CHAPTER I

I am sitting at the edge of our dock, dangling my feet in the cool, crystal clear water, watching my grandsons playing boisterously, like little seals, bodies glistening, chasing each other, jumping up and down, full of energy, just like their mothers did at this very same spot, was it just a few years ago? I close my eyes and I see two little girls at another lake.

My daughters tell me that my standards are not very high, I am too easily satisfied; well, we all carry the templates of our past experiences with us and mine are modest.

Palic near Subotica (Yugoslavia) was a third-rate, dusty summer resort, with an old hotel and a new hotel. The old hotel had no plumbing; we stood by in awe and disgust as the maids emptied and washed the chamber pots in the morning at one outside faucet, then lined them up in a row to dry in the sun. We, of course, stayed in the new hotel, which did have flush toilets on every floor.

The lake was the colour of green pea soup; on very warm days it smelled of dead fish or worse, it was quite shallow and the bottom was muddy. To us it was exciting, different, new. Babi was caught up in a whirl of activities; there was a bevy of eligible young men swarming around her, like around a queen bee. It is not every day that one of the richest diamond merchants of Hungary sends his daughter to Palic with one sole aim in mind: to find a husband.

The glory of it all came to us second-hand; we watched from the sidelines, yet in a way we were being courted, wined, dined and entertained too. Mr. Paul, a portly, short, pot-bellied, bald, round faced man who walked with a limp and with the aid of a heavy cane came into our lives bearing gifts and kind words, the sort of words adults bear who never had anything to do with children. Clumsy, well-meaning kindness. He took us fishing among the reeds, and we enjoyed it very much; he took us to restaurants always accompanied by our ubiquitous governess; the summer went fast, although dozens of letters survive, testimony to the fact that we missed our grandfather and our mother very much. Some letters ask "grandfather, do you have many customers?" others "Vinyi, are you coming to join us?"

She eventually did, although the rest of that summer remains hazy. We swam, fished, ate and learned a new language; we made a few new young friends and talked about our schools. Soon it was time to get back on the train, and say goodbye to Palic.

Just as our life was getting back to normal--we were now in the third grade--our governess told us that our mother got married. We were incredulous. How could you be sure of something like this? She assured us it is true, as Uncle Paul and our mother are now living together in the Palatinus Hotel on the Margin Island. After a few days she came back home and nothing further was discussed, guessed at, implied, life was quite settled, routine.

But was it indeed? Grandfather was often angry, harsh words floated from the back office, people were impatient with us, there was a lot of talk in French, always prefaced, "pas devant les enfants," and toward the middle of the year, without further ado, some bags were packed and we were moved to a boarding school. A boarding school where all the girls were older, but where they agreed to take us anyway, since it will be only "for a few months". Dutifully, bewildered, puzzled, we marched into a strange, brand new classroom, where nothing but heartache awaited me: with my glasses, my inability to pronounce the "r", my clumsiness and over-zealous studiousness, I was soon the butt of all the malice 3rd grade girls are capable of. Week-ends we spent with Zuli, grandfather; we wanted to go home, but were told that it is being packed to go to Subotica.

I had but one consolation: I peed in my bed every night. It felt nice, warm, comforting, I thought no one noticed, since it dried by the morning, but deep down inside I knew that it annoyed the grownups. The only other pleasure was provided by the headmistress who slept in the same large dormitory with all the girls. Sometimes, after the lights were out, she put on her light, behind the white screen that separated her bed from the rest of us, and very cleverly projected shadow figures on the wall, enlarged manifold by the screen. There were rabbits and dogs, ducks and monkeys; luxuriating in the wet bed, I was for a few moments almost happy.

