Introduction
Prelude
and The Raft of Poverty
In the Circus
Ring
The Pedlar's
Prediction
Hail Caesar!
Jealousy
is Dead
A Steam Engine
for a Piano
Stalin
Organs
Hungarian
Rhapsody: a failure
White
Nights
All
or Nothing
PRELUDE
With
a past such as mine, it is impossible
for me to imagine a musician floating
serene and imperturbable above the earth.
This prelude is intended to remove any
such misunderstanding.
People
are, I feel, weary of descriptions with
its executioners and martyrs, criminals
and heroes, its processions of horrors
and great deeds.
Yet
as soon as I start to evoke that period
of my life, images of major and minor
events of the last war flit past me;
my memories of a Europe aflame and flowing
with blood intertwine, twitch and die.
A Europe plunged into darkness by the
eclipse of the human mind.
That
long night explains why a major part
of my experience has not been on the
world’s concert platforms but in the
operating theatre of dreadful war. How
many of us, when I think back, were
waiting for the miracle of peace, longing
for it, we the inhabitants of Budapest
as much as those of Paris or the other
cities of Europe!
I
don’t know whether such episodes in
my life came back to me deliberately
or instinctively. It is not so much
a taking-stock as a confrontation between
two worlds which know nothing of each
other, irreconcilable fragments of eternity
on different orbits.
With
time, something obvious has occurred
to me about my disordered memories:
only the laws of relativity can explain
why I can find no link between past
and present, why my inner world is split
into two islands.
That
is why I can only reveal myself as I
was at the time – a child then a soldier.
Art and music had no part to play in
war or the destitution of my family.
It should be understood that during
that period I was cut off from my past
and my future: I had no time to weep
nostalgically for my youth or dream
of my future. My relationships with
others were purely animal-like, mechanical
and automatic. You should realize that
I can’t write about it all philosophically,
looking down peacefully from a height
on the horror and absurdity of the good
old times, thanking God for saving me
from hellfire as though some arcane
Providence had planned it all.
It
is not the picture of a young man seated
at a piano that comes to mind but that
of a soldier wandering in no man’s land.
During the long war years, I forgot
ever having touched a keyboard. My hands
were no different from those of other
combatants: hands for wielding a weapon,
for eating, for surviving, hands raised
under the menace of a machine gun, hands
tied behind one’s back. How could I
have remembered what it was like to
have the supple hands of a musician?
Those had died with the war.
There
are strange coincidences in life which
I am tempted to see as signs. Emotional
moments of parting or of return to life
are the only landmarks in a harsh series
of events of which the coming together
in time and space passes all understanding.
From his earliest years, my son György
has been able to interpret the mysterious
signs which pursue me now as they did
in the past. I entrusted myself to him
without realizing it, bit by bit by
hints, even in glances and silences.
These tales from my life have seen the
light thanks to our invaluable understanding
and are now available to all.
THE RAFT OF POVERTY
Inexorable
poverty enshrouded my mother, sisters
and me in the single tiny room where
we lived. It beat incessantly against
the walls and against the bath tub into
which I fell when I was born. With it
came destitution and, worst of all,
starvation – ‘The Great Daily’, as it
was known.
It
assailed us until I was eight, passing
over me without crushing the little
child that I was or ruining my health,
despite the paralyzing effect it had
on us.
When
I became an adult, the phantom of that
pitiless cruelty which had viciously
hounded our humble existence often appeared
in our haunted dreams. Later, even though
life has not always deigned to show
me its sunniest side, I was able to
look on those dreadful events with certain
objectivity: had we really deserved
such incredible hardship? Had all our
sufferings really existed? Hadn’t it
all been just a nightmare, vanishing
suddenly as if by some divine order
the better to let us glory in our victory?
Whenever
pictures of the past come back to me,
I do not see them with my sensibility
as it is now; I have gradually come
to experience the past as I did at the
time.
It
is in this sense that the theory of
relativity seems most appropriate in
my case. It alone makes an utterly poverty-stricken
past credible, while at the same time
showing what a boundless distance exists
between that past and the person addressing
you now. There are two different states
of awareness and yet the same man bears
them within himself.
