Outcasts

by Susan M. Papp

  Bela was led to a blue Ford Fairlane covered in dust. He recognized the car from the many American magazines he had seen in Europe.

  McGee started the engine and drove. The engine sputtered a bit, then ran smoothly.

  "What nationality are you?" McGee asked, giving Bela a sidelong glance.

  "Hungarian."

  "So, you are the enemy."

  "No," Bela tried to explain. "Ex-enemy."

  McGee's lip hardened.

  "No," McGee remained adamant. "Enemy."

  Bela again tried to argue the point and clarify his official status.

  "The war is over, and my official status is ‘ex-enemy.'"

  "No, no, you're wrong," McGee stated in deliberate manner, without taking his attention from the road. "The war is just starting between you and me."

  Bela glanced at this bald man and thought he undoubtedly had a small brain to match his small body.

  He realized there was nothing further to say.

  What was there to argue with someone who was well-sheltered from it all here in Canada?

  Why should I bother, Bela thought, explaining to him what it feels like to lose your home, your country, to have your family ripped up and scattered about in all directions?

  They sat in silence. The car passed a sign that read, "bainsville," then shortly afterward McGee turned down a short driveway and stopped before a small, ordinary farmhouse. It was midday.

  McGee showed Bela to his room and said, "Get changed. We're going to bring in some hay."

  Bela's little room was tacked on to the house like an afterthought. It was built above the mudroom, and the stairs leading up to it opened from the kitchen. It had a tin roof. It contained a bed, a chair, and nothing else. The room was sweltering.

  He changed and found a washroom where he threw some cold water on his face and took a drink with cupped hands directly from the faucet, giving some relief to the parched feeling in his mouth and throat.

  Suppressing his hunger, Bela gritted his teeth. "If it's war the old man wants," he decided, "then it's war he shall have."

  chapter 31 | 1950

  Resistencia, Argentina

  July 29, 1950

  Dearest Hedy,

  I am writing this letter to you on my thirty-first birthday, my heart and mind still immersed in thoughts of you.

  I feel I have some good news to tell you: I finally have a well-paying job in my field, as an engineer working for the company hired to prepare the work for building a hydroelectric dam at Iguazu. I am told by my colleagues that Iguazu is an amazing, powerful, thundering waterfall and that the work to harness its powerful force for electricity will be a marvel of mankind.

  We are en route to the majestic falls in the jungle more than two thousand kilometres away, and I honestly can say that this has already turned out to be an amazing adventure. There are ten of us - all engineers - travelling in five black sedans, similar to the large Tatra sedans we knew at home. The district around Resistencia, where I am writing this letter, is very flat. The road runs directly parallel with the railway lines. There are hardly any residents in this region - we pass a few houses here and there every forty or fifty kilometres or so. The colour of the earth has been variable as we go further and further north from Buenos Aires. First it was red, then black, now it is the grey colour of clay earth.

  Occasionally we will see a gaucho riding past us, always in a hurry, rushing to wherever gauchos rush to in great urgency - probably to some emergency with his grazing cattle.

  The wildlife is unusual as well: enormous birds with long legs making the most horrible screeching noises. Others sit, roosting on top of telephone poles, just watching us, waiting for us to pass. I've lost count of all the snakes we've seen, and when it rains, as it often does, you really have to hurry to higher ground, as they will float by, pushed and pulled by the rushing water. It is an amazing world, and I am quite enjoying its raw beauty.

  At present it is thirty-three degrees Celsius with a bit of a breeze, which makes the temperature quite comfortable. The dust is overwhelming at times and the road can be quite rough, as it is not really a man-made road, just a path beaten down by cars and trucks. We pass many overturned vehicles, which always serves as a warning for our drivers to slow down and take it easy. Our cars are so packed with gear and supplies that they really can't speed anyway. Special soldiers from the Argentine army are escorting us, guarding us along the way. It is reassuring to have them along, as bandits are quite common along this route.

