The Book of Fathers (34 page)

Sándor Csillag resigned himself with some sadness to the uncertain duration of his engagement. He had not counted on Antonia Goldbaum presenting her fiancé to her parents that very month, in the person of Imre Holatschek, only son of the apothecary at Beremend.

My ship has sailed into port. With this respectable marriage I hereby renounce the days of my feckless youth. My young bride is the first woman I have encountered whose company brings me joy at any time of the day or night. In her parents I have found a true father and mother. My egg-shaped fob-watch, my father’s sole bequest to me, I presented to my father-in-law on the night of my stag party, in a sudden access of generosity. Though I was highly intoxicated, I don’t regret it for one moment. I know that this timepiece dates from the age of my ancestor Kornél Csillag, who chose later to be known as Sternovszky. To the best of my knowledge, it was found in the mud by a bandit called Jóska Telegdi. At the time it was broken, showing October 9, 1683, that is, it stopped on the day of the battle of Párkány. What an amazing coincidence! It was on that battlefield that the father of that bandit died! Telegdi, who was killed at the scene, left there all his possessions, and that is how the timepiece came into my ancestor’s hands and has ever since, having undergone many repairs, always been passed on to the first-born. The chain of ownership was not broken by Fatimeh’s thievery; on the contrary, it was she who righted matters when they were out of kilter as a result of Otto’s murder. It is no bad thing that this valuable relic leaves my possession. I never wore it myself. It fits Manfred Goldbaum’s waistcoat pocket far better; may it therefore bring him good fortune always
.

The Goldbaums did not observe the religious customs or the dietary regime of the Israelites, nor did they go to synagogue; rather, they saw themselves as Hungarians, considering their ties to their homeland more important than
their ancestry. Manfred Goldbaum went so far as to contemplate changing his surname, and if only he could have come to an agreement with Helene over their new name, they would now long have been called something resoundingly Hungarian like Garay, or Gárdonyi, or Garas. In the end the double wedding was held in the Pécs synagogue, the two couples married by Chief Rabbi Lipót Stern, who turned out to be distantly related to Sándor Csillag and invited him round for tea. Sándor Csillag gladly accepted, but never kept his promise.

After the wedding both couples moved into Sándor Csillag’s house in Apácza Street, though Antonia and Imre did so only temporarily. Imre Holatschek wanted to make a career in Harkány, where he thought the warm spa waters offered sure-fire business opportunities in the curative and recuperative sphere. He used his dowry to make an offer for the local apothecary’s shop, and when this was declined he opened his own chemist’s in the building of a public house that had closed down long before. At the same time he set about building a house of his own.

Ilona regretted that the foursome would not stay together in the longer term—it would have been most agreeable to share with her sister the mysteries of married life, of keeping servants, and of discovering the world of cookery. The two Goldbaum girls continued to behave like sassy girls, their peals of unrestrained laughter rose high in one room or another, in the postage-stamp of a garden, ringing out through the windows and along Apácza Street, even reaching the neighbors. “The laughing ladies” they were called in the area. His wife’s joy-filled peals of laughter, an octave higher than Antonia’s, were music to Sándor Csillag’s ears. He would not have minded his brother-and sister-in-law staying with them forever. This would be one way of achieving his ideal of living with both the Goldbaum girls at the same time.

Antonia never gave any indication that she resented Sándor Csillag for choosing her younger sister. “I love you both!” was her eternal refrain, accompanied by a gentle, dreamy smile.

Not long after the wedding Sándor Csillag had a burning desire to see Budapest again. He knew it was no longer acceptable for him to set out on his own, though that, above all, is what he truly desired. So he tricked out this trip as a birthday present for Ilona. Ilona clapped her hands in joy. “Can we go to the Opera? Can we take the viaduct tram? Can we ride on the underground railway?”

Sándor Csillag had told her many tales of the capital’s wonders: the underground train that had opened last spring, and the recently completed Comedy Theater. But there were things about which he told no tales. Ilona jumped up around her husband’s neck landing kisses wherever she could. Then she grew sad: “And …”

Sándor Csillag knew precisely what she meant. He gave her a gentle caress. “We’ll take them, too. Why not?”