Isn’t
the secret of our resistance to the
blows of Fate the ability to forget
that life is ever-changing? Our salvation
is in fact due to our astonishing ability
to adapt which, if necessary, modifies
our metabolism, both physical and mental.
Such transformation ensures our survival,
however great the distress, for the
mind gradually puts aside all other
preoccupations until it can no longer
even conceive of any other form of existence
than the present.
For me, looking back is not just an
evening reminiscing by the fireside
or tears of emotion on looking through
an old photo album. It means plunging
into a strange, almost unknown world,
which I gradually decipher. There is
no bridge or pathway: to get to the
other side you have to leap into the
void and lose sight of the present world.
We
were not alone on that raft of poverty.
The scourge of God which fell upon us
was the lot of countless families which
tried like us to live – or rather stay
alive – in the white wooden huts hastily
crammed together on the outskirts of
Budapest thanks to some humanitarian
organization which had designated this
unsanitary masterpiece a ‘temporary
residential block’. The spot was called
‘The Land of Angels’. That was all we
needed to call our dwellings ‘Angel
Court’.
My
mother and sisters had had to move into
the tottering hut, perched on piles,
attributed to them not long before my
birth. Removal was no problem: they
did not have anything to move. How had
they sunk to this when only a short
time before they had been living in
a smart flat in Paris? Quite simply
because of the 1914-18 war.
A
short time after the declaration of
war, the French government had issued
a decree expelling all foreign residents
whose countries of origin were fighting
against France. Their property was to
be confiscated. Since he was a Hungarian
citizen, my father was immediately imprisoned,
then interned in a special camp along
with several hundreds of others, also
of ‘enemy’ nationality. My mother was
given notice to leave French territory
without delay by special convoy, each
person having the right to five kilos
of luggage. Their fifteen kilos contained
the little that remained of my father’s
earnings from his years as a cabaret
musician. The rest was simply seized:
furniture, family souvenirs, everything
representing some fragment of the happiness
of their lives up till then.
Her
arrival at dawn at Budapest station,
shrouded in winter fog, cannot have
been exactly joyous. Like most of her
fellow travellers who, under the same
sign of destiny, stared blankly and
despairingly at the world confronting
them, she had nothing to look forward
to and no-one to welcome her. The journey
had drained her morally and physically.
She had travelled the whole way seated
in the corridor on her little suitcase
with her second daughter in her arms.
The
eldest lay near her on the floor. Many
others journeyed in such conditions
for they had all left France on an equal
footing. The train carried twice as
many people as there were seats and
my mother, who was then thirty-eight,
got out of the train on the point of
collapse with no idea of where to go
or with what objective. Resigned yet
wishing with all her heart for some
miracle to occur, she and her children
made their way towards the exit.
At
the end of the platform stood a few
guardian angels sent along by the Hungarian
Red Cross and waiting with an air of
complete indifference for all those
bewildered people so that they could
be sorted. They were assembled and asked
straight out if any of them would like
permanent lodgings. In her exhausted
state, my mother said yes without even
enquiring where and in what conditions
she was to be billeted. Her period of
martyrdom began shortly before the start
of my own life story.
All
this was only a foretaste of the distress
which was to wind its tentacles around
her for years to come and of the daily
anxiety the menacing shadow of starvation
caused.
My
first home, that hut wavering on stilts,
comes back to me in a strange, misty
halo. Why indeed was I born there of
all places? I have no idea. It was my
meeting place with Destiny and there
my father found us all when he was released
from internment in the French prison
camp. Nor could I say if the right to
live, granted to every human being when
he comes into the world, was the greatest
of rewards or a supreme infliction for
a child born in ‘Angel Court’. Perhaps
it was both.
The
background of my early years will not
take long to describe. The epicentre
of the slough of destitution I lived
in with my parents and sisters was bounded
by the few dozen constructions, all
alike, on the makeshift estate. The
terrain was marshy so the City Council,
in a burst of humanitarianism, decided
to elevate the rotting edifices. These
were linked in fours by a wooden balcony
which acted as a passageway. Every block
was divided into a dozen rooms eighteen
yards by twenty-one, each with an identical
opening: a tiny window on a level with
the door, looking onto the inner yard
– a sea of mud in autumn, a skating
rink in winter – the latter a paradise
for children but a purgatory for the
elderly.
