by Derek Hansen
‘Poor buggers,’ said Neil. ‘I can imagine.’
‘Can you?’ said Milos, suddenly bitter. He turned on Neil. ‘You can imagine how Tibor felt, can you? I don’t think so!’
Neil recoiled in his seat as though stung.
Milos bored into him. ‘Tibor could see his father’s relief that his sons were still alive and his pride that they had the audacity to send him a message. But that only made him feel more guilty. For ignoring Milos’s plea to return home when they’d first seen the Jews being rounded up. For continuing on to the cave to stash their winter clothes. For taking more time to see what was happening in Satoraljaujhely. For not considering the Germans and their gendarme lackeys could ever be as efficient and as ruthless as they were. If he’d listened to Milos there was every chance he could have got back to Sarospatak in time to pluck his father out of their little home and escape into the Zemplen Hills. Instead, Tibor was forced to watch his father being herded into a cattle truck, having witnessed the horrors of Satoraljaujhely and knowing that his father was going away to his death. To a terrible death. Tibor, the family provider, the fixer, had got it wrong the one time it really mattered. Blame is the sharpest of blades and it cut through to his soul.
‘Can you imagine how Milos felt? He was still only fourteen years old. Can you imagine the devastation he felt, shredded by an overpowering sense of loss and also by more than a fair share of guilt? He felt jointly responsible with Tibor for having failed to rescue their father in time. But Milos, more so than Tibor, had suffered a double blow. What now of his solemn promise to protect Gabriella from the cattle trucks, what now of his vow to rescue her, to marry her, to spend his life with her, to love her as much as any human being can be loved? His streaming eyes flashed back and forth from his father to Gabriella until they and his life as he’d imagined it were swallowed up by the ugly black hole in the side of the cattle truck. No more father. No more Gabriella.’
Milos slumped back in his chair exhausted.
‘Thank you, Ramon, I will have that coffee now.’
‘I think we all need coffee now.’
Ramon waved his hand to attract Gancio’s attention, heard him respond almost immediately.
‘I’m sorry, Milos, and I apologise,’ said Neil. ‘I concede there is no way I could possibly know how the two boys felt. But, for what it’s worth, having listened to you I’m beginning to get some idea.’
‘No, Neil,’ said Milos coldly, ‘you have no idea. You can have no idea. No idea at all.’
SECOND THURSDAY
CHAPTER NINE
There was only one topic of conversation as the four friends sat down to lunch and that was the storm that had broken over Sydney as they’d made their way to the restaurant. It had begun with high winds and rain before the rain had turned into hailstones the size of golf balls, which had smashed office windows, dented cars and blocked drains causing roads to flood.
‘As soon as I heard on the radio the hail was coming I drove up onto the footpath beneath a shop awning,’ said Neil. ‘Beauty of a four-wheel drive. The car alongside me at the kerb, a WRX, looked like some madman had gone over it with a ball hammer. Its alarm was screaming like a stuck pig. Did you get caught?’
‘I pulled off the Western Distributor and parked under the freeway,’ said Milos.
‘Good thinking,’ said Neil.
‘I agree, but it wasn’t my idea. There was a guy in a new Porsche in front of me. Judging by his reaction he heard about the hail the same time I did. When he speared off under the off ramp I just followed. What about you, Lucio?’
‘I got here early. I was already in the car park.’
Ramon couldn’t help smiling. As far as he was concerned, the storm was as welcome as the first fine day of spring. It had provided the distraction Neil and Milos needed to allow the hostility that had built up between them to dissipate. He was delighted to hear them discussing the storm as if the tensions of the previous Thursday had never happened. But would they resurface and, if they did, who would be the instigator? He no longer believed Milos had deliberately set out to target Neil with his story; Milos’s bitterness had been genuine, and the intensity of his attack on Neil more a product of emotion than planning. Yet the anger and outbursts were so atypical of Milos. Were they induced by the story or was Milos simply laying foundations for his tricks? Milos rarely did anything without thinking carefully about it first. But was this the exception?
‘What about you, Ramon?’ asked Neil.
