"It's medicinal! If anything harms anything, it's that watery Brause you are supping."

Ilse told him her life story that evening. The Creator had called her mother unto Him all too early and her father had married again; she and her stepmother were constantly at loggerheads, both of them hoping that the girl would at last get married. Ilse let her corn-blue gaze rest on Nandor Csillag, as if waiting for an answer.

The answer came three weeks later: the Hungarian singer came to pay his respects to the parents and ask for the daughter's fair hand, with a bouquet of burgundy-red roses the size of a millstone. Ilse's father strove not to show how pleased he was, in case it encouraged exaggerated ideas about the dowry; but in fact he had begun to fear she might be left on the shelf. The wedding feast was the biggest ever seen in those parts, and was long remembered in the girl's village; even the dogs had their share of the roast venison with cranberries.

The Csillag side of the family were not in the least happy with Ilse, regarding her openness as vulgar and her frequent laughter as the neighing of a horse. They were certain Nandor Csillag would set up home on German territory, but after the expiry of his contract he turned up with his wife in Pecs. They set up home on the ground floor of the house in Apacza Street, but they soon moved to their own place: Nandor Csillag bought a run-down and disused grain barn. To general astonishment Ilse was using words of Hungarian within a fortnight, and forming sentences by the second month, and within twelve months only the characteristic articulation of her r' r's revealed her German origins. She also showed great skills in the organization of soirees and receptions; their cherrywood-paneled salon became a regular meeting place for the town's intellectual elite.

Nandor Csillag was, in his active days, little able to enjoy his house and home, living the bird-of-passage life of artists. He would have liked Ilse to become his permanent accompanist, a kind of maid-of-all-work ready to wait on him hand and foot. But Ilse hated traveling. This became a recurrent source of trouble. She accused him of wanting to haul her around with him out of sheer jealousy; but she was not prepared to pass her time being bored in a selection of hotel rooms in various parts of Europe. So Nandor Csillag joined an international company that was to spend three months touring South America with two Puccini operas. "You are not coming with me even if it's Argentina?" he asked angrily.

"I can't," Ilse said smiling coyly.

"Why not?"

"Because of the state I find myself in."

Thus did Nandor Csillag learn that he was to become a father. He had little time to rejoice, as he had two distinct roles to learn in Italian.

Balazs Csillag came into this world after a labor that stretched away like strudel pastry, bearing out the truth of the old saying: all beginnings are difficult. Not for the first time did I realize that I had serious responsibilities to my family. I can no longer allow myself to be devoted only to the holy altar of art; I have to consider my decisions in the light of finances also. Following my father's advice, I split my income into three parts. One third I placed in the Post Office Savings Bank, for our everyday needs. One third I deposited in the Swiss Bank that he recommends. Out of the remaining third I shall maintain and expand our property.I am resolute in resisting the urging of my fellow musician Bertalan Szalma, who claims that shares in a mill, which might be purchased with the assistance of his uncle, would yield profits three times the size of the investment. In size, maybe, but at a much greater risk. Whereas for a paterfamilias the primary consideration must be security. If only people did not forget this, many of the world's problems would be solved and instead of tensions that seethe towards an explosion, a reassuring order would prevail.

One afternoon his father visited them. He asked his son whether he often wrote in The Book of Fathers.

"Quite often," said Nandor Csillag.

"You make me curious. Can I take a look?"

"By all means."

When his father had read the above, he immediately wanted to know how he might contact Bertalan Szalma.

"I am told he has a contract at the Opera House in Monte Carlo," said Nandor Csillag.

"And his uncle?"

"Him I don't know. What would you be wanting with him, Father?"

"I'd buy shares in mills."

This made Nandor Csillag ponder. He discussed the matter with Ilse, but his wife preferred not to take a view on this matter. "Do what you think is best, Nandor dear."

By the time, after lengthy deliberations, he had decided to commit himself, those particular mill shares had long been sold. He did not have long to regret his failure, as a series of shady deals resulted in the mill company going bankrupt-the shares were soon not worth the paper they were printed on. Nandor Csillag blessed his own good sense and swore again never to take action without lengthy and substantial deliberation.

His father could not stop wringing his hands. "What a fool I am! What a miserable fellow! Why did you not bind my hands? Lock me up? What a meshuggah I am, ay, ay, ay!"

Nandor Csillag had a sudden thought: "Father, why did you not try to find out about the future? We are supposed to be able to do that, to some degree. Or aren't we?"

