The Book of Fathers.

by Miklos Vamos.

I.

THE WORLD COMES TO LIFE. WISPS OF GREEN STEAL ACROSS the fields, rich with the promise of spring. Tiny shoots push through the soil. Virgin buds uncoil at the tips of branches. Soft, fresh grass sweeps and swells across the meadows. Thornbushes blossom on the hillsides. The walnut trees have survived the winter, though their antlered crowns still stand bare. Fresh leaves reach longingly for rain from the sky. the fields, rich with the promise of spring. Tiny shoots push through the soil. Virgin buds uncoil at the tips of branches. Soft, fresh grass sweeps and swells across the meadows. Thornbushes blossom on the hillsides. The walnut trees have survived the winter, though their antlered crowns still stand bare. Fresh leaves reach longingly for rain from the sky.

The Lord be praised, we reached the village of Kos in the month of April in His Year of 1705. Five times in that year and in the year thereafter was the village laid waste, thrice by the Kurucz bands of the insurrectio Rakocziensis, twice by the Labancz troops of the Emperor. A third portion of the four-and-seventy houses burned or fell to the ground, and another third were deserted by their tenants, who departed for more peaceful climes. Thus was the joyful tenor of life much diminished in this place; the lands lay fallow, the number of livestock about the houses did likewise decline. As we prepared for our first night there, my grandson Kornel asked, in German: Would it not be better at home? These were words we would oft repeat thereafter.

Thus began Grandpa Czuczor's story in the canvas-bound folio he was given by his daughter Zsuzsanna. Excellent though his spoken knowledge was of German, Slovak, and Hungarian, he had so far written only in German. Having returned to the lands of the Magyar, he wanted to keep the story of their days in his mother tongue, perhaps because he wanted his grandson Kornel to read it when he grew up. The three of them had arrived by cart from Bavaria, whither Grandpa Czuczor and his brother had fled when the dust had settled over what was called, after its chief instigator, the Wesselenyi conspiracy. Though the Czuczor brothers were strenuous in their denial of any involvement with the conspirators, some forgeries came to light, which sealed their fate: their assets were confiscated and even worse might have followed had they not hastily fled. Over the border they soon acquired skills as typographers and compositors, and established a printing press, later making their mark as bookbinders as well. In the guildhall of Thuningen their names were posted as the Gebruder Czuczur Gebruder Czuczur.

Grandpa Czuczor never felt entirely at home in the windswept and rain-sodden lands of the beer-swilling Bavarians, whom in some obscure way he held responsible for the series of deaths that befell his family. Little wonder, then, that when he got wind of the Prince Primus's patent, he went running to the printing press, where his brother was working on the leads. "We can pack our bags!" he yelled from the steps of the workshop. He pointed excitedly to his crumpled copy of the Mercurius Hungaricus Mercurius Hungaricus, where a Latin text announced that a return to the de-populated villages of Hungary was now permitted without penalty.

No words of mine could win over my brother to the idea of going home with us. He preferred the comforts of Thuningen, newly acquired but at no small cost, where he wanted to pursue the crafts of printing and binding books. No news of him since that time. Zsuzsanna is troubled by the condition of little Kornel, her son, only in his fourth year of life, who in these straitened times suffers greatly from hunger, in want of meat and even eggs acquired but at no small cost, where he wanted to pursue the crafts of printing and binding books. No news of him since that time. Zsuzsanna is troubled by the condition of little Kornel, her son, only in his fourth year of life, who in these straitened times suffers greatly from hunger, in want of meat and even eggs.

Returning by a circuitous route, they set up home in a house with a courtyard, put at their disposal at the edge of the village of Kos. Grandpa Czuczor immediately dug a hole at the bottom of the garden, by the rose bushes, and buried his money there, taking particular care not to inform either his grandson or his daughter of its whereabouts. Only Wilhelm, the servant they brought with them from Thuningen, knew of it, as he had helped with the digging.

