"Who can know the dispensations of God on high, apart from God Himself?" and he made the sign of the cross in the Slav manner.

He had to beg two more carters to take on Dr. Pista Kadas, and he needed constant support walking, until they reached the kolkhoz village of Doroshich. The sizable but crumbling brick building bore a huge notice: QUARANTINE. The scene depressed him. This was no hospital; rather, some kind of isolation ward had been created not in the interests of the sick but of those who were still in good health. In various outhouses and farm buildings, even roofless sheds, lay the dying; many had no bed, or even a sack of straw, but just lay in the mud with eyes fixed upon the sky.

Balazs Csillag sought the reception office, but there wasn't one. A fat fellow in a leather apron was boiling injection sharps over an open fire, in a utensil that resembled a small cauldron. Balazs Csillag tried to explain why he was here; without hearing him out, the man jerked his thumb behind him and said: "Number three."

The barns and sheds had been given numbers. Balazs Csillag slung Dr. Pista Kadas over his shoulder and hauled him into number three. He passed a huge stable packed six feet high with dead bodies. He had to stop to vomit. In number three he found not a square inch of free space. The heaving smell of human bodies stung his nostrils, at last suppressing the smell of corpses. When he managed to lay Dr. Pista Kadas between two others, he hunkered down by his feet, though he knew it would be wiser to flee this place before he took ill himself; but he had no strength to stand up. This is what life is, he thought. Through the gaps between the wooden roof-slats the freezing rain poured in, washing his face clean of the drops of sweat he had acquired while bringing in the patient. To have carried Dr. Pista Kadas for so many kilometers only to end up in this ghastly hole ... It was a pity to have made such an effort.

For the first time, here, his rock-solid faith faltered, his belief that he would get home, that there was a future, where in the house in Nepomuk Street the table would again be laid with the swishing damask tablecloth, the saffron-flavored bouillon would bubble in the china dish, and the four male members of the family would in turn kiss Mama's hand (in this vision, Mama was still well), and then for a long time there would be heard only the music of the cutlery on the plates and the uninterrupted ticking of the grandfather clock.

He tried to work out where he might be in terms of undivided time, trying to add up in his mind the number of days they had spent wandering, and came to the conclusion that it was perhaps the 29th of April. The day after tomorrow is Mama's birthday, he thought. He almost burst into tears. A bald man with ulcers on his face offered him a piece of rag: "Here!"

It was some time before it sank in that he was being addressed in Hungarian. He would gladly have embraced the man but then common sense prevailed and he did not accept the rag; this was a typhoid hospital, after all. He asked if there were more Hungarians here.

"There were. Only the four of us left now."

They had all come here from the same labor service division. The ulcerous man gave a detailed account of their calvary to this point, and must have been hoping that Balazs Csillag and his companion would reciprocate with their story, but Balazs's exhaustion exceeded even his hunger, and he fell asleep in mid-sentence.

He awoke to an ear-splitting shriek. Blinding white lights, chaotic red flashes, the smell of petrol fumes, desperate voices in at least five languages. In the chaos Balazs Csillag could clearly discern Hungarian words: "Fire! They've set fire to the barn!"

Those able to get to their feet lunged like enraged animals at the side walls, though these were already ablaze with fiercely leaping flames. In one corner someone had managed to break loose a few planks and people were being passed through the hole one at a time. Balazs Csillag also fought his way through, fighting tooth and nail, but once he had managed to leave the blazing building behind, he was surprised to see that those running ahead of him were all falling down. Was the grass so slippery?-before he had an answer to this question, he heard the gun blasts and felt the bullets hit his body: two machine guns were chattering away from the courtyard, mowing down those who were fleeing like living torches. In his last moments before he lost consciousness, he understood: the bastards want to get rid of the contagious.

