School at the Frontier
PREFACE
Dani Szeredy mumbled something under his breath as we were standing on the roof terrace of the Lukács Baths. We were leaning against the railing, looking down at all the sunbathing civilians. It was quite hot on this July day, in 1957. We were staring at the nice bare bellies of the people, or rather of the girls. We felt nothing but benevolence for each other. No wonder I was shocked when Szeredy became quite rude all of a sudden. “I’m telling you, I have moved in with Magda,” he said. “Hum!” I replied for the third time. I did not look at him. But he hesitated only for a moment, and then he started pestering me again. “Bébé?” “Well?” “Bébé, are you not listening to me?” he asked gently. This quiet question was a grave insult. It is difficult to explain this to others, but it meant a lot to us, it was based on all that we had learnt together. So I grinned, and would have replied something vulgar except that for the last thirty years we have not used 9
the obscene military language that had once seemed so natural to us. Therefore, my reply was limited to this: “Hum… I know. With Magda. I was told.” We kicked the habit of swearing when we were thirteen years old. However, I fell into the way of swearing again since I had been spending time among painters and the young people all talked this way anyway. I took up swearing out of decency, so that I would fit in with the others. Some of them were quite surprised, as if I had turned out to be fluent in a language other than my mother tongue. Swearing had in fact been my mother tongue and Dani Szeredy was aware of this. He was laughing at me when I would snap at something and utter a short ‘Mb!’ or ‘Hmph!’ and he would know what I had intended to say. It is true that Szeredy and I never lied to each other. Maybe I should have started with this statement. Or more accurately, we could not have lied to each other; this was simply out of the question. Even if we could have, we would not have wanted to, because we grew to hate lies a long time ago. The reason for this is more difficult to explain, because for someone to understand this story, they would have had to live through the years we spent at the military school from the age of ten. “Hey,” Szeredy looked at me, lifting his chin with an inquiring move of his head. “We shall go downstairs and have a beer, shall we not?” This ‘hey’ meant that he was still waiting for my reply to his previous question, because even though 10
he knew that I was trying to avoid answering, he needed my advice regarding this issue. “Hum!” I said. And off we went, towards the bar of the baths, with Szeredy slowly walking down the steps in front of me. I met Magda, whom Szeredy was moving in with, in the summer of 1944, in Nagyvárad. I arrived at Szeredy’s house in the afternoon after Dani had called and asked me to visit. When I arrived, a young maid led me into Dani’s living room without a word. “Is the captain at home?” I asked aloud. The maid stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, and lifted her forefinger to her lips in warning. “Shhh!...” “Oh, is he asleep?” I asked. “He is playing the violin,” the girl replied in a soft voice. And true enough, I could hear the scarcely audible sound of a violin coming from the next room. The girl was listening to the tune. This young Székely maid was Magda who would be moving in with Szeredy thirteen years later. Szeredy was not truly interested in my opinion as we were walking downstairs at the Lukács bath, but rather in his own opinion. He was hoping that I could take a step back and observe his life from a distance and that with my help he might be able to untangle the web of his life, and see it from the point of view of a god looking down on us. Szeredy was a chubby, balding, blue-eyed, meek chap, and he was missing the features of a toreador, a 11
good-looking cavalry officer or of a poet in love. He was interested in music and the fine arts, in certain branches of sport, good food and fine wine. And he was constantly having trouble with women. At the age of forty-five he had a wife, whom he had loved for six years, a lover, whom he had loved for nine years, and then there was Magda, whom he had loved hopelessly for thirteen years. I was walking in my friend’s footsteps while wondering what I could say about this matter. Back in school, when something bad or humiliating happened to us, it was Szeredy who came up with a solution: he turned it into a story. When we gathered in the evening, he re-told and re-enacted whatever happened during the day. It seemed the most natural thing to do. He re-told the story and chaos suddenly turned into order, and the incomprehensibility of life became comprehensible. If I could tell the story of his love to Magda, it might reveal something sensible and it might offer some sort of solution. But it cannot be re-told. If I enumerated the seemingly important events, I would draw a completely fake picture of that evening in Nagyvårad when I had met Magda. Nor is it true that I was walking down the stairs of the Lukåcs Bath ruminating on this. This is far from the truth. Almost all of my words become fake and inaccurate as soon as I utter them. It is true that I was ruminating on this matter, but it does no justice to that particular moment. It is very difficult to explain this to civilians. They might descend some 12