"Wilhelm, du mut das nie erzahlen, verstehst du mich?" he warned Wilhelm, with an unambiguous gesture: drawing the edge of his palm across the front of his neck.

"Jawohl!" yelped the startled lad, as he did at every request or order. All he could manage in Hungarian was a fractured Janapat, "Good day!"

Kornel endured much taunting by the other boys for his thin, straw-colored hair, his oversized, floppy ears, and for the odd German word he would suddenly come out with. He picked up Hungarian quickly, even though these were not peaceful times conducive to study. Indeed, there was ominous news from every quarter.

The scrawny little boy was always hungry, yet never joined the noisy band of village youngsters who, despite a strict parental curfew, spent their days crisscrossing the fields and the forests, stripping them of anything remotely edible. Kornel preferred the company of his grandfather and would sit for hours in the yard where Grandpa Czuczor kept the printing paraphernalia he had brought back home. Kornel would try to make himself useful, but this generally turned out badly, as neither as a child nor later in life was he particularly good with his hands. The blind leading the lame, thought Grandpa Czuczor, as his own ten little servants became ever more spindly and twisted, and acquired an ever more troubling tremor. He had let one of his thumbnails grow into a long, sharp implement that he used for prising type out of its storage boxes; nowadays, try as he might to take care, this nail would split lengthwise and would serve only to scratch his head.

"Off you go, play with your little friends!"

The boy did not move. "I'd rather you told me a story!"

Grandpa Czuczor gave a sigh but was not unhappy to launch into one of his tales. "Do you know how my dear late father, Szaniszlo Czuczor of Felsofenyves, was granted his patent of nobility by Gyorgy Rakoczi I, for outstanding bravery in the Vienna campaign?"

"I do! Tell me about Mother, when Mother was small! And about Mother's mother!"

Grandpa Czuczor shook his head. It still ached often. In Thuningen he had married a smart and houseproud German woman. Hard-working but undemonstrative, Gisella had borne him six children, of whom all but the last, Zsuzsanna, the Lord had been pleased to take back unto Himself soon after their birth. The births had taken their toll on Gisella and it was not long before she, too, succumbed and joined her five little ones by the side of the Lord. Grandpa Czuczor's hair turned white when she died, and every morning he would clutch the bony little body of the three-year-old Zsuzsanna desperately to his bosom: "May it please the Lord to let me keep you, my one and only!"

The girl would blink in surprise: "Was ist das, Vati?" She did not yet know Hungarian.

"Ach, du mut mir bleiben, Liebchen!" he replied.

Zsuzsanna grew into a tall and slim young woman, and in due course married Peter Csillag, the son of another family that had chosen to return. Peter Csillag was granted the joys of married life for less than six months: he was out hunting when he was thrown by his horse and fell so awkwardly that he hit his head on a tree-stump and never recovered consciousness. After two weeks hovering between life and death, he expired.

"Grandpa! Why won't you tell me a story?"

So he began to tell a very old story, which he had himself heard in his childhood. Kornel's great-great-grandfather, Boldizsar Czuczor, was a skillful painter, a portraitist without compare in his time. He had an amazing eye for faces and detail, and he never needed a model: it was enough for him to set eyes on someone once to paint their portrait from memory. His wife, Katalin, was so beautiful that her fame spread to the neighboring lands, and though she frequently sat for her husband, she was no leading filly in the matrimonial fidelity stakes. Boldizsar once caught her in flagrante with an officer quartered in the town, but calmly closed the door on them with an unruffled "Do enjoy yourselves!" The couple were at a loss as to what to do, and when they had recovered somewhat, decided to do as they had been bidden. In the morning Boldizsar had a generous breakfast sent to their room and then invited the officer to the baths. There, he covered him, from top to toe, in green paint. News of this spread like wildfire. As the officer was quite unable to scrub off the layer of green, he lay low in his quarters as long as he could. In the end he had to send for Boldizsar and humbly ask him how to remove the paint, as he could hardly spend the rest of his life as a laughingstock. Boldizsar replied: "My dear sir, you have covered me in shame that can never be washed away; it is right that you should share my fate!"

