The Book of Fathers Page 6

  The maestro looked round carefully: “So… how was it possible to learn from someone who would…”

  “Indeed, I do not understand that myself. From time to time I have the ability to go back into the past and at such times I feel quite clearly what my forefathers felt and know what my forefathers knew. Never have I had any musical training, yet the music that my grandfather Péter Csillag knew, I am able to play and sing myself. I could, if the opportunity presented itself, conduct an orchestra the way he did. I can feel exactly, with eyes closed, the tune, the phrasing, and… Do not imagine that I have taken leave of my senses!” He stood up and almost ran to the corner of the stone steps and, whipping off the brocade covering the virginals, began to play. The melancholy chords echoed around the bleak stone walls, which amplified their volume.

  The dean closed his eyes and the maestro’s feet began to tap in time to the beat. Bálint Sternovszky’s performance of the piece was flawless.

  “What is the name of this piece?” the visitors asked.

  “It was composed by a young organist who went to school with Péter Csillag in Luneburg. Bach is the name.”

  “Bach? Johann Sebastian?” asked the dean.

  “His Christian name I have not been vouchsafed.”

  “He has distinguished himself considerably. I had news only the other day that he was on his deathbed. I have a good friend who is a choirmaster in Leipzig; he mentioned it in a letter.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Does your honor read music?”

  “To some extent. What I sing or play on the virginal I can certainly follow in written form. But I have little practice, rarely do I have music to read.”

  “So,” said the maestro, going over to the instrument, “your honor did not learn to play this, you know it only through the memory of your grandfather?”

  “Something of that sort.”

  “It’s quite unbelievable!”

  “Yes. Yet that is how it is.”

  “And your honor also learned the arias in the same…?”

  Sternovszky nodded.

  “Terrifying,” said the maestro.

  “Were others able to avail themselves of this… technique, our craft would become quite pointless,” mused the dean.

  Sternovszky’s face broke into a smile. He suddenly launched into a song. His voice was mellow and powerful, though able to reach a higher register than could most men. The words of the Italian lyrics seemed unclear in places and some he certainly elided, but neither the dean nor the maestro noticed, so powerfully did they fall under the music’s spell. As he came to the end they both burst into spontaneous applause.

  “Whence comes this aria?” asked the maestro.

  “Also from my grandfather Péter Csillag.”

  “Yes, but who is the composer? Monteverdi?”

  “I do not know. My dear grandfather was unsure.”

  “Let us have a look at the music.”

  “I have told you: there is no music.”

  “But then where are the words from?”

  “Have you not been listening? I just remember what my grandfather knew; that is how it is with me!” he said, impatiently slamming down the lid of the virginals.

  The two musicians voiced no further doubts. The maestro asked if his honor would be willing to perform at the ball to be held in Count Forgách’s castle, and what he would like to perform to the accompaniment of the orchestra. Bálint Sternovszky accepted the invitation. Though showing no interest in the fee, he remarked that he had never in his life performed with an orchestra. The maestro deemed nonetheless that two days’ rehearsal would suffice.

  They thought Sternovszky would try to prevail upon them to stay the night, but as he made no remark to this effect, they packed their things. As they were saying their farewells, the dean asked Sternovszky: “With such a voice you could have gone to the top of the profession. Why have you not tried?”

  “I am not even sure that it is right for me to sing before an audience, especially for money… My kinsmen will curse me left, right, and center. My father, God rest his soul, might have disowned me.”

  “Then it is fortunate indeed that he…” The maestro fortunately bit his tongue before reaching the end of his wayward train of thought.

  “Our grateful thanks for your hospitality,” said the dean. “God bless you.”

  As darkness fell Bálint Sternovszky watched through the window slits while the two men set off uncertainly along the forest track. They are afraid, he thought. Even in daylight this part of the world is none too friendly, never mind at night. Wolves howl by the reed beds; but as long as there is such a rich supply of pheasant, quail, and hare, they will not hunger for man flesh. Even the hen coops in the servants’ houses behind the turret were in no danger.

