Upon the Head of the Goat (10 page)

In the weeks that followed the coming of Ladybeard, Mother and Lilli worked side by side preparing winter provisions. Somehow they were able to fill a large box in the kitchen with potatoes. They put up carrots and parsnips in wet sand for soup greens and dried several batches of noodles, which they stored in sacks. Lilli moved to Mother's rhythm now that she was in the house all day, but she still liked to take walks to the tobacco store, where she bought the newspaper, listened to the radio, and leafed through paperback novels.

*   *   *

For breaks, Mother and Lilli would sit and listen to the news on the radio. On a cold December day I came to join them in the kitchen, where they had moved the radio because it was the only room in the house that was heated. Mother held up her hand, signaling me to be quiet. “America has entered the war,” she whispered. Her face paled and her eyes darkened as she listened intently to the urgent voice. This announcement shocked me. America was so far away. America, the land of hopes and dreams, where we were supposed to take refuge. What would happen to my uncles and cousins? Would they have to go to war?

“On whose side?” I asked as the announcer finished.

“With the English and the Russians, against the Germans, of course,” Lilli answered, as she got up and turned off the radio. Mother remained seated, with a stunned expression on her face. “America in the war,” she said over and over. I could tell that she was thinking about our family in America.

12

A
WEEK BEFORE
Christmas vacation, Iboya and I walked home from school together. Chilled by the raw wind that threatened snow, we anticipated a warm kitchen and the usual chatter between Mother and Lilli. But we opened the door on a scene very different from the one we had expected. Mother sat in a chair near the stove, her face white, her eyes swollen from crying, her chest laboring with exhausted heaves. Frightened, Sandor and Joli stood by her helplessly.

“They came with Lajos and took Lilli,” she said to us without expression.

“And Manci, too,” Sandor added with tears in his eyes.

“They did not have to take Manci,” Mother said. “I begged and pleaded for them to leave the child. They didn't listen. I would have given them anything, anything at all to leave my grandchild. What could they want with a baby? She'll just be a burden to them. Maybe without her … But now, nothing can be done. My poor Lilli, what will become of them?” Mother got out of the chair and started to pace the kitchen. She walked around us and the tables and chairs, waving her arms. Her voice hardly audible, she spoke in a hoarse whisper. Iboya and I stood watching her cry, and we felt as helpless as Sandor and Joli. They now looked to us for comfort. Iboya and I eased Mother back into her chair, and I picked up Joli, who was shaking with cold and fright, while Iboya cuddled a bewildered Sandor.

“This kitchen is freezing,” Iboya exclaimed, and leaving Sandor's side, she started to poke at the few sparking coals that remained in the ashes. After a while, Mother's chest stopped heaving, and she half-dozed in her chair. Then she sat up, looked at us, and said, “Feed the little ones and all of you go to bed.”

We stirred and finished cooking the forgotten mushrooms on the top of the stove. “It must have happened early in the day if the soup was only half-cooked,” Iboya observed.

“How did it happen?” I asked Sandor.

“There were two policemen. Lajos' hands were tied.”

“Handcuffed?”

“Yes, I think so. Lilli and Manci went off with them. Manci was crying, and Lilli was fighting with Mother. Mother tried to take Manci from her.”

We fed the children and cleaned up. Mother was still sitting in her chair half-asleep. Iboya locked the door and we lay down with the children, falling asleep ourselves.

We did not go to school the next day. Iboya went out and came back with our family physician and friend, Dr. Feher. He gave Mother a powder and finally succeeded in getting her out of the chair and into bed.

“What was the excuse they used?” he asked her as he helped her into the bedroom.

“Two counts: political sabotage against the Hungarian army, and his citizenship was not in order. They said that he was not a good Hungarian. Can you believe it, Dr. Feher, calling Lajos disloyal and untrustworthy?”

“What is he supposed to have done?”

“They claimed that he said something against the Hungarian government. Someone made a report. Then when they went to check his papers, they found something wrong there, too.”

