"So even they ..." thought Balazs Csillag. I should have known. He tried to raise his hand to indicate he wanted to say something. It took a long time for them to calm down. Then he said: "People, listen. Orders are orders. With your help, we can save every gravestone. Without it, we can save only as many as we can shift by the end of the day. The tractors are due tomorrow."

"Of course," shrieked the old crone reminiscent of Ilse, "the stones yes, the dead bodies no?"

"Look, my good woman, what are we to do with the bodies? It's better for them where they are," replied Balazs Csillag, quietly but firmly. He had witnessed enough scenes like this at the Front; he knew these people would give in.

"You're not a Jew, right? No idea what one is, eh?" the crone shrieked, stabbing the air with her gnarled fingers.

As the slabs left the ground one by one, each felt like a dull thud on his heart. He told himself off: it's all the same. Your Your loved ones don't even have a grave! He sauntered out of the cemetery, feeling that a cigarette would help him relax. loved ones don't even have a grave! He sauntered out of the cemetery, feeling that a cigarette would help him relax.

I shouldn't have smoked so much, he thought now, in his hospital bed. How many people had warned him, and how often! He had just waved them aside: "You have to die of something sometime anyway."

"True, my dear," said Marchi, "but it is not all the same when."

There is a strong likelihood that it will be soon. Though Dr. Salgo is quite upbeat: "Now that we're controlling the embolism, we have every hope of positive developments."

I would be happy with the positive development of getting up, he thought. He had difficulty in using the bedpan; he felt awkward that women slid it under his buttocks, while they could glimpse his dried-up naked body as they lifted up the blanket, his manhood too, which, against his will, would curl out of the pajama bottoms. He was ashamed all his life, not only of the ridges and craters of his burned skin; in his youth he had been ashamed because he was so sickly, after the war because he had put on a lot of weight, and in recent years because he had become so shriveled and shrunken. Only when he was in the upper years of secondary school had he had any success with women. Since then he had at most dared to stare at them, and if one happened to return his gaze, he would look away in confusion.

Now, sunken, incapable, and unworthy on a hospital bed, he was troubled by the thought that he had not had enough female attention. There had been only three women in his life, not counting stolen kisses in school. The second he had married. The third-a silly affair at work-developed on a work outing and reached its climax in a clearing at Szilvasvarad. The reason he had so much enjoyed being with Iduska, who worked in accounts, was that he did not have to divest himself of his clothing and so had fewer inhibitions. There, in the grass, he realized that he had been quite seriously in error regarding the variety of ways in which a man and a woman may gratify each other. The thought of divorce flashed through his head, but Iduska poured cold water on it at once: "You must be joking, my dear Balazs; we are both married with a raft of kids!"

"I have only one."

"Well, I have three."

The memories of Szilvasvarad again and again came to the fore, like a postcard that had lost none of its glossy sheen. Since he had vowed to rid himself of the family tradition of looking into the past, this was perhaps the first time that he allowed his thoughts to gambol about among the peaks of time, like giddy little goats. Initially, no further back than the years after the war.

When they moved up to the capital, they did not avail themselves of the tiny, two-room service flat on the newly built Ministry of the Interior estate in Kispest, because they were able to set themselves up in the family house in Terezvaros, where the lower floors were occupied by Marchi's eighty-two-year-old widowed aunt; the upper floor was empty because this aunt's brother, a retired doctor, had received extraordinary permission to emigrate to Canada, where another sister lived. The Porubszkys were secretly hoping that if Captain Balazs Csillag moved in, the authorities would leave their property in peace. Marchi's aunt, Dr. Lujza Harmath, always referred to the house as "the villa" and to Hungary as "The Balkans! My dear girl, these are the deepest Balkans!"

Balazs Csillag was irritated by the old lady's airs and graces and he took not one step to save the villa-in fact, a very modestly constructed and, after the 1944 bombing, rather poorly restored building; so it was, in due course, nationalized and Dr. Lujza Harmath, as well as they themselves, became tenants.

"Let's just be glad that they aren't allocating some of the rooms to strangers!" opined Balazs Csillag. But the Porubszkys were not glad, and with this their contacts with the young couple came more or less to an end.

On the third day at work, the minister called him in. "Strength and health the Hungarian says, Comrade Csillag. I hope you have settled in. I am glad to inform you that you will be working directly under me, drafting documents."

"Understood, Minister."

