romantic than peonies?

  Well, perhaps roses.

  Roses from Gustav’s garden bloom in a parade of bud vases on his work table. I can smell them as I observe the three sepia-toned photographs inside a shadow box mounted above the table: A mother, father, two young boys, posing before the family home; a seated baby holding a balloon on a stick; a casual grouping of a striking dark-haired coed and three handsome, sweater-clad young men in a university setting, Gustav on one end, a resemblance to Baryshnikov, even then.

  Shiny silver and green ornamental balls spill randomly across the box’s floor. A red ball on ribbon hovers mid-air before the four scholars. I study the female member. The girlfriend Zsófi mentioned that perished?

  Gustav has come up beside me.

  I make my voice light. “This is charming. You?” I point to the baby.

  “Yes. And my family.” His finger presses the glass over the image of his parents and brother.

  “You don’t see many smiles in the old pictures, do you,” I say. “It’s as if ‘cheese’ wasn’t invented yet. Is that why you thought of adding Christmas balls? Less solemn?”

  “Celebratory, this is what I wanted. To think of them in happier times. My parents, my brother, my friends I band with to escape Hungary, they are all dead, Ildikó.”

  Gustav turns away. “More wine?”

  I don’t know what to say. I follow, certain the subject is closed, but he continues.

  “To leave, we needed a guide. Early on, there were farmers who, out of the goodness of their hearts, led fellow Hungarians across the last dangerous miles to the Austrian border. There was a fear of land mines, although by pure coincidence, three months before, some Communist official had ordered all land mines along the Austrian border lifted, destroyed. A mystery why it happened, but this saved thousands of lives. Even without hidden explosives, a guide through the swamps and up to the best crossing spots was necessary.

  “It was dangerous work and with more and more people leaving, young men took on the task, and they begin to charge for this service. When my friends and I want to leave, the cost was maybe at the highest. We are willing, and only too glad, to pay. We pool our money. Márton, one of our group, has a connection. We find our guide.”

  A flicker of hardness crosses his face. “By then a racket had begun with Russians who had discovered one of the routes. ‘If the Hungarians are going to escape anyway, we might as well get some of the toll,’ they say. And they insist on part of the guide’s fee.”

  I already know what he will say next.

  “We were betrayed. For a few extra forints our guide he agreed to take an AVO man with us. My friends and I did not know this man was AVO but still we objected to having a stranger among us. Our guide—” Gustav speaks with such contempt it is as if he spits the words—“says do not worry, he is good guy.’ What can we do? Our preparations to leave are made.

  “Soon it is obvious the AVO has been making its own preparations. AVO men are lying in wait when we start through the swamps. A short way in, I needed to stop…the call of nature. I almost catch up again when there is a loud staccato rattle. Again. Again. I am scared. My legs feel weak and will barely carry me, but I get close enough to see. My best friends, my girl, they are cut down, lifeless in the icy snow.”

  Inside the bucket, melting ice shifts the contents, the clattering as unnerving as a giant ice flow cracking free of a glacier.

  Gustav is perfectly still. I wait.

  In the background, ABBA.

  There was something in the air that night

  The stars were bright, Fernando

  They were shining there for you and me

  For liberty…

  I reach over, cover his hand with mine.

  He is staring at our stacked hands. I squeeze lightly, slip my hand away.

  “Pepper salad?”

  A blend of matchstick-size pieces of red, yellow, and orange peppers, chopped sweet onion and basil, mixed with Gustav’s secret dressing, spent the afternoon marinating in a bowl. The next few moments pass in silence while Gustav tosses the colorful mixture, then ferries individual servings to the Ink Bowls.

  I look across the table at Gustav. “To the chef,” I say lifting my glass, tilting it his way. “Excellent! You can cook for me anytime.” I nearly choke, swallowing. You can cook for me anytime? Where did that come from?

  “My pleasure.”

  I taste the salad. Fresh. Delightful. “Zsófi mentioned you were in primary school with her,” I say after a second bite. “A few years apart. She had Kati for a teacher. Did you?”

  “You are speaking of your aunt? Yes, I did.”

  “Maybe you know this. At the start of the revolution, she disappeared. No one knows where. There were rumors. Do you know? Wa-was Kati a traitor? A collaborator? Did she trick information from students, tell on their parents?”

  Gustav frowns. “Where did you hear this?”

  “From a friend. A longtime friend,” I add, “who also was once a student of Kati’s, but after she told me this, she admitted it could have been a delib
erate lie.”

  “This may be impossible to know. Teachers were obliged to join the Party, teach per the ministry’s dictates. There were many in the populace who assumed even more was expected by the ministry from teachers.”

  “So you’re saying it’s possible?”

  “Look, Kati was a wonderful teacher, and she loved children. The system would have taken some of the—how do you say it?—starch out of her passion for the job. I would not expect her to act as an informant for the Party—” He pauses a moment, lips pressed tight. “I also would not be shocked to learn she allowed little things to slip now and then.”

  I had been returning my fork to the bowl. It slides from my fingers, clinks against the plate.

  Gustav’s palm shoots out. “I do not mean she would reveal anything important. She was part of your family. A good family. These were difficult times, difficult decisions. People who did not join the Party went without. Poor housing, limited food, controlled entertainment, low wages. You never know how you will react, what you will do to improve your lot. Protect yourself, your family. Survive. It’s possible she thought she could trick the system by playing along.” Gustav rubbed a hand over his suddenly weary expression. “It was a complicated, terrible time. I did not know this, that Kati disappeared. Many in those days did. I am sorry.”

  We finish our salads in silence. Gustav gets up, stacking the dishes. I start to stand also, but he insists I remain where I am.

  He returns to the table, a plate in each hand. “The important thing to know, Ildikó, is that in those days many people had two lives. By day we repeated Communist lies; at night, in our homes, we were Hungarians. Always, in our hearts, patriots. Most of us.” His last words held a bitter tone. He stands at my shoulder. His voice lightens. “Now, another important thing—my gourmet midwest tuna pasta salad. És ha ön.”