The only staircase for the inhabitants
was a model of its kind. It had been
added as an afterthought, a sort of
miller’s ladder, its original rungs
replaced by planks, with a symbolic
handrail which children and old people
alike made sure not to touch. Lodgings
such as these could only encourage the
spread of human degradation yet the
public health authorities in all good
conscience crammed in unemployed down-and-outs
with their large, poverty-stricken families.
No account was taken of the number of
children or of their state of health:
each family was allotted just one room.
Apart from ‘enjoying the rights’ to
the open space roundabout, the estate
dwellers had no advantages, unless the
constant supply of nauseous air from
the nearby marshes counted.
The
rooms were damp beyond belief yet, in
the half-light of winter evenings, they
were the only safety net left to all
those whom even Fate had grown weary
of battering. They lived stranded, cooped
up in the hovels they had been allotted,
all hopes dashed - and we lived in their
midst. It would be incongruous to speak
of comfort in such a context. The word
no more existed in our vocabulary than
it did in the brilliant mind of the
property dealer responsible for the
wooden slum. He had not even thought
to provide the tiniest space for a stove
on which, if only on occasion, my mother
and her neighbours might have concocted
one of those dishes, using a few scraps,
of which only the truly poor have the
secret. The water in the well at ‘Angel
Court’ was no more drinkable than the
liquid in the head of the Health Official
who had had it drilled – again because
of infiltration from the marshes round
the estate. Promiscuity was forced on
adults and children alike as they washed
and relieved themselves in a bucket
in one corner of the room. Each evening
it was emptied into a pit situated,
as luck would have it, at the other
extremity of the estate. Those still
healthy enough lay beside the sick and
made love in full view of everyone.
Their way of life – if such stagnation
could be called life – had soon rid
them of any feeling of embarrassment
or shame.
There
were at least five people to a family
in the shanty town. At first, my mother
and sisters were not too cramped in
their room. The living space was sufficient,
if hardly acceptable, for three. When
my father returned, our family grew
and, after I was born, there were five
of us to enjoy the lifestyle.
Some
of the better-off neighbours could afford
the luxury of an old mattress, which
they set up on chocks. Others got hold
of an old camp bed. Like most other
families, we were not so lucky. Hoping
for something better in the future,
we slept on old jute sacks refilled
regularly with fresh straw by our parents,
and these made pleasantly soft beds.
The
raft of poverty gathered speed as it
was sucked into the maelstrom of degeneration.
Even so, people went on living at ‘Angle
Court’ with utter indifference. The
unemployed remained unemployed; the
dreamers dreamt; the hungry went hungry
and the pessimists had nightmares. In
actual fact, they had no need to: it
was enough to open one’s eyes and look
around. Some time later, my sister told
me that a younger sister, born shortly
before me, had tied of TB as a consequence
of so much privation.
As
my mother later told me, I was a little
over two when my younger sister had
a quite unexpected chance to jump off
the raft which was carrying us along.
My mother hurried to fill in a form
for the Dutch Red Cross, which proposed
lodgings for a certain number of Hungarian
children on a temporary basis, with
charitable Dutch families paying their
school fees, board and lodging, etc...
The offer was limited to one child per
family, providing he/she fitted the
criteria of ‘in special need’. As regards
poverty, we were well up to the mark.
It was not difficult to understand my
mother’s relief at knowing that at least
one member of her family would be well
provided for. So one day my sister left
for Holland to spend her childhood free
from want. Shortly afterwards, my parents
received a letter from her hosts asking
them to take the necessary steps to
have her legally adopted. The very idea
was revolting to them. However, sick
at heart, they accepted. What else could
they have done? The threat of under-nourishment
– an ever-present guest at our rare
meals – and, worse still, starvation
- the daily spectre – forced the decision
on them. They just could not face any
longer that feeling of helplessness
and anguish which brought a lump to
the throats of every parent on the estate
every time a loss of energy in one of
the family was noticed. Time passed.
Like any child who changes countries
at an early age, my sister learnt Dutch
as quickly as she forgot her mother
tongue. To start with, my parents heard
from her regularly then the letters
grew fewer and finally stopped altogether.