‘Me? I came by taxi. As always.’
‘Did you get caught?’
‘Yes. It sounded more like shrapnel falling on the car than hailstones. The driver was afraid the windows would break. He wanted to stop.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. I told him to keep driving. What do I care if the windows break? I can’t see out of them anyway.’
Ramon smiled again as his friends burst out laughing. This was the mood to begin the second day’s storytelling. If Lucio chose to tell one of his ribald stories now it would be perfect. So long as they could stay laughing through lunch. ‘I wonder what delight Gancio has for us this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Anyone know?’
‘I know the first course,’ said Lucio. ‘Spaghetti, served with the juices of roast lamb cooked with rosemary and garlic.’
‘Spaghetti with dripping?’ said Neil. ‘Is that a cholesterol hit or what? If Hitler had’ve had Gancio’s recipe he wouldn’t have needed Zyklon B. He could have got the same result just buying the Jews lunch.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ groaned Ramon. Lucio rolled his eyes.
‘Just testing,’ said Neil. He started to laugh. Ramon was relieved to hear Milos join him.
‘Do I dare ask where you are taking us today, Milos?’ Neil asked. ‘Back to Hungary?’
‘Of course.’
‘Any chance you could move the story on twenty or thirty years?’
‘No chance, Neil. I’m taking you right back to that signal box at the instant we left it last week, to two brave but shattered boys waving goodbye. You see, Neil, Jozsef wasn’t the only one to spot the boys in the signal box. So did a boy from their school, a boy who’d been taken to the station by his anti-Semitic parents who wanted one last chance to tell the departing Jews exactly what they thought of them, a boy who’d already grown to dislike and distrust Tibor Heyman. His name was Istvan Kiraly, a little rat-faced weasel of a kid who some boys thought was a bit of a freak. But he was much more than that. Oh, yes. The interesting thing is, he and Tibor were alike in more ways than either would admit. Both were intelligent, more mature than their years would suggest, and both were confident in their abilities. They could have become friends, but instead they were destined to become implacable enemies. I’ll tell you more about Istvan Kiraly after lunch, provided your arteries survive the pasta.’
Istvan Kiraly heard the cows stirring beneath him and guessed it was time for milking. The cows served as alarm clock in a household too poor for such luxuries. He poked his elbow into the back of his brother who was fast asleep in the bed alongside him. His brother’s response was a sleepy snarl and a retaliatory arm thrown in his general direction. Istvan ignored it and swung his feet to the floor. When was it ever different?
The beasts below heard him stir and shuffled expectantly. He sat on the bed and waited until his eyes had fully opened and adjusted to the dark. Hay was also stored in the loft which doubled as bedroom for himself and his brother so candles and lamps were forbidden. Istvan shivered in the cold, rose and pulled his nightshirt over his head. A cow farted voluminously but Istvan barely noticed the smell as the foul gases rose and permeated the loft. It was what he lived with every day of his life.
Besides the bed, the loft was furnished with a wooden chair and a dressing table with four drawers that skidded on worn runners and no longer closed properly. He pulled the chair towards him. His clothes were stacked upon it in the order in which he put them on, the reverse of the way he had taken them off the
evening before, so he could dress easily and quickly in the dark. He pulled on his shirt, his trousers, his coarse knitted jumper, his patched socks, his boots and finally his jacket. He raised the trapdoor and was engulfed by the smells of warm animals, manure and urine. The cows shuffled and ruminated as they waited for him to climb down the ladder and ease the discomfort in their distended udders. But Istvan had things to do first, which the beasts well knew. Their lives, like the boy’s, were governed by routine.
Istvan grabbed his cap off the nail by the stable door and walked quickly towards the small mud-brick cottage. The back door swung outwards on hinges that he kept well-greased so his duties didn’t wake his father. He slipped out of his boots and tiptoed between the bed where his grandparents lay snoring and his little sister’s bed, and past the bed where his parents slept, the bed in which he, his brother and his sister had been born. It was also where his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather had drawn their first breaths. Doubtless over the years the bedboards had been replaced, along with the mattress and bedding, but the family still regarded the bed as though every part was original. In all probability, Istvan’s great-great-grandfather and his father before that had also been born in that cramped and uncomfortable bed, but nobody bothered thinking back that far and there was nothing to be gained by doing so.
