The Burning of the World by Bela Zombory-Moldovan

Author:Bela Zombory-Moldovan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781590178102
Publisher: Random House Publisher Services
Published: 2014-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

I awoke to find myself curled rigidly into a ball, my nose practically resting on my knees. I gathered up my cramped, numbed limbs and stretched myself out along the seat. Jóska snored on without interruption. Happy young lad, full of life. He’ll live: his wily brain will protect him from every threat.

The train was racing downhill. It was getting light and the line was curving its way through beautiful countryside. We were in Hungary now. My home.

I was startled awake by noise, the shrieking of brakes and a familiar cry: “Eperjes!”[10]

Eperjes: the oft-repeated stories of my father’s youthful days here . . . Tears came to my eyes. I’m tired out. My nerves aren’t right. I lay still and pictured Budapest, my home. I had left another world behind there, a hundred years ago.

I knew the way from here. Kassa,[11] where we would have to change trains; Miskolc,[12] from where I could send a telegram home. I’d be home by tomorrow morning at the latest.

Jóska clambered to his feet, groaning noisily, clearing his throat, scratching himself, and the rest of it. Naturalia non sunt turpia.[13] Then he gathered himself together and jumped off the train in search of some breakfast and cigarettes. It was a large station with a military command post, and there would be charity volunteers. Minutes later, he was back, with a load of cold cuts and a fistful of cigarettes.

My wound had stopped hurting; only the dressing tugged at it. My right leg was still behaving oddly. I felt unsure of it and hardly dared to put my weight on it. It kept buckling under me. I had stopped paying it much attention. It was better than being dead. It wouldn’t stop me from painting. If only! The future was still a big question mark. The war was still getting bigger.

An “unfit for service” came past; we exchanged greetings and he handed a newspaper in through the open window. Report from the battlefield! Glorious weather! Battle-readiness of our troops unbreakable! They await the Russian attack from new positions, etcetera. It had evidently been composed by the armchair generals[14] of the Pest coffeehouses. I leafed through the paper, looking mostly at the headlines. How alien it was! How far removed these people were from the agonies, the mortal fear as shells explode around you, the marches that exhaust to the limits of consciousness, the mangled dead, their open eyes staring into oblivion. Yes, far away, and with no conception of the reality of war. Of being unwashed, with clothes soaked for weeks in the tired body’s every humid exhalation, and so filthy that they stick to the skin; of lice; or of when a man gets scabies and itches night and day, scratching his tormented body until it is bloody.

The editorial and literary tables of Pest’s coffeehouses were surely, even now, untouchable; “essential occupations.” Or, if the worst came to the worst, they would see about positions in the military press office.

The New York Café: the lair of the “Ady-ites,” where all the prattlers gathered round to worship the master.

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