The County of Birches (5 page)

“Three
pischers,
what do they have so much to talk about? This isn't the Congress of Berlin,” Szedrás fretted.

If Liliana showed any distress, it was through silence. Szedrás's present to her sons pained her. It was ostentatious, and excessive, reminding her of the Magyar gentry. She recoiled at the thought of her sons fawning over the
goyishe
plaything. Typical of Szedrás, dearly as she loved him, he had not asked her leave first, nor her husband's. At least he should have warned
his
father what manner of rig he was introducing to Aron's grandsons. But Liliana knew that her father would no more have forbidden Szedrás this gesture than she herself could deprive her boys of their delight in the toy.

The two older boys were engaged in negotiations over who would drive the ponies. Little Miki, knowing that as youngest his turn would come last, had mounted into the carriage and was admiring its beautiful red leather seat. It was the colour of the boots of the little peasant girls who danced in national dress on the Feast of St. Stephen. He snuffled the warm new leather smell.

“Hey,” interrupted Bandi, “don't go rubbing your snot on it. If you're going to act like a baby, we're not taking you.”

Miki bit his lip indignantly.

Gábor interceded, tightening his hold on the reins. “The gift is for us
all,
” he reminded Bandi. Gabi was tiring, and he listed more obviously when he tired. He could feel his military uncle's eyes boring through the window's glass. It was humiliating enough to have to wear a corset like a woman, but he didn't want to shame himself in front of Szedrás-
bácsi
by relinquishing the reins to his younger brother.

“Look, I'll show you how to get up to the box without letting go,” Bandi said, reaching for the lead.

Gabi would have to settle the matter so he could sit down and take the weight off his back.

“I'm quite capable, thank you. I know very well how the coachman mounts his box.” Before his illness Gabi had been as lavishly praised as the other children among their kin. His sense of worthiness hadn't much corroded. After all, Anyuka assured him that he would recover and be well enough to ride as gallantly as Uncle Szedrás; it didn't so much matter that his aunts and uncles held their tongues.

“Let's go,” Miki needled, bored with waiting.

Ignoring him, Bandi pressed his claim. “Gabi, you're holding the reins much too tight. You'll choke them if you try climbing up like that,” he said, exasperated.

In the house Szedrás pawed the floor, more impatient than the ponies who decorously stood their ground.

“That's your boys for you, darling sister,” he fumed, as close as he would get to criticizing her. There was nothing sarcastic in his address; in his estimation she
was
édes. But less so her sons, all jawing and no action. What should boys do with a coach and pair, but jump in and drive off? What was there to discuss about it?

*   *   *

According to Gábor, “On that day at the beginning of the First World War, Szedrás-bácsi had breakfasted in agitation. Every few moments he stood up to look out the window as though he were expecting someone. ‘Surely, öcsém,' Anyuka questioned, ‘you cannot be awaiting more special news?' For just recently Szedrás-bácsi had learned of his induction as
föhadnagy
in the Kaiser Wilhelm Hussars. This was an unprecedented honour. To serve as an officer with the elite of the Magyar nobility in the country's most prestigious military regiment was a distinction for anyone, but for a Jew unheard of.

“Always clever,” said Gábor, “my brother Bandi piped up. ‘I know. It's your horse, isn't it, Szedrás-bácsi? Your new horse that you bought for the cavalry. Will they bring it today?' My uncle snorted because Bandi had guessed well. The pinch he gave Bandi's cheek was appreciative but, I knew from experience, painful. ‘Not
my
horse, not yet. But something on four legs—no, eight—should be pulling up here soon.'

“Szedrás-bácsi's anticipation was infectious. He made broad hints and pulled at our ears. My uncle was high-strung as a thoroughbred. When he was in the room, he was the centre of attention. A fine manly figure, he looked taller than his real stature because he held himself ramrod straight. He didn't walk; he strode. He didn't converse; he declared. Out in the fields the peasants bent into their work when they heard him coming. My poor grandfather more than once had to listen to a farmer complain that Master Szedrás had expressed himself with force. They knew Grandfather was pious and good-hearted and would reach into his pocket.