He lay, badly burned, for three days, frozen in his own blood. He had taken two hits, one in the shoulder, the other in the stomach; the latter bullet had left through his back. When he came round again, it was early morning. He had time to consider what to do. He suspected that if he were found, it would be all over for him. They are hardly in need of an eyewitness. He should somehow drag himself as far as the trees, in the direction from which he had come with poor Dr. Pista Kadas. But he had too little strength left even to sit up. He decided to play dead until night fell again. This proved all the more easy to do, because he soon sank into a deep faint. At first he would come to for a few minutes; later it would be for some hours. He saw that they had set fire to barns number two and four. The authorities had therefore decided it was time to liquidate the temporary typhoid hospital. No one is going to believe this.

The area around him seemed to be deserted. Perhaps there was no one apart from him who survived. But what about barns number one and five? Ach ... it's all the same.

The following night he managed to drag himself to the trees. He found no human being; he had to rid himself of just a stray dog. He hid some six days among these fir trees, again living on the small fish in the stream and mosses on the trees. When he peeled off his clothing, he was horrified to see that in several places his skin and his clothes had fused. His eyebrows had been singed off, and some of the hair on his head, as well as on his chest and arms. His whole body was a festering wound and pain; in places, gangrene had set in. This is it, he thought. This is not something one can survive. His strength was fading fast, until he got to the point where he could not move at all. He allowed the gray shroud of helplessness to settle over him.

He came to on a makeshift bed, under blankets smelling of musk.

"Where am I?"

"In Tyeperov. Just sleep!" a woman's musical voice said in Russian.

He obeyed. In his feverish dreams he saw his father sing, in a clown's outfit, to an audience that was pretty much that of Lager 7149/2.

When he next recovered consciousness, the almond-eyed Armenian nurse told him he was in a camp hospital.

"How did I get here?"

"No idea."

He never discovered who had had the kindness to save his life; all he knew was that he had been taken off the back of a truck in front of the camp hospital and put on an empty stretcher. The doctor was quite sure his recovery was nothing short of miraculous, since his body had been covered in second-degree burns. His back, chest, and right calf had been left covered in pits and pockmarks as they healed, so that for the rest of his life he would not undress in the presence of another. On his face there remained only a scar the size of a matchbox to the left of his mouth, a scar that for years preserved the pain of the burning every time he moved his lips. This was one reason why he was disinclined to smile.

From the hospital he was transferred to a Lager again, this time to 189/13. From there he reached home in the spring of 1945. The most agonizing were the last three days, when the train seemed to spend hours motionless at Berehovo, Mukachevo, and then on the border. In fact, they were told to leave the train there. Balazs Csillag did not hang around and promptly walked to Nyiregyhaza. Compared with distances he had walked on foot in Russia and Ukraine, this should have been a pleasant little stroll, but because of the lasting injuries he had sustained, he now walked slowly and awkwardly.

At Nyiregyhaza he boarded a freight train that took the whole day to struggle into the bombed-out East Station. The trains for Pecs left from the South Station, assuming there were trains at all. What could have happened to the others? He was tortured by forebodings. He did not feel he had the strength to continue his journey straight away.

The ruins of Budapest received him most unpleasantly, with biting winds and hostile-looking pedestrians who gave him a very wide berth, as if he were a leper. Balazs Csillag thought they were repelled by the huge wounds on his hands and neck; it did not occur to him what kind of smell he might be giving off-the last time he had managed to wash was in Berehovo, at the station water pump.

He tried to find one of Papa's friends, Uncle Roland, who had often visited them in Pecs. He was a piano tuner who worked for the Opera, among others, and was fond of boasting of how many of the world-famous visiting artists had praised his work. Uncle Roland lived in Hajos Street, but when Balazs Csillag rang the bell on the corridor inside the block only a shrewish woman peeped out from behind the yellowing lace curtain, repeatedly squealing: "He's not in!"

Balazs Csillag sat down in the corridor to wait. What can this hag have to do with Uncle Roland? The occupants of the flats in the block came and went, stepping over him. In the morning he awoke to find a dog licking his face. From the far end of the corridor, its owner shouted at the dog: "Bundi, no! Naughty boy! Disgusting! Bundi, here, boy, at once!"

