תרגמתי לי את הסיפור הזה – "בקיץ". לקוראי (קורעי) אנגלית בלבד.

Eulogy

Hard to believe, but the heart does not delude;

The house, the late return, the garden of quietude:

Were these could be once more, the verandah's door ajar,

Easy winds blow, bees are humming in the air, the jam cooling in the jar.

Silence reigns in the sun-burnt, dreamy garden, in bygone days' light bathing,

And a golden-haired, blushing girl in the garden waiting,

And amongst the boughs of the trees fruits move in a dance,

And the day draws shadows of silence in a trance.

(Free translation of a well-known poem by Miklόs Radnόthy)

הֵן לוּ רַק אֲאָמִינָה: חֲזוֹן הַלֵּב אֵינוֹ שָׁוְא,

הַבַּיִת, הַשִּׁיבָה, הַתִּקְווֹת אֵינָם כָּזָב

לוּ עוֹד הָיָה, כְּפַעַם בָּרוּחַ בַּמִּרְפֶּסֶת

דְּבוֹרִים יִשְּׂאוּ דְּבָרָן, הָרִבָּה מִתְקָרֶרֶת,

וּדְמִי רֹגַע הַקַּיִץ בַּגַּן חוֹלְמָנִי, שָׁזוּף

בֵּין בַּדֵּי הֶעָץ הַפְּרִי נָע וְנָד, חָשׂוּף

וְנָעֲרָה זְהֻבָּה תַּמְתִּין בַּשְּׂדֵרָה, אֲדֻמָּה,

וְהַיּוֹם אַט יָצוּר צוּרוֹת-צֵל בַּדְּמָמָה

(תרגם מהונגרית המחבר).

Summer-time

It is summer. Sleepy. We are at the veranda, surrounded by high glass-panels, windows looking towards the spacious garden, strewn through by the trees bearing cherries, those small round red fruits growing in twins.

Nobody now at home – only we two in the garden, lying in a kind of self-forgetfulness on the smooth, still dew-ridden lawn, in a secluded corner between the freshly prawn bushes and the green, leafy trees. Like we were doing once upon the time, in the long-gone past, when we were yet children, before many years. We were then just kids, tasting our first smack of life, and the havoc of the war touched us not so many years ago. But lo! We are now back, we two, to the garden – her parents' home, as it were – to this very home.

In the garden – the secret memories. We will not tell. They are held by our long, by-gone childhood. The first inkling of desire, the need to know.

Long faraway memories of longing, almost holy… A small girl who wanted to get better acquainted with a small boy… about to be acquainted with this source of pleasure, which hides in the contact with the other … But he fell in love with her here then and there, – a love for ever, born in him by this very act. And why so? Here, lo! A girl, the strange, foreign land, mysterious stranger, the representative of worlds desired, unknown, to be discovered.

The humming of bees. Honey amassing, by and by, quietly in the fruits.

Here it is, the cherry-tree, with its twins of fruits, two pearls hanging between the boughs. The bees sting them and they emit their honey from inside around the wound of the sting. Black ants, a working people, load and unload their merchandise between streaks of light scintillating amidst the slim lances, darts of the leaves of grass. And the sun – a summer-day; tiring, and filling the heart of this lazy complacence, the one refusing, the one that has no need to give account of itself to the world. Calmness reigns, quietude, like after a battle, the loss, a – kind of self-forgetfulness in the new-world of beneficence, when all seems to be well again, peace again is filling the air of the village on the outskirts of the town. The humming of the bees, the small insects, busy with their work of collecting the honey fill the air.

A high fence surrounds the garden; no human eye can here intrude.

The years passed. She is no more 12-13 years old, and I am not any more a child of 9, approximately, or smaller. Now – she has been to the camps, the terror everlasting, and came home: very quiet, self-concentrated, weighing her whereabouts in this world.

One has to connect to the world again, in spite of the misgivings, the frustrations, the dissolving of past delusions and happy hopes: in spite of the fact that the beneficence of the world promised with the giving of life is but a farce. But now two years have passed since. She is now 18-19, and I am 16, or thereabouts. And I love her very much. And she is altogether only my niece.

