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Authors: Aranka Siegal

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BOOK: Upon the Head of the Goat
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Babi took in this information very slowly and then replied, “May this be the worst the war brings us. Would you like to have a cool drink of water before riding on?”

He got off the horse, lifted me down, and set me next to Babi. Removing his helmet, he saluted her, clicking together the heels of his boots. “My name is Wajda, Ferenc,” he announced and then added, “Yes, thank you, I would like some water.”

Babi went into the kitchen and returned with one of her good glasses filled with cold water. She handed it to Ferenc, who drank it down in a few gulps and gave the glass back to her.

“Your granddaughter is quite a little lady; I was lucky to meet someone who speaks Hungarian.”

Babi nodded. “My name is Rosner, Fage.”

Ferenc replaced the heavy helmet on his head and mounted his horse. After he left, the villagers walked away, without comment. Frowning with distrust, Babi took my hand and led me into the house.

2

S
EVERAL WEEKS LATER
, I was on the porch when I spotted Ferenc in the distance. He stopped at our gate, and I was flattered that he remembered me when I ran up to him.


Szervusz,
Piri,” he greeted me. “Would it be all right with your grandmother if my horse and I had some water?”

“Grandma is out in the fields, but I think it would be all right for me to give you some water.” Inside me, I was not certain at all; I had a strange feeling about him and Babi. I could not explain it, but he did not seem to fit in with her life. Babi took up so little space while he needed so much. I felt he could crush her in some way. I tried to hide my fear.

“Are you coming on official business again?”

“Oh yes, I will have to make this trip regularly.”

“What does official business mean?”

“I deliver the new rules from the new government.”

Taking the water bucket from the kitchen, I ran across the road to our neighbor's well while Ferenc led his horse to the trough. Tercsa's water, clearer than Babi's, came from a mountain spring. As I drew the water bucket up from the well, I looked over into our yard to see Ferenc standing in the shade of one of Babi's plum trees. He seemed large and rigid under the umbrella of white blossoms. As if reading my thoughts, he suddenly removed his helmet and shook the feathers free of petals. Without his helmet, he looked much younger and more human. He had a handsome face, but his mouth and chin were soft, like a girl's. I finished drawing the water and returned to our yard, carrying the full bucket. Ferenc took a cupful and asked, “Don't you get lonesome here without friends?”

“I usually come here with my sister Iboya to help Rozsi, but Iboya was sick so I came without her. Then the trains stopped running and she couldn't join me.”

“Has your grandma always lived here?”

“Always.”

“Then how come she can speak Hungarian?”

“From visits to us in Beregszász.” Again that uneasy feeling about Ferenc and Babi crept up in my stomach. I stopped talking.

“Who is Rozsi?”

“She is my older sister—she is in the fields with my grandmother.”

When the horse had finished drinking, Ferenc saluted me again and rode off.

*   *   *

A few months later, Rozsi was picking some snap-dragons near the fence for our Sabbath table. She was singing as she worked, absorbed in the task, when Ferenc appeared on the road. All motions and song stopped at once; I could see Rozsi's stunned face from the porch where I was peeling potatoes. Ferenc came up to our gate and dismounted. Taking off his helmet, he bowed gallantly in greeting.

“My name is Wajda, Ferenc; I am an acquaintance of your sister Piri.”

Rozsi remained speechless. I came up to her. “Ferenc is the policeman I told you about.”

“And you must be Rozsika,” said Ferenc, adding the endearment
-ka.

There was a long, silent pause as Ferenc and his horse continued to stand outside the gate while Rozsi and I remained inside. Finally, Rozsi found her voice and said, “You may water your horse here if you like.”

“I'll run and fetch water from Tercsa's well,” I volunteered and went to get the water bucket.

When I returned, Rozsi was standing by the trough near Ferenc. She held the yellow flowers in her right hand and stroked the horse with her left. Ferenc was watching her and hardly noticed me when I offered him the water. Rozsi was wearing her holiday dress; its bodice hugged her small chest while the full skirt billowed out from her waist to her slim ankles. Holding her head high, she looked over the horse at Ferenc, and her long, chestnut-brown hair glistened in the sunlight.