The dog, an indeterminate mix of several breeds, left him, giving a sharp whine. Balazs Csillag got up, dusted himself off, and abandoned Uncle Roland. He walked down to the South Station and waited for a freight train to Pecs, jumping onto the last carriage, which was carrying trestles and saw horses for use on building sites.

The house on Nepomuk Street was inhabited by complete strangers who would not even let him in. This house had been assigned to them by the authorities. They had no knowledge of any Csillags. Balazs Csillag was not inclined to argue and sat out in Szechenyi Square. There he was spotted by an old schoolmate, who put him up for a few days. This brief period was more painful than the time in the labor service battalion, in prison, and the typhoid hospital all together: here he received the news. Of the entire family, he alone had returned. He had no parents, no brothers or sisters, no grandparents, no aunts or uncles or nieces. None of his childhood friends had survived. Not even the chatter box girl next door, Babushka, was there, with whom they were always playing Mummies and Daddies in the garden. Balazs Csillag had sworn that he would marry her. Looks like I shall remain unmarried, he thought.

Never mind marriage, it was hard enough to find reasons just to live. He moved into the hall of residence of the Calvinist secondary school, which had been converted into an emergency shelter. He lay on the bunk bed and stared at the ceiling. He was only two-thirds the weight he was before the war, but was quite unable to put any on. Of course, he had to eat more and better food. In the kitchen there was a hot meal once a day, but Balazs Csillag often did not even go down for that; kind folk would bring it up to him.

Then once again he took himself to the house in Nepomuk Street. On the firewall opposite he could still make out the remains of a poster from the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazis, showing a triumphant Hungarian tank, with slogans above and below and a date. One heart-one will! Forward to victory! One heart-one will! Forward to victory! Balazs Csillag stared at it aghast. At the end of 1944 these wild animals were boasting of victory? Balazs Csillag stared at it aghast. At the end of 1944 these wild animals were boasting of victory?

This time the door was opened by a shy girl with curly hair. She was in talkative mood. Her name was Maria Porubszky, a relative from Beremend; she was baby-sitting. The Varghas had gone to fetch food from Sikonda.

Balazs Csillag was unsure how to present what he had to say. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Please don't, it isn't good for the little ones," the girl said, showing him the Varghas's two children, one about two years old sleeping in the cot, the other, just a few months, still in the cradle. "Aren't they sweet when they're asleep?"

Balazs Csillag just stood there, trying to bury his disfigured neck and hands in his shirt. He had forgotten, if ever he knew, how to address young women. Stork-like he shifted from one foot to the other. "This house was ours. And there are some things here, if they are still here, that is ... not valuable things, valuable only to me ... a sort of family album ..." and he made for the stairs, under which his father had had built a slim cupboard of sorts. In the old days that was where he kept his music. Later this lockable store was given to Balazs Csillag. The new owners of the house had forced it open and used it to store firewood. At the very bottom they had stuffed newspapers, presumably as firelighters. Among these he found, more or less intact, the volumes of The Books of Fathers. He had himself begun the last volume, a thick, hardbound, lined book, but it was empty, except for these words on the first page: I hereby begin the latest volume of The Book of Fathers I hereby begin the latest volume of The Book of Fathers. Nothing else. A few days later he had received the call-up papers.

He clutched his family's past to himself and wept, though the girl could not have seen any of this. His tear ducts, too, had been damaged and he frequently needed eyedrops.

Maria Porubszky's index finger nudged his elbow. "But you will tell me your name, won't you?"

He wanted to say: Does it matter? But then he said: "Balazs Csillag. And what is yours?"

"Hey, you're not paying attention! I've introduced myself already: Maria Porubszky. But not for much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"Because I'm going to be Mrs. Balazs Csillag."

"You are what!?"

"You heard me."

"Mrs. Balazs Csillag, my Mrs. Csillag?"

"Yours."

"Have you gone mad?"

"No, I was born mad!" her laughter rang out.

Her prediction, which she later admitted was no more than a bit of harmless fun, came true within a year. The wedding feast was held in the house of her parents in Beremend. Old Mr. Porubszky was a carpenter, as all his ancestors had been.

Balazs Csillag went to the cathedral. He knew the priest, who had been a regular at Papa's restaurant. "I want to sign up as a Catholic," he declared.