The Kiraly cottage had also undergone changes over the centuries — new roofs, rebuilt walls, cramped extensions — but the pounded earth floor had simply shed layers so that it lay a good twenty centimetres below the doorstep, almost to the level of the footings. Throughout the centuries there had been one constant: the Kiraly cottage had always sheltered more mouths than the Kiraly land could reasonably support. And this had always been a source of discord and unhappiness.
A fire flickered weakly in the hearth in the cottage’s one other room, and that was where Istvan headed. His first duty of every day was to build up the fire so that his parents would have the benefit of its warmth when they finally rose. He added a few sticks, no more than kindling, and once they were alight added two small logs. Not so much that his father would belt him for wasting wood, nor so little that his father would accuse him of forgetting to build the fire up and belt him for that. Life didn’t have to be hard, Istvan had learned, so long as you understood how people thought and how things worked. After placing a kettle of water over the flame, he briefly warmed his hands before retracing his steps to the stable. That was something else he’d learned. Cows were less likely to kick him if his hands were warm.
‘Sandor!’
‘I’m coming!’
‘Dad’s already stirring.’
Istvan smiled when he heard the sound of his brother’s boots being dragged across the floor of the loft. His father was in fact dead to the world but it didn’t hurt to hurry Sandor along. His brother was lazy and rebellious and it frustrated Istvan when Sandor made no effort to understand how the world worked, to comply and use his knowledge to his advantage. Instead his brother practised a pointless brinkmanship, leaving his duties to the last minute, not completing them satisfactorily or not completing them at all. His rebelliousness brought their father’s wrath down on both of them. Certain things had to be done and they were best done and dispensed with as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. The fire had to be built up, the cows had to be milked, the chickens fed and the eggs collected. They had to muck out the barn and the pig sty, taking care to stack the manure so it could be used to fertilise the crops. They also had to gather parsley roots to crush into a tea for his grandparents’ rheumatism. These things had to be done and done before their father rose from his bed. They had to be done.
Istvan lit the oil lamp which was strung on rope over a beam so it couldn’t be knocked over accidentally and burn the barn down. He walked the first cow into the milking stall, perched on his little stubby-legged stool, placed the milk pail beneath the cow’s udders and squeezed. The milk steamed as it squirted into the pail. Behind him he heard his brother’s boots scraping on the ladder, heard him fart. What was one more fart in a barn shared with four cows, a bull and a calf?
‘Here.’
Istvan took the enamel mug from his brother, scooped up some warm milk from the pail and handed it back. Sandor drank it greedily. Istvan scooped out another half mugful, drank it himself and lay the mug down by his stool. That was breakfast over and done with. Both boys wanted more but that was not an option. Their father knew almost to the squirt how much milk his cows produced and monitored the output carefully. Spare milk became cheese and cheese became pengo and pengo made life bearable.
Istvan filled two pails and covered the milk with wooden lids that jammed down tightly. He carried the pails outside and set about mucking out the barn. Both boys had their duties but Istvan also had the responsibility of making sure Sandor completed his. Istvan worked quickly and automatically, all the while planning his day and working out the best way to approach the people he needed to deal with. The sooner he finished his work and the sooner he left the cottage for school, the more time he’d have to think about life’s other possibilities and how to make his escape. Istvan was determined to break with the family tradition of subsistence and disappointment. His secret agenda was to be the first first-born Kiraly in generations to leave the farm.
With his duties finished, and having satisfied himself that Sandor’s were also nearing completion, he carried the two milk pails into the cottage. Once again he kicked his boots off at the door, leaving them in the middle of the step to remind his brother to do likewise. Once inside he woke his sister and gave her some milk. Though only nine years old, she already had the heavy limbs and big hands that marked her as a peasant and equipped her for a life of drudgery. She had the unenviable task of waking their father.