The two couples took rooms in the Queen of England Hotel, their two suites opening onto a single reception room. The very first night they clapped their palms raw at the Opera, where the contemporary Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s
Aida
was performed with the chief roles sung by György Anthes, Mesdames Gizella Flatt and Itália Vasquez, and Rikárd Erdös, to whom the audience gave a particularly warm welcome, those in standing room pounding the floor with their feet as well, a thunderous noise that frightened Ilona and Antonia. The orchestra was under the baton of Henrik Benkö. The cast list and the tickets were retained as a permanent souvenir of the event in the ladies’ embroidered evening bags. The box seats cost ten crowns each. In the intervals they consumed champagne and caviar, served in the boxes by the staff. Imre Holatschek repeatedly offered to contribute to the costs of
the evening but Sándor Csillag would not hear of it. “This is my pleasure.”

Other visitors to the capital at this time included Kaiser Wilhelm II, accompanied by Apostolic King Franz Joseph. All the papers were abuzz with this news. The Emperor found the city on the Danube most pleasing, but desired to know why there were so few
Denkmaler
in Budapest, that is, statues and other memorials. Sándor Csillag agreed. It occurred to him to launch a collection for the edification of the city. Though perhaps he should have urged the embellishment of the streets and squares of Pécs, which he saw more often, and where, too, there was no plethora of
Denkmaler
. They had returned to their house in Apácza Street when he read in the newspaper that the Apostolic King Franz Joseph had donated 400,000 crowns of his private funds to erect ten historical statues in Budapest. A very noble gesture, thought Sándor Csillag.

Though he devoted little time to the affairs of the footwear shop of Straub & Csillag, this was more than made up for by Ilona’s contribution to the family business. At first she would go in only to pass the time of day with the Straubs, but gradually she took over the reins and in due course held them very tight. This proved increasingly a test for Miksa Straub’s character. He was used to having to answer to no one but himself, but Ilona’s doe-like gentleness proved to be allied to a steely business will. When the old couple had finally had enough and threatened to leave, Ilona did not stand in their way and took over the running of the office, whose drab furniture it was her first task to exchange for something bright and new. “Well, how do you like it?” she asked her husband as she showed him round.

“Hm,” said Sándor Csillag, uncertain.

“Go ahead, tell me!”

“It’s like a … boudoir.”

“That’s right!” said Ilona, squirting a diluted fragrance into the air. “At least the gentlemen I have to haggle with feel relaxed and uninhibited.”

Sándor Csillag was not sorry. Let Ilona play with the shop. Without noticing it, they had exchanged roles. After breakfast it was not the man of the house who went off to work but its lady. Sándor Csillag’s goodbye kiss was every day accompanied by the words “I’ll drop in!” but he avoided honoring his promise whenever he could. He was much happier dealing with the running of the house. He found less joy in browsing the business ledgers than in planning the menu for lunch and dinner. This capacity of his the two women and Imre Holatschek never tired of praising, and in only one respect was he sometimes criticized: he allowed the cook too free a hand in the matter of red onions.

His taste in decorating the rooms was exquisite: he readily lavished money on Japanese vases, Brussels lace, exquisite clocks, and antique weapons. He also devoted his attention to the minuscule garden, demarcating with his own hand the place of the flowerbeds and bedding down blood-red geraniums, while along the stone wall he planted four box trees, which, once they were established, the gardener trimmed into amusing shapes on his directions. The topiary took the form of a dog kennel, a helmeted German soldier, an Egyptian obelisk, and a fat python.

Thus from the house in Apácza Street there would be two people departing of a morning: Mrs. Sándor Csillag and Imre Holatschek. The latter was awaited by a trap and pair that trundled him to Harkány or Beremend. Ilona waved after him, then walked slowly along Apácza Street and crossed the main square, and as her high heels were heard on the cobbles of Király Street, men ran out of the shops to greet her in suitable fashion. The pointed comments—that at the Csillags’ the woman wore the breeches—were made only behind her back.