Sandor Csillag wiped the sweat from his receding brow. "I'm out of practice ... You think I haven't tried, time and again, for the lottery? Ach, we are in decline, we are getting old ..."

Nandor Csillag nodded. As far as he was concerned, of the first-born's capacities only a fraction remained to him. He didn't even practice the skill much, having little interest in the past and even less in the future. Yet, he thought: I should perhaps pay more heed, in both directions.

He devoted his siesta to leafing through the pages of The Book of Fathers, slowly, line by line, to garner the significance of every possible connection. Perhaps this was a suitable way of strengthening his powers of vision.

For the first time in his life he found his singing ambitions ebbing away. He was no longer unhappy if a tempting contract failed to materialize. He spent his free evenings tinkering in the shed. Increasingly prominent among his interests, alongside wood-carving, was the restoration of old clocks. He had two gramophones on his shelves, so he could play his records alternately, the period of silence between changes of record being thus reduced to the minimum. The sounds of Melba, Caruso, and Galli-Curci soared in the light of the shimmering lamps, wondrously outdoing the ticking and striking of the clocks.

As if in the society of the time-measuring instruments he was more likely to sink into Time, it was on one such peaceful evening that he was vouchsafed a glimpse of the fate that awaited him. He was drowning, with many others, in semidarkness. He could make neither head nor tail of it. He wondered if he should share the vision with his father. But Sandor Csillag had just gone to Balatonfured, for major treatment on his weak heart.

Though in the years '26 and '27 I found peace of mind, I was much afflicted with troubles. It began with my Father's illness and continued with irregularities with my larynx. I had to cancel several performances, more than ever before in my career. However, our financial situation-thanks to my prudence and savings-did not become critical. Though I lost a great deal on the exchange rate when the pengo was brought in, I still managed to purchase a summer cottage on Lake Balaton, at Szemes. I plan to spend there the winter of my days. I have already started to set up a workshop in the outhouse at Szemes. I plan to spend there the winter of my days. I have already started to set up a workshop in the outhouse.My second son was christened Endre, and was born, by comparison with the first, with amazing straightforwardness, hale and hearty. It seems my Ilse has now got the hang of the business. Maybe we shall not stop until we reach six, the family record, held by my ancestor Richard Stern. The blessing of a child is perhaps the greatest joy a man can experience, so I have nothing to complain of. Perhaps only my "daymare" visions of misfortune make me restless, but I have determined not to let them exercise me too much.I wonder if anyone but my descendants will ever read these lines. And if so, whether they will be able to deduce from them how were passed our days on this earth.

He was at the peak of his career. As an unexpected gift he was given a benefit performance by the strolling players with whom he frequently performed. At his request this was Cavalleria Rusticana Cavalleria Rusticana and and I Pagliacci I Pagliacci. They performed Cav Cav and and Pag Pag for two months the length and breadth of the country with the exception-to Nandor Csillag's profound regret-of Pecs, which did not feature in the schedule. They enjoyed modest success, never being humiliated, but the jubilations for which it is worth making so many sacrifices were this time, too, not in evidence. for two months the length and breadth of the country with the exception-to Nandor Csillag's profound regret-of Pecs, which did not feature in the schedule. They enjoyed modest success, never being humiliated, but the jubilations for which it is worth making so many sacrifices were this time, too, not in evidence.

At the end of the series, Nandor Csillag was making his way home, having to make several changes of train, and was already wondering on the journey how to spend the autumn of his life once he had given up singing. He calculated that his resources, including the summer cottage in Balatonszemes, would be exhausted in eight to ten years if there were no increase at all in the value of the property in the interim. He could hardly make the repairing of clocks a career. So what should he do?

He pondered the question for months. He undertook few appearances, none at all in opera, rather only in concert halls or on an ad hoc basis, singing showy Italian songs.

Ilse fell pregnant for the third time; as she put it: "Proof of the pudding club that you are spending more time at home these days," making her husband smile at her turn of phrase.

Nandor Csillag one morning surprised the household by entering the kitchen. The cook almost dropped her copper frying pan. "Sir desires something?" she asked nervously, thinking there must be something wrong: Nandor Csillag was generally asleep at this time.

"What's for breakfast?"

This was even more surprising, as no one could recall the singer ever taking breakfast. Speechless, the cook pointed to the omelette and wafer-thin toast she was preparing for the lady of the house.

"Is this what my Ilse ordered?"

"No."

"Well, how do you know that that's what she would like?"

