Ascension (9 page)

Like his feelings towards Leo. He knew that it was foolish of him, almost stupid, but for some reason he could not look at his son without seeing his deformed foot. And because of this failing, he knew that some of him did not love his own son. Not as much as Esa did, anyway.

Then there was his job. Although by most standards it was good work, and many men would love to have a job such as his, László felt deep inside that he was capable of better, that he held the promise of something more. And he hated himself for ignoring this potential. But there were mouths to feed, so he had no choice. And because it was easier, he blamed the source of these necessities instead of himself. He resented Esa. He resented Leo. Lately, though, he mainly resented Salvo.

That his wife had taken in an orphan of the relatives who had shunned her was admirable. True. But he always remembered that it was easy for her to do so because she was not the one who had to go to a glass factory every day to support him. Not to mention the fact that the boy, Salvo, made the hair on his spine stand on end any time they were alone in a room. There was something about him that made László very, very nervous.

Esa saw that he was staring at her. “Sausages,” she said.

“What?”

“For supper. Sausages.”

“Oh.” She handed him the new cup of tea, temperature just right, and László resolved to find a way to love his wife again. He could do such a thing, he told himself. It would be no trouble at all.

In the front room, Salvo and Leo had abandoned the game of bandits. Now Leo sat on the floor, and Salvo entertained him with acrobatics. Quiet ones, as they had to be careful not to raise the ire
of László. Salvo took a wooden chair with a high back and placed it in the centre of the room. He stood on the seat of the chair, put his hands on the back, and as smoothly as if he were rolling over in his bed, he did a handstand on the back of the chair. Leo beamed. If it were not for the noise it made, he would have clapped his hands together and cried out. Salvo decided to take the trick a little further. Still holding his handstand, he leaned the chair back until the front two legs came off the ground. He remained upside down for ten seconds, and despite his best efforts, Leo could not stop a tiny squeal of delight from escaping his lips. Salvo let the chair rest on all four of its legs, then reverted his body to an upright position and dismounted.

Salvo had never been taught how to do this manoeuvre. He had always had good natural balance; when he was only nine years old, he had, after all, climbed the very steeple that many grown men had failed to conquer. One day he had looked at the chair, and it occurred to him that if he wanted to, he could probably do a handstand on the back of it. It was relatively difficult at first, but after a few dozen times it became quite easy. Tipping the legs off the ground was trickier, but he’d mastered that as well.

László entered the front room just as Salvo returned the chair to its proper place. László had not seen any of the balancing. He set about picking up his winter clothing from the floor, setting his coat on the hook by the door. He looked at Leo, who was rubbing his lame foot. “Cold today,” he said.

“Too cold,” Leo replied.

“Maybe hell’s frozen over,” László said. It was supposed to be a joke, but his tone of voice hadn’t given any cue. Both boys’ faces paled and their mouths dropped.

Leo looked to Salvo. “Did that happen?”

Salvo shrugged. Anything was possible.

“No, don’t worry. This isn’t hell. It’s only Hungary,” László said. Once again, it was a joke that was above the heads of children. Cynicism is always lost on the young ones, he thought. “Winter will be over soon.”

Again Leo looked to Salvo. “Ask God for us if this is hell.”

Salvo’s breath caught in his throat. László looked at him, puzzled. “You’re talking to God now?”

“No,” Salvo said. His hands began to shake.

“God used to talk to the Roma. Maybe he will again,” Leo said.

László seized Salvo by the shoulder and pulled him into the kitchen. With a look, Esa knew this was trouble.

“Who has been telling Romany stories to my son?”

“I’m sorry.” Salvo said. László’s fingers were digging into his shoulder, which was rapidly going numb. Tears began to well up in Salvo’s eyes.

“Your stories are not to be in this house. Filth. My son will not be a thief. He will not be a liar. He will not be dirty and he will not be poor.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

Esa remained quiet, but she was becoming angry inside. She had been Roma once, and she was neither dirty nor a thief nor a liar. László had no right to say such things.

“You want a story? I’ve got a story for you, then. There were these three travellers: a Hungarian, a Jew and a Rom. They went to a farm one night, looking for a place to sleep. The farmer told them that he only had two beds; one of the travellers would have to sleep in the barn. The Hungarian wasn’t selfish, so he said he’d sleep in the barn. When he got there it was full of animals, and it was too foul to sleep in. He returned to the farmhouse and told the Jew to sleep there. The Jew went to the barn, but there were pigs there and it was not kosher for
him, so he came back to the farmhouse and paid the Rom to take his place.

“So the Rom went to the barn to sleep. After a while there was a knock at the door of the farmhouse. It was the cows and the pigs and the chickens. ‘Look,’ they said, ‘let us sleep here with you. We can’t sleep in that barn with a dirty Rom.’ ”

Esa watched László’s mouth form a sneer, and she struggled to keep silent. This was not her battle. She had decided she would lose this fight a long time ago. Her choice had been made, and she had chosen László over her people. She didn’t know if she had done the right thing, but it no longer mattered. She loved her husband. This meant she must continue to love him, even during times like these. That was how things worked, whether she was Roma or
gadje
.

Satisfied he had made his point, László released his grip on Salvo’s shoulder.

“You understand what I’ve said?”

Salvo felt his arm prickle as circulation was restored, and he rubbed the sore spot with his good hand. “Yes, Uncle.”