"Why?"

"You are in the majority ... aren't you?"

The reverend father knew what had happened to the Csillag family. He asked no further questions but sent him to theological classes. With ten-year-olds he listened to the lectures on the commandments, the martyrs, and the books of the Bible.

Soon he was able to look up the office of the Jewish community. In the archway there was a rusting plaque: SERVICES TO THE LEFT-OFFICE TO THE RIGHT. He turned right. He waited his turn and handed over to the old woman behind the desk the certificate he had obtained in the cathedral. She managed to work out what it said. Her face was covered with amazement. "What is this?"

"I don't want to be a Jew."

"I see ... and so what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Make a note in the register."

The old woman shrugged her shoulders, opened up the relevant volume, and wrote a few lines in the column headed ADDITIONAL REMARKS.

"Do you want a receipt as well?"

"I do."

He received a piece of paper with a stamp on it, which was proof that in the register of births maintained by the Jewish community the following amendment was made: UB 238/1945. The above-named, on the basis of document number 67/1945 from the First Pecs Parish Office, has this day, August 25 UB 238/1945. The above-named, on the basis of document number 67/1945 from the First Pecs Parish Office, has this day, August 25, 1945, converted from the Israelite religion to the Roman Catholic faith 1945, converted from the Israelite religion to the Roman Catholic faith.

Balazs Csillag slipped the piece of paper into his shirt pocket and went out into the street as if he had left something of himself behind. Since he had discovered what had happened to his loved ones he had done nothing but force himself not to think about how their lives had ended. But those images again and again came to the fore, together with the accompanying sounds and smells, and this was something that one could not bear and still remain of sound mind-he had to escape from them, at any price. If he was outdoors he would start to run and exert himself until he ran out of breath; if indoors, he went around and around taking tiny steps, like dogs chasing their own tails. He thought he would lose his mind if things carried on like this.

One or two of his old acquaintances looked him up, and he would be invited out; but then here, too, the conversation would come around to those they had lost, and he would just take himself off without ado. Only in the company of Maria Porubszky did peace descend on him: she never forced the conversation yet chattered away enough for two; when they were together they were like two plants growing in the meadow. He found it difficult to come to terms with the idea of marriage, having many concerns: "Maria, if ever I dared undress, you will be horrified by the sight and will be revolted by me for a lifetime."

"Well, now, dear Balazs, don't you know there are more important things than the body?"

They continued to address each other formally after their wedding. For Balazs Csillag his wedding night was as distressing as for many of his ancestors, and indeed he recalled them in those moments, until Maria Porubszky took him by the hand. "Pay attention to me now, Balazs, and not to the past!"

This sentence proved to be a lifesaving balm. "I'm not going to attend to the past," he repeated to himself in the voice of a naughty schoolboy. He closed his eyes and sighed deep sighs as his new bride gently traced with her fingers the wounded valleys of his body. He dissolved in the blindness of the love that Maria Porubszky, for reasons unknown to him, radiated in his direction.

The next morning, at dawn, in the kitchen garden at Beremend, he tore out from all the volumes of The Book of Fathers the somewhat musty pages, even the empty sheets in the volume that he had himself begun, and carefully burned the pile of rubbish. Then he did the same to the covers. The first volume was the most unwilling to catch fire, although it was falling apart, especially at the spine, but he was unrelenting. "I'm letting go of the past," he muttered. "I'm letting the past go to hell. I'm letting the past go. It is not necessary to remember ..." Even that "necessary" was inherited, and he corrected himself. "I don't have to! I DON'T HAVE TO!" His voice rose to fever pitch.

The Porubszkys' house was close to the Israelite cemetery of Beremend. The caretaker had had to get up early to dig two new graves, since his assistant had not shown up for some days. He had enough problems. "And you don't have to shout!" he shouted.

Da Nobis Domine Pacem.

