She watched as László gingerly set the box down on the floor. He removed the lid and reached inside. His hands emerged with rags and crumpled papers, which he carefully placed in a neat pile on top of the box’s lid. He looked up towards Esa, and then to where Salvo and Leo were and, appearing satisfied that he had their full attention, his hands delved back into the box.
“Maybe you have thought that I am a stupid man,” he said, looking mainly at Salvo. “Maybe you have thought this because I make windows all day, and I do not tell fine stories or play music or know a hundred ways to cheat a man out of his property.” Here his gaze shifted towards Esa, but she pretended not to notice. “Think what you like,” he continued, “but never say that I can’t take care of my family, or that I can’t do a great thing that few others can do.”
Tenderly and far more delicately than Esa had ever seen him handle Leo, even when he had been a baby, László gripped whatever was in the box and lifted it out. Esa gasped and brought a hand to her mouth, another to her breast. László held a figurine, over a foot tall, of a Hungarian soldier in full ornamental dress. Every detail down to the brass buttons on his coat was fashioned from glass, and the soldier shone, almost glowed, from the light it absorbed and reflected. What struck her most were the soldier’s eyes; they were a deep green, with coal-black pupils. But it wasn’t just that they looked like real eyes—in itself reason enough to marvel. It was that they were the same as hers. For that matter, those eyes were the eyes of her ancestors and family, the eyes of her sister, Azira, Salvo’s mother, and even the eyes of Salvo. That László would re-create these eyes, eyes that were Romany eyes, shocked Esa to her bones.
Salvo saw the eyes too, but he did not recognize them at first. All he could tell was that the glass soldier seemed to be looking straight into him. What the soldier could see was unclear, but it was definitely something. Salvo did not know whether he loved or feared the soldier, or both. All he knew was that those eyes sent a shiver down his spine.
László couldn’t tell what others saw in his soldier, but he knew what he saw when he looked at it. He saw hours and hours of work; he saw all the pieces that he had built twenty times before he got them right. He saw his entire body of glass-making knowledge embodied in a single piece of work, and he saw perfection. As far as he was concerned, the soldier came as near to complete beauty as any man, and more specifically himself, was ever likely to get. He also saw inside the soldier the promise of a better life for himself and his family. To him, the eyes were only eyes.
There would be no more Sándor Glassworks for him. He would open his own shop, where he would make more figurines to sell to the wealthy citizens of Budapest. His skill as a craftsman would erase the shame of having a Romany wife and a crippled son, and maybe he could convince Esa to let him find somewhere else for Salvo to live. He did not like the way the boy was always looking out the window, towards the tops of buildings, as if there were somewhere he would rather be, as if László’s house was not good enough for him. When the boy had come here he had nothing; for the past six years László had put a roof over his head and kept him fed and clothed far better than any Romany family would have been able to do. The boy should be grateful, but instead he stubbornly insisted on appearing as though he wished he were elsewhere.
Never mind the boy, László thought. His hand moved to the inside pocket of his threadbare coat, where there was an envelope that only this morning had contained more money than László had ever seen in his life. It was a down payment for the soldier, which had already been purchased by the agent of a local collector, a rich man whose name was known not only in Budapest and Hungary but throughout Europe. László had already gone to his landlord and paid two years’ rent in advance for the apartment, as well as paying off his and Esa’s debts. Most of the down payment was gone now, but there was a little left, enough for a good celebration, and then tomorrow when the agent came to collect the soldier he would receive even more money, the equivalent of nearly three years’ salary at Sándor Glassworks.
He returned the soldier to its box, replacing the rags and paper that protected it. He carried the box to the far corner of the front room and laid it down in the corner. Then, as clearly as he ever had before, László smiled. He had a treat in store for the family, his way of showing them that he was not always a hard man. He told everyone to change into their best clothes as quickly as possible. Leo and Salvo rushed to obey, and he refused to answer even Esa’s questions as they changed, telling her that she would see when they got there. When everyone was ready, László led them out of the apartment, down to the street. They rode the electric streetcar into the inner city of Pest. At the terminal for the subway that ran underneath Andrássy Avenue was Gerbeaud’s, the famous pastry shop, but László wouldn’t allow them to stop. There was no time, he told them. Perhaps on the way back.
Salvo’s regard for the subway was the same as it was for the rest of his life in Budapest. He enjoyed it because it was unlike anything he’d ever encountered elsewhere, but he could never quite shake the feeling that there was something wrong with it, that even though it took him to places he’d never been, it somehow also confined him. On the subway you were forced to go where it took you. A part of Salvo knew that his father would have hated this underground train, and Salvo did not like that he didn’t entirely agree.
The subway took them under the city, northeast, away from the Danube, towards City Park. As they walked past Heroes’ Square, the sound of a crowd became more and more concentrated, until they reached the bank of the lake and there it was.
By most standards it was a small circus, an outdoor troupe of no more than ten people, who made their living by performing in various public areas throughout Europe. People stood and watched the show, as there were no seats save for a few scattered park benches, and a small boy, who was at the very most six years old, circulated through the crowd with a hat that people put change into.
