“That would have been a lot kinder than what happened,” Janson said. One winter
day in 1945, he had read, the Red Army swept down these mountains and one of
Hitler’s divisions attempted an ambush. The artillery units had been passing
through the road along the Tizsa River when the German and Arrow Cross soldiers
sought to head them off, failing, but taking many lives in the attempt. The Red
Army believed that the villagers of Molnar had known all along of the ambush. A
lesson had to be taught to the rural Hungarians in the area, a penalty paid in
blood. The village was torched, its inhabitants slaughtered.
When Jessie had scrutinized maps of the region, she found that on the same spot
where the prewar maps showed the small village, the contemporary atlases showed
nothing at all. Jessie had pored over the densely printed maps with a jeweler’s
loupe and a draftsman’s ruler; there could be no mistake about it. It was an
absence that spoke louder than any presence could.
They pulled into a roadside tavern. Inside, two men sat at a long, copper bar,
peering into their Dreher pilsners. Their garb was rustic: tattered, muddy-hued
cotton shirts and blue dickeys, or some old Soviet version thereof. Neither man
looked up as the Americans arrived. The barkeep followed them with his eyes
wordlessly. He wore a white apron and busied himself drying beer steins with a
gray-looking towel. His receding hairline and the dark indentations beneath his
eyes contributed to an impression of age.
Janson smiled. “Speak English?” he called to the man.
The man nodded.
“See, my wife and I, we’ve been sight-seeing hereabouts. But it’s also kind of
an explore-your-roots thing. You follow?”
“Your family is Hungarian?” The barkeep’s English was accented but unhalting.
“My wife’s,” Janson said.
Jessie smiled and nodded. “Straight up,” she added.
“Is that so?”
“According to family lore, her grandparents were born in a village called
Molnar.”
“It no longer exists,” the barkeep said. He was, Janson saw now, younger than he
had first seemed. “And the family’s name?”
“Family name was Kis,” Janson said.
“Kis is like Jones in Hungary. I’m afraid that does not narrow your search very
much.” His voice was cool, formal, reserved. Not a typical rural tavernkeeper,
Janson decided. As he took a step back from the bar, a blackish horizontal
stripe was visible on his apron where his big belly rubbed against the ledge of
the bar.
“I wonder whether anybody else might have any memories of the old days,” Jessie
said.
“Who else is here?” The question was a polite challenge.
“Maybe … one of these gentlemen?”
The barkeep gestured toward one with his chin. “He’s not even Magyar, really,
he’s Paloc,” he said. “A very old dialect. I can hardly understand him. He
understands our word for money, and I understand his for beer. So we get along.
Beyond that, I would not press.” He shot a glance toward the other man. “And
he’s a Ruthenian.” He shrugged. “I say no more. His forints are as good as any
other’s. ” It was a statement of democratic sentiment that conveyed the
opposite.
“I see,” Janson said, wondering whether he was being let in on things by being
told of the local tensions, or deliberately frozen out. “And there wouldn’t be
anybody who lives around here and might remember the old days?”
The man behind the bar ran his gray cloth along the inside of another stein,
leaving behind a faint beard of lint. “The old days? Before 1988? Before 1956?
Before 1944? Before 1920? I think these are the old days. They speak of a new
era, but I think it is not so new.”
“I hear you,” Janson said folksily.
“You are visiting from America? Many fine museums in Budapest. And farther west,
there are show villages. Very picturesque. Made just for people like you,
American tourists. I think this is not such a nice place to visit. I have no
postcards for you. Americans, I think, do not like places that do not have
postcards.”
“Not all Americans,” Janson said.
“All Americans like to think they are different,” the man said sourly. “One of
the many, many ways in which they are all the same.”
“That’s a very Hungarian observation,” Janson said.
The man gave a half smile and nodded. “Touché. But the people around here have
suffered too much to be good company. That is the truth. We are not even good
company to ourselves. Once upon a time, people would spend the winters staring
into their fireplaces. Now we have television sets, and stare into those.”