“‘But Szedrás, what's this!' Anyuka cried, rushing to the window after Bandi and Miki spied the ponies and raced out. Well, of course I couldn't run in that confining corset. So, trailing behind my brothers, I heard what sounded like dismay in her voice.

“‘Why the war, darling sister, the war! What better occasion could there be? The glorious war, and your brother's remarkable opportunity to serve the emperor! I want my nephews to remember!'”

“Who knows from where my Uncle Szedrás got his military vocation?” Gábor mused. “Grandfather Aron said it sprang from an ancient gene that went as far back as the defenders of Jericho. Certainly no other family member in recent memory was like him. An ancient gene had randomly surfaced, defining my Uncle Szedrás. Grandfather Aron moved heaven and earth to indulge his son's longing to serve with Hungary's best. Not because he was weak and Szedrás-bácsi too willful. Grandfather Aron was quick and shrewd, but tender-hearted. He loved his children too much. They were all of them spoiled, even my saintly mother whose passion for religion was as deep as her brother's military ambition. Grandfather Aron could deny his children—all twelve of them—nothing. My mother's obsession for the dietary laws he catered to with separate kitchens no less—one for
milchig,
the other for
fleischig.
A rebetzin could not have observed more fastidiously. Although he bought Szedrás a handsome charger to ride in the cavalry, not a day of the war would pass without Grandfather praying with tears pouring down his face for his eldest son's safety. For Uncle Lajos he bought a motor car to ferry the bigwigs between Budapest and Vienna and so stay out of active combat. Uncle Duri's exemption from the military he purchased with bribes. They had only to ask and gold poured from Grandfather Aron's pockets.”

*   *   *

The Rákóczi Tanya as Gábor remembered it was the lap of familial love. It engendered affection that spilled like change into the grasping hands of all the children, young and old alike. Gábor felt he had been born between the cornucopious thighs of Mother Earth, between the Tigris and Euphrates as he loved to say, the very source of life.

When pressed for accuracy, though, he allowed that Grandfather Aron had entered adulthood without financial backing, and naught but a parochial education and a family legend to get him started. Grószmann lore had it that when Itzig the Jew arrived in the Nyirség he brought with him not even a surname. He dusted off a spot by the side of the road, erected a rough table, and placed on it a heel of bread. From this crust, travel-weary strangers were invited to sup and restore themselves. Then they went on their way leaving, in exchange, blessings.

According to family myth, these blessings manifested themselves tangibly in wealth. Word of Itzig's bounty by the side of the road spread to parts north and east. Aptly dubbed Grószmann by grateful guests, Itzig's descendants continued to live up to their moniker, big-spirited, bountiful, burgeoning. The legendary table continued to be set for strangers, even after walls and roof were built around it. The legacy of hospitality, a sweet, soul-pleasing principle, Grandfather Aron adopted as his maxim. Grandfather Aron's “nothing,” Gábor permitted, consisted of a name, a legend and a reputation. Like a calling card, the name Grószmann had preceded him through parts north and east, an ambassador of trade. Synonymous with largesse, it opened the doors of homes and inns, and it unlocked the coffers of investors. It was the legacy upon which Aron built his fortune, and he never forgot the origin of its meaning. “Like Itzig our Ancestor,” said Gábor, “the more Grandfather Aron gave away, the more the Lord saw fit to bless him.” Aron's fortune appeared to Gábor to have been based on an open purse. He'd felt this kindness extended towards him and his brothers in small gifts of bonbons and tender excuses for their childish transgressions. Naturally, he added as an aside, there was Grandfather Aron's business acumen.

“The courtyard where the little team had drawn up causing such a stir and commotion among us children was the heart of the Rákóczi Tanya,” Gábor recounted. “An estate of almost a thousand
holds,
the Tanya ran more like an industry than a farm, and nowhere was this more evident than in the courtyard that was its hub. Here stood not only the big house, but also the distillery, the stables, barns, outbuildings and servant quarters. So when the miniature carriage drawn by two matched ponies pulled up in front of the house, the eyes of all—bailiffs, foremen, farmhands, servants—were on the exquisite toy equipage.