Only by and by she came to, found herself, in the house where she was born and lived with her parents. But they are now no more. She lives here alone. Something from those past days – thanks to the garden, to the silence permeating it returned and reigns again.

At some distance the one from the other we lie, stroked by the sun and the smoothness of the grass.

She looks at me, and I – blinded by her look or maybe the lights of the sun – cover my eyes by my arm and lie quietly. We have to confess – even then, when we were only children, she was the perpetrator.

How many impressions, spiritual elations pass a man's heart if he has a relative so near, and she is a girl, and she is her elder by some years. Sensations impress themselves on the faculties of memory, and rise to the perception – to wonder at. But we have to confess – after all, everything is so natural. And these sensations are delicate and individual. Private. Not really to be told. Maybe on the verge of the sacrilegious.

A wreath on my heart from her. How she wished to wash me when I was so young. I stood in the bath-tube and she looked. Be her heart with it content. Her mother called – be already over with. Like a small sister, it fell to her lot to wash me. I think – she enjoyed it. She could have been then 8-9, and I maybe 5, or even earlier. We have between us a difference of three years.

The big event passed between us in later years. I could have been, perhaps, 10 years old (and she 13). The garden was the witness to it also that time.

Her step-sister (her father remarried), – more advanced in years and hence the more experienced – (she is the leader, the initiator: two girls, laughing, jeering, sharing the secret. And if so, – what secret? (Women have only one subject, since their childhood – guess what. No hit? Men. It is obvious. And in that case – the "man" am I.).

It is the height of summer, and the garden is watered. The water- (or garden-) hose – I do remember still – a long tube made of rubber, at the end of which there is an iron-ring with holes, wherefrom the water springs. What is more natural than the idea to bathe in the sun, to sprinkle some water around ( or on each other- ) and have a really hilarious day? Children find in everything such a good, gay game. Everything is but a game, an innocent plaything. But is it really always so "innocent"? Oh, yes: the girls maintain a naïve face, sweet as honey amassing in the calyx, the flower-bell – as if the game was altogether made of innocence. They suggest that we bathe, open the tap and pearls of light will dance in the garden, on the grass, where we shall stand and wash each against the other, enjoying the sights of nature as it was created from the beginning. "But you are the first", – they promise.

Well, I'll be first – I agree wholeheartedly, with great expectations to the coming of the second act, afterwards.

But there comes afterwards nothing. They stand in a certain distance, sticking their secrets-bearing heads together, measuring with their eyes, enjoying the view. But they do not take their turn… It sums up in a great disappointment.

The girls took advantage of me. They did not fulfill their share in the agreement. The game turned one-sided: and they made of me a laughing-stock. I became the butt of their joke (who knows what they were whispering about, now, – were they laughing derisively about the size of my body, which perhaps was not quite up to their expectations, or were they preoccupied with imagining how I may later grow, or thereabouts): who knows, they may have been unconscious of the fact how much frustration I felt, realizing that I was betrayed, that they even did not meant what they said, did not intend to fulfill their promise which proved to be devoid of all intent, a breach of trust.

But now – it is 1947. In July 1944 she was loaded on the wagons. The heavy doors closed on her.

In May 1945 she came back from the lagers.

Two years passed. And she is healthy again.

We are desirous of life. And buds of spring opened and the garden flowers again.

And it is now quiet in the garden.

Something crawls on my arm. I open my eyes – a green dragonfly – a damselfly – found support on it to her dainty feet. I blow at her – but she holds fast – she fears not the winds. Then she opens her green wings and flies away. And my eyes open to Évi's eyes.

She looks at me.

"Are you not too warm?" – she asks. And she opens a button on her shirt.

As if under a spell, I am looking at her.

All that is but a dream. The summer, the garden. This joyous togetherness, complacence, carelessness, at peace with the world, the joy at living, at the warmth which fills the veins, revives the body, re-animates it and lets loose all that was hidden and suffocating in the soul all through all those joyless years. Blood circulates again in the veins and the heart fills with yearning. It may enjoy again the nearness of a dear soul, beauty given to you as if presented you on a table. Here is for you youth again, – and beauty's gift brought to you on the wings of the spring. Yearning – and desire – in all their naivety. The creating of Adam and Eva in then Garden of Eden, as of old.