  When Bálint Sternovszky had first come to these parts not every trace of the old village had been carried away by winds and thieves. The ruins of the houses had sometimes been covered by mounds of blackish dust. The area was largely in thrall to the young trees that had sprung up, forming a new forest. Where once the church had stood there were now reed beds, as if it were the shore of a lake. High above the rock face the peak loomed lonely, the color of rust, and rivulets of rainwater by the hundred bubbled down through the rocks, sweeping everything into the valley. The tiny traces of the life lived here by the people of old had crumbled away; there was, in any case, no one here to pick them up as souvenirs.

  In the clearing alongside the rocky cliffs where he wanted to build his home, the brushwood and the undergrowth had first to be cleared away. Somewhere in the middle, mouth downwards, embedded in the soil, lay a copper mortar with a hole in it. Bálint Sternovszky had it cleaned and polished, and had treasured it ever since.

  It took two years to build the turret, to his own design, in that clearing. “This is where it has to be!”

  No one was clear why he wanted it built in just this spot or why he wanted this kind of structure as his home. The cost of the works regularly exceeded the budget. Bálint Sternovszky was unconcerned. “What has to be done, must be done.”

  The family despaired when it learned that he had bought himself property many hours’ ride away from Felvincz, and that it consisted of two wholly ruined villages complete with the woods and meadows they shared. Nor could they find any explanation for where he had found the money for this purchase and for the building works. Income from the glassworks had declined steeply since Kornél Sternovszky had given back his soul to his Creator. His son Bálint was less successful as a businessman and devoted to it little of his time or energy. He was never very happy to be working; he preferred to sleep or to lie around dreaming of castles in Spain or Transylvania. However, he would have neglected the glassworks even if he had been of a more industrious nature. He hated the glassworks. In the absence of close supervision the master glassmakers who followed one another in rapid succession had little of his interest at heart and rather more of their own. The matriarch Janka summoned the family council with increasing frequency, but to no avail: neither carrot nor stick had any effect on Bálint Sternovszky.

  His two younger brothers shrugged helplessly: they had no say in the running of the glassworks.

  When the debts were such that they made the production and sale of the glass products no longer viable, Bálint Sternovszky received with equanimity the news that the glassworks would soon come under the hammer. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” he said quietly.

  Borbála was pregnant with their third son (whom the Lord would later be pleased to call to Him while he was still at the breast) and held her swollen stomach before him: “Do you not see that we shall be thrown out of our own house? Where will I go with my two infants? Where will I give birth to this third one? Have you not thought of this?”

  “I have. Be of good cheer. I have done everything that I could.”

  More than this he was not prepared to say. Only when they had loaded what remained of their belongings o
nto the oxcarts and everyone had clambered up on top of them, was he willing to vouchsafe the following: “Take the road in the direction of Kos.”

  “ Kos? Where on earth is Kos?”

  “Westwards. Keep going west until I say the word.”

  The caravan set off. For several months Bálint Sternovszky and his family had fallen off the edge of the world as far as his relatives, friends, and creditors were concerned.

  He was born so small that the midwife did not think he would live to see the dawn of day.

  Bálint Sternovszky came into the world at about nine of the clock in the evening. He did not cry, only after hot and cold baths did he give a little squeal. His head had turned blue from the strain of the birth but it was already covered in unusually thick coils of hair. By the next evening his skin color had become more normal and his face had assumed the dreamy look that it was to bear all his life.

  From a very early age his talent for music amazed his parents and teachers. He had only to hear a tune once-just once-and he was able to repeat it, immediately, note for note, even weeks later. Whenever his father sat him on his knee, he hummed Kurucz songs in his ear, despite his wife’s oft-repeated warning: “You’ll get us into trouble one of these days!”