Salvo stood beside his aunt and watched as two clowns performed a series of slapstick follies with a ladder, one climbing up the ladder while another briefly held it and then pretended to get distracted, letting go of the ladder and sending the other clown flying. The audience gasped, and then, realizing the performer was unharmed by his fall, laughed as the aggrieved clown chased his unreliable assistant, swinging wildly at him with the ladder. Even Salvo was forced to laugh.
Next came a man and a woman who juggled flaming torches between them, first two, then three, then four, until they had eight flying through the air separating them. Then they switched to knives, demonstrating the instruments’ sharpness by slicing through a paprika tossed into the air. As the knives reached their maximum speed, a third woman came and stood directly in the path of the darting blades, calmly eating the two halves of the bisected paprika. The crowd cheered when they stopped and the woman emerged unscathed. People tossed coins into the child’s hat freely and without hesitation.
Strung between two tall poles, twenty feet above the ground, was a wire. The audience’s attention was directed upwards, and a man wearing tight pants and a sleeveless shirt stepped onto the wire. As the man moved slowly and tentatively across it, Salvo felt his chest tighten. The man moved with a grace and ease Salvo had never before witnessed. He knew immediately that this man was engaged in something of value, something few could do and something that was worth doing. This man was in a different world. And he seemed to Salvo to be at complete peace with his surroundings. He might as well have been walking along the sidewalk, or so it appeared.
The man walked the length of the rope, about forty feet, three times, until the crowd’s contributions to the hat began to wane. He descended to applause and in a loud voice he announced that the troupe would be performing there for the rest of the week. After imploring people to be generous with their donations, the circus began to pack up their belongings.
Salvo was awestruck. He wanted to approach the man but found himself unable to move. What would he say to such a person
? He had a brief moment where the thought of running away and joining the performers made his palms slick with sweat, but he put it out of his head. He was lucky to have found his home among the Nagys; it would be stupid to leave them for what cold logic told him must be the foolish dreams of a fifteen-year-old boy. If his time among gadje had taught him anything, it was that he had a tendency to dream outside the scope of reason. Salvo forced himself to stand still as the wire walker moved through the crowd and out of his view.
As they made their way through the park, back to the subway station, Salvo tried to think of a way to thank his uncle. Though still wary of him, he had seen a side of László Nagy today that he had never seen before, or even suspected existed. He wondered if it was possible that he had misjudged the man. They rode the subway in silence, Leo leaning heavily on Salvo, his foot raw and sore from the afternoon’s exertions. When they got off the subway, Salvo decided that the best way to thank his uncle was just to come right out and say it. László was a straightforward man; that was how you did things with him, Salvo supposed.
László spoke first. “Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and picking a bill out of an envelope, handing it to Leo. “This is for the streetcar. And you can buy your cousin and yourself something from Gerbeaud’s.”
Esa looked startled. “Why should they need their own money?”
“Because,” László said, “you and I are going to the opera house, and boys their age would not appreciate such a thing.”
Esa’s eyes lit up. All her life she had wanted to go to the Budapest Opera House. Even Salvo knew that. But it was expensive.
“Go on, now, you two. We have to hurry,” László said. Esa kissed Leo and Salvo on the cheek, and then she headed off down Andrássy Avenue, linking arms with László.
“Thank you, Uncle,” Salvo called after them. Whether he was heard or not he could not tell. László never turned around.
As they walked up the street, Esa tried to imagine what the opera house would be like, what the people would be wearing, what they would talk about at the intermission, how the music would sound. She could not stop herself from smiling, and after a while she gave up trying. It was better than any daydream; this tea party was going to happen.
Salvo and Leo went into Gerbeaud’s and bought four large pastries. They sat on the sidewalk, leaning up against the wall of the pastry shop. Salvo was sure that the pastries were the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. By the time the streetcar returned them to their neighbourhood and they opened the door to the apartment, Leo was nearly weeping from the pain in his foot, so Salvo gave him some of the laudanum Esa kept for such occasions, which put Leo almost immediately to sleep.
Salvo sat in László’s chair in the front room. He did not normally sit here. It was not forbidden, but neither was it encouraged. Salvo had never particularly wanted to sit in his uncle’s chair; why would you sit in the chair of a man you knew disliked you? A rabbit would not sleep in a fox’s den. But tonight was different. Salvo didn’t know if it would last or if it was an eclipse of normal circumstances, but on this night Salvo did not fear or hate his uncle. Nearly the opposite, Salvo sat in the chair and held a measure of admiration in his heart for László Nagy, forgiving him his harsh manner and his attitudes towards Roma and the way he scorned his crippled son.
His eyes settled on the crate in the far corner of the room. He knew that he should leave it be, that no good could come from tampering with it, that it was not his business, and he continued to tell himself as much even as he rose from the chair and walked across the dimly lit room and opened the lid. The rags and paper inside parted readily before his eager fingers, and as he lifted the soldier out of the box, he was surprised by how heavy it was. He set it down on the floor in front of him and stepped back.
