When the Danube Ran Red

6 Erzsi

36 6 Er zsi Back in the early summer of 1941, when I first became aware of my parents ’ decision to move to Budapest, I felt terribly sad. To say farewell to Békéscsaba meant giving up my best friends, Márta and Juti, and with them to leave behind our games, our plays, my whole life. But there was someone else from whom I knew I could not and would not want to part, someone without whom I could not imagine my life. This person was Erzsi. Small, thin, with light brown hair, a heart-shaped face, emerald eyes, and round lips, Erzsi was twenty-three years old. She was our nanny, our playmate; in fact, she was the good fairy in our life. Since Erzsi’s parents lived in Békéscsaba, I feared they would never let her come to Budapest and live with us. And what was worse, I believed, neither would she wish to do anything against their will. They had sent her to work when she was a little girl, thirteen years of age, that’s true. But they had had to. Her father was unemployed and her mother barely made ends meet. In fact, the wages Mr. Fajó earned as an occasional worker and Mrs. Fajó as a washerwoman were not enough to support their family. Erzsi helped, and so did her younger sister, Dóra. But even ten years later, Erzsi still felt responsible for her family, believing that she must support them and would always support them, with all her love and all her might and all her will. She spoke to me often about this. One night, I remember, after spinning out one of her magical fairy tales, she switched her voice to tell me true stories, describing her home life, including her mother’s anguish, their fight against poverty and starvation, and their struggle against suffering and death. Horrified, I Erzsi 37 listened to these stories of pain. Also, by then, I knew already about my parents’ plan to move to Budapest. I thought I would ask her. Searching her face with my eyes, I did so directly: What would she do if we had to move? She answered me slowly, her face pale, her lips barely moving: Of course, she would always send money to her parents and visit them as often as possible, she said. But no matter what, she would come with us to the end of the world, because she could never leave us or live without us. She never did. When she started to work in my father’s pharmacy, Erzsébet (Erzsi) Fajó had just completed sixth grade with an A in every subject on her report card. Shortly after her school ended in June of that year, she was told by her parents that she could not go to middle school in the fall, as she hoped, because they needed her financial help. At that time, the Hungarian state required only six years of schooling. Erzsi had completed her last year, and now she had to work and earn money. Erzsi’s parents came from Slovakia, but had lived in Hungary for a long time, as had millions of other minorities—some for years or decades, others for centuries or longer. The Fajós had eight children. Starting out his work in Békéscsaba, Erzsi’s father was a bricklayer. But only before World War I, Erzsi said, had he been able to earn wages doing construction work, because during the war years, construction shut down completely in the country. As Erzsi told me, Mr. Fajó and his wife took whatever work they could get: cleaning houses, washing clothes, packing boxes in warehouses, and cooking meals. But it was during World War I, at the time of catastrophic upheavals, hunger, and unemployment, that Mr. Fajó became interested in the workers’ unionization programs and political activism. And after the war, during the Communist takeover in Hungary in 1919, he even became a member of the Communist Party. But the rule of the Communist Party and the Communist government was short-lived in Hungary. The leadership failed and the counterrevolution, under the leadership of Admiral Horthy, won. The Communists were chased away or killed. In addition , everyone who joined or sympathized with them was persecuted When the Danube R an Red 38 by Horthy’s new justice system. In fact...