  When the rain comes, we have to wait for hours, sometimes days, as the "road" becomes quite impassable. Yesterday, in a place called San Nicolau, I got out of the car for just two minutes to check out a road sign, and got completely soaked when the water flooded into my boots from the downpour. As soon as I was able, I changed my wet clothes, and my colleagues passed over a shot of brandy.

  The consumption of alcohol is otherwise forbidden for the crew and closely monitored, but they knew it was my birthday and shared one drink with me - to congratulate me on getting this far in life, I guess. If only they knew how my heart aches still because of the most poignant loss in my life. I feel the heartache every day and realize, with the greatest sadness, that you will probably get on with your life - possibly you have already forgotten me.

  When we left Resistencia, we took a ferry to Corrientes, crossing the Parana River. What a breathtakingly beautiful sight to behold: perfectly calm water, lush vegetation on each side of the river, with the occasional cawing of a bird. This is paradise! I feel you with me each time I see such stunning sights. Probably just wishful thinking. I wish I could empty you from my mind, my heart, but I can't. I can't imagine loving another human being was meant to end with such a feeling of desolation and pain.

  I'm still sorting through all these feelings. When darkness descends on the region, it is pitch black, so much so that I cannot see my fingers in front of my face. Once the electricity gets turned on, the crew makes dinner and usually retires to bed directly after eating. I find that I am completely exhausted by nightfall.

  With much love

  Tibor

  chapter 32 | 1956

  ALTHOUGH ILANA REALIZED THAT what her husband had been through during the war was a taboo subject between them, Yitzhak was otherwise a loving husband and father to their ever-expanding family. Their first son was born in 1955, followed by two more sons and a daughter.

  Hedy, her husband, Emil, and little daughter, Chaviva, came to Israel in the early 1950s. They intended to stay and make a new life for themselves in the new Jewish homeland. Hedy hardly recognized the skinny little brother she had last seen in January of 1945. He was now a self-confident, rugged-looking soldier. It was a joyous reunion. Emil wanted to join the army while retaining his rank of major from years of service in the Czech army and was very disappointed when the Israeli military system refused this request. Emil found the transition to living in Israel to be too difficult, and they moved on to Canada after a few years.

  Major Yitzhak Weisz had already been named to the rank of lieutenant colonel - the rank was to become official in 1957. But in 1956, after serving ten years in the army, Yitzhak applied for a low-interest loan from the army in order to buy a home. Despite promises that he would be eligible for such a loan, the application was turned down.

  When Yitzhak left the army, determined to find some means of supporting his family, Bandi invited him to join him in building a transportation business. Yitzhak started driving a truck to study the business from the bottom up. In the late 1960s, Yitzhak and Bandi changed their family name from Weisz to Livnat.

  The business thrived, and began specializing in trucks, cranes, and the logistics of moving shipments from one place to another.

  Yitzhak Livnat began to travel regularly to Europe on business. Within a few years, he and Ilana enjoyed several short holidays in Europe. One of their first trips together took them to Zurich, Switzerland.

  Ilana knew instinctively that her husband
was hiding some horrific scars from the war. Being a perceptive wife, she also knew that by entombing those scars they would only fester and grow, like a boil or infection left untreated. She realized the boil that represented his scars had to be lanced, but still didn't know how to quite go about it.

  In Zurich, an opportunity presented itself. Ilana noticed that a nearby restaurant was promoting Hungarian cuisine and folklore for one week. The brochure was brightly coloured - red, white, and green - with pictures of buxom young women with long braids, in national dress, holding platefuls of enticing delicacies: cabbage rolls, stews rich with red paprika, mouth-watering sausages. Across the top of the brochure was written, "Come and spend an evening in Hungary without ever leaving Switzerland."

  That afternoon, when Yitzhak came back from his business meetings, Ilana was waiting with a proposal.

  "I want to invite you out for dinner tonight, darling," she said warmly.

  "Fine," Yitzhak replied. "Is it a special occasion?"

  "No, nothing special," she replied. "But if you accept my invitation, then it has to be my choice of restaurant."