But one day school was over, we were again at the railroad station, bags packed, grandfather in tears, promising to come soon, to write a lot, on to Subotica. We moved into a house, that was a real house with a yard completely dominated by an enormous linden tree. The furniture was familiar, the mezuzah was on the door. Mother slept in a big bed with Uncle Daddy, as we were encouraged to call Mr. Paul, and everything was very new. I read all the time, probably trying to find something to hold on to. We were told that our name is now Paul, and a teacher came every day to teach us Serbo-Croatian, so we can enrol into the 4th grade by Fall. We also discovered that Babi got married, and were miffed because the long-expected and dreamed of wedding of Babi came off without our participation. "We are living in historical times," Vinyi said, "it is not proper to make large weddings." We met Uncle Nicholas, Babi's husband, and for me, it was love at first sight. He sat me on his knees and promised me, that as soon as I grow up, and finish school, I can be his secretary. They lived in a nice apartment, Miklos was a prosperous lawyer and the family owned a huge tract of excellent farmland, complete villages belonged to them.

Culture shock is a new word, but the concept probably existed ever since man started leaving familiar surroundings and exploring new territory. For us Subotica was a shock, culture or no culture. Only one large building: the city hall with a preposterously tall and useless tower, gaudily decorated with multi-colour tiles. The one wide, paved street was lined with stores, and on Sundays it was wall-to-wall people.

What an assortment of people and a babel of languages: the Bunjevac in their long, heavy, dark silk-damask dresses, with layers and layers of gold coins around their neck, flaunting their wealth; they spoke a bastardized Serbian; the heavyset Hungarian peasants, long twirled, handlebar moustaches, with their squat, dark, kerchiefed women; the Shwabs speaking a fractured German and wearing their light-hued dresses, multi-layered skirts; the young people chattering and 3 to 4 abreast, girls with girls, boys with boys, eyeing each other; the sedately dressed middle-aged, all parading in their Sunday finery, their church-going clothes.

No beautiful Danube, no parks, gardens, no theatres, museums; only dust and mud, unbearable heat; no grandfather, no Zuli. We went often to Palic during the summer, but it was not the same, the long, boring tram-ride on the ancient open carriages, once the novelty wore off, was just uncomfortable. We still fished and swam, we started tennis lessons, but many of our new experiences were simply bewildering.

A priest started coming regularly, giving us lessons in catechism. Puzzling new concepts indeed, while new friends we met--children of Vinyi's new friends--were still, comfortingly, just as always, Jewish.

All of a sudden we did not have a governess any longer and Vinyi spent more time with us. We did not know what to do with each other, but some of our outings were fun: we accompanied her to the open market, where huge, heavily dressed women squatted on the floor of the dusty square amid the incredible bounty of the surrounding farms and offered their wares: cackling chickens were being held upside down and Vinyi was invited to pinch their breast, samples of fruits were offered and huge watermelons removed from watermelon pyramids, square holes cut into them, so we can sample their sweetness, sticky juice running down our chin. We were still always dressed exactly alike and held onto Vinyi by each arm. She carried a basket, and the maid followed with another large basket and offered her advice.

The county fairs were fun when the streets were a jumble of humanity, horses, carriages, colourful clothes, women standing over the gutter with arms akimbo, legs slightly apart, peeing. An incredible array of merchandise being hawked from tables: gingerbread hearts which could be instantly inscribed: they were doing booming business; glasses that could be personalized in a jiffy, incredible variety of pocket knives, accessories for horses, beautifully tooled leather, cheap jewelry, the noise, the heat, the smells were all overwhelming but quite exciting. And miracle of miracles, we were allowed, for the first time in our lives, to go out by ourselves if we promised not to loose each other.

We were introduced to Mr. Paul's family: his old mother who spoke only Serbian, whose wrinkled, blotched hands we had to kiss reverently; his numerous maiden sisters and one brother. They all lived in a house that reminded me of the bewitched houses often encountered in fairy tales and nightmares: low sprawling, dark buildings, dank, curtained rooms with dark heavy furniture. They were all fat, short, ugly, frumpy, with kerchiefs on their heads, like peasants. They also looked like we envisaged but never met in our social circles: real shikses (non-Jewish girls).

Uncle Daddy (Apu býcsi in Hungarian) was a jeweler by trade, with a tiny store where he fashioned beautiful, artistic pieces individually ordered by the many rich inhabitants of the region. His father founded the store some time in the previous century, it was a store with the highest possible reputation and, as we found out over the years, he was well-loved, respected and made a very good living. He also had a watch repairman whose claim to fame was that he was on the Olympic wrestling team of Yugoslavia. A short, stocky young man, with the neck of a bull, sitting in a glass cage, it was exciting to watch those fat fingers handling with precision and delicacy the fine inner workings of a watch.