  “Janka, don’t go on! Surely one is allowed to sing!”

  Allowed and aloud: certainly, Bálint did not stop all day. When he was not singing he would be humming a tune, and when he wasn’t humming a tune he would be whistling like a blackbird.

  One day when he was eight he woke up hardly able to breathe. The little air that was getting through his throat was producing a dreadful, harsh wheeze. The doctor in Felvincz diagnosed diphtheria and with a resigned shake of the head by the skinny little lad’s bed said: “There is nothing more that I can do.”

  Mrs. Sternovszky sobbed and howled, begging the Lord to have mercy on her son and imagining what curses she would heap on him if, God forbid… For days Bálint produced no sign of life other than a barely perceptible heartbeat. While he was unconscious he made great journeys, in regions unknown to him. When he recovered he was able to recall exactly what he had seen and heard, though for a long time he ascribed little significance to what he had come to know as he lay on the border between life and death.

  Years passed, and years. When he reached sixteen he was chasing butterflies one afternoon with his brothers by the side of the brook. His younger brothers Zoltán and Kálmán were often left in his care by his mother and he always looked after them conscientiously. Since both of them seemed much shorter and more fragile than he, and than they should have been, he would not allow them to sit on grass that was wet with dew, say, or to play too close to the water.

  Across the brook grazed the family’s sheep. Despite the summer sun, the shepherd did not take off his thick sheepskin coat, and his thick-coated puli dog kept yelping at the brothers, who noisily barked back. Farther up, where the stream curled away to the right, ancient willows swept the water, the branches lightly slapping its surface again and again. The boys had tired themselves out and lay down in the shade to eat the luncheon in their saddlebags. The monotonous little noises soon made them nod off.

  Bálint stirred and turned to see suddenly beauty that made his eyes ache. A girl was bathing on the far bank, almost stark naked. Her faultless skin was as white as swan’s down. Her luxuriant hair, wound around her head, was the color of blackest coal. She was splashing in the water with the abandon of a puppy. At first he thought he must be dreaming and that the slightest movement on his part would make the image dissolve.

  In the evening he found out that he had seen Kata, the only daughter of the new glassmaster, Imre Farkas II. His excitement knew no bounds. He could not sleep a wink all night; he kept seeing the girl again and again, her slightest movement came to life, every curve and crevice of her body was deeply etched in his brain. The following day he spent in a moonstruck daze: he would neither eat nor drink; in his usual summer pastimes, whether hunting or ninepins, he took no pleasure at all. He was pining, pining for the bank of the stream where he might again glimpse the figure of Kata.

  His mother drew him aside: “What has got into you, my son?”

  In his excitement Bálint could barely blurt the words out: “Morr dear! Morr dear! My heart’s afire! I lover! I wanter! I’ll avveraswife!”

  “Who?”

  “Kata Farkas! I want Kata Farkas, Morr dear!”

  “Who is Kata Farkas?”

  The master glassmaker’s daughter had arrived only a week earlier from Vásárhely, where she lived with her mother. She was to spend a month in Felvincz. Mrs. Sternovszky had not yet seen her. She lost no time in finding Imre Farkas, but he knew nothing of the matter. Farkas summoned his daughter.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I have never set eyes on the young sir. I wouldn’t even know if he was blond or dark or pug!”

  “Pug?” Mrs. Sternovszky did not understand.

  “That’s what we call a bald man back home.”

  “But my son Bálint has a wonderful head of dark hair!”

  “That’s as may be, but as I said, I don’t know him.” The master glassmaker gave a nod. “Right. You may go for now.” Turning to Mrs. Sternovszky, he said: “As you see, my good lady, no need to pay heed. This love affair is your son’s invention. But then he is of an age when these things happen. And besides, Kata is only rising thirteen, too soon to think of church and children.”

