Outcasts

by Susan M. Papp

  Bela was assigned the best spare room in the village - a front room in a spacious house owned by a family called Nemeth.

  All the men in the platoon were older than their commanding officer by at least three to four years. The army supply depot provided them with rations: two sacks of beans, a sack of flour, and some lard. It wasn't much to feed the men, especially since there was at least a kilogram of small stones in the sacks of beans. Bela thought whoever had sold the army the beans had cheated the supply depot.

  Bela learned that the village was constantly being raided - livestock was stolen on a regular basis. It was time for this to stop or they would have nothing to rebuild their farms with.

  Bela set up a security zone in the three surrounding villages: Henye, Pac, and Alsohid. The men of his platoon worked in teams, and each team was assigned to the houses at each end of the villages they were determined to defend. There was still a curfew in existence in the region - nothing moved after eleven at night until five in the morning.

  Within one week, the platoon captured two Russian deserters who had murdered a peasant in the nearby village. When the prisoners were taken into the nearby Russian command post, the commanding officer took out a pistol and shot one of the men in the head at point-blank range. The other was sent to prison. While the body was being dragged out of his office and the blood washed up, he ordered two glasses and a bottle of vodka to toast the platoon's good work in capturing the renegade soldiers.

  Through a translator, Bela was told that these two had been on a rampage, robbing and raping for two weeks. The murder had outraged the Russian commander. Yet, despite sending scouts out to find the deserters, his men were unable to apprehend them.

  "Good work," the commander kept repeating. Each time they toasted, he slapped Bela's back in a bold expression of praise and admiration.

  The capture of the Russian deserters was a tremendous coup for the platoon.

  Instead of being looked upon with suspicion and resentment, they were perceived as the defenders of the local populace. Bela made arrangements to have the men fed at least once a day by the locals.

  It was a time of tremendous political turmoil and battles. The Communist Party, backed by the occupying Russian troops, was attempting to consolidate power by first allying themselves with popular parties and then amalgamating these popular parties into the Communist Party.

  Each time in his relatively short life that dramatic changes had occurred, Bela had been somehow able to find a way to mould the situation, to transform the disastrous events to his advantage. But this changed when he was named commander of a border guard unit near Szent Gotthard. He realized that he would not be able mould situations any longer - the nature of the work was so black and white, while Bela was beginning to think in greys. The main function of the border guard was to make sure only those citizens with proper identification papers were able to leave the country. The guard duties included sifting through the personal data of each returning refugee, especially anyone with a military past.

  The command of the unit was shared with a sergeant named Patak - the two men took turns commanding the border patrols for one week at a time. A small guard house was their command headquarters.

  Every ten days, the border guard commanders received updated "watch lists" of those formerly enlisted Hungarian men - officers as well as non-commissioned officers - who were to be taken off the train and interrogated upon their return. The problem was that no one instructed the border guards as to what kind of information they were looking for while interrogating them. While Bela was in command, he identified a few of the men on the watch list, but if they were with their wives and small children, didn't pull them off the train as instructed. In two instances, he found his father's signature on one of the repatriation orders. Bela instantly memorized the place - underneath his father's signature was an Austrian town called Nussbach. Both men in question were low-ranking corporals. That week Bela realized that his days at the border patrol were numbered - surely someone else would soon recognize his father's signature as well.

  Each time Bela returned as commander to the inconsequential little border-crossing station, he started to suspect that something was amiss with his co-commander Patak. The men assigned to Patak would complain bitterly to anyone who would listen about his brutality. They said Patak would order men and women off the train on a whim, hardly looking at the list. After finding blood spattered in several areas, Bela suspected that there was truth in what he had heard about the brutal rapes and beatings that took place. But Bela wasn't supposed to listen to rumours, so he snuck back to the guard house one evening to surreptitiously find out if he could verify what the men were saying. A woman's heartbreaking cries could be heard from a distance. Bela didn't go to look through the window - he couldn't bear to listen. The screams haunted him all night, long after he was kilometres away.

  Hedy in Canada, circa 1960.

  The next day, Bela confronted Patak. He couldn't report what he had heard - he wasn't supposed to be near there - but he could make a formal complaint about the blood inside the guard house. Possibly it would end there.

  "According to article 5.1 of the guard rulebook," he began, maintaining an air of professionalism, "we are commanded to hand back the station house in clean and good order."

  Patak looked up at Aykler.

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" he replied briskly.

  Bela realized Patak was in a fowl mood, but persisted.

  "For the past couple of times you have handed the command of the border post over to me, this guard house has been filthy, sprayed with -"

  Before he ended his sentence, Patak clenched his teeth and yelled, "Why you little spoiled shit! You were barely out of diapers when I was already in the army." Then, without a moment's hesitation, he slapped Bela across the face with a force that made him briefly lose his balance, but didn't knock him down.