"Last time he painted the woman as well!" said Kornel.

"Pardon?"

"Grandpa, you didn't tell it like this last time ... and the painter did not say they should enjoy themselves!"

"What did he say, then?"

"He said," Kornel tried to lower his voice to a grandfatherly tone, "may you take pleasure in each other!"

Grandpa Czuczor scratched the back of his head. "Maybe I did, maybe I did ..." This was not the first time his grandson had surprised him with the keenness of his mind. Only the other day the boy had been asking about numbers and remembered them up to a hundred on hearing them just the once, even drawing their shapes on the surface of his wax tablet. "You take after your great-great-grandfather!"

"Yes, like him I never forget something I've once seen."

"Indeed?" Grandpa Czuczor covered the boy's eyes with the palm of his left hand and asked him: "Then tell me what you saw today on my tabletop!"

Kornel began to list the items on the Regal Regal, as his grandfather called the tabletop, clearly and faultlessly, as though ticking them off in his head, in a voice as clear as a bell: "Two composing sticks, four balls of twine, one Handdruck Handdruck, one cutting machine, two paper planes, two awls, 30 meters of metal composing rule, two dozen spacers, three rack-cases for letters and spacing materials, seven books, hundreds of printed sheets, one pair of spectacles, two magnifying glasses, two round paper pill-boxes with your medicines in them, which you haven't yet taken today, the canvas-covered folio by the inkstand, four quills ... and one fly!" He fell silent.

"How come you know what a composing stick is, or a composing rule, or a Handdruck Handdruck?"

"I've heard the words ... and anyway you, dear Grandpa, have written them down in the folio!"

It took Grandpa Czuczor a moment or two to recall that he had indeed made a list of his printing equipment before packing up in Thuningen. "Does that mean ... that you can read?"

"Indeed I can!" said Kornel and, picking up one of the printed sheets, he began slowly but surely to articulate the words, with complete accuracy. Grandpa Czuczor put on his spectacles and followed as Kornel read the rather special text: BY HIS SERENE HIGHNESS PRINCE FERENC RAKOCZI OF FELSo-VADASZ: On the unimaginable sufferings of our Nation and beloved Homeland under the tyrannical rule of the German Nation, and on the unworthy pains endured by his serene person.A PUBLIC MANIFESTO, to be placed before the entire Christian world, concerning the innocent nature of the arms acquired by the Hungarians to liberate themselves from the oppression of the House of Austria. First published in the Latin tongue and now again in the Magyar language.

Grandpa Czuczor had picked up a tattered copy of the Prince's manifesto in a beerhall in Thuningen, from some visiting Hungarians. He meant to reprint it himself at some point.

Suddenly he shook his head. Lord Almighty, this little lad is not yet four years of age and can read fluently! "Was it one of your friends that taught you to read?"

"No."

"Well, who then?"

"No one ... I just worked it out for myself."

"No fibbing!"

"I'm not fibbing ... I just kept looking at the pages until I could make out the different letters. Why do they put an f f sometimes where there should be an sometimes where there should be an s s?"

"Only when there's an ess-zet ess-zet ligature, for ligature, for sz sz."

"I see. But what about Auftria Auftria?"

"Well, that should also be with sz sz in Hungarian ... they've left out the in Hungarian ... they've left out the z z ..." Grandpa Czuczor was almost lost for words; he had read this Declaration many times yet had never noticed this misprint. Kornel could make an outstanding proofreader. He called out to his daughter: "Ho, come quickly Zsuzsanna, see what this little pipsqueak can do!" ..." Grandpa Czuczor was almost lost for words; he had read this Declaration many times yet had never noticed this misprint. Kornel could make an outstanding proofreader. He called out to his daughter: "Ho, come quickly Zsuzsanna, see what this little pipsqueak can do!"