"Forgive me, sir ... but my lady always has this for breakfast."

"More's the pity," he said and crashed on into the dining-room, where a rotund Ilse was adjusting the curtains and staring out into the sunlight. Nandor Csillag rested his hands on her shoulders and, instead of a "Good morning," said: "What to the heart is love, appetite is to the stomach."

Ilse took a step back. "I beg your pardon?"

"The stomach is the conductor in command of the great orchestra of our passions." After a pause, he added: "These are the words of maestro Rossini. You know, Barber of Seville, William Tell Barber of Seville, William Tell, and all that."

"I am fully aware of the operas of Rossini. But what have they got to do with it?"

"Starting today, I am in charge of the daily menu."

The diet of the Csillag household underwent a radical change. Specialties such as quail's eggs, truffles, and snails surfaced on the menu. Nandor Csillag acquired a raft of Hungarian and foreign cookery books and wanted to bring their recipes to life. The cook was dispatched and her successors achieved a high turnover rate. Nandor Csillag was quite prepared to supervise the market shopping, to order the meat at the butcher's and on occasion took in hand the direction of the kitchen itself. Whenever Ilse or some other relative took exception to this, he declared with an expression of hauteur: "If the Swan of Pesaro could do it, then so can I!"

Everybody knew that Gioacchino Antonio Rossini was the Swan of Pesaro.

"Nandor, Rossini was never your cup of tea. What is this with him now?" asked Ilse.

"Just because I did not sing him, I can still follow his philosophy, no?"

At the noontide of my life I sought my happiness-and no one was more surprised at this than myself-in Epicurean joys. In food, in drink, in reading, in the making of watercolors, in peaceful hours of meditation. I observed the sun setting on the Tettye, building a fire on the hillside, barbecuing food under the open sky, drinking fine red wines: thus did I at last find peace of mind. I awoke to the realization that there is no greater joy than when mind and body rest well replete.I am toying with the idea that I should host a grand dinner for the gourmets and the gourmands of my town, using dishes from my own recipes in a restaurant for Feinschmecker. It will be a joy to revel in their joy. My plans are opposed as much by my father as by Ilse, perhaps by him more, since he is now at the stage where he opposes everything. But whom would I offend by spending my spare time supplying food of the finest quality for my guests? Why should this be more despised an occupation than ownership of the famous Csillag shoe shop? From the name of the firm, my father at the beginning of this year ousted that of old Straub, on the grounds that it sounds too Jewish. What a hypocritical notion! If Papa looks in the mirror he will see something that characterizes our origins more substantially than a name like Straub stage where he opposes everything. But whom would I offend by spending my spare time supplying food of the finest quality for my guests? Why should this be more despised an occupation than ownership of the famous Csillag shoe shop? From the name of the firm, my father at the beginning of this year ousted that of old Straub, on the grounds that it sounds too Jewish. What a hypocritical notion! If Papa looks in the mirror he will see something that characterizes our origins more substantially than a name like Straub.But I must now take up arms against a more serious threat. I dare not even write it down, so superstitious am I. May heaven grant me a sufficiency of strength and patience.

Nandor Csillag kept stubbornly to his original intention. He found a house garlanded in ivy that now stood empty and forlorn. Constructed more than a century earlier by the town's Fire Brigade Union, it had not been used since they built a new storage building in 1910. This was the building leased by Nandor Csillag. He gave his restaurant the sonorous name Restaurant a la Rossini, but this never really caught on and regulars would say, "Let's go to Nandi Csillag's!" Because at Nandi's you could get French soups, Italian roasts, and Spanish desserts for the gentry like nowhere else. There were just seven tables, and the inhabitants of Pecs had, willy-nilly, to get used to the notion of booking tables, whether in person, by telephone, or foot-messenger. At Nandi's Slovak waitresses served the specialties decked out in tiny candlelights and in the evenings the gramophone would play arias by Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini.

Nandor Csillag had a rose window cut in the tiny space that had been used by the duty officer of the fire brigade, and so could keep a constant eye on his guests and staff. If the diners were acquaintances-and virtually all the townsfolk counted as such-he made sure he greeted them in person. He put on weight rapidly, which made his delicate frame appear rather humorous. Ilse pointed out that people might think they were both pregnant-she being now in her eighth month. Nandor Csillag had no regret about his corporation, and grew nineteenth-century mutton-chop whiskers to match. This hirsute growth turned white in the course of a week when the event foretold in The Book of Fathers in fact became reality.