At
least she had escaped from the ship
which was slowly sinking beneath us.
We were clinging on fast – but for how
much longer? To cap it all, my father’s
health prevented him working full time.
The poor man persisted in making his
way to Budapest in the hope of finding
cabaret work. The outcome was inevitable:
either there were no jobs or the last
one had just gone. In the evening, he
downheartedly made his way back, sucking
on an old pipe as empty as his pockets.
On arrival, he sat down on his low chair
in a corner of the room and, his eyes
blank, brooded over his disappointment.
My
mother’s chief worry was, of course,
of the same order. To a little boy,
his way of discretely disappearing was
as mysterious as his suddenly reappearing.
I was at once astonished and delighted
at his always being there. Actually,
it was thanks to his gift for being
in several places at once there he was
able to pick up here and there just
enough coppers to cover the cost of
the paraffin we needed for our lamp
in the evening. On those days when my
parents both came back empty-handed,
we went to be with the sun. He who sleeps
forgets his hunger! My mother wrapped
me in a sort of shawl and stuffed me
inside one of the mattresses which made
up the major part of our furniture.
I was protected from frostbite, but
how long those dark evenings seemed
in that room where the thermometer dropped
well below zero – as long as a funeral
wake.
On
other evenings, and believe you me they
were occasions for celebration, I fell
asleep my belly as tight as a drum skin,
with all the satisfaction of a job well
done, dreaming I was eating all over
again.
One
day mother came back looking radiant.
She came up to me where I lay, picked
me up and, squeezing me to her, waltzed
several times round the room. To explain
her extraordinary behaviour, laughing
aloud as our dance continued, she popped
something meltingly delicious into my
mouth. She saw how delighted I was from
my puzzled look accompanied by a broad
grin more eloquent than any words. As
my first ever chocolate dribbled from
the corners of my mouth, she suddenly
grew serious again and explained that
from then on I would be having more
of this lovely stuff as she had found
a job.
I
must have been three at the time. I
was so ludicrously small and weak that
my mother had to leave me lying down
all day. I was subject to frequent giddy
spells and was constantly tired. I often
fell flat on my face when attempting
to take a few steps. Like many children
handicapped, my mind developed precociously
to make up, as it were, for my physical
weakness.
The
near religious awe with which those
around me pronounced the word ‘work’
each day taught me very early on its
fundamental importance. The frequent
rumbles in my stomach, more often empty
than full, taught me to respect it well
before I understood exactly what its
function was.
At
the other end of the estate stood a
building stood apart from the rest,
the only one not on stilts, with walls
of old, re-used, cracked bricks daubed
with lime. At least the foundations
were solid concrete. It was a makeshift
grocer’s thought up by some distinguished
town planner for the poverty-stricken
spot. Its aim was to satisfy the most
elementary needs of our ghetto. Since
the resources of the locals were virtually
non-existent, it specialized in selling
the most basic foodstuffs. Although
‘Angel Court’ was heavily populated,
only a derisory number of customers
could pay for what they bought. But
(there is always a ‘but’ in such cases)
the couple who ran the shop had no children.
They were moved by our dire poverty,
which was notorious even in that ‘Court
of Miracles’[a courtyard
in Medieval Paris, the haunt of beggars,
cripples and thieves] and offered
to give my mother work from time to
time. A child who had died young for
want of medical care and food; another
too weak to get up; a third obliged
to go abroad to escape starvation; an
elder daughter as yet too young to work;
a semi invalid husband recently released
from prison camp, unemployed – and all
with nothing to eat. My mother was dogged
by the attempt to makes ends meet. (By
the way, congratulations to anyone who
may suspect I am blackening these memories.
This is perhaps the moment to point
out to those who may consider the story
of this period of my life as much the
sort which certain journalists revel
in that I too would rather read about
it in a comfortable armchair than have
lived through it.)
Thus
it was that, due to the pity of those
kind people, my mother at last had a
little job. Sometimes she went out as
often as three times a week to do the
housework, laundry or work in the shop.
Her modest earnings were our only income
at the time. What rejoicing there was
at home: for the first time in ages
our meals contained sufficient calories
and, more important, were daily. My
mother kept her promise, bringing me
back whenever she could a sweet to saviour
blissfully after dinner.
