“They have all been dead for many years.”
“Fortunately, we hold a certified copy of the Jewish registers, from ’49 onwards.”
In the Jewish register Henryk at once found Dr. Balázs Csillag-he was born on New Year’s Day. Nice, he thought. Every New Year they could drink to the memory of grandfather as well. In the OTHER REMARKS column he found the following note: UB 238/1945. The above-named, on the basis of document number 67/1945 from the First Pécs Parish Office, has this day, August 25, 1945, converted from the Israelite religion to the Roman Catholic faith.
He read it over four times, word by word, before he managed to fully grasp its meaning. The old archivist leaned over from the far side of the narrow table, their heads almost meeting above the brick of a book. He lowered his wizened finger onto the rubric. “To be quite honest, I have never seen such a note in a register of births.”
“So this means my grandfather was a Jew at first, but then later he…” He did not complete the sentence.
“The family suffered a lot in the hard times, didn’t they?”
“That’s just it… I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it! Let me try Mária Porubszky.”
“Go ahead.”
No Mária Porubszky.
“It seems she was born elsewhere,” said the archivist.
“So that’s it, is it?”
Henryk’s American accent made the old archivist smile. This hurt Henryk and so he did not ask his questions, though to some of them he might have received a reply. The archivist suspected that the young man should head for the Jewish cemetery, for if a family is from Pécs, there is a chance of finding an uncle or two or a great-grandparent, and if he were to return with a year found engraved on the gravestone, he might have more luck in his search. But in America Henryk had been brought up to do things himself and he did not ask for advice. He managed to reach the Jewish cemetery anyway, though he had set off for the main cemetery. At the office there he was told that they could check the old registers for his Csillags only if he knew the exact dates of death.
“Take a look in the Jewish cemetery!” suggested one of the officials.
He had trouble finding it and twice drove past it in his Cherokee Jeep. The entrance was up a narrow side street: an iron gate painted black in the middle of a yellow brick fence with a handwritten sign in penciclass="underline" RING LONG AND HARD! He did so, but no one came. He returned some hours later to find the gate wide open.
Dr. Balázs Csillag, Mária Porubszky, he kept repeating the words to himself, like the first line of a prayer. Will they be here?
My grandfather was a Jew but he did not want to be. Because the Jews were persecuted here during the war. But the war ended on August 25, 1945. What is the point of becoming a Roman Catholic then, if he remained a Jew all the way through the dangerous times? I don’t understand.
Another question presents itself. Does this mean my father was a Jew? And that I am a Jew as well? At the Jewish Community office they said that it was the mother that counts. My mother was half Indian, half Hungarian. Jeff says Grammy is highly suspect, a Steiner, particularly a Rachel, is obviously Jewish. Grammy says no, she says a farrier could not be Jewish and was more likely to be a Swabian, that is to say, a German settled in Hungary. But then why would a German family have to flee from here? I don’t understand this either.
According to the archivist, just because someone was a Roman Catholic, he or she could easily have been a Jew. Confusing. He says those who converted were nonetheless hounded by the Arrow Cross (Nazis). So in the end what am I, with all these ancestors? Indian, Swabian, certainly Jewish, perhaps Jewish, converted Jewish, and of course America is in there too… A cocktail. A genuine, proper, thoroughly shaken cocktail.
How great it would be to know what happened when I was not yet born. How great it would be if once, just once, I could look into the past. How great it would be if I could fly back on the Back to the Future time machine! But it cannot be, everyday life is not like Hollywood.
But it’s truly a tale of adventure, this disappearance of my father without a trace. All that’s certain is that he flew back to the U.S., as they found his name on a Swissair passenger list. And that’s all. At the Federal Bureau of Investigation they said that he probably left for a new life in another state, perhaps in another country, Mexico, or somewhere in South America, presumably under another name, so he would be impossible to trace.
It’s a shame and thoroughly reprehensible that my father took the entire history of our family with him, into the void. He lost it. I’d like to find it. I’ve opened a new file, with the name “Father et cetera,” and I’m copying into it everything that I can find out about our family. I will print out several copies. At least what little we know should not be lost. So that if I ever have a child, I can hand it to him. Or her. He (or she) should not have to start from scratch.
Pécs cemetery seemed neglected, with most of the gravestones standing at drunken angles. Henryk was not sure if it was appropriate to enter in jeans, Teva sandals, and Ray-Bans, and he went in timidly. He tried to read the German (Yiddish) and Hungarian inscriptions, the Hebrew characters he could only caress. Isn’t there some office here, with someone to help? The building next to the entrance, several stories high, had all its doors closed. The steps at the back suggested a flat: a baby’s bath and a rocking horse indicated that there were small children here. What can it be like to grow up in a cemetery-a Jewish cemetery?
He set off at random down one of the rows. He knew that Dr. Balázs Csillag was born in 1921 and his wife Mária Porubszky in 1929. The question was: when did they die?
He paused at those graves where he could read the names.
Ignác Koller and his wife Hédy.
Béla Weiss. Robert Weiss. Alexander Weiss. Izabella Weiss. Vilma Weiss.
Albert Weiss and his wife Aranka Skorka.
Lipót Stern.
Mihály Stern.
József Stern.
Dr. Jenö Schweizer and Judit Wieser.
Imre Walser.
Máté Rotj.
Mojzes Roth and Eszter Holatschek.
Ernö Moohr.
Miksa Straub.
Ottó Rusitschka.
And… his head was reeling… the vault of the Csillag family!
Two structures the size of phone booths rose high above all the others, with a cupola recalling the Turkish dome of the church in the main square of Pécs. Unbelievable!… These are my ancestors! he thought. He began to perspire.
Here lay Dr. Antal Csillag, who died in 1933, Dr. Bencze Csillag, died 1904, Dr. Ervin Csillag, died 1877.
Heavens! Here they are! His knees shook. It was plain that Dr. Antal Csillag was the father of Dr. Balázs Csillag, Antal’s father was Dr. Bencze Csillag, and the latter’s father was Dr. Ervin Csillag. Fantastic! He scribbled down the names. Doctors? Or lawyers, like grandfather? And where are the wives? Perhaps all will be revealed in the archives.
Only as he was leaving did he notice a grassy area, the size of a small garden in the corner by the entrance, where a row of gray gravestones of uniform size and shape stood, leaning against the fence. They seemed very old: the wind, the rain, the snow had all but worn them smooth. By the side there was a metal plate, like a road sign: BEREMEND. He had no idea what that could mean. I’ll ask someone. He wrote it down, otherwise he’d forget. He stood a long time on the parched grass. The afternoon began to smell ever more sweet. The buzzing of the wild bees tickled his eardrums.
“You staying?”
An old woman, brightly dressed, was standing behind him, a faded muslin kerchief tied about her head, a worn pair of clogs on her feet. Henryk did not understand.
“Excuse me?”
“Because I would like to lock up.”
“Oh, right…” and he moved to go.
“No rush, mind!” said the old woman barring his way. “Stay as long as you like.”