Dr. Feher shook his head in sympathy and, after Mother was in bed, told us that she would be herself again, up and about, in a day or two. We knew that we would have to stay home from school and take care of the children until she was back to normal.

The next morning I got up early, dressed, and went into the kitchen, and there was Mother, standing at the stove, attending to things in her usual way. She told me to wake Iboya and get ready for school, that she was feeling better. The tone of her voice, firm and quiet, both convinced and cheered me, and I did what I was told.

The next day, at breakfast, she told us that she must go to Salánk to tell Lajos' parents what had happened. “I don't want to tell them in a letter, it's not the kind of thing you write to people about. I must go myself, so you girls will have to stay home from school until I get back.” She made the fire and stirred up some corn mush for breakfast. Then she rushed into the bedroom, dressed, and came back. “The train leaves at 9 a.m. and I must not miss it.”

“When will you be back?” Iboya asked.

“Either tonight on the ten o'clock train, or tomorrow night at the same time. I want to try and go to Komjaty to see Babi and Rozsi.” She kissed us all, told Iboya and me to take good care of the children, and went out the kitchen door.

Iboya and I prepared ourselves to manage without Mother for the next two days. The children made few demands for attention; on the contrary, they were subdued. They seemed to have understood that a radical change had taken place in our home. Lilli and Manci, both constant companions to them, were gone. Sandor withdrew into himself, seldom speaking to any of us. He played in silence, but occasionally I overheard him whispering to an imaginary playmate. Joli was just starting to pronounce words other than our names, but she did not receive from us the enthusiasm that Lilli had given to every new sound she uttered. She often called Lilli's and Manci's names, and kept looking for Mother, going to the door every so often and opening it as though she had heard someone knock. Joli's expectations, though, were met by emptiness, and she went back to her solitary playing in disappointment. Sometimes she went over to Sandor and began to mimic his actions and follow him around the house. When the mood struck him, he stopped what he was doing and played with her. But most of the time he played alone.

As the day progressed, I kept wishing for a visit from the Gerbers. But they did not come, nor did anyone else. Iboya and I spoke little to each other. We did the chores, watched the children, and when the day was over, went to bed ourselves. I fell asleep thinking about everything that had happened since my return from Komjaty more than a year ago. I woke to a rustling sound and saw Mother standing on the threshold of our bedroom. “It's all right,” she whispered. “I'm home. Go back to sleep.”

She didn't tell us very much about her visit to Salánk, only that she had been unable to get to Komjaty to see Rozsi and Babi. Over the next weeks, though, I began to notice a change in her manner toward people. She seemed less generous, more suspicious. Our mailman, Mr. Lakatos, could always count on a hot cup of broth in the winter and on a cold drink in the summer. He came in one afternoon, a week after Mother had returned from Salánk; I was in the kitchen helping her as Lilli used to. He had come to tell Mother the latest news from the Russian front. Instead of the usual friendly greeting and steaming mug of broth, Mother gave him a curt “Good day, Mr. Lakatos, have you a letter for me?”

“I wish I did,” he had answered, “especially since I've heard the bad news about poor Lilli and her—”

“No need to be concerned,” Mother interrupted, “it was all a mistake and they soon will be home again.”

Mr. Lakatos put his head down and began to fumble with his mailbag. He straightened up, gave the bag a pat, and headed toward the door. “Well, I better be on my way to tend to my job, Mrs. Davidowitz. Good day to you.”

After he left, I looked at Mother in surprise.

“If they aren't willing to help, I'm certainly not going to let them gloat over my misery,” she said. And we continued our dinner preparations in silence. I remembered Babi's words, “You are fooling yourself. They are neighbors, but only your own can feel your pain.” I felt sad to see Mother's bitterness in accepting the final separation from former friends and neighbors. Mrs. Gerber came to visit on New Year's Day and we all sat in the salon, listening to the conversation between her and Mother.

Mother told Mrs. Gerber about Mr. Lakatos. “He heard about Lilli from the neighbors. They talked about it, but nobody came to answer my cries for help the day they took her, and nobody has come since,” she said.

