When he heard that Arthur Weiss had been shot dead, he says, he stood at the front gate and took out the pistol, but the chief of the guards at the gate, who was a weightlifter, had grabbed hold of him and wrestled with him, causing him to fall and crack his chin against a sharp stone, which is how he had got the wound.
The anti-aircraft batteries by Margit Bridge were now in action, and bursts of fire could also be heard from over by the Comedy Theatre.
I ask him how he got over here from Vadász Street.
With difficulty, mate. There are now rolls of barbed wire on the Outer Circle as well.
He had gone through the sewer system.
There are some good hiding places down there. You’ll see in two or three days when fighting starts in the sewers. Give me a shout if you have second thoughts about the pistol.
The sirens sound the all-clear.
When the war is over Vilmos Komor is sure to be engaged by the Opera House, he says, Ernster as well. It would be great to get in there.
Like I said, I’m going back to the cellar. My parents are probably starting to get anxious.
No wetting yourself, or you’ll be done for.
He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with air. He lifts his eyebrows and presses his lips together. He can see I find that terrifying and laughs out a scale, which is even scarier.
The water-carriers return.
Water that is boiled by women to use for cooking is kept in one of the barrels in the yard. The firewood is chopped by whoever is in the designated team; today crates are to be chopped up. Drinking water is poured from the buckets into pitchers. One person per family is allowed to queue up, and 200 millilitres per head is measured out, with the warden appointing those who keep check.
I am able to move along in the cellar without stepping on anyone in the dark. The flames of the lamps only throw light for a few metres; consequently that make the rest of the cellar even darker. I lead Mother out by the hand. She obtains a cooking pot from the warden’s wife and queues up for water, the four of us getting almost three-quarters of a litre. Now, carrying a full vessel, the route back is trickier. I think I might have stepped on someone, and I expect to be yelled at, but there is no yell; of course. The person might be very ill, even dead, I suppose. I have a word with the doctor wearing the Red Cross armband who goes over to the place. There is, indeed, a corpse lying there. The warden is called for, and he makes arrangements. There is a team of corpse carriers; two of them lift up the dead person and carry the body away. One of the carriers is Baritone, and it now occurs to me that we had not even properly introduced ourselves.
As far I can tell Vera is in a good place between Mother and Father. The physicist waves, so I sit back down beside him on the sack of potatoes. He lights a candle and explains to those around us how much oxygen is consumed by a burning candle in a voice exactly like my physics tutor in our lessons at school, so the end result, he says raising a finger, is minimal oxygen consumption while helping with the lighting.
I ask him from where he got the candle. He leans over with a face just like Father’s when he is going to crack a joke. Father’s face is oval, although admittedly the skin on his neck and around his mouth is sagging a bit. The physicist has a long face, and when he grins every wrinkle quivers. His expression is picaresque — that’s a word I had learned in Hungarian literature lessons — I had even read some picaresque novels, and thinking about that helped take my mind off the dead person who had just now been carried away. If you must know, I pinched it, says the physicist. It wasn’t easy, but I found a way. He chortles soundlessly and gently pokes me with an elbow. He then produces a pocket chess set, notebook and pencil and by the light of the candle starts jotting things down. There’s a combination that he’s puzzling over, he says.
Do you play chess?
Ruy Lopez, the Spanish opening?
Are you familiar with the big Maróti book?
Yes, I am.
He is jotting down the positions in an end-game. He says it’s much more interesting to figure out the moves backwards, to work out how a checkmate has been reached. In that way you can see what moves should have been avoided, and it may be that even with a Spanish opening one ought not to make the most conventional sequence of opening moves. Understood?
Vera comes across, so I give her my seat on the sack of potatoes. The physicist closes his pocket chess table. We’ll play a game sometime, he says. He extends a hand to Vera and introduces himself. Call me László, he says. All right, Uncle László, she says uneasily, and before introducing herself she glances at me. I can see her worrying about accidentally revealing her actual name, so I quickly drop in the family name. My younger sister, I say. She’s called Vera. He takes a long look at me and then at Vera, as if he were weighing up how a brother and sister could look so different. Several people are now demanding that he douse the candle; there’s enough light coming from the two lights at the back. He moistens the thumb and index finger of his right hand before snuffing the flame. Idiots, he says. They didn’t take in a word of what I explained before.
Light the candle! Contact has been broken. It’s impossible to see the map! Follow orders at the double!
I do not know who is shouting behind my back.
At ease, First Lieutenant, sir, says the man who just now had insisted that the physicist extinguish the candle, at ease; we’ll busy ourselves with the maps later on, meanwhile we’ll maintain contact in other ways.
A character is squatting beside me. Officer’s cap, trenchcoat — the officer’s cap seemingly the same as the one I had seen on the warden. The physicist stands up, and the man takes his place on the sack of potatoes. At times like this those who have stayed alive have to be placed back to back with each other in the trenches, he says, everyone has ten rounds, the squad’s leader has a hand-grenade. On the Italian front we were completely surrounded; the section leader planned the break-out, but I passed out the order that the men should hold fire until the Eyeties showed up and were thirty metres from the trenches, then we fired a volley. Bam! Bam! Bam!
Vera goes back to Mother.
One has to prepare for all-out defence. My section leader was right about that; bought a bullet in the middle of his forehead. I was left with enough time to kiss the bullet’s entry wound — it bloodied my lips — and then out with the hand-grenades! We surprised the Eyeties with the grenades. They were advancing on the left flank as well. Fix bayonets! I shouted from the trench.
The doctor brings a tablet and a glass of water and holds the man’s head until he has swallowed the medicine.
A hush falls on the cellar like none I have ever previously experienced since coming there n0r since. Even the warden talks quietly. May I have the cap, First Lieutenant? If it’s for a sortie, son, then take it, the man says. How are you armed?
The physicist relights the candle. Listen, people, he says, for the next hour we are going to provide light here, so turn off the lamps at the back. The doctor is helping a man to lie down on a mattress. He’s of no danger to anyone; it’s just that he doesn’t know where he is and what’s happening to him.
I ask Mother if Gizi will come back. She will if she can, I’m sure, she says. She lays out a linen napkin then cuts four slices of bread and opens the last tin of liver pâté. We divide 200 millilitres of water between the four of us, with Mother wiping the rim of the mug after each of us has had a drink.
Vera is in the mood to play at compiling menus: let us order tomorrow’s dinner. Father recommends fish soup rather than grilled bratwurst, and we go along with that. For me what springs to mind is schnitzel, and for the dessert all of us vote for Vera’s choice, Dobos torte.