  As they walked into the restaurant later that evening, Yitzhak stopped when he read the sign promoting the Hungarian event. He turned to his wife with a stern look in his deep brown eyes. Ilana touched her husband's arm and whispered, "Remember, you promised: the place would be my choice." He reflected a moment, then nodded for her to proceed through the doors.

  Comely young women with braided hair, dressed in a stylized Hungarian folk costume, were offering free samples of Vilmos pear liqueur as an aperitif to everyone who walked in the door. Ilana glanced at her husband inquiringly. Yitzhak wasn't interested - he walked right by them. In a distant corner of the restaurant, a gypsy ensemble played, moving from one table to the next.

  Yitzhak sat stone-faced as Ilana ordered one delicacy after another. For starters, she requested an appetizer portion of goose-liver pate with sweet green peppers and rye toast. Next, cabbage rolls with sausage and sour cream. Then, for the main course, veal paprikash with delicate egg dumplings. Initially Yitzhak had an air about him as if he was determined to get through this, but certainly wasn't going to enjoy it. By the time they'd had their third glass of wine, he was noticeably more relaxed, though still reserved.

  The gypsy ensemble worked their way through the spacious restaurant, playing songs requested by the patrons. The gypsies noticed Yitzhak sitting with his wife at one of the tables. Normally the lead violinist, or primas, had an amazing ability to sense people who didn't want the musicians around them and would steer clear of such tables. But there was something so Hungarian looking about Yitzhak. Instinctively, the primas began to play Hungarian folk songs.

  Yitzhak tried to look elsewhere, avoiding the eyes of the violinist, but he couldn't cover his ears and block out the song that went directly to the core of his heart. The third song the violinist began to play so masterfully was the song his mother had sung practically every day. The song, entitled "The Old Gypsy," was her song; he had learned the melody and lyrics from her as a child. Memories of his happy childhood flooded back. He was Suti back in Nagyszollos, and his mother was pinning wash to the clothesline. He was playing with Icuka among the wet and drying sheets, both of them squealing with laughter. The images of his mother and little sister - brought back by the music - were too vivid to block out.

  Tears started trickling down his face, unleashing a veritable flood. His shoulders were shaking. With his eyes closed, more images flooded forward: visuals of the entire family sitting in the kitchen, of his father playing the violin, mother's rich melodious voice singing along. The gypsies kept playing, and Yitzhak continued crying, quite loudly now. Ilana sat calmly, remaining apparently unperturbed by her husband's uncontrolled sobbing. She knew it was therapeutic. The fortress her husband had built around his own childhood memories had finally been shattered. The healing of his long-suffering heart could finally begin.

  Tibor Schroeder and his wife, Eva, circa 1960.

  chapter 33 | june 1967

  THE TRAIN TO MONTREAL left Union Station in Toronto at 8:00 a.m. Tibor glanced at his watch, and although he had calculated the travel time many times already, he reassured himself that the journey to Montreal would take six hours. He would arrive by 2:00 p.m., if all went well.

  After more than twenty years, he was finally going to see Hedy again.

  Tibor settled into a seat facing east. He always liked facing the direction he was travelling.

  The song he heard late last night, "King of the Road," was still ringing in his ears. He had continued his lifelong hobby of listening to the newest songs. He had a new record player and was building a new collection of the latest recordings. Written and recorded by Roger Miller, Tibor felt the lyrics summarized his life - the life of a nomad, a wanderer.

  Tibor glanced out the window and noticed an entire high school band on the platform. They were probably travelling to Expo 67, the international world's fair in Montreal, he thought. Clad in burgundy school uniforms, they carried their band dresses on hangars protected with plastic wrap. Some of the students transported small cases for violins, clarinets, and horn instruments; others lugged enormous cases for tubas, drum sets, and bass violas. They must have occupied several other cars, thought Tibor, as only a few students occupied some of the seats in the same compartment.