Ilona fell pregnant almost on her wedding night. My son Nándor was born on December 7, six weeks early. For a long time his skin had the color of the yolk of a duck’s egg, which it was impossible to wash off. Once he was bathed and wrapped in his swaddling clouts he was handed to me and I was overcome by that fever of joy, unlike any other, that is the essence of fatherhood, and which made both body and soul tremble as never before. I remembered that this was something that all my ancestors lived through, when they took their newborn child into their hands. This breast-swelling joy must be the driving force that commands us, mortal creatures, to take on the yoke of family life, this is why it is worth struggling and living
.

The care of the infant became the focus of the everyday activities of Sándor Csillag. He brooked no interference in the boy’s upbringing, even from Ilonka (his term for her from the day after the birth). Imre Holatschek made more and more allusions over the evening meal to the fact that it was high time Antonia also came into a blessed state. Antonia was distressed even at the mention of the topic and her blushes reached down to her neck.

They all four knew that this was a sensitive issue for the young apothecary. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Imre Holatschek’s efforts in Harkány were not crowned with success—the chemist’s did not become truly popular. People stayed loyal to the Pachmann family’s reliable chemist’s, and the public house of ill repute that Holatschek’s Medicaments and Medicines shop had replaced very much lived on in folk memory. The building of the house was also proving problematic, with Holatschek continually at odds with the builders, and when he ran out of funds well before completion, he high-handedly rejected Sándor Csillag’s offers of a loan. Antonia and Sándor Csillag often discussed ways of trying to get the tense and over-stressed man back onto the rails, but they found no solution.

“You should have a child!” said Sándor Csillag.

“It’s no fault of mine that there isn’t one …” said Antonia, running out of the room.

Sándor Csillag found her in the garden. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t be ashamed in front of me, sister-in-law. Tell me what the problem is.”

From her halting account it became clear that Imre Holatschek’s organ was not functioning the way it should. Hardly does it make an effort in the right direction, it springs into action well before it should.

Antonia’s face was crimson. Sándor Csillag gave a sigh. “This is not so rare. Ejaculatio praecox.” He regaled her with an exhaustive account of the meaning of the medical term.

“How do you know about this?”

Sándor Csillag shrugged. He did not feel obliged to tell his sister-in-law that his source of information on such matters walked the streets. They were very close, by the fence, their shoulders touching. Antonia was hot and panting. Now it was the man who turned red. There could be no question of this, under no circumstances! In those months he filled pages of The Book of Fathers with vows and pledges, writing down again and again that we must resist temptation, for what makes man different from beast is that he can command his base feelings by the use of reason, feelings to which in his youth he had been in thrall like a slave.

It poured oil on the fire when Ilona soon began to swell up again and, hardly a year after Nándor, gave birth to Károly. By then the Holatschek household was almost permanently at war, their bickering echoing the length of Apácza Street. Sándor Csillag and his wife reached the stage where they could hardly wait for their move to Harkány, their temporary stay having become rather protracted. But they could not bring themselves to mention this to the Holatscheks.

On Antonia’s face a bitter crease of shamefulness, for disrupting the lives of her sister and her husband, assumed an unsightly permanence. Ilona was once again pregnant, welcoming the congratulations with a beatific smile. Throughout her pregnancies, apart from the final days, she always carried out her work at the shoe shop without fail. She had lunch brought from the Elephant hostelry, and afternoon tea from the Nádor café. Laky, the lacquered headwaiter at the Nádor, personally brought Ilonka her soft-boiled egg on a silver salver, with two toasted rolls and a frothy cappuccino. Halfway through the second pregnancy, Laky made so bold as to ask: “My dear lady, how can you keep up this pace in your condition?”

“Well, I have to push the chair a little further away from the writing desk.”

This bon mot was often repeated in aristocratic circles around the town.

One autumn day, as the wind churned the dust into funnel shapes, Imre Holatschek failed to come home. Instead, he had a letter delivered by his coachman. Antonia read it and then tore it to shreds and cried her eyes out. Wild horses could not drag out of her what her husband had said, but they had their suspicions. Days later Antonia told Sándor Csillag: “He has grown exhausted by his daily struggles here, so he is going away for a time; I should not look for him nor expect him; he will let me know when he is ready to return.”