It soon became clear that Balazs Csillag was regarded by his minister, Laszlo Rajk, as a kind of personal secretary; he made him write his speeches, too. When he was made Foreign Minister he ensured that Dr. Balazs Csillag was ("pro. tem.," he said with a wink) assigned to him, though formally he retained the rank of Major at the Ministry of the Interior. He would often call him in for informal discussion. In their personal contacts-that is, behind closed doors-he soon suggested that they drop the formalities, and they drank to this from the entertainment allowance cognac. He always appeared interested and understanding. He supported Balazs Csillag's request to continue his legal studies at the University of Budapest, and from time to time inquired about the topics he studied and the examinations. "I'm envious. I'd much rather be at university."

Balazs Csillag's feeling for Laszlo Rajk was unalloyed respect, perhaps even admiration of sorts. He could talk to no one of official matters, having been obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, which extended the period of silence to ten years beyond the loss of his post for any reason, and he did not convey these sentiments about his boss even to Marchi. Comrade Rajk was a living legend, the hero of the Spanish Civil War, the youngest boy of the fairy tale, who had succeeded in scaling the highest peaks of the state machinery by his own efforts. He was a shining example to Balazs Csillag; for him he was prepared to work overtime, burning the midnight oil for nights on end, unremittingly poring over the text of the laws. He often sat on the edge of the bed, checking his texts and checking them again. Once his eyes strayed to the mirror mounted on the wardrobe door and he saw himself as he rocked to and fro, just like the Orthodox Jews intone their prayers. "Let the past go!" He ordered his upper body to be still, and from then on he checked his texts sitting bolt upright.

Marchi, on the far side of the bed, tossed and turned in her sleep, making a noise typical of her. She snored, a rough, noisy snore, like a man's. For a long time Balazs Csillag dared not bring it up, until one morning he decided to mention it. Marchi recoiled: "The things you say, Balazs! How could I possibly snore-look at me!"

"Well, I suppose ... to be sure ..." It really did seem impossible that this ethereal woman should snore. The topic never came up again.

At the degree ceremony, Marchi's face had a transcendent glow as she saw the applause from the other-mainly younger-graduates as Major Balazs Csillag received his doctorate in the maroon folder. He himself wondered what Comrade Rajk would say when he introduced himself as "Doctor" and informed him that he had been awarded a red doctorate. Marchi bought him a richly engraved timepiece for the occasion and was a little disappointed that her husband's joy on receiving it was less than unalloyed.

Dr. Balazs Csillag hurried back to the Ministry. On his desk lay an envelope. There was a minuscule gold pine-cone in it and a card with the words: Well done! R Well done! R. The right leg of the letter curled away in a flourish and Dr. Balazs Csillag was sure that it continued onto the enormous ministerial desk.

He could hardly wait to thank him for it in person. But R. was not in the office and in fact did not turn up that week at all. They, however, went on holiday, in the Ministry of the Interior's own complex in Siofok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton. On the second morning the commandant of the complex, a repulsively obese lieutenant-colonel, summoned the holidaying cadres to an ad hoc meeting. He informed them of the situation in which socialist agriculture found itself: because of the inclement weather the harvest had been delayed this year and this could have the gravest consequences. The difficulties are of such seriousness that they, the cadres on holiday, cannot pass over them without taking action. "We shall therefore volunteer ourselves for unpaid social labor for four hours every morning at SFAC, the Siofok Farmers' Agricultural Cooperative. Coaches will depart from the main gate at eight o'clock."

The announcement was met with an enervated silence. Dr. Balazs Csillag raised an arm to speak. "Comrade lieutenant-colonel, we have been building socialism for fifty weeks of the year, could we not be spared in those two weeks when we have been referred here to get some rest?"

"What's your name?" asked the lieutenant-colonel, puffing out his chest.

"Major Dr. Balazs Csillag."

"Stand to attention when you talk to me!"

"In a tracksuit? You must be joking."

Faces in the audience reflected genuine panic. They are all shitting themselves, thought Dr. Balazs Csillag. The lieutenant-colonel inflated like a puffball: "This is by no means the end of the matter."

"I certainly hope not."

No one laughed. This was not the first time Dr. Balazs Csillag found that not many people appreciated his sense of humor. The lieutenant-colonel ordered every adult cadre to assemble at the stated time and place, in light working clothes.

"Wives as well?"

The lieutenant-colonel was growing increasingly irritated by the clever-clever major. "You heard me: every adult!"

"I'm afraid my wife is not in the employ of the Ministry of the Interior and therefore your orders do not apply to her."

