Twice István Stern rode over to the five-pointed turret, fondly imagining that he might simply knock on the door, but he shrank back each time, fearing Borbála would order him to leave. Around the turret lily-of-the-valley had burgeoned wildly. This caused him a special kind of pain.

On Friday afternoons the extended family would gather in Grandfather Aaron’s house, spending the evening and the following day together and passing Shabbos free of work, as prescribed. The three girls-all married by now-took turns to bring dinner in pans, jugs, and dishes whose number increased with the size of the tribe. The food was laid on the table and the candles were lit early in the afternoon, so that when they returned from the synagogue of Ben Loew, there would be nothing left for them to do. After dinner the grandchildren would beg Uncle Aaron to tell them about the old days. These tales had only one listener more attentive than the children, and that was István Stern. He had preserved in his memory many fragments of the past of the Stern (Smorakh) family, whose meaning fell into place only very gradually. Grandfather Aaron reveled in the telling of the tales, with frequent digressions, and returning again and again to certain details. He etched in vivid colors the Smorakh home in Lemberg, which had burned to the ground when hotheaded scoundrels threw flaming torches onto the half-tiled roof. This was a scene István Stern had seen many times, but only later was he to discover why.

The children could not understand who those scoundrels were and why their heads were hot.

“It was a pogrom,” said Aaron Stern.

“What’s a pogrom?”

“It’s when Jews are attacked for no rational reason. People can be very wicked.”

“What does rational mean?”

There was no answer to this. The room fell silent, only the crackling of the wood in the grate.

Éva grasped the shoulders of her older sons (the smallest had fallen asleep in her lap): “Don’t you worry, there will never be a pogrom here.”

After the children had gone to bed Grandfather Aaron told his sons-in-law how the family’s library of books, collected over four generations, went up in flames in Lemberg’s Haymarket. “Two of the curs threw the books out of the window, the pages sizzling as they flew; another two made a bonfire and shoveled the knowledge of the world onto it: literature, holy scripture, everything. The paper quickly caught fire; the bindings burned more slowly, giving off thick smoke, and the choking smell penetrated our clothes; we could smell it for days. Elise’s mother herded everyone behind the house and took them over to the Market Place where a cart was waiting for us… Yes, that’s how it was. I have never since felt like buying books, as my first thought is: what if the fire gets it… stupid notion.”

Indeed, Aaron Stern’s house contained very little reading matter; his library consisted of yearbooks and almanacs. The Torah rolls that had been Rabbi Ben Loew’s gift, he kept in a locked chest.

Though regularly invited, the Rabbi was not a frequent visitor to the Sterns’ house. But he was a weekly institution at the István Stern household. The latter had never been called the Stern house: after the avenue of trees before it the house was always called the Chestnuts. The Rabbi’s preference for István Stern was all the more curious because, in the words of Grandfather Stern, “He isn’t really a Jew, we just sort of took him in.”

In fact Aaron Stern was beginning to take offense at the Rabbi, who had, when all was said and done, him, Aaron, to thank for settling there, but preferred to give his attention to a person who had also him, Aaron, to thank for settling in Hegyhát. István Stern was aware of the tension and even mentioned it to the Rabbi, who replied: “I am not in the debt of Aaron Stern, nor of any other local, just as they do not owe me anything either. We all of us owe thanks only to Him whom we cannot mention by name.”

Conversation flowed easily in the Chestnuts, at the ash table with wine bottles and peeled fruit, in the reed armchairs lined with soft lambskins. Rabbi Ben Loew told parables from the Talmud that István Stern, who still considered himself a tyro in matters of the history and traditions of his chosen people, was happy to make notes of in his head. In the company of the Rabbi he became unusually loquacious and found himself gabbling, as he had in his childhood. Often he would disrespectfully interrupt the Rabbi, of which he was much ashamed.

Not infrequently he would complain how hard it was to assimilate into their community. In the synagogue he was never sure whether he had to bow or stand and some of the Hebrew texts had never been explained to him, and he mouthed them without knowing what they meant. The long and short of it was that he still felt himself a stranger among the Jews.

“Everyone is a stranger in this world,” said the Rabbi. “Above all the Jews. The pharaohs drove them from their ancient homeland, they dispersed to all points of the compass. They are to this day not allowed to buy land in many places. If, after all that, you have asked to join them, why should they not accept you?”

“Perhaps it’s not their fault. Maybe I have no talent for something that you have to be born for.”

“And what might that be, that you have to be born for? Look around: which Jew lives a life more Jewish than you? You do not have to tell me. Many of them eat forbidden meats, for example Aaron Stern does… they fail in kashruth, mixing milky and meaty plates and cutlery, they are strangers to the synagogue. It is not a very attractive thing, being Jewish, you may be assured of that.”

Another of their recurrent topics was István Stern’s miraculous gift of memory. The Rabbi wanted to understand exactly how the past began to stream for him. Could it be induced or accelerated by any particular type of behavior? Could he influence the periods that unreeled? István Stern could not supply satisfactory answers; all he could say with any confidence was that when he was agitated or excited, the images came more frequently and in greater numbers. If he was calm, say after a good meal, he could not even remember what he previously wrote in the Book of Fathers.

Rabbi Ben Loew asked to see The Book of Fathers. He wanted to borrow it, but István Stern would not let him take it. “Begging your pardon, but I don’t want to be parted from it for a moment.”

“Understandable. May I look at it here, in your presence?”

“As long as you please.”

The more the Rabbi read, the more questions he asked. As if he were writing a history of the Sternovszky/Csillag family. István Stern readily responded to every query, thinking ruefully meanwhile that neither his dear mother nor his younger brother, nor even his good wife, had expressed so much interest in his forebears. Nor his own sons, though perhaps their interest would develop later; after all, even the oldest was just coming up to seven.

“My dear Stern, I wonder: have you ever tried to look ahead?”

“Ahead?”

“Into the future.”

István Stern stared at Rabbi Ben Loew in astonishment. After a while he said: “That perspective is the privilege of Him whom we do not call by name.”

“Let me be the judge of that, and answer my question.”

“No, I have never looked into the future.”

“You cannot or you will not?”

“I would hardly dare to try.”

“Pity. What pain and suffering you could spare yourself and all your loved ones!”

This remark set István Stern thinking. That night, after the Rabbi had departed, he stayed on the veranda as darkness fell, watching the shadows lengthen along the avenue of chestnut trees and by the three small silver firs that he had planted when each of his sons was born. The chestnut trees had grown taller than the average man (not as tall as István himself), while the firs, like organpipes, were respectively only a few inches ahead of his Richard, Robert, and Rudolf. How tall would the chestnuts be in ten years’ time? Twice this height, perhaps. And the firs? We shall see. Hopefully…