By then the boat lay in the tight embrace of the ice floes, and in vain did the lads try to prize them loose with oars and boathooks: they would not move an inch. The mournful creaking of the timbers rose higher, as did the Swabian cries of the boatmen-the entire wooden structure could be snapped in two by the power of the floes.

“Lullei, Lullei! Nochinmal! Lullei!” cried the Swabians.

Mendel Berda-Stern did not understand what they wanted, but the merchants did, and linking arms, in the rhythm of the Lullei! swung their hips to the left and then to the right, thus making the boat rock from side to side and thus-to the great surprise of them all-the boat slid out from the ice floes’ murderous grip.

Whereupon the Swabian lads managed to use their oars to get them to the shore. Despite the stinging cold they were all bathed in sweat. Mendel Berda-Stern at once headed for the post station, but at this late hour could secure neither a horse nor a carriage. He spent the night in the lodge opposite the post station. The following morning he woke to find the countryside knee-deep in snow and it was neither advisable nor possible to set off. He was quite certain that by no stretch of the imagination could he be in time for the funeral. From the lumpy sack of straw he rose only to attend to the call of nature; otherwise he lay staring at the ceiling, ordering boiling hot coffee with butterfroth. He even ate his meals in bed. His window looked out on the swollen Tisza, its caravan of ice-floes relentlessly drifting south.

“My dear good sir, should we not be going back?” asked his manservant.

Mendel Berda-Stern did not bat an eyelid. His murderous glance froze the words on his servant’s lips. On the third day he sent the boy for paper, pen, and inkhorn. He doodled and did calculations, sighing ever more loudly. Later he recalled this thus in The Book of Fathers.

For six days and six nights I was slumped in the rundown lodge, where they did not hesitate, because of the vileness of the weather, to put strangers together in the same room. It cost me a tidy sum to be given my own room. In the hours of doing nothing, which felt as if they would never end, I had an opportunity to think everything through. In the course of my life hitherto, I do not detect any mistakes: my lucky star has protected me faithfully, and never left me in the lurch. I have secured sufficient funds at the card and roulette tables to ensure that neither I nor my descendants will suffer want of anything. But true wealth does not manifest itself in financial terms.

Woe is me! According to my astrological calculations and even more the future according to the tarot, my cloudless sky will soon cloud over. I received the prognostication of the stars with dread: I shall have two more sons, Bendegúz and József, but both will be stillborn. Even more horrendous: József ’s death will entail that of his mother. All this will happen within the next two years. If only I could doubt! If only I could make our fate do otherwise! If only the heavenly bodies could err just this once!

Somehow or other liberated from the prison of the weather, as soon as he could he reached Nagyvárad. There he checked his diagrams and calculations again, with great care. The result remained the same. He wondered how he was to bear the burden of this dreadful secret. “My dear! We are off on a journey!” he said to his wife.

“When? Where to?”

“Now, straightaway, home to Homonna.”

“Is there something wrong?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but did not have the strength to utter the heavy words. He mumbled something about business.

At home, he thought, it must be easier to take every imaginable step to safeguard ourselves. Perhaps we can somehow wrest ourselves from the clutches of fate. But how? It is difficult to win a battle against the dispensation of providence.

Leopold Pohl and Hami received them with tears of joy. Mendel Berda-Stern feared that he should open up before them the bundle of the future; perhaps more of them would see more. He worked himself up to it a hundred times, but he was unable to go on.

“What woes of care afflict my husband?” asked Eleonora.

“I am just thinking about things,” replied Mendel Berda-Stern, forcing a smile upon his lips.

“Why have you been sitting around on my skirt hems lately? Have you given up chasing fortune?”

“I haven’t given up, I’m just pausing… so I can spend more time with my loved ones.”

His wife knew that this was not the whole truth, but also knew that wild horses would not drag the latter out of him. As the days and the weeks passed, Mendel Berda-Stern watched Eleonora’s swelling belly with increasing concern. Despite the woman’s protests he had learned medical professors from Pécs and Karslbad examine her. He personally supervised the diet they prescribed; the herbal teas he portioned out himself on the apothecary’s balance he had bought for this purpose, and infused the herbal mixtures himself. Eleonora found this overzealous protectiveness distressing, but her husband proved the more determined.

Despite every precaution little Bendegúz was born bluish-red, with the umbilical cord fatally twisted around his tiny neck. Eleonora is keeping her spirits up, but my father-in-law is inconsolable; he has aged ten years. I would do anything to prevent the next tragedy from occurring.

Once his wife’s health had recovered somewhat, Mendel Berda-Stern went off to Pest-Buda with great suddenness, taking a room in the Queen of England Hotel. That evening in the restaurant he recognized, from lithographs in the newspapers, at the next table, the statesman Ferenc Deák. He was smoking his usual Cubanos. He conversed with him briefly.

“In Pest, March is the most dangerous month, November the saddest,” said the sage of the homeland. It was the beginning of April.

On his suggestion Mendel Berda-Stern ordered roast lamb and was not disappointed. He thought he would go out on the razzle, seeking out the card dens of the city, and concentrate on the number 7. But he did not in the least feel like it. He no longer needed any money, so why should he squander his life on further battles on the green baize, where winning was not guaranteed?

He sought and gained entrance to the salons of distant acquaintances. His name cards, though curled up at the edges, opened doors carved in the urban style. Amongst others he met the industrialist Mór Wahrmann, to whom he was very distantly related through the Sterns. Mór Wahrmann was pleased to meet him and immediately launched into a disquisition on the unavoidable necessity of uniting Pest and Buda. Mendel Berda-Stern adopted these views. The enthusiastic relative filled his head with so much information that he ended up donating five hundred crowns to the city’s poor.

“Which city’s poor?” asked Mór Wahrmann.

Mendel Berda-Stern opted for Pest.

Eleonora sent fresh messages urging him to return home, where he was sorely missed. The letters were also signed by Hami. Then a purple wax-sealed envelope arrived from Leopold Pohl, asking him kindly to return home to Homonna.

I miss dearly our substantial afternoon discussions about the future, the fate of the world, about Nostradamus, and the rest. Why are you dallying by the Danube?

Mendel Berda-Stern replied curtly declaring that urgent matters kept him in Pest-Buda. But Leopold Pohl was made of sterner stuff and would not be satisfied with this response. Mendel Berda-Stern was bombarded with letters every third day, each more formal than the previous one.

My dear son-in-law,

Your whimsical change of residence has visited upon all of us suffering and uncertainty. It is time you heeded your husbandly duties before it is too late!

He received this threat apathetically. Nostradamus, the king of prophets, taught the ruler to follow the path of least resistance.