Despite Marchi's implorings, Dr. Balazs Csillag insisted that she stay in the complex and she knew there was no appeal. So she spent her mornings on her own, basking in the sun on the stubby wooden pier in her lemon-yellow bathing suit, a magnet for male eyes. The other wives joined their husbands in hoeing, weeding, and picking fruit. Oddly enough, they ended up with a deeper tan than Marchi.

The commandant of the holiday home minuted the insubordination of Major Csillag and sent it to the party personnel department of the Foreign Ministry. There, however, because of the complete breakdown of line management, it was shelved. R. had not been seen for weeks and it was rumored that he had been arrested by the AVH, the secret police. Dr. Balazs Csillag considered these rumors completely false and was convinced that R. had been entrusted with some secret assignment. He clung to this view until a circular informed the employees of the Ministry of the crimes perpetrated by R. and his accomplices.

Dr. Balazs Csillag secured himself entry to the hearing, held in the HQ of the Iron-and Metalworkers' Union. It was September and the summer was bowing out with a burst of humidity. The building in Magdolna Street was ringed by Ministry of the Interior security personnel cleared at the highest level; this was the first time that his pass failed to secure him priority. His pass was the same as everyone else's. The hearing was set for nine in the morning, but the chamber filled up well before this. The silence was total; the little noises made by the official setting up the microphones were amplified to an unbearable squeak, particularly the shuffling of his rubber-soled shoes on a parquet floor waxed to a glinting shine.

When the accused were led in, Dr. Balazs Csillag could barely recognize R.: the minister's skin had turned sallow and his hair was cut to recruit standard. Dr. Balazs Csillag positioned himself at the end of the fifth row, ideal for catching R.'s attention, but try as he might, he could not. He was even unable to catch his eye, though they looked at each other more than once. Does he not recognize me, he wondered in shock.

In the dock he was surprised to see Andras Szalai, a man he knew from Pecs, whom he had at least as much difficulty imagining as a spy as he did Laszlo Rajk. Charges of a more fanciful nature were leveled at them, too. R. was supposed to have worked as an informant for the police while at university. His provocative actions were alleged to have brought about the imprisonment of several hundred building workers. He was a spy during the Spanish Civil War, then he became a Gestapo informant. Since the end of the war he had been recruited by the Yugoslav Spy Service, and he was also spying for the Americans. Recently he had been involved with carrying out Tito's plot to assassinate Comrades Rakosi, Gero, and Farkas, the triumvirate in charge of the country.

R. spoke very quietly and Dr. Peter Janko, president of the special council of the People's Court, had repeatedly to ask him to speak up.

"Do you understand the charge?"

"I do," said R.

"Do you admit your guilt?"

"I do."

"In every respect?"

"In every respect."

Again he was murmuring; his tone of voice recalled for Dr. Balazs Csillag his own during his cramming of the arcane language of the legal texts. This text was similarly arcane, yet R. was renowned for expressing himself with the utmost concision.

"He is mouthing a script he's been told to memorize," groaned Dr. Balazs Csillag that night in the kitchen.

"What?" Marchi had no idea where her husband had been that day.

"Nothing ..."

"I have something important to tell you!" Marchi's face was radiant, her smile mysterious. When she divulged her secret, she felt the same sense of disappointment as when she had presented him with the watch. "Aren't you pleased?"

"Of course I'm pleased," said Dr. Balazs Csillag somewhat mechanically. His head was filled with thoughts of R.: he must have been drugged. He had never seen him look so dead.

Now, in intensive care, he could see again, on the faces of the patients at the end of their lives, the glassy stare that R. had worn at the hearing. It froze the spine to hear his last words: I declare unreservedly my view that whatever the verdict of the People's Court, I shall regard that verdict as just, because that verdict will indeed be just.

Such was the elaborate nonsense issuing from the mouth of R., famed for his succinct turn of phrase and the sharpness of his thought.

The special tribunal of the People's Court announced its verdict at the end of September. Rajk, Szonyi, and Szalai received the death sentence; Brankov and Justus were given life imprisonment; and Ognenovich was jailed for nine years.

The executions were announced in mid-October in the newspaper Szabad Nep Szabad Nep, "Free Nation." Dr. Balazs Csillag could not get to sleep for a long time, and when he did, he saw himself on the gallows and awoke howling and in a sweat. We've all been conned, he thought, just as they've conned each other ... and everyone else. The whole thing's a fraud, lies, drivel; the crap about the peace front, the just fight, equality, brotherhood. It's nothing but a ruthless struggle for power, with the stronger always crushing the weak. There is nothing new under the sun.

He felt that with R. he, too, had died, now for the third time. The previous time had been when he found out how his father, mother, two brothers, grandmother, grandfather, and all his other relatives had died. And the first time was in the typhoid hospital at Doroshich.