Kornel started to read out the document again: "BY HIS SERENE HIGHNESS PRINCE FERENC RAKOCZI OF FELSo-VADASZ ... Grandpa why is there no accent on the A A and the and the O O?"

"What accent?" asked Zsuzsanna, leaning closer.

"It's not usual on a majuscule, perhaps on an A A or an or an O O," said Grandpa Czuczor.

"What does 'major school' mean?" asked Zsuzsanna.

"Capital letter," said Grandpa Czuczor sternly. This much she might have been expected to pick up over all these years. Despite all her father's efforts, Zsuzsanna had never learned to read or write. Fortunately, it was not Zsuzsanna's brains that little Kornel had inherited.

My grandson Kornel read out what I have written here and I forbore to reprove him, so wonderful was it that he had learned to read. In general he is very skillful with words. Perhaps he may become a man of the cloth or a university professor? Were times not so hard I should gladly take him to the college at Enyed or Nagyszombat, to see what the professors there made of him. But it is dangerous even to leave the village, let alone travel any distance. They say that only a day's walk away the Kurucz and the Labancz are preparing to do battle. Whichever takes flight will likely pass this way. And a defeated army knows no mercy.

It was suddenly light in the middle of the night. Grandpa Czuczor leaped out of bed and ran into the garden, looking round to see if the neighbors were also awake and, still half asleep, forgetting that the neighboring houses were deserted. Down in the valley there were fires, lighting up the land in red almost as far as Varasd.

Zsuzsanna also came running out, the little boy whimpering on her shoulder and a satchel on her arm, ready with food, a change of underclothing, candles, and other necessities she had fortunately packed some days before. "Come on, Father!" she shouted. Grandpa Czuczor dashed back into the house, pulled on his kneeboots, snatched up his cape and hat, swept up his own satchel and the folio, and took a long last look at the house and his precious possessions. Will I ever see them intact again? He ran out onto the road that wound its way up Black Mountain.

The villagers were all heading that way-in times of danger it was sensible to hide in the Old Cavern. This lay deep in the cliffs above Bull Meadow and its mouth could be blocked by a triangular boulder in such a way that no one who did not know his way around would ever guess what lay behind it. The Cavern, its floor the shape of a flattened pear, had been in use since prehistoric times. It was with this dark hollow that mothers in Kos would threaten their unruly children: "If you don't behave, I'll shut you up in the Old Cavern!"

By the time Grandpa Czuczor reached it with his daughter and grandson, the others had made themselves at home and they could barely squeeze in. The villagers still viewed the Czuczors with the suspicion that was normally the stranger's due. Zsuzsanna, like other widows, was the subject of salacious gossip, while of Grandpa Czuczor it was whispered that he consorted with the Devil, the chief proof of this being the extraordinary length of his left thumbnail. Half-a-dozen candles glimmered in the Cavern, assisted by two oil-lamps; clouds of soot rose to its rust-colored roof. Two of the hired hands heaved the triangular boulder into place and the din gradually subsided.

"Where is Wilhelm?" asked Kornel.

"Isn't he here? He's always running off ... I wash my hands of him," said Zsuzsanna.

Kornel was soon overcome by sleep. He dreamed he was in a blinding white light, and saw an old man with talons like knife-blades on all ten fingers of his hands. He used them to carve animal shapes out of pieces of wood; these came to life and gamboled in the forest clearing. "It's Uncle God!" he thought.

Grandpa Czuczor fell into conversation with Gaspar Dobruk, the farrier, who had a game leg that ensured his exemption from army service. The farrier informed him that in Varasd it was neither the Kurucz nor the Labancz that were wreaking havoc, but the irregulars of Farkas Balassi. These freebooters respected neither man nor God; all they wanted was to loot and scavenge.

"Then perhaps we should give them what they want!" said Grandpa Czuczor.