Ilse's behavior grew more and more strange. She gave birth to Tamas, but would not give him suck even once. Among ladies of standing it was accepted that this task was done in their stead by a wet nurse, but in the case of her first two sons, Ilse had insisted on breast-feeding them herself. She often voiced her conviction that the health of the infant was contingent on mother's milk and urged her friends to follow her example.

Her knowledge of Hungarian seemed to deteriorate rapidly, with errors in her grammar and difficulty finding the right word. "Am I getting oldster?" she would ask, her face a map of fear. Her husband's remonstrations failed to reassure her. Her chambermaid would often find she had locked herself in her room and showed no inclination to answer the door or even to reply to her repeated pleas. Once she spent a day and a half in her room without food or drink, totally indifferent to the calls of her husband and father-and mother-in-law. Nandor Csillag could not understand what had got into her, and Ilse never gave an explanation.

When one afternoon she set fire to the brocade curtains, the house all but burned to the ground. The staff, horrified, rang for the fire brigade. Once the flames had been extinguished the fireman in charge drew up an official report that gave rise to rumors about Ilse's mental state that spread like the wildfire she had created. The family doctor kept reassuring Nandor Csillag that these things happen, that the stresses and pains of giving birth often short-circuited the nervous system of the female body. "The ordinary folk say: the milk goes to the brain. It would be better if the good lady were again to give suck to the infant!"

Ilse listened to the doctor with an expressionless face. In vain did her husband prompt her, gently at first, then with increasing urgency, but she had nothing to say. Hardly had the doctor left the house when Ilse threw herself on the ground and began to pound the wooden floorboards with her head, as if it were her intention to crack open her skull. Not even with the help of the chambermaid could Nandor Csillag make her stop.

These fits of self-destruction soon assumed a chronic character. Tonchi was the only person who was able to still Ilse's ravings, drawing her gently but firmly to her ample bosom. First the doctor, then other members of his family suggested that he should have his wife committed to an institution before she inflicted fatal damage on herself. This proposal would make him stamp his feet with rage: "That will be the day! I won't have Ilse taken to the yellow house! Out of the question!"

But the situation deteriorated further. Soon even the safety of the children could no longer be guaranteed. Nandor Csillag took on two nuns trained in the treatment of such conditions, who tended Ilse day and night.

It is beyond imagining what sins we may have committed to deserve such punishment from fate. I had hoped to be able to live out my final days in peaceful isolation from the world, but an unending horror has blighted my everyday life: the illness that is taking her over is driving Ilse to commit appalling acts. I am pointed at wherever I go in town and my misfortune has become the gossip of the women of the town as well as of the men in the coffeehouses. Our tale is a tragedy worthy of an opera librettist. No greater calamity could befall us.

He continued to hold this view even after the Hungarian parliament passed Law XV of 1938. A printed copy circulated in the Nandi Nandi and in the and in the Wild Man Wild Man.

Paragraph I.In the interests of achieving a more effective balance in the life of society, the Hungarian Royal Ministry is hereby authorized to implement without further delay certain essential and important measures-including measures deemed necessary to eliminate unemployment among the intelligentsia-within three weeks of the promulgation of the present law, and in the spheres and according to principles delimited in the paragraphs below may implement such legal measures even if their implementation would otherwise require legislation.

Damned officialese!

The essence of the measures was explained to him by the lawyers among the regulars. Chambers would be established for lawyers, journalists, engineers, doctors, artists, and virtually all those in the professions, but the percentage of Jews in each such chamber would not be allowed to exceed 20 percent.

It soon became clear that he, Nandor Csillag, who in the recent past had performed in the leading opera houses of Europe, could not become a chamber member, because someone had decided he was to be counted as Jewish, since he had never formally converted to an "accepted and recognized" faith. Though this hurt, in practice it did not matter; he had long regarded his career as an artist as over.

He still persisted in maintaining that no greater blow was imaginable than Ilse's illness even when Law IV of 1939 came into force, restricting the areas of public and economic life that could be occupied by Jews. A summary of its general principles-Document No. 702 from the Lower House-appeared in the newspapers. This document was all too easy to understand.

While before the passage of this law only this country's western neighbor, Germany, had taken resolute action to drive out the Jews, many other countries of Europe have since followed.

Mother of God, he thought, are we going to be driven out? He could not begin to imagine how this might be achieved.