They were talking about the effects of the Hungarian occupation on Komjaty. “These people will never learn Hungarian,” Rozsi was saying. “They are Ukrainian and they will always be Ukrainian. There is little room for politics or learning new things in their lives. Their time is taken up just by surviving.”

“What about you?” Ferenc asked. “Aren't you bored by this simple life? Don't you miss the cinema in the city?”

“Not really…” Rozsi started to answer when Babi came walking through the fields beyond the back of the house. We saw her stop, put her hand over her eyes to shield out the midday sun, and then take the roundabout way to the house through the vegetable garden. It was obvious that she did not want to confront our visitor, and we sensed her annoyance. Rozsi stopped stroking the horse. Ferenc handed me back the cup, took up the bridle of his horse, and led him to the gate.

“Would it be all right for me to stop again?” he asked hesitantly.

Playing with her flowers, Rozsi answered slowly, “Yes, I think so.” Ferenc mounted his horse, turning back once before he disappeared out of sight.

As we entered the house, Rozsi and I exchanged looks of apprehension. Babi was in the kitchen, cutting up turnips, and when she noticed us, her knife came down hard on the cutting board. Rozsi picked up a vase from the cupboard and began to arrange the flowers in it. Babi scraped the turnips into a pot, added water, and put it on the hot stove. Then she exploded.

“That was a fine picture I just witnessed on my land. If you live long enough, you see everything. I can understand Piri's befriending one of them, but you, Rozsi, I'm disappointed. I thought you were old enough to know better.”

“We were only giving him water,” I said.

“My granddaughters do not have to slake the thirst of our enemy. I had no choice the day he brought you back from the Rika, but Rozsi doesn't have to pay attention to him.”

“Just because he is Hungarian doesn't mean that he is an enemy,” protested Rozsi, her face flushed. I felt sorry for her; this was the first time I ever heard Babi speak to Rozsi in anger. I sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

Babi began to speak again in a calmer voice. “Rozsi, don't you know that the Hungarians have been our enemies for years? Since the World War they have been against Jews. We were blamed for the loss of their territories, and for hard times. Everything that went wrong was our fault. They came tearing through here with their pogroms, wanting to kill every Jew. We were not safe in our houses; we were even afraid to go to sleep. That is why three of my children ran off to America.”

“But that was under Béla Kun. Now Horthy is head of state for Hungary, and he is a friend of the Jews,” said Rozsi.

“No, Rozsi. As long as there are wars they will always need scapegoats, and as long as we are here, we will be chosen.”

Rozsi stopped setting the table and went outside. Babi sat down next to me. She started to stroke my hair, and I realized that I had been crying. When she spoke her voice was soft. “I should have told you all this before, Piri, but I was hoping that your generation would be spared. A Jew always hopes; it is his nature. But I am afraid that we now have another madman, that Hitler stirring up all of Europe. He marches over others' lands like a plague. He is looking to take all of Europe for Germany. He takes from the Czechs with one hand and gives it away to the Hungarians with the other. But he doesn't give anything away for nothing. He is buying the Hungarian army for himself with that land. And they've already started taking jobs away from the Jews. That's today, and tomorrow, who knows?”

“Where is he now?” I asked, my voice wavering as I pictured this monster man moving across the fields with arms as long as the telephone poles in Beregszász.

“In Poland,” said Babi. She got up and walked over to the stove, to continue her dinner preparations. I was comforted by the distance of Hitler from us, but my mind whirled in the confusion of trying to understand all the things Babi had said to Rozsi and me—pogroms, scapegoats—was this what being a Jew meant?

Somewhere in my heart I had known that my Christian friends were different from me; that I lived in their world, not they in mine; that laws came from their world, not mine; that school closed for Christmas and Easter, not Hanukkah and Passover. I had accepted these rules without thinking much about them, just as I accepted having to wash my face and brush my hair. The code was part of my awareness, but I did not dwell on it.