In the flickering light the soldier almost looked alive. It seemed to smile at him, a sly, knowing smile, as if it knew what he was thinking, what he had ever thought and what he had ever seen. Salvo’s breath quickened, and he looked deeply into the soldier. He looked into the soldier like a man who sees a miracle and isn’t sure why he has been chosen to bear witness but nonetheless has, in spite of himself, found religion.
Even as a part of him continued to scream against it, Salvo pulled the cuffs of his shirt over his hands and picked the soldier up. He did not want to leave finger smudges on the glass. He raised the soldier high above his head, remembering both his father and himself on the steeple of the church, remembering how they stood high above the ground and did not fall. Below them, that was where the trouble had happened. That was where things had gone bad. With the soldier above him, it was as if he was back up on that steeple, with his father this time, and they rose higher and higher, far away from the gadje and Transylvania and Budapest.
Then Salvo felt the soldier slip from his hands. He didn’t know for certain whether it was an accident or not, but he did know that he could catch the soldier as it fell, or at least he could try, but he didn’t. Instead he watched as the soldier fell to the ground, spinning head over heels over head, hitting the hard wood of the floor and shattering into oblivion. Even as he heard the broken glass skitter across the room he remained calm and still. Although he knew that a terrible thing had just happened, a truly horrible thing, he was peaceful, at complete ease, like in that perfect, abeyant moment before falling asleep.
Salvo got a broom from the kitchen and swept the scattered remnants of the soldier into a pile in the centre of the room, lay down on the floor, and waited.
The Mór Roma spent the majority of their days on the road. They were true Roma and their feet got itchy quickly. These travels were long and hard, everyone happiest after they had made camp for the night, eager for a warm fire and a good meal. After they had eaten, the music began and, with it, the stories.
There was an old man named Vedel Mór who told the best stories of the group. He chose his moments, however, and would not tell a story every night, or even every second night. When he did, it was a special occasion, and everyone listened that much harder. People knew that Vedel would not live forever, that there would come a time when his untold stories would disappear with him. When he told a story he would often choose one person and speak as if only to them, or at least they would feel it was so. He began his stories the same way always.
“If it is not true, then it is a lie. Little Etel, and larger András, we have taken you in, and we would do so again, because we Roma are scattered throughout the earth, and we have been for a long time. But it was not always so.
“Once a Rom and his family were all together in their wagon. Their horse was a nag, not worth his weight in flesh, and he lurched forward under the wagon’s weight. It was not all this horse’s fault, for the wagon was filled to the top with Romany children. There were so many that the Rom could not count them all, and as the wagon lurched forward on the rutted road, the children fell out behind it. Because of the number of children, the lost ones were not missed, but the wagon travelled far across many lands, and everywhere there were young Roma left behind. This is how we came to be scattered about, all of us the children of that Rom.”
All the Mór Roma nodded their heads approvingly. They had heard this story many times since they themselves were children, and it had become a welcome and familiar beginning to an evening. These stories were for the young ones, so that they would know where they came from, what it was to be Roma.
Not everything was like this. There were other stories that the children were not supposed to hear, but as Etel had no parent besides András, who did not know better, she was able to hear several of them before Vedel realized she was there.
“If this is not true, then it is a lie. Once there was a Rom, a wealthy Rom, who did not steal but traded horses and lived in a large house and had many friends. He wanted for nothing save a woman to share his happiness with. It came that he was riding through the forest at night when he happened upon a band of Roma, all of them feasting and dancing and playing mu
sic. For a reason he could not tell, he was afraid of them, so he hid in the trees and watched them from a distance. They were gathered in a circle, and in the middle danced the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The Rom was captivated, and he watched her for hours. The revellers sang and danced into the night, and just as dawn approached, the woman looked out into the trees, and the Rom was sure she saw him, and he was sure she smiled at him. His heart leapt, but he was still afraid to approach.
As the sun broke they disappeared into their tents, and the Rom overcame his fear. He ventured forth, hoping to speak to this beautiful woman. When he looked inside the tents, however, he found they were full of dismembered bodies, limbs hacked from torsos, heads severed from necks. He instantly realized that these Roma were a caravan of the dead, but he was by then so in love with the woman he had seen dancing that he had become irrational, and so he found her corpse and stole it away.
“When night fell the woman rose up, startled to find herself separated from her family. The Rom introduced himself and professed his love for her, but she bade him to return her at once. The Rom refused, but she implored him. ‘You do not understand,’ she said. ‘My brothers will find me, and they will do you harm.’
“The Rom did not care, even though at that very moment he could hear the hooves of her brothers’ horses approaching. He grabbed the woman and they mounted his fastest horse, galloping through the night with the dead Roma close behind. Just as the sun was about to rise they caught him, and they ripped her from his arms. They would have killed him, but the minute they raised their swords, the sun came up, and they fell to the ground, lifeless. He retrieved his love’s body and fled, resting little before the day was done.