  And that was how they left the matter. A great weight had fallen off Mrs. Sternovszky’s shoulders. Though her husband was of humble origin she, Janka Windisch, came from a line of Austrian nobles. True, her branch of the family had fallen on hard times and had only narrowly escaped ruin, but why should we rake up the past? Suffice it to say that thanks to the stables and the glassworks, they had made enough to be comfortable. Why should they allow their firstborn to marry a peasant girl? And so she told him, as soon as she caught up with him. Bálint said nothing, but in his heart he had decided otherwise. He did everything he could to catch another sight of the girl, but as she was determined not to be seen, for two days he found no trace of her. For Bálint these two days seemed like two long years. At times he felt that heavy, glittering flakes of snow were falling on his head. He was lost in a forest of dreams, desires, and images in his mind.

  He made far-reaching plans. From his father’s gun room he appropriated the field glasses Kornél Sternovszky used at the horse races, and spied from every conceivable angle on the house of the master of the glassworks. No trace of Kata. He wrote her a letter in which he lavished extravagant praise on the amazing beauty of every part of her body, from the hair on her head to the tips of her toes. He begged for an opportunity to present himself formally. He folded the letter into a triangle and sealed it with his father’s ruby-colored sealing wax. On the outside he drew a heart pierced by an arrow, but he was so unhappy with the shape of the design that he was tempted to tear the whole thing up. In the end he did not, and concentrated on how he might get the letter to Kata. He guessed that she would be at Sunday morning service at the Great Church in Felvincz: that would be an opportunity. But he did not see her there-the reason being that Imre Farkas II suspected the worst and after the departure of his wife would not let their daughter leave the house. He did not bother to explain his decision and Kata received her father’s command without emotion. She would work at her embroidery, read, help out in the kitchen, and sing and hum the bittersweet songs of her native Transylvania.

  At dawn on Sunday the rain began to fall. The wind tore into the thatch on the roofs, the sky thundered darkly, the lightning creating broad daylight for a moment as it flashed. Kata was petrified. She kept wondering whether to flee the room they had made for her in the loft down to her father, but she did not want him to mock her. Trembling, she buried her face deep under the pillows, praying at the top of her voice. She begged Jesus not to be angry with her for obeying her father’s command not to go to church. She was sure that devilish creatures were
abroad and in her room, and she rattled off her prayers at ever-increasing speed.

  Suddenly she felt a cold hand on her arm and was about to shriek had its fingers not been clamped at once over her mouth. She heard some rustling that the next roll of thunder drowned and at the next lightning flash she had a glimpse of the creature of the devil. It was certainly human in shape. Oh no, it’s the master’s son… And now there were words, too:

  “I pray you, please, don’t scream, not a finger will I lay on you, all I beg of you is that you hear me out!”

  She sat up in the bed. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom. The little window was wide open and rain was falling on the parapet. He came up a ladder, she thought. Bálint stood by the side of the bed, soaked to the skin, trembling much more violently than was she. Kata took pity on him: “Hurry up and say your piece, then out, before they catch you here!”

  Bálint fell on his knees but no words would come. He gripped her arm, as if that were his greatest joy on this earth. And it was then, in that extraordinary state, that the cavalcade of images began, images familiar from the past, those he had already experienced a long time ago, when he was ill, yet their meaning then had been obscure.

  A half-naked man is painted green by a painter or artist in some bathhouse; the man is quite unable to wash or scrub off the paint. The painter must be one of the ancestors, he thought, that his father had told of before.

  A red-bearded old man in foreign parts, packhorses and carts piled high. A large house Bálint had never known, where he could clearly see the furniture, the mysterious drawers and tools, out in the yard. The patriarchal figure must be Great-Grandpa Czuczor, who had been done to death by either the Kurucz or the Labancz. Bálint’s father had never mentioned his first name but always called him “Grandpa Czuczor.” He could even make out the inscription on the cover of the great folio book lying on the worktop: Bálint Czuczor his notes, made by his own hand. Now he knew he had been named for his great-grandfather.