Gaspar Dobruk was aghast. "Are you out of your mind, that we should freely give them all that we have sweated for years to gain?"

"They'll get it either way."

A blast sounded from somewhere a little closer. Zsuzsanna began to cry.

"Quiet!" said Grandpa Czuczor.

What remained of the population of Kos was now gathered in the Old Cavern, holding its breath, praying, seeking comfort in each other's presence. May the Lord be merciful unto us, prayed Grandpa Czuczor. Meanwhile the advance guard of Farkas Balassi's irregulars was already roaming the village high street, going from yard to yard to the accompaniment of the dogs' howling. The drovers led their horses by their bridle, and used their drawn swords to pry open the doors of deserted houses, incredulous that not a soul remained. Axes and cleavers hacked off locks and hasps: they had been given a free hand by Farkas Balassi. But little of value remained in the buildings and they cursed eloquently as they flung cheap pots and pans out of the windows. The straw roofs of the houses burst into flame at the torches' kiss, and as the fire crackled along the housetops, the animals in the stables and pens howled and bleated, the dogs almost strangled on their leads as they tried to flee. Even far away in the Cavern Kornel could pick out from the distant rumble the throaty bark of Burkus, his grandfather's bushy komondor dog.

Zsuzsanna whimpered. "Don't be afraid," she sniffled into her son's ear. "God will help us!"

"I'm not afraid," grunted Kornel.

After a quarter of an hour, the noise of fighting died away.

"Perhaps they have moved on," said Balint Borzavary Daroczy, the estate bailiff.

"I hardly think so," said Grandpa Czuczor. "They're up to something."

"One of us should go out and look around."

"Later," said Grandpa Czuczor.

More and more lights went on in the depths of the Cavern. Grandpa Czuczor reached into his satchel, though he knew there was no point in looking for his writing implements-he had not brought them. He closed his eyes and tried to compose the lines he would have written had he brought pen and ink.

The First Day of April, the Year of our Lord 1706. The dogs of war are upon us and we know not if our homes still stand. We have supplies for three days, perhaps four if we are sparing. Zsuzsanna is tearful, but Kornel shows remarkable composure: further evidence of his mental capacity. If we live long enough, we shall be very proud of him. May the Lord on High guide his steps and give him the strength to take them his mental capacity. If we live long enough, we shall be very proud of him. May the Lord on High guide his steps and give him the strength to take them.

Around midnight Balint Borzavary Daroczy and two of the lads left the Old Cavern to take a look at the village. They took lamps with them, but these proved unnecessary, as several of the houses were still ablaze. The charred timbers of the roof girders were all that stood, and the stench of dead flesh was everywhere. Hardly a house was left standing. The church steeple had fallen in. Two bodies lay dead in the street, Bela Vizvari and his wife, Boriska. They must have taken shelter in the little winepress and been found by the bandits. It looked as if they had been bayoneted to death. The bodies, in their blood-soaked clothes, were already bloated.

"Sir, oh sir!" said one of the lads. "Best to just get ourselves out of here, anywhere, double quick!"

"Quiet!"

Where could one go? he thought. There was no escaping the dogs of war.

In front of the Czuczors' house they found another body, which they took to be Wilhelm's; the young man's limbs had been hacked off by the marauders. Scattered all around him in the dust were Grandpa Czuczor's types, the casting kettle, and the little type-case, shattered to bits. It looked as though Wilhelm had tried to save the type foundry. The bandits had not been interested in the type, and hoped there might be money or gold in the type-case. A little farther off lay Burkus, the dog; he must have gone to the servant's aid. His side was slashed open, his guts spilled out where he lay.

As he listened to these tales from the village, tears welled up in Grandpa Czuczor's eyes. Poor Wilhelm: to come a distance of nine days' journey from his village, only to end his days in such horror. Once peace reigned again, his mother would have to be told. Grandpa Czuczor decided he would also send her some money and tried to decide how much it should be.