As
a matter of fact, the basic revenues
of the families in our colony came from
unemployment benefit, which arrived
through the post every month. It amounted
to the price of a large, five-kilo loaf.
It was a pittance, true, but in our
community the amount was acceptable.
Destiny became the banker of those who
found the market value of that modest
banknote too low – for a time. It printed
beautiful notes for them, as large as
they were worthless, with a plethora
of zeroes. Inflation was upon us.
Such
was its gravity in Hungary that all
social classes and all salaried workers
began frenetically buying absolutely
anything to be rid of the money as quickly
as possible. When the value of the notes
was virtually nil, magnificent brand-new
ones appeared in all the colours of
the rainbow. The face value of the smallest
was fifty or one hundred thousand. The
largest were worth a million, a billion,
even a trillion. It was a time when
anyone lucky enough to have employment
was paid daily in the form of a large
sack crammed full of banknotes – barely
enough to buy a few kilos of sugar.
Even then, they had to be spent quickly
for the contents of the sack were soon
worth no more than the price of a newspaper.
I can still remember those great multi-coloured
notes on which were stamped an impressive
row of zeros – enough to set one dreaming,
for a while at least.
Under
such conditions, the avalanche of afflictions
which swept down on the survivors of
‘Angel Court’ had an immense impact
on all concerned until they developed
a shell which made them indifferent
to their fate.
What
resignation and passivity I recall on
looking back. My memory is subject to
the laws of relativity – it is a mirror
now reflecting the truth, now deforming
it. The truth probably was that with
time our misery must have seemed to
my mother and sisters so bound up with
our lives, so inescapable, as to cause
them to lose all notion of time and
even of life a few years earlier.
I
now feel the concentration camp atmosphere,
with all the families of the unemployed
crammed into identical huts, was in
its way salutary. The idea they were
sharing their poverty with others stopped
them giving up during the terrible hardship
of the winter months.
Sometimes
at different stages of my life I have
wondered – as I still do – whether the
war was the sole cause of that insane
poverty. It is possible.
To
me, such anger from on high is far more
terrifying for someone who is destitute
because it forces him to face up to
his situation and robs him of all hope,
draining him still further and also
results in a self-indulgent blackening
of his condition until the external
poverty starts to eat away at his very
being like an incurable disease, utterly
destroying him.
I
don’t want to appear cynical or avoid
confronting something beyond our understanding
but you must surely agree that if you
were to get out of that black hole sound
in mind and body your willpower had
to be riveted to your body.
I
must have been four or five when I first
became aware of the utter calm and passivity
of my mother and elder sister in their
deep distress. Naturally, they must
have known their chance of survival
was as slender as that of other families.
Above all, this certitude led to a degree
of resignation such that all notion
of past, future and even present, plus
the perception of time, gradually faded
from their minds before disappearing
to make way for a Job’s poverty of such
magnitude that they were under the impression
just about anything could be imputed
to it. Everything is relative.
I
can still see my mother in the little
room in the evening, her head bowed,
her face like that of the grieving Virgin
Mary, expressing infinite acceptance.
She never forgot to mention all our
names in her evening prayers.
The
people in our block used to call in
on each other. Sometimes they came to
see us too. The meetings followed a
set ritual. Everyone brought his ‘seat’
with him, usually an old crate slightly
modified. While waiting for the others,
the latest arrivals listened to the
complaints of the earliest. Then all
together they cursed their fate, their
poverty, their future and, of course,
the government. When everyone was at
last settled, the most fortunate would
take from his pocket a handful of cigarette-ends
and roll up the shreds of tobacco in
a bit of old newspaper. He licked the
edge of the paper, examined the cigarette
with an expert eye and lit up. With
morose delight, he inhaled deeply then
solemnly passed it on. Meanwhile, the
others awaiting their turn spoke in
a low voice of all the marvellous dishes
they would enjoy…as soon as the occasion
presented itself. The communal cigarette
continued its rounds. The room reeked
with the rank smell of re-used tobacco.
Yet at the very mention of lovely stews
or wonderful roasts a sudden resounding
concert of empty stomachs reminded everyone
it was time to change the subject. Each
took a final puff at the tiny stub to
calm his turbulent innards and quickly
went back home to digest his dream banquet
in his sleep. That was, basically, our
social life at the time.