stairs while they are pondering one thing or another. Szeredy and I sure cannot do that. For our minds and souls are constantly filled with a sense of ease, a subtle intoxication, the ecstasy of freedom. The civilian lives we are leading today are as carefree as a summer vacation. During this particular summer I have been on a vacation for twenty-seven years which is a pretty long period and I still have not grown tired of it. Maybe freedom is not the right word to describe it. It is about much more; the freedom from burdens, the freedom of perception, and the freedom to take possession of the world. “We should ask Gábor about it,” Szeredy says after a while. “Gábor?” “Gábor Medve.” “He sent me a parcel.” “Huh?” meaning ‘who?’. “Medve.” “Huh?” This word means something else entirely this time; something along the lines of ‘Is there a post office in the hereafter?’ “Hum,” I nodded. It suddenly occurred to me that this parcel might hold the answer to Dani’s question. I had received it a few weeks ago. I unwrapped it, and found a bound manuscript which had a note pinned to it: To be delivered to B.B. in person, in the event of my death. If he is no longer alive either, it should be burned unread. 13
At the top of the first page, there was a note written in pencil: Please read and correct it if you see fit… He crossed out these lines, and also the ones he wrote under them: Dear Bébé, as for those parts that you find to be truthful… This last word he doubly crossed out: …as for those parts that you find to be good… There were only two sentences that he had not crossed out: Do whatever you want with this manuscript, my dear fellow. God bless you!
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Glossary
PREFACE to mumble motyog
chubby kövérkés
bare belly csupasz has
cavalry officer huszártiszt
civilian civil
benevolence jóakarat to pester zaklat
to grin vigyorog
to kick a habit of sg leszokik vmiről to swear káromkodik decency illendőség to snap rámordul
maid cselédlány
abruptly egyszer csak
scarcely audible alig hallható to untangle kibogoz
meek chap jámbor fickó
humiliating megalázó
to re-enact újból eljátszik
incomprehensibility felfoghatatlanság to enumerate felsorol fake hamis
to ruminate töpreng to descend lemegy to ponder mereng subtle finom
intoxication mámor burden teher
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hereafter túlvilág
perception érzékelés
Part One Non est volentis 1
manuscript kézirat
About turn! Hátra arc!
inscription felirat
ay-ay parancsára
quotation idézet
provincial vidéki
barber borbély
to give sy a close crop kopaszra nyír vkit utterly egészen
deserted elhagyott
to burst open kivágódik
rattling csörömpölés
stentorian harsogó hangú impulsive indulatos
unsettling zavaró, idegesítő phenomenon jelenség
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to stand at attention vigyázzban áll
to double-up futólépésben megy utter silence teljes csend newcomer újonc tentative tétova
lanky nyurga
to order about parancsolgat to push on folytat to pale elsápad recruit újonc
evasively kitérően
scornfully gúnyosan
About the Author Géza Ottlik (1912–1990), following the family tradition, attended military school, but the experience turned him against all walks of army life for good. He studied mathematics and physics at university, and his first publications appeared in journals and newspapers during this period. He worked as a script editor for the Hungarian broadcasting company until 1946. He usually worked on his publications for years, and produced relatively few original pieces of writing. He was much more prolific as a translator. The British government invited him to make a study tour in the UK on account of his output of brilliant literary translations from English into Hungarian. He won several literary awards.
About the Title School at the Frontier (Iskola a határon) tells the story of three boys starting military school and of how they manage to conform to life in this harsh, highly disciplined and exclusive institution. The novel was not at all an instant success when first published in 1959. However, in the course of time it became a seminal piece of work for later generations of readers and writers alike. Ottlik first submitted the manuscript for publication in 1948 under a different title, but withdraw it and went on to rewrite the text thoroughly before he was satisfied with it.