  Tibor enjoyed the fact that he was a citizen of such a young country. Other than native Indian tribes, it was a country full of citizens making a new beginning. Expo 67 was created to celebrate Canada's centenary. The world's fair was an engineering marvel - built in record time, an unbelievable three years. The world seemed to be enamoured with Canada's newness. The country's bold new enterprise, Expo 67, attracted millions from around the globe.

  Tibor had brought along a few letters in his satchel - letters he had written to Hedy while in Argentina, but had never sent. The letter eased the pain of his then-suffering heart. Tibor wasn't sure why he brought them along - surely he would never show them to Hedy.

  Tibor had eventually found out from Bandi, living in Tel Aviv, that Hedy had married a man called Emil Hosek. He was devastated when he found out about the marriage and it took many years to get over the pain. He rehearsed in his own mind what he would not say to Hedy when they met. There would be no recriminations. He would not ask why she didn't attempt to contact him after the war ended or why she married Emil so hastily.

  Bandi wrote Tibor a letter in which he told of Hedy's life in Canada, her daughter, and the death of her husband from cancer. Tibor wrote to Bandi, asking if it would be possible for him to contact Hedy. Bandi suggested he write to her directly, and gave him Hedy's address. He debated with himself for days before taking pen to paper and writing a few lines. To his great astonishment, she replied, and sounded interested in seeing him as well. Tibor was overjoyed when she invited him to Montreal for a visit.

  How differently their lives would have turned out if ...

  He blocked out the thoughts almost as quickly as they came to him. No recriminations, no speculating about the past, no could-haves, would-haves, should-haves.

  Tibor was forty-seven years old and still in good physical condition. The years immediately following the end of the war had been the most difficult. He had lived in Hungary, Austria, and Paris, France. He had felt in his heart that Hedy was alive and also living somewhere in Europe, yet he had no means of contacting her. Then it dawned on him that she didn't want to contact him and that realization was more hurtful than anything. Then Tibor also learned the depth of the tragedy of what had happened to her, and to her entire family. With that knowledge came a deep understanding and acceptance of whatever she decided. He respected and loved her too much not to abide by her wishes.

  The love became muted and was pushed to the back of his mind, into the distant corners of his heart. He wanted to emigrate to one of the furthest corners of the globe, hoping that the thousands of kilometres would eventually fade the memories and dull t
he pain. To further distract himself, he even had brief affairs with several stunning Argentinian women. But all his efforts to obliterate the memory of the one great love of his life seemed to only succeed in numbing the pain, and he was never able to forget about it completely.

  Tibor began munching on a chocolate bar and thought about those difficult years in Argentina, where he experienced the most brutal working conditions of his life. They worked in the jungle building a hydroelectric dam near Iguazu. No shoes, boots, or materials existed that could keep their feet dry. The athlete's foot fungus, or "jungle rot," as they called it, seemed to eat through each layer of skin. The heat of summer was consistently oppressive: forty degrees Celsius in the shade. The workers couldn't eat or drink water fast enough - the environment sucked the energy and liquid out of them as quickly as they ingested it. Tibor lost many of his teeth.

  If one could tolerate the endless days of living in the jungle heat and bone-numbing isolation, the pay in the end was well worth it. After Tibor settled, he sponsored his mother, sister, Picke, and brother-in-law, Erno, to join him in Argentina. Picke and Erno were expecting their first-born. They all lived in Buenos Aires and when Tibor could get out of the rainforest to the city on leave, they were together as a family. These occasions helped alleviate the never-ending feeling of loneliness that gnawed away at his soul.

  Bela had been granted immigrant status in Canada, on the opposite end of the hemisphere.

  After several years of back-breaking work as a farm labourer, Bela established himself as a tobacco farmer near a place called Delhi in Ontario. After he bought his first house, he sponsored the family and they all came to Canada. Tibor was fortunate to find work in Toronto and met his wife, Eva, a divorcee with a young son. Eva was a vivacious woman with a voluptuous figure and legs that were seemingly endless.

  Tibor and Eva were married in 1954. What a day full of promise and expectations! Their daughter, Judy, was born two years later.