In the fall we started school. None of the friends we met during previous summers became our classmates, as it turned out EVERYONE attended the Jewish school. Apu insisted we should learn Serbo-Croatian in the public school. It proved less daunting for me as for Mari, and soon I was the teacher's pet and the most unpopular girl in class. Vinyi went to Budapest. Our daily life became humdrum: school, study, meals ate in silence with Apu, served by a surly cook. One day a parcel arrived to the house. We were told never to open anything that comes addressed to our parents. But this parcel looked too exciting, with a large red ribbon. "Just let us take a peek," Mari suggested. "We can for sure put it back together exactly as it is." Very curious, I agreed. It was a box of chocolates. The re-wrapping job was far from perfect. Apu came home for dinner and found the parcel. "Did you open it?" he asked. We staunchly denied it. He seemed very angry, finally we caved in and admitted. He brought in a wooden spoon from the kitchen and spanked us both very hard. "For lying, not for opening the parcel," he repeated while administering this hitherto unknown punishment. We were hysterical, but I learned a lesson: lying is very very bad.

Having concluded our lessons with the priest, we were told that we will be baptized and will be Catholics from now on. It seemed on one hand a very important, wonderful accomplishment, on the other hand only the maid accompanied us to the church. I thought some physical transformation would take place immediately afterwards, it was nothing, a few prayers, a few drops of water.

We now lived in a new country, had new names, a new father, new religion, new house, new relatives we hated, everything that was meaningful and important hitherto in our lives was gone to be replaced by what? I had nightmares of not knowing where I was, who I was, trouble remembering my name, the new language, the new alphabet. The only thing we had was each other and unfortunately we did not like each other very much.

One morning Apu came to our room to wake us up and told us that grandfather died and Vinyi would not be coming home for a while. The nightmare of our existence was closing in, I was unable to understand, I could not cry, I asked Apu, "does that mean I will not be able to go and see Tarzan & Son?" He looked at me, "I thought you loved your grandfather," and walked out of the room.

Vinyi did not come home for many months. They were sitting shiva, they were in deep mourning, they also had a huge estate to settle and a store to wind up. When she came back she was dressed completely in black, with a black veil on her hat that hid half of her face and went down far on her back. She was pale and thin and coughed and smoked even more than usual and spoke less.

We all survived, more or less this terrible time of adjustment. To help matters somewhat, a vacation in Bled was planned, Zuli will come and Babi too, all of course without husbands. It was a beautiful summer: Bled is in a corner of Yugoslavia which is near to Austria, the people there are Slovens, speak a different dialect, and the place has an unreal beauty to it: a round, deep (unfathomably deep) crystal clear, cold lake with a tiny island in the middle, and on this tiny island there is a church. The heir of the Yugoslav throne had his villa there too, and owned the only motor boat permitted on the lake. We took long walks in the woods, on the mountains, gathered beautiful wild cyclamens, breathed the clear air, got fat on the marvelous food, and the love that we were surrounded by after a very miserable year.

CHAPTER II

In the fall we were enrolled in the secondary school run by nuns. This choice must have been a bone of contention between our parents, as everyone else of our social standing was in the gymnasium (the classic high school which eventually leads to the university). Our stepfather apparently preferred the lower middle class aspect of the four-year commercial school. Our studies continued in Serbo-Croatian and the friends we made were not acceptable to our mother. I remember one girl in particular, whose name became legend. Varbai's parents were janitors in a building owned by one of our parents' friends.

On our walk home from school Varbai spotted a piece of rubber that looked like a discarded balloon on the pavement. She asked us whether we knew what this was. We, of course, did not. At this point she happily launched into a convoluted explanation about how babies are made with the help of a small rubber balloon and the parts of our bodies "down there". We were astounded at this newly acquired knowledge, and while we firmly believed that this was "classified" information, we confronted Vinyi to confirm the story. She was livid, denied any such goings on among human beings as means toward procreation, and we were never allowed to speak to Varbai again. She also complained to her friends for whom the parents worked, they almost lost their job, and our popularity among our classmates did not exactly skyrocket.