“They are all concerned for their own safety,” Mrs. Gerber replied. “They have no firewood and are short on rations. The men are away, and the Germans are running their country.”

“Their country?” Mother exclaimed. “I used to think it was our country, too. And what about my Ignac and your Gabe? Aren't they serving in the army?” Mother was angry.

“Did you find out any more about Lilli and Lajos' transport?”

“No, I couldn't.”

Mrs. Gerber said, “I think you should stop worrying about them. They will be all right with the money and jewelry you gave them. Thank God you had the presence of mind to do what you did.”

“I just grabbed everything I had and put it into Lilli's coat pocket. I would gladly have given all of it to the police if Lajos had let me try to bribe them. Instead, he cried like a little boy and begged them to let both Lilli and Manci stay. And Lilli insisted that she would not be separated from Manci. ‘We're staying together,' she kept saying. I took the chance that the police would see what I was doing because they stood over us all the time even while Lilli stuffed a few things into a suitcase. I was very careful and waited until they turned to answer something Lajos said. Then with the coat and the money and jewelry in the wardrobe I threw what I could grab into the coat pocket, and when I helped Lilli on with her coat I whispered to her in Yiddish about the things in the pocket. Who knows if the police took it or if she got a chance to use it.”

My mind wandered away from Mother's description of the scene that by now I had heard several times. I began to think about the jewelry she had given to Lilli and wondered if the garnet earrings Babi had given me had gone into the coat pocket. But I didn't dare ask. I had visualized myself wearing those earrings with silk dresses when I grew up. Those dreams were beginning to seem foolish, and sometimes not being able to fantasize about growing up depressed me. Judi said that the war would be over by the time we grew up. But I was not sure that things in our house would ever be normal again.

13

O
NE DAY
in mid-January, Mother came to school with the little ones to get Iboya and me. That morning she had received a telegram from Lajos' parents telling her to be at the telegraph office at 3 p.m. to receive their telephone call. Iboya went home with Sandor and Joli, and Mother took me with her to the telegraph office. The man behind the glass wall at the desk told us to sit down and wait until we were notified that the call had come. Mother kept biting the knuckle of her fourth finger in anticipation. “They would not be telephoning unless they had an urgent message. God only knows what I am about to hear,” she said to me. I looked at some of the other people seated around us, and they also seemed restless, frightened, and nervous.

“Did you ever talk on the telephone before?” I asked Mother.

“I once did in Budapest,” she answered, “when I was a young woman. I called my brother at his office.”

I was excited by the thought of speaking to someone who was two hours away by train from us. “Will you let me listen?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mother, “if it is possible. I don't know how things will be arranged.”

Then the voice from behind the glass wall called, “Mrs. Davidowitz, your call is ready in number 6.”

Mother jumped up in confusion, not knowing where number 6 was. I pointed to a booth and followed her to it. She did not seem to remember how to hold the receiver, putting first one end, and then the other, to her ear. When she had it right she said, “Hello, hello,” into the strange-looking mouthpiece. “Yes, it is I.” Her face drained of color as she listened. “Yes, yes, I have it. I'll leave tomorrow. Goodbye.” She replaced the receiver on its hook and then rummaged in her bag for a pencil, found one and took it out, pulled the telegram out of her pocket, and held it against the wall of the booth while she wrote on it. Then she replaced the telegram in her pocket.

“You didn't let me hear anything,” I said.

“I'm sorry, I forgot, and then they called the time.”

“What did they say?”

“Let's get outside, and I'll tell you.”

Once we were outside, the cold January air restored the color to Mother's face. “Lajos sent them a letter from Poland. He wants somebody to come for Manci. She has the whooping cough.”

“Are you going?” I asked her.

“Tomorrow.”

“How will you go? You can't go by train.”

“I'll have to.”

“What if…” I started to say, the fear beginning to thump in my chest.

“I have to go.” Mother cut short my imaginings.

On the way home, Mother stopped at the fur store where Lujza worked. “Go in and tell her to come out,” Mother said. “I don't want to go in looking like this.”