It is being increasingly recognized that the Jews are a distinctive ethnic group, sharply differentiated from all other peoples.

Nandor Csillag had a fit. He bellowed and howled so much that it took five people to hold him down. In the town it was rumored that he had caught his wife's illness. He would stop people in the street, begging them to read a crumpled copy of the newssheet with the preamble to the law, while repeating incredulously and obsessively: "Me, not a Hungarian! Me, whose Hungarian name brought glory to my homeland in the greatest opera houses of Europe? Who speaks Hungarian perfectly, and not a syllable of Hebrew? Who has ancestors who were executed in 1849 because they fought for Hungary's freedom? Has everyone here gone completely mad??"

He would read out long extracts from the despicable text and in vain would people try to flee; they had to listen to it all, for he would hold them by the sleeve. At the most agonizing paragraphs, he would have to gasp for breath.

For a while he kept the document among the family papers. Later he stuck it into the cover of The Book of Fathers, which had split at the spine and acquired a crack. His son Balazs threw it out when the volumes ended up with him.

Jews have taken part, and continue to take part, in a proportion that far exceeds their number, in the commission of crimes for selfish financial reasons, especially those that are liable to undermine the economic foundations of the country. Those who commit abuses of financial instruments involving the exchange rate are almost exclusively Jews, and the state authority must take wide-ranging measures to ensure permanently that abuses in this area do not harm the country's economic prospects.In terms of the law the words "Jew" and "Jewish" define the group in relation to which it desires to implement special regulations. By contrast, the term "Israelite" applies to the definition of the faith group. Those that the law subsumes under the term "Jew" are not necessarily to be identified with those belonging to the Israelite confession; the circle of Jews is a broader category.The law restricts the role played by Jews in legislation, in bodies with legal authority and in local government and in the exercise of the ballot with reference to these:participation in public office by Jews is in future entirely withdrawn;the percentage of Jewish members in the chambers of law, engineering, medicine, journalism, theater, and film, is hereby limited to 6 percent;positions involving the intellectual and artistic direction of the press, theater, and film companies are forbidden to Jews;licenses held by permission of local authorities are no longer to be held by or issued to Jews;in the sphere of public transportation and carriage the number of Jewish entrepreneurs will gradually be reduced to 6 percent;certificates to practice trades and industries are generally forbidden to Jews until the number of such certificates and licenses falls below 6 percent of the total;in trade and other fee-earning occupations, of those employed in white-collar work Jews shall generally not exceed 12 percent in number;the ministry is hereby permitted to take steps to promote the emigration of Jews;finally,legal steps will be taken to ensure that any attempt to flout the law will be dealt with severely.

"Well, perhaps now is the time to emigrate," Ilona said when the family met to put their heads together. "If it's really going to be implemented."

"But this is our land, too!" said Nandor Csillag. "Why don't they they emigrate!" emigrate!"

"Don't shout, my dear, my head is throbbing. You are not on stage. We can hear you at normal pitch."

Sandor Csillag traveled up to Budapest to try to secure the necessary documents. His old contacts had been severed, however, and doors closed on him one after the other.

In the daily Magyarsag Magyarsag, venomous articles berated the Pecs authorities for their kid-glove treatment of the town's Jews. Among the examples cited was Sandor Csillag, "the shoe-baron with the effrontery to charge sky-high prices for his shoes, who thoroughly and disgracefully fleeces the poor," and his son "the illustrious representative of the Jewish fat-cat oligarchy, the owner of the Nandi Nandi, who always has room and food for his fellow Jews, who suck the blood of our patriots." In both cases the name (Stern) was given in brackets.

Nandor Csillag bared his teeth, like a horse being shod. "What impertinence! I have documentation by the cartload that we are Csillags! And anyway, where did they dig that up?"

The family had difficulty persuading him not to sue the editors. It would just pour oil on the fire. The licenses to run the restaurant and the shoe shop were under threat of withdrawal shortly.

"What next?" asked father from son and son from father. It would have been logical to save the businesses by transferring their ownership to the incontrovertibly German Ilse, but unfortunately by this time and on her husband's request, she had been declared incapable of managing her own affairs and no longer of sound mind.

"We need an Aladar Aladar!" said Sandor Csillag (Stern).

"An Aladar Aladar?" Nandor Csillag (Stern) was puzzled.

"Are you deaf? Aladar Aladar! A front man! Got it?"