László nodded and strode out of the room. Salvo choked back tears. Maybe his uncle was right about the Roma. No good had ever come from his being one. Only trouble, only misery. His aunt had stopped being a Rom, maybe he could too. But he did not want to. His father was Roma, as were his mother and brothers and sisters. They had died because they were Roma, and he would not be made ashamed of what he was. Instead he would become more Romany than ever. Someday, he would become like one of the Roma his father had told stories about.

Esa watched Salvo’s face and felt a twinge of sorrow for what she knew the boy was enduring. She said a silent prayer that he
would come through this torment with his spirit intact. “Come and sit,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Have some sausage.”

Etel Ursari would never remember being locked inside the burning house. She had no memory of András opening the trunk, lifting her out and carrying her from the house, keeping his body between her and the still figures that had been their parents. Her earliest memories were of a winter spent in a hunter’s shelter deep in the forest, of being hungry and cold. She could not recall the faces of her parents, or of Salvo. Only András.

For nearly two years they had stayed hidden, András fearing for their lives if they should be found. They ate what András was able to forage, risking a fire only when absolutely necessary. He dared not even trust other Roma. Eventually they ran out of options. The woods were becoming increasingly dangerous as more and more people fled the turmoil of the war’s aftermath. András decided that they would be safest in a large city, far away from the provincial town that had destroyed their family. It was a hard thing; at twelve years old he was an orphan, penniless and in charge of a baby girl.

Hardship was something Etel knew from her first memory, a fact that stood in front of her since thought began. It was not worn as a burden, and there was no regret attached to it. It simply was, and things went forward from there, it naturally being assumed that life was a wrenching endeavour that lent no favours to unfortunate Roma.

András, though, had known other things, and he was unable to put his sorrow aside. Though he had long considered making the trip to Budapest to seek out his aunt, he did not go. Either this place was not done with him or he was not done with this place.
He vowed revenge; he savoured the prospect. His days were spent waiting, full of patient anger, his chest heavy with a dull ache he was sure would never go away.

In the spring of 1921, shortly before Etel’s third birthday, they made their move. It was their intention to make their way to Budapest, where there might be work for András, and even the possibility of family. First, though, there was something András wanted to do. Young as she was, Etel knew immediately that it was something serious, something that was beyond her reckoning. She could tell that her brother would rather not have brought her along, but there was nowhere else for her to go. They waited until well after the sun went down. There was no moon, and as they moved quickly through the streets of the town that had once been their home, Etel grasped tightly to András’s back. In his arms he carried a large, sloshing, metal can. She did not have to be told to make no sound.

As their destination approached, András remembered running down a muddy road in the middle of a thunderstorm, seeing the charred house, seeing his mother’s eyes wide open, his father’s mouth agape. He had heard Etel’s cries from inside the trunk, felt a wave of relief when he opened the lid and saw her, frightened but unharmed. He was seized by panic, fearing that his parents’ killers would return to finish the job. He wondered where Salvo was, scooped Etel into his arms and fled to the forest.

These memories were placed aside when they reached the church. András put Etel on the ground beside a thick tree at the edge of the clearing, telling her to stay out of sight. András moved quickly around the back edge of the church, dousing the siding with kerosene. He stood still for a long minute, staring up at the steeple with no cross at the top. Etel heard nothing until the sharp snap of a match igniting, and a
whoosh
as the
hungry wood consumed its flames. Before she even realized what he’d done, András was scooping her up and carrying her into the woods.

Peering over his shoulder she could see the church burn; she could smell the smoke of the fire and feel its heat. When they were a distance away, cries of alarm rose from the church, but by then it was too late to stop the fire. It never occurred to Etel to wonder whether anyone had been inside. It had occurred to András, but he didn’t care. They moved slowly through the woods, choosing stealth over speed, going all night without stopping. András had no idea if there were pursuers behind him, but he felt it best to assume that there were. Etel watched over his shoulder for signs that they were being followed. All she could see was fire, long after it had disappeared from view.

They worked their way towards Budapest, staying clear of towns and main roads wherever possible. They slept in farmers’ fields and spent a comparably luxurious night in an empty barn. Etel wondered where the animals were. András knew they had all been slaughtered.

About a week later, they were trudging along a desolate side road when the sound of wagons came up from behind them. András ushered Etel into the underbrush, where they crouched amongst the brambles, waiting for the wagons to pass.

After a while a pair of horses came into view, good strong horses. They pulled a brightly painted wagon driven by a man wearing a gaudy hat. Several more wagons followed. A man rode a white horse beside the third wagon. He was dressed in new clothes, and he looked like he ate regularly. Behind him were four or five more wagons, and voices could be heard from all around. It took András a second to realize that the voices were speaking Romany. Etel did not know the difference between Romany and
Hungarian, her language being a mishmash of the eastern dialects that András knew bits and pieces of.

When the man’s horse came astride the spot where András and Etel were concealed, his rider bade him stop. The man remained frozen as the wagons continued, and then, as if smelling the children, he turned and looked straight at the bushes that hid them. He whistled sharply between his gleaming teeth and the wagons stopped smartly, like soldiers on parade. He slid off his horse, his hand moving to his side, where the hilt of a knife thrust upwards from his belt.

“Who is there?” he said in Hungarian, his voice solid and commanding.

András froze, wondering how the man had known they were there. Etel, however, let out a frightened squeak, and immediately the man was joined by three other men whose clothes were not as good as his. “Robbers,” one of them hissed in Romany. He had a rifle, and he raised it at the children’s hiding place.

“No,” the man answered, “I do not think so.” He placed a hand on the rifle, gently pushing its barrel downwards. “Come out,” he called again.