“We children were excited and eager to try it out, but we couldn't help but be aware that all the eyes of our world were upon us.”

*   *   *

The coach and pair that had drawn up in front of the big house was no mere pony cart, but a miniature replica of a carriage that might roll down the Maria Theresa Strasse in Vienna. Wincing at the aristocratic, ergo gentile, look of the rig, Liliana watched her boys pore over its perfect details: the silver-cropped whip, the shiny brass grip on the door, the polished wood running board, and the coat of arms emblazoned on the coachman's tower. The carriage was a burnished black, encasing a too-red interior that made Liliana think of a sliced-open heart. But neither silver nor red leather could outshine the two ponies. The boys stroked and patted their soft sides, exclaiming that one was as white as goose down while the other looked like night.

The shaved mane on the black pony was like the fresh military look the two older boys had sported on their return from town, shorn of their long locks a few weeks earlier. In comparison, the white pony's mane was long and luxurious. It was cunning how the ponies were a perfect contrast to one another. The brothers rubbed the bristling thatch on the black, remarking how the cropped mane made it look like the older of the two.

Their father, Wilmos, had insisted on the haircuts. “Eight years old and with his condition especially, Gabi needs to feel some respect.”

Liliana's eyes had filled. “Dearest, have I been too selfish? Lord forgive me if I've contributed to our child's pain.”

Miki had made no objection when his older brothers were taken to town. He spent the day with édes Anyuka learning his letters. Since then she ran her hands more freely through the silky strands on his head.

At the window, Liliana worried about Gabi. Would her boy muster enough strength to hold back his hardy brother without collapsing in exhaustion? She hadn't the heart to bring him in before he had driven the carriage, but it would hurt his brave spirit if he crumpled out there in front of everyone. Knowing Gabi, he was probably trying to find a way to assert his right as eldest without offending Bandi. Taking his time to think required endurance, however, and time was what Gabi lacked. The traitorous thought startled her with a stab. It was as near as she had ever come to acknowledging her son's disease. “Condition” they called it amongst themselves; “weakness” was how they referred to it publicly. Only once had Wilmos mentioned to her the name that hung like a sword over their heads since his consultation with the famous Budapest specialist. “Weakness, dear sir!” The Budapest doctor had thrust the diagnosis at him. “Sir, your son suffers from tuberculosis—tuberculosis of the spine.” It had come as a shock. Not only was the disease deadly; it was the affliction of the peasants and the poor. How could such an ailment have found purchase within their enlightened household?

The little ponies dipped their heads as though politely urging the two boys to finish their business. Gabi felt the familiar softness in his legs. It was as if his back was an anvil crushing their strength. His family called his back weak, but to him it felt more like an iron-cast weight that bore him down. On bad days as he lay on the special mold attached to his bed to keep him from shifting position, his back pinned him in place, a boulder far stronger than his childish limbs could budge.

He pressed his argument with Bandi, but the words came out panting. “The coachman doesn't mount until
all
the passengers are settled. Only then,” he managed to stress meaningfully, “can he safely loosen the reins.”

Noticing his brother flag, Bandi instantly gave Gabi his point. He climbed into the carriage without another word. Anyuka would be distraught if Gabi collapsed out here in plain sight of everyone.

“Stay on your side,” he warned Miki roughly, concerned he might have pushed Gabi too far. “And don't go leaning way out. After all, it's not Csapati up there in the box.”

Miki giggled. He pointed at Gabi and rolled the corner of his mouth like a camel's, imitating the way Csapati sucked his long moustache. Bandi gave him a cuff, but laughed.

Csapati the coachman looked on from the stable, absentmindedly chewing his moustache in just the way Miki mimicked. The workings of his jaw conveyed the extent of his disapproval. That Master Szedrás had so little sense as to spend a fortune on this toy was typical, but that the rest of them would stand by and let the crippled boy endanger his healthy brothers was less than he expected from them. The trap was a plaything perhaps, but it was hitched to two creatures that however well trained were live and unpredictable. Look at that, the young master could hardly haul himself up into the coachman's tower even though it was barely three feet from the ground.