In Beregszász I went to public school and did not choose my friends or separate them by religion. On our street lived Hungarian, Czechoslovak, Russian, and Jewish families. My mother was friendly with all of them. I had attended Protestant services with Ica Molnar and Orthodox Russian services with Vali and Milush Veligan, and Mother did not seem to mind when I had told her where I was going.

But Babi's attitude toward the Hungarians was not like Mother's. I remembered an incident that took place during the summer of Grandpa Rosner's death, when Babi was still wearing black clothes and staying in the house, reading her prayer book. I spent more and more time playing outside with the children of Komjaty. One day as we passed one of the corner shrines, all the other children stopped, bowed, made a cross over their chests, and said a prayer in Ukrainian. Their movements impressed me; I watched their gestures and then imitated them, bowing and making a cross over my chest. Later, when I got home, Babi took me into her bedroom and closed the door. She was very angry. “Somebody told me you made a cross over yourself. Is that true?”

“No, I didn't do it, the others did.”

She picked me up and stood me on a chair so that she could look into my eyes as she faced me. “Now, look into my face. Did you make a cross over yourself, or did this person tell me a lie?”

“I made a cross over myself.”

“Don't you know you're Jewish?”

“Yes, Babi.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I'm sorry.”

“If you don't have respect for your religion, how do you expect others to?”

I respected my religion, but it was hard for me to think of all those people so much a part of my life in Beregszász as enemies. The Ukrainian farmers of Komjaty seemed far more unfriendly than the Hungarians I knew.

Babi was still busy at the stove, so I asked, “What about the Christians here, the farmers, do they like the Jews?”

She turned to face me as she answered my question. “They concern themselves more with the land than with borders. They are busy with growing their food, and when their crops fail they blame the lack of rain, not the Jews. Also, we live modestly here. They have nothing to envy us for.” She turned back to continue putting our dinner together.

When Rozsi came back, she was carrying a newspaper and had a strained expression on her face. “Can I read the newspaper?” I asked, reaching for it. “You would not understand it, it's all political,” she said. As Babi opened it, I caught the word “JEWS” in bold black letters. Babi ran her eyes over the page, folded the paper up again, and laid it down on the table. “We'll talk after supper,” she said to Rozsi.

The next afternoon, when Babi and Rozsi were out walking in the fields, Molcha and I took the newspaper from the night table where Babi had left it before she went to sleep. We went into the clover field, and while Molcha watched to warn me if anyone came, I tried to read it. The phrases “rounding up” and “slave labor” caught my eye, but most of the words were confusing, and I could not understand all the meanings. Places with strange names—Kamenets-Podolski, Novi Sad—were mentioned.

“Where are these places?” Molcha asked as I tried to pronounce them.

“I don't know,” I answered. “Maybe Poland, where Babi said Hitler is.”

“Who is Hitler?” Molcha asked.

“Babi says that he is a madman who is turning everybody against the Jews.”

“Why?”

“I am trying to find out. It says here that we are bad risks and eat up too much of the bread. We cause bread shortages.”

“But we only eat our own bread, so how can we cause a shortage?”

“I don't know.”

Molcha ended the discussion. “Let's put the paper back, and you can teach me more Hungarian.”

3

E
ACH DAY WE
listened to every shred of news the farmers brought back from the Szölös market, hoping that a settlement at the borders would set the trains between Komjaty and Beregszász in motion. Babi's time spent in prayer grew longer. After supper she would put on her angora shawl, take her prayer book, and sit in her armchair facing the front window, becoming so absorbed in her reading that she did not even notice the fading of the light.

One evening, Rozsi and I came in from sitting on the porch to find Babi bent over her book with the bedroom in dark shadows.

“Babi, you always tell me not to ruin my eyes and here you are reading in the dark,” said Rozsi, lighting the kerosene lamp.

“I'm not really reading. After you have said these prayers for over fifty years, they become part of you. I just keep the book open in case I forget a word here and there.”

“Babi,” I asked, “don't you get bored reading the same book all the time?”

BOOK: Upon the Head of the Goat
7.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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