  Bela had had it with the cruelty of sadists like Patak. The screams of the defenceless woman as she was being assaulted were still ringing in his ears, and the knowledge of Patak's brutality with other victims fuelled his rage. He jumped on top of Patak, grabbed his head with both hands, and smashed it against the cold concrete floor. Over and over and over again, Bela smashed Patak's head on the floor until three of the men from his platoon came in and physically pulled him off.

  An ambulance was called, and Patak was taken to the nearby hospital. Within a few hours, after changing his bloodied clothes, Bela went to one of his superior officers and told him what had happened. The officer advised Bela to leave the country immediately, but did give him written permission for a leave for the purpose of "work study."

  Bela told his platoon guarding the border that night that he was leaving the country permanently. The moon was just bright enough as he walked west toward Austria. It was a relatively mild November evening. With each step he hoped one of his men would shoot him in the back - after all, they would have been justified, since he was escaping across the border. For the second or third or fourth time in his life - he had lost count - Bela just wanted it all to end. He wanted to die. But the shot never came.

  Bela Aykler, dressed as a member of the Canadian Scottish reserve in Cornwall, Ontario.

  chapter 29 | 1947-1948

  Nussbach, Austria

  November 1947

  Dearest Hedy,

  Father passed away at the end of November. He was sixty-one. Another shock to the family, especially my younger brother, Bela. I have to tell you honestly, the combined forty-two years of military service broke our father. He was a ghost of his former self here in Austria.

  The day he passed away, he went to see his doctor, a military surgeon, a Dr. Szollosi. They say he requested a shot of some kind - his heart had been ailing. By the time he returned home, he collapsed on the cot, said goodbye, closed his eyes, and died.

  My mother and my sister prepared him for the burial, and washed and dressed him in his finest dress uniform. All his medal
s were gleaming on his chest for the few local farmers who came to see him and pay their respects. I hammered together a simple wooden coffin, and a nearby family donated a single plot in the local cemetery. We had no money to pay the priest who said the burial mass, but we promised we would pay him as soon as we could. From the surrounding farms, people came to the house, graciously offering milk, sugar, and flour so that Picke and my mother could make a few pastries. After the funeral, we were able to invite some of these kind people over for tea.

  I will stay and help my mother for a few more months, but in February I am determined to leave for Paris, where friends of ours have already secured a visa and passage to Argentina. I am told they are looking for qualified, European-trained engineers in Argentina. I am willing to go anywhere where hard work is rewarded and a man is able to make something of himself.

  I am still desperately awaiting news from you. I need you more than ever.

  Your loving fiancé,

  Tibor

  Paris, 1948

  Spring

  Dearest Hedy,

  One of the most difficult things about living in Paris is that I am reminded each minute, hour, and day that I am alone here. It is a city full of lovers and it is difficult to be reminded of the state of my sorrowful heart each time I take a walk or look out the window.

  I have applied for a visa to go to Argentina, and while I am waiting for the bureaucrats to do their job, I wander the streets by day and night. I have been told that I am scheduled to leave aboard the ship Partizanka in two weeks, on May 9. While I wait, unfortunately, I am unable to get any kind of work visa. There are literally hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking jobs while their cases are being heard and processed by third countries. It's very hard to be poor in Paris, especially when one is alone.

  My brother, Bela, is now working for the United States Army. He hopes to gain entry to either the United States or Canada through his connections. Think of it: the great northern country of Canada. I've always thought of it as the land of ice and snow, but I hear it is an enormous country with a small population. They are looking for farm labourers and domestics. I am neither. We've decided that when I land in Argentina, or Bela in Canada, whoever gets settled sooner will eventually sponsor the rest of the family.

  I have received a letter from Bandi. He mentions you only in passing, that you are healthy and living in Czechoslovakia. That's all. It seemed to me that there must have been further news that he simply doesn't want to divulge. I don't understand why I haven't heard from you, but I don't blame you for that. Possibly you have simply fallen out of love with me. Until I hear officially from you that it is over, I will continue to dream and hope.

  With much love,

  Tibor

  chapter 30 | 1948

  THE MARINE PERCH ARRIVED in Halifax early in the morning on July 25, 1948 and docked at a place called Pier 21. The pier was shrouded in mist, and it was still dark. Bela couldn't believe they had actually arrived at a city - it looked like a deserted rocky outpost. He could barely make out a few surrounding warehouses. Many of the sea-weary passengers skipped the breakfast being served on board, their stomachs churning with excitement and apprehension.

  The ship was eerily quiet. Most people had slept little, knowing their arrival to their new homeland was just a few hours away. They were elated that the frequently rough seagoing journey was coming to an end. That expectation soon turned to disappointment and depression, however, on seeing the port of Halifax.

  A small group of stern-looking immigration officers stood waiting for them as they disembarked. The officers got to work, checking lists, making sure everyone's papers were in order, handing out tags. The tags were affixed to the jacket or blouse of each newly arrived passenger, like luggage identification labels - everyone was "labelled" according to destination.

