“Bravo, bravissimo, my dear counselor!” said his father.

At school Balázs Csillag’s most distinguished achievements were in Greek and Latin. He could recite poems by Homer, Virgil, and Ovid after just a few readings. Latin, too, seemed to be a milestone on the road to a legal career.

“I know I shall be a lawyer when I grow up!”

“How do you know?” asked Dr. Pista Kádas.

“In our family the first-born know a lot of things. I am not sure why this should be so.”

Dr. Pista Kádas continued to press the matter until willy-nilly he explained how these things were in the Csillag family. Dr. Pista Kádas heard the account with mounting disquiet. It was not the first time in the Lager that someone hitherto completely sane appeared to lose his mind overnight. He did not dare challenge the story; rather, he probed further, hoping that his friend would suddenly burst out laughing, like someone playing a joke. Balázs Csillag, however, stuck to his guns and insisted that for some mysterious reason he was able to see the past and the future.

“So you knew that we would end up here, too?”

“No, all I knew was that there was going to be trouble, big trouble. The way it happens is that the pictures, the images are often very fuzzy.”

“But then if your Papa also knew… what would happen, why did you not emigrate while you could?”

“That’s something that has been bothering me, too. Perhaps it’s one thing to see, and another to believe what you see.”

“Hm… You wouldn’t by any chance be able to see whether we will ever get out of here?”

“I told you: we are going home, sooner than you might think! And… our liberation is in some way connected with milk… Don’t look at me like that. Really, I am not mad!”

“Milk…” Dr. Pista Kádas gave a sigh. There was no more incongruous word that Balázs Csillag could have uttered. The prisoners of Lager 7149/2 never saw any milk; at most they might have caught sight of that sticky, white condensed stuff that made you nauseous even when stirred into ersatz coffee. It came in metal tins of the kind that the Csillag shoe shop sold as Csillag shoe polish.

In logging Balázs Csillag proved to have two left hands, but he was very good when it came to estimating the size of the tree trunks and calculating their volume, and the Russian guards soon made him responsible for producing the lists and the final figures on the dispatch notes. Balázs Csillag learned to speak Russian quite quickly and was therefore also used occasionally as an interpreter. He did all in his power to ensure that Dr. Pista Kádas was always by his side, but this did not always work out: the sickly, aquiline-nosed Kádas was for some reason found unsympathetic by the Russian soldiers. Balázs Csillag was certainly more like them physically, with his small, sharp gray eyes, quite long but somewhat bandy legs, and the black moustache that he grew in the Lager. This impression was reinforced when winter came around again and he wore the quilted jacket and ushanka that the Russian guards had cast off.

It was deemed a special favor if someone was ordered to take goods into town. They left the Lager riding on two double-wheeled trucks through the iron gates; this was the most spine-tingling moment, when you left the barbed wire behind. Each driver had a Russian soldier in the cab, while the prisoners stood in the back, shaken and tossed about. On the way back they could lie on the goods they brought, hanging on for dear life with their hands and feet. Sometimes one of them might fall out of the truck. The truck would then brake and reverse, two men carried out the order to throw the lifeless body back, and it would be held all the way to make sure it did not fall off again. Alive or dead, the Russians didn’t care, but a body was an item in the inventory and had to be accounted for.

Balázs Csillag was frequently chosen as transporter, Dr. Pista Kádas more rarely. There was one occasion when the trucks set off for the far end of town. They were rarely informed where they were headed; it was thought enough to tell the prisoners their duties when they got there. This time they drove into a yard, surrounded by a tarred wooden fence, where they saw a wooden structure resembling a barn. The prisoners jumped off and immediately lit up; the guards permitted this on arrival. One of them went into the office, the other joked with a fat woman who seemed to be the caretaker and was smoking a stubby cigar just like the soldier’s. His companion soon returned and motioned Balázs Csillag to come closer: “You go in, bring out the churns, up into the truck, one row stands, one lies on top of them, got that?”

The building was the milk-collecting station of the kolkhoz. Well-built women were in charge of the large milk tap hanging from the ceiling, and drew the heavy-duty churns underneath it one at a time; these would clatter loudly on the hardwood floor. The prisoners longingly eyed the thick stream of milk flowing from the tap. The women offered them some. Almost all of them drank their fill and more from the carved wooden bowls, an overindulgence that resulted for many in a bout of severe diarrhea.

As the company began to carry the churns outside, Balázs Csillag stood to one side to relieve himself. Dr. Pista Kádas followed suit.

“There’s no fence at the back,” said Balázs Csillag. “Count to ten and then…!”

Dr. Pista Kádas looked shocked. But as Balázs Csillag strode off determinedly in the direction of the wooden building, he followed like his shadow. They expected any moment to hear Russian words of command snarled out, and the metallic click that indicated the safety catches of guns being undone. But nothing happened. When they got beyond the missing part of the fence, they broke into a run, jumping over the stream that wound its way here (which Balázs Csillag thought looked familiar), to reach the reed beds as soon as possible; here they would stand more of a chance against any bullets fired at them. But there were no bullets. They ran as fast as their legs would carry them, knee-deep in the boggy soil, hampered by the reed grass that clung to their limbs. They ran for three-quarters of an hour, deep into the reed beds, stepping on each other’s heels. The first to collapse into the bog was Dr. Pista Kádas; Balázs Csillag stopped above him, wheezing as he kept glancing back. Apart from their uneven breathing there was silence; only the drops of their sweat could be heard as they dripped into the stagnant water. We’ve had the milk, then, thought Balázs Csillag; but what now?

Two weeping willows marked the line where the bed of the stream must have run before the floodwaters at the end of winter altered the lie of the land. They climbed up the bigger one to dry out. Undressed, they shivered in the cold. Hissing in the freezing air, they slapped themselves and each other with their clothes.

“Let’s go on, before they catch up!” said Dr. Pista Kádas.

“Take it easy. In wet clothes we’re certain to fall ill, and a long journey lies ahead of us… if we’re lucky.”

“Yes, if…!”

As soon as their stuff dried out a little, they continued on their way. Balázs Csillag clung obstinately to the line of the stream, thinking that this was the best way of ensuring the dogs lost their trail. He had read something of this sort in his childhood in the Karl May stories about Red Indians. He battled on ahead, his boots raising spurts of liquid mud. Behind him, more slowly, came Dr. Pista Kádas. He could not imagine how they could ever, on foot, reach anything worth reaching. He was getting colder and colder, as hunger froze into an icy sponge in his stomach. He begged Balázs Csillag to stop and catch their breath.

“Impossible. If we survive the first day we have a chance. Come on!” He took him by the arm and pulled him along.

This forced march lasted until night fell. Then Balázs Csillag again sought out a suitable willow, whose trunk divided into four main limbs; they climbed up and perched on the thickest limb, propping each other up back to back.