Inflation
continued to soar. Up till then, everyone
had been guided by two delusions: the
possibility of getting a job and the
return of financial stability. Both
had fallen by the wayside. So necessity
became the law at ‘Angel Court’. It
must be admitted that thefts and murders
were a frequent occurrence. To bet on
keeping one’s spirits up and on remaining
honest in such surroundings was of a
temerity bordering on the irresponsible.
Our
situation had become worrying once more.
This time fortune smiled on us by giving
my eldest sister, who was just thirteen,
a helping hand. She was taken on to
do the washing-up in the canteen of
some firm or other – in the back of
beyond, it goes without saying. Every
day without fail she was up at dawn,
ready for the two-hour walk to our place
of work. She never forgot to take with
her a decent-sized saucepan. Late each
evening, on arriving back, she set the
saucepan of plenty, full of leftovers,
on the table and served us generous
helpings on our tin plates.
These
Gargantuan meals restored our good humour.
Everyone was pleased except for my father.
With a disposition such as his, he could
not stand feeling useless. His outbursts
became more and more frequent. He was
inconsolable at the thought that one
of his children, still of school age,
should have taken over his role at the
head of the family to look after our
basic needs. By now, he was refusing
to sit with us at table during our ‘blowouts’.
He sat in a corner of the room, silent,
turning his back on us, his head buried
in his hands, now and again shaking
an accusing fist at heaven. His nerves
already sorely tried during his recent
captivity, were almost at breaking-point.
[Interned near Paris at the outbreak
of war as an 'undesirable alien', Cziffra's
father along with the other prisoners
had been subjected to false warnings
that the prison was about to be blown
up.]
At
first, during this new period in our
lives, my mother, as if somehow sharing
his feelings, wept when my sister got
back. But she gradually resigned herself
to the situation. She relaxed, her usual
good humour apparently restored, and
often took me on her knee and sang in
a soft, clear voice popular waltzes
or tunes from operettas or operas that
she remembered from the past. I remember
these moments so clearly because each
time a strange, indefinable sensation
of well-being spread through my body,
warming it while at the same time leaving
me feeling drained.
As
I have said, I came into this world
with virtually no physical resistance.
Huge squadrons of microbes and germs
of various infantile diseases regaled
themselves on my feeble organism and
then put my pathetic carcass up for
auction. No-one could diagnose the exact
cause of my problems. In ‘Angel Court’
it was utopian to think of a nice steak
or of penicillin. The former was impossibly
expensive, the latter as yet undiscovered.
Besides, it was beyond our means to
pay a doctor. The Health Officers neglected
their duty since they feared to venture
into the estate. Though their consultations
were free, people avoided asking them
in, knowing full well that the chief
contents of their first aid kits were
a stethoscope and a book of burial permits.
I lay for months on end on an old sack
stuffed with straw, yet my health did
not improve in the slightest. I was
all wound up in old headscarves, shawls
and moth-eaten comforters.
Sometimes
a fever would set me shuddering. I knew
what to expect of these attacks and,
weary of fighting back, waited stoically
for my perceptions to grow dim so as
to watch a show only I could see. I
fixed my lethargic gaze on the ceiling.
The grey patches on it grew multicoloured
and then, so slowly as to be almost
imperceptible, began to move. My nth
nightmare was about to begin. As I tried
hard to stop myself vomiting, the patches
changed into grimacing faces all aflame.
There were several of them: a scarlet
monster, a gooey green devil and, most
grotesque of all, a purplish blue ape-like
creature. Their blinding white eyes,
which grew dim after a while, were the
only thing they had in common and it
seemed as if they were about to disintegrate,
but they did not disappear: only their
consistency changed. I suddenly realized
what they wanted and was paralysed with
fear. The grinning masks became a glaucous,
jelly-like fluid constantly breaking
up and reforming, all whirling together
in a hideous mass, which trickled down
the walls towards my face. My heart
beat fit to burst and the blood pounded
in my head. My whole body, bathed in
cold sweat, begged to be spared, terrified
at the idea the sticky liquid might
touch me. Just as the frightful hallucination
was preparing to swallow me up an electric
shock shook my paralyzed being and I
was back on my mattress, teeth chattering,
head swimming and with a feeling of
nausea.