  Bela's tag read "Cornwall Employment Office."

  The immigration officers seemed anxious to process the group quickly - they barely looked up at them as they checked for their names on the lists. No one said any welcoming words, no one smiled.

  Where had they come to? After leaving the beautiful port of Genoa, Bela thought they had arrived at the ends of the earth.

  There was little processing to be done - they had passed their medical exams in Europe. After they received their tags they walked through the warehouse and were directed to board trains standing behind Pier 21. The individual train cars were elegantly emblazoned with "Canadian National Railway."

  Bela grabbed a window seat in a compartment with his fellow Hungarians. The inside of the train was sweltering. Bela had put on his dress pants, black shoes, and a white shirt in preparation of meeting his new employer. The sweat was already gathering in the small of his back.

  Officially, Canada took in 10,151 Hungarian displaced persons between 1948 and 1952. Displaced persons could enter Canada under two schemes: the Close Relative Scheme, whereby an individual could be nominated by relatives living in Canada, and the Specialized Workers Scheme, whereby immigrants were contracted to work in a specific industry for one year. Canada required men for employment in heavy industry, farm labour, rural construction work, building construction, lumber camps, and mines.

  At mid-morning the train pulled out of the station and headed west, they passed through what must have been the outer edge of Halifax. Houses made of wood, here and there painted light blue and green, occasionally yellow. Hardly a building of note to be seen. An ad for Black Cat cigarettes painted on the side of a garage. In a short time, there were fewer and fewer houses. The train ploughed through seemingly endless low-growing brush, trees, and bushes, rushing past glimmering lakes and over rivers.

  The locomotive slowed each time they passed through a smaller community. Bela was surprised to see black people in front of tiny houses that looked more like sheds. Little children were playing in front. The adults stared silently and sadly at the train as it passed, as if they wanted to get on board themselves.

  They travelled all that day, and through the night, making a number of stops along the way, arriving in Montreal some twenty-four hours later.

  When they finally arrived in Montreal, Bela felt relieved that there was life in this country: they rode past roads with row upon row of big automobiles, the kind military officers rode around in in Europe, and saw multi-storey buildings. As the train slowed, they saw the sidewalks were crowded with elegantly dressed people.

  Bela's friend, Janos, the mechanic, who had been dozing through most of the journey, suddenly became animated.

  "See that?" He was pointing to a large black sedan. "That's the newest Ford. I read about that one in Europe. It has a lounge car interior, and hydra coil for a smoother ride in front."

  Bela didn't know what any of that meant, but nodded anyway.

  As they pulled into Montreal's massive train station, they saw there were dozens of lines and thousands of people milling about, conductors blowing whistles, couples hugging and saying goodbye, children crying.

  Another passenger, Dora, had been translating French billboards along the way. As the train came to a full stop in the station, she suddenly became gravely quiet. Then she started to quietly translate a billboard at the station, and something in the timbre of her voice forced everyone to become silent.

  "The Liberals will allow into our country 180,000 immigrants who will grab your homes, your businesses, your work, your capital, your farms, your future, your positions. Duplessis won't bring or allow -" Dora stopped and questioned her translation, then continued after taking a breath. "Any more immigrants."

  "Who is Duplessis?" someone asked.

  But no one in the compartment knew the answer. They sat quietly and pondered the message - the excitement of arriving in Montreal vanished.

  The trip to Cornwall from Montreal was forty minutes, just on the Quebec-Ontario border, but in Ontario. Bela and his travel companions were pleased to get off the train. It was hot, they had slept little, and they were hungry.

&nb
sp; Cornwall must have been even smaller than Halifax. Two men in uniform were there to greet the seven Hungarian men who got off the train. They all had contracts to work as farm labourers for one year.

  One of the uniformed men asked, "Do any of you speak English?"

  Bela raised his hand a bit and the official said, "Okay, you'll be our translator. Will you tell everyone to follow me?"

  Bela translated.

  The seven men were led to a truck, benches on two sides on the inside, light coming from one window in the back. They sat quietly, tired from their long journey. The short ride led to the employment office. The first person Bela noticed was a bald short man with wire-rimmed glasses pacing up and down impatiently outside the office. When he saw the group coming toward him, he stopped and grimaced, looking at his watch.

  "You told me they would arrive by nine this morning," the bald, short man barked at the official. He spoke about them as if they weren't yet there.

  "I told you, Mr. McGee. These things cannot be predicted precisely. The train was late."

  The new arrivals were lined up. Other local men started to arrive.

  "Does anyone speak English?" the bald man McGee asked.

  "I do," Bela said tentatively.

  McGee looked at Bela's form and asked, "What's your name?"

  "Albert."

  "So, you're Bert," he replied.

  Bela nodded.

  McGee went over to one of the officials, signed some papers, then told "Bert" to come with him.