Ferenc Temesi Bridge a Novel

Ferenc Temesi Bridge A novel This publication was supported by the National Cultural Foundation Line one [IMAGE: The Coin’s Page] „They say that when my mother’s father was born, the old Limp church bell sounded. Whether or not that happened, I don’t know. But what’s for sure, the truth-telling Bora Vas Ferkó, the midwife who had a moustache that would have made all the boys of the village jealous, did not refrain from saying: ‘Came at a good time. He start to come out yet? inquired the bed-ridden Holy mother. Her mother, Rozália Zagarits, was a flourishing combination of Croatian and Pecheneg. Her coal-black hair was streaked with the white stripes of oncoming elderliness, the ibis-shaped spots on her dark Mediterrean skin hommage to her ancestors. His head came out, but he’s in that sac, said the friend, who was sitting next to the bed. My great-grandmother did not say anything—she gave birth. All four women knew that if the infant plopped into the world in his protective membrane, he would be lucky. The bullet wouldn’t catch him, like it did Sándor Rúzsa, the king of the bandits, who had probably been executed for this crime after he was imprisoned. Bell’s already ringin’. It ain’t even started the first round, my great-great grandmother chimed in. She didn’t understand why the big bell was bonging for the beginning of the mass. The doors and windows were wide open, as they usually are at births, so that whoever didn’t want to hear it would. And in the most Hungarian town of the most Hungarian county, the bell would make note of the poor among the rest of some eight-thousand seven-hundred and ninety-seven people. Ding-dong, the bell rang, but then came the realization that it should be rung for the farmers, too (for them, it should be rung heartily). DING-DONG, the bell said flatteringly. Must be that good for nothin’ Sisák kid ringin’, the godmother presumed. They praise ’im for havin’ sandals so big, he takes one step, and the whole village hears ’im. My great-grandmother gathered the rest of her strength for the final push, sweating and gasping for breath. I’ll toss out the water. It’s all cold now, her mother said. The reprimand was aimed at the friend. It was her duty to watch that the water stayed warm. However, the water was sufficient when the midwife peeled the amniotic sac from my grandfather, and as she washed him off, the great old wrinkled newborn let out such a piercing screech that even the men heard it in the garden. Rather than crying, my grandfather greeted the world with a screech, the reason being that he had nearly suffocated. They say those who are born in amniotic sacs are not just everyday lucky people. They still get oxygen from their mothers, and this is the reason that not even their smallest of brain cells die during birth. In reality, the sac sticks to their face, and one can only call themselves lucky if it’s removed in time. Girl? my great-grandmother panted hopefully, because she would have liked for her second-born to be a girl. She’d even dreamed about it. This lil’ saint is a boy, said the truth-telling Bora Vas Ferkó, as if the brat were the one deserving of praise. ’Came wit’ teeth, too. Right there, see! The friend pointed at the shrieking infant’s mouth. My great-grandmother hugged the baby with relieved happiness. She didn’t even care that it wasn’t a girl! That the child would come into the world with the sign of a táltos and a mouth full of bones, well, that would make him into a dashing, intelligent man, and it warmed her heart. Smack-smack. Smack-smack-smack-smack, my great-grandfather was splitting firewood in the courtyard for the summer kitchen, though he’d just nailed a twenty-centimeter (according to his word) nail fit for Jesus into a larger stump of wood, using the pickaxe he’d inherited from his old man, the late Orbán. He was an angry, devout man, rough but realistic about things—he wouldn’t leave behind a day’s work just because a child was born. Sándor Csepeli, the handsome Gyurkó, onto whom only the second of the two names stuck, was leaned against the weighing balance, smoking his pipe. Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if they didn’t just weigh the yarn the peasants brought here, but used the scale to measure hearts too! thought the brother-in-law, but the words remained inside him. Sir, sir! The midwife lifted up the baby in the window. Under the protection of its half-closed eyelids, the infant gazed back at the place from which it had just arrived. Its eyes were deep, like time. You have a son! the midwife shouted. János Tóth, the town’s weaver, glanced at the child next to the glowing candle they’d placed in the window sill. He nodded silently. Child of May, dew midday, he grumbled under his moustache. The people of Limp considered May an unlucky month to start something; a new business, marriage, birth, these did not end well. They themselves did not know that their ancestors had instilled this suspicion because in May, when the weather was best, every person capable of moving their hands and feet was needed at the border. There’re people livin’ upstairs! the brother-in-law said, jabbing his pipe towards the sky reprovingly. Thursday kids go far ’n life, he added, to soften it. The chiming softened, then soon silenced. My great-grandfather’s eyes were laughing at the brother-in-law. Shame on ye’, ye’ know, my heart’s in pieces, he said sarcastically. If God gives sheep, he gotta give a field, too. Our friend’d better come in here! they shouted through the window. My great- grandfather put his axe down beside the handsaw, and he traipsed into the little white thatch-roof house. The wind was toying with the red tape on the door handle. The friend handed the master a little package, which was nothing other than the placenta of the woman who had given birth. This my great-grandfather would have to bury underneath a tree, so that there would luck over the house. As if this were all it had been waiting for, the great bell started ringing again, fast, as fast as it could go. A quarter of an hour later, the grey breeze brought the sweet scent of burned flour all the way down to Market Square lane no. 9. The Beck millhouse on Mill street had started to burn, and six others caught the flame. Only by the help of the firefighters called in from Dustville were they able to save the yonder part of the village from destruction. All of this amounted to nothing in the season of archangel Spugliguel, in the month of angel Ambriel (the prince in line of the throne), on the day of the archangel Caphiel and the cherub Sachiel (God’s mantle), during the hour of archangel Michael, the bearer of peace, and the ghost of Mercury. Or rather, in spring, during the tenth minute of the tenth hour of the twenty-ninth day of May, in the 1890th year of our Lord. [figure] That’s what I heard. You believe what you hear? I don’t even believe what I see. Now, you see. I see: he rests his forehead against the train’s dirty window. Summer is already turning to fall. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Its dull color a give-away: it wasn’t always black. A long, fresh wound cuts across his forehead, all the way to his eyebrows. It’s stitched up on the right: as if a confused look has frozen onto his face. The rain is falling, and the sun is shining. A thin, pointy brush has dotted his irises with dark brown spots. They show underneath his foggy glasses. Clack-clack. Pole, field, pole, cornfield. Clack-clack. House, dog. House, geese. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. God had a long ruler, he thinks. A lake bordered by sedge, maybe a reservoir. An unsecreted plastic bottle, like a shiny fish washed up on the shore. Stupified student – why do I always get these crazy ideas? The field workers straighten their backs: windowpanes of village houses swim past them. So much life! They watch the train, the train watches them. A stork has two legs, but they don’t make him a soldier, to hell with my mother, ’cause I wasn’t born a stork. The man is leaned against the window of the train, his back to the landscape, eyes on the drunken, shouting soldiers. He’s as lanky as a teenager, but sturdy, like the stalk of wild hemp. No one should serve me sobbing; sender: the house, he thinks. The soldiers have beers in their hand, one of them sitting in another’s lap. Pimpled, but without shaved heads. A blonde, green-eyed girl opens the door to the dining car, the song stops playing. The man standing in window suddenly looks up, as if he’s seen something horrible. Guszti, for fuck’s sake, give up your spot to this pussy, says the guy with the kid sitting in his lap. This old man’s deaf, the kid answers. He has a plastic bag in his hand.

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