The ease with which Mária gave birth to my son almost suggested she had been practicing. Konrád Csillag came into the world on April 14, 1996, weighing two and a half kilos and measuring forty-eight centimeters in length. In the MÁV (Railwaymen’s) Hospital the consultant thought it would be advisable to place him in an incubator. But Mária refused her consent, saying it was unnecessary. She was right. Little Konrád flourished and ten days later we were allowed to take him home. By then Grammy had safely arrived and joyfully embraced her great-grandson, admitting that she had not thought she would live to see this day.
We notified Mária’s parents, too, but they did not come. They are as angry with Mária for not getting married as I am. Although I am no longer angry. I have accepted that nothing involving her is straightforward. Only her grandmother Erzsi came up from Hódmezövásárhely. Grammy was still with us. I thought they would get on well, but they avoided each other in some hostility. Erzsi was constantly checking my son’s horoscope (Aries, with Taurus in the ascendant); she perhaps devoted more time to this than to little Konrád.
By then they were living in Üröm, in a detached house that was three-quarters ready. Mária’s studio was to be in the loft, Henryk’s office in the basement, but these were still at the blueprint stage. The regulars of HEJED Co. were supposed to finish the work in the house, but the firm was so inundated with work that work on their home was continually put back. In the ground-floor lounge Henryk built a fireplace of undressed stone, a carbon copy of the one in Mária’s flat. He thought he would not be able to get hold of a genuine bellows, poker, and fire tongs in Hungary, but was amazed to spot a set at Budapest ’s Ecseri flea-market. Some enterprising Hungarian was (re)producing them by the dozen.
The colder half of the year was nearly over, but Henryk was glad to light a fire in the evenings. It pleased him to show Mária how well the flue was working. He could watch for hours as the flames encroached upon the logs of crackling wood. A joyful end, to turn into light and warmth, he reflected.
The dogs took possession of the garden, digging out and chewing up the flora. Mária was not bothered too much. “We’ll sort out the garden when we have time.”
But they didn’t have time for quite a while, as the newcomer took up their every moment. For the moment, Henryk neglected HEJED Co., but Jeff and Doug took it in their stride. They preferred to throw a few one-liners at him: “When we have a child, neither of us will come in to work for a bit!”
Mária wanted Konrád baptized. Henryk did not understand. “But you are constantly on at the church!”
“Doesn’t mean he should be denied holy water.”
“What’s the point?”
“What’s the point of brushing your teeth?”
Again, Henryk gave up on this debate. But he insisted that either Jeff or Doug should be his godfather. Mária raised no objection. “But which of them?”
“Let them decide.”
“Both of us!” Jeff decided.
So my son had two godfathers in the persons of my dear friends and business partners. As for a godmother, we asked Mária’s childhood friend Olga to do the honors.
The business did not languish while I was employed as a father full-time; on the contrary! Doug had done some sniffing around and discovered that state grants were now available for refurbishing the old castles of Hungary, and we were successful in applying for some.
At present we are working on five sites, in Hungary and in Transylvania. I never imagined it was possible to make money out of something you enjoyed doing. As a result of our work, the past is re-created in stone and wood, so that it continues to endure.
The faraway U.S. becomes an increasingly faint memory. Sometimes I feel as if I had only dreamed those years, that is to say, in effect the whole of my childhood and youth. And now I can be certain that I am going to live here, as long as God, Fate, fortune, heaven, and all the stars allow it… or? Here was born my son; when the time comes, let him bury me here, in the land of my fathers.
Konrád was called Tapshi by his mother and sometimes Flopsy by his father, which means almost the same. Konrád did indeed resemble a little rabbit, especially in the way he blinked. His legs tended toward an O-shape, and during diaper changes he joyfully kicked out into the air, like some battery-driven toy.
He began to roll about, crawl, speak, and walk much earlier than the books suggested. Henryk was seized by an uncontrollable urge to record every moment. He photographed, videotaped, sound-recorded, and also made notes in his “Papa et cetera” file. Hence it is possible to know that the first coherent sentence uttered by his son was, “We goin ford and back!,” a fair analysis of the motion of his pram.
He was soon amazing his parents. At a year and a half, he was able to recall and recite stories he had heard, word for word. Poems heard a few times also came out exactly as the originals, and again and again. Numbers stayed in his memory just like words. He certainly hasn’t taken after me, thought Henryk.
Konrád was also a sensation at the nursery. He solved jigsaws and puzzles with ease; he proved an ace with buttons and shoelaces. In the nursery he was always the one who recited the poem or sang the song at special events and occasions. His drawings graced the walls.
He was not yet three when one afternoon he was found in the basement-by then Henryk’s office had been finally completed-sitting in front of the computer, pressing the keys on the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” asked Henryk.
“Dwawing.”
He was indeed using a drawing program: on the screen a square house was taking shape.
“Have they got a computer in the nursery?” Henryk used the English word.
“No.”
“But then… how do you know how to do this?”
“You know how!”
The parents could hardly believe it. Konrád had watched them start the computer, and this was not the first time he was amusing himself with it. When Henryk reported this to Jeff and Doug, Jeff nodded and said: “Soon as he’s out of the nursery, he’s got a place on the board!”
The square house was repeatedly drawn by Konrád and began to resemble a fortress.
“What is this?” asked Henryk.
“Fortwess.”
“What?”
“Fortwess. Wot owd people wivd in.”
“Where did you see such a thing?”
Konrád put his index finger to his brow.
Jeff and Doug are right, thought Henryk, he’s going to be an architect.
That summer, as he entered his fourth year, Konrád learned the shapes of the capital letters all by himself. From his mother he got a little notebook with a tiny lock. On the first page he wrote, in red, green, and blue crayon:
PAPA MEIK HOUS.
MAMA MEIK KAPET.
END I REIT.
These three lines were endlessly quoted by his parents to each other and to their friends.
On the cover he later wrote in drunken letters:
BOOK OFFTEIRS
“What do you mean, Book of Tears?”
“Book of Fathers!” Konrád corrected him and what he had written on the book: BOOK OFFATEIRS.
“But why?”
“I want. Like you have ‘Papa et cetera.’”
Henryk blanched. “How do you know that?”
“In the machine.”
“You’ve read it?!”
“Oh, Papa, donno no small letters!”
It did not occur to Henryk that at the touch of a key, every text in the computer can be made all-capitals.
This was a time when Mária’s life was totally dominated by the approaching solar eclipse. She read everything she could about it. She was determined to travel to Siófok on the Balaton, because the astronomers had worked out that there would be the best view. “If we miss it, the next opportunity won’t be until 2081, and we shan’t live to see that.”