There had been a time when Istvan’s father, Gyorgy, had made a determined bid to improve the lot of the Kiraly family. Their land was leased, part of a vast estate owned by one of Hungary’s noble families. The bulk of their main crop, wheat, went in rent and taxes, leaving them barely enough grain to grind into flour for their own use. So Gyorgy created a market garden where he could grow potatoes, sweet corn, beets, onions, leeks, cucumbers, herbs and chillies to grind up into paprika. He increased the number of hens and added geese, doubled the number of cows to make cheese and kept two breeding pigs. He dug ditches to prevent flooding and irrigation trenches to keep his vegetables watered during dry spells. Somewhere along the way his back cracked under the loads he subjected it to, yet he ignored the pain and soldiered on. The truth was, his family’s circumstances were improving. For the first time in generations, the Kiraly family had a brighter future to look forward to. Suddenly there was money for more livestock, for new bedding, new boots and new clothes. Then the landlord responded to the improvements he’d made to their property by increasing his rent.
On that day, Istvan’s father accepted defeat. He had no rights of appeal, in fact, no rights at all. His one hope of avenging the injustice lay in joining the Smallholders Party and campaigning for land rights. But there was little he could do for the pain in his back. By the end of each day, the pain was so bad he numbed it with alcohol, the only medication available to him, but this took savage toll on the available pengo and on his temper. The palinka made life tolerable for him but frequently intolerable for his family.
Istvan’s younger sister woke their father every morning by massaging his back, without which therapy he couldn’t even rise from his bed. Every morning he began by cursing her but gradually her strong hands loosened the frozen and spasming muscles and with the lessening of the tension came a lightening of his mood. But no amount of back massaging could ease the morning palinka-induced headache or the fact that he faced another day of hard work and bleak prospects. The potential for explosion was always there, which was why Istvan worked so diligently to ensure neither he nor his brother gave him any cause for complaint.
‘Let me see your boots before you put them on.’ Istvan stood by the ba
ck step waiting, as he always did, for Sandor to finish getting ready for school.
‘They’ve split more,’ said Sandor.
The soles were worn through but the real problem was with the stitching and the uppers themselves. The stitching and the leather surrounding the stitching had rotted, and the uppers had worn so thin the cracks in them had started to split. As hard as he looked there was little to suggest they were capable of repair.
‘They’re far too small anyway,’ said Sandor. ‘My feet are bursting out of them. Just sitting in class I could feel the leather split.’
Sandor’s boots had been handed down for the last time and the problem had been occupying Istvan for days. There were no old boots for Sandor to step up to and no money to buy any. With the war on and leather — any leather — at a premium, replacing boots was hard when you didn’t have money to pay black-market prices.
‘You shouldn’t have worn these kicking footballs around,’ said Istvan irritably. ‘And kicking Jews hasn’t helped either.’
‘They were falling apart anyway,’ said Sandor. He glared at his older brother.
‘Don’t say anything to Dad. Keep wearing them until I find you some others, okay?’
Istvan handed the boots back to his brother. It didn’t bother him that Sandor, although a year younger, was ten centimetres taller than him, raw-boned and strongly built and more than fifteen kilograms heavier. What bothered him was that he was expected to wear clothes handed down from Sandor and his brother didn’t respect or look after them. Sandor’s boots had been ear-marked for him.
‘Where are you going to get boots from?’ asked Sandor. There was no real curiosity or wonder in the question, more an undertone of scorn.
‘Leave it to me,’ said Istvan. ‘Now let’s go.’
He treated his brother’s question dismissively but it was reasonable enough. Where could he get boots from even if he had money to pay for them? Where could he get boots when he had nothing to trade except the clothes he stood in, his school bag and books, and an ancient wooden chess set his grandfather had given him? The chess pieces had been carved during long-forgotten, cold winter nights, not by his grandfather but by one of his ancestors, and much of the intricate detail had been worn smooth by generations of fingering. Nothing in the Kiraly household was ever thrown away. Nothing was ever wasted. But that still left him with nothing to trade.