Anti Kolozsvari became the family's Aladar Aladar. Anti Kolozsvari was a well-known freeloader and sponger in the coffeehouses of Pecs. Nandor Csillag regularly supplied him with small sums, which in his notebook he put under the heading "Antimatter Tax." Anti Kolozsvari had drunk himself out of a job in journalism and was not sober even as he officially and formally-for an increased fee-took over the ownership of the shoe shop and the restaurant. In the document that effected the transfer there were even two spelling mistakes in the signature of the beneficiary, but it bothered no one that in the document he recorded his name as Antall Kolosvari.

The Germans had overrun Poland when Nandor Csillag began to wonder whether what awaited them was in fact as serious as Ilse's disturbed mind. The possibility of emigrating did crop up, but the family could not agree on a destination. Nandor Csillag voted for Switzerland, Tonchi for the United States, while Sandor Csillag chose Australia, because of the kangaroos. Ilona and her parents preferred Canada, where two younger brothers of Manfred Goldbaum were already well established.

This was the only topic to which Ilse made a contribution. "Germany! Deutschland!" she repeated.

"Come now ... Hitler is the very reason that we have to emigrate!"

"Not Hitler! Germany!" responded Ilse, impatiently. She was one of the few in Europe who had yet to acknowledge the existence of the Fuhrer.

They went on talking until most of the family had been deported, chiefly by train. As Ilse passed under the double iron gates surmounted by the slogan ARBEIT MACHT FREI she had a fit more severe and frightening than ever before. Her two young sons, painfully gripping her hands, were kicked away from her side. Ilse was about to throw herself after them like a lioness after her cubs. When she was trodden into the mud, she lashed out repeatedly, screaming something in German. The two guards bashed her brains out with the stocks of their rifles, oblivious of the fact that Ilse was reciting a Heine poem, studied in the fourth form of German primary schools, describing the glories of the autumn landscape. (While it is true that that particular textbook had been, together with Heine and many other poets, withdrawn by 1936, the two soldiers must certainly have attended school before that date.) Nandor Csillag saw none of this, having been separated from his family earlier. He was fortunate. He ended up in Canada. The sorter brigade in the camp was called Canada, because the name, which originally referred to the untold riches they found as sorters, came to symbolize survival. Those who were in Canada sorted out the rags and scraps that remained of those who had been gassed to death: gold teeth, rings, eyeglasses, and other valuables that could be rescued for the benefit of the Third Reich from rubbish that was otherwise destroyed. Their primary acts of quiet sabotage involved secretly smuggling out anything that looked remotely valuable and flushing it down the toilets.

The Canadians watched with profound sympathy as the work brigades came and went. They were ghosts supporting each other as they struggled down the middle of the road, their little food bowls dangling from their string belts. The work brigades were frisked every day, any remaining bits and pieces reaching the depot or the litter-burner via the Canadians.

Some time after Nandor Csillag there came to Canada a quiet man with a large Adam's apple. From the time he was assigned to a place next to Nandor Csillag he delivered himself of only one sentence: "Tivadar Fleisch, tradesman of Kiskunhalas, at your service."

They had several weeks to wait for his next utterance. This consisted of the word "Look!"

He had come across an egg-shaped fob-watch in one of the jackets matted into filth. It showed the day, the month, and even the year. It was accurate, with a firm tick that harked back to the good old days before the war.

"Gold?" asked someone.

Without a word Nandor Csillag took it from Tivadar Fleisch's hand. He looked at it for a long time, raising it to his eyes; his vision had worsened a lot in recent times.

"Recognize it?" asked Tivadar Fleisch.

Nandor Csillag nodded. Seeing his tears, they asked no further questions; the Canadians understood everything. Nandor Csillag clutched the timepiece, the back with its carved curlicues conjuring up the past. The indentations must have been felt in this way by his father, grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and all the way back to Kornel Csillag/Sternovszky. He knew that the pocket watch had been presented to his future father-in-law on the night of his stag party. So poor Uncle Manfred, the Beremend trouser king, had ...

May his dear soul rest in peace. Him the Arbeit Arbeit had indeed made had indeed made frei frei.

Nandor Csillag hesitated only for a few minutes, then, burying the watch in his pocket respectfully, asked to be excused. He mumbled a few Hungarian prayers, and the only one he knew in Hebrew, then consigned the watch to the latrine. Baruch ata Adonai Baruch ata Adonai.

At Christmas the prisoners' theater organized a lively evening. Nandor Csillag was asked to perform something that gave him pleasure. He demurred, pleading that he could no longer sing.