His howling went unheard; by then he had been sacked from the Ministry and was working as an unskilled laborer in a factory in Pest's industrial Angyalfold, permanently on the night shift. Such lowly work did not need a CV. By the time he got home, Marchi was up, though her pregnancy was a troubled one, and the doctor had ordered bed-rest. Dr. Balazs Csillag made no attempt to find a better job; he knew that wherever he went, telephone calls would be made. He would be lucky if things got no worse. As soon as practicable, he enrolled in a retraining program and obtained a qualification in machine tooling. With his brigade, in due course, he was awarded the Stakhanovite outstanding worker plaque.

Later, when he had progressed to shiftwork, their toddler once wandered into their bedroom in the middle of the night, sobbing. Dr. Balazs Csillag, a lighter sleeper than his wife, woke up first: "What's up, young man, what are you doing in here?"

"Mummy's noring, noring loud!" complained the little fellow.

By this time Marchi was up. "What did you say I am doing?"

"Noring!"

"Now, now, young man, how can she possibly be snoring? Just look at her!" said Dr. Balazs Csillag.

That sentence had a special resonance here in the hospital ward, where almost everyone snored, with the exception of Dr. Balazs Csillag. But that was because he could not sleep. As long as the light was on he continued reading his Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets Anthology of Greek and Latin Poets. If it was dark he continued to view the film of his life. The reels kept getting confused.

Laszlo Rajk and his coevals were rehabilitated and, on the first Saturday of October, reinterred with due ceremony in the Kerepesi Cemetery. After a long hiatus Dr. Balazs Csillag met R.'s wife again, and his comrades of old, none of them any longer in work. As R.'s coffin was lowered into the ground to the sound of slow funeral music, Dr. Balazs Csillag died for the fourth time. He withdrew completely into his shell, and neither Marchi nor his son could get through to him.

The fifth death occurred soon afterwards, on November 4, 1956. He was queuing for bread with his six-year-old son. Later he couldn't for the life of him understand how he could have taken the little boy with him out onto the post-invasion streets. A Russian FUG was passing by and sprayed bullets randomly into the crowd. People ran for their lives in all directions and in the confusion, for a few minutes, he lost track of his son. The boy turned blue with fear and had a stutter for some time thereafter.

He died for the sixth time having retired early one afternoon in autumn, while solving a crossword puzzle. He had lately got into the habit of passing the time in this way, filling the squares across and down at lightning speed, with the intense precision of someone preparing for the world crossword championships. Suddenly he felt his heart swell up like a balloon, shattering everything around him; he lost consciousness at once, knocking his brow on the table, the pattern of the lace tablecloth impressing itself upon his skin. The paramedic managed to catch him in the final seconds before brain death set in and restarted his heart by pounding his fists on his chest. He cracked three of his ribs.

Six deaths are more than enough for one person, and he felt an even greater need to cling doggedly to his lifesaving slogan: Let's leave the past! He could no longer live through the death by fire again, or the trial and execution of R., or those seconds that lasted forever as he trembled in fear for his son's life. Still less did he have the strength for what had happened to his father, mother, brothers, grandparents, and all his other relatives.

But now, as he felt the approach of his seventh death, he also felt the need to conjure up everything that he had inherited the capacity to see. He closed his eyes, and with the face of the first-born of nine generations, he awaited the kaleidoscope of images, the private view of the history of the Csillags, the Sterns, the Berdas, and the Sternovszkys.

He detected only darkness under his eyelids, and sparkling circles of light.

It's not working. It's no longer working. I'm too rusty.

"Hello, Balazs my dearest! How are you?" came Marchi's voice, affecting cheerfulness. "I've brought you lemons, fresh rolls, lemonade, and your puzzle magazines!"

"Thank you," said Balazs Csillag without opening his eyes. In this new hospital, the presence of his wife was even more burdensome than before. Man is an ill-starred creature, expected to be loving even when he feels least like it. Marchi threw herself with military force into the care of her husband, and her overattentive ministrations Dr. Balazs Csillag found noisy and aggressive. In vain did he insist that two oranges would suffice; Marchi would pile six on his bedside table. There were even some leftover rolls from last time, and now here is the latest delivery, highlighting the distressing fact that he is unable to eat. I would be extremely grateful if you would kindly leave me alone, he thought.

In a short while his little boy ran in, covered in sweat-he was just as perspiration-prone as his father-and asked: "How are you, Papa?"

"So-so," he replied, unwilling to alarm him.

"And what does Dr. Salgo say?"