While school, private piano lessons (the violin was finally given up as hopeless), exercise classes, and such were the center of our world, a new dimension was added to the world around us. There was a war going on. The radio, crackling with static became a most important feature of our household and everything else stopped while father tried to tune in the nightly Hungarian edition of the BBC from London.

Subotica was the trading center of the surrounding farming country, and as such, events associated with agriculture were of paramount importance. When the grapes had to be harvested, the school excused the students, and we trotted out to Apu's little vineyard to help with the harvest. This was lots of fun, the harvesters trudging among the vine stalks with wooden half-barrels strapped to their back, depositing the gingerly snipped of grapes. Apu explained to us beforehand that the continuous whistling and singing was obligatory, it cut down considerably on pilferage by snacking on the mouth-watering, juicy grapes. At noon a huge mutton stew was cooked over the open fire and ladled out into tin plates. Vinyi would not come near these activities but we enjoyed them immensely, eating the grapes, watching the men stomp them in the enormous wooden vats, tasting the first, fresh pressing, redolent of the aroma of the grapes and the promise of the fine wine that it will be turned into.

That winter was full of surprises: the killing of the pig that was another family event we could stay home from school for. It was a bitterly cold day and still dark at 5:00 a.m. when the whole household was mobilized. The many additional helpers hired have arrived, a wooden scaffolding was erected in the yard. The butcher killed the huge pig with one deft thrust of his knife, and hoisted up on the scaffolding. The blood froze and was later sliced and fried with onions, the intestines were thoroughly washed, rinsed and used to stuff the sausage meat into. We were underfoot, "helping" carrying trays of steaming meat, the trotters and the ears to be made into head-cheese, the fat rendered and stored to last the whole of next year. At the end of the day everyone was tired, overfed, the smells for days lingering in the nostrils, the salami and the sausages were sent to the smoke-house, together with the hams. Meats were pickled, preserved, cooked, and the larder was full again with the most delicious smelling food. Feasting followed next day usually and many friends were invited to this special "feast of the pig ".

We also made our own brandy. A huge gleaming contraption pulled into the yard, made of copper, it resembled in size and noise a locomotive of a train. This also happened in the fall. Fruits by the carload were delivered and bushels emptied into the hopper of this contraption. It shuddered and shook, steamed and growled, and somehow, a tiny trickle of clear liquid came out that turned into the spirit, the soul of the fruit, Apu called it. This clear liquid was l00% proof brandy: it was apricot brandy and plum brandy and apple brandy, and it was consumed with relish and in vast quantities. Apu's breakfast, every day, consisted of a jiggerful of this wonderful, aromatic nectar....

Homes were heated by wood and coal. The wood arrived by a horse-drawn carriage, together with a machine that was unloaded. The blood-curdling whine of this power-saw went on the whole day as the lumber was reduced to logs and kindling to keep us warm over the winter months. Coal was dumped in the cellar through a chute as well, which the maid carried up every day before anyone got up, to heat our home. We loved the huge tiled fireplaces that radiated a pleasant warmth.

On Palm Sunday in 1941, coming home from church, we heard for the first time the ominous wailing of the air raid sirens. We ran home and stood in the garden, frightened, while a seemingly lost German plane, flying low, machine-gunned the town. There were no casualties; however, the war became a palpable reality from that moment on in our daily existence. The next day Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally to the Germans and a few weeks later our part of the country was delivered lock stock and barrel as a gift to Admiral Horthy, the supreme leader of Hungary. There was some resistance in our town by the chetniks or the partisans (they hated each other, but both hated the Hungarians) some street to street fighting and sniping from rooftops, so that we spent a good deal of our time in the cool cellar with Vinyi. She taught us how to play gin-rummy.

Admiral Horthy arrived on a white horse one balmy Spring day and we were torn between jubilation (we are Hungarians again!!!) and the absolute frightened disdain of all the grownups.