“The electronic hearth.”
“Exactly. We can even get CNN and MTV. You Americans complain about drug
traffickers in Asia, and meanwhile you flood the world with the electronic
equivalent. Our children know the names of your rappers and movie stars, and
nothing about the heroes of their own people. Maybe they know who Stephen King
is, but they don’t know who our King Stephen was—the founder of our nation!” A
petulant head shake: “It’s an invisible conquest, with satellites and broadcast
transmitters instead of artillery. And now you come here because—because why?
Because you are bored with the sameness of your lives. You come in search of
your roots, because you want to be exotic. But everywhere you go, you find your
own spoor. The slime of the serpent is over all.”
“Mister,” Jessie said. “Are you drunk?”
“I have a graduate degree in English from Debrecen University,” he said.
“Perhaps it comes to the same.” He smiled bitterly. “You are surprised?
Tavernkeeper’s son can go to university: the glories of communism.
University-educated son cannot find job: glories of capitalism. Son works for
father: glories of Magyar family.”
Jessie turned to Janson and whispered, “Where I come from, people say that if
you don’t know who the mark is at the table after ten minutes, it’s you.”
Janson’s expression did not change. “This was your dad’s place?” he asked the
big-bellied man.
“Still is,” the man said warily.
“I wonder if he’d have any recollections … ”
“Ah, the wizened old Magyar, swilling brandy and spinning sepia pictures like an
old nickelodeon? My father is not a local tourist attraction, to be wheeled out
for your entertainment.”
“You know something?” Jessie said, interrupting. “I was once a barkeep. In my
country, it’s considered you’re in the hospitality business.” A trace of heat
crept into her voice as she spoke. “Now I’m sorry your fancy degree didn’t get
you a fancy job, and it just tears me up that your kids prefer MTV to whatever
Magyar hootenannies you got for them, but—”
“Honey,” Janson interjected, with a warning tone. “We’d better hit the road now.
It’s getting late.” With a firm hand on her elbow, he escorted her out the door.
As they stepped into the sun, they saw an old man seated on a canvas folding
chair on the porch, a look of amusement in his eyes. Had he been there when they
arrived? Perhaps so; something about the old man blended into the scenery, as if
he were a piece of nondescript furniture.
Now the old man tapped the side of his head, the sign for “loco.” His eyes were
smiling. “My son is a frustrated man,” he said equably. “He wants to ruin me.
You see the customers? A Ruthenian. A Paloc. They don’t have to listen to him
talk. No Magyar would come anymore. Why pay to listen to his sourness?” He had
the uncreased, porcelain complexion of certain elderly people, whose skin,
thinned but not coarsened by age, acquires an oddly delicate appearance. His
large head was fringed with white hair, scarcely more than wisps, and his eyes
were a cloudy blue. He rocked back and forth gently in his chair, his smile
unwavering. “But Gyorgy is right about one thing. The people around here have
suffered too much to be civil.”
“Except you,” Jessie said.
“I like Americans,” the old man said.
“Aren’t you the sweetest,” Jessie returned.
“It’s the Slovaks and the Romanians who can go hang themselves. Also the Germans
and the Russians.”
“I guess you’ve seen some hard times,” Jessie said.
“I never had Ruthenians in the bar when I was running things.” He wrinkled his
nose. “I don’t like those people,” he added, softly. “They’re lazy and insolent
and do nothing but complain, all day long.”
“You should hear what they say about you,” she said, leaning in toward him.
“Em?”
“I bet the bar was packed when you were running things. I bet there were lots of
ladies flocking there especially.”
“Now why would you think that?”
“A good-looking guy like you? I got to spell it out? Bet you still get yourself
in a heap of trouble with the ladies.” Jessie knelt down beside the old man. His
smile grew wider; such proximity to a beautiful woman was to be savored.
“I do like Americans,” the old man said. “More and more.”