My
mother hurried to the rescue from the
other end of the room. She placed a
hand against my back and helped me sit
up to try and relieve the choking sensation.
Attacks like these could occur at any
time. My mother was out of work again
and gave up seeking a job for a while
to look after me. She still had to leave
me occasionally if only to see to the
water. I dreaded the idea of an attack
while she was out in case I had to manage
by myself and raise my fever-racked
body, shaken by spasms until it seemed
about to fall apart, and remember what
I could of the meal I had never had.
My
father’s worries ceased for a while
when he too at last found work. Together
with a spindly, shabby old violinist,
he livened up a seedy bar, beautifying
the odour of cheap wine with the sound
of an ancient piano. The two artists
speeded up the rhythm at which the glasses
emptied, to the delight of the bar-keeper,
and earned them enough each evening
to fill the bellies of their families
the next day. The cherry on the cake
was the packets of cigarettes the tipsy
customers gave them in gratitude – ironically,
just when they could have afforded their
own.
Alas!
This was not to last. My father’s nervous
illness, a remnant of his captivity,
grew worse. Wearied by the struggle,
he spent more and more time at home,
long periods of exhaustion alternating
with strangely periods of over-excitement.
Mumbling incoherently, he paced round
the room raging deliriously. All of
a sudden he would stop short and stare
wildly at a point on the wall. I loved
my father dearly but at such moments
I was terrified of him. I shut my eyes
tight and made myself as scarce as possible
on my bedding. I tried to persuade myself
that if I could not see him he could
not see me either. At other moments,
at the height of his worst attacks,
he began to howl like one possessed.
Terrorized, I forgot my strategy and
began to howl even louder. Sometimes
he was so taken aback at not being able
to hear himself that he calmed down.
Luckily for us, such grave attacks were
rare. On thinking back, these symptoms
did not particularly affect us. Compared
with all the tempests our raft had survived
up till then, they were a storm in a
tea-cup. Yet still we clung on. All
of us. But persistent, virtually continuous
spasms of trembling meant that my father
was incapable of any kind of work and
we suffered with him from every point
of view. His condition compromised our
hopes of survival and seriously undermined
our resolve to keep going – and in ‘Angel
Court’ it was as well to keep one’s
spirits up.
My
elder sister, Yolande, applied herself
zealously to her washing-up and brought
back generous helpings of leftovers,
cleverly transformed into shepherd’s
pie by my mother. With her meagre starting
wages, we could not afford to add anything
from the grocer’s to our daily fare
apart from bread.
My
sister’s attendance record was remarked
on by her employers. They even found
out that she had a little culture. Like
most of her colleagues, she sang as
she worked to give herself courage to
face the Babylonian pile of dishes to
be dried. There was nothing unusual
about that except that she sang in French.
A girl living in a place of such sinister
repute as ‘Angel Court’ singing in perfect
French in a grimy factory scullery miles
from that bandits’ lair seemed as out
of place there as a banknote in my father’s
pocket. In short, she was moved to another
department, an office, and her pay went
up. One evening she came home from work
and astounded my parents by declaring
for all to hear that she intended to
hire a piano. The decision was an important
one but my father said nothing, trying
to catch my mother’s eye. Deep down,
he could not have been displeased by
the idea. He was himself a musician,
after all. Fixing her large blue eloquent
eyes on him, my mother replied, "Yes,
we used to have one in Paris…But in
conditions like these…sheer folly…and
if I ever…"
My
father shut his eyes wearily. He already
knew all about the idea, though they
had not discussed whether the moment
was opportune or how the plan could
be carried out but he wanted to share
the spark of unexpected joy. But my
mother’s muted enthusiasm was as nothing
compared with my sister’s zealous determination.
In the end, not long afterwards, a horse-drawn
cart drew into the backyard. We heard
the pleading, ominous creak of the staircase
and then my sister appeared in the doorway,
flushed with excitement, her eyes shining
and after her came two men heaving along
a large, square object. My parents looked
at each other, dumbstruck.
Without
knowing it, I was looking at my first
piano.
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