Then back to school again, where now everything continued in Hungarian. Towards the end of the school year we came home rather upset and agitated. I questioned the cook about something the priest told us during religion class, "What happens to someone when he is hanged?" She started wailing for our mother to come quickly to the kitchen, and turned to the stove, heaving with sobs, stirring the pot frantically. "What did you want to know?" Vinyi asked. "What happens to someone when they hang him?" I repeated. "Where did you hear this?" she wanted to know. I told her that the priest told us that they hanged a bunch of communist Jews yesterday, among others the Rabbi's son, and I would like to know what happened to them.

She called my father home from the store, and a lot of shouting ensued, during which there was a lot of crying by the cook and us, and we learned without any doubt what happens to those who are hanged. We never went back to that school again, and while rumours of "atrocities" in Novi Sad were on everyone's lips, it was only much later that we found out what those "atrocities" were.

All Jewish males of Novi Sad were lined up at the bank of the Danube. To show their sympathy and their outrage, the Serbian men came and stood with them. Every tenth male was shot and thrown into the Danube. This was called "decimation".

We were on a train to Budapest within a few days and spent a very pleasant summer in a hotel on the Svabhegy. We saw a lot of the family again, Zuli and Imre býcsi were happy to have us around and I fell in love for the first time. His name was Szatyi, which was a nickname derived from his family name, he was very handsome, tall, 16 years old, and actually talked and walked with me in the happy boredom of a summer resort. One evening as we were sitting on a bench arguing about the state of the world, he leaned over and kissed my cheek.

Private lessons were started to help us reintegrate into the new school they were planning to send us to in Budapest. While the convent of our choice did not accept children of Jewish origin another one was found, humbler, cheaper, where they did accept us in spite of our doubtful parentage. Vinyi received a long list of clothing requirements and started shopping and sewing labels for our entry in the Fall. Puzzled by one of the items, she visited the convent and asked Sister Superior what a "bath-shirt" was. Sister gently asked "Madame, what do the little girls bathe in at home?" Vinyi replied, "In the bathtub". Sister blushed, "well, yes, of course, but what are they wearing in the bathtub?" It was Vinyi's turn to look puzzled. "Nothing". The Sister patiently explained that wearing nothing in the bathtub is a sin, one should not view one's body, so in the convent little shirts are worn.

So started the second grade of our middle school in a convent in Budapest. We wore uniforms which eased the embarrassment of always being dressed alike: here everyone was dressed alike. We drifted farther and farther from each other, making friends with a different group of girls; our life, completely regimented, was also placid, peaceful, and somewhat unreal. From an ebullient, loud, emotional environment we were plunged into the silence of the convent, strict, serious restrictions on talking above a whisper, the silently gliding nuns with their somber habits, the baby-like bows under their chin, to be greeted with a bow, in the Latin "Laudetum Jesus Christum" at every turn.

The physical changes were also drastic. The weekly routine of going through our hair with a fine comb, looking for lice; the extremely infrequent baths (with a shirt on, no less!) the atrocious food--only highlighted by the 10:00 a.m. snack which was the sole concessions made to individuality. Parents were allowed to send food packages, turned over to the kitchen these were doled out at snack time with little greasy numbers stuck to every open-faced sandwich: numbers 62 & 63 (Mari & myself) indulged at 10:00 a.m. in a good sandwich with cheese or salami--something from "home".

The daily routine of rising at 6:00 a.m., washing in a washbasin that was prepared the night before, making the bed so a coin could be bounced off it, dressing, chapel, school, outings (two by two like Madeleine) was only interrupted with an occasional visit, no one had any time or patience with us any longer, we did not see friends or family. And then the regular air raids started.

In the middle of the night we had to get out of bed, freezing, shivering with fright, sleepy, two by two, marching down to the basement shelter while waiting for the "all clear" to sound. The bombings were scary, but became routine, a part of life, accepted like so many other very unpleasant things got accepted lately. Life went on.

Then school was over, it was summer again, a summer I have difficulty remembering, there were trips back and forth between Subotica and Budapest, there was tension and anxiety. We were not the center of the universe any longer.