"Slight improvement."

This dialogue between them was repeated almost every time they met. There would then be a silence. Dr. Balazs Csillag knew that his son would much prefer to get the hell out of there; it must pain him to see his father like this. He should tell him to buzz off. But he lacked the strength even for that. Never mind. You have to bear it when your father ...

His life had not been a long one, and it had been filled with little joy and even less meaning. Once, he thought to himself, just once he should have taken the trouble to tell this to his son. He wondered if he was able to see anything of the past. He had never asked him.

Perhaps it was a mistake to remain silent about your parents and the others. Once you are better, you must certainly have a talk. You squeezed the past out of you but somehow it took the present with it ... You didn't notice how you wasted the days and the years. Perhaps fate, heaven, God, or sod-all, will make sure your son fares better.

The next time he comes I really will make a start. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

That was the night death came knocking. The second day of January was two and a half hours old, so at least her husband did not pass away on New Year's Day, when they had celebrated his birthday on the ward. He was able to receive the cake, blow out the candles, drink a drop of champagne, and open his presents, including the Don Quixote Don Quixote puzzle magazine's annual. He had made a start on the Giant Crossword. MOZART. BILLYGOAT. WAR AND PEACE. VOLGA. LIFE IS A DREAM. AMETHYST. BAKTAY ERVIN. PORRIDGE. INDIA. HEARTSEASE-this was as far as he had got. puzzle magazine's annual. He had made a start on the Giant Crossword. MOZART. BILLYGOAT. WAR AND PEACE. VOLGA. LIFE IS A DREAM. AMETHYST. BAKTAY ERVIN. PORRIDGE. INDIA. HEARTSEASE-this was as far as he had got.

In his final moments he saw himself standing in front of the Taj Mahal, as pictured on a black-and-white postcard he had been sent as a child. All his life he had longed to see it, though he knew he had no hope of doing so. According to the pathologist's notes his heart had swollen to twice the normal size because of the trials and tribulations of the life he had lived, and had encroached on the right side of the chest, pressing on the nearby organs, the lungs in particular. When the former colleague who gave the eulogy happened innocently to say, "He had a great heart!," Marchi burst into tears.

XI.

AN EXHAUSTED LANDSCAPE BIDS WELCOME AS THE morning sunlight's shimmer tumbles down like corn into the dust from a ripped-open sack. The very slight rise in the temperature ruffles the shrunken torsos of the wayside acacias. The glass panes in the windows, left to their fate for months, reveal their need for a proper wash-down. Slushy humps of snow solidified on the pavement gradually begin to shrink. Ice weeps in the water butts, but the cold of the night brings frost to overeager plants. The vortices of February's freezing air disperse the last traces of any mildness in the morning. morning sunlight's shimmer tumbles down like corn into the dust from a ripped-open sack. The very slight rise in the temperature ruffles the shrunken torsos of the wayside acacias. The glass panes in the windows, left to their fate for months, reveal their need for a proper wash-down. Slushy humps of snow solidified on the pavement gradually begin to shrink. Ice weeps in the water butts, but the cold of the night brings frost to overeager plants. The vortices of February's freezing air disperse the last traces of any mildness in the morning.

He was six when he had his tonsils removed. Until then Vilmos Csillag was so scrawny that the kindergarten nurse called him "Thinbilly." When he put on some weight, he was mocked as "Tumbilly." Only when he reached secondary school did he shoot up. He was slow to acknowledge the improvement in his looks.

He was in his first year at the secondary school when he heard two of the girls in his class talking in the ladies, which shared a ventilation shaft with the gents. agi and Marti were smoking, despite a strict ban, as they discussed the boys in the class, where the girls were in the majority by twenty-eight to thirteen. Only one of the boys passed muster, the gangling French-born Belmondo (real name: Claude Prefaut), who was a recent arrival and loath to divulge the complicated international history of his family.

"And what about Vili Csillag?" asked Marti.

"He's kind of ..." agi's voice became uncertain. "A nice little boy."

They giggled.

"Nice little boy, yes, you're right. A nice little boy!" Marti repeated the phrase like some new slogan.

"It's his eyes that are a knockout."

"Right! You've noticed, like a kaleidoscope?"

"Yes. Sometimes gray, sometimes green."

"Even light brown, sometimes."

The bell rang. Vilmos Csillag did not stir. He would never have dreamed that he would get the silver medal in class. He examined himself in the mirror. Just then, his eyes were river-green.

Almost a year later they were revising French in the flat of agi's parents and exchanged a fleeting kiss over the kitchen table.