They thought Kornel was fast asleep, but the little fellow generally spent his nights half-awake. The scraps of sound that reached him contained no mention of Wilhelm or Burkus. He caught something about the fate of Bela Vizvari and his wife, though he was not yet aware of the meaning of death. He had seen, more than once, funeral corteges winding their way to the cemetery, and had stared at the pinewood coffins, sensing the darkness of such times, hearing whispers and whimpers about the late so-and-so, but he could not quite comprehend that what lay in the wooden box was the body of a man or a woman. His mother had often told him the story of his dear father's death, and Kornel could see before him the fatal fall from the horse and hear the gut-wrenching crack as the head hit the tree-stump-indeed, he would often drive his own skull into anything hard. Having seen the tiny picture in his mother's locket, he always imagined his father as the very image of Grandpa Czuczor.

The men debated whether to return to their homes, or what was left of them, the following day. Balint Borzavary Daroczy was of the view that it was too early to return, as the marauding bands could return at any time, and it was even possible that their land would be the battleground for the Kurucz or the Labancz, or even both. Grandpa Czuczor was dismissive: "We can't sit around here in the mountains till doomsday ... Great is the mercy of the Lord, let His will be done."

The debate dragged on. Grandpa Czuczor declared that he would go down into the village even if they all decided to stay where they were. At dawn he woke Zsuzsanna and Kornel: "Time to go!"

They gathered their bundles, but the boulder at the mouth of the Cavern proved impossible to move until one of the lads woke and gave them a hand.

A biting wind stung their faces as they made their way downhill. Not till the last turning would the village heave into view; Grandpa Czuczor used the time to prepare his daughter and grandson for the sights to come. But the horror that met their eyes far surpassed his imagination. Zsuzsanna sobbed and sobbed, her face a sodden pillow, despite her father's admonitions that this would hardly help matters. Kornel surveyed in silence the destruction of the burned-out houses, the dead and dying animals, the vultures circling high above the village. Nor did he cry when he saw the earthly remains of Burkus. He sensed that this was only the beginning of something, though he could not put into words what that something was. He would not let go of his grandfather's warm and reassuring paw, and went with him everywhere. Grandpa Czuczor's first port of call was not the house-of which only the kitchen and part of the yard still had a roof-but to the bottom of the garden and the rose bushes there. These had not been touched by the bandits. He nodded and proceeded to douse them with his own water. Kornel's eyes opened wide in astonishment as he saw his grandfather's member for the first time, both in length and breadth the size of a very decent sausage.

Their furniture was in smithereens, their clothes and everything else had either been taken or else torn and trampled into useless rags.

"What are we to do now?" asked Zsuzsanna.

Grandpa Czuczor did not reply but drew a stool that was more or less intact up to the composing frame, sat down, and began sharpening the quills. He poured ink into the inkwell and began to write in the folio.

Day of mourning. We have lost Wilhelm, as we have most of the res mobilis. res mobilis. My equipment is largely gone and as yet I lack the strength to scrape what remains out of the mud where it lies. Our lives, too, are in danger. We can do naught but trust in our God My equipment is largely gone and as yet I lack the strength to scrape what remains out of the mud where it lies. Our lives, too, are in danger. We can do naught but trust in our God. Justus es Domine, et justa sunt judicia tua.

He glanced sideways and saw his grandson crouching under the composing frame and drawing with a lead pencil on a scrap of paper, while resolutely clutching his grandfather's trousers with his right hand.

"What are you doing there, Kornel?"

"Grandfather dear, I am writing."

"Indeed?" Grandpa Czuczor gave a groan as he went down on his knees to take a closer look at the scrap of paper. To his great surprise the unsteady and imperfect letters formed themselves into more or less readable script. "Day of mourning," Kornel had written. "We lost Burkus and I'm going to bury him at the bottom of the garden, under the rose ..."

"Not there!" Grandpa Czuczor burst out.

The boy did not understand. "I beg your pardon, Grandpa?"