The pencil drawing was of the WC in the room, where the inhabitants of the ward could attend to the call of nature, or, rather, those who were able to walk. In the background could be seen a double window, the corner bed, with the patient's case-sheet, and the bare leg of the patient lying there. Someone had just got up off the room WC-the person did not resemble any occupant in the drawing-and pointed with satisfied, rounded face at his steaming deposit.

That toilet had been made in the Thirties by the hospital carpenter, though the verb may be an exaggeration, since he had simply sawed a hole in the seat of a stool, into which the porcelain chamberpot had been inserted, to be changed in the Sixties for a container made of thick glass. The latter was somewhat loose in the hole and small accidents would result. By the time he drew this sketch on the back of a newsletter from the Lawyers' Association, Dr. Balazs Csillag was no longer able to use the room WC; he even had difficulty clutching the bedpan. Under his masterpiece he had written the Latin prayer, but with the conviction that he had made a mistake in the grammar. Yet he was proud that for his whole life he well remembered what he had learned about Greek and Latin in secondary school. The expression resounded in his head in the smoke-soaked tones of Mr. Barlay. This knowledge was always available for drawing on in his head, he could whistle it up at any time, like a favorite watchdog. He spent many evenings with his favorite watchdog, reading the Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets, which he had had published by Athenaeum Press. His wife, Marchi, could never understand this: "How come he never gets bored with that same old book?"

"If you must choose between reading one volume a hundred times or a hundred volumes once, you will be better off with the former," he said, quoting his teacher, Mr. Barlay. To Marchi this was an alien way of thinking: she wanted everything at once, and if it could not be at once, then she wanted it even sooner.

Da Nobis Domine Pacem. Is that right? Sounds odd.

Sometimes his mind simply would not serve. This caused him more suffering than any physical pain. At first he could hardly wait for the visits of Marchi and his son; now he was not sorry if they came less often-it made him feel bad if they saw him in such dreadful shape. He lay on his bed all day long, his eyes closed.

It was getting on for twenty years since he had sworn to cut the Gordian knot of memories to liberate himself from all that he was unable to deal with. Now, nonetheless, in his brain a spotlight was trained on the main paths and alleyways of his past, that is to say, of his life.

The cemetery at Beremend often came to mind; it lay heavy on his conscience. His first job after the war was in the transport department of Pecs Council, which was just being reorganized; he had been recommended by Imre Somogyi, the chief engineer on the railways. His father before him had held a similar post: Imre Somogyi senior had been a close friend of Nandor Csillag. He, too, had been taken. Everybody had been taken. Very few came back. During the reign of the Arrow Cross Imre Somogyi had gone into hiding in the Mecsek Hills, where his training as a scout had helped him survive. Pecs was liberated relatively rapidly, and there was still street-by-street fighting in Budapest when the cafes reopened here. In Pecs's main hotel, the Nador, the women's orchestra had re-formed, with gaps in their line-up and patches on their costumes, but with enormous enthusiasm. That was where Balazs Csillag had bumped into Imre Somogyi. He was just pondering whether to move to Beremend, to get further away from Apacza and Nepomuk Streets and everything else that reeked of the war.

The head of the transport department made it possible for him-in fact, urged him-to enroll in the University of Pecs. "We shall have great need of qualified people!"

This was a pressing reason for staying in Pecs. They rented a room by the month, opposite the cathedral. In the morning he set off to earn his bread with egg-and-butter sandwiches in his pocket. Marchi made a little on the side with her lace embroidery. Balazs Csillag used to call her Marchilla or My Marchillag in those days, which they both found rather amusing.

At work Balazs Csillag came into contact with the transport section of the police. The police had just taken over the old militia barracks, where they could ride in through the back gate. The head of the section-another whose father had been one of the regulars in Nandor Csillag's restaurant-treated him as an old friend, and soon offered him employment. "I have few men I can rely on, and even fewer whose heads are not cabbages. The old ones keep skipping off, afraid that they will be called to account."

"Forgive me, but can you see me in uniform? Just look at me!"

"No one was born into a uniform. You'll get used to it."

Marchi leaped at the chance and devoted all her considerable charms to persuading her husband to accept the offer, the clinching argument being not just the salary increase of almost 50 percent (now in crisp forint notes, which had replaced the hyperinflated pengo), but the advantages of a service flat. How marvelous it must be to have a key to one's own flat and to be able to shut the door on the noises and rows of other people! If you have your own kitchen, you can cook whenever you like and don't have to worry about others raiding your larder. No hammering on one's own bathroom door just as one's soaking in the tub. This proved a particularly attractive argument for Balazs Csillag. As soon as they moved in, he got into the habit of reading the Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets while soaking in the bathtub. while soaking in the bathtub.

He was given the rank of sub-lieutenant, and when a year later he was transferred to the administrative section as deputy head, he was promoted to first lieutenant, skipping one rank, which was rare. Initially he was involved with developing the general framework of the changeover to identity cards. He was at about this time prevailed upon to join the Party. After a six-month trial period, he received his little red booklet.

He was assigned tasks that required a great deal of circumspection: carrying out the nationalization of church schools, the monastic orders, and the brothels. The greatest difficulties were caused by the last: it was necessary to use force to remove the prostitutes from the four institutions comprising the town's red-light district, and at two of them the policemen assigned to the task were pelted with rubbish, while at another site there were serious injuries.

If at all possible he gave the scenes of his childhood and adolescence a wide berth. He was not at all sorry that Apacza Street was renamed Eta Geisler Street. The house in Nepomuk Street was awaiting demolition, as the whole area was to be rebuilt with wider streets and roads.

The Minister of the Interior paid a surprise visit to the Pecs Police HQ. Balazs Csillag had the honor of being introduced: "He will soon have his doctorate!"

The minister asked a few questions and inquired after his family circumstances. Balazs Csillag stood at (what his superiors considered not stiff enough) attention. "Married, no children as yet."

"Parents?"

"None."

"Hm?"

"I have no wish to speak about this. May I be excused?" and he left without waiting for the answer.

Subsequently he heard that the minister had continued to express interest in him, believing he was concealing an Arrow Cross or a Horthyite father. A few weeks later he was summoned to Budapest to work at the Ministry. "What happens if I refuse?" he asked his immediate superior.

"What happens is that that doesn't happen."

He thought Marchilla would be devastated, but he was wrong. The woman clapped with joy. "That's fantastic, Balazs dear, and you'll take me to the theater? And to the movies? And to the opera?"

His final task in Pecs was to relocate the cemetery at Beremend. When the chief constable gave him the instructions, he thought he had not heard right. "Relocate? A cemetery? What in God's name for?"

"Because it is to become the site of a power station. Industrialization is more important than the dead, that must be obvious."

"And why does this require the use of police staff?"

"Because the cemetery is a Jewish one, Comrade Csillag. You get my meaning?" and the chief constable winked knowingly.

He's sending me because ... someone's branded me a Jew, thought Balazs Csillag. He read the relevant file. The wrangling had been going on for a while. The Jewish community of Beremend and the Chief Rabbi of Pecs had launched an offensive, in their protests the mildest expression used being "defiling the dead." The Chief Rabbi had managed to secure the council's permission to transfer all the gravestones that remained intact to the Jewish Cemetery of Pecs. But as soon as two laborers arrived on the spot, half a dozen Jews from Beremend chased them off. According to the books, the police station at Beremend had a complement of four, but in the event only two men were available and they had requested reinforcements.

Balazs Csillag ordered the mounted police to Beremend, and this time he led them personally. By the time they reached the village, the gendarme saddle that he had polished to a shine had worn the trousers and the skin on his rear to shreds. The gates to the cemetery still gave shelter to a few unpeaceful descendants of those at peace within it. An old woman in a black headscarf, who somewhat resembled Ilse, shook her fist in front of Balazs Csillag's nose, whereupon he dismounted with great difficulty. "What do you think you lot are doing, eh? Haven't you hounded us enough? No respect even for the dead, eh?"

The situation was complicated by the fact that Marchi's father and mother were both calling out the names of all the dead of the family who lay here. "What sort of eternal rest is this?" Then they suddenly noticed their son-in-law. They hesitated for a second, then decided to ignore him.