The Book of Fathers Read Free Page A

looked as if they had been bayoneted to death. The bodies, in their blood-soaked clothes, were already bloated.
    “Sir, oh sir!” said one of the lads. “Best to just get ourselves out of here, anywhere, double quick!”
    “Quiet!”
    Where could one go? he thought. There was no escaping the dogs of war.
    In front of the Czuczors’ house they found another body, which they took to be Wilhelm’s; the young man’s limbs had been hacked off by the marauders. Scattered all around him in the dust were Grandpa Czuczor’s types, the casting kettle, and the little type-case, shattered to bits. It looked as though Wilhelm had tried to save the type foundry. The bandits had not been interested in the type, and hoped there might be money or gold in the type-case. A little farther off lay Burkus, the dog; he must have gone to the servant’s aid. His side was slashed open, his guts spilled out where he lay.
    As he listened to these tales from the village, tears welled up in Grandpa Czuczor’s eyes. Poor Wilhelm: to come a distance of nine days’ journey from his village, onlyto end his days in such horror. Once peace reigned again, his mother would have to be told. Grandpa Czuczor decided he would also send her some money and tried to decide how much it should be.
    They thought Kornél was fast asleep, but the little fellow generally spent his nights half-awake. The scraps of sound that reached him contained no mention of Wilhelm or Burkus. He caught something about the fate of Béla Vizvári and his wife, though he was not yet aware of the meaning of death. He had seen, more than once, funeral cortèges winding their way to the cemetery, and had stared at the pinewood coffins, sensing the darkness of such times, hearing whispers and whimpers about the late so-and-so, but he could not quite comprehend that what lay in the wooden box was the body of a man or a woman. His mother had often told him the story of his dear father’s death, and Kornél could see before him the fatal fall from the horse and hear the gut-wrenching crack as the head hit the tree-stump—indeed, he would often drive his own skull into anything hard. Having seen the tiny picture in his mother’s locket, he always imagined his father as the very image of Grandpa Czuczor.
    The men debated whether to return to their homes, or what was left of them, the following day. Bálint Borzaváry Daróczy was of the view that it was too early to return, as the marauding bands could return at any time, and it was even possible that their land would be the battleground for the Kurucz or the Labancz, or even both. Grandpa Czuczor was dismissive: “We can’t sit around here in the mountains till doomsday … Great is the mercy of the Lord, let His will be done.”
    The debate dragged on. Grandpa Czuczor declared that he would go down into the village even if they all decided to stay where they were. At dawn he woke Zsuzsánna and Kornél: “Time to go!”
    They gathered their bundles, but the boulder at the mouth of the Cavern proved impossible to move until one of the lads woke and gave them a hand.
    A biting wind stung their faces as they made their way downhill. Not till the last turning would the village heave into view; Grandpa Czuczor used the time to prepare his daughter and grandson for the sights to come. But the horror that met their eyes far surpassed his imagination. Zsuzsánna sobbed and sobbed, her face a sodden pillow, despite her father’s admonitions that this would hardly help matters. Kornél surveyed in silence the destruction of the burned-out houses, the dead and dying animals, the vultures circling high above the village. Nor did he cry when he saw the earthly remains of Burkus. He sensed that this was only the beginning of something, though he could not put into words what that something was. He would not let go of his grandfather’s warm and reassuring paw, and went with him everywhere. Grandpa Czuczor’s first port of call was not the