Ascension (10 page)

Etel made as if to move forward, but András grabbed her arm and held her still. The rifle again rose, and this time the well-dressed man made no move to stop it. A shot exploded from the rifle and the ground sprayed dirt in their faces.

“Stop,” András called in Romany, instantly wishing he hadn’t. Now they were revealed. Rough hands pulled them from the brambles and stood them in front of the well-dressed man. He looked at András first—a long, hard, assessing look that made András sure the man could see into his bones. Less attention was paid to Etel, but enough that she felt close to tears, though she never cried. “Roma,” her brother had often told her, “do not weep for fear.”

The man nodded and his cohorts released them. “You are Roma?” he asked.

András nodded.

“Funny thing. A few days ago, we went through a village that was looking to harm Roma. One in particular, a boy about your age. Seems he had burned down a church. You know about this?”

András said nothing, but his hands began to shake.

“We were lucky to get away. They knew we had nothing to do with it but did not care. To most
gadje,
we Roma are all the same.” The man grabbed András’s hand, and before the boy could pull it back, the man held it to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Kerosene,” he said, a slow chuckle rolling from the back of his throat.

András smelled his hand, detecting no scent of kerosene. “I smell nothing,” he said.

“Neither did I,” the man answered, “but your actions tell me everything.”

András looked down at his feet, ashamed to have been tricked so easily. The man squatted down and brushed Etel’s hair out of her face. “What is your name, little one?”

Etel stood up as tall as she would go. “Etel Ursari,” she said.

The man smiled. “Ursari. You are a bear, then?”

Etel growled her meanest bear growl, intending to intimidate, and the man laughed. He stood up. “I am Anosh Mór. I lead these Roma. If you like, you may travel with us.”

“We’re fine,” András said.

“I don’t think so. People are looking for you.”

András looked at Etel, and felt his stomach tighten from emptiness. He knew that he had little choice but to trust this man.

“We have food,” Anosh Mór said, and András’s mind was decided.

Anosh Mór was called simply “Nosh” by everyone else. The twenty or so who followed him were mostly related in one way or another. The family had come from Russia to Hungary in the early part of the century, and since the war they had travelled throughout the continent, sometimes away from this army or that, but mostly to wherever a fast profit could be made. The war had been good to them on this account.

When there was a scam to be had, everyone worked, even Nosh. He was an expert horse trader and had a million tricks for making a poor horse look well. Grey on a horse’s muzzle was dyed black again. One horse that was lame in his left foot had a tiny nail driven into its right foot, so that it was unable to favour either. The best trick of all was the trained mare who, at the first possible opportunity, would bolt from her new owner, only to be brought back in short order by an honest stranger, who usually received a small reward for his trouble. After this happened three or four times, the new owner usually came to the easily found caravan of the Mór Roma and demanded a refund, which was grudgingly given. The honest strangers were of course Mór Roma themselves, but hardly anyone ever noticed, most considering themselves lucky to receive a refund on the bad horse. If the new owners did not return the horse for a refund, then the mare would be stolen in the night, and the Mór Roma would not be so easily located. Even if they were, the mare would be nowhere to be found, though a similar horse of another colour would be in plain view.

András got a rush from these schemes, not in their success but in their execution. He enjoyed duping the
gadje
immensely, regardless of the prize. The Mór Roma had treated the Usari children well, almost as though he and Etel were two of their own. There was a distance that András sometimes noticed, though, a look that held a quiet malice, as if the Roma knew some larger
truth that he did not. It concerned him but these times were rare, and without anything more substantial he was of the opinion that a good thing need not be tampered with.

When they were in larger cities, the youngest of the Mór Roma were given crutches, slings and eye patches and sent out to the streets to beg. András was surprised how much could be earned once he learned how to play the game. Etel always earned the most, though. People would push past the throng of them only to stop at Etel, who stood silently with a bandage over both her eyes, a bowl at her feet. They nearly always put a coin in her bowl without her moving a muscle.

At first Etel didn’t mind the begging. She didn’t give it a second thought, because as far as she was concerned she wasn’t even there. With her eyes covered over she lived in her dreams, imagining for herself a life that did not involve being at the mercy of others. She imagined that she lived the life of a
gadji, or
at least what she thought the life of a
gadji
must be like. But as she got older it became harder and harder to keep back the world around her, and after three years with the Mór Roma she could do little else but stand still and sing herself songs in her head.

It was in the fall of 1925 that László Nagy’s hard work came to fruition. For the previous four years he had spent as much time as he possibly could perfecting his craft, staying late after his shift at Sándor Glassworks, often working through the night. The foreman was a kind man, and he did not object to László using company equipment for his own purposes, as long as it didn’t affect his work. After all, the more László learned about glass, the better an employee he would be. He even watched with interest as László perfected various techniques for colouring and shaping his hand-blown
glass, and every once in a while, when a setback was suffered, the foreman felt nearly as badly as László, though he never let on.

Since the preceding spring, however, László had been keeping the subject of his work a secret, and although the foreman occasionally caught a glimpse of a piece of something here and there, he had never seen exactly what László was making until that day after work when László took him aside and showed him his magnificent creation.

Similarly, neither Salvo nor Leo knew what László was up to. All they knew was that he seemed to be in a much better than usual mood lately, and that he was hardly ever home. As both these things were sources of comfort for the two boys, they did not put much effort into questioning László’s whereabouts. Esa, however, was fully aware of her husband’s work, but even she had no idea what to expect the day that László finished.

The door to the apartment opened quickly and unexpectedly, which startled Esa. She had been in the kitchen preparing a midday meal, fully expecting László not to arrive home until late at night, so she had not made a portion for him. Leo’s foot was aching, so she had made him soak it in warm water and salts. Salvo had helped her lift a basin into the front room, and the two boys were there now, Leo trying to teach Salvo to read, Salvo paying half-hearted attention. Esa was wondering if maybe she should ask Leo or László to teach her how to read when the door had burst open. She immediately thought that the police were there to take her away. When she saw that it was László she was relieved, and thought herself rather silly. Why would the police take her away? she chided herself. She had done nothing wrong. After completing this mental reprimand, she noticed that László was carrying a wooden box about two feet wide and tall, and she wondered what was in it. “You’re home early.”

László nodded, appearing to Esa to be out of breath. There was a strange look on his face, an expression she could not recall ever seeing before. She wasn’t sure what sort of mood the look was indicative of; there was a smile on his face, or at least the hint of a smile, which for László qualified as a beaming grin, but his forehead was scrunched down so that his eyebrows protruded awkwardly from his head, much like the way the snow on a roof can bulge over the eaves, seeming to defy gravity for a time before collapsing under its own weight. Esa decided that whatever László was feeling, it was new and extreme, and for a fleeting moment she envied him the scope of his emotions.

She watched as László gingerly set the box down on the floor. He removed the lid and reached inside. His hands emerged with rags and crumpled papers, which he carefully placed in a neat pile on top of the box’s lid. He looked up towards Esa, and then to where Salvo and Leo were and, appearing satisfied that he had their full attention, his hands delved back into the box.

“Maybe you have thought that I am a stupid man,” he said, looking mainly at Salvo. “Maybe you have thought this because I make windows all day, and I do not tell fine stories or play music or know a hundred ways to cheat a man out of his property.” Here his gaze shifted towards Esa, but she pretended not to notice. “Think what you like,” he continued, “but never say that I can’t take care of my family, or that I can’t do a great thing that few others can do.”

Tenderly and far more delicately than Esa had ever seen him handle Leo, even when he had been a baby, László gripped whatever was in the box and lifted it out. Esa gasped and brought a hand to her mouth, another to her breast. László held a figurine, over a foot tall, of a Hungarian soldier in full ornamental dress. Every detail down to the brass buttons on his coat was fashioned from glass, and the soldier shone, almost glowed, from the light it
absorbed and reflected. What struck her most were the soldier’s eyes; they were a deep green, with coal-black pupils. But it wasn’t just that they looked like real eyes—in itself reason enough to marvel. It was that they were the same as hers. For that matter, those eyes were the eyes of her ancestors and family, the eyes of her sister, Azira, Salvo’s mother, and even the eyes of Salvo. That László would re-create these eyes, eyes that were Romany eyes, shocked Esa to her bones.

Salvo saw the eyes too, but he did not recognize them at first. All he could tell was that the glass soldier seemed to be looking straight into him. What the soldier could see was unclear, but it was definitely something. Salvo did not know whether he loved or feared the soldier, or both. All he knew was that those eyes sent a shiver down his spine.

László couldn’t tell what others saw in his soldier, but he knew what he saw when he looked at it. He saw hours and hours of work; he saw all the pieces that he had built twenty times before he got them right. He saw his entire body of glass-making knowledge embodied in a single piece of work, and he saw perfection. As far as he was concerned, the soldier came as near to complete beauty as any man, and more specifically himself, was ever likely to get. He also saw inside the soldier the promise of a better life for himself and his family. To him, the eyes were only eyes.

There would be no more Sándor Glassworks for him. He would open his own shop, where he would make more figurines to sell to the wealthy citizens of Budapest. His skill as a craftsman would erase the shame of having a Romany wife and a crippled son, and maybe he could convince Esa to let him find somewhere else for Salvo to live. He did not like the way the boy was always looking out the window, towards the tops of buildings, as if there were somewhere he would rather be, as if László’s house
was not good enough for him. When the boy had come here he had nothing; for the past six years László had put a roof over his head and kept him fed and clothed far better than any Romany family would have been able to do. The boy should be grateful, but instead he stubbornly insisted on appearing as though he wished he were elsewhere.

Never mind the boy, László thought. His hand moved to the inside pocket of his threadbare coat, where there was an envelope that only this morning had contained more money than László had ever seen in his life. It was a down payment for the soldier, which had already been purchased by the agent of a local collector, a rich man whose name was known not only in Budapest and Hungary but throughout Europe. László had already gone to his landlord and paid two years’ rent in advance for the apartment, as well as paying off his and Esa’s debts. Most of the down payment was gone now, but there was a little left, enough for a good celebration, and then tomorrow when the agent came to collect the soldier he would receive even more money, the equivalent of nearly three years’ salary at Sándor Glassworks.

He returned the soldier to its box, replacing the rags and paper that protected it. He carried the box to the far corner of the front room and laid it down in the corner. Then, as clearly as he ever had before, László smiled. He had a treat in store for the family, his way of showing them that he was not always a hard man. He told everyone to change into their best clothes as quickly as possible. Leo and Salvo rushed to obey, and he refused to answer even Esa’s questions as they changed, telling her that she would see when they got there. When everyone was ready, László led them out of the apartment, down to the street. They rode the electric streetcar into the inner city of Pest. At the terminal for the subway that ran underneath Andrássy Avenue was Gerbeaud’s, the famous pastry
shop, but László wouldn’t allow them